A Watery Grave (Karen Cady Book 1)

by Penny Kline

  A WATERY GRAVE

  Penny Kline

  © Penny Kline 1995

  Penny Kline has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1995 by Hodder Children’s Books.

  This edition published in 2018 by Lume Books.

  For Sophie

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter One

  ‘We’ve got this new interactive computer,’ said Simon. ‘I’m writing a programme so you can add your own material to the database and . . .’

  Karen had stopped listening. The conversation at the other end of the table was far more interesting. Glen Fortune, who believed he was God’s gift to the world, was holding forth on girls who got themselves done up like dogs’ dinners then complained when blokes whistled at them or made a few suggestions.

  Typical. Karen had heard it all before, more times than she could remember – but what had caught her attention was the mention of Natalie Stevens.

  Everyone had heard of Natalie. What a way to make sure you went down in history! Have your body pulled out of a reservoir and become the major character in an unsolved crime.

  It was six months since the murder had taken place, back in April. It happened round about the time Karen’s parents had finally split, and her mother had informed her that Alex would soon be moving in.

  ‘Well, hello there.’ Glen pretended to have spotted Karen for the first time. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Fine, thanks.’ Glen was in the same year as Simon. He had been Tessie’s boyfriend for nearly two years and they saw each other pretty well every day.

  ‘Thought your lot had General Studies,’ said Glen, running his fingers through his newly-bleached hair. ‘Skipping classes?’

  ‘Lost her timetable,’ said Simon. ‘Turned up at the wrong time in the wrong place.’

  Karen glared at him, trying to convey with the sourness of her expression that if she wanted to provide Glen and his friends with an explanation as to why she had missed the class, she could do it herself. Not that it was any of their business.

  Simon, who had been looking through the window at a group of kids fooling about on the grass, stood up and started moving towards the door. ‘Just going to make sure no-one’s mucking about with my computer,’ he said, pushing back the papers that were sliding out of Karen’s bag. ‘See you.’

  Karen pushed back her chair but Glen signalled to her to stay put. ‘Listen,’ he said, lowering his voice to what he believed was a seductive whisper, ‘we’ve been talking about the Natalie Stevens case. Thought you might have a few ideas.’

  ‘What kind of ideas?’ Karen glanced at her watch, wondering if the class had finished and the rest of her year were getting ready to go for lunch. Her white plastic cup was still three-quarters full of something the machine called ‘hot chocolate’. It tasted disgusting.

  ‘Well,’ said Glen, dipping his finger in the cup, then wiping it on his jacket, ‘everyone knows who killed Natalie. Police included.’

  ‘Liam Pearce.’

  ‘Exactly. Took him in for questioning, then had to let him go. The guy’s a maniac, though I doubt if it was premeditated. Lost his temper, hit her too hard, then chucked her in the reservoir.’

  ‘You know him, do you?’ Karen’s voice was cooler than she had intended.

  ‘Know him?’ Glen slid onto the chair beside her. ‘No, of course I don’t know him. I’ve seen him down by the river, playing football on Sunday morning. Nasty beady eyes, wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.’

  ‘Lucky they can’t put you in prison just because of the way you look,’ said Karen, and the ugly guy sitting opposite Glen rocked his chair back, laughing, and nearly crashed to the floor.

  Glen took no notice.

  ‘Natalie liked a good time,’ he said, still talking as though he had special inside information. ‘Didn’t want to settle down with Liam and the baby. Handed it over to Liam’s mother. Olive, she’s called. Great big woman with a foul temper.’ He grinned at Karen. ‘And if you’re thinking I’m making all this up you’re wrong. My mother helps out at a playgroup on the estate. That means she can keep us posted on all the latest developments.’

  ‘How nice for you.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it. Anyway, the reason I thought you might know something – Natalie Stevens’ sister, Joanne, has a job at the Arts Centre now. Isn’t that where the bloke your Mum’s shacked up with works?’

  *

  On her way home Karen thought about calling in at Tessie’s, but lately they seemed to have drifted apart. Tessie was still stuck on settling down with Glen, even though Karen had warned her he would make her life a misery. Smooth-talking Glen was the kind of guy who would think nothing of propositioning one of the bridesmaids at his own wedding. Not that anyone had mentioned weddings but Karen knew what Tessie had in mind. A white dress, one of those stupid veils draped over her face, and a horrible pair of matching shoes that made her look taller than she actually was, although she would still be a couple of inches shorter than Karen.

  As soon as Glen got his A-levels, and took up the post that was being kept open for him in his father’s electronics company, Tessie would start looking through the Flats to Let columns until she found a place where the two of them could set up home. What an idiot, but then some people seemed doomed to sign themselves up for a life-sentence. But, Karen, wouldn’t you love a place of your own? And maybe babies? Would she, heck. Tessie had been watching too many television commercials with cute little tots having their disposable nappies removed to show how dry their darling little bottoms had stayed. The real things were damp, smelly creatures that keep you a prisoner in your own home.

