Martin Edwards - The Hanging Wood

‘Better not to dwell on it, it won’t help.’

‘But how can I get her out of my mind?’ Aslan exhaled. ‘I can’t stop thinking of Orla. She was fascinated by … by siblings.’

‘Hansel and Gretel, you mean?’

‘Hansel and Gretel.’ A faraway look came into his eyes, reminding Daniel of a gambler contemplating a last throw of the dice. ‘And Castor and Pollux.’

‘Castor and Pollux?’ Daniel frowned in puzzlement. ‘That’s not a fairy tale, though, is it?’

‘You’re right.’ Aslan closed his eyes, and Daniel sensed he was playing a game, but didn’t intend to explain the rules. ‘Sorry, my head is spinning. There’s too much to take in, it’s not easy to make sense of things.’

Footsteps came clip-clopping over the gravel, and Aslan spun round. Sham Madsen aimed an infrared key at the door of her sports car. It bore this year’s registration plate. A present from Daddy, no doubt.

‘Too nice to work overtime!’ she called, gesturing to the cloudless sky. ‘Fancy going into Keswick for a drink, Aslan?’

‘I’m not-’

‘Oh, come on. It’ll do us both good. We deserve a pick-me-up after what’s happened.’

Daniel watched the pair climb into the natty yellow car. Sham gave him a cheerful wave as she revved the engine, shattering the quiet of St Herbert’s. Not everyone was in deep mourning for Orla Payne.

‘The folk singer reminded me of Marc,’ Terri said, as she returned from the bar to rejoin Hannah at their table under the spreading branches of a willow tree. ‘Are you going to ask him to do a request after the interval?’

They’d come to listen to a folk singer perform in the beer garden of a pub-cum-hotel in Windermere. He wasn’t exactly Paul Simon, and not simply because he was fair-haired and flat-voiced, but while the sun shone and the wine flowed, who cared?

‘Marc’s taller, and he doesn’t have a cleft chin.’ The wine was dry and strong. Already her head was starting to swim. ‘And this guy is way less gorgeous.’

Terri squealed so loudly with merriment that a couple of heads turned. She never had many inhibitions at the best of times, and she’d got stuck in to the pina colada while waiting for Hannah to arrive. Just as well they’d booked cabs home.

‘Tell you what, if you really are serious about giving up on dear old Marc, would you mind if I gave him a call?’

‘Are you kidding?’ Hannah almost choked on her drink. ‘I thought he wasn’t your type.’

Terri smirked. Three marriages and countless other relationships had ended in tears, yet her faith remained unshaken that Mr Right was waiting for her out there. Preferably on the deck of his own private yacht or beside the drawbridge of a baronial castle, but she wasn’t that fussy, over and above her golden rule of getting rid of all her underwear every time a relationship broke down: new man, new pants . Hannah loved her relentless optimism, even though there were moments when she could understand why she drove so many people to distraction.

‘Hey, I couldn’t misbehave with a bloke who lived with my best friend, could I, now? So I covered up. But if you’re moving on …’

‘Jesus, I don’t believe this.’

‘Honest, kid, if you let him go, there will be plenty queuing up to take him off your hands. I’m asking for a head start, that’s all.’

‘Do me a favour.’

‘Hannah, you don’t realise. Good-looking bloke like that? Intelligent, with oodles of charm. Did I mention he reminds me ever so slightly of Hugh Grant? I might as well stake a claim.’

Flowering jasmine spread over a small pergola close to their table. Hannah breathed in the perfume before fumbling for her dark glasses. Not so much to keep out the sun as to disguise any trace of mistiness in her eyes.

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Seriously?’

‘It’s more than six months now. No sign of these frantic women battering down the doors of his bookshop to get their hands inside his dust jacket.’

‘He’s fobbing them off, I bet. Waiting for you to give him the chance to make amends.’

‘It will take more than making amends.’ Hannah swallowed a mouthful of wine. ‘We’ve been through this before.’

‘All right, then, where are you up to with Daniel Kind?’

‘Not seen him for ages. We bumped into each other at a lecture about criminal narratives, and that’s about it.’

‘But?’ Terri would have made a good prosecuting counsel. She could spot the slightest gap in a witness’s testimony. ‘Anything planned?’

Hannah groaned. As if her own labyrinthine romantic entanglements were not enough, Terri was addicted to matchmaking. ‘Well, he referred a cold case to me.’

‘He’s definitely interested.’ Terri pronounced her verdict with the supreme assurance of an agony aunt. ‘Just cautious, if you ask me. I’d say he’s been hurt in the past, and doesn’t want to make himself too vulnerable.’

‘Maybe. By the way, you didn’t tell me about your blind date with that bloke from the driving school?’

Terri’s face was a picture. ‘When I first saw his stomach, I thought he was eight months pregnant — enough said. And don’t think you can get away with changing the subject, Hannah Scarlett. I know what you’re like. So when are you seeing Daniel again?’

‘Listen, he’s a friend, no more than that. Right now, friendship is all I want from any man, believe me.’

Terri became solemn. ‘This isn’t just about Marc straying off the straight and narrow, is it? The miscarriage knocked you back more than you realise, Hannah. It takes a long time, believe me, I know. But-’

‘The miscarriage is nothing to do with it.’

Apart from Marc and Terri, nobody else knew about her miscarriage. Oh, and Daniel, she’d mentioned it to him in a moment of weakness. But she hadn’t made a big deal of it, and he’d probably forgotten. Might Terri be right? From day one, she’d tried not to dwell on her loss, but once or twice it had featured in bad dreams. Invariably she awoke in a cold sweat of fear and self-loathing, for the inadequacy of her mourning for the child that never was. Would she ever have a baby of her own? Time kept moving, the odds against lengthened with every year that slipped by.

‘OK, OK, keep your hair on.’ Terri adopted a confidential tone. ‘Anyway, Marc isn’t the only show in town. Stefan, that hunky Polish bloke behind the bar, was telling me about Krakow, where he comes from. Sounds fabulous. Maybe he’s hoping to whisk me off for a mini-break.’

Hannah let her friend’s chatter slosh over her as the folk singers made their way back through the crowd. Was she being too harsh on Marc? They’d been together a long time, it might be a mistake to throw away all those shared memories. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Stefan the Pole emerge from inside, carrying a tray of drinks to a table of his fellow countrymen. He cast Terri’s bare legs a very frank glance, and Terri treated him to a coquettish smile without pausing for breath in the midst of an account of the latest idiocy of the girl she’d just hired at her makeup studio.

Chances were, Terri might find a reason to cancel her taxi home tonight. Oh well, good luck to her.

The singer who looked a little like Marc cleared his throat and tapped the microphone.

‘And now we’d like to do one of our favourite songs from the Fifties, “Bye, Bye Love”. Maybe it’s one of your favourites too.’

Yeah, Hannah thought, you’re singing my song. And I didn’t even need to put in a request.

The early hours, and Aslan staggered off the pavement and on to the road that led to his bedsit. At last, he’d shaken off Sham; he wasn’t in the mood to take her back, and they’d both had so much to drink that they’d probably have fallen fast asleep the moment they climbed into bed.