The Cipher Garden (11 page)

‘Should I feel honoured – or alarmed?’

‘No need for alarm, Mrs Gleave.’

‘Please, call me Roz.’

OK, Roz, let’s hear it. ‘Are you telling me that Tina Howe married her husband’s old business colleague?’

‘Oh no. Peter only got round to divorcing poor old Gail the other week, though they separated ages ago. He and Tina have been a couple in the meantime.’

‘They live together?’

‘Not permanently. She still keeps the house she used to share with Warren. Sam and Kirsty haven’t left home yet. Sam works with Peter.’

‘Small world.’

‘Village life, Chief Inspector.’

‘Any gossip about Tina and Peter getting together?’

‘Loads.’ Roz giggled. ‘What else is juicy enough to natter about during long winter evenings in Old Sawrey? But you must understand, the locals take Gail Flint’s side. Not that there are many locals left in the village. Every other house for miles around is a holiday let or a second home for an accountant from Manchester.’

‘Gail was born here?’

‘Yes, Peter’s a foreigner. That is, his family come from Penrith. Might as well be Paraguay as far as the natives of Old Sawrey are concerned.’

‘So what do the gossips say about him and Tina?’

‘You’ll have to ask someone else, Chief Inspector,’ Roz said with a smile. ‘Me, I never listen to tittle-tattle.
Personally, I’m just glad they’ve found happiness.’

A likely story. Hannah decided against pressing. Roz would reveal exactly what she wanted to reveal, no more, no less. Time to open another front.

‘I gather Warren had a high opinion of himself.’

‘Part of a man’s genetic programming, isn’t it? Chris is an honourable exception; he’s unbelievably self-effacing. I’ve never once heard him boast, far less run anyone else down. Warren was the opposite. He never worried if he trod on people’s toes.’

‘Did he make enemies?’

‘Scores, probably. “Take me as you find me”, that was his mantra. Most people decided they were better off leaving him. Other than Tina, she stuck with him through thick and thin. Talk about long-suffering.’

‘Any hint she might have been looking for an exit route?’

‘Divorce? God, no.’ Roz raised her thick eyebrows. ‘She’s not stupid, she went into that marriage with her eyes open. She knew perfectly well what she was letting herself in for.’

‘Including infidelity?’

‘Part of the package, with Warren. Then again, who knows what really goes on inside someone else’s marriage?’ Roz glanced at Hannah’s ring finger. ‘You’re single?’

‘I have a partner. You’re right, it’s impossible to be sure what makes other people’s relationships tick – but you might hazard a guess. Why would Warren Howe want to tie himself down, if he wanted to keep playing the field? As for Tina, you say she’s no fool, so why did she stay married to a serial philanderer?’

Roz stood up and shrugged. ‘Sex, presumably. That’s the usual answer, isn’t it, to most questions?’

Was there a flicker of amused contempt in the words, scorn for those who were slaves to lust? Hannah wondered if the jealousy to which Roz had confessed had faded as quickly as she claimed. Maybe it lingered, maybe she’d still hankered after Warren despite knowing his faults.

She followed Roz along the path. ‘Your husband was away from home at the time of the murder. Must have been hard, coping on your own.’

‘It was never going to be easy, whatever the circumstances. Imagine, Chief Inspector. Your husband has vanished and you come home from work one day, to find that the bloke you hired to sort out your garden has been scythed to death and deposited in a trench he excavated himself. But that’s not all. He wasn’t some boring stranger, he was an ex. Someone you got over in your teens, someone you still pass the time of day with. There’s always the tug of nostalgia, if hardly romance. How do you think that made me feel, Chief Inspector?’

Hannah didn’t have an answer. They strolled on through the wild garden, moving down the terraces towards the house. The fragrance of the roses hung in the air.

Roz broke the silence. ‘What makes you think you can solve the case, after so many years?’

‘As I said, we’ve received new information.’

‘Which you’re not prepared to disclose.’

‘Sorry, Mrs Gleave. My job is to ask, not answer. Is your husband due back soon?’

Roz consulted her wristwatch. ‘Chris is a law unto himself. I told you on the phone, he’s been recording a show for hospital radio. Could be five minutes, could be five hours. But he was in London when Warren was murdered. He can’t help you.’

‘I’ll judge that, if you don’t mind.’

Everyone had a weak spot, every recalcitrant interviewee had a topic they hated talking about. Hannah suspected that with Roz Gleave, it was her husband.

