The Dungeon House (Lake District Mysteries) (8 page)

‘You don’t seriously believe the cases are connected?’

‘Not directly, no. Malcolm Whiteley killed himself and Lysette, and presumably was responsible for Amber’s death. But we can’t rule out a link between what happened to Lily, and Shona’s disappearance. Cheryl knew Gray Elstone, and Malcolm Whiteley, and whatever her faults, she’s sharp. Ben said Cheryl was a good sounding board, especially in their early years together, before they got on each other’s nerves. They must have discussed his suspicion that the whole truth never came out about Amber’s death.’

‘This mysterious missing witness Dad told you about?’

‘His greatest strength as a detective was his instinct. If he thought there was more to that drunken driver’s story than met the eye, I’d back his judgement over Desmond Loney’s, any day.’

‘And you want to talk to Cheryl rather than send Maggie?’

‘If Maggie talks to Cheryl, she’ll get the brush off.’

‘Cheryl won’t be overjoyed to see you.’

‘Trust me, the feeling will be mutual, but the two of us go back a long way, and I’ve the best chance of finding out anything worth knowing.’ She sighed. ‘I’ll wear my body armour.’

He laughed, and his hand resumed its journey underneath her shirt. ‘Okay, but you’re not putting it on just yet.’

Joanna found sleep elusive. Tired as she was, her mind wouldn’t stop buzzing. It wasn’t merely excitement about tomorrow’s trip to Ravenglass that kept her awake, there was also the shock of seeing Robbie Dean again. She’d scarcely thought about him for years, and it had certainly never occurred to her that he’d be working for Nigel. The legend on the van said
Deano Garden Services
. He and Nigel had been friends since they were kids playing football together. Robbie never said much, and Joanna had always felt rather afraid of him, but Nigel admired and envied his sporting prowess. Everyone predicted stardom for Robbie. Nigel never made it as a footballer, but neither did Robbie, in the end. The injuries he’d sustained in the crash that killed poor Carrie saw to that. His pelvis was fractured, and one kneecap broken, leaving him with a permanent limp, and his dreams of football fame shattered. Nigel had talked his uncle into giving Robbie a job as a handyman and gardener at the Dungeon House. Quite a comedown for a boy who’d once had the world at his feet. Twenty years on, he was still working at the same place.

She hauled herself out of bed, and told Darcy about what had happened all those years ago, while she made herself a mug of Ovaltine. The cat purred contentedly, and settled himself back in his basket as she carried the mug to her bedside table, and snuggled under the blankets, waiting for her drink to cool.

What would she do, if and when she returned to the Dungeon House, or whatever Nigel called it nowadays, and once again her path crossed with Robbie’s? It was a question for another day. No point in letting it spoil everything. Yet as she took a sip of Ovaltine, she reflected on life’s ironies. Everyone remembered Malcolm Whiteley for a shocking crime, but in his own strange way, Robbie Dean was just as frightening.

Ravenglass again, after how many years? Fifteen, Joanna calculated, as she drove down Muncaster Fell toward the sea. She’d last come to the village with her parents, during a visit home, when they went for a trip on La’al Ratty. They’d parked at the terminus for the narrow gauge railway, and never ventured as far as the waterfront. She’d not set eyes on Main Street since the night of the Last Supper. After leaving the Lakes, she’d concentrated on making a new life for herself, and even when she returned to Holmrook to see Mum and Dad, she steered clear of Ravenglass. Too many memories. Remembering was just one more form of self-harm. But time healed even the deepest wounds. She’d loved this village once, and now she felt ready to fall in love all over again.

As she passed under a bridge carrying the railway north to Whitehaven, the sunlit estuary lay out in front of her. On impulse, she pulled up next to the Green. After the long,
circuitous drive, her calves and thighs twitched with cramp as she levered herself out of the elderly Polo and into an invigorating breeze. Motorway driving forced you to take your life in your hands, and even on the quieter roads, the traffic was terrifying if you were out of practice. Thank goodness she’d made it, and now she was all goosebumps. She’d not felt so alive since her first date with Eoin. This was an adventure, and not having a clue what might happen next was part of the fun.

