Wanda Saffell’s letterpress business occupied a squat, whitewashed building in a quiet side street. She’d called it Stock Ghyll Press after the beck that ran down to the centre of Ambleside, flowing beneath that photographer’s Mecca, Bridge House, on its way to the Rothay. Once, the ghyll had powered the town’s bobbin mills, but the cotton trade they served was long gone, and the mills had either fallen down or metamorphosed into holiday lets.
A signboard hung over a window display of half a dozen finely bound books, a couple opened to show off the woodcut engravings. In pride of place was a slim volume bearing the author’s name in intricate lettering.
Nathan Clare.
The door creaked open. Wanda Saffell stood in the doorway and looked Hannah up and down. A minute scrutiny, as if she were checking a page proof for typographical errors.
‘I saw you from upstairs, inspecting my books.’
OK, it was soft soap, to get the interview off on the right foot. But it was also true.
‘Your partner loves them. Oh yes, only this week, he agreed to take half a dozen copies of Nathan’s book. He probably mentioned it?’
No, he bloody hadn’t. Hannah choked back a groan of irritation and Wanda Saffell raised her eyebrows. Elegantly, as she seemed to do everything. She’d even drenched Arlo Denstone with a smooth movement of the hand that held the wine-filled glass. Today she wasn’t dressed up for a party at a rich man’s mansion, but still she managed to make a sweatshirt and jeans look chic. Yet there was a jarring note, a pungent fragrance that clung to her. Sharp and almost metallic, it seemed oddly familiar, though Hannah couldn’t put a name to it.
‘I have heard about you from Marc.’
‘And I saw you at Stuart Wagg’s party, even though we weren’t introduced.’
‘I can’t claim it was my finest hour.’
Hannah waited.
‘Needless to say, I was pissed out of my brain. Lucky for me that your chums in Traffic didn’t catch me while I was driving to Crag Gill. I’d hate to think what my breath test reading might be.’ Her smile showed pointed incisors. It didn’t touch her cool blue eyes. ‘Naturally, I would be forced to deny everything if there were witnesses to this conversation.’
‘You were obviously unhappy that night.’
Wanda rested her hands on her hips. ‘My husband died rather horribly a few weeks earlier, Chief Inspector. Mightn’t that explain it? Now, this weather is too cold for me to stand here without a coat. I’m sure you don’t usually conduct your interviews on doorsteps like a tabloid reporter. Come in, before we both catch our deaths.’
She led Hannah into a narrow passageway. This was where she’d insisted on meeting, and at first, Hannah was disappointed. Since her early days as a DC, she’d preferred to interview people in their home environment whenever possible. After the normal working day, preferably, when they might be more relaxed, perhaps off guard. While you talked, you could learn so much about someone from scanning their shelves, weighing up their tastes in decor, the books and music they liked to surround themselves with. But then, Wanda had shared the house with the late lamented George, and it probably still said more about the deceased than his widow. There might be more clues here.
‘Do you know much about letterpress?’ Wanda asked over her shoulder.
‘Next to nothing, I’m afraid.’
‘Marc’s interested, as you know.’
She didn’t, actually. Even after all these years.
Wanda halted outside a door and threw it open. It gave on to a large room, with three different printing presses, and a table covered in sheets of paper with engravings. The far wall was lined with cabinets. One, left open, was crammed from top to bottom with chunks of type.
‘This is where most of the work is done. Take a look.’ The first thing that struck Hannah when she stepped inside was the smell. So this was Wanda’s perfume – the tang of good old-fashioned ink. And mixed in with the ink was the earthy aroma of newly cut paper, and a whiff of fresh glue.
Wanda breathed in deeply. ‘Intoxicating, don’t you think? Since I started up here, I need a fix pretty much every day. The full-on, whole-sensory experience of a printing press in action. Even the rattle and clank of the machinery excites me. We live in a virtual world these days, but this is real.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Not your cup of tea, Chief Inspector? Ask Marc, he would understand.’
Why did Wanda keep dragging Marc into the conversation – to make her think that someone her partner knew couldn’t possibly be a murderer?
