The Hanging Wood (24 page)

‘He might be anywhere,’ Mario said.

A burly young DC was easing their car through queuing traffic on the way out of Keswick. His hands, resting on
the steering wheel, were the size of coal shovels. He was a broken-nosed rugby player, sixteen stone of muscle, and his nickname was the ‘Brick Shithouse’, but nobody was silly enough to call him that to his face. Handy man to have around if things turned nasty.

They were heading for Lane End Farm. Hannah’s idea. Mario still wasn’t convinced, but he was struggling to make decisions. And someone needed to make a decision. Ben Kind used to say that you never regret what you do in life half as much as the things you don’t do.

‘Gareth won’t make a run for it.’ Her voice was calmness itself, despite the blood pounding in her temples. ‘Take it from me, that isn’t his style. He may never have made it to Formula One, but you need nerve to race fast cars. He’s a daredevil, a risk-taker. A fighter, not a quitter.’

‘But why would he go to Lane End?’

‘My guess is, he wants to stage a confrontation with Hinds.’

Mario swore. ‘I should have left an officer stationed at the farm. But the staff cuts …’

‘Don’t beat yourself up, it would make no difference. Gareth knows all the short cuts and ways in from the site of the holiday park to the farm. How else did he manage to keep Orla under surveillance before she jumped into the grain?’

In the quiet of the car, the back-and-forth thrashing of the windscreen wipers sounded unnaturally loud. Pools were forming on the road surface, and the downpour had slowed the cars to a crawl. The DC revved his engine and rapped on his horn, before squeezing the car past a rusty Fiat full of pensioners out on a shopping trip. Wrinkled
faces stared out through the misty windows in dismay, as if they feared being pulled over and arrested for tiresome driving.

‘You still think Orla jumped?’

‘Maybe Gareth pushed her, maybe after their conversation that morning, he just wanted to keep an eye on her to make sure she did get out of his hair by committing suicide.’

‘Bastard.’

Hannah was breathing hard. Trying not to imagine what a man like Gareth Madsen might do if he became desperate.

‘Yes.’

So Fleur and Gareth were lovers. How long had that been going on? Daniel sat in the deserted restaurant of St Herbert’s, wearing an old T-shirt and jeans borrowed from Jonquil’s brother, who worked in the kitchen, and savoured the peppermint taste of a slab of mint cake. He needed energy after the ordeal of the storm, and hadn’t Hillary and Tenzing famously consumed Kendal mint cake on top of Everest, celebrating their conquest?

Micah Bridge said he’d heard gossip that, as a teenager, Fleur dallied with Gareth before teaming up with his elder brother. The switch made perfect sense from her point of view. Gareth was the charismatic one, but Bryan was destined to inherit a controlling interest in the caravan park and was a rising star in local politics. Fleur had her head screwed on. The Hopes family might have squandered a fortune, but she was determined not to give up the good life or allow Mockbeggar Hall to fall into the hands of creditors. Presumably, she and Gareth had reached an understanding.
They could have their cake and eat it. Everyone would be happy. Now and then Fleur would flirt with a much younger man like Daniel or Aslan, simply to cover her tracks.

But where to have their fun? There wasn’t much privacy around a caravan park, and a hotel room might seem a bit tacky for the lady of the manor. The tumbledown cottage tucked away in the middle of the Hanging Wood offered an ideal solution. What it lacked in luxury, it more than made up for with back-to-nature atmosphere. Gareth could shift poor Philip Hinds out of the way whenever he wanted, by giving him a string of time-consuming menial tasks, and they’d have the place to themselves. Everyone gave the Hanging Wood a wide berth, what could possibly go wrong?

A sly inquisitive boy called Callum Hinds, that was what went wrong.

Daniel took a gulp of spring water. The way he pictured it, Callum turned up at the cottage one day and spied on Gareth and Fleur in flagrante. So much more exciting than ogling a teenager in a bikini. Full-on sex between two of the most important people in the neighbourhood – shockhorror stuff! No wonder Orla saw he was excited just before he disappeared. He’d have hugged his secret to himself, relishing the taste of power. Two grown-up lives in the palm of his hand.

Or perhaps he’d simply eavesdropped, and heard the couple talking. It wouldn’t take much to figure out they were having an affair. And what if they’d discussed some other guilty secret that they shared?

