Martin Edwards - The Arsenic Labyrinth

‘I’m not sure I’ll advertise vacancies until it’s time for you to leave. It’s been non-stop for the past fortnight and I fancy putting my feet up for a few days.’

‘You deserve a break.’ He considered the bags under her eyes. ‘You look tired, you must be working too hard.’

She shook her head. ‘My own fault. I spend too much time upstairs on the computer.’

He tutted. ‘All work and no play? You need to grab a bit of enjoyment as well as looking after your guests. Mind, you’d better be careful. You may not get rid of me as easily as all that. I’ve made myself so comfortable here that I was wondering …’

‘Yes?’

She leaned across the table and he caught a fragrance that revived memories of a happy few months in Paris three years back. Chanel Number Five. So she was making a special effort. He could scarcely resist the urge to preen.

‘I might like to stick around for a while. If it’s not too much trouble.’

‘Trouble? Nothing of the kind, it’s an absolute pleasure. How long would you like to stay?’

‘Depends on arrangements with my associates in Geneva.’ He sighed, a fast-moving executive at the mercy of tedious colleagues. ‘You’ll have to promise to kick me out the moment you want a bit of peace and quiet!’

‘No danger of that.’ As she reached over for the teapot, her hand grazed his. ‘Two’s company, as they say.’

He allowed her to pour him a second cup. In time you could acclimatise to anything, even Co-op tea bags. He was a man at ease with himself, as relaxed as though he’d been luxuriating in a jacuzzi. As it happened, the water heater in the basement was on the blink, but never mind. His luck was on the turn. Maybe tonight he’d be bathing upstairs, together with Sarah.

Guy recalled Megan, head lifted as she announced her ultimatum. If he wanted any more of her cash, things would have to change. They would get engaged, start behaving like a normal couple. If he didn’t like it, he could lump it. And repay what she’d lent him. And, and, and … well, he’d stopped listening. At last he saw Megan for what she was, a self-righteous young woman with a scrawny neck. For a fleeting moment he’d been tempted to put his hands around the pale pink flesh. It would be so easy to squeeze the breath out of her.

If she could see him now. Sarah was much more accommodating, in every sense. He deserved a bit of good fortune. As a boy in the Home, he’d imagined himself as a prince, immensely popular and possessed of untold wealth, yet condemned to penury and loneliness through a spell cast by a jealous wizard. The fantasy stayed with him for years, but when at last he was granted the freedom and riches he’d yearned for, all too soon he’d frittered them away.

He was ready for a second crack at the good life. By calling Tony Di Venuto, he’d done the right thing. Paid his dues. The authorities would set wheels in motion. He was hazy about official procedures, but before long Emma’s body would be found and she could be given a belated Christian burial. Karen Erskine could get on with the rest of her life while the journalist earned kudos for breaking the story. Leaving Guy to make the most of his new life in which everybody was a winner.

Just like the endings to the stories he’d made up as a kid. Happy ever after.

Inchmore Hall, home to Cumbria’s Museum of Myth and Legend, stood on the edge of the village in grounds extending over six acres, up to the lower reaches of Wetherlam. The hall was a grey monstrosity of Victorian Gothic, boasting turrets, tall chimneys, and black and white gables, the whole edifice surmounted by an extravagant tower with a copper top. Blinds were drawn at the ground floor windows, protecting the exhibits from non-existent sunlight. Copper beeches and dank rhododendron bushes masked the curving drive. A signboard beside the stone gateposts cautioned that during the winter season, opening hours were by appointment only. Hannah parked outside the canopied front door and ran up a flight of worn stone steps to ring the bell.

‘Yes?’

The woman framed in the doorway wore a black trouser suit, so simple and chic that it must have cost a mint. Short dark hair contrasted with luminous skin. Her forehead was high, her chin sharp. She wore dangly sun and moon ear-rings and a crucifix of ebony and silver hung from her neck. Alexandra Clough’s signed statement suggested intelligence and a calm reluctance to give more away than she wished to reveal. So did her unflickering gaze as Hannah flourished her ID.

Alex led the way with dainty, precise steps into a galleried entrance hall. The ground floor was crowded with pots of dusty palms and aspidistras. Carved pitch panelling covered the walls and an arch-shaped stained-glass window at the far end of the hall depicted a purple sunset over brooding fells. The air was so cold that Hannah expected to see icicles on the huge brass candle-holders. She shivered.

‘Sorry we don’t keep the heating on when we’re not open to the public. We don’t receive any funding from the council, so we need to make economies.’ Alex unlocked a heavy door. ‘We can talk in my office. It’s a little warmer there.’

Only by a couple of degrees, Hannah discovered. Alex waved her into a leather-backed chair and sat behind a desk large enough to massage the ego of a tycoon. The electric reading lamp and computer squatting in front of her was the only concession to the twenty-first century. Bookcases stuffed with calfskin-bound tomes lined the walls, two gilt-framed oil-paintings occupied the corner alcoves behind her. A middle-aged man with a clipped moustache leaned on a walking stick in one picture. He wore a pin-striped suit and a frown suggesting that he didn’t suffer portrait painters gladly. In the other, a young woman with high cheekbones and an evening dress of pale blue tulle displaying plump milky-white breasts. Was it mere fancy to detect a resemblance between this woman and Alex Clough?

Alex Clough caught Hannah’s gaze. ‘My grandparents, Chief Inspector. Armstrong and Betty Clough. She was rather beautiful, don’t you agree?’

Hannah nodded. ‘Did you know her?’

‘Oh yes. My grandfather died soon after I was born, but she lived until she was eighty-six. A remarkable woman, we were very close. Now, you are reviewing Emma’s disappearance. How can I help?’

Hannah shifted in her chair. It was old and uncomfortable, like everything she’d seen of Inchmore Hall. ‘I’d be grateful if you could tell me about your relationship with her. How it began, why it ended.’

Alex took a breath and Hannah guessed that she’d rehearsed her answer. ‘She joined us twelve months before she vanished. At this time of year, we look to recruit in good time for the season. Apart from temporary staff and maintenance people, we only have one clerical post. Our previous administrator deserted us for a better paid job in Carlisle and so there was a vacancy. Emma had flitted from job to job. At one point she was employed on a short-term contract at the Liverpool Museum. Inchmore is scarcely in that league, but at least she had relevant experience and my father liked that.’

‘It was his decision to take her on?’

‘Then, as now, I was the manager here. But my father created this museum, Chief Inspector. He remains passionately committed to it and I consult him on all business matters. If you are wondering whether I recruited Emma because I was attracted to her, the answer is no.’

‘She’d tired of city life?’

‘Growing up in the countryside, she thought she was missing out on the bright lights. When the lights stopped dazzling her, she saw all the urban grime. Eventually she realised that the grass really was greener back home in the Lakes.’

‘Did she keep in touch with anyone in Merseyside?’