The Cipher Garden (20 page)

‘I was telling Daniel about the cipher garden,’ Peter Flint said.

Sam uttered an unintelligible grunt. Despite the heat, he was tucking into a ketchup-coated burger in a bap and plainly couldn’t be bothered with idle chit-chat.

‘What can you tell me about it?’

A shrug. ‘Not much to tell. I heard my dad speak about it once when I was a kid. That’s all.’

‘What did he say?’

They could hear the plane high above, heading towards the bay. Sam spat casually on the ground, then wiped his lips with the back of his sweatshirt sleeve. His breath smelled of fried onions.

‘Only that there used to be a cipher garden over at Tarn Fold in Brackdale.’

Peter Flint said, ‘He never mentioned it to me.’

‘You’re an off-comer,’ Sam said brutally. ‘This was just a local tale. A legend, like. He heard about it when he did a spot of work at Brack Hall.’

‘What was the legend?’ Daniel asked.

‘I dunno exactly. About why the people died, the people that owned the garden? Something like that.’

‘A family called Gilpin owned our cottage for years. Originally, it was built by a man called Quiller. In between, it kept changing hands.’

‘Maybe people were afraid there was a curse on it.’

Daniel stared. ‘A curse?’

‘The cipher was about death. There was a message in the garden, it was supposed to explain how the people who lived happened to die.’

‘Fascinating, don’t you think?’ Peter Flint asked. ‘And not a little spooky.’

‘What else do you know about the cipher?’ Daniel demanded.

The young man finished his bap. It was evidently more satisfying than the conversation. ‘That’s all. I never paid much heed.’

‘I’d like to take another look at your garden,’ Peter Flint said, ‘see if I can make out this cipher. Actually, Daniel, you have some pretty wicked plants growing around the tarn. Venomous plants are like weeds, you know. Give them time and they proliferate. I’m not just talking about all
your foxgloves, or the belladonna. Hellebore is seriously toxic; the roots are poisonous as well as the leaves. Even its flowers strike me as sinister. As for mandrake…’

Sam bared his teeth. ‘Yeah. Mandrake is supposed to scream when you pull it out of the ground.’

‘Sorry I’m late.’ Nick was flushed after jogging over from where he’d parked, but Hannah thought he looked good in T-shirt and shorts. She liked his hairy arms and he had much better legs than Peter Flint. ‘The old lady who lives next door fainted as I was about to set off and I had to take her to Casualty. It’s the heat, none of us are used to it.’

‘Let’s cool down with a drink after Kirsty’s done her thing. Once I’ve had talked to her, you and I can have a word in private.’

‘Hey, someone’s waving at you. Don’t I know him?’

Hannah turned her head and saw a familiar face. Carefully, she said, ‘As a matter of fact, that’s Daniel. Ben Kind’s son.’

‘Of course. I’ve seen him on the box. Do you know the women with him?’

‘I’d hazard a guess at his partner Miranda and his sister. Let’s go and say hello.’

As they jostled through the crowd, Hannah caught Daniel’s eye. Impossible not to glow at the spontaneity of his smile. As introductions were performed, she considered the women in his life. Miranda was depressingly gorgeous; no longer did she find it so hard to understand why he’d thrown up his career to move to the Lakes with her. As for Louise, at first glance she didn’t look much like Daniel. But the resemblance was there if you set about looking for it – not least, she had her brother’s cool appraising stare. Ben Kind had had it too.

‘You look cheerful. I didn’t realise you were so keen on skydiving.’

He jerked a thumb in the direction of the plane circling overhead. ‘It’ll be interesting to watch. But there’s no way I’d go up there. A group of students tried to persuade us to book a tandem jump. We had to drag Miranda away.’

‘It must be so liberating,’ Miranda said dreamily. ‘Imagine floating through mid-air.’

Hannah caught Louise’s caustic glance. Not much love lost between those two, she guessed. Daniel noticed as well, and was quick to move the conversation on.

‘I’ve just had some exciting news. From Peter Flint and Sam Howe, of all people.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Hannah spotted Nick’s brow furrowing. For once she could read his mind: how come Daniel Kind knows Peter Flint and Sam Howe? Perhaps she was taking more of a risk than Kirsty, up there in that little tin can, but she couldn’t just walk away.

‘Tell us.’

‘Ever heard of a cipher garden?’

When she shook her head, he told them what he’d learned. His animation amused her. He was so natural, not at all her idea of an Oxford don or someone who had presented a television series.

‘So what do you think the cipher represents?’

Miranda tugged at Daniel’s sleeve. ‘Look! They’re about to jump!’

They craned their necks. The plane was directly above the field that served as the dropzone. A microscopic figure, little more than a dot, had appeared at the door.

