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

for the opportunity it gave them to be scandalised. But most of the flak that was incoming towards the unfortunate Summer wasn’t personal. Most of it was directed towards her boyfriend, Luke Helmsley.

‘No-one likes the guy,’ Tyrone said to Ashleigh, handing her a sheaf of scrawled witness statements as she stood beside her parked car in the centre of the village. ‘Have a look through. They say he’s rude. They say he’s aggressive. They say he drinks a lot and drink doesn’t suit his nature. Most of them think he’s done her in, though none of them can say why, or when, or how.’

‘Most of them don’t know where she was on Sunday afternoon, then,’ Ashleigh observed, accepting the papers and looking down at the top one, which bore out exactly what Tyrone had just been saying. ‘If they did they’d be putting two and two together and getting five.’

‘Doing our job for us, eh?’ Having completed his mission, Tyrone turned back again towards the main street. ‘We’ve spoken to anyone who was up Howtown way and might have seen her, but there’s no sign of her.’

Ashleigh reviewed the route in her head. She’d never been there but she’d scanned the map. ‘She might have come back along the lakeside path, then.’

‘I spoke to a few people who were out on it between about three and five. Nobody saw her.’

‘Those boys were lying about how much they drank,’ she said, thinking aloud. And drugs. She was sure there must have been drugs involved. Jude’s refusal to accept it still irritated her.

‘She might have been so drunk she went the other way, but if she did that she’d have had to go across the bridge at Sandwick and then she’d have realised.’

‘You think? Those boys looked pretty rough when we spoke to them and that was the day after.’ She frowned and recalled the map again. It would have been all too easy for Summer to have disappeared off into the hills.

‘We’ll all just have to keep looking.’ Tyrone squinted along to the hills. It was May but the nights were still cold and Summer hadn’t been dressed for the outdoors. She’d been gone for almost forty eight hours.

‘Yes. No point in giving up hope.’ Ashleigh checked her watch, her mind already flitting ahead to what would need to be done next. There was a huge area to cover and her gut instinct was that it was fruitless and that drink and drugs and folly had sent Summer stumbling to death by misadventure. If she’d survived, surely someone would have found her.

Her phone rang. ‘Thanks Tyrone. Keep going. I’ll need to answer this.’ She turned away, raising the phone to her ear. ‘Hello.’

‘Bad news.’ It was one of the uniformed policewomen engaged in the search up at Howtown. ‘We’ve found a body.’

‘In the lake?’ Ashleigh’s heart dived into a sick, horrible place. The first knowledge of death, accidental or otherwise, never got any easier, though when she’d joined the force she’d thought it would. ‘Is it Summer?’

‘Yes. Young female, long blonde hair. Tattoo of a butterfly on the back of the left thigh, another butterfly on the left collarbone. Naked.’

Oh God. ‘Whereabouts?’

‘In the water just off the lake path. Near a spot called Kailpot Crag.’

Dead, naked. How much were the Neilson twins lying? How far out of hand had their mini orgy got? ‘Any signs of injury?’

‘Nothing obvious. But her clothes and her bag were there, all in a neat pile on the shore. Purse and phone on there, so it doesn’t look like anything’s been taken. The bank card is in the name of Summer Raine.’

‘Okay. I’ll get down there as soon as I can.’ Ashleigh ended the call with a further bout of instructions, even though the constable on the other end of the line would know exactly what to do and would have a uniformed sergeant on hand to ask if she didn’t. ‘Tyrone, you keep on here. They think they’ve found her.’

She walked round to the driver’s side and slid into the seat, clicking the seat belt fastened before putting in a call to Jude. ‘I don’t know if you’ve heard yet. It looks as if we’ve found Summer’s body.’

‘No. I hadn’t heard.’ There was pause, as though he was mentally rearranging his day, which would mean that Summer’s death was potentially far more significant than just an accidental death. ‘Where are you?’

‘Pooley Bridge. They found her in the lake just under Hallin Fell. I’m just heading down there.’

‘Okay. I’ll come down and join you. Just to see what’s going on.’

So she was right. Jude wouldn’t normally ditch whatever he was doing to come and take an interest in the discovery of a body. There were plenty of people on site, apart from herself, capable of doing whatever needed to be done and plenty more to whom he could have delegated the job if necessary. ‘It was at Kailpot Crag, apparently. You know it?’

‘Yes. It’s midway between Sandwick and Howtown if you go by the lake route. About a mile, either way. Did anything come from the witness statements?’

‘Only that they all seem to think it was the boyfriend whodunnit, even though there’s absolutely no evidence of any foul play.’

‘Interesting. Okay, I’ll let you get on. You carry on. I’ll be about fifteen minutes behind you.’

Ashleigh started the car and drove, without any particular urgency, along the narrow lakeshore road. On another day she’d have spent more time appreciating the beauty of one of Ullswater’s moodier days. The previous day there had been sun and the fresh green shoots of spring, a shimmering ripple of turquoise where bluebells were about to burst out, but today a clag of thick wet cloud smothered the tops of even the lower fells and shower after shower blew in on the westerly breeze. It took her ten minutes to reach Howtown, where she parked at the side of the road.

Carly Bright, the uniformed policewoman who’d called her, was waiting for her.