The Arsenic Labyrinth Read online

  ‘I might like to stick around for a while. If it’s not too much trouble.’

  ‘Trouble? Nothing of the kind, it’s an absolute pleasure. How long would you like to stay?’

  ‘Depends on arrangements with my associates in Geneva.’ He sighed, a fast-moving executive at the mercy of tedious colleagues. ‘You’ll have to promise to kick me out the moment you want a bit of peace and quiet!’

  ‘No danger of that.’ As she reached over for the teapot, her hand grazed his. ‘Two’s company, as they say.’

  He allowed her to pour him a second cup. In time you could acclimatise to anything, even Co-op tea bags. He was a man at ease with himself, as relaxed as though he’d been luxuriating in a jacuzzi. As it happened, the water heater in the basement was on the blink, but never mind. His luck was on the turn. Maybe tonight he’d be bathing upstairs, together with Sarah.

  Guy recalled Megan, head lifted as she announced her ultimatum. If he wanted any more of her cash, things would have to change. They would get engaged, start behaving like a normal couple. If he didn’t like it, he could lump it. And repay what she’d lent him. And, and, and … well, he’d stopped listening. At last he saw Megan for what she was, a self-righteous young woman with a scrawny neck. For a fleeting moment he’d been tempted to put his hands around the pale pink flesh. It would be so easy to squeeze the breath out of her.

  If she could see him now. Sarah was much more accommodating, in every sense. He deserved a bit of good fortune. As a boy in the Home, he’d imagined himself as a prince, immensely popular and possessed of untold wealth, yet condemned to penury and loneliness through a spell cast by a jealous wizard. The fantasy stayed with him for years, but when at last he was granted the freedom and riches he’d yearned for, all too soon he’d frittered them away.

  He was ready for a second crack at the good life. By calling Tony Di Venuto, he’d done the right thing. Paid his dues. The authorities would set wheels in motion. He was hazy about official procedures, but before long Emma’s body would be found and she could be given a belated Christian burial. Karen Erskine could get on with the rest of her life while the journalist earned kudos for breaking the story. Leaving Guy to make the most of his new life in which everybody was a winner.

  Just like the endings to the stories he’d made up as a kid. Happy ever after.

  Inchmore Hall, home to Cumbria’s Museum of Myth and Legend, stood on the edge of the village in grounds extending over six acres, up to the lower reaches of Wetherlam. The hall was a grey monstrosity of Victorian Gothic, boasting turrets, tall chimneys, and black and white gables, the whole edifice surmounted by an extravagant tower with a copper top. Blinds were drawn at the ground floor windows, protecting the exhibits from non-existent sunlight. Copper beeches and dank rhododendron bushes masked the curving drive. A signboard beside the stone gateposts cautioned that during the winter season, opening hours were by appointment only. Hannah parked outside the canopied front door and ran up a flight of worn stone steps to ring the bell.

  ‘Yes?’

  The woman framed in the doorway wore a black trouser suit, so simple and chic that it must have cost a mint. Short dark hair contrasted with luminous skin. Her forehead was high, her chin sharp. She wore dangly sun and moon ear-rings and a crucifix of ebony and silver hung from her neck. Alexandra Clough’s signed statement suggested intelligence and a calm reluctance to give more away than she wished to reveal. So did her unflickering gaze as Hannah flourished her ID.

  Alex led the way with dainty, precise steps into a galleried entrance hall. The ground floor was crowded with pots of dusty palms and aspidistras. Carved pitch panelling covered the walls and an arch-shaped stained-glass window at the far end of the hall depicted a purple sunset over brooding fells. The air was so cold that Hannah expected to see icicles on the huge brass candle-holders. She shivered.

  ‘Sorry we don’t keep the heating on when we’re not open to the public. We don’t receive any funding from the council, so we need to make economies.’ Alex unlocked a heavy door. ‘We can talk in my office. It’s a little warmer there.’