‘I’m sure he would.’
‘At least I can’t be arrested, not for getting high on ink and bound sheets of paper.’ She gestured to a large, heavy piece of equipment in the corner. ‘An Arab treadle press. A wonderful machine, a century ago you found it everywhere. I’ve always been fascinated by letterpress, but I never had the time or money to indulge myself. But this was going for a song at an auction, because it was all in pieces. A few days later, I met George, when his firm put their PR work out to tender. I couldn’t resist mentioning that I’d just picked up a stripped-down Arab.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘Within twenty-four hours, he’d taken me to his bed. Three months later, we were honeymooning in the Maldives. I packed in PR for the joys of running my own print shop. No need to disapprove, I’m scarcely a hard-wired gold-digger. My first husband was a musician, and I kept him for years.’
She looked Hannah in the eye, as if defying her to make something of it. A combative woman, this. A bad enemy.
‘We’ll go into the other room,’ Wanda announced, as though it was time to bite her tongue. ‘You will have a cup of coffee.’
A statement, not a question. She shepherded Hannah into a smaller room on the other side of the passageway. Hannah’s stomach rumbled. If Wanda offered her biscuits, or better still, buttered crumpets, she wouldn’t say no.
Stock Ghyll Press titles filled the shelves which ran from floor to ceiling. There was a desk with a computer, and a small circular table surrounded by three chairs. Lying on a table was a copy of Nathan Clare’s book. While Wanda busied herself in the little kitchen area at the end of the corridor, Hannah leafed through it.
Not her sort of thing.
Wanda returned and set down two steaming mugs on the table. There wasn’t a biscuit in sight.
‘Nathan has a marvellous talent.’
‘So, he told me.’
‘Yes, he mentioned that you’d interviewed him. No doubt he explained to you that fate has cheated him of fame and fortune. The curl of your lip suggests his work is not to your taste, Chief Inspector. But your partner was impressed.’
‘Then I bow to his expertise.’
Wanda sat back in her chair and put her hands behind her head. The body language of negligent command.
‘So, you have reopened the file on poor Bethany Friend, and you want to speak to Nathan and me, and presumably anyone else who had the slightest acquaintance with her?’
‘More than slight in Mr Clare’s case,’ Hannah said. ‘He and Bethany were in a relationship not long before her death.’
‘I wouldn’t read much into that, if I were you. Nathan has had countless relationships, he’s famous for it.’
‘And you and he…?’
Wanda wasn’t fazed. She’d prepared for this conversation, and she didn’t mean to lose control.
‘…are consenting adults, Chief Inspector. Which is all that I intend to say on the subject. As for Bethany, I met her through work, as I met hundreds of other people.’
‘You were friends.’
‘She was a pleasant girl.’ Her tone was neutral. Wanda didn’t do displays of emotion, except when she was pissed or angry or both. ‘Pretty, and rather naive. Reserved in manner, but charming once she got to know you and started to thaw.’
‘Did you know that she had temped for your husband?’
‘George?’ Wanda’s eyes widened. ‘No, she never mentioned it.’
Hannah sensed the news had come as a surprise to Wanda, but she decided to persist. ‘Really? Did George not mention it either?’
‘No, why should he? Bear in mind, he and I hadn’t met at the time I knew Bethany. And we never discussed her.’
‘Sure about that?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘And how about Bethany’s stint working for Stuart Wagg, did that pass you by as well?’
‘What on earth are you driving at, Chief Inspector? Do you interrogate everyone you meet about all their previous employments? Me neither. Bethany flitted all over the place.’
Time to change tack. ‘You said she was naive?’
‘Easily led.’
‘Who tried to lead her?’
‘I didn’t pry into her life, Chief Inspector. We were different ages; when we talked, it was mostly about the latest book we’d read.’
‘What else can you tell me about her?’
‘Nothing additional to the statement I gave after she died.’
‘You must care about what happened to her?’
‘Nobody ever proved that she was murdered. For all I know, she committed suicide.’
‘Was it in her character to kill herself?’
