Martin Edwards - The Hanging Wood

‘I bet,’ Sham muttered.

‘What do you mean?’ her mother asked.

‘Oh, come on, Mum, don’t tell me you haven’t worked it out. Why do you think she was so upset when Dad’s secretary Lily went back home to Australia?’

Purdey said quietly, ‘Keep your nose out of my life, Sham. It’s nothing to do with you. Besides, you ought to be grateful. I told Aslan he’d stand a much better chance with you. If he fancied easy pickings.’

‘You cow!’ Sham banged her spoon on the wooden tabletop. Her lower lip was thrust out, making her resemble an infant losing her temper at mealtime.

‘Purdey, Sham, you’re not teenagers any longer, behave!’ Gareth was seething. ‘I’ll speak to you both later, when our guests have gone home. Your private lives aren’t for public consumption. All I want to know right now is whether there’s any truth in this incredible story that Mike Hinds has an illegitimate son he knows nothing about.’

‘He had no reason to lie,’ Purdey said sulkily. ‘Everything he told me seemed perfectly believable. He hadn’t contacted Mike Hinds at that time; he’d heard from his mother, and also by asking around, that Mike has a vicious temper. I told him he needed to choose his moment carefully if he wanted a reunion. Time it wrong, and Mike would be getting out his shotgun. I said I wasn’t sure Mike would be thrilled to discover he had a long-lost son.’

‘But he’d lost Callum,’ Sally said.

‘I don’t think he’d see Aslan as a straight swap, Mum,’ Purdey said with exaggerated patience. ‘It’s not as simple as happy ever after.’

‘The real question is whether this tale he told you is true,’ Bryan said. ‘It seems extraordinary, like something out of one of Orla’s fairy stories.’

‘It could be true,’ Kit Payne said. ‘Niamh told me about some of Mike’s affairs. The ones she knew about, anyway. A girl from Eastern Europe was among his conquests, I remember.’

‘So Aslan really is Mike’s son?’

As Gareth lingered over the question, his brain seemed to be stepping up a gear. Like everyone else, Daniel thought, he must be computing what he’d learnt, trying to figure out the implications.

‘Well, well,’ Bryan said. ‘The prodigal has returned, after all.’

‘But not the prodigal everyone hoped for,’ Fleur Madsen said.

Saturday morning in Keswick, and Market Square was crammed with bargain hunters swarming around stalls that sold pies and paintings, clothes and crafts, and pretty much everything else you could wish for. Traders’ raucous cries punctuated the hum of a hundred conversations, smells from the fishmonger’s wafted through the warm air, mixing with those of home-made preserves and pungent cheeses. Marooned in the pedestrianised area was Moot Hall, with its sturdy tower and one-handed clock. Over the years, it had served as a courthouse, a prison and a town hall. Now it housed a tourist information office, with posters, leaflets and videos extolling Keswick’s various delights: Derwent Water, the Theatre by the Lake, Skiddaw, Blencathra — and a pencil museum.

The temperature was rising as Daniel smeared a dollop of sunblock on his face and neck. He’d arrived early, but he was hopeless at waiting, and found himself inventing a dozen reasons why Hannah might not show up. At last he spotted her through the crowd, handing over money at a stall that sold belts and bracelets. The bag under her arm bulged with purchases. A single woman with a busy job didn’t have much time for shopping, and she’d made the most of the market. A short-sleeved blue top and denim jeans clung to her. Since their last encounter, she’d lost weight, he thought, even though she’d never had much to lose. From a distance, she looked scarcely old enough to have left police college, let alone take charge of a cold case squad. His spirits rose as she caught sight of him, and gave a wave before hurrying over to him.

‘Thanks for sparing me an hour or two,’ he said. ‘I’m sure your Saturdays are precious.’

‘Glad to.’ She smiled, showing even white teeth. ‘This is a treat.’

He dropped a light kiss on each cheek. She wasn’t wearing make-up — no need. He liked the fresh smell of her hair and her skin. The Madsen women were sleek and gorgeous in a no-expense-spared way, but give him the natural look any time.

‘Derwent Water, then?’ The lake was only five minutes away. ‘So how is your book going?’

‘The question all writers dread,’ he told her. ‘No matter what target or deadline you set, it always turns into a frantic race against time. Coupled with the need to dream up increasingly unlikely excuses for slow progress whenever your agent calls. Ensconcing myself in the library at St Herbert’s seemed like a smart idea at the time. Allegedly, it’s an oasis of peace, where nothing ever happens, the only disturbance an occasional snore from an adjoining table. But what happens the minute it becomes my second home? Orla Payne decides to make me her confidant, and next thing I know, all hell breaks loose.’

Hannah laughed. ‘You’re fated.’

‘My own fault.’

‘She must have found you sympathetic.’

‘Nosey, more like. I’ve never been able to get rid of this urge to find things out. Very useful in academe, but in the real world, sometimes it’s easier not to know. When I was a kid, Dad used to tell me I was too curious for my own good, and he was dead right.’

‘He usually was,’ she said.

‘I overheard him talking to Cheryl on the phone when he thought the house was empty, so I knew about his affair a week before he broke the news to Mum.’ He aimed a kick at a scrap of litter on the pavement. ‘Looking back, that may just have been the most agonising seven days of my entire life.’

‘I’m sorry, Daniel.’ Her hand brushed his. ‘It’s such a shame you never spent enough time together before he died. He was thrilled by your idea of history as detective work. It showed you were a chip off the old block, he said.’

‘Hardly. When Orla told me about her missing brother, and that she didn’t believe he was dead, I tried to winkle more information out of her. But she clammed up on me. It was obvious she was unhappy, but I didn’t know why.’

‘She never hinted at suicide?’

‘I keep asking myself if I should have spotted what was in her mind.’ His tone was as bleak as Blencathra in winter.

‘There were subtle clues, just as with Aimee. But I didn’t spot them.’

‘You did all you could, you told her to talk to me.’

‘Passing the buck, to be honest.’

‘It was the right advice. Don’t beat yourself up about it.’

‘Easier said than done, Hannah.’

‘Listen.’ She seized his arm, forcing him to stop in mid stride. ‘I spoke to her, so did my DC the day she died. She was drunk and depressed. We are supposed to be the professionals, and we couldn’t get any sense out of her. How do you help someone who won’t let you help? I’m sure you couldn’t have saved Aimee, and you’re certainly not to blame for what happened to Orla, OK?’

‘OK.’ They started to walk again. ‘You know, I could never make out whether she wished she’d kept her mouth shut, or whether she’d discovered something that changed the complexion of things.’

‘What do you think she might have discovered?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps it was all in her mind. She was seriously mixed up, and the booze didn’t help. The last couple of times I saw her, she reeked of it. The principal wasn’t happy, and one or two colleagues started to keep their distance.’

They had reached Hope Park. Hannah said, ‘Which colleagues?’

‘Sham Madsen, for one; she was never a fan of Orla’s. And a chap who worked with her, and took her out a time or two, started avoiding her. Or so she thought.’