The Girls in the Lake: An addictive and gripping crime thriller (Beth Adams Book 2)

by Helen Phifer

  Back inside, she didn’t remember ever feeling this sad in her entire life. She didn’t want to be on her own; she didn’t want to have to wake up without seeing Josh’s smile, the glint in his eyes. They just seemed to fit together like they were always meant to be. He made her feel alive again. She stepped into the kitchen, water dripping onto the grey slate tiles. She needed to get out of her wet pyjamas. Unbuttoning them, she let them drop to the floor and made her way naked to the bathroom. Josh was gone; she’d driven him away with her accusations and her drinking. She didn’t even realise she was crying until she looked in the mirror to see her swollen, red eyes. There was nothing she could do, not right now anyway. Picking up a towel, she began to rub herself dry.

  Back into the bedroom, she pulled a fresh pair of soft brushed cotton pyjamas from the drawer. They were warm and felt good against her skin as she climbed back into bed. She would shut her eyes and pray for a different outcome when she woke again to be on call from twelve noon onwards. Pulling her duvet over, she grabbed the pillow Josh used and hugged it tight to her chest.

  A ringing phone woke her. Opening one eye, she reached out with her fingertips searching for it.

  ‘Beth Adams.’

  ‘Doctor Adams, it’s Helen from the control room at Penrith. Sorry to bother you, we have a sudden death of an eighteen-year-old. Her mother found her collapsed on the bedroom floor, unresponsive.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  The question threw the voice on the end of the phone. ‘It’s, er, almost two.’

  She opened both eyes. ‘What’s the address.’ Sitting up, she grabbed the notepad and pen she kept purposely by the side of her bed.

  ‘Thanks, Helen, I’m on my way.’

  ‘I’ll let the duty DS know you’re on your way.’

  Beth said goodbye. She’d almost asked who the duty DS was, but she already knew it would be Josh. At least she’d see him; maybe she could apologise if they got a moment alone. Although, that wasn’t her style; once Beth was at a crime scene she would switch into professional mode and nothing would distract her from her work. Not even Josh? the voice asked inside her head. She replied out loud, ‘No, not even Josh.’

  Fifty

  Beth arrived at the address; the large wooden gates were open and inside were an assortment of police vehicles, an ambulance and now her. She glanced in the rear-view mirror, checking her appearance. She looked presentable; amazing what some concealer and foundation could do to hide the dark smudges under her eyes. Her ash grey hair was a bit of a frizzy mess, but she could blame it on the rain.

  Josh’s car wasn’t here and she wondered if she had it wrong; maybe he wasn’t on call. Getting out, she leant into the boot of the car to grab her case. Walking towards the house, she heard Josh’s voice, simultaneously realising a police van was blocking his car from view. She pushed down all the feelings threatening to surface and switched into professional mode. It wasn’t happening, not here, not in public. Josh looked up and walked towards her. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him look so miserable. He nodded in greeting. No smile; she didn’t smile back.

  ‘What have we got?’

  ‘A mess, a huge mess. Mother found her eighteen-year-old daughter collapsed on the bedroom floor around one p.m. Unresponsive, not breathing and rigor has set in, she’s pretty solid.’

  ‘Are there any underlying illnesses? Eighteen is very young for a sudden death.’

  A loud sob caught in the back of his throat, and Beth felt alarm bells begin to ring inside her mind. He knew this girl, it was personal. Instinctively her fingers reached out to him, but he turned away. She realised he was composing himself and gave him a moment. When he turned around the threat of tears was gone, but the pained expression was still there, fixed across his face, making him look so much older than he was.

  ‘Tamara Smythson. She was on The Tequila Sunrise last night and was pushed into the water. Me and one of the lake wardens dragged her out. I took her home when she refused all medical attention.’

  ‘There wasn’t much else you could have done if she refused, and if she’s eighteen you couldn’t have made her go to the hospital.’

  He whispered, ‘No, but I wish to Christ that I had. I would have dragged her there in a pair of handcuffs kicking and screaming if I’d have known this was going to happen.’

  Beth didn’t speak – what was there to say?

  He led her up the stone steps into the spacious entrance of the house. An ornate, sweeping staircase dominated the entrance flanked either side by two huge marble panthers with amber eyes that stared at her. From somewhere inside the house she could hear the loud sobs of a woman and the hushed tones of a man trying to comfort her.

  She turned to Josh. ‘Is this a crime scene?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, the boat is the primary scene. I’ve asked the parents to stay out of the way until you’ve been and we’ve decided upon a course of action. We should get suited and booted. I only peered in through the bedroom door, I didn’t go in. The first officer on scene did and the paramedics pronounced death. There’s no actual evidence here, apart from her wet clothes.’

  Even so, both went outside to dress in protective clothing. Beth looked up as she slipped on a shoe cover.

  ‘I can manage if you would rather wait out here.’ In all honesty, it would be easier for her if he did; she needed to concentrate on the body. He shook his head and she knew even though he was distressed he wouldn’t be able to wait outside; he would want to be involved.

