Dead End

by Dead End (retail) (epub)

  She sat down on the edge of the fountain and put her hand in the water. It was beautifully cool, and she touched some to her forehead. Her auburn hair was heavy and hot and she lifted it up to let the cool air circulate around her neck. It was peaceful out here, and she looked at the lake, wondering what it might be like to live here every day. The Fitzgeralds packed up at the end of each summer and went back to London. Nobody seemed to care that they were lovers. That was what it was like in London, she supposed.

  A noise startled her and she turned around. A man came from behind a bush and blew cigarette smoke out of his mouth.

  ‘I do apologise,’ he said. ‘I needed some air, and it looks like you did too.’ His smile was warm, and Wendy didn’t feel vulnerable at all; he was just another guest. His dinner jacket was open and his tie hung loosely around his neck. After a pause, he finally came forward and introduced himself. He held out his hand, and Wendy took it.

  ‘I’m Ted. Ted Wallis.’

  Chapter 32

  The Land Rover screamed along the narrow lane, pushed to the limit set by the parameters of the 1970s factory that had built it. The interior rattled, bashed by the rain from above and the unseen potholes beneath. The driver was unconcerned: the performance of the vehicle wasn’t his priority, only the fact that it got him there quicker.

  The deer in the back stank of fresh blood.

  A glorious snap of three weeks’ sunshine had turned sour and the Lake District had returned to its status quo: rain, and more rain. Even before the sun disappeared behind the mountains, headlights were needed to see ahead in the flat dark grey canvas that afforded little natural visibility. The rain lashed in through the open windows, soaking the occupant. He drove the lane like a local, navigating twists and turns before they appeared: he could have done it blind.

  He gripped the steering wheel in anger and forced the vehicle closer and closer into the bends, ramming it into bushes as it cruised past, creating another dent to add to the mosaic of damage already on it. He hadn’t meant to do it, but it always happened that way, and he couldn’t stop. His fingers felt slippery from gutting the deer there where he’d felled her, in the heather. It was high up and he hadn’t been expecting such a large one to appear in his sight. It was an opportunity, and he never missed an opportunity.

  The policewoman thought she knew, when she looked at him and at his shoulders and hands. She thought she knew strength when she saw it, but she had no idea what it really looked like. His power wasn’t a gift, it was a craft, years in the making. But there was lots she didn’t know too.

  He should have taken more care, but when they whined like that, and didn’t understand that he was there to look after them, he had no choice. The girl had been a mistake from the very start. He was learning. He hadn’t come this far for nothing. He’d always known the rules: not too young or fragile, because they didn’t last; not too old, because they tricked and deceived; not too familiar, because that was too obvious.

  Weak. That was what she was. And now he had to hide her. He sniffed as he thought of her sharing her final journey with the deer. She didn’t really deserve such a prestigious reservation, but he had no choice. He couldn’t have missed the deer, and it was a detour worth the wait.

  Now, with the deer ready for hanging and the clouds darkening across the canopy above him, it was time to get on with why he’d come in the first place. It had been a good afternoon for a hunt and it wasn’t all the time that he got so lucky.

  The tension in his body began to loosen as his thoughts turned to the last time he was up here. That kill had been unexpected too, and that was what had made it both exquisite and disappointing all at the same time. That was when he’d first had the idea, given to him, he believed, by something divine and bigger than himself.

  Keep her.

  He smiled and nodded his head ever so slightly, sending his appreciation to the woman on the hill. It seemed a lifetime ago. The rush of pleasure had been too much, and he too inexperienced, and it had been too quick. He smirked at his innocence and lack of moral fibre, remembering when he’d jumped at every knock and every police appeal. He needn’t have worried: she’d never been found.

  And neither would this one.

  The sky was properly black now and he switched off his lights, turning off onto a farmer’s track, only used during the hours when sheep were counted and gates mended. He drove through two fields, using only instinct and ingrained knowledge as his guide, and parked behind a dry-stone wall, though not so dry tonight.