‘That’s Kirsty,’ Hannah said. ‘Her mother told me she’d be first to go.’

‘How high would you say they are?’ Louise asked.

Nick said, ‘Nine thousand feet, at a guess. Maybe ten.’

‘A long way to fall.’

‘Right.’

Kirsty leapt from the plane. She was gliding through the air, elegant as a bird. As she came closer, they could make out her canary-yellow jumpsuit. But as they watched, she raised an arm.

‘Jesus,’ Daniel said. ‘What’s she doing?’

Nick swore. ‘She’s taking off her helmet.’

Kirsty pulled the helmet free and it flew away.

Hannah’s stomach lurched. She found herself squeezing Nick’s hand tight.

Miranda let out a cry. ‘What’s she doing? Is she mad? She’s…’

The figure in the sky was uncoupling her parachute.

‘She’s not wearing goggles,’ Nick said.

The parachute was flapping around the skydiver’s legs. It was as if she was dancing, as she tried to wriggle free.

‘Shit, she’s lost her parachute!’

People screamed as the white parachute billowed and spiralled away. Tears were running down Miranda’s cheeks, Louise had covered her eyes.

Kirsty was falling through the air, lying on her back, knees bent towards her chest.

Hannah thought she was going to be sick. She saw Daniel put his arm round Miranda. Their eyes were locked on the girl in the sky.

Kirsty arched her back and put her head down, pointing towards the ground. They could see her long red hair, rippled by a breeze. Her body spun in mid-air and then plunged towards the dropzone.

People were shouting. ‘No! Oh God! No!’

As the girl hit the ground, Hannah retched.

Tears filled Daniel’s eyes as he stuffed one more sack with clumps of grass and stinging nettles. He’d striven to expel the vision of Kirsty Howe’s shattered body from his mind through sheer hard labour, but in vain. However many times he bent his back, the scene at the airfield kept replaying in his mind. That tiny yellow figure in mid-air, intent on destroying herself.

What drove someone to such despair that suicide was the only way out? He’d wrestled with the question a thousand times since Aimee had hurled herself from that tower in Oxford, and never found an answer. To him, life was the most precious gift. To toss it away was unthinkable.

Chaos had engulfed the airfield the instant the girl hit the ground. People were crying out in shock and disbelief, strangers clutched at each other, unable to make sense of what they had witnessed. While Daniel, Miranda and Louise huddled together for comfort, Nick raced off to take charge of the scene. Once Hannah finished vomiting, she followed him. Daniel thanked God he
wasn’t a police officer, charged with sorting out other people’s ruined lives. How had his father coped with the horror?

The three of them drove home in silence and had little to say to each other before going to bed. Kirsty’s death had numbed them. All night, he kept waking up, unable to settle. At first light, he headed out into the garden and threw himself into decoding the cipher garden, but his brain wasn’t working and he’d resorted to physical graft. Nothing added up, certainly not this eccentric overgrown landscape in the shadow of the fell. What did an old cipher matter, when the young waitress was dead for no reason?

Senseless, senseless, senseless.

He thrust his fork into the hard dry earth and struck something solid buried a few inches under the ground. A large stone. The spikes of a monkey puzzle tree scratched his cheek as he stood up, but he took no notice. Levering with his fork, he brought to the surface a square grey tablet, a foot long and wide. As he brushed off the dirt, he uncovered chiselled indentations. Within a minute an inscription was revealed.

WILL TAKE OUR LEAVE

An anagram? He played around in his mind with the letters, but couldn’t come up with anything that wasn’t fanciful or meaningless. Perhaps the message wasn’t meant to be read in isolation. He’d been clearing the undergrowth from a patch populated by ferns and foxgloves, divided from the rest of the garden by a picket fence and bounded by two monkey puzzle trees, a yew and a small weeping willow.

He leaned on his fork, massaging his back with one hand, listening to the buzzing of the bees. His body was
aching, and he’d tweaked the muscles in his ribs, but this wasn’t the moment to give up and retreat inside. A current of excitement was flowing through him, a sensation he’d experienced at Oxford. He was on the brink of discovery.

Hannah closed her eyes and let the blast of water from the shower cleanse her. If only she could wash away what had happened. She must clear her mind, the doctor was right, think about the future. Looking back might destroy her.

She stepped out of the cubicle and towelled herself dry. The house was as silent as a crypt. Strange to be here on a weekday. Her instinct was to ring the office, check out what was going on, but she’d promised Marc that she wouldn’t make the call, wouldn’t allow herself to be sucked straight back into the quicksand of endless meetings and filling in forms.

