Dying Fall, A (28 page)

And his thoughts are in turmoil. Pendragon’s face and his ghastly swinging body haunt his dreams (despite the soothing ballet wallpaper). Why did he do it? Why hadn’t he confided in Cathbad? Again and again, Cathbad wonders if he could have been more understanding that day when he visited Pendragon. He’d known his friend was worried about something, why hadn’t he tried harder to find out what it was? Was Pendragon so terrified of the White Hand that he’d killed himself rather than face their vengeance? Cathbad had been shocked at the evidence of Pendragon’s involvement with the Neo-pagan group. He still can’t accept that his gentle friend believed in all that rubbish about the supremacy of the white Norseman. After all, Pendragon had lived in Ireland. He must, surely, have had some sympathy with the Celtic gods too. Cathbad has always believed that one of the good things about being a pagan was that you didn’t have to settle for one narrow set of beliefs but could choose from a cornucopia of mysteries. But it seems that Pendragon had chosen the narrowest path of all.

They reach Clitheroe at ten. It’s a bustling market town, built on steep cobbled streets, overlooked by a magnificent castle. On any other occasion Cathbad would have enjoyed strolling around, absorbing the energies of the place. But today he feels that he is on business. He is even wearing what is almost a jacket. He puts the lead on Thing and walks sedately along the high street. It’s almost like working in a
bank.

The solicitors, J. Arthur Wagstaff, are housed in a reassuringly uncorporate building, a quaint little house with a bow window like a Victorian sweetshop. Cathbad feels his spirits beginning to rise. The receptionist doesn’t even blanch at Thing (or Cathbad’s jacket). She ushers them into an office and tells them that Stephanie will be with them shortly. For the first time Cathbad realises that the S. Evans mentioned by Pen’s sister is actually a woman. He chastises himself for such sexist assumptions. Ruth would be horrified.

To complicate matters further, Stephanie Evans is extremely attractive. She has red hair, which gleams seductively against her black dress. She reminds Cathbad of Ruth’s friend Shona. Her accent is pure Lancashire. Cathbad leans forward so as not to miss a word. What she tells him is almost as interesting as the glimpse of cleavage with which he is rewarded. Dame Alice’s cottage was rented but Pendragon has left its contents in their entirety to Cathbad. He has also left him his savings, a surprisingly healthy sum. Pendragon also asked his friend to care take of his dog.

‘I see you’re already doing that,’ says Stephanie warmly.

‘It seemed the right thing to do,’ says Cathbad.

There are a couple of legacies to Pendragon’s sister, Margot, and to local charities. Most interesting of all is a donation to a local neurological centre.

‘I understand they were treating him,’ says Stephanie.

‘Treating him?’

Stephanie looks at him in surprise and concern.

‘Didn’t you know? Pendragon had a brain tumour. Inoperable apparently. He thought that he only had a few months left to live.’

Cathbad leaves the solicitors’ office in a daze. This revelation sheds a new light on Pendragon’s suicide. And, in retrospect, the headaches and the herbal infusions are also explained. Did the tumour contribute to Pendragon’s feelings of persecution and isolation? Or was he, simply, afraid of dying? Did he ask Dame Alice for help, wonders Cathbad, remembering the garden and the raven in the apple tree. It’s possible that Pendragon acted not out of fear but out of a desire to be master of his own fate. But then Cathbad remembers his friend’s contorted face as he cut him down from the beam. If he’d wanted an easy death he would have taken a gentle poison handpicked from the hedgerows. He would have lain down in Dame Alice’s herb garden and waited for nightfall. No, that’s not the way it happened.

He is so preoccupied that he gets tangled in Thing’s lead and has to stop to extricate himself. As he does so he sees, above a shop, a name that looks vaguely familiar. R. Wade and Sons, Estate Agents.

‘Come on, Thing,’ he says. ‘We’ve got another call to make.’

Halfway through the morning Sandy Macleod gets an unexpected visitor.

‘Lady to see you, boss,’ says the duty sergeant.

‘Lady?’ says Sandy, heaving himself up from his chair. ‘I don’t know any ladies.’

‘This is definitely a lady,’ says the sergeant.

And the sergeant is right. Pippa Henry, sitting in the reception area wearing a black dress, white cardigan and pearls, looks every inch a lady. In fact, Sandy muses, ushering her through the swing doors with a low ironical bow, it’s almost
too
good a performance. Who wears a black dress and pearls on an August morning in Blackpool? She looks like that woman in that film, what was it called? Something about Tiffany’s. Bev would know.

