The Arsenic Labyrinth (19 page)

Head up, shoulders back, he strode briskly on. No question of nerves – for what did he have to be nervous about? He’d chosen the same rendezvous as ten years ago. Not out of nostalgia or superstition, but because it was quiet and accessible. All he wanted was a repeat of last
time. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours – that was the way the world went round.

Passing the bright lights of the Waterhead Hotel, he followed the road around the head of the lake. Beyond the car park, the ground was soft and damp underfoot, but it didn’t slow him down. He wasn’t in bad condition, though tomorrow morning he’d promised himself an hour in the hotel gym to get himself into shape. And it was a while since he’d had a swim, he was ready to make up for lost time. Look forward, not back. For politicians, a mindless slogan, for him a core belief. Sarah was right about one thing. Tomorrow would be the start of the rest of his life.

The path through the trees was dark and eerie. Was that an owl hooting? He’d never paid much attention to birds, he didn’t see the point. Something made a sound as it scurried through the undergrowth. A fox, more than likely, on some savage excursion.

Ahead of him stretched the pier, sleek with the afternoon rain. A sliver of moon was glinting on the wet wood. Ten years ago, the evening after meeting Emma on Mispickel Scar, he’d run all the way here and arrived sweaty and breathless. Tonight he was older and wiser.

As he looked round, a figure detached itself from the trees. He stiffened when he spotted something clasped in the figure’s hand. But it wasn’t a club, just a torch. He’d kept his pen-light in his coat pocket, not wanting to attract attention. The woods might attract one or two courting couples determined to make the most of
Valentine’s, whatever the weather. The last thing either of them wanted was to bump into a pair of teenagers with their tongues down each other’s throats.

‘Long time, no see.’ His voice sounded hoarser than he’d expected.

‘Yes.’

‘Ten years, eh? Amazing.’

‘It’s passed in the blink of an eye.’

‘I hope you don’t think … I mean, it’s good of you to help me out.’

‘And you want to help me, too.’

‘You can depend upon it.’ But determined cheerfulness sounded wrong on such a dark and desolate evening. ‘I mean, I never expected things to pan out like this, but after I came back here, it made sense to get in touch. As for the money, one or two investments have gone sour. I’m on my uppers, actually. That’s the only reason I asked …’

‘Have you forgotten our agreement?’

‘No! Of course not. It’s just that … well, you have no need to worry, honest. After tonight, you’ll never hear from me again.’

‘Promise?’

‘Scout’s honour.’ He was cross that his laughter sounded forced. ‘Not that I ever was a scout, but you know what I mean.’

‘I believe you.’

Guy rubbed his hands, not to keep warm but as a reminder that he was in control. ‘Shall we get down to brass tacks, then? You’ll have the money with you? I won’t
insult you by counting it … no, please, I don’t think it’s wise to switch on your torch. We don’t want anyone to see …’

As the dark figure lifted the torch in the air, Guy suddenly realised that he could have held his breath. The light wasn’t about to be switched on.

The metal head of the torch crashed down on his head with sufficient force to knock him off balance and his legs gave way beneath him. He barely made a sound as he fell on to a pile of sopping wet, shrivelled leaves. Hurting too much even to scream, he prised his eyes open in time to see the torch swinging down towards his head once more.

Tomorrow wasn’t going to be the first day of the rest of his life, after all.

Hannah rubbed sore eyes and switched off the computer screen. She’d been working long hours since the discovery of the bodies and when she finally got to bed each night, sleep never came easily. She diverted her phone and wandered down the corridor to the drinks machine. Her caffeine levels needed to be topped up if she were to keep from nodding off while checking the latest background reports on people linked with Emma Bestwick.

