by Jo Allen
‘I don’t have very long.’ She kept her voice low, because if Jude heard her, or if Lisa did, they’d mock her even more. ‘So I’m afraid I’m going to have to hurry you.’ No incense, no meditation, no time to stop and think. That wasn’t the way to make the most of a reading but she might get something out of it, if it was only a whistle to call her unruly thoughts to heel. She slid the cards out of their box and dealt out just one. There was time only for the briefest reading.
She held her hand above the card for a moment before turning it over and flipping it down onto the dressing table. The Seven of Swords. At one level that was no surprise. The suit of swords came up far more often than it ought to, as if the cards were connected with the job she did. This, with its message of diplomacy and avoiding confrontation, told her nothing she didn’t already know. ‘My whole life is about avoiding confrontation,’ she told the card, in mock-severity. And its alternative meaning was startlingly obvious as well, warning her of unknown opponents. ‘I’m a detective. Of course I have unknown opponents.’
‘Ash!’ Jude’s voice floated up the stairs from the kitchen. ‘What the hell are you doing up there? Your coffee’s going cold and your toast’s about to burn, and you’ll say it’s my fault.’
‘Just coming.’ She cut the Seven of Swords back into the pack, stowed the cards away and went back to finishing off her hair. It didn’t do to take yourself too seriously, and the cards didn’t always deliver.
When Jude arrived at the office, separating from Ashleigh in the car park by mutual consent so as not to make their relationship any more obvious than it needed to be, he found Detective Inspector Chris Dodd, widely known as Doddsy, standing by the coffee machine in the corridor close to the office they shared. Doddsy’s thoughtful look indicated that something had come up overnight — not so important that Jude, Doddsy’s immediate boss, would need to know about it straight away, but something troubling nonetheless. ‘Doddsy. Good weekend?’
‘Aye, passed without incident.’ Doddsy straightened up and examined the coffee in the cardboard cup as though he’d expected something better. ‘Tyrone was on shift yesterday, so I got a load of work done.’
‘Good.’ Jude felt in his pocket for some change. He’d managed a whole weekend with Ashleigh with neither of them on call or having to go in to work for unfinished business so a trip down to the canteen rather than straight into work via the machine seemed an unnecessary luxury. His brow creased. It was only just eight o’clock. A former girlfriend’s exasperation rang in the back of his mind. For God’s sake, Jude. You don’t have to work every hour you’re not sleeping just because you can.
That remark was one of the reasons she was his ex, but she’d been right. If he’d listened, who knew how that relationship might have panned out? He’d cared about her. ‘So what’s on your mind?’
Doddsy ran a finger round his collar, a gesture that signalled slight awkwardness. ‘I had a quick call from Tyrone just now.’
‘Personal?’ Jude kept his tone light. He’d known Doddsy for years and the two were close, but sometimes you had to tread carefully. Not everyone was as sanguine as Jude about the inspector’s relationship with a policeman less than half his age. Sometimes Jude wondered if Doddsy himself was quite comfortable with it, but when the two of them found time to go out for a drink together, that particular subject was left untouched. Doddsy had never been one to talk about his private life, even to his friends, but these days he never opened up at all.
Fair enough. There were plenty of things Jude himself preferred not to talk about.
‘No. Business. Something which came up first thing and he filled me in on it. Because he thought there might be more to it than meets the eye.’
‘And you have a bad feeling about it?’ Jude dropped two coins into the machine and was rewarded by a trickle of pale coffee that would do nothing to stimulate his brain. Thank God Ashleigh and Lisa had a decent coffee machine.
‘We don’t do feelings, though, do we?’ Doddsy grinned at him. ‘But yes.’
‘You sound like my good friend DS O’Halloran.’ Jude grinned. You had to give Ashleigh her due. It wasn’t feelings that made her such a success, but an instinct for understanding the human mind and its follies, harnessed to an uncanny knack for persuading the most cynical witness to trust her, often to the point at which they succeeded only in incriminating themselves.
