Death on the Lake by Jo Allen (rocket ebook reader txt) 📕

‘Do you know the Neilson boys, Mikey?’ Becca asked, to draw him into the conversation. ‘They’re a bit younger than you, aren’t they?’

Mikey shook his head, almost in contempt. ‘Nope. Not my sort of guys. Spoiled pair of crackheads.’ He shot a nervous look across at Adam as he did so, the look of a young man who knew he nearly made the mistakes that led him into the same sort of trouble, or would have done if he’d had the money.

‘But local crackheads.’ Ryan threw his head back and laughed very loudly.

‘Yeah.’

‘All of them the same? Mum, dad, kids?’

‘The woman’s the second wife.’ Mikey was like Jude in his extraordinary capacity for acquiring information even when it didn’t particularly interest him, and for once Becca could see that without any kind of irritation. ‘The first wife came from Patterdale, and she was great. She was a teacher. They were childhood sweethearts. But then they got rich and he dumped her for someone else.’

‘That’s the woman who’s down there now? Miranda, is it?’

‘Nope. It was some woman he met when he was working abroad, and he ditched her pretty sharply as well. He met Miranda down in London. She’s quite a bit younger than him.’

‘Hell, you’re a mine of information, aren’t you?’ Ryan turned to Mikey in what passed for awe. ‘You should be on some quiz show. The Lives of my Neighbours, we could call it. That would sell to all the networks, and you’d be rich.’

‘Nah. I just remember things I hear. Folk round here talk because they’ve nothing else to do. And I listen for the same reason.’

‘Collecting incriminating knowledge runs in the family, doesn’t it?’ A little jibe from Adam probably wouldn’t get back where it was intended to, to Jude, because Mikey’s relationship with his brother wasn’t an easy one, but Adam must deem it worth the try, leaving it there to fuel Mikey’s resentment. He was a more subtle operator than Becca had thought.

‘I just remember things,’ Mikey repeated, defending his position.

‘Mikey’s brother’s a detective.’ Adam ripped open a packet of peanuts and helped himself. ‘Anything we say may be taken down in evidence and used against us.’ He laughed.

’Oh, right.’ Ryan gave Becca sidelong look. ‘That detective?’

’Yes,’ she said, annoyed, ‘that one.’

’Better not tell you what I think of the police then, eh?’

‘Say it if you want. You’re among friends.’ Adam had had a pint too many to have a care for Mikey’s sensibilities and Becca’s restraining scowl passed him by. ‘It’s a fair bet I’ll share your opinion.’

‘Aw, nothing much. Just that I don’t have time for jobsworths who spend their lives getting in the way of five minutes of harmless fun. Fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit? A couple of pints when you’re okay to drive home? These guys need to give us a break and catch the real criminals.’

‘It’s because they want the easy targets,’ agreed Adam. ‘Not the ones who cause them any hassle.’

Becca’s eyes met Mikey’s and each silently reproached the other for not standing up for the man they’d both fallen out with over his attitude to exactly such things. She looked away first.

‘I’d better go.’ Mikey stood up, hooked a finger through his leather jacket and flung it over his shoulder. ‘I forgot. I’m supposed to be meeting someone. Ryan, mate. I know it’s my round next. But I’ll buy you a pint before you go back.’

‘Don’t do anything you shouldn’t,’ Ryan called after him. ‘The boys in blue will get you if you do.’

Mikey was staying at home in Wasby over the summer and Becca had arranged to give him a lift. For a moment she was tempted to go after him, either to persuade him to stay or to go with him and make some kind of stand against the low-level niggling, but she stayed. Because, after all, she agreed with everything Ryan and Adam were saying even if she didn’t like the way they were saying it, and Mikey was old enough to make his own way back home without her.

‘I’ll get his brother eventually,’ Adam said, confidentially. ‘Don’t worry about that.’ He cracked his knuckles, an unpleasant sound. ‘I learned a few things when I was inside. Made a few friends.’

‘Patience,’ Ryan said to him, with a laugh. ‘Patience.’

‘Oh, don’t worry. I’ve got all the time in the world.’

Eleven

‘See you in the morning.’ Jude hovered on the doorstep for one last kiss and Ashleigh, obliging him, wondered about asking him to stay. He’d have agreed. She knew it. He was as reluctant as she was to spend the night alone. But she didn’t want to risk getting too close, and a dose of independence was healthy.

‘Okay.’ She added a bonus kiss, just to make sure he knew she still wanted him, though there was no reason she could imagine he’d think otherwise. Or maybe it was just to leave herself with that last taste of him to see her through the evening. ‘Don’t be late in tomorrow. After all, we’ve got loads to do. Lots of routine cases to over-investigate.’

He groaned. ‘Don’t remind me. Though it looks like we can lay poor Summer to rest, now. Pending the toxicology reports.’

They’d show some kind of drugs, Ashleigh was sure, with every case creating more work. And there was still something troubling her about the neatness of Summer Raine’s clothes, piled at the very edge of the steep drop to the water. ‘Let’s hope so.’

‘When are we next off at the same time? It reminded me that I haven’t been walking up that way for years. We should go down to Martindale and do Pikeawassa and Beda Fell. Just Pikeawassa, if you don’t want to do the whole thing.’

‘You know me. A good walk doesn’t have to be a long walk. If we just do the morning I’ll treat you to lunch in Pooley Bridge.’

‘It’s a deal.’ He lingered for a satisfying second longer before he turned and