Chapter 18
‘How’s Lizzie?’
Kelly drove and Fin kept her company. It was his turn to support the boss.
Her morning plans had just changed dramatically, and they headed to Coniston.
It was a good opportunity to check in with Fin and make sure he was content with their new arrangement but her mind was on Angelina Robbins and why two siblings had met violent ends a day apart.
She’d resisted introducing her daughter to Fin for months, but it had been a chance meeting in Keswick when she’d been out with Ted that had finally led to it.
Lizzie had been toddling along talking about dogs and ducks – the most important topics to a toddler on a day out to a lake – and Fin had happily chatted with her.
In fact, he seemed to get along with her daughter better than he did her in the end, despite saying he didn’t like kids.
His irritation was perhaps a ruse to protect himself from commitment, she decided in the end.
She concentrated on the road. ‘She’s good.’
She filled him in on the milestones her daughter had reached and bored him with the details of mushed-up food and hilarious mishaps that had happened since they’d called it a day.
‘You know you can come and see her anytime,’ she said.
‘Yeah, I know. I always think of it and then I get another shift at work. My boss is a bitch.’
‘Is she now?’ She side-eyed him.
They were comfortable in each other’s company.
It had always been that way. It was calming listening to his southern Irish lilt.
He had a beautiful voice. He was handy to have around for a tricky arrest. He always knew how to disarm even the most aggressive pricks they had to deal with. His size helped too.
They chatted about other cases, and he filled her in on the timings of expected results from the labs they used around the area.
They were spread far and wide across Cumbria depending on what they required.
It wasn’t every day that they sent forensic evidence off for testing – that process was wildly expensive – but sometimes, to progress an investigation, they had no choice.
All departments were surviving on the skins of their bare arses, but until Carleton Hall shut her down, she’d carry on investigating the way she’d been taught.
‘Have you seen many suicides, Fin?’
‘My fair share, like. Fecking selfish if you ask me.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, I get that it’s awful and tough for somebody with nothing left, you know, but it’s worse for those poor bastards left behind.’
They heard a notification ping, and Kelly recognised it as her email.
‘Can you check my phone? I’m waiting for the passport office to get back to me about Angelina Robbins.’
Fin reached into her bag, and she told him her password.
‘Anything on here I shouldn’t see?’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Righty-ho.’
He opened her email as Kelly navigated her way around Ullswater.
They would be over the Kirkstone Pass soon and she tapped the wheel impatiently.
It was moments like this that she felt lucky to do what she did.
Having to travel around the Lake District was one of the best aspects of her job. Catching bastards was better.
‘Yep, it’s her. They sent her photo and address.’
‘Well, well. So, now we need to find out what she was doing there at the same time her brother was twenty minutes away at a conference.’
‘So, he flies in from New York, let’s say they haven’t seen one another for a while. They catch up and he deposits her in a hotel in secret.’
Fin referenced the owner of the Old Man Guesthouse telling the police helpline Angelina checked in anonymously at the request of the BMW driver, who handed over a wad of cash for his silence.
They both said what they were thinking at the same time.
‘He gave her something to hide.’
‘Says here she lives in Chapel Stile,’ he said.
‘That’s five minutes from Skelwith Bridge, so why stay in a hotel?’
Kelly reflected on how easy it was working with Fin.
He’d made six months of her life more bearable, and they’d had fun.
She had no idea how or when she and Johnny had ever lost that, but they had.
With Johnny she’d become a woman who worked pretending she wasn’t a mother, and parented pretending she didn’t work.
Kelly’s foot pressed a little harder on the accelerator. Coniston was a beautiful drive, but the lanes were narrow and wound like a spring. The trees were tinder-box dry, and the lake was woefully low, like they’d all been last summer when they’d found the body in Thirlmere, exposed by the drought.
Fin called the SOCO who’d been appointed, and they chatted on speaker; it was the same SOCO who’d processed Heron Hall. The forensic team was already at the guesthouse.
‘I’ve had ID confirmed. The victim is the sister of Jamie Robbins,’ Kelly said on speaker.
‘What? Did I hear you correctly?’ the SOCO asked.
‘Yes, you did.’ Kelly gave the SOCO the details and warned her she might be walking into a murder scene.
Angelina could have been abducted or held against her will.
The woman’s room could be a treasure trove of evidence.
Jamie had wanted her there in secret for a reason, and she’d been found out.
Perhaps. Kelly’s mind raced. ‘A squad car should already be there. The owner only reported her missing this morning after the appeal went out so I have no idea who else might have been in her room.’
She ended the call and silence sat between them. Scenarios filled her head, and she was aware of Fin deep in thought too.
‘Just because they were siblings, and he was trying to hide her, didn’t mean they loved or even liked each other.’
She nodded her head. They couldn’t jump to any conclusions.
One image kept coming back to her, though. The sight of Angelina’s body and what Kelly knew she’d been through in her final moments. Life hung across such a delicate balance of minutes and seconds. If only Angelina had gone for a walk. If only she’d taken a lover back to her room. If only…
If only Jamie had stayed with her.
But it didn’t work like that.
Maybe Angelina did take somebody back to her room, and it turned out to be her killer. Then it struck her that Angelina’s body had been found on Monday and Jamie jumped from the second floor of the Heron Hall atrium on Tuesday.
He could have been her murderer. But first, they must discover why he was hiding her.