by Jo Allen
‘He wasn’t very forthcoming, was he?’
‘Did you think not? I think he pretty much told us everything he had to say. I don’t know if he’s capable of hiding anything, although he’s one of those people that are naturally suspicious of the police.’
‘Probably with reason. I bet he drove back from the pub on Saturday night, and I bet he didn’t restrict himself to a tidy half pint.’
“I’m sure you’re right. Fortunately the only person he’s likely to do any damage to on this road is himself.’
‘For what it’s worth, I believe him.’
‘Yes. And let’s face it, there’s no suggestion at this stage that what happened to Summer wasn’t an accident.’
‘True. But I do wonder why she chose to go swimming of that particular piece of shoreline when it would have been so easy to go from somewhere else.’
‘I know. That niggles at me, too. I’d like to check up on her phone records. That’s one thing we can do. I’ll get young Chris onto that when I get back to the office. And you’d better head on up and break the news to the Neilsons. It’ll be interesting to see how those two lads react.’ But as he stopped at the pier at Howtown to let her out before he headed back to Penrith, Jude knew that unless the post-mortem or the crime scene assessment showed any signs of foul play, Summer’s death would be deemed an accident and go unresolved. And he, like Ashleigh, would find that profoundly unsatisfactory.
Eight
The hubbub on the lake path had died down, but there was a brooding sense of doom hanging over Waterside Lodge. It wasn’t over.
‘What do you think’s going on, Miranda?’ Will asked. His face had a pallor about it, and his usual chirpy attitude was subdued. The twins were only eighteen, Miranda reminded herself as she watched Ashleigh O’Halloran’s car drawing up at the front of the house, and death was very shocking at that age. At any age.
‘Come to arrest us, I bet.’ Ollie was the type who became morose when things got him down. ‘Hey, look on the bright side. It’s that sexy blonde detective. I’d quite like to be handcuffed to her.’
‘Ollie. That’s totally inappropriate.’ Miranda moved to reach the door before Ollie could say anything else to antagonise the woman. She herself had no fear of the police and it was always her policy to be polite to everyone, to keep on their right side. You never knew when you’d need a helping of good will, or who might unexpectedly turn out to be your guardian angel. ‘Good morning, Sergeant O’Halloran,’ she called, and checked her watch. Yes, it was still just morning, a couple of minutes to noon. ‘Is there any news?’
The detective closed and locked her car and approached the door before she answered. Miranda read that as a precursor of bad news. ‘I’m afraid so. We found Summer in the lake, just below Kailpot Crag.’
There was no need to ask if she was dead. ‘Oh, God. I’m so very sorry.’ For no particular reason, Miranda remembered Elizabeth. ‘Do we know what happened?’
‘It looks like an accident,’ Ashleigh O’Halloran said. She took a look over Miranda’s shoulder to where Ollie and Will lurked in the hallway, neither of them daring to come forward but yet not having the grace to step back. They were like that, always egging one another on until there was trouble. ‘Of course we have to investigate it thoroughly to be sure, and there will be a post-mortem and so on, but that’s certainly what it seems like at present.’
‘It’s such a tragic start to the summer. The boys will be devastated.’ But she thought they’d get over it pretty quickly, because neither of them had really cared about Summer and the world was too rich and exciting a place for them, with too many distractions.
‘I’m sure they will. We’d like to talk to them both again, at some stage.’
From behind there was a whisper and a snigger. The detective shot a reproachful glance over Miranda’s shoulder and her fingers tapped on the notebook that stuck out of her jacket pocket, as if to indicate that everything they said or did was noted. The snigger stopped.
‘I’m sure that’ll be fine. Although,’ said Miranda with a weary sigh, ‘I don’t know that any of us can tell you anything new.’
‘It’s really just to go over the statements and make sure that there’s nothing else you can tell us. There may be some further questions now we know where she was found. I’ll send someone down to do that later on this afternoon, if that’s all right.’
