The Crooked Shore

by Martin Edwards

  Kingsley locked the gun safely in its drawer and left his office. He was just about to get into his car when a blue VW Passat came down the drive, making a loud, unnatural noise. Fiona Hudson waved and wound down her window. She and her wife, Molly, popped over regularly to keep an eye on the flat they let out to tourists. Fiona had pink hair and various piercings in her nose, lips, and eyebrows, all of which prejudiced Kingsley against her. Not his sort of person at all, but pleasant enough to speak to.

  ‘Sorry to make such a fearful racket! Enough to wake the dead, I know. The exhaust has worked loose, and I’ve patched it up not very successfully. I’ll take it into the garage when I get chance, but we’re rushed off our feet at the nail bar. It compensates for this place being so quiet.’

  ‘Any luck with bookings?’

  ‘Thank goodness the weather forecast is fine. We have someone arriving next Wednesday for ten days.’

  Kingsley decided not to mention Greengables’ plan to ratchet up the service charge. People were so often inclined to shoot the messenger.

  He drove back to Bowness and treated himself to an early lunch at a cafe near the pier. A waitress offered him a menu, but he already knew what he wanted. Smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on brown toast, washed down with a latte. Just the ticket. As he swallowed his first mouthful, an idea came to him, an idea so shocking that he almost choked on a chunk of toast.

  What if Logan Prentice had somehow scraped an acquaintance with Tory?

  Absurd as it seemed, this idea presented a solution to the riddles nagging at him. First, his sighting of Prentice at Strandbeck on the afternoon of that wretched fellow’s suicide. Suppose Prentice was on his way to the manor? An appalling possibility, but it would explain Tory’s behaviour that day. Kingsley recalled her impatience to get rid of him; it made so much more sense if she was expecting another visitor, someone she didn’t want Kingsley to meet.

  Second, Tory’s over-the-top reaction last night, lashing out after he described Logan Prentice and suggested he might be the intruder in the manor’s grounds. If her conscience was pricking, she might opt for attack as the best form of defence.

  ‘Everything all right, love?’

  His facial expression must have alarmed the waitress, but he sent her away with an impatient flap of the hand. Jealousy knotted his stomach. If Tory and Prentice knew each other, was it conceivable that she’d taken him to her bed? Kingsley wouldn’t put it past her. Her appetites were extraordinary, given her age and history of serious heart trouble. In his admittedly limited experience, he’d never known a woman make such physical demands. Did she feel the need for someone else?

  He tried to eat, in the hope of taking his mind off the horrific pictures that came unbidden to his mind. Logan Prentice’s lithe body wrapped around Tory’s fleshy curves. It was no good. The food was sticking in his throat; he couldn’t bear to get it down. He swallowed a mouthful of coffee and stumbled over to the cash till.

  ‘Sure you’re all right, sir?’ The toothy waitress looked apprehensive.

  He made an inarticulate noise of assent and rushed out into the fresh air, gasping for breath.

  On the pavement, as impatient pedestrians jostled by, the answer struck him like a thunderclap.

  Logan Prentice was planning another murder. His next victim would be Tory Reece-Taylor.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘This question is for DCI Scarlett,’ said a young reporter from the regional press.

  Up on the makeshift podium in the Media Centre, alongside the Chief Constable and Siobhan, the head of Media Relations, Hannah took a sip of water and tried to compose her features into an expression of calm and competence.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  The young man coughed. ‘After all these years, how can you possibly hope to succeed where previous investigators have failed?’

  ‘I don’t underestimate the challenge,’ Hannah said. ‘But the passage of the years sometimes works in our favour. People who once had a reason to remain silent may no longer feel obliged to preserve a confidence. Or their consciences may trouble them. Or something clicks in their mind that makes sense of a piece of evidence that previously seemed unimportant or irrelevant.’

  ‘Can you find Ramona’s body?’

  ‘I make no promises. All I can say is that my team has solved complex old crimes before. With help from you in the press and members of the public, we can do it again.’

  A small woman with steel-rimmed spectacles resting on a long nose almost leapt from her seat in the front row. She’d kept raising her hand ever since Siobhan first invited questions, but the chief had resolutely ignored her, and Hannah guessed that he’d recognised a scourge of authority. Suppressing a sigh, Hannah gave her a nod.

