The Arsenic Labyrinth (3 page)

‘So you’re more interested than you let on to Di Venuto?’

‘It’s not about whether I’m interested. As it happens, I hated it when we gave up on the case. The snag is, Di Venuto has no new info for us and the files don’t hold any clues.’

‘Give me a flavour.’

She savoured the nip of her wine. ‘Emma Bestwick
vanished off the face of the earth without forewarning. What happened to her, nobody knows. She lived alone and several days passed before her disappearance was reported to the police by a neighbour. We searched her home, but didn’t find any indication of where she might have gone. Wherever it was, she hadn’t taken her passport with her. She kept her credit cards in her wallet and that was missing, but they were never used.’

‘What did she do for a living?’

‘Self-employed reflexologist.’

‘Oh yeah?’

His leathery features crinkled in scorn. Les didn’t hold with touchy-feely crap like reflexology. He’d once revealed that his wife was passionate about yoga and gave the impression that one of his motives for joining the Cold Case Review Team was to avoid watching her tie herself in knots on a mat in the living room when all he wanted was to switch on the football.

The temptation to tease was irresistible. ‘Yeah, Reiki and sekhem healing, chakra colour balancing, metamorphic techniques, Indian head massage …’

‘For Chrissake,’ he said in disgust.

‘Listen, hasn’t Mrs Bryant recommended it for your sinusitis? Hopi ear candle therapy could work wonders, removing the impurities …’

‘Get on with the story, eh?’

Hannah grinned. ‘All right. Emma worked from home. A bungalow she’d bought a few months earlier, down the road from Coniston Water.’

‘Local woman?’

‘Grew up in the Eskdale Valley with a younger sister. Spent a few years working in Merseyside before coming back to Cumbria. At first she lodged with a couple called Goddard who lived in Coniston. At the time she was working at the Museum of Myth and Legend. Ever visited it?’

Even in the gloom, Les’s derision was unmistakable. On second thoughts, Hannah realised it was a silly question. The old curmudgeon would have no time for such flights of fancy. Impossible to picture him traipsing round museums and galleries, guide-book in hand, camera primed for action. His idea of interactive entertainment was sitting in the stand at Elland Road, yelling at Leeds United’s shot-shy strikers to have a crack at goal.

‘Never heard of it.’

‘The museum’s at Inchmore Hall, off the Ambleside Road. A baroque mansion, all turrets and crazy gables. Think Hogwarts. The owner was – still is, I checked – a wealthy eccentric called Alban Clough. He’s obsessed with Lakeland legends and he’s devoted his life and most of his fortune to keeping them alive. His daughter, Alexandra, manages the museum, and both of them live at Inchmore Hall. Emma helped on the counter and took visitors round. Interesting job, but poorly paid.’

When he leaned towards her, she could smell tobacco. Les was an unrepentant heavy smoker. There was probably more tar on his lungs than on the A49. He coughed, as if in confirmation.

‘Was her pay relevant?’

‘As part of the puzzle, yes. There was so much we couldn’t explain about Emma Bestwick. When she returned to the Lakes from Liverpool, she’d scarcely a penny to her name. Within a year, she was putting down a deposit on a nice little bungalow and buying herself a brand new Fiat.’

‘Lottery win?’

‘So she told her sister and Alban Clough. We checked and found she’d lied. And she didn’t always tell the same tale. She led Francis and Vanessa Goddard to believe that the money was inherited. But who from? Not a family member, otherwise Karen would have known about it.’

Les took another swig from his tankard. ‘Young woman comes into money for the first time in her life, then disappears for no apparent reason. No wonder we didn’t write her off as one more runaway.’

One thing about Les: he never forgot that all police officers were on the same side. He always talked about
we
and
us
, not
them
.

‘But how long can you keep banging your head against a brick wall? The file may not have been closed, but nobody was begging us to keep it open.’

‘Not even her family?’

