“Poor Ruby,” Muriel said. “I’m not surprised that everyone’s so stressed. Poor Russell, too. It’s such a traumatic thing to happen so close to them, so very close. It turns your life upside down. You feel like nothing’s safe.”
“Oh, yes,” I said, although I had felt like nothing was safe long before Isaac’s death, and wondered at the strength of Muriel’s somewhat delayed reaction to it. She looked as if she had been crying. I vaguely supposed that at her age, any death was an unwelcome reminder of mortality. I had no idea of what to say to comfort her. I was too young for this.
I’d ridden the scooter into Ambleside in an attempt to get away from the tensions of Raven How, for Russell was still blackly smouldering and Ruby’s lofty disregard did not improve his temper. I couldn’t stand it there much longer. But neither could I seek refuge at the farm: Selena would most likely throw me out again, while Bryony was busy with her lambs and did not need an incompetent helper.
To cap it all, I’d had a terse rejection from the Ruskin Hotel. So I spent a dispiriting morning traipsing through the drizzle from one Ambleside hotel to another, hunting for a job. As soon as I mentioned my conviction they all remembered they had a full complement of staff for the summer and wouldn’t need any more, thank you.
At last, wet and dejected, I had knocked on Muriel’s door for some sympathy and a cup of tea. But it was she who needed the sympathy, it seemed. Her face was drawn and her hand trembled round her mug. She dropped the plate of biscuits all over the floor.
“Don’t worry, love,” said Geoff, picking them up. “We should have a dog for this, eh?” Once he’d been introduced to me, he’d been as cheerful and polite as ever. Now he put a big hand gently round her shoulders. “Are you feeling all right, Muriel? You’re looking tired. You’ve been working too hard: wasn’t I right when I told you we should have a holiday?”
At that Muriel laughed with, I thought, an edge of hysteria.
“Maybe you should go for a lie down,” suggested Griff.
“Yes, why don’t you?” I said. “Or you could go out and have some time to yourself. I don’t mind staying for a while.” I did mind, but felt I had to offer.
Muriel shook her head. “No, no, you’ve got things to do. Maybe another day. But I am glad you’ve come round, Eden. While you’re here, there’s something – well, something I need to discuss with you.”
“What, won’t I do? Woman’s talk, I suppose,” said Griff with sad geniality.
“Not exactly, Griff.” She put her hands distractedly to her face and rubbed her cheeks. “I just can’t think straight. I’ve not been sleeping well since Isaac’s death.”
“Isaac was one of her colleagues,” said Griff to me confidentially. “Tragic. A stroke, wasn’t it, Muriel?”
“Something like that,” she said. “It has me worried, to be honest.”
“Why?” Griff and I spoke together: looked at each other and smiled.
“I hardly know how to say this.” Muriel bit her lip. “I thought of speaking to your nice policeman. In fact, we went into the police station yesterday.”
“Did you?” said Griff, startled. “Who did you go with? What for?”
“It was about Isaac. I wanted to speak to Sergeant Brigg, but he wasn’t there: just a tall girl at the desk, and a jolly inspector.”
“That would be Larry Irlam,” I said.
“I didn’t know what to say to him. I ended up asking about parking restrictions instead, like a fool. It was a stupid idea anyway – it’s just that I can’t get it out of my head…”
“What was a stupid idea?”
“Tell,” said Griff. “I’m intrigued.”
“Well, it’s to do with Freddie. Freddie at the bookshop, Griff; you know? Matt rang me up. That’s his new boyfriend, Griff. Newish. Oh, never mind… Anyway, Matt’s a bit frantic, poor boy. He wanted to come round and talk, but I said not with Griff here.”
“Why not?” said Griff. “I like a good intrigue. Do you think I can’t keep a secret, Muriel?”
“Matt’s frantic?” I said, disbelieving. It wasn’t a word I would have associated with the calm, collected Matt. Although, admittedly, he had seemed less collected lately.
“He doesn’t know what to do,” said Muriel. “He found my number on Freddie’s phone and rang me, I think to try and find out what Freddie might have been saying to me. You remember, Eden, I told you about Freddie being worried?”
