‘High risk,’ he murmured. ‘Hannah was driving.’
‘The detective chief inspector.’ Wanda sipped her drink. ‘I should have been more careful, but I wasn’t in the best frame of mind.’
‘So, I gathered.’
‘God knows why I showed up. Stuart Wagg said he didn’t like to think of my being alone at the turn of the year. Told me I couldn’t hide away for ever. I should never have listened. He only wanted me there as a prize exhibit. The widow of his dead rival.’
‘Rival?’
‘In book collecting.’ She considered him. ‘What did you think I meant?’
‘Of course.’
‘He and George competed for years, you must have made a pretty penny out of them both.’
‘George was a wonderful customer. I miss him.’
‘I bet you do.’ She didn’t say she missed her husband too. ‘At least I got something out of that fucking party. I enjoyed drenching Arlo Denstone.’
‘What was all that about?’
She waved the question away. ‘Never mind, it’s history.’
‘But…’
‘I’m not sure it was worth the buzz it gave me. Denstone offered to let Nathan give a poetry reading during the De Quincey Festival. Maybe he’ll change his mind now, though I hope he won’t bear a grudge. It would help to sell a few more copies.’ Her expression was rueful. ‘Thanks for taking the books.’
‘I’ll put them in my next catalogue.’ Marc savoured the raspberry jam he’d smeared on the scone. ‘My turn to apologise. I meant to attend George’s funeral, but at the last minute, something cropped up.’
This wasn’t true. He hated funerals. Any form of unhappiness depressed him, and the thought of standing by a graveside on a dank and dismal day had been too much to bear. So he’d decided not to go and salved his conscience by sending a handsome cheque in favour of the charity Wanda had chosen for donations in George’s memory. From her raised eyebrows, he could tell that she’d seen through his lie, but it didn’t matter a jot. She had other things on her mind.
‘I’m no good at playing the grieving widow. It’s no secret that George and I had…drifted apart. So of course, the tongues are wagging.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘People wonder if I started that fire. Or hired someone to do it for me.’
‘Nobody could imagine-’
‘Of course they can. Sometimes I feel as though I’m the talk of the Lakes. And making a fool of myself at the party didn’t help.’
‘Perhaps the fire was an accident.’
‘It was no accident, and suicide doesn’t make sense. George would never kill himself, trust me. Let alone in that horrible way. He was a baby, like most men. Terrified of pain, he must have suffered agony. It doesn’t bear thinking about. Besides, he’d never destroy his precious collection. He loved books more than anything. Including me.’
Mrs Beveridge emerged from the kitchen. ‘All right if I close up in five minutes?’
It felt like a reprieve. Marc sprang up. ‘We’ll get out of your way.’
Wanda Saffell rose to her feet. ‘I’d better go. Thank you for listening.’
Good manners almost prompted him to murmur, Any time. But Mrs Beveridge started putting chairs upside down on top of the tables around them, and before he could say a word, Wanda strode out of the shop and into the shower of sleet.
Back in his office, he fiddled with entries for his next catalogue, checking prices on the net, tinkering with images of dust jackets on his computer screen to make sure all the detail was visible. Digital photography made it easier to describe books accurately to prospective purchasers, and keep complaints down to a minimum. Not that he ever had many complaints. He loved books too much to want to lie about them.
The door opened. Cassie had got out of the habit of knocking.
‘Shall I leave it to you to lock up?’
He logged off and said, ‘I’ll be ready in five minutes. We can leave together.’
‘Would you mind dropping me off at the bus stop? My poor little car is in for repair. It started making unhappy noises over the holiday, so I took it in this morning and it won’t be ready until tomorrow.’
‘I’ll give you a lift home, if you like.’
‘I don’t want to take you out of your way.’
He was sure she’d hoped he would make the offer. Though unsure whether that was because she liked his company, or because she didn’t want to hang around in the dark, waiting for a bus. If one ever came — services had been slashed up and down the county. No wonder the roads choked with cars and lorries.
‘No problem. Kendal isn’t much of a detour.’
‘OK, thanks. Five minutes?’
As the door closed behind him, his spine tingled. Not that he meant to misbehave, of course. Nothing was further from his mind.
‘Fancy a quick drink?’ Marc asked.
He felt Cassie’s gaze, warm on his cheeks, but kept his eyes locked on the dark road ahead. A small, stone-built pub stood a couple of hundred yards further on. An isolated place, in the middle of fields and woodland, catering for the local farm workers. Litter always seemed to blow across the tiny car park, and he’d never been tempted to stop there for a drink. It was long odds against his bumping into anyone he knew. Besides, neither he nor Cassie had anything to hide; it wasn’t as if they were up to no good.
‘Don’t you have to be getting home?’
‘Half an hour won’t hurt.’
‘I suppose your partner works long hours.’
A reminder that he was spoken for. Cassie knew about Hannah, and that she was a cop. It was no secret.
‘Too right.’ They rounded another bend and he could see the pub ahead. ‘But if you’re in a hurry…’
‘No hurry at all.’
He swung off the road and into the deserted car park. There was a For Lease board on the outside wall of the pub, the upstairs windows were shuttered. The sleet had stopped, but this was an evening to stay indoors.
‘What would you like?’
‘Whisky, please.’ She gave a theatrical shiver. ‘I need warming up.’
The landlord was a walking cadaver in a frayed cardigan; his false teeth clicked as he pulled on the pump. Scores of hostelries in the Lakes had reinvented themselves as gourmet restaurants, but all The Old Soldier had to offer was a dusty glass cabinet containing a couple of grey sausage rolls and a Cornish pasty. Marc supposed that any customers who hadn’t been driven away by the smoking ban and the smell of disinfectant from behind the bar counter would have been discouraged by the man’s monosyllabic dead-batting of conversation as he poured the drinks. A handwritten sign on the wall proclaimed this as a happy hour. The landlord might not be hot on customer focus, but he had a flair for irony. Beer and cheese-and-onion crisps were on sale at half price, yet there wasn’t another soul to be seen.
‘Slow night?’
The landlord shrugged. ‘About the usual. I’m getting out at the end of the month. The brewery’s selling up.’
Once upon a time, this would have been a sweaty, smoky drinking den, one of thousands across the land, a place where locals met up after a long day at work for a game of dominoes or darts. The younger generation would hate the lack of karaoke machines and football on satellite television. Kids today bought their booze from supermarkets and went bingeing on cheap Stella Artois before throwing up and fighting each other in the nearest village square or shopping parade.
At least he and Cassie had the lounge bar to themselves, and thirty minutes sped by. Marc spent most of them talking and Cassie’s eyes gleamed in the murky light; maybe it was his sparkling conversation, maybe the tumbler of neat Glenfiddich had something to do with it.
She interrogated him about the new house in Ambleside, and he made her laugh with an account of his incompetent efforts at do-it-yourself. He hadn’t even attempted to make the bookshelves himself: that was a job for a skilled tradesman, given the number and weight of books to be borne. He’d even had to check out whether there was a need to reinforce the first floor. But it would be worth it. The house was so close to the fells. You could walk up to the Serpent Tower without breaking sweat.