The rain hammered at the windows, frantic as a convict on the run, desperate to be let in to a place of sanctuary.
Daniel digested the last morsel of mint cake. He could make a pretty good stab as to what that other guilty secret might be.

From the lane, the farm appeared to be at peace. The rain had relented, but there wasn’t a glint of light in the sky and Hannah supposed that this was just a lull before another storm. The tractors and muck spreaders were motionless, there wasn’t a soul in sight. Presumably Zygmunt’s colleagues had jacked in their jobs as well. A silent earthquake was ripping apart Mike Hinds’ world.

‘Ready?’ Mario asked.

Was Gareth Madsen here, and how would Hinds respond to their arrival? Only one way to find out. She yanked her hood up over her head as she scrambled out of the car. Above the drumbeat of the rain, she heard in the distance the mournful bleating of neglected calves.

Mario, a couple of strides ahead of her and the DC, stopped in his tracks.

‘What’s that?’

Yes, there was something else. Hannah strained her ears.

‘Someone sobbing?’

‘Sounds like a woman.’

‘Deirdre?’

‘Who else?’

Mario broke into a run, side by side with the young DC. The crying came from behind the farmhouse. All the curtains were closed, an old-fashioned mark of respect for the dead. Last time she was here, Hannah hadn’t clocked the paint peeling from the door-frame or the fact that the
lavender in the pot outside had died. You could be forgiven for believing the Hinds had abandoned their home.

As she rounded the side of the house, she saw Mario and the DC standing over Deirdre Hinds. She had screwed herself up into a foetal ball, crouching on the cobbles. From head to toe, she looked a sodden mess, with her cheap and scruffy clothes drenched through, and her hair tangled like a ball of coarse wet wool. What little Hannah could see of her face was blotchy, and it looked as though someone had blacked her eye. No prizes for guessing the culprit, but thank God he’d done nothing worse to her. Hannah had feared he was about to lose it big time.

Mario stood at the woman’s side. ‘Where is he?’

Shoes slapping on the cobbles, Hannah came closer. Deirdre’s grey eyes were cloudy with tears. She tried to answer Mario, her lips moved, but no sound came. It was as if she’d been struck dumb.

Hannah knelt down so that she and the other woman were face-to- face.

‘What is it, Deirdre?’ she asked.

The woman stared at her.

‘Did he hurt you?’

Deirdre Hinds shook her head. In denial about her husband’s abuse, or was something more shocking on her mind?

‘Tell me where Mike is,’ Hannah said.

Deirdre clamped her eyes shut.

‘Please, Deirdre, talk to me. Is Gareth Madsen here?’

Deirdre took a deep breath and let out a long shriek of pain. She might have been one of the animals in the shippon, waiting to be fed. But Hannah heard the truth
in the horror of her cry. It was not hunger that drove the woman to despair. Nor even a smack from her husband’s heavy hand. What tormented her was something she could not bring herself to describe.

‘How could you do that to your own brother?
’

Orla Payne’s words echoed in Daniel’s head as he walked out of the restaurant. She’d quoted Callum, quoting someone else. If he was right in believing Callum had spied on Gareth Madsen having sex with his sister-in-law, chances were that he’d been fascinated by their post-coital chit-chat.

Bryan had been seriously injured in an accident shortly before Callum disappeared. What if Fleur suspected Gareth of fixing Bryan’s car so that he would crash? If she’d challenged Gareth about the accident in the boy’s hearing, there would have been boundless scope for blackmail. Callum might not have taken it seriously, but if he’d dropped so much as a cheeky hint to Gareth that he knew about Gareth’s affair with Fleur, and his attempt to kill his brother, so that he could take both Bryan’s inheritance and his wife, he’d have placed himself in serious jeopardy. A man willing to murder his own flesh and blood wouldn’t scruple at disposing of a teenager who threatened his comfortable existence. The risk-taker in him might have relished it. Killing Callum in the Hanging Wood, burying his body in the pet graveyard nearby, liberating the pig, and encouraging Mike Hinds to put the blame on his own brother. Cruel and conscienceless, but very neat.

