Bones In the River

by Zoe Sharp

  Grace put down her own cup, clattering it against the saucer in her surprise. “What have you heard? And where on earth did you hear it?”

  Her mother waved a hand vaguely. “Oh, the local grapevine, you know. It works as well as ever, I see.”

  “Good grief… Well, no, there’s no sign of him. Not yet, anyway. I’ve been told to wait for the house-to-house enquiries to come in before I…explore the evidence in any more detail.”

  Before she incurred any lab costs, in other words. But, if Jordan hadn’t turned up by morning, one way or another, Grace knew the pressure would be on her to provide some kind of direction for the investigation team. She tried not to let the prospect of yet another run-in with the acting Head of CSI disturb her equanimity.

  “I knew the family,” Eleanor said, reflective. “Oh, not the boy but his father—and his grandfather, come to that. Now, he really was a rogue. Dylan’s father died after a disagreement in a bar, from what I recall—stabbed, poor man. Still, everyone had half-expected that he would come to a Bad End.”

  Grace thought of the blood on the bicycle, the damage to the wheels and the frame. Whatever had become of Jordan Elliot, she feared that nothing good could come of it.

  14

  Nick stood by the lounge window, waiting and watching. Below the second-storey flat in what had been the old Organ Works in Kendal, two lanes of traffic passed along Aynam Road. The rain had eased back to little more than drizzle but the cars moved slow and sporadic. In contrast, the River Kent just beyond the road had started to pick up its pace, swollen from the earlier thunderstorm and sudden downpour.

  Nick had sloughed off his suit and tie when he got in from work. Mindful of Sophie’s usual bath-time antics, he’d changed into jogging pants, too, and rolled back the sleeves of his shirt, ready for the battle.

  She was behind him now, asleep on the sofa—finally fed, bathed, and dressed in her favourite pyjamas. He glanced across at his daughter. All that was visible amid the soft throw and the plush bunny that was her most treasured toy, was a tousled mop of blonde hair. She let out a part-snuffle, part-snore, and tightened her grip on the bunny. Its wide embroidered eyes seemed to bulge as she did so.

  Nick smiled, almost in spite of himself.

  It was after nine in the evening. The storm clouds had turned the day gloomy. Not yet quite twilight, it was that indecisive time when only maybe half the cars trundling past below had their headlights on. The tarmac gleamed and glittered in the beams.

  He leaned against the wall by the window, arms folded so the open bottle of beer in his hand rested against his shoulder. Condensation from the cold bottle had leached through his shirt and chilled a patch of skin until it was numb. Still, he hadn’t taken a sip.

  Not until she gets here…

  Lisa had been a hairdresser when they first met, working at a big salon in Manchester. When they’d moved north, she’d reconnected with a girl she’d gone to college with. They were now partners in their own hair and beauty salon in Bowness-on-Windermere. Lisa wanted them to move closer, arguing it would lessen his daily commute up to the Hunter Lane police station at Penrith as much as it would her own. Kendal was as near as Nick felt they could comfortably afford. He’d been staggered to discover that property prices in the Lakes almost matched the south-east.

  He knew he couldn’t complain about Lisa working late, even if it was unexpected tonight. Nick had left a trail of so many abandoned dinners and broken dates behind him during his police career. Not to mention the days or even weeks when he’d disappear with no contact, saturation diving into some undercover job with the Met. He realised, on occasions like this, just how much Lisa had put up with over the years they’d been together—not graciously, sometimes, admittedly. And so he had no choice but to hold his tongue.

  But tonight was not one of those when the salon usually stayed open late. Lisa should have been home long before now. It should have been her who picked up Sophie from her parents’ house in Staveley on the way home. They were of a generation still suspicious of mobile phones. It wasn’t until Nick arrived home to the unexpectedly empty flat he found their message on the landline answer-phone. He’d listened to them explaining Lisa hadn’t turned up yet, swore under his breath and headed straight back out again. He never even got the chance to put down his car keys.