  Fifty-One

  Dressed in white paper overalls, shoe covers, and double gloved, Beth stepped back into the house, and Josh led the way to the girl’s room past huge oil portraits of what Beth assumed to be family members. She felt as if every pair of eyes turned to watch her, could almost feel them burning into the back of her neck. As they reached the last door on the left, the only one which was ajar, Beth felt her mind begin to focus. She was in full pathologist mode now as she looked around the huge pink room full of every modern gadget a teenager could wish for, including an enormous television that dominated the whole of one wall. On the bed was a MacBook still open, the screensaver spinning colourful wheels. Tamara’s pyjama-clad body was curled up on the floor, her blonde hair matted and tangled.

  ‘Shit.’

  She heard Josh’s sharp intake of breath behind her.

  ‘I can manage if you’d rather take ten.’

  ‘I’m good.’

  She didn’t question him further. He knew the drill: if he felt as if he couldn’t cope, he was to get out of the crime scene and fast.

  Stepping closer, Beth bent down to examine the girl, who looked as if she’d simply fallen to the floor. There was a small amount of vomit on the front of her pyjama top. Opening up her case, she took the girl’s temperature and the ambient temperature of the room.

  ‘She’s in full rigor, which usually develops completely around twelve hours after death. I’m going to make an educated guess here, because you know how difficult it is to get this right.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘But, personally, I would put her time of death around eleven, no later than twelve last night. When was she discovered?’

  He let out a sigh. ‘Around one p.m. this afternoon. But time of death sometime between eleven and twelve, if that’s right, means she’d been home less than an hour. I knew when I left her just after ten last night that I shouldn’t have, but there was nothing else I could do. She refused help and insisted she was fine and just wanted to go home. What do you think happened?’

  ‘I can’t say for definite right now, but she went into the lake, right?’

  ‘Was pushed off the boat into the water. She said it tasted like shit.’

  Beth used a gloved fingertip to lift open one of the half-closed eyelids. The eyes were beginning to look milky, but there were no tiny red specks of petechiae which would have indicated asphyxiation by strangulation. But the girl had suffocated. ‘I think that it’s highly likely she
died from secondary drowning.’

  ‘What? How do you drown in your bedroom?’ He went across the room to the ensuite, opening the door to a bath full of faded green water with specks of gold glitter forming a film on the top of it.

  ‘She ran a bath.’

  Beth joined him, took a cursory look around the room.

  ‘She didn’t get into it though, she never made it. There would be specks of that glitter on her body if she had. The glitter on her face is silver and I’m assuming from her eye make-up. Not only that, her matted hair extensions have bits of debris in them. She came home, ran a bath fully intending to get into it, only she never made it.’

  ‘How, how could she drown? I don’t understand it.’

  ‘It’s very rare and this would only be the second case I’ve come across since I became a pathologist. It’s fatal if the warning symptoms are ignored. Inhaling the smallest amount of water into the lungs can irritate them and cause them to swell. If that is what happened, when I do her post-mortem I will likely find only a small amount of water present; but even the smallest amount of liquid is enough to hinder the lungs’ ability to function as they should and provide enough oxygen for the bloodstream.’

  She glanced at Josh, who was pacing up and down, shaking his head. He looked like shit. She knew he was taking this hard, and who could blame him? He’d had the foresight to take a boat out last night to make sure no one came to any harm. This girl had been pushed into the water and he’d saved her, only for him to bring her home and then to find out she’d died anyway. If things hadn’t been so strained between them, she could have offered him some form of comfort, a quick pat on the arm, a squeeze of his hand. Only it didn’t seem right. He’d snuck out of the house without saying goodbye, and she no longer knew where she fit into his life. She turned back to the body on the floor.

  ‘You weren’t to blame, and you really need to stop pacing, it’s distracting.’

  He ran his fingers through his hair, stared at Beth as if she was a complete stranger then turned and left the room.

  Beth picked up the girl’s hands to study her fingernails, wondering if she had any chips of paint underneath them as she whispered, ‘I’m so sorry, sweetie, but I’ll take care of you now.’ She couldn’t see anything, but to be sure she placed a paper bag over each hand to preserve any possible trace evidence. Someone had killed this girl. She didn’t know yet whether it was linked to the other two victims but this didn’t make her feel any better about it. All she could do was to make sure she did everything she could to get justice for their families.

  Fifty-Two

  James had watched Ethan take his motorised dinghy away then decided he was too exhausted to get home and was going to sleep on the boat. He had woken up less than twenty minutes ago and couldn’t believe he’d slept all the way through to the following afternoon. He didn’t have any further party bookings until December, which was just as well because after last night he probably wouldn’t be able to anyway. Claudia Davenport would soon see to that. She had been so angry last night, and none of it had been his fault. The job was too bloody demanding and dangerous. It certainly wasn’t worth the hassle it was bringing to him. His father would have a meltdown over this latest incident; any bad publicity was frowned upon. To bring shame on the family name wasn’t worth the aggravation it caused. He’d learnt that at an early age.

