Martin Edwards - The Arsenic Labyrinth

Picking his way with exaggerated care, he crossed a centuries-old packhorse way, chiselled by hand from solid rock. Breathing hard, limbs hurting. He felt like one of those lumbering beasts of burden, saddle-bags stuffed with ore, though he’d barely climbed a thousand feet. A gash in the rocks loomed up. A sign bore the word DANGER in tall red letters. He read the warning underneath.

Proceed no further. This route is unsafe and fatal accidents have occurred.

Fatal accidents? Too right.

Impossible to stop now. How had he managed to drag Emma here? Fear and terror must have endowed him with strength.

Something puzzled him. He halted in mid-stride, trying to fathom what was wrong. The profile of the landscape was not as he remembered. At first he thought he must be lost. Ten years was a long time, it was easy to become confused in the absence of landmarks. The stone cairn was far below and out of sight.

Every inch of his last journey to Mispickel Scar was logged in his brain. From a distance, the crags and the ground below looked unchanging, eternal. But nature kept moving on. Nothing stayed the same forever.

There had been a landslide. Part of the rockface had collapsed, burying a section of the old track. Mispickel Scar was notoriously unstable. From the archives of memory, he retrieved climbers’ talk of a terrifying landslip engulfing the site of the old works, half a century or more ago. History had repeated itself.

A pile of debris, crude and unstable, covered the ground in the depression between the sheer faces of the crags. As he clambered up and over the obstacle course, he peered round, trying in vain to spot a familiar pillar of stone, perched so precariously beside the pathway that nobody could ever be sure what kept it standing. Walkers knew it as the Sword of Damocles.

Shit, where’s the Sword gone?

The first time he’d reached this point and stepped past the Sword, he’d thought of the scene in Lost Horizon , when in the midst of the snowy wastes, the travellers suddenly pass into the green and pleasant land of Shangri-La. But Mispickel Scar wasn’t somewhere people lived forever. Quite the reverse. He hauled himself up on to the slippery stone connecting the rocks and gazed down towards the ancient workings.

Jesus Christ.

The sight snatched his breath away. At last he’d solved the puzzle that had tormented him ever since reading Tony Di Venuto’s article — why hadn’t she been found ? Even in this God-forsaken spot, people would descend the most dangerous holes in the ground. After he’d done what he had to do, he’d lugged chunks of rubble to block the access to the shaft, but none would have deterred anyone intent on entering the old miners’ tunnels. He’d assumed it was inevitable that Emma’s body would turn up eventually, discovered by some adventurous explorer. Her death would be put down as an accident. Now the reason why her disappearance remained a mystery lay before his eyes.

The Sword had collapsed into the midst of the stones scattered below, breaking into two and bringing with it a mass of smaller rocks. The opening of the shaft was no longer visible. There wasn’t a clue to suggest it had ever been there.

He stood rooted to the spot, letting the wind graze his cheeks. His nose was running and he wiped it with his sleeve. If someone wanted to know why he’d come back here, he could offer no answer. So often he did things that seemed logical at the time, but impossible to rationalise later. Yet he was sure it was right to return. He needed to pay his respects.

At last he tore himself away and began to retrace his steps. It felt colder and the mist was coming down. Soon darkness would fall. He must get back to the village. He’d lingered too long, careless of the rules of walking the fells. Not a soul knew where he’d wandered. His boots slid on a patch of ice and his legs gave way.

He raised his arms to break his fall. As he hit the ground, he scraped his hip and hurt his hands. The shock left him gasping.

Shit, shit, shit . If he hurt himself so badly that he could no longer move, nobody would come running to the rescue. Hours would pass before Sarah raised the alarm. It would not take long to freeze to death.

Gingerly, he struggled to his feet. Thank God, nothing was broken. No harm done except for bruising. He forced himself to move, intent on beating the mist and the twilight. The cold chewed at his face and his limbs were throbbing. He shut out the pain and the memories, shut out everything except the need to keep slithering down the fell.

At last he reached a shelf of rock above Coppermines. He gazed towards the village of slate and the broad sheet of water beyond. He’d made it. So what if he’d been foolhardy? He’d be all right now, he’d got away with it. As usual, Megan would say.

He could hear it now, that familiar lilting reproach, tinged with reluctant admiration.

‘You’re such a lucky devil.’

Amos Books occupied a converted mill, and even with the windows shut to keep out the winter blast you could hear the water crashing over the weir. Daniel spotted Marc Amos in the local history section on the first floor, talking into his mobile, running a hand through untamed fair hair. In checked shirt and patched denim jeans, he was a carelessly attractive man, his looks marred only by a spoiled-boy pout when something didn’t suit him. When he noticed Daniel, he mimed impatience to get off the phone. Daniel leaned against the shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling, inhaling the aroma of old books. Musty, yes, but an addictive fragrance.

‘Sorry, but we haven’t seen a first edition of Cards on the Table in wrapper for years. If we found one, it would cost an arm and a leg, given the money the Japanese collectors are splashing around. All we have left is a scruffy reading copy of a first edition. Ex-library, dampstains, foxing, weak hinges, every disability known to man. I’ll carry on searching, but … OK, keep in touch.’

Marc switched off the phone and bounded down the aisle between the shelves like an enthusiastic mongrel. The ancient wooden floorboards squawked in protest under his feet. His grin of welcome was warm. He made customers feel good about indulging their bibliomania, perhaps because the disease afflicted him too.

‘Long time, no see. How’s the writing going?’

‘Slow progress. Don’t let me interrupt if you’re busy.’

‘My trouble is, I like interruptions too much. I’d be better off if I didn’t, but it can’t be bad for business to pass the time of day with a customer. Have you time for a coffee?’

In the cafe downstairs, they exchanged pleasantries with Leigh Moffat, serving behind the counter. She was dark, attractive and self-contained. Daniel noticed the delicacy with which she wiped away a sliver of cake that slipped on to Marc’s smooth wrist. She and Marc seemed so at ease with each other, he was tempted to wonder if there was more between them than a strictly business relationship. Wishful thinking, he told himself as they found a table beside a window looking out on the stream. He was casting round for reasons not to feel bad about being fascinated by Hannah Scarlett.

Sipping the froth on his cappuccino, Marc murmured, ‘Trecilla told me that you’re interested in John Ruskin and local industry.’

‘I’ve been reading a lot of Ruskin lately.’

‘There’s a lot of Ruskin to read. I sold a complete set to an American collector last year. Thirty-odd volumes, nine million words, something like that.’

Daniel grinned. ‘I may skip a bit. He was an opinionated old bugger. Even so, I’m getting hooked.’

‘You’re not the only one. Tolstoy was a fan, along with Proust. They say Mahatma Gandhi’s life was changed by devouring Ruskin on a train trip across Africa. Are you thinking of writing about him?’