Martin Edwards - The Cipher Garden

‘Attempting to put her under pressure, force her to cough? Or maybe Tina made up the letter. Peter never saw it, remember.’

‘What if Sam was the culprit and Tina and Kirsty lied to save his neck? He might have sent the letters to divert attention from himself.’

‘Why resurrect the case if for years he’d got away with murder?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

Hannah scowled at the television screen. The girl was snivelling and her mascara had started to run. Motherhood wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, perhaps. Even so, Hannah wanted to find out for herself one day. The putative fathers were smirking with a mixture of cockiness and embarrassment as they waited for the presenter to reveal the answer.

‘We need a fresh angle. Instead of focusing on who killed Warren, let’s ask who might have given us the tip-off and work forward from there.’

‘Isn’t that a blind alley, without any forensic evidence from the letter?’

If Nick hadn’t been such a good friend, she wouldn’t have restrained the impulse to snap back at him. Ben Kind often complained that technological advance discourages even the best cops from reasoning for themselves.

‘Think laterally. Who might want to stick the knife into Tina?’

Nick pondered. ‘Leaving aside her kids?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Gail Flint,’ he said. ‘Revenge for taking her husband?’

One of the lads on TV grinned stupidly at the news that he was a father. The girl was still crying as the presenter led the audience in a round of enthusiastic applause. Hannah felt like joining in. She’d come to the same conclusion as Nick.

‘Let’s talk to her tomorrow.’

‘Thanks for everything,’ Louise said.

‘Sorry about Saturday,’ Daniel said.

She hesitated. ‘I suppose it brought back memories?’

She was, he knew, talking about Aimee’s suicide.

‘Maybe.’

‘You’re still hurting, aren’t you?’

‘I’m not looking for sympathy.’

‘You never do. But everyone needs a bit of comfort sometimes.’

‘Well.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I should never have dragged you out to the airfield.’

‘You weren’t to know she was going to kill herself.’

Confession time. He cleared his throat. ‘No, but I knew about her father’s murder from Hannah Scarlett. It’s a cold case she’s investigating. That’s why I asked Peter Flint for advice about the garden. I knew he was Warren Howe’s business partner.’

Louise groaned. ‘As a kid, you wanted to be a detective. Just like Dad.’

‘Maybe I haven’t grown up as much as I’d like to think.’

‘Which of us has?’

They were killing time with a coffee and cake in the platform buffet at Oxenholme. The latest announcement warned that the train from Glasgow was running forty minutes late. Miranda wasn’t with them. She’d elected to chase the builders on the phone rather than come along to see off their guest. At the door of the cottage, she and Louise exchanged pecks on the cheek and promised to keep in touch, but these were the meaningless formalities of English good manners. Daniel knew it wouldn’t break their hearts if they never clapped eyes on each other again.

‘No need to wait for the train.’

‘I enjoy your company.’

She blinked. ‘You’ve never said that to me before.’

‘It’s never occurred to me before,’ he said with a grin.

She stuck out her tongue at him. ‘It’s best that I disappear. Miranda’s not comfortable when I’m around.’

‘It’s nothing personal. She’s just…’

‘Insecure?’

‘Unaccustomed to family life. Her adoptive parents were elderly, no kids of their own; she became accustomed to being the centre of attention. Since they died, she feels the lack of a past. That’s why she seems jealous of you and me. There’s so much stuff that she isn’t part of. But — you do like her?’

Louise laughed. ‘Now who’s insecure? Of course I do. You’re not stupid enough to fall for just a pretty face. Though I must admit I wondered if it was too soon for you — after Aimee, I mean. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not sure you’ve ever faced up to how hard her death hit you.’

‘We can’t plan our lives like train timetables. Pick the perfect moment to fall for someone new.’

‘No, of course not. And she’s a lot of fun when she’s so inclined. But you’ll have to persuade her — either she lives the dream up here with you, or she does the London journalist thing.’

‘She can combine the two.’

Louise shrugged. ‘I hope you’re right.’

Me too . He devoured the last piece of cream cake and said nothing.

‘So where does Hannah Scarlett fit in?’

He felt colour rising in his cheeks. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I saw the way she looked at you, Daniel. You said yourself, she told you about that old murder.’

‘She worked with Dad, he was her mentor. She’s talked to me about him. That’s all.’

‘And she’s married to this chap you went to see, the bookshop owner?’

‘Not married. They live together, have done for years.’

‘What about the cipher garden, then? You kept your cards close to your chest when you got home.’

‘Was it that obvious?’

‘Let me share something with you, Daniel. The air of casual unconcern you cultivate when you’re trying to hide something isn’t as convincing as you’d like to think. Perhaps it fools Miranda, but not me. I’ve known you a long time, remember.’

He managed a rueful grin. ‘Probably as well you’re leaving, then.’

She kicked him under the table. ‘Yes, you and I would soon be at each other’s throats if I hung around. Now — the garden.’

He recounted his discoveries of the previous day. When he told her about the fragment of conversation he’d overheard between Chris and Roz Gleave, she wanted to know what he thought they were talking about.

‘Presumably Roz has an idea about what drove Kirsty to take her own life.’

‘Are you intending to tell the police?’

‘I’m hoping the Gleaves will save me the trouble.’

‘You should mention what you heard to your mate Hannah.’

He gave her a sharp look, but her expression was all innocence. ‘When she’s fit again, perhaps I will.’

‘Carry on with the story.’

When he’d finished, she pulled a face. ‘It’s weird. People don’t die of broken hearts.’

‘You never were much of a romantic, were you?’

‘Come on. They expired on the same day, which just happened to be the anniversary of their son’s death?’

‘Too much of a coincidence, but a hundred years after they were buried, there’s not much to go on. You need to make a leap of imagination to have a chance of making sense of it.’

She laughed. ‘You used to wear that expression when you figured out the solution to an Agatha Christie five chapters before that old Belgian big-head. Let’s hear about where the leap has taken you.’

A disembodied voice announced that the train would be arriving shortly and apologised for any inconvenience. Daniel swallowed the last of his drink.

‘Suppose you are Alice Quiller. Brought up to fear God. Perhaps you’ve seldom ventured far outside the valley you were born in. For upwards of half a century, your faith is unquestioning. Until tragedy tears your small, comfortable world apart. Your only child, the apple of your eye, dies in a foreign land. No good reason for his death, you can’t even console yourself with the fiction that he sacrificed his life defending freedom. The stupid war he’s been fighting is as good as over, but he succumbs to sickness and dies a rotten, miserable death. You’ve devoted your life to the boy, you’re crazy about him. Obsessed, maybe. All of a sudden, the world becomes worthless. You cut yourself off from it. Your husband is the only person you will speak to, but even he can’t reason with you, even he can’t make everything right. Nothing can make it right. You’re left not knowing what to believe any more. Not wishing to live any more. What do you do?’