The Arsenic Labyrinth (25 page)

‘Did you pay him?’

‘Every penny we’d promised, plus the extra money we’d set aside to buy Emma off. We hadn’t wanted her to die, it was a terrible misfortune. But at least it meant that we had Christopher to ourselves. Nobody would ever take him away from us.’

So that’s all right, then
. Hannah exchanged a look with Linz. Sorrowful scorn was written all over her DC’s pretty face. Linz was young and free; no need to fret about that ticking clock, kids and responsibilities were years away. For her, Vanessa was a sad old cow with an obsession about a baby that wasn’t even hers.

‘And Koenig?’

‘Francis handled everything. I had my hands full with the baby, he didn’t want me upset. He made Guy promise to leave the Lake District and go abroad. In prison, he’d often talked about wanting to travel. When Francis explained the deal he’d struck, I thought it was for the
best. Guy would do well with money behind him for the first time in his life. Francis gave him a chance.’

‘But Guy couldn’t keep away forever.’

Vanessa swallowed. ‘That wretched journalist. If only he hadn’t …’

‘We believe Koenig tipped him off that Emma was buried up on Mispickel Scar. Why would he do that, do you think?’

‘Heaven only knows. Guy told me once he believed in living by instinct. I’m afraid it was an excuse for muddled thinking. Of course, we were worried by the publicity, even more by the news that two bodies had been found. Two dead, not one, though we heard rumours that the other corpse is fifty years old, is that right?’

Hannah nodded.

‘So, nothing to do with Guy.’ Vanessa rubbed tired eyes. ‘We didn’t have any idea he was back in Coniston until he rang Francis after Emma was discovered. He was in a state, not making much sense. The police presence had spooked him, Francis said, and he wanted money to get away.’

‘He blackmailed you,’ Hannah said flatly.

‘No!’ Vanessa rapped the table. ‘You don’t understand. Guy wasn’t like that. I still believed in him, I felt we owed him something. Thanks to Guy, we’ve had ten wonderful years with Christopher, and no amount of money can buy that happiness. Francis said he would sort it out. All Guy wanted was to get away from here, but he was broke. He wanted a loan. Francis arranged to meet Guy to hand over
some cash. He intended it as a gift, no nonsense about interest or paying us back.’

‘That’s what he said he meant to do?’

Vanessa nodded. ‘Absolutely.’

‘You had no idea that Francis took a couple of bricks with him to Monk Coniston, hoping to weight down the body? Or a torch, to hit Guy with?’

‘I don’t believe it, Francis would never hurt a fly. As for the torch, of course he needed it to find his way through the trees.’

‘What did Francis tell you about his encounter with Guy?’

Vanessa sipped from a glass of water. ‘When he came home that evening, he was in a state of shock. He’d asked Guy to promise never to return to Coniston and for some reason Guy argued. There was a scuffle – Guy started it. But Guy fell over and hit his head on a boulder. Francis checked and found he had no pulse. He was terrified. After all we’d been through, we might still lose Christopher as a result of Guy’s death. So he threw the body in the lake. It wasn’t nice and he hated doing it. My husband’s spent a lifetime caring for others, Chief Inspector, he’s an utterly decent man.’

‘So it was all an unfortunate mistake?’ Hannah strove to keep the cynicism out of her voice.

‘I begged him to speak to you, make a clean breast of things. He wouldn’t hear of it, didn’t want to expose his wife and child to shame. Christopher and I were all he cared about, he didn’t want to ruin our lives.’ Her voice
trembled and she gulped more water. ‘I dreaded his doing something – drastic. When the policeman came round to ask if we’d seen anyone heading towards Monk Coniston on the night of the murder, we realised it was only a question of time before you caught up with him.’

She breathed out. ‘I must be strong, for Christopher’s sake. Are you done with me, Chief Inspector? My son and I really must get back to the hospital. We need to be by his side.’

Hannah nodded and stood up. Chances were, she
was
done with Vanessa Goddard. Her husband might never speak again and Vanessa needed time and space to grieve for what she had lost, as well as summoning the strength to keep caring for the child who meant so much to her. As for her story, if her readers’ group were discussing it, they’d be bound to say that it hung together. A prosecutor would say it tallied with the evidence. And Francis Goddard had been her own pet suspect, ten years ago, when everyone else was pissing in the wind, not even sure if Emma was dead. She’d been vindicated, no one now doubted that Francis Goddard was a murderer.

