‘Back to the office. Things to do, busy, busy, busy. Which was a complete load of balls, according to my new friend, Sandra the volunteer.’
‘How well do you know him?’
‘Hardly at all. He contacted me whilst I was in the States. He’d picked up on the Internet that I was planning a book about Thomas De Quincey and the history of murder. He flattered me into agreeing to participate in the Festival. When it comes to De Quincey, he knows his stuff. He can quote it verbatim, he loves the man’s work.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Yes, he can quote chunks from the essays by heart, he’s a dyed-in-the-wool fan. He said in an email that, in his opinion, De Quincey is one of the few English men of letters who is undoubtedly touched by genius.’
‘Forgive my ignorance, I’ve never read him.’
‘Not that many people have. If they think of him at all, it’s as a man with twin addictions. Opium and murder.’
As she mulled this over, a car emblazoned with the name of a local undertaker’s drew up next to hers. A tall, sombre man got out and made for the entrance to the home. Come to sort out the arrangements for Daphne’s funeral, she supposed.
‘Hannah, are you still there?’
‘Sorry, I just remembered a detail from the Bethany Friend file. And I was chewing over what you said. Opium and murder, a deadly combination.’
‘What’s in your mind?’
‘Still working it out.’ She didn’t want to be evasive, not with Daniel, but her latest idea was a tender plant, not ready to be exposed to analysis by a formidable intellect. ‘Listen, thanks for the information about the purple car. I’ll pass it on to the team, someone will be in touch to take a formal statement.’
‘I’d better let you get back to work.’
‘Uh-huh.’ Before cutting him off, she remembered to add, ‘Talk soon.’
Hunched up on the leather seat, she allowed her thoughts to roam. The truth had begun to loom up in front of her, dark and dangerous as a ten-ton truck, emerging from the fog. Pulling a notebook and pen from her bag, she wrote down a name.
Arlo Denstone.
She peered at the letters, checking them over and over.
Surely she was right?
She struck a line through each letter, one by one, before spelling out another name.
Roland Seeton.
The witness whose statement lurked in the file on Bethany Friend. The long-haired dropout who claimed to have seen Bethany in Ambleside, talking to a soldier with a white transit van. Ben Kind had been sceptical, suspecting he was an attention-seeker who had invented the sighting. But maybe Seeton had some other reason for telling a lie to set the police chasing wild geese — and a non-existent white van.
The two names were anagrams of each other, and she refused to believe it was coincidence.
No wonder Maggie hadn’t traced him yet.
In the space of six years, Roland Seeton had metamorphosed into Arlo Denstone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
‘Your ex,’ Marc said drowsily. ‘The boyfriend. What happened to him, then?’
No longer was he sitting upright on the sofa. Too much like hard work. After following her example and kicking off his trainers, he’d slumped down, and spent the last few minutes fighting the urge to close his eyes. This was his chance, and he dared not botch it. Cassie knelt beside him on the sofa, legs tucked beneath her, breasts almost caressing his chest. Breathing hard.
‘Long story.’
‘We have all the time in the world.’
‘You think so?’
‘Sure.’ He tried to order his thoughts. ‘The shop is covered. I don’t need to go back.’
‘Listen, I have a confession to make.’
‘Tell me anything.’
‘My boyfriend is still around.’
He moved his head close to hers. ‘You mean…?’
‘I’m sorry, Marc.’
‘You sound like a manager, about to make someone redundant.’ He smiled, to show he was simply trying to lighten things up.
‘You know something? I was once diagnosed as an addictive personality. That was after the two of us split up, and I dropped out of uni. The psychiatrist said I was stressed, impulsive, I lacked self-esteem. A disposition towards sensation-seeking, that was her phrase.’
‘Sensation-seeking, huh?’
‘You may laugh, but she didn’t know the half of it. Not a tenth of it.’
‘I don’t believe you’re addicted to him.’
‘You don’t understand, I’m not in control. What he and I did was so terrifying that he ran away.’
Marc made a derisive noise. ‘Ran away?’
She took no notice. ‘I spent years fighting against myself, desperate to get over him. And not just him, but the way he made me feel, knowing he wanted me so much, knowing the jealousy hurt him so much, that he’d do anything — yes, anything — to destroy the pain.’
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘It’s the nature of addiction,’ she said, as if lecturing a classroom of underachievers. ‘Progressively, you need more and more stimulation. The psychiatrist warned me about it, and she wasn’t wrong. She encouraged me to write about my fantasies, but when I turned the truth into short stories, they never worked. What happened between him and me was something you couldn’t make up. When he came back into my life, it started all over again. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I got such a buzz from his heartache, the way it crucified him when I explained about the other men. His imagination works overtime, always has done. Fiction can’t compare to real life, that’s what I discovered. We can’t help ourselves. He’s hooked on me, and my addiction is nothing compared to his.’
His cheeks stung, as if she’d slapped his face. ‘The chap’s obviously a loser. Wrong for you. You need to start again.’
‘I need what he does for me.’
‘Cassie, you said yourself, he causes you grief. Seriously, you don’t want him to become dependent on you. It isn’t healthy.’
‘Too late for that,’ she murmured.
Marc hauled himself up on the sofa. Knackered he might be, after a bad night in his mother’s spare bed, but he must sort things out, once and for all. He couldn’t abandon her to some no-mark.
‘Don’t worry.’ He stroked her cold and lovely cheeks. ‘You can break the habit.’
‘You think I haven’t tried? When I went into hospital, and he disappeared, I thought I’d never see him again. But the moment he turned up again, I was lost.’
‘Is he stalking you? Making threats?’
‘Don’t be silly. He isn’t like that.’
‘I’ll look after you.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Like I said, you don’t understand.’
‘What is there to understand?’
‘It’s a two-way thing. Something unique and precious. He and I, we have a bond.’
‘Break it. Cassie. Please, he’s not good for you.’
‘No.’ Her expression hardened. ‘Nobody can rip us apart. Not me, not you, not anyone. The two of us are shackled together. For better or worse. We’ve been through too much, there can be no going back.’
The champagne was talking, he told himself. She’d not kept pace with him, and had barely finished her second glass, but bubbly must go straight to her head. He must make her see sense, he couldn’t sit back and let everything fall apart, after he’d given up so much, just to be with her.
When Hannah stopped talking, Fern Larter chewed the cap of a ballpoint pen as if it were a snack substitute.
‘East Londoner.’
The drive back to Divisional HQ had been slow and tortuous, but in Hannah’s mind at least, the fog had started to clear. She wanted to share her theory that Arlo Denstone was the same man who, six years earlier, had claimed to see Bethany Friend talking to a white-van man. A lead that went nowhere, because there was nowhere for it to go. Hannah was sure it was an invention, meant to steer the investigation into a cul-de-sac. An unnecessarily elaborate touch from someone who couldn’t help himself.