The Coffin Trail

Chapter Thirteen

The cottage was quiet as he reached their new front gate. His legs and back were aching after the long walk: too many years sitting in libraries, hunched over old manuscripts. He glanced at his watch: quarter-past five, a later return than he’d intended. At least Wayne’s rusty white van had disappeared, so there was no one else in the house. Pausing on the threshold, he took in a draught of air. Time to put things right with Miranda.

She was curled up on the living room sofa, in her white gown, listening to Sheryl Crow. As he walked in, she glanced up and gave him a little smile. He sat down beside her, so that their legs touched, and put his arm around her shoulder, feeling the bone beneath the towelling.

‘I was about to have a bath,’ she whispered.

Something was bothering her, he knew her well enough to be certain of it. Wanting to let her share it in her own time, he said nothing and waited.

‘I feel dirty.’ She bent towards him, so that her face nestled against his. He felt the dampness of tears on his cheek.

‘What is it, Miranda?’

‘It’s — well, it’s Wayne.’

A cold apprehension fingered him. ‘What about Wayne?’

‘After you’d gone, I went to bed. I felt so drained, I needed some sleep. When I woke up, it was after three o’clock and I had a headache. I came downstairs for something to eat and an aspirin and he was in the kitchen, making himself a drink. We were chatting, it was all very friendly, I didn’t even mind that he’d stopped work. He was telling me that he was a keen angler, describing the excitement an angler feels when he catches something. I told him a bit about life in London. And then, just as I was starting to feel okay — well, he made a pass.’

Daniel tightened his grip on her. ‘What did he do?’

She closed her eyes. ‘He put his hands around me. I think he must have gone into the village for a drink at lunchtime whilst I was asleep. He pulled me towards him, his breath smelled of beer.’

Daniel could picture the young man’s leering face, as he decided to take advantage of his opportunity. So many if onlys were passing through his mind.

Miranda kept talking, the words coming out faster as she remembered. ‘It was just as if I was a carp he’d caught and he was reeling me in. I screamed and slapped his face. Daniel, I was out of my mind, I didn’t know what he was going to do to me. He and I were all alone here and I didn’t have a clue when you’d be back.’

Daniel swore. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

‘Thank God, he — he backed off, as though he couldn’t believe I wasn’t surrendering. His cheek was bright red where I’d hit him. It looked so absurd, I’d have laughed out loud if I wasn’t so scared. He turned on his heel, jumped into his van and drove off down the lane. Brakes squealing as he rounded the bend and disappeared. I called his firm straight away and told his boss what had happened. He promised to sack Wayne and asked if I wanted to tell the police, make a charge of assault. I said no, as long as I never have to see him again. The man said of course not. Eddie can finish the work.’

‘Never mind the work. As long as you’re all right.’

She took in a breath. ‘I think so.’

‘We must hire a different builder.’

‘Don’t make a fuss, I just want to forget it ever happened. Everything’s sorted. It was awful, but it only lasted a few seconds. Now it’s over.’

‘Oh God, Miranda. I’m so sorry.’

‘It’s okay, darling. It’s not your fault.’

‘The bastard, the utter bastard. I shouldn’t have left you here with him.’

‘I’m a grown-up. Besides, he’s a chancer, not a rapist. There was no real harm done.’ She took a breath. ‘He simply jumped to conclusions — about you and me. He thought he was in with a chance.’

‘He was eavesdropping when we quarrelled.’

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ she said, wriggling away from him so that they were standing face to face. ‘Perhaps I was mean.’

‘No, I shouldn’t keep harping on Barrie Gilpin.’

‘Like you said, it’s about your father. If you do want to talk to this woman, this police officer, I can understand. If it’s important to you, it’s all right. You can go ahead.’

She was looking at him expectantly. The thought sneaked into his mind: she wants me to say that I won’t ring Hannah Scarlett, that nothing else matters to me but her. At once he dismissed it as shameful and wrong.

‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘I shouldn’t have ranted,’ she said. ‘It’s just that…well, you know.’

‘Things will be fine.’

