hadn’t hit the buffers, what if she had nothing else in her life but him?’
‘She’s frightened of Hinds, but I’d say there’s still a spark between them too. God knows what she sees in him.’ Mario winced. ‘Terrible what some men do to women. Would she perjure herself on his behalf? You bet. All the same, the thought of a man killing his own son …’
‘He might not have known Aslan was his son.’
‘Isn’t that stretching things too far? The question remains — why murder him? And why ignore the oldest rule of all — don’t shit on your own doorstep?’
‘Suppose Aslan turned up at the farm, and announced himself as son of Hinds. Maybe he wanted to soak his dad for cash. Payback for leaving his mother in the lurch. Hinds would have been stunned. What if he lost the plot?’
‘And beat his own boy to death before tossing him into an iron box full of shit? You really think he’s capable of that?’
A picture came into Hannah’s mind of the sun catching the blade of Mike Hinds’ scythe. Never mind that he didn’t have a criminal record; he was no stranger to violence. Niamh had felt the rough edge of his temper, and so had Deirdre. Maybe he’d even hurt Callum, the boy who kept his name. What chance for a swaggering stranger who threatened to turn his life upside down?
‘I’d say he’s capable of pretty much anything.’
‘You haven’t told me if you’ve arranged to see Hannah again,’ Louise said.
Daniel blinked. ‘She took a message about the discovery of a dead man at a farm linked with a cold case she’s investigating, and she had to shoot off home. For all I know, she’s needed to go into work today. Not the ideal moment to consult our social calendars.’
‘Excuses,’ she snorted.
With a lavish sigh, she started to attack her dessert. Vanilla panna cotta with gooseberries. Daniel had found himself unable to resist the sticky toffee pudding, with toffee sauce and clotted cream. You might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb; at least he’d had a green-leaf salad to start.
Sunday lunch at The Tickled Trout, a welcome respite from a morning spent house-hunting for Louise. A cottage in Elterwater had looked perfect, with roses clambering around the door, but the rising damp would cost a fortune to eradicate. A swish apartment in Ambleside boasted every labour-saving gadget you could wish, but the block had been shoehorned in between a microbrewery and a garage, and if the exhaust fumes didn’t poison her, the smell of beer would make sure she had a permanent hangover. With houses, as with people, appearances deceived.
The Tickled Trout was an upmarket pub-restaurant down the road from Ambleside. Last January, in the car park on the other side of the window he was facing now, Daniel had kissed Hannah for the one and only time. He hadn’t planned it, and neither had she. But Marc found out about their meeting, and soon all hell broke loose, and Hannah found herself personally ensnared in a case of multiple murder. Louise didn’t know the full story about Marc and Hannah, and at times she seemed to take it personally that her brother was testing her patience. In her black- and-white lawyer’s mind, Daniel was wimping out of the chance of happiness when he should have moved on from Aimee’s death and the mistake that had been Miranda.
Must it always be this way between siblings? He cared for Louise more than anyone in the world, yet sometimes he wondered why sororicide was rare. Probably she was tempted to fratricide once in a while. Now their adolescent arguments were a fading memory, they would fight to protect each other, but prolonged exposure to each other’s company sometimes stretched their nerves to breaking point.
Daniel savoured the taste of toffee. Clearly Aslan had taken the job at St Herbert’s with a view to getting to know his sister, and picking the right moment to introduce himself to his father. Lane End Farm was a good size and located in a beautiful part of Britain. It must be worth plenty, even in these straitened times, and Aslan would be more interested in money than orchestrating a sentimental family reunion. But Michael Hinds’ reputation was as Cumbria’s very own Mr Angry. Had Aslan provoked his father to such rage that he’d committed another of those rare — you might be tempted to say, astonishingly rare — crimes: filicide?
Louise put down her spoon and narrowed her eyes. ‘You look as though you’ve wandered into a different country. What’s going on in that brain of yours?’
‘I’m thinking about families, what holds them together, what drives them apart.’
She dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. ‘We’re hardly experts on family life, you and me, after what happened with Dad.’
‘Or maybe we are. We’ve seen the ups and downs, more than most.’
‘I don’t remember that many ups after Dad walked out on us.’ She frowned. ‘Yet Hannah cared for him. I bet she sees something of you in him.’
‘I’m nothing like him. He was a hardened cop, spent his life turning over stones and seeing what lay beneath. Dangerous work. Academe is cosy, you know yourself — the main risk is RSI from writing too many articles in learned journals that hardly anybody wants to read.’
‘You are absolutely like him,’ she said. ‘Neither of you could ever let go without finding what you were looking for. My only question is this — have you any idea what you
St Herbert’s was open to residents and Friends of the Library and their guests on Sundays, and when Daniel said that he wanted to call in, Louise insisted on coming along for the ride. Whatever she said, she was every bit as nosey as him. Driving past the narrow reservoir of Thirlmere, he listened to the news on local radio. The main story was the discovery of a man’s body at a farm near Keswick, but he was not named.
‘You think you know who it is?’ Louise asked.
The road was clear, and he put his foot down. ‘Hope to God I’m wrong, but …’
Soon they were parking at St Herbert’s. As they jumped out of the car, Daniel spotted Micah Bridge trudging towards the front entrance. The principal’s stoop was more pronounced than ever, and as they came up to him, a defeated look clouded his watery eyes. Daniel felt a gnawing sadness. Aslan may not have matched the profile of the typical habitue of St Herbert’s, but he’d been young and full of life. Less than a week ago, he’d shinned down that drainpipe from the parapet up on the first floor, seemingly without a care in the world. To picture him lying on a mortuary slab made Daniel’s stomach churn. No matter what Louise said, he could never have done his father’s job. How had the old man coped, dealing with violence as a way of life?
After introducing Louise, he said, ‘This latest death at Lane End Farm …’
Speaking in little more than a whisper, the principal said, ‘The victim is Aslan Sheikh, he was murdered. Daniel, I can scarcely believe what is happening. My God, two members of staff dead within a few days of each other.’
‘What have you heard?’
‘Very little.’ The principal mopped sweat off his brow with a handkerchief. ‘The policeman wanted me to tell him about Aslan. What work he did, the people he dealt with. Whether he had any enemies.’
‘They aren’t suggesting an accident or suicide this time?’
Micah Bridge shook his head. ‘Surely you are not implying that Orla was murdered as well?’
‘I’m not implying anything, but hatred isn’t the only motive for murder.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Perhaps Aslan was killed because of something he found out, or witnessed.’
‘Such as?’
‘He was here on Friday morning, wasn’t he? Sham told me he spent time in the library. She thought he was looking something up.’
The principal stared. ‘I find that hard to credit. He showed so little interest in our collections.’
‘Looks as though he stumbled across a reason to take an interest.’
‘For heaven’s sake, what could it be? This library is a place for quiet, scholastic research. We have nothing to do with the grubbiness of murder.’
Some have grubbiness thrust upon them, Daniel thought.
‘Are the police still here?’
‘They left an hour ago, once they had finished speaking to Sham.’
‘She’s working today?’ Daniel was surprised. ‘I thought she only-’
‘Works Monday to Friday, and then with the utmost reluctance?’ The principal sniffed. ‘She claims her aunt
