the relationship would have to end. Forcing him to make a choice.’
‘He told you that?’
‘And one other thing. Long before the end, he was afraid he’d made the wrong choice.’
For a little while, Daniel didn’t speak, just studied the ground at his feet.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
‘I spoke to his neighbours,’ he said, looking up again. ‘They told me that Cheryl started an affair before he died.’
‘It wasn’t her first,’ Hannah said shortly.
‘I take it that you weren’t a member of her fan club?’
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘I’d rather you tell me the truth.’
‘Even if the truth is uncomfortable?’
‘Historians expect it to be.’
‘Just like any police officer, then?’ she said with a glimmer of a smile. ‘Don’t get the wrong idea. Cheryl and I scarcely knew each other. The two of us had nothing in common, apart from Ben. Besides, I don’t think Cheryl had many women friends.’
‘But men friends?’
‘Men she liked. She was a flirt. And once or twice she went further.’
‘My father told you that as well?’
She cleared her throat. ‘In this job, when you work together for a long time, you share a lot. Grief, disappointment. Confidences get shared too.’
As he considered this, he didn’t look at her, kept his eyes on the river rushing past. For all the warnings, he couldn’t help dipping his toes into that dangerous water. Presently, he said, ‘So you and he were very close?’
‘We weren’t lovers,’ she said shortly, ‘if that’s what you mean. Very good friends. The best, I’d say. But no more than that.’
Her candour startled him. ‘Sorry. I…’
‘No need to apologise. Cheryl made the same assumption, apparently, but I’m not sure she gave a damn. On the contrary. If Ben was getting his oats elsewhere, he wouldn’t be troubling her, would he? I suppose that’s the way her mind worked. Of course she was wrong. As you’ve discovered, I share a house with Marc Amos.’
‘Owner of one of the best bookshops north of Manchester.’
‘So he tells me,’ she said with a crooked smile.
‘Small world, huh?’
‘That’s the Lakes for you. Everyone is connected to everyone else.’
‘Sort of appealing.’
‘Some people find it suffocating.’
‘Even with all the hills and meres and open spaces?’
‘Sure. I love the beauty of the Lakes, same as you or any other tourist. But even here, people lie and cheat and commit crimes, same as everywhere else.’
Same as you or any other tourist. He cringed inwardly. Her instinct was to bracket him with the sightseers who clogged the lanes and car parks around Bowness and Grasmere.
‘Did Marc tell you, he and I bumped into each other yesterday?’
‘Uh-huh. I gather you were up on Priest Edge by the Sacrifice Stone. Where Gabrielle Anders’ body was found.’
‘My first time there since that family holiday.’
She said softly, ‘I confess, I’m intrigued. As I understand it, you’ve thrown up your home and your career to come and live in this neck of the woods. It may not seem that far from the madding crowd if you’ve ever been stuck in a traffic jam on the way to Windermere, but it’s a different world from Oxford and Television Centre.’
‘What’s so strange? There’s nowhere more beautiful in England. For once the tourist brochures aren’t a pack of lies. Even though I don’t believe what I was told, that it rains less here than in Devon.’
‘It’s a fact. Even so, they say if you can see High Gill through the mist, it’s going to rain. If you can’t, it’s raining already. Tell me this, though. Of all the properties on the estate agents’ books, how did you happen to end up with Tarn Cottage?’
‘It’s a long story.’
She pulled back the leather sleeve and glanced at her watch. ‘You have ten minutes.’
‘And there I was, thinking I’d be asking the questions. Finding out more about him.’
‘Are you saying you came up here just to explore your past?’
‘No it was more a matter of getting away from the present. For Miranda, as well as me.’
‘Miranda’s your wife?’
‘My partner. She’s a journalist.’
‘So you’re a media couple,’ she said lightly.
‘No,’ he said, more vehemently than he’d intended. ‘Absolutely not. From the moment we got together, one of the things we had in common was that we both needed a change in our lives. She’d split up with her boyfriend and was having problems at work. I’d stopped enjoying teaching and television is a treadmill. Of course, I won’t earn as much based here, but money isn’t everything.’
‘In my experience,’ she said drily, ‘people who have no money never say that.’
‘Ouch. Then let’s just say, I was sick of academic in-fighting. And there was something else. My ex-girlfriend had died and suddenly my old way of life had too many sour memories.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘In an odd kind of way, I wanted some good to come out of Aimee’s death. I guess that at one time or another in our lives, all of us have the urge to make a new beginning.’
She knitted her brow. ‘You reckon?’
‘Yes,’ he said gently, ‘I reckon. Why, have you never found that?’
‘Marc and I have been together a long time. We’re set in our ways, soon we’ll be like Darby and Joan.’ For a moment she seemed to be talking to herself rather than to him. Forcing a smile, she added, ‘Also, we care about our jobs. I can’t imagine life outside the police and Marc is crazy about books. Your situation was obviously different.’
‘Miranda and I were fortunate. Not everyone has the opportunity to start again, but I suppose that sometimes it’s a mistake to surrender to the temptation.’
‘Like Ben?’
‘We weren’t abandoning anyone, that’s the difference. We saw a way out. So we took it.’
She gave a brisk nod, as if to say: that’s enough small talk. ‘All right, then, the Gabrielle Anders case. Have you been talking to people about the murder since you moved to Tarn Cottage?’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Is it true, have you been making waves?’
He noticed that she’d dodged his question by asking another. ‘You could say so. I’m an incurable nosey parker. There are lots of loose ends connected with the case, don’t you agree?’
‘Occupational hazard.’
‘Isn’t that rather defeatist?’
‘My job isn’t an academic exercise,’ she snapped.
‘Touche.’ For the first time, he saw a spark of temper in her eyes. She wasn’t quite as controlled as she wanted him to believe. It gave him a buzz that he’d managed to pierce her defences, if only for an instant. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. Too many years in an ivory tower, I guess.’
‘Police work isn’t as neat as a thesis, nicely typed and bound. It’s all about the messiness of reality. We don’t have endless time to toss around theories or ponder over psychological whys and wherefores.’
‘You’re not immune from curiosity, though? Barrie Gilpin was an oddity, but why would he kill Gabrielle?’
Hannah’s mouth became a tight line. ‘Why does any man commit an act of violence? Why does a teenager rape a defenceless old woman, or a father suffocate his kids? Barrie was a voyeur and he’d taken a fancy to Gabrielle. Who knows what may have happened between them? We can’t make up the evidence to fit our preconceived ideas. Or preferences. Don’t historians base their work on hard facts, too?’
