Death on the Lake by Jo Allen (early reader books TXT) 📗

time of her own choosing and one she knew would be suitable to him. Ryan had a tin ear to other people’s convenience. She dropped down the steep hill past the new church of St Peter’s, a mere hundred and fifty years or so old, and turned along the lane to Martindale and the much older St Martin’s, its churchyard walls standing reassuringly solid a bare twenty yards from George’s cottage. ‘I’ll warn you. He can be a bit grumpy.’

‘Ruth told me about that. He’ll be fine with me.’

‘You can turn your legendary charm on him.’ She pulled the car up and turned to him with a smile that was meant to take the sting out of her words. Ruth, her mother, was already losing patience with their distant cousin.

‘I told you. He’ll be fine.’ He smiled back, the full stare, the cheeky wink. Cousin or not, Becca knew when she inevitably had to introduce Ryan to her current boyfriend, there wouldn’t be a lot of love lost. Adam resented everyone who challenged him for her attention — even Holmes. ‘She said he can get grumpy in the evenings. That’s all. We’ll be ready for it.’

Becca got out of the car and locked it. When her mother had issued Ryan with a coded warning to watch his step with George, the suggestion that the evening wasn’t a good time had been meant as a firm instruction not to visit, but Ryan, who was bright enough to pick it up, had chosen to disregard it. Fair enough. He’d already shown he had the sensitivity of a rhinoceros to everyone else around him, so why would he care about George?

‘Come on then.’ Resigned to a short, blunt visit, she led the way up the path and round the two-storey house to the side door he used to avoid the front step. The window frames needed attention, especially upstairs, but George hadn’t been upstairs for a good two years, so it didn’t matter. He’d be far better out of the place but no-one dared suggest it. She opened the door, always left unlocked and stepped into the dark rear porch. ‘Uncle George! It’s me, Becca. I’ve brought someone to see you.’

He was in the kitchen and she waited until he replied before she left the narrow hallway. ‘Who is it? Not that new boyfriend of yours?’

‘No.’ Becca had brought Adam Fleetwood along to meet George on one previous occasion, and she wasn’t about to do it again, not because they hadn’t got on but because the last thing she wanted to do was allow anybody to jump to the conclusion there was any permanence in a relationship she now realised she’d primarily entered into to put Jude Satterthwaite’s back up. It hadn’t worked, and now she was looking for a way to disengage herself from it with grace. ‘Much better than that.’

‘Better? You haven’t brought Jude to see me, have you?’

He was provoking her. She held firm. ‘Even better. I’ve brought Ryan. Sharon’s Ryan. You know. From Australia.’

‘I’ve just finished my tea and I was thinking about my bed.’

It was half past six but Becca, a district nurse, knew all too well how people like George could spin a routine to cover three hours. ‘Why don’t you and Ryan sit and have a blether? I can clear your tea things up, if you like.’

George was sitting at the table, an empty plate in front of him. He wore every one of his ninety-five years like a badge of honour, tissue-thin skin stretched over a fragile frame of bone, scant white hair that had grown too long, eyes that had once been blue but had faded to the pale colour of melting spring snow, but he nevertheless showed why he was good for many years more. His facial expressions were quick and sharp, his movements slow but precise, and he wore a pair of scarlet braces over his faded checked shirt in some sort of challenge to Father Time.

‘Ryan, eh?’ He didn’t get up, though he reached out a frail hand to shake that which Ryan offered him. ‘Your mam didn’t tell me you were coming. Not that she writes to me more than Christmas.’ He sniffed in disapproval.

‘Evening George. No, Mum’s not a great correspondent,’ Ryan said, shaking his head. ‘I’m not so good myself, either. I think I maybe forgot to tell her.’

‘You forgot to tell your mam you were coming halfway round the world?’ George’s expression cracked into a sneer.

‘The world’s a lot smaller than it was in your day, mate. I was due some leave so I thought I’d drop everything and roll. It’s how life is, now. It moves on.’

Becca moved to the kettle and George’s hand snapped up in a gesture of obstruction. ‘Don’t bother with that. I don’t take anything at this time of night.’

Unsurprised, yet without any great sense of vindication, Becca registered that she was right and Ryan had struck entirely the wrong note. All to the good. Once they’d got through the minimal painful formalities, they could go home and she might be able to salvage something from her evening. She turned to make herself useful while she could, picked up George’s plate and cutlery and placed them in the sink. ‘There’s a lot of police activity along the lake shore today. Any idea what’s going on?’ And he would know, because even though he barely left the dying house he’d chosen for himself, he would come out of his garden like a spider snapping up a fly when one of his neighbours wandered by, and the couple who kept the next-door farm were in and out every day, keeping an eye on him. In his retirement, George’s whole life was absorbed in other people’s business.

‘Aye.’ He perked up at that, turning his attention away from Ryan. ‘Some lass from down at the marina went out for a walk and never came back. The police came up this morning to ask me if I’d