Dark Lake

by Clare Revell

  “Oh, right. Not much.”

  “Don’t give me that,” she snapped. “It’s the biggest find since Tutankhamen’s tomb and you reckon nothing is happening. Just level with me. I deserve that much.”

  AJ sighed. “Well, Monty and Clara are cataloguing and photographing and writing the reports. Bill is running around like a headless chicken preparing everything for the TV news cameras, which arrive on Friday. And they are writing an article for History Today.”

  Lou deflated as if someone pricked her with a pin. “What? That’s the biggest publication out there.”

  “Yeah.” AJ met her gaze for the first time since they got back in the boat. “Monty and Clara are getting co-writes.”

  Lou grimaced and cast her gaze downwards. Her stomach clenched and her heart broke. She wouldn’t even get a mention. Years of her life and all that hard work, for nothing.

  AJ touched her hand. “But I did pick up everything you asked for and more, including all your notes and files. Monty had already copied them all and shoved them on a flash drive. There was however an unfortunate incident last night before I left.”

  She raised an eyebrow as she put the tank down. “Oh?”

  “Yeah, there was a massive computer failure. They may have lost several files and stuff. Oh, and the flash drive went missing. Along with all the paper copies of everything.” He winked. “I kinda pressed the wrong button as I shut the thing down, and I might have picked up said flash drive with your stuff. It’s all locked in the boot of my car. I figured you could file instead.”

  “Thank you. I could hug you. That’s a brilliant idea. You’re unfired.” Lou gave the remaining three air tanks on the boat the once over. “Once we get back to shore, I need you to hit the local archives here and find out what you can about the fire. Your first port of call should be the local historian, Charlie Bramston.”

  “Sure. Where are we staying?”

  “With the landowner, Evan Close, in the manor house. There was an incident at the hotel last night. He offered us rooms at his place, and I took them.”

  “What sort of incident?” AJ tilted his head, concern flickering in his gaze.

  “I was attacked.” Lou moved back the collar of her wetsuit, showing him the steri-strips. “It could have been worse.”

  “How? You have stitches.”

  “Just trust me on that one. I could be dead, for a start. And they’re steri-strips, not stitches.”

  “Worse than dead exists? What did the doctor say? Should you even be diving?”

  “I didn’t see one, and you fuss far too much. I’m not letting anyone chase me off this dig. Change your tank for a new one, and let’s go again. I want the entire village mapped and photographed before nightfall. Tomorrow we’ll do Finlay.”

  “What’s the rush?”

  “We only have ten days and there’s a lot of ground to cover. Once the mapping is done, we can go back and take our time over the interesting bits.” She picked up a fresh tank and slipped it on. “What are you waiting for? Let’s do this. And I want the position of any more bodies noted carefully and photographed in situ.”

  “Are you going to call the cops in on this?”

  Lou frowned. “Most likely. Let’s see what we find first.” She reattached her face mask and mouthpiece, and slid backwards into the lake.

  Slowly they made their way through the village. Each house had its own dark secret, whether it was pictures on the wall or the utter devastation caused by the fire.

  AJ tugged open a cupboard and flailed backwards. Bubbles escaped from his mouthpiece. A body wearing a long dress floated towards him, arms outstretched, half of the skull caved in.

  Lou pulled him to one side. She turned his face towards her, gaze searching his, asking him silently if he was all right.

  He shook his head wildly.

  Lou pointed upwards, tugging at his arm.

  AJ kept still, then shook his head once more. He gave her a thumbs up and pointed to the body, indicating he should keep going.

  Lou nodded, holding up five fingers. What disturbed her wasn’t the bodies. She was used to skeletons in her line of work. What bothered her was the way the majority of them had been tied down. Had they accepted their fate and were determined to die in their homes? Or was it murder?

  The really creepy thing was although some of the bodies had evidently been burned, the majority hadn’t. At least two showed signs of blunt force trauma, meaning they were dead before the fire began. And that added murder to the signs of arson.

