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

‘And the woman?’ Miranda found that her heart hurt her, the fear was so great.

‘Tall, for a lass, unless she was wearing heels. I couldn’t see. Short grey hair. Quite a bit older than you, I’d say. And in a business suit. That’s why I noticed her.’

The tension snapped. Miranda’s laugh was far higher-pitched than it should have been, but hopefully George wouldn’t read too much into her sudden hilarity. ‘Oh! That’ll be Aida. Robert’s PA. Sometimes if he wants to spend time here rather than in London she comes up for a few days. She’s at the house just now.’ Something had cropped up, Robert had said, that needed his attention, and Aida had arrived after their evening meal and the two of them had disappeared into his study. ‘It’s why I came out for a walk. Maybe she wants the pictures to show her family where she’s working. And it is very beautiful.’

‘Had you worried, there did I?’ He was sitting with his back to the window but she could just about pick out the smile on his face, although the slight red glow from his pipe played tricks with the shadows. If he hadn’t been so old as to be harmless she’d have seen evil in it.

‘You did. I was scared someone might be coming to the dale to…’ she paused. ‘To sell the boys drugs.’

George puffed away. ‘You’re a young woman, Miranda. You’ve a lot to learn.’

She was forty and already knew more than she could handle, but she let it pass. ‘Oh?’

‘Aye. When you’ve lived as long as I have you’ll know it isn’t strangers you need to look out for. It’s the people under your nose.’

‘Is that right?’

‘Aye. Because there’s trouble brewing in this dale, too. So if I was you it might be others I was looking at. That young buck, Luke. He’s been sniffing around your house. Looking for something to steal, no doubt, though he’s so thick you’ll soon catch him if he tries.’

‘Well, thank you for the warning.’ George hadn’t mentioned what Luke had said about seeing her car on the day Summer had died. Was that deliberate? Had he just failed to hear it?

‘And not just him.’ George puffed out a long, long cloud of smoke. ‘I saw my great-nephew kicking around that week, too. He’ll be up to no good, just like his granddad. But that’ll be me he wants to do away with, not you.’

‘George.’ Her own fears relieved, at least as far as her neighbours went, Miranda felt able to be robust. ‘Why would anyone do that?’

‘Wants me in an early grave for my money, I expect. But he won’t get any. He might think I’ll split it with his side of the family because I never had bairns of my own, but why would I? I’ve never met any of them. They’ve been over to England and not troubled to visit. They never even send me a card on my birthday. It’s my niece and my great nieces who look after me. They’ll get the little I’ve got.’

‘No flies on you, George. Good for you. You leave it to the people who care about you.’ She stood up, carried her cup over to the sink. ‘I’d better go, before it gets dark.’

‘Shall I walk you home?’

It was a joke, but she would have welcomed the company. ‘That’s very gallant, but I’ll manage. It’s not far.’

‘Pop by and see me again some time, if you want.’

‘I will. And you let me know if you have any more trouble from Luke.’

She let herself out and wandered down the path towards the sunset, wreathed in the scent of his pipe smoke and the freshness of cut grass, and headed down towards Waterside Lodge. George’s observations had temporarily lifted the greater weight of nerves that were troubling her, but they didn’t help. Just because you didn’t see someone didn’t mean they weren’t there, but might only mean that they were smarter than you thought. It was a relief when she reached the electric gates, flicked them open with her key fob and stepped inside to safety.

Thirteen

Miranda, thought George, was a deeper woman than she wanted people to think.

It had been a couple of days since his confrontation with Luke and although he’d seen him passing by on the way to and from his work up at the farm, he’d taken care to avoid any sniff of trouble. Luke’s temper was well-known and he seemed on edge, more so than he ought to be now the police appeared to have laid the case to rest. The sad death of Summer Raine had, the local newspaper informed him in a bare inch of type tucked at the foot of one of its inner pages, been referred to the coroner; the inquest had been opened and adjourned. The police cars had gone and the windsurfers, dinghy sailors and kayakers had started out again from the marina, the passing of the poor young woman barely observed. In his old-fashioned way George thought it shocking, but the more pragmatic part of him understood how things moved on, and put younger people under new pressures.

That was what Miranda had hinted at when she’d talked to him about the strain she was under, but he wasn’t sure he was convinced. There was obviously something troubling her, and he wasn’t so sure it was the boys. If they were hers it would be different, but other people’s children were, at the end of the day, other people’s problems. He regretted having no children himself, and he was lucky he had Becca and, less often, her mother and her sister to come and cheer him up, but he didn’t miss the sleepless nights children would have given him when they were young. And older, too.

He stared out of the window. The heavy overnight rain had eased and