Back in the kitchen of Undercrag, they were shedding their outdoor gear when the phone rang. Marc grabbed the receiver, saying it might be a customer from Japan chasing a signed Edgar Wallace, but after a brief exchange of words, he thrust it at Hannah.
‘Fern Larter, for you.’
Hannah took the phone into her study. It was as draughty as a barn, but she loved its solitude and stillness. Or, at least, the absence of people. Even in winter, the countryside teemed with life. Squirrels fought on the grass beneath her window, occasionally a roe deer came up to press a baffled face to the panes. Easy to persuade herself that the nearest village was twenty miles distant, instead of a stroll away.
Once, Undercrag had accommodated hospital offices at ground level, while live-in staff slept upstairs. Hannah and Marc had only afforded the mortgage thanks to a downward blip in the market, coupled with a legacy from Marc’s aunt, who succumbed to a stroke a fortnight short of her eightieth birthday. Although there were only the two of them, the habitable space seemed to have vanished within weeks of their moving in. Marc annexed the reception room next to the lounge as his office. Three bedrooms were crammed floor-to-ceiling with books. Stock, he called it. She blamed bibliomania, not the business.
‘Happy New Year, Fern.’
‘And to you. Hey, I resolved to treat myself after Christmas. My in-laws are all bloody vegans, it’s been a nightmare. I hate dieting, most of all when it’s a moral obligation. Fancy getting together for a bacon butty before work one morning?’
‘Love to.’
‘Excellent, who cares about blood pressure? I’m pig-sick of the ACC’s healthy-eating initiative. I refuse to spend the rest of my life worrying about clogged arteries.’
Fern, a fellow DCI, had lent a solid shoulder to cry on when Hannah’s career hit a rocky patch. Lauren Self, the assistant chief constable, had shunted her into cold case work, but Hannah preferred to investigate the crimes of today. Fern argued that a cold case cop had more latitude to involve herself directly in proper detective work than anyone of similar rank in the whole Cumbria Constabulary. Especially in an age when management was all about form-filling, targets, and league tables. The higher you climbed up the greasy pole, the further you were from what made you love the job in the first place.
‘Where and when?’
‘That snack bar on Beast Banks? Seven-thirty on Thursday?’
‘You can bring me up to date with the Saffell case.’
A fractional pause.
‘Actually, I’ll come clean. I do have a teeny ulterior motive.’
‘This isn’t just about boosting your cholesterol levels?’
‘We’re getting nowhere fast. Thought I might pick your brains.’
‘Told you last time we spoke. I only met Saffell the once.’
‘Even so.’ Fern coughed. ‘Anyway, the business stuff will only take five minutes. Then we can catch up properly.’
Hannah hung up and wandered back into the kitchen. She smelt burning as Marc lifted two crumpets out of the toaster.
‘What did Fern want?’
When police work intruded on their private time, he treated it as a personal affront. Similar principles didn’t apply with books and his customers.
‘To fix up a meeting, that’s all.’
He tossed a crumpet for each of them onto a plate and took a clean knife out of the dishwasher. ‘When are you seeing her?’
‘Thursday, once I’ve settled in my new sidekick.’
He cut his crumpet in half with a neat stroke of the blade. He had a surgeon’s dexterity, she thought. His hands were slim; she’d always liked them, and what he did with them, when he was in the right frame of mind.
‘You’ll miss Nick Lowther.’
Even Inspector Lestrade would have detected the note of satisfaction. Hannah gritted her teeth. Nick had been her detective sergeant on the Cold Case Review Team and they’d worked together for years. Marc had long been wary of their friendship, and his unvoiced, but unmistakeable, suspicion that they were more than friends had infuriated her. She’d never given him cause to doubt her fidelity.
None of that mattered now. Six months ago, Nick had met someone, and a fortnight before Christmas they had emigrated to Canada together. Marc was right. Nick’s departure had left a gap in Hannah’s life and she wasn’t sure how to fill it.
‘Uh-huh.’ She took the margarine out of the fridge and spread it over the crumpet.
‘Your new sergeant, what’s he like?’
‘Time will tell,’ she muttered. Unfair to make her mind up too soon, but one thing was for sure. Greg Wharf was no Nick Lowther.
‘It will work out fine.’
