‘We can’t plan our lives like train timetables. Pick the perfect moment to fall for someone new.’
‘No, of course not. And she’s a lot of fun when she’s so inclined. But you’ll have to persuade her — either she lives the dream up here with you, or she does the London journalist thing.’
‘She can combine the two.’
Louise shrugged. ‘I hope you’re right.’
‘So where does Hannah Scarlett fit in?’
He felt colour rising in his cheeks. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I saw the way she looked at you, Daniel. You said yourself, she told you about that old murder.’
‘She worked with Dad, he was her mentor. She’s talked to me about him. That’s all.’
‘And she’s married to this chap you went to see, the bookshop owner?’
‘Not married. They live together, have done for years.’
‘What about the cipher garden, then? You kept your cards close to your chest when you got home.’
‘Was it that obvious?’
‘Let me share something with you, Daniel. The air of casual unconcern you cultivate when you’re trying to hide something isn’t as convincing as you’d like to think. Perhaps it fools Miranda, but not me. I’ve known you a long time, remember.’
He managed a rueful grin. ‘Probably as well you’re leaving, then.’
She kicked him under the table. ‘Yes, you and I would soon be at each other’s throats if I hung around. Now — the garden.’
He recounted his discoveries of the previous day. When he told her about the fragment of conversation he’d overheard between Chris and Roz Gleave, she wanted to know what he thought they were talking about.
‘Presumably Roz has an idea about what drove Kirsty to take her own life.’
‘Are you intending to tell the police?’
‘I’m hoping the Gleaves will save me the trouble.’
‘You should mention what you heard to your mate Hannah.’
He gave her a sharp look, but her expression was all innocence. ‘When she’s fit again, perhaps I will.’
‘Carry on with the story.’
When he’d finished, she pulled a face. ‘It’s weird. People don’t die of broken hearts.’
‘You never were much of a romantic, were you?’
‘Come on. They expired on the same day, which just happened to be the anniversary of their son’s death?’
‘Too much of a coincidence, but a hundred years after they were buried, there’s not much to go on. You need to make a leap of imagination to have a chance of making sense of it.’
She laughed. ‘You used to wear that expression when you figured out the solution to an Agatha Christie five chapters before that old Belgian big-head. Let’s hear about where the leap has taken you.’
A disembodied voice announced that the train would be arriving shortly and apologised for any inconvenience. Daniel swallowed the last of his drink.
‘Suppose you are Alice Quiller. Brought up to fear God. Perhaps you’ve seldom ventured far outside the valley you were born in. For upwards of half a century, your faith is unquestioning. Until tragedy tears your small, comfortable world apart. Your only child, the apple of your eye, dies in a foreign land. No good reason for his death, you can’t even console yourself with the fiction that he sacrificed his life defending freedom. The stupid war he’s been fighting is as good as over, but he succumbs to sickness and dies a rotten, miserable death. You’ve devoted your life to the boy, you’re crazy about him. Obsessed, maybe. All of a sudden, the world becomes worthless. You cut yourself off from it. Your husband is the only person you will speak to, but even he can’t reason with you, even he can’t make everything right. Nothing can make it right. You’re left not knowing what to believe any more. Not wishing to live any more. What do you do?’
She said slowly, ‘I might not want to go on living.’
He mimed applause. ‘Spot on.’
‘You’re suggesting they decided — or Alice persuaded her husband — that they should kill themselves? To take part in a suicide pact?’
‘For her, death must have seemed the only way out.’
She winced. ‘Shit.’
‘Only one snag. In those days, suicide was a mortal sin. Worse than that, a crime. The rector reminded me, suicides weren’t even permitted the dignity of burial in consecrated ground. In those days, you were expected to cope with whatever lousy hand life dealt you. No therapy, no bereavement counselling, just get on with it. In England it was still the age of the stiff upper lip. For the Quillers, the public disgrace of a double suicide would have been intolerable. Not to be contemplated.’
‘So they disguised their intentions?’
‘A triumph of appearance over reality. As prominent Brackdale folk, well respected, they’d have been on good terms with the local medics. So long as there was an opportunity to write off their deaths as due to natural causes, honour would be satisfied all round. Jacob and Alice Quiller could be buried in the same grave as their beloved son John.’
‘And the garden?’
‘I’d guess Jacob was familiar with the Victorian fashion for gardens that conveyed messages. Often to celebrate religious beliefs, or represent Bible stories or mystical revelations. Jacob turned all that upside down. His mind was in turmoil. While his wife pined away inside the cottage, he transformed their garden to simulate a kind of spiritual anarchy. No “paths of life” for the Quillers. Instead, nothing but tracks that wound back on themselves, false turnings and dead ends.’
‘The pattern was that there was no pattern?’
‘Jacob was mocking the pious certainties that he’d subscribed to all his life. Yet even in his dark despair, he couldn’t abandon every last vestige of faith. He couldn’t help minding what happened after he died. Perhaps Alice felt the same, perhaps she was past caring, who knows? One thing’s for sure, it was impossible for them to write a straightforward letter declaring their intention. But they could leave a hidden message in the garden for anyone who cared to know what they’d done.’
‘Such as Richard Skelding?’
‘The man who inherited his land back, yes. My guess is that he discovered the truth. A handful of people in the valley kept the legend alive.’
‘Including later owners of the cottage?’
‘Notably the Gilpins. They didn’t disturb the cipher garden, or betray the Quillers’ secret. Why should they? It was a private sorrow. For all I know, Eleanor Sawtell tried to pump Mrs Gilpin for information. I can’t imagine her giving any change to a nosey parker.’
Louise tapped her spoon against her saucer. ‘You’re right. All this does require a leap of the imagination.’
‘There is a crazy logic to the garden. The monkey puzzles symbolised Jacob and Alice and the weeping willow John. The yew tree stood for the eternal life that Jacob hoped against hope might yet await all three of them in Heaven.’
‘And the death from broken hearts?’
‘The clue to the means of suicide is in the planting, as well as the words on the tablets. Of course, those foxgloves have spread far and wide over the past hundred years. They grow like weeds, you find them everywhere. But you have to treat them with care.’
Her eyes opened wide. ‘They’re poisonous, aren’t they?’
‘That’s right, foxglove leaves are the source of digitalis. In small quantities it stimulates the heart, but a large dose is apt to be fatal.’
‘Leaves from the garden,’ she quoted.
He nodded. ‘Will take our leave.’
The train was pulling in. Time to go. Daniel picked up Louise’s cases and they hurried outside. Once she’d scrambled into the carriage, she opened the window.
‘How are you going to break the news to Miranda?’