‘There were no near relations except Karen and she seemed certain that Emma would turn up again one day.’

‘But she never did.’

‘Karen’s husband, Jeremy, went to see Emma just before
she disappeared. His story was that he had back trouble and she’d offered to help.’

A sardonic chuckle. ‘Spot of massage?’

‘We found no evidence of any affair. To all appearances the Erskines were happily married.’

Les’s face made it clear that happy marriages were as common as fairies at the bottom of the garden. Come to think of it, would Mrs Bryant be content for him to stay on this side of the Pennines for another twelve months?

‘How about her friends?’

‘Vanessa Goddard seemed cut up about her disappearance, but she was Emma’s only close friend. Emma wasn’t interested in men and although she’d had an affair with Alexandra Clough while she worked at the museum, that came to an end months earlier. No hard feelings, according to Ms Clough.’

‘Did you believe her?’

‘Do me a favour. How many relationships end with no hard feelings? But there was no evidence to link Alex Clough – or anyone else – with Emma’s disappearance. Every avenue turned out to be a dead end.’

‘So over the years nobody has bothered too much about her.’

‘Until Tony Di Venuto.’

‘And then, someone rings him up and implies that Emma is dead.’

‘All he said was that Emma wouldn’t be coming back. Which leaves us no wiser.’

‘You think Di Venuto made it up?’

‘Perish the thought that a journalist might tell porkies.’ He burped and patted his belly. ‘So what was your take on the case? What did you think happened to Emma?’

Hannah sucked in her cheeks. ‘You have to remember, I was wet behind the ears.’

‘Even so.’

‘The SIO was Sid Thornicroft. Decent detective, but he was coming up for retirement and he was more focused on collecting his pension than clues. The investigation ran out of steam as soon as he decided that Emma had done a runner. I didn’t agree, but so what?’

‘You thought she was dead?’

She nodded. ‘Like Di Venuto. My hunch was that she’d been murdered. But without evidence …’

‘Lauren will want us to delve. Make sure we’re on the right side of the Press.’

‘Christ, Les, don’t tell me you’re becoming media-savvy in your old age.’

He propped his elbows on the table and cupped his chin in his hands. ‘It’s you I’m thinking of. Cold case work is a cul-de-sac, ideal for boring old farts like me. You were shunted into it after you screwed up on a trial, but soon you’ll be ready to get back in the swim. Which means giving the ACC an occasional stroke, even if you’d sooner shove her statistics up her bum.’

Hannah wanted to argue, but if she said she was happy to paddle in a backwater forever, he wouldn’t believe her.

‘All right. We start at nine tomorrow.’

She made it sound as if she didn’t care, but her
heart was beating faster. This wasn’t about keeping Lauren sweet. Hannah had never been able to forget the photograph of Emma Bestwick in the old file, the same picture that accompanied Di Venuto’s article. Her looks would never stop traffic. The face was round and pleasant, but flabby at the jaw-line, and instantly forgettable. Yet the puzzled frown and parted lips had stuck in Hannah’s mind. She imagined Emma searching for something just beyond the horizon, could almost hear her murmuring
what’s it all about
?

How had she come to vanish in an instant? If Hannah understood the woman, she might understand her fate. Emma seemed so ordinary, but she’d proved elusive in more ways than one. Hannah had never managed to wriggle inside her head.

A sense of failure had nagged at her over the years like an arthritic joint, yet to devote precious resources to a hopeless case would have seemed self-indulgent. Hannah didn’t care for Tony Di Venuto, but he deserved her thanks. He’d given her a second chance to do right by the woman everyone else preferred to forget.

Guy’s landlady made a conspicuous effort with the dinner. Sarah Welsby might not specialise in exotic cuisine, but the roast chicken was wonderfully tender, the potatoes and carrots cooked to perfection. He’d invested in a decent bottle of Soave and she poured them each a generous measure of Harvey’s Bristol Cream before they sat down to eat by candlelight. Cosy, verging on intimate. Too bad
his mind kept wandering. Ever since speaking to Tony Di Venuto, he hadn’t been able to concentrate on the here and now.