“Er, vaguely. Wasn’t he anxious about Matt leaving him?” I glanced at Griff, who was looking interested if slightly bemused.
Muriel drew in a shaky breath. “Well, it’s Matt who’s worried now. He’s in a real flap. But he keeps saying there’ll be a perfectly good explanation.”
“For what?”
“For why Freddie wasn’t where he said he was on the day of Isaac’s death.”
I thought for a moment. “Wasn’t he at a house clearance in Carlisle or somewhere? He got a load of books there. Matt mentioned that he’d brought a couple of boxes back.”
“That’s right,” she said. “But when Matt unpacked them and was sorting through them, he found a charity shop leaflet from Lancaster at the bottom of the box.”
“Well, that needn’t mean anything,” I said, and Griff nodded wise agreement although I doubted if he knew what to.
Muriel sighed and pushed her rumpled hair back with a well-manicured hand. “It needn’t. But it does. Matt didn’t want to ask Freddie for an explanation: he said things were bad enough... He was all in a dither, so I rang the charity shop in Lancaster. I thought it might put his mind at rest.”
I couldn’t imagine Matt in a dither; but love, I knew, played havoc with composure. Just look at me – falling to bits at a single text from Nick. Dejection balled up in my throat again. “And?”
“Well, I described Freddie to them on the phone and they said, Oh yes, we remember him coming in on the Monday afternoon, quite late on. Just before they closed at four.”
“How would they remember him?” I objected. “They must get loads of customers.”
“But this one emptied their bookshelves. Asked for a couple of boxes and just swept all the books off the shelf into them without even looking at them. He said they were for stage props. I described Freddie and the description tallied. So you see.” I saw.
“I didn’t know Freddie trod the boards,” said Griff. “A man of many talents.”
“If the house clearance was no good, maybe he didn’t want to come back empty-handed,” I suggested.
“Why not?” countered Muriel. “Anyway, Carlisle is seventy miles from Lancaster. It’s in totally the opposite direction. He wouldn’t have gone all that way just for a few worthless books.”
I bit my lip. I knew what Muriel must be thinking: the same thought had briefly crossed my mind outside Freddie’s shop, when I’d asked Matt if he was sure Freddie had been in Carlisle. Matt had had no concerns then. But to get to Lancaster by four from Borran’s Rigg would be no problem, I reflected unhappily. My stomach turned in a mixture of dismay and fear.
“You’re wondering if Freddie might have had anything to do with–” I glanced again at Griff – “with Isaac. But there could be any number of other explanations.” I was trying to convince myself as much as her. “And why? What could Freddie possibly have had against him?”
“Good question,” said Griff, nodding.
“I don’t know,” admitted Muriel.
“So couldn’t there be a perfectly innocuous reason?” I insisted. “Maybe Freddie just didn’t fancy going to the house clearance but didn’t want to tell Matt. Maybe he went on a bender. He does seem to be drinking.”
“I think Matt had already considered that. He said Freddie was behaving oddly but didn’t seem to be drunk that day. Matt did wonder about drugs, though. He actually hunted round the flat just in case.”
“And did he find anything?”
“He said he found something called amyl nitrate. Is that uppers or downers or whatever they call them?”
>
“Poppers,” I said. “Technically I think you’d class those as uppers.” I decided not to tell her in what respect.
“Well, the inescapable conclusion is that Freddie’s lying, and while that would obviously make Matt unhappy at any time it’s the fact that it was on that particular day that’s made him so anxious.”
“I can’t imagine Freddie lying,” said Griff. “He strikes me as a decent chap, Freddie.”
“Me too,” I said. But a picture rose before my mind’s eye – Coniston Old Man smeared with mud and lying in the yard. Freddie had his pick of those. That wasn’t all: I heard his caustic voice declaiming at the dinner party. Eden always has mints.
I shook my head vigorously, trying to dispel the possibility. “No, no! None of this makes sense. As far as I know, Freddie hadn’t even met Isaac before Ruby’s do.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Muriel. “But they had met, according to Matt. He said that wasn’t the first occasion; Ruby kept trying to bring Freddie and Isaac together as if she thought they should be friends. But they never hit it off.”
