Death by Dark Waters

by Jo Allen

  She flattened her hands, their nails freshly chewed, down on the table in front of her. Jude read the pause: she was trying to decide how much to tell him. ‘We picked it up at about half past eight. Drove up to Haweswater.’

  ‘Which way did you go?’ Doddsy, standing square in front of the doorway like Jude’s bodyguard, chipped in.

  She looked at him in irritation, then flicked a sideways look at Jude before returning her gaze to her restless fingers. ‘Straight up the M6 to Penrith. That’s the way the satnav sent us. Stopped at the village shop to buy a couple of bottles of water. Drove up a lane and went for a walk. Came back. Stopped at Shap for a late pub lunch. Drove back home. Returned the camper van. That’s all.’

  Finding some defiance, she raised her head and met Jude’s gaze. Everything about her suggested that she’d stuck rigorously to the truth and nothing but the truth, but she hadn’t told him everything. That look challenged him to uncover the parts of the truth she’d chosen to withhold.

  He took a moment to run over the details of Andrea Innes’s statement in his mind. ‘You know the Haweswater area well?’

  ‘No. I’d never been there before.’

  ‘Then what made you go there?’

  ‘It just seemed like a good idea.’ She licked her lips. ‘It was easy to get to. We looked on the map.’

  ‘Of course. And once you’d arrived in Burnbanks, you did what, exactly?’

  ‘Drove up the end of the road. Parked by the dam.’ She licked her lips. ‘Walked.’

  ‘Where did you walk?’

  ‘Just along the lake. We didn’t go far. We stopped and looked at the view most of the time. Me and Karl, we’re dating. Eyes only for each other. We didn’t notice time pass. Or anything, really.’

  ‘And did you meet anyone?’

  She shook her head and avoided his gaze. Still true, all of it. He had no reason to doubt anything she’d said – except for the reason why. He sighed in frustration. Harriet Martin was a more resistant witness than he’d given her credit for. ‘Do you have a car, Miss Martin?’

  That question startled her. ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘What kind of car?’

  ‘A Renault Clio. But why—?’

  ‘So, if you have a car, why did you need to hire a camper van to drive up to Haweswater, spend two hours there and drive back again?’

  ‘Because… well, because…’ She ground to a halt. It was Doddsy, not Jude, to whom she turned in appeal. ‘I’d like a drink of water.’

  Silent as an avenging angel, he poured it for her.

  Jude stepped away while she drank, crossing to the window to stare out at the cityscape. Time put more pressure on a witness than any other thing he could think of. Some of them used it to think of things they thought you wanted to hear, others, believing it to their advantage, to fabricate a story that would almost certainly catch them out later, having been invented too soon. But there were those like Harriet Martin who needed time for one thing and one thing only – to persuade themselves that it was in their interests to tell the truth.

  He gave her five minutes, a length of time so generous that by the end of it she’d shifted forwards in nervous agony, balancing on the edge of her seat. ‘Okay, Miss Martin. Shall we start again?’

  She curled her fingers around the glass. ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’

  He inclined his head. They were getting there. ‘Carry on.’

  ‘No. Literally. I didn’t do anything wrong. Karl neither. It wasn’t wrong. We just did someone a favour. It was…’ She fidgeted, sighed, conceded. ‘Ten days ago. Karl and I work at the big Sainsbury’s. We were going off shift and this bloke stopped us and asked if we would do something for him. He’d pay us.’ She paused. ‘He told us he’d been having an argument with a friend about whether you could get a dead body to a place and leave it there without being seen. He’d bet it could be done and he wanted us to do it for him, because the friend would be watching him, not us. Though, of course, it wasn’t a dead body.’

  ‘How did you know it wasn’t? Did you see it?’

  ‘No. It was just a wooden box and he said there were stones in it. He asked us to hire the camper van and take it up and leave it by a gate at the end of the woods, and that’s what we did.’

  Looking at Doddsy, Jude saw his friend shaking his head in understandable disbelief. ‘You didn’t think this was in any way unusual?’

  She shook her head, as though being asked to transport wooden boxes purporting to contain dead bodies, were the natural conclusion of every supermarket shift.

