Martin Edwards - The Cipher Garden

He liked to compare the work of historians and detectives. She was reluctant to be convinced, but his arguments defied easy contradiction. Ben might not have been an academic, but he had had a sharp mind and was more down to earth than his son. To abandon fame and fortune to get away from it all — even in the Lakes — was daring. Reckless. She could never do what he had done. Yet she couldn’t help admiring his nerve in walking away from fame and money, to make a new life with the woman he loved.

At least, she supposed he loved his partner. When they’d last talked, he’d hinted that Miranda was having second thoughts about the move. If he felt let down, he hadn’t said so. She was sure he would be loyal, just like his father. Even though Ben, in an aberration, had left his wife and kids to move up here with Cheryl. Something else the Kinds had in common. On occasion, they acted out of character and surrendered to a wild impulse that changed their lives.

Frightening. Yet fascinating.

The Shroud, officially The Woollen Shroud, was a rambling free house set back from the road out of Kendal. The pub, like the name, dated back centuries, to the days when in an attempt to combat an industrial slump, the authorities forbade people to bury their dead in anything that wasn’t made of wool. To this day the Shroud retained a graveyard atmosphere, if graveyards ever smell of stale beer. But the bar boasted a series of secluded alcoves in which you could conduct a conversation with a degree of privacy seldom found outside the confessional, plus an ill-lit passageway leading to a discreet way out at the back of the building. Ideal for a quiet word with a publicity-shy informer, or a chat between colleagues away from the madding and insatiably curious crowd at police HQ.

Nursing his glass of Guinness, Nick said, ‘What do you want to know about Chris Gleave?’

Hannah took a sip of traditional-recipe lemonade and said, ‘What is there to know?’

‘Not a lot, if you’re looking for a suspect. He had an alibi.’

‘A surfeit of those in this case, don’t you think? Tina, Sam, Kirsty. Roz Gleave. And now her husband Chris?’

‘Yeah, discouraging.’

‘Alibis are made to be broken.’

‘Charlie never cracked them.’

‘That tells us more about Charlie than the strength of the alibis.’

‘If I had to name one man who truly would never hurt a fly, it would be Chris Gleave.’

‘They used to say Crippen was meek and he still got up the nerve to chop his wife into bits and bury them in the cellar.’

‘Even so, he was a sawbones. All Chris cared about was music. He wrote songs and played guitar. Sort of a Cumbrian answer to Paul Simon.’

Succumbing to temptation, Hannah said, ‘Don’t tell me — ‘Bridge Over Troubled Esthwaite Water’?’

Nick groaned. ‘Your jokes don’t get better. With respect. Anyway, when we were in our teens, we lived a couple of roads apart in Ambleside. We had things in common, though the Gleaves’ house was twice the size of ours. His father was an estate agent, his mum a lady who lunched. Sometimes the two of us would walk to school together. As a kid, bullies pushed him around, but by the time he was sixteen, he was able to enjoy the perfect revenge, because most of the girls were swooning after him. A very good-looking lad. I was jealous as hell, but the fact he never showed off made his company bearable. When he went off to Manchester to study music, I missed him.’

‘You said you kept in touch.’

‘Yes, though we went our separate ways and scarcely saw each other. His grandmother lived at Keepsake Cottage. He was her only grandchild and she doted on him, just as his mum did. When Grandma died, she left the house to him. At the funeral, he met Roz Gleave. Within a couple of months they were married. I was invited to the wedding. Despite all that female admiration, it was his first serious relationship with a girl. Roz is someone who knows what she wants and makes sure she gets it. She wanted Chris, so that was that. After a few glasses of champagne, I joked that he couldn’t have had much say in the matter. But he made it clear he was head over heels.’

‘You said he had a breakdown. When?’

‘Three weeks or so before Warren Howe was murdered, Roz called me. She was in a wretched state. Chris had disappeared a few days earlier. She thought he was suffering some sort of psychological collapse. I was one of the first people to hear about it. She and I barely knew each other, but because I was in the police, she thought I might be able to help.’

‘And did you?’

‘As best I could. Which meant hardly at all. He left home one morning and never came back. To begin with, she wasn’t worried. They didn’t live in each other’s pockets and it wasn’t unusual for him to disappear every now and then. She put it down to the artistic temperament, whatever that was supposed to mean. Only when he didn’t get in touch after twenty four hours did she start to worry, make a few calls to friends. By the time she spoke to me, panic had set in.’

‘No hint as to why he might have upped and left?’

‘They didn’t have financial worries. Chris didn’t make a fortune from his music, but there was enough family money to make an impoverished sergeant’s eyes water. Roz’s business was thriving and they didn’t live extravagantly. There was no suggestion of strife between them. According to Roz, they never quarrelled.’

‘Never? What could be more suspicious than that?’

He grinned. ‘I’m sure you and Marc never quarrel.’

Hannah refused to be distracted. ‘I know you said he was a sweet guy and all that, but do me a favour.’

‘Actually, I found it easy enough to believe her. Chris wasn’t one for confrontation. If he found himself in…an impossible situation…he wouldn’t want to tough it out. He hated any sort of strife, he’d sooner make himself scarce.’

‘Did he have a lady friend on the side that Roz wasn’t aware of?’

Nick wiped a trace of froth from his mouth. ‘I’m sure he didn’t. And before you ask, there was no suggestion his disappearance was involuntary. I could only assume that Roz was on the right lines. Chris’s temperament was always fragile. A small independent label had brought out a CD of his music a few months earlier and he’d had high hopes of it. But there were distribution problems and it sank without trace. He’d been a bit quiet about that and Roz thought maybe he was more depressed than he’d admitted to her. Or to their GP. He wasn’t taking tranquillisers or anything.’

‘Suicidal tendencies?’

‘No history of attempts at self-harm and I’d never known him give any hint that he might want to take his own life. But people who kill themselves don’t always give any advance warning.’

‘No suggestion someone might have wanted to kill him? Bearing in mind what the ACPO manual says?’

‘“Every missing person report has the potential to become a homicide investigation”.’ He was quoting from guidelines issued by the crime committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers. The Murder Investigation Manual was the closest that serious crime squads had to a Bible, but even the Bible didn’t tell you everything. ‘Sure, but there wasn’t a shred of evidence to suggest foul play. He was a likeable man. Still is.’

‘So you couldn’t help?’

He spread his arms. ‘What could I do? There was no role for the police, nothing to suggest that he was a victim of crime. It’s a free country, people can come and go as they please, however much distress they leave behind. All she could do was wait — and hope.’

‘And then…Warren Howe was killed.’

‘No connection.’