And where did this leave Fleur? She’d known about the car crash, probably known or guessed about Callum.
Even if Gareth denied everything and protested that she was imagining things, she was smart enough to see through the salesman’s patter. Yet she hadn’t uttered a word, and Callum’s remains were left to rot alongside the skeletons of the dead dogs.

Worse than that, she’d not been able to bring herself to give him up. Was love a drug for her, did he give her something no other man could? So that not even Orla’s death, or Aslan’s, drove her to come clean?

How could the woman live with herself?

‘Daniel, there you are!’

For Christ’s sake, it was unbelievable. Fleur was back at St Herbert’s. Turning at right angles into the main corridor, he saw her heading towards him from the reception area. He could see Sham Madsen at her desk, a troubled look on her pretty face, and guessed that neither of them knew where Gareth was or what he was up to.

‘I had to come and see how you are,’ Fleur said. ‘I wanted to make sure you were all right after that awful storm.’

The colour of her cheeks might be snow-white, but she’d composed herself and put on fresh lipstick, a vivid splash of crimson. The note of concern in her voice was nicely calibrated. Fleur might have no conscience, but she remained a class act. Having gathered her strength at the Hall, she needed to check what he knew, and what he suspected, so she could rehearse her defence. One look at those compressed crimson lips told him she would never surrender.

‘That’s good of you,’ he said. ‘As a matter of fact, there are one or two questions I meant to ask.’

‘Tell us where they are,’ Hannah said. ‘Mike and Gareth, or either of them.’

Deirdre was mute, but she managed a feeble nod of the head. In the direction of the long line of outbuildings. Hannah and Mario exchanged glances.

‘Will you wait here?’ Mario asked her.

‘No chance. I want to find them.’

‘All right.’ Whether or not he thought her stupid to take the risk, Mario had too much sense to argue or try to be protective. He turned to the DC. ‘Stay with Mrs Hinds, make sure she comes to no harm. We’ll holler if we need assistance.’

The two of them sloshed through the puddles, past one steel-framed structure after another, casting a glance inside each one to see if they could catch sight of their quarries. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

As they approached the last of the outbuildings, an unmistakable stench greeted them. Hannah felt sick in the pit of her stomach.

Nothing for it but to take a look. If she wasn’t able to hack it, she should never have come to Lane End Farm.

Mike Hinds was sitting on his haunches inside the building. Flecks of rain plopped through a gap in the roof, down on to his weathered face, but he did not move an inch. His eyes stared through the two police officers. Hannah dared not imagine what he was seeing. He did not flinch as they approached, gave not the faintest indication that he was aware of their existence. She felt sure they were not in danger from him. His rage was spent. Orla had wanted justice, and her father had contrived the wildest justice: revenge.

The log-cutting machine was still and silent, its work done. Something was strapped to the conveyor belt, remnants of someone who once lived and breathed. The wicked blade was invisible, embedded in what was left, and this must have caused the machine to crash to a halt, but too late – far too late – to save Gareth Madsen.

The basket placed on the floor to collect the sawn logs was overflowing with a chaotic mess of segments spewed out by the log cutter. Slices of the man responsible for the deaths of Mike Hinds’ three children.

‘Aaaah …’

Mario groaned, then made a dreadful retching sound and turned to throw up on the ground. Hannah felt hypnotised, out of herself, paralysed by the savagery of what she saw. A human being, transformed into offal.

Blood, blood everywhere. Sticky viscous blood, staining Mike Hinds’ clothes and fingers, coating the severed remains of the murderer. Flowing in rivulets, mixing with pools of rainwater, streaming out of the building and on to the cobbles.

Thunder rolled and clattered in the distance. Soon the rain would teem down again. In time it would cleanse the farmyard of Gareth Madsen’s blood, washing it down the drain like so much sewage. 

A gust of wind sent leaves fluttering along the beck in Tarn Fold. Daniel felt a momentary chill on his neck, for all the warmth of an August Saturday. He and Hannah had spent the past hour walking to the top of the fell and returning by way of the wooded slopes of Brackdale. With excruciating tact, Louise had insisted on staying at home to pore over her finances as she decided whether to put in an offer for a picture postcard cottage in the heart of Hawkshead.

‘Fleur is sticking to her story, then?’ he asked.

