Martin Edwards - The Cipher Garden

‘A few days ago, we received information about the murder of Warren Howe. An anonymous message accused his wife Tina of the crime.’

‘So what, she’s the obvious suspect, isn’t she?’

The skin seemed to have been stretched too tightly over Gail’s cheekbones. On close inspection, not a marvellous advertisement for cosmetic surgery. The main benefit of entrusting your face to the surgeon’s knife, Hannah decided, is to make it difficult for people to figure out when you are lying.

‘You believe Tina killed Warren?’

‘Your colleagues never came up with a better solution.’

‘And the motive?’

‘Jealousy, rage, a combination of the two, how would I know?’

‘No reason for her to be jealous of your affair with Warren, was there?’ Hannah asked softly. ‘It was over.’

‘He didn’t dump me! It was a joint decision, perfectly amicable. Our relationship had run its course, that’s all. The affair might not have been going anywhere, but then neither was his marriage.’

‘And yours?’

‘I went back to Peter, didn’t I?’

‘How did he feel about being cuckolded by his business partner?’

‘Cuckolded?’ Gail savoured the word as though it were a vintage wine. ‘Oh, poor Peter. He didn’t murder Warren, if that’s what you’re hinting. There was no need. He turned a blind eye; he knew I cared for him more than Warren.’

‘So why the affair?’

‘I wanted a change, a touch of passion in my life. Is that so terrible? Excitement’s in short supply after you’ve been married a number of years.’ Gail’s high-pitched giggle set Hannah’s teeth on edge. ‘The temptation to sample forbidden fruit becomes impossible to resist. Perhaps you find that yourself, Chief Inspector?’

Hannah wasn’t going there. ‘The excitement died for both you and your husband, didn’t it? Hence the divorce.’

Gail made a dismissive movement with her shoulders. ‘These things happen.’

‘You didn’t want it to happen, though.’

‘As a matter of fact, the divorce was my suggestion.’

‘Anticipating the inevitable, surely? When you realised that your husband had fallen for Tina Howe.’

‘She started working in the business. Called herself a personal assistant, but she was no more than a shorthand typist with attitude. And a skirt short enough to let the boss catch a glimpse of knickers. Flaunt yourself long enough and you’ll hook your man. It’s the oldest trick in the book.’

‘You were the jealous one, not Tina.’

Gail sat upright. ‘Rubbish!’

‘She has the settled relationship. With a man you still care for.’

Linz said, ‘While you’re left — waiting for your annual service from the plumber.’

Gail folded her arms. ‘Don’t think your sidekick can rattle me, Chief Inspector. I’ve got a pretty thick skin, you know.’

‘I can tell.’ Hannah’s gaze lingered on the chiselled features. ‘Is this why the divorce took so long to finalise — you were fighting a rearguard action, trying to slow it down, hoping he’d change his mind?’

‘Bollocks!’

‘And when everything was finalised, you took revenge. Not against Peter, but against Tina and her family. You accused her of murdering Warren.’

Gail lifted her chin. It was as pointed as a dagger. ‘If you think I’m going to admit writing anonymous letters, you’re mistaken.’

‘You know there have been several letters, then?’

Gail’s eyes darted from Hannah to Linz. ‘Watch my lips, will you? I can’t help you.’

‘Can’t or won’t, Mrs Flint? I believe the person who sent us the tip-off also wrote to Kirsty Howe.’

‘Oh no, you don’t! You’re not blaming me for that stupid girl’s death.’

‘Why do you think she killed herself?’

‘ De mortuis , Chief Inspector.’

‘Sorry, they don’t do Latin at police college.’

Gail’s withering look suggested that this in itself explained the rise in crime. ‘I don’t care to speak ill of the dead.’

Hannah said coolly, ‘Try to overcome your finer feelings.’

‘Listen, then. The plain truth is, she was an ungainly lump who couldn’t keep a man. A waitress mooning after a man who was devoted to someone else. A shame, but she really didn’t have too much going for her.’

‘She was young,’ Linz said. ‘She had the whole of her life ahead of her.’

Gail hissed, ‘Try this, before you get too dewy-eyed. Her mother killed her father. Isn’t that reason enough?’

‘You’re forgetting that she gave her mother an alibi.’

‘Oh yes, the watertight alibi.’ Gail gave a scratchy laugh. ‘Tina, Kirsty and Sam, the three of them were supposed to be together, weren’t they? But they were telling fibs.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because while Tina was taking a scythe to her husband, I was in bed teaching Sam Howe a thing or two.’

‘So at the time of the murder, Sam wasn’t up the Hardknott Pass…’ Linz chortled as they turned into Tilberthwaite Avenue.

Hannah kept her eyes on the road and resisted the temptation to supply a punchline. ‘If Gail is telling the truth.’

‘Do you doubt it?’

‘Reluctant as I am to believe a word she says, the story hangs together. Gail didn’t want her latest peccadillo to wreck her marriage. Peter overlooked her sleeping with the father, but he might have drawn the line at her bedding the teenage son. The sprained ankle didn’t prevent her misbehaving with Sam, but with a little exaggeration it sufficed for an alibi. Quite right, she never left the cottage that day. Why would she want to?’

According to Gail, it was the one and only time she’d slept with Sam. It hadn’t exactly been a match made in Heaven. Just a bit of a laugh, really. The two of them had been flirting for a while. When he’d rung to commiserate over her sprained ankle and asked if she’d like him to kiss it better, she’d said it was the best offer she’d had in ages. Probably he fancied a slice of what his dad had been having, but Gail wasn’t bothered about his motives. She knew too much about men to entertain illusions. As a lover, the son didn’t compare to the father. Youth and virility were all very well, but no match for experience, in her book.

The three-way alibi was Tina’s idea. Neither Tina nor Kirsty knew what Sam had been up to and at first he refused to say. They panicked out of fear that his tense relationship with Warren might make him a suspect. Only later did it strike Gail that, just as Tina had persuaded Sam to lie about his whereabouts, so she might have inveigled Kirsty into shielding her from a murder charge.

‘Gail sent us the note about Tina, didn’t she?’

‘Racing certainty,’ Hannah said. ‘Not that we can prove it.’

‘God, she’s a bitch.’

All of a sudden, and against all logic, Hannah felt sympathy stabbing at her.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But a very unhappy bitch.’

Linz’s brow creased in disapproval — keen young DCs didn’t do sympathy. She’d learn. They drove on for a few minutes until Linz broke the silence.

‘On the radio this morning, the forecaster said that humidity levels have never been so high in this country. I’m sweating like a pig.’

‘They’ve promised a storm before the end of today.’

‘Can’t come a moment too soon, as far as I’m concerned. All right, ma’am, where do we go from here?’

‘To Old Sawrey. Time for another word with Tina Howe.’

‘Gail Flint? Gail Flint? ’

If Hannah had accused her son of having had his wicked way with the late Myra Hindley, Tina Howe might have been more relaxed. Gail Flint? This was sleeping with the enemy.

‘The bastard told me she was a tourist from Sweden. Just passing through on her way to Scotland, that’s why she wasn’t around to back up his story. And you’re telling me it was that hatchet-tongued lush! A natural blonde, he said!’