The Cipher Garden

Chapter Seventeen

Gail Flint stood in the doorway of her grey cottage, tightly wrapped in a silk kimono, screwing up her eyes against the early morning sunlight. It was only half seven and she hadn’t had a chance to disguise her bleariness with make-up.

‘May we come in?’

Hannah caught a fruity whiff of stale gin on Gail’s breath as she squinted at the warrant card. ‘The organ grinder as well as the monkey? My, my. I suppose I ought to be honoured, Chief Inspector, but it’s really not a good time.’

‘We’ll only take a few minutes, Mrs Flint.’

Hannah glanced past Gail into the hallway. A large blue nylon jacket, bearing the legend Allin of Esthwaite Drains and Rodding Services, hung from a coat-stand. A rusting Ford van similarly emblazoned was parked on a yellow line outside the cottage. A thud came from upstairs. Someone overweight, clambering out of bed.

‘Sorry to interrupt.’

‘You’re not interrupting anything at all,’ Gail muttered. ‘Though couldn’t you make an appointment? I do have a business to run, as I told DC Waller here the other day.’

‘We thought an informal conversation might be preferable to asking if you’d come to the police station with us.’

Gail glared. ‘This is about Kirsty Howe?’

‘It would be easier to talk indoors, Mrs Flint.’

‘Oh, for goodness sake.’ Upstairs, a lavatory flushed. ‘All right, have it your own way.’

She padded unsteadily along the hall carpet, shepherding Hannah and Linz into a large and crowded sitting room. A leather suite jostled with a couple of filing cabinets, a desk and a computer. A Bang and Olufsen hi-fi system gleamed in one corner, a plasma television screen was suspended from the wall in another. On the table by the sofa were a couple of empty bottles of Rioja, two unwashed glasses and a CD of Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits. She drew the curtains to reveal a pergola hung with fronds of Virginia creeper. The patio commanded a view of a lawn cut in immaculate stripes and in the distance the brooding bulk of the Old Man of Coniston.

‘I insist on Peter mowing for me personally,’ she said. ‘I made my lawyer include it in the terms of settlement.’

‘You didn’t prefer a clean break?’

‘Where’s the fun in that? He may not have been the ideal husband, but he is a bloody good gardener. Besides, a monthly alimony cheque didn’t seem penance enough.’ Gail waved the detectives towards the armchairs. ‘Go on, then. Take the weight off your feet.’

Hannah nodded at the PC. ‘You run your business from home?’

‘Why spend precious cash on fancy office premises? I’ve survived one or two business mishaps over the years, but Roz Gleave has given me good advice on keeping control of cashflow. I don’t hold too much stock.’ She bared her teeth. ‘Besides, I’d be tempted to guzzle it, and that would never do, would it?’

Hannah heard someone — or perhaps a small army — tramping down the stairs. Gail shuddered and called out, ‘And don’t think you can send me an invoice, Tod Allin!’

The front door slammed and moments later the van’s engine started up. Gail curled up on the sofa, tucking her bare legs beneath her, and pouted at the two women.

‘Tradesmen are so unreliable these days, aren’t they? Tod assured me that blocked passages were his speciality.’ A rictus smile. ‘Very well, Chief Inspector, what can I do for you?’

‘A few days ago, we received information about the murder of Warren Howe. An anonymous message accused his wife Tina of the crime.’

‘So what, she’s the obvious suspect, isn’t she?’

The skin seemed to have been stretched too tightly over Gail’s cheekbones. On close inspection, not a marvellous advertisement for cosmetic surgery. The main benefit of entrusting your face to the surgeon’s knife, Hannah decided, is to make it difficult for people to figure out when you are lying.

‘You believe Tina killed Warren?’

‘Your colleagues never came up with a better solution.’

‘And the motive?’

‘Jealousy, rage, a combination of the two, how would I know?’

‘No reason for her to be jealous of your affair with Warren, was there?’ Hannah asked softly. ‘It was over.’

‘He didn’t dump me! It was a joint decision, perfectly amicable. Our relationship had run its course, that’s all. The affair might not have been going anywhere, but then neither was his marriage.’

‘And yours?’

‘I went back to Peter, didn’t I?’

‘How did he feel about being cuckolded by his business partner?’

‘Cuckolded?’ Gail savoured the word as though it were a vintage wine. ‘Oh, poor Peter. He didn’t murder Warren, if that’s what you’re hinting. There was no need. He turned a blind eye; he knew I cared for him more than Warren.’

‘So why the affair?’