Taking a seat on one of the bright blue benches, she looked out across the dunes. A raised embankment of grass protected the low-lying cottages from floods as well as providing a green open space overlooking a foreshore of shingle, sand, and mud. Three rivers met here, making a natural harbour. No wonder the Romans had chosen this as their port. To think this view was once admired by soldiers of the Twentieth Legion! Roman ships carried goods from this northernmost edge of their territory to the rest of the Empire, but after the legionnaires marched away, Ravenglass did not die. Saxons and Vikings came and went, King John granted merchants a Charter to hold a weekly market and annual fair, and fishermen plied their trade along the coast. When the estuary silted up, ships could no longer dock at the end of Main Street, but trains brought iron ore down from Boot to the station, so it could be transported on the coastal line. Although the mines had closed down, the railway was preserved, and the Ratty became a tourists’ delight. Yes, Joanna had something in common with this place. She was a survivor, and so was Ravenglass.

The sunshine was deceptive, and the late afternoon
chill persuaded her not to linger. Hurrying back to the Polo, she threaded through the vehicles parked on either side of Main Street. The village had once been a stopping point on an old road that crept along the coast by way of shallow fords and ramshackle bridges, but these days the street narrowed into a dead end, bounded by huge floodgates.

The Eskdale Arms stood on its own on the estuary side of the road, and the Saltcoats View guest house was separated from it by a tiny car park. She’d wondered if seeing the pub again would revive such dreadful images of the night of the Last Supper that she’d change her mind, and scurry back home. To her surprise, she felt no more than a pang of melancholy. This new Joanna lived for the moment.

She carried her suitcase to the front of the Saltcoats View. Inhaling the fragrance of grape hyacinths crammed into hanging baskets on either side of the door, she rang the bell, and a loud voice invited her to walk right in. A middle-aged man with thinning, sandy hair and the worst comb-over she’d seen in years sat with a steaming mug of tea in his hand, and a copy of
The Cumberland News
spread over the counter in front of him. Nigel Whiteley stared grimly from the front page, beneath the headline:
My Agony: Missing Teenager’s Father
.

‘My name is Joanna Footit. I booked yesterday for a fortnight.’

He bestowed a cheesy grin, and extended his hand. ‘Ah, yes, Ms Footit. Or may I call you Joanna? My name’s Quiggin, pleased to meet you. Alvaro Quiggin, would you believe? My mother came from Almeria, and that was her
dad’s name. She married a Manxman, and when I was born they named me in granddad’s honour. Never mind, it’s quite a mouthful, and as the song goes, you can call me Al.’

Joanna hadn’t the faintest what song he was talking about, but shook his hand anyway. As she filled in the registration form, and went through the usual palaver with her credit card, she was aware of his sidelong appraisal of her figure. Her illness had left her painfully thin. In her schooldays, nasty boys had nicknamed her Stick Insect, but words no longer hurt her. At her age, better to be a Stick Insect than a Heffalump. Her new skirt was short enough to display her legs to full advantage, and for the first time since she’d sent Eoin packing, she felt attractive. Desirable.

You-can-call-me-Al hauled her suitcases upstairs to a small but thankfully
en suite
room with chintzy decor and watercolours of Lakeland beauty spots on the wall. ‘Nice and comfy, eh? Watch yourself under the shower, the nozzle can be temperamental. In that cupboard, you’ll find a kettle and a basket with sachets of tea and coffee. There’s a map as well as a guidebook in the top drawer of the dressing table, if you’re planning excursions or need any information about the area.’

She smiled. ‘Thanks, but I won’t need a map.’

‘Oh really? Regular visitor, are you?’

‘I grew up nearby and my parents lived at Holmrook until they died.’

‘So what brings you back here?’

