‘Some interfering scumbag with nothing better to do.’
‘I didn’t know you had any enemies.’
He scowled. ‘You never know what some people might do after a couple of pints.’
‘So you think a man sent this?’
‘No idea.’
‘I thought it might be a woman.’
‘Someone I’ve screwed, you mean? Some bitch trying to get her own back?’
She winced. ‘Surely it’s someone who knows something about Dad. It’s so strange, after all this time.’
He shrugged. ‘I’ve got better things to do than lose sleep over it.’
‘You mean you’re going to let them get away with this?’
She thought she’d landed a shrewd blow. Turning the other cheek wasn’t Sam’s style. Again, she watched his fuddled expression while his brain cranked into gear. In the end, he took the easy option. Typical.
‘I’ll think about it tomorrow. It’s been a long day, and I’ve put my back out. You know what, I’ve been digging all afternoon, it’s a terrible slog.’
Whatever form of exercise had put out his back, Kirsty doubted that it was gardening, but she bit back a waspish retort. They needed to be on the same side over this. Someone wanted to hurt both of them.
‘We can’t brush this under the carpet. Who could bear such a grudge against us?’
Her brother spread his arms. He didn’t have an answer, so much was clear.
‘It’s me they’re getting at, not you.’ She didn’t speak and he frowned. It was almost possible to watch the jumble of thoughts clattering around inside his brain. ‘Hey, did you get one?’
‘One what?’
‘You know what I mean.’ He waved vaguely at the note. ‘A creepy thing like this. Poisoned pen letter or whatever you call it.’
‘All right.’ She put her hands on her hips, wanting to face him down. ‘What if one was sent to me?’
A coarse smile. ‘How could anyone write anything unkind about sweet little Kirsty? What did it say?’
‘It doesn’t matter, it was nonsense. A pack of lies.’
‘Come on. You shouldn’t…’ — he was groping for the simplest words — ‘you don’t want to blush if you’re trying to hide something from me.’
He reached out and clamped his hand on her shoulder. She screamed in disgust at his foetid breath, she couldn’t stop herself shoving him away with all her might. He lost his balance and finished up on the floor. When he looked into her eyes, he didn’t seem to like what he saw. Perhaps it was revulsion; she couldn’t disguise how she felt.
‘You fucking bitch,’ he said thickly.
The next thing she knew, his hands were around her throat.
Chapter Six
A clammy night, too hot to sleep. Daniel sweated under the duvet, battling insomnia for hour after endless hour, Miranda’s smooth warm body nestling by his side. She was restless and every now and then, she murmured in her dreams, but he couldn’t make out the words. In the end, he eased himself noiselessly out of bed and tiptoed downstairs to find the histories of the Lake District that he’d bought from Marc Amos.
He poured himself a glass of water and settled on the living room sofa. He loved the smell and feel of old books. To hold them was to touch the past. Skimming the pages, he came across a handful of references to Brackdale amongst reams of stuff about better-known valleys like Borrowdale and Langdale. Skeldings had lived at Brack Hall for much of Victoria’s reign, it seemed, but there was nothing about the Quiller family. After an hour’s browsing, he found a mention of Tarn Fold in a small book with a splitting spine, published locally in 1935.
Not much to go on, but at least there was nothing new about the strangeness of the garden. He parted the curtains and was gazing out into the blackness when he heard a sound behind him. Louise was in the doorway, wearing a short red gown.
‘Too hot, isn’t it?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘What are you looking for out there?’
‘Wish I knew.’
She came into the room. ‘I’m sorry about this evening. I shouldn’t harp on about Dad.’
‘You still regard him as some sort of monster.’
‘You know how hurt Mum was after…’
‘Yes,’ he interrupted, not wanting to dredge up old quarrels.
She picked up the book. ‘What are you reading?’
Glad of the chance to change the subject, he joined her back on the sofa and started talking about the garden. ‘There’s a story to it, must be, and if the secret was old in the Thirties, I’d guess the explanation dates back to the Quillers. The odds are that the garden was scarcely touched after they died. How come Jacob and Alice died on the same day, supposedly of broken hearts? This paragraph hints that the secret was kept by later owners of the cottage. Like Mrs Gilpin, who lived here till she died? No-one attempted to give the garden a makeover. But why?’
‘Respect for the dead?’
‘Could be.’ He couldn’t help laughing at himself. ‘Here I go again. Digging into the past, searching for a puzzle to solve.’
‘I’m glad, Daniel. When you left Oxford so suddenly, I wondered if you’d had some sort of breakdown. After Aimee and…well, you know.’
‘And what do you think now?’
A sheepish grin. ‘Could be that we’re both finally coming to our senses.’
Kirsty huddled under the duvet after waking from a shallow sleep. Her neck was aching. She slid out of bed and inspected herself in the mirror. The mark was red and vivid. It was bound to bruise; she would have to wear a scarf or something to hide it. And hide her shame that her brother, of all people, should have done this to her.
She got back into bed and listened to Sam blundering around downstairs, banging cupboard doors in search of breakfast things. Sunlight filtered in through gaps in her bedroom curtains, but she buried her face in the pillow and waited for him to go. This house had been home to the family all her life, yet she’d never felt more alone.
How long had he kept squeezing her throat? Only for a few seconds, must have been, and yet it had seemed an eternity. Did he mean to kill her, simply in a flash of temper? Closing her eyes, she had waited for death. Strangely, she felt no fear. She was ready to embrace nothingness. To end life would at least end her despair.
Suddenly he’d released his grip. Perhaps he was more afraid than her. Perhaps he realised this, perhaps it made him hate her all the more.
‘You’re mad.’ To her horror, he’d made an effort to get the words out straight. Speaking from the heart. ‘Off your head, that’s you. Of course whoever wrote this shit got it right.’
‘What do you mean?’
She was croaking, it was impossible to recognise her own voice.
‘I hated his guts. I can’t tell you how glad I am that he’s dead.’
Studying the photographs from Warren Howe’s postmortem, Hannah felt bile rising in her gullet. The murderer had slashed Warren’s body a dozen times, tearing off strips of skin. The pathologist reported that the wounds suggested fury — or desperation — rather than physical might, but through luck or judgement the jugular vein had been ripped open. Warren hadn’t stood a chance.
Every time she had investigated a murder, she had forced herself to attend the autopsy and study the corpse with as much detachment as she could muster. The rage welling up inside her helped her to succeed; instead of surrendering to emotion, she channelled it into a fierce resolve to see the murderer brought to trial. Ben’s creed,