It should have been a kind remark, but he’d seldom been kind about Nick in the past and she couldn’t resist the urge to retaliate.
‘Will Cassie be at the party?’
He chewed hard for half a minute before speaking.
‘Cassie?’
‘You know.’ Of course he knew, he’d mentioned her a dozen times since she’d started work at the shop last autumn. Hannah had called in once, during the run-up to Christmas, to soothe the itch of curiosity. The girl was in her mid-twenties, fair and slim. During their short exchange of seasonal pleasantries, she gave the impression she wouldn’t say boo to a goose. But her figure was gorgeous and her eyes big and blue. She’d given Marc a jokey Christmas card, signed in an extravagant hand and adorned with half a dozen kisses. At least he’d made no secret of it, displaying it on the mantelpiece in the sitting room. Hannah hoped he wouldn’t be tempted to make a fool of himself. ‘Cassie Weston. Your own personal sidekick.’
‘Stuart Wagg asked me to pass on an invitation to her, as it happens. I didn’t even realise they’d met. She must have sold him some books. But she said she couldn’t make it. Came up with some excuse about spending the evening with her boyfriend in Grasmere.’
‘An excuse? Doesn’t she have a boyfriend?’
‘I’d be amazed if she didn’t. Very pretty girl.’
As you keep telling me, Hannah thought.
‘You think she was fibbing?’
‘Dunno, it just didn’t ring true. My guess is, she didn’t fancy a night out in a big crowd. She doesn’t strike me as a party animal.’
‘So, Cassie is like me?’
He considered the question as he gulped down the last of his crumpet, and opted for vagueness. Or tact.
‘Um. Sort of.’
‘So, what’s the latest on George Saffell?’ Marc asked.
They were in Hannah’s Lexus, driving through the darkness. Their destination was south of the Hawkshead ferry, a modern mansion hidden among the trees on the slopes above Windermere. Marc drove half as many miles in a year as she did, but he wasn’t a good passenger, and she never enjoyed chauffeuring him. When she’d owned a car with a manual gearbox, he twitched with every change of gear. Now she drove an automatic, he twitched all the time. She might have passed her advanced test, he might have picked up a couple of speeding tickets, but if she rounded a bend at speed, his intake of breath sounded like a pistol shot. If she took too long to set off when the lights turned green, his heel drummed on the floor mat in reproach.
‘Still dead, last I heard.’
‘You know what I mean.’ The habitual impatience flared, quick as the strike of a match. Hannah blamed his mother for spoiling him. Even this Christmas, the old lady hadn’t been able to resist the urge to straighten his collar and brush imaginary bits of fluff from his coat at every opportunity. She’d been in her forties when he was born and she couldn’t stop treating him like a precious gift. ‘Has Fern Larter figured out if it was murder?’
An old Beach Boys hit played on the in-car CD player. Smooth harmonies, a song about heroes and villains.
‘It’s for the coroner to decide, and the inquest was adjourned.’ She felt a flash of irritation. Why didn’t he show the same interest in her own investigations? But perhaps her reaction was unfair. After selling books to the man for years, he was bound to be intrigued by George Saffell’s bizarre demise. It wasn’t every day that one of his most valued customers was roasted alive. ‘Last time we spoke, Fern had pretty much ruled out an accident.’
‘Not surprised. Strange accident, huh? To incinerate yourself and your prized possessions. You think he killed himself?’
‘Funny way to do it,’ she said. ‘Burning yourself to a crisp, with no chance of second thoughts once the flames take hold.’
Saffell’s boathouse had been built of wood. Luxurious enough to feature in glossy lifestyle magazines, but never meant for round-the-year occupancy. Why would Saffell want to spend dark winter evenings there when he had a lovely place out at Troutbeck?
‘Books obsessed him,’ Marc said. ‘Perhaps he thought it was a fitting way to go.’
‘You’d have to be very unhappy to choose that ahead of an overdose of painkillers.’
‘Yeah, he hated pain. According to his wife, even a twinge of toothache made him whimper.’
‘You know her?’
