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

on the other side of the road, and the closest parking space she found was always outside his house. Sometimes it struck her as vaguely sinister, that Adam took so much pleasure in being so very visible to his former friend, though at other times, most notably when she herself was feeling particularly inferior under the shadow of Jude’s high-mindedness, she understood it a little better. It took a moment before she nerved herself to get out of the car, as if she was afraid of being spotted, but the house looked well and truly empty.

It was a Sunday afternoon. Jude would be at work. He always was, even without the additional stresses of a murder to deal with. She’d always pressed him to lighten up, to try a little self-care, but in vain.

Adam’s house fronted the street and through the bay window she could see the telly on. He’d been watching golf. She could have stood and watched him for ages without being seen, just as he must have watched her before he’d called at the cottage after George’s death. Now the source of Jude’s accusation, which had struck her as unjust, became clear. She walked briskly up to Adam’s doorstep and rang the bell.

‘Hey, Chica.’ He opened the door and kissed her when she stepped over the threshold. ‘I thought you weren’t going to come by.’

‘I nearly didn’t. Lunch went on a long time.’

‘I had a narrow escape then.’ He grinned at her. He’d been invited and had excused himself, on no real grounds whatsoever, but no-one minded. He had no obligation to spend a Sunday afternoon with her family.

‘I think so. It turned into a second wake for poor old George, as if we hadn’t had had enough of that yesterday.’

‘Give the old boy his due.’ Adam snapped the telly off and flopped back down in his armchair. ‘He’s that old, you’d never have got through all the stories about his life in a couple of hours. Have a seat. I’d offer you a beer, but I know you’ll want to drive. Unless you’d rather stay.’ He winked.

Turning down the beer, she sat down, ticking off the things she liked about him, as if she needed to justify having chosen him as her boyfriend. Adam was good fun, undemanding, and ready enough to make time for her. In this respect, he far outscored Jude. He wasn’t intellectually challenging and he knew the value of a companionable silence. And, rather more to the point, he wasn’t burdened by a dysfunctional family or the impulse to take on other people’s problems.

He had his faults, too. Right at that moment the one that troubled her most was his tenacity for a grievance, his inability to let an old sin die. In her own way, Becca had as strong a sense of justice as Jude, and her conscience was troubling her. ‘Adam. Do you mind if ask you something?’

‘Ask away.’

‘After George died.’

‘What about it?’ His look was challenging.

‘Someone complained to the police about Jude. He thinks it’s me. Because it was about what happened when he brought me back home. Was it you?’

He stiffened, but he didn’t look away. ‘You weren’t going to.’

She drew in a long, furious breath. ‘Right. I don’t know what you think you saw, but whatever it was you were wrong. He didn’t do anything.’

‘I trust my own eyes. You were in a distressed state and he tried to take advantage of you.’

It was never a good move to lose your temper with Adam. ‘Stop talking about me as if I’m a teenager who’s been drinking too much. I was upset. I tried to hit him. I’m in the wrong. Not him.’

‘You wouldn’t have tried to hit him if he hadn’t done something to upset you.’

She thought back to the moment, to the upwelling of fury that had almost drowned her at the loss of George, at her failure to help him. Her feelings, she was sure, were mostly directed at herself, but she didn’t think she’d have hurled herself at Adam in the way she’d tried to vent her anger on Jude. ‘I was upset and he was there. That was all.’

‘When I walked in it didn’t look like he was fending you off. Far from it. That’s not okay.’

‘I hugged him, too.’ A deep flush crept upon her. She had a vague memory of kissing Jude at Mikey’s party a couple of months before, when she’d had a drink or two too many. He’d been more receptive to that kiss than to the hug. ‘It wasn’t him who started it. And do you know what? Even it had been him, even if he did behave inappropriately, it’s none of your business. It’s for me to decide whether to report him.’

A vein of old, vengeful fury beat at this temple. ‘I thought you’d understand.’

‘I do. You haven’t forgiven Jude for what he did. I get that. But it was over three years ago and it’s done. And he was only doing his job.’ She’d always believed that Adam had no-one to blame but himself. No-one had made him shift drugs, or resist arrest and end up with a longer sentence than he would have done as result. At the time she thought — still did think — that Jude should have dealt with Mikey differently, but that was nothing to do with Adam. ‘You’ve redeemed yourself. Let it go.’

‘He put me in prison.’

‘He didn’t know you were involved. He turned in Mikey, that was all.’ Mikey had got away with a slap on the wrist, because of his age, because his crime had been possession rather than supply and because he’d expressed public remorse, though she knew there was no remorse in private. ‘You need to let it go, and you need to stop harassing him.’

It was impossible to have a row sitting down, so she stood up. but as soon as she did so she knew it was a mistake. He bounced to his feet