Anyway, it’s distinctly interesting, her coming to call like this, all dressed up. It means she wants to impress him, maybe even influence him. Why?

‘Coffee?’ he asks, showing her into his office.

‘That would be lovely.’

That’s what you think, Sandy tells her silently. He dispatches a WPC for coffee and Kit Kats.

‘So,’ he says, sitting opposite and pushing some papers onto the floor. ‘You wanted to see me.’

‘Yes.’

Pippa Henry looks straight at him. She’s really a very good-looking woman, thinks Sandy. Mid-forties probably, there are fine lines around her mouth and eyes but the overall impression is shiny and expensive. Her dark gold hair is in a bun and she sits up very straight, without fidgeting, a rare thing in a woman. Poise, thinks Sandy, that’s what she has. Poise. He leans forward and sniffs. Chanel number 5. He might have guessed. Pippa recoils slightly.

Sandy smiles encouragingly. ‘What did you want to see me about, Mrs Henry?’

Pippa smooths her skirt over her knees. ‘I wanted to tell you about Dan Golding,’ she says.

‘What about him?’

Pippa smiles, revealing small white teeth. ‘I think you already know, Detective Chief Inspector. I was having an affair with Dan.’

‘Why would I know that?’

‘You’ve found his computer with all his emails and everything. Everyone knows that.’

‘Do they?’

Sandy wonders how everyone knows. Could Ruth Galloway have been talking? Nelson seems to trust her with all his secrets but Sandy wonders whether they were wise to give her free rein to look through Golding’s files. She could easily have blabbed to one of the Pendle academics. Apparently she met that Guy chap the other day. Anyway, nothing on a computer stays private for long. Tim is actually with the forensic-data recovery people now, probing the mysteries of the hard drive.

Sandy arranges his expression to one of polite interest and smiles encouragingly at Pippa. The coffee is brought in and Pippa sips hers with a grimace.

‘Great stuff,’ says Sandy, taking a slurp. ‘Kit Kat?’

‘No thank you. Anyway, I thought I should come and see you. My husband doesn’t know about . . . about Dan.’

I wouldn’t be too sure about that, thinks Sandy. In his experience, husbands always know, though they might not want to admit it, even to themselves. He thinks of the nervous figure bouncing around the deluxe windmill. Clayton Henry seems to have so many problems that maybe infidelity isn’t high on his list. Didn’t he say that his wife had money of her own? Maybe he can’t afford for her to walk out.

‘Don’t judge me too harshly,’ Pippa is saying, throatily. ‘My first husband was handsome and charming but he should never have married. He left me for another man.’ She looks at Sandy as if daring him to say something but Sandy keeps his face blank.

‘I was on my own with a young child. It was very difficult. I decided to go back to university—my father had left me some money—so I went to Pendle and studied history.’

‘And that’s where you met Clayton Henry.’

‘That’s right. He was my tutor. He was kind and he offered security, and although he’s been a very good stepfather to Chloe, it’s not a passionate relationship. But when I met Dan it was different. It was the real thing. He was so good-looking and charming. It was inevitable really.’

‘Was it?’

Pippa flushes. ‘Well, I suppose I could have resisted but . . .’

‘Bit of a ladies’ man, was he?’ says Sandy sympathetically. ‘Very persuasive?’

‘No,’ says Pippa. ‘It wasn’t like that. He wasn’t some loathsome charmer, oiling around women. He was quiet and rather aloof. It was just . . . well, we started talking at our Christmas party and there was this instant connection. It was more mental than physical.’

I’ll take your word for it, thinks Sandy. Beautiful people always claim not to be interested in looks. He has seen a photo of Dan Golding and the man looked like a bloody movie star. (He also saw his dead body when it was brought in for autopsy but then, to be fair, he wasn’t looking his best.)

‘I’d heard he was seeing his next-door neighbour,’ he says now.

‘Elaine?’ Pippa’s lip curls. ‘She was mad about him but he was embarrassed by her. She was always turning up drunk, offering him her body.’

Nice, thinks Sandy. The only people who turn up on his doorstep are Jehovah’s Witnesses. Perhaps he should move to Fleetwood.

‘So there was nothing between Dan and Elaine?’ he asks.

‘Oh they may have had a fling before I came on the scene, but when I . . . knew him, Dan despised Elaine. She was so out of control. I think he was almost afraid of her.’