So why couldn’t she bring herself to believe it?

‘Your father used to moan that I was never satisfied,’ Hannah said. ‘He told me all detectives need to learn that every case leaves unanswered questions. You do as much as you can, then move on.’

Daniel laughed. ‘I remember him scolding me for being too curious for my own good. Even as a boy, I obsessed about history. I had this crazy idea you could discover everything about the past. He told me there are things it’s better not to know. Now I wonder if he was afraid I might find out about his affair with Cheryl.’

‘He felt so much guilt about leaving his family,’ Hannah said. ‘I’m sure at times he realised he’d screwed up.’

Daniel shrugged and took another sip of Chablis. They were back in a warm nook near the bar in the Café d’Art, but Jacques Brel had been supplanted by Francoise Hardy. Hannah had called Daniel and offered to buy him a quick
drink after work, a thank you for helping solve the murder of William Inchmore. She couldn’t resist telling him about Francis Goddard and the truth about the deaths of Emma Bestwick and Guy Koenig.

Or was it the truth?

‘My colleague leading the Koenig investigation is satisfied that Francis committed the murder. Not that he’ll ever stand trial. Or stand for anything else, come to that. They expect he’ll need 24/7 care for the rest of his days. But …’

‘Francis must have been frightened to death. He knew he was bound to be found out. When you and your DC showed up, he made a run for it and jumped in the lake. What more do you need?’

Hannah traced her finger along the rim of her glass. ‘Suppose they planned it, the husband and wife? Francis would take the rap. He’d pretend to attempt suicide, but he didn’t mean to die. He was a decent swimmer and intended to make for the shore if we failed to rescue him. Unfortunately, he reckoned without the dive reflex.’

‘Why take such a risk?’

‘To convince us that he was the killer. To stop the finger pointing at his wife.’

‘Vanessa Goddard?’ Daniel stared. ‘Are you serious?’

‘She knew Guy Koenig, Francis didn’t. My bet is that she asked him to bargain with Emma and paid him off after Emma died. I can believe the plan wasn’t to murder Emma. Something went wrong, we’ll never know the full story. When Koenig returned to Coniston, he was
penniless. Perhaps in the back of his mind he had the idea of extorting more cash from Vanessa. Even if he didn’t think of it like that, it was a convenient fallback when his efforts to exploit his landlady fizzled out. Vanessa must have feared she’d never be rid of him. She and her family would never be safe while he was alive.’

‘You think she murdered Guy herself?’

‘In blind panic, yes. It was a crazy cock-up of a crime. But she was obsessed, she couldn’t risk betrayal.’

A picture came into her mind of Alban Clough, that lascivious old misogynist, recounting a favourite tale.
What women most desire is to have their own will
. Not fair. But in the case of Vanessa, perhaps not so far off the mark.

‘And she didn’t tell Francis in advance?’

‘I doubt it. She borrowed his coat and boots, forensic examination links them to the scene. Of course Francis was much taller, so she must have found it tricky. No wonder she couldn’t carry anything heavier than a couple of bricks if she was walking all that way to the rendezvous with Koenig. Our only eye-witnesses claimed the person they saw at Monk Coniston was below average height. But we can’t build a case on that, any defence counsel worth their salt would tear their testimony apart.’

‘When the body was discovered so quickly, I suppose she realised she couldn’t get away with it.’

‘Exactly. So she talked to Francis and he decided to confess to a crime he hadn’t committed. The plan was for him to make an unsuccessful suicide attempt. Given
his good character and the fact that Koenig could be portrayed as a serial blackmailer, any judge and jury might be sympathetic. With a manslaughter verdict and our prisons bursting at the seams, he’d have a chance of getting out in time to share a slice of Christopher’s late teens.’

Daniel winced. ‘He sacrificed himself.’

‘To protect his child. And the woman he loved.’

Francis as Gawain, a weird image. With Vanessa as his very own Loathly Lady.

‘Maybe you’re right.’

‘But how can I prove it?’

‘Do you want to prove it?’

Hannah swallowed the rest of her drink. ‘Good question.’

‘I mean – what good would it do? Perhaps the Goddards have suffered enough.’

‘But is that justice, to let her get away with it?’

Daniel said, ‘Do you really think she’s got away with anything?’

