by Clare Revell
Evan grasped her hand, rubbing the back of it with his thumb. “It’s called passing the buck.”
“He can’t blame me. I should have been on that boat with AJ or dropping the buoys instead of him. He told me I had no place in the water. He was right.”
“—worked with Dr. Fitzgerald?” the reporter continued.
“She’s been with me ten years now and has an impeccable record. She’s one of the best in her field. That’s all I have time for now. Any further statements will come from the police or from my press officer.”
Evan hit the off button on the remote. “Are you all right?”
“Fine.” She paused. In all the fuss, she’d forgotten about the box she’d retrieved from the crypt. “My car is still at the lake. Can you give me a lift over there? I have a meeting at seven o’clock this evening, and I left some important documents in the car.”
“Cancel it,” he said. “You’re in no fit state to do anything.”
“I can’t.” She wasn’t about to put Professor Cunningham off again. Otherwise, she might never get this job at the university.
“OK. Then I’ll take you.”
“That’s very kind, but I can’t ask that of you. Besides, I need those papers from my car anyway.”
“Then I’ll drive you to the car myself.”
“Thanks. I’ll grab my bag and coat.” She paused. “I need to be at the lake at first light.”
“You heard what he said. The whole area is a crime scene. The dive here is finished.”
She tilted her head. “I know Varian’s hiding something. That village was destroyed deliberately last night. Besides the church, all that is left now is a pile of rubble. I have proof. The only house that remained intact was wired with explosives that, for some reason, didn’t go off. I owe it to AJ to find out what’s going on.”
“Hey.” He caught hold of her and wrapped his arms around her. “Please take it easy. It’s been a very long, rough day.”
“I’m not hysterical.”
“I never said you were.” He brushed his lips against hers. “It wasn’t your fault, so don’t blame yourself.”
Lou looked up and once again drowned in his intense blue gaze. “OK. Can’t make any promises.”
He smiled and pressed his lips against her forehead. “I know. Let’s go and get your car.”
When they arrived at the dam, Lou frowned. Crime scene tape fluttered around where she’d parked. A police car along with a couple of white vans remained in the car park. Flood lights lit up the area along the edge of the water. Several white suited SOCO’s worked quietly. Varian’s car was parked in front of the office. “What’s he doing here?”
“I’ll go find out. You get to your meeting. You don’t want to be late.”
She nodded. On impulse she leaned over and kissed his cheek. “See you later.” She got out of the car and hurried over to hers. She unlocked it, making sure the box was still in the boot. She closed the boot and climbed into the front. AJ’s jacket was still tossed on the passenger seat where he’d left it. Tears burned and slowly tracked down her cheeks.
Lou closed her eyes. Her phone rang. She dragged it from her pocket and didn’t bother reading the screen as she answered. “D-Dr. F-Fitz-g-g-gerald.” Her voice wobbled, but she didn’t care.
“Lou?” Her stepfather’s voice was uncharacteristically concerned. “Dark Lake is all over the news here. They said an archaeologist died. Are you all right?”
“No,” she answered honestly, her voice still wavering. Jack was the one person she never hid her emotions from. He’d seen her at her worst several years ago, so hiding anything from him was pointless. She’d called him Dad since she was a teenager, but her head still referred to him as Jack. “AJ’s dead. It should have been me out there, not him.”
“I’m coming over on the next flight I can make.” His tone left no room for argument. Lou had learnt long ago that arguing with him was a waste of breath.
“Is Mum coming, too?”
“She wants to, but Emily has a ballet recital this weekend, and one of us ought to be here for it. I imagine Jim will be fighting tooth and nail to come with me, so I’ll leave first.”
Lou shook her head. “There’s no need…” She rubbed her eyes. “Emily needs you both there.” As much as she wanted her mother, her younger siblings ought to take priority. She’d always tried to take a backseat as far as that went, and most of the time it had worked.
This time, however, she desperately hoped they’d see through it.
“There is every need,” he said. “I’ll be there in two days. Sooner if I can hop on an Air Force flight.” He hung up before she could object.
Lou stared at the phone. It’d be good to see him, but how did she explain all this? And more to the point, how did she explain Evan? Somehow in less than a week, he’d gone from someone in her way, to an acquaintance, to the bloke putting her up in his house after saving her life to…what?