Any lingering doubt as to whether Emma was dead had been settled by the DNA match with the swab taken from Karen. Now the donkey work began. Investigating a cold case meant taking infinite pains and although Gul Khan and Linz Waller were available again, there was much to be done. She’d instructed the team to burrow deep into the lives of possible suspects. The Erskines, the Goddards, father and daughter Clough. They would talk
to neighbours, shopkeepers, volunteer museum guides, clients of Emma’s reflexology clinic. This must be the way archaeologists worked, sifting through endless rubbish in the hope of chancing across a clue to the past. Although Emma might have been killed by someone who had never featured in the inquiry, you had to start somewhere. Impossible to believe that Emma had come to the Arsenic Labyrinth by chance. If she’d made an appointment, it must have been with someone she knew, or someone she had a very good reason to meet.

The second body still lacked a name. Half a dozen leads following calls from members of the public had fizzled out, though a woman in her eighties had been reunited with the brother she’d become separated from during the war. When Hannah had called to tell her he was still alive, the woman had wept with joy. A moment to savour; good things seldom came out of a murder case.

The office was as cold as Inchmore Hall and Hannah warmed her hands on the plastic coffee cup. Marc gave her a lazy grin from a photograph propped beside the PC. He’d told her Daniel Kind had returned to the bookshop, this time wanting to find out about the legend of Mispickel Scar. She shouldn’t encourage Daniel in playing the detective, but she couldn’t resist. His energy and intelligence made her spine tingle. Each time she talked to him, she recalled Ben, who was the shrewdest detective she’d ever met.

Her mobile roared the theme to
Mission Impossible.
She’d downloaded the ringtone in a fit of pique when
overwhelmed by deadlines for completing performance development reviews for members of her team.

‘Hannah Scarlett.’

‘It’s Daniel. Is this a good time?’

She glanced at the reports stacked on her desk. Buried beneath them was a set of revised resource usage targets and an in-depth confidential briefing on the upcoming force merger. On screen, an email from Lauren had popped up, urging senior detectives to attend a training course about managing time effectively.

‘Perfect.’

‘I shouldn’t interrupt, but this is about Emma Bestwick.’

‘Marc told me you’re swotting up on Lakeland lore.’

‘I visited Alban Clough and asked about the Arsenic Labyrinth. The way he tells it, the curse is an ancient legend, its origins lost in history. After that, I talked with your friend Jeremy Erskine. As a historian, he knows his stuff.’

Hannah grunted. ‘He’ll have been desperate to impress Daniel Kind, the telly guru.’

‘He isn’t into legends, so he couldn’t help. I’ve read every page of the book Marc sold me. I’ve surfed the net and even talked to Vanessa Goddard a couple of times to see if she could cast any light. And you know what? There’s more folklore in the Lake District than you can shake a stick at – but I can’t find one passing mention of a jinx on Mispickel Scar that pre-dates the Second World War.’

‘What do you make of that?’

‘Dating any legend is next to impossible. Mythology makes historians shudder. No proper sources …’

‘You sound like a judge, turning his nose up at hearsay evidence.’ Hannah succumbed to the temptation of playing devil’s advocate. ‘Don’t tales often pass from one generation to the next without being written down? Even in Cumbria, with its literary heritage. That’s why Alban Clough is obsessed with preserving the region’s folklore before it’s forgotten, or sanitised out of recognition by the tourist industry.’

‘But if the jinx on Mispickel Scar is as ancient as Alban claims, you’d expect to find it recorded
somewhere
. Bickerstaff, an Edwardian expert in the field, had a weakness for dressing up trivia in lurid prose. These days, he’d have been a tabloid reporter. I can’t see him missing the chance to embellish a juicy tale about a curse.’

‘Where’s all this leading?’

He sounded amused. ‘Come on, Hannah, you’re the detective. You don’t need me to spell it out, do you?’

‘It’s been a long day and it’s not half over. Help me out here.’

He took a breath. In her mind, she could see him, grinning with the exuberance of a magician, pulling a flock of white doves from his sleeve.

‘A pound to a penny, Alban Clough made the story up.’

Half an hour later, Miranda wandered into the living room of Tarn Cottage. Hair wet, eyes bright, wearing a
blue towelling gown and nothing else.

‘I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse.’

