If Daniel hadn’t recognised Stuart Wagg, he’d have interpreted the gesture not as a greeting, but as a threat.
‘Louise tells me there was a bust-up at the party last night.’
Sprawled over the sofa, Stuart Wagg drained his tumbler of whisky. He hadn’t bothered to wipe his feet properly and he’d left a trail of muddy footprints on the carpet.
‘Something and nothing.’
‘How did Arlo provoke her?’ Daniel asked.
Wagg gave a shrug. ‘Christ knows. I invited him over because we’re sponsors of this Festival. Wanda’s as thin-skinned as a skeleton’s silhouette. They’d both had a few drinks. Maybe Arlo tried it on when she wasn’t in the mood, who knows?’
‘Wouldn’t that be pretty insensitive, given that she was so recently widowed?’
‘Tell you what, Daniel. My motto is:
‘George Saffell died.’ Louise shivered. ‘Someone turned his lakeside retreat into a ball of fire.’
‘Nothing to do with what happened last night.’ Wagg’s jaw tightened. ‘Except that Wanda is grieving. She deserves to be cut some slack.’
‘You’ve known her a long time?’ Louise asked.
‘We were at school together. She was a few years younger than me, but even then, she stood out from the crowd. I remember taking her out to the cinema a few times when we were teenagers. All very innocent, of course.’
‘I bet.’
‘Believe me.’ He feigned injured innocence. ‘I never got further than a quick fumble on the back seats at the Royalty in Bowness. Very well-behaved young lady was Wanda. Single-minded, too. Obsessed with her hobby, nothing else mattered to her half as much.’
‘Her hobby?’
‘Vocation, business, whatever. She loves printmaking. As a kid, I promise you, she was much more interested in that than me. Still is, to this day.’
‘You knew her husband?’ Daniel asked.
‘Old George? Sure, we moved in the same business circles. And he loved books as much as I do.’
Louise arched her eyebrows. ‘Do you really love books, darling?’
‘What do you mean?’ Wagg sounded like a bishop accused of blasphemy.
‘I wondered…if what you really love is the thrill of the chase. Tracking down a rare first edition, then squirrelling it away, so nobody else can have the pleasure of owning it.’
For a moment, there was silence.
He shook his head. ‘You’re wrong.’
‘How many of your precious tomes have you actually read?’ She turned to Daniel. ‘You should see his library. It’s a miniature Bodleian. But I doubt if he’s read a tenth of his collection.’
‘One of these days,’ Wagg muttered. ‘When I have more time.’
‘Meanwhile, you still have to keep Marc Amos in business, I suppose?’
‘You know Marc’s partner.’ Daniel wanted to change the subject, stop Louise from needling Wagg. It was her habit to be provocative, but he sensed the man had a temper to match Wanda Saffell’s. ‘DCI Scarlett.’
‘The lovely Hannah?’ Wagg grinned. ‘Your sister tells me that you managed to get yourself involved in one of Hannah’s cases.’
More than one, actually, but Daniel kept his mouth shut. He wished Louise hadn’t talked about him with Stuart Wagg. Even more, he wished she hadn’t fallen for the man. He didn’t like the way the whisky had loosened Wagg’s tongue.
‘Her career ran into the buffers, did you know? After she messed up over a major trial, they sidelined her. It was all presented in a positive light, needless to say. Young woman detective on the fast track? They could hardly throw her overboard. Not with all those politically correct diversity targets to meet.’
‘She’s in charge of the cold case team,’ Daniel said. ‘A high-profile job.’
‘Not exactly at the cutting edge, though. Zero pressure. No need to race against the clock when a victim’s spent years mouldering in the grave.’ Wagg gave a theatrical sigh. ‘But Hannah will be fine. If she keeps her nose clean until she’s got her years in, she’ll have a nice fat pension. No need to rely on the money Marc makes from sad bibliomaniacs like me.’
Daniel felt his cheeks reddening as he counted to ten. Hannah didn’t need him to defend her, but he couldn’t help it.
‘She doesn’t strike me as a time-server.’
Wagg yawned and stretched his arms. ‘Well, who cares? I’d better be getting home. Thanks for the booze.’
As Louise stood up, he turned to her and said, ‘Are you staying over, or coming back here after you’ve dropped me off, darling?’
‘Staying over, of course. Why do you ask?’
‘No reason.’
‘You’ve taken the week off work.’
‘Yeah, I was thinking of getting up among the fells.’
‘Term doesn’t start for another week, we can explore the fells together.’
‘It’s not what I had in mind. For me, fell-walking is a solitary vice.’ Wagg got to his feet. ‘I assumed, now your brother’s back in England, you’d want to spend some time with him.’
‘Daniel and I can see each other any time.’
She sounded as though Wagg had smacked her face. Daniel clenched his fists behind his back.
‘Fine, fine. Let’s go, then.’
Daniel saw them to the door, and watched them climb into Louise’s sports car without a word. Her face was as bleak as Scafell. She crashed the gears, the ugly noise breaching the peace of the wooded valley.
The car sped off, Louise driving too fast for the little lane through the wood. Daniel stared after them.
He found himself loathing Stuart Wagg.
CHAPTER FIVE
‘Bethany Friend’s body was found by a group of half a dozen fell-walkers,’ Hannah said. ‘A damp winter morning almost six years ago. February 15th, to be precise. She’d been dead for less than twenty-four hours.’
Greg Wharf swung back and forth on the plastic chair. Not quite insubordination, not far from it. Her new detective sergeant was testing her patience, but Hannah was determined not to let him win the game. They were alone in the briefing room. It was newly refurbished, with lots of greenery in posh stone pots, and a couple of abstract daubs on the wall. The money came from a budget surplus at the end of the last financial year, though the Police Federation would have preferred cash in their members’ pay packets.
Hannah hardly knew Greg Wharf. He was a Geordie with bleached hair and an incipient beer gut. Dark rings under his eyes testified to intensive New Year partying. He’d spent most of his career in Newcastle, where he’d married a highflying colleague. Once his wife discovered him
Hannah had called him in early for a briefing on the Friend case before the rest of the team arrived. Ten minutes in, she suspected the less she got to know about Detective Sergeant Gregory Wharf, the better. That mocking light in the blue eyes made him look like a beach bum humouring a parish priest.
He wasn’t overjoyed to be here. Lauren Self, the assistant chief constable, had moved him from Vice after he procured a confession to the rape of a prostitute from a recidivist sex offender. It seemed like a neat piece of
