Martin Edwards - The Cipher Garden

‘You fucking bitch,’ he said thickly.

The next thing she knew, his hands were around her throat.

A clammy night, too hot to sleep. Daniel sweated under the duvet, battling insomnia for hour after endless hour, Miranda’s smooth warm body nestling by his side. She was restless and every now and then, she murmured in her dreams, but he couldn’t make out the words. In the end, he eased himself noiselessly out of bed and tiptoed downstairs to find the histories of the Lake District that he’d bought from Marc Amos.

He poured himself a glass of water and settled on the living room sofa. He loved the smell and feel of old books. To hold them was to touch the past. Skimming the pages, he came across a handful of references to Brackdale amongst reams of stuff about better-known valleys like Borrowdale and Langdale. Skeldings had lived at Brack Hall for much of Victoria’s reign, it seemed, but there was nothing about the Quiller family. After an hour’s browsing, he found a mention of Tarn Fold in a small book with a splitting spine, published locally in 1935.

Tucked away beneath the fell is Tarn Fold, with its old corn mill and, surrounding the tarn itself, an old and melancholic private garden, mysterious and overgrown. For the visitor, the Fold is noteworthy for its proximity to the old coffin trail that wends from Brack Church up towards Priest Edge.

Not much to go on, but at least there was nothing new about the strangeness of the garden. He parted the curtains and was gazing out into the blackness when he heard a sound behind him. Louise was in the doorway, wearing a short red gown.

‘Too hot, isn’t it?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘What are you looking for out there?’

‘Wish I knew.’

She came into the room. ‘I’m sorry about this evening. I shouldn’t harp on about Dad.’

‘You still regard him as some sort of monster.’

‘You know how hurt Mum was after…’

‘Yes,’ he interrupted, not wanting to dredge up old quarrels.

She picked up the book. ‘What are you reading?’

Glad of the chance to change the subject, he joined her back on the sofa and started talking about the garden. ‘There’s a story to it, must be, and if the secret was old in the Thirties, I’d guess the explanation dates back to the Quillers. The odds are that the garden was scarcely touched after they died. How come Jacob and Alice died on the same day, supposedly of broken hearts? This paragraph hints that the secret was kept by later owners of the cottage. Like Mrs Gilpin, who lived here till she died? No-one attempted to give the garden a makeover. But why?’

‘Respect for the dead?’

‘Could be.’ He couldn’t help laughing at himself. ‘Here I go again. Digging into the past, searching for a puzzle to solve.’

‘I’m glad, Daniel. When you left Oxford so suddenly, I wondered if you’d had some sort of breakdown. After Aimee and…well, you know.’

‘And what do you think now?’

A sheepish grin. ‘Could be that we’re both finally coming to our senses.’

Kirsty huddled under the duvet after waking from a shallow sleep. Her neck was aching. She slid out of bed and inspected herself in the mirror. The mark was red and vivid. It was bound to bruise; she would have to wear a scarf or something to hide it. And hide her shame that her brother, of all people, should have done this to her.

She got back into bed and listened to Sam blundering around downstairs, banging cupboard doors in search of breakfast things. Sunlight filtered in through gaps in her bedroom curtains, but she buried her face in the pillow and waited for him to go. This house had been home to the family all her life, yet she’d never felt more alone.

How long had he kept squeezing her throat? Only for a few seconds, must have been, and yet it had seemed an eternity. Did he mean to kill her, simply in a flash of temper? Closing her eyes, she had waited for death. Strangely, she felt no fear. She was ready to embrace nothingness. To end life would at least end her despair.

Suddenly he’d released his grip. Perhaps he was more afraid than her. Perhaps he realised this, perhaps it made him hate her all the more.

‘You’re mad.’ To her horror, he’d made an effort to get the words out straight. Speaking from the heart. ‘Off your head, that’s you. Of course whoever wrote this shit got it right.’

‘What do you mean?’

She was croaking, it was impossible to recognise her own voice.

‘I hated his guts. I can’t tell you how glad I am that he’s dead.’

Studying the photographs from Warren Howe’s postmortem, Hannah felt bile rising in her gullet. The murderer had slashed Warren’s body a dozen times, tearing off strips of skin. The pathologist reported that the wounds suggested fury — or desperation — rather than physical might, but through luck or judgement the jugular vein had been ripped open. Warren hadn’t stood a chance.

Every time she had investigated a murder, she had forced herself to attend the autopsy and study the corpse with as much detachment as she could muster. The rage welling up inside her helped her to succeed; instead of surrendering to emotion, she channelled it into a fierce resolve to see the murderer brought to trial. Ben’s creed, that everyone deserved justice, had become hers. Nobody ought to die like that. It didn’t matter that, had she known Warren Howe alive, he would surely have made her flesh crawl.

Nick came in. The photographs spread out on her desk made him grimace.

‘Not a pretty sight. You’re in even earlier than usual.’

‘I wanted to finish reading the files. This morning I’m planning how to take the review forward.’

‘What would you like me to do?’

Hannah hadn’t been looking forward to this conversation. Best keep it low key. ‘You’re busy already. Isn’t your report on the Brock case due in a couple of days? And then you need to interview those people up in Cockermouth. As for Warren Howe, you’ve already given me plenty to chew on. I’ll take charge and Linz can do the legwork.’

‘Maggie Eyre can sort out Cockermouth. I know the Howe case. And the place. And the people.’

‘Yes.’ She sucked in a breath. There wasn’t an easy way to say this. ‘Too well, perhaps. You’re friends with the man whose garden the body was found in. You were a member of the original team whose work we’re looking at. We need to draw on your knowledge of the background, it’s a huge asset, but I don’t see you playing a front-line role in this review.’

‘I’m too close to it?’

‘Correct.’

He was biting his tongue, she could tell, wanting to argue, but knowing that a rant would get him nowhere. She would only be swayed by reason.

‘Didn’t we agree that the beauty of cold case review is that we can make up our own rules?’

‘Spot on.’ For all her worries about being sidelined, she relished the opportunity this job gave her to be a detective again. Not just a well-paid pen-pusher.

‘There you are, then. Failing to detect the murderer wasn’t just a defeat for Charlie, it was a defeat for all of us. Me included.’

‘My bet is, you’ll soon be sick of my pestering you for information.’

‘No more than that?’

‘It’s enough.’

He weighed up her expression, checking for any sign that she might be prepared to budge. ‘Very well, ma’am, if that’s the way you’d like to deal with it.’

He strode out of the room without another word. He only called her ma’am in private when he was deeply pissed off. Shit. What was it about Nick and this case? Something to do with Chris and Roz Gleave; she couldn’t imagine any other explanation. Whenever a personal relationship existed between a detective and a witness, tensions arose. She just prayed that while Chris was away, Nick hadn’t allowed his sympathy for Roz to spill over into something more intimate.