They’d talked about the case when Hannah arrived earlier in the afternoon. Mike Hinds was still undergoing psychiatric assessment. Deirdre had been discharged from hospital, still adamant that her husband was a victim, not a wrongdoer. When the medics examined her, they’d found old scars on her ribcage and buttocks that she claimed were the legacy of years of consensual rough sex. Nobody believed her, but what could you do? Her cousin, who farmed in Borrowdale, had agreed to keep
Lane End Farm ticking over, until it could be put on the market.

‘Like superglue.’

‘For God’s sake, what a woman.’

‘You said it, Daniel.’

‘How has Bryan Madsen taken all this?’

‘His upper lip is so stiff, you’d think it was injected with novocaine.’ Hannah shook her head. ‘Got to hand it to him. His brother was a murderer, with whom his wife had a long-term affair, but you’d never know to listen to him.
Life must go on
, that’s what he says. Of course, he’s right, but easier said than done, eh? I’d hate to think what’s going on beneath the surface, probably better not to know. The company’s PR people issued a press release saying that Bryan’s thoughts are with Deirdre Hinds “at this difficult time”.’

‘I caught Kit Payne reading a statement on the television. The message from Madsen’s Holiday Park is
business as usual
.’

‘Yeah, can you imagine? But Kit says that bookings and enquiries reached an all-time high over the last
seventy-two
hours. Everyone loves a good murder, even better with lashings of sex and gore thrown in. The bad guy is dead, the man who turned him into mincemeat is under twenty-four-hour guard. We have uniforms outside the farm to turn back sightseers and journalists with zoom lenses, desperate for a glimpse of the log cutter. Talk about a money shot. Pity finances didn’t stretch to us having a constable at Lane End when it really mattered, but I don’t suppose it would have made any difference.’

‘So all’s well that ends well?’

‘Yes, if all you care about is a cheap frisson.’ Hannah tore a leaf from a sycamore branch and screwed it up in her fist. ‘Mario Pinardi is on sick leave. I visited him again last night, he’s in a poor way. It’s heartbreaking; he simply can’t deal with what we found at the farm.’

‘Not surprising.’ Every time he pictured the scene in his own mind, his gorge rose. How had his father handled this kind of stuff, how did Hannah cope? They stared at each other. Her expression gave nothing away. ‘And how are you doing?’

‘The welfare people offered me counselling, and I spent an hour with a nice lady from Kendal, but now I’ve found my diary is mysteriously booked up for the foreseeable future.’ Hannah gulped in the soft woodland air. ‘Never thought I’d say this, but I’m with Bryan Madsen. It’s best not to dwell on these things. That way madness lies, huh?’

‘Nobody can be strong all the time, Hannah.’

‘I used to say the same to your dad, but he took no notice. I thought he was invincible, but no one is, are they?’

‘No,’ Daniel said in a whisper.

‘When he died, I thought I’d never get over it. Heaven knows how you handled it, I was only his protégée.’ Locks of hair had fallen over her eyes, and she flicked them back. ‘What I’m trying to say is, I know you’re right. That first night alone at home, after we found … what we found … at the farm, I won’t pretend it was easy. I hardly slept a wink. But that was almost a week ago. I’m over it.’

He leant back against the nearest tree trunk. ‘It’ll take a lot longer than a few days to forget what you saw.’

‘I’m not sure I want to forget it, not entirely. It’s a reminder of what human beings can do to one another.
Makes me remember why police work is worthwhile. We can make a difference, even working in a backwater like cold case reviews.’

‘Don’t keep underselling yourself.’

She laughed. ‘You sound just like Ben. How many times did I hear him say that? But you’re wrong, I don’t undervalue myself. Specially not after Lauren Self told me what a great job I was doing yesterday. Stuck in her gullet to say it, but she’s recovered from the shock of seeing the Madsens’ sponsorship go up in smoke, and she has a vested interest in looking on the bright side if she wants promotion. We may not have saved Gareth Madsen’s life, but at least they’ve avoided the cost of the trial, and my money is on Hinds being unfit to plead. Given all the cutbacks, it might mean a net gain to the bottom line. Budget calculations were scrawled all over her face. But even Lauren couldn’t quite bring herself to claim a glorious victory.’