But it was safer to think about work than the rest of her life. She needed to focus on solving the murder of Warren Howe, it would give her a goal to aim for. Even that was fraught with angst. She couldn’t rid herself of the suspicion that Tina Howe had murdered her husband. But she’d watched Tina running towards the dropzone seconds after Kirsty’s death. The woman’s ravaged face was a sight she would never forget. She might be a murderer, but that was a punishment too far. Nothing was crueller than watching your own child die.

The tablet had lain beneath one of the monkey puzzle trees. Daniel used the fork to test the ground beneath the other. Soon the metal prongs struck another piece of stone. He levered it up and uncovered a second inscription.

LEAVES FROM THE GARDEN

Mosquitoes had stung his bare arms, leaving red tender marks. Sweat was pouring off him, and he’d forgotten to replenish his sun block. None of this mattered. He couldn’t stop now. He was on a roll, no question. The pain in his back and ribs meant nothing.

He was driven on by the conviction that at last the cipher was within touching distance. No stopping now. Within ten minutes, he had dug out a third stone from under the drooping willow branches. He cradled it in his hands, as if it were a Ming vase.

The tablet bore a carved question.

WHY DID YOU LEAVE?

The phone trilled. Hannah let it ring. Probably a recorded message that would try to sell her a timeshare in Spain. But the caller was persistent. In the end she surrendered.

‘Hello?’

‘Hannah, is that you? You sound strange. Are you all right?’

Terri. Faithful Terri. At least, faithful as a friend if not always as a wife. Hearing her brisk, confident tone was a therapy in itself. Hannah wondered whether to lie and pretend everything was all right. But Terri was no fool. She’d see through the subterfuge. And besides, even detective chief inspectors sometimes needed a shoulder to lean on.

‘Well, actually, I’ve been better…’

There must be another stone. Must be. The message he’d uncovered made little sense. There were four trees and he’d convinced himself there must be four stones. But he couldn’t find the missing link.

His skin was burning, but he kept on going. The yew
tree had thick, tangled roots that slowed him down, but he was certain there was something to find. Time passed. Twenty minutes, half an hour. What was that, wrapped around by the spreading roots?

He’d found it. Soon he was brushing the dirt from the fourth stone and squinting at its inscription.

TOGETHER AGAIN FOR ETERNITY

Yew trees are often found in cemeteries, he remembered. Christ, did it mean that a corpse was buried here? The thought of it made him grind his teeth. But there was no body in the garden – who could it be? Not Jacob and Alice Quiller, for they had been interred in the churchyard at Brack. Not their son John, whose body had been brought back from South Africa and laid to rest in the same place.

He looked around and saw the cottage grounds with new eyes. Paths leading nowhere, false turnings, dead ends. Belladonna, foxgloves, hellebore. Poisonous plants in a beautiful landscape. Even the loveliest blooms seemed sinister this morning. Weren’t lilies by tradition the flowers of funerals?

‘Daniel!’ Miranda had emerged from the cottage. ‘Phone for you. Marc Amos, from the bookshop.’

‘You talked about Jacob Quiller.’ Marc sounded pleased with himself. ‘He’s mentioned in a book I picked up in a job lot at a book fair. Riddles of South Lakeland. I spotted his name when I was flicking through a chapter on Brackdale. It talks about Quiller’s garden at the cottage in Tarn Fold.’

‘The cipher garden.’

‘So you know all about it?’

‘I wish.’

‘This book was published by a local firm, the print run must have been minuscule.’

‘Which company?’

‘RG Publications, they’re based near Hawkshead. A small press, a one-woman band. She’s been churning out a title a month for ten or twelve years now. Local interest stuff for tourists rather than the natives. A crowded market, but she keeps her head above water. This isn’t a book I recall. Must have been one of her earliest.’

‘What does RG stand for?’ Daniel asked, although he could guess.

‘Roz Gleave, that’s the publisher’s name. The author is called Eleanor Sawtell. Never heard of her. According to the blurb, she is – or was – a former primary school teacher. She also boasts that she’s a lifelong resident of Staveley and has three children and eleven grandchildren.’

‘What does she have to say about the garden?’

‘Not a lot, disappointingly. I’ll copy the paragraphs and put them in the post to you.’

‘Thanks, but I’ll call in and pick them up.’

‘In a hurry?’

‘Puzzling over the garden will take my mind off yesterday.’

‘Hannah said you were at the airfield.’ He sighed. ‘Frankly, she was in hell of a state last night. A horrific business, by the sound of it. That poor young girl. I suppose it couldn’t have been an accident?’

‘Hannah would know better than me, but the girl’s behaviour looked calculated enough from where we were standing. She just ripped off her helmet and parachute and dropped like a stone.’

‘My God, how could you hate life enough to want to do that to yourself?’

‘Don’t ask me. How is Hannah today?’

