Martin Edwards - The Cipher Garden

As Louise moved along the narrow stony ridge, Daniel muttered, ‘She ripped off her own helmet, unhooked her own parachute.’

‘What if she’d been drugged?’

‘Do the reports suggest that?’

‘No, but the police might not be telling.’

‘They’d drop a hint to the journalists, off the record. You know how they work.’

Louise came to a stop where the path broadened out. ‘Wasn’t there a skydiver once who staged his suicide to make it look like murder?’

‘Allegedly,’ Daniel said. ‘Nobody knew for sure and the inquest recorded an open verdict. This is different. We all saw what happened.’

For all the heat of the morning, Louise shivered. ‘Unspeakable. I’m not surprised you’re not sleeping, Miranda.’

Miranda took no notice. She’d had another bad night, but over breakfast they’d agreed that a walk would do them good. ‘Remember how uptight she was in the restaurant? What if she was frightened of someone? Suppose she’d been threatened? Darling, are you planning to talk to Hannah Scarlett?’

‘There’s no way she’d share confidential information with me.’

‘Come on. She’s taken a shine to you. It was written all over her when we met at the airfield.’

He threw her a sharp glance, but her expression was mocking rather than suspicious. ‘I spoke to Marc Amos yesterday when I was checking out the history of the garden and he told me Hannah wasn’t in work. She’s off sick.’

‘You don’t imagine police officers being stressed out by an encounter with sudden death, do you? You’d think they were hardened to it.’

‘They’re only human,’ Louise snapped.

They walked on in silence. Daniel thought: you weren’t so forbearing when Dad made his great mistake. He knew better than to voice what was passing through his mind. Lately, he’d felt closer to his sister than ever, but in a few hours she would be leaving for home. This wasn’t a good time to reopen old wounds.

Miranda mopped her brow. ‘This humidity — I can scarcely get any oxygen into my lungs. Thank God the forecasts are promising a drop of rain. Shall we turn back?’

The Sacrifice Stone lay ahead, a dour grey boulder. As they approached, Louise said, ‘Close up, it looks smaller than when you look up from the cottage. But my God, what a view!’

Brackdale stretched out below them. Daniel’s eyes travelled along the thin ribbon of road that ran through the village, past the church and the last resting place of the Quillers, beyond the Hall and Tarn Fold, towards the abandoned quarry workings and the stern crags that closed off the far end of the valley. A small, enclosed world. He imagined living here a century ago. Jacob and Alice Quiller would have felt bereft after the death of their only child. Lifelong believers, they must have found that John’s death tested their faith to destruction. How could they not feel betrayed by God?

In their horror and confusion, he was convinced, lay the secret of the cipher garden.

‘Hannah? This is Nick. How are you?’

He sounded as anxious as a first-time offender. Touched by his concern, she said into the cordless handset, ‘Much better, thanks. I’ll be in tomorrow.’

‘Nobody here can remember you taking a day off sick.’

‘I’m becoming a hypochondriac in my old age. Probably could have made it today, but Marc came over all protective.’

‘Thank God you listened to him. You push yourself too hard.’

‘I don’t need wrapping up in cotton wool. The doctor tells me I’m suffering from a touch of sunstroke. It’s the fashion.’

It was an off-the-cuff lie. She trusted Nick, but she hadn’t figured out how to handle the miscarriage in her own mind, whether to talk about it with friends or simply behave as though it had never happened. For now she wanted to keep both options open.

‘What happened to Kirsty Howe was grisly. Enough to knock anyone sideways.’

‘Maybe that was a factor, I don’t know.’ Nor did she know whether it had played a part in the miscarriage. ‘What’s the latest on her death? Any suggestion of anything untoward?’

‘I spoke to a couple of guys working on the investigation. The forensic gurus are crawling all over her kit, but witnesses saw her checking it herself, as per standard procedures. The jump was routine, she’d done it hundreds of times before.’

‘Remember what the good book says. Think murder.’

‘Pity the Murder Investigation Manual doesn’t go into detail about death by skydiving. There’s not a shred of evidence to suggest sabotage. She died because she ripped off her gear and didn’t take any of the precautions that might have saved her life.’

‘No doubt it was suicide?’

‘None. A spectacular way to choose to die, but it’s happened before.’

‘A new trend, killing yourself in front of an audience?’

‘Gone are the days of discreetly sticking your head in a gas oven. Now even people who want to end it all fancy their fifteen minutes of fame.’

She was draped over the sofa, phone wedged between head and shoulder, determined to think about anything except the sight of Kirsty’s remains spread across the dropzone. When Nick called, she’d been watching daytime TV. A fast-talking presenter was urging a surly sixteen-year-old to identify which of three tattooed boyfriends was the father of her baby girl. Even with the sound muted, the kids’ faces told the story more eloquently than any words they might mumble.

‘What do the other skydivers say?’

‘They never picked up a hint that she had anything untoward in mind. But they didn’t know her well; she was someone who lurked on the edge of things. Skydivers party hard, presumably because they never know if the next jump might be their last. She’d had a couple of one-night stands with fellow skydivers, but nothing recent. Several chaps had tried it on with her, and got nowhere. They reckoned she’d found a lover who wasn’t part of their community.’

‘Perhaps she was just sick of men.’

‘By the sound of it, none of the skydivers could imagine how a woman could ever get sick of men.’

‘Charming.’

‘She was very quiet before the jump, even by her standards. In the plane, someone asked if she was feeling under the weather, but she said she’d never felt better. She looked haggard, but the guys put it down to a night on the tiles. In fact, she was working at The Heights the previous evening.’

‘Anything out of the ordinary there?’

‘If so, Bel Jenner and Oliver Cox aren’t telling. Her death has stunned them. Bel was in tears and Oliver looked as though he’d been run over by a truck. Mind you, good waitresses aren’t that easy to find.’

‘You’re so cynical. How about her family?’

‘Tina Howe says Kirsty had mood swings and she’d seemed down in the dumps, but there’s no history of her threatening to do away with herself. No overdoses, no self-harming. She wasn’t the sort to cry for attention. This suicide came literally out of the blue.’

‘Spur of the moment decision?’

‘Looks like it. She wasn’t a heavy drinker and there’s no evidence she ever so much as smoked a joint. Plenty of work to be done yet, but they haven’t found anything that links in with our investigation.’

‘Doesn’t mean there’s nothing to find.’

‘It is a coincidence that she dies shortly after we receive the anonymous tip-off pointing the finger at Tina.’

‘Suppose she discovered something that proved her mother killed her dad?’

‘Such as?’

‘If she and Sam lied to give Tina an alibi, they must have had suspicions from the outset. Perhaps Kirsty wrote the anonymous letter herself.’

‘And the letter that Tina received?’