‘I was a work colleague, not her psychiatrist. We didn’t even share the same employer. My firm had the contract to promote the university’s image and Bethany and I met because she was typing for the director of communications, and sat in to take notes of our reporting sessions.’
‘And you hit it off together?’
‘We discovered we had similar tastes in literature. She wanted to write, while my creative urge is confined to printing. But a love of books is a bond.’
‘And she never confided in you about her personal life?’
‘No.’
‘There were no rows between you?’
‘Why would we quarrel? We weren’t competing against each other.’
Time to give her a shake, even if it meant the kiss of death for any hope of cooperation.
Wanda frowned, but gave no sign of being rattled. Her annoyance resembled that of a long-suffering mother whose child embarrasses her in public.
‘That’s a ridiculous suggestion.’
‘Any reason there why she would want to end it all?’ Hannah persisted. ‘Or why someone else would have a reason to kill her?’
‘I can’t imagine anyone wishing to murder Bethany. She was a sweet girl, it’s inexplicable. Her death saddened me, but it’s not my business to solve the mystery.’ Hannah felt like chewing the table. The woman was holding back on her. And there was an air of superiority about Wanda Saffell this afternoon, a suppressed self-satisfaction that irritated and puzzled her. Anyone would think she had an ace up her sleeve, but couldn’t be bothered to play it.
‘Did she talk about why she split up with Nathan Clare?’
‘She didn’t need to. There are people who dump and others who get dumped. Nathan fell into the former category, and Bethany into the latter. It was inevitable that he would tire of her, as he has tired of a long list of other women.’
‘Nothing personal, then?’
‘Sarcasm is unworthy of you, Chief Inspector. Nathan is an artist. He lives on his own terms.’
‘Like so many men?’
‘Don’t scoff, Chief Inspector, it doesn’t suit you. Believe me, I’m as much a feminist as any woman.’
‘You were making a feminist statement when you threw wine over Arlo Denstone at Stuart Wagg’s party?’
‘I was drunk and depressed, that’s all.’
‘What had Denstone done to deserve it?’
‘He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, if you like.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘We’d met before George died. He’s an attractive man, in a gaunt sort of way. He seemed interested in me, obviously I read too much into it. There’s no point in denying that I propositioned him. He said no thanks, but it was the disgust in his eyes that seemed so cruel. As if I were ugly and desperate. That’s why I was so angry with him, and at the party I wanted him to apologise. But when I sobered up on New Year’s Day, I realised I should have left it. All I did was make myself look sad.’
‘Your solicitor took you home from the party.’
Wanda Saffell looked wary. ‘You know I consulted Raj Doshi for matrimonial advice?’
Hannah nodded.
‘I didn’t take it any further. Not in terms of splitting up with George, that is.’
‘What, then?’ An idea struck Hannah. ‘Have you been seeing Doshi?’
Wanda’s face darkened. ‘He’s married, Chief Inspector. And my private life is none of your business.’
‘Must have been difficult for you, after your husband was murdered.’
‘As you well know, the inquest has been adjourned. The coroner hasn’t delivered a verdict.’
‘Do you doubt that he was murdered?’
‘Since you ask, no.’
‘Any idea why anyone would want to kill your husband in such a cruel fashion?’
‘None whatsoever. But you didn’t come here to discuss what happened to George, I hope. In the military jargon, that surely is mission creep.’
‘Let me be the judge of that, Mrs Saffell.’
‘Another officer is in charge of the investigation into my husband’s death.’
‘DCI Larter knows I am speaking to you.’
‘Doubling up? Not a very good use of resources, Chief Inspector.’
Stung, Hannah gave in to temptation. ‘You must admit, it’s a coincidence. Two people, apparently murdered in mysterious circumstances and for no obvious reason. Two people whom you knew.’
Wanda flushed, and Hannah felt like shouting in exultation. At last, she’d registered a hit.
‘You can’t be suggesting a connection between the deaths of Bethany and George?’
‘Do you believe there is a connection?’
‘Don’t be absurd. I knew them both, but that’s neither here nor there. You might as well—’
‘What?’