  Karen and Tessie had always been very different, that was part of the reason they got on so well. What would they both be doing in five years’ time? Tessie wanted a baby, Karen wanted a job, but things never seemed to turn out the way you expected. What kind of job? Until she thought of something she really wanted to do she might as well pretend to be as enthusiastic about her studies as her mother and Alex kept telling her she was. I envy you, Nutkin, all the opportunities I never had. Alex, talking as though he was coming up to his pension instead of still in his mid-thirties. And what gave him the right to call her by one of the ridiculous nicknames her mother had forced on her when she was a baby? Next time he did it she would remind him of all the remarks she could make about someone called Alex Hogben.

  Her mother was home. So was Alex. The two cars were parked bumper to bumper. If they could they would have been even closer, smooching all over one another, just like Mum and Alex.

  Karen wrote a four-letter word in the dust on the red Fiesta’s bonnet, then walked round to the back of the house, pushing open the kitchen door and shouting – that would give them time to compose themselves – ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Who else would it be?’ Her mother was in the kitchen, doing something with pasta. Tagliatelli, cannelloni, egg noodles. In a week or two Italian dishes would be off the menu, replaced by everything Indian or Mexican or Japanese.

  Karen picked up a mushroom and started peeling off its soft, mottled skin. ‘Where’s lover boy?’


  ‘Love, I wish you wouldn’t . . . He’s in the study, sorting out some publicity material for the drummer who’s appearing at the Arts Centre next month.’

  ‘The one from New Zealand who only uses one hand?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, shall I get you a ticket?’

  ‘You must be joking.’ Karen ran upstairs and dropped her bag on her unmade bed. Her room smelled of stale biscuits, or it could be the towel she had used at the swimming pool and forgotten to put in the wash. One of these days she was going to give the place a good clear out. One of these days. Picking up her pillow she gave it a token shake, then did the same to the duvet and went downstairs to find Alex.

  ‘Hi.’ He switched off the vacuum cleaner and pushed it out of the way, spreading his arms wide to give her a good view of his baggy green trousers and hideous brown velvet waistcoat. He was smiling, the silly patronising smile that was supposed to make her warm to him, welcome him as a kind of second father. ‘Had a good day?’

  Karen moved some folders on what, until quite recently, had been her father’s favourite mahogany desk. ‘All right. Listen, Alex, I was just wondering . . .’

  ‘Yes?’ He stood up straight, delighted that she had come to talk to him of her own free will.

  ‘Natalie Stevens,’ she said. ‘The girl who was done in and dropped in the reservoir.’

  ‘What about her?’ His expression had become solemn as befitted such a tragic subject.

  ‘Someone said her sister works at the Arts Centre.’

  ‘That’s right. Nice quiet girl, nothing like Natalie, if the newspapers were right about the poor kid. Staying out till all hours, living it up with whoever she could—’

  ‘She was twenty, nearly twenty-one.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It was up to her what she did.’ Karen picked up a poster advertising a play that was being put on by a three-woman theatre group who called themselves The Scourge. ‘What’s the sister’s name?’

  He thought about it for a moment. ‘Joanna. No, Joanne. She’s four or five years older I’d say, although you can’t always tell.’

  ‘What does she do?’

  ‘Works in the cafe, whatever’s needed. Why d’you ask?’

  ‘No reason.’ She drifted towards the door. ‘Just something Glen said.’

  ‘Oh, you’ve been to school then. Look, I know it’s nothing to do with me, Karen, but your mother’s going to be awfully disappointed if you mess up your exams.’

  ‘Lynne. You don’t have to keep calling her your mother. I do know what her name is. And you’re right, it is none of your business.’

  It was going to be ages before they ate. Alex would join her mother in the kitchen. Honestly, sweetheart, I really thought I was getting through to her then, all of a sudden – I’ve no idea what I did wrong – she reverted to her usual hostility.

  Give her time. She could hear her mother’s tense, long-suffering voice. Just give her time. As though time had anything to do with it.

  If she went for a walk that would give them a chance to discuss her. How she had asked to live with her father so they could enjoy their love nest without having someone playing gooseberry. How they had tried to reassure her how much they wanted her living with them, and totally failed to understand that living in her father’s flat was what she wanted. Dad hasn’t got the space, love. Besides, with a job like his, working such unsocial hours. . .

  So her father hadn’t been too keen on the idea of having his only daughter hanging about the place. If he’d stayed in the police instead of taking early retirement things might have been different. Once he reached the rank of Superintendent he had worked in the office quite a lot of the time and come home at more reasonable hours. What had made him chuck in a good job and set up on his own as a private detective?

  Karen stopped with her hand reaching to open the front door. She had never thought much about her father before, not as a real person rather than just a dad. Who could blame him for wanting to be his own boss, take on the cases he found intriguing, instead of spending his time sorting out petty housebreakers and gangs of shop-lifters? Now she thought about it, starting up a detective agency had been a great idea. Just what she would have done herself in his position. Like father, like daughter, and one day soon, when he found out what a smooth operator she was, he would take her on as his assistant, no problem at all.

