Martin Edwards - The Hanging Wood

‘Gareth Madsen?’

‘I am afraid you are correct. Ghastly even to think of it. In all candour, I do not care for Bryan Madsen, but nonetheless, it is a shocking business. Such a sordid betrayal.’

Daniel swallowed a mouthful of whisky. Glenmorangie, from the St Herbert’s cellar. It seemed sinful to sit here in the shabby comfort of Micah Bridge’s rooms, and savour its tang, while Hannah and her colleagues were striving to find the truth about the savage murder of Aslan Sheikh. And self-indulgent to want to satisfy his curiosity about the strange relationship between Fleur and Gareth Madsen. But it wasn’t prurience. He had the makings of a theory about Callum Hinds’ death, and the historian in him could not resist testing it against the evidence.

‘You told me before that you don’t know Bryan well, but did you come across him all those years ago, when you first came to St Herbert’s, around the time that Callum Hinds disappeared?’

The principal considered. ‘I think not. Of course, I was aware of him, given that he had married the daughter of Alfred Hopes of Mockbeggar Hall, and was the heir apparent to Joseph Madsen. My recollection is that he was incapacitated, following a road accident. He sustained very bad injuries, by all accounts, though obviously he lived to tell the tale.’

‘He told me he crashed his car not long before Callum went missing, hence his limp. Do you recall the circumstances?’

‘I’m afraid not. He was supposed to have been lucky to have escaped with his life, that’s about all I can remember. Presumably he was driving too fast and spun off the road.’ A wrinkling of the nose. ‘Gareth, of course, was once a racing driver, and I seem to recollect some rather distasteful gallows humour to the effect that Bryan was trying to emulate his younger brother. I’m sorry I cannot be of more assistance.’

‘Please don’t apologise, Micah,’ Daniel said. ‘You have helped, more than you can know.’

‘He might be anywhere,’ Mario said.

A burly young DC was easing their car through queuing traffic on the way out of Keswick. His hands, resting on the steering wheel, were the size of coal shovels. He was a broken-nosed rugby player, sixteen stone of muscle, and his nickname was the ‘Brick Shithouse’, but nobody was silly enough to call him that to his face. Handy man to have around if things turned nasty.

They were heading for Lane End Farm. Hannah’s idea. Mario still wasn’t convinced, but he was struggling to make decisions. And someone needed to make a decision. Ben Kind used to say that you never regret what you do in life half as much as the things you don’t do.

‘Gareth won’t make a run for it.’ Her voice was calmness itself, despite the blood pounding in her temples. ‘Take it from me, that isn’t his style. He may never have made it to Formula One, but you need nerve to race fast cars. He’s a daredevil, a risk-taker. A fighter, not a quitter.’

‘But why would he go to Lane End?’

‘My guess is, he wants to stage a confrontation with Hinds.’

Mario swore. ‘I should have left an officer stationed at the farm. But the staff cuts …’

‘Don’t beat yourself up, it would make no difference. Gareth knows all the short cuts and ways in from the site of the holiday park to the farm. How else did he manage to keep Orla under surveillance before she jumped into the grain?’

In the quiet of the car, the back-and-forth thrashing of the windscreen wipers sounded unnaturally loud. Pools were forming on the road surface, and the downpour had slowed the cars to a crawl. The DC revved his engine and rapped on his horn, before squeezing the car past a rusty Fiat full of pensioners out on a shopping trip. Wrinkled faces stared out through the misty windows in dismay, as if they feared being pulled over and arrested for tiresome driving.

‘You still think Orla jumped?’

‘Maybe Gareth pushed her, maybe after their conversation that morning, he just wanted to keep an eye on her to make sure she did get out of his hair by committing suicide.’

‘Bastard.’

Hannah was breathing hard. Trying not to imagine what a man like Gareth Madsen might do if he became desperate.

‘Yes.’

So Fleur and Gareth were lovers. How long had that been going on? Daniel sat in the deserted restaurant of St Herbert’s, wearing an old T-shirt and jeans borrowed from Jonquil’s brother, who worked in the kitchen, and savoured the peppermint taste of a slab of mint cake. He needed energy after the ordeal of the storm, and hadn’t Hillary and Tenzing famously consumed Kendal mint cake on top of Everest, celebrating their conquest?

Micah Bridge said he’d heard gossip that, as a teenager, Fleur dallied with Gareth before teaming up with his elder brother. The switch made perfect sense from her point of view. Gareth was the charismatic one, but Bryan was destined to inherit a controlling interest in the caravan park and was a rising star in local politics. Fleur had her head screwed on. The Hopes family might have squandered a fortune, but she was determined not to give up the good life or allow Mockbeggar Hall to fall into the hands of creditors. Presumably, she and Gareth had reached an understanding. They could have their cake and eat it. Everyone would be happy. Now and then Fleur would flirt with a much younger man like Daniel or Aslan, simply to cover her tracks.

But where to have their fun? There wasn’t much privacy around a caravan park, and a hotel room might seem a bit tacky for the lady of the manor. The tumbledown cottage tucked away in the middle of the Hanging Wood offered an ideal solution. What it lacked in luxury, it more than made up for with back-to-nature atmosphere. Gareth could shift poor Philip Hinds out of the way whenever he wanted, by giving him a string of time-consuming menial tasks, and they’d have the place to themselves. Everyone gave the Hanging Wood a wide berth, what could possibly go wrong?

A sly inquisitive boy called Callum Hinds, that was what went wrong.

Daniel took a gulp of spring water. The way he pictured it, Callum turned up at the cottage one day and spied on Gareth and Fleur in flagrante. So much more exciting than ogling a teenager in a bikini. Full-on sex between two of the most important people in the neighbourhood — shockhorror stuff! No wonder Orla saw he was excited just before he disappeared. He’d have hugged his secret to himself, relishing the taste of power. Two grown-up lives in the palm of his hand.

Or perhaps he’d simply eavesdropped, and heard the couple talking. It wouldn’t take much to figure out they were having an affair. And what if they’d discussed some other guilty secret that they shared?

The rain hammered at the windows, frantic as a convict on the run, desperate to be let in to a place of sanctuary. Daniel digested the last morsel of mint cake. He could make a pretty good stab as to what that other guilty secret might be.

From the lane, the farm appeared to be at peace. The rain had relented, but there wasn’t a glint of light in the sky and Hannah supposed that this was just a lull before another storm. The tractors and muck spreaders were motionless, there wasn’t a soul in sight. Presumably Zygmunt’s colleagues had jacked in their jobs as well. A silent earthquake was ripping apart Mike Hinds’ world.

‘Ready?’ Mario asked.

Was Gareth Madsen here, and how would Hinds respond to their arrival? Only one way to find out. She yanked her hood up over her head as she scrambled out of the car. Above the drumbeat of the rain, she heard in the distance the mournful bleating of neglected calves.

Mario, a couple of strides ahead of her and the DC, stopped in his tracks.

‘What’s that?’

Yes, there was something else. Hannah strained her ears.