It felt as though he’d kneed her in her weakest part, but she fought for calm. ‘There may be a connection between the deaths of Saffell and Wagg, and what happened to Bethany Friend.’
‘A woman who died six years ago?’ His voice rose. He was a skilled exponent at phoney outrage and used it as a weapon whenever they had a row, but she didn’t think his astonishment was feigned.
‘She worked for both Saffell and Wagg. Did she sleep with them, too?’
‘Don’t be stupid. Bethany was confused about her own sexuality, she wasn’t some sort of slapper. It’s madness to think anything could link those three deaths.’
Wanda Saffel is one link, she thought. And there are bound to be others. But she buttoned her mouth. She’d already said more than she should. The snag was, he took her silence as a sign she had a chink in her armour. He was determined to seize back the initiative.
‘Go on, Hannah. Admit it.’
Her gaze settled on the hall ceiling. It still needed plastering. The way she and Marc were heading, it would be a job for some other couple.
‘Admit what?’
‘This is your second cosy get-together with Daniel Kind inside twenty-four hours. What did he want to talk about last night? Not prophesying Stuart’s death, I bet.’
Shit, shit, shit. The spasm of guilt was like stomach cramps. For a moment she wished the ground would open up beneath her. Why hadn’t she come clean about last night, when there was nothing to hide? She couldn’t guess how he’d found out. Maybe one of his customers had spotted Daniel and her at The Tickled Trout.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she muttered.
‘Touched a nerve, have I? Of course, Daniel is Ben’s son.’
She spun round. ‘Meaning what?’
‘You had the hots for Ben.’
‘We were colleagues, it never went further than that. Now I’m going out. Not sure when I’ll be back.’
‘Take as long as you like.’ She knotted the scarf in silence. Resisting the temptation to wrap it around his neck.
‘Oh, and Hannah?’
‘What?’
‘Your lipstick smudged. Better wipe up if you want to look your best for Daniel Kind.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The route from Undercrag to The Tickled Trout took Hannah past a trendy bar at the end of a terrace row. Outside it were roadworks and a temporary traffic control, and as she waited an age for the lights to change, a couple of people spilt out of the bar. A man and a woman, arm in arm. Their unsteadiness suggested they’d each had a skinful. As they sank into an embrace, Hannah thought they looked familiar, even though she couldn’t make out their faces. The woman put her back to a brick wall as the man pressed up against her. His hands moved behind her, as if to lift her skirt. Hannah stared with shameless curiosity. Sometimes a detective must become a voyeur.
A furious tooting from the next car in the queue jerked her attention away from the lovers. The lights had changed to green. As she wavered, reluctant to move off, the light switched to red again. She imagined a cry of disgust from the driver in the car behind, and raised a hand in apology, but it was too dark for him to see.
At the sound of the horn, the couple sprang apart. Perhaps they thought the salvo was aimed at them. In a moment, they vanished into a shadowy passage that ran behind the terrace. For a split second, their faces shone in the glare of light from the street lamp. Hannah’s instinct was spot on.
Nathan Clare and Wanda Saffell were back together again.
She put her foot down the moment she escaped the thirty-mile limit, but arrived at The Tickled Trout ten minutes later than promised. The car park was crowded, but she saw Daniel’s Audi and squeezed into the marked space next to it. As she raced across the asphalt to the pub’s front entrance, raucous cheering broke out from the locals’ end of the lounge bar. Nothing personal: this was quiz night, and the home team had taken the lead with two rounds to go.
Daniel leant against the counter, scanning the crowd. Her heart lurched as their eyes met. Absurd: the last thing she needed was to start behaving like a seventeen-year-old on a date. She pushed through the mass of drinkers, envying Daniel’s cool. Nobody had the right to look so laid-back, hours after discovering a tortured corpse. Like his father, he took disasters in his stride. He’d lined up two glasses of Chablis for them. His knack of reading her mind meant she must take care; she’d die of embarrassment if he could read her most private thoughts.
‘Hannah, thanks for sparing the time.’
They shook hands, his grip firm. As he led her to the corner booth they’d occupied the previous evening, a bell rang and a tubby quizmaster, who looked as though his specialist subject was chip suppers, bellowed the next question.
‘Who was murdered by his wife at Battlecrease House in Liverpool?’
‘James Maybrick,’ Daniel murmured. ‘Although some people doubt whether his death was murder.’
‘Is that so?’
‘James developed a taste for arsenic as a medicine, and it boosted his virility into the bargain. His wife served fifteen years in jail, but she may have been innocent. Unlike James. According to one school of thought, he was Jack the Ripper.’
She settled into her seat. ‘You know a lot about crime.’
‘Necessary research. Don’t forget I’m writing a history of murder.’
‘So, how is
‘Hell to write, frankly. I’ve not even finished my lecture for Arlo Denstone’s festival. Real life keeps interrupting.’
‘And now you’ve stumbled on a real-life murder.’
‘Finding Stuart’s body reminded me why I chose academic life.’ He gazed up at the black wooden beams, as if trying to decipher a pattern in the knots of the timber. ‘That’s the difference between me and my father, I’d rather watch the world from a safe distance. Thomas De Quincey went into rhapsodies about murder as a fine art, but it looks pretty coarse when you come face to face with it. No way could I ever do your job.’
‘I’ll let you into a secret. At times, I’m not sure I can do it, either.’
He shot her a sharp glance. ‘Are you all right?’
Irrationally, her hackles rose. ‘Any reason I shouldn’t be?’
‘You look unhappy, that’s all.’
She gritted her teeth. ‘That obvious?’
‘’Fraid so.’
‘Sorry, didn’t mean to bite your head off.’
‘Wretched day?’
‘Not as grim as yours.’
‘It was much harder for Louise. The first corpse she’s ever seen, and it belongs to the man she spent Christmas with. Not a pretty sight. But she’ll get through. This evening she said she’d already fallen out of love with Stuart Wagg before he sent her packing.’
‘He was a bastard.’
‘But a charming bastard, by all accounts.’
‘Charm alone is not enough,’ Hannah said fiercely.
‘Louise reckons he used to get away with murder. Now someone has murdered him. The well wasn’t covered up by accident. The sheet lying on top of it was heavy. You’d never shift it from underneath, even if you could climb up that far.’
‘His legs were broken, and his kneecaps shattered.’ Why shouldn’t Daniel know, where was the harm? He’d already seen the body, and the precise nature of the injuries didn’t need to be a state secret. ‘There was a monkey wrench down underneath the body. Someone tossed it into the well after using it to cripple Stuart before they