‘You’re right,’ she said eagerly. ‘Let’s put it all behind us. Wayne, the argument, everything. Let’s forget all about them.’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Go and have your bath. It’ll do you good.’

‘I was wondering,’ she said. ‘Do you want to join me? My hair needs a wash and I remember that time in Oxford, you did it so well, it really turned me on. Afterwards, we can make up properly, if you like.’

Doubts stilled, he brushed his lips against her cheek. Already the tears had dried. ‘Yes, I would like.’

In his dreams, he was lying at the foot of the Sacrifice Stone. His hands and legs were tied with rope and there was a gag in his mouth. Twilight cloaked the fells, but he didn’t feel cold. He was trembling because he was afraid what would happen next. As he waited, a blurred face entered his line of vision and a knobbly finger wagged at him.

‘I warned you not to come up here.’

The woman he’d met walking on the fell had turned into a witch. Her nose was beaky, her cheeks speckled with warts. She began to cackle, baring huge yellow teeth.

‘You only have yourself to blame, young man. You did not heed the legend.’

She glanced beyond him, as though something had caught her attention. He strained hard so that he could turn his head. The muscles in his neck were sore and tears stung his eyes.

A small crowd of people was approaching along Priest Edge. Tom Allardyce was at the front, manhandling a naked girl towards the Sacrifice Stone. Her hair was long and blonde and he knew that it was Miranda, Miranda in her teens. Some of the faces in the gathering were familiar: Wayne the builder was there, and the Moffat women, Tash and Simon Dumelow, and Joe Dowling and his wife-to-be from The Moon under Water. Their faces were alight with excitement, but on the fringe he saw Jean Allardyce weeping quietly. Her husband grinned at Daniel, then ran his hands down Miranda’s sides. Her legs were matchsticks, her breasts mere buds.

‘Tonight she is a virgin once again,’ the witch hissed in his ear. ‘It is as if you’d never touched her.’

Miranda’s face turned to him. Her complexion was pale and flawless, her eyes wide with terror. As he tried in vain to move, she cried out in despair.

‘Why did you have to do this? Why couldn’t you let well alone?’

He wanted to answer, to explain and to apologise, but the gag made it impossible to speak. Exhausted, he could do nothing but watch as the mob lifted Miranda up on to the top of the Sacrifice Stone. Wayne and Joe Dowling stepped aside and a man garbed in a flowing robe emerged from the middle of the crowd. A shaft of moonlight fell on him and Daniel recognised Marc Amos. In one hand he held an open leather-bound tome and he was chanting something incomprehensible. In his other hand a sharp blade glinted.

Miranda screamed, shattering the night.

At once he was awake, clutching her warm bare body, saying a prayer of thanks under his breath as he ran his fingers over her back and thighs, proving to himself that they were safe together after all.

‘What is it?’ she murmured dozily.

‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘just a bad dream. Everything’s going to be all right.’

Next morning he headed off towards Kendal before eight, stopping on the way at the builder’s. He’d told Miranda about his meeting with Hannah Scarlett, but she seemed more bothered about Wayne losing his job as a result of her complaint to his boss. She even said that, having slept on it, maybe she’d overreacted, perhaps she should have been flattered.

The yard was an Aladdin’s cave of timber, bricks, and breeze-blocks, overseen from a hut in the corner by the proprietor of the firm, Stan Mustoe, a stout and balding Geordie in outsize denim jeans and a gravy-stained T-shirt. Over the racket made by two brawny youths loading a pick-up truck with planks, he proffered apologies for Wayne’s behaviour and said he’d given him the sack by way of a text message the previous evening.

‘Tell you the truth, I was glad of an excuse to get rid. He’s bone idle, leaves all the graft to Eddie.’

‘We noticed.’

‘Trouble is, reliable labour’s like gold dust round here. He’ll walk straight into another job, if he wants one.’

‘So what did he have to say for himself?’

‘You know what these lads are like, Mr Kind.’ The builder shook his head sadly. The image of social responsibility was marred by the faded words tattooed on the knuckles of either hand. Love and Hate. Shades of Night of the Hunter; in his younger days he must have fancied himself as a latter day Robert Mitchum. ‘Ten minutes later, he called back and said he was only messing. Having a laugh with the lady of the house, that’s the way he put it. Cheeky bugger. In fairness, though, there’s no real harm in him.’

