Chapter 43
By the time they finished up for the day, Lee Lovett still hadn’t emailed Kelly the CCTV footage from the back stairs at Heron Hall and she’d called him seven times, each time not being answered.
Saturday evening should be the best of the week.
For most normal people with nine-to-five jobs, it was.
But for Kelly’s team, it was just another evening.
Lab results were non-existent at the weekend and Kelly insisted they leave at a sensible hour to go to their respective homes.
Jamie’s toxicology results were being reviewed and might possibly be ready for Monday.
Kelly drove home and picked up a bottle of red wine from a local merchant’s and a bunch of fresh flowers to cheer the house up.
The last thing she wanted was for Lizzie to grow up conscious of what she did for a living and how it affected her.
She wanted the house to be a place of tranquillity and stability, no matter what she was dealing with at work.
When she pulled up, Johnny’s car was in the driveway.
It was his turn to have Lizzie, and she found she was looking forward to seeing him.
It had been three weeks. She opened her front door and went in to the sound of In the Night Garden.
Lizzie was bathed and dressed in a fresh all-in-one and sucking happily on a cup of milk.
Johnny held her on his lap and smiled widely.
He was tanned. Her stomach lurched but she told herself it was just the pull of familiarity at a tough time.
Sometimes all she wanted was somebody who understood her to hold her and listen to the shitty week she’d had, and Johnny had always done that.
The wounds left from his lies still smarted, but they were healing.
He’d finalised his divorce from Carrie and they’d split their assets, but the secrecy regarding the whole thing was something that she didn’t need in her life at the time.
‘Hey,’ she said. She went to kiss her daughter and Lizzie held out her hand to stroke her face.
‘Mama,’ she gurgled. ‘Dada,’ she added.
Johnny was thrilled.
‘Clever girl!’ Kelly praised her. Lizzie’s favourite words were ‘Nana’, short for banana, ‘nee-nor’, chorused whenever they played with vehicles, ‘Gang’, for Ted, and ‘Lee-lee’, for Millie.
Her repertoire was growing.
‘How was Scotland?’ Kelly asked.
‘Epic,’ he said. ‘The weather was perfect.’
‘I heard a climber died on Stob Dearg.’
‘Yeah. He fell. He was sixty years old, with his family. It was horrendous. It was across the valley from us.’
‘Good, I’m glad you didn’t get involved; you need time off too.’
Johnny was an experienced mountain rescue volunteer and had worked with the Lake District teams for seven years. Now he split his time between here and Glencoe.
‘Have you eaten?’ she asked.
‘I was thinking about going to the van for fish and chips, fancy joining me?’ he asked.
‘Sounds wonderful, let me change and put these flowers in a vase.’
She left them and went to the kitchen. She arranged the flowers and corked the wine ready for later then she rushed upstairs to change.
Getting out of her work clothes, even though she had a casual dress policy around the office, was still a luxurious feeling of freedom.
It was like shedding old skin. A quick shower revived her, and thoughts of Angelina and Jamie Robbins left her for a moment.
She touched up her make-up and went downstairs.
‘We could take Lizzie out for a walk first then grab some food on the way back.’
‘Perfect.’
‘Will you stay tonight?’
‘If you don’t mind. I got your message; thanks, it helps. The traffic will be hell tonight, so I decided to hang around here for the weekend. I’ll probably stay next week too if you want to give Millie some time off; I’ll pay her.’
‘It’s hard prising her away from Lizzie but she’ll appreciate that, I’m sure. She was telling me this week that her mates were swimming in Grasmere, and I could tell she wanted to go. I’ve had a hell of a week; I’ll tell you about it on our walk.’
They got Lizzie ready and plonked her in her pram.
She cuddled a teddy bear and looked almost ready for sleep.
Kelly put a thin blanket over her to keep the night air off her even though it was still warm.
The sun was going down over the western fells.
Helvellyn was clear and dominated the other end of Ullswater.
Kelly’s house was a haven of peace with the terrace sitting over the River Eamont, but she knew the contours of the sky like the back of her hand.
She closed the terrace doors, and they left the house.
They wandered along the road to the steamer launch.
There was a boat coming in and they stopped to watch so Lizzie could point to it, but she soon grew tired and fell asleep, so they turned back to the village.
‘I heard about the woman in Grasmere,’ he said, confident his daughter was asleep.
Kelly looked at Johnny’s sure hand on the pram and imagined the warmth where the veins stood out.
He smelt good and he reminded her of a safe place.
It wasn’t that she wanted to throw herself at him and start all over again – they’d tried that so many times – it was just that he was a harbour for her.
She liked to be anchored to him. She missed him. He was still her best friend.
‘Yeah, she was killed for something she was hiding, we think.’
‘Mysterious,’ he said.
‘It’s not in the news; it’s a blackout. Her brother died the next day.’
‘That’s terrible for the parents.’
‘They didn’t have parents; they were foster kids.’
‘Were they connected? Why the mystery?’
‘Yep, he was staying at the Heron Hall.’
‘I heard something about that. A suicide? I always wanted to take you there,’ he said.
She side-eyed him and he smiled.
‘You’re flirting with me again,’ she said.
‘I know, but I will always keep trying, Kel.’
She put her arm around his waist, and he held her close and kissed the top of her head.
‘You smell good,’ she said.
He squeezed her.
