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

of detectives, who’d decided on an impromptu night out in unspoken celebration of a case solved, were laughing at some joke or other, but Ashleigh hadn’t been listening.

‘I’m a bit distracted, that’s all.’ She sighed.

‘I know. It’s been a hell of a day.’

The two of them had settled at the edge of the group in the first place, and neither had joined in the general conviviality. ‘No doubt we’ll have the health and safety people on our backs at some stage, making sure we’re not too stressed. It would be too much to ask for three days off to recover, I suppose.’ She forced a laugh. ‘Not when there’s all that work to be done.’

‘I don’t think we need to do much more to have Robert done up like a kipper, but there you go. It’ll be good to get him for everything he’s done.’ Jude paused. ‘Do you want another drink, or shall we just slip out unnoticed?’

Ashleigh picked up her almost-empty glass. It wasn’t often she contemplated using alcohol as a crutch, but today was different. Common sense won out. She put the glass down. ‘Better not. Let’s go.’

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

She shook her head without thinking about it. There had been other perilous situations in her time in the police. There had been drink or drug-crazed men with knives, furious women who’d kicked and punched her as she tried to help them. There had been a car driving at her one dark night on the beat, and a long fall into the freezing River Eden in a vain attempt to stop a suicide. All had shaken her, but she didn’t think any of them had the effect on her that Robert had done as she’d stood as a human shield to the terrified Miranda. Every time she closed her eyes she’d see his shaking hand and the mean, menacing circle of the gun’s deadly barrel, feel Miranda’s desperate fingers digging into her shoulders. ‘No, probably not. Let’s go home.’

‘Sure.’

He stood up and picked up her jacket, holding it for her to put on. This untypical, gentlemanly gesture comforted her a little. And anyway, it wasn’t just the thought of how close she’d come to dying, of how the only things that had kept her alive were Robert’s own lack of a killer instinct and the extraordinary instinctive courage of his PA, that worried her. ‘Have you told Becca about Ryan?’

‘No. I’ve left that for someone else. I don’t know who. Doddsy will end up doing it, I expect.’

‘You don’t want to do it yourself?’ She slipped his hand into his as they stepped out into the street.

‘Do you want the honest answer? I think I probably ought to but no, I don’t want to. Right now the less I have to do with Becca the better for everyone. I don’t imagine I can avoid her altogether, but I don’t feel I have to go out of my way to see her, either.’

Something told her this wasn’t a lie, but nor was it the whole truth. Jude still had feelings for Becca and he was good-mannered enough not to act on them, but somehow the fact that he felt the need to distance himself from an old friend warned her that time wasn’t the healer everyone promised it would be.

‘I wanted to help you,’ he said, out of the blue. ‘This morning. I wanted to tell you to stand aside and let him do what the hell he wanted, as long as he didn’t hurt you. But I couldn’t do that. You know?’

He was right, but somehow she couldn’t help seeing it as a betrayal. ‘If it had been Becca—’ she blurted out, before she could stop herself.

‘Yeah. I know. I’d have put her safety ahead of Miranda’s. But not because it’s her. Because she’s a member of the public and you aren’t. That’s all.’

Damn him. He was right. But she couldn’t help comparing him with Scott who, driven by some false, chivalrous impulse, would have been sure to fling himself at Robert and risked all for death or glory. The pragmatic approach was the right one, but surely everyone yearned for someone who put them first, even before life itself. ‘I understand.’

‘I don’t suppose it makes it any easier, but even if I did still care for her, it’s gone. Done.’

Becca had hurt him before, and now he must feel she’d hurt him again. Even though it was Adam who’d put in the complaint and Becca who’d withdrawn it, she could tell he still placed the blame at his ex-girlfriend’s door. Or his own. Jude was quite capable of blaming himself for not having been tougher on his wayward heart in the beginning, and that cut both ways. ‘I had a text from Scott this evening.’

They walked side by side from the wine bar towards the point where they’d have to decide. Did they go to the same house for the evening, or did they sleep alone? ‘Oh?’

‘He’s been offered Summer’s job, and he’s taken it. He texted me this morning but in the middle of everything I forgot to tell you.’

They walked another few steps in silence. ‘That’s going to make for an interesting summer.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll be far too busy to see him, even if he wants to.’ Loving Scott was a fantasy and the reality was pain.

‘He will want to, won’t he? Isn’t the whole reason he’s coming because you’re here?’

‘The reason Scott’s coming is nothing to do with me. If he thinks I’m going to give up on the little free time I have with you, he can think again.’

They reached the Market Square. Jude’s route home lay ahead of them, Ashleigh’s to the left. ‘What do you really think of him?’

They were still holding hands, standing in front of the Musgrave Monument. ‘Now? I don’t know. He was the love of my life, I suppose, and I’m never going to fall in love like that again.’ Just as Jude, whether