‘I wanted a change, a touch of passion in my life. Is that so terrible? Excitement’s in short supply after you’ve been married a number of years.’ Gail’s high-pitched giggle set Hannah’s teeth on edge. ‘The temptation to sample forbidden fruit becomes impossible to resist. Perhaps you find that yourself, Chief Inspector?’

Hannah wasn’t going there. ‘The excitement died for both you and your husband, didn’t it? Hence the divorce.’

Gail made a dismissive movement with her shoulders. ‘These things happen.’

‘You didn’t want it to happen, though.’

‘As a matter of fact, the divorce was my suggestion.’

‘Anticipating the inevitable, surely? When you realised that your husband had fallen for Tina Howe.’

‘She started working in the business. Called herself a personal assistant, but she was no more than a shorthand typist with attitude. And a skirt short enough to let the boss catch a glimpse of knickers. Flaunt yourself long enough and you’ll hook your man. It’s the oldest trick in the book.’

‘You were the jealous one, not Tina.’

Gail sat upright. ‘Rubbish!’

‘She has the settled relationship. With a man you still care for.’

Linz said, ‘While you’re left — waiting for your annual service from the plumber.’

Gail folded her arms. ‘Don’t think your sidekick can rattle me, Chief Inspector. I’ve got a pretty thick skin, you know.’

‘I can tell.’ Hannah’s gaze lingered on the chiselled features. ‘Is this why the divorce took so long to finalise — you were fighting a rearguard action, trying to slow it down, hoping he’d change his mind?’

‘Bollocks!’

‘And when everything was finalised, you took revenge. Not against Peter, but against Tina and her family. You accused her of murdering Warren.’

Gail lifted her chin. It was as pointed as a dagger. ‘If you think I’m going to admit writing anonymous letters, you’re mistaken.’

‘You know there have been several letters, then?’

Gail’s eyes darted from Hannah to Linz. ‘Watch my lips, will you? I can’t help you.’

‘Can’t or won’t, Mrs Flint? I believe the person who sent us the tip-off also wrote to Kirsty Howe.’

‘Oh no, you don’t! You’re not blaming me for that stupid girl’s death.’

‘Why do you think she killed herself?’

‘De mortuis, Chief Inspector.’

‘Sorry, they don’t do Latin at police college.’

Gail’s withering look suggested that this in itself explained the rise in crime. ‘I don’t care to speak ill of the dead.’

Hannah said coolly, ‘Try to overcome your finer feelings.’

‘Listen, then. The plain truth is, she was an ungainly lump who couldn’t keep a man. A waitress mooning after a man who was devoted to someone else. A shame, but she really didn’t have too much going for her.’

‘She was young,’ Linz said. ‘She had the whole of her life ahead of her.’

Gail hissed, ‘Try this, before you get too dewy-eyed. Her mother killed her father. Isn’t that reason enough?’

‘You’re forgetting that she gave her mother an alibi.’

‘Oh yes, the watertight alibi.’ Gail gave a scratchy laugh. ‘Tina, Kirsty and Sam, the three of them were supposed to be together, weren’t they? But they were telling fibs.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because while Tina was taking a scythe to her husband, I was in bed teaching Sam Howe a thing or two.’

‘So at the time of the murder, Sam wasn’t up the Hardknott Pass…’ Linz chortled as they turned into Tilberthwaite Avenue.

Hannah kept her eyes on the road and resisted the temptation to supply a punchline. ‘If Gail is telling the truth.’

‘Do you doubt it?’

‘Reluctant as I am to believe a word she says, the story hangs together. Gail didn’t want her latest peccadillo to wreck her marriage. Peter overlooked her sleeping with the father, but he might have drawn the line at her bedding the teenage son. The sprained ankle didn’t prevent her misbehaving with Sam, but with a little exaggeration it sufficed for an alibi. Quite right, she never left the cottage that day. Why would she want to?’

According to Gail, it was the one and only time she’d slept with Sam. It hadn’t exactly been a match made in Heaven. Just a bit of a laugh, really. The two of them had been flirting for a while. When he’d rung to commiserate over her sprained ankle and asked if she’d like him to kiss it better, she’d said it was the best offer she’d had in ages. Probably he fancied a slice of what his dad had been having, but Gail wasn’t bothered about his motives. She knew too much about men to entertain illusions. As a lover, the son didn’t compare to the father. Youth and virility were all very well, but no match for experience, in her book.

The three-way alibi was Tina’s idea. Neither Tina nor Kirsty knew what Sam had been up to and at first he refused to say. They panicked out of fear that his tense relationship with Warren might make him a suspect. Only later did it strike Gail that, just as Tina had persuaded Sam to lie about his whereabouts, so she might have inveigled Kirsty into shielding her from a murder charge.