De Quincey had roused himself from his slumbers and was barking enthusiastically, no doubt angling to be taken for a walk. At Roz’s invitation, Hannah stroked his rough fur while inspecting the terracotta thermometer hanging on the outside wall. Twenty-five degrees Celsius, even at this time of day. No wonder she felt exhausted.

‘Had he disappeared before?’

‘Not for so long. Once or twice he went away for twenty-four hours. But not that length of time.’

‘What did you think had happened?’

‘If you insist, I thought he was dead. Chris is very sensitive, nobody knows that better than me. I thought the man I loved had killed himself, that marriage to me hadn’t been enough to make his life worth living.’

‘And then he turned up safe and sound?’

‘As you say.’ Roz swallowed. ‘I was wrong to doubt him. I tell him, he’s like a Herdwick sheep, he has the same homing instinct. That’s why Herdwicks don’t have to be fenced in, isn’t it? Well, Chris doesn’t need to be fenced in, either. I’d trust him with my life.’

‘So you forgave him for causing you such distress?’

‘Of course. I swore that I’d never let anything come between us again. And I never have, Chief Inspector. Never will.’

Peter Flint’s office was a brick-built extension to the house he had once shared with his wife. Kirsty presumed that the cost of buying out Gail’s share was the reason he’d never moved or separated his business premises from his home.
Gail had insisted on having her pound of flesh in the divorce settlement – Tina liked to say Peter’s ex needed the money to pay for the booze she drank herself instead of selling to her customers. Just as well Flint Howe Garden Design was supposed to be thriving, though there were few obvious signs of affluence. Peter’s Renault needed a wash and a paint repair to a scrape on the bumper. In the past, Kirsty had found his lack of ostentation appealing, had been happy for her mother when she’d announced they were seeing each other. But that was before the letters had arrived.

Vertical blinds hung in the window and she could not see inside. A neat label read ‘Please ring for reception’, but the door wasn’t shut properly and Kirsty walked straight in. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with Tina’s photographs of gorgeous gardens. Brilliant orange Chilean firebushes, elaborate mosaic paths of silver and grey, marble water features with concealed lighting and exotic steel sculptures with unexpected peepholes that resembled deformed Polo mints.

Her mother was bending over Peter Flint’s desk, handing him a note torn from a telephone pad. The floral leggings were a mistake, Kirsty thought. Their heads were almost touching. Even though they were talking business, the intimacy between them was palpable. Kirsty cringed.

‘Here is the address and phone number,’ Tina said. ‘His name is Kind. The cottage is at the far end of Brackdale, he said. Beyond the Hall.’

‘You’ve booked me in for tomorrow?’

‘I told him you were busy, but he insisted that…’ Tina spun round. ‘Kirsty! Don’t you believe in knocking? What on earth are you doing here?’

‘I wanted a word.’

‘Couldn’t it wait till I got back home?’

‘I never know when you will be home these days.’

Tina’s features hardened. No matter how she tried, she was unable to resist an argument. Perhaps marriage had done that to her, Kirsty thought, perhaps her willingness to stand up for herself had kept Dad interested.

‘Sorry, I didn’t realise I had to keep to a timetable.’

Peter scrambled to his feet and grabbed a folder from his desk. ‘Look, if you two girls fancy a chat in private, I’ll make myself scarce.’

‘No,’ Tina said. ‘I don’t have secrets from you, darling.’

That
darling
seemed unnecessary. Typical Mum, marking out her territory. Making clear where her loyalties lay. Perhaps they’d lain there for a long, long time.

‘This concerns you as well, Peter,’ Kirsty said.

‘Me?’ He blinked behind his glasses. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand.’

Peter Flint’s expression suggested an amiable,
absent-minded
owl. Lately, Kirsty had begun to suspect that his good-natured vagueness about anything unconnected with his work was a façade. For all his bumbling demeanour, he had a priceless knack of getting whatever he wanted. He must possess hidden reserves of determination.

She turned to her mother. ‘Have you told him about the letters?’

Tina gave a long and theatrical sigh. ‘So that’s what this performance is all about?’

‘Have you told him?’ Kirsty said again through gritted teeth. Her mother had a flair for moving the goalposts. She’d had a lot of practice when Dad was alive; it was her technique for bringing their quarrels to an end. Sometimes it hadn’t worked, sometimes plates had been thrown.

‘If you mean the anonymous letters flying around,’
Peter Flint said, ‘Tina didn’t need to tell me about them. I told her as soon as one came to me.’

‘What did it say?’

‘It was offensive rubbish which deserved to be put through the shredder and that’s precisely what I did with it.’

‘Because it accused you of having it off with Mum while my father was still alive?’

