CHAPTER SEVEN
‘Bethany Friend is dead.’ Nathan Clare’s deep, almost musical voice made the harsh words seem all the more cruel. ‘They burnt her body, one wet morning at the crematorium. Why rake over old ashes?’
The house was a mid-terrace in the heart of Ambleside. You stepped in through the front door, straight off the pavement. There was a pub opposite and an off-licence round the corner. During the ten years he’d lived here, he’d probably kept them both busy. In a bedroom upstairs, he’d slept with Bethany, but there was no trace of her in this living room. No fading photograph on the mantelpiece. No photographs at all, come to that. Hannah supposed he wasn’t into remembering other people. She guessed that Nathan Clare had fallen in love with himself at an early age and remained ever faithful. On a small table, books were piled high. Fanned out next to a flyer advertising the De Quincey Festival were half a dozen red warning letters about unpaid phone, gas, and electric bills.
Hannah shifted on the sofa. It was absurdly low, and as lumpy as a bad milk pudding. He’d waved her to take a seat, but wasn’t foolish enough to join her. Instead he roamed up and down the narrow living room, pausing every now and then to warm his backside against a log fire. Each time he made a point, he waved his beefy arms. Every syllable of his body language said:
‘We never closed the file.’
Bad choice of words. She sounded like a pen-pusher, ticking off a checklist.
‘So, this is an exercise in bureaucracy? Presumably you have targets to meet? Bonuses to be earned?’
‘This isn’t about meeting targets, Mr Clare. Bethany’s mother is ill, she doesn’t have long to live. She’s never understood why her only child died. She needs closure.’
‘Closure.’ Nathan Clare lifted dark, brooding eyebrows. ‘A fashionable nostrum, DCI Scarlett. Of course, it’s an illusion. Life isn’t neat and tidy. There are no elegant solutions to its mysteries.’
She groaned inwardly.
‘Even so, I’d be grateful for your help.’
‘I went through this six years ago. I can’t tell you any more.’
‘You and she were lovers.’
A shift of his shoulders implied:
‘The details are hazy now.’
‘Six years isn’t so long. The two of you were close, and her death was very sudden.’
‘I needed to move on.’ A grand sweep of a huge paw. ‘I made a conscious effort to scrub Bethany out of my mind.’
Hannah knew the trick he was pulling. He wanted to cover his back in case he made some mistake and contradicted his original statement. She’d fixed the appointment by phone and, caught by surprise, he’d agreed before he had the chance to fob her off. She’d half-expected when she rang the doorbell five minutes ago that he wouldn’t answer. But he’d decided to indulge in a little unsubtle psychological warfare. On the wall facing her hung a sub-Modigliani daub of an angular, naked girl with legs splayed open. He wanted her to feel uncomfortable. The lumpy sofa, at least, was doing the job.
She scrambled to her feet and stood close to him. He smelt of stale beer.
‘When did you meet Bethany?’
‘As you well know, I held a series of evening classes at the university, and she came along. She worked in the offices as a secretary at the time. Temping, to pay the rent. But literature was her passion.’
‘What was the subject of your classes?’
‘Ostensibly, the Lakes poets other than Wordsworth. Coleridge, Southey, you know?’ His tone implied that a detective wouldn’t have heard of any poet other than Wordsworth. ‘I like the discussion to range far and wide. I could never become a full-time academic. Examinations and grades only matter to second-rate minds. One night, Bethany and I talked. We went to the pub for a drink and took it from there.’
‘You began a relationship?’
‘It wasn’t against the rules, if that’s what you’re suggesting.’
‘She was on the university’s payroll.’
‘But she wasn’t a student. The evening classes were just a way of filling the time when she ran out of ideas for her writing. She’d had a series of dead-end jobs. Serving in restaurants, typing in offices, earning a pittance behind the counter of a bookshop. One summer, she cleaned bedrooms at a hotel at Bowness. Her ambition was to write the Great English Novel. Not that it was ever going to happen.’
‘Did you and Bethany discuss her moving in here?’
‘She knew I wanted to keep my independence.’
‘You didn’t view it as a long-term relationship?’
He laughed. ‘Nowadays people spend a fortune on weddings and five minutes later they’re consulting their lawyers about divorce. I’m not sure relationships actually work long-term, Chief Inspector. A few last because the parties are too lazy or frightened to make a break.’
‘Did Bethany feel the same?’
‘She’d had bad experiences in the past.’
‘What do you mean?’
He frowned, as if he’d been lured into saying too much. ‘She was an innocent. Prey to wild infatuations, followed by deep despair.’
‘Is that so?’ Hannah was curious. ‘I heard she was a very private woman.’
‘Are private people forbidden to fall in love?’
‘Was she infatuated with you?’
He grinned, showing teeth as large as any she had ever seen.
‘Do you find that so difficult to understand, Hannah?’
‘The last time you saw her was a couple of days before she died. You admitted that you argued.’
‘I told her I’d met someone else.’
‘Who was that someone else?’
‘I said it was a girl who’d come to one of my poetry readings, but that wasn’t the truth.’
‘You invented a new girlfriend because you’d tired of Bethany?’
‘That wasn’t…’ He paused. ‘Please don’t sound shocked, it’s unbecoming in a senior police officer.’
‘I’m not shocked, Mr Clare. It just seems rather heartless.’
‘As a matter of fact, I was doing the poor girl a kindness.’
‘Really?’
‘It would have been cruel simply to say that I found her wearisome. Her physical demands, I had no trouble accommodating, I can assure you. But she stuck to me like cling film. She was terrified of rejection. Utterly terrified.’
‘Why was that, do you think?’
‘I’m not a psychiatrist.’
Hannah waited.
‘If there’s one thing I can’t stomach, it’s a clingy woman. Freedom is very precious to me.’
Through a door opening into the kitchen, Hannah saw dirty plates and mugs piled high on the draining board. The floor hadn’t seen a mop for weeks, and she caught a whiff of sour milk.
‘You never married.’
He shook his head. ‘Not for the want of opportunities, I promise you.’
Slimeball though he was, Hannah feared he was telling the truth. There were probably a good many women who thought they could change him. Depressing thought.
‘Is that right?’
‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, my dear Hannah. In case you’re wondering, I’m not interested in my own sex. Bethany could never persuade me there was any sense in that sort of thing. But I like to do as I please, and marriage makes that difficult. Paying off the mortgage is commitment enough for anyone.’
