Martin Edwards - The Arsenic Labyrinth

‘Not to my knowledge. Emma never kept up with people she went to school with, either. She didn’t make friends easily.’

‘Even so, the two of you became close. How did that come about?’

‘How do these things ever come about?’

Hannah glared at her watch. She was in no mood for fencing.

Alex fiddled with her earrings. ‘I suppose … Emma excited my curiosity.’

‘Well, this is a museum. A place to study exhibits.’

Tiny teeth showed in a mirthless smile. ‘Do I sound cold-blooded? I’m paying you the compliment of telling the truth, rather than fobbing you off with a self-serving lie. On first acquaintance, Emma seemed quiet and timid. I thought she was pretty, but she lacked confidence. When she was a teenager, she put on puppy fat and she used to say that she only had to look at a bar of chocolate to put on weight.’

Hannah thought of Emma’s puzzled look, captured by the photographer. ‘She was unsure of herself.’

‘Yes, her self-image was poor. She compared her looks unfavourably with her sister’s and her solution was to fade into the background. Yet the more I got to know her, the more I became convinced she was as capable of passion as my father. The difference was that she’d never found anything to become passionate about.’

‘Did she care about her work here?’

‘At first, yes. Even if she did leave school at sixteen with few qualifications to her name, she was bright. I’m afraid our universities these days are overflowing with students with far less native intelligence than Emma. The trouble was, she had a lazy streak. Once she lost interest, she didn’t put in the effort. She gave up too easily, that was why she kept changing jobs. She was looking for something she could commit to, long term. Something special.’ Alex sighed. ‘But with Emma, nothing lasted. Her moods kept swinging.’

‘When did the two of you first get together?’

‘Within a month of her starting. She was helping me one night with an application for a grant towards our running costs. Tiresome, long-winded form-filling, but important. The upkeep of this building costs an arm and a leg and the paying customers contribute buttons towards our overheads. Any scraps of outside funding are welcome. The cleaners had finished for the day and Father was speaking at a black tie dinner in Leeds. I told Emma how as a young man he’d dreamed of creating a museum to celebrate his fascination with the legends that swirl around the Lakes like fog. It was our first intimate conversation. Once we’d finalised the figures, I dug a bottle of rather nice wine out of Father’s private cellar. He and I have our quarters upstairs and in those days my grandmother lived here too. After I invited her to my sitting room, one thing duly led to another.’

Hannah glanced at the portrait of Armstrong Clough. For a moment she fancied she caught him scowling at the way feckless young women behave nowadays. His demeanour suggested it would have been different in his day. Poor, pretty Betty probably led a dog’s life.

‘You weren’t in a relationship at the time?’

Alex shook her head. ‘After a couple of years of living like a nun, all the pent-up emotion came flooding out. For Emma it was much the same that night, I think. When she told me that she had very little experience of sex, I believed her. Let me speak bluntly, Chief Inspector. There was a — a clumsy innocence about her love-making that I found captivating. Her enthusiasm compensated for any lack of sophistication.’

‘Did she speak about her own previous relationships?’

‘Never. We assured each other that there hadn’t been anyone serious before and that was all that mattered. For myself, it was true. I suspect it was the same for Emma.’

‘Had she ever had a boyfriend?’

‘She’d experimented with boys in her teens. Because it was the done thing, rather than from genuine lust. No one lit her fire.’

‘Except you?’

A smile as frosty as February. ‘I should not flatter myself, Chief Inspector. I thought we had a match made in heaven, but this time I was the naive one. I’m not sure Emma was cut out for relationships. At first she was intensely possessive, wanted to be with me every hour of every day. But that soon waned and before long she was happier with her own company. Sex mattered even less to her than to me. I lost the ability to excite her.’

‘And how did you react to that?’

‘Looking back, I see the mistakes I made. When an affair is crumbling around your ears, it’s difficult to be objective. We worked side by side all day, every day, and it wasn’t healthy. It is possible to be too close, don’t you agree?’

Hannah said nothing, waited for her to continue.

‘I pushed too hard, and soon she was keeping me at arm’s length. On good days she was delightful company, but she could be moody and uncommunicative. It hurt that she’d rather scuttle off back to her rented room than stay here with me, in my marvellous home.’

Hannah could understand what drove Emma off to the sanctuary of Thurston Water House. Inchmore might be marvellous, but it was also dark, vast and intimidating. The architect must have read too many Gothic novels. After a day closeted in here, a rented room surrounded by people who made no demands might become a longed-for haven.

‘Did you remain friends?’

‘I couldn’t accept that our affair had passed its sell-by date. Working so closely together made matters worse. Each day I was giving her instructions, and she wanted to be left to her own devices. It was bound to end in tears.’

‘And did it?’

Alex Clough said softly, ‘The last day she worked here, she cried her heart out.’

She hadn’t mentioned this during the original inquiry. That was an upside of cold case work. Interviewed after a gap of years, people forgot past evasions, as well as details of the lies they had told.

‘Why?’

‘She’d taken a couple of days off sick and was falling behind with her jobs. I asked if she was working to rule. Not very witty, but I was shocked when she burst into tears, and devastated when she accused me of bullying her because our affair had hit the buffers. I was sure she didn’t mean what she said, and I tried not to let my feelings show. I told her to go home and get over it. She never came back’

‘How did your father take all this?’

‘We didn’t discuss the situation. Too embarrassing. But he understood what I was going through and he was always sweet to Emma. There was never a cross word between them.’

‘She went off sick with stress.’

‘According to the doctor’s certificate.’

‘You don’t sound convinced.’

‘Come on, Chief Inspector. How difficult is it to get a busy GP to sign you off if you don’t fancy turning in for work?’

‘You think she was shooting you a line?’

Alex shifted uncomfortably. ‘If Emma was suffering from stress, it wasn’t my fault. There was no question of my victimising her because she didn’t want to sleep with me any more.

‘She was off work for half a year. That must have caused you enormous difficulty. Not to mention cost.’

‘You exaggerate. As for expense, I’m afraid our sick pay scheme is not exactly generous. We pay the statutory minimum. A temp came in from an agency and Father and I put in long hours to make sure the museum wasn’t affected by Emma’s absence. I won’t pretend it was ideal, but we got by.’

‘I read in your statement that you asked her to undergo an independent medical examination.’

‘I didn’t want her to feel under pressure to rush back before she was better, so for months I was patient. But how long could I be expected to wait? In the end, I wrote to Emma, suggesting we pay for a check-up. Before that, I’d phoned the Goddards more than once and asked if I could arrange to visit her, but they said Emma had asked not to see me. That hurt, all I was interested in was her welfare. Vanessa was apologetic and said she and her husband still hoped Emma would come round.’