He blinked again. ‘You don’t…’

Arms folded, she leaned back. ‘All I want you to tell me is whether it’s true.’

Tina took a couple of paces forward and seized hold of her wrist. ‘Do you want to know, Kirsty? Do you really want to know?’

Her grip hurt, almost as much as Sam’s drunken grasp had hurt. All of a sudden, Kirsty wasn’t sure any more what she did want to know. Yet could the truth be any more painful than the anguish of guesswork?

‘I can imagine,’ she said furiously and tugged herself free.

‘Kirsty,’ Peter said. ‘Please listen to me. This is upsetting your mother. You don’t understand.’

‘You know what, Peter? I’m beginning to understand a great deal about your…relationship.’

Tina folded her arms. ‘All right, then. I’ll satisfy your curiosity if you want. You’ve got it all wrong. So has whoever keeps sending these bloody letters. Peter and I never slept together before your father died.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Believe what you want, you stupid little cow. It’s the truth.’

‘You know my sergeant, I gather,’ Hannah said. ‘Nick Lowther?’

Chris Gleave nodded. ‘We were at school together. A good man.’

‘Yes.’

‘Bright, too. I’d expected him to have made chief superintendent by now. If not chief constable. But perhaps that’s not what he became a policeman for.’

‘Perhaps not.’

Chris put his hands behind his head, as if in aid to thought. A slender fair-haired man in a white open-neck shirt and beige chinos, he looked younger than his years. Hannah didn’t often encounter men as handsome as Marc, but Chris might be a contender. Not that she fancied him. Despite Nick’s glowing testimonial, beneath the agreeable exterior, she sensed something cool and distant.

‘He had this weird idea that your job is to serve justice, as I remember. I suppose you can do that as easily as a sergeant as a superintendent. Especially if the police service is like most hierarchical organisations. The higher you
climb the greasy pole, the more careful you have to be not to upset the people at the top.’

‘I couldn’t possibly comment,’ she said, allowing him a faint smile.

‘Nick could be too sardonic for his own good. I remember that one of our rugby teachers really had it in for him and—’

‘More tea, Chief Inspector?’

Roz bustled through the door, bearing a crowded tray. From the moment Chris had arrived home, she hadn’t left them alone for longer than it took to boil a kettle. She fussed around her husband like an overprotective mother with an only child. Was their marriage like this all the time, Hannah wondered, or was she afraid of what he might say to a detective asking about Warren Howe?

‘No, thank you. I don’t expect to keep your husband long.’

Roz put the tray down on an occasional table. The furniture in Keepsake Cottage was old and made of pine, the china Crown Derby. Hannah’s chair faced a huge oval mirror, which revealed that she had a ladder in her tights.

After pouring a cup for Chris and herself, Roz sat on the sofa beside him. Their thighs were touching, and she looped an arm around his thin shoulder. Some men would have betrayed embarrassment, but not Chris Gleave. Legs negligently crossed, he gave the impression of a man at ease with himself, unaware of his wife’s attentions. Possibly he expected nothing less.

‘So what’s caused you to investigate what happened?’ he asked.

What happened
. Hannah remembered the pictures of Warren Howe’s from the autopsy. She banished the image. Better not throw up all over such a lovely old Persian rug.

‘My team has a brief to review unsolved murders. It’s one of a number of cases we’re reconsidering.’

‘Pure routine, then? No new leads?’

‘I’m afraid the details of our inquiry are confidential.’

‘I wish you luck. Warren wasn’t a nice man, but nobody deserves to die like that. So how can I help?’

‘Can we talk about the statement that you gave to the police when you…returned home after the murder?’

‘There’s nothing to add.’

‘I was saying to your wife earlier, it’s surprising how often, after a lapse of time, something else springs to mind. Something you might have overlooked previously, or thought too unimportant to mention.’

Chris shook his head. ‘Not me. I’m afraid I didn’t have anything to contribute to your colleagues’ investigation all those years ago and nothing’s changed.’

‘So you can’t cast any light on the case? Even though the murder was committed in your back garden? And the victim was a man you’d known for years?’

‘Roz knew him better and longer than me.’

‘You were aware that she was Warren Howe’s girlfriend in her teens? Until – sorry, Mrs Gleave – he chucked her?’

‘All that was history,’ Chris said quickly. ‘They had a fleeting teenage romance. No lasting significance for either party. Far less me. Water under the bridge.’

Roz’s cheeks were rose-pink. ‘You’re surely not suggesting Chris was jealous? Jealous of Warren?’

‘I’m not suggesting anything. You told my colleagues that you had no idea that Warren Howe’s body had been found in your garden while you were away, Mr Gleave.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Must have been quite a shock.’