  Nick recognised how lucky he and Lisa were that her parents were happy to baby-sit so frequently, what with the cost of child-care these days. In fact, they relished time with their granddaughter and showed it by spoiling her rotten—something else Nick would have liked to take issue with. He’d tried persuading Lisa to voice his reservations about them stuffing Sophie with her own weight in sugary snacks and fizzy drinks whenever they looked after her.

  To that, Lisa had thrown, first a tantrum about his lack of gratitude, then whatever solid objects happened to be near to hand at the time.

  At one point, an episode like that would have ended with them in bed, where they made love as passionately as they fought.

  Not anymore.

  Just after Nick transferred up to Cumbria Constabulary the previous year, he and Lisa had split up. Or rather, she announced she’d had enough of him and moved back to her parents’, regardless of his feelings about it. He’d only put in for the transfer in the first place to appease her. It was either that, she commanded, or he choose a different career—one that wasn’t likely to see him beaten half to death and hospitalised, again, as an occupational hazard.

  Nick found himself an unwanted outsider not just at home but at work, too. It was only after he’d taken up the posting that he discovered it had been widely expected to go to a local officer. This did not prove the best way to ingratiate himself with his new colleagues. He’d been trying to make up the lost ground ever since.

  Still, at least over the winter Lisa had undergone a change of heart about their relationship. Nick still wasn’t quite sure why. At the time, he’d been too grateful to have Sophie back under the same roof.

  But having Lisa back…well, that was something he was far more ambivalent about.

  Especially on nights like this.

  One car outside caught his attention. It was moving faster than the others, weaving from lane to lane as it cut through traffic. Finally, the driver braked hard and swerved left into the side street leading to their building car park, cutting up a delivery van behind. The van driver leaned on his horn and kept it there for a long, angry burst.

  A few minutes later, he heard the rattle of Lisa’s key in the front door. He listened to her kick off her heels in the hallway, dump her handbag on the side table and finally come padding through to the lounge, leafing through her mail. She seemed almost surprised to see him waiting for her.

  “Oh, hello, gorgeous,” she said over brightly.

  Nick put a finger to his lips and nodded toward Sophie, still spark out on the sofa.

  Lisa’s face fell. “For heaven’s sake, Nick, what’s she doing still up at this time?”

  Oh, so you do know what time it is, then…

  “She particularly wanted you to tuck her in,” he said, striving for a tone so bland she’d have nothing to dig her claws into. “If I’d known how late you were going to be, I wouldn’t have agreed.”

  To his surprise, she gave him a chastened smile.

  “I know. Sorry. It’s all been a bit frantic today. Well, you of all people know how that one goes. I’ll put her down now. Be a darling and pour me a glass of wine, would you?”

  Nick levered away from the wall without comment. He retrieved a bottle of Lisa’s favourite Chardonnay from the fridge in the kitchen area while she scooped a sleepily protesting Sophie out of her nest. By the time she returned, he’d poured out a glass, turned on the stove and was finishing a carbonara sauce over the heat.

  “She hardly even stirred, poor little love.” Lisa slid onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar that divided the kitchen from the living area. She took the clips out of her hair, massaging her sca
lp with a moan that, at one point, would have plugged straight into Nick’s libido. Now, it left him strangely untouched.

  “Long day,” he commented, still so neutral that normally Lisa would take issue. She knew him better than anyone, after all.

  All she said was, “Yeah, it has been a bit. Still, we’d be complaining more if things were too quiet, eh?”

  Nick snapped a handful of spaghetti into a pan of boiling water and glanced back over his shoulder. He found her watching him with a slightly distracted air.

  “Your wine’s there.”

  “Oh, yeah…thanks.”

  “Supper will be about ten minutes—soon as the pasta’s cooked.”

  “Thanks, darling,” she said again, downing half the glassful in one long swallow. “You’re an absolute star.”

  OK, now I definitely know something’s up.

  It wasn’t until he had dished up the pasta and taken the stool alongside her that she seemed to pluck up her courage.