They hadn’t spoken much about Saffell when they first learnt of his death. After initial expressions of shock and dismay, Marc lamented the loss of business. Not so much callous selfishness, as naked human nature. The two men were acquaintances, not friends. When a customer died, there was usually the prospect of buying his collection from the widow at a knock-down price, once a probate valuation at a pittance had been agreed. But even that consolation was denied. Four thousand books worth a small fortune, reduced to ash. For Marc, the destruction of rare books was a crime worse even than murder.
‘Wanda Saffell?’ Was it her imagination, or was he weighing up how much to say? ‘I’ve met her a few times, haven’t I mentioned it?’
‘Doesn’t ring a bell.’
‘You probably weren’t listening after a long day at Divisional HQ,’ he muttered.
‘I’m all ears now.’
‘Wanda was his second wife, the first died young of breast cancer. They married four or five years ago. She was a divorcee who shared his love of books.’
‘Another collector?’
‘No, she runs a small printing press as a hobby, publishes an occasional limited edition. Funded by George, but I get the impression they led separate lives.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said vaguely.
‘They hadn’t split up?’
‘Don’t think so. I kept my nose out.’
Having aroused her curiosity, he’d failed to satisfy it. Typical man.
‘The boathouse was gutted long before they brought the fire under control. It stood at the end of a track through woodland, and the alarm wasn’t raised until someone on the other side of Ullswater saw the place engulfed in flames. So Forensics didn’t have a lot to go on. There wasn’t much left of your customer, let alone all those books you sold him.’
Marc flinched in the passenger seat, and for once she thought it wasn’t on account of her driving. He didn’t lack imagination — how could he, a man who loved books so much? — and it didn’t do to dwell on the agonies that Saffell must have suffered. Even a few seconds before the final loss of consciousness must seem like an eternity while you burnt to death.
‘But they found traces of accelerant. Petrol.’
Marc groaned. ‘He may have kept fuel for a boat.’
‘Yeah, but there are signs that his wrists and ankles were tied.’
This was confidential, but Marc wouldn’t shoot his mouth off. He knew when to be discreet.
‘Jesus.’ He shivered. ‘Murder, then.’
‘Looks like it.’
‘Who would want to kill someone as harmless as George Saffell?’
‘Is anyone truly harmless?’
‘That’s a bit profound, Hannah, don’t you think? He was a quiet sort, nothing like the stereotype of a brash estate agent. Old George wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
‘Even so. He must have had an enemy.’
‘I can’t believe it.’
Hannah swore as a car raced up behind them, its full beam dazzling in her rear-view mirror. It overtook them before a bend, cutting back in so sharply that she had to jam her foot down on the brake. She had the impression of a sports car, low and sleek. Tyres squealing, it disappeared into the darkness.
‘Stupid bastard.’
Marc clicked his tongue.
‘Someone’s worried about arriving late for the party.’
‘For God’s sake. For all he cared, we could have crashed.’
‘What makes you think the driver’s a man?’ He seemed about to add something, but changed his mind. ‘Anyway, we survived. And here we are.’
Hannah pulled up in front of a long, narrow driveway that reached through an avenue of dark trees. The gates were open and the lights on top of the brick pillars shone bright. She peered at the house name, carved on a sign made of slate.
‘Crag Gill.’
‘Named after Miss Thornton’s house in The Picts and the Martyrs,’ Marc said, as if that explained everything.
The title of the book stirred a memory.
‘Arthur Ransome? The Swallows and Amazons man?’
‘Spot on. Stuart has catholic tastes, but he’s especially fond of children’s classics. He has every Ransome in first edition. Mind you, the stuff Ransome wrote for adults is even rarer.’
‘I didn’t realise he wrote for adults.’
‘Believe me, his study of Oscar Wilde is fabulously rare in dust wrapper. Lord Alfred Douglas sued him for libel, and even though Ransome won the case, the controversial bits were censored from the later editions. Then there was his book on Russian folklore. You know he married Trotsky’s secretary?’
It sounded wildly improbable, but Marc loved showing off the extraordinary range of trivia he’d accumulated about books and bookmen. She decided to give the answer he hoped for.
‘You’re kidding.’
‘It’s true, I swear it.’ He enjoyed the idea of startling her — perhaps because she was a sceptical police officer. ‘A dealer I know reckons that Ransome personally inscribed his collection of Russian folk tales to his chum Lenin. If it ever shows up, Stuart will be desperate to lay his hands on it, and he’s a man who likes to get what he wants. He’d trade his granny if he could get that book.’
