Martin Edwards - The Cipher Garden

The front door banged. Louise’s voice floated up the stairs. ‘I’m back!’

Oliver, she needed to be with Oliver. If only they could spend long enough together, he would come to understand her better, appreciate that she was ready to give him anything he could ever want. Not money, obviously, she couldn’t match Bel on that score. But cash in the bank couldn’t compete with a burning desire.

After the disastrous encounter with her mother and her boyfriend, Kirsty hurried straight home. Back at the house, she ran upstairs and stepped under a cold shower. The icy water was a sweet torment, a means of washing away the grubbiness of her family, of her life.

She changed into a purple top with a high neck and set off again for the restaurant. Her long strides took her past a group of middle-aged men in expensive hiking gear. A small bloke with a film of sweat on his brow gave her breasts a lingering look, a man with a serious beer belly whistled at her. It said something about the mess of her life that it was the nicest thing that had happened all day.

As she entered the restaurant car park, she spotted the two Croatian girls, little and large like cartoon characters, loitering near the side door. They were having a quick smoke before getting ready for dinner. Veselka waved. She put on a smile and waved back, thinking: it’s your lungs you’re ruining. Why didn’t people look after their health better? If they didn’t watch out they’d finish up in a cancer ward. Sam was even worse; it was as if he had a death wish.

The kitchen windows were open. Kirsty had developed a habit of skirting along the front of the building and past the windows on her way in to the restaurant. Sometimes she heard Oliver and Bel having a private conversation, nothing to do with problems at the wholesalers’ or the best place to buy strawberries this summer. It was fascinating to listen to people talk when they didn’t know you were there. All the more so when one was the man you yearned for. She might have been a forensic scientist, peering through a microscope for hints of disharmony. Oliver always seemed crazy about her, it had to be a sham. He was trapped like a fly on sticky paper. The relationship with Bel was going nowhere, had nowhere to go.

She trembled at the sound of his voice. A week ago, Veselka had caught her eavesdropping on him in the dining room and given her a mocking smirk, as if to say: You haven’t a hope . Jealous bitch, just because no matter how high she hitched her little black skirt, Oliver paid no attention.

Kirsty hesitated. Just my luck if Veselka comes out from round the side of the building right now, she thought. But she had to chance it. The opportunity to eavesdrop was irresistible.

‘A chief inspector?’ Oliver sounded awestruck.

‘A woman, too. Roz was saying, you know you’re getting older when even the chief inspectors are young and attractive. She said this one was friendly enough, but single-minded. Not easy to fob off.’

‘Why would Roz want to fob her off?’

‘Darling, who wants to be reminded of a murder?’

Kirsty flinched. The casual intimacy of that darling was like being soaked with a wet sponge.

‘Besides, it was a thousand times worse for Roz. It was a low point in her life, what with Chris going missing as well. You can’t expect her to enjoy being questioned again by the police after all this time. Just because she found the body.’

The body . Kirsty’s head swam. Her knees felt as though they were about to buckle. They were discussing her father. She clutched at the window sill, desperate not to lose her balance.

‘Why would they send out someone so senior?’

‘She’s in charge of investigating cold cases, sweetie. Roz said she recognised her from an interview on regional television a while back. They look into old crimes.’

‘Why Warren’s murder in particular?’

‘Look at it from their point of view. No one arrested or charged, let alone brought to trial. It was a failure, a black mark. Can you remember people being grief-stricken when he died? The police probably took it worse than anyone else.’

I always knew you were heartless . This wasn’t just about Bel’s insensitivity. First the letters, now a detective asking questions. What was happening in Old Sawrey, why was the past coming back to haunt everyone?

‘They must have received some new information.’

‘Forensic stuff, maybe, it’s all the rage these days.’

‘I can’t believe that. Not after all this time. Remember, he was found out in the open air after a downpour. What sort of forensic evidence would be left?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Roz tried to worm the details out of the Chief Inspector. But she was keeping her cards close to her chest.’

‘So what did she want to find out?’

‘Anything and everything. She even gave Chris the third degree when he turned up.’

‘But he wasn’t even around when Warren was killed.’

‘Exactly what Roz said!’

‘Sounds as though they don’t have any idea.’

‘We’ll be able to judge for ourselves soon, darling. Roz says the police are going to talk to everyone who knew Warren.’

‘Christ. Does Kirsty know?’

‘It might explain why she was looking so awful at lunchtime. I thought she was sickening for something.’

‘I’m sure she’s fine, it’s only…’

As Kirsty craned her neck to listen, Veselka appeared from round the side of the restaurant. Her round face was split by a grin of triumph. Making her look, Kirsty thought, like some kind of manic ventriloquist’s doll. With a gap between her front teeth as wide as the Kirkstone Pass. No wonder Oliver never gave her a second glance.

‘Everything OK, Kirsty?’ Her English was good, although the accent was hard work and she’d developed an irritating habit of making every sentence, however mundane, sound like a question. ‘You don’t look so happy?’

‘I’m fine, thanks.’

‘That’s good?’ Veselka giggled and blew a smoke ring into the soft summer air. ‘I was worried about you today? Wondering if you might have — what would you say, boyfriend trouble?’

‘So you didn’t know that Peter Flint and his partner’s widow were in a relationship?’

Nick Lowther shook his head. ‘News to me.’

It was half six and they’d bumped into each other in the car park behind the police station. Hannah fiddled with her keys, wondering how much to tell him, and then rebuked herself for having any reservations about candour. They’d known each other a long time and she trusted him as much as any man. Even Marc.

‘Who’s to say that they weren’t having it off at the time Warren was killed?’

‘They must have taken enormous care to cover their tracks, then. If Warren Howe had caught them in flagrante, it’d have been Peter Flint’s corpse that Roz stumbled over in her back garden.’

‘He was the jealous type?’

‘We never found any evidence of Tina giving him cause. She was the one who always had to turn a blind eye. Her line was that there’s more to a marriage than sexual fidelity.’

Les Bryant, reversing out towards the exit, pipped his horn and she mouthed goodnight . ‘Perhaps she was thinking about her own behaviour, as well as his.’

‘Warren always came back to her, that was what she cared about. Or so she said.’

‘He might not have been bothered if she was playing away. Sauce for the goose and all that.’

Nick made a sceptical noise. ‘Warren wouldn’t fret about inconsistency or double standards. And Peter shagging his missus wouldn’t have appealed to his sense of irony. No, he wouldn’t have rested until he’d taken revenge.’

‘Suppose Tina decided to kill him before he found out?’