“Has Matt broached this with Freddie?”
“Not yet,” said Muriel.
“You want me to go and talk to Sergeant Brigg?” I asked with some dread. I really didn’t want to face Hunter right now.
“I don’t know,” she said, her brow creasing. “I felt so foolish when I went to the station before. I mean, how do you say something like that? It’s very likely Freddie just has private business that he wants to keep private.”
“Don’t we all,” said Griff.
“But Matt’s so anxious, poor boy! And to be honest…”
“What?”
She sighed and rubbed her hands down her face again. They seemed to leave more lines behind. “I can’t get Isaac’s death out of my head. Ever since you said you weren’t convinced it was an accident. It’s just the thought that someone we know might be…” She gestured helplessly.
“Come now,” said Griff gently. “Don’t get worked up.”
“It was an accident,” I said, even though I didn’t believe it. “That’s official, now.” I wished I’d never mentioned the discarded painting to her, or my idea that it had been planted.
“But you don’t really think so, do you?”
I opened and closed my mouth again, not knowing what to say. I wanted it to have been an accident. A bolt from the blue, a freak blow on the head, with no malice on anybody’s part but God’s. No-one trying to frame me. No-one loathing Isaac sufficiently to murder him, and loathing me sufficiently to make me a murderer.
Since my haunted bus ride, I’d shoved the horrific possibility of murder to one side. Busy coping with the conflicts at Raven How, I’d done no more than glance sidelong at Isaac’s death, avoiding looking at it properly.
But what if it was true? Someone had hated Isaac, and despised me. Now I gazed into a face full of murderous intent, and it chilled me to the core.
So whose face was it? Freddie’s? I did not want him to be a murderer. But I did want to have a solution. So I mutely sympathised with Muriel when she said,
“I just want to know what happened. I’d be so relieved if it was all solved.”
Griff was listening attentively. “Then we must solve it, Muriel,” he said.
“Solve what, Griff?” she snapped. “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry– this is just all too much. Eden: maybe you could talk to Freddie? You know him better than I do.”
“Not that well.” I thought of Freddie’s disappointed, pouchy face, the messy, teetering piles of books penning him in as he knelt on the shop’s dusty floor: and reflected that in truth I knew him barely at all.
“But I was just thinking, if we went to see him now, maybe you could find a way to ask him about that shop in Lancaster.”
“What, go to Freddie’s now?” I asked.
“Yes! You’d like to go to Freddie’s, wouldn’t you, Griff? You could buy a replacement for your missing Wainwright, the Central Fells one.”
“No, no, I’m got them all,” said Griff, shaking his head.
“Oh, for crying out loud! Let’s just go there, Griff.” She jumped up, full of nervous energy.
“Well, if you insist…”
“I do! God knows I need to get out of this flat.”
I didn’t want to. How was I was supposed to go about interrogating Freddie? I shrank from it; and thought that Muriel was becoming over-wrought. Perhaps it was being stuck in the flat with Griff that made her so.
Certainly as I sat in the car and fended off his questions about my interesting name, I began to feel decidedly claustrophobic. The drive through a wet green Dunmail Raise past fields of soggy lambs lost its appeal with the relentless accompaniment of Griff’s commentary.
And when he forgot who I was again and Muriel’s tired chronicle of our first meeting started him up with Oh my, yes, the Lady of the Lake, Whatever happened to her? it was all I could do to grit my teeth and keep smiling.
“We saw Selena in Bowness, you know, a couple of days ago. She was out shopping,” said Muriel.
“I gather she does a lot of that.”
“Who?”
“Selena. The Lady of the Lake, Griff.”
“What was she buying?” said Griff.
“I don’t know. She didn’t stop and talk to us. She disappeared as soon as she caught sight of us. With a scowl on her face,” said Muriel. “She doesn’t look so lovely when she scowls, does she, Griff?”
“I didn’t see her,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“There wasn’t time,” said Muriel shortly.
At Keswick we all trooped into Freddie’s, which was full for a change with damp tourists seeking a refuge from the rain. The place smelt of coffee and wet raincoat. People were dripping all over the discount books, which I knew would not make Freddie happy.