‘So, he’s a true lawyer,’ Hannah murmured. ‘Caring and unselfish.’
‘You’re not going to be sarky with Stuart, are you? Chill out. Don’t forget he’s not just our host, he helps pay our mortgage.’
‘Trust me.’ She pressed her foot down and the car moved forward. ‘I’ll be on my best behaviour.’
Marc was right, she needed to chill out. Another New Year’s resolution. But an upmarket party wasn’t the best place to turn over a new leaf. From the moment a flunkey whisked away her coat as she stepped through the door into the vast living room of Crag Gill, Hannah realised she was out of her depth. She wasn’t accustomed to how the other half live.
A singer who had reached the final of Britain’s Got Talent was crooning ‘This Guy’s in Love with You’, accompanied by a pianist who bore a spooky resemblance to the late Liberace. Hannah overheard a perma-tanned presenter moaning about the demise of regional television to a quiz show hostess who was even more scantily clad off the screen than on. A pair of muscular foreign blokes dripping gold and jewellery were presumably premier league footballers. As Marc vanished into the crowd, she was plied with champagne by a handsome waiter who gave her a casual appraising glance before his eye roved past her, in the direction of a group of pretty girls in very short skirts, no doubt invited to keep the footballers onside.
Well, half a glass wouldn’t do any harm.
As she took a sip, a hand squeezed her wrist. It hurt a little.
‘Hannah, we meet again! And if I may say so, you’re looking lovelier than ever.’
Stuart Wagg was a lawyer, so Hannah supposed he was well versed in the art of embellishing the truth. He had the knack of blending flattery with a self-mocking smile, and as she withdrew from his grasp, she felt a surge of amused satisfaction at the compliment, rather than annoyance at slick and superficial charm. The halter-neck top had been a good idea, and she was glad she’d chosen the dangly earrings and charm bracelet. Marc had bought them as extra Christmas presents; along with a bottle of unexpectedly subtle perfume, they compensated for the tarty underwear.
‘How are you?’
He treated her to an ironic smile. ‘Keeping the wolf from the door.’
The entertaining room had a double-height glass wall overlooking the lake, but even with the curtains drawn apart and the terraced garden illuminated by complicated electronic gimmickry, the water was lost in the darkness. Despite its nostalgic name, Stuart Wagg’s home was defiantly twenty-first century, a triumph of modernist design. It was like a bunker cut into the hillside, boasting a seeded grass roof and constructed of timber and traditional stone. Stuart was six feet four and he’d made sure his home suited tall people. The armchairs were vast, even the sink in the cloakroom was set high. Instead of doors, archways separated the rooms, so the living space seemed almost endless. Six months ago, the place had featured in The Independent’s property supplement. Hannah recalled the journalist drooling over the white walls, plain elm floorboards and luxurious fabrics, positively swooning over the green silk and suede throw that adorned two L-shaped sofas. After weeks spent mining interior-decor magazines for cheap solutions to design challenges, she recognised ‘no expense spared’ when she saw it.
‘I see the economic downturn hasn’t touched the legal profession.’
His dark eyebrows jiggled. ‘It’s all about keeping up appearances.’
Stuart Wagg was lean and fit; she’d heard that, when he wasn’t chasing rare books to add to his collection, he spent his spare time tramping on his own across the fells. Black open-neck shirt, white trousers, big bare feet. A legal eagle without socks or shoes? No mistaking him for your average Lake District lawyer, toiling away over house conveyances or a neighbours’ boundary dispute in the county court. Stuart acted for millionaires, drafting wills and trusts so as to keep their fortunes out of the taxman’s clutches. His clients included sports agents and pop music impresarios and he was more at home lunching with media moguls at the Ivy in London than snacking in the cafeteria opposite his firm’s main office in Bowness. He avoided the hoi polloi in the criminal courts unless, as a rare favour, he agreed to represent a celebrity faced with a driving ban for racing his Ferrari along the A591 as though competing in the Monaco Grand Prix.
‘Is that so?’
‘Of course. We all take care about the picture we present of ourselves to the outside world. What lies beneath is much more fascinating, don’t you agree?’
