Martin Edwards - The Arsenic Labyrinth

Sarah was excited, she chattered incessantly about what they might do in the months ahead, places they might visit, holidays they might take. He found it wearisome to pay attention to her fantasies. Of course, she’d be upset when she realised he wasn’t coming back, but she only had herself to blame. If she hadn’t been so extravagant, she wouldn’t have been a bad catch for a bloke of her own age. But he’d given her a lot, more than she deserved. To persuade herself that she had something to offer to a handsome young man with the world at his feet, that really was cloud-cuckoo land.

He was leafing through the Post . One story filled the pages, the story that owed its existence to him. He was mystified by the discovery of the second body, but the puzzle didn’t faze him. Nothing connected him with Emma Bestwick, no witnesses had spotted him on Mispickel Scar and nobody was going to come forward ten years later to point the finger at him. Di Venuto alluded to Guy’s telephone calls as ‘a tip-off’, implying that it had been teased out as the result of shrewd and resourceful investigative journalism. He’d been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, but Guy didn’t begrudge him his scoop.

‘Penny for them,’ Sarah trilled.

She was flicking a feather duster over the surface of the old radio on the sideboard. She had a fondness for Muzak that he found rather common. Abba were singing ‘Money, Money, Money’. Of course they were right, it was a rich man’s world. Not that he was greedy. He didn’t want a fortune, just enough to get by in comfort.

‘Mmmm. I was just thinking. It’s funny how things turn out. Sometimes two people come together and they do each other a huge favour, maybe something that changes both their lives.’

Sarah smiled with delight and said some gooey things, even though he’d had in mind not his relationship with her but the way that he and Di Venuto had scratched each other’s backs. By this time tomorrow, he would have money and freedom. Despite the newspaper coverage and the frenetic police activity around the village, he hadn’t expected it to be quite so easy. Yet after the initial shock of his call, his old friend had been quick to see the sense in agreeing to his request. And it had been a request, not a demand, no way. He wouldn’t stoop so low.

This wasn’t blackmail, for Heaven’s sake. Nothing more than two decent people doing each other a bit of good.

* * *

Marc Amos was sitting behind the cash till when Daniel reached the front of the queue to pay. As he smiled in greeting, he glanced at the title of the fat book in Daniel’s hand. Its spine was split and it smelled of damp.

‘ Lore of Old Lakeland? I read it years ago. The author, Herbert Bickerstaff, was a collector of Lake District curiosities. Mind you, as a writer his style was closer to Jeffrey Archer than John Ruskin. And I’m not sure about the reliability of his scholarship. Leisure reading rather than research?’

‘I was talking to someone about the curse on Mispickel Scar and I wanted to read up.’

‘You’ll find it in Bickerstaff, I’m sure. He was no academic, but he loved telling stories. First edition, too. Pity it’s such a lousy copy.’

Daniel handed over a ten pound note. ‘That’s why it’s such a bargain.’

‘I don’t know whether you saw the regional bulletin on the TV last night? You might have caught a long shot of Hannah, looking windswept up on Mispickel Scar.’

‘Sorry I missed it. She was talking about the bodies they have found?’

‘Yes, there was another press conference this morning, but the Assistant Chief Constable was in the chair. She loves the limelight. Hannah would rather get on with her work.’ Marc grinned at a burly hiker who had a dog-eared Wainwright in his shovel-like mitt. ‘Speaking of which …’

‘Good to see you,’ Daniel said, stepping to one side. ‘Give Hannah my best.’

‘Will do.’ Marc waited for the hiker to key his PIN into the machine. ‘In the unlikely event she gets home tonight before I’m fast asleep.’

‘She works too hard?’

‘Too bloody right.’ As the hiker plodded away, Marc added in a low voice, ‘You know something? Last Leap Year Day, I’d arranged to take her out for a slap-up meal. It was a surprise. Between you and me, I was going to propose. We’d been together so long, it seemed like the right thing to do. But she rang to say she’d been caught up with an important suspect interview and wouldn’t be back until eleven. That was when I realised, she was married already. To the job.’

The Post’s offices at Broughton-in-Furness occupied a tall Georgian merchant’s house overlooking the market square, with its village stocks, slate fish market slabs and obelisk commemorating King George III’s Jubilee. Sitting in reception alongside Les Bryant, Hannah skim-read the latest issue of the paper while Les sucked a sweet to ease his sore throat. He reeked of menthol and blackcurrant lozenges and every couple of minutes he blew his nose, making a noise like a honking bird

‘Anything?’ he mumbled, nodding at the newspaper.

Hannah shook her head. The Mispickel Scar Mystery, as Tony Di Venuto insisted on calling it, occupied a disproportionate number of column inches, even though he had nothing new to report. The competing stories — a woman mugged for her bingo winnings, vandalism in a graveyard and a street sweeper hanging up his brush after seventeen years’ service — were scarcely strong enough to muscle it off the front page. On the walls around them hung framed features from previous issues. Campaigns against the closure of sub-post offices, the cutting of bus routes, the amalgamation of local schools due to falling pupil numbers. The Post was one of those Cumbrian newspapers that fought the good fight on behalf of rural England and its people against the countless threats of the twenty-first century. For all her wariness of journalists, Hannah admired their tenacity, though in her heart of hearts she doubted if the battle could ever be won.

The receptionist was busy chatting to a friend on her mobile, complaining about the overweening ego of some mutual acquaintance known as the Diva. The only outside call she took while Hannah waited was from a stringer with a tip-off about the theft of a pensioner’s scooter. She was trying to end the call and get back to her gossip when the internal door opened and Tony Di Venuto breezed in, natty and assured as a Sinatra tribute singer called back for another encore.

‘DCI Scarlett — good to see you again! And — Mr Bryant, thanks for coming.’

They shook hands; Tony’s grip was firm and confident. As the detectives followed him inside, Hannah glanced over her shoulder at the girl behind the desk. She was sticking her tongue out at her colleague’s retreating back. With a stab of amusement, Hannah realised who the Diva was. Good name.

The open plan news room hummed with conversation and the click of fingers on half a dozen keyboards. A spiky-haired young woman in a cropped top that insisted No to Animal Testing glanced up as Tony strode past. Hannah saw the girl’s lip curl. The Diva didn’t have too many admirers in his own backyard.

‘My desk, Detective Chief Inspector,’ he said airily, waving at a tiny workstation festooned with cuttings from stories he had written. Hannah was sure the mention of her rank was for the benefit of his colleague. ‘We’ll talk in the meeting room. More private there.’

He led her into a tiny room with a window in the door and another above eye level. Four old wooden chairs were grouped around a scratched table. The air was warm and stale. The Post didn’t run to air-conditioning.

‘Do take a seat. Can I offer you coffee?’