Martin Edwards - The Arsenic Labyrinth

‘He blackmailed you,’ Hannah said flatly.

‘No!’ Vanessa rapped the table. ‘You don’t understand. Guy wasn’t like that. I still believed in him, I felt we owed him something. Thanks to Guy, we’ve had ten wonderful years with Christopher, and no amount of money can buy that happiness. Francis said he would sort it out. All Guy wanted was to get away from here, but he was broke. He wanted a loan. Francis arranged to meet Guy to hand over some cash. He intended it as a gift, no nonsense about interest or paying us back.’

‘That’s what he said he meant to do?’

Vanessa nodded. ‘Absolutely.’

‘You had no idea that Francis took a couple of bricks with him to Monk Coniston, hoping to weight down the body? Or a torch, to hit Guy with?’

‘I don’t believe it, Francis would never hurt a fly. As for the torch, of course he needed it to find his way through the trees.’

‘What did Francis tell you about his encounter with Guy?’

Vanessa sipped from a glass of water. ‘When he came home that evening, he was in a state of shock. He’d asked Guy to promise never to return to Coniston and for some reason Guy argued. There was a scuffle — Guy started it. But Guy fell over and hit his head on a boulder. Francis checked and found he had no pulse. He was terrified. After all we’d been through, we might still lose Christopher as a result of Guy’s death. So he threw the body in the lake. It wasn’t nice and he hated doing it. My husband’s spent a lifetime caring for others, Chief Inspector, he’s an utterly decent man.’

‘So it was all an unfortunate mistake?’ Hannah strove to keep the cynicism out of her voice.

‘I begged him to speak to you, make a clean breast of things. He wouldn’t hear of it, didn’t want to expose his wife and child to shame. Christopher and I were all he cared about, he didn’t want to ruin our lives.’ Her voice trembled and she gulped more water. ‘I dreaded his doing something — drastic. When the policeman came round to ask if we’d seen anyone heading towards Monk Coniston on the night of the murder, we realised it was only a question of time before you caught up with him.’

She breathed out. ‘I must be strong, for Christopher’s sake. Are you done with me, Chief Inspector? My son and I really must get back to the hospital. We need to be by his side.’

Hannah nodded and stood up. Chances were, she was done with Vanessa Goddard. Her husband might never speak again and Vanessa needed time and space to grieve for what she had lost, as well as summoning the strength to keep caring for the child who meant so much to her. As for her story, if her readers’ group were discussing it, they’d be bound to say that it hung together. A prosecutor would say it tallied with the evidence. And Francis Goddard had been her own pet suspect, ten years ago, when everyone else was pissing in the wind, not even sure if Emma was dead. She’d been vindicated, no one now doubted that Francis Goddard was a murderer.

So why couldn’t she bring herself to believe it?

‘Your father used to moan that I was never satisfied,’ Hannah said. ‘He told me all detectives need to learn that every case leaves unanswered questions. You do as much as you can, then move on.’

Daniel laughed. ‘I remember him scolding me for being too curious for my own good. Even as a boy, I obsessed about history. I had this crazy idea you could discover everything about the past. He told me there are things it’s better not to know. Now I wonder if he was afraid I might find out about his affair with Cheryl.’

‘He felt so much guilt about leaving his family,’ Hannah said. ‘I’m sure at times he realised he’d screwed up.’

Daniel shrugged and took another sip of Chablis. They were back in a warm nook near the bar in the Cafe d’Art, but Jacques Brel had been supplanted by Francoise Hardy. Hannah had called Daniel and offered to buy him a quick drink after work, a thank you for helping solve the murder of William Inchmore. She couldn’t resist telling him about Francis Goddard and the truth about the deaths of Emma Bestwick and Guy Koenig.

Or was it the truth?

‘My colleague leading the Koenig investigation is satisfied that Francis committed the murder. Not that he’ll ever stand trial. Or stand for anything else, come to that. They expect he’ll need 24/7 care for the rest of his days. But …’

‘Francis must have been frightened to death. He knew he was bound to be found out. When you and your DC showed up, he made a run for it and jumped in the lake. What more do you need?’

Hannah traced her finger along the rim of her glass. ‘Suppose they planned it, the husband and wife? Francis would take the rap. He’d pretend to attempt suicide, but he didn’t mean to die. He was a decent swimmer and intended to make for the shore if we failed to rescue him. Unfortunately, he reckoned without the dive reflex.’

‘Why take such a risk?’

‘To convince us that he was the killer. To stop the finger pointing at his wife.’

‘Vanessa Goddard?’ Daniel stared. ‘Are you serious?’

‘She knew Guy Koenig, Francis didn’t. My bet is that she asked him to bargain with Emma and paid him off after Emma died. I can believe the plan wasn’t to murder Emma. Something went wrong, we’ll never know the full story. When Koenig returned to Coniston, he was penniless. Perhaps in the back of his mind he had the idea of extorting more cash from Vanessa. Even if he didn’t think of it like that, it was a convenient fallback when his efforts to exploit his landlady fizzled out. Vanessa must have feared she’d never be rid of him. She and her family would never be safe while he was alive.’

‘You think she murdered Guy herself?’

‘In blind panic, yes. It was a crazy cock-up of a crime. But she was obsessed, she couldn’t risk betrayal.’

A picture came into her mind of Alban Clough, that lascivious old misogynist, recounting a favourite tale. What women most desire is to have their own will . Not fair. But in the case of Vanessa, perhaps not so far off the mark.

‘And she didn’t tell Francis in advance?’

‘I doubt it. She borrowed his coat and boots, forensic examination links them to the scene. Of course Francis was much taller, so she must have found it tricky. No wonder she couldn’t carry anything heavier than a couple of bricks if she was walking all that way to the rendezvous with Koenig. Our only eye-witnesses claimed the person they saw at Monk Coniston was below average height. But we can’t build a case on that, any defence counsel worth their salt would tear their testimony apart.’

‘When the body was discovered so quickly, I suppose she realised she couldn’t get away with it.’

‘Exactly. So she talked to Francis and he decided to confess to a crime he hadn’t committed. The plan was for him to make an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Given his good character and the fact that Koenig could be portrayed as a serial blackmailer, any judge and jury might be sympathetic. With a manslaughter verdict and our prisons bursting at the seams, he’d have a chance of getting out in time to share a slice of Christopher’s late teens.’

Daniel winced. ‘He sacrificed himself.’

‘To protect his child. And the woman he loved.’

Francis as Gawain, a weird image. With Vanessa as his very own Loathly Lady.

‘Maybe you’re right.’

‘But how can I prove it?’

‘Do you want to prove it?’

Hannah swallowed the rest of her drink. ‘Good question.’

‘I mean — what good would it do? Perhaps the Goddards have suffered enough.’

‘But is that justice, to let her get away with it?’

Daniel said, ‘Do you really think she’s got away with anything?’