Martin Edwards - The Cipher Garden

‘You’re sure?’

‘Positive.’

‘Howe knew your pal?’

‘Through Roz, yes. She’d grown up in Old Sawrey and her married home wasn’t far away. Her best friend Bel Jenner had a fling with Warren as a teenager, then Roz had a turn. Long in the past, and all three of them had married other people. For good measure, Warren was having it away with Gail Flint. Roz’s only interest in the man was as a gardener, I’m sure of that. The cottage grounds were a mess, the old lady had let them become over-run with weeds and nettles and neither Chris nor Roz had green fingers. They liked the idea of a wild garden, but even a wild garden needs to be planned. So they signed up Flint Howe to do the job.’

‘No evidence of any hostility between Warren Howe and Chris Gleave?’

‘Nothing. The only connection was Roz.’

‘Tight-knit community, huh?’

‘They don’t come tighter.’

Hannah pointed at the empty beer glass and Nick nodded. One compensation of the Shroud’s lack of popularity was that it didn’t take an age to be served and she was back with fresh drinks inside a couple of minutes.

‘When did Chris Gleave reappear on the scene?’

‘A month after the murder. He called on his mobile and then minutes later showed up on the doorstep of Keepsake Cottage begging Roz to take him back in. Which she did.’

‘No hesitation?’

‘If she was in two minds, I never got to hear about it.’

‘What was his story?’

Nick indulged in a little crude origami with the beer mat, as if in aid to thought. The Stygian gloom made it hard to read his expression, but Hannah thought he was wondering how much to reveal.

He took in a lungful of musty air and said, ‘Basically, he’d lost the plot. The failure of the CD hit him much harder than anyone realised. Harder even than he realised. He felt overwhelmed, his life was spinning out of control, he just needed to get away from it all for a while. Long story short, he ended up down in London, busking on the Northern Line.’

Hannah made a face. On her rare trips to the capital, she’d found the Underground noisy, smelly and claustrophobic. It must have been a severe breakdown for Chris Gleave to be tempted to exchange the serenity of Keepsake Cottage for the subterranean murk of the Tube.

‘Takes all sorts, I guess. What brought him back to his senses?’

Nick shrugged. ‘His story was that when he managed to straighten out his thinking, he realised he belonged in the Lakes. With Roz. A sad story, but they managed to conjure up a happy ending.’

‘Unlike Warren and Tina Howe. Presumably Chris Gleave was questioned about the murder?’

‘As soon as he resurfaced. Not by me, of course. I’d declared that Roz and Chris were known to me, but Charlie was happy to keep me on the team. Obviously I took no part in interviewing the Gleaves. As suspects they were a long shot, but by that stage we were desperate. We were all acutely conscious that the best chance of picking up a murderer is within twenty-four hours of the crime being committed. After a month had passed, we were clutching at straws.’

‘And the alibi?’

‘Four hours after Warren Howe was scythed to death at Keepsake Cottage, a Good Samaritan hauled Chris Gleave out of the gutter in a side street near Leicester Square and called an ambulance to take him to Casualty. He’d been mugged and had his wallet stolen by a couple of teenage thugs.’

‘What sort of an alibi is that? Four hours might have been long enough for him to do the deed in Cumbria and get back to London.’

‘The train times didn’t fit and he’s never learned to drive.’

‘There are other means of travel. He could have made a secret journey, killed Warren Howe and then hotfooted it back to the city, with everyone none the wiser. Who’s to say that the breakdown wasn’t a part of the plot? A very convenient way of removing him from the scene at the vital moment.’

‘Even Charlie had to rule out push-bikes and making a getaway by hot-air balloon. Logistically, it didn’t make sense that Chris was the killer. Quite apart from the absence of any apparent motive.’

‘Perhaps Charlie should have dug deeper.’

‘For all his faults, Charlie did at least understand that when you’re in a hole, the first rule is to stop digging. We didn’t have an infinite budget. Whichever way we turned, we ran into a blank wall. Trouble is, some cases just aren’t meant to be solved.’

‘All cases are meant to be solved.’

He drained his glass. ‘I’m not holding my breath.’

Would Louise and Miranda hit it off together? Daniel had been full of foreboding. Tact wasn’t his sister’s strong point and Miranda’s moods changed like the weather. They could hardly be more different: the sceptical academic lawyer and the free spirit. But they were making an effort. Louise had changed into a svelte new frock and he guessed she’d dropped a dress size since he’d last seen her, with the odious Rodney in tow. She said all the right things about the cottage, while Miranda rhapsodised about his sister’s taste in fashion before starting to pump her for embarrassing anecdotes from his childhood. He was content to be the butt of their humour until it was time to sidle off to the kitchen to cook dinner for three.

Later, as they relaxed in the living room, Miranda mentioned Barrie Gilpin and Daniel found himself having to explain the part he’d played in one of Hannah Scarlett’s cases, the murder of the woman found on the Sacrifice Stone.

‘As a boy, he could never resist a mystery,’ Louise told Miranda. ‘That’s why he loves unravelling the past. So this police officer was Dad’s old sidekick? Or more than that? Was there something between them?’

‘She isn’t like that.’ Before he could stop himself, he added, ‘Neither was he.’

Louise’s eyebrows arched. ‘Surely you haven’t forgotten, he had form. Look at the way he left us in the lurch for a young woman on the make.’

Miranda saw his brow clouding and quickly changed the subject to the tribulations of dealing with tradesmen. But the mellow mood had been spoiled and he finished his drink in silence. The slur angered him. He was angry for his father, even more so for Hannah.

‘A good haul?’ Hannah asked.

‘Fantastic.’ Marc was sitting cross-legged on the rug in the dining room, marooned in a sea of old books. ‘The chap was a connoisseur. I mean, there he was living in this ordinary semi in Ravenglass and up in the spare bedroom he’d assembled this treasure trove. His sister couldn’t care less, she had no idea of what he’d collected over the years.’

‘I hope you paid a fair price.’

‘Of course.’ He was all injured innocence. ‘You know me.’

Well, yes. When it came to business, he was like every dealer she’d met. Books, antiques, whatever, they were all the same, they took as much pleasure from contriving a little extra profit on the negotiation than from contemplating the rarities they’d bought.

She joined him on the rug and picked up a couple of thin books in gaudy wrappers. She liked to take an interest in his business, just as she was happy to talk when he asked about her latest case. With police work, some things had to remain confidential, but her instinct was to be open. There were too many secrets in the world. He’d kept one or two himself, not least the affair with Leigh’s sister that he’d briefly resumed years back, in the early days of their own relationship.

‘You’re like a pig in muck this evening.’

He beamed. ‘I know you worry about this idea of murder for pleasure, but there’s wonderful escapism here. Red harvest, green for danger, five red herrings, nine tailors, murder in Mesopotamia and on the Orient Express. See these Inspector French books? Written by a railway engineer whose culprits concocted alibis based on the assumption that trains ran precisely to timetable.’