  ‘You didn’t sneak a look?’

  ‘It was padlocked.’

  Jude curled his hands as tightly as he dared without seeming aggressive. He wasn’t stupid. It was impossible that this couple could have thought this arrangement normal. ‘And he paid you?’

  ‘Five hundred pounds.’

  ‘Cash?’

  ‘Yeah. So you see. We didn’t do anything wrong.’

  Jude stared at her for a long moment, and she stared back, the cold, indifferent gaze of the innocent used to taking the blame. ‘Did he tell you his name?’

  ‘Bill Smith. But that wasn’t it. I’m not that stupid.’

  ‘You didn’t ask him his real name?’

  ‘Why should I? We didn’t need to know it. If a guy has a bet with his mate, it’s nothing to do with me, as long as we get the money.’

  He suppressed his rising fury. ‘Can you describe this man to me? Or do you feel you didn’t need to get a look at him?’

  ‘There’s no need to be so bloody sarcastic. I didn’t get a good look at him. I told you. It was dark. Not that tall, and quite thickset. With glasses.’

  ‘What did he sound like?’

  ‘He had a Manchester accent. A bit of one. And very posh. And he walked with a limp. That’s all I can tell you.’

  *

  ‘If this turns out to be significant,’ Jude said as Doddsy pulled onto the M6 and into a slow moving stream of late summer holiday traffic, ‘especially if it turns out to be something that holds us up, or causes us any serious difficulties, I swear I’ll find some ancient law that gets that pair locked up for obstructing justice.’

  Karl Boyes’ story had tallied, eventually, with his girlfriend’s and Jude and Doddsy had left Manchester no further forward.

  ‘Have a heart. They’re just kids. And they were telling the truth.’

  ‘Just kids? They’re twenty. They’re old enough to vote and join the army and stand for Parliament. That makes them old enough to know better. If there’s one thing that ought to be a crime and isn’t, it’s taking money without knowing what it’s for. Ask no questions, tell no lies? Really?’

  Doddsy laughed at him. ‘Yes, but you’re someone who can’t not ask questions. So am I. But the rest of the world isn’t like us, or we’d all be policemen.’

  ‘They’re wasting our time.’

  ‘Maybe they aren’t. This has to be leading us somewhere, even if it’s down a trail the murderer wants us to go down. The more he gets involved in setting red herrings like this one, the more likely he is to make a mistake. At the end of it we’ll find him.’

  ‘Or her.’

  ‘Yes. Or her. But at the end of it, Jude, there’s no point in getting angry with those kids. You know as well as I do that they didn’t have Greg Sumner, alive or dead. They can’t have done, if he was seen alive on Sunday morning in Windermere.’

  ‘Unless they picked the box up on the way.’

  ‘We can check that easily enough. I’m guessing they didn’t. They’ve told us they went up the M6 and when, and we can get someone to check with every single traffic camera along the route. If they’re lying, we’ll know it within a day. But I don’t think they are.’

  Acknowledging the truth of that, even as he despaired of yet another drain on time and resources, Jude reached for his phone. ‘Tammy. Any update on the forensics yet?’

  ‘The report came through from the lab half an hour ago.
I was waiting for you to call.’

  ‘Okay. Let’s hear the news.’

  ‘There’s no news. We had pieces of wood that I thought might be from the roof, but they weren’t.’

  ‘No. They’d be from a wooden box.’

  ‘God, you’re good,’ she mocked him. ‘That’s right. How did you work that out?’

  ‘I’ll tell you in a minute. Onwards. The padlock and chain came with that box. I know that. What about the rope? Anything?’

  ‘Nope. Any DNA evidence was destroyed by the fire, if there ever was any.’

  ‘And the fabric? Don’t tell me. It was the remains of a blanket, and there was nothing on there, either.’

  ‘You don’t need this report, do you, Chief? You’ve got it all worked out.’

  ‘I need it to confirm what I’m thinking. There’s one more thing. Those stones that were in the hut. Did we get them tested?’

  ‘No. They wouldn’t have shown up anything biological. But I can tell you they weren’t off the side of the hill.’

