There were scrapbooks, diaries and household records of Coniston residents that covered much of the twentieth century. Many of the notebooks were written in the same cramped but legible hand. They had been kept somewhere damp and the paper was brittle to the touch. It wasn’t late, but he had to force himself to keep his eyes open as he turned the pages. His arms and legs felt heavy and his throat was dry. He ought to go to bed, but he knew that when he did, he would spend hours tossing and turning. So often it had been like this in Oxford, during the weeks after Aimee committed suicide. Better to keep working, until he was so exhausted that sleep could no longer be denied.
A single sentence snagged his attention. He read them a second time and the words jerked him wide awake.
You’d never believe it to look at me now, but once upon a time I killed a man.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Orange-yellow flames writhed like dancers in the night sky as Hannah approached Inchmore Hall. Heart pounding, she’d broken speed limits travelling twenty miles on dark, twisting roads. When she pulled up on the grass verge fifty yards short of the drive, an inferno was raging.
Fire frightened her, she hated its savagery, wanted to shut her ears to its hoarse, greedy roar. She’d never forgotten attending her first arson as a DC. An attack on a supermarket left a security man with cruel burns and a face ruined forever. The arsonist, a bored shelf-stacker, told her later that fire was exciting and passionate, it turned him on like nothing else. He’d licked his lips as he spoke of hot and fast flames, ripping through the building, out of control. Nondescript, spotty, and eighteen years old, he was the most dangerous young man Hannah had ever met.
Gritting her teeth, she slammed shut the car door. The fire was loud and wild, a monster holding the hall captive, glorying in its power to consume and destroy. The wooden gables were blackened and about to crumble, the blinds at the windows had burnt to nothing. The temperature had sunk below zero, but the night was dry, just when a downpour would have answered prayers. Beyond a cordon, firefighters were striving to tame the beast. From the other side of the road, a huddle of spectators gawped at the spectacle. When Hannah pushed through, a small man in an over-sized ski jacket gave her a dirty look, outraged by the presumptuousness of a latecomer to the evening show. Half a dozen teenagers were giggling, one was taking pictures with her mobile. This was better than Guy Fawkes Night.
Smoke was poisoning the air and as Hannah reached tall gateposts topped with stone pineapples, she had to fight for breath. She wrapped her scarf around her face to protect her mouth and sinuses from the acrid stench. As she moved forward, she felt the heat on her cheeks.
The old mansion was dying before her eyes, suffocating in the clutches of the raging creature. As she watched, a timber beam fell to the gravelled drive with a deafening crash. A nanosecond of near-silence, then the group of onlookers let out a collective gasp.
Hannah spotted Maggie Eyre, in fleece, jeans and leather boots, talking to a grey-haired fire officer and two uniformed PCs on the lawn. Their eyes met and, with a quick word to the men, Maggie hurried down the drive to meet her.
‘So much for your quiet evening down the pub?’ Hannah had to shout to make herself heard above the din.
‘We’d arranged to meet friends, but Dave’s gone off on his own.’ Maggie started coughing. ‘I had to stop and see if there was anything I could do.’
‘Anyone inside?’
‘Not sure. It’s still too dangerous for anyone to force their way in, even with breathing apparatus and cutting equipment. For all anyone knows, Mr Clough and his daughter are out tonight. I hope to God they are, because we’ve seen nobody and anyone trapped won’t have stood a chance. Their lungs will have choked with fumes inside minutes.’
Hannah’s eyes were stinging. ‘Any idea what happened?’
‘Flames were seen by a passer-by who dialled 999, but even though the station is close by, the fire was so fierce that by the time the first fire engine arrived, they could tell it was going to be a long night. No clue on cause yet, God knows whether this is accident or arson, but I’ve been talking to the fire officer in charge. He says his boss had a row with Alban Clough about the need to upgrade safety precautions in the Museum. In the end, the old man threw him out. It’s with the legal people to take action right now. Too few smoke alarms, let alone a decent sprinkler system. As for the candles …’
In her mind, Hannah heard Alban’s sonorous complaints about the pettifoggery of the bureaucrats. No need for m’learned friends to bother now. The fire had done their work for them.
‘Alban Clough’s a law unto himself.’
‘They reckon Inchmore Hall is a deathtrap. This was a disaster waiting to happen.’
‘We need to …’
‘My God! My God!’
A woman had burst through the cordon and was clattering up the driveway. Alex Clough, in a suede coat and high heels. Thank God she had not been roasted to a cinder inside her blazing home. She wasn’t dressed for sprinting and as she drew level with Hannah and Maggie, she stumbled and sank to the ground.
‘Is your father inside?’ Hannah bellowed.
‘I don’t know! He was at home this evening. Unless he managed to get out …’
She looked up and saw the look on the two women’s faces. Breathing hard, she hauled herself back on to her feet.
‘I must try to save him!’
Hannah rushed to her side and grasped her hand. In part to comfort, in part to restrain. ‘You can’t go in there.’
Alex began to sob. ‘My father, my father, my father …’
She repeated the words time after time, even as Hannah and Maggie put their arms around her so that they could lead her to a safer place. Somewhere to wait and watch while the only home she’d ever known burned to ashes.
Hannah wasn’t answering her mobile, so Daniel sent her a text asking her to contact him urgently. I know name of 2nd body. If that didn’t prompt a call, nothing would. After what he had read, he couldn’t sleep, so he stayed up all night in his favourite chair, smoothing out the tangles in his mind. When Miranda came downstairs in the blue-striped rugby shirt she wore to bed, she told him he looked knackered. He mumbled something unintelligible, his thoughts far away. They exchanged desultory small talk over toast and coffee in their gleaming new kitchen. He wasn’t in the mood to explain what he had discovered. Hannah, he wanted to save it for Hannah.
She called back five minutes after Miranda departed on a shopping trip to Kendal. It was not long after nine, but he heard her stifling a yawn even as she said hello. She sounded as tired as he felt
‘Sorry, long night. Inchmore Hall went up in a ball of flame.’
He swore. ‘What happened?’
‘Remember Manderley ablaze in the final reel of Rebecca?’ She’d told him once that in her teens this was a favourite film, she’d even had a brief crush on Olivier. ‘I could have sworn I saw Mrs Danvers’ crazy face at the window. But this time there wasn’t a happy ending. Alban Clough was inside. He didn’t stand a chance.’
He pictured the old man as he’d last seen him. Smiling slyly, enjoying the thrill of private knowledge, protesting ignorance of the second body buried below the Arsenic Labyrinth. Of course, he was lying, but that was nothing new. He’d lived a lie for fifty years, hugged his secret close, to the very end.
‘Are you still there?’
‘Sorry. I was thinking …’
‘This text you sent me. What have you found out?’