  Only by a couple of degrees, Hannah discovered. Alex waved her into a leather-backed chair and sat behind a desk large enough to massage the ego of a tycoon. The electric reading lamp and computer squatting in front of her was the only concession to the twenty-first century. Bookcases stuffed with calfskin-bound tomes lined the walls, two gilt-framed oil-paintings occupied the corner alcoves behind her. A middle-aged man with a clipped moustache leaned on a walking stick in one picture. He wore a pin-striped suit and a frown suggesting that he didn’t suffer portrait painters gladly. In the other, a young woman with high cheekbones and an evening dress of pale blue tulle displaying plump milky-white breasts. Was it mere fancy to detect a resemblance between this woman and Alex Clough?

  Alex Clough caught Hannah’s gaze. ‘My grandparents, Chief Inspector. Armstrong and Betty Clough. She was rather beautiful, don’t you agree?’

  Hannah nodded. ‘Did you know her?’

  ‘Oh yes. My grandfather died soon after I was born, but she lived until she was eighty-six. A remarkable woman, we were very close. Now, you are reviewing Emma’s disappearance. How can I help?’

  Hannah shifted in her chair. It was old and uncomfortable, like everything she’d seen of Inchmore Hall. ‘I’d be grateful if you could tell me about your relationship with her. How it began, why it ended.’

  Alex took a breath and Hannah guessed that she’d rehearsed her answer. ‘She joined us twelve months before she vanished. At this time of year, we look to recruit in good time for the season. Apart from temporary staff and maintenance people, we only have one clerical post. Our previous administrator deserted us for a better paid job in Carlisle and so there was a vacancy. Emma had flitted from job to job. At one point she was employed on a short-term contract at the Liverpool Museum. Inchmore is scarcely in that league, but at least she had relevant experience and my father liked that.’

  ‘It was his decision to take her on?’

  ‘Then, as now, I was the manager here. But my father created this museum, Chief Inspector. He remains passionately committed to it and I consult him on all business matters. If you are wondering whether I recruited Emma because I was attracted to her, the answer is no.’

  ‘She’d tired of city life?’

  ‘Growing up in the countryside, she thought she was missing out on the bright lights. When the lights stopped dazzling her, she saw all the urban grime. Eventually she realised that the grass really was greener back home in the Lakes.’

  ‘Did she keep in touch with anyone in Merseyside?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. Emma never kept up with people she went to school with, either. She didn’t make friends easily.’

  ‘Even so, the two of you became close. How did that come about?’

  ‘How do these things ever come about?’

  Hannah glared at her watch. She was in no mood for fencing.

  Alex fiddled with her earrings. ‘I suppose … Emma excited my curiosity.’

  ‘Well, this is a museum. A place to study exhibits.’

  Tiny teeth showed in a mirthless smile. ‘Do I sound cold-blooded? I’m paying you the compliment of telling the truth, rather than fobbing you off with a self-serving lie. On first acquaintance, Emma seemed quiet and timid. I thought she was pretty, but she lacked confidence. When she was a teenager, she put on puppy fat and she used to say that she only had to look at a bar of chocolate to put on weight.’

  Hannah thought of Emma’s puzzled look, captured by the photographer. ‘She was unsure of herself.’

  ‘Yes, her self-image was poor. She compared her looks unfavourably with her sister’s and her solution was to fade into the background. Yet the more I got to know her, the more I became convinced she was as capable of passion as my father. The difference was that she’d never found anything to become passionate about.’

  ‘Did she care about her work here?’

  ‘
At first, yes. Even if she did leave school at sixteen with few qualifications to her name, she was bright. I’m afraid our universities these days are overflowing with students with far less native intelligence than Emma. The trouble was, she had a lazy streak. Once she lost interest, she didn’t put in the effort. She gave up too easily, that was why she kept changing jobs. She was looking for something she could commit to, long term. Something special.’ Alex sighed. ‘But with Emma, nothing lasted. Her moods kept swinging.’

  ‘When did the two of you first get together?’

