The Cipher Garden

Chapter Sixteen

‘Are you all right?’ Marc asked.

Hannah contemplated several possible answers before saying, ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

‘We could go away somewhere.’ He chewed a last mouthful of burnt bacon before slinging his plate and cutlery into the dishwasher with a crash. ‘Spend a bit of time together. You’re due plenty of leave.’

The coffee he’d made was bitter on her tongue but she drained the cup anyway. Better make the most of his solicitude; it wouldn’t last. At once she rebuked herself for cynicism. He was making an effort. She slid off the stool. All she’d felt like eating for breakfast was a single slice of unbuttered toast.

‘What about the shop?’

‘Tim and Melanie can look after things for a few days. I’ll cancel the Haydock Park fair.’

‘OK, let’s talk about it tonight.’

‘I’ll call you later.’

‘No need. I thought I’d go into work later this morning.’

‘Are you serious?’ He caught her hand, squeezed her fingers between his. ‘You’ve had a miscarriage, for Christ’s sake!’

Miscarriage. It sounded so dramatic. Actually, what had happened was more like a painful and very heavy period. Her GP, a severe woman whose no-nonsense manner wouldn’t have been out of place in a sergeant-major, was brisk to the point of being dismissive. These things were commonplace in the early weeks. Nature’s way of telling you that something wasn’t quite right. Hannah fled from the surgery before she could be told that her loss was a blessing in disguise.

‘The sooner I get back to normal, the better.’

‘You need to look after yourself! Work can wait. You’re not indispensable.’

The kitchen tiles were cool under her bare feet. Already the sun was beating down outside. When was the weather going to break? She wasn’t an invalid and she had no intention of succumbing to self-indulgence. Right now, she needed the job more than the job needed her. Better to drag her mind away from what had happened and bury herself in that overflowing in-tray. But she couldn’t face an argument.

‘All right.’

‘Great.’ When he smiled, the white even teeth and laughter lines around his mouth reminded her why she found him so difficult to resist. ‘You’ll feel like a different person once you’ve had a proper rest.’

A different person? Confident and in control, not diminished by emptiness and loss?

‘Yes.’

His dry lips brushed her cheek. ‘Listen, Hannah. I’m so sorry about this. Perhaps — it just wasn’t meant to be.’

The doctor had said the same, but Marc’s meaning was different. His sympathy was genuine, yet she detected a lightness in his manner that had been absent after she’d told him she was pregnant. As if he’d been granted a reprieve.

Unworthy, unworthy, unworthy. She hated herself for thinking he was selfish. But even as she felt his fingers ruffling her hair, she knew she was right. Sifting out the truth from a jumble of confusing evidence was what she was supposed to be good at, after all.

‘So Kirsty’s father was murdered.’

Miranda was gasping as she dragged herself up to the top of the path leading up the slope of Tarn Fell. Daniel pulled his floppy hat down over his eyes. The sun had disappeared behind clouds and the air was heavy. The heat had become a physical presence, an unseen oppressor. Each stride forward felt as though you were pulling against a ball and chain. He’d hoped it would be cooler on Priest Edge, but there wasn’t a hint of breeze.

‘Hacked to death with a scythe,’ she continued. ‘Mrs Tasker was regaling a customer with the story when I went to the shop first thing. The papers are full of it. Maybe Kirsty was killed by someone with a grudge against the family.’

As Louise moved along the narrow stony ridge, Daniel muttered, ‘She ripped off her own helmet, unhooked her own parachute.’

‘What if she’d been drugged?’

‘Do the reports suggest that?’

‘No, but the police might not be telling.’

‘They’d drop a hint to the journalists, off the record. You know how they work.’

Louise came to a stop where the path broadened out. ‘Wasn’t there a skydiver once who staged his suicide to make it look like murder?’

‘Allegedly,’ Daniel said. ‘Nobody knew for sure and the inquest recorded an open verdict. This is different. We all saw what happened.’

For all the heat of the morning, Louise shivered. ‘Unspeakable. I’m not surprised you’re not sleeping, Miranda.’