Sarah did most of the talking. Probably she wasn’t accustomed to having anyone listen to her. Even Clooney the cat took no notice, endlessly washing his paws. There had been a husband called Don, a building society manager. On their fifteenth wedding anniversary, a jealous colleague tipped her off that Don and his secretary were having an affair. Five years after the divorce was finalised, Sarah was still raw at his betrayal.

‘You never had children?’

She lifted her coffee cup with a trembling hand. ‘His decision. I accepted it, in my book it’s wrong to bring a baby into the world if you aren’t both keen. But by the time they tied the knot, she was six months pregnant. What did she do for him that changed his mind, I wonder?’

Just as well they’d drained the bottle. Any more wine would make her maudlin and Guy found that unattractive in a woman. But he had a talent for sympathy.

‘He hoodwinked you. A respectable professional man. Disgraceful.’

A timid smile. ‘Sorry. Listen to me, pouring out my woes. You must be bored stiff.’

He leaned across the table. Not quite invading her personal space. ‘On the contrary. This whole evening has been – so delightful.’

A little giggle. ‘You know, the German couple are always
late for breakfast. I think I might leave the washing-up until tomorrow morning.’

‘Splendid idea.’

The silence lasted half a minute before she stretched and said, ‘Well, I suppose I’d better be going up.’

She ventured another smile, bolder this time, and he smiled back. But he didn’t move closer.
Timing is everything
.

‘You know something, Rob? I’m afraid I’m a bit tipsy. Hopeless, aren’t I? Normally I don’t have more than a single glass with my meal.’

‘You’ll sleep all the sounder tonight.’

‘Yes.’ She rose clumsily to her feet. The pale blue eyes weren’t focusing. ‘Well, goodnight.’

‘Goodnight, Sarah.’

He ambled back downstairs. This was one of his Garbo moments; he could do sociable, but he did love being on his own. Flinging himself on to the bed, he couldn’t help congratulating himself. Moving into Coniston Glimpse might seem counter-intuitive, given his taste for the
dolce vita
, but he could make a virtue out of a necessity. Sarah was sure to refuse to take his money when he offered it. Already they were becoming friends, they could do each other a good turn.

He buried his face in the pillow, to shut out the noise from the pipes. He wanted to replay in his head that conversation with the journalist. The moment he’d put the phone down, his stomach lurched – with excitement, not fear. Over the past ten years, he’d travelled far and
wide and spent a great deal of money, some of it his own. Yet it was as if he’d been sleepwalking, all that time. It had become an article of faith, that he must forget Emma Bestwick, scrub the memories out of his mind. Guilt was a passing phase, like the quarters of the moon, he should have learned that at Haverigg.

But the truth was, you couldn’t undo the past.

Guy was stretched out in a coffin, but he wasn’t dead. Prising his eyes open, he saw nothing but darkness. He was cold and naked save for a coverlet of coarse cloth. The air was foetid and he found himself fighting for breath. His mouth tasted of wet earth and he knew he’d been buried six feet under. He banged on the lid until his knuckles bled, but there was no way out. He screamed for help, but nobody heard. When he prayed for rescue, nothing happened.

He awoke drenched in sweat. Relief at the sight of the white walls of his room and the rumble of the basement plumbing was soured by dismay. So many years had passed since he’d last had the nightmare of being buried alive. He’d persuaded himself that it had gone forever. On his first night back in the Lakes, memories swarmed like mosquitoes to torment him.

Forcing himself to quit the warmth of the bed, he padded across the corridor to the bathroom. The shower was temperamental. When he jiggled the switch, it did not respond. He tried again and, all of a sudden, was
half-drowned
by a hot gush. It reminded him of Megan.

