Chapter 52
The Rydal Caves were created by quarrying in the nineteenth century.
Now a popular tourist attraction, Kelly had little hesitation about meeting Sandy Cooper there.
It was public, busy and open. But she was also fully aware that Sandy Cooper would likely have another agenda.
The woman wasn’t straightforward and she wouldn’t be easy to catch out.
And she’d been at a murder scene without giving Kelly any explanation as yet. She’d blatantly lied about how well she knew Angelina.
However, Johnny’s mindset was elsewhere. In some ways, she thought his Superman impression was heartwarming and touching, yet his need to protect her came a year too late. If only he’d have tended to her better when they were together, they might still be two halves of the same life.
But they still shared a daughter and when Kelly looked across at him sitting in her passenger seat, vigilant as ever, watching over her, she couldn’t help but feel contented.
Even just for a moment, it was enough. It was like before.
But thinking about the past was a slippery slope into nothing.
She’d made her decision to quit on their relationship because he’d lied to her about still being married to Carrie.
He had long standing debt with her and splitting it put Kelly’s financial security in danger for a time.
It was sorted now, he told her. Carrie had disappeared for good this time, along with half his money.
‘You owed her,’ she told him. ‘You should have done it sooner.’
They’d been over it a thousand times and neither wanted to flog a dead horse. Sometimes leaving stuff in the past was the best place for it.
In fact, she was enjoying his company. Seeing him with Ted warmed her heart and watching him with Lizzie made her appreciate deep inside that Lizzie would always have a great father. She reckoned that was what she always wanted, for her daughter to have more paternal security than she’d had.
Her relationship with John Porter had been tricky. He’d been an old-school cop, impossibly strict and arrogant, and it had meant that what he brought in discipline and firmness he lacked in warmth and nurturing.
It left two women feeling inadequate in their different ways.
Kelly suffered a pang of guilt when she counted the months since her last meeting with her sister, Nikki.
It wasn’t her fault they’d had John Porter for a father.
But it was too late for them. There was no way back.
Nikki had her own life with her husband and the kids.
Discovering they had different dads lessened the guilt.
‘What are you thinking?’ Johnny asked.
Kelly had been holding the wheel tightly and she relaxed, knowing she’d been caught out.
‘This case is bugging me.’
‘That’s not all,’ he said. He knew her so well.
She turned into the carpark nearest the road that carved its way through the valley from north to south between the great mountains either side, parked, and they got out.
The weather was stunning and perfect for a trip to the caves.
They provided a welcome and cooling break on a hot summer’s day.
Water gathered at the foot of the caves and in the spring, it was so full one had to jump over it or wade through it to reach the back of the main cave, but in summer it was almost dried up.
The water reflected incredible colours across the roof and the cavernous nature of the space reminded Kelly of big churches.
The feeling of spirituality was the same.
She changed the subject and told Johnny about the people she was meeting. She explained that Sandy was the scientist responsible for the legal arm of the company’s products, and that she’d said ‘both’ to her over the phone, indicating somebody else was coming.
‘And now you tell me?’
She grimaced. ‘It might be nothing.’
He stared away across the River Rothay for a moment.
She knew he’d gone to a place where plenty of comrades had taken their last breath, either in battle or afterwards at their own hand.
In the short time she’d known him – about seven years – she’d been to more than ten funerals of soldiers and officers with him, all by suicide.
He looked back to her and she knew that he was back with her.
‘I don’t trust any of these people. I’ll be watching you like a hawk. Don’t forget whoever broke into your house and hurt your dad work for the same people. Has it crossed your mind that they could have planted the stories by the podcaster, what was his name?’
‘Joe Folly, the conspiracy theorist?’
‘Him. He could be a plant. A very convenient one who just so happened to be in the area podcasting when an important drug rep jumped off a banister.’
She glared at him. He’d grown in confidence since they’d split up and she liked it.
He made her laugh. He was less uptight too.
It was as if he tried less hard to please her and in doing so, was more natural at it.
His openness was welcome whether they were together or not.