Griff and Muriel went off to hunt for vintage Wainwrights while I mooched around the photography section, waiting for a chance to talk to Freddie. I couldn’t tell if he was genuinely busy or avoiding me. At last I managed to put my hand out and halt him as he passed.
“Freddie? Can I have a word?”
“If it’s about your pictures, Eden–” He was already edging away. I moved to fill the corridor and blocked him.
“It’s not. It’s about a charity shop in Lancaster.”
“What? I’m not familiar with Lancaster.” He tried to push past me, but I wasn’t budging.
“A friend of mine saw you in there not long ago.”
“Really?” His mouth turned down in that new way it had. “Well, I may have popped in. I generally do if I spot one: charity shops are worth a look now and again. Excuse me, Eden.” He bulldozed past me, and this time I didn’t have the nerve to stop him. How did Hunter manage interviews? I needed a uniform and a burly constable in the corner, I thought ruefully.
“Eden,” said Matt, coming up to me with an armful of books and a smile that did not reach his eyes. Muriel was right: he was under strain, though he was doing his best to hide it. “Good to see you,” he said. “I’d make you a coffee if we weren’t so busy. Tell me, how are things at the farm? Is everyone coping?”
“In a manner of speaking. Selena’s not at her happiest. I’m afraid I managed to upset her.” Uneasily I remembered her howling, childlike sobs over the birth certificate.
“You upset her? How?”
“Oh, something and nothing. I asked her about her past, and she got a bit, um, hysterical.”
Matt raised his eyebrows. “Be careful, Eden. Maybe you’re safer just steering clear of that particular area of discussion.”
“Safer?”
“I’ve known her for longer than you have, remember. I got the impression her past wasn’t altogether salubrious. She certainly didn’t like discussing it: she could turn quite nasty. Luke found that out. So take it easy there, okay?”
“Okay. Thanks, Matt. I appreciate that.”
He nodded shortly and carried his b
ooks away. Meanwhile Freddie had escaped to the back of the shop: I followed him down to the narrow gallery at the far end where the cards were kept.
Freddie was studiously ignoring me. While he proffered lukewarm help to a customer who didn’t want it, I looked around for my cards. There they were, getting increasingly squashed in and crowded out by gumbooted sheep.
How had my bigger paintings fared? Russell’s had gone from the display, I noticed. Lucky bastard.
And so had mine. Sold, then! “Yes!” I breathed, and gave the air a minimal punch.
Then I spotted them. My paintings, lying in a corner: crushed, creased, ripped. I fell on my knees to see. They were both torn almost right across.
The customer fled; and Freddie, turning reluctantly my way, saw me kneeling over the ruined corpses of my work.
“Oh, Christ! I’m sorry, Eden. I really wasn’t expecting you to come in today. Matt was supposed to have tidied up by now, we didn’t mean you to see this, but we’ve been so busy…”
“What happened?” I said hoarsely. I picked one of my paintings up by its corner. The corner fell off. It was Sweden Bridge, with a grubby footprint tramped across it: unmendable, unsaleable.
“Russell,” said Freddie with a groan.
“Russell tore them up? When? Why?” I couldn’t believe it.
“He came in this morning. He was already simmering like a kettle when he walked through the door. He was looking for a fight. He wanted to know why I hadn’t sold any of his stuff.” Freddie sounded miserable. “I said it lacked popular appeal, and he got stroppy with me. So then I said if he was going to take that attitude please could he remove his work as I hadn’t sold any for months and it was taking up valuable hanging space. He just lost it, I’m afraid.”
“And he ripped my pictures up?”
“He grabbed them and threw them on the floor and stamped on them,” said Freddie. “He shouted things.”
“About me?”
“About fakery and immorality. Not just about you. He was– vile.” His voice shook.
“Oh, Freddie! I’m so sorry. How horrible for you,” I said guiltily. “There was a bit of a fracas at the weekend when I helped him run the painting course. Russell had a melt-down and walked out, and I had to take over. He lost his rag with Ruby as well. They had a huge row.”
