‘There’s nothing gentle about nature.’ Hannah blinked at the tartness of the cranberry juice. ‘It’s wild and unsentimental. Ask any farmer.’
‘Speaking of farmers,’ Daniel said softly. ‘I can’t get out of my mind what has happened to this man Hinds. If I ever had children, it would break my heart if one of them were to suffer pain. But to have three, and lose them to violent death, one by one …’
‘He lost his brother, too.’
‘You don’t suppose someone hates him so much, they want to make him suffer?’ Louise asked.
‘Over the space of twenty years?’ Daniel spread his arms. ‘Who could hate a man that much?’
‘And you are assuming Callum did die a violent death.’
‘What’s the alternative? Whether or not he was buried in the same grave as Castor and Pollux, he must be dead. In the end even Orla lost hope that he was still alive. If he was killed accidentally, somebody covered it up. Why do that, if they weren’t afraid of being arrested, or if they weren’t responsible for his death?’
‘All right, but as for Mike Hinds, it’s unthinkable that he was the culprit. Surely?’
They turned to Hannah, who was leaning back in her chair while her eyes followed the flight of a buzzard over the trees on the lower reaches of Tarn Fell. She dabbed at her lips with a paper napkin.
‘Of course you’re right. A father, murdering his offspring? Straight out of a Greek tragedy.’ She toyed with a slice of lettuce she’d speared with her fork. ‘But it was your father who taught me that being a detective means being ready to think the unthinkable.’
Louise paled. ‘I hear the man has a foul temper, but even so …’
‘Let’s not run ahead of ourselves,’ Hannah said. ‘Aslan was murdered, but Callum might have been the victim of some kind of accident, and there’s still a strong likelihood that Orla committed suicide. Daniel, I’ve been mulling over what you said about getting a handle on the sequence of events.’
‘It begins twenty years ago, with Callum’s disappearance,’ he said. ‘The past colours the present.’
His sister feigned a yawn. ‘There goes the historian again.’
‘The snag is,’ Hannah said, ‘we know much more about what’s happened over the last week. Not one, but two prodigals returned to their roots and finished up working side by side at St Herbert’s.’
Daniel nodded. ‘Coming back set Orla thinking about Callum again. She spotted a family resemblance in Aslan — it wasn’t a neurotic fancy. But when Aslan denied that he was Callum, her last hope of finding her brother alive went up in smoke. Hard to take.’
‘And Castor and Pollux?’ Louise asked.
‘She was familiar with the Hopes archive, she must have been aware of the pet graveyard. In fact, given that she spent the first eighteen years living a stone’s throw away from Mockbeggar Hall, first at Lane End, then with Kit Payne in his home in the caravan park, she almost certainly knew about it for years. Yet she never mentioned the dogs to me until that last time we talked.’
‘There may be something else in the archive that we didn’t have time to read,’ Louise said. ‘Some clue that set her on a fresh track.’
‘Such as?’ Daniel shook his head. ‘How could a memoir a century old explain what happened to her brother? Orla picked up new information, for sure. But where from, God knows.’
‘Whatever the new information was,’ Hannah said, ‘it must have pointed to whoever was responsible for Callum’s disappearance.’
A crow’s wings flapped above the roof of the cottage. Daniel put down his knife and fork.
‘It’s all about history; the answer lies in what happened twenty years ago. Understand that, and you understand why Aslan finished up in a tank of slurry.’
The sunset was glorious, a soft reddish-orange glow above the silhouetted fells. Once they’d drained their cups of camomile tea, Daniel asked Hannah if she’d like a stroll around the garden before the drive home. As they walked, they talked about a hundred and one things while Louise, tactful for once in her life, disappeared on dishwasher-loading duty.
‘Your dad would have been thrilled,’ Hannah said, ducking beneath a low oak branch, ‘to imagine talking to you about a case. It grieved him that he missed out on your growing up. His choice, Louise would say, but it cost him dear. I suppose you don’t remember much from the days when he was still at home?’
‘I have more memories than you might imagine. Vivid, too. The big cases, when he was out all night, the stuff that got in the newspapers. It excited me, his detective work, I was proud to be his son. Even if he didn’t know it, even though the job screwed him up. He cared too much; he was often stressed to the eyeballs.’
‘That never changed, till the day he retired. It’s the nature of police work, you can’t be left untouched by it. If dealing with crime and catastrophe doesn’t stress you out from time to time, you aren’t paying attention.’
She caught her foot on a tree root, and stumbled. He grabbed her arm to prevent her falling to the ground. Her flesh was firm and warm. As she steadied herself, he released his grip and she halted by an old yew tree, resting her back against the trunk.
‘Thanks. I ought to look where I’m going.’ She smiled and said lightly, ‘It’s so easy to trip up and make a fool of yourself, when you least expect it.’
‘I can’t imagine you making a fool of yourself.’
She put her head to one side, considering him. ‘We all do it sometimes, don’t we?’
He cleared his throat. ‘I like it, that you tell me about your work. Reminds me of life with Dad. He offloaded occasionally, perhaps not as much as he should have done. But I realise there’s plenty of stuff you can’t discuss.’
‘You’re helping a lot. The tip about the dogs’ graveyard is terrific, a real breakthrough. We’ll take a look there tomorrow. See how Bryan and Fleur react when we announce that the missing boy may not have been gobbled up by that much-maligned pig after all, but could have lain in their own backyard for the past two decades.’
Daniel winced. ‘Wear your body armour. The reopening of the Hall may need to be put on hold and Bryan will hate that.’
‘My heart bleeds. It won’t leave the Madsens destitute. The lovely Fleur will still be able to spend more on one pair of shoes than the budget for my entire wardrobe.’
His eyes travelled over her. ‘I’d say you’re doing fine.’
It wasn’t soft soap; give him the natural look any day. Fleur’s glamour was too self-conscious, too expensively contrived. Micah Bridge’s words sneaked back into his mind. She married for money, rather than love. No doubt the match suited both husband and wife. Bryan acquired an attractive woman to take his arm at business and social gatherings, Fleur was free to spend as though there were no tomorrow.
A pink tinge coloured Hannah’s cheeks. ‘It helps, talking things through. I’ve never-’
‘Yes?’
‘Sorry, I was about to say that, even though I talked to Marc about the cases I was working on, it wasn’t quite the same. You have first-hand experience of life in the police, and that removes a barrier.’
‘How are things with Marc?’
‘You mean, between Marc and me?’ She cracked a twig in her fist. ‘Last week, I’d have said it was over and done with. And yet … one or two doubts are creeping in. Or at least, I can’t quite make the break. Too soft, you see. Ben would have been cross with me; he had no time for dithering.’
‘Give it time.’
‘I dunno, maybe I’m not suited to living with someone else. Since January, I’ve never once been bored with my own company. All the same, it’s good to have someone to discuss stuff with.’ She grinned. ‘You make an excellent sounding board. Most detectives need someone on the outside to lend an ear, every now and then. A spouse, a partner, someone discreet they can trust to keep stuff confidential.’
‘Don’t worry, I know how to keep my mouth shut.’