Chris exhaled. ‘To be honest with you, Chief Inspector,
I’d been through a great deal in a short time. I hate to sound cold-blooded, but hearing about the death of a man who was scarcely a friend was the least of my problems. What horrified me was to learn that I’d left my wife to cope on her own with all the sound and fury of a murder investigation. It was a long, long time before I forgave myself for that.’

‘But you managed to forgive yourself in the end?’

The barb didn’t even graze him. ‘Life is short, isn’t it? We beat ourselves up all the time, and so often it’s for no purpose whatsoever. I’ve often made the mistake of feeling guilty over something trivial that wasn’t even my fault. Perhaps you have yourself, once or twice?’

Hannah prayed she wasn’t blushing. ‘I’m sorry to pry, but can you tell me about the circumstances of your disappearance?’

Roz made as if to protest, but he silenced her with a sideways glance. ‘If you’ve read the old files, you’ll know as much as me.’

For the first time, there was a note of irritation in his voice and Hannah cheered inwardly. She hadn’t lost her touch after all; she could still shake the calmest witness. ‘Even so, I’d be grateful. Unless you have a particular objection?’

‘I didn’t hold anything back.’

‘Your explanation for your disappearance was that you’d suffered a nervous breakdown.’

‘As it happens, that was the doctors’ diagnosis. Or whatever medical term they use. Anxiety, depression, stress, whatever. The bottom line is, I was a mess. Overwrought, not thinking straight.’

‘Chief Inspector, you don’t realise,’ Roz muttered.

‘I’d slaved night and day over the CD, but the whole
project was going pear-shaped. I’d have found it easier if the reviewers had hated my music. Instead they said it was bland, uninspired. Someone compared it to flock wallpaper, for God’s sake. The CD was meant to be a turning point, a crowning achievement after years of sweat and tears, but it sank like a stone in a sea of critical indifference. I simply couldn’t handle it. Can you understand that, Chief Inspector Scarlett?’

‘Well,’ Hannah said judiciously, ‘I’ve never brought out a CD.’

‘I decided I was a rotten failure, that I’d embarrassed Roz and everyone else who’d believed in me. I just wanted to crawl away somewhere and hide out of sight.’

Roz squeezed his hand. ‘You never embarrassed anyone, darling.’

‘Why go to London?’ Hannah asked.

‘It’s vast and anonymous. People you pass in the street couldn’t care less whether you live or die. Perfect if you want to escape.’

‘Did you have friends there?’

He nibbled at his fingernails. ‘I told you, it was precisely because I wanted to run from the people I was close to that I headed to a city where no one knew me. I didn’t take much money, little more than the clothes I stood up in. I found a crummy bedsit and did a bit of busking to pay the rent. Not that I managed to earn enough, even to live in such a hellhole. I started drinking heavily. God knows, if I’d stayed there much longer, I might have ended up sleeping in a gin-soaked cardboard box under Waterloo Bridge.’

‘So why didn’t you, what brought you back?’

He took Roz’s hand in his. ‘My wife saved me, Chief Inspector, simple as that.’

‘It was down to you,’ Roz said. ‘You had the courage to make that phone call.’

Pass the sickbag, Hannah thought. She drummed her fingers against the arm of her chair, wanting them to get on with the story.

‘I had too much to drink one night and started getting homesick. I’d been so selfish, so cruel, walking out on Roz without a word. She hadn’t a clue where I was, what I was up to.’

‘I explained to the Chief Inspector.’ Roz paled as the memories returned. ‘I realised you were unhappy, but you’d retreated so far inside yourself that not even I could reach you. I was so afraid that one morning I’d wake up and a policeman would be banging on the door, come to break the news that your body had been found in some cave or on a fell.’

Chris said hoarsely, ‘The instant I dialled this number, I started to panic. What would I say, how could I make up for all the harm I’d done? Thank the Lord Roz snatched up the receiver. If she hadn’t, even Dutch courage wouldn’t have let me try a second time. Tell you what, Chief Inspector. Once we’d talked for a couple of minutes, I began to sober up. Come to my senses. I was in tears, mind. But they were happy tears.’

‘I told him I still loved him,’ Roz said. ‘We all make mistakes.’

‘I asked if she’d take me back,’ Chris said. ‘And she didn’t hesitate.’

‘Not that I’ve regretted it.’ Roz squeezed his hand. ‘Not for a moment. I promise you that, Chief Inspector.’

Hannah grunted. Faced with such connubial bliss, she was lost for words. Or at least words that she could decently utter.