‘So he didn’t deny it?’

Mustoe’s meaty shoulders rippled in a dismissive gesture and he took a swig of tea from a chipped Newcastle United mug. ‘Must have read the signs wrong, he said, the stupid sod. Mind you, speaking as one bloke to another, we’ve all read the signs wrong in our time, haven’t we, Mr Kind?’

Reading the signs wrong. Men did it all the time. Very often, there weren’t even any signs to be misread, but that didn’t stop them. There was nothing more to say. As he reversed out of the yard, Daniel couldn’t help asking himself if Gabrielle Anders had died because Barrie Gilpin had misread the signs.

He drove down the hill into Kendal and squeezed into the last vacant parking space on top of the Westmorland Shopping Centre. Outside, a straggly-haired, dungaree-clad Joni Mitchell wannabe plucked at a guitar and wailed about the big yellow taxi that had taken away her old man; presumably he wanted to flee from her singing.

On the opposite side of Stricklandgate stood the Carnegie Library, where an affable assistant found him copies of the local papers from the time of Gabrielle’s murder. The reports told him little he did not already know about the case, but carried a couple of photographs of his father that he’d never seen before. One was a close-up, a head and shoulders shot revealing tired eyes and a fleshiness of the jowls that suggested too many nights in smoky bars. The other was taken at Underfell, close to the crime scene, and showed Ben Kind issuing directions to his subordinates. At his side was a slender young woman officer with a pageboy haircut, paying close attention. Hannah Scarlett?

At ten fifteen he set off for their rendezvous. Kendal was a fiendish maze of courtyards and ginnels, but he was learning his way around the grey limestone buildings. Stramongate was a couple of minutes from the library, an ancient thoroughfare leading from the main shopping street over a bridge crossing the Kent. As soon as he’d spotted the church, he identified the benches that Hannah Scarlett had mentioned, scattered around a stretch of grass by the bend in the river. On a hillock overlooking the scene stood fragments of a ruined castle. It was starting to drizzle as he sat down facing the no-fishing signs by the weir.

A woman in a leather jacket was striding along the path from the bridge. Medium height, short brown hair damp from the rain. The pageboy cut was no more, but he was certain this was Hannah Scarlett. As she came nearer, her gaze locked on him. In his stomach he felt an unexpected jab of apprehension. Maybe Miranda was right. This woman might know stuff about his father it was better for him not to know.

She came to a halt a couple of yards short of the bench. ‘Daniel Kind.’

It was a statement, not a question. Her face had a few freckles and was faintly tanned by the wind and sun. She wore no make-up or jewellery and didn’t have a single ring on her long slim fingers. He couldn’t detect a perfume. He guessed that her attitude was take me as you find me. When they shook hands, her grip was firm. Her gaze was intense as she weighed him up. Her dark eyes gave nothing away. It would be no joke, being a suspect under interrogation by Hannah Scarlett.

‘It isn’t every day I get to meet a television celebrity from the soft south.’ Her voice was husky, not easy to hear against the crash of water cascading over the weir. He caught the faint undertow of scepticism in her words. Not a woman who was easily impressed.

‘All that is history,’ he said with a grin.

She winced. ‘So a flair for lousy jokes runs in the family? Did he train you in the art of card tricks, too?’

He waved her to sit down. ‘I used to think my dad had a pretty good sense of humour. As for conjuring, he always used to enthrall my sister and me. I never did figure out how he could make the King of Diamonds turn into the Ace of Spades. Then again, I was only twelve years old.’

She joined him on the bench, leaving a gap between them. ‘Presumably there was a lot of resentment when he left, as well as unhappiness.’

‘For my mother and Louise, yes. Both of them were very bitter, his name became a dirty word. Me, I was just dazed. His running off with Cheryl was a disaster that came out of the clear blue sky. Being told that he’d walked out was like being hit by a falling tree.’

‘You had no warning?’

‘I suppose Mum realised something was up, but we never discussed where and why they went off the rails. Talking about the time when we were a family of four, not three, was absolutely off-limits.’