  12

  Evan peered at AJ over the dinner table and tried not to sigh. This wasn’t how he’d envisaged the evening going when he’d invited Lou to dinner at the manor the previous day. Of course, that was several hours before he’d asked her to move in. “How did you find our lake, Mr. Wilcox?”

  “Colder than I expected,” AJ commented with his mouth full. “But fascinating all the same. Did you know that the vast majority of Abernay is still intact down there?”

  Evan somehow kept his face straight, despite his heart sinking to the soles of his polished shoes. “It’s intact? I would have thought the flood waters would have destroyed the buildings. Other than the church, which we can still see.”

  “Nope, it’s all still there. There’s a cottage opposite the church with a plaque on it saying Dr. David Close. Is he a relative?”

  “My great-grandfather.” Surely Lou would have informed her colleague of the connection between him and the dam?

  Lou glanced at AJ, and then directed her attention to Evan as she spoke for the first time since the meal began. “You didn’t tell me he was a doctor.”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  “I assumed he was an engineer, as he was part of the team that built the dam. You confirmed that yesterday.”

  “He was part of the team, yes, but not in a building capacity. His main role here was as the village doctor.”

  Mrs Jefferson came into the room. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Mr. Close, but there’s a telephone call for you. It’s urgent.”

  “Excuse me.” Evan stood with relief. He’d change the subject when he got back. He headed to the study and picked up the receiver. “Evan Close speaking.”

  “It’s Varian. Have you seen her photographs?”

  “Good evening to you, too, Varian. I assume by ‘she’ you mean Lou.”

  “How many other interfering women do you know?”

  Evan sat and swung the chair to face the window. “That depends on how many you’ve sent up here to dive in the lake. And no, I haven’t seen the photographs. Why would she show me? More to the point, how have you seen them?”

  “She uploaded them to her private server‒”

  Evan cut him off. “How did you get access to that?” He sucked in a deep breath, not wanting to be overheard. “They are called private servers for a reason!”

  “I have my ways. She logged out of the company computer account and changed all her passwords first. Covered her track too well, who knows what damage the minx did. Anyway, back to the current problem. A lot of the village is relatively undamaged and still standing. Including your great-grandfather’s house.”

  “They were telling me over dinner. Well, her colleague, AJ Wilcox, was. He’s rather a chatterbox.”

  “You need to do something about it.”

  “I do?” He caught his breath in surprise. “Why me?”

  “You’re on site.”

  So are you. Evan shook his head. “Newsflash, Varian. I don’t work for you. I never have. In fact, I suggest you do your own dirty work. You proved more than capable of that last night.”

  “May I remind you that you stand to lose just as much as I do, if not more, should the truth come out? Undoubtedly it will happen with Lou working to uncover it. The woman is tenacious when it comes to her work.” Varian’s tone became decidedly snotty.

  “So, I repeat. Why send her? Why not come up here yourself, pretend to investigate, or whatever you need to make all t
his go away?”

  “I told you. I need to discredit her and her work. This is the only way to do that, because if she uncovers any evidence that points to me, it’ll not look good on her when I fire her.”

  “And may I remind you, that both Lou and Mr. Wilcox are guests in my house,” Evan snapped back. “And as such are under my protection.”

  “And what are you implying?”

  Evan grinned. He could see the expression on Varian’s face as clearly as if they were in the same room. He tapped his fingers on his thigh, pausing before what he was saying materialized into an actual threat. “I’m not implying anything. Merely stating a fact.”

  Varian muttered under his breath.

  “Well, my dinner is getting cold,” Evan said, swinging the chair back towards the desk. “So, if you don’t mind, I’ll be getting back to it. Good night.” He dropped the receiver back onto the base, loving the old-fashioned phones that allowed him to hang up with a resounding thud. He rubbed his hands over his face and sighed.

  “Problems?” Ira asked, as always seeming to appear from nowhere.

