It was said that the Quillers struggled to keep their faith after John’s tragic death. He was a soldier who fought in the Boer War and died one day short of his twenty-first birthday. Neither Jacob nor Alice seems ever to have recovered from that dreadful blow. Indeed, the story goes that after John’s funeral, Alice became a recluse who refused to leave the cottage and would not speak to a single soul other than her distraught husband. Before long they were both dead — departing this mortal coil on the very same day. One suspects that in truth their lives ended the moment they received the tragic news from South Africa. The simple epitaph on their gravestone close to the lych gate at their beloved church records poignantly that the couple died of broken hearts.
Jacob Quiller was reputed to have laboured unceasingly in his garden in the months leading up to his demise and it may be that he overtaxed himself. Village wisdom had it that there is a secret about their deaths to be discovered by unravelling a cipher that Jacob hid in the garden, yet little seems to be known about it. The Quillers had no family other than the Skeldings, to whom the cottage passed back on their deaths. Richard paid for a memorial to John that can be seen in the church to this day. He sold the cottage and it remains in private hands, although the present owner does not encourage sightseers. The cipher has presumably disappeared, if it ever existed. Possibly it was no more than a tantalising rural legend. In any event, it seems to this author to be crass to intrude upon personal grief. How much more romantic to take at face value the words that the Quillers chose for their headstone. Let us pause and reflect that, whatever learned medical men tell us, folk may indeed die from broken hearts.
Daniel handed the book back to Marc Amos. It was a battered trade paperback. On the back cover was a black and white photograph of Eleanor Sawtell. Seventy-five at a guess, she had white hair, a kindly expression and a cardigan with a missing button. An obese and complacent tabby sat on her lap, smirking as though it had solved the cipher but wasn’t telling.
‘An unsatisfactory story, really,’ Marc said.
‘A puzzle without an obvious solution, that’s the challenge. I’ve been mugging up about gardens and things that grow in them. Odd, I always thought of gardens as life-enhancing. Plants, too. Surprising how many of them have macabre connotations.’
Marc shook his head. ‘Not my subject, I’m afraid.’
‘The monkey puzzle tree, for instance. Originates from Chile, and guess what? The climate in Cumbria suits it perfectly.’
‘It’s chilly enough here most of the time. Sorry, terrible joke. I looked Eleanor Sawtell up in the phone book, but couldn’t find her in Staveley. She might be ex-directory, but…’
‘I’ll have a word with Roz Gleave, see if she can help.’
A chance too good for someone so obsessively curious to miss, a chance to kill two birds. To find out more about the cipher — and the murder of Warren Howe.
Marc grinned. ‘Detective work, is it? You’ll be competing with Hannah next.’
On his way to Keepsake Cottage, Daniel decided that he couldn’t help liking Marc Amos. How stupid to feel a pang of jealousy because Marc had Hannah all to himself. But was Marc jealous too, did he suspect that something was going on between her and the Sergeant? And if so, was he right? Daniel hadn’t had time to study Nick Lowther. He seemed amiable and wore a wedding ring, but colleagues at work often had affairs. Hannah Scarlett didn’t seem the type to play around, but was there really a type? It was all down to individual chemistry; you never knew what might happen when circumstances thrust two people together.
One more thing he’d rather not think about, like Kirsty’s death. He dragged his mind back to the stone tablets. All four were meant to be found, no question. They were so close to the surface that any serious attempt to clear the ground would uncover them. The carved words might be part of an elaborate code — shades of Beatrix Potter’s diaries — but he doubted it. His bet was on a simple if cryptic message. He’d start by juggling with the phrases he’d discovered.
Perhaps there was a pattern. Assume that the four stones he’d found — the willow, the two monkey puzzles, and the yew — were connected by the circumference of a rough circle. Start at the willow and move clockwise.
Why did you leave? Leaves from the garden. Will take our leave. Together again for eternity.
Outside the sun was high, but Hannah stayed indoors. Her skin burned too easily in heat this fierce. She gulped down a can of Coke for the sugar boost. Talking to Terri had made her feel half human again, but she was still tired. She plucked a musty hardback at random from Marc’s Ravenglass haul. She reached as far as page twenty before deciding she wasn’t in the mood for murder by Italian dagger in a locked room surrounded by snow with not a footprint to be seen. The choice of daytime TV shows was unspeakable and soon she was stretched out on the sofa with eyes shut, forcing herself to focus on whatever had made it necessary for Warren Howe to die.
When you know Howe, you know who — but what else was there to know about Warren Howe? The picture in her mind was of a man to whom plants meant more than people. With Gail, Bel and Roz among conquests, he was capable of turning on the charm to lure a pretty woman into his bed. He was single-minded and seemed to have mastered the art of getting what he wanted. Every scrap of evidence suggested he didn’t have an unselfish bone in his body.
Gail, Bel and Roz. Three old friends. Women could be so close with each other. Closer even than Terri and her. Suppose the trio had nourished a grudge over Warren’s treatment of them? Maybe she’d been too hasty in dismissing Les Bryant’s suggestion of a conspiracy to kill. But the youthful flings with Bel and Roz were ancient history. There was so much that theory left unexplained. Not least the anonymous accusation of Tina. If one or more of the women had sent it, why resurrect the old case if they had something to hide?
No, Tina was still her suspect of choice. Warren had betrayed her with Gail and it was one betrayal too many. The stumbling block was the Hardknott Pass alibi. But just as locked rooms were meant to be breached, so murderers’ alibis were meant to be broken.
The moment Daniel pulled up outside Keepsake Cottage and got out of the car, the heat hit him. It was like walking into a wall. He was about to ring the doorbell when voices came drifting through the air. People must be outside, at the back of the house. He made out the words of a man who sounded frantic.
‘Suppose the police find out? That woman, Hannah Scarlett. Roz, this is serious, how can we keep quiet?’
‘We must!’ A woman’s voice, full of anguish.
‘But…’
‘Oh God, how I wish I’d kept my mouth shut.’
This was fall-out from Kirsty Howe’s death, had to be. He waited, but nothing more was said. He pressed the bell. After a minute he rang again and at length he heard footsteps coming round the side of the house. A brisk woman with a helmet of grey hair, wearing a sleeveless top and shorts. When she took off her dark glasses to inspect him, it was obvious that she’d been weeping.