Martin Edwards - The Coffin Trail

‘We have one of your books here, as it happens. Not just the TV tie-in, but your very first.’

‘So I see. Like all authors, I can’t resist checking in any bookshop whether it stocks a title of mine. I see you’re asking a good price.’

‘It’s a sought-after book, especially in such a pretty dustjacket. Maybe I can persuade you to sign it for me, make it even more special? Don’t worry, I won’t sell it for an even more vastly inflated sum. It will go into my private collection. However hard I try, it keeps growing. My bibliomania is pretty acute.’

‘Worrying in a bookseller,’ Daniel said. ‘Like trying to diet when you own a chocolate shop.’

As Daniel inscribed the book, Amos asked, ‘You’re up here on holiday?’

‘We’ve bought a cottage over in Brackdale.’

‘My favourite spot, I’ve walked every fell in the valley. Hope to see you dropping in here more often, then.’

‘You won’t be able to keep me away. Especially if the coffee’s as good as the stock.’

‘No worries on that account. When you’ve finished browsing, come and meet Leigh Moffat. She runs the cafe.’

Amos led the way back down the steps. They creaked just as, Daniel believed, all floorboards in secondhand bookshops should creak. It was an essential part of the ambience, like the giddy sense of claustrophobia that came from squeezing between tottering towers of books and the clouds of dust that had to be blown from the ancient volumes lingering in the darkest recesses. In the other half of the old mill, the cafeteria was fresh and airy, with seductive cakes arrayed beneath a transparent cover. A pretty woman with shiny auburn hair in a neat bob was washing up behind the counter.

‘Leigh is a near-neighbour of yours,’ Amos announced after making introductions. ‘Brackdale born and bred.’

‘I live opposite the lychgate at the side of the church.’ Her voice was husky and the aroma of orange cake that clung to her appealed to Daniel just as much. ‘Where are you?’

‘The cottage at the end of Tarn Fold.’

She glanced sharply at the bookseller. ‘I know it, of course. The story I heard was that Mrs Gilpin’s relatives had sold it to a couple from down South.’

‘Word gets around.’

‘You know the history of the place?’

‘I’ve heard what happened to Barrie Gilpin.’

‘Poor boy.’ She sighed. ‘We were at school together.’

‘You liked him?’

‘We were never close. There was no harm in him, but I remember the way he prowled round the playground, day after day. He always followed exactly the same routine, patting the same railings on the wall, as if to prove everything was where it should be.’

Amos stared. ‘There was no harm in him?’

Daniel said quickly, ‘You lost touch with Barrie later on?’

‘You never lose touch completely, not in Brackdale. It’s too small for that. But I’m sure his mother found him a handful. As he grew older, he became more and more of an outsider, even though he’d spent the whole of his life in the valley. Not a recluse, but not “one of us”. I felt sorry for him. Most of all after he died and people nodded and winked and hinted that he’d killed a woman.’

‘Come off it.’ Amos was brusque. ‘There wasn’t any doubt that he killed her.’

‘Innocent until proved guilty,’ she said, her tone defiant. ‘Whatever the police may believe.’

She held Marc Amos’s gaze until he looked away and changed the subject. Something lay unspoken between them, but Daniel could not guess what it was.

Grange-over-Sands lay just outside the National Park, perched above the shores of Morecambe Bay, a last resort for the over-sixties. Daniel remembered a childhood trip to Grange, and the accompanying sense of disappointment. At twelve, he’d associated English seaside towns with the raffish seediness of Blackpool or Brighton, but anyone in search of big dippers or louche entertainment at the end of the pier would, he discovered, be wise to skip Grange. It might have been sheltered by the fells and warmed by the Gulf Stream, it might even have boasted an improbable palm tree and a promenade, but it didn’t possess a pier. The only thing he’d enjoyed about his visit was his father’s quip that the town’s demographic profile had earned it the nickname of ‘God’s waiting room’. As the rain thinned, the gentle slopes of Grange still didn’t set his pulse racing, but as he paused at a red light, a glance over to the bay startled him. As a boy, he hadn’t paid any attention to the view but now, even in steady drizzle, the panorama took his breath away.

The address the Whistons had given him was a substantial thirties detached house, set back from the road leading out to Cartmel. By moving in with her boss, Cheryl had scrambled up several rungs of the property ladder. She’d been personal assistant to the company’s finance director and it was a safe bet that her lover’s remuneration package was a good deal healthier than Ben Kind’s police pension.

The door opened and a small woman in a lime green trouser suit appeared. Her heart-shaped face was immaculately made up, mascara and lipstick applied with painstaking care. His first thought was that he’d seen her before. As he trawled through his memory, he introduced himself. He’d been expecting surprise rather than instant, naked hostility, but as soon as she realised that her ex-husband’s son had shown up on the doorstep, she glared as if the Boston Strangler had paid a call.

‘Why have you come?’ Her tone was combative, her whole body trembling with barely suppressed anger. ‘What do you want here?’

‘I drove over to Oxenholme this morning and the Whistons told me I might find you here. I won’t take up much of your time, Cheryl. I just want to talk.’

Her cheeks reddened, as if she found his use of her forename an offensive act of enforced intimacy. She folded her arms, one more barrier between them. ‘You and I don’t have anything to talk about.’

‘Sorry if it’s a shock, my turning up out of the blue. I don’t want to cause any trouble or disturb you and your…friend.’

‘My fiance, you mean?’

With a snort of defiance, she flourished her ring finger with its winking diamond. Suddenly he remembered who she reminded him of. His father had always had a soft spot for Elaine Paige, had owned most of her albums and played them interminably. Even now Daniel could remember the lyrics to her greatest hits by heart. Twenty years ago, Cheryl must have looked like Elaine playing Evita and she still had a feisty prettiness. Daniel pictured Cheryl opening her lungs and bursting into “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” and even with his nerves stretched taut, he had to suppress the urge to laugh out loud.

‘Dad is dead,’ he said. ‘What you make of your life now is none of my business.’

‘Very generous of you, I’m sure.’

‘Please. I don’t want a quarrel. You meant a lot to him, he told me so. I tried to explain in my letter.’

It had never occurred to him to blame Cheryl for the delay in getting the news of his father’s death to him, but he wondered now if she felt a pang of guilt. Maybe she hadn’t wanted him at the funeral. It didn’t matter: he’d written to her afterwards, a short, civil letter of sympathy. He hadn’t expected a reply. Why would she want to mend fences with a family she’d never met?

She tapped her heel on the doorstep, waiting for him to give up and walk away. ‘No point in raking over the past. I really don’t have anything to say to you.’

‘If you could just spare me a few minutes.’

From inside the house came the sound of a door opening. Looking past Cheryl, Daniel could see into a long hallway with highly polished parquet floor. Framed photographs of brooding mountains covered the walls. At the far end of the hall a stooped bespectacled figure appeared.