‘He hated hurting you all.’

‘You think so?’

‘I know so. Of course, he and I didn’t talk about what had gone wrong between him and your mother, that was private. Over a lager one night after we’d wrapped up a case, he told me that not a day passed without his conscience nagging him. Your sister was — what, fifteen at the time? Studying for her exams? He had a lot to feel guilty about and it didn’t help when he phoned her and tried to explain.’

Daniel leaned forward. ‘Louise never mentioned to me that he called.’

‘Did she not? She told him that he’d ruined the lives of all three of you. Swore at him and said some vicious things about Cheryl. She made it clear she never wanted to speak to him again. That cut him up, and yet he had to admit that it was his own fault.’

Daniel’s eyes settled on a board by the river. Dangerous Water. ‘All through my teens, I had this recurrent dream. The settings varied — home, school, my uncle’s house — but the plot-line was always the same. The phone would be ringing and I knew it was Dad, wanting to talk to me, to say that one day we’d be together again. I never made it to the phone in time. It would fall silent the moment before I picked up the receiver, and all I’d ever hear would be the dialling tone.’

‘Now you know why he didn’t call you sooner. Once bitten, twice shy. But he was thrilled when you eventually made contact with him.’

‘Whenever we did speak, he came over as a bit of an old curmudgeon.’

‘That was just his way. To survive as a detective, you need a hard shell. But if you harden up all the way to the heart, maybe you’ve got a problem.’

For a moment, he wondered if Hannah Scarlett might be talking as much about herself as about his father. She seemed cool and collected in person, as she had on the phone. Whatever might lie beneath the surface poise, she could hardly be more different from impulsive, vulnerable Miranda. This was a woman who kept her feelings under lock and key.

‘Deep down, he was as compassionate as any cop I’ve met. Not that he’d thank me for saying it.’ She paused. ‘You deserve to know what he was really like. I don’t blame his wife and daughter for judging him harshly, but there are two sides to every story.’

Daniel said, ‘I haven’t come just for you to tell me what you think I’d like to hear.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘I wouldn’t do that.’

‘It’s good of you to spare this time to talk to me.’

‘The least I can do. I owe your father a great deal.’

She told him how Ben Kind had taken her under his wing and about how much she’d learned from him. How he’d taught her that showing empathy for the victims of crime must not stop her from detaching her emotions from the case. How often he’d urged her to keep her eye on the ball; every investigation was full of crap that could distract even an experienced detective. The secret was never to lose focus.

‘As the years passed, he gave up on amateur magic, concentrated on playing the gruff sceptic. A popular act with the older men, a chap on my team plays that game. You have to look past the scowls and grumbles, try to make out what they really think and feel.’

‘And what did Ben Kind really think and feel?’

‘He was a decent man, Daniel. The only wrong thing he ever did that I know of was leaving you and your family in the lurch so that he could run off with Cheryl. I suppose he felt cornered.’

‘Meaning what?’

She studied her unvarnished nails for a moment, as if making up her mind how much to say. ‘He did once let something slip. Whilst he was still living at home, Cheryl gave him an ultimatum. Although she made most of the running, after they’d slept together a couple of times, she insisted that if he didn’t make an honest woman of her, the relationship would have to end. Forcing him to make a choice.’

‘He told you that?’

‘And one other thing. Long before the end, he was afraid he’d made the wrong choice.’

For a little while, Daniel didn’t speak, just studied the ground at his feet.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

‘I spoke to his neighbours,’ he said, looking up again. ‘They told me that Cheryl started an affair before he died.’

‘It wasn’t her first,’ Hannah said shortly.

‘I take it that you weren’t a member of her fan club?’

‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘I’d rather you tell me the truth.’

‘Even if the truth is uncomfortable?’

‘Historians expect it to be.’

‘Just like any police officer, then?’ she said with a glimmer of a smile. ‘Don’t get the wrong idea. Cheryl and I scarcely knew each other. The two of us had nothing in common, apart from Ben. Besides, I don’t think Cheryl had many women friends.’

‘But men friends?’