  “I don’t know. I hope not. Can you speak to your contact at the local police station and have them swing a patrol out past the dam two or three times a day while Dr. Fitzgerald is here? And check all the CCTV footage thoroughly.”

  Ira nodded. “What am I searching for?”

  “Anything out of the ordinary.” Evan stood. “I need to get back.” He headed to the dining room and resumed his seat at the table. His food was, as expected, stone cold and he pushed the plate away. He glanced at Lou. “What are your plans for this evening?”

  “I need to go over the data we gathered today. Is there somewhere we could work? I try not to work in the bedroom if I can avoid it.”

  “The drawing room should suit your purpose. It has ample table space and power points.”

  Her smile warmed his heart and lit the entire room. “Thank you.”

  “I must say I’m intrigued by the photos.”

  Her smile vanished like the sun going behind a cloud, leaving the room suddenly dark. “What photos? No one mentioned any photographs.”

  Evan looked at her. “No. Varian did. Apparently they weren’t on the company server, so he hacked your private server and looked at them. It might be an idea to change all your passwords on there.”

  Lou muttered something in a foreign language. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll do that, as soon as I get on my laptop. In fact I’ll remove them from my server and put them on a flash drive. And they weren’t on the company server for a reason.” She exchanged a knowing look with AJ.

  “Would it be possible to see the pictures of the village?” Evan asked. “Especially the ones of my great-grandfather’s cottage.”

  “Once I’ve gone through them, I don’t see why not. We found a few things that don’t add up.”

  “Such as?” He picked up his glass.

  “A body in the church for one thing,” AJ said. “He and a few mates was sat there on the pews as if waiting for the sermon to end.”

  Evan’s heart pounded and his fingers tightened on the glass. “A body?” he repeated, not sure he’d heard right.

  “Well, skeleton, obviously. There was four of them, along with another one in your great-grandfather’s house. We also found one in a cupboard in one of the other houses.”

  Evan dropped the glass, spilling red wine over the white tablecloth. The stain spread outwards. “I’m sorry?”

  “And total spooky it was too. I opened the door and it floated out to give me a hug. I reckon they floated in from the graveyard, but Dr. F thinks otherwise.”

  “AJ, that’s enough,” Lou said sharply. “What we discuss privately about the dive stays between us, especially when it’s just a theory. It’s not up to you to tell anyone anything until we have proof.”

  Chilled, Evan glazed over, watching the wine spread further into the white tablecloth. One little mistake led to such a huge stain to remove. If it were possible.

  “Do you have any of the original paperwork for the village, Evan?” Lou asked. “A map perhaps or photos of how it used to be before the flood came?”

  “I’ll go and see what I can find. Excuse me.” He rose and left the room as fast as his unsteady legs would take him. He made it to the library and locked the door behind him.

  He leaned against it and sucked in several deep breaths. This farce might unravel around him faster than he could fix it. The best thing he could do was give her what she wanted and hope it satisfied her before she decided to dig any deeper.

  13

  The first thing Lou did on reaching her laptop, was log onto her private server and remove all the photos she’d uploaded there—backing them up to a flash drive instead. Next she changed all the passwords, for something Varian would never guess in a million years. She used her favourite Bible verse, figuring even if he did work out it was Psalm 46:5, he’d never work out which letter was capitalised and which of the numbers she’d spelled out in letters. Or whether verse was a V or a v or a colon.

  For the next couple of hours, she and AJ pored over the map Evan had found, comparing it to the photos she and AJ had taken earlier. Evan’s map was surprisingly detailed, with little squares denoting each house. It made her job so much easier.

  “And that’s where we found the other body,” AJ said. “That makes ten all together.”

  “OK, good. Have you got those housing records?”

  “Yeah.” AJ pulled over the laptop. “Easy when you know where to look. Ready?”