He wasn’t sorry Megan never wanted to see him again. She’d saved him the trouble of ending their relationship. He hated causing sadness and upset, hated it. Far better to steal away in the night without a word. That was more romantic; she could read into his departure whatever she wished. He never hurt people with malice aforethought. Nobody seemed to appreciate it, but he had his own moral code.

Towelling himself dry, he heard the ceiling bumping under Sarah Welsby’s footsteps. For a moment he became Michael Caine in
Get Carter
, ringing Britt Ekland for a lurid chat while his eavesdropping landlady rocked in her chair. Guy could do with a Britt in his life, but for the time being Sarah would have to do.

When he arrived at the breakfast table, she was frying bread in the kitchen while Clooney scratched at a post in the corner of the room. The cat threw Guy a derisive glance and then carried on. Guy was an equable soul, but nobody likes to be patronised. He was scowling at Clooney’s hindquarters when Sarah walked in, bearing a plate of hot toast.

‘You do like cats?’

Guy nodded with vigour and attributed his grimace to a spasm of indigestion. No reason to miss out on his
full English, though. They agreed that cats were wise and sophisticated creatures and Sarah confided that she’d spent a small fortune installing a state of the art
infrared
cat flap in the back door. Guy wished she’d invested in better plumbing. The love and money she lavished on the animal was out of all proportion, in his opinion. She needed a man in her life.

Pity that even the meekest women were as unpredictable as weather. He’d blundered with Megan, telling her how his grandma believed a woman could ensure her partner’s undying devotion. Be a maid in the living room, a cook in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom. This was a quote from a celebrity that he’d read in a newspaper – the bit about his grandma was just for colour, for he’d never known a grandma – but it made good sense. Unfortunately, Megan kept reading magazine articles about assertiveness and being your own person. Guy had no time for that stuff; he loved being
other
people. Their quarrel marked the beginning of the end.

As Sarah chattered nineteen to the dozen, he contented himself with an occasional murmur of assent while concentrating on his food. The first mouthful of fat, succulent, pork and leek sausage, smeared with runny egg, made him sigh with pleasure and when he complimented her on the quality of her home-made marmalade her round face glowed.

‘The Germans aren’t up yet.’ She put on a half-shocked look.

‘Young love, eh?’

She fiddled with strands of her disorganised hair. ‘A distant memory for me, Rob, I’ll be honest.’

He put down his knife and fork and bestowed on her his undivided attention. ‘A woman like you must have – um, admirers, I’m sure.’

‘Admirers?’ She gave her habitual, self-deprecating, tinkly laugh. ‘Joking, aren’t you?’

He shook his head and neither of them said anything for a while. He felt an urge to resume eating before the bacon rashers cooled, but at last she said in a tone of contrived brightness, ‘So what will you be up to today?’

‘Catching up with the past.’

He said it on the spur of the moment. He’d returned to the Lakes in haste, without an agenda in mind. Life was a fast-flowing river, you could never guess where the current might take you. Yet the moment he uttered the words, he knew where he had to go.

‘You were late back last night,’ Hannah mumbled as she chewed the last of her breakfast.

Marc Amos pulled a stool from beneath the breakfast bar and sat down beside her. He was still in his white gown, smelling of lemon soap; she was aware of his nakedness underneath the towelling. After all these years, he still turned her on. When he’d joined her under the duvet at midnight, she’d been half asleep, but she relished his warmth next to her and she’d have responded if he’d been in the mood. At one time his lust was as predictable as sunrise. But all he did was whisper goodnight and roll
over and away from her. Within two minutes he was snoring.

‘Sorry, should have phoned. Leigh and I got caught up talking to the agent. By the time we’d got rid of him, the two of us were dying for a bite to eat, so we went to a bistro and chewed over the business plan. Next time I looked at my watch, it was half past ten and I didn’t want to disturb you. Thought you might be in bed. Don’t suppose you made any more toast?’

