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

‘Does it matter?’ Ryan bellowed back at her. ‘I’m up in the Pennines somewhere. I’m having a blast. I just keep walking with the sun in front of me in the mornings and behind me in the evenings. Eventually I’ll get to the sea.’

Sometimes Becca thought Ryan’s easy-come-easy-go attitude was fake, put on to make himself seem more charming than he actually was. He’d hardly have got anywhere in the army without being able to know exactly where he was with a map and have a pretty good idea how to get somewhere he recognised without one. At that moment she was only surprised he’d bothered checking his messages and using his limited battery on calling her back. ‘How soon can you get here?’

‘Do I need to get back? Has something happened?’

‘Yes. Didn’t you hear me? I said George has died.’

‘Oh, died! I thought you said… well, I don’t know what I think you said. Geez. Hope I didn’t frighten him to death. Your mum would never forgive me.’

Becca thought that crass. ‘He had a stroke. At least, I’m pretty certain he did, but we don’t know for certain yet. The police haven’t come back about the post-mortem yet.’

‘The police? I thought you said it was a stroke.’

‘Yes but…oh I don’t know.’ It all came down to Jude again, and his inability to ascribe anything to accident or natural causes when sometimes they should be left well alone. That was what came of believing the worst of human nature. ‘There has to be a post-mortem because he wasn’t under medical care when he died. So we’re waiting on the PM, but I expect it’s straightforward.’

‘Why is it a police matter?’

‘It’s just routine. It’s an unexplained death. They’re always involved.’ Jude clothed everything in the drab uniform of routine. That hadn’t endeared him to Becca’s mother, who’d always thought him a little over-zealous. Why can’t they let the poor man rest in peace, she’d said, though she knew well enough what the procedure was. Regardless of Jude’s presence there would have to be a post-mortem. ‘I called because I thought you might want to come through for his funeral.’

‘You think he’d want me there? He wasn’t exactly charm itself.’

It was a matter of respect. Once more Becca found herself irritated by Ryan’s clumsiness. ‘Bluntly, I don’t think he’d care one way or another. But since you’ve come all the way across the world to see him and visit the old homestead, I imagined you might want to come.’

‘Might be a chance to catch up with all sorts of rellies I’ve never met, I suppose. See if any of them have a good word for me.’ There was crackling sound that might have been Ryan laughing or might have been the wind catching his words. ‘When is it?’

‘Sooner rather than later. Mum’s had a word with the undertakers and they think they can find a slot for him on Saturday morning. We’ll confirm it as soon as we get the death certificate. So it’ll probably be then.’

‘I’ll get back as soon as I can.’

‘If you’re struggling, call me or Mum. We’ll find someone to get over and pick you up, assuming you can get to a road.’

‘I’ll hike it back. It’ll only take me a few days. I don’t want to trouble you.’

That would be a change. Ryan hadn’t shown any previous signs of such consideration. ‘Right. I’ll let you save your batteries, and I’ll text you once I know the time.’

‘Cheers. I’ll see you at the church, then. I wouldn’t mind the use of your washing machine. I got washed off the hills in a rainstorm the other night. Had to break into a barn for shelter. But I don’t imagine anyone will mind if I look a bit scruffy.’

‘Just give them your cheeky smile and they’ll forgive you anything.’ Becca ended the call.

Jude would almost certainly turn up at the funeral, because he was meticulous in that sort of social obligation and would have felt he had to appear even if he hadn’t got on so well with the old man. George had a long-ingrained sense of justice which chimed exactly with Jude’s and the two of them seemed to understand one another. The necessary fuss over the post-mortem report, which would have amused George, annoyed her, but she thought she could trust her ex to act like a friend of the family and not draw any attention to his job. He’d appear, sit at the back of the church and if he stayed for the interment he’d be away well before anyone had the chance to talk to him, and he’d certainly be too busy to turn up at the wake.

If and when he did appear, she’d do her best to avoid him. Her cheeks flamed with embarrassment when she thought of how she’d reacted to George’s death, and the worst of it — the very worst of it — was that he’d understood why she’d behaved as she did and wouldn’t hold it against her. She couldn’t afford to be so morally and emotionally obliged to someone in whom she had no part of her future invested.

I don’t break down, she told herself, knowing her fury with him, and the moment that immediately followed it when she’d turned instinctively to him for comfort, were both the result of what had happened to George, or I shouldn’t. Day after day she went into the homes of the old and the sick and the dying, day after day she sat with patients as they slipped slowly away. It was by no means unusual for her to turn up in the aftermath of death, or do exactly as she’d done with George, sit holding a hand when all was lost and there was nothing to do but wait for an ambulance that had no need to hurry.

But with George it had been different. His death had been so sudden and so unexpected, even