  The noise of the water soothed him and he got out, slamming the driver’s door shut. The deer was still warm, but the girl wasn’t. She smelled worse by far. Disgusting.

  He dragged her by her feet and she hit the ground with a slap. He didn’t look around. No one came here. He had thousands of feet, hundreds of fields, millions of sheep and an eternity of sky to cover his tracks. His only question was, how close to the beck? Too close and he risked her drifting downwards towards tourists and farmers; not close enough and he risked exposure by a curious sheepdog. He couldn’t be bothered to dig; what was the point? He dragged her a short distance to the water and dumped her by the beck while he found various bits of detritus and foliage to make a hideout good enough to aid and mask her decomposition.

  Even before his job was finished, excitement mounted in his stomach as he anticipated what awaited him at the ruin. They were both magnificently perfect, but not so pretty now. He didn’t want to lose them too quickly, but one was more compliant than the other.

  He worked faster and heaved the body into a hollow. She was heavier in death and he was sure that the body wouldn’t move from the pit he’d found. He covered the shallow hole with branches and mud, then waded into the beck and stripped. The water was bracing but invigorating, and he splashed it over himself, washing away the stench.

  He had work to do.

  Chapter 33

  The chapel was quiet.

  Zac had invited Kelly.

  The only other attendees were Linda Cairns, Brian Walker, a man Kelly recognised as the solicitor in charge of the will, and Zac himself. Kelly hadn’t expected the invitation, and she felt foolish as she walked to the middle of the chapel, watched by five sets of eyes, including those of the vicar. The body had been retained by the coroner’s office at the mortuary but had finally been released.

  Zac had told her that his grandfather wasn’t religious at all, but a ceremony was protocol, and no one knew what else to do. He smiled at her, and she smiled back, grateful for one ally at least. He wore a suit and looked more than his nineteen years. He waved her over, and for a moment she wavered before going to the front and sitting next to him. The vicar coughed and they stood up. Kelly could feel the disapproval on her back from Linda and Brian. Their heightened state of anxiety, no doubt at her presence, might come in handy later when she followed them back to Wasdale. She had some questions for them.

  The organist began playing something doleful and gloomy that Kelly didn’t recognise. The notes rose and fell like soldiers being slain on a battlefield, and she felt depressed as hell. She’d been to plenty of funerals – more than she’d like to at her age – and usually the family made some attempt to capture the life of the loved one in song. Not today. Not unless the earl was the most morose and wretched creature to have been brought into the world, and this Kelly doubted. The way Zac talked about him, as well as her own mother’s account of him as a host, would indicate the opposite. Poor bastard.

  The service was wooden. The vicar stumbled nobly through snippets of the earl’s charity work, his preservation of the flora and fauna of the estate, and his love of his only surviving heir. This was the one moving element of the affair, and Zac looked down at his shoes. Kelly felt a warmth off this young man that was unexpected, and she wondered who he’d got it from; certainly not the housekeeper, and not his mother, who’d disappeared when he was a tiny boy. Trinity Fitzgerald had never told a soul who Zac’s father was, and he’d been brough
t up at Wasdale Hall without parents. Even his uncle had disappeared from his life when he was only a toddler. Ted was right: it was a tragic family.

  As the coffin was wheeled away, Kelly took Zac’s lead and followed him out into the aisle. She was aware of the solicitor leaving, and of Linda and Brian loitering, uncomfortable in their smart black clothes. Zac asked her to accompany him to the house.

  ‘Of course. I need to speak to Linda and Brian anyway.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Some questions regarding the safe.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll catch who did this?’

  ‘I don’t know, Zac, but I can promise to try.’

  ‘Are you any closer to finding out?’

  ‘I want to be honest with you: no. But investigations take time.’

  They drove in silence. Kelly allowed him his own thoughts. Brian and Linda were behind them. When they reached Wasdale Hall, Zac turned to her. ‘Will you walk to the lake with me?’

