Hannah digested this in silence. She didn’t like the path her thoughts were taking.
‘Fogbound?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Can’t blame anyone for not wanting to turn out in this weather. You’ve done well to make it in.’
‘I live on a bus route. It only took five minutes longer.’
‘Does Cassie drive to work, as a matter of interest? Or does she catch a bus too?’
‘No, she drives.’
‘Yeah, now you mention it, I think I’ve seen her car parked in the courtyard.’
Not true, but who cared?
‘Can’t miss it, really, can you?’ Judith obviously wanted to say something bitchy, but wasn’t sure how far she dare go with her employer’s partner. ‘Between you and me, it’s not a colour I care for. Rather gaudy. I certainly wouldn’t fancy a purple car myself.’
Momentum. Every investigation needed momentum, and at last they had it. Typical — you wait ages for one suspect to turn up, and then two arrive at the same time. The immediate challenge was to find them. Cassie Weston lived outside Kendal, and Arlo Denstone in Grasmere. While members of the joint team were despatched to track them down and invite them in to answer a few questions, Hannah texted Marc and left a voice message, asking him to call her urgently, then headed to the cafeteria to kick the case around over a coffee with Greg Wharf.
‘Bethany Friend and Cassie Weston,’ she said. ‘Two attractive young women whose shared love of literature brought them together.’
‘So, they had a fling?’
For once, his tone wasn’t prurient. He was getting his head round it all. Beneath the bravado and bluster, he wasn’t a bad detective. Greg was very different from Nick Lowther, but maybe they could work in tandem after all.
‘An intense relationship, yes. Whether sex was part of it, who knows? For Cassie, in particular, it was probably a matter of curiosity. Just seeing what it was like, being with another woman. Probably she’s someone who likes breaking taboos. She made Bethany a present of a novel about possession. A joke, or a sign of self-awareness, who knows? They’d been extremely discreet, that suited them both. But the inscription is a giveaway. It proves they were close, and that’s all we need.’
‘Yet Cassie finished with her.’
‘The minute she met Arlo, is my guess. Or should I say the minute she met Roland Seeton?’
‘The long-haired dropout?’
‘He’s charismatic.’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘Oh yeah?’
‘Don’t start,’ she said wearily. ‘But he’s the sort of man who attracts women. There’s something…I don’t know…masterful about him. Cassie could pick and choose her men, and Wanda’s no mug, but they both fancied him like mad. Takes all sorts.’
‘OK, ma’am.’ He took a slurp of coffee. ‘And meanwhile, Bethany teamed up with Clare on the rebound?’
‘She didn’t choose her lovers wisely, for sure.’
A stab of self-knowledge stopped her short. Who am I to talk?
‘After Clare abandoned Bethany, it was plausible that she might have become depressed enough to kill herself.’ He was thinking aloud, working it out for himself. Hannah approved. ‘Cassie and Seeton took advantage.’
‘He was jealous of Bethany.’
‘Even though Cassie had already dropped her?’
‘There’s nothing logical about jealousy.’ Don’t I know it? ‘Suppose it excited Cassie to torment Seeton, by inflaming his desire for her — how better than by making him as jealous as hell? A pair of passionate lovers, turned on by pushing the boundaries. One of them fanatical about De Quincey, the other an eager disciple.’
‘Wasn’t there a book, The De Quincey Code?’
‘Very funny. De Quincey once lived in Grasmere. For all we know, Arlo moved to the same village as a sort of homage to his hero. De Quincey was famous for two things. He was a drug addict, and he was obsessed with murder.’
‘I suppose your mate Daniel Kind gave you the low-down.’
She gave him a sharp glance, but this afternoon, there wasn’t a hint of innuendo in his tone. Though she didn’t underestimate his capacity to make mischief, if she didn’t watch her step.
‘He’s been helpful.’ Brisk and businesslike, that must be the way when Daniel’s name cropped up. ‘At present, it seems he was the last person to talk to Arlo Denstone.’
‘Useful contact.’ Greg kept his face straight.
‘De Quincey had a craving for opium. In those days, it wasn’t even against the law, you could buy it over the counter, dirt cheap. Seeton had a record for illegal possession; the odds are he never kicked the habit. If he and Cassie were high on something, it may explain how they came up with such a crazy idea. To kill an innocent woman, simply because of a past relationship. And not only that, to punish her and extract revenge by killing her in the way she feared most… Death by drowning.’
‘Bethany died on Valentine’s Day. If Cassie encouraged her to hope they’d get back together, she might have invented a pretext to persuade her to come up to the Serpent Pool.’
‘Such as? It was a bit cold for outdoor sex, surely?’
‘Like you said, ma’am, it takes all sorts.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Suppose Cassie made use of the fact that Bethany was desperate for affection to persuade her into playing some kind of bondage game. Bethany would have made herself vulnerable.’
‘Yeah, that may have been what happened.’
‘You think Roland Seeton was present at the scene?’
‘The kind of man I think he is, it would turn him on. For all we know, they shared the work. Say Cassie hits Bethany on the head, and while she’s stunned, Seeton leaps out of the undergrowth and pushes her head under the water. The details don’t matter.’
Greg nodded. ‘It’s easier to get away with a weird crime than something orthodox — until you come under the microscope.’
‘Which Cassie never did, because Bethany kept their affair secret. She was afraid her mother would be upset if she found out her daughter was mixed up with another woman. And Seeton may never even have met her. He took a risk by coming forward as a witness.’
‘But he got away with it.’
‘Not completely. Cassie had a breakdown when it sank in that she was responsible for someone’s death. Seeton lost the plot and abandoned her. Left the country, took a new name, forged a new career.’
Greg put down his cup. ‘He couldn’t keep away from her for ever.’
‘He’d reinvented himself successfully as Arlo Denstone. Nobody was likely to remember Roland Seeton, and in any case, his appearance had changed almost beyond recognition. When the Culture Company dreamt up a De Quincey Festival, and looked around for someone to lead it, the temptation was irresistible. He didn’t even ask for payment. So long as he could get back together with Cassie. He liked to say he was a cancer survivor. A good metaphor for jealousy. Once he was back with Cassie, he found himself succumbing again.’
‘Because she’d slept with Saffell and Wagg.’ Greg’s expression hardened. ‘Even though the affairs were over and done.’
‘That’s the nature of jealousy. It’s a disease. Left untreated, it destroys everything.’
‘Spoken from the heart.’
Greg scanned her face for clues, but she was determined to give nothing away.
‘Yeah, well. I’m trying to get inside Arlo’s head. Not a nice place to be. He’s obsessed with Cassie Weston, and with anyone who’s been involved with her. Two murders in a matter of weeks? He’s losing the plot all over again.’
‘Saffell was a loner. Easy to target him when he was in the boathouse. Wagg must have been a trickier target.’
‘My guess is that Cassie never quite got Bethany out of her system. Bethany had worked for Wagg and Saffell. They were older, successful men, perhaps she carried a torch for them.’ She paused, unable to resist asking herself the question: Is that how it was with Marc, as well? She fancied him, and he was flattered, but did either of them do anything about it? She cleared her throat. ‘Cassie followed in her footsteps, she was fascinated by the woman she’d slept with and then helped to kill. But she went further than Bethany. She had brief flings with each of them, but after she teamed up with Arlo again, she rekindled the relationship with Stuart. Possibly George too, for all I know. She’s gorgeous, and they were weak.’