He held her gaze, as if daring her to guess what was in his mind. Better not to know. All around were people talking at the tops of their voices. Stuart was a famously generous host and the Veuve Clicquot loosened tongues. With the heating on full blast, the crush of bodies made even this airy room seem stuffy and oppressive. Her head ached with the din and the lack of oxygen. Marc seemed captivated by a young redhead who was offering drink, canapes, and a generous display of tanned flesh.
Stuart’s eyes rested on a dark-haired woman in the throng. She was chatting to a tall, gaunt man in a white linen suit. Hannah recognised them both. The man’s mugshot had appeared in the local media following his arrival at the Cumbria Culture Company. Stuart Wagg’s firm had sponsored his recruitment, to run a literary festival in aid of cancer charities. Stuart fancied himself as a patron of the arts and worthy causes. With shaven head, tanned features, and coal-coloured eyes, the man’s looks were striking, but it was the woman who seized Hannah’s attention.
As she watched, a woman in a black dress joined the couple. Her blonde bob and glacial elegance would have set Alfred Hitchcock panting, but the champagne had brought a flush to her cheeks. Something about her was familiar, but Hannah couldn’t place it. Her arrival prompted the darkhaired woman to edge away through the crowd towards Stuart and Hannah.
‘There you are!’
Stuart Wagg took her arm, lazily proprietorial. As if she were a book in his collection that he might trade in for a finer copy.
‘I was starting to worry that you might have had a better offer,’ he said, with the smug self-deprecating smile of a man confident that such a thing could never happen.
The woman squeezed his hand and said in a disbelieving tone, ‘From Arlo Denstone?’
‘Good-looking feller,’ he teased.
‘Not my type.’
‘Phew, that’s a relief. Now, let me introduce you to Detective Chief Inspector Hannah Scarlett, one of Cumbria Constabulary’s finest. Hannah, please meet a dear friend of mine. Louise Kind.’
Louise looked her straight in the eye, but Hannah didn’t want to be the first to blink. This was the sister of Daniel, and daughter of Ben. Two men who meant a good deal to her, though she’d always been reluctant to ask herself why. She wore a belted, Grecian-style dress with a plunging neckline and a discreet diamond necklace that must have cost a fortune. The last time Hannah had seen her, Louise had been encased in a shapeless jacket and corduroy jeans. Admittedly, that had been out of doors at a skydiving display, but even so, the graceless duckling had transformed into a glamorous swan.
‘We’ve met before.’
‘Really, darling?’ Stuart Wagg’s bushy eyebrows skipped again in their quizzical dance. ‘You never told me you were in cahoots with the local constabulary.’
‘My brother introduced us. It’s a small world. Hannah used to work with our father. Isn’t that so, DCI Scarlett?’
‘Small world is right.’ Hannah nodded. ‘Good to see you again, Louise.’
She was conscious of her host’s scrutiny. It made her feel like a courtroom exhibit, or an ill-drafted codicil to a miser’s last will and testament. Her cheeks burnt, though surely it was ludicrous to be embarrassed by meeting the sister of Daniel Kind.
‘Must circulate.’ Stuart Wagg gave Louise a nod of dismissal. ‘See you later.’
‘So, you and Stuart are together?’ Hannah asked when he was out of earshot.
‘Sort of.’ Louise fingered the necklace in an abstracted manner. A Christmas present from Stuart, no doubt. He’d probably just walked into the jeweller’s and asked for the priciest necklace in the shop. ‘It’s a very recent thing. We met at a legal conference. You might remember, I used to lecture in Manchester. I’ve only just arrived up here.’
‘You’ve moved in?’
‘Mmmm…’ An evasive smile. ‘Let’s say, it’s too far to commute with comfort and I didn’t only want to be a weekend visitor. We’ve just spent our first Christmas together, and I feel extra lucky. I start a brand-new job at the University of South Lakeland next term.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘Well…let’s see how things turn out.’ Louise fiddled with her bracelet. ‘How come you know Stuart?’
‘My partner Marc owns a second-hand bookshop.’ Hannah caught sight of him on the other side of the room, accepting the waitress’s offer to replenish his glass of champagne with a broad grin. ‘Stuart’s one of his best customers.’
Louise tapped the side of her head. ‘Doh! I should have made the connection. See, I never inherited those detective skills.’