‘Men she liked. She was a flirt. And once or twice she went further.’

‘My father told you that as well?’

She cleared her throat. ‘In this job, when you work together for a long time, you share a lot. Grief, disappointment. Confidences get shared too.’

As he considered this, he didn’t look at her, kept his eyes on the river rushing past. For all the warnings, he couldn’t help dipping his toes into that dangerous water. Presently, he said, ‘So you and he were very close?’

‘We weren’t lovers,’ she said shortly, ‘if that’s what you mean. Very good friends. The best, I’d say. But no more than that.’

Her candour startled him. ‘Sorry. I…’

‘No need to apologise. Cheryl made the same assumption, apparently, but I’m not sure she gave a damn. On the contrary. If Ben was getting his oats elsewhere, he wouldn’t be troubling her, would he? I suppose that’s the way her mind worked. Of course she was wrong. As you’ve discovered, I share a house with Marc Amos.’

‘Owner of one of the best bookshops north of Manchester.’

‘So he tells me,’ she said with a crooked smile.

‘Small world, huh?’

‘That’s the Lakes for you. Everyone is connected to everyone else.’

‘Sort of appealing.’

‘Some people find it suffocating.’

‘Even with all the hills and meres and open spaces?’

‘Sure. I love the beauty of the Lakes, same as you or any other tourist. But even here, people lie and cheat and commit crimes, same as everywhere else.’

Same as you or any other tourist. He cringed inwardly. Her instinct was to bracket him with the sightseers who clogged the lanes and car parks around Bowness and Grasmere.

‘Did Marc tell you, he and I bumped into each other yesterday?’

‘Uh-huh. I gather you were up on Priest Edge by the Sacrifice Stone. Where Gabrielle Anders’ body was found.’

‘My first time there since that family holiday.’

She said softly, ‘I confess, I’m intrigued. As I understand it, you’ve thrown up your home and your career to come and live in this neck of the woods. It may not seem that far from the madding crowd if you’ve ever been stuck in a traffic jam on the way to Windermere, but it’s a different world from Oxford and Television Centre.’

‘What’s so strange? There’s nowhere more beautiful in England. For once the tourist brochures aren’t a pack of lies. Even though I don’t believe what I was told, that it rains less here than in Devon.’

‘It’s a fact. Even so, they say if you can see High Gill through the mist, it’s going to rain. If you can’t, it’s raining already. Tell me this, though. Of all the properties on the estate agents’ books, how did you happen to end up with Tarn Cottage?’

‘It’s a long story.’

She pulled back the leather sleeve and glanced at her watch. ‘You have ten minutes.’

‘And there I was, thinking I’d be asking the questions. Finding out more about him.’

‘Are you saying you came up here just to explore your past?’

‘No it was more a matter of getting away from the present. For Miranda, as well as me.’

‘Miranda’s your wife?’

‘My partner. She’s a journalist.’

‘So you’re a media couple,’ she said lightly.

‘No,’ he said, more vehemently than he’d intended. ‘Absolutely not. From the moment we got together, one of the things we had in common was that we both needed a change in our lives. She’d split up with her boyfriend and was having problems at work. I’d stopped enjoying teaching and television is a treadmill. Of course, I won’t earn as much based here, but money isn’t everything.’

‘In my experience,’ she said drily, ‘people who have no money never say that.’

‘Ouch. Then let’s just say, I was sick of academic in-fighting. And there was something else. My ex-girlfriend had died and suddenly my old way of life had too many sour memories.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘In an odd kind of way, I wanted some good to come out of Aimee’s death. I guess that at one time or another in our lives, all of us have the urge to make a new beginning.’

She knitted her brow. ‘You reckon?’

‘Yes,’ he said gently, ‘I reckon. Why, have you never found that?’

‘Marc and I have been together a long time. We’re set in our ways, soon we’ll be like Darby and Joan.’ For a moment she seemed to be talking to herself rather than to him. Forcing a smile, she added, ‘Also, we care about our jobs. I can’t imagine life outside the police and Marc is crazy about books. Your situation was obviously different.’

‘Miranda and I were fortunate. Not everyone has the opportunity to start again, but I suppose that sometimes it’s a mistake to surrender to the temptation.’