Too many exes fought against one another, and it was only ever the kids who suffered.
If they could get along like this for Lizzie, she had no complaints.
But he’d also hit a raw nerve. Because Joe Folly – or Greg Minda – had been an imposter at the conference and easily could have been planted there. She didn’t know one way or the other.
‘Maybe that’s what’s bugging you,’ he said. ‘When people don’t behave how they say they’re going to. Has he made a fuss of Jamie’s death on social media? Has he sounded the alarm?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘He’s gone to ground here in the Lakes.’
‘He’s here?’
‘Yes. He was Angelina’s lover, we think.’
‘Well then it’s obvious he’s the other one meeting you. The scientist wants out and he’s her ticket. You’re the rubber stamp.’
It irritated Kelly how straightforward men were. Johnny thought in such a linear fashion. They were black and white. No mushy in-between with emotional baggage to consider. But she had to admit he had a point.
Johnny raised his eyebrows as they got their things out of the car.
‘And he was at the hotel, what, just by accident? Why did he hang around? Who else was he meeting there?’
Kelly thought in silence. She’d missed Johnny’s analytical brain. And he was right. She’d assumed Joe Folly was a good guy and had been sucked in, but was that a mistake? Just because he’d fooled Angelina and they looked good in a photo on her fridge. But maybe he was a bad guy.
‘I’ll hang back and pretend to be a tourist,’ he told her.
She looked at her watch. It was ten minutes before 2 p.m.
She walked ahead and Johnny hung back.
Up ahead, groups of walkers chatted and spread across the path.
Kelly peered through the trees and saw Heron Hall from the path. She imagined Sandy coming up here with both Lee and Jamie and she wanted to know why this place was so special to them. Was it a hiding place for something? Was it something else? Was it a trap? And why had Angelina loved it so much?
A few people stared at her attire, but people hiked up here in all sorts of gear.
She wore comfortable trousers and a thin top.
She left her lanyard in the car, but she had no backpack.
She and Johnny were used to the fells, and they knew where to stop for fresh spring water.
She marched ahead and ignored everyone else, knowing Johnny had her back.
When Kelly arrived at the opening to the cave, there was a queue of people trying to get in to take photos.
She peeked in and shaded her eyes. The entrance was just like Angelina’s painting.
The two boulders stood like guardsmen welcoming them in under their watch.
Then the five stepping stones led away from the sunlight towards the back of the cavern.
And she spotted the rock on its own, proudly dominating the area under one of the magnificent arches.
An order started to form in her head, and she found herself immersed in the arrangement of the visuals. Angelina had created a code.
Kelly opened an email on her phone from Emma, just before she entered the cave, before she lost all Wi-Fi. Her internet was still working but it whirred a little as it struggled to connect with whatever mast was powering this side of Loughrigg.
A visual of Paul Burlington wandering around almost naked and raving caught her attention, and she wondered if he’d been taking drugs, or, as Lee Lovett insinuated, there was more to it.
Until she had permission to enter the grounds of Hampton-Dent property, or the basis to arrest any of them, they’d remain safe and hidden away in their ivory tower, and she’d be unable to interview any of them under caution, and Kelly knew that was their intention all along.
There was no sign of Sandy.
She found the email she was looking for and it was an attachment of Angelina’s bank account, the one which had received hefty sums from companies associated with Hank Hampton.
The numbers sat latent in her memory bank for this exact moment.
The sort code of the bank account caught her eye. 43-62-51.
Rearranged, that was 123456.
She checked the paintings again, but this time looked at them in the order of 43-62-51.
It made sense in that order. It was a journey from Skelwith to here.
It started with the four flagstones on the floor of room 13, then the three keystones in front of the carriage travelling across Skelwith Bridge, then the six stones across the roadway of the bridge itself, then the two boulders guarding the entrance to the cave, followed by the five stepping stones, finishing with the single rock, at the wall of the cave.
She stared into the darkness at the lone rock.
A child’s shriek surprised her, and she turned to see Joe Folly at the entrance staring at her.