It was on the tip of Hannah’s tongue to say: Not like Daniel. But she didn’t want to be the first to speak his name.
‘Your father taught me all I know about detective work.’
‘He’d have been proud of your success. Head of the Cold Case Review Team? A top job.’
‘It’s a backwater,’ Hannah said. ‘I was steered into it after I messed up on a case, and I haven’t managed to worm my way out of it.’
‘But you enjoy being a detective.’ A statement, not a question. ‘Daniel was sure you did.’
Hannah clenched her fist, as if she’d scored a goal. Louise had mentioned him first.
‘He was right. I was always ambitious. Driven, your father said.’
‘Like Daniel,’ Louise said. ‘Or at least like Daniel used to be.’
‘Has he changed?’
‘You know his partner Aimee died?’
Hannah nodded. Aimee was the journalist Miranda’s predecessor; she and Daniel had been together when he worked in Oxford and built a lucrative career writing history books and adapting them for television. By the sound of things, Aimee had been a flake, and in the end she committed suicide. After that, Daniel wanted a complete break, and as soon as he met Miranda, he’d abandoned the dreaming spires for the Lake District. The cottage in Brackdale became his bolt-hole, until Miranda went back home to London, and left him with fresh wounds to lick.
‘It must have been very hard for him.’
‘Aimee’s death put his career into perspective. But you can’t mourn for ever. I want to see that old hunger in him again.’
‘People don’t really change.’ As she spoke, Hannah realised she believed this, with a passion. ‘Not in fundamentals.’
‘If you’re right, those cold cases should fire your own enthusiasm.’
‘At least they give me the chance to be a detective again. Your father warned me, the higher I climbed, the further away from real police work I’d find myself. The upper echelons are for political movers and shakers. Not people who simply want to solve crimes.’
‘I remember Dad saying that,’ Louise murmured. ‘Before he left us for his fancy woman.’
‘It must have been tough for you when Ben left home.’
‘For all of us. Daniel, me, our mother.’ Louise sighed. ‘It’s history now. As much in the past as the stuff Daniel studies.’
Hannah could resist temptation no longer.
‘So, what is he up to these days?’
‘You don’t keep in touch?’
Hannah shook her head. ‘He went to America.’
‘There’s always email.’ Louise pursed her lips, like a schoolmarm disappointed by a feeble answer from an otherwise diligent pupil. ‘He didn’t intend to be away for long, but one thing led to another and he finished up on a lecture tour. He only arrived back in England yesterday.’
‘He’s back in the Lakes again?’
‘At Tarn Cottage, yes. Brackdale is his home, don’t forget.’
‘I heard,’ Hannah said carefully, ‘that Miranda wanted them to move to London.’
‘Miranda?’ Louise didn’t bother to hide her scorn. ‘That’s over and done with, surely you heard? If you ask me, it was never going to last. Chalk and cheese. She wasn’t right for Daniel.’
Louise must already have had two or three drinks. The first time they’d met, she’d seemed buttoned up, someone who never gave anything away. Her candour was as unexpected as the low-cut Grecian gown.
Hannah took a sip of lemonade. Thank God the need to drive Marc home had kept her sober. She mustn’t give too much away.
‘Please pass on my regards.’
‘You can always lift up the phone yourself.’
That was more like the Louise of old. Awkward and blunt as a Coniston crag.
‘Perhaps, one of these days.’
‘I expect he’ll give you a call. He may even want to pick your brains.’
‘Unlikely, I think. An Oxford don…’
‘You’re an expert in murder, aren’t you?’
Hannah stared. ‘Murder?’
‘Didn’t you know? It’s his latest obsession, it’s the reason Arlo Denstone persuaded him to be keynote speaker at his Thomas De Quincey Festival. Murder considered as one of the fine arts.’
‘You mean-?’
A woman cried out, a sound of anger mixed with pain. Hannah spun round, in time to see the Hitchcock blonde lift her full glass of red wine and throw its contents at her companion.
Arlo Denstone’s white teeth maintained their sardonic gleam even as the wine dripped from his cheek and chin, and down his white jacket.
The woman made a choking noise, as though she’d been strangled, and ran for the door.
