As I walked back through the town, I could feel myself still lurching with the swell. When I reached The Heronry and saw Hunter Brigg leaning on my doorbell, my heart lurched along with my stomach, making me momentarily dizzy.
That bloody MacLeish, I thought, Greta’s shopped me! and for a few seconds I considered running away.
I was too slow. Hunter turned before I had a chance to run. He wasn’t in police uniform, I realised belatedly, but wore a short, severe black overcoat, collar turned up, like a private eye in a film. He looked the business.
“Didn’t know if you were still living here,” he said. “Thought you might have moved on.”
“No, I’ve got another week or two before the Pattinsons come back.”
“Then where will you go?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know and pretended I didn’t care. “My parents, as a last resort. But I’ve been looking for live-in work as a chambermaid. I’m waiting to hear from the Ruskin Hotel; they know me there.” So far they were the only ones who’d shown any interest at all.
“An easy life.”
“No, not really.”
“I was being ironic,” said Hunter. “I’ve come to take you out to lunch.” I was startled. This was a new, giant step in our relationship.
“I’ve just done that,” I said. “It’s half past two. I’ve had a panini.”
“Panini? That’s not Sunday lunch. Have another one.”
“Why?”
“I told my parents I couldn’t go over to theirs today because I was taking a girl out to lunch. I don’t want to lie to them.”
I breathed easier again, knowing I was just an excuse. “Hunter, you shouldn’t make them think that I’m your girlfriend.”
“I said a girl.”
“It comes to the same thing.”
“You wish,” he said. “Christ, Eden, does it matter? It makes them happy. They worry about me.”
“Then go over to Sedbergh and be nice to them and stop them worrying.”
“It doesn’t work,” said Hunter. “Just pick a pub, will you?”
So we trailed off up the road to the pub where I sat and rustled a packet of crisps while he dived into a hill of roast beef and a small barn of Yorkshire pudding. It was good to watch Hunter eat: he didn’t mess around. He didn’t fuss with his food or hold it up on his fork to judge it, give it points out of ten, the way Nick used to do.
Nick. The memory burnt a small hole in my heart, as always. Loquacious, jokey, ambitious, flamboyant Nick, so different to the sharp boundaries of Hunter. We met on the first week of our university art course. Nick chose me, and I still have no idea why. I was incredulously, ecstatically grateful. I barely left his side the whole three years; we seemed to fit together like a pair of moulded palettes, inseparable.
The trouble with fitting together like that, of course, is that one partner always has its back to the other. My back was turned to Nick. I kept quiet about my increasing disillusionment with the art course, since he was happy enough with it. And later, having got into the habit, I kept hidden from him all my forgeries, so intent on proving my own worth that I never thought much about what his reaction might be until it was too late.
I pushed Nick below the surface again now as I had to do so often. He would keep bobbing up. I concentrated instead on Hunter’s hands ripping his bread roll apart, mopping up the gravy hungrily. He devoured like a wolf, with pragmatic greed. I didn’t know if he was unaware of the other diners’ handward glances, or choosing to ignore them.
He was certainly choosing to ignore me. If I had been his girlfriend, I wouldn’t have felt best pleased.
“You should have asked Fiona out,” I said.
“She’s already taken,” said Hunter through the bread.
“Well, there must be someone you could ask who’s more appropriate than me.”
“You’re fishing,” he said, tearing at a Yorkshire pudding.
“I’m not.”
“There was a girlfriend. Alice. It lasted nearly three years, until this.” He waved his hand.
“What, she dropped you just because of that?” I was indignant on his behalf.
“No. I dropped her. She went all motherly on me. Started cutting up my food. Her pet cripple,” said Hunter, making me wince.
“That was a narrow escape.”
“Yup.”
“I meant for her,” I said.
“So did I. Are you really intending to go back to Staithwaites’ farm to paint Selena?”
“Sure am.”
Hunter laid down his fork. “I was reading through the statements taken at the time of Luke Staithwaite’s death. I had a word with Larry Irlam, since he was the one who did the interviews.”
“Why? What were you looking for?”
“Just refreshing my memory. I was interested by what Selena said to you: I killed my husband. I wanted to remind myself what really happened.”
“And?”