A question too far, although she didn’t realise.
Wanda’s expression became a blend of contempt and savage triumph.
‘You might as well investigate someone much closer to home. After all, George spent a fortune with Amos Books – where Bethany worked before moving to the university. She fancied Marc like crazy. Whether they slept together, I never inquired. As I said, I don’t pry into other people’s lives. But of course, he will have told you the full story, Chief Inspector Scarlett. Won’t he?’
* * *
Hannah had never been kicked in the stomach by a donkey, but it must feel like this. At least if you were coshed by some thug, it wasn’t accompanied by this sickening sense of betrayal by someone you trusted not to hurt you.
In the course of a year, up to a dozen casual workers worked at the shop, helping out at busy times and in the holiday season. The Lake District was full of young people passing through, gap year students, migrants and assorted drifters, who took a job for a while, then left for something else. Marc couldn’t be expected to remember every single person. But he’d remembered Bethany Friend. You wouldn’t forget someone who died in such mysterious circumstances; the story had been all over the local papers for a couple of weeks. Especially if they’d been infatuated with you.
She found herself taking the track that followed Stock Ghyll. Swelled by the rain of the last few days, the ghyll squeezed through narrow channels in the cliff on its way down to Ambleside. Where the path forked, she continued right, climbing steps of rock and oak root before reaching a fence with iron arches. Beyond was a railed viewpoint, overlooking the stream, but she ploughed on, along more rough steps until she reached the footbridge at the top. The paths were thick with mud; her shoes would be ruined, but she didn’t care. At last she stopped, and closed her eyes, listening to the roar of the white water below.
This was Stock Ghyll Force. The waterfall threw up clouds of spray, and Hannah felt drops of water on her skin. A rib of rock showed through the foam; it split the falls like a dorsal fin before the waters converged again, meeting in mid-air to form a raging torrent. If you shut your eyes, you might believe a dam had burst.
Or that all hell had been let loose.
During the original investigation into Bethany Friend’s death, a member of Ben’s team had produced a rough curriculum vitae summarising her work experience. She’d moved around so much, the document was bound to be incomplete. It wasn’t too surprising that there was no mention of a spell at Amos Books. Probably the job amounted to nothing more than a few weekends, paid cash in hand while she worked somewhere else Monday to Friday, and served behind a bar at night.
Marc should have come clean. Wanda Saffell hinted that he and Bethany had been lovers. Mischief-making, but that didn’t mean she was wrong. Even after Hannah had started seeing Marc, he’d dallied with Leigh Moffatt. If an affair with an employee turned sour, maybe she’d become difficult. Threatened a sexual harassment claim or something.
Cold and hungry, with tears pricking her eyes, Hannah leant on the railing and glared down at the cascade. A couple in their seventies walked past, and looked at her with undisguised anxiety. But she wasn’t contemplating a leap into the abyss. Just facing up to the question she could no longer dodge.
Was the man she’d loved for years capable of tying up Bethany Friend and leaving her to drown in the Serpent Pool?
On her way back to the car, she called at a shop that was holding a sale and bought herself new shoes. Three pairs. Retail therapy was her best chance of de-stressing – she didn’t expect to break open a bottle of wine with Marc any time soon. The old, mud-caked shoes she stuffed into a litter bin. If only you could ditch everything wrong in your life so easily.
Within two minutes of her arrival at HQ, she found herself bellowing at a temp who had messed up some photocopying. As the girl’s face crumpled, she apologised, and cursed herself inwardly. Wrong to vent her ill humour on subordinates, however lazy and incompetent – wrong, wrong, wrong.
Fern wasn’t around, which was a relief. She didn’t want to feed back on her conversation with Wanda until she’d had a chance to confront Marc. But she’d barely stomped into her office and slammed the door to discourage interruptions, before it swung open again. Maggie bounded in like an eager spaniel expecting to be taken out for a walk.
‘Are you all right, guv?’
‘Can’t it wait, whatever it is? I’m busy.’
Maggie’s face fell. She threw a reproachful glance at the PC screen, yet to be switched on.
