Martin Edwards - The Arsenic Labyrinth

She allowed Daniel a moment to reflect on this before saying, ‘So you want to study the material from the auction?’

‘Please.’

Sylvia nodded towards a huge ottoman, covered in green velvet, that stood beside his armchair. ‘That was overflowing with old knitting patterns and wool and I’ve made my last cardigan, I’m afraid. So this morning, in readiness for your visit, I asked Geraldine to fill the box with Roger’s purchases. Take a look, and if you come across anything of special interest, feel free to borrow it.’

He opened the box and found it full of diaries, notebooks and manuscripts, each neatly preserved and labelled in tiny, cramped handwriting. ‘Has your nephew examined the material?’

‘Dear me no, Roger is such a busy fellow. Senior partner of an accountancy practice in Whitehaven, you know. When I heard that old books and other mementoes associated with Coniston were to be auctioned, I asked him to bid on our behalf, because I knew he would make good use of our funds. Of course, neither of us had any idea that he would be competing with Mr Daniel Kind.’

He grinned. ‘I disciplined myself to bid only for the items I was sure would be of interest. Big mistake. But my partner is always complaining that I hoard too much old rubbish.’

She returned his smile and for a fleeting moment he understood how much charm she’d had when young. ‘You’ll have to teach her the error of her ways. Nothing from the past is rubbish to the true historian.’

Within ten minutes of walking back into Divisional HQ, Hannah took a call from Fern Larter. Sarah Welsby had identified the dead man as Guy Koenig. Or, as she insisted, a supposed financial services guru called Robert L. Stevenson.

‘He was taking the mickey,’ Hannah said. ‘Maybe the worm turned and Sarah murdered him.’

‘Great minds, Hannah. I’ve asked for a back-up ID of the deceased, in case Sarah is our killer and we can’t use her in court to prove identity. But Guy kept himself to himself. No mobile, and he didn’t make personal calls from Sarah’s place. Maybe he was in hiding. We found an old laptop in his bag, but he used it as a toy, it’s given us no clues. As for Sarah, she might have followed him out to the pier. What if she caught him with another woman and the red mist descended?’

‘But you don’t think so?’

‘Can’t see her lugging a heavy torch and two chunky bricks all that way on the off chance she might want to biff him on the head, and tether the weights to his corpse so that he’d sink to the bottom of the lake.’ A long sigh. ‘No, if she wanted to kill him, she’d have done it nearer home. A couch potato like our Sarah wouldn’t fancy schlepping over to Monk Coniston.’

‘Does she have an alibi?’

‘Time of death is so uncertain, we can’t rule her out. But if you assume Koenig got his come-uppance before he was due to jump into his taxi, it’s hard to see how she can have killed him if he did leave the house at seven, as she says. At ten past, she called at a chippy in Campbell Road for fish and chips and mushy peas. That’s corroborated. One of the women behind the counter actually saw Sarah let herself back into her house on the opposite side of the road. Doesn’t leave her much time to switch from battered cod to battering Guy Koenig. And why would she report him missing so quickly?’

‘Cunning double bluff?’

Fern chortled. ‘Sarah Welsby couldn’t do cunning if her life depended on it. According to her, they had sex half an hour before he left, and he was much rougher than ever before. Sounds to me like he never expected to see her again. But if she was guilty, would she have shared that with us? I don’t think so. You know what really hacks me off, Hannah? Koenig was treating her like shit and that poor bloody fool convinced herself the sun shone out of his pretty little arse.’

‘Thoughts on motive?’

The door swung open and Les Bryant popped his grizzled head round. When Hannah gestured towards the phone, he mouthed, ‘ Di Venuto is here .’

Fern sighed. ‘It’s an amateurish crime, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t planned in advance. If the bricks weren’t lying around near the shore, the murderer must have brought them to the scene for the specific purpose of weighting down the body. Although they weren’t heavy enough to do the job properly.’

‘You think the murderer was disturbed?’

‘Uh-huh. I have a team doing house-to-house, trying to find anyone who may have been hanging around Monk Coniston the night before last. As for why Koenig was killed, it may have something to do with money. From what Sarah tells us, he was skint. I’d bet he was working some kind of scam. Then someone got wise to it, and got angry too.’

The Diva could scarcely conceal his satisfaction that another body had been discovered. One man’s tragedy is another man’s breaking story. When Les nodded him into the meeting room, he strode up to Hannah and offered the firmest of handshakes. The after-shave was more pungent than ever and self-assurance oozed out of every pore. Their last conversation might never have taken place. With a hide that thick, Tony Di Venuto was surely destined for great things in journalism.

‘Good to see you again, Chief Inspector. I realise the investigation at Monk Coniston is separate from your inquiry, but no doubt you share my view that the case is inextricably linked with the bodies found at Mispickel Scar.’

‘We’re keeping an open mind.’

‘Of course, you’re bound to say that, but …’

‘Have you anything to tell us, Mr Di Venuto?’

The Diva smirked. ‘Actually, I was expecting you would be more than happy to cooperate, to share information.’

Hannah shook her head. ‘It doesn’t work like that. As you well know.’

‘You disappoint me, Chief Inspector. If not for my investigations on behalf of the Post , the maggots would still be snacking on Emma Bestwick in her underground tomb. Never mind. I’ve already interviewed Sarah Welsby, the dead man’s lover.’

Jesus, he was quick off the mark. ‘DCI Larter hasn’t made any announcement about the identity of the deceased as yet.’

Di Venuto sniggered. ‘Me, I like to keep ahead of the pack. Which no doubt is why Ms Welsby contacted me. I gather she’s identified the deceased as her lodger, Stevenson? Though I have it on good authority that wasn’t his real name and that he was previously known to the police.’

Someone in Fern Larter’s team must be earning a few quid on the side by leaking stuff to the Post . Shit, that was all they needed. ‘I can’t confirm that. DCI Larter will call a press conference as soon as she’s ready.’

‘How long does the public have to wait before it gets answers?’ he demanded. ‘The Post will be running Sarah Welsby’s exclusive story tomorrow. I simply wanted to make sure you were the first to know. I’ve spoken to her at length and I’m convinced that this lodger of hers was the man who called me.’

‘What makes you so confident?’

‘He slipped out of her house on the day he first arrived. She caught sight of him from an upstairs window. He was only out for a few minutes, but the timing coincided with the first telephone message I received about Emma Bestwick. Same story the second time around. When she lost sight of him each time, he was heading in the direction that would take him to the nearest public call box.’

‘She was spying on him?’

‘She was a lonely, middle-aged woman. That says it all.’

Hannah suppressed the urge to smack him. ‘It’s not much to go on.’

‘He read my article about Emma Bestwick before he rang the first time. She remembers him borrowing the newspaper and shooting some line about wanting to catch up with the local news after being away for years. That was the day we led on my story about the tenth anniversary of Emma’s disappearance. How much more evidence do you need?’