Obviously she didn’t intend to utter a word about Nigel. Certainly not until she’d decided how best to approach him.
The merit of her cover story was that every word was true. ‘I’ve recently recovered from a long illness, and Ravenglass seemed the perfect spot to complete my recuperation. Healthy sea breezes …’

‘Oh aye, we’ve no shortage of sea breezes! Won’t take a jiffy for you to get the colour back in your cheeks. If you come from these parts, you’ll easily find your way around. Ravenglass never alters much. Revisiting old haunts, eh?’

‘And looking up old friends.’ Her eye caught the flamboyant signature on a landscape of Wasdale hanging next to the wardrobe. ‘Gosh, is that by Scott Durham? Is he still around?’

‘The artist? You know him?’

‘I did – very slightly. Twenty years ago.’

‘Well, well.’ You-can-call-me-Al beamed. ‘You’ve come to the right place. The Eskdale Arms next door offers our residents a ten per cent discount on evening meals. Scott lives in Seagull Cottage. He’s a regular in the saloon bar, and never misses a quiz night. Pop in for a bite to eat, and you’ll probably bump into him. Likes his pint, does Scott.’

The conversation with Cheryl was never going to be easy. Hannah hadn’t seen or spoken to her since Ben’s funeral, a dismal occasion on a winter’s day when the rain never let up. The two of them had exchanged brief and civilised pleasantries at the door of the church, but Hannah’s mood matched the weather, and she kept her distance from the grieving widow. Cheryl had looked good, she’d had to admit, as they stood under umbrellas around the open
grave. Black suited her. So did the pallor of mourning, and the opportunity to be the centre of attention, bereaved and brave and rather beautiful.

Her call took Cheryl aback, but surprise soon gave way to suspicion. ‘Malcolm Whiteley? Of course I knew him. Lysette was very dear to me. Why on earth do you want to rake over the ashes twenty years on?’

‘As I said, I run the Cold Case Review Team …’

‘Yes, yes, I read about it in the papers. I was taken aback, to be honest.’

‘You were?’ A mistake, this, affording Cheryl a chance to twist the knife.

‘Absolutely, I thought you preferred investigating crimes in the here and now. You seemed very ambitious when you were young.’

Hannah glared at the sanseveria. Wasn’t its alternative name mother-in-law’s tongue? It wasn’t as sharp as Cheryl’s scorn. ‘I suppose none of us are getting any younger.’

‘Time is precious, yes. Which makes me wonder, frankly, why it’s worth wasting time over an old story.’

‘Easier to explain when we are face-to-face.’

A pause, followed by a long-suffering sigh. ‘You always were very persistent, Hannah. Wouldn’t take no for an answer.’

Was that another dig? Did Cheryl believe she’d spent her formative years in the police pestering an unwilling Ben Kind for sex? Hannah ground her nails into her palm. Cheryl hadn’t lost that knack of winding her up.

‘Are you free tomorrow morning? How about eleven o’clock? I’m happy to visit you in Grange. Don’t worry if
it’s not convenient. You tell me when and where.’

An ungracious sniff. ‘No, that will do. Might as well get it over with.’

‘Thanks very much, Cheryl.’ Hannah wasn’t a naturally untruthful woman, so she preferred to think of her parting words not as a lie, but as satire. ‘It will be lovely to see you again.’

Maggie bustled in half an hour later. ‘I’ve fixed up a meeting with Lily Elstone’s Mum tomorrow. Les said he’d come along. I’ll do the talking, but he reckons I could do with a minder.’

‘Not a bad idea.’

Anya Jovetic was notoriously volatile. Once, she’d scratched the face of a journalist whose questioning upset her. A mother whose teenage daughter vanished never to return could be forgiven the occasional outburst of anger and desperation, but there was always a risk that Anya Jovetic would take out her misery on the wrong person. She should be pleased about the case being reviewed, but she’d never be satisfied until Gray Elstone was under lock and key.