Miranda took no notice. She’d had another bad night, but over breakfast they’d agreed that a walk would do them good. ‘Remember how uptight she was in the restaurant? What if she was frightened of someone? Suppose she’d been threatened? Darling, are you planning to talk to Hannah Scarlett?’

‘There’s no way she’d share confidential information with me.’

‘Come on. She’s taken a shine to you. It was written all over her when we met at the airfield.’

He threw her a sharp glance, but her expression was mocking rather than suspicious. ‘I spoke to Marc Amos yesterday when I was checking out the history of the garden and he told me Hannah wasn’t in work. She’s off sick.’

‘You don’t imagine police officers being stressed out by an encounter with sudden death, do you? You’d think they were hardened to it.’

‘They’re only human,’ Louise snapped.

They walked on in silence. Daniel thought: you weren’t so forbearing when Dad made his great mistake. He knew better than to voice what was passing through his mind. Lately, he’d felt closer to his sister than ever, but in a few hours she would be leaving for home. This wasn’t a good time to reopen old wounds.

Miranda mopped her brow. ‘This humidity — I can scarcely get any oxygen into my lungs. Thank God the forecasts are promising a drop of rain. Shall we turn back?’

The Sacrifice Stone lay ahead, a dour grey boulder. As they approached, Louise said, ‘Close up, it looks smaller than when you look up from the cottage. But my God, what a view!’

Brackdale stretched out below them. Daniel’s eyes travelled along the thin ribbon of road that ran through the village, past the church and the last resting place of the Quillers, beyond the Hall and Tarn Fold, towards the abandoned quarry workings and the stern crags that closed off the far end of the valley. A small, enclosed world. He imagined living here a century ago. Jacob and Alice Quiller would have felt bereft after the death of their only child. Lifelong believers, they must have found that John’s death tested their faith to destruction. How could they not feel betrayed by God?

In their horror and confusion, he was convinced, lay the secret of the cipher garden.

‘Hannah? This is Nick. How are you?’

He sounded as anxious as a first-time offender. Touched by his concern, she said into the cordless handset, ‘Much better, thanks. I’ll be in tomorrow.’

‘Nobody here can remember you taking a day off sick.’

‘I’m becoming a hypochondriac in my old age. Probably could have made it today, but Marc came over all protective.’

‘Thank God you listened to him. You push yourself too hard.’

‘I don’t need wrapping up in cotton wool. The doctor tells me I’m suffering from a touch of sunstroke. It’s the fashion.’

It was an off-the-cuff lie. She trusted Nick, but she hadn’t figured out how to handle the miscarriage in her own mind, whether to talk about it with friends or simply behave as though it had never happened. For now she wanted to keep both options open.

‘What happened to Kirsty Howe was grisly. Enough to knock anyone sideways.’

‘Maybe that was a factor, I don’t know.’ Nor did she know whether it had played a part in the miscarriage. ‘What’s the latest on her death? Any suggestion of anything untoward?’

‘I spoke to a couple of guys working on the investigation. The forensic gurus are crawling all over her kit, but witnesses saw her checking it herself, as per standard procedures. The jump was routine, she’d done it hundreds of times before.’

‘Remember what the good book says. Think murder.’

‘Pity the Murder Investigation Manual doesn’t go into detail about death by skydiving. There’s not a shred of evidence to suggest sabotage. She died because she ripped off her gear and didn’t take any of the precautions that might have saved her life.’

‘No doubt it was suicide?’

‘None. A spectacular way to choose to die, but it’s happened before.’

‘A new trend, killing yourself in front of an audience?’

‘Gone are the days of discreetly sticking your head in a gas oven. Now even people who want to end it all fancy their fifteen minutes of fame.’

She was draped over the sofa, phone wedged between head and shoulder, determined to think about anything except the sight of Kirsty’s remains spread across the dropzone. When Nick called, she’d been watching daytime TV. A fast-talking presenter was urging a surly sixteen-year-old to identify which of three tattooed boyfriends was the father of her baby girl. Even with the sound muted, the kids’ faces told the story more eloquently than any words they might mumble.

‘What do the other skydivers say?’

