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  So she’d just have to find some.

  The lack of a classic crime scene would make the investigation harder. She knew that hunches were dangerous but she couldn’t help feeling that, wherever it was, it would be used again. When she thought of the time and consideration taken to punish and extinguish the life of the woman found at Watermillock, Kelly came back to the same conclusion: the killer had enjoyed it. They’d have to concentrate on the dump site instead.

  Kelly sat back in her car seat and thought about what she would tell her team. She imagined a man kneeling in the dirt, in the half light, arranging the body of a middle-aged woman with expensive jewellery. The man was strong and deliberate, he was also a huge risk taker, and possessor of an arrogance only reserved for the insane.

  But there she stopped herself, and had to remember the one thing she’d never been able to understand about psychology: that psychopaths aren’t crazy.

  They know exactly what they’re doing.

  Chapter 5

  Kelly was exhausted, and the last thing she felt like was a fight with her sister. She parked at The Penrith and Lakes Hospital, and took a chip coin. She always found the experience of hospitals sapping, and it had already been a long day. Her feet ached in her heeled sandals, and she could do with a freshen-up.

  She needed a run, but that probably wouldn’t happen now.

  They’d worked with what they had all day, and had made a promising start, but they still didn’t have a name. She had three officers working Watermillock and taking statements, but nothing interesting had been flagged up so far. Not one resident, tourist or passer-by had reported anything unusual: there was no car sighting, nothing out of place, and no mention of anything that marked the last twenty-four hours as out of the ordinary. There wasn’t a sniff of a car parked too long, a noise in the night, anything where it shouldn’t be, something missing from where it should be, or any hint that a body had been dumped there. Of course, any one of those statements could come from a liar. Either that, or Kelly’s murderer was dauntingly slick. She phoned forensic dentistry again, and still there was no result.

  * * *

  The cardiac ward at The Penrith and Lakes Hospital was utterly depressing. Old people, smokers for years, hacked their lives out of their chests, and others wheezed and rattled around the corridors. The ward wrapped around a courtyard, and each patient had their own room. Wendy Porter was dozing. Kelly looked at her mother and felt regret. They were close in some ways but not in others. Kelly knew from DS Umshaw that being a mother was a tough job and children often believed that you were taking sides. The moment offered Kelly room to breathe and she watched as her mother’s chest rose and fell gently. She looked peaceful in sleep. An urge to take her hand gripped Kelly, but it passed when she heard the carping voice of her sister. She rolled her eyes.

  Kelly knew that she had to move out of her childhood home, and she made a note to herself to try to squeeze in a viewing tomorrow. But even as the thought came and went, she knew she wouldn’t have time. Already the case was taking over. Damn it, she had to make time.

  There had been a time when Kelly had worried about why she always seemed to disappoint her mother – to the satisfaction of her sister – but now she had more important things to consider, such as finding a house of her own, so she didn’t need to listen to it. As well as needing her own space, Nikki had a key to her mother’s house and barged in unannounced, whenever it pleased her, and Kelly felt suffocated. And now Kelly was public enemy number one. She’d not only put Dave Crawley away for fifteen years, but his father had been found guilty and sent down, only to spend the last pathetic days of his existence in the prison infirmary, being tended to by palliative care nurses. He’d died merely two months into his sentence. Of course it was all her fault, rather than the fact that they were both fucking toe rags. It still pained her that she’d shared a bed with Dave. She still felt unclean.

  Nikki had lived in Penrith all her life; she’d never left. She finished college here, married a boy from here, and now she was raising kids here. Maybe that was the problem. Kelly had known for years, all the way through college and university, that she’d leave The Lakes one day. It wasn’t that she didn’t love the place, not at all – it was more that it made her feel trapped somehow. Before London, all she’d ever known was lakes and mountains; the same boys, marrying the same girls, and the same conversations around the same bars and the same nightclubs. Kelly wanted more, that was all, but Nikki called her arrogant and selfish. London did its job: Kelly found the life she’d craved, the freedom, the spontaneity, the vastness and the anonymity; they all intoxicated her, and when she came back, her sister was exactly the same. But with a vicious edge. Kelly hadn’t known what to make of it, and had tried to comfort her sister, thinking the cause of her annoyance to be grief over their father.

