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

be happy she’d lied to them. Maybe he could short-circuit the whole process, avoid putting her through the hassle and feather his nest into the bargain.

It was almost noon and he’d seen Robert driving away down Martindale earlier that morning. It was a good opportunity to have a chat with Miranda. He crossed the bridge below St Peter’s Church. The beck below it was full from the cloudbursts that had punctuated the week, foaming up to the banks as he headed towards Waterside Lodge.

The electric gates across the main drive were closed and, out of devilment, he ignored the latched pedestrian gate beside them and vaulted the low wall. It was badly built, and a few of the stones slithered out of it under his boot. Maybe if Miranda turned down his business proposal she’d let him rebuild it for her, for a fee of course.

The sun crept out, looked down on Martindale and crept back in again as the Ullswater steamer ploughed back from Glenridding, bumping over the choppy surface. On the doorstep, Luke paused in awe. He’d never had cause to come this near to the place before, never been invited, and the dealings he’d had with its residents had been distant, infrequent and always conducted off the premises. The picture windows, the neat lawns, the sleek silver bullet that Miranda drove and that was impossible to mistake for anything else, conspired to make him feel inferior.

Money didn’t make you better than anyone else, he reminded himself; just more comfortable. With that thought to inspire him, he raised his hand to the doorbell.

There was no movement inside the glass door. He rang a second time, and a third, before his doubts overcame him. Miranda must be in, and the twins too, because their cars were there, and yet no-one was answering. After five minutes standing like a fool on the doorstep he gave up and crept away. They’d be laughing at him. That was the most bitter thought of all.

Emboldened by his determination not to feel inferior, he ambled across the wide paved forecourt to the the side of the house. The dinghy bobbed against the landing stage, the ornamental trees that dotted the lawn rustled in the rising wind, but no-one was in sight. ‘Anyone there?’ he called into the garden, but no-one answered and he dared go no further.

He’d come back. Luke was anything but a patient man, but there would be another time when Robert would be out. The police had passed Summer’s death to the coroner and nothing more would be done about it, but what he knew of Miranda’s lie would keep for as long as she was afraid of having it come out. He strolled back along the drive towards the crumbling wall, and the electric gates slid noiselessly open as he approached.

Luke was a man without imagination, but it made him jump. He looked around to the left and the right and saw no-one, but when he went through the gates they closed noiselessly behind him. Like a horror film, he said to himself.

Laughter interrupted him. He turned to the source of it and found himself face to face with the Neilson twins as they emerged from behind a bush vibrant with elderflower. ‘Gotcha!’ said one of them, and the other one, half a yard behind him, laughed.

‘Looking for someone were you?’ the second twin asked.

Luke would have hated the twins, if only because he never knew which was Will and which was Ollie, but there was plenty more reason than that to hate. It wasn’t just the money but the casual way they treated it, and their failure to understand how hard the likes of him had to work to get a fraction of what they could put their hands in their pockets — or rather, their father’s pockets — for, without having to get off their arses for a couple of hours’ work. ‘Nothing to do with you, kiddies. This is business for the grown ups.’

‘It looks to me like you’ve done some damage to our wall,’ one of them said.

‘You might want to put it back,’ the other echoed.

‘Free of charge, eh, Will?’

‘Oh, yeah. We definitely shouldn’t have to pay him for fixing the damage he caused.’

He could smell the malty tang of beer on their breath. Reminding himself he shouldn’t risk antagonising them until he’d spoken to Miranda, Luke dug his clenched fists into his pockets and contented himself with a muttered expletive as he walked past.

‘Whoa.’ One twin ran up to plant himself in the road in front of him. ‘Did I hear what I thought I heard?’

‘Want to say that again to our faces?’ The other joined him and they stood side by side in the road.

Spoiled bastards that they were. Without a drink in him Luke was marginally more rational than otherwise, but no less angry. He marched on, aiming a shoulder at the gap between them, sure they’d give place when he reached them. When they didn’t, the fists came out of his pockets and a wild haymaker of a punch sent one twin sprawling sideways into the road.

To his satisfaction the fight turned into a brawl, and there would only be one winner. As one twin got up, the other hit the deck. The two of them hadn’t the wit to back off and coordinate a bit, and though one them got lucky and landed a punch it was the only damage Luke sustained, and he was more than happy to accept one black eye in payment for the punishment he was handing out.

‘What’s going on? Stop it! Stop it at once!’ From nowhere, Miranda Neilson arrived on the scene, seizing whichever twin had been about to launch himself at Luke and pulling him away. She was in jeans and trainers, a quilted gilet and, he noticed, she had a bunch of cow parsley in her hand. ‘Ollie. Whatever are you thinking?’

Luke, thank God, managed to hold back the right hook that