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’ Swilling the coffee round in his cup, Doddsy nodded towards the door of the office. ‘Let’s go in.’
Jude followed him in, assuming his seat, stretching out a hand to switch on his laptop and setting the coffee down on the desk. ‘Go on then.’
‘There was a missing person reported very early this morning from Pooley Bridge. A young woman. Her name is Summer Raine.’
Jude laughed.
‘Yeah, I know.’ Doddsy’s own laugh was more sympathetic. ‘Some people, eh? What they do to their kids. Anyway. She’s up here for the summer, working down at the marina at Pooley Bridge. She’s a sailing and surfboarding teacher, been here for the last couple of years. She was on a day off yesterday. She went out for a walk and hasn’t come back.’
‘And it was reported…when?’
‘About half six. She lives in a bunkhouse just outside Pooley Bridge with a load of the other staff, but she has a boyfriend up in Howtown. It seem there was a bit of confusion. Her colleagues thought she was with him and he thought she was with them.’
‘Who reported her missing?’ Jude keyed in his password and sighed as a stream of notifications rolled across the screen like the closing credits of a long and complicated art house film, the price he always paid for staying offline for two days at a time.
‘The boyfriend. He hadn’t heard from her, so he called first thing when he got up. That was about six. She didn’t answer, so he called one of her friends. Then he called 101. Tyrone and Charlie are heading down there later to see what’s what.’
Later meant the matter wasn’t deemed immediately significant, and whoever had assessed the initial report had judged that the unfortunately-named Summer Raine wasn’t considered at risk. ‘Tyrone and Charlie haven’t even got there yet, and you’re telling me there’s something funny about it. What’s the story?’
‘It’s the boyfriend. Luke Helmsley. You know him?’
Jude ran the name through his brain and found no obvious connections. ‘I know of some Helmsleys over towards Appleby. I think I had some dealings with one of them years ago, when I was just starting out, but that was minor. Breaking and entering, if I remember. But it’s not an uncommon name hereabouts.’
‘No. But Tyrone knows of him. Not that they’re of an age. Helmsley’s a few years older.’ He sighed. Doddsy had lived a long time as a quiet and celibate man and only found himself a partner as he approached middle age. Tyrone’s youth seemed a permanent thorn in his flesh, inviting judgement and opposition on them where the same-sex relationship didn’t. ‘Twenty-seven. But you know how it is with Tyrone. He knows someone one who knows someone. He seems to know everyone.’ A smile raced across his face and faded away. ‘I ran Helmsley through the records to see what I could come up with. I thought I’d heard the name.’
‘And?’
‘Your man isn’t exactly pure and spotless. He has a couple of convictions for assault, both of them when drunk, both of them involving a woman. In one of them he took a swing at a guy he thought was staring at his then girlfriend — not Summer, but a previous partner. And in the other, he assaulted the same girl, who he thought was getting too friendly with one of his mates. Both of those were a few years back.’
‘And yet the missing persons report—?’ Jude prompted.
‘I haven’t seen anything that’s come through on that. But I’ve suggested to Tyrone he might want to ask some searching questions.’
Jude sat back and thought about it. It irked him that he couldn’t recall the Helmsley case, because he prided himself on the depth of his local know
ledge and his recall of detail. ‘What do we know about the girl? Is it unusual for her to disappear without letting anyone know where she is?’
‘I imagine it must be, if he’s bothered to report her missing.’ Doddsy drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘It may be nothing. She may turn up, and I’m going to guess there’s nothing in her background to suggest she’s at any kind of risk, or they’d have folk out looking for her already. And Helmsley may have been away the whole afternoon and not be a suspect at all, even if she doesn’t reappear.’
