‘As best I could. Which meant hardly at all. He left home one morning and never came back. To begin with, she wasn’t worried. They didn’t live in each other’s pockets and it wasn’t unusual for him to disappear every now and then. She put it down to the artistic temperament, whatever that was supposed to mean. Only when he didn’t get in touch after twenty four hours did she start to worry, make a few calls to friends. By the time she spoke to me, panic had set in.’
‘No hint as to why he might have upped and left?’
‘They didn’t have financial worries. Chris didn’t make a fortune from his music, but there was enough family money to make an impoverished sergeant’s eyes water. Roz’s business was thriving and they didn’t live extravagantly. There was no suggestion of strife between them. According to Roz, they never quarrelled.’
‘Never? What could be more suspicious than that?’
He grinned. ‘I’m sure you and Marc never quarrel.’
Hannah refused to be distracted. ‘I know you said he was a sweet guy and all that, but do me a favour.’
‘Actually, I found it easy enough to believe her. Chris wasn’t one for confrontation. If he found himself in…an impossible situation…he wouldn’t want to tough it out. He hated any sort of strife, he’d sooner make himself scarce.’
‘Did he have a lady friend on the side that Roz wasn’t aware of?’
Nick wiped a trace of froth from his mouth. ‘I’m sure he didn’t. And before you ask, there was no suggestion his disappearance was involuntary. I could only assume that Roz was on the right lines. Chris’s temperament was always fragile. A small independent label had brought out a CD of his music a few months earlier and he’d had high hopes of it. But there were distribution problems and it sank without trace. He’d been a bit quiet about that and Roz thought maybe he was more depressed than he’d admitted to her. Or to their GP. He wasn’t taking tranquillisers or anything.’
‘Suicidal tendencies?’
‘No history of attempts at self-harm and I’d never known him give any hint that he might want to take his own life. But people who kill themselves don’t always give any advance warning.’
‘No suggestion someone might have wanted to kill him? Bearing in mind what the ACPO manual says?’
‘“Every missing person report has the potential to become a homicide investigation”.’ He was quoting from guidelines issued by the crime committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers. The Murder Investigation Manual was the closest that serious crime squads had to a Bible, but even the Bible didn’t tell you everything. ‘Sure, but there wasn’t a shred of evidence to suggest foul play. He was a likeable man. Still is.’
‘So you couldn’t help?’
He spread his arms. ‘What could I do? There was no role for the police, nothing to suggest that he was a victim of crime. It’s a free country, people can come and go as they please, however much distress they leave behind. All she could do was wait — and hope.’
‘And then…Warren Howe was killed.’
‘No connection.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Positive.’
‘Howe knew your pal?’
‘Through Roz, yes. She’d grown up in Old Sawrey and her married home wasn’t far away. Her best friend Bel Jenner had a fling with Warren as a teenager, then Roz had a turn. Long in the past, and all three of them had married other people. For good measure, Warren was having it away with Gail Flint. Roz’s only interest in the man was as a gardener, I’m sure of that. The cottage grounds were a mess, the old lady had let them become over-run with weeds and nettles and neither Chris nor Roz had green fingers. They liked the idea of a wild garden, but even a wild garden needs to be planned. So they signed up Flint Howe to do the job.’
‘No evidence of any hostility between Warren Howe and Chris Gleave?’
‘Nothing. The only connection was Roz.’
‘Tight-knit community, huh?’
‘They don’t come tighter.’
Hannah pointed at the empty beer glass and Nick nodded. One compensation of the Shroud’s lack of popularity was that it didn’t take an age to be served and she was back with fresh drinks inside a couple of minutes.
‘When did Chris Gleave reappear on the scene?’
‘A month after the murder. He called on his mobile and then minutes later showed up on the doorstep of Keepsake Cottage begging Roz to take him back in. Which she did.’
‘No hesitation?’
‘If she was in two minds, I never got to hear about it.’
‘What was his story?’
Nick indulged in a little crude origami with the beer mat, as if in aid to thought. The Stygian gloom made it hard to read his expression, but Hannah thought he was wondering how much to reveal.
He took in a lungful of musty air and said, ‘Basically, he’d lost the plot. The failure of the CD hit him much harder than anyone realised. Harder even than he realised. He felt overwhelmed, his life was spinning out of control, he just needed to get away from it all for a while. Long story short, he ended up down in London, busking on the Northern Line.’
Hannah made a face. On her rare trips to the capital, she’d found the Underground noisy, smelly and claustrophobic. It must have been a severe breakdown for Chris Gleave to be tempted to exchange the serenity of Keepsake Cottage for the subterranean murk of the Tube.
‘Takes all sorts, I guess. What brought him back to his senses?’
Nick shrugged. ‘His story was that when he managed to straighten out his thinking, he realised he belonged in the Lakes. With Roz. A sad story, but they managed to conjure up a happy ending.’
‘Unlike Warren and Tina Howe. Presumably Chris Gleave was questioned about the murder?’
‘As soon as he resurfaced. Not by me, of course. I’d declared that Roz and Chris were known to me, but Charlie was happy to keep me on the team. Obviously I took no part in interviewing the Gleaves. As suspects they were a long shot, but by that stage we were desperate. We were all acutely conscious that the best chance of picking up a murderer is within twenty-four hours of the crime being committed. After a month had passed, we were clutching at straws.’
‘And the alibi?’
‘Four hours after Warren Howe was scythed to death at Keepsake Cottage, a Good Samaritan hauled Chris Gleave out of the gutter in a side street near Leicester Square and called an ambulance to take him to Casualty. He’d been mugged and had his wallet stolen by a couple of teenage thugs.’
‘What sort of an alibi is that? Four hours might have been long enough for him to do the deed in Cumbria and get back to London.’
‘The train times didn’t fit and he’s never learned to drive.’
‘There are other means of travel. He could have made a secret journey, killed Warren Howe and then hotfooted it back to the city, with everyone none the wiser. Who’s to say that the breakdown wasn’t a part of the plot? A very convenient way of removing him from the scene at the vital moment.’
‘Even Charlie had to rule out push-bikes and making a getaway by hot-air balloon. Logistically, it didn’t make sense that Chris was the killer. Quite apart from the absence of any apparent motive.’
‘Perhaps Charlie should have dug deeper.’
‘For all his faults, Charlie did at least understand that when you’re in a hole, the first rule is to stop digging. We didn’t have an infinite budget. Whichever way we turned, we ran into a blank wall. Trouble is, some cases just aren’t meant to be solved.’
‘All cases are meant to be solved.’
He drained his glass. ‘I’m not holding my breath.’
Would Louise and Miranda hit it off together? Daniel had been full of foreboding. Tact wasn’t his sister’s strong point and Miranda’s moods changed like the weather. They could hardly be more different: the sceptical academic lawyer and the free spirit. But they were making an effort. Louise had changed into a svelte new frock and he guessed she’d dropped a dress size since he’d last seen her, with the odious Rodney in tow. She said all the right things about the cottage, while Miranda rhapsodised about his sister’s taste in fashion before starting to pump
