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

‘The boyfriend. He hadn’t heard from her, so he called first thing when he got up. That was about six. She didn’t answer, so he called one of her friends. Then he called 101. Tyrone and Charlie are heading down there later to see what’s what.’

Later meant the matter wasn’t deemed immediately significant, and whoever had assessed the initial report had judged that the unfortunately-named Summer Raine wasn’t considered at risk. ‘Tyrone and Charlie haven’t even got there yet, and you’re telling me there’s something funny about it. What’s the story?’

‘It’s the boyfriend. Luke Helmsley. You know him?’

Jude ran the name through his brain and found no obvious connections. ‘I know of some Helmsleys over towards Appleby. I think I had some dealings with one of them years ago, when I was just starting out, but that was minor. Breaking and entering, if I remember. But it’s not an uncommon name hereabouts.’

‘No. But Tyrone knows of him. Not that they’re of an age. Helmsley’s a few years older.’ He sighed. Doddsy had lived a long time as a quiet and celibate man and only found himself a partner as he approached middle age. Tyrone’s youth seemed a permanent thorn in his flesh, inviting judgement and opposition on them where the same-sex relationship didn’t. ‘Twenty-seven. But you know how it is with Tyrone. He knows someone one who knows someone. He seems to know everyone.’ A smile raced across his face and faded away. ‘I ran Helmsley through the records to see what I could come up with. I thought I’d heard the name.’

‘And?’

‘Your man isn’t exactly pure and spotless. He has a couple of convictions for assault, both of them when drunk, both of them involving a woman. In one of them he took a swing at a guy he thought was staring at his then girlfriend — not Summer, but a previous partner. And in the other, he assaulted the same girl, who he thought was getting too friendly with one of his mates. Both of those were a few years back.’

‘And yet the missing persons report—?’ Jude prompted.

‘I haven’t seen anything that’s come through on that. But I’ve suggested to Tyrone he might want to ask some searching questions.’

Jude sat back and thought about it. It irked him that he couldn’t recall the Helmsley case, because he prided himself on the depth of his local knowledge and his recall of detail. ‘What do we know about the girl? Is it unusual for her to disappear without letting anyone know where she is?’

‘I imagine it must be, if he’s bothered to report her missing.’ Doddsy drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘It may be nothing. She may turn up, and I’m going to guess there’s nothing in her background to suggest she’s at any kind of risk, or they’d have folk out looking for her already. And Helmsley may have been away the whole afternoon and not be a suspect at all, even if she doesn’t reappear.’

Jude looked out of the window at a blue sky populated with animated white clouds blowing past in the stiff breeze. In the distance, to the east, the cobalt-blue line of the Pennine Hills rippled along the horizon. In the other direction, a dozen miles to the west, the hills around Ullswater would look equally inviting, hiding even greater dangers under their fifty shades of green. ‘Yesterday was tempting, but it was cold up top. Ashleigh and I were out up High Street.’ He paused to remember how they’d looked over the fluctuating fell tops, above the trough that held Ullswater and towards the serrated edges that guarded the approach to Helvellyn. ‘She may have gone for a walk up the fells and got caught out. Or a swim. The lake looks lovely but it’s perishing when you’re in.’ And there were deep and treacherous currents. Things — and people — went into Ullswater and never came out again.

‘She wasn’t local.’ Doddsy conceded that point. ‘She may have misjudged. Maybe got lost.’

If that was the case she’d turn up safe and sound soon enough, perhaps dragged back by the mountain rescue team from a disingenuous-looking hillside, with a twisted ankle and an embarrassed smile and at worst a touch of exposure. ‘But you think not.’

‘Tyrone thinks not. And so I’m just warning you this one might be coming our way rather than be left with the guys in uniform.’ Doddsy turned his attention to his coffee.

‘Okay.’ Tempted to follow it up, Jude nevertheless resisted the chance to run through for himself what Doddsy had already done. He turned to other things, wondering how he was going to manage to fit in this kind of missing persons enquiry if it ever reached his level, but his period of concentration lasted only until he’d opened the first of the weekend’s accumulated emails. That was the point at which the door opened without ceremony and Detective Superintendent Faye Scanlon walked in to the room.

Despite a bad beginning, Jude had recently realised he liked Faye. She was brisk and demanding; she could be both antagonistic and defensive; she was spiky and ambitious; and he had a natural dislike of authority which she seemed to sense. To make matters worse, she brought with her a shedload of baggage in the shape of a past relationship with Ashleigh O’Halloran — something which wasn’t exactly a secret but to which very few people were privy, and something he personally would rather not have known. But he knew and she knew he knew, and the resulting tension was always there between them.

And yet he liked her. Faye was a competent and effective police officer, a terrier at management and one who got the best out of her staff. If it wasn’t for the scandal that had trailed around after her affair with Ashleigh, with both of them married at the time, then she’d have been in a bigger job