She shook her head. Marc had a flair for camouflaging thoughtlessness as care and consideration. ‘I’ll be off in a minute. You know where the toaster is.’

‘Don’t you want to hear about the business plan?’

She spotted the trap. If she reminded him that police officers started work long before second-hand bookshop owners with obliging staff, he’d put on his mournful look and say she was always too busy, and they needed to talk more. One thing
he
never wanted to talk about was her miscarriage at the end of last summer. She’d become pregnant by accident, but after losing the baby she felt suffocated by grief. While he’d never said as much, she knew the prospect of fatherhood frightened Marc. Or perhaps it was the prospect of taking on responsibility for another human life.

‘Fire away.’

His eyes widened; he’d not expected her to show interest. She ought to do better, she told herself with a pang of guilt, instead of getting hung up on Marc’s blind spots. A relationship was a two-way thing.

‘Sedbergh’s close to the motorway and developing a reputation as England’s book town. Leigh’s doubled her turnover in eighteen months, so an upmarket café is crucial. We’ll formalise our partnership and divide the premises between us. Half for books, half for people to browse over coffee and a snack.’

They chatted for five minutes before she had to go. It was a long time since she’d seen him so energised about the fortunes of the shop. For Marc, books were objects of beauty, to be loved, not just read. Catching up with tax returns and stock inventories came a poor second to the surge of joy at finding a rare first edition at a fair. Leigh Moffat had, beneath her demure exterior, a shrewd brain; he was right, together they made a good combination. But Hannah caught herself wondering whether that was all they made.

Listening in her Lexus to Rufus Wainwright’s mournful vocals on ‘Go Ask Shakespeare’, she told herself not to be so stupid. Jealousy was Marc’s vice, not hers. For years he’d suspected her sergeant, Nick Lowther, of lusting after her. Wrong and unfair. And it wasn’t as if Marc had always been a one-woman man. In the early days of their relationship, he’d had a fling with Leigh’s younger sister Dale.

These last few weeks, Marc seemed to have lost interest in sex, which was akin to Casanova taking up celibacy. She’d experienced a flutter of paranoia when he passed on gossip that Vicky, a skinny graduate who was working in the shop supposedly to pay off her student debts,
had squandered her earnings on a spectacular boob job. Was he secretly hoping she might follow suit? All things considered, she’d rather worry about his running off with Leigh.

A red light loomed and she stamped on her brake. That was the trouble with being a detective. You wound up suspecting everybody and everything.

The rain had died away overnight, but Guy knew the Lakes well enough to wrap up warm and prepare for the worst. A fortnight before their final row, Megan had paid to kit him out in the wet-weather gear that walking in Snowdonia demanded. He’d said he would reimburse her when the big futures deal came through, but obviously her behaviour rendered the promise null and void. It served her right that there was no big futures deal. When he said he planned a walk, Sarah filled a flask and insisted on lending him her mobile phone and a torch.

Outside, the wind’s edge scraped his cheeks like a blade. At the head of the lake, he sat on a bench and read a couple of chapters from a dog-eared
David Copperfield
that he’d picked up from a charity shop. Small children squealed while their anorak-clad mothers prattled about soap operas and celebrity scandals.

This time last year, he’d still been in Rome, squashed into a one-bedroom apartment with Farfalla and her one-year-old, Bianca. He’d met her the day Maryell, the wealthy American widow whose suite at the Boscolo
Palace he’d shared, discovered that he wasn’t a celebrated English artist after all. He’d told Farfalla that he was a spy working for the British government. At the time he was reading
The Woman in White
and he amused himself by telling her that it was his sourcebook for deciphering top secret codes. Trouble was, he discovered that he wasn’t the only one leading a double life. Farfalla meant ‘butterfly’ and she lived up to her name. All the time she was supposedly waitressing on the Via Cavour, she was sleeping with a minicab driver who made a fortune fleecing tourists new to the city. Guy knew it couldn’t last. Language was a barrier, and then there was the child. Farfalla decided to move in with her fancy man, and forty-eight hours later Guy was chatting up Megan by the check-in desk at Fiumicino airport. She’d walked out on her job as a nanny when the kids’ father wanted her to perform services never mentioned in the contract she’d signed with the agency.

