Martin Edwards - The Arsenic Labyrinth

‘No, no. We are taking another look at the case, that’s all. First things first. I presume you never heard anything from Emma after we last met?’

‘Not a word.’ The answer was so quiet that Hannah had to strain to hear.

‘I wonder if I could come over and speak to you and your husband about Emma.’

‘What for?’

‘We have to consider if anything was overlooked last time.’

‘Such as?’ Not frosty, just puzzled.

‘Anything that might lead us to Emma.’

‘But what good will it do?’

Hannah stifled the urge to snap. ‘Don’t you want to find out what happened to her, Mrs Goddard?’

‘I’m not a detective,’ Vanessa said. ‘Do you recall, when we last met, I told you I believed she was still alive?’

‘I remember.’

‘I’ve changed my mind. Ten years is a long time. Too long for Emma to disappear without making contact with anyone she cared about. I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that she won’t be coming back. She must be dead, nothing else makes sense.’ A pause. ‘To be honest, Chief Inspector, I’d rather not know the horrid details of whatever happened to her. I prefer to remember her as she was.’

Hannah gritted her teeth. Perhaps you do. But that option isn’t open to me.

* * *

As Guy strode out of the pub, the sun sneaked out of hiding. He followed the steep and narrow road by the side of the building. Beyond the fell gate, the road became a rough cart track, running alongside the deep gill of Church Beck. Rain had swelled the stream and below the old stone miners’ bridge the crash of the waterfall was louder than he remembered. Light skipped on the cascade.

The sun scurried back behind a dark cloud as he surveyed the broad plain. How bleak was his valley. Heaps of spoil from the quarries reared up beyond the trickling stream. On the right, a row of old labourers’ cottages; above them the red-grey Yewdale Fells. The whitewashed buildings, once occupied by officials of the mining companies, were now given up to a hostel and a centre for mountaineers. Ahead, the fells towered above patches of wilderness. Their names drifted back to mind. Raven Tor, on the left, and further on, splitting two troughs of land, Kernal Crag and Tongue Brow.

Men had quarried here since Roman times and the fell-sides bore the wounds to prove it. Coppermines Valley fascinated him, every pockmarked inch. He imagined explosions echoing around the fells when gunpowder blasted a fresh tunnel or shot-hole. Megan had complained he was superficial, thinking of his taste for little luxuries, but she was mistaken, as usual. He liked to look beneath the surface of things, every now and then. He’d trade a dozen pretty Buttermeres, a score of jam-packed Amblesides, for the moody desolation of this acned valley.

Even on a February afternoon, a few diehard walkers were out and about. Not wanting company, he zigzagged away from recognised pathways and through the bracken. His boots struck a fragment of rusty track on which mine wagons once trundled and he stopped to rub his aching calves. Christ, he was out of condition. Once he’d roamed the fells for hours without so much as tweaking a muscle. How many times had he scrambled over these ice-smoothed rocks and the scree, clambering along the hidden trails leading to the blackness of Levens Water?

Blobs of rain spattered his jacket. He stumbled on the slippery ground and realised he was out of practice at drinking strong beer. His throat was sore, his head buzzing. It had drizzled that afternoon ten years ago. He could see the stone cairn where he had met Emma Bestwick for the one and only time.

In his mind, he pictured her, a tall, solidly built woman encased in a wax jacket. Fine strands of hair escaped from her hood; in other circumstances he might have caressed them. The long pull up the old track had left her short of breath and she didn’t speak when he apologised for bringing her out on such a miserable day. Until he saw her approaching, he’d feared she wouldn’t come. She was taking a risk, meeting a man she didn’t know in such a quiet spot. Nobody else was in sight. Perhaps beneath the quiet exterior she had a wild and reckless streak. Of course she understood his insistence on secrecy. When he offered his hand, she didn’t respond, but her tense half-smile never flickered as he explained what he believed she ought, in all conscience, to do. For five minutes he convinced himself that he could persuade her to change her mind and make everything all right.

‘Sorry.’

Her voice was as sharp as a shard of glass. He’d miscalculated, this woman was determined not to compromise. She was immune to reason, let alone charm. He’d taken such pains to be sympathetic. OK, there was something in it for him, but he wasn’t simply doing this for his own selfish ends. For once in his life he was playing the Good Samaritan and repaying past kindness. She ought to meet him half way, surely that wasn’t too much to ask?

‘But if …’

‘I promised to listen, it was the least I could do. But I’ve made my decision. There’s no going back.’

‘If you’ll only …’

‘No more, please. Arguing will only make matters worse.’

‘You gave your word!’

She shrugged, so what ?

The sheer bloody unfairness of it made his temples throb. He hated being rebuffed, especially by a woman. Growing up without parents had made him want to be wanted, but despite his taking such trouble, she hadn’t moved an inch. Not a fucking inch.

He seized her arm, but she was stronger than he’d expected and she shrugged free of him with as much scorn as if he were one of those beggars who used to hang around the Colosseum, pestering for cash.

‘How dare you touch me!’ She hissed with disdain.

Even in the cold and wet, his skin burned with outrage. Who was she to treat him like a piece of shit? She ought to be glad to do as he asked. That was the deal with women. You acted kind and sensitive and they owed you something in return.

He strove for calm, despite her provocation. ‘You made a promise. There’s no going back on it.’

She stared at him, defiance mixing with a grimace of triumph.

‘I won’t be bullied. Can’t you understand? I changed my mind. It’s that simple, there’s no more to be said.’

She turned to leave and he reached for her again. This time she was ready to dodge his grasp, but in twisting away she caught her toe on a stone and lost her footing. A moment later, she was lying on the floor and he was bending over her. It was akin to conquest. Adrenaline surged through him. She was at his mercy, he could do whatever he wanted.

‘Wait. I haven’t finished talking.’

She didn’t utter another word as she lifted herself up. All she did was show her teeth in contempt, as if he were a flea-ridden mongrel. That said everything. To her, he wasn’t a smart, sophisticated intermediary, someone with whom she could do business. She could see right through him, see the man he was, deep inside.

‘Listen to me!’ he shouted.

She spat in his face.

He brought his hand down to slap her, but she dodged out of reach. In so doing, she slipped on the icy ground. As she tumbled, she hit her head on a small boulder. The cracking of her skull sounded like a rifle shot.

Guy blinked the dampness away, told himself it was rain, not tears. For a decade, he’d blocked out every detail of his brief encounter with Emma Bestwick. But here there was no escaping her.

He couldn’t see a living soul. Even in summer, when the hills were alive with the sound of walkers, few people bothered with this unlovely cleft in the landscape. Within a radius of two or three miles, there were so many more rewarding walks and climbs. No shimmering tarns and breath-snatching vistas at Mispickel Scar. Even in the height of summer, it was chill and eerie. After the miners left, nobody else had much reason to explore its nooks and crannies, seldom lit by sun filtering through the crags. Ten years ago, he’d loved coming here on his own, it was the one place where he wasn’t seized by the compulsion to become someone else. And then Emma Bestwick stole it from him, transformed it into forbidden territory, a place to which he dared not return. Until today.