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

O’Dowd directed three of the PCs to watch the rear.

Beth walked up the gravel path behind O’Dowd and watched as the DI banged on the door.

Four times O’Dowd knocked and hollered for Stanton, but there wasn’t a sound, and when Beth glanced through the windows, the house looked to be deserted.

O’Dowd turned and pointed at the PC holding the Big Red Key. ‘Hey, Ali Baba, time for open sesame.’

With a grin on his face, Ali Baba stepped forward. One grunted swing later and the door was open. The PCs swarmed into the house and shouts of ‘clear’ reverberated outwards as they checked every room.

Beth and O’Dowd followed them in, but Beth wasn’t expecting Stanton to be at home. The lack of a car on the drive suggested he was out, and after what he’d done last night, it would have been either foolish or egotistical of him to not expect the police would be coming for him soon.

If he’d gone on the run, he may well be tough to find, but she knew that unless he left the country, he’d make a mistake at some point and then they’d catch him.

While O’Dowd searched the living room, Beth entered the kitchen to see what she could find. The room was neat and tidy, but it had a lived-in feel to it. There were no unwashed dishes by the sink and when she opened the fridge the food looked to be fresh.

A laptop sat on the table beside a diary and when Beth lifted its lid, she saw a Post-it note with a jumbled series of letters and numbers on it that could only be a password.

She switched the laptop on and flipped through the diary as it powered up. When she came to the last entry she read it through twice and then closed her eyes in silent grief as she understood the whole picture.

Karen Stanton had slept with the mayor and, unable to handle the guilt she felt at cheating on her husband, had taken her own life. Her husband had been left widowed and at some point when he’d cleared out her things, he’d found the diary.

With a target to blame for his wife’s and niece’s deaths, he’d waged his campaign against the mayor, escalating as each step failed to get Forster into serious trouble.

What would have started out as a tragedy, had become a quest for vengeance in the form of an increasingly illegal campaign to smear the mayor’s character and, when that didn’t work, the mayor’s murder.

In Beth’s mind, Karen Stanton hadn’t been avenged by her husband’s actions, she’d been betrayed by his refusal to accept and understand what had happened.

As she lay down the diary and keyed the password into the laptop, Beth knew that a combination of Howard’s anger and Karen’s and Forster’s mistake in sleeping together had set off a whole chain of events that had so far cost three people their lives.

The police being made aware of Cooper’s actions, the prevention of Willow’s rape and her life being saved were the only positives that had come out of the whole sorry mess.

Beth waited until the laptop had done its thing and had woken to show a picture of Harriet Quantrell with an older woman, she presumed was Karen Stanton, on the home screen.

A single tab was open on the taskbar, and when Beth clicked on it, she saw that it was a webpage for DFDS Seaways. The page showed a booking confirmation for a ferry leaving Newcastle at 8.00 p.m. that day.

Instinct made Beth look at her watch even though she knew that it was after four when they arrived at the house.

Seventy-Eight

As O’Dowd charged through the house spitting orders to the uniformed officers, Beth stood alone in the kitchen. Her fingers drummed against her stomach as thoughts whirled through her mind.

Stanton had known they would be coming. He’d left the laptop and diary where they’d be easy to find. He’d even left the password for his laptop. He was playing his end game, preparing for the next step.

Whether the ferry booking was a red herring to throw them off the scent or a genuine trip to begin a new life, there was no way of knowing. That would be O’Dowd’s call to make not hers, although if she had her way, Stanton would be allowed the chance to board the ferry and then once aboard, he’d be easily picked up as he’d have nowhere to run.

A thought entered her head. It was strong enough to make her fingers pause mid-drum.

The laptop had been warm when she’d opened it. Warmer than the room’s temperature warranted. Therefore it had been in use shortly before they had arrived.

Which meant that Stanton wasn’t too far ahead of them.

The question was, where was he going: the ferry or elsewhere?

Something clicked inside Beth’s mind. Stanton was in his end game. He was leaving; therefore he’d want to say goodbye.

‘O’Dowd. Search. Papers.’ Beth hadn’t meant to shout, but she knew where Stanton was going. At least she knew the theory, if not the specific destination.

O’Dowd’s head poked round the door frame.

‘What the hell are you shouting about?’

‘Stanton, ma’am. He’s leaving. We’ve only just missed him but we have a chance to catch him if we can find it out.’

‘Find what out?’

Beth looked up from the drawer she was rummaging through. ‘Where his wife is buried. He’s leaving. He still loved her. He’ll have gone to say goodbye. Now please, stop asking questions and help me find something which will tell us where she was buried.’

Seventy-Nine

Beth whipped the wheel over and slid her car to a halt beside a large council van with a low trailer attached to its tow bar. O’Dowd was out the door before Beth had even pulled on the handbrake.

The cemetery was quiet save for the low hum of a mini digger excavating a new grave. When she took a look around the village’s cemetery Beth saw