  It was a simple request, and utterly disarming. Kelly couldn’t work out if he saw her as a mother figure, or a pillar of justice seeking answers on his behalf: probably a bit of both. She nodded.

  Brian and Linda got out of their car as Zac led Kelly round the back of the house to a pathway that led to the shore. She’d worn heels for the funeral, and they sank in the gravel. They walked through the gardens, and she imagined them in all their glory. There was a beautiful old stone fountain sitting at a crossroads in the path; Kelly wondered if Delilah and Trinity had wandered down here to share secrets.

  ‘It’s beautiful, Zac,’ she said. He smiled and nodded. ‘A wonderful place to grow up.’

  He nodded again and stared at the lake.

  ‘Do you want to talk, Zac?’

  ‘I just miss him,’ he said. They walked slowly, and Zac picked leaves from the bushes and tore them apart.

  ‘I know, I can see that. Zac, do you think it’s possible that your grandfather asked someone to help him get rid of the safe and then stage his own suicide?’

  Zac looked at her and his eyes pierced her own. He didn’t make eye contact often, but when he did, it was as if he saw into her soul. ‘Do you think that’s what he did?’ he asked.

  ‘The removal of the safe and the hanging: they’re both pretty demanding – and noisy – undertakings, and we’ve found nothing indicating a break-in or evidence of force.’

  They stood at the shore of the lake, which spread out in front of them; Kelly could see the roofs of Watermillock, with its spire at the centre.

  ‘But who would do that for him?’

  ‘I don’t know; do you?’

  Chapter 34

  Brian had loosened his tie and sat with his feet up in his usual spot. Linda put the kettle on the Aga.

  Kelly came in through the kitchen door. She’d left Zac at the lake, and when she’d turned round to check, she’d seen him sitting down with his shoes off, skimming stones.

  ‘Afternoon, both. Let’s get straight to facts, shall we?’ she began. Linda kept her back to the room and Brian folded his arms.

  ‘Zac tells me that you helped get the safe upstairs, Brian. He also said you could confirm the model, because you ordered it.’ She waited.

  ‘I can’t really remember; it was years ago.’

  ‘Right. My trouble with all of this is that you’ve both worked here for years, the place runs along simple routines – you guys know who comes and goes daily, if not hourly – yet here we have a safe weighing perhaps a hundred kilograms disappearing silently, and the murder of a man who sheltered you for most of your careers and paid your wages, and I can’t seem to get any answers from you. None of this is random, yet you’re not willing to help, either of you. Linda, will you leave the kettle!’

  Linda jumped and turned around.

  Kelly’s phone buzzed and she looked at the screen and tutted. It was Will Phillips.

  ‘Excuse me, I’ll be two minutes.’ She walked outside. ‘Will?’

  ‘I’ve got an update for you. How did it go?’ He was referring to the funeral.

  ‘Next question. I’m just talking to the housekeeper and gardener now; they’re holding out on me. What have you got?’

  ‘We’ve got a girl called Cheryl Gregory who used to work with Jack Sentry, willing to talk, sounded a bit nervous. She works at the Sunnyside Guest House in Pooley Bridge now. I sent Emma down there. Turns out Sentry was her boss at the Peak’s Bay. She was more than happy to verify that he was on the take for extracurricular activities; he used to boast about it apparently. Emma said she was scared of him. That’s not all, guv.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Turns out Sentry bedded both of the victims for an advance on their wages.’

  ‘Christ.’ Kelly took her hat off to Emma Hide: she had a way with witnesses that no one else matched.

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘She told Emma about a ruin they used to use up on Place Fell.’

  Thanks, Will. I’ll be in shortly, I’m just finishing up here.’

  ‘Are you going to be online for the TV appeal?’

  ‘Of course.’ Kelly had completely forgotten about it. Hannah Lawson’s parents were due to give an appeal, live on TV at three this afternoon. She closed her eyes; she’d told Johnny she’d meet him at Nikki’s.

  ‘Oh, and guv? Turns out Dominic Cairns’ alibi checked out, but when Emma was going through those papers, she found out he was expelled from an expensive school down in Surrey. The earl was paying for it.’

