Cherringham--The Body in the Lake

by Neil Richards

  It hadn’t taken her long to find the addresses for everyone who’d been at the fateful twinning dinner. After excluding the likes of Tony and Cecil — and those who had a strong alibi — they’d decided on just five names: Harry and Vanessa, June, Lee and Marie.

  Sarah had shown him what the mail would look like when it came: no headers, no apparent coding, no clue as to the sender, simply the words ‘A Friend’ in the sender’s tab.

  And within the mail the message which was intended to set a chill in the killer’s heart — whoever they were: ‘Meet me on the island at midnight — or the police get to hear all about what you were up to on Saturday night’.

  In theory, it was a good tactic. But what if the killer wasn’t one of those five? What if they never got the mail? And worse — what if they did turn up — but ready to kill again?

  Lady Repton had listened to the plan carefully — and suggested she should have a role too, as lookout. Hence the walkie-talkie. In truth, Jack had been grateful. It was good to know there was someone they could contact if things did get out of hand.

  He hoped they wouldn’t.

  Guess we’ll know soon enough, thought Jack.

  The little boat bumped against the rocks of the island.

  “We’re here,” said Sarah, disturbing his thoughts.

  Jack paddled through the jagged stones until the boat rested against the grassy bank. Then he climbed out and tied up. Sarah handed him the blankets and the picnic basket, plus his old duffel bag and jacket.

  “Let’s get the boat hidden in the trees,” he said.

  Unlike the Repton rowing boats back at the jetty, Jack’s little fibreglass dinghy which they’d brought on the back of Sarah’s Rav-4 was light enough to carry.

  In a matter of minutes they’d hidden the boat in the undergrowth and were standing between the pillars of the old temple.

  Jack took out his old flashlight and switched it on, then beckoned to Sarah to follow him into the temple. When they were inside, he pushed the door to.

  “Yikes. This place is pretty spooky,” said Sarah. “Where are we going to hide?”

  Jack trained the light on the steps. “The perfect lookout point.”

  He led the way to the balcony, then laid out the blankets, food basket and duffel.

  “Check out the view,” said Jack, nodding to the window.

  Jack leaned against the glass with Sarah and peered out: already it was so dark that the far edge of the lake was hardly visible. Half a mile away across the sloping lawns, he could just see the outline of Repton Hall.

  He saw a light in one of the upstairs windows and a figure moving. He pulled out a small walkie-talkie from his pocket and spoke into it:

  “Jack to hall, Jack to hall. You reading me?”

  “Reading you loud and clear Jack. This is hall, over.”

  He shook his head and grinned at that.

  “You might want to turn the light off now, ma’am.”

  “Wilco!”

  Jack turned to Sarah who stood next to him, and mouthed — ‘wilco’?

  She shrugged and grinned back.

  “Radio silence until you see something, over.”

  “Understood, Jack. Over and out.”

  Jack clicked off the walkie-talkie, then turned to Sarah:

  “You know, if you offered her the chance to do this again, and the only downside was that her grandson had to stay in prison for a week — I think she’d jump at the offer.”

  “If Simon was your grandson, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yeah, maybe,” said Jack grinning at her.

  He watched as Sarah sat down on the blanket.

  “And we might as well eat while there’s still some light,” she said.

  “Sure,” said Jack, joining her and putting his flashlight down. “Our guests might decide to come early…”

  Sarah woke suddenly with a jolt, completely confused, not sure where she was.

  Then she saw Jack, standing above her, his face lit by moonlight through the temple window.

  “We got visitors,” he said softly.

  She scrambled quickly to her feet and joined him at the window.

  “Where?” she said, raising her eyes above the windowsill and looking out across the lake.

  “Somewhere down by the jetty –“

  The walkie-talkie in Jack’s hand crackled.

  “On one of the boats now,” came Lady Repton’s voice on low volume.

  “Who is it?” said Jack into the walkie-talkie.