‘Oh…you won’t be doing that yourself?’
‘No. I’ll be up in Howtown.’
Miranda’s positivity sagged a little. The spectre of death weighed on her, but she’d thought talking to Ashleigh O’Halloran in private might have eased her. If she couldn’t tell her about Elizabeth she might at least have been able to glean some kind of reassurance that Summer’s death really was accidental, and that the shadow she felt upon her heart was a pale one from the present, not the dark one from the past. ‘Thank you for your help. And for coming to tell us. I do appreciate that you’re very busy.’
Fear. Fear was the worst thing. As she watched Ashleigh O’Halloran get back into her car and drive away, Miranda shivered. In her pocket, her phone pinged with a text. Flight just landed. Back by four o’clock.
That was something. At least with Robert home she had nothing to be afraid of, and there would be plenty of drama to distract her. ‘Ollie. Will. That’s your father. He’ll be home in a few hours.’ A conspiratorial smile shifted their expressions from apprehension to optimism. ‘I’m not promising anything. But leave it with me and I’ll see what I can do to keep him sweet.’
Robert, in the end, could not be kept sweet, though she did her best and she could tell by the look on the twins’ faces that they appreciated her efforts. In the end, when the storm that had broken within minutes of his arrival and endured throughout the evening meal had failed to blow through by dusk, Miranda had withdrawn from the battle, vanquished. While Robert was taking a business call, scowling with irritation at having been forced to come home because of his sons’ immaturity, she took her glass of wine and strayed out to the garden.
After the rain, as so often, it had turned into a beautiful day, though not as hot as the Sunday which had seen the death of Summer. The wine — it was her second glass — had failed to slow her heartbeat and all it did was stir those old memories. Her pulse quickened. Fear. Again.
If Summer’s death — if Summer’s presence at Waterside Lodge — was in any way sinister, what did that mean for her? They would be coming for her, but where from? From the lake? From the narrow road that wound up the dale, a single track into a dead end that left her waiting on the lakeside like a rat in a trap? Or over the trackless hillsides from Boredale or Martindale?
But she’d been wondering that for years, a fear so far without foundation. No-one would come for her now. All that had changed was that Summer’s death had raised the ghosts she’d thought were long laid.
‘All right?’
Behind her, Robert’s soft footsteps made her twitch with nerves before she realised who it was and remembered that with him at home she was safe. ‘Of course.’ A pause. ‘I’m so sorry about what happened. I really don’t think the boys meant any harm. I should have looked after them better.’
‘Why?’ Robert was a man with a keen sense of justice, one who never placed blame where it didn’t belong. ‘You’re their stepmother. You have a far better relationship with those boys that I ever imagined you could, but I don’t expect them to recognise your authority. For God’s sake, they don’t recognise their mother’s. And they’re eighteen.’
Ollie had made that point in the early part of his defence, before he’d allowed Will’s rapid submission to drag him down with it. ‘I know. And I’m fond of them. But they—’
‘They’re pushing the boundaries. Fine. Now they know where they are.’
She paused and swirled the wine around in her glass. The lights from the picture windows stretched out to compete with the last of the sunset over behind Helvellyn. The artificial light wo
uld inevitably win the battle as the world turned and the darkness consumed them for another night. ‘When will you be away again?’
‘Not to Frankfurt for a while. London, for a couple of days next week. They’ll be long days, but I’ll be back to keep cracking the whip until I’m sure those boys have learned their lesson.’ His smile showed how proud he was of them, deep down. ‘No, scratch that. I don’t want to leave you here alone after what’s happened. I’ll ask Aida to come up from London and we can work from here. I won’t ask her to stay, and she won’t be in your way. I’ll put her up somewhere decent. Penrith.’
Not too close. That was good news for her peace of mind. Aida Collins, Robert’s PA, was fifty years old and looked older, grey-haired and forbidding and not remotely a threat, but she was someone whose presence was so severe, whose attitude very much that of a gatekeeper for her employer’s secrets, that she left Miranda feeling intimidated. All I want is peace, Miranda pleaded, to no-one in particular. ‘Perhaps the police will leave us alone now.’