Hannah remembered the paramedics by the banks of Coniston Water, loading the inert body of Francis Goddard on to a stretcher. His face had been frozen in an expression of unimaginable terror, as though he’d looked into the heart of the Devil himself. And she remembered catching sight of Vanessa, sobbing uncontrollably in a hospital corridor after the doctors had told her the news.

‘I suppose you’re right.’ She checked her watch. ‘I’d
better hit the road, I promised Marc I wouldn’t be too late. Thanks for sparing your time.’

‘A pleasure.’

‘I never even asked you … how are things?’

‘Looking up. An American company has offered me a gig on a cruise line, talking history to a party of wealthy tourists as we sail the Caribbean for a month in spring. It’s a late opportunity. They booked Hattie Costello ages ago, but last week she fractured her ankle in a celebrity ski-ing show and had to cry off. Shame, huh?’

‘And the writing?’

‘It’ll keep until I return to the UK. But I have the germ of an idea for a new book. Ruskin wasn’t the only Lake District literary figure worth writing about.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re falling back on dear old Willie Wordsworth?’

He grinned and reached for the pocket of the coat he’d hung on the chair. With a magician’s flourish, pulled out a paperback. When Hannah saw the author and title, she couldn’t help laughing.

Thomas de Quincey,
On Murder.

‘Hannah!’

As she walked back along Stricklandgate, Hannah was stopped in her tracks by a familiar cry. Glancing across the road, she spotted Terri, in long leather coat and high heels, waving with gusto. She hurried over to join her.

‘You’re looking very gorgeous.’

It wasn’t idle flattery. Terri might be a make-up artist,
skilled at dressing mutton as lamb, but in her own case she had the advantage of fantastic bone structure plus thick red hair and a figure to die for.

Terri beamed, showing lots of sharp white teeth. ‘Another date.’

‘And how is Denzil?’

Terri thrust out her lower lip, a gesture Hannah remembered from the playground, twenty years ago. ‘That old fart? He called last night to say he really didn’t think we were suited for a long term relationship, but he hoped we could remain good friends. As if! Apparently I didn’t show enough excitement about his azaleas, it’s how he quality-controls prospective girlfriends. Oh well, easy come, easy go.’

‘So who is it tonight?’

‘He describes himself as a senior professional. It’s all rather mysterious, he doesn’t give much away. I’m thinking a barrister, tall, dark and handsome. Possibly a doctor? Or knowing my luck, a serial killer. But I can’t come to much harm in the middle of a swish new Russian restaurant, can I? I’ve taken a peek at the menu. The caviar costs a fortune, but …’

‘You’re worth it?’

‘Dead right.’ Terri brushed Hannah’s hand with hers. ‘By the way, I wanted to apologise. When I was talking about Denzil, I was excited. I suppose what I said about your miscarriage was insensitive. I’m sorry, sweetie.’

‘No worries.’

At least not as far as Terri was concerned. Last night in
bed, she’d finally got up the nerve to ask Marc how he felt about trying for a baby. He hadn’t quite managed to stifle a nervous sigh before whispering that they ought to talk one of these days, but not right now. He was focused on the business, and besides what was the hurry? They had all the time in the world.

‘Sure?’ Terri asked.

‘Promise. As a matter of fact, you pointed me in the right direction. Something you said helped me understand the case I was working on.’

‘Seriously?’ Terri clapped her hands in delight. ‘That’s a first, eh? Incidentally, I’ve forgiven you for not turning up that night. I hope your constable’s OK after trying to rescue that feller.’

‘Thanks, she’s fine.’ Hannah pressed her lips against Terri’s cheek. ‘Have a lovely evening.’

She hurried back across the road but as she passed a home furnishing shop, she saw a familiar figure reflected in the plate glass window. Les Bryant was striding along the opposite pavement, a rolled umbrella in his hand. He had an overcoat slung around his shoulders and underneath she glimpsed a blazer and tie. She’d never seen him looking so natty before, he might have been on his way to a bank managers’ reunion.

Suspicion suddenly swelled in her mind. She glanced over her shoulder, towards where she’d left Terri waiting.

As if on cue, Les halted and said something to Terri. Her friend smiled, gracious as royalty, and extended her hand.

Well, well. Hannah turned in the direction of the car park. It wouldn’t do for them to see her watching them. With any luck they’d have a great night. Though as a
long-term
relationship, it didn’t have a hope in hell. Did it?

It was a funny thing about relationships. The more she saw, the less she understood why some of them worked and some fell apart.

Wanting to get home, yet not sure why, she broke into a run.