‘Like Ben?’

‘We weren’t abandoning anyone, that’s the difference. We saw a way out. So we took it.’

She gave a brisk nod, as if to say: that’s enough small talk. ‘All right, then, the Gabrielle Anders case. Have you been talking to people about the murder since you moved to Tarn Cottage?’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Is it true, have you been making waves?’

He noticed that she’d dodged his question by asking another. ‘You could say so. I’m an incurable nosey parker. There are lots of loose ends connected with the case, don’t you agree?’

‘Occupational hazard.’

‘Isn’t that rather defeatist?’

‘My job isn’t an academic exercise,’ she snapped.

‘Touche.’ For the first time, he saw a spark of temper in her eyes. She wasn’t quite as controlled as she wanted him to believe. It gave him a buzz that he’d managed to pierce her defences, if only for an instant. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. Too many years in an ivory tower, I guess.’

‘Police work isn’t as neat as a thesis, nicely typed and bound. It’s all about the messiness of reality. We don’t have endless time to toss around theories or ponder over psychological whys and wherefores.’

‘You’re not immune from curiosity, though? Barrie Gilpin was an oddity, but why would he kill Gabrielle?’

Hannah’s mouth became a tight line. ‘Why does any man commit an act of violence? Why does a teenager rape a defenceless old woman, or a father suffocate his kids? Barrie was a voyeur and he’d taken a fancy to Gabrielle. Who knows what may have happened between them? We can’t make up the evidence to fit our preconceived ideas. Or preferences. Don’t historians base their work on hard facts, too?’

‘With some of my former colleagues, you might be surprised. But you’re right. Historical research isn’t intuition, it’s detection.’

‘I heard you say that on the telly, so it must be true,’ she mocked. ‘All I can say is that the original investigation turned up nothing that exonerated Barrie Gilpin. Not a thing.’

‘Guilty till proved innocent, then?’

‘I didn’t say that.’ She sighed. ‘Listen, I didn’t mean to be glib about the loose ends after Barrie’s body was found. They bothered me, just as they bothered your father.’

‘He knew the real Barrie. He’d played with him, even performed a few magic tricks, much to old Ma Gilpin’s disapproval. I can’t believe he saw Barrie as a murderer. So — why not review the old file?’

She nibbled at her lower lip. ‘All right, I’ll tell you something. In strict confidence, okay?’

‘I’ll respect it.’

‘If you’re your father’s son, I’m sure you will. Mind you, this won’t stay confidential for long. If I know the Lakes and the way people talk, it’ll be common knowledge by this time tomorrow. The Gabrielle Anders case is one of those we’re taking a second look at. Starting this afternoon, we’ll be talking to some of the people who gave statements, seeing whether memories can be jogged.’

‘That’s good news.’

‘I don’t suppose everyone we speak to will be quite so positive.’

‘But if it helps the truth to come out…’

‘Daniel,’ she interrupted. ‘Just be clear about this. One thing you learn in my job is that the truth is usually the last thing people want to emerge. Guilty or innocent, it doesn’t matter. Everyone has something to hide.’

‘Everyone?’

For a moment he thought she was about to say something else, but instead she stood up and brushed droplets of rain from her coat. ‘I’d better go.’

He scrambled to his feet. ‘Thanks for your time. I appreciate it.’

She offered her hand. Her flesh was cold. As they shook, another question struck him.

‘Hannah.’ Using her first name felt strangely intimate. ‘Why did you ask if I’d been making waves?’

She opened her mouth and he thought: she’s about to say no particular reason and it will be a lie. This woman doesn’t ask questions without reason.

But she paused and seemed to have second thoughts. ‘Daniel, I’m already running late. I’m sorry, you wanted me to tell you more about your father. Maybe one of these days we can talk again.’

‘I’d like that.’ He took a slip of paper from his pocket and scribbled two numbers on it. ‘Call me any time at the cottage or on my mobile.’

She didn’t reply, but gave a quick nod and walked swiftly away towards the bridge. He watched her go, while the questions she hadn’t answered swirled across his mind like ripples on the river.