‘They never picked up a hint that she had anything untoward in mind. But they didn’t know her well; she was someone who lurked on the edge of things. Skydivers party hard, presumably because they never know if the next jump might be their last. She’d had a couple of one-night stands with fellow skydivers, but nothing recent. Several chaps had tried it on with her, and got nowhere. They reckoned she’d found a lover who wasn’t part of their community.’

‘Perhaps she was just sick of men.’

‘By the sound of it, none of the skydivers could imagine how a woman could ever get sick of men.’

‘Charming.’

‘She was very quiet before the jump, even by her standards. In the plane, someone asked if she was feeling under the weather, but she said she’d never felt better. She looked haggard, but the guys put it down to a night on the tiles. In fact, she was working at The Heights the previous evening.’

‘Anything out of the ordinary there?’

‘If so, Bel Jenner and Oliver Cox aren’t telling. Her death has stunned them. Bel was in tears and Oliver looked as though he’d been run over by a truck. Mind you, good waitresses aren’t that easy to find.’

‘You’re so cynical. How about her family?’

‘Tina Howe says Kirsty had mood swings and she’d seemed down in the dumps, but there’s no history of her threatening to do away with herself. No overdoses, no self-harming. She wasn’t the sort to cry for attention. This suicide came literally out of the blue.’

‘Spur of the moment decision?’

‘Looks like it. She wasn’t a heavy drinker and there’s no evidence she ever so much as smoked a joint. Plenty of work to be done yet, but they haven’t found anything that links in with our investigation.’

‘Doesn’t mean there’s nothing to find.’

‘It is a coincidence that she dies shortly after we receive the anonymous tip-off pointing the finger at Tina.’

‘Suppose she discovered something that proved her mother killed her dad?’

‘Such as?’

‘If she and Sam lied to give Tina an alibi, they must have had suspicions from the outset. Perhaps Kirsty wrote the anonymous letter herself.’

‘And the letter that Tina received?’

‘Attempting to put her under pressure, force her to cough? Or maybe Tina made up the letter. Peter never saw it, remember.’

‘What if Sam was the culprit and Tina and Kirsty lied to save his neck? He might have sent the letters to divert attention from himself.’

‘Why resurrect the case if for years he’d got away with murder?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

Hannah scowled at the television screen. The girl was snivelling and her mascara had started to run. Motherhood wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, perhaps. Even so, Hannah wanted to find out for herself one day. The putative fathers were smirking with a mixture of cockiness and embarrassment as they waited for the presenter to reveal the answer.

‘We need a fresh angle. Instead of focusing on who killed Warren, let’s ask who might have given us the tip-off and work forward from there.’

‘Isn’t that a blind alley, without any forensic evidence from the letter?’

If Nick hadn’t been such a good friend, she wouldn’t have restrained the impulse to snap back at him. Ben Kind often complained that technological advance discourages even the best cops from reasoning for themselves.

‘Think laterally. Who might want to stick the knife into Tina?’

Nick pondered. ‘Leaving aside her kids?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Gail Flint,’ he said. ‘Revenge for taking her husband?’

One of the lads on TV grinned stupidly at the news that he was a father. The girl was still crying as the presenter led the audience in a round of enthusiastic applause. Hannah felt like joining in. She’d come to the same conclusion as Nick.

‘Let’s talk to her tomorrow.’

‘Thanks for everything,’ Louise said.

‘Sorry about Saturday,’ Daniel said.

She hesitated. ‘I suppose it brought back memories?’

She was, he knew, talking about Aimee’s suicide.

‘Maybe.’

‘You’re still hurting, aren’t you?’

‘I’m not looking for sympathy.’

‘You never do. But everyone needs a bit of comfort sometimes.’

‘Well.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I should never have dragged you out to the airfield.’

‘You weren’t to know she was going to kill herself.’

Confession time. He cleared his throat. ‘No, but I knew about her father’s murder from Hannah Scarlett. It’s a cold case she’s investigating. That’s why I asked Peter Flint for advice about the garden. I knew he was Warren Howe’s business partner.’

Louise groaned. ‘As a kid, you wanted to be a detective. Just like Dad.’

‘Maybe I haven’t grown up as much as I’d like to think.’

‘Which of us has?’