  He was about to leave the boat when he saw the blue flashing lights of a police van reflecting along Glebe Road. He groaned, muttering, ‘What the fuck do they want now?’; of course they might be going somewhere else, but he doubted it. It seemed that his boat was a disaster magnet. He climbed off onto the metal jetty and waited with his arms folded to see if the coppers were heading his way. He heard the van stop nearby and felt his blood run cold.

  ‘James Marshall?’

  He turned to face the huge man standing behind him, as broad as he was tall.

  ‘Yes. What now?’

  ‘We need to secure the boat. It’s a crime scene. You can’t go back on to it until it’s been searched by the crime scene investigators.’

  ‘How is it a crime scene? I mean, it’s a fucking disaster, I’ll own up to that with both hands.’

  Another officer had joined the first. They glanced at each other, and he realised that something bad had happened.

  ‘The least you can do is tell me what’s going on. I don’t think I’m asking too much?’

  The big guy shrugged. ‘We also need you to come down to the station and give a statement. You’ll be told more then. I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss anything with you.’

  ‘Am I under arrest?’

  ‘No, you’re helping with enquiries.’

  He fished the keys for the boat out of his pocket and handed them over. ‘Knock yourself out.’

  The big guy took them from him, passing them to the other officer.

  ‘I’ll take him, you wait with the boat for Claire to get here.’

  James walked briskly to where the van was parked. There weren’t many people around. Still, he didn’t want anyone he knew to see him get put into a police van. His father was going to go apeshit with him over this.

  The copper opened the side door to the van and let him climb in. He supposed he should be grateful he hadn’t made him get in the cage. Good job because the winding roads back to Kendal stuck in that tiny space with no windows would definitely have made him barf. He was glad they hadn’t arrived as he was getting into his car; although he felt sober, the amount of Jack Daniel’s he’d consumed last night might not agree with that diagnosis. If they’d got close and realised he reeked of whiskey they would have breathalysed him and he would be in the cage. He was grateful for that small mercy even if his whole life had gone to rat shit and was out of his control for the first time ever.

  Fifty-Three

  Josh rushed into the office, took one look at the whiteboard and began to clean it. Detective Chief Inspector Paul O’Neill was on his way from Barrow and would be here soon. He picked up the dried red marker, tugging off the lid and began to write the names of the three victims on the whiteboard. The pen gave out when he was writing Leah Burton’s name. Sam, sensing his urgency, threw him another from her desk drawer. He then wrote the names Julia Bach and Tamara Smythson next to it. His stomach churned each time he heard Tamara’s name; he could have saved her, he should have saved her. Underneath each name he listed what he knew about them.

  Leah & Julia both from out of town.

  Tamara, local.

  All have blonde hair.

  Aged between eighteen to twenty-four.

  Found in Lake Windermere.

  Two of them definitely came into contact with James Marshall.

  Julia last seen on her way to the Marina to enquire about a job, possibly The Tequila.

  Marcus Johnson was seen assaulting Tamara by Ethan Scales.

  Marcus Johnson reportedly harassing Julia.

  Ethan was also present when Leah was on The Tequila Sunrise.

  Trace evidence found under both Leah & Julia’s nails suspected match (not confirmed).

  He wrote the number ‘1’ by Julia, a ‘2’ next to Leah and ‘3’ next to Tamara’s name, and Sam handed him a mug of coffee.

  ‘Thank you. You were right to be so concerned about Grace going on that boat. Someone pushed Tamara Smythson into the lake during the party. I’m more than convinced the same person was responsible for the deaths of the other two victims.’

  ‘You did everything you could; thank you for even going out on that boat. No one else would have done that, Josh. None of this was your fault, so don’t go trying to blame yourself for it.’

  ‘Thanks, but I should have made her get checked over.’

  ‘Trust me, the only way you’d have been able to do that, if she didn’t want to go, would have been to drag her to the hospital. She was eighteen; she didn’t feel unwell and refused medical attention. There was nothing else you could do.’

  He smiled at
Sam; he knew she was right. It didn’t matter though: he thought about the trickle of blood that had leaked from Tamara’s nose in the car, the coughing fit. He’d never heard of secondary drowning, didn’t know there was such a thing, but after he’d left Beth at the scene he’d done a quick Google search and discovered that Tamara had displayed all the symptoms. Had he known this he could have saved her life; a simple overnight stay in hospital on oxygen would have been enough. As it was, she was now in hospital, but not on a ward. No, she was in cold storage in the mortuary awaiting Beth to cut her open from her neck to her navel. He wanted to punch something he was so angry with himself. Instead he clenched the handle on the mug and walked out of the office. He needed some air and five minutes to get his head together before it exploded. He didn’t have time to be kicked off the investigation, not now. He needed to find out who pushed Tamara off the boat, because it was highly likely the same person was responsible for the deaths of Leah and Julia.

  After standing outside the back door taking deep breaths of the chilled air, he felt as if his head was a little clearer. At some point he would be interviewed by PSD because he was the last person to be with Tamara before she died. The professional standards department were a hard bunch to please.

  ‘Morning, Josh.’