  “Nick…how well do you know the other cops here? At Kendal, I mean.”

  “Why’s that?” He finally reached for the bottle of beer and took a long pull. “Have you been caught speeding?”

  “Of course not!” she protested. “I’m a very careful driver.”

  Nick thought of her madcap swerve off the main road and said nothing.

  “It’s, um…it’s about Karl…”

  He put down his beer with a sigh and simply looked at her. “What’s he done now?”

  “Nothing!” But as soon as the denial was out of her mouth, she flushed.

  As well she might, Nick considered. Lisa’s hulking brother, Karl, was a small-time loser who lacked any discernable talent—including the low cunning required to be a proper villain. He had no aptitude for crime other than a reluctance to work hard at an honest job. And he was a sucker for any enterprise that sounded like a path to a quick buck, regardless of how legal or illegal it might be. Quite how he’d avoided, if not arrest then certainly conviction and jail time, Nick was never sure.

  Physically, he was the opposite of his sister, who was petite and delicate. Now, Nick held Lisa’s gaze until she looked away, taking another mouthful of wine as an excuse to do so. He knew he should back down then, pick up his fork and let the awkward moment pass. Make small talk, say something innocuous, inconsequential.

  But he was tired, he realised. Tired of pretending he cared about the soap opera that was Lisa’s family, tired of indulging her pretentions, her mania for the latest fashions, her obsession with shoes, and her sheer bitchiness about the hairstyle, age, or weight of every woman he worked with.

  Like any of that really matters.

  It was down to Lisa’s basic insecurity, he acknowledged, and he tried to make allowances. But the thought of her gradually instilling the same hang-ups and the same warped values into their daughter made him stubborn. So he stayed motionless, staring at her, until she began to fidget and eventually slammed the glass down hard enough to slop out some of the contents.

  “All right, Nick!” she muttered, her voice compressed. “He bought this load of designer handbags, going cheap—”

  Nick groaned.

  “Aw, come on. Don’t be like that! The bloke said they were buyer samples and overstocks—”

  “What bloke?”

  Her colour had begun to recede but now it bloomed again. “The bloke he bought them off—in a pub. And no, before you ask, I don’t know which pub.”

  “So, in other words, they fell off the back of a lorry,” he said flatly.

  Lisa opened her mouth to form a denial, and then closed it again with a scowl. “They were decent mid-price brands—Danse Lente, Sensi Studio, Rey, Michael Kors.” She threw out the names as if they should mean something to him. “Not obvious fakes of Hermes and Chanel, so you don’t know where they came from.”

  “And neither do you. Why else would Kendal nick be involved?” He sat back, his appetite suddenly gone, and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I think it’s time your big brother finally stood on his own two feet and took responsibility for his actions.”

  “You mean you won’t…do anything? Won’t help him?”

  “Not my area. Not my case.”

  Her face twisted and she, too, pushed her bowl aside. Nick rose, plucked their almost untouched dishes from the countertop and carried them to the sink. While his back was toward her, Lisa said quietly:

  “What about doing it…to help me?”

  Something in her tone made him turn and go very still.

  “Lisa,” he said then, in a soft voice she should have treated with caution, “what have you done?”

  She was playing with the stem of her wineglass, twirling it round and watching the pale liquid climb the sides like a wall of death, inching ever closer to the rim.

  “I… He asked if I’d help him—shift a few, you know? So, I let him put a display in the salon.”

  He bit back the instinctive rebuke and asked wearily, “How many have you sold?”

  “Loads,” she admitted. “They look really good and, at the price, they’re a steal…” Her voice trailed away as she registered the poor choice of words. “It’s just, if this goes…any further, it’s bound to be in the papers, maybe local news. Our clients are bound to find out. They could demand refunds or—”

  “Or report you,” Nick finished for her. “Which could lead either to a conviction for handling stolen goods if these bags are the real thing—which I very much doubt—or one for fraud, if they’re fakes. Not a good outcome for you, either way.”

