Martin Edwards - The Arsenic Labyrinth

‘It’s not painful, honestly.’ When Karen snorted in disbelief, Maggie added, ‘Mild discomfort at worst, I promise. DCI Scarlett and I have both given samples, it’s routine for police officers’ DNA to be recorded for elimination purposes at crime scenes.’

‘How sure are you that Emma is dead?’

Hannah said, ‘It’s our working assumption. I can’t tell you any more.’

Karen exhaled. ‘Well, well, well.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Hannah repeated.

‘I don’t know what to say, Chief Inspector. Even after all this time, even after I’d come to the conclusion that she must be dead — it’s still devastating, to have the truth confirmed.’

Grief did strange things to people. But there wasn’t the faintest tremor in Karen’s voice, and upper lips seldom came stiffer. If she was telling the truth, she was coping with her devastation with bravery verging on the heroic.

‘Was it an accident?’ Jeremy asked. ‘These things do happen, people go up into the hills unprepared for bad weather and next thing you know they’ve plunged down a ravine. Emma wasn’t an experienced fell-walker, who knows what misfortune may have befallen her?’

‘We don’t think it was an accident, Mr Erskine.’

He wore a faraway look, as if solving a sudoku in his head. ‘This other body. Could it be someone whom Emma knew?’

‘Unlikely.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t discuss that. But we have no reason to believe the two deaths are connected.’

‘Coincidence?’ A bitten-off laugh. ‘Forgive me, Chief Inspector, but that seems pretty hard to swallow.’

‘We’ll see what the coroner is prepared to swallow in due course,’ Hannah murmured. ‘In the meantime, we are bound to treat Emma’s death as suspicious.’

‘Oh no,’ Karen said. ‘Seriously?’

‘It’s hard to see how she can have finished up at the bottom of that shaft unaided.’

‘Dear God!’ Jeremy said. ‘As if we haven’t had enough to contend with over this whole wretched business.’

Emma’s face loomed in Hannah’s mind. The pale skin, the slightly parted lips. A woman looking for answers. Whatever she’d been searching for, she hadn’t found it beneath the Arsenic Labyrinth. Poor, dead Emma. To Jeremy and Karen, she was little more than a source of continuing irritation.

‘May I ask you both a few questions?’

‘What on earth for?’ Karen demanded. ‘I mean, this isn’t a good time.’

‘If you don’t feel up to it, we can talk to each of you tomorrow morning.’

‘Listen, I hope this isn’t all down to the police wanting to tick a few boxes, to cover their own backs. We’re ordinary, decent people, trying to get on with our lives and being subjected to a Spanish Inquisition doesn’t help.’

Jeremy patted Karen’s white hand. She might have been a five-year-old who’d woken from dreaming of the Bogeyman. ‘Please, Chief Inspector. You can see how distressed my wife is at the loss of her sister.’

Hannah assumed a sorrowful expression and said, ‘I imagined you might prefer to discuss the situation here and now. We wanted to be helpful, we thought you might not want us to call at your school. But of course if you prefer …’

Jeremy extricated himself from Karen and got to his feet. ‘There’s absolutely no need for you to come anywhere near the College.’

‘Why on earth do you need to speak to my husband, anyway?’ Karen snapped. ‘We’ve given every cooperation to the police from day one. Jeremy hardly knew Emma. We’re decent, law-abiding folk, what more can we say? Do you realise how damaging it can be to a potential head’s career prospects, to have the police turning up at his place of work? Parents don’t shell out handsome fees for that sort of thing, you know.’

‘This is a murder inquiry,’ Hannah said. ‘And Mr Erskine was one of the last people known to have seen the victim alive.’

‘What are you suggesting?’ Jeremy’s voice rose. ‘I was suffering pain and in need of treatment. The woman was my sister-in-law. Everything was open and above board.’

Maggie said, ‘Can you remember anything that might help us to understand what happened to Emma? Something she said, did she seem excited or afraid …?’

He pursed his lips. ‘I was more interested in what she could do for my back.’

‘Surely there was something?’

Jeremy pondered. ‘I suppose she was more animated than usual.’

‘Yes?’ A dogged smile, meant to coax a fatal indiscretion. ‘Go on.’

‘She never had much conversation. We weren’t on the same wavelength. But she asked after Karen and Sophie, made an effort to be pleasant. I had some good news for her. A few days earlier, our doctor had told Karen she was expecting another baby and I thought her sister deserved to know. Emma seemed genuinely thrilled for us, not in the least miserable or depressed. Besides, it must have occurred to her that a self-employed businesswoman needs to keep on the right side of her clients. She’d ploughed her money into the business, she had to work to make a success of it.’

‘The money, yes. I keep wondering where it really came from. You didn’t help her out with a loan, by any chance?’

‘Good God, no.’ Jeremy was startled at being suspected of casual generosity. ‘Why on earth should we?’

‘She was family.’ Families meant a lot to Maggie.

‘We had our own family to look after. At the time we were hoping for a second child. Emma was footloose and fancy free. Why should we subsidise her lifestyle?’

‘She hadn’t been well.’

Jeremy made a scoffing noise. ‘I’m not accusing her of malingering …’

‘But?’

‘This stress she’d suffered from. What caused it? She can’t have been over-worked at Inchmore Hall. It’s not exactly Dove Cottage, the tourists don’t come flocking.’

Karen turned to Hannah. ‘Where’s this leading, Chief Inspector? Surely it must be obvious that we can’t help you. Don’t forget, Emma isn’t the only victim here. We have our own lives to lead. And we have Jeremy’s reputation, his whole future, to think of. We really don’t want to get involved in a murder case.’

‘Your sister is dead, Mrs Erskine. You can’t help but be involved.’

‘That bloody journalist!’ Jeremy said. ‘If it hadn’t been for him …’

‘You still wouldn’t know your sister-in-law’s fate,’ Hannah interrupted. ‘Perhaps you owe Mr Di Venuto.’

‘Owe him?’ Karen’s face was red, her voice burning with contempt. ‘That preening, arrogant bastard? All he wants to do is to cause trouble.’

Hannah said softly, ‘What makes you say he’s preening and arrogant?’

Karen stared at her, then at her husband. In the silence, the only sound was the ticking of a black pyramid clock on the radiator shelf.

‘Well … it’s obvious, isn’t it? Jeremy summed him up in a single conversation.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Hannah noticed Jeremy’s brow furrowing. ‘You haven’t spoken to Mr Di Venuto yourself?’

Karen hesitated. ‘No … no, I haven’t.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Jeremy told him I wouldn’t want to discuss my sister with the Press.’

Time to take a punt. What is there to lose? ‘It’s just that … I have the impression there’s something personal between Di Venuto and your husband.’

‘Nonsense,’ Jeremy said. ‘I’ve never even met the fellow. We spoke over the telephone, not face to face. He’s a local hack who’s grown too big for his boots, that’s the top and bottom of it.’

‘Is it?’ Hannah asked.

Silence.

A clock in the living room chimed the hour, loud as the tolling of a funeral bell. Karen’s mouth was clamped shut. Her eyes were glued to her husband, as if imploring him for guidance. But he avoided her gaze.