  ‘I didn’t think they would be.’ Jude looked out of the window as Chorley flashed by. ‘That wasn’t what I was going to ask. How many were there and how much did they weigh?’

  ‘How much did they weigh? I don’t know.’

  ‘An estimate will do just now. You can find out for me later.’

  ‘Well… I don’t know. It would be a guess. Eighty pounds? Ninety?’

  ‘Right. And how much on average does a twelve year old child weigh?’

  There was a long pause. Doddsy accelerated past a lorry. On the opposite carriageway, the traffic had slowed to a crawl. ‘I see what you’re saying. You’re saying that Greg was never in that box?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. It was a red herring to throw us off the trail.’ He hung up. ‘But why, Doddsy? Why? Those two kids weren’t hard to break down, were they? We didn’t have to do the whole good-cop-bad-cop routine. We didn’t even have to shout at them.’ He’d been expecting a much tougher session, and a far more complex set of information emerging from it.

  And at the end of it, as they drove back up to Penrith, they were no further forward than they had been at the start.

  18

  Ashleigh’s phone rang just as she stepped out of the shower. Pulling her towel around herself, she skated through the bathroom and into her bedroom, trailing water behind her all the way, and snatched the phone up just in time. ‘Jude. Hi. Sorry.’

  ‘Have I caught you at the wrong moment? Sorry. I know it’s Friday evening.’

  ‘No problem. I was just out of the shower, that was all.’ Gripping the phone to one ear, she clutched at the towel with the other hand, then realised how ridiculous she must look and burst out laughing.

  ‘I can call back.’

  ‘No, it’s okay.’ She let go of the towel, which slithered down to a damp pile at her feet, and switched the phone onto speaker mode. Laying it on the bed, she retrieved the towel and began, methodically, to dry herself. ‘I’m sorry. I was distracted. I’m fine to talk. How did you get on in Manchester?’

  ‘It was a false trail.’ She heard his sigh.

  ‘Really? Is there any such thing? There must be something we can learn from?’

  ‘You’re just like Doddsy. I admire your positive approach, both of you. But all I learned was that there are some people who are genuine mugs and honestly believe that people tell them the truth all the time.’

  ‘It wasn’t them? Chris will be disappointed, after all that work he put in.’ Almost as disappointed as he’d looked when she’d turned down his invitation for a quick drink after work. She shrugged. He’d bounce back; he was an optimist. And if he asked her again she might say yes.

  ‘He did a good job, and I’ll make sure he knows it. Yes, it was them, exactly as described by our friend Mrs Innes. But all they’re guilty of, as far as I can tell, is accepting money from a complete stranger to carry a box from A to B and asking no questions about it.’

  She picked up the sodden towel and did her best to dry off her hair before giving up and twisting it round her head to keep her long curls out of the way. ‘You say it was a waste of time. The box was empty, then.’

  ‘Not empty. They said they were told it contained stones.’

  ‘The ones that were up at the old byre?’

  ‘I’d guess so. I’ll get one of them sent up to the lab and see if some geologist can be specific about where it came from, though I don’t suppose that’ll help us much, even if they can. I’d guess it’ll be from somewhere in the Manchester area. So that was a day of Doddsy’s and my time wasted, not to mention a couple of days of Chris getting frustrated with the CCTV.’

  Sometimes, detective work was duller than Ashleigh could ever believe, a far cry from the novels that had got her hooked on the idea in her teens. She pulled open a drawer and raked through it for some fresh underwear. ‘Is that what it’s about? Just to waste our time?’

  ‘I expect so. But putting in all that effort is foolish because it still provides another piece of evidence that might link to who did it. But that’s not why I called. I was wondering how you got on with Dawn.’

  ‘Oh, God. That poor woman. Jude, she’s so lonely. I don’t think she was happy even before she lost her boy. There’s something very deeply distressing about her. Nervous, maybe. Afraid. She was always looking at her phone.’ So often, in fact, that Ashleigh didn’t even think she was aware she was doing it – in and out of the handbag, constant glances down to it, the twitching reaction whenever it pinged with a notification, the way she covered it with her hand. She’d been worse than any teenager. ‘She was trying so hard to pretend everything was normal when it can’t possibly be, but I was expecting her to break down at any moment. It’s as if she’s huddled under a huge cloud of guilt.’