  She was wrong.

  And now she’d rocked the boat on a monumental scale. Nikki’s best friend was Dave’s wife, and was finding life on the knuckles of her arse, without the trappings of Dave’s extra-curricular activities, challenging.

  Now, Nikki made it clear that she blamed her sibling, not only for not being there when their father passed away, but for the fate of one of Penrith’s greatest families. The irony was lost on her, and when the sisters clashed, it was never pretty.

  Kelly followed the noise and found Nikki berating a male nurse with a clipboard.

  ‘Nikki, Mum wants you,’ Kelly lied.

  Nikki spun round and the nurse slipped away. Kelly turned to go back to the room, ignoring anything her sister might have had to say. Nikki turned back to where the nurse had been standing and, realising they’d gone, tutted indignantly. Kelly couldn’t help smile as Nikki clacked towards their mother’s room in her impossible heels. It must be exhausting being that pissed off all the time, Kelly thought.

  Their mother was now awake, and having her vitals checked by the young male nurse who’d been debriefed by Nikki, just a moment ago. Nikki glared at him. Kelly wondered what on earth he might have done wrong. Offence; everyone is so easily offended, she thought. Kelly found the nurse polite and efficient, but then Nikki wouldn’t be happy unless there was a problem. Kelly folded her arms, accepting that she’d have to share space with her sister for a while, and examined her. She wore black leggings, high white boots, and a baggy sweatshirt with some logo on it, several bangles around her wrists – which jangled infuriatingly – plenty of makeup, and a sullen expression. Her dyed hair was piled high on her head and she chewed gum. She stood in a strop, arms folded, glaring at the nurse.

  ‘How are you feeling, Mrs Porter?’ the nurse asked.

  ‘Better now. You’re very handsome,’ Wendy said.

  Kelly found her mother’s blunt honesty (a result of the drugs she was taking) hugely amusing: it left her with no filters, and stuff simply fell out of her mouth. The nurse laughed, used to the effects of the drugs. But Nikki was appalled.

  ‘Mum!’ Nikki said. The nurse left.

  ‘It’s true,’ Wendy said.

  ‘Right, are you all ready, Mum?’ Kelly asked.

  ‘No, she’s not,’ said Nikki curtly. ‘That’s why I was raising the issue with that idiot,’ she added, indicating the departing nurse. Kelly was puzzled.

  ‘The consultant is busy, Kelly. I think I might have to stay another night,’ Wendy Porter said.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Mum. These things happen,’ Kelly said.

  Nikki glared at her. ‘It’s disgusting! Who do these consultants think they are?’ she spat.

  ‘Calm down! You’re not exactly helping. If there’s no-one to discharge her, then we just have to accept that. At least she’s got a bed,’ Kelly said.

  ‘Are you saying she’s not entitled to a bed?’ Nikki asked, head cocked to one side, looking for a fight. Kelly held her sister’s gaze, and weighed up the pros and cons of bothering to answer. There was no point.

  ‘Can you two stop it?’ Wendy said.

  Kelly looked at her wa
tch. She had time for a run if she went now. She went to her mother and kissed her forehead.

  ‘I’ll come back tomorrow, I’m sorry, Mum, I’m not staying here to listen to this shit,’ Kelly said, and walked out, past a nurse bringing tea. They shuffled past one another, and Kelly headed in to the relative peace in the corridor. Should she stay another minute in Nikki’s company, she’d get under her skin, and it wasn’t worth it. Her thoughts turned to her desperate need to move out of the house. Nikki was the main reason, she admitted, and it irked her – well, that along with the fact that she was a thirty-seven-year-old woman unable to bring a man back to the house anytime she wanted. They’d set up a hospital bed in the front room for Mum, and there was nowhere to breathe. She’d outgrown her girlhood home. The move was only ever supposed to be temporary, but then Mum got ill. Kelly walked quickly and made a lift that was just about to leave. Waiting for one could be interminable in this place.