“Luke shot himself through the head in his bedroom at approximately 12 noon,” said Hunter. “Selena was downstairs making lunch at the time. Bryony was in the yard; Isaac was with the vet, looking at the sick cow that Luke thought had foot and mouth.”
“But that didn’t. It seems a bit precipitous to shoot himself without even waiting for the vet’s verdict.”
Hunter shrugged and resumed eating. “Larry reckoned Luke had got himself strung up to an unbearable pitch. He was walking around muttering to himself, according to Selena. Luke’s and Isaac’s were the only prints on the gun. The pathologist agreed that the wound was consistent with it being self-inflicted. He hesitated to say if it was suicide.”
“Yeah, like you said, cleaning it in his bedroom.” I didn’t believe it either.
Hunter laughed shortly. “It’s not totally impossible, I suppose. People do some incredibly stupid things. I mean, look at me.” He held up his hand. “Imagine thinking a baton was a match for a machete! I should have waited for back-up.”
“You heard the sister screaming,” I said, recalling the lurid newspaper accounts I’d read.
“It didn’t help, though, did it?” said Hunter bitterly. “He’d already cut her throat by the time I got inside. I was too late.”
“You saved the girlfriend’s life,” I said cautiously. This was the first time since we’d met that Hunter had spoken to me about that day. A landmark of a sort.
“For what?” he demanded. It wasn’t a rhetorical question: I remembered the reports I’d read on the internet. Siege Drama Victim Stands by Machete Man. According to his girlfriend, the row was all the sister’s fault and their attacker was just misunderstood and confused. I thought she was the confused one. No wonder Hunter was bitter.
“Maybe he’s a reformed character by now,” I said. “People do change.”
“Only for the parole board.”
I started to say that was unnecessarily cynical; but then fell silent, because I decided that it might be true. The girls in jail repented when it suited them.
And what about me? I had changed all right; but did that mean I had repented?
“Go back to Luke,” I said.
“Yeah, well.” Hunter played with a roast potato. “In theory Selena could have encouraged him to turn the gun on himself, by nagging, slagging or bragging.”
“You what?”
“The three usual causes of a domestic. One partner nagging the other, or slagging them off, or bragging about an affair. I suppose you could add fagging, in the old public-school sense of bullying. Suicide would be an extreme reaction, I admit. Anyway, Larry didn’t think any of those applied to Luke.”
“How would he know?”
“According to Isaac, the two of them were devoted to each other.” He paused. “Selena behaved oddly at the interviews, though, from what Larry said.”
“How do you mean?”
“Very calm one minute, shrieking like crazy the next. Larry put it down to shock. He would. He likes things simple. He had enough of murder and mayhem down in Manchest
er: he’s a cow in clover up here. Thinks it’s a different world.”
I imagined Inspector Larry Irlam trying to conceal his jovial grin as he wrote down Luke’s last moments: a nice, neat, self-inflicted shooting with a properly licensed gun. “It is a different world. Apart from the odd machete.”
“Don’t you believe it,” Hunter said. “Anyway, Larry didn’t think it worthwhile questioning the widow too closely, her being so upset and that. Although he did comment that Bryony seemed more upset than Selena – or more conventionally so, perhaps. Which is interesting.”
“Are you allowed to tell me all this? What would Larry think?”
He sat up straight and looked directly at me. I thought he was angry.
“Listen,” he said, “I’m not especially interested what Larry thinks. If I’ve had half my hand and my career cut off in the interests of the police, they can damn well give me some interest back in return. Especially when I’ll never–” He stopped and threw his hands up, then pushed the half-empty plate away.
“You can still apply to be a detective. Or go for inspector. Nothing’s stopping you.”
“Except the police psychiatrists and the promotions board,” he said sardonically. “I’ve got post-traumatic stress disorder, didn’t you know? I’ll fall to bits in a crisis. Safer to keep me bloody pen-pushing with my one and a half fingers.”
“That’s rubbish.” I spoke brusquely. “There’s nothing to stop you from going for it except the fear of failure. Just give it a few more months.”
“And the rest.”
“Do something else, then.”
“The police was all I ever wanted to do,” said Hunter. There was quiet desolation in his voice.
“Then apply to be a detective! Unless you want to be booking double-parkers and chasing sheep-rustlers all your life.”
