well enough to realise he was scouring his vocabulary for some brutal putdown.
‘You’re mad. I don’t have the foggiest when they first got it together. But if anyone should be shitting himself, it isn’t Mum, it’s that smug bastard Peter. After all, he finished up with her and the business, didn’t he?’
Chapter Eight
While Daniel visited Kendal, Miranda and Louise had gone to Grasmere, destination Dove Cottage. Returning home, he remembered that he hadn’t eaten anything since toast and marmalade for breakfast. Hunger pangs reminded him of Oxford, when he could spend a day delving into the Bodleian archives before thinking of his stomach. Talking to Hannah had made him forget about food but now he was ready for a little self-indulgence. Miranda was on a healthy-eating crusade, but her absence gave him a chance to sin with a chunky bacon and egg bap coated in brown sauce. After washing his lunch down with a can of lager, he went upstairs to continue his researches.
The makeshift study would become a spare bedroom once the renovations were completed, although if the builders didn’t get a move on, he might be ready for a stairlift by the time the project was finished. Even now most of his books were in crates. A handful of whodunits squatted on low shelves alongside a pile of CDs and a snap he’d taken of Miranda, showing off her long smooth legs as she lazed on a recliner by the tarn. There was nothing to remind him of Oxford, far less of Aimee. He’d wanted to leave his past behind. Though sometimes he wondered if it was madness to believe that might be possible.
A Google search didn’t add much to his stock of knowledge about the murder and soon he was navigating the Flint Howe Garden Design website, learning that Peter Flint was a Royal Horticultural Society Chelsea Flower Show medal winner among various other accolades. A gallery of photographs showed ‘before’ and ‘after’ shots of drab patches of lawn becoming mini-Sissinghursts. Encomiums abounded from clients whose herbaceous borders, rockeries and patios had been transformed into visions of light, water and colour. The website answered frequently asked questions about the sensitive use of decking in a suburban environment and offered tips on composting and establishing an organic garden. No suggestion that dumping a body in your back yard was recommended for fertilising the ground for years to come.
Daniel clicked on to the site contact details. In the corner of the page was a name in small type. Enquirers were invited to email the firm’s ‘Client Liaison Partner’. Her name was Tina Howe.
He swivelled in his chair, closing his eyes to let the news sink in. Presumably Tina had inherited her husband’s share in the business, but wouldn’t most widows take their money and run? Back at the home page, he studied the photo of Peter Flint. Curly, greying hair, spectacles, crooked front teeth. He looked vague and good- natured, not accustomed to getting his hands dirty. Perhaps Tina Howe had tired of her rugged husband and fancied offering his partner a spot of personal assistance? What if…?
And yet, hunting the truth fired him; it became a obsession impossible to quell, whatever the cost. At last he’d come to understand why his father cared for police work. They shared the need to know.
The front door crashed. He imagined Miranda sniffing the air before calling out, ‘Who’s been having a fry-up, then?’
He wandered downstairs and they told him about their day. To listen to Miranda bad-mouthing selfish drivers in Grasmere and the unpredictability of the bus services, one might think she was a native. As she chatted, Daniel kept glancing at Louise. She was on her best behaviour, nodding agreement at suitable intervals and laughing at every witty remark. The perfect guest.
He nodded towards the garden. ‘We need help sorting this out. There’s a good firm Hawkshead way. I thought I’d give them a ring, ask them to take a look and give us their advice.’
‘Fine.’
Miranda resumed her account of what she would show Louise tomorrow. For her, the garden was a place to relax, nothing more. She wouldn’t have minded if he’d announced that he meant to dig it all up and replant every square inch. As long as she could sit by the water’s edge and soak up the sun, who cared if someone had long ago laid out the grounds according to an unfathomable design?
When she took the tea things back inside, Louise pulled her chair closer to Daniel’s. ‘So then, what did you get up to in Kendal?’
‘I spent an hour in the library. Nothing special.’
‘Is that all?’
He frowned at her. ‘Meaning?’
‘You’re wearing your faraway look. Suppressed excitement, something going on in your own little world while you nod your head at appropriate points in the conversation. You weren’t listening to Miranda, she doesn’t know you well enough yet to realise. I remember that look from when Mum was scolding you for not putting your bike in the garage and all the time you were thinking about that tarty girl from Manor Drive.’
He couldn’t help grinning. ‘You never liked Simone, did you? Just because she overdid the make-up.’
‘It wasn’t only the make-up. And don’t change the subject. What are you up to?’
He shifted under her steady gaze. ‘I’ve been doing some research.’
Her smile was sceptical. ‘It’s obviously turning you on.’
‘Just because I’ve escaped from Oxford, that doesn’t mean I want my brain to atrophy.’
‘It’s not your brain I’m wondering about.’
Miranda called from the open kitchen window, ‘Anyone fancy a glass of Chablis?’
Louise turned her head and waved her thanks. Softly, she said, ‘Miranda’s lovely, Daniel. Not your usual type of lady friend, though.’
‘Is there a type? Leaving Simone out of it?’
‘Well, yes. Pretty, intense, introspective.’
‘Christ.’ He was startled that she’d given his love life a moment’s thought. He’d assumed she was too wrapped up in her own affairs of the heart. ‘Actually, I’d say Miranda fits the bill.’
‘Mmmmm. Not sure about introspective. I’m not saying that it matters. I just want you to be happy, that’s all.’
‘We are.’
‘Long term, I mean.’
‘We will be.’
‘Glad to hear it,’ she whispered as Miranda approached, bearing a tray laden with wine cooler and glasses.
But he wasn’t sure that she believed him.
‘Your garden is gorgeous,’ Hannah Scarlett said.
Roz Gleave nodded. ‘I can see what you’re thinking. A lovely place to die.’
Hannah grimaced, not least because she seldom encountered strangers who could read her mind. Even in the heat of the afternoon, Roz was cool and composed in white blouse and jeans. She was a tall woman with decisive movements; it was impossible to imagine her giving a slinky wiggle of the bum. With her thick grey hair and lack of make-up, she made no concessions to vanity, yet there was something about her cast of features and strong jawline that was oddly attractive. Not glamorous, but striking. Handsome, even.
They were facing each other across a wrought-iron table on the patio at the back of Keepsake Cottage. Behind them was an extension to the original house, from where Roz ran her publishing business. Through the windows Hannah could see piles of shrink-wrapped books in cardboard boxes. On the slope above the cottage was the spot where Warren Howe’s slashed corpse had been dumped in a hole in the earth, but his only memorial was a rose bush with huge yellow blooms. Roz had served Earl Grey and Battenberg cake; de Quincey was snoozing at their feet in a wicker basket. Very civilised: a murder site transformed into a backdrop for a tea party.
‘Tell me about finding the body.’
‘You must have this in your files.’