  Once back to her car, she felt no guilt as she pulled out of the multi-storey car park; just an all too familiar annoyance. She’d neither the time nor the inclination for petty squabbles, and the body of a naked woman with missing fingertips filled her mind. Soon, she’d be in her running kit and free of the ambient noise that crowded her head.

  She reached the house in under five minutes, parked on the street and let herself in, running straight upstairs to change. As always, when she went back to the house where she grew up, she felt foolish and something of a failure. Her life had become a transitory existence between office, hospital and a spare room, and out of all three, she was saddened to admit that she preferred her office. That’s where she fitted best, at least.

  It felt good to be out of her office kit, and she drove to Pooley Bridge, where it was quieter and more peaceful than a town run. The drive only took ten minutes and she parked by The Crown. The centre was busy with tourists but once she got out on to the hills, she’d be able to forget them. She made sure she had her phone, and strapped it to her arm. The headphones were connected wirelessly and she selected a hard-core playlist that would help release the pent up tension in her body and her mind.

  There was no doubt the village was lovely, nestled on the eastern shore of Ullswater. It would be a pleasant place to live, and this is where the planned viewing had been today; the one she’d missed. Penrith wasn’t unpleasant, it was just sprawling and depressing at times, because that’s where she worked. Last year had made her an unwilling minor celebrity, and she hated it. Here, lodged between the lake and fells, could be her escape. If it hadn’t already gone. The property had a terrace overlooking the River Eamont, which fed the lake, and it was private. More importantly, it was within budget.

  She ran over the bridge to the lake.

  The last steamers were pulling in, and she ran against the tide of tourists, flocking four deep, all looking for an evening meal before they headed back to their hotels. Faces were tanned from a day on the fells and Kelly watched tired toddlers scream and wriggle in prams, as well as stroppy teenagers walking behind uncool parents, and she smiled. A few tourists glanced her way as she headed to the fells behind Pooley Bridge, on the north shore of Ullswater. If she lived here, she could do this every day, and then jump in the lake to cool off. The idea became more and more appealing, the further she got.

  Kelly’s body was strong, and she’d been a runner for twenty years, but it had to be outside. In London, Victoria Park had been her preferred running track, but nothing came close to the fells and lakes that were now her private gym. As she passed the jetty, she received a lone wolf whistle from a young guy-probably a student working the summer season – but Kelly didn’t hear it. She ran up the hill away from the steamer, and found emptiness.

  Ullswater tapered off in the distance like a vast blue serpent, and the fells drew her eyes. Mountains framed the lake on each side and the sky sat in-between. No wonder so many artists painted here. Her only companions were the beat of the music and the rhythm of her breath. There wasn’t a hint of technology or man’s footprint anywhere: not a plane, not a car, not a mast, not a building, and not a sound of an iPhone.

  Kelly thought of Johnny.

  She wondered if he still lived in Pooley Bridge, and if that would even be a problem. They were both adults. It hadn’t worked out, but it was a free country. She could live wherever she wanted to, she told herself. A stab of guilt disturbed her rhythm; she’d liked him, a lot. He was strong, independent and, most of all, he made her laugh. But it hadn’t gone at all well when she’d finally been introduced to his daughter, Josie. They’d argued, and eventually realised that they were too similar. Neither would back down; Kelly thought he was wrapped around his daughter’s finger, and giving the girl her own credit card was irresponsible; on the other hand, Johnny believed that it was his job to look after his only child. In the end, there was only one choice, and Josie was going nowhere. The girl won.

  Pushing thoughts of him aside, her mind turned to the woman who was probably laid in a morgue fridge right now, ready to be sliced open and prodded by Ted Wallis tomorrow morning. A fleeting thought distracted her, and it was a nagging doubt that she should be running by herself, when a woman had been murdered and dumped just seven miles from here. She could be running past the farmhouse, shack, hotel or caravan where the crime had been committed. Goosebumps formed on her honey coloured skin.

