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

or in the same job in a bigger force, but life wasn’t like that. A twist in the sequence of events that had sent Ashleigh to start a new life in Cumbria had landed Faye upon them a few months later, and after the first moment of intense irritation she’d rolled her sleeves up and got on with the job. Jude’s dislike had turned to respect and the respect was mellowing further. He couldn’t see himself ever enjoying a social situation in her company, but he could work with her. ‘Faye. Anything I can do for you?’ He waited.

Faye looked pointedly at Doddsy, who’d just picked up his phone. It was, Jude suspected, more of a tacit observation on the faint smell of cigarette smoke that the chain-smoking inspector took with him wherever he went rather than a request for privacy, but he was wrong. Seeing Doddsy wasn’t for moving, she stepped back out again. ‘If you could spare me five minutes in my office.’

He logged out of his emails and followed her the three doors along the corridor. Faye had an office to herself but like him she was rarely in it, straying around the building making sure she knew what was going on, always preferring a face-to-face briefing to an email one and catching up on the paperwork late in the evening when there was no-one around from whom she could learn something directly.

‘Sit down.’ She closed the door behind him, an indication of something either serious or secret. ‘Something got passed up to me this morning and I’d like to keep an eye on it. Or rather, since it’s way below my pay grade, I’d like you to keep an eye on it.’

When she first arrived, that remark would have put his back up. He internalised his smile. ‘What is it?’

‘A missing person.’

Something told Jude a mighty coincidence was about to unfold in front of him. He downplayed it. ‘I think you’ll find that’s way below my pay grade, too.’

She waved that aside. ‘Yes, probably, but it’s something I’d like some discreet input into from the non-uniformed side, and I’d like you to oversee it even if you aren’t directly involved. Does that satisfy your professional pride?’

‘Yes.’ He took a speculative punt. ‘Is it Summer Raine?’

She looked surprised. ‘How did you know?’

He allowed the smile to break out. It was always particularly satisfying to be a step ahead of Faye. ‘Just a guess. Doddsy was telling me about it.’

‘Doddsy was? How did he know? Information runs amok in this place, and nobody seems able to control it.’ Her irritation was obvious.

‘You want to keep this missing person inquiry quiet rather than ask around to see if anyone’s seen her? Am I understanding this right?’

‘Of course that isn’t what I said. I suppose it’s no surprise Doddsy knew about it. It’s his boyfriend who was dispatched initially, I think.’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. If that’s all, I don’t need to worry. I hear nothing but good things about young PC Garner, but I’m sure Doddsy has enough sense not to tell his young man anything confidential.’ She hit a couple of buttons on her laptop and the printer in the corner whirred and spat out a sheet of paper. ‘So. Summer Raine was reported missing this morning at about half past six. PC Garner and PC Fry went down to talk to the girl’s boyfriend first thing this morning and have just filed this report.’

He was intrigued. Someone — possibly Faye herself — must have prioritised Summer’s disappearance since Doddsy had heard about it from Tyrone. He scanned the two sheets of paper she handed him. A blonde woman, young, dyed hair with dark roots trapped in braids from which it had begun to escape, was laughing in a photograph, bathed in sunshine. Behind her, the brown hills of the Lakes loomed large. ‘Is this picture recent?’

‘It’s a couple of weeks old. She’s twenty-two, and left Exeter University three weeks ago. She comes from London. She’ll graduate in July and in the autumn she’s enrolling on a masters degree in feminist politics, but she’s a watersports enthusiast and was planning to spend the summer teaching sailing and surfboarding at the watersports centre up at Pooley Bridge. It’s her third summer there. Last year she entered into a casual relationship with a local man, Luke Helmsley. He says this was the reason she came back again this summer. By all accounts she’s an independent young woman, more than capable of looking after herself in this kind of terrain in summer conditions. Yesterday was her day off. She spent the morning at the watersports centre and in and around Pooley Bridge, and then went out. She told her colleagues she was going for a walk and a group of them saw her heading up the Ullswater Way on the Sunday. There was a subsequent sighting, further along the route. That was by Luke Helmsley.’

Jude raised an eyebrow. ‘Last person to see her alive, eh?’

‘So far, yes, but he claims to have been with someone at the time. We’ve yet to confirm that.’

Jude flicked through the rest of the sheet. Summer had been wearing jeans and a light top, carrying a small leather backpack and wearing sandals — definitely not the right clothing for anything more challenging than the road, or possibly the marked route along the lake. ‘There’s no previous history of going missing? No vulnerabilities?’

‘Nothing.’

‘And nothing special about Summer herself? No reason why anyone might want to abduct her?’

‘Not that I’m aware of.’

‘Then what’s so special about the case?’

She sat back in her chair and looked at him with a steel-grey gaze. ‘It’s a little awkward, Jude, and I rely on your total discretion. Even internally.’

‘Of course.’

‘Very well. I know very little about the case I’m about to talk about. I’m involved in it only at the margins, largely as a matter of courtesy because it comes onto my turf. Assuming Luke Helmsley is telling the truth, when Summer was last seen she