  ‘Midge Van Beek, freelance.’ The woman spoke rapidly, as if determined to have her say before being frog-marched out by agents of oppression. ‘Chief Constable, isn’t it time for the Cumbria Constabulary to offer a full and unqualified apology to the family of the late Darren Lace for the pain they have suffered? For repeated failures to clear the cloud of suspicion that hung over them for decades?’

  The chief cleared his throat, a process which became unusually protracted. He was a grizzled veteran cop, good with people but overly fond of easy options and a quiet life. He’d announced his long-anticipated retirement shortly before the election of the PCC. Speculation was rife that, foreseeing Kit Gleadall’s triumph and a future less comfortable than the past, he’d preferred to make the decision himself rather than have it snatched out of his hands. Soon he’d be able to retire to his villa in Andalusia, fitting in an occasional round of golf in between cocktails. The last thing he wanted was to mar his final weeks in post by getting embroiled in a public row. Let alone make any admission that exposed the force to claims for compensation.

  Twitching in her seat, Midge Van Beek was unable to contain herself. She looked around the assembled press corps, scanning the room as if in search of a soapbox.

  ‘In case anyone has forgotten, two men have killed themselves. They walked out into the sea …’

  ‘You’ve asked a very important question.’ The chief spoke slowly and with great solemnity.

  Hannah recognised another time-honoured technique for buying time to think. The vagueness of his expression indicated that he’d need more than a few seconds to say anything capable of shutting up Midge Van Beek.

  Time to take one for the team. Hannah grabbed the microphone. ‘We certainly don’t forget the dead, and we don’t forget Ramona Smith, either. For as long as a serious crime remains unsolved, suspicion swirls around everyone involved. We owe it to those people to work night and day to bring closure. To exonerate the innocent as well as to punish the guilty.’

  ‘Thank you, Chief Inspector, thank you everyone.’ Siobhan, a timid young woman who was happiest when tweeting about initiatives to crack down on dog fouling, almost squeaked with relief as the time allotted for the press conference ran out. ‘We will of course be updating you further the moment DCI Scarlett’s team has some news to report.’

  With that, she shepherded Hannah and the chief off the podium and into the safe haven of the green room. Kit Gleadall was waiting for them. Hannah had assumed he’d want to take his place on the podium, but he’d kept away from the limelight, watching the live feed on a large TV screen.

  ‘Well done, Hannah,’ the chief constable boomed. ‘You certainly put that wretched woman in her place.’

  ‘Yes, congratulations.’ Gleadall gave a wicked smile. ‘Just what we wanted. You managed to say as little as possible in the most positive way imaginable. Ever thought of becoming a cabinet minister?’

  ‘I think you should take that as a compliment,’ the chief said hurriedly.

  ‘Glad to get it over with.’ Hannah brushed a straggly hair off her face. She’d kept postponing a trip to the hairdresser, not anticipating an appearance on TV that would give everyone in the region a chance to tut at her unkempt locks. ‘I find performing for the press
as much fun as root-canal surgery.’

  ‘Don’t undervalue yourself,’ Gleadall said. ‘You were great.’

  The chief was brightening already, and Hannah knew what he had in mind. With any luck, he’d be downing those tequilas in Spain before it became clear that the new investigation was getting nowhere.

  ‘I suppose Lace was mentally disturbed, like his father before him,’ he said. ‘Nobody kills themselves as a protest against so-called police inefficiency. Hack journalists always see things in black and white, not shades of grey. Their narrative is simple. Twenty years on, we’re nowhere near solving Ramona Smith’s murder.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call Midge Van Beek a hack,’ Gleadall murmured.

  ‘The woman’s a malcontent,’ the chief said. ‘Did you see the programme she made about …’

  ‘Sorry to interrupt, but I’d better be on my way.’ Hannah didn’t want to play piggy-in-the-middle. ‘The first step is to find Ramona’s father and see what he can tell us. Once we’ve sifted through all the old statements, we’ll start figuring out who else we want to talk to.’

  ‘Go for it!’ Gleadall clapped Hannah on the back. ‘This time things will be different. You’ll solve the mystery of Ramona Smith. I feel it in my bones.’