  ‘Stop it, Kelly!’ she told herself in admonishment. It was easy to become dramatic and paranoid when in charge of a murder case, and she pushed the thoughts from her mind, as she reached a steep incline. She dug in, on her toes, and used her arms to pump, with small powerful thrusts from her hamstring muscles aiding her climb. When she reached the top, she jogged on the spot to catch her breath and turned back towards Ullswater. The lake reflected the dark orange sun of early evening, and she felt better.

  By the time she’d reached the car again, the sun had waned behind the fells, and shadows made her shiver. She threw on a sweater and jumped into the driving seat to make the short journey home. But first she phoned the estate agent and asked what time they opened in the morning, and if the property overlooking the river was still available.

  It was.

  Chapter 6

  They had a name.

  Dental records had been traced to Mrs Moira Tate. Fifty-nine years of age, white-Caucasian, born in Halifax and, now living in Kendal. She hadn’t been reported missing, and her passport photo, pulled from the database confirmed it: Mrs Tate was the woman dumped outside The Parish Church of All Saints in Watermillock.

  Coiffed and serious, Moira, in life, looked wealthy and accomplished, and that’s pretty much all they knew. Checks had traced a monthly deal with Vodaphone, who was scouring phone masts to see when Moira’s iPhone 6S was last used, and where. Now the investigation had life.

  Kelly chose the M6 route to Kendal, she was in no mood for sightseeing. She’d brought along her new rookie, DC Rob Shawcross. He was a young Detective Constable, fresh from his National Investigators’ Examination course, and had reacted like an excited puppy when she’d selected him.

  ‘Should we grab a coffee?’ she asked the young male officer, as she drove.

  ‘Sure, Guv,’ he replied. It was procedure to notify the family of a homicide in twos, if possible. Kelly preferred it that way. It was an opportunity for the young officer, and one that she’d have jumped at when she was his age. Shawcross was twenty-seven and had everything to learn.

  The young officer was affable, if a little star struck. Kelly Porter had a reputation: she kicked arse, and Rob saw it in the way she handled the Audi. This was his dream: to work a homicide, and he didn’t want to screw up in front of his new boss. Everybody had followed the case last year on the news, and Rob knew that she’d come across some pretty nasty characters, and she’d emerged the winner.

  ‘So, why did you choose the investigator’s route, Rob?’ she asked. Kelly could tell that he was excited, and a little nervous, and that was good: it meant that he cared. She tr
ied to relax him.

  ‘I knew I wanted to join the police when I was seven years old,’ he began. Kelly was interested; it was her turf and she wanted to know what motivated anyone who worked for her. She’d been the same, watching her father leave every morning in his handsome uniform.

  ‘So that’s what I did. Then, later, as a uniform, I was involved in searching for a back packer who went missing five years ago,’ he carried on. Kelly watched the traffic, but listened intently. She spotted a motorway café sign and signalled to pull in.

  ‘I wanted to do what the detective did,’ he said. Kelly smiled and nodded knowingly. She pulled into the garage and parked up, keeping the engine running to take advantage of the air conditioning.

  ‘I was part of something, but not, if you know what I mean. And afterwards, when I’d searched for three days and taken dozens of statements, and confiscated cars, caravans and a few weapons, I was told to go back to my beat, and it…’ he stopped, trying to find the words.

  ‘It pissed you off?’ Kelly asked, looking at him.

  He laughed. ‘Yep, that’s exactly it. I wanted to see that investigation through, rather than just being a pair of boots on the ground,’ he said. Kelly turned off the engine.

  ‘So, was the back packer found?’ she asked.

  ‘I followed the news and asked around, but I don’t think she ever was. I think, in the end, it was assumed that she’d left the county,’ Rob replied.

  ‘Ah, assumption: the mother of all fuck ups,’ Kelly said. Rob looked at his boss, as if he was seeking some kind of indication of what she would say next; it didn’t come.

  ‘Sorry, it’s an army term. It’s like the seven Ps,’ she said. Rob continued to search her face, nonplussed. Kelly had learned a lot of army slang from Johnny, and she used it affectionately. That was the second time in two days that she’d thought about him.