According to Anya, he was a sexual deviant who couldn’t handle a mature woman. She claimed that he’d molested Lily, and that when the girl had resisted, he’d killed her to keep her quiet. Three years ago, a vast amount of time and resource had been devoted to investigating her allegations, but there wasn’t a shred of evidence to support them. Lily hadn’t confided in anyone about the supposed abuse, and school friends insisted that she was closer to her father than her mother. Even Anya had to admit that she’d
never suspected Gray of misbehaving with Lily until the girl’s disappearance.

It also turned out that Anya carried a truckload of baggage. Enquiries in Split, her home town, established that her own father had been sent to prison for indecently assaulting young girls, and she’d accused a former lover of something similar, although nothing had ever been proved. Some officers on the original team of investigators had a theory that it was her temper that had driven Lily away.

‘Would you mind talking to the father?’ Maggie asked. ‘He might open up more to you than to me.’

‘Because he knew Ben, and so did I?’

‘That’s part of it. When I told him that we were reviewing the case, he said all the right things, but seemed wary, perhaps because Anya has accused him of all sorts. And now this business about Nigel Whiteley’s daughter complicates the picture.’

‘Okay, I’ll give him a ring.’

One more task for the to-do list. The mantra in the public sector nowadays was
Do more for less
, and Hannah had lost a sergeant and some admin back-up. She was overworked, and it made sense to delegate whenever she could. The snag was that she was a detective who had been sucked into management. What she loved about the job was detection, not filling in spreadsheets and attending endless meetings. Anyway, there was just an outside chance that Maggie was right, and she’d be able to tease some new information from Elstone to cast fresh light on the three-year-old mystery of his daughter’s disappearance.

Once you-can-call-me-Al left her in peace, Joanna unpacked before taking off her shoes, and lying down fully clothed on the bed. Eyes closed, mind spinning. She’d never dreamt she’d ever set foot inside the Eskdale Arms again. That meal after the Dungeon House barbecue represented a watershed, not only in her life but in so many others. No wonder she thought of it as The Last Supper.

For twenty years, Joanna had banished that night from her mind. The horror of it all had driven her from the Lakes. Later, fresh entanglements gave her more than enough to fret about, without allowing old ghosts to roam. Now she’d returned to Ravenglass, must she face up to the past? Or was it best for her to don her rose-tinted spectacles, and forget everything other than how much she cared about Nigel?

She dozed for half an hour, but once she’d got up and washed her face, she decided to fit in a walk before something to eat. As she wriggled into her jacket, she considered Scott Durham’s take on Wastwater. Yellow sunlight played on snow-covered fells and lit the surface of the grey-blue lake. A pretty picture, subtle hues harmonising with the room’s pale pastels. He was a talented artist, nobody could deny it. Yet was something lacking? She detected no hint of the secretive nature of those inky depths, or of the claustrophobia that the dark scree slopes always induced in her. Scott had turned a blind eye to Wastwater’s sinister side.

Perhaps he too liked to pretend that the horror of the Dungeon House had never happened.

On her way out, she passed you-can-call-me-Al, who
was still perusing the story about Shona Whiteley. The photograph of the girl differed from the one shown on television. No sexy party dress this time, but a rather severe school uniform, navy blue, striped with magenta. Her braces were even more prominent in this picture.

‘Off for a constitutional, Joanna?’

‘I fancy a breath of air. The drive has left me with a stiff back.’

‘Yes, it’s quite a journey, getting here from pretty much anywhere.’ He sneaked another glance at her figure. ‘You’ll know that well enough, being a local lass yourself. No shortcuts to Ravenglass, eh?’

She hurried outside. His interest was flattering, but faintly creepy. Perhaps he saw it as part of his job to befriend residents. If he was lonely, she sympathised. It had been so long since a man had taken an interest in her that she was out of practise. Even Eoin – hindsight left her sadder but wiser – had regarded her more as a meal ticket than a lover. Anyway, she didn’t fancy you-can-call-me-Al. Her mind was filled with a single question. How would Nigel respond to the brave new Joanna?