Freddie’s brow creased. “So it’s not just me, then? What’s it all about?”
“God knows. Mid-life crisis, I expect. I gather he doesn’t want to run the courses any more: he’s fed up. I don’t think they’re making any money.”
“Well, I’m not surprised, if he treats everyone that way!” said Freddie huffily. “I told him he needn’t come in here again. It’s a pity, because I like Ruby. But I won’t have that pompous bully calling Matt a– well. Whatever. I just hope Matt didn’t hear it. I don’t think he did, thank goodness. I’m sorry you saw this, though, Eden. I’ll reimburse you for those paintings.”
“Don’t worry about it. They didn’t cost me anything except time. As long as you move my cards to somewhere decent!”
“I will,” he promised. “That’s very understanding of you.” He tied his long fingers together, glancing up towards the far end of the shop. We were still alone in the dungeon-like gloom of the gallery. Haltingly he said, “Eden: um, that other thing. About the charity shop. Don’t mention it to Matt, please, will you?”
“Why not?”
He sighed wearily. “Because you’re quite right. I didn’t go to that bloody house clearance in Carlisle. Matt doesn’t know.”
“So where were you?”
“I had business in Manchester.”
“Business.”
“Yes. A financial transaction.” Freddie looked uncomfortable. “I don’t want Matt to know about it. It’s– he’d be upset, and I don’t want to upset him. I don’t want to lose him. I mean, I can’t afford to. Christ, he keeps this place afloat.”
“Does he?”
“Internet sales,” said Freddie glumly. “I’m a Philistine, I can’t do all that website stuff. It’s paper or nothing for me. But Matt’s turned the business around. He’s got a real eye for rare books. I couldn’t cope without him.” He swallowed: his fingers gripped each other tightly. Freddie was very tense, and very wretched.
“Then why don’t you come clean with him? Freddie, if you’ve got money troubles, it sounds like Matt is the person to help you sort them out.”
But Freddie shook his head and kept on shaking it, helplessly.
“It’s more than that. He’s more than that. It’s not just the business that he’s turned around. He means– well, he’s the world to me. I don’t know if you can understand…”
“I can,” I said. Nick smiled down from the bookshelves. “I understand. I’m sure Matt does too. But I think that he already suspects you weren’t at a house clearance that day.”
“What?” He stared at me. “Has he said anything?”
“Not directly. Just something to do with the books not being what he expected. But Freddie, that being the day it was– the day of Isaac’s death– don’t you think you’d be better telling Matt the truth?”
“Dear God,” said Freddie, still staring at me. “Is that what you think?”
“No, of course not, Freddie! But where were you?” I remembered Anthony MacLeish’s last years of impoverished desperation. “Is it gambling, Freddie? Have you got gambling debts?”
“Oh God,” said Freddie. “If only.” He turned round in a full circle before continuing, speaking low and fast.
“I can’t tell him about that day because I– because I– oh, God, Eden, the thing is, I was with a rent boy.”
“Oh,” I said blankly.
“Lovely term, isn’t it?” said Freddie bitterly. “That’s why I went to Manchester. It’s easy there. I stopped off in Lancaster on the way home to buy the books and cover my tracks. So you see why I can’t tell Matt. He’d despise me. It’s difficult enough.”
I didn’t know what to say. At last I managed, “Are things not good between you, then?”
“Not exactly rosy,” said Freddie mournfully. “So please. Just don’t mention that charity shop to him. I’ll think of some excuse.”
We both looked over towards Matt, perched on the ladder to reach down a volume from a high shelf for Griff.
“You’d better ask Muriel to keep quiet, then,” I said. “It was her who told me about it.”
“Oh, God, was she in Lancaster?”
I avoided answering that, and instead said, trying to lighten things up, “I’ll have a word with her if you like. At least you know that Griff’s not going to say anything.”
“Are you sure?” said Freddie.
“What?” There was a sour edge to his voice that puzzled me.
“You’re quite sure that Griff’s lost his memory, are you?” he said.
“Well, if he hasn’t, it’s the most convincing act I’ve ever seen.”
“It certainly is,” said Freddie acidly.
