Martin Edwards - The Coffin Trail

‘Meaning what?’

‘Meaning, I don’t see this as a way of competing with the poor sods whose inquiries got nowhere in the past. Like your old boss and that murder up on the fells. We’ve not been put on this review team to see how clever we can look, thanks to all the modern forensic stuff. That’s not what I’m about.’

‘Nor me.’

He belched comfortably. ‘Thought not. You ask me, this is more like a chance for us to put things right. I’ve never been keen on loose ends. Let alone the thought of people getting away with murder.’

Driving home through a spring storm, Hannah wondered about coincidences. First, Ben Kind’s son had moved into Barrie Gilpin’s old cottage; then a nameless woman had suggested that Barrie was innocent of murdering Gabrielle Anders. Hannah could not imagine what might connect the two events, could not conceive what had brought Daniel Kind to the Lake District now that his father was dead.

Rain pounded her windscreen. She swore and screwed up her eyes as the lights from an oncoming heavy goods vehicle dazzled her. As the lorry lumbered away into the distance, she pictured Daniel in her mind. Although she rarely watched television, she’d caught a couple of his programmes. She’d been curious about the boy she’d heard Ben speak of. The physical similarities between father and son were subtle, the resemblance more apparent in their quick, urgent movements than in physical build or shape of jaw. They shared a sharp sense of humour and she guessed that they would laugh at the same jokes. Daniel’s thesis that a historian was a sort of detective intrigued her. He must care as passionately about uncovering secrets of the past as Ben had about solving crimes.

Passion. Yes, that was the word that came to mind when she thought of Ben. He was a tough, demanding boss but fiercely loyal to his team. Hannah had been devoted to him. The drift of thought made her shiver, even though the inside of the car was warm. She and Ben had never had an affair. There had been times when she’d speculated about what it might be like, moments when he’d given the impression that he thought of her as a woman, rather than just as a loyal and industrious subordinate. Once or twice he’d touched her on the arm or back. Maybe it was accidental, but she’d found the frisson scary as well as exciting. He’d never gone further and she’d never given him any encouragement; Marc’s jealousy of the time she spent with Ben weighed her down enough without an additional burden of guilt to bear. Besides, Ben already had one broken marriage behind him, and Cheryl back at home. She had Marc. Why spoil everything for the sake of a quick fling?

Sometimes she wondered whether the careful way in which they avoided flirting with each other was in itself a sign that their relationship might easily trespass beyond the professional boundaries. But nothing ever happened; after he retired she kept in touch, but didn’t often find the time to see him. When she’d heard of Ben’s death, she’d sat cross-legged on the staircase at home and surrendered herself to a good old-fashioned cry. Thank God Marc had been out that day. He’d have been sure that he’d had good cause to suspect her of infidelity. Even now, in lonely moments she interrogated herself, wanting to know if it really would have hurt anyone, if she had just slept with Ben once or twice. She still wasn’t sure of the right answer.

She slowed to a crawl as the lane bent first one way and then another. In this downpour it would be so easy to skid and go through a hedge or smash into a stone wall. At last she could see lights in front of her and she knew that she was almost home. Marc would be absorbed in his catalogue; it was her turn to cook their meal. Not so many years ago, she’d ached to see him even after the shortest separation and to this day she loved to stroke his fine hair, to run her fingers along the smooth contours of his naked back. This evening, he was more likely to fall asleep in front of the television than to start kissing her all over as a prelude to making love. The trouble was that life kept getting in the way. Her job, his job, pointless arguments about who had more time to deal with a flooded washing machine or a blocked drain. Maybe every couple went through these phases, but it reminded her of being stuck in a traffic jam. No sign of movement on the road ahead.

* * *

Over coffee, she decided to tell Marc about the anonymous call. In their early years together, whenever she talked about her latest case, he’d been as rapt as if she’d been describing the discovery of a fabulously rare first edition. Sometimes she worried that she said too much to him, but a couple shouldn’t have taboos, and she had to trust the man she loved.

‘Attention seeker,’ Marc diagnosed after she recounted the conversation between Maggie and the woman. ‘Craving the lime-light but too frightened of being found out as a liar to go through with it.’

Even if he were right, Hannah was sorry that he wasn’t intrigued. The Gabrielle Anders killing had been the first murder case she’d been involved with after meeting Marc. They had only been sleeping together for a few weeks and she hadn’t yet moved in here, the house that he’d been born in and inherited after his parents’ death. She’d confessed to him — and to no one else, certainly not Ben Kind — that blended with her horror at the brutality of Gabrielle’s killing was not only a grim resolve to see justice done but also a shivery excitement from being at the heart of the investigation.

Taking advantage of his knowledge of the area, she’d speculated aloud about the significance of the draping of the body over the Sacrifice Stone the night after its discovery. They’d stayed up most of the night while he recounted all he knew of the history of the ancient landmark and the obscure legends about virgins slain each year in return for a guarantee from the old gods that the valley would remain fertile forever. Life coming out of a death, he’d told her, is the most potent myth of all.

‘Maggie’s not soft,’ she said stubbornly. ‘When I quizzed her, she was convinced the woman was genuinely wanting to help, and genuinely afraid.’

‘What would she be afraid of after so long?’

‘Suppose she’d seen a husband or a lover behaving in a way that made her suspicious. Or a former husband or lover, someone who’s fallen out of favour in the meantime. How about a work colleague or neighbour? That’s the upside of cold case investigations. Witnesses may be tempted to come out of the woodwork when they wouldn’t have contemplated talking to us at the time of the original investigation. I’ll never forget the sight of poor Gabrielle Anders and comparing the photographs of her when she was alive. She’d been so pretty once. Not too difficult to understand why our caller might be frightened, is it?’

‘Where do you go from here?’

‘To the old files, and the original exhibits. I’ll crawl over the statements while Nick sees if any of the evidence can be improved forensically with the new techniques.’

‘I thought you never had much luck with forensic stuff linking Gilpin to the crime?’

‘Clothing fibres were found at the scene. A few hairs. He’d been up by the Sacrifice Stone on the night of the murder, we were confident we could prove that. The fact he’d gone missing and his body turned up nearby seemed like a bit of a giveaway.’

‘To say nothing of the murder weapon.’

‘The most damning evidence we had. If you remember, the pathologist reckoned that Gabrielle was killed by a blow to the head and then post-mortem her face was struck and her neck cut by the axe we found.’

Marc nibbled at a hangnail. ‘He’d hidden it near a cairn on the fell-side, hadn’t he?’