  Turning to leave, she glanced over her shoulder and gave him a bleak smile. ‘No pressure, then?’

  Logan Prentice scared Kingsley. Until that dreadful afternoon on the Crooked Shore, Kingsley had done his utmost to forget him. Now, dodging past the swans that congregated near the ticket kiosks for lake cruises, he realised the battle was lost. Logan Prentice had taken over his mind, occupying his thoughts like an incubus, manipulative and devoid of conscience.

  Leaving the crowds behind him, Kingsley took a path through the fields bordering Windermere. As the sun slid behind a sinister cloud, he found a vacant bench at Cockshott Point, a promontory jutting out into the lake below Bowness Bay. Across a narrow strip of water lay wooded Belle Isle, largest of Windermere’s islands, and the only one where people lived. A Roman commander had built a villa there, and during the Civil War the island formed a Royalist stronghold. Through the trees peeped the dome of the eighteenth-century Round House, mocked by Wordsworth as a ‘tea canister in a shop window.’ Modern-day tourists marvelled at its neoclassical elegance.

  For once, the lakeside scenery failed to weave its usual magic. Fear that Tory might be in mortal danger made his spine tingle. The trouble was that Logan Prentice’s boyish charm was so deceptive. Kingsley had read somewhere that this was a hallmark of psychopaths and serial killers. It was so easy for a decent person to be taken in by the lies. To be seduced, literally and metaphorically. He knew that to his cost.

  As soon as Logan Prentice started calling at Sunset View to play the piano, Mamma took a shine to him. One afternoon Kingsley arrived in the conservatory lounge just as Logan was admiring Mamma’s gold and lapis lazuli solitaire ring. She introduced the two men, and they got on famously. Before long they fell into a habit of chatting with each other whenever she fell asleep over her tea and Eccles cake.

  Logan was an attentive listener, blessed with a gift for making people feel special. They began to exchange confidences. Not only did Logan have the younger generation’s easy familiarity with the esoteric riddles of technology, he also loved the arts. As well as playing the piano, he dabbled in amateur theatricals and was a member of a small local group based in Newby Bridge, the Newbies. He’d been given a minor role in a recent Alan Ayckbourn.

  ‘Just small parts,’ he said with a roguish wink. ‘I’m hoping for better things. Size does matter, don’t you agree?’

  Kingsley chortled. His tales of life in the antiques trade enthralled Logan. The young man asked intelligent questions about how to value old jewellery and china, and was fascinated to hear about the Melton family’s collection of vintage lapis lazuli, painstakingly assembled over half a century. Kingsley began to look forward to these conversations even more than the chance to spend time with Mamma. One day, he mentioned that Logan might like to pop over to the bungalow to see the treasures first hand. Logan said that would be lovely, and they exchanged shy smiles.

  Their friendship was jinxed from the moment Ivy Podmore took up residence in the home. She doted on Logan, and the amount of time she spent chattering to him soon put Mamma’s nose out of joint.

  Worse was a humiliating incident which concerned the disappearance of the solitaire ring. Mamma caused a rumpus by accusing Logan of pinching it. Kingsley’s mortification increased tenfold when a care assistant found the ring tucked under a cushion on Mamma’s favourite sofa. It might have fallen there by accident, but as the manager muttered, just loudly enough for Kingsley to hear, the attention-seeking old biddy had probably hidden it there herself. Although he’d rather die than admit it, Kingsley wouldn’t have put it past her.

  ‘Not to worry,’ Logan said, displaying a magnanimity that thrilled his ever-growing fan club at Sunset View. ‘These things happen. Anyone can make a mistake, even someone as sharp as a tack, like Sybil.’

  Sybil Melton wasn’t mollified by his generosity. ‘He’s a sly one,’ she muttered to Kingsley. ‘You mark my words, he’ll get that old fool to give all her worldly goods next. Then her life won’t be worth tuppence.’

  It was a horrid accusation, and Kingsley decided not to mention that he’d invited Logan to their home. At this point, Mamma was determined to return to the bungalow as soon as she’d recovered from her most recent stroke, an illusion that Kingsley dared not shatter.