  ‘Shan’t be long,’ she yelled, as the front door slammed behind her. ‘Just going for a walk.’ No point in telling them she was on her way to the reservoir – to look at the place where Natalie Stevens was last seen alive.

  Chapter Two

  A cloud had covered the sun and a cold breeze was making ripples on the water. Small waves lapped against the concrete barrier, making it clear, in case anyone thought it was a proper lake, that the stretch of water was man-made, unnatural.

  Karen zipped up her jacket and re-tied the trailing lace on one of her boots. At the other end of the reservoir – where it had happened – there was a shore line that in times of drought extended out towards the receding water until the shingle gave way to hard mud, covered in open cracks.

  Now, at the end of September, following several weeks of rain, the reservoir was fairly full. Karen wondered if Natalie had come here alone. From what she had heard about her she couldn’t imagine her doing anything much on her own.

  The body had been found on a Saturday. That was all Karen could remember for certain. How long had it lain at the water’s edge? All night? For several days? She would have to look up the reports in the local paper. Did they keep old copies at the library? Could anyone ask to see them or did you need special permission?

  After her mother’s mushroom tortellini she would go round to her father’s flat and ask him, in a casual kind of way, what he knew about the murder and how it would be possible to discover a few more facts about what had happened.

  Two ducks were bobbing on the water. They moved towards her, hoping for bread, then turned away and started pecking at a clump of greyish-looking reeds. The sky had darkened. Karen glanced up at clouds, wondering if there was going to be a downpour, then started along the path, her heart starting to beat a little faster as she approached the spot where the body had been found.

  Simon had showed her the place. There had been a picture in the newspaper and, using his superior powers of observation, he had picked out two or three landmarks and pinpointed the exact position.

  Standing with one foot resting on a rotting, moss-covered log she gazed across the water and tried to remember the reports on the television news. The cause of death had been drowning but a post mortem showed that Natalie Stevens had been hit on the back of the head before entering the water. She had drowned in only a few inches of water and somehow that made it worse, more of a tragedy, more of a waste. Had the person who hit her known she was still alive, or had he panicked, believing she was dead, and rolled the body down the bank, hoping it would float out, then sink to the bottom of the reservoir?

  Something crackled in the undergrowth. Only a blackbird. It flew up, alighting on one of the beech trees behind the fence. Karen strolled along the water-line, looking for clues, but without any real expectation of finding anything. Six months had passed and in any case the police would have carried out a thorough search of the area, probably using tracker dogs. Part of a sheet of thick blue polythene had attached itself to the remains of a hollow plastic gnome with half its dopey face missing. Did people throw rubbish in the reservoir or had the garden gnome been stolen from a garden and chucked in the water for a joke? Apart from a couple of ice-lolly sticks and a baby’s dummy Karen could see nothing but slimy mud and thin patches of shingle.

  Why had she come? Because that was what you were supposed to do. Start at the scene of the crime, soak up the atmosphere, cast your mind back to a night in April and try to picture the scene. A shudder jerked her shoulders. Turning away from the reservoir she jumped up the grassy bank, climbed the tall perimeter fence and walked
quickly across the rough ground that led back to town.

  *

  Her father was out. She phoned just after eight but there was no reply. Working on a case, or had he found himself a girlfriend at last? Karen was always full of helpful suggestions – computer dating, clubs for the divorced and separated – but up to now he had shown little interest. Perhaps, like her, he was hoping her mother would realise her mistake, Alex would move out, and everything would return to normal.

  The following day she skipped the auditions for the school play, and went round to the house in Cobb Street where three rooms on the ground floor doubled as her father’s office and living quarters. R. J. CADY. PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR. The sign on the door should have been larger, more eye-catching, but presumably people looked up ‘private detective’ in the yellow pages and phoned for an appointment. All the same, others might pass the building, notice the sign and store it away in their memory for a future date.

  She rang the bell and waited, willing him to be home – in his office, or maybe still in bed after a night out on surveillance.

  The door opened a crack, as though he was expecting an unwelcome visitor, then his long, thin face broke into a smile. ‘Come in then if you’re coming.’ He stepped back into the house and stood in the hallway, scratching his neck. ‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’

  ‘No classes between eleven and one. I phoned yesterday evening but you were out.’ She followed him into the office and sat on one of the easy chairs designed for his clients.

  Before her parents split up all three rooms had been used for his business. Now his books and papers were squeezed into the room at the front of the house and the other two rooms had been converted into a kitchen with a shower in one corner, and a living room with a divan bed and a fitted cupboard for his clothes. Surely having a whole house between her mother and Alex was an unfair distribution of assets. Not that anyone ever took any notice of what she thought and, to be fair, her father never seemed depressed. Just the opposite as a matter of fact.