Jude looked out of the window at a blue sky populated with animated white clouds blowing past in the stiff breeze. In the distance, to the east, the cobalt-blue line of the Pennine Hills rippled along the horizon. In the other direction, a dozen miles to the west, the hills around Ullswater would look equally inviting, hiding even greater dangers under their fifty shades of green. ‘Yesterday was tempting, but it was cold up top. Ashleigh and I were out up High Street.’ He paused to remember how they’d looked over the fluctuating fell tops, above the trough that held Ullswater and towards the serrated edges that guarded the approach to Helvellyn. ‘She may have gone for a walk up the fells and got caught out. Or a swim. The lake looks lovely but it’s perishing when you’re in.’ And there were deep and treacherous currents. Things — and people — went into Ullswater and never came out again.
‘She wasn’t local.’ Doddsy conceded that point. ‘She may have misjudged. Maybe got lost.’
If that was the case she’d turn up safe and sound soon enough, perhaps dragged back by the mountain rescue team from a disingenuous-looking hillside, with a twisted ankle and an embarrassed smile and at worst a touch of exposure. ‘But you think not.’
‘Tyrone thinks not. And so I’m just warning you this one might be coming our way rather than be left with the guys in uniform.’ Doddsy turned his attention to his coffee.
‘Okay.’ Tempted to follow it up, Jude nevertheless resisted the chance to run through for himself what Doddsy had already done. He turned to other things, wondering how he was going to manage to fit in this kind of missing persons enquiry if it ever reached his level, but his period of concentration lasted only until he’d opened the first of the weekend’s accumulated emails. That was the point at which the door opened without ceremony and Detective Superintendent Faye Scanlon walked in to the room.
Despite a bad beginning, Jude had recently realised he liked Faye. She was brisk and demanding; she could be both antagonistic and defensive; she was spiky and ambitious; and he had a natural dislike of authority which she seemed to sense. To make matters worse, she brought with her a shedload of baggage in the shape of a past relationship with Ashleigh O’Halloran — something which wasn’t exactly a secret but to which very few people were privy, and something he personally would rather not have known. But he knew and she knew he knew, and the resulting tension was always there between them.
And yet he liked her. Faye was a competent and effective police officer, a terrier at management and one who got the best out of her staff. If it wasn’t for the scandal that had trailed around after her affair with Ashleigh, with both of them married at the time, then she’d have been in a bigger job or in the same job in a bigger force, but life wasn’t like that. A twist in the sequence of events that had sent Ashleigh to start a new life in Cumbria had landed Faye upon them a few months later, and after the first moment of intense irritation she’d rolled her sleeves up and got on with the job. Jude’s dislike had turned to respect and the respect was mellowing further. He couldn’t see himself ever enjoying a social situation in her company, but he could work with her. ‘Faye. Anything I can do for you?’ He waited.
Faye looked pointedly at Doddsy, who’d just picked up his phone. It was, Jude suspected, more of a tacit observation on the faint smell of cigarette smoke that the chain-smoking inspector took with him wherever he went rather than a request for privacy, but he was wrong. Seeing Doddsy wasn’t for moving, she stepped back out again. ‘If you could spare me five minutes in my office.’
He logged out of his emails and followed her the three doors along the corridor. Faye had an office to herself but like him she was rarely in it, straying around the building making sure she knew what was going on, always preferring a face-to-face briefing to an email one and catching up on the paperwork late in the evening when there was no-one around from whom she could learn something directly.
‘Sit down.’ She closed the door behind him, an indication of something either serious or secret. ‘Something got passed up to me this morning and I’d like to keep an eye on it. Or rather, since it’s way below my pay grade, I’d like you to keep an eye on it.’
When she first arrived, that remark would have put his back up. He internalised his smile. ‘What is it?’
‘A missing person.’
Something told Jude a mighty coincidence was about to unfold in front of him. He downplayed it. ‘I think you’ll find that’s way below my pay grade, too.’
She waved that aside. ‘Yes, probably, but it’s something I’d like some discreet input into from the non-uniformed side, and I’d like you to oversee it even if you aren’t directly involved. Does that satisfy your professional pride?’
‘Yes.’ He took a speculative punt. ‘Is it Summer Raine?’
She looked surprised. ‘How did you know?’
He allowed the smile to break out. It was always particularly satisfying to be a step ahead of Faye. ‘Just a guess. Doddsy was telling me about it.’