‘Gail sent us the note about Tina, didn’t she?’

‘Racing certainty,’ Hannah said. ‘Not that we can prove it.’

‘God, she’s a bitch.’

All of a sudden, and against all logic, Hannah felt sympathy stabbing at her.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But a very unhappy bitch.’

Linz’s brow creased in disapproval — keen young DCs didn’t do sympathy. She’d learn. They drove on for a few minutes until Linz broke the silence.

‘On the radio this morning, the forecaster said that humidity levels have never been so high in this country. I’m sweating like a pig.’

‘They’ve promised a storm before the end of today.’

‘Can’t come a moment too soon, as far as I’m concerned. All right, ma’am, where do we go from here?’

‘To Old Sawrey. Time for another word with Tina Howe.’

‘Gail Flint? Gail Flint?’

If Hannah had accused her son of having had his wicked way with the late Myra Hindley, Tina Howe might have been more relaxed. Gail Flint? This was sleeping with the enemy.

‘The bastard told me she was a tourist from Sweden. Just passing through on her way to Scotland, that’s why she wasn’t around to back up his story. And you’re telling me it was that hatchet-tongued lush! A natural blonde, he said!’

Natural? At least a sense of irony must lurk beneath Sam’s sullen exterior. Hannah asked when he would be back and Tina spread her arms.

‘He’s supposed to be working, but he’s just as likely to be propping up some bar or having a leg-over with some scrubber in a caravan park. He doesn’t bother about keeping appointments. We’re trying to keep going as best we can after — what happened to poor Kirsty, but he isn’t helping. We’ve had loads of complaints, haven’t we, Peter?’

Peter Flint gave a nervous cough of assent. The four of them were in his office; this was his domain, but he’d hardly uttered a word since their arrival. His bony frame was squashed up in his chair and Hannah supposed this was how he’d managed to stay married to Gail for so many years. When the going got tough, he pretended to be invisible.

Tina shook her head. ‘There’s only one thing that lad seems to care about, and it isn’t his work, I can tell you. He takes after Warren, and he won’t pay attention to what I say any more. Just like his dad.’

‘We’ll talk to Sam later.’

Tina put her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her hands. ‘Go on, then. Who told you this?’

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Howe, we can’t…’

‘Well, it wouldn’t be Sam, would it?’ Tina’s voice rose. ‘Not exactly something to boast about, having it off with Ms Nip and Tuck. It was her, wasn’t it? That reconstructed cow.’

‘You’ll appreciate the implications of the information we’ve received,’ Hannah said. ‘You and your children maintained that you were together when your husband was killed. If your son was — otherwise engaged — then the question is obvious. Were you with Kirsty at all?’

‘How do you think we managed to take the fucking photographs?’ Tina was almost screeching.

‘Photographs?’ Hannah shrugged. ‘Of course, in this day and age, all kinds of technological jiggery-pokery is possible. Isn’t that right, DC Waller?’

Linz nodded sagely. ‘Dead right, ma’am.’

‘For Christ’s sake, we were there! Up at the old Roman fort, on the Hardknott Pass, just as we said!’

Hannah felt a surge of triumph. She’s losing it.

‘Who precisely was there?’

Tina swallowed. ‘OK, let’s just assume that Sam didn’t come along that day. What does it prove?’

‘You’re going to tell me you’re still protected by Kirsty’s statement, that she was with you all the time?’ Hannah turned to Linz. ‘Any thoughts?’

‘Trouble is, ma’am, Kirsty’s not here to corroborate the story any more.’

Tina said in a low voice, ‘My daughter died two days ago, Chief Inspector.’

‘I was there, Mrs Howe.’

A bitten-off laugh. ‘Yeah, I remember you puking your guts out.’

‘Tina!’ Peter Flint’s tone was despairing rather than authoritative. ‘I know you’re upset…’

Tina turned on him, crimson with anger. ‘That bloody old sow Gail, you’ve always let her walk all over you. All those years you were married, and now you’re paying through the nose for the privilege of divorcing her. You’ve let her get away with murder.’

Hannah said, ‘One thing is for sure, Mrs Howe. For years someone did just that. They got away with your husband’s murder.’

‘Seems like you’re no nearer to finding out who did it than on the day he died.’

The horsy face crumpled and Tina Howe started to weep. All of a sudden, her whole body was convulsing. As they watched, she wailed and beat down on the table with her hands. Linz put out a hand to her, but Tina shoved it back. Hannah’s surge of triumph ebbed away as Peter Flint got to his feet. He went over and wrapped his arms around Tina, murmuring words of comfort. But it was no use. She would not be stilled, could not be silenced.