  “Can’t tell,” said Lady Repton. “Too dark. Over.”

  “Okay,” said Jack. “Radio silence for now please, Lady Repton. You know what to do if I call again.”

  “Wilco, Temple. Roger and out.”

  Sarah peered into the darkness. She could see the boat moving towards them, oars splashing on the moonlit water.

  “Any idea who it is?” said Sarah.

  “Nope,” said Jack. “I know one thing though — rowing like that they’re going to be lucky to make it without drowning.”

  “This is going to be interesting,” said Sarah.

  “That’s for sure. Just need to let them make the moves.”

  Sarah could just see Jack’s face in the darkness. He was smiling. And she realised — a year ago, maybe, she would have been worried. But now, knowing Jack as she did — she felt confident.

  If he wasn’t worried — then she shouldn’t be.

  But then she also remembered — when he truly was worried, he was also pretty good at hiding it…

  “How long was I asleep?” she said.

  “Half an hour, maybe.”

  “Sorry, Jack.”

  “Hey, no problem. You got kids and a job — gotta grab the sleep when you can.”

  Hmm, she thought, I do have kids and a job. So what am I doing out here on an island getting ready to ambush a killer —

  But there wasn’t more time to think, because down in the temple she could hear the main door creaking open and she now saw the beam of a torch cutting into the darkness below.

  She crept forward on the balcony, her body low, so she could see over the rim of stone.

  Just who was it, who’d sneaked on to the estate, taken a rowing boat and come out to the island in the middle of the night…?

  Was it the killer?

  She was about to find out …

  17. Met by Moonlight

  Through the old iron bars of the balcony railing, Sarah saw a tall figure standing in the middle of the temple. She recognised the shape instantly.

  It was Vanessa Howden!

  Sarah looked at Jack who was now lying next to her. He shrugged — he could clearly see the turkey-farmer’s wife too and seemed just as surprised.

  But then another torch clicked on — and Sarah realised that two people had come across on the boat.

  There was no mistaking the other figure either — Cherringham’s one-time chair of the Parish Council: June Rigby.

  A torch beam slid up the steps towards the balcony where Sarah and Jack were lying. She pulled back quickly away from the light.

  “See anything?” said Vanessa, her voice booming.

  “For God’s sake, do keep it down,” said June.

  “Don’t be pathetic, June. There’s clearly nobody here.”

  “So what do we do now?” said June.

  “We wait.”

  “This is ridiculous. Total waste of time. Nobody’s going to turn up—”

  “Oh really? Listen! What’s that then? The ghost of Laurent Bourdin?”

  “Vanessa, do you have no feelings at all?”

  From outside the temple, Sarah heard the bang of another boat hitting the rocks at the edge of the island, followed by a muffled curse, splashing and more cursing.

  While she and Jack had been concentrating on the happy couple below, somebody else had clearly taken the other boat and rowed to the island.

  The arrival of a third hot tubber was now causing chaos in the temple. She saw one
of the torches turn off.

  “Turn your bloody torch off,” said Vanessa.

  “No!” said June. “Turn yours on! I don’t want to be out here in the dark with some blackmailer on the loose…”

  “Always have to be in charge, don’t you,” said Vanessa. “Do you never give up telling people what to do?”

  “Pot and kettle, Vanessa, pot and kettle…”

  Sarah watched as Vanessa’s torch flicked back on.

  Jack leaned in close to Sarah: “Any guesses on who the new arrival is?” he whispered.

  “Right now, I have no idea,” said Sarah.

  “Join the club,” said Jack with a baffled shake of his head. “But you gotta admit; this sure is worth the entry fee.”

  Sarah slid forward to the edge of the balcony and gazed down at the door to the temple. The two women had both now trained their torches on the door.

  Who else had read her email and had something to hide? Who was the mysterious third guest to the island?