  Temper flared in Lisa’s eyes. To some extent, Nick was almost glad to see it there.

  “What about it not being a good outcome for you, either?” she demanded. “After all, if I get done as well as Karl, what effect will that have on your precious career?”

  He sighed in defeat. “Send it down the toilet, probably.”

  “Exactly. Besides, it’s not the first time you’ve put in a good word for him, is it?”

  In fact, Nick had done his best to see Karl got what was coming to him. But he knew that denying his supposed earlier intervention now would not be wise.

  “I’ll ask around,” he said at last. “Can’t promise more than that.”

  Lisa nodded. She did not hide her satisfaction well as she slipped off the stool and picked up her wineglass. “I’m going to grab a quick shower before bed. I’m exhausted.”

  Before she could turn away, Nick locked his gaze onto her face, the intensity of his stare at odds with his casual tone. “Is that where you were tonight, then—seeing Karl?”

  Lisa hesitated. Only momentarily, but enough for a man who’d learned to read fractional intonation and micro-expressions as a matter of course. At one time, interpreting them correctly had meant the difference between life and death.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Yes, of course. Where else would I have been?”

  When he didn’t answer, she shrugged and went into their bedroom, shutting the door behind her with quiet care.

  Nick let out a long breath, bracing his hands on the countertop. He’d long ago learned to distinguish truth from lies, too. And as soon as Lisa had spoken, all his cop instincts blared a warning like a klaxon going off inside his head.

  Lie.

  15

  Blenkinship stared at the wildlife documentary on the TV screen without taking in a frame of footage or a word of the narration. He sat very still, almost outside himself. Occasionally, he lifted the whisky tumbler clasped in his right hand and took a sip. The twelve-year-old single malt was one of his favourites—taken with just a splash of water, thank you very much, and no adulteration of ice—but he could hardly taste that, either.

  It was as though he was losing touch with all his senses as they became contaminated by the dirty floodwater of his guilt.

  He hadn’t stopped to draw breath all day, but by the end of it had achieved nothing. Perhaps because all the time he’d been waiting for Grace McColl’s crime-scene report on t
he bicycle found at Mallerstang to come in. By close of play, however, it had still failed to arrive in his inbox.

  He tried to tell himself there was nothing out of the ordinary about this. She might well still be tidying up her notes, going through her photographs. After all, as far as anybody knew, this could turn out to be nothing more than an overreaction. It was hardly a priority case.

  Not yet, anyway…

  Or she could have gone over your head because she’s been able to reconstruct exactly what happened and can somehow link you to the crime. Even now, the boys from uniform could be gathering outside the front of the house, in the back garden, across the street. Waiting for the order to—

  Something large sailed past his head, close enough to make him flinch back in the armchair with a convulsive upward jerk of his hands to protect his face. The whisky splashed out of the glass as he did so, trickling down his wrist.

  Still, it took him another moment to focus on the cushion that had just flumped to the carpet beside his chair.

  His eyes veered to Susanne, sitting on the sofa with her legs stretched out and surrounded by the inevitable stack of marking. She was watching him over her glasses, half amused but with a pinch of worry between her eyebrows.

  “What the hell was that in aid of?”

  “You tell me,” she said, in the kind of voice he imagined she used on her least attentive students. “I’ve asked you twice if you’re actually interested in the sex life of baboons and you totally ignore me.”

  He sighed and put down the tumbler, sucking the spilled whisky from the back of his hand rather than waste it.

  “Yeah, sorry. Tough day.”

  She rummaged under her papers for the remote and muted the TV.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  I don’t know… Do I?

  Just for a second, the urge to blurt out the whole nightmare was almost overwhelming. Was a burden shared really a burden halved, as the old saying went? Or was it a burden doubled instead? For the first time, he began to understand how all but the most hardened perpetrators of crime might confess during police interview. Especially with apparently sympathetic listeners on the other side of the table, coaxing you to get it all off your chest.