They were killing time with a coffee and cake in the platform buffet at Oxenholme. The latest announcement warned that the train from Glasgow was running forty minutes late. Miranda wasn’t with them. She’d elected to chase the builders on the phone rather than come along to see off their guest. At the door of the cottage, she and Louise exchanged pecks on the cheek and promised to keep in touch, but these were the meaningless formalities of English good manners. Daniel knew it wouldn’t break their hearts if they never clapped eyes on each other again.

‘No need to wait for the train.’

‘I enjoy your company.’

She blinked. ‘You’ve never said that to me before.’

‘It’s never occurred to me before,’ he said with a grin.

She stuck out her tongue at him. ‘It’s best that I disappear. Miranda’s not comfortable when I’m around.’

‘It’s nothing personal. She’s just…’

‘Insecure?’

‘Unaccustomed to family life. Her adoptive parents were elderly, no kids of their own; she became accustomed to being the centre of attention. Since they died, she feels the lack of a past. That’s why she seems jealous of you and me. There’s so much stuff that she isn’t part of. But — you do like her?’

Louise laughed. ‘Now who’s insecure? Of course I do. You’re not stupid enough to fall for just a pretty face. Though I must admit I wondered if it was too soon for you — after Aimee, I mean. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not sure you’ve ever faced up to how hard her death hit you.’

‘We can’t plan our lives like train timetables. Pick the perfect moment to fall for someone new.’

‘No, of course not. And she’s a lot of fun when she’s so inclined. But you’ll have to persuade her — either she lives the dream up here with you, or she does the London journalist thing.’

‘She can combine the two.’

Louise shrugged. ‘I hope you’re right.’

Me too. He devoured the last piece of cream cake and said nothing.

‘So where does Hannah Scarlett fit in?’

He felt colour rising in his cheeks. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I saw the way she looked at you, Daniel. You said yourself, she told you about that old murder.’

‘She worked with Dad, he was her mentor. She’s talked to me about him. That’s all.’

‘And she’s married to this chap you went to see, the bookshop owner?’

‘Not married. They live together, have done for years.’

‘What about the cipher garden, then? You kept your cards close to your chest when you got home.’

‘Was it that obvious?’

‘Let me share something with you, Daniel. The air of casual unconcern you cultivate when you’re trying to hide something isn’t as convincing as you’d like to think. Perhaps it fools Miranda, but not me. I’ve known you a long time, remember.’

He managed a rueful grin. ‘Probably as well you’re leaving, then.’

She kicked him under the table. ‘Yes, you and I would soon be at each other’s throats if I hung around. Now — the garden.’

He recounted his discoveries of the previous day. When he told her about the fragment of conversation he’d overheard between Chris and Roz Gleave, she wanted to know what he thought they were talking about.

‘Presumably Roz has an idea about what drove Kirsty to take her own life.’

‘Are you intending to tell the police?’

‘I’m hoping the Gleaves will save me the trouble.’

‘You should mention what you heard to your mate Hannah.’

He gave her a sharp look, but her expression was all innocence. ‘When she’s fit again, perhaps I will.’

‘Carry on with the story.’

When he’d finished, she pulled a face. ‘It’s weird. People don’t die of broken hearts.’

‘You never were much of a romantic, were you?’

‘Come on. They expired on the same day, which just happened to be the anniversary of their son’s death?’

‘Too much of a coincidence, but a hundred years after they were buried, there’s not much to go on. You need to make a leap of imagination to have a chance of making sense of it.’

She laughed. ‘You used to wear that expression when you figured out the solution to an Agatha Christie five chapters before that old Belgian big-head. Let’s hear about where the leap has taken you.’

A disembodied voice announced that the train would be arriving shortly and apologised for any inconvenience. Daniel swallowed the last of his drink.

‘Suppose you are Alice Quiller. Brought up to fear God. Perhaps you’ve seldom ventured far outside the valley you were born in. For upwards of half a century, your faith is unquestioning. Until tragedy tears your small, comfortable world apart. Your only child, the apple of your eye, dies in a foreign land. No good reason for his death, you can’t even console yourself with the fiction that he sacrificed his life defending freedom. The stupid war he’s been fighting is as good as over, but he succumbs to sickness and dies a rotten, miserable death. You’ve devoted your life to the boy, you’re crazy about him. Obsessed, maybe. All of a sudden, the world becomes worthless. You cut yourself off from it. Your husband is the only person you will speak to, but even he can’t reason with you, even he can’t make everything right. Nothing can make it right. You’re left not knowing what to believe any more. Not wishing to live any more. What do you do?’