A pause. ‘For once in a blue moon, she’s not fit enough to go into work. Though she took some persuading. Of course, she’s a workaholic, you must have noticed.’

‘She’s obviously very committed to the job.’

A brief laugh. ‘That’s one way of putting it. Between you and me, she takes it all too much to heart. Naturally, she’s shocked by what happened. She’s not as
thick-skinned
as most police officers. In fact, she’s not
thick-skinned
at all. God knows what she was doing at the airfield. I’ve never heard her express an interest in skydiving before.’

‘Something to do with work?’ Daniel had assumed it was no coincidence that Hannah and her sergeant had shown up at an event featuring Warren Howe’s daughter. But he didn’t want to say too much.

‘Suppose so.’ A pause. ‘She was on her own, I suppose?’

Daniel hesitated. ‘We didn’t have time for conversation. But I didn’t see her interrogating spectators, if that’s what you mean. And of course the suicide jump stunned all of us. Nobody could have expected that.’

If Marc Amos realised that Daniel had dodged his question, his voice didn’t betray it. ‘No, the girl must have had mental problems, it’s not a rational act. You’re coming over to the shop sometime?’

‘I’ll be with you in half an hour.’

Far below the Sacrifice Stone, the tranquil and secluded corner known as Tarn Fold is associated with a story about the garden created in the late nineteenth century by Jacob Quiller. Quiller’s mother was the younger sister of Richard Skelding, whose father had bought Brack Hall fifty years before. The Skeldings and the Quillers were God-fearing folk, 
much-respected pillars of the Brackdale community and Jacob himself was a churchwarden and staunch supporter of the church at Brack. His wife Alice was a local girl of humble stock who worked at the Hall as a housemaid before catching Jacob’s eye. Originally the Fold, like most of the rest of the valley, formed part of the sprawling Brack Estate. Richard, well known for his generosity, transferred ownership of the Fold to Jacob as a wedding gift, and Jacob built a pretty little cottage in a clearing close to the lower slopes of Tarn Fell. Alice’s life revolved around their only child, John, to whom she was utterly devoted.

It was said that the Quillers struggled to keep their faith after John’s tragic death. He was a soldier who fought in the Boer War and died one day short of his twenty-first birthday. Neither Jacob nor Alice seems ever to have recovered from that dreadful blow. Indeed, the story goes that after John’s funeral, Alice became a recluse who refused to leave the cottage and would not speak to a single soul other than her distraught husband. Before long they were both dead – departing this mortal coil on the very same day. One suspects that in truth their lives ended the moment they received the tragic news from South Africa. The simple epitaph on their gravestone close to the lych gate at their beloved church records poignantly that the couple died of broken hearts.

Jacob Quiller was reputed to have laboured unceasingly in his garden in the months leading up to his demise and it may be that he overtaxed himself. Village wisdom had it that there is a secret about their deaths to be discovered by unravelling a cipher that Jacob hid in the garden, yet little seems to be known about it. The Quillers had no family other than the Skeldings, to whom the cottage passed back on their deaths. Richard paid for a memorial to John that can 
be seen in the church to this day. He sold the cottage and it remains in private hands, although the present owner does not encourage sightseers. The cipher has presumably disappeared, if it ever existed. Possibly it was no more than a tantalising rural legend. In any event, it seems to this author to be crass to intrude upon personal grief. How much more romantic to take at face value the words that the Quillers chose for their headstone. Let us pause and reflect that, whatever learned medical men tell us, folk may indeed die from broken hearts.

Daniel handed the book back to Marc Amos. It was a battered trade paperback. On the back cover was a black and white photograph of Eleanor Sawtell. Seventy-five at a guess, she had white hair, a kindly expression and a cardigan with a missing button. An obese and complacent tabby sat on her lap, smirking as though it had solved the cipher but wasn’t telling.

‘An unsatisfactory story, really,’ Marc said.

‘A puzzle without an obvious solution, that’s the challenge. I’ve been mugging up about gardens and things that grow in them. Odd, I always thought of gardens as life-enhancing. Plants, too. Surprising how many of them have macabre connotations.’

Marc shook his head. ‘Not my subject, I’m afraid.’

‘The monkey puzzle tree, for instance. Originates from Chile, and guess what? The climate in Cumbria suits it perfectly.’

‘It’s chilly enough here most of the time. Sorry, terrible joke. I looked Eleanor Sawtell up in the phone book, but couldn’t find her in Staveley. She might be ex-directory, but…’

‘I’ll have a word with Roz Gleave, see if she can help.’

A chance too good for someone so obsessively curious
to miss, a chance to kill two birds. To find out more about the cipher – and the murder of Warren Howe.

Marc grinned. ‘Detective work, is it? You’ll be competing with Hannah next.’