‘As it happens,’ Theo said at length, ‘a group of us in the University have been talking about starting a new historical journal. The editorial board meets for the first time in a couple of weeks. But we are a little thin on the ground so far as your specialisms are concerned. I wondered if you might care to join us? Nothing too formal. In fact we’ll be combining a little business with a spot of gastronomic pleasure. The meeting’s being held in a rather splendid new bistro up in Summertown. You might like to bring along your, ahem, lady friend. Make a long weekend of it.’
‘Thanks for the kind invitation,’ Daniel said. ‘And I’d be glad to offer the occasional article, if it helps. But I don’t think I’ll be coming back to Oxford yet awhile.’
‘Your social calendar is already crammed?’
‘What I like about this place is that I don’t have a social calendar any more.’
‘It’ll end in tears,’ Theo murmured. ‘You do realise that, don’t you? The world treats escapists roughly, Daniel. They learn that in truth, they cannot escape themselves.’
‘Thanks for the warning, Theo. It’s good to talk.’
The Master made a noise halfway between a snort and a yelp and slammed down the phone. For another hour, Daniel tried to recapture the rhythm of his writing, but it was no good. The spell had been broken. He went downstairs and told Miranda about the call and to his astonishment, she said that it might have been nice to go back to Oxford. Just for a weekend.
‘But we agreed…’
‘It wouldn’t hurt, would it? I mean, it’s not as if a few days make any difference. The cottage is bought. We’d come straight back.’
‘I’ve left the college behind me.’
‘Well, it’s up to you. But it would have given us a break.’ He blinked. ‘Do we need a break?’
‘Don’t tell me you’re not sick of the smell of sawdust. I feel like a case study for an ENT specialist. I don’t believe my sinuses will ever be clear again.’
‘Temporary inconvenience, nothing more. Remember what we agreed? No pain, no gain?’
‘I just never thought you’d take it all so seriously.’
‘Don’t you take it seriously?’
‘Yes, but…oh, it doesn’t matter. Forget I ever uttered a word.’
In the afternoon, he offered to fetch supplies from Tasker’s while Miranda cold-called the editorial desks of some of the magazines she’d never written for. The sky was blue, the sun high and it was an easy decision to walk. This is the life, he reminded himself as he left Tarn Fold and strolled along the lane towards the village. When talking to Theo, he’d felt no tug from the past, no harking back to Oxford and the career he had abandoned. He missed none of it: not the SCR politicking, not the interminable meetings to debate the latest financial crisis, not the city’s petrol fumes, not the crowded buses, not the bicycle thieves. Walking the lanes of Brackdale, the biggest threat to your well-being came when a tractor lumbered past and you had to press yourself into the hedgerow’s prickly embrace.
As the lane meandered, he eavesdropped on the conversation of the sheep and inhaled the smells of earth and grass. Lifting his eyes beyond the walled-off fields of Underfell, he gazed towards the Sacrifice Stone: sullen and hostile as ever, as though it resented the valley’s loveliness and wished it nothing but harm. After staring down over Brackdale in grim silence for so many centuries, he thought, the Stone would never yield its secrets.
Who had killed Gabrielle Anders and laid her body out upon it? He needed to know everything. It was no longer enough to merely establish that Barrie was innocent of the crime. An act of wickedness had destroyed the young woman whose only crime was to visit the Lakes and look up an old friend. She’d survived the sleazy joints of downtown Vegas, only to be brutalised and killed in an area that even aesthetically challenged bureaucrats recognised as possessing outstanding natural beauty.
Would Hannah find the culprit? He ought to leave the investigation to her, it was absurd to suppose that he had inherited some genetic instinct for detection. Yet he wanted to do more than rely on such crumbs of information as she deigned to pass to him. He felt pangs of hunger for knowledge that a police officer, trammelled by rules and procedures, could never satisfy. At college, he’d craved information about the past like a junkie yearns for one more high. This urge wasn’t such a different sensation, except that this time he sought to understand who had destroyed a fellow human being. And why.
Rounding a bend, he realised that he was within half a mile of the village. The stone houses of Brack came into sight at the same instant as a siren punctured his reverie. It was a wail that haunted him. He could never hear the sound without being propelled back to the Cornmarket and the sickening presentiment that his lover was dead, that he hadn’t reached her in time to talk her out of destroying herself. The siren howled again and his stomach knotted.
Within moments he could see them thundering along the road. An ambulance, followed by a police car. Even as he watched, they skidded to the right and raced up the lane towards Brack Hall Farm.
Chapter Twenty-One
Hannah took two quick strides so as to stand between the Dumelows and the sheep dipper. When she breathed in, the fumes hit her like a smack on the face. Her head was still throbbing, but she dared not succumb to the horror. Fighting to keep a tremor out of her voice, she said to the couple, ‘This is a crime scene now. DS Lowther will stay here while I accompany you back to the Hall.’
Simon was stroking his wife’s fine hair as she wept, murmuring inaudible words of comfort. His eyes betrayed no expression. Hannah thought he was hypnotised by the sight of the body. Perhaps he was asking himself what death felt like.
A gull swooped over them, mewing keee-ya. Nick straightened his back. His face was white. Pulling out his radio, he said, ‘I’ll call the control room.’
Hannah led the Dumelows along the track leading to the farmhouse. The couple walked slowly; both husband and wife seemed unsteady on their feet. Hannah didn’t try to hurry them; her legs too felt heavy, her shoulders tense and weighted with dismay. A hundred yards from the dipper, the path forked and they came to a halt. Tash took out a handkerchief and blew her nose noisily. Her cheeks were blotchy and there were furrows around her mouth and eyes that Hannah had never seen before.
‘She didn’t fall in by accident, did she, Detective Chief Inspector?’
‘Of course she didn’t,’ her husband said. ‘You saw the tank, how it was covered up. Jean didn’t do that. Couldn’t have done.’
‘She always was afraid of him,’ Tash said. ‘There are things she told me, in confidence…darling, I never even mentioned them to you, for fear you’d throw him out. That was the crazy aspect of it, you see. Despite everything, she still cared for him. And now he’s done — that.’
She pointed towards the sheep handling facility. Nick was standing by the stone wall, talking into his radio while he kept guard over the murder scene. And it was a murder scene, for sure; Hannah didn’t need an inquest verdict to tell her that.
‘The bastard,’ Simon said croakily. ‘I should have fired him years ago.’
‘What would have happened to Jean if you had? That’s what always bothered me, that’s why I didn’t want to rock the boat.’ A thought struck Tash. ‘Maybe she would be alive today if I had. Oh shit, shit, shit.’
‘Don’t be silly. You’ve always done your best to help her.’
‘Much good I’ve done her!’
‘Mrs Dumelow,’ Hannah said gently. ‘It won’t help to beat yourself up over this. Whoever has done this wouldn’t…’
‘There isn’t much doubt who’s done it, is there?’ Tash interrupted in a high-pitched voice. ‘That scumbag Allardyce…’
‘We don’t have proof…’