  She watched as the door creaked open and a man stepped into the temple holding his own torch, its beam now lighting up the two startled women…

  “Harry!” said Vanessa. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Vanessa?” said Harry Howden. “I thought you were at book club?”

  “And you — you’re supposed to be in Chipping Norton meeting suppliers!”

  Sarah watched as Harry’s torch flicked sideways and lit up June’s face.

  “You’re blinding me, you idiot, put it away,” said June.

  “Well if it isn’t our helpful ex-chair,” said Harry.

  “What are you doing here?” said June.

  “You sent me an email telling me to come,” said Harry. “Didn’t you?”

  “No, I didn’t,” said June.

  “Well, somebody did,” said Harry. “And I assume it wasn’t you, Vanessa.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Vanessa. “I don’t need to know what you were up to on Saturday night. Because to my eternal shame, I do already. Cavorting like a damned teenager. Champagne! Drugs! Girls! You should be ashamed of yourself. If my friends in Cherringham knew—“

  “All right, all right, we’ve been through it a million times, let’s just forget it shall we?” said Harry, with what sounded to Sarah like despair.

  Sarah watched as he stared glumly at the two women.

  “So then — who did send the email?” he said. “And why did he send it to you two?”

  Vanessa and Jane looked nervously at each other.

  Very shifty, thought Sarah.

  “I don’t know,” said June.

  “I can’t… imagine,” said Vanessa.

  “Oh yeah?” said Harry. “Don’t forget — we’re all in this together. And when his lordship goes to court we need to be telling the same story. Or you won’t have any friends left in Cherringham…”

  Sarah looked at Jack, next to her. Were they going to get a confession? Jack winked and held up his walkie-talkie.

  “Lady R is getting the whole deal on that little recorder I gave her,” he whispered.

  “Priceless,” said Sarah.

  “All right,” said June. “Let’s just say… we are slightly involved.”

  “Not intentionally,” said Vanessa. “Things just… got out of control.”

  “Go on,” said Harry. “I want to hear this.”

  “That night,” said June. “In the hot tub. I suddenly realised what was really going on. How corrupt the whole twinning project had become.”

  “Corrupt?” said Harry. “It was just business. It’s how the real world works, June, how the wheels get oiled—”

  “Drugs? Bribery? Kickbacks?” said June. “That’s not ‘just business’. Or if it is — I want no part of it.”

  “So what happened?” said Harry. “You obviously did something else that night that you’re ashamed of. What?”

  She hesitated. Sarah was afraid June Rigby might — as they say — ‘clam up’. But after a moment, she continued. “After you and Simon agreed to pay Laurent the extra he was demanding—”

  “How do you know about that?” said Harry.

  “I followed you to the bar,” said June. “Overheard you.”

  “So much for your moral high ground. You spied on us.”

  “Whatever. Anyway — that’s when I decided I’d had enough. So I didn’t go back to the tub. I just… went up to bed—”

  “Which is where I met her — on the landing,” said Vanessa.

  “What were you doing there?” said Harry.

  “I was on my way to drag you away from that bloody hot tub, what do you think?” said Vanessa.

  “Oh, right.”

  “Vanessa told me she wanted to kill the whole deal too,” said June. “She also said she’d looked out of the window and seen Lee and Marie on the island, together, you know, doing…”

  “We knew Laurent and Marie were an item,” said Vanessa. “So we wrote a note telling him if he went out to the island he’d get his cash…”

  “I slid it under his door…” said June.

  “And twenty minutes later, I saw him rowing out there,” said Vanessa. “I knew if he spotted Lee with Marie, he’d stop the twinning.”

  “And destroy my bloody business with it,” said Harry. “Didn’t you care — about us?”

  “I care about you, Harry,” said Vanessa. “It was for your own good. You and France would have destroyed us!”

  “What happened then?” said Harry. “Don’t tell me you killed him, June?”

  “You are so stupid…” said June. “Do I look like a killer?”

  “How would I know?” said Harry. “But if you didn’t kill him — was it Simon after all?”