  She grabbed a pen. “Yep.” As AJ read, she scribbled the occupants’ names onto the chart she’d made. She drew a large red cross onto the chart and tapped her finger on the map. “OK…Now, we know the main fire started here. The fires are in red. The bodies are in blue and were found in these locations, the majority in the church. Where were the bone fragments and other artefacts found?”

  AJ picked up a green pen and marked the shoreline. “Along here.”

  “That’s nowhere near the graveyard.” She tapped the laptop screen. “There’s no record of a fire. Nothing on the news or anywhere else. You’ll need to check the local public records, newspapers, and so on. Maybe they haven’t gotten around to adding them yet.”

  AJ huffed. “Sure. I’ll add it to my incredibly long list.”

  “Thanks.” She glanced up as the door opened.

  Evan came in carrying a tray. “I thought you could do with some coffee.”

  She smiled. “Thank you. It’s going to be a very long night.”

  “Can I help?” He set the tray down and studied the chart. “What exactly are you doing?”

  “Reconstructing the village. Building a picture of who lived where, what they did for a living and so on.”

  His eyebrow quirked upwards like the brows of her favourite TV character. “Fascinating.” He even sounded like him.

  She nodded. “It’s what we do. Bring the past to life.”

  “And what have you learned?” Evan glanced up from the chart, his piercing gaze boring into her.

  Lou touched the chart with her finger. “The main fire started here in the blacksmith’s.”

  “Owned by Edward Smith, age forty-six,” AJ added. “Supposedly that spread through the entire village.”

  “Fires spread,” Evan said. “Take London in 1666 as an example. One small fire in a bakery in Pudding Lane destroyed half the city.”

  “Those were closely built timber houses,” Lou said. “These are stone buildings. What makes this interesting isn’t there wasn’t only that one start point.”

  “So it jumped. Fires do that as well. Any firefighter will tell you…”

  “No.” She cut him off, shaking her head. “So far, we have found four other incendiary points.” She pointed to the red crosses on the map. “One fire could be accidental. Five most definitely aren’t.” She held Evan’s gaze, noting he didn’t seem surprised by that revelation. “I do this a lot, and my gut tells me that five fires o
nly mean one thing, and I don’t mean lots of candles being knocked over either.”

  “Someone set them,” Evan said quietly. “You’re saying this was deliberate arson.”

  “Probably to drive out those villagers who were refusing to sell up and leave. Did your great-grandfather leave any other papers about the village? Historical records, or a diary, that kind of thing.”

  “Why?” He stepped away from the table, visibly uneasy.

  “It would be invaluable if he did. Evan, think about it. If he left a journal or anything we’d have an accurate record of the last days of Abernay.”

  “And you’d put all that in your paper, would you?”

  She shook her head. “No. Just call it professional curiosity for a little human interest. A bit like that rich woman whose body was found with the gladiator in Pompeii. We can speculate as to why they were together, but no one really knows. Were they lovers and decided to die together? Was he escorting her out of the city and got caught up in the last volcanic blast? Or simply two strangers seeking shelter at the same time? Each explanation is perfectly plausible, but we’ll never know.”

  Evan paced across to the window, gazing out at the deepening fog. “I could give you several reasons for those fires.”

  “So could I,” AJ chimed in.

  “You told me it was a bomb,” Lou said. “Remember? One maybe, but unless you had a huge terrorist cell operating up here in the 1930s, that ain’t gonna fly no more.”

  Evan’s face worked madly as he backtracked. “Yes, he left a journal,” he mumbled. “It’s in the library. Along with other files and maps.”

  “May I see them?”

  “I need time to find it all.” He finally shifted to face her. “I’m not the best at keeping tabs on things.”

  She nodded. “Thank you. Anything pertaining to the dam you might find would be incredibly useful.”

  “Will tomorrow do?”

  “Sure.”

  “But you’d prefer having the papers tonight.”

  Lou glanced at AJ. “It’d make things easier tomorrow when we dive again, but that’s fine. We can spend tomorrow finishing the mapping of the village and then drop the sonar buoys on Friday.”