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

the available information. He could deal with this kind of case in his sleep if he had to. ‘Cause of death, drowning. Time of death, not certain but probably some time on Saturday afternoon. No evidence of any external injury other than occasional bruising, consistent with what you might call rough sexual intercourse. Not enough to suggest that anything was forced. Technically, of course, one might suppose the girl was raped while unconscious, but there’s nothing in either the twins’ stories or in Summer’s reputation to suggest that might be the case.’

‘Ollie had what looked like love bites on his neck,’ Ashleigh supplied, ‘which seems to me to confirm a good time was had by all.’

‘Okay.’ Jude tapped his pen in the desk. ‘And the toxicology tests won’t be through yet, I imagine.’ Though they’d almost certainly show alcohol. ‘There may be traces of drugs, in which case I think discreet inquiries from the boys about where they came from are in order.’ He felt Ashleigh’s eyes upon him, judging him. It was a balancing act, a small injustice against a larger one. ‘There’s no need to get heavy handed with the kids. I suspect they didn’t get whatever it was locally. If they tell you, you can pass it on to the narcotics team.’

Ashleigh looked outraged. ‘But—’

‘We don’t have the resources to spend too much time on an accidental death.’

‘If it is accidental.’

‘Unless there’s evidence to the contrary, yes.’ Usually her instinct for a crime was an asset but today it was a thorn in his conscience. He offered an olive branch. ‘Though there are one or two things that trouble me about it. One is the location she was found. She went to Waterside Lodge by the road and her shoes weren’t suitable for that path. Even if she was off her head with something, she’d got a long way along it.’

Doddsy looked again at the post-mortem report. ‘Blisters on her feet, in fairness, but she could have got those walking there rather than walking back.’

‘It’s a hell of a spot.’ Chris spent most of his work life inside and most of the rest of it outside, and Ullswater was one of his favourite playgrounds. ‘I go wild swimming in the lake quite a lot and there are plenty of easier places to get to than that.’

‘And she’d climbed down the bank, while drunk, taken off her clothes, folded them, placed them neatly underneath a tree root and gone into the water.’ Ashleigh chewed the end of her pen. ‘Folded them. That’s the thing. Not dropped them on the floor or stuffed them into her bag or gone into the water fully clothed. But that apart, no. It’s easy to see what happened.’

‘Deepish waters,’ Chris supplied. He’d brought along some prints of the photographs Carly Bright had taken of the body, and he spread them out on Doddsy’s desk. ‘Colder than she thought. Slipped, went under, panicked, got caught up in a branch. Couldn’t get out. Especially if she was very drunk.’

Another set of heels tapped along the corridor, another knock came on the door. ‘Jude. I can give you five minutes.’ Tammy Garner, leader of the CSI team, breezed into the room, smiled at everyone except Doddsy for whom she reserved the chilliest of nods, and declined the offer of a seat. ‘I can let you know what happened down at Kailpot Crag, and I can take three questions. Then I’m off.’ She smiled at him as if she needed to indicate it was a joke. Since Doddsy had begun dating Tyrone, her son, she’d been very frosty with her former colleagues, as if they were taking sides against her.

Jude, who was very much of the opinion that Tammy’s objections had no place in the workplace, refused to give ground. ‘This is Doddsy’s case. I’m only here to make the coffee.’

Professionalism asserted itself. In a simpler life, Tammy had got on with Doddsy well enough, but the fact that he was only a couple of years younger than she was and a clear quarter of a century older than Tyrone strained her temper whenever she saw him. This time, as always, she took refuge in briskness. ‘Fine. But no need to make one for me. I won’t be here long enough.’ She turned towards Doddsy. ‘So. We’ve completed the investigation on the path. As you know there’s been quite a lot of rain since Sunday afternoon and if she left any footprints they’ve been washed away. There’s thick bracken along that way and some of it was broken down.’

‘So she did go down from the path?’ Chris sat forward, alert.

‘I wouldn’t swear to it. There wasn’t a clear area where she might have got down to the water, but the vegetation springs back pretty quickly, especially at this time of year. There are other explanations. We might not think it’s the easiest way to get to the water, but a lot of people walk their dogs along there, and some of them are pretty big. They don’t think twice about galloping up or down the slope.’

‘The branches,’ Ashleigh said, looking at the picture of the body as it floated face down in the water. ‘That big one there. Could she have got trapped under that?’

‘I didn’t see the girl in situ, but yes, she could have done.’

‘And the clothes?’

‘Maybe she was neat and tidy. All I can say is, we didn’t find anything to suggest anyone else had been down there at the waterside with her. But we didn’t find a lot of evidence that she’d been tramping around much, either. Sorry if this doesn’t help, but bluntly, I’m wondering why you felt the need for a full crime scene investigation on a case like this.’

‘I thought you might be bored.’ Jude grinned at her. None of them was ever at a loose end.

‘Aye, that’ll be right. I sit twiddling my thumbs all day.’ But she grinned back at him. ‘It looks straightforward to me. I’ll write