And they all lived happily ever after. Except for Warren Howe.

‘You’re a lucky man, Daniel Kind,’ Miranda said.

‘Uh-huh.’

An hour ago Louise had announced her intention to go for a walk and explore the far side of Tarn Fold, along the beck beyond the old corn mill. He’d seldom seen her so relaxed; already Rodney was a fading memory. While she was out, he’d been surfing the Net, searching in vain for information about the Quillers. He was hunched over his computer screen when Miranda came up behind him and started massaging his shoulders. As the tension trickled away, Miranda took off his shirt. Her long bony fingers were working at his flesh with a steady rhythm.

‘I mean,’ she murmured, ‘you don’t just have me. You have a lovely sister of your own as well.’

‘No comparison.’ He breathed in her musky scent. ‘Promise.’

‘What I mean is, she’s your own flesh and blood. That’s so special, you don’t realise.’

Miranda had been adopted by an elderly childless couple, who had striven to give her everything she asked for. By her own admission, it was never enough and she’d repaid their idolatry with childhood tantrums, and later a determination to indulge in everything they disapproved of. Within weeks of her twenty-first, both of them were dead and it was too late for guilt about her youthful ingratitude. As for her birth mother, she’d never met the woman, knew nothing of her.

‘You could always…’

‘Trace her and suggest we get together for a cup of tea? Pray for a tearful reunion with lots of hugs and kisses?’
Her fingers stopped moving. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘It might be the best thing you ever did.’

‘She rejected me once. That’s enough for anyone.’

Above his desk was a framed watercolour of Buttermere in myriad shades of blue and green. Reflected in the glass, her face creased in distress. The pain bit deep, he knew, and yet in her shoes he would not have been able to rest until he had solved the mysteries of the past.

‘We all deserve a second chance.’

‘Listen, if she shut the door on me again, I don’t know what I’d do. It would be more than I could bear.’

He didn’t want to let it go. The law had been changed to allow birth mothers to track down the children they’d given away through intermediary agencies. Even though she didn’t have to agree to meet, she might yet be contacted out of the blue and then feel guilty for not having made the first move.

‘For all you know, somewhere out there you have a ready-made family of your own.’

She raked his skin with her nails. ‘Who are quite happy as they are and don’t need some neurotic female turning up for a cosy chat by the fireside.’

‘You’re not neurotic.’

She was breathing hard, he could feel the warmth on his bare neck. ‘How old will she be now – forty odd? Presumably she was young when she had me. I must have been a mistake, an accident. A cause of untold angst. She’ll have spent the last twenty-odd years trying to make a new life. She’s probably settled down, scrubbed me out of her mind. Or simply forgotten I was ever born.’

‘She won’t have forgotten.’

‘One thing she won’t want is a skeleton climbing out of her cupboard.’

He swivelled in his chair. ‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Suppose she was very, very young when I was born? Suppose she was raped? It frightens me even to think about it.’ Tears were forming in her eyes and he cursed inwardly for pushing too hard. ‘You just don’t know what it’s like, being on your own.’

‘Hey, you’re not on your own.’ He stood up and took her hand in his. ‘I’m so sorry, I never meant to…’

‘You don’t realise, do you? When I see you with Louise, I feel so fucking jealous!’

He stared at her pretty face, contorted with anguish, unsure what to say or do.

The front door banged. Louise’s voice floated up the stairs. ‘I’m back!’

Oliver, she needed to be with Oliver. If only they could spend long enough together, he would come to understand her better, appreciate that she was ready to give him anything he could ever want. Not money, obviously, she couldn’t match Bel on that score. But cash in the bank couldn’t compete with a burning desire.

After the disastrous encounter with her mother and her boyfriend, Kirsty hurried straight home. Back at the house, she ran upstairs and stepped under a cold shower. The icy water was a sweet torment, a means of washing away the grubbiness of her family, of her life.

She changed into a purple top with a high neck and set off again for the restaurant. Her long strides took her past a group of middle-aged men in expensive hiking gear. A small bloke with a film of sweat on his brow gave her breasts a lingering look, a man with a serious beer belly whistled at her. It said something about the mess of her life that it was the nicest thing that had happened all day.

As she entered the restaurant car park, she spotted the two Croatian girls, little and large like cartoon characters, loitering near the side door. They were having a quick smoke before getting ready for dinner. Veselka waved. She put on a smile and waved back, thinking: it’s your lungs you’re ruining. Why didn’t people look after their health better? If they didn’t watch out they’d finish up in a cancer ward. Sam was even worse; it was as if he had a death wish.