Guy stuffed the book into his pocket and contemplated the inky water. Those cold depths had been the resting place of Donald Campbell, who sacrificed his life in quest of speed, his boat somersaulting as he strained to reach 300 miles per hour. Guy remembered seeing black and white footage of Campbell before the accident. A suave, Brylcreemed Englishman, cigarette in hand. A charmer, a ladies’ man, the sort of chap Guy might have become, had he been a couple of generations older. After thirty-odd years, the wreck of
Bluebird
was found and lifted from the bottom of the lake, tail fin intact, still proudly bearing
the Union Jack. Campbell’s remains were recovered at last. It was right and proper that the dead should receive a decent burial.

Emma Bestwick would be forty now, older than the gossiping women. He wouldn’t speculate on what course her life might have taken. What was done was done. But he ought to pay his respects.

The wind had dropped as he ambled into the village, past the deserted bowling green and tennis courts, glancing in windows of shops that sold fishing tackle and Kendal mint cake, hiking boots and waterproof gear. When he glanced over the roofs towards the bracken-covered slopes, his stomach lurched. The road bent at the bridge and he stopped to take a deep breath and listen to the rush and gurgle of the beck. Across the road the bell tower of the church of St Andrew loomed above a small burial ground dotted with clusters of snowdrops. A sign pointed to the tall carved cross that marked John Ruskin’s grave. Ruskin had opted to be buried here, in preference to Westminster Abbey. What a waste. Guy couldn’t understand why Ruskin hadn’t wanted to finish up in splendour. One day he’d have his own fifteen minutes of fame, and he’d make the most of them.

He consulted his watch. A 14 carat Rolex Oyster Perpetual, benefiting from a champagne dial and gold index markers, picked up in a dodgy bar off the Via Veneto. On the stroke of noon he strolled into a
low-beamed
pub and ordered a pint of strong bitter beer, brewed on the premises. He didn’t need to slake his thirst.
But the alcohol made his head buzz, eased the memory of the last time he’d climbed the fells behind the pub, on his way to meet Emma Bestwick.

Hannah and Lauren Self should have had a lot in common. Two senior women in a man’s world. Loosening up after a couple of drinks, Lauren liked to talk about girl power and how women in the force needed to look out for each other. A politician to her beautifully manicured fingertips, she’d been fast-tracked to the giddy rank of Assistant Chief Constable by dint of relentless focus on telling councillors on the police authority precisely what they wanted to hear. Hannah preferred to keep a safe distance from the ACC. But, when she wasn’t schmoozing with the great and the good, Lauren wasn’t a bad detective. If she wanted to find you, there was no hiding place. She cornered Hannah by the water cooler.

‘Hannah, just the person! This news coverage of the Emma Bestwick case, what is CCRT’s action plan?’

Lauren loved acronyms as much as Home Office statistics and high profile campaigns against institutional discrimination. It was a safe bet that she had never heard of Emma Bestwick until the press office had served up the cuttings, but Tony Di Venuto’s piece must have concentrated her mind.

Hannah gave a butter-wouldn’t-melt simper and said, ‘I’ve requisitioned the old papers and prioritised a formal review. Let’s see if some joined-up thinking can produce a few outcomes.’

If Lauren realised she was being sent up, her glossy smile betrayed nothing. ‘Terrific. We need to stay ahead of the game on this.’

‘We’re short-handed at present. Nick Lowther will be in court for another week, and Linz Waller and Gul Khan are working on a possible DNA match in the Furness rapist inquiry. The Bestwick case is the longest of long shots. You’re happy to devote resources to a review?’