  “No, he was in no state to do anything,” said June. “I went back to the hot tub to make sure he was okay. He was still there, all on his own. Sad, really. I managed to get him to his room — and that was the last I saw of him.”

  “So if none of us killed Laurent…” said Harry. “Then who did?”

  From deep below the temple, Sarah heard a loud clang — the sound of metal against stone.

  At the same instant, next to her, Jack stood up and switched on his light, pointing it down at the shocked and surprised faces of the three guilty hot tubbers.

  “Evening, folks. I think we’re all about to find out the answer to that question,” said Jack.

  “What the hell — Brennan?” said Harry, pointing his torch up at Sarah and Jack. “What’s going on?”

  Sarah watched as Jack started down the steps, keeping his light on Vanessa, Harry and June as he went.

  “Best do as I say,” he continued. “Somebody’s coming. And we’ll all be just fine. That okay with everybody?”

  Sarah took the steps behind him.

  The killer was on the way — and she wanted to be right next to Jack when they arrived.

  Jack leaned against the wall and figured how it was going to play out.

  Because now he knew who he was dealing with, he had a plan.

  Funny — right from the beginning they’d been thinking the motive was all about the twinning.

  Whereas in reality, it was that old, old story. A man and a woman. And another man…

  From beneath his feet there now came the sound of metal on stone. A scraping and levering sound. Grunts, the sound of physical exertion.

  “Everybody ready?” he said quietly into the pitch darkness inside the temple. The moon had gone in and the place was totally black.

  He’d gotten them all to turn off their flashlights — not because it was strictly necessary, but it would just be a more dramatic surprise to this latest entry in the ‘where were you that night?’ contest.

  And what better setting for the big reveal could there be but an old temple on an island in the middle of an English country estate?

  Certainly beat some dealer’s den on a wet night in the projects…

  The clanging sound got louder, and then Jack saw a gli
mmer of light from the centre of the stone floor. The slice of light expanded as the whole stone slab lifted slowly in the air, towards Jack and the others who stood next to him.

  Jack had made them stand this side so that whoever emerged from the tunnel would only be able to see them once the stone had been completely pushed back.

  He looked at Sarah — he could tell she was enjoying this too. Then he turned back to watch as a head then shoulders now popped up, silhouetted against the broad beam of light from the flashlight they carried.

  The figure swept the torch around the temple, and just as it swung round towards Jack:

  “Now,” he said, switching on his own flashlight.

  With perfect timing the others turned on their lights too — and the five beams converged on the face of Lee Jones.

  “Aagh, what the—” he said. “Turn those bloody things off, will you, I can’t see!”

  “Lee!” said voices at Jack’s side as the identity of their surprise guest was revealed.

  “Sorry, Lee,” said Jack. “But I think we’ll keep them on, if you don’t mind.”

  “What’s going on?” said Lee.

  “I think you’re about to be arrested for murder,” said Sarah. “Or at the very least, manslaughter.”

  “Bollocks,” said Lee. “You can’t prove anything.”

  Jack played his own flashlight down towards Lee’s hand.

  “Is that a tyre iron I see before me?” said Jack.

  “What?”

  “I guess this time you had to bring one with you from your own car. Couldn’t pinch one from Simon’s — since the police have that one as evidence already.”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” said Lee. “Harry, June — what’s this all about?”

  “Might as well come clean, Lee,” said Harry. “When the game’s up, you can’t fight it. I should know…”

  Jack stared at Lee: he was clearly making his mind up.

  “See if I can’t,” said Lee.

  And Jack watched as the car salesman swung round and down into the tunnel to make his escape. He landed with a loud splash, and they all heard him deep below as his echoing footsteps faded into the distance, running back towards the Hall.

  “Shouldn’t we try and stop him?” said June.

  “By the time he reaches the house, the police will be waiting for him,” said Jack, holding up the walkie-talkie. “Isn’t that right, Lady Repton?”