‘This was never going to be Hampton Court Maze.’ Hannah rubbed her gloved hands together, as much to keep warm as to engender enthusiasm. ‘So what exactly do we have here?’
The random scattering of stones was a bleak monument to Mispickel Scar’s industrial heritage, but Giselle contemplated the scene as lovingly as if it were a personal Eden.
‘Mispickel is another name for arsenopyrite. A silvery-white sulphide of iron and arsenic. I suppose when the works were built, George Inchmore expected it would make him more money than copper had made for his father. But the vein was poor. The cost of digging into the Scar far exceeded the value of what he extracted. His mistake was not to throw in the towel more quickly. He must have had an obstinate streak. The works kept going for six or seven years.’
Maggie opened out a photocopy of an old plan Bob Swindell had found, and jerked a thumb towards a heap of rubble forty yards away.
‘So the chimney was over there?’
Giselle nodded. ‘It had to be out in the open, far enough away from the face of the fells, so they could get a good draught. Picture plumes of mucky sulphur belching out in the middle of the Lake District. Not very green.’
‘Let’s get on with it, shall we?’ Les grumbled.
Giselle winked at Hannah. ‘Next to the stack was a cube-shaped building, designed on a square plan. Two storeys, hipped roof with a ventilator set in. Ore was fed into a big hopper on the top floor and from there it was spread down on top of a pan that rotated slowly inside a small chamber below. The chamber was heated by two coal-fired furnaces to a thousand degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature high enough to draw off the arsenic. It was sucked down a flue attached to the chimney stack. Although the flue was a thousand feet long, it folded back on itself every ten yards or so. That’s why it was called an arsenic labyrinth.’
Les stamped his feet. ‘Blot on the bleeding landscape if you ask me. No wonder they say it’s cursed.’
‘Is the lack of vegetation an after-effect of the poison?’ Hannah asked.
Maggie nodded. ‘I spoke to health and safety and they don’t regard the arsenical traces as a serious risk to our people. Everyone will have protective clothing and it’ll be incinerated once we’re done.’
Les blew his nose loudly and said, ‘You can’t do better than have a damn good shower.’
Maggie frowned at him and Hannah recalled their conversation in the car. ‘The challenge will be shifting all that stone so we can look for a body.’
‘Point out the shafts for us, will you?’ Hannah asked.
‘The whole area is a honeycomb,’ Giselle said. ‘Don’t forget, the Old Man of Coniston is nicknamed the Hollow Mountain. George saw an opportunity to exploit land that was otherwise useless. There were two main shafts here, according to the records. See that large boulder? One of them is underneath it. The stone looks suspiciously like the Sword of Damocles. You see it in old photographs. Until nine or ten years ago the Sword was a pinnacle balancing up on that ridge of rock. Very dangerous, it deterred all but the rashest fell-walkers.’
‘So it might have fallen after Emma disappeared?’
Silence fell as they digested what this might mean.
Maggie consulted her plan. ‘According to the records, there should be another way down into the mines closer to the slope of the fell, but a landslip has covered that up as well. The tunnels were connected. Shall we clear both entrances?’
‘I think so,’ Hannah said. ‘There may have been collapses underground as well. Let’s make sure we have good access. Di Venuto’s caller didn’t give details and we don’t want the whole team hanging around here longer than necessary.’
‘Too bloody right,’ Les said. ‘They’ll catch their death if it gets any colder.’
‘Let’s not attract too much attention too soon. Apart from Di Venuto we don’t have the Press on our backs, and he’s forced to keep his cards close to his chest, for fear he’ll lose his exclusive. We’re not being mithered by grieving relatives, but if we do find a body, all hell will break loose. Let’s make progress before the world and his wife come rubber-necking.’
‘Hey, no bugger in his right mind will tramp out to this God-forsaken spot.’
‘You’d be surprised. Mispickel may not be as popular as the Old Man or Levens Water, and the warning signs will scare off most people. But even in the depths of winter, a few hardy souls venture out. The minute we start work, the rumour mill down in the village will go into overdrive. We can’t hang around.’
‘How long are you going to give it?’
‘As long as it takes to find out whether Emma is buried here.’
‘Wherever she is, she must be warmer than me.’
‘So a camera survey is the first step?’ Maggie said hastily.
Hannah nodded. ‘Before we send the CSIs shinning down ropes, let’s shine a light into the shafts. See what we’ve got.’
Sarah proposed Sunday lunch at a pub she knew near Troutbeck. ‘My treat,’ she insisted, to Guy’s relief. He’d not made a penny since taking the money from Megan’s purse.
She drove a rusty old Citroen, painted an embarrassing orange. When, after five minutes of fiddling with the ignition key, she finally got it to start, it hissed and clanked and he wasn’t convinced they would make the round trip without breaking down. The heating didn’t work and she had the radio tuned to a brass band concert. At the traffic lights in Ambleside he asked how often she changed cars.
‘Don bought this little sweetie for me after the divorce. It wasn’t new then, of course. But he said it would be fine for my needs.’ She did something with the gear lever that sounded chaotic. ‘I don’t like driving much, I never travel far.’
Just as well. ‘How about asking him to replace it?’
‘He wouldn’t,’ she said with flat certainty.
‘He has obligations.’ Guy was hazy about divorce law, but he’d gained the impression from lads’ magazines that it favoured women at the expense of their former husbands. ‘Get him to put his hand in his pocket.’
‘He has a family to look after.’
‘You mustn’t let him off the hook. Honestly, if you want to give him a call, I can advise you about what to say.’
‘Oh, Rob, I couldn’t do that. I mean, I’m not proud or anything, but no woman likes to beg.’
He winced as they bounced over a speed bump. ‘It’s not begging. Simply a matter of making sure you get what is due.’
‘Really, I couldn’t. We agreed some time ago, we each had to make our own way in the world.’
‘But he deserted you after you’d given him the best years of your life.’
She glanced at him. ‘Not all the best years, I hope.’
Taking her eye off the road was a mistake. A lorry driver sounded his horn long and hard as the Citroen took a bend at speed and finished up on the other side of the road for twenty yards.
He said urgently, ‘You’re a woman on your own. Don should pick up more of the bills, it’s only right.’
‘I think he’s hoping I won’t be on my own for ever.’
Her complacency bothered him. How likely was it that she’d find a man who offered her a meal ticket for life? She didn’t even have much luck recruiting guests for the Glimpse. His concern was unselfish — what would happen to her after he moved on? It was as well that he’d been careful not to make any rash promises. Apart from a few whispered platitudes at moments of greatest intimacy, which obviously didn’t count, he’d said not a word to suggest that this was more than a fleeting romance. He didn’t want her to get any ideas about a long-term relationship. That wasn’t his kind of thing at all.
Miranda was back. Her face shone with excitement when he collected her from the station at Oxenholme. Ethan wanted to appoint her as an associate editor of the magazine and she wanted to know whether Daniel thought she should accept. Whether the new job title involved anything more than an increase in pay wasn’t clear, but she left him in no doubt what he was meant to say. Of course he said it.