For a couple of seconds, nobody moved, nobody made a sound. Stuart Wagg was first to react. As the door banged shut behind the woman, he moved after her, followed by a handsome Asian man in a well-cut suit. Their swift, silent strides reminded Hannah of two panthers in pursuit of their prey.
The night blazed. Shell after shell cracked like gunfire, now bursting into stars of red and white and gold, now splitting into shoals of fish swimming through the darkness, now fanning out as silver snakes that slid across the sky.
Stuart Wagg stood in front of his guests as they watched the fireworks. Feet planted on a low brick wall that fringed a circular paved area, he was bathed in light cast by lamps set above the glazed doors, holding a microphone in his hand like a singer on a stage. That little drama indoors half an hour earlier might never have happened. Arlo Denstone had changed into a striped blazer borrowed from his host and stood admiring the display as if he didn’t have a care in the world. Stuart puffed his chest out like a benevolent Victorian squire, presiding over an assembly of tenant farmers.
Crag Gill basked in ever-changing coloured lights. To Hannah, it looked more like a spaceship than a home. She glanced over her shoulder. Away from the crowd, and in the shadows, Louise Kind shifted from one foot to another. Her expression was impossible to read. She didn’t like the limelight, unlike her lover.
Stuart lifted his champagne glass with a flourish and bellowed into the microphone.
‘Happy New Year, everybody!’
As people drank and marvelled at the cascades of fire above them, Hannah spotted Marc. His gait was unsteady and he kept spilling his champagne as he traced a zigzag route over the grass towards her.
‘Darling!’ Christ, he was slurring already. Just as well they’d arrived later than most of the other guests. He’d never been a hardened boozer, and it didn’t take much to get him pissed. ‘Happy New Year!’
She tilted her glass and turned her cheek to allow him to kiss it. Instead he fumbled for her backside.
‘Come on, Marc. You’ve had enough.’
‘Why must you always be such a spoilsport?’ His breath felt hot on her neck. ‘I mean, we can’t leave yet. It would look rude.’
She had to raise her voice to make herself heard above the din of the fireworks. ‘I don’t want you falling flat on your face. We’ve had one scene here already tonight.’
He chortled. ‘Excellent, wasn’t it?’
A barrage of coloured cornets shot into the sky, transforming into graceful palms, followed by candles that soared and roared and became golden branches, seeming to reach almost to the people gathered on the ground. They gazed up to the heavens and held their breath, wondering what might come next.
Hannah feigned covering her ears as another explosion echoed in them. How many thousands of pounds going up in smoke, right in front of their eyes? Stuart Wagg never knew when to stop. He had no restraint.
‘So, you know the woman who had the hissy fit?’
He smirked. ‘You’ll never guess her name.’
‘No need to guess, though I should have recognised her from the press pictures. Louise Kind told me she is Wanda Saffell.’
Yes, the recently widowed Wanda. Out on the razzle with her husband barely cold in the grave? A bit naughty, on the face of it, but Hannah knew better than to jump to conclusions. The fact the woman had chucked her drink at her companion and then run weeping from the room showed that her nerves were in bad shape.
‘You always know everything,’ he mumbled.
‘If only.’
‘All right, then. What was all the fuss about?’
‘Good question.’ Hannah found herself itching to know the answer.
‘Tell you one thing.’ He leant towards her. ‘You were wrong about the driver who nearly ran into us out in the lane. That wasn’t some boy racer, it was Wanda.’
‘You think so?’
‘A waitress told me she’d only arrived five minutes before us. Marched in and grabbed a glass of champagne, then knocked it back in a couple of gulps and demanded a refill.’
Hannah looked round. ‘Is she still here?’
‘Raj Doshi, one of Stuart’s partners, gave her a lift home. Said she wasn’t fit to drive in her sports car.’
‘We’ll make a detective of you yet.’
‘If you ask me, that woman has anger management issues.’
‘Psychologist as well as detective, eh? Come on, time to go.’
As she took Marc’s arm and headed back for the warm indoors, she recalled the sight of Arlo Denstone, fishing a handkerchief out of his pocket. Still with the hint of a smile on his face, he’d begun to mop his cheeks as a dull crimson stain spread across the front of his jacket.
Anyone would think Wanda Saffell had stabbed him in the heart.