‘Really?’ This was interesting.

‘Yes, when she was drunk she’d threaten to kill herself and him.’

In that order? wonders Sandy.

‘She threatened to kill him?’

‘Only when she was drunk.’

Could a drunk Elaine have set Dan’s house on fire in a fit of jealous rage? Sandy wonders. It’s possible. Her only alibi is Guy; just as Pippa’s only alibi is Clayton.

‘What about Guy,’ he asks. ‘Where does he fit in?’

‘He’s devoted to Elaine. He’s the only one who can handle her. But I don’t think they’re lovers. In fact I always wondered whether he was gay. He certainly seemed a bit in love with Dan.’

‘Popular chap.’

Pippa’s eyes fill with tears. Sandy thinks they’re genuine because they make her mascara run. ‘Dan was a lovely, lovely man. Everyone adored him.’

So it would seem, thinks Sandy.

‘It’s a real shame,’ says Gary, the estate agent. ‘I don’t expect we’ll get another tenant now.’

Cathbad is tempted to say that the real shame is that a man who was alive a few days ago is lying dead in the mortuary. But he decides not to bother. There is a grey materialistic aura over Gary and, indeed, over the whole office, so he contents himself with stroking Thing and asking why Dame Alice’s cottage is unlettable. It seems a highly desirable residence to him.

‘It’s got a reputation,’ says Gary darkly. ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Pendle Witches? Well, this house used to belong to one of them. An old lady lived there for years and people round here used to say she was a witch too. Then she died and it came on our books. We couldn’t get a tenant to stay there. People said there were strange noises, things kept moving about, odd lights appeared in the garden at night. One man said he woke up in the night to see an old woman sitting at the foot of his bed, just staring at him. Someone else said they’d seen Dame Alice sitting in her rocking chair, knitting. The place was empty for years until your friend moved in.’

‘And he didn’t care about the ghosts?’

‘No.’ Gary looks dubiously at Cathbad, who smiles blandly back. ‘I understood he was into that sort of thing. He said that he’d make peace with Dame Alice’s spirit. And now this happens!’

‘You think his death had something to do with Dame Alice?’

Gary laughs uneasily. ‘No.
I
don’t think it. I don’t believe in any of that stuff. But folk round here will believe it. They’ll think the old lady got him in the end.’

Cathbad doesn’t quite buy the agent’s protestations. He thinks that Gary is the type that believes everything and nothing. But he’s not concerned with Gary right now. He’s seeing himself living in Dame Alice’s cottage with Thing, tending the herb garden and walking on the high hills at dawn. He likes the north; there’s something clear and honest about it that appeals to him. And, if Judy doesn’t want him in her life, he can’t keep hanging on in Norfolk hoping for a glimpse of her and the baby. Far better to make a clean break. He can always find work as a lab assistant and, if he’s careful, Pendragon’s legacy will last for some time.

‘If you did find a tenant,’ he says, ‘I suppose the rent would be quite low.’

Tim comes back from the forensic data recovery company full of news. This is another private company, much used by the police and much resented by Sandy. After his last visit (when Sandy asked one of the analysts, ‘Do you do this because you can’t get a girlfriend?’) it has been tacitly agreed that Tim should handle communication with the outfit. Today’s visit seems to have been a success. Tim is not a demonstrative person but he is positively beaming as he looks round the door of his boss’s office.

‘Glad someone’s got something to smile about,’ says Sandy.

‘They’ve tracked down the University Pals website,’ says Tim. ‘You know, the emails that were sent to Ruth Galloway and Dan Golding.’

‘Well? Don’t keep us in suspense. Who sent them?’

‘Clayton Henry.’

Sandy whistles. ‘Did he now? Why, I wonder?’

‘Could just have been fishing in the dark,’ says Tim. ‘Pardon the pun.’ Sandy looks blank and Tim wonders if he has forgotten the whole phishing/fishing conversation. He hasn’t; he just thinks that Tim is being a tosser.

‘What I mean,’ says Tim hastily, ‘is that Clayton might have known that he would need Ruth Galloway’s identity at some later point, to find information about the bones. He could just have been trying to see what he could pick up.’

‘But how did he know that Golding had contacted Galloway in the first place?’

Tim shrugs. ‘He must known that they were at university together. It wouldn’t be difficult to work out if he knew where and when Golding was at university. And he would have known all that from the University Pals information.’