I thought I’d overdone the brusqueness. But Hunter said, “It’s diesel rustlers this week. Somebody drained a tank at a farm near Witherslack, and left the tap running. What they stole was worth five hundred quid but the farmer’s been left with a clean-up bill for ten times that. Selfish bastards.”
That was more like the Hunter I knew. He pulled the plate back towards him and attacked it again. “That reminds me,” he said with his mouth full, “Luke Staithwaite was involved in some sort of scam, several years back. Buying red diesel cheap off farmers on behalf of a gang who stripped out the dye and sold it on at a profit.”
“Did he get convicted?”
Hunter shook his head. “Got off with a caution for cooperating with the police. I gather he thought better of it; felt he was letting his family down. Anyway, he spilled the beans in return for a clean charge sheet. He was only a small player. A follower, not a leader – according to Larry he just fell into bad company. Some of the big fish got sent down, but not for long enough if you ask me.”
I wondered what Isaac had thought of that escapade. If that was one of Luke’s money making plans that had gone awry...
“I suppose he was just trying to make a bit of extra cash,” I said. “Did Selena inherit much when he died?”
“Hah! You’re joking. A small overdraft and a six year old tractor.”
“But his father’s a landowner. Isaac.” Saying his name brought a faint, comforting warmth.
“No, he’s not,” said Hunter dampeningly. “I checked. Isaac’s a tenant farmer. Most of that land belongs to the National Trust, including the actual farmhouse. Isaac only owns a couple of acres and some outbuildings.”
“Well, they could still be worth a lot of money,” I said sulkily. “A couple of acres is plenty to build on.”
“Not round here. New-build in Little Langdale? Pigs might fly.”
“You could do up the outbuildings.”
“That’s change of use. You got any idea of the miles of red tape involved in getting planning permission? Enough to knit your own straitjacket. There was a farmer over Torver way,” said Hunter, “who turned half his milking parlour into a holiday home. He was told to tear it all down again.”
“And did he?”
“Oh, he took it down all right. Then he took his muckspreader down to the council offices in Kendal and gave them a good manuring. A lot of people cheered – including Isaac, probably. Lots of farmers would build on their land if they could. They can’t. No change allowed round here.”
Maybe Luke had felt trapped, I thought: caught in the strangling net of tradition. A clatter of laughter rang out from the bar. I stared across, seeing not the drinkers, but Selena’s face, watchful one minute, wistful the next.
I stole my husband. His soul. I killed my husband. That expressionless whisper through the long damp hair.
“I think you’re right about Selena feeling guilty,” I said. “Perhaps she pushed him towards suicide without meaning to. Nagging or whatever, like you said.”
“Well, it’s possible,” said Hunter. “He was already close to the edge. It wouldn’t have taken much to make him wobble over it. I’ll be interested to hear how Selena behaves when you go back to the farm.”
“I won’t be going on my own. The old couple that helped rescue her are coming along too. Well, oldish. They’re the friends who bought me lunch today.” The sort of friends with whom polite small talk was obligatory: at least with Hunter there was no need for that. Or indeed for any politeness at all, as he proved by snorting at me disparagingly.
“Do they know they’re consorting with a crook?”
“It was only a panini! Anyway, you consort with crooks.”
“Crook, singular,” said Hunter. “You’re the only one. And I’m in full possession of the facts.” Consorting with me, I was well aware, was Hunter’s rebellion against his uniform: his little walk on the wild side. Fleetingly I wished it might be because he actually enjoyed my company, before I told myself not to be so bloody daft.
He was right about Griff and Muriel, though. Perhaps I should have informed them of my background. It made me uncomfortable.
To change the subject, I said, “Now he’s an interesting case,” and recounted the tale of Griff’s amnesia.
“I know them,” said Hunter unexpectedly.
“You do?”
“She brought him to the police station a while back to explain the situation. In case he got detached from her and lost, she said, so we’d understand what was going on.”
“She said that in front of him?”
Hunter nodded. “As if he was a toddler. He looked totally confused. In fact, he looked quite terrified at first, as if he was convinced he’d been arrested. She handled it well, though. By the end he seemed to think she’d just been handing in a lost purse. Went away perfectly happy.”
I pondered this. I supposed it showed necessary forethought on Muriel’s part. “I don’t know how she copes. It must be appalling – he remembers nothing that’s happened in the last two years.”
But Hunter merely grimaced. “O lucky man,” he said.
Chapter Seven