Martin Edwards: The Cipher Garden

The shrilling phone shattered the peace. Hannah?

They hadn’t spoken for weeks, but he couldn’t scrub her out of his mind. A couple of days ago, he’d rung her mobile and left a message on her voicemail. She hadn’t called back. Of course, he didn’t want anything to happen between them, any more than she did. They both had partners, it was out of the question. But she’d worked with his father, they could talk about the old man over coffee, maybe a glass of wine.

He ploughed through foliage, his aching back forgotten. Following the paths was too roundabout a route. Seconds before he reached the phone, the answering machine started up.

Miranda’s soft voice knocked the breath out of him. She never rang when she was on her way back from London. He felt a twinge in his stomach. Disappointment? Couldn’t be. Miranda was the one he loved.

The train’s stuck in Crewe station, would you credit it? The guard says we may be stuck for a couple of hours, God knows why. I’m waiting for the excuses. Wrong kind of sunshine, something like that. Hope you’re OK. Why aren’t you answering? Don’t tell me you’re working in the garden. I bet it’s pouring down, I never knew a place like Brackdale for rain.

He wanted to protest, but when he glanced through the window he saw squiggles of damp spreading over the paving stones.

Not quite Paradise after all, then.

‘You want the good news or the bad news?’ Hannah Scarlett asked.

Nick Lowther went through a pantomime of deliberation as he stirred the coffee in its recycled paper cup. Not a bad actor, Hannah thought. A useful talent in a detective sergeant.

‘You know how I feel about the power of positive thinking,’ he announced. ‘Go on, then. Give me the bad news.’

The police canteen was filling up and so were the members of Cumbria Constabulary. In a campaign to prevent their officers’ arteries furring, the senior management team had insisted that the catering franchisee should wipe the Big All Day Breakfast off the menu during summer. The main difference was that the air was thick not with the smell of Cumberland sausages but the aroma of giant pickled onions from Hungry Ploughman’s Platters.

Hannah scowled at the briefing notes on her clipboard. ‘Half the general public doesn’t have confidence in the police. Which may be connected to the fact that we spend half our time on paperwork in the office instead of tedious front-line duties like catching criminals.’

‘Only half the time? Feels like more. And the good news?’

‘Cumbria Constabulary has clawed its way to the top of the Home Office’s performance league table.’

Nick pretended to choke on his chocolate muffin. The campaign to promote organic eating options had passed him by. He still preferred calorie-laden junk food that resembled an exhibit in a long ago poisoning case. Infuriating that he never seemed to carry a surplus pound.

‘You forget, I’m a Carlisle United supporter. So naturally I have a deep distrust of league tables.’

She slid a sheet of paper across the table. The diagram looked like the work of a statistician on an acid trip. A red-edged, irregular hexagon with a blue shaded area inside and black arrows flying around in wild confusion.

‘Don’t just take my word. Here’s the official spidergram to prove it. Only those Celtic super-sleuths in Dyfed-Powys performed better, if the police standards unit are to be believed.’

‘So Lauren’s cracking open the champagne?’

‘When she called us in to announce the glad tidings, she actually said that we mustn’t be triumphalist when we brief our teams.’

‘That’s like being told to stand up straight by the Hunchback of Notre Dame.’ He swallowed a mouthful of coffee and pulled a face. ‘Thought I’d try the new Guatemalan roast. Give me Tesco’s own brand any day.’

Hannah stifled a yawn. Not through boredom, for Nick never bored her, although she’d needed to fight to keep her eyes open during Lauren’s spiel. Maybe she should have risked a black coffee before seeing the Assistant Chief Constable. The bitter taste on your tongue was enough to make you retch, but it kept you alert. Another poor night’s sleep was taking a toll. At four a.m. she’d been lying in bed, trying to shut her ears to the boom of Marc’s snoring.

‘Yeah, our performance in the exotic hot drinks table was a big disappointment to Lauren.’

Nick grinned. The ACC was engaged in a passionate long-term love affair with official statistics. Data in bar charts and seminars on monitoring, these were a few of Lauren’s favourite things. Who needed handcuffs or DNA samples when they had key performance indicators? Once upon a time, the powers-that-be liked to boast that they were tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. These days they preferred to drive up standards through quality assessments and eye-catching initiatives. Lauren was a relentless moderniser, an evangelist for joined-up thinking and institutionalised number-crunching. In today’s police service, everyone was encouraged to remain permanently upbeat. Figures offered crumbs for the morale of hapless underachievers. Things could only get better. If detection rates fell, citizen focus might swing upwards. Solving fewer crimes could be explained away as a statistical quirk or due to more rigorous selection of cases for prosecution.

‘So the Cold Case Review Team lives to fight another day?’

‘She’s negotiating an extended stream of funding. As you know, what the ACC wants, the ACC gets.’

Nick leaned over the table, voice barely audible above the raucous banter between a couple of vice cops queuing at the counter and the cheeky girls behind it. ‘If my legendary powers of deduction aren’t waning, you’re not overwhelmed with gratitude.’

Hannah shrugged. ‘Would I lie to you? This project’s a backwater, we all realise that. Somewhere convenient to park me ever since I messed up the Rao trial. Out of harm’s way.’

‘Relax. You’re too hard on yourself. Heading up the unit will look good on your CV.’

‘You’re confusing me with Lauren.’ To her dismay, her face was hot with blushing. ‘I couldn’t care less about my CV.’

‘You all right?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine. Knackered, but fine. Sorry.’

‘Only…if you aren’t fine, you can tell me. OK?’

‘Thanks for the offer,’ she said. ‘Not that I expect to take you up on it. A good night’s rest is all I need. I shouldn’t moan. We have some good people in the team and we’ve had a couple of results. I don’t deny it, it can be fascinating to exhume the past.’

‘But?’

‘But it’s not forever. I want time off for good behaviour.’

The canteen door swung open and Lindsey Waller loped in. She was skilled at making an entrance and for a moment the aisle between the tables became a catwalk. Everyone’s eyes followed her swinging hips, especially the vice cops’. Accustomed to admiration, she took no notice. She’d have been unbearable, if she hadn’t been so down to earth and such good company.

‘Ma’am, you’ll want to see this.’ She was clutching a sheet in a protective plastic wallet. ‘We’ve had a tip-off about a murder that was never solved. Ever heard of a man called Warren Howe?’

Nick sat up. ‘Warren Howe was a landscape gardener, lived out by Esthwaite Water. I worked on the investigation. What sort of tip-off?’

Linz waved the sheet as if signalling by semaphore. ‘Someone’s given us the name of a suspect.’

‘Who?’ Nick demanded.

Hannah stared at him, struck by his uncharacteristic intensity.

‘His wife.’

‘Tina?’

‘Yes, Tina Howe.’

He leaned back in his chair, the metal legs scraping on the floor tiles with a screech that set Hannah’s teeth on edge. She watched as he weighed up the news.