Martin Edwards - The Hanging Wood

He took another pace towards Greg, who raised his hands to shoulder height. Whether to calm the man down or for self-protection, Hannah couldn’t tell.

‘Mike!’ Deirdre screamed. ‘Put it down!’

‘Piss off back inside,’ he shouted back. ‘This is nothing to do with you.’

‘Mike, this won’t solve anything! What do you think Orla would have said, if she’d seen you like this?’

The farmer stopped in his tracks. In a swift and smooth movement, Greg jumped forward, seized the man’s wrist, and twisted it. Hinds let out a cry of pain and dropped the scythe. Greg kicked it over the cobbles, out of reach.

Hinds spat at Greg. The DS wiped his face, gave Hinds’ wrist a final jerk, and dropped it. Turning on his heel, he strode back to join Hannah and they both hurried off towards the drive.

‘You shouldn’t have done that, you scumbag,’ Hinds roared. ‘Next time, I’ll be ready for you.’

They strode past the farmhouse. Deirdre stood motionless on the doorstep, hands clasped as if in prayer.

‘I’d get him to a doctor double quick, love, if I were you,’ Greg muttered over his shoulder. ‘A psychiatrist is what he needs. I’ve heard of people with anger management issues, but your old man’s a powder keg, waiting to explode.’

‘Do you really think I don’t know what he’s like?’ she hissed.

Hannah glanced back at the cobbled yard. Mike Hinds winced as he rubbed his injured wrist. Shit. If Greg had fractured it, they had a problem on their hands. Next stop, the IPCC.

‘If you need help, dial 999. We can have backup here in minutes. Support is available, trust me.’

‘Trust you?’ Bitterness made Deirdre Hinds’ voice grate. ‘Ask the police for help? Don’t you think you’ve helped enough for one fucking day?’

And she ran towards her husband.

The door to the Old Library creaked open, and Daniel glanced down from his eyrie as Fleur Madsen walked in. Short rapid strides, this woman knew what she wanted. Cool and chic in white shirt and trousers, designer sunglasses dangling from a small hand with orange fingernails, she didn’t look as though she’d turned up for an hour or two of quiet scholastic research.

Daniel watched her scan the ground floor. Today he’d faced no competition for his favourite corner table. The sunshine was tempting, but his book wouldn’t write itself. No climate control system cooled St Herbert’s, and although the mullioned window behind him fitted its frame imperfectly, there wasn’t enough breeze to make the pages of his typescript flutter. The reek of leather and calfskin filled his sinuses. Readers came and went, only the books stayed for ever.

Looking up to the gallery, Fleur caught sight of him. She signalled with the sunglasses, and hastened towards the spiral staircase. Stiletto heels clicked on the metal treads as she climbed, cracking the silence like warning shots. What did she want?

Fleur arrived at his side, and bent her head. He caught a strong whiff of Chanel as she whispered in his ear.

‘Sorry, I know you’re working. Please tell me to go away if I’m a nuisance.’

She said it as though no man in his right mind would ever tell her to go away.

‘Great to see you again.’

‘Difficult to work in this heat, isn’t it?’

He smiled, said nothing.

‘Could you spare me five minutes? We could have a word outside in the garden if that suited you?’

He shut down his laptop and followed her down the staircase. Her figure was gym-toned, her movements lithe. She was in her fifties, but you’d never guess. An intelligent well-bred woman who had married a millionaire, Fleur Madsen had it all. So how come he detected a restlessness in her that hinted at discontent?

On the ground floor, she swept past the catalogues and the desk where the librarian sat, through folded-back double doors into the rear of the building. Daniel had bumped into Orla here, the last time he’d seen her, and they’d agreed to grab a bite together. She should have been working, but he sensed she’d lost interest in her job and preferred to browse through collections of old papers. Here the De Quincey correspondence was stored, along with Sir Milo Hopes’ extensive archives; thousands more volumes were packed into towering book presses.

‘I told Micah to put more warning signs on the presses,’ she murmured. ‘If you were crushed between them, you’d end up as flat as a dust jacket.’

Done to death by books? There were worse ways to go, even if you weren’t a bibliophile. Like suffocating in a mountain of grain.

Beyond the last book press lay a steep flight of stairs and a door marked Private . Fleur fished a key from her trouser pocket and, with the gentlest touch on his shoulder, guided Daniel through the door. Grey blinds masked the windows, and even on such a bright day, she had to switch on the lights. Gilt-framed portraits of solemn dignitaries, along with a scattering of landscapes, covered each of the oak-panelled walls. A dozen chairs were grouped around a mahogany table. There were no bookshelves, but a drinks cabinet squatted in one corner. Daniel’s throat felt dry and dusty. In the heat of the afternoon, the darkness of the wood and paintings was claustrophobic.

‘The trustees meet here. Even the principal is allowed to enter only by invitation.’ Fleur indicated the largest painting. ‘That formidable old chap with mutton chop whiskers is Sir Milo Hopes, founder of St Herbert’s and first chairman of the trustees. That is the house I was born in — and there you see the Hanging Wood in autumn.’

Two landscapes faced them. In fading light, Mockbeggar Hall was all flaking stonework and shuttered windows, a study in grandeur tainted by decay. But his attention was seized by the other painting, captioned The Hanging Wood . So this was where Orla’s brother was last seen alive, and their uncle committed suicide. At first glance, the woodland scene, with dense foliage glimpsed through morning mist, seemed tranquil, if sombre. Dew glistened on bracken and ferns, a bird drifted between the branches. But the fallen leaves were curled and dead, the small pond looked stagnant, and a fox sneaked through the undergrowth with something in its mouth.

‘The style is familiar.’ He pondered. ‘Not Millais, by any chance?’

She clapped her hands in delight. ‘Brilliant, really well recognised! This pair of pictures are not at all well known. I’m not a fan of his work, too often it seems cloying. But he must have been reading ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ when he painted the Hall — it’s as if he anticipates our family’s financial downfall. And The Hanging Wood haunts me. Not his best work artistically, you can see he rushed it. But I like the lack of sentimentality.’

He suspected Fleur Madsen didn’t have a trace of sentimentality in her DNA. How could she, if she’d annexed her ancestral home to a caravan park?

‘I haven’t ventured into the wood.’

‘Not many people do. It’s fenced off to deter trespassers, but frankly there are plenty of pleasanter walks on the doorstep. Even on a day like this, the Hanging Wood seems gloomy. When I was a child, I didn’t play there, and to this day, I’ve never walked through it on my own. Millais stayed at the Hall a few times as a guest of Sir Milo. He was a dog lover, and he paid Millais a small fortune to paint the family pets. Those pictures are hack work in the style of his chum Landseer, but Milo proudly hung them in the dining room. I prefer these, which he dashed off and presented to Milo as a gift.’

‘This was after Millais ran off with Ruskin’s wife?’

‘Oh yes, forty years later. You know the story? Ruskin never consummated the marriage, although Effie was a lovely woman. They say he couldn’t cope with the sight of her pubic hair.’ She smiled and tapped her forehead in a parody of belated awareness. ‘Doh! Of course you will know, you’re a famous historian.’