A Body in the Lakes by Graham Smith (great books of all time .TXT) 📕

end of a lane, a derelict cottage stood by a small yard with an open-sided farm shed. Two gates led from the compound into the neighbouring fields. Neither of the fields were too big and the boundary fence of one was pinned flat in places by huge logs which must have been deposited by a high tide. It was a desolate, isolated area that was filled with silence and the smell of grass scorched by a sun that had blazed for days.

In the near distance Beth could see the mudflats of the twin estuaries formed by the River Eden to her left and the Esk to her right as they converged to form the Solway Firth. Across the mudflats she could see the roofs of Gretna’s houses. When she cast her eyes along the Solway Firth, she could see the northern fells shimmering in the evening air. On the Scottish side, Criffel was wreathed in a heat haze that gave it an ethereal quality.

A bird chirruped as it passed over her, but she paid it no heed as she passed through a gate and set off towards the Rockcliffe Marshes. Beneath her feet the grass was tight and coarse; Solway turf was well known for its durability. Strong as it was, it still cushioned each footstep before springing back to its original shape.

Beth remembered the weather report which accompanied Harriet’s file, it had told of a four-week dry spell prior to her murder. The current good weather had lasted for three weeks, so it was fair to say that the conditions were much the same.

Beth tried to dig her heel into an area where the grass was short. Her foot didn’t mark the ground, which gave credence to the theory put forward by the investigating officers that the killer had driven a vehicle part of the way here when dumping Harriet’s body.

She passed over the stricken fence and walked for five minutes until she was at the point where someone had left a rudimentary cross. It had been buffeted from the vertical by the Solway’s ferocious high tides. Across its transom someone had carved Harriet’s name along with the date of her death. It was a simple memorial, made by loving hands, and as she looked at it, Beth could see mental images of both Harriet and her daughter.

Twice she made a slow rotation, taking in all she could see, both the near and the far. As isolated as this place may be, with its clumps of grassland interspersed by narrow rivulets that had been riven open by raging tides, it still retained an element of peacefulness. Here and there a small pond would stand, their waters low in the absence of high tides and rainfall.

Beth remembered childhood Sundays on the similar Burgh Marsh, her mother fussing with a picnic and her father watching over her as she tried to catch tadpoles with a colourful net on the end of a bamboo cane.

It had been idyllic then, but now she was standing here, Beth’s thoughts were on another little girl. If her father ever brought her here, would she want to explore the ditches and ponds the way Beth had? Or would she join her father in mourning the mother she never knew?

With nothing more learned than that the assumptions of the original investigators were likely to be right, Beth ran her fingers along the top of the cross and turned to go back to her car.

As she trudged across the tough grass, she was hoping that something on the case would break and give them a decent lead, or at least a suspect they could focus their attentions on.

Fifty-Two

The night on the town was turning out to be everything Willow had dared to hope it would be and more. The way she’d picked up with her old friends made her feel as if she stepped into a time warp and transported herself back ten years.

They’d started off by having dinner in the Lifeboat Inn, before progressing to the busier bars. There had been laughter, gossip and enough Prosecco to wash away all the years since she’d last done this.

Compared to the other girls – Willow knew they were too old to be classed as girls any more, but that’s how she thought of them – she was overdressed, but she didn’t care. Tonight was all about having fun. She wasn’t looking for any serious male attention, as the last thing she wanted in her life right now was another man, but she did want to feel noticed, desired.

Since the day she’d caught her husband in bed with another man, she’d felt unattractive. On an intellectual level she knew that his desires lay in a different direction, and the fact he’d chosen a man rather than a woman to cheat on her exonerated her from feeling any level of blame for his indiscretion. However, the fact he’d cheated at all had dented her confidence more than she’d realised. What had made the pill so bitter to swallow was that she’d made love to him the day before she caught him in bed with their neighbour.

For too long she’d felt worthless, undesirable; and now tonight, when she was out with the girls, she knew she was drawing admiring glances. The dress was shorter than any she’d worn in the last five years and it clung to her backside and body in a way that showed off her trim figure. So far she’d caught three men ogling her and had had one guy wander over to chance his arm.

In the normal course of events, she’d have felt seedy at being ogled, and would have sent the guy who’d tried to chat her up back to his mates with a stinging put-down. Tonight was different though; tonight was about her having fun and rebirthing herself. Whether she liked it or not, she was single now, and while she planned to stay that way for some considerable time, she knew the first steps