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Chapter 7

Outside, it smelt like fresh-cut grass, and the front lawns looked recently manicured, their edges trimmed and compliant. I turned the car carefully, aware that metaphorical net curtains were twitching, and we left the gated complex to set off for the Station.

‘My God,’ I said. ‘Are the 1950s on the phone wanting their good housewife back?’

Jai snorted. ‘But surely every wife asks her husband’s permission before going out to work?’

‘Unbelievable. I’m still in shock. Is she on Valium or something? The effort of keeping my mouth shut almost killed me.’

‘He was weird too,’ Jai said. ‘Seemed quite chuffed Hamilton had done the decent thing and pegged it.’

‘Did you find out anything more from her?’

‘She confirmed he was home all evening on Sunday watching TV. And as far as she was aware, he was at work all day yesterday, but obviously she doesn’t know that. And she comes from Alabama originally.’

I pulled onto a muddy lane, noticing sheets flapping in the garden of a cottage on the corner, and an old wheelbarrow in the driveway stacked with logs. It was reassuringly messy after the clinical pristineness of Edward and Grace’s estate.

‘Alabama? Maybe that explains the Stepford Wife thing?’

‘She was definitely a bit Stepford. Do you think she could be programmed to kill?’

I laughed. ‘That feature’ll be in the next software update. She’d probably lie to cover for him though. All part of being a good little wifey.’

‘And the comment about the child genius having Jesus in his heart.’

‘I know. Sounds painful. Do you think they can sort that with an operation?’ I glanced at Jai, checking if I was offending him. Not clear-cut either way.

‘And you managed to upset the kid so much he chucked a mug on the floor?’ he said.

‘Something like that.’ I pictured Alex’s smug face when I’d confirmed his view of the card game, and poor Rosie’s disappointment. Why couldn’t I have just said I didn’t know? ‘Did Grace tell you anything else?’

‘She met Edward when he was travelling round the US after he graduated. His car broke down when he was passing through her town, and she rescued him, and they were soul mates.’

‘How romantic. Do you think Edward could have done it?’

‘He’s coldly logical,’ Jai said. ‘I could kind of imagine him disposing of the inconvenient.’

‘And he’d do it intelligently, with no unnecessary blood and gore. Just like the other partner. Could they have done it together?’

In Eldercliffe, sandbags were piled high in an alleyway between cottages. I knew during stormy weather, water ran in streams down this road and sometimes into the living rooms of the houses. But I hadn’t heard a storm forecast.

‘Both partners have got a financial motive, if Hamilton had been screwing up at work,’ Jai said. ‘Sounds like something’s changed in the last year with him.’

‘An affair?’

‘Sounds like more than an affair to me.’

‘I don’t know. If he was sleeping with that client who was expressing her grief by complaining loudly about her patent cases and elbowing me in the ribs, it could be quite traumatic.’

‘Love works in mysterious ways.’ Jai wiped at a smear on the passenger window. ‘Or maybe he finished it with her and she bumped him off.’

*

Back at the Station, I was intercepted by Fiona Redfern, the new DC – all young and keen and untarnished by cynicism. She bounced after me as I limped into my room.

‘We found some drugs in his office,’ she said.

I sat heavily in my chair. ‘What? Drugs drugs?’

I waved vaguely at another chair but Fiona stayed standing. ‘Medical drugs. We haven’t identified them yet. Two different types – one looks like it might be an anti-depressant and we’ve no idea about the other one.’

‘Are you sure they weren’t to do with his work? He files patent applications for pharmaceuticals.’

‘They were in a locked drawer with personal belongings and one of the other partners said it wouldn’t be normal for him to have samples of drugs he’s working on. So I don’t think they’re for work. I’m going to talk to his GP’

‘Okay, good. Anything else?’

‘I asked my granny about that cave – you know, the rumours. I know it’s not really haunted, but if people think it is…’

‘It’s okay. I agree. What did she say?’

‘She said the ghost was a healer who lived there in Victorian times. She starved herself to death after her lover died. You can still see her in the cave when the wind gets up in the quarry…’ She licked her lips. ‘Sorry, I know that’s silly. There was nothing recent or relevant.’

‘Okay. Thanks for checking it out.’

Fiona smiled and seemed to loosen up a bit. It occurred to me that she was nervous of me. I didn’t want that. I liked Fiona. I’d even discovered she and I had been on the same march in London, although we hadn’t known each other then. She obviously shared my feelings about a Chinese ‘festival’ that involved boiling live dogs.

‘Don’t worry about telling me stuff that might be silly,’ I said. ‘I want you to say what you think. In fact, if you’re not making ridiculous suggestions on a regular basis, you’re probably not contributing enough.’

She gave an uneasy laugh. ‘Okay. Right. Thanks. Well, we got the results on those papers from the fire in their house.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘The very top of one piece of paper was legible and it just had one word on it. Tithonus.’

‘What’s that?’

‘An ancient Greek in a myth. He got older and older but could never die.’

*

I spent some time sticking information into the computer and browsing through what others had entered. My thoughts kept drifting to the girl in the Labyrinth. Hanging deep inside a cave where they used to take witches, the initials of dead people cut into the rock behind her. The last thing I needed in my head was an image of a girl hanging from a noose, but could it be relevant? She’d lived in the same house as our victim, and it was a strange coincidence that his initials were also cut into the cave wall behind him.

I hauled myself out of my chair and wandered off to track down Ben Pearson, the reactive sergeant from the day before. I found him at his desk, fighting with an online form. He seemed glad to be disturbed.

‘Yesterday’s victim lived in the same house?’ He touched his beard as if it was a lucky charm. ‘As the girl who committed suicide in the Labyrinth?’

‘Yep. His poor wife thinks the house is cursed.’

Ben swallowed. ‘I did hear a rumour. The girl’s father died at the house, of course.’

‘What exactly happened to the girl?’

‘She went in to the Labyrinth. It…’ He scraped a hand through his receding hair. ‘Sorry. It took us too long to find the noose. It’s way deep inside and we kept taking wrong turns, again and again. It was horrendous. Almost as if the tunnels were moving around while we were in there. But she’d found it all right.’

I tried to keep it business-like, to not picture her. But Ben wasn’t helping.

‘The noose is an old, old chain.’ He shuddered. ‘Hanging from a hook high up on the cave roof. And there’s a big square rock under it, almost the height of a man. The noose hangs down above the edge of the rock. So, you can climb on the rock, reach forward, take the noose and put it round your neck. And then just step forward off the rock.’

‘God. And it’s been like that since they used to hang witches?’

‘I think the chain’s from Victorian times. They’ve been hanging witches in there longer than that.’

‘And this girl? She’d… She’d already done it.’

Ben hesitated. He was very still. ‘Yes. We were too late. Took too long finding her. She was gone.’

I was holding it together. Pretending I was okay. But I couldn’t talk any more about the girl. ‘And this happened after her father died?’

‘Yes. He either fell or committed suicide, off the cliff at the side of that house.’

‘Where there’s a little rock garden?’

‘Yes. He didn’t leave a note, but there was something else. I’m not sure if they decided it was relevant.’

‘What was it?’

‘He left a sketchbook full of drawings of the Grim Reaper.’