‘Very.’ He helped himself to a handful of salty peanuts from a bowl. ‘So that is what appeals to you? The notion of escape?’
She nodded. ‘I love my job, most of the time. When I’m doing what I signed up to do — detecting crime. It’s the crap that gets in the way that I can’t bear. The politics, the management stuff, the need to keep the right people sweet. Don’t get me wrong, I can cope. But my oldest friend, Terri, is always complaining the job eats away at the soul.’
‘Ever thought of doing something else?’
‘I’m not qualified for anything else.’
‘Well, I made the break.’
‘For you it was easy.’ As the words left her mouth, she regretted their sting. ‘I mean, you can write from home. What would I do — become a private detective? A gumshoe in Grasmere, a shamus from Seatoller? I don’t think so.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean …’
‘Forgive me.’ She wanted to reach across the table and touch his hand, but it wasn’t a good idea. ‘Marc keeps saying I’m too tense, I need to lighten up. Blame it on the job, it’s the usual suspect.’
‘What are you working on at present?’ He needed to steer the conversation to safe water. ‘Marc mentioned a case in Coniston.’
‘A missing woman. Ten years on, we may be about to find her.’
‘Can you talk about it?’
She knew she ought to say no, but it was a distraction from anything more personal. His dad had been the most honest man she’d ever met and she was sure Daniel was to be trusted. And another thing. Emma’s story would absorb him, and she wanted him to be absorbed in what she had to say.
‘Why not?’ She smiled through the candle’s flame. ‘What do you know about the Arsenic Labyrinth?’
‘Jeremy Erskine is a fan of yours,’ Hannah said forty minutes later, savouring the last of her wine. ‘His interest in history extends beyond teaching at a posh school. He has a copy of your book and he almost swooned when I said you’d moved to the Lakes. He’d love you to talk to his historical society.’
‘Not the Grizedale and Satterthwaite?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘I seem to remember an invitation from them whilst I was at Oxford. Shortly after Aimee died; I hadn’t got myself together.’
‘Takes a long time to get yourself together after something like that.’
Aimee had committed suicide by leaping from the Saxon tower in Cornmarket. A few months later, he’d met Miranda and left Oxford for good. Daniel knew why his sister disapproved. Louise thought he’d got involved on the rebound. He’d wanted to escape by taking up with someone as different from Aimee as he could find.
‘Suppose I’d better get in touch with your mate Jeremy.’
‘He’s no mate of mine. Truth is, he’s extraordinarily easy to dislike.’
‘Not a helpful witness?’
‘He’d prefer Emma to be quietly forgotten. All that bothers him is the effect a cold case investigation may have on his career prospects. He may be a fellow historian, but you don’t have much else in common.’
‘You never know.’
She flushed. ‘Sorry, that sounds as though I know you inside out. Very presumptuous. Pay no attention, you and Jeremy may get on like a house on fire.’
He put down his coffee cup. ‘When I was a boy, people said I took after my father. How true it was, who knows? But if you think he’d have disliked Jeremy …’
‘Ben would have detested him.’
‘I’ll talk to him. For all I know he’s an expert on John Ruskin and I can pick his brains as part of my research.’
‘You’re working on something new?’
When he explained about his thirst for more information about Ruskin’s Coniston years, she shook her head and said, ‘I can’t offer you any local knowledge. I was taken round Brantwood as a teenager and all I remember is the gorgeous gardens. And that poor old Ruskin was a loser in love.’
‘Like Emma Bestwick, by the sound of it. She had all that money — however she came by it — but nobody to love.’
‘That’s why Sid Thornicroft thought she’d done a runner. He argued that she’d found someone new and followed them, perhaps abroad. Or else gone in search of a new life.’
‘Ten years is a long time to maintain radio silence.’
‘It does happen. You know all about beginning a new life. Tell me, do you ever yearn for the old days, town and gown?’
‘Never.’
‘So it’s worked out perfectly, starting afresh?’
‘Nothing’s ever perfect, is it?’ He smiled. ‘Miranda hated the Lakeland winter. At dead of night, Tarn Fold is too quiet for her. She has trouble sleeping, she’s accustomed to London, the eternal rumble of traffic in the distance. Not to worry. Ruskin said imperfection is essential to life; who am I to argue?’
‘Did Ruskin have an opinion on everything, then?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘Any words of wisdom for a hard-pressed law enforcement officer, investigating a suspected murder?’
‘You won’t be encouraged. He deplored fascination with death, saw it as a sign of the ills of Victorian England. He put the boot into Charles Dickens for being morbid, said far too many respectable characters met grotesque ends in Bleak House. God knows what he’d make of late night TV and the vogue for autopsy close-ups. Ruskin reckoned a good society was interested in life, not death.’
‘Nothing would please me more than for Emma to walk through that door right now and demand to know what all the fuss is about.’
‘Not going to happen, is it?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What do you believe went on?’
‘Assuming she’s dead, we have to look at the possibilities of accident or suicide before ruling them out. If the call to the journalist isn’t a hoax and we do find she’s buried under the Arsenic Labyrinth, it’s hard to imagine that she got there by chance.’
‘Sex murder?’
‘Perhaps. But not committed by the obvious suspect.’
‘The late Tom Inchmore?’
‘Yes, some of my colleagues had him in the frame. It would have been quite an end for the Inchmore dynasty, if the last in the line turned out to be a murderer.’
‘If Emma is dead, presumably the anonymous caller is the culprit?’
‘He might be an accomplice. Or someone the murderer confided in. But yes, the chances are, he killed her. What we don’t know is why. Or why he’s decided to break his silence. We can’t link him to the original investigation. If it was a sexually motivated murder, it doesn’t fit the usual pattern. Did she go to the Arsenic Labyrinth of her own free will? And if so, why?’
‘You say the place is off the beaten track,’ Daniel said. ‘Suitable for a secret assignation. A tryst. Perhaps she went to meet someone. Possibly not the person she actually met. Maybe she went looking for love and finished up dead.’
Hannah laughed. ‘You’re incorrigible. A real chip off the old block.’
‘The difference is, my father actually became a detective. All I do is speculate from an armchair.’
‘He’d have been proud of you,’ she said suddenly. ‘I wish you’d met him before he died.’
There was a long pause as they looked at each other across the table. As Daniel opened his mouth to speak, Hannah glanced at her watch.
‘God, I’m late, I’ll have to skedaddle.’
He wanted to protest, even as she rose to her feet, but all he managed to say was, ‘Good to see you again.’
Not looking at him, she said, ‘Don’t leave it so long next time.’
CHAPTER NINE
‘Not much of a labyrinth,’ Les sniffed.
He was wearing a greatcoat and Cossack hat that made him look like an extra from Dr Zhivago. Hannah, Maggie and Giselle Feeney were standing close to him on a long ledge of rock at Mispickel Scar, surveying the hollow that a glacier had scooped out between the fells. Snow had fallen during the night and ice underfoot had made the climb slow and treacherous. For the last half hour Les had lagged behind the three younger women, puffing and grunting and making it plain that he wished he was back home with his feet up in front of the fire. He’d sneezed once or twice and mumbled that he was starting with a cold.