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

the toxicology report had come in, he was glad of the chance to discuss it. ‘Ashleigh made that point. If you’re out of your head on drink—’

‘And drugs.’ Faye scowled and pulled up a chair. The report had indicated quantities of both alcohol and cocaine, the drug of choice for the rich, in Summer’s body. While that simplified the case considerably in terms of supporting accidental drowning while impaired, it left the thorny issue of illegal drugs on the Neilson property.

‘Yes. Drugs, too.’ That was a matter Jude wasn’t touching if he could avoid it. ‘But you don’t fold and hide your clothes. I had a look back through the files. When some of the guys went down to Summer’s lodging early on to see if there were any clues as to where she might be, the place was in a mess. Her housemates said that was typical. She never folded anything.’

‘You can’t make a case for murder on uncharacteristic neatness. Not on its own.’

‘No, but it doesn’t sit right. And there’s another thing. Just a tiny one. The clothes were hidden so you couldn’t see them from the path. Why the hell would she do that?’

‘Who knows why anyone does anything when they’re high?’ A deep sigh suggested Faye was as troubled about it, and as powerless, as he was. They both knew it was often the tiny things that caught criminals. ‘This is the problem, as I see it. If it was murder — if — then whoever did it is extremely clever.’

‘I know there’s no obvious motive, but is it worth looking a little deeper? Especially if there’s some potential connection with Robert Neilson. Had you thought of that?’

‘Thought of it?’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve spent half the night lying awake and worrying about it. We know Robert Neilson is up to something. So yes, I’m thinking the same as I suspect you are — that she may have found out something she wasn’t meant to know, either in the house or from one of the twins, and that either she threatened to reveal it and had to be silenced or she had to be killed before she realised how important it was.’ At the end of such a long sentence, she paused for breath and took a long sip of cold coffee.

‘And we could look into that, perhaps.’

‘You think so? The problem as I see it, apart from the fact that I’ve been warned again, in the strongest of terms, about attracting the wrong sort of attention, is that Robert Neilson is an extremely clever man. When clever people commit murder, or arrange to have it committed on their behalf, they do it very well.’

This was true. If Robert Neilson was a criminal he was the kind Jude feared most — the kind that got away with it. He’d take as long as he needed and spend as much as was necessary to cover his tracks. ‘Yes. If he wanted it done he’d be nowhere near it.’

‘As was the case. He was in Frankfurt at the time, very obviously so. He flew out on the Sunday morning for a Monday morning meeting. That rings an alarm bell, in its way, but being prepared isn’t any more criminal than folding your clothes. If he wanted Summer killed, it will have been done by someone else, someone with no obvious connection to him, and that person will have cleared off and will never be seen anywhere near the Lakes again.’

It was the old problem. There wasn’t enough initial evidence to justify the resources which might uncover the real evidence. ‘If he paid—’

‘His finances are already trying the patience of the experts. He’s perfectly capable of laundering a hit man’s fees.’

‘Or hit woman.’

‘Exactly. I can ask others to look into that for me, but it won’t be a priority. So until you come up with something else, it rests.’

‘Okay.’ Jude turned his pen over in his fingers. Faye wasn’t the only one who’d been spending more time than was good for her worrying over it. ‘Then there’s something Luke Helmsley said. He said Summer had said she was going to talk to Miranda about her masters dissertation.’

‘She wasn’t due to start her course until the autumn.’

‘No, but she’d signed up for it and she seems to have been passionate about her subject, which was feminist politics. It’s reasonable to suppose she was thinking ahead. I got Chris to have a quick look at her academic interests. Her undergraduate dissertation was on the subject of women who kill manipulative partners and whether it should be considered murder.’

Faye nodded, intently. ‘Go on.’

‘There was case study in that about a woman called Elizabeth Bell.’

Understanding dawned on Faye’s face. ‘Ah yes. I remember that one. What was it, ten years ago? Upper-class woman killed manipulative upper-class boyfriend and was cleared of murder. There was quite a lot of chat about that one in the press, wasn’t there? It was a bit of a cause célèbre, as I recall.’

‘I don’t know if you know it had an unhappy ending. Elizabeth became the target of the wrong sort of attention and after a year or so she’d had enough. She emigrated to Australia, to Melbourne. Three years ago she died in a car crash.’

‘Was it an accident?’

‘Apparently.’ Jude doodled a tangled spider’s web on his pad. ‘Back to the present. Summer had messaged Miranda asking if she could talk to her, though she didn’t say what about. The text was sent on the morning of the Sunday and Miranda says she didn’t open it until the evening. She didn’t reply, possibly because she was angry with Summer over what happened on the Seven of Swords and she may have blamed her for leading the twins astray.’

Faye harrumphed. ‘And what would Miranda Neilson know about feminist politics?’

‘I suspect it was to do with the Elizabeth Bell case. Miranda was Elizabeth’s flatmate and best friend. It was her evidence — very detailed, and challenged by the