Dying Fall

that maybe infidelity isn’t high on his list. Didn’t he say that his wife had money of her own? Maybe he can’t afford for her to walk out.
    ‘Don’t judge me too harshly,’ Pippa is saying, throatily. ‘My first husband was handsome and charming but he should never have married. He left me for another man.’ She looks at Sandy as if daring him to say something but Sandy keeps his face blank.
    ‘I was on my own with a young child. It was very difficult. I decided to go back to university – my father had left me some money – so I went to Pendle and studied history.’
    ‘And that’s where you met Clayton Henry.’
    ‘That’s right. He was my tutor. He was kind and heoffered security, and although he’s been a very good stepfather to Chloe, it’s not a passionate relationship. But when I met Dan it was different. It was the real thing. He was so good-looking and charming. It was inevitable really.’
    ‘Was it?’
    Pippa flushes. ‘Well, I suppose I could have resisted but …’
    ‘Bit of a ladies’ man, was he?’ says Sandy sympathetically. ‘Very persuasive?’
    ‘No,’ says Pippa. ‘It wasn’t like that. He wasn’t some loathsome charmer, oiling around women. He was quiet and rather aloof. It was just … well, we started talking at our Christmas party and there was this instant connection. It was more mental than physical.’
    I’ll take your word for it, thinks Sandy. Beautiful people always claim not to be interested in looks. He has seen a photo of Dan Golding and the man looked like a bloody movie star. (He also saw his dead body when it was brought in for autopsy but then, to be fair, he wasn’t looking his best.)
    ‘I’d heard he was seeing his next-door neighbour,’ he says now.
    ‘Elaine?’ Pippa’s lip curls. ‘She was mad about him but he was embarrassed by her. She was always turning up drunk, offering him her body.’
    Nice, thinks Sandy. The only people who turn up on his doorstep are Jehovah’s Witnesses. Perhaps he should move to Fleetwood.
    ‘So there was nothing between Dan and Elaine?’ he asks.
    ‘Oh they may have had a fling before I came on the scene, but when I … knew him, Dan despised Elaine. She was so out of control. I think he was almost afraid of her.’
    ‘Really?’ This was interesting.
    ‘Yes, when she was drunk she’d threaten to kill herself and him.’
    In that order? wonders Sandy.
    ‘She threatened to kill him?’
    ‘Only when she was drunk.’
    Could a drunk Elaine have set Dan’s house on fire in a fit of jealous rage? Sandy wonders. It’s possible. Her only alibi is Guy; just as Pippa’s only alibi is Clayton.
    ‘What about Guy,’ he asks. ‘Where does he fit in?’
    ‘He’s devoted to Elaine. He’s the only one who can handle her. But I don’t think they’re lovers. In fact I always wondered whether he was gay. He certainly seemed a bit in love with Dan.’
    ‘Popular chap.’
    Pippa’s eyes fill with tears. Sandy thinks they’re genuine because they make her mascara run. ‘Dan was a lovely, lovely man. Everyone adored him.’
    So it would seem, thinks Sandy.
    *
    ‘It’s a real shame,’ says Gary, the estate agent. ‘I don’t expect we’ll get another tenant now.’
    Cathbad is tempted to say that the real shame is that a man who was alive a few days ago is lying dead in themortuary. But he decides not to bother. There is a grey materialistic aura over Gary and, indeed, over the whole office, so he contents himself with stroking Thing and asking why Dame Alice’s cottage is unlettable. It seems a highly desirable residence to him.
    ‘It’s got a reputation,’ says Gary darkly. ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Pendle Witches? Well, this house used to belong to one of them. An old lady lived there for years and people round here used to say she was a witch too. Then she died and it came on our books. We couldn’t get a tenant to stay there. People said there were strange noises, things kept moving about, odd lights appeared in the garden at night. One man said he woke up in the night to see an old woman sitting at the foot of his bed, just staring at him. Someone else said they’d seen Dame Alice sitting in her rocking chair, knitting. The place was empty for years until your friend moved in.’
    ‘And he didn’t care about the ghosts?’
    ‘No.’ Gary looks dubiously at Cathbad, who smiles blandly back. ‘I understood he was into that sort of thing. He said that he’d make