‘Doddsy was? How did he know? Information runs amok in this place, and nobody seems able to control it.’ Her irritation was obvious.
‘You want to keep this missing person inquiry quiet rather than ask around to see if anyone’s seen her? Am I understanding this right?’
‘Of course that isn’t what I said. I suppose it’s no surprise Doddsy knew about it. It’s his boyfriend who was dispatched initially, I think.’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. If that’s all, I don’t need to worry. I hear nothing but good things about young PC Garner, but I’m sure Doddsy has enough sense not to tell his young man anything confidential.’ She hit a couple of buttons on her laptop and the printer in the corner whirred and spat out a sheet of paper. ‘So. Summer Raine was reported missing this morning at about half past six. PC Garner and PC Fry went down to talk to the girl’s boyfriend first thing this morning and have just filed this report.’
He was intrigued. Someone — possibly Faye herself — must have prioritised Summer’s disappearance since Doddsy had heard about it from Tyrone. He scanned the two sheets of paper she handed him. A blonde woman, young, dyed hair with dark roots trapped in braids from which it had begun to escape, was laughing in a photograph, bathed in sunshine. Behind her, the brown hills of the Lakes loomed large. ‘Is this picture recent?’
‘It’s a couple of weeks old. She’s twenty-two, and left Exeter University three weeks ago. She comes from London. She’ll graduate in July and in the autumn she’s enrolling on a masters degree in feminist politics, but she’s a watersports enthusiast and was planning to spend the summer teaching sailing and surfboarding at the watersports centre up at Pooley Bridge. It’s her third summer there. Last year she entered into a casual relationship with a local man, Luke Helmsley. He says this was the reason she came back again this summer. By all accounts she’s an independent young woman, more than capable of looking after herself in this kind of terrain in summer conditions. Yesterday was her day off. She spent the morning at the watersports centre and in and around Pooley Bridge, and then went out. She told her colleagues she was going for a walk and a group of them saw her heading up the Ullswater Way on the Sunday. There was a subsequent sighting, further along the route. That was by Luke Helmsley.’
Jude raised an eyebrow. ‘Last person to see her alive, eh?’
‘So far, yes, but he claims to have been with someone at the time. We’ve yet to confirm that.’
Jude flicked through the rest of the shee
t. Summer had been wearing jeans and a light top, carrying a small leather backpack and wearing sandals — definitely not the right clothing for anything more challenging than the road, or possibly the marked route along the lake. ‘There’s no previous history of going missing? No vulnerabilities?’
‘Nothing.’
‘And nothing special about Summer herself? No reason why anyone might want to abduct her?’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
‘Then what’s so special about the case?’
She sat back in her chair and looked at him with a steel-grey gaze. ‘It’s a little awkward, Jude, and I rely on your total discretion. Even internally.’
‘Of course.’
‘Very well. I know very little about the case I’m about to talk about. I’m involved in it only at the margins, largely as a matter of courtesy because it comes onto my turf. Assuming Luke Helmsley is telling the truth, when Summer was last seen she was beyond Howtown and heading towards a lakeside property owned by a man named Robert Neilson.’ She looked at him with a raised eyebrow, as if questioning him.
‘Local lad,’ he obliged. ‘Filthy rich. New money. Brought up in Pooley Bridge. Parents scraped everything together to send him away to boarding school and he went off to the City to make his money. Came back not that long afterwards able to buy a huge property and a few tens of acres with one of the best views in the Lakes. Married, divorced, remarried. Twins from the first marriage, I think.’
‘You’re astonishingly well-informed.’
There was nothing astonishing about it. Jude had been accumulating information about the countryside and the people who lived in it since long before he’d ended up in the police. Thirty-six years of insatiable curiosity had matured into a store of rock-solid local knowledge. Luke Helmsley had slipped below his radar but the more intriguing Robert Neilson had not. ‘The kids are eighteen, I think. Spoiled brats, according to Mikey. My kid brother,’ he added, for clarification.
