Martin Edwards - The Hanging Wood

‘What was the state of her relationship with Mike Hinds?’

‘Uneasy. Mike’s an old mate of mine, and it cut him to the quick when she took Kit’s surname. Callum refused to follow suit, though I suspected that was as much to piss Kit off as to please Mike. Orla was younger, and when Niamh remarried, she went along with what her mother wanted. There were furious arguments about access. But Orla never lost touch with Mike.’

‘Though she never went back to live at his farm?’

Gareth shook his head. ‘No, she stayed with Kit on the park until she started at university. By then, Kit had remarried, and so had Mike.’

‘She told me once she felt there was nowhere she could truly call home,’ Purdey said. ‘No wonder she suffered from stress. First she lost her brother, then her mum, and both her dad and her stepdad began new lives that didn’t include her.’

Lauren was still gabbling into her mobile, no doubt bragging about the dinner to her husband, an insurance broker whose fat commissions kept her in haute couture. She was standing in front of a shot of Gene Tierney in her most famous role as the eponymous Laura — she probably thought that movie about the seductive woman who drove a detective wild with desire should be remade as Lauren .

‘What do you think drew her back to Mike Hinds’ farm yesterday?’ Hannah asked.

Bryan shook his head. ‘Who knows what goes through a disturbed mind?’

‘My guess is,’ Gareth said, ‘they had a row and it was a childish kind of payback on her part.’

‘What makes you think that?’ Hannah asked.

‘Mike hated the way she drank so much, it reminded him of Niamh. And he couldn’t bear her raking up the past. He’d accepted his son was dead, he’d moved on. It was up to Orla to do the same.’

‘He told you this?’

‘Mike wears his heart on his sleeve.’ Bryan grunted scornfully to make clear he didn’t share Gareth’s charitable assessment. ‘Snag is, he has a shocking temper. If Orla got the wrong side of it …’

‘She might have taken it so hard that she felt life wasn’t worth living?’

Gareth downed the last of his champagne. ‘If that’s the way it was, I pray that he can cope. Bad enough to lose one child, but to lose two …’

‘Poor Hansel and Gretel,’ Purdey said.

Three heads turned towards her.

‘Hansel and Gretel?’ Hannah asked.

‘Yes, that’s what they called themselves.’

‘Who?’

‘Orla and Callum. She told me they thought of themselves like the kids in the fairy tale.’ Purdey gave a theatrical shiver. ‘Except that neither of them had a happy ending.’

‘So what did you make of Orla Payne?’ Louise Kind asked.

Eyes closed, Daniel stretched to soak up the warmth of late evening. This was the life, lazing on a vast and colourful Mexican hammock. He’d set up the stand beside the path that wound around the garden of Tarn Cottage. The cipher garden, he called it, secluded and secretive grounds that stretched to the foot of Tarn Fell. The hammock had room enough for three or four, but his sister hadn’t joined him. She lounged in a deckchair with canvas decorated with artwork from Evil Under the Sun. Their glasses and the empty wine bottle stood on the paving. The alcohol had done its job, and blunted his sorrow at the death of a woman he’d liked.

‘She was an unhappy woman.’

‘Sounds like it, if she’s killed herself. This story that her uncle didn’t murder her brother, was there anything in it?’

Louise’s tongue was as sharp as her spiky new haircut. A lawyer to her fingertips, she kept asking questions until she prised out an answer. Years ago, she had left private practice for academe; at times Daniel felt a pang of sympathy for her students.

‘She convinced herself, for sure. I felt sorry for her.’

Louise gave a theatrical sigh. ‘I bet the moment she knew who you were, she latched on to you. Another lame duck you took pity on?’

He tried to shrug, tricky in a hammock. Louise had never hit it off with Aimee; after their first meeting, she’d caused a row by asking Daniel if the woman was always so neurotic. Maybe that’s why he’d scarcely mentioned Orla to her until now. Orla reminded him of Aimee, if only because they were guided by instinct, not reason, and their instincts drove them to self-destruct.

‘Not fair. Orla and I talked once or twice when I took a break from writing. She told me she loved history before she knew I was a historian; she described herself as a failed history undergraduate. There was something unworldly about her, which appealed to me. Eventually someone recognised me, usual story, and before long the principal came and said hello.’

‘Goodbye to anonymity?’

‘He urged me to become involved with the library, and asked Orla to talk to me about ways of publicising St Herbert’s and raising cash. Her job was to improve the library’s profile in the region and further afield, but she didn’t seem cut out for it. She preferred mooching through books to hitting the phones. The principal brought in an events organiser to help, so Orla could focus on public relations while he packed the guest rooms with conference attendees.’

Louise stretched her arms, soaking up the last of the sun as it set behind the Sacrifice Stone on the top of the fell. ‘Was Orla afraid of losing her job?’

‘I can’t imagine the principal firing anyone. No, getting the sack was the least of her worries, even though she told me that before she came to the Lakes, she’d been unemployed following a period of illness.’

‘What was wrong with her?’

A heron flew across the garden, and perched at the far side of the tarn. Daniel contemplated its elegant form before answering.

‘I gather she had some kind of breakdown, and her drinking didn’t help. Booze had killed her mother — maybe neither of them got over the loss of Callum. Orla was emphatic that she never felt uncomfortable with her uncle, quite the opposite. He used to tell her fairy tales and she adored that, said it gave her a lifelong love of the stories.’

‘He might have been more interested in boys than little girls.’

‘And perhaps she blanked stuff out, who knows?’

‘So she committed suicide on her father’s farm? Did she talk about her relationship with him?’

‘It was difficult, I gather. Like everyone else, he reckoned his brother killed Callum. But Orla was adamant that there must be some other explanation for what happened.’

‘Such as?’

‘She didn’t say. The last time we spoke, she was in a state. Not making much sense.’

Louise clicked her tongue. ‘Hey, you’re the one who claims that historians make great detectives. Didn’t you ask?’

‘It wasn’t healthy, this dwelling on the tragedy. I tried to steer her off the subject of Callum, but without any success.’

‘You always say that to understand the present, you have to understand the past.’

‘Yeah, yeah, hoist with my own petard.’

Louise narrowed her eyes. ‘I suppose she fancied you.’

Orla’s eager face sprang into his mind as his gaze settled on the Sacrifice Stone, its dark bulk outlined against the sky. What she liked, he thought, was the fact he listened to her without passing judgement. She’d spent a lifetime being ignored.

‘It wasn’t like that.’

‘You didn’t fancy her, by any chance?’ He shook his head. ‘Not your type?’

Louise had this habit of turning conversation into cross-examination.

‘I don’t have a type.’

‘How about Aimee and Miranda?’

‘Are you kidding? They couldn’t be more different.’

‘Only on the surface. You’re a sucker when it comes to needy women.’