‘I thought you’d want to know.’
Give me strength.
‘Fire away, then.’
‘You’ll never guess what’s happened.’
Hannah was about to snap: I’m not into guessing games, just spit it out. But if she wasn’t careful, she’d burst a blood vessel. She was too hunched up in her chair, too rigid and tense. Lean back, breathe out, strive for calm.
‘Tell you what, Maggie. Why don’t you pull up a chair, and then break it to me gently?’
‘The boss has gone AWOL, then?’
Alf Swallow’s van and trailer were already outside the front porch when Daniel and Louise arrived. The gardener was a muscular man with a square jaw and features as rugged as the Langdale Pikes. He had close-cropped greying hair and Daniel was sure he’d never tugged a forelock in his life. The rolled-up sleeves of his mud-stained overall revealed brawny arms with blue tattoos. A lifetime spent out of doors in the Lake District meant bad weather didn’t bother him. Probably not much did.
‘He hasn’t answered his phone for twenty-four hours,’ Louise said. ‘Of course, I may be worrying unnecessarily, but…’
Swallow considered her, much as he might assess a choice bloom in a nursery. ‘He’ll be all right, love, don’t fret.’
‘Did he mention going away?’
‘You’d know better than me, love. The boss and I don’t see much of each other. When I’m here, he’s in his office or at court. He leaves it to me to keep these grounds spick and span.’
‘You neatened things up before the New Year’s Eve party, didn’t you?’
‘Tidied all the rubbish people left a couple of mornings later, come to that. I saw the curtains were closed, so I figured out he couldn’t have gone back to work yet. But I didn’t want to disturb anyone. Stuffed my bill through the letter box as usual and went on my way.’
‘You can’t guess where he might be?’
‘Likes to go walking, doesn’t he? Told me once he was a fresh-air fiend.’
He spat on the ground, as if to indicate his private opinion of a soft solicitor who fancied himself as an outdoor type.
‘Maybe he’s holed up in a B&B somewhere. Or a luxury hotel, more like.’
‘He might have tumbled down a gully,’ Louise said.
‘Trust me, love. Stuart Wagg will always fall on his feet.’ A crooked grin. ‘Least, I hope so. Can’t afford to lose a good customer.’
‘Do you have keys to the outbuildings? If he’s had an accident…’
‘Can’t imagine he’s trapped himself in there. But you can have a look, if you like.’
It was clear he thought she was making a song and dance over nothing, but he led the way around the side of the house to the tree-fringed gardens looking out to Windermere. This stretch of the lake had not frozen over, but there wasn’t a single boat on the water. As befitted a house that took its name from a Ransome novel, there was a wooden landing stage where a sleek fibreglass boat was moored. Just for show, Louise said; Stuart Wagg was too often seasick to be much of a sailor. This was the first time Daniel had seen the view in daylight. Crag Gill’s location was perfect. The house crouched on the slope, quiet as a church in prayer.
The grounds were bordered by tall hawthorn hedges; thick but not impenetrable, like the hedge Daniel had squeezed through the previous day. At the end of the drive stood a triple garage linked to a large brick storeroom. Louise murmured. ‘I never went into the garage, I always parked outside. Too afraid of clipping the wing of his bloody car. The other building is full of garden equipment, but we’d better look inside, in case…’
Swallow opened the store and waved them in. There was a sit-on lawnmower and an array of hoes, spades and scythes suspended from a rack that ran the length of one wall, but no Stuart Wagg. Daniel looked through the doorway that gave on to the garage. Parked in a neat line were a rich man’s toys. The Bentley to impress clients, an open-top Mercedes for casual driving and a gleaming Harley Davidson for fun.
‘He takes the bike over to the Isle of Man for the TT races,’ Swallow said. ‘That apart, I doubt if he rides it more than once in a blue moon. Anyhow, you can see he’s gone walking. Else a car or the bike would be missing, wouldn’t it?’
‘I suppose so.’
Louise sounded miserable, as though she guessed that Swallow was laughing to himself at her silliness. She hated making a fool of herself.
