She scrambled to her feet and stood close to him. He smelt of stale beer.
‘When did you meet Bethany?’
‘As you well know, I held a series of evening classes at the university, and she came along. She worked in the offices as a secretary at the time. Temping, to pay the rent. But literature was her passion.’
‘What was the subject of your classes?’
‘Ostensibly, the Lakes poets other than Wordsworth. Coleridge, Southey, you know?’ His tone implied that a detective wouldn’t have heard of any poet other than Wordsworth. ‘I like the discussion to range far and wide. I could never become a full-time academic. Examinations and grades only matter to second-rate minds. One night, Bethany and I talked. We went to the pub for a drink and took it from there.’
‘You began a relationship?’
‘It wasn’t against the rules, if that’s what you’re suggesting.’
‘She was on the university’s payroll.’
‘But she wasn’t a student. The evening classes were just a way of filling the time when she ran out of ideas for her writing. She’d had a series of dead-end jobs. Serving in restaurants, typing in offices, earning a pittance behind the counter of a bookshop. One summer, she cleaned bedrooms at a hotel at Bowness. Her ambition was to write the Great English Novel. Not that it was ever going to happen.’
‘Did you and Bethany discuss her moving in here?’
‘She knew I wanted to keep my independence.’
‘You didn’t view it as a long-term relationship?’
He laughed. ‘Nowadays people spend a fortune on weddings and five minutes later they’re consulting their lawyers about divorce. I’m not sure relationships actually work long-term, Chief Inspector. A few last because the parties are too lazy or frightened to make a break.’
‘Did Bethany feel the same?’
‘She’d had bad experiences in the past.’
‘What do you mean?’
He frowned, as if he’d been lured into saying too much. ‘She was an innocent. Prey to wild infatuations, followed by deep despair.’
‘Is that so?’ Hannah was curious. ‘I heard she was a very private woman.’
‘Are private people forbidden to fall in love?’
‘Was she infatuated with you?’
He grinned, showing teeth as large as any she had ever seen.
‘Do you find that so difficult to understand, Hannah?’
‘The last time you saw her was a couple of days before she died. You admitted that you argued.’
‘I told her I’d met someone else.’
‘Who was that someone else?’
‘I said it was a girl who’d come to one of my poetry readings, but that wasn’t the truth.’
‘You invented a new girlfriend because you’d tired of Bethany?’
‘That wasn’t…’ He paused. ‘Please don’t sound shocked, it’s unbecoming in a senior police officer.’
‘I’m not shocked, Mr Clare. It just seems rather heartless.’
‘As a matter of fact, I was doing the poor girl a kindness.’
‘Really?’
‘It would have been cruel simply to say that I found her wearisome. Her physical demands, I had no trouble accommodating, I can assure you. But she stuck to me like cling film. She was terrified of rejection. Utterly terrified.’
‘Why was that, do you think?’
‘I’m not a psychiatrist.’
Hannah waited.
‘If there’s one thing I can’t stomach, it’s a clingy woman. Freedom is very precious to me.’
Through a door opening into the kitchen, Hannah saw dirty plates and mugs piled high on the draining board. The floor hadn’t seen a mop for weeks, and she caught a whiff of sour milk.
‘You never married.’
He shook his head. ‘Not for the want of opportunities, I promise you.’
Slimeball though he was, Hannah feared he was telling the truth. There were probably a good many women who thought they could change him. Depressing thought.
‘Is that right?’
‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, my dear Hannah. In case you’re wondering, I’m not interested in my own sex. Bethany could never persuade me there was any sense in that sort of thing. But I like to do as I please, and marriage makes that difficult. Paying off the mortgage is commitment enough for anyone.’
The urge to slap his face was almost impossible to resist. No doubt, over the years, plenty of women had succumbed to the temptation. But Hannah wanted information.
‘How did the argument between you end?’
‘I promised to call her in a few days, once I’d given her time to calm down. There was no reason why we couldn’t continue to be friends.’
‘If she was terrified of rejection, she must have been upset with you. Angry?’
‘These things are never pleasant. I’m no monster, Hannah, whatever feminist prejudices you may harbour. But our relationship had run its course. She was bound to get over me, sooner or later. Probably the moment she met someone else.’
‘Did she seem irrational, did she make threats?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
Hannah gave him a do-me-a-favour look.
‘She was distressed, naturally. I had arranged to take her out for a meal, at a decent little trattoria. It closed down last year, a real loss. Bethany thought we were about to discuss a romantic holiday in Umbria when I broke the news. She wasn’t irrational. Just…unhappy.’
The original investigating team had spoken to the staff on duty at the trattoria that night. Voices had been raised, and Bethany was in floods of tears. Wailing like a child, according to one of the waiters. But there was no evidence that she’d threatened any form of revenge, far less that her behaviour had driven Nathan Clare to murder.
‘You told my colleagues that she must have committed suicide.’
‘I thought she would get over the break-up, but-’
‘You think she was so depressed that she saw no reason to keep on living?’
‘What other explanation could there be for her death? Whatever her shortcomings, Bethany was an utterly inoffensive woman. How could any sane person wish to do her harm?’
Ben Kind had asked himself the same question. Perhaps, against all odds, it was a case of accidental death. One of his working theories was that Clare had invited Bethany to the Serpent Pool to indulge in some kind of sex game as a means of reviving his flagging interest. On a lousy February day, he might have been confident they would not be disturbed. Had the experiment gone terribly wrong?
‘So, she killed herself because she was heartbroken that you ended the affair?’
‘I never said that.’
‘What, then?’
‘She was too intense for happiness. This wasn’t the first time that a relationship had come to an end against her wishes.’
‘Tell me about her previous relationships.’
‘We never discussed them. Why would I be interested?’
He’d said the same during the original investigation. At least he was consistent. Or simply careful.
‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously. I believe in living for the moment. All that matters is the here and now, that’s what I said to her. And I meant it.’
Something he’d said earlier stirred in her memory. At once, anxiety chilled her.
‘You mentioned that she worked in a bookshop.’
‘Correct.’
‘Waterstone’s?’
‘No, they sold second-hand books.’
Bethany Friend’s death haunted Ben Kind. Yet he couldn’t even prove it was murder, let alone get close to making an arrest. Nathan Clare was the obvious suspect. Ben disliked him, and now Hannah understood why. There was no trace of the supposed lover who dumped Bethany before she took up with Nathan. None of Bethany’s friends or work colleagues knew of anyone. Ben had wondered if the lover really existed, or was an invention of Clare’s.
Next stop was a care home near Watersedge. Time for a word with Bethany’s mother. Hannah wanted her to know she’d had the go-ahead to reopen the case. And now she needed to find out whether Bethany had ever worked for Marc.