Daniel was stretched out on the sofa, flicking through a new book catalogue. Talking to Hannah had given him a buzz, but what he’d just read had soured his mood. Even so, his bare toes couldn’t help tapping the leather cushion in time with the music. Miranda was just back from a shopping trip to Kendal and she’d put on a CD by Corinne Bailey Rae before taking a shower. Mood music to soften him up. She never gave in, he liked that about her. But she’d chosen a bad moment.

‘Sorry,’ he said absently, ‘I’m not buying a half share in a flat I have no intention of using.’

She gazed up to the heavens, a rational woman confronted by mindless intransigence. ‘Daniel, you don’t ever need to cross the threshold if you’re that determined to treat London as a modern Gomorrah. Think of the flat as a pension fund, if it makes you feel better. You’ll be sitting on a gold-mine in a few years and you don’t need to move a muscle apart from writing the cheque. I’ll make all the arrangements.’

‘I’d rather use the cash on this place.’

‘It’s a money pit! Think of how much we’ve spent doing the place up from top to bottom since we signed the contract.’ She sat down next to him, thigh pressing against his, letting the gown fall open. ‘Time to draw a line. Spread the investment risk.’

‘You’re spending too much time with your colleagues on the financial column.’

She raked her nails across his palm. ‘Daniel, this is important to me. I’m not prepared to vegetate for the rest of my life.’

‘You said it yourself in that article, only the other day. The Lakes are hot.’

She shivered theatrically and pulled the gown tight around her skinny frame. And she had a point; the central heating had developed a fault. All day they’d been waiting for the engineer, but Godot would have been more reliable.

‘Poetic licence, OK?’

He squeezed her hand. ‘Sorry, I know you’re keen.’

‘What’s eating you?’ she asked. ‘I mean, it’s not just the flat, is it? You’re pissed off about something.’

He threw the catalogue on to the floor. ‘Publishers, don’t you just love them? It’s my fault, I should have read this when they sent it a fortnight ago. Look at page seventeen.’

She clambered off the sofa and picked up the booklet. The front cover was adorned with the photograph of a celebrity footballer whose ghosted autobiography was the lead title. Squatting cross-legged on the kilim rug, she started leafing through the pages.

‘What’s the problem? This is a list of forthcoming publications. But your backlist is out of print and you haven’t written for an age, so you can’t expect to feature. That’s why …’

‘But someone else does feature.’

She turned a page and said, ‘Oh shit.’

‘See what I mean?’

‘“
Deep Waters: Ruskin’s twilight years at Coniston.
Globally acclaimed historian Hattie Costello lifts the lid on the descent into madness of the sexually tormented Victorian polymath, a man of dark moods and even darker passions.”’

‘From the blurb, it’s juicy enough to be serialised in the
News of the World.
Poor old Ruskin must be revolving in his grave.’

She tossed the catalogue to one side. ‘Even for a very different book, the publishers won’t give you a decent advance to cover a similar topic?’

‘Too right.’ Even if they hadn’t nearly bankrupted themselves paying the soccer star to have someone else write up his life for him. ‘Back to square one.’

Les Bryant walked into Hannah’s room without knocking and said, ‘Looks like you’re stuck with me for a while yet. Her ladyship was busy when I went up to see her, but I’ve emailed her to say I’ll sign that extended contract. It’ll keep me off the streets for another year.’

‘Terrific.’ They shook hands. He still reeked of cough sweets. His eyes were bloodshot and she guessed his sleeping patterns were even worse than hers. ‘Will you find a new place to live?’

Stifling a yawn, Les eased his bulky frame into a chair. ‘When I get a moment, I might look round for somewhere that isn’t next door to a cemetery. I come across enough dead people in the day job.’

‘So how are things?’

He cleared his throat noisily. ‘When I got back last night, I found another letter from the wife’s solicitors. I’ll need to find a brief of my own, she’ll be wanting to take me for every penny I’ve got. I might as well splash out on better accommodation while I have the chance. Much as I grudge paying National Park prices.’

‘If you need time off to sort things, let me know.’

‘I’d rather keep busy, if it’s all the same to you.’