‘Suppose you’ll want to see the summer house?’ Swallow’s bushy eyebrows lifted. ‘Make sure he’s not keeled over while he was inside, watching the rain pour down?’
He spat on the path before striding off across the garden in the direction of a pine summer house with a verandah. He was whistling something that sounded like an approximation of ‘The Dambusters March’. A son of the soil, humouring folk who ought to know better.
Daniel whispered, ‘They should have called him Alf Spit, not Alf Swallow.’
Louise didn’t appreciate his attempt to lighten the mood. ‘Something bad has happened,’ she hissed.
She was shivering beneath the heavy fleece. He grabbed her arm, and squeezed it tight. They hurried after the gardener and caught up with him as he rattled a key in the lock securing the summer house. Inside stood a table and a set of stacked garden chairs. Boxes of cutlery and crockery occupied a single shelf at the back of the building. Cobwebs criss-crossed the windows and, when they stepped over the threshold, a cloud of dust blew up and made Daniel sneeze.
‘Bless you,’ Swallow said.
‘Is there anywhere we haven’t searched?’ Louise demanded.
A shake of the head. ‘There’s the well, of course, but no way would he be down there.’
‘Oh God, I’d forgotten the well,’ Louise said. ‘Stuart pointed it out to me, when he showed me round here.’
‘It’s not been used for many a long year. Dates back to when the old house was on this site. It may have been dug out before then, for all I know. Once upon a time there were wells like this all over the countryside.’
‘How deep is it?’ Daniel asked.
‘Thirty feet, maybe less. The bottom’s silted up. The boss talked about filling it in, but we haven’t got round to it yet. It used to be covered with wooden boards, but they were rotting, so I put a new metal sheet over the hole this time last year. Heavy bugger to shift. You needn’t worry, love. Nobody could fall down there by accident.’
‘Let’s have a quick look,’ Daniel suggested. ‘Better not leave any stone unturned.’
Swallow shrugged and led them along a grassy path, past a couple of dense mahonias and into a small clearing with a compost heap, a short distance from the boundary hedge. Daniel wrinkled his nose at the stench of the rotting vegetation. On a small platform of broken house bricks lay a round metal cover showing the first traces of rust.
‘That’s funny,’ Swallow said.
‘What?’ Louise sounded hoarse.
‘I could have sworn the metal sheet wasn’t in that position last time I dumped a barrow load of compost. You’ve got me imagining things myself now.’
‘Can you move the cover?’ she asked in a small voice.
Alf Swallow cast a glance to the heavens. ‘There’s a hell of a lot of weight in that, love. Look at it. No way could anyone shift that bugger by mistake.’
‘I’ll give you a hand,’ Daniel said, moving towards the well. ‘Let’s do it.’
‘You’re all right, mister, leave it to me.’ Swallow’s good humour sounded as though it was wearing thin. ‘Don’t want you to put your back out.’
After a preparatory spit, the gardener bent down and, with a loud grunt, like a Wimbledon star striving to serve an ace, he heaved the metal cover to one side. A small dark opening appeared.
The moment Alf Swallow glanced down into the well, his eyes widened. His face grew dark as scorn gave way to horror, and he swore with primitive savagery.
Daniel’s gorge rose. He’d dreaded this. Tried to persuade himself that it was not possible.
Louise gave a strangled cry. ‘What…what is it?’
Daniel stepped forward, pushing past the gardener to see for himself. The well hole was a black abyss. When he knelt down by the edge and peered inside, the stench hit him like a blow from a knuckleduster. He recoiled, but with a frantic effort, managed not to fall down.
Wedged fifteen feet below ground level, before the hole narrowed to nothingness, was the bruised and broken body of a man in shirt and trousers, not dressed for outdoors, let alone for the cold underground. He’d curled up into a foetal ball – whether to ward off blows, or to avoid confronting the fate that awaited him, Daniel dared not guess. The face was hidden, thank God, for the insects must have been busy. No question about the corpse’s identity, though. No mistaking that proud mane of dark hair, even though now it was dirty and matted with blood.
The gardener had been wrong.