‘I hope so.’ His lips narrowed.
Robert staying was a security blanket, as well as easing the pressure of dealing with her challenging stepsons, but maybe he had other reasons for keeping an eye on goings-on. Miranda looked away, in case there was something in his expression she wouldn’t like. She never asked questions about his business. If there was anything dubious about where her husband’s money came from, she’d be better not knowing.
In a strange way there would be comfort if she did. Shared secrets allowed you to love someone for what they were, just as confession cleared your conscience. If only she had the courage to trade secrets with Robert, so their marriage could be strengthened by the knowledge they kept, the ability it gave them to save and to betray one another. Then perhaps she might not be so afraid.
Because fear, like loyalty and friendship, made you do terrible, terrible things.
Nine
At the police headquarters in Penrith, the missing person inquiry had become a matter of suspicious death and Faye Scanlon, on hearing of it, had made her usual point of going straight to the horse’s mouth.
‘Okay, Jude.’ She stalked into the office he shared with Doddsy, who was elsewhere, and positioned herself squarely in front of his desk. ‘Let’s hear it. Did the girl die by accident?’
‘It looks like it to me. I haven’t seen the PM results yet, but they’ll go to Doddsy.’ He looked down at his watch. ‘He and Ashleigh and Chris are coming along in a few minutes for a quick briefing. And Tammy’s going to pop round and tell us what they’ve uncovered at the scene. Hopefully we’ll have a clearer idea of what’s going on after that.’
She put her head to one side as if deciding whether to say more, then perched on the corner of Doddsy’s desk. ‘I do hope your people didn’t cause too much alert and alarm.’
‘You really don’t want them putting Robert Neilson’s back up, do you?’
‘It isn’t so much that. I don’t want him misinterpreting our interest in what happened at his property as being interest in his financial activities. That’s all. Hence the reason why I really don’t want to know what kind of thing his sons get up to at this particular stage. There may be questions to answer later. But the National Crime people don’t want him getting wise to the fact that they’re looking at him.’
‘Can you tell me any more about why?’
‘Only what I know myself, which is that he has a lot of links to a lot of very dodgy businesses, and also that his accountants are the very best in the business and act for some very interesting people. And I always think if someone’s prepared to spend as much money as he must do on a firm of accountants, it can only be because it’s worth their while. So for my money, if Robert Neilson isn’t a big-league crook himself, he’s knowingly playing the part of the acceptable face of a dodgy organisation and benefitting financially from it. Does that make sense?’
Jude nodded. Thank God he wasn’t in that line of work. His own job was filled with long stretches of fruitless paperwork but there could be little more dull than spending years unpicking the enmeshed digital trail of someone determined to hide the source of their money. ‘Strange, though. By all accounts he’s obsessively moral about the behaviour of those two kids.’
‘I don’t think it’s strange at all. It’s just a different sort of wrongdoing. He’ll have persuaded himself that what he’s doing is somehow okay, just as those kids will have persuaded themselves there’s nothing really wrong with taking drugs. People are very quick to persuade themselves that something illegal really ought not to be and therefore it’s okay to do it. You must see it often. The illusion of victimless crime.’ She jumped down from the desk.
In Jude’s view, motive was usually more complicated than that. He knew a little of Robert Neilson, who had a reputation locally as strong-minded, charming and ready to put his hand in his pocket for a good cause while managing to keep himself at a distance from the locals. This was telling, given the close-knit nature of the community where he’d grown up. ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to find some pretext to go down and chat to him?’
‘I really think not. I know you’re curious, with reason, but we have to treat this case exactly as what it is — a death that looks like an accident. If it turns out to be suspicious we’ll rethink. But I’m sure Neilson is streetwise enough to know a chief inspector wouldn’t normally be overlooking something so straightforward. Keep on eye on it by all means, but now we have the body and it seems relatively innocent, keep your distance.’