Daniel exhaled. Cost pressures and internal politics, these were the reasons he’d fled from academe. ‘Will Fleur’s nerve crack, do you think?’

‘We’re not banking on it. Her class aren’t short of self-assurance, and Bryan is sticking by her. She’s intelligent enough to have settled on her story – it’s a subtly revised version of the one she rehearsed with you. She’s determined enough to recite it, word-perfect, until we run out of difficult questions.’

‘Remember that lecture we attended in the spring?’ he said. ‘The stuff about women who commit serious crimes? How women learn “good-behaviour narratives” early in life, and mitigate consequences of their actions by accessing “good” narratives. It’s the power of storytelling. All of us
do it. Orla, Aslan, Fleur, you and me. Anyone can rewrite their story to make a horrendous experience seem strangely positive.’

‘Fleur maintains her fling with Gareth was something and nothing. Even though they evidently went at it hammer and tongs whenever the opportunity presented itself. She excuses herself on the basis that the car crash left Bryan impotent, and a woman has to take her satisfaction where she can find it.’

‘Wasn’t Bryan supposed to be a randy old goat?’

‘That was his narrative. All part of the image for a successful entrepreneur. His relationship with Fleur sounds more like a business partnership. He confirmed that what he calls his “wedding tackle” was mangled in the accident. My sergeant interviewed him, though he spared me the grisly details.’

‘What about Sally Madsen?’

‘Fleur says she was having an affair with the bloke who runs her suntan lounge, the latest in a long line of toy boys, so she won’t find it too easy to clamber on to the moral high ground. At least Fleur and Gareth kept it in the family, eh? Sally plans to move in with her lover while she fights Bryan and Fleur over who gets Gareth’s shareholding. Even if she does, it’s a minority stake. Bryan and Fleur will keep control of the business. And Mockbeggar Hall.’

‘Does Fleur still deny that Gareth caused Bryan’s car crash?’

‘Categorically. A wicked invention. Slanderous. Not a shred of evidence to back it up, et cetera. She’s even talked about consulting m’learned friends to protect her reputation. Attack is the best form of defence.’

‘You don’t believe a word of it?’

‘When she says the car crash was a genuine accident? No, Daniel, your theory that Gareth wanted Bryan dead feels right. Who knows, maybe he got the idea from Jolyon’s accident. A convenient mishap leading to a valuable inheritance. The first night I met the Madsen brothers, in Mancini’s bar, Fleur made a flip comment, comparing Gareth to an actor in an old film,
The Postman Always Rings Twice
. Isn’t that the one where the bloke kills the husband to get hold of his wife? I can’t help wondering if it was some sort of private joke between them. But none of that will wash in court, and we’ll never know for sure. Just as we’ll never know whether Gareth pushed Orla, or she jumped. Makes no difference; either way, she’s cold in her grave. My take is that she wanted to die, and so she did his dirty work for him.’

‘Fleur knew Gareth had killed Aslan – and Callum. The boy’s bones have been dug up from the dogs’ grave. No wonder he was keen to lead the original search of the Mockbeggar Estate. Fleur must have known the remains were there. She can’t possibly hope to get away
scot-free
.’

‘Want to bet? Fleur claims she challenged Gareth about Callum’s death, and under pressure he said something about Castor and Pollux. Fleur says that was what Orla overheard. But she also maintains she had no proof Gareth was a child-killer, and it’s a serious thing to accuse your own brother-in-law. She was wrestling with her conscience about whether to talk to us when Aslan died. Again, her line is that she couldn’t know for sure that Gareth was responsible. He cooked up a story throwing all the blame on
Mike Hinds, and she swallowed it, hook, line and sinker.’

‘So Fleur claims to be squeaky clean?’

‘Absolutely. All part of her narrative, you see. She has cast herself as the loyal mistress, denied her conjugals by an act of God, standing by the man she married for better or worse, then seduced and woefully misused by a charming rogue. At one point, she actually said,
I’m not looking for pity
. As if.’

‘You believe she knew Gareth killed the boy?’

‘My best guess is that she leapt joyfully on to the idea that Philip was responsible, like everyone else. Shut her mind to the possibility that Gareth might be involved. We all do denial when it suits us, don’t we?’

‘I suppose.’