‘It’s probably a good thing they had no parents. Their deaths were violent.’
‘He was murdered too?’
‘It presented as a suicide, like the rumour mill is saying, but the circumstances are off. He was launching a hot new health supplement that is worth a lot of money to a huge American pharmaceutical. The whole thing stinks, but like you always told me, I can’t catch all the bastards, just one at a time. ’
He laughed. ‘Did I say that? I’m a veritable modern-day prophet.’
She laughed. ‘You know, I had the oddest meeting at Carleton Hall this morning. I haven’t told a soul. I was warned off by the new chief.’
‘Warned off?’
‘This case. Don’t dig too deep, he said. International relations, can you believe it? The corporate masters are valuable to British trade interests, and we wouldn’t want to rub them up the wrong way, would we? I can’t be responsible for ruining the special relationship.’
‘Special relationship my arse. If the Americans say jump, we say how high, and rightly so. When I was in Iraq, their kit was supreme, and our families were sending us body armour bought off the internet. We are the poor cousin. If this has come from Downing Street then they’ve been warned by the embassy, which to me says everything.
Be careful. I know you too well. You’ll go charging in and scratch the scab off and it won’t be welcomed. You’ve got a daughter now, Kel.’
Five years ago, she would have hit him for being so conformist and easily bought, but today she knew he was right.
The value of her life and that of her daughter was more important than anything in the world.
Whatever Jamie and Angelina were up to, she couldn’t single-handedly expose a trail of corruption and dirty money that led to the heart of Big Pharma and, ergo, the American government. That was above her pay grade.
‘You’re right. I haven’t decided exactly how I’m going to handle this. I reckon there’s a trail leading to market share leaders who are so rich they buy economies. I’ve looked into them. These families have been billionaires since the Rothschilds and Rockefellers won the First World War.’
‘Woah, what have you been reading?’
‘I’ve been following a podcaster. He’s controversial. Many would say he’s a conspiracy theorist. He’s got a whole series on the Twin Towers, Princess Diana, Epstein. My God, honestly, it blows my mind.’
‘You know what they call a conspiracy theorist?’
She nodded. ‘A year ahead of the news?’
‘But seriously though, what is all this about? Do you need me to take Lizzie away for a while?’
‘That might not be a bad idea. I found documents relating to clinical trials in the woman’s personal items – hidden in a bloody wall – I know, you can’t make this shit up. Have you heard of the legend of Skelwith Bridge?’
‘The spies?’
‘You know! How did I not know?’
‘No, I’m pulling your leg, tell me. It was just a guess because you’ve gone all cloak and dagger on me.’
She told him what Tommy at the Old Man had told her and Johnny chuckled.
‘Blimey, you really must be careful.’
‘It all points to them using an untested compound in a health drink.’
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know yet; I’m having it tested. If it’s harmful what the hell do I do? Nobody takes on the food and drug industry and wins. It’s got some silly name. Neurohydroxy-14. I think the two victims were going to go public with the information.’
‘No one takes them on and survives. They can ruin anyone who gets close, I’ve seen it with whistleblowers in the army. The arms trade is dirtier than Blackpool beach. I’ve seen it from the inside. Sierra Leone. Bosnia. You don’t want to get anywhere near big business that is funded by governments.’
‘How do I know it’s funded by governments?’
‘Why else would you get a warning through channels that presumably came through the Home Office, via the Foreign Office, via diplomatic comms? Follow the vested interest and sooner or later you get to a boatload of money.’
‘Why is this planet run by megalomaniacs?’
Johnny smiled. ‘To test the little people. We always win in the end. Empires never last very long, only around a thousand years, and then they have too many wars and they implode.’
‘Great. Let’s celebrate the end of the world as we know it.’
‘Let’s get food. What are you having?’
‘Large haddock, chips and mushy peas.’
‘I’ll get the same.’
They walked to the van and said hello to Ned, the owner.
His enterprise had brought another food outlet to Pooley Bridge to cater for the tourists and locals alike.
The van was extremely popular. Ned wrapped up their food and placed it in a plastic bag and Johnny carried it while Kelly pushed the pram.
The smell made her hungry and when they got back to her house, it didn’t take long for them to unwrap and begin to devour them.
Kelly put some ketchup on the kitchen table, and they loaded their plates and took them onto the terrace.
They didn’t need blankets just yet but there was a definite cooling of the sky.
‘How’s Ted?’ Johnny asked.
‘He’s great. Sharp as ever. He misses you.’
‘Do you miss me?’
Kelly glanced at him. This was the question she didn’t want to answer because she was terrified of it failing again.
Lizzie gurgled from her pram in the hall. They hadn’t risked moving her while they were eating; that could wait – she was more than comfortable in there.
‘Of course I do. I miss the best times. I miss swimming on a hot day after work and talking about our jobs. I miss you next to me when I wake up and when I go to sleep.’
They munched quietly, each contemplating what the other meant to them.
When they’d finished their food, Johnny tidied the plates and Kelly put Lizzie to bed and when she came back downstairs, Johnny had poured them a glass of wine each and taken blankets out to the terrace.
The sun was dipping, and the day was almost done.
The week had thrown Kelly some curveballs but now Johnny was there, and even if it was only for a couple of nights in her spare room while she tackled whatever this case threw at her next, she knew that she’d feel safer.