Peter treated Hannah to a glare of reproach. Christ, she thought, I deserve it.

Grief had deadened her own emotions. Burying herself in the cold case worked as a means of coping. But it didn’t give her the right to torment a woman who had watched her own daughter plunge to her death a couple of days ago. Even if that woman had killed the girl’s father by cutting him up with a scythe.

‘You think she’s guilty, ma’am?’ Linz asked as they drove into the car park at Headquarters.

Hannah had spent the journey swathed in gloom as she weighed up that very question. ‘I suppose she’s still my prime suspect.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘What do you think?’

Linz took a breath. ‘How about Peter Flint?’

‘Why him?’

‘Humiliating enough if your wife shags your business partner. How must it feel if she seduces the same bloke’s son for good measure?’

‘Isn’t that a reason for murdering your wife rather than your business partner?’

‘But he wanted her back. Must have done. This was before he and Tina got it together, don’t forget. And what if Warren encouraged Sam to take a turn with Gail? If Peter realised, wouldn’t he want to take revenge?’

Hannah locked the car and led the way inside the main building. At length she said, ‘Of course, it’s possible. But you saw how his jaw hit the floor when I told them about Sam and Gail? I’d say he was even more shocked than Tina. If he knew beforehand, he’s the next Olivier.’

They turned a corner and saw Nick and Les Bryant striding down the corridor towards them. Les grunted at the sight of Hannah and said, ‘Nasty business at that airfield, by all accounts. Messy. I heard you’d been signed off for a week.’

‘I have amazing powers of recovery.’

‘You reckon?’

‘We’ve had a busy morning.’

‘Fresh developments in the Warren Howe case?’

‘Have we got news for you. Come to my office: Linz will debrief you.’

‘Am I included?’ Nick asked.

‘Of course. Didn’t you tell me that Cockermouth is sorted?’

They headed for Hannah’s room via the water cooler. When Linz had summarised their interviews with Gail, Tina and Peter, Nick asked, ‘Is Gail telling the truth?’

Hannah said, ‘Why should she lie?’

‘To firm up her own alibi?’

‘Not clever if Sam denies her story. Which might yet happen.’

‘Or to hurt Tina?’

‘That’s more like it,’ Hannah admitted. ‘The pair of them hate each other, but I’d say Gail’s the more vindictive. I can see Tina killing Warren in a fit of temper. As for Gail, no doubt she’s capable of murder, but I’d expect subtlety from her. A slow-acting poison would be her weapon of choice. Good old-fashioned arsenic, maybe. Not something as crude as a scythe.’

‘I still fancy Peter,’ Linz said.

‘Rather old for you, isn’t he?’ Les Bryant murmured. ‘For all you know, he may be a lifelong devotee of Abba and Neil Diamond.’

Hannah said, ‘OK, that’ll do for the time being. I need to catch up on my emails. But before I become engrossed, DS Lowther, can you spare me a minute?’

When they were alone, Hannah switched off her mobile and put her phone on divert. ‘Fine, I’m all ears.’

‘Before I start, I don’t mean to be rude, Hannah, but I have to say, you look like death warmed up.’

‘You always did wonders for my confidence.’

‘Sorry, but you need to know. I’m only seeing what everyone else is seeing. You’d be far better recuperating at home for a few days instead of getting up at the crack of dawn to interview sad women like Gail Flint and Tina Howe.’

‘They’d claw your eyes out if they heard you describing them as sad.’

‘True, though, isn’t it?’

‘Show me someone over thirty who isn’t a bit sad.’

He sighed. ‘Not having a good day?’

‘Pretty shitty, since you ask. I finished up with my heart going out to Tina Howe. Which wasn’t in the plan. God, I hate this job sometimes.’

‘Me too.’

‘All right, fire away. The suspense is killing me.’

‘Don’t get too excited.’ He licked his lips. ‘Actually, this is very difficult for me.’

‘We go back a long way. No need for any secrets between us.’

‘You may change your mind once I’ve had my say.’

‘Don’t worry. By now I ought to be unshockable.’

He bowed his head. ‘I suppose you’ve guessed already.’

Hannah took a breath. The fan was whirring sluggishly, exhausted by its losing battle against the heat. ‘This is about your relationship with Roz Gleave?’

‘Oh, no.’ No mistaking the astonishment on his clean-cut features. ‘It’s about my relationship with her husband. You see, Chris and I were lovers.’