‘That’s an old folly, isn’t it?’
‘You know it?’
She shook her head. ‘Only read about it. I can’t claim to be much of a walker.’
‘It’s an easy climb, you’ll have to let me show it to you, one of these days.’ He hesitated, not wanting to make it sound like a chat-up line. ‘Come round for lunch one Saturday, perhaps, and then we could head up the fell.’
‘That would be nice.’ She smiled. ‘You never appreciate what’s on your own doorstep.’
‘Hannah and I made it as far as the Serpent Pool on New Year’s Eve, but we had to beat a retreat before the mist came down.’
‘The Serpent Pool.’ She frowned and emptied the tumbler in a single gulp. ‘The name rings a bell.’
‘It’s a narrow stretch of water, some people say it’s shaped like a snake.’ He grimaced. ‘The folly is further up the fell, a much better vantage point. The pool isn’t even big enough to count as a tarn.’
She didn’t say anything, seemed to want him to go on.
‘A woman drowned there, years ago.’
‘What happened?’
‘Oh, I don’t know the story.’ Not true, but he didn’t want to talk about Bethany Friend. ‘You’d best ask Hannah.’
‘We hardly ever see her in the shop.’
‘She calls in occasionally. Of course, she’s working most of the time.’
‘The hours must be tough if you’re a senior police officer.’
‘Yeah, it…can be difficult.’
Their eyes met for a moment, then Cassie checked her watch.
‘Time to go, I think.’
They didn’t talk much on the rest of the journey. Cassie’s flat was in a quiet backstreet, above a boarded-up sub-post office that had fallen victim to government cutbacks. It was happening all over Cumbria, this whittling away of the bonds that had tied communities together. Pubs, libraries, post offices, primary schools, all closing down. Traditional village life was fading like the worn inscriptions on the stones in country graveyards. In darker moments, he wondered if the day might come when people only talked to each other on social networking sites and Internet chat rooms.
He pulled up outside the building. It was behind Kirkland, a three-storey house, divided into bedsits. Would she invite him in for a coffee? If she did, would he accept?
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘It would have been so miserable waiting for the bus and then bumping along all the way into town.’
‘Any time.’
‘Careful. You wouldn’t want me to take advantage of your good nature.’
He returned her smile. ‘I’m sure you’d never do that.’
‘You don’t know that much about me.’
When he’d tried to find out more about her personal life, she’d parried his oblique questions. He knew nothing about her boyfriend, except that he lived in Grasmere. Maybe he was imaginary, a convenient excuse to avoid unwanted entanglements, like Stuart Wagg’s party, or the attentions of a boss who was stuck in a long-term relationship.
‘It’s early days.’
She gripped the door handle. He wondered if she might be about to kiss him on the cheek, but if that was in her mind, she had second thoughts. She opened the door and jumped out onto the pavement, before thrusting her head back into the car.
‘Goodnight, Marc.’
He nodded towards the building. ‘Convenient. Close to the town centre.’
‘It’s all right. A bit cramped, but space enough for one.’ She pointed to a window on the first floor. ‘That’s my room.’
The door to her flat was down an alleyway at the side of the building. As she fumbled in her bag for her key, she turned to give him a quick wave. He waved back as she disappeared inside.
He didn’t start up the car at once, but sat there in darkness and asked himself again whether he would have followed her in, if she’d invited him.
A light went on in the window above the shuttered post office. He saw her shadow, stretching out long slender arms. Impossible to tell whether she was yawning — or exulting.
He was sure she was taking off her clothes. Sure she knew that he was watching from his car. Why else point out her room?
He pictured her stripping naked. Pictured her beckoning to him, to come upstairs and join her in bed.
But her face did not appear at the window.
He wasn’t sure why he waited there. Ridiculous, really. Perhaps, somewhere deep in his subconscious, he hoped she would change her mind and call him in. Stupid, stupid fantasy. It must be the intoxicating combination of drink and her company.
The shadow disappeared, but he didn’t switch on the ignition for another ten minutes. He couldn’t squeeze her lovely face out of his mind.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘Bethany Friend is dead.’ Nathan Clare’s deep, almost musical voice made the harsh words seem all the more cruel. ‘They burnt her body, one wet morning at the crematorium. Why rake over old ashes?’
The house was a mid-terrace in the heart of Ambleside. You stepped in through the front door, straight off the pavement. There was a pub opposite and an off-licence round the corner. During the ten years he’d lived here, he’d probably kept them both busy. In a bedroom upstairs, he’d slept with Bethany, but there was no trace of her in this living room. No fading photograph on the mantelpiece. No photographs at all, come to that. Hannah supposed he wasn’t into remembering other people. She guessed that Nathan Clare had fallen in love with himself at an early age and remained ever faithful. On a small table, books were piled high. Fanned out next to a flyer advertising the De Quincey Festival were half a dozen red warning letters about unpaid phone, gas, and electric bills.
Hannah shifted on the sofa. It was absurdly low, and as lumpy as a bad milk pudding. He’d waved her to take a seat, but wasn’t foolish enough to join her. Instead he roamed up and down the narrow living room, pausing every now and then to warm his backside against a log fire. Each time he made a point, he waved his beefy arms. Every syllable of his body language said: I am in control.
‘We never closed the file.’
Bad choice of words. She sounded like a pen-pusher, ticking off a checklist.
‘So, this is an exercise in bureaucracy? Presumably you have targets to meet? Bonuses to be earned?’
‘This isn’t about meeting targets, Mr Clare. Bethany’s mother is ill, she doesn’t have long to live. She’s never understood why her only child died. She needs closure.’
‘Closure.’ Nathan Clare lifted dark, brooding eyebrows. ‘A fashionable nostrum, DCI Scarlett. Of course, it’s an illusion. Life isn’t neat and tidy. There are no elegant solutions to its mysteries.’
She groaned inwardly. Spare me the philosophy.
‘Even so, I’d be grateful for your help.’
‘I went through this six years ago. I can’t tell you any more.’
‘You and she were lovers.’
A shift of his shoulders implied: So what? Even in T-shirt, chinos and moccasins, he struck her as formidable. His features were simian, with prominent cheekbones and flared nostrils. As he stalked around in front of her, he reminded her of a caged animal. Untamed even after a lifetime of captivity, forever on the prowl. Strong, feral, dangerous.
‘The details are hazy now.’
‘Six years isn’t so long. The two of you were close, and her death was very sudden.’
‘I needed to move on.’ A grand sweep of a huge paw. ‘I made a conscious effort to scrub Bethany out of my mind.’
Hannah knew the trick he was pulling. He wanted to cover his back in case he made some mistake and contradicted his original statement. She’d fixed the appointment by phone and, caught by surprise, he’d agreed before he had the chance to fob her off. She’d half-expected when she rang the doorbell five minutes ago that he wouldn’t answer. But he’d decided to indulge in a little unsubtle psychological warfare. On the wall facing her hung a sub-Modigliani daub of an angular, naked girl with legs splayed open. He wanted her to feel uncomfortable. The lumpy sofa, at least, was doing the job.