“Why on earth would anybody want to fake a thing like that? Anyway,” I said, “you can’t fake encephalitis. That’s what caused it, you know.”
“So Muriel says.”
“Hang on, Freddie! Just a minute!” He was about to step away into the hubbub of the main shop, but I pulled him back into the gloomy cavern of cards. “Why would they make that up?” I demanded. “If you saw how difficult Muriel’s life is….”
“Well, maybe it would be a lot more difficult if Griff hadn’t got ill and suffered his so-called brain damage.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“It’s a nice little life they’ve got here, isn’t it?” said Freddie with something like a sneer. It didn’t suit him. “Early retirement, a home in the Lakes where nobody knows them, bought with compensation I dare say– doesn’t it make you wonder?”
“What about?”
“What was Griff in his previous life?”
“Local government finance, he told me.”
&nbs
p; Freddie sniffed. “Hah! You know the shenanigans that go on in the town halls. Bribery, back-handers, all that sort of thing. Oh, a lost memory could be very convenient. Any talk of an enquiry, and oops, oh dear, Griff can’t remember anything, can’t testify, case closed. He’s got a doctor’s note and they can’t give him detention. Lucky Griff.”
I gaped at him. “Enquiry? Do you know of any such enquiry?”
“Matt saw something on the internet. Somebody’s blog, or whatever you call them: it sounded like it might very well refer to Griff. Matt said it was just evil gossip.”
“But you think it’s true?”
“I don’t believe in his lost memory, that’s all. It seems to me he remembers things when he wants to: Selena in the lake, for instance. He remembers her.”
I gazed down in perplexity at the ranks of gum-booted sheep beside me. Had Griff remembered being chased across the fell? The sheep grinned at me, offering no help.
“Freddie, this is just speculation!” I argued. “Surely you couldn’t fake such a thing? You couldn’t keep it up day after day. Muriel would have to be in on it too.”
“Under his thumb, I expect,” said Freddie. “I like Muriel: she’s a very caring woman. But she’s totally tied up with Griff. She kowtows to his every need.”
“Well, only to make life easier!”
“Then maybe it’s just Griff,” said Freddie, “pulling all the strings to make her dance around him.”
“I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t do such a thing. Neither of them would pull a stunt like that.”
Even as I spoke, I was wondering if it could be done. Surely there would be too many doctors to convince, to say nothing of your friends and family? Of course, it would be easier to carry off if you moved away from all your old connections. But even then, imagine the strain it would put you under, maintaining that constant, vigilant pretence…
I wondered what exactly Matt had noticed on the web. Once Freddie had left me for a customer, I hunted round for Matt, but he wasn’t up his ladder any more. He wasn’t anywhere in sight. It was only several minutes later, after I’d explored all the labyrinthine twists of the shop, that I found him back where I’d started, in the dark cave where the ruined paintings lay on the floor.
Matt crouched there, clearing up, methodically tearing the paper into smaller pieces which he crammed into a bin. His face was set as hard as stone. With each savage rip of the paper, he hissed a furious word.
“Arrogant. Ignorant. Interfering. Shit-for-brains.”
Whatever Russell had said, Matt must have heard it after all. Not a good moment to ask him anything: so I tiptoed back into the main shop and bumped straight into Muriel and Griff.
“Ready to go, Eden?” said Muriel. “Did you get what you wanted? Griff, you remember our young friend Eden?”
With a sinking feeling, I went through the motions of an introduction yet again, all the time examining the pair of them, against my will, for signs that they were actors in a huge charade.
It couldn’t be so. Freddie had a bee in his bonnet. He was soured by worries about money and his private life. Griff’s polite confusion and Muriel’s weary patience were genuine. They had to be.
As we traipsed back to the car together, I looked around at the dripping tourists. Was that laughing huddle really having such a marvellous time, with the rain pouring off their hoods and soaking through their jeans? They might be screaming inside. What did I know?
I was hopeless at people, that was the trouble, both in painting and in life. Landscapes were my thing, not people: I couldn’t catch the essence of them, couldn’t get beneath the skin.
So how was I supposed to recognise a fake? How could I tell the bogus from the real?
Chapter Twenty-five