‘And if there are drugs involved?’
‘Get Doddsy to follow it up, of course. As normal’
When you lifted a stone you uncovered all sorts of things that you’d rather not know about. Once more Jude recalled that exactly this sort of operation had led, in the past, to landing Adam Fleetwood in prison for supplying Class A drugs. ‘And if it leads back to Robert Neilson?’
‘That’s a very interesting point, but I don’t think it will. If he has anything to do with drugs, which he may well do, it’ll be at a high level and he’ll be careful not to dirty his own back yard. Which might, of course, explain why he takes such a moral high standard on the subject with his children. I’ll lay my house he’s a criminal, but I’ll also lay the rest of my financial assets that his sons are capable of sourcing their own narcotics.’ She turned to the door. ‘Here’s Ashleigh. This must be your team meeting convening. I’ll leave you to get on with it.’
Jude stifled a smile, as much at the sight of Ashleigh as at the obvious fact that Faye didn’t want to hang around too long while her ex-girlfriend was there. Ashleigh had no inhibitions about her sexuality, but Faye thought it mattered, or at least thought it might be damaging to her career. ‘I’ll keep you informed.’
‘You know where to find me.’ Faye whisked out of the door, holding it open for Ashleigh and her fellow detective sergeant, Chris Marshall, and failing to make eye contact.
Even people as tough as Faye Scanlon had their insecurities. The only surprise was that she’d let it show. Jude turned his attention to the matter in hand, to an inquiry that was surely a foregone conclusion. ‘Okay, then. Let’s have it. I’m hoping this one’s going to be fairly straightforward. Where’s Doddsy?’
‘He was just behind us.’ Chris, who had already come in, popped his head out again and then lingered, holding the door open until Doddsy’s long strides had brought him to the office and he’d taken his place at his desk.
‘Okay,’ Jude said. ‘First up, I’m only part of this meeting because Faye asked me to keep an eye on this case, for reasons I can’t be explicit about. So carry on. Doddsy, you’re in charge of events on the ground.’ Even giving an apparently routine case to an inspector without strong evidence of foul play might raise the odd eyebrow. ‘Run us through it, would you? Beginning with some pastoral care. Do her family know?’
‘Yes. Her parents have been told. They’ve seen the body and given us a positive ID, they’ve been allocate
d a liaison officer and they’re away back to London now, to try and come to terms with it. Obviously they want the body for burial as soon as possible, so we’ve had to break it to them there’s a chance it’s suspicious.’
Jude sat back. ‘And is it suspicious?’
‘The PM results are just in.’ Doddsy looked to his computer and ran a quick eye down them, absorbing all the available information. He could deal with this kind of case in his sleep if he had to. ‘Cause of death, drowning. Time of death, not certain but probably some time on Saturday afternoon. No evidence of any external injury other than occasional bruising, consistent with what you might call rough sexual intercourse. Not enough to suggest that anything was forced. Technically, of course, one might suppose the girl was raped while unconscious, but there’s nothing in either the twins’ stories or in Summer’s reputation to suggest that might be the case.’
‘Ollie had what looked like love bites on his neck,’ Ashleigh supplied, ‘which seems to me to confirm a good time was had by all.’
‘Okay.’ Jude tapped his pen in the desk. ‘And the toxicology tests won’t be through yet, I imagine.’ Though they’d almost certainly show alcohol. ‘There may be traces of drugs, in which case I think discreet inquiries from the boys about where they came from are in order.’ He felt Ashleigh’s eyes upon him, judging him. It was a balancing act, a small injustice against a larger one. ‘There’s no need to get heavy handed with the kids. I suspect they didn’t get whatever it was locally. If they tell you, you can pass it on to the narcotics team.’
Ashleigh looked outraged. ‘But—’
‘We don’t have the resources to spend too much time on an accidental death.’
