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

someone did it.’ A light flicked on in his brain. He understood, There was only one candidate. ‘And I think I know who it was.’ The greyest, plainest, least likely person on the planet. An efficient, low-profile, utterly unthreatening, middle-aged woman.

‘It’ll be the PA,’ he said. ‘Aida Collins.’

Twenty-Eight

Faye was sitting with an expression of intense irritation on her face, a blank pad in front of her and both hands curled around a mug of coffee, when Jude made her office his first port of call.

‘Faye. I need to talk to you about the Neilsons.’

She raised a hand to silence him. ‘I’m sure you do. But this is difficult enough. I don’t need you complicating things further. My colleagues are keener than ever that you keep your distance from Robert Neilson, which leads me to suppose they think they’re onto something significant.’

‘Did you see what I forwarded you? The Australian coroner’s report?’

‘I’ve seen it but I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.’

‘Then I’ll summarise. You know Miranda gave evidence to clear Elizabeth Bell of murder. Elizabeth died in a car accident and the other vehicle involved was driven by the man we know as Ryan Goodall. He was cleared, on the basis that she was on some medication that may have affected her ability to drive. That’s a hell of a coincidence. And you know what I think of coincidence.’

Faye, who never trusted coincidence either, pursed her lips. ‘He’ll have to have been very smart to have persuaded them he wasn’t involved.’

But there was every chance that Ryan, or his sponsor, had been very smart indeed. ‘And then he turns up dead less than a mile from Miranda’s front door. Don’t tell me she had nothing to do with it.’

‘And don’t tell me she’s capable of killing him in the way he died.’

‘Not without help.’ Jude took a deep breath. ‘Robert’s help.’

She drummed her fingers on the desk. ‘Well, do you know what, Jude? If that’s correct then it’s highly unlikely anyone else is going to die, and we can afford to wait a little while longer — and gather some more evidence — before we look at it.’

‘Faye. For Christ’s sake. Someone killed Ryan Goodall and buried him in George’s grave. You can’t just pass on that.’

‘I don’t want to pass on it. But I—’

‘What if I tell you I think Aida Collins might have been involved in giving Goodall information on Miranda’s whereabouts?’

She touched her forehead as if she were dealing with a particularly trying child. ‘Jude. The last thing I can afford is to have you talking to Robert’s PA and giving him a reason to think we’re interested in his business affairs. I forbid you to speak to her without my express permission.’

He bristled. ‘Two people have been murdered in Martindale. Maybe two more have been, too. And besides, do I have to remind you? We don’t know who killed our fake Ryan Goodall.’

‘We don’t know, but if you’re right and it’s Miranda, there’s no immediate need to worry. We’ll get her for it later. I can’t see that she’s a danger to anyone else.’

‘What about Summer?’

‘You’ve yet to provide me with any evidence what happened was anything other than an accident.’

If there was much about Faye and her way of working that Jude liked, he struggled against her blank resistance to what he was trying to tell her. ‘This is your patch. If you want to move in and question Miranda about murder and Robert as an accessory, you can do that. If you want to search the property, you can do that.’ But she wouldn’t, because Faye was an ambitious woman and getting on the wrong side of anyone who might be in a position to review an application for promotion wasn’t in her plan.

‘I can. But I don’t think either of those steps is necessary.’

‘And have we made any progress on finding out where Summer got the drugs from? What if it was Robert?’

‘Didn’t you put Doddsy on to that? Maybe you should ask him.’

Doddsy was as frustrated about that element of the case as Jude himself. ‘We haven’t made any progress. That’s rather my point.’

‘Then maybe you should concentrate on that.’

‘Okay.’ He kept his temper anyway. ‘Faye. I’m going to talk to Miranda. I believe she lied to us, even if she didn’t kill Ryan. I won’t go in hard, but I will go in.’

Faye considered. ‘I suppose it’ll look odd if you don’t go down and talk to people, but really. I don’t want you to let any of them think that we suspect them, seriously, of murder.’

None of the Neilsons was stupid. There would surely come a point where they’d start wondering why they hadn’t been hauled in and interviewed under caution, and that might be the point at which Robert started wondering about the reason for the softly-softly approach. ‘Okay. We’ll go straight along.’

‘Try not to surprise them too early in the morning. Most people keep more civilised hours than us.’ There was a lurking humour in her face as he turned to the door but as he laid his hand on the handle, she called him back. ‘Jude.’

‘What?’

‘I absolutely forbid you to mention Aida Collins in connection with this case, or to speak to her. Don’t think I don’t understand where you’re coming from. But there are many ways to skin this particular cat. All right?’

He left the room with a sigh, collected Ashleigh from the incident room and, leaving Doddsy in temporary charge, they headed down towards Pooley Bridge and towards Howtown.

‘Faye was adamant we don’t rock the boat,’ he said to her, as he squeezed into a gateway to let a tractor pass, ‘but I tell you. If I think there’s any immediate risk to Miranda, or anyone else, I’ll do everything I can to intervene.’

‘You really don’t want to get on the wrong side of Faye,’ warned Ashleigh. ‘She won’t forget.’

He smiled at her. ‘I don’t want to get on the wrong side