Martin Edwards: The Hanging Wood

‘They?’

‘I told your colleague, Stacey, he took her into one of the old caravans by the new road. Half a dozen of them are empty, they are waiting to be refurbished, I think. I supposed he just wanted a word in private with her. He put an arm round her shoulder, as if he was trying to calm her down.’

‘Did you recognise him?’

‘Of course I did, I’ve already explained. It was Mr Madsen.’

‘Which Mr Madsen?’ Mario asked.

Hannah held her breath.

‘Why, Gareth, of course. He’s the one you see around the park, he’s much more hands-on than Bryan.’ The woman paused. ‘Don’t take that the wrong way. I’m sure there was no funny business going on with the girl. He was just trying to comfort her, that’s how it looked.’

‘Did you hear what they were talking about?’

‘Not a word.’ She sounded virtuous. ‘I kept my distance.’

Mario exchanged a look of frustration with Hannah. ‘Of course, Mrs Birt. I’ll hand you back to my colleague now, if you don’t mind, so we can take one or two details, just in case we need to speak to you again. Thank you so much, it’s so good of you to take the trouble to call.’

‘I hope it helps.’ Mrs Birt was pleased with herself. ‘And don’t worry about the fact I didn’t hear anything. You can always ask Gareth, can’t you?’

‘We certainly can,’ Mario said.

He transferred her back to Stacey, and clenched his fist in triumph.

‘Gareth will need a brilliant line in chat to wriggle out of this. He never mentioned talking to Orla on the day she died. If he followed her to the farm …’

Hannah swivelled on her chair. ‘Say Orla challenged him about Callum’s death, and whether he was responsible. He might have threatened her — or simply laughed in disbelief. Either way, it was an unequal contest, a young woman with a history of mental health problems up against a rich and powerful businessman.’

‘Yeah, she could never prove anything, not after twenty years, even if Callum’s remains were dug up from the pet cemetery at Mockbeggar Hall.’

‘The chances of forensic evidence establishing who was responsible for putting him there are close to nil. If that conversation left her in despair, she might have been ready to end it all. Her brother was never coming back, and she’d made a deadly enemy of the man who employed her stepfather.’

Mario nodded. ‘Time to give Gareth a ring?’

He lifted his phone and called the holiday park. Impatiently negotiating the automated answering service, he demanded to be put through to Gareth Madsen the moment he made it as far as a human being. He got no further than Gareth’s PA. Hannah saw him wince at her response as he banged down the receiver.

‘Shit, shit, shit.’

‘What’s up?’

‘He left ten minutes ago, and didn’t say where he was going.’ Mario snapped his fingers. ‘We just missed him.’

‘You could have caught your death,’ the principal said.

Daniel was ensconced in one of Micah Bridge’s armchairs, clad in an ancient and moth-eaten dressing gown that must have represented a fashion crime even in the 1970s. The rich smell of Turkish coffee filled his nostrils, the taste of it lingered on his tongue. While he’d recovered from his drenching in a hot bath, the principal had asked one of the staff who doted on him to set about the task of drying the sodden clothes. Thank God St Herbert’s was equipped for emergencies. A tumbler containing an inch of whisky squatted at his feet.

Racing back from the Mockbeggar Estate had felt like something out of a low-budget horror movie. Even by Lake District standards, the storm had been hellish. A falling branch missed fracturing his skull by inches, and although he managed not to be struck by lightning, the rain whipped him with a sadist’s glee. As he squirmed around the holly hedge boundary, he tripped and fell into the stream. Scratched and bruised, he picked himself up and struggled on in the face of wind and rain, but the wildness of the weather drove out of his mind all thoughts of Mike Hinds and his dead children.

Only as he relaxed in the steamy bathroom did he contemplate an alternative scenario to the one Fleur had conjured up. An explanation fitting all the facts, not merely those that suited her. When he finally clambered out of the vast old claw-footed bath, he wiped away the mist from the mirror, and saw the beginnings of a smile on his face. His mind was clearing, too.

‘Fleur showed me her office upstairs. I never realised there was a bedroom attached. Not that she needs it, of course, living so close by.’

‘She does not need to sleep here, that is true.’

As with a lawyer or a politician, it was what Micah Bridge didn’t say that counted for more than what he did say.

‘But she did use the bedroom?’

The principal’s face turned traffic-light red. He folded his arms, as if to repel further interrogation. ‘I can say no more.’

‘Hey, Micah, we’re both grown men. Don’t fret about telling tales out of school.’

‘This is a most delicate business.’ The older man hesitated.

‘We are speaking in the strictest confidence?’

‘You have my word.’

‘Very well.’ The principal lowered his voice, as though the walls had ears. And in St Herbert’s, of course, they did. If Orla hadn’t eavesdropped, she and Aslan might still be alive. ‘This morning I was provided with certain rather distressing … intelligence.’

‘About Fleur?’

A nod. ‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Who told you?’

The principal looked over his shoulder, as if checking for eavesdroppers. ‘The librarian. She came to me in a state of considerable anguish, having kept her own counsel for some little time. But after the two deaths, and the unpleasantness of press intrusion, she felt I had to know. She fears for the very future of St Herbert’s if we fall prey to scandal.’

‘What scandal?’

‘It involves muffled cries coming from the chair of trustees’ room — her bedroom, the librarian thought. Sounds of a … shall we say … unequivocal nature.’

Daniel gripped both arms of his chair. ‘She overheard Fleur having sex with someone?’

The principal’s Adam’s apple bobbed in distress. He might have been a bishop, contemplating the desecration of a cathedral by heretics. As for Daniel, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

‘The librarian was passing along the first-floor corridor one evening. It’s a quiet area, hence her amazement at what she heard. Naturally, I questioned whether Fleur Madsen might simply have been exercising vigorously on her own, or something of the sort.’ Daniel fought the urge to giggle. ‘I have to say that the librarian was adamant. The chair was up to no good of a very particular kind.’

‘She couldn’t have been mistaken?’

‘Daniel, the librarian may be sixty-three and rather … um … rotund. But she was married once, long ago, and I believe she now has a … shall we call it an understanding … with a gentleman who keeps pigeons in Maryport. I can assure you, she is by no means as unworldly as she may seem.’

Daniel tried not to be distracted by images of the librarian disporting herself in a remote pigeon loft. ‘Any idea who her companion was?’

‘No doubt whatsoever about his identity, Daniel. The librarian happened to see him leaving the first floor a few minutes after the … um … sounds died down.’

Daniel pictured her lurking within eyeshot of Fleur’s door, holding her breath, flabby jowls trembling with a mixture of outrage and glee. The principal lowered his gaze.

‘He wore a cheery smile, needless to say. And the librarian noticed that his shirt was carelessly buttoned.’ The principal’s frown lines deepened. ‘He has a reputation as something of a ladies’ man, but even so — fornicating with his own brother’s wife!’