‘When Orla started sniffing around, I think Fleur became suspicious, hence her conversation with Gareth. She must have guessed Gareth killed Aslan after luring him to the farm. It looks as though he planned to lay all the blame at Mike Hinds’ door.’

‘Which is why Fleur wanted me to believe that Hinds was guilty.’

He closed his eyes, taking in the fragrance of the woodland. A mix of earth and fern and wood and wild flowers. So far removed from the stench of death.

‘Spot on. I’m sure they were in cahoots, though there’s no chance of a conspiracy charge now. Gareth went to talk to Hinds, pretending to help him out by footing his legal bills. He meant to take Hinds by surprise and kill him, just as he’d done with Aslan. Make it look like suicide. Hinds hasn’t made much sense during the limited time we’ve had to interview him, but we’ve pieced things
together by talking to Deirdre as well. It seems that Hinds started to wonder if Gareth had something to do with Aslan’s death. He knew he was innocent, though he had no idea why Gareth would want to kill anyone. When the conversation didn’t go as Gareth planned, he lunged at Hinds. At that moment, Deirdre came out of the house and screamed, and Hinds took Gareth off guard and knocked him out. When he woke, he was trussed up and lying on the log cutter, waiting to be turned into sausage meat. He pleaded for his life, but Hinds wasn’t in the mood for mercy. Deirdre begged him, too, but he smashed her cheekbone and she crawled away in case he decided to slice her up for good measure. Hinds didn’t switch on the machine at once, that we do know. He let Gareth sweat for a good ten minutes. Christ, it must have seemed like an eternity. And when he saw Hinds reaching for the lever to start the saw …’

For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.

‘It can’t be right,’ Daniel said. ‘Fleur didn’t lay a finger on anyone, but morally …’

‘The police avoid getting too hooked up on morality,’ Hannah said gently. ‘Ben must have told you that. Upholding the law is difficult enough as it is.’

‘But if Fleur gets away with this …’

‘Tough shit, she gets away with it. Orla has had justice, sort of, and that makes me feel marginally better about messing up when she called me. But justice is always messy, ask any lawyer.’

In his frustration, he punched the tree trunk. Stupid, really. It hurt his hand, for no good reason, but somehow he didn’t care.

‘It’s so wrong.’

‘You know what they say, Daniel.’ Hannah’s smile was wan. ‘History is written by the survivors.’

‘I almost forgot.’

Hannah wound down the driver’s window of her car. Daniel was seeing her off after she’d declined an offer of dinner. Things to do back at the house in Ambleside. It was true, yet it wasn’t the whole truth. She wasn’t ready to insert herself any further into his life.

‘Yes?’

‘Marc gave me a present.’ She lifted the copy of
Hidden Depths
from the passenger seat. ‘I’ve read one poem every night before going to bed.’

‘Oh God, my juvenilia.’

‘Hey, I like poetry. Everything from John Donne to Thom Gunn. Not every police officer is a philistine, you know. I’ll let you into a secret – I wrote a few verses myself, when I was a student. But they were lousy, not like yours.’

‘So Marc tracked the book down for you? It’s pretty scarce. Deservedly so, I’m afraid.’

‘He wanted to surprise me. For once, he succeeded.’

Daniel shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his chinos. ‘What’s the latest with the two of you?’

She shook her head. ‘That’s the most difficult question you’ve asked me all day.’

‘Sorry, I don’t mean to pry.’

‘I’m not trying to be evasive.’ She ground her teeth. ‘My mate Terri thinks it’s about – you know, the miscarriage. I don’t agree; that was ages ago, but she reckons I still haven’t got over it.’

‘A loss like that,’ he said, ‘you don’t get back to normal any time soon.’

‘And you lost Aimee. To say nothing of Miranda.’

‘You’re right there, let’s say nothing of Miranda. That was a mistake, pure and simple. My fault, not hers – I dived into another relationship far too fast after Aimee killed herself.’

Hannah blushed. ‘I wondered if you’d sign the book for me?’

‘Love to, but I didn’t bring a pen out with me. Hang on, and I’ll nip back to the cottage.’

‘Don’t worry, it will do another time. I’m sure we’ll see each other again before long.’

‘I’d like that – if you’re sure?’