  ‘She’s a mother whose son was snatched from her care. Of course she’ll feel guilty, even though she isn’t the one who should. And I think I’d be both nervous and afraid if my son had just been murdered and I thought it might have something to do with my husband’s enemies.’

  She imagined the slight wrinkle in his brow and smiled at it. ‘We didn’t talk about that. I should ask her next time. But she did tell me all about her first marriage.’

  ‘And does the story stack up? She left a wealthy man for a poor man because she loved him? Is that the real reason?’

  ‘No. She didn’t leave him for anyone. She left because he hit her, and Max came along later to pick up the pieces, no doubt to Randolph’s fury.’

  ‘Right. So now we have a violent ex-husband on the scene. I think he goes straight to the top of the list of suspects, doesn’t he?’

  She stretched out her hand towards the top of her dressing table. Jo Malone or L’Occitane? It was only a night in with Lisa. But what the hell? She worked hard enough to justify some expensive sins, and perfume and body lotions were relatively blameless among them. And she loved the L’Occitane. Still talking into the phone, she squeezed some of the lotion out of the bottle and into the palm of her hand. ‘Well, I don’t know. She seemed to think he was harmless.’

  ‘But violent?’

  ‘In the past, she said. And only once, if I can say that without belittling it.’

  ‘Fair enough. Right. Next question. Are you busy tomorrow?’

  A flash of risky, Friday night humour overcame her. ‘Detective Chief Inspector, is that a proposition?’ She ran her hand up her arm, massaging body lotion over her shoulders and down onto her breast, knowing that it wasn’t. A pity. Under different circumstances, she might have welcomed just such an invitation.

  ‘Not of the sort you might think.’ His tone was crisp. Could he be smiling? ‘I’ll be in the office tomorrow, but I need to go down to Windermere to speak to the Sumners. I wondered if you’d like to come along.’

  ‘Of course I’ll come.’ The opulent scent of L’Occitane reminded her of a southern summer, not a northern one. She and Scott had had their first holiday together in the
south of France, walking hand in hand along the beaches, pretending to be among the richest of the rich. Fury at her husband’s infidelity surged inside her. Somewhere, she was sure, he was in the arms of another woman, and if he thought of Ashleigh at all it would be with contempt. ‘I’d assumed I’d have to come in anyway. There’s plenty to do. And I have a feeling that Dawn will want to see me again.’

  ‘Did she read your fortune for you?’

  She ignored the acid in his tone. ‘She offered to, and I declined. I didn’t think it was entirely appropriate.’

  This time the chuckle at the other end of the line was more friendly. She imagined his face coming alive, and warmth rather than the usual chill behind his eyes. ‘I expect the whole team will be in the office at some point tomorrow, even the ones who aren’t supposed to be. I’ve said I’ll buy us all a beer in town afterwards. Feel free to join us.’

  ‘Is the beer good locally?’

  ‘Surprisingly so.’

  ‘Then I’ll come. And I’m fine for tomorrow morning. What time?’

  ‘I’ll pick you up at ten.’

  She clicked off the phone, got back to getting ready. ‘Lisa! Have you ordered the takeaway?’

  ‘It’ll be here in five.’

  ‘You can answer the door. I’m tired of being smart. I’m going to put on my pyjamas.’

  ‘Well, if you answer the door in that, it would have to be worth a free fortune cookie!’ Lisa said, when Ashleigh descended the stairs in a scarlet kimono. ‘Those are your pjs? You look as if you’re about to go on stage in Madame Butterfly.’

  ‘I need to get out of my office clothes. This is the thing I have that’s least like them.’

  ‘For God’s sake, woman. You aren’t even pounding the streets in uniform. You get to choose your clothes. Be grateful.’

  Jude liked the team to be smart even when they weren’t out of the office. Ashleigh ran a finger over her scarlet silk sleeve as she slid into the armchair. ‘No, but it’s been a long week and I’m tired. That’s all.’ Lisa had left a glass of wine on the side table for her and she stretched out a grateful hand for it.

  ‘I wouldn’t do your job. Seeing the worst of people.’