Martin Edwards - The Arsenic Labyrinth

Emma Bestwick would be forty now, older than the gossiping women. He wouldn’t speculate on what course her life might have taken. What was done was done. But he ought to pay his respects.

The wind had dropped as he ambled into the village, past the deserted bowling green and tennis courts, glancing in windows of shops that sold fishing tackle and Kendal mint cake, hiking boots and waterproof gear. When he glanced over the roofs towards the bracken-covered slopes, his stomach lurched. The road bent at the bridge and he stopped to take a deep breath and listen to the rush and gurgle of the beck. Across the road the bell tower of the church of St Andrew loomed above a small burial ground dotted with clusters of snowdrops. A sign pointed to the tall carved cross that marked John Ruskin’s grave. Ruskin had opted to be buried here, in preference to Westminster Abbey. What a waste. Guy couldn’t understand why Ruskin hadn’t wanted to finish up in splendour. One day he’d have his own fifteen minutes of fame, and he’d make the most of them.

He consulted his watch. A 14 carat Rolex Oyster Perpetual, benefiting from a champagne dial and gold index markers, picked up in a dodgy bar off the Via Veneto. On the stroke of noon he strolled into a low-beamed pub and ordered a pint of strong bitter beer, brewed on the premises. He didn’t need to slake his thirst. But the alcohol made his head buzz, eased the memory of the last time he’d climbed the fells behind the pub, on his way to meet Emma Bestwick.

Hannah and Lauren Self should have had a lot in common. Two senior women in a man’s world. Loosening up after a couple of drinks, Lauren liked to talk about girl power and how women in the force needed to look out for each other. A politician to her beautifully manicured fingertips, she’d been fast-tracked to the giddy rank of Assistant Chief Constable by dint of relentless focus on telling councillors on the police authority precisely what they wanted to hear. Hannah preferred to keep a safe distance from the ACC. But, when she wasn’t schmoozing with the great and the good, Lauren wasn’t a bad detective. If she wanted to find you, there was no hiding place. She cornered Hannah by the water cooler.

‘Hannah, just the person! This news coverage of the Emma Bestwick case, what is CCRT’s action plan?’

Lauren loved acronyms as much as Home Office statistics and high profile campaigns against institutional discrimination. It was a safe bet that she had never heard of Emma Bestwick until the press office had served up the cuttings, but Tony Di Venuto’s piece must have concentrated her mind.

Hannah gave a butter-wouldn’t-melt simper and said, ‘I’ve requisitioned the old papers and prioritised a formal review. Let’s see if some joined-up thinking can produce a few outcomes.’

If Lauren realised she was being sent up, her glossy smile betrayed nothing. ‘Terrific. We need to stay ahead of the game on this.’

‘We’re short-handed at present. Nick Lowther will be in court for another week, and Linz Waller and Gul Khan are working on a possible DNA match in the Furness rapist inquiry. The Bestwick case is the longest of long shots. You’re happy to devote resources to a review?’

‘We need to respond to public concern, Hannah. You still have Les, Maggie and Bob Swindell at your beck and call. I’m surprised you haven’t organised a formal press briefing. CCRT is a high-profile unit and we want journalists to understand the value of local police work, benefiting from our can-do culture. Plus our commitment to working in close partnership with the community.’

In other words, we need to position ourselves for the day when a force merger comes back on the agenda. Hannah assumed an obedient expression as she filled her cup to the brim.

‘Understood.’

Lauren smiled. ‘Excellent. Keep me in the loop.’

‘Will do,’ Hannah said, sticking her tongue out at the ACC’s elegant, retreating back.

At least she had an excuse to put the dip sampling tapes back in a drawer. She’d never wanted this job; Lauren had sidelined her after the Rao trial went pear-shaped. In part a rebuke, in part a convenient way of making sure that Hannah didn’t start getting above herself or — Heaven forbid — grabbing a share of the girl power. Hannah couldn’t care less about status; something Lauren would never understand.

At last, Hannah was appreciating the positives of cold case work. She liked the people in her team, enjoyed making up her own rules. Above all, she relished becoming a detective again, rather than telling other people what to do and worrying about how well they would do it. If the choice was between interviewing suspects and attending endless meetings to discuss the latest measures of police service efficiency, it was a no-brainer.

Back in her office, she leafed through old statements. Might Tony Di Venuto have figured in the original investigation? She found no mention of his name.

‘Solved it yet?’ Les asked.

She’d been so engrossed, she hadn’t even heard him lumber into the room. ‘If only.’

He peered over her shoulder at the file photograph of Emma and sniffed. ‘Ms Ordinary, eh?’

Harsh, but fair. Emma wasn’t plain, but neither were her looks special. The only extraordinary thing to have happened in her life was that she had disappeared without trace.

‘I don’t think she was a warm woman. Hardly any close friends.’

‘Boyfriends?’

‘She preferred other women.’

‘I suppose you’re expecting me to say that was just because she’d not met the right feller?’

Hannah laughed. ‘Sid Thornicroft wondered if her disappearance was connected with her sex life.’

‘She’d met someone new and gone off with her?’

‘It was a theory. But we found no trace of any new friendships after she split up with Alexandra Clough.’

He parked his rear on a corner of her desk. ‘No suggestion she was being stalked?’

‘Not by Alex Clough, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

‘I was wondering about men. Just because a woman isn’t available, doesn’t mean some dickhead won’t obsess about her.’

‘Sid Thornicroft thought that if she had been murdered, the likeliest candidate was a chap called Tom Inchmore. He worked as a handyman at the Museum of Myth and Legend and mooned after Emma. According to the Cloughs, it was simply because she treated him with kindness. But when Sid found he had a record of minor sexual offences, a lightbulb flashed in his brain.’

‘I’m guessing you weren’t Sid’s number one fan.’

A throwaway remark by Ben Kind, in the pub one night, surfaced in her mind. Sid Thornicroft? So pedestrian, he never steps off the pavement. She shrugged.

‘What did Inchmore do?’

‘Two cautions as a teenager. Once for stealing an old woman’s undies off her washing line and once for peeping into a girls’ changing room at the gym of a local school. In Sid’s opinion, steps on the road to rape and murder.’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’

‘Yeah, well, I was sent to tease a confession out of Tom Inchmore.’

She could see him now, an acne-ravaged young man with scruffy black hair and a furtive demeanour who spent too much time peering at her breasts and not enough mumbling answers to her questions. Tom was one of life’s losers; she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. His mother was dead and he lived with his grandmother, Edith Inchmore, a warty, bad-tempered old hag straight out of Grimm’s Fairy Tales . But Edith had more guts in her little finger than Tom had in his whole body. She simultaneously despised and protected him, engaging a lawyer to warn him not to answer questions and seize every opportunity to complain about police harassment. Hannah had conceived a grudging respect for her determination to safeguard what little was left of the family name. Edith was convinced the police were intent on stitching the lad up. And maybe the old witch wasn’t so far off the mark.