She said slowly, ‘I might not want to go on living.’

He mimed applause. ‘Spot on.’

‘You’re suggesting they decided — or Alice persuaded her husband — that they should kill themselves? To take part in a suicide pact?’

‘For her, death must have seemed the only way out.’

She winced. ‘Shit.’

‘Only one snag. In those days, suicide was a mortal sin. Worse than that, a crime. The rector reminded me, suicides weren’t even permitted the dignity of burial in consecrated ground. In those days, you were expected to cope with whatever lousy hand life dealt you. No therapy, no bereavement counselling, just get on with it. In England it was still the age of the stiff upper lip. For the Quillers, the public disgrace of a double suicide would have been intolerable. Not to be contemplated.’

‘So they disguised their intentions?’

‘A triumph of appearance over reality. As prominent Brackdale folk, well respected, they’d have been on good terms with the local medics. So long as there was an opportunity to write off their deaths as due to natural causes, honour would be satisfied all round. Jacob and Alice Quiller could be buried in the same grave as their beloved son John.’

‘And the garden?’

‘I’d guess Jacob was familiar with the Victorian fashion for gardens that conveyed messages. Often to celebrate religious beliefs, or represent Bible stories or mystical revelations. Jacob turned all that upside down. His mind was in turmoil. While his wife pined away inside the cottage, he transformed their garden to simulate a kind of spiritual anarchy. No “paths of life” for the Quillers. Instead, nothing but tracks that wound back on themselves, false turnings and dead ends.’

‘The pattern was that there was no pattern?’

‘Jacob was mocking the pious certainties that he’d subscribed to all his life. Yet even in his dark despair, he couldn’t abandon every last vestige of faith. He couldn’t help minding what happened after he died. Perhaps Alice felt the same, perhaps she was past caring, who knows? One thing’s for sure, it was impossible for them to write a straightforward letter declaring their intention. But they could leave a hidden message in the garden for anyone who cared to know what they’d done.’

‘Such as Richard Skelding?’

‘The man who inherited his land back, yes. My guess is that he discovered the truth. A handful of people in the valley kept the legend alive.’

‘Including later owners of the cottage?’

‘Notably the Gilpins. They didn’t disturb the cipher garden, or betray the Quillers’ secret. Why should they? It was a private sorrow. For all I know, Eleanor Sawtell tried to pump Mrs Gilpin for information. I can’t imagine her giving any change to a nosey parker.’

Louise tapped her spoon against her saucer. ‘You’re right. All this does require a leap of the imagination.’

‘There is a crazy logic to the garden. The monkey puzzles symbolised Jacob and Alice and the weeping willow John. The yew tree stood for the eternal life that Jacob hoped against hope might yet await all three of them in Heaven.’

‘And the death from broken hearts?’

‘The clue to the means of suicide is in the planting, as well as the words on the tablets. Of course, those foxgloves have spread far and wide over the past hundred years. They grow like weeds, you find them everywhere. But you have to treat them with care.’

Her eyes opened wide. ‘They’re poisonous, aren’t they?’

‘That’s right, foxglove leaves are the source of digitalis. In small quantities it stimulates the heart, but a large dose is apt to be fatal.’

‘Leaves from the garden,’ she quoted.

He nodded. ‘Will take our leave.’

The train was pulling in. Time to go. Daniel picked up Louise’s cases and they hurried outside. Once she’d scrambled into the carriage, she opened the window.

‘How are you going to break the news to Miranda?’

He sighed. ‘That her dream cottage boasts a garden that celebrates death and hides a coded suicide note?’

She contrived a wry smile. ‘Tricky, huh? Best of luck.’

The doors closed and Louise waved. He blew a kiss and called out to her as the train pulled away from the platform.

‘I may need more than luck.’