  ‘Within a month of her starting. She was helping me one night with an application for a grant towards our running costs. Tiresome, long-winded form-filling, but important. The upkeep of this building costs an arm and a leg and the paying customers contribute buttons towards our overheads. Any scraps of outside funding are welcome. The cleaners had finished for the day and Father was speaking at a black tie dinner in Leeds. I told Emma how as a young man he’d dreamed of creating a museum to celebrate his fascination with the legends that swirl around the Lakes like fog. It was our first intimate conversation. Once we’d finalised the figures, I dug a bottle of rather nice wine out of Father’s private cellar. He and I have our quarters upstairs and in those days my grandmother lived here too. After I invited her to my sitting room, one thing duly led to another.’

  Hannah glanced at the portrait of Armstrong Clough. For a moment she fancied she caught him scowling at the way feckless young women behave nowadays. His demeanour suggested it would have been different in his day. Poor, pretty Betty probably led a dog’s life.

  ‘You weren’t in a relationship at the time?’

  Alex shook her head. ‘After a couple of years of living like a nun, all the pent-up emotion came flooding out. For Emma it was much the same that night, I think. When she told me that she had very little experience of sex, I believed her. Let me speak bluntly, Chief Inspector. There was a – a clumsy innocence about her love-making that I found captivating. Her enthusiasm compensated for any lack of sophistication.’

  ‘Did she speak about her own previous relationships?’

  ‘Never. We assured each other that there hadn’t been anyone serious before and that was all that mattered. For myself, it was true. I suspect it was the same for Emma.’

  ‘Had she ever had a boyfriend?’

  ‘She’d experimented with boys in her teens. Because it was the done thing, rather than from genuine lust. No one lit her fire.’

  ‘Except you?’

  A smile as frosty as February. ‘I should not flatter myself, Chief Inspector. I thought we had a match made in heaven, but this time I was the naïve one. I’m not sure Emma was cut out for relationships. At first she was intensely possessive, wanted to be with me every hour of every day. But that soon waned and before long she was happier with her own company. Sex mattered even less to her than to me. I lost the ability to excite her.’

  ‘And how did you react to that?’

  ‘Looking back, I see the mistakes I made. When an affair is crumbling around your ears, it’s difficult to be objective. We worked side by side all day, every day, and it wasn’t healthy. It is possible to be too close, don’t you agree?’

  Hannah said nothing, waited for her to continue.

  ‘I pushed too hard, and soon she was keeping me at arm’s length. On good days she was delightful company, but she could be moody and uncommunicative. It hurt that she’d rather scuttle off back to her rented room than stay here with me, in my marvellous home.’

  Hannah could understand what drove Emma off to the sanctuary of Thurston Water House. Inchmore might be marvellous, but it was also dark, vast and intimidating. The architect must have read too many Gothic novels. After a day closeted in here, a rented room surrounded by people who made no demands might become a longed-for haven.

  ‘Did you remain friends?’

  ‘I couldn’t accept that our affair had passed its sell-by date. Working so closely together made matters worse. Each day I was giving her instructions, and she wanted to be left to her own devices. It was bound to end in tears.’

  ‘And did it?’

  Alex Clough said softly, ‘The last day she worked here, she cried her heart out.’

  She hadn’t mentioned this during the original inquiry. That was an upside of cold case work. Interviewed after a gap of years, people forgot past evasions, as well as details of the lies they had told.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She’d taken a couple of days off sick and was falling behind with her jobs. I asked if she was working to rule. Not very witty, but I was shocked when she burst into tears, and devastated when she accused me of bullying her because our affair had hit the buffers. I was sure she didn’t mean what she said, and I tried not to let my feelings show. I told her to go home and get over it. She never came back’

  ‘How did your father take all this?’

  ‘We didn’t discuss the situation. Too embarrassing. But he understood what I was going through and he was always sweet to Emma. There was never a cross word between them.’

  ‘She went off sick with stress.’

  ‘According to the doctor’s certificate.’

  ‘You don’t sound convinced.’

  ‘Come on, Chief Inspector. How difficult is it to get a busy GP to sign you off if you don’t fancy turning in for work?’

  ‘You think she was shooting you a line?’

  Alex shifted uncomfortably. ‘If Emma was suffering from stress, it wasn’t my fault. There was no question of my victimising her because she didn’t want to sleep with me any more.