  ‘Why was he expelled?’

  ‘It didn’t say, but I called the headmaster and he said he’ll talk to you.’

  Kelly hung up and went back into the kitchen.

  ‘So, Linda, can you tell me about Dominic’s private school in Surrey, paid for out of the earl’s pocket?’

  Linda dropped a teacup and it smashed on the stone floor.

  Chapter 35

  ‘Is that my mummy?’

  Zac holds his grandpa’s hand. He’s six years old.

  ‘Yes, I told you it was.’ They are walking through daffodils near Aira Point, where Wordsworth escorted his sister Dorothy, and Xavier is telling Zac about the way fish think. Zac finds it funny. Whatever his grandpa tells him is the truth. Grandpa’s hand is warm, as always, and Zac’s is tiny inside it. Linda has made them a picnic, and Xavier has carried it from the car, which is parked in the small car park off the A592. Only Grandpa can find these secret places, and he finds a new one every time he brings Zac fishing.

  Xavier holds the worn photograph in front of the little boy.

  ‘And that is Grandma,’ Zac says triumphantly.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Xavier says.

  ‘But they got dead.’

  Xavier squeezes his grandson’s hand and wishes with all his heart that it was not true. But it is.

  ‘How do you get dead, Grandpa?’ asks the boy.

  Xavier has to think about the answer. The picnic rug is laid out near the lake and they have come for a walk between eating their sandwiches and a treat for dessert. Linda has made lemon drizzle cake, and it is Zac’s favourite.

  ‘No one knows why, Zac,’ he finally says.

  ‘I said how, Grandpa, not why.’ Zac is earnest in his correction. Of course, Xavier thinks, wanting to know why is such an adult pursuit. Children are simpler.

  ‘They stop breathing,’ he says.

  ‘Just like that? Fish take a long time to stop breathing, and they wiggle about. Unless you bash them over the head,’ Zac says. Xavier thinks his philosophy is a solid one.

  ‘It’s a little bit more complicated with people. They can have an accident, or they can get a disease.’ They make their way back to the rug, and Xavier puts away the photo.

  He’s never lied to Zac, and he’s never smothered him in stories to mask reality. However, he’s also never told him exactly how his mother died. He can’t face it, and he doesn’t know the words.

  ‘So did Mummy and Grandma catch the same disease?’ Zac asks. Xavier thi
nks a little while. His breath is short, but they soon reach the blanket and he sits down.

  ‘Yes, they did,’ he replies.

  ‘Why didn’t I catch it?’ Zac asks.

  ‘Because you’re strong, and it’s not your time,’ Xavier says.

  ‘So everyone has a time? And weak people die?’ Zac asks.

  Xavier laughs. ‘You’re hurting my head! Let’s eat some cake!’ Zac claps his hands and sits next to his grandpa.

  ‘How is school, young man? Linda tells me that you won a prize.’

  ‘I did! I won a voucher,’ Zac says.

  ‘A voucher! For what?’

  ‘A book. I won it for painting a picture.’

  ‘And what book will you buy?’ Xavier asks.

  ‘A big one!’

  ‘And what did you paint?’

  ‘Mummy and me.’

  * * *

  The coolness of the air after the storm last night made the ground damp, but Zac didn’t notice as he tried to hold on to the memory. He lay on his back, feet in the water and his hands over his face. His eyes were wet when he opened them, and he sat up staring out to the lake.

  It’s not your time …

  Zac thought back to a few weeks ago.

  ‘It’s soon my time, Zac. You’re ready to be a man,’ his grandfather had said.

  ‘Don’t talk like that, Grandpa,’ Zac had complained.

  They had been sitting in front of the fire because the evening was cooler than expected. Linda had left for the evening and Brian was off on one of his walks. Legal quarry was growing scarcer, but Brian always managed to find something on the estate, and rough shooting was at the earl’s discretion. They’d eaten Linda’s venison pie and sat quietly, sated with food and wine.