Martin Edwards - The Hanging Wood

‘Uh-huh.’ Hannah tasted her soup. Carrot and coriander, seasoned with garlic and a touch of black pepper. Warm, sweet and spicy.

Marc smeared low-fat spread on a wholegrain roll before passing it to her. Talk about buttering her up.

‘Still flogging yourself to death, I suppose.’

‘We’re short of staff. You must have read about the row over cutbacks.’

‘Yeah, don’t the newspapers reckon that twice as many Tesco supermarkets open twenty-four/seven as police stations? But I see that congratulations are in order. Your team has been shortlisted for an award. Isn’t the ceremony tomorrow?’

Hannah almost choked on a mouthful of bread roll. Give him credit, he was making an effort.

‘You’ve done your homework.’

‘I’m interested, believe it or not.’

Then why leave it so late?

‘It’s nothing to get excited about.’

‘Typical Hannah. Underselling yourself.’

‘No false modesty — we aren’t going to win. I’ve been tipped off that we finished as runners-up for the Contribution to the Community Award. The girl who types for the judging panel fancies Greg Wharf. She told him that we lost out to a bunch of litter collectors.’

He laughed. ‘Don’t tell me — the Cleanliness in Cumbria Partnership?’

‘Yeah, their press releases get everywhere. They emptied more bins than we solved rapes and murders, I think that’s how it works.’

‘Hey, it’s not about winning, but the taking part.’

She couldn’t help grinning. ‘If you believe that, you’ll believe anything.’

‘Any major cold cases on the go?’

‘Only if you count a miserable old sod in his seventies who lives in Lancaster, but spent most of his life in Barrow. We spent six months searching for a match to DNA from a rape at Millom thirty years ago. The victim has been in and out of mental hospitals ever since. Eventually, we found our man, but the CPS are digging in their heels, they don’t want to prosecute. He has advanced Parkinson’s disease, and the medics say he’s unfit to plead.’

‘Frustrating.’

‘Life’s rich tapestry.’

‘No more murders?’

‘I needed a break from murders.’

He nodded. At the start of the year, he’d found himself mixed up in one of her cases. They’d reached a tacit agreement not to speak about it again. The wounds were too raw.

‘I guess so.’

‘Matter of fact, I took a call yesterday. A woman whose brother disappeared, his name was Callum Hinds. Their stepfather managed Madsen’s caravan park, up at Keswick.’

‘The caravan park?’ He pondered. ‘Aren’t Madsen’s the people who sponsored your award?’

‘The award we didn’t quite win, you mean?’ Of course, that was why she knew the name. ‘As a matter of fact, you’re right.’

‘Successful company. I’ve bumped into the Madsen brothers at Commerce in Cumbria events. Bryan Madsen is a big wheel in local politics, and once upon a time, Gareth was a racing driver. If they can afford sponsorship money in the current economic climate, they must be worth a packet.’ He paused. ‘As it happens, I do recall a boy going missing somewhere near the caravan park.’

‘Your memory goes back that far?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with my memory,’ he murmured. ‘My parents talked about the case, because they’d discussed buying a caravan at Madsen’s. In the end, they settled for a timeshare in Majorca. Kept it for five years and went out there only twice. The lad and I were much the same age. You don’t expect to die in your teens.’

‘No trace of Callum was found. There’s nothing to prove he died.’

Marc pushed a hand through his thicket of fair hair, a habitual gesture. As she finished her soup, it struck her that this was one of his mannerisms that she found appealing. She’d actually missed it.

Weird, very weird.

He looked into her eyes, and she averted her gaze, focusing instead on sheep traipsing across the fells. She understood how much effort he was making to appear relaxed, indulging her with small talk. Marc fizzed with nervous energy and, beneath the surface affability, his insides must be knotted with tension. He was as photogenic as ever — she’d felt familiar stirrings of desire, unwelcome but undeniable, when he greeted her — but there was no masking the dark rings beneath his eyes. The legacy of a sleepless night, fretting that he was about to lose her? He hated losing, something else they had in common. No way would she let him soft-soap her. Her heart was hardened. At least, as much as it ever could be.

When it dawned on him that she would not break the silence, he said, ‘How’s your new sergeant shaping up?’

‘Greg Wharf? An old hand by now. Smart guy. Almost as smart as he believes he is.’

‘Not as smart as Nick Lowther, though?’

Nick had left the force and emigrated with a new partner before last Christmas. Marc had been suspicious of their relationship for years. If only he knew how wrong he’d been. Before that, he’d imagined she lusted after her old boss, Ben Kind, though their relationship was never more than platonic. This winter, Marc had got it into his head that she’d started an affair with Ben’s son, Daniel. His jealousy tore them apart. That, plus his pathetic swooning over a girl who had worked for him, downstairs in this very shop.

‘There’s no comparison. Nick was quiet and thoughtful. Greg is noisy and relies on what he calls his “gut”.’

‘Not your type?’

She frowned. ‘I’m not sure I have a type.’

He knocked back the rest of his wine and said, ‘Thanks for coming, Hannah. I wanted to apologise to you.’

‘You apologised before.’

‘And you said you accepted my apology. But I don’t think you did.’

She focused on the grazing sheep. What were apologies for? They were empty words, devalued currency. Spouted by politicians who were keen to say sorry for sins of the distant past, but lacking the courage to admit mistakes of the here and now.

‘I meant to ask your forgiveness.’

She’d never heard him speak with such humility.

‘What for?’

‘For everything. The way I treated you when we lived together. Spending too much time on the shops, not enough on you. Accusing you of shagging Daniel Kind.’

He lowered his voice. A couple of elderly women in raincoats, who had spent too long living in the Lake District to be fooled by sunshine and a cloudless sky, plonked themselves down at a table on the other side of the chain, and he was desperate not to be overheard. He didn’t want witnesses to his mortification.

A wild instinct seized her.

‘What if I did shag him?’ she whispered.

She’d never before said anything to him that was meant to hurt. Grief was scrawled all over his face, as plain as if a vandal had sprayed it with paint.

‘I … I wouldn’t be surprised.’ His voice was hoarse. ‘Good-looking successful man. Good-looking successful woman. Both let down by their lovers. Who could blame them?’

On the drive from Undercrag, she’d rehearsed this conversation, expecting resistance, bitterness, anger. Conceivably, for he was an emotional man, a torrent of tears. Self-abasement wasn’t in the script. She didn’t want to humiliate him, or lie about her relationship with Daniel.

‘For what it’s worth, we haven’t done anything.’

One of the women at the nearby table brayed with laughter, enjoying a bit of salacious gossip. Marc’s hands shook. He was unsure whether to believe her.

‘You don’t have to say that.’

‘It’s true.’ She hesitated. ‘Well, he kissed me once. In the car park of The Tickled Trout, not the ideal spot for a romantic tryst. If you must know, I haven’t seen him for months. The last time we bumped into each other was at a lecture given by a professor of criminology at the University of South Lakeland. All about the narratives that criminals weave, to justify their behaviour to themselves. Daniel was with his sister — she teaches law at the uni, remember? The three of us had a chat over a glass of orange juice, and then went our separate ways. All right?’