  ‘She was off work for half a year. That must have caused you enormous difficulty. Not to mention cost.’

  ‘You exaggerate. As for expense, I’m afraid our sick pay scheme is not exactly generous. We pay the statutory minimum. A temp came in from an agency and Father and I put in long hours to make sure the museum wasn’t affected by Emma’s absence. I won’t pretend it was ideal, but we got by.’

  ‘I read in your statement that you asked her to undergo an independent medical examination.’

  ‘I didn’t want her to feel under pressure to rush back before she was better, so for months I was patient. But how long could I be expected to wait? In the end, I wrote to Emma, suggesting we pay for a check-up. Before that, I’d phoned the Goddards more than once and asked if I could arrange to visit her, but they said Emma had asked not to see me. That hurt, all I was interested in was her welfare. Vanessa was apologetic and said she and her husband still hoped Emma would come round.’

  ‘But she didn’t.’

  ‘On one occasion I spoke to Francis and suggested that Emma consult a psychiatrist. I didn’t doubt that, as a nurse, he was caring well for her, but I was sure she needed specialist help. To his credit, Francis agreed. He said he’d already persuaded Emma to see someone. But before an appointment could be arranged, I received a letter from her, tendering her resignation and proffering apologies for having messed me about. I gave a copy to your colleague who interviewed me.’

  ‘So you didn’t have to pay her any compensation?’

  ‘Compensation for what?’

  Hannah shrugged. ‘Constructive dismissal, sexual harassment, damage to emotional well-being. Employing people is a minefield, isn’t it?’

  ‘We’ve never had a problem.’ The temperature in the room was dropping with every sentence. ‘Not with Emma and not in the ten years since. I hear there’s a compensation culture in the police service, but the private sector is different. Small employers like the museum don’t fork out large sums to pacify disgruntled workers, they can’t afford it.’

  ‘Litigation lawyers conjure claims out of nothing.’ Hannah chose a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger smile. ‘A boss who has an affair with a worker that turns sour is vulnerable to all kinds of unfounded allegations.’

  Alex clenched the computer mouse as if it were a stress ball. ‘It’s academic. Emma never threatened legal action. We paid her up to the end of he
r notice period as a goodwill gesture, that’s all.’

  ‘No golden handshake?’

  ‘Not a penny more than she was due.’

  ‘Then where did she get the cash to buy a house and car and start her own business?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

  ‘She told different tales. An inheritance, a lottery win. Neither was true.’

  ‘She said to Father it was lottery money. I knew she picked the same numbers each week, it was the closest she came to a religious ritual. When I heard it had paid off, I was genuinely thrilled for her.’

  ‘No bitterness?’

  ‘Like my father, I adhere to the philosophy of Edith Piaf. No regrets. Yes, I was bruised, but I got over it. After Emma resigned, we stayed in touch. Which is why your theory that she held us to ransom over an employment claim is absurd. The flame may have died, but there was no ill will between us.’

  ‘When did you last see her?’

  ‘I visited her bungalow a couple of days before she disappeared. She seemed fully recovered. I was so glad to see her happy. I told her I hadn’t been sleeping well and she lectured me on herbalism, holistic therapies and maintaining the body’s natural equilibrium. Guff, perhaps, but she was brimming with zest. It reminded me of her early days at the museum.’

  ‘You went for a massage?’

  ‘Please don’t look so prim, Chief Inspector, I’m sure you’ve encountered more shocking confessions. She offered me a free initial consultation and we both kept our knickers on.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Hannah had worked out that Alex’s conversational m.o. was to use frankness as a weapon. Was the candour more apparent than real, a device to conceal what was really going on in her head?

  ‘Emma applied pressure to my feet with her hands. She was good at it. I always loved to be touched by her, but of course nothing sexual took place.’

  ‘Were you disappointed?’

  Alex Clough shuffled a couple of sheets of paper on her desk, aligning their corners so that they were neat and tidy. Without looking up, she said in a voice of infinite calm, ‘On the contrary, I had a glow of well-being and relaxation. You should try it, Chief Inspector.’