Martin Edwards - The Coffin Trail

But she paused and seemed to have second thoughts. ‘Daniel, I’m already running late. I’m sorry, you wanted me to tell you more about your father. Maybe one of these days we can talk again.’

‘I’d like that.’ He took a slip of paper from his pocket and scribbled two numbers on it. ‘Call me any time at the cottage or on my mobile.’

She didn’t reply, but gave a quick nod and walked swiftly away towards the bridge. He watched her go, while the questions she hadn’t answered swirled across his mind like ripples on the river.

‘Nipped out to do a bit of shopping, then, ma’am?’ Nick Lowther asked.

He was kicking his heels outside the door to Hannah’s office, looking for all the world like a sardonic teenager. A creased sheet of A4 was in his hand. Somehow, what would have been insubordination from anyone else she found acceptable from Nick. In the job, you had to trust someone and he’d never let her down. Feigning to cuff his ear, she waved him to follow her into the room.

‘If you must know, I’ve been talking to someone with a personal interest in the Anders killing.’

‘I wondered where you were hurrying off to. You seemed rather cloak and dagger about it.’

Hanging her coat on the hook, she hoped she wasn’t blushing. She always worried that her cheeks reddened easily, even when she had nothing to be embarrassed about. Nick often had that effect on her. He might get above himself sometimes, but he was scarily perceptive. So far she hadn’t told anyone that she’d arranged to meet Daniel Kind. It had taken long enough for the rumours to fade about her and Ben. Neither of them had ever done anything to encourage gossip that they were having an affair but that made no difference. Nobody enjoyed indulging in wild guesswork more than supposedly trained detectives — not when it came to prurient speculation about other people’s sex lives. Not that Nick would have given her any grief. Perhaps she should have confided in him earlier, but if Daniel had proved a waste of time, what would have been the point?

‘I talked to Ben Kind’s son. Daniel, the historian, who’s moved into Tarn Cottage.’

Nick’s face was as inscrutable as though they were on opposite sides of the table in an interview room. How easy it was to stumble into the trap of sounding guilty and defensive; just as well there’d been nothing incriminating about her encounter with Daniel.

‘What’s he like?’

‘All right,’ she said, groping for the right words. He wasn’t bad looking, but that was irrelevant. ‘Pretty bright, I’d say.’

‘That’s a relief, ma’am. We’d hate to think that Oxford’s standards are in decline, wouldn’t we?’

‘That’s your quota of sarky backchat used up for the week,’ she said. ‘In one way he reminds me of his father. Ben was never content with obvious explanations.’

‘Sometimes the obvious explanation is right.’

‘Yes, Ben could be a pain,’ she said with a grin. ‘Daniel Kind isn’t as tough, but I’d guess he’s no pushover. Once he starts something, I don’t believe he’d give up easily.’

She gave him a quick run-through of the conversation with Daniel. ‘I’m keeping an open mind about whether there’s a connection between his arrival and the call we had about Gilpin. He’s fascinated by the case and my guess is that he’s not hidden it when he’s been talking to people in Brack. Maybe something he’s said caused that woman to call. I suppose she still hasn’t rung back?’

He passed her the sheet of paper. ‘You suppose wrong, ma’am. Which is precisely why I was trying to find you.’

She scanned the note. This time Linz had answered the phone. In large, voluptuous handwriting she’d recorded the brief conversation. The woman had identified herself as having rung earlier and then said that she had made a mistake.

‘I didn’t mean to cause any trouble, I just got confused. I wouldn’t want you to waste any more time. That’s all. Better let sleeping dogs lie. It’ s right, what people said at the time. Barrie Gilpin did kill the girl, must have done. I’m so sorry. Please forget what I said before. Please. Goodbye.’

She’d rung off before Linz could put a question.

Hannah sighed. ‘Thanks a million, whoever you are. What do you make of it?’

‘According to Linz, she sounded panicky. Chances are, she’s a neurotic with time on her hands.’

‘Or someone has leaned on her. The update briefing is at twelve. Let’s see where we’re up to before you and I set off for Brack.’

‘Finally, the Gabrielle Anders murder.’ Hannah pointed to the scrawled agenda on the whiteboard. ‘We don’t have enough material to justify a full-scale review. DNA hasn’t thrown up any new leads. But there has been a development that makes it worth spending a little time on the case. Linz, can you take us through it?’

Lindsey glanced round at her colleagues. Making sure that she had everyone’s attention, Hannah thought: that always mattered to her. So far she’d had less than her customary share of the lime-light. The other pair of DCs were working with Les Bryant on the review that was progressing fastest, an inquiry into a series of rapes coupled with the attempted murder of a prostitute. The crimes had been committed in Workington, Whitehaven and Cleator Moor, and an interesting new name had come into the frame. The only snag was that it belonged to someone who had left Britain for Australia six years back.

‘Mobile switched off, Gul?’ Linz asked. ‘Or are you still waiting for hot news from the Chief Constable?’

Everyone laughed; even Gul mustered a sheepish smirk. His phone-dependency was a standing joke and he took at least one allegedly urgent call in the course of every briefing. The rest of the team reckoned it was less to do with his receiving a flood of vital information than with trying to polish his image for Linz’s benefit. The ace detective, with a range of contacts the envy of the Cumbria Constabulary. Hannah was sure that Linz, like everyone else, knew that half of his calls came from a much more extensive network, comprising past and present girlfriends.

When her audience had settled, Linz talked them through her note of the call about the Brackdale murder. ‘To my mind, she was fibbing. This crap about making a mistake, I don’t buy it. She was scared stiff. Age, mid-thirties, maybe older. Local accent.’

‘You’d go along with that, Maggie?’ Hannah asked.

‘Uh-huh. Same woman, must be.’

‘Just because she’s scared,’ Les Bryant said, chewing his gum, ‘that doesn’t mean she has any evidence to give us that’s worth tuppence.’

‘How do you mean?’ Maggie asked. She never disguised her enthusiasm for learning from the guru, but Hannah couldn’t decide whether Les was flattered or irritated by her attention.

‘She might just have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. What if she was full of sympathy for Gilpin and couldn’t believe he was guilty? If the man she suspected has got wind of it, he may not be best pleased. He may even have threatened her. Doesn’t mean he did for Gabrielle.’

Bob Swindell murmured assent and Hannah made a mental note that he and Les were chumming up. Better keep an eye on them to make sure that knee-jerk cynicism didn’t become corrosive and start to demoralise the whole team.

‘Good point, Les. We won’t know, of course, until we catch up with her. Are we any further forward on identifying who she is?’

‘Even if we only look at the people interviewed at the time of the murder, there are several candidates,’ Nick Lowther said. ‘I’ve prepared a simple profile of our caller.’

Les Bryant grunted. He rated psychological profilers on a par with old ladies who pronounced on their friends’ fortunes after reading patterns in their tea leaves. She wondered if Nick had used the phrase deliberately to wind him up.