She knew better than to nag. ‘OK, we need to take another look at Alban Clough. This old wives’ tale about a curse on Mispickel Scar may not be as old as we were led to believe.’

He gave her a hard look reserved for unreliable witnesses. ‘You’ve lost me.’

‘I’ve heard from Daniel Kind. The historian, remember?’

‘After what happened at Old Sawrey last summer, I’m not likely to forget. His dad was your boss, wasn’t he?’

Hannah shifted under his sceptical gaze. ‘He’s researching nineteenth-century Coniston. He talked to Clough about the Arsenic Labyrinth and the curse of Mispickel Scar.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘He isn’t convinced it is an ancient legend. He thinks Alban Clough may have invented it himself.’

‘Invented it?’ Les sat up straight, like a puppet whose string she’d jerked. ‘How?’

‘It helps if you own a museum and people believe
you’re the fount of all wisdom on local mythology. How difficult can it be? Legends are mostly vague, no one can date them precisely. Even if you know when the first published account appeared, the story may have been around for generations. But Daniel hasn’t managed to find a single mention of this supposed curse before the 1950s.’

‘Not looking hard enough?’ A mischievous smirk. ‘C’mon. He’s a historian. A professor or summat. Sort of bloke who likes everything cut and dried.’

‘Even so. When I first met Alban Clough, he waxed lyrical about the eternal nature of legends. I’m beginning to think he was taking the piss.’

‘What would he have to gain?’

‘Good question. I want you to find out the answer.’

Les puffed out his cheeks. ‘You’ve got a lot of faith in this Daniel Kind.’

‘Not relevant.’ As soon as she’d snapped the words, she regretted them. No need to be defensive, no need at all. ‘I mean, we have a problem here. We may have identified one of our corpses, but nobody has a clue about the other. All we know is that someone bunged an unknown man down the shaft at least fifty years ago. Alban Clough has spent all his life in that neighbourhood. He knows the fells and he knows their legends. Suppose …’

Mission Impossible
interrupted her. She snatched up her mobile. ‘What is it?’

‘Hannah?’ Lauren Self, not accustomed to being greeted so abruptly. ‘Do you know your phone’s on divert? You
need to get back to Coniston right away. There’s been a development.’

‘ID on our male victim?’

‘No, it’s getting worse, not better. We have another body.’

Back in Coniston, Hannah headed straight for the incident room. The suspected contemporary murder of an unknown male was a separate inquiry from her investigation into the long ago deaths of the people retrieved from the underworld of Mispickel Scar. Different team, different SIO. But Lauren had instructed them to liaise closely, and the sooner the better, to see if connections could be made between the two cases.

The ACC had appointed DCI Fern Larter to head the latest inquiry. Large and jolly with dyed red hair, Fern had a fondness for unsuitably short skirts and a flair for giving good quote. The Press adored her. After the fiasco of the Rao trial, she’d taken Hannah out for a fish and chip supper and helped repair her shattered self-confidence over a couple of bottles of Mateus Rose. Fern didn’t do sophistication; it was one of the things Hannah liked about her.

‘Help yourself,’ Fern said, waving to a packet of chocolate chip cookies on the table.

‘Better not.’

‘Go on, be a devil.’ Fern started chomping. ‘They aren’t fattening, promise.’

‘Get thee behind me, Satan. So what have you got so far?’

Fern pointed a stubby forefinger at a whiteboard in the corner of the room. Names of people and places were scrawled over it in marker pen of bilious green hue and half a dozen post-it notes had been stuck around the edges. Her team had been busy, knowing that the first 24 hours of a murder inquiry are the most crucial.

‘The body was found at seven o’clock this morning. A couple of elderly tourists whose idea of getting up an appetite for breakfast is an early morning walk in the cold and drizzle. Weird, or what?’ Fern laughed noisily and treated herself to another cookie. ‘Anyway, they were walking along the shore from the pier at Monk Coniston when they spotted a bag of rags just under the surface in shallow water. Only it wasn’t a bag of rags, but a dead man.’

‘Cause of death?’