  The prospect of a clandestine encounter with the young pianist excited him. Even though – or perhaps because – he was a dutiful son, he’d always got a thrill out of doing things that would cause Mamma to kick him out of the house if, God forbid, she ever got wind of them. Those things usually involved women of whom Mamma disapproved. In fact, Mamma always found a reason to disapprove of women in whom Kingsley showed the slightest interest.

  This was different. He had no close men friends and detested male pursuits such as playing football or going to the pub. Nor had he met anyone like Logan, a fellow sensitive, artistic, and happy to hang on his every word. How marvellous to escape the inquisitive eyes and ears of the care assistants and have a convivial get-together in private.

  ‘This stuff must be really valuable,’ Logan said, when examining Mamma’s display cabinet, home to her beloved collection. ‘Don’t you find it difficult to get suitable insurance?’

  ‘I’ll let you into a secret,’ Kingsley said. ‘We don’t tell the insurers their full value.’

  ‘Isn’t that risky? I mean, I don’t want to pry, but they must be worth a packet.’

  With a touch of bravado, Kingsley named a figure, and Logan’s eyebrows shot up.

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘I suppose it is a calculated risk, but the bungalow is alarmed, and you’d never guess from the road that we have anything special inside.’

  ‘That’s all right, then,’ Logan said.

  When Kingsley invited him to play the old piano, Logan obliged with a medley of classics from the Andrew Lloyd Webber songbook. The piano, an iron-framed and walnut-veneered Art Deco antique, was badly in need of tuning, but that didn’t bother Logan. As he crooned the words to ‘I Don’t Know How to Love Him,’ Kingsley ruffled his hair, in a purely companionable way. For a few moments he thought something more might happen, but they were both reserved people. Logan said he really ought to be going, but he’d had a wonderful time and hoped he might visit again. Kingsley’s intuition was that they had crossed a line. He hardly dared imagine what they’d find on the other side.

  Forty-eight hours later, the bungalow was burgled, just before supper in Sunset View. At precisely that time, Logan was serenading Ivy Podmore with a selection from Ivor Novello while Kingsley was trying to distract Mamma with aimless chatter about the good old days in their shop on Kirkland.

  Meanwhile, darkness had fallen in Bowness. The burglar alarm failed to go off, but a nosey neighbour
heard someone fiddling with a key in the back door lock and scurried round to investigate. She glimpsed the burglar fleeing empty-handed, but her description was useless. She couldn’t even be sure it was a man rather than a woman.

  Kingsley’s own house keys were safe, but he discovered that Mamma’s redundant set had gone missing from the old crocodile skin handbag which was her permanent companion in Sunset View. He plucked up the courage to mention this to Logan.

  ‘No!’ Dismay was written all over Logan’s handsome features. ‘How terribly upsetting! Surely you don’t think that one of the carers could be responsible?’

  This wasn’t quite the reaction Kingsley had anticipated, but he supposed it was a good question.

  ‘Well, I hate to suggest …’

  ‘Thank God nothing was actually stolen. Of course, your dear old Mummy’s so absent-minded, she must have dropped the keys somewhere. Wasn’t her post code written on the key ring? Anyone who picked them up would know where she lived. An opportunistic crime, I guess. Such a rotten shame.’ A gleam lit his lovely blue eyes. ‘Burglary is so … invasive. When you go back home, you must feel, I don’t know, defiled.’

  A fortnight passed before Kingsley finally asked himself how Logan knew what was written on the key ring. The question occurred to him during Logan’s third visit to the bungalow. As usual, whilst Kingsley busied himself pouring them each a glass of buck’s fizz, Logan was sitting at the piano and performing his favourite Lloyd Webber number, ‘Any Dream Will Do.’

  ‘You didn’t … mention Mamma’s lapis lazuli to anyone, did you?’

  Logan stopped in the middle of the chorus. He looked as if he’d been bitten by a hitherto faithful Labrador.

  ‘What? You’re not suggesting I had anything to do with that?’

  ‘Lord, no, of course not. It’s just that it all seems so odd. Bowness isn’t a hotbed of crime. Why would a casual thief come here? Where did he get the key? It doesn’t add up.’

  Logan stared. ‘Hey, Kingsley, I’m not sure I care for your insinuations.’