She wasn’t sure he fitted into the boyfriend category—yet. But she’d kissed him. More than once. And she had feelings for him.
How would she explain that one to her stepfather?
She sucked in a deep breath and tucked her phone into her bag. Time to go meet this professor and try to get herself a new job. That way she could resign without fear of unemployment before Varian fired her in the morning. Failing that, she’d just resign. Anything had to be better than this.
20
Evan parked as close to the office on the dam as he could. As he got out of the car, a man in a suit and long overcoat approached him.
“Mr. Close?”
Evan nodded. He flipped up his collar against the rising fog. “Yes. Can I help you?”
The officer held up a warrant card. “DI James. I understand you own the lake and the dam?”
“Yes. I’ve already spoken at length to one of your officers and gave them permission to dive to corroborate Dr. Fitzgerald’s story.”
DI James nodded. “I thought you’d like to know that our dive confirmed the presence of explosives. It might be an idea to get some engineers to check the integrity of the dam itself.”
Evan nodded. “Thank you. I’ll arrange for one of my diving teams to come in at first light. I’m in charge of the company who has the contract for care of the dam. Assuming you don’t mind me doing that? I appreciate it’s a crime scene.”
“That’s fine. What’s the name of your company?”
“Xenon—our contracts include the Thames Barrier. The man you really need to speak to about the dive is Varian Sparrow. He’s ultimately responsible for anything archaeological that happens here.”
“I’ll do that. Good night.”
“Good night.” Evan spun and headed inside. Varian and Jasper paused what was evidently a heated argument. “Is this really a good idea?” Evan asked, skipping the niceties of hello.
Jasper rolled his eyes and headed to the door. “I’ll leave you blokes to it. I have work to do.”
“The explosives need setting, and I have to oversee it,” Varian said, his voice about as testy as Evan had ever heard it.
“That is not what I meant, and you know it. The police are investigating AJ’s death. This is a crime scene, or had the tape and officers out there escaped your notice?”
“He was on the lake, not in it. And that church is dangerous.”
“That church is in the lake! Therefore part of said crime scene. Another few days won’t make much difference. Besides, they’d been diving earlier this morning. Lou says—”
Varian cut him off. “Lou says what?” His eyes narrowed and his posture stiffened.
“She says the village was in ruins down there. Only the church and one other building remained intact. And that one was wired to explode. Meaning that those houses down there were intentionally destroyed.”
Varian remained straight faced. Either this wasn’t news to him, or he was a better actor than Evan gave him credit for. “She does, does she?” His voice was co
ld, his words deliberate. “Does she have proof?”
Evan hesitated. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, telling Varian the truth would be inherently dangerous for Lou. In a split second, he decided to deliberately keep his comments vague. “How would I know? I’m not exactly her confidant or work colleague. If she has, I imagine she’d have handed it to the police by now. The point is, she’s planning on diving again at first light. Any more blasting down there, and she’ll know something is going on.”
“I ended the dive. She knows that. If she dives, it’ll be against a direct order. Not to mention breaking a police cordon.”
“She doesn’t care,” Evan shot back. He wasn’t going to mention he’d got permission for his own team to dive. “You told her to do a job, and she’ll keep going until she’s completed it.”
“She can’t dive alone. I’ll bring someone in to assist. Someone I can trust.” Varian slid his hands into his pockets.
Someone who will write the report the way you want it, more like. Evan had more sense than to voice the thought. “You should have left things alone. They were just fine until you decided to interfere and dig up the past. I was arranging for extra water to be diverted here. The church would have been covered again by the end of next week. Now you’ve stirred up a hornets’ nest.”
“You need to make sure your great-grandfather’s records don’t contain anything they shouldn’t. And keep your girlfriend on a tight leash.”
“My what?” he spluttered. “I’ll have you know there is nothing going on between Dr. Fitzgerald and myself.”
Varian scoffed. “And yet you knew exactly to whom I was referring.”
The door flung open. “Evan, I need a word.” Jasper’s pale face, along with the edge in his voice, set all Evan’s nerves ablaze with concern.
“Sure. What’s up?” Evan gave Jasper his full attention, grateful for the distraction.
Jasper looked from Evan to Varian and back. “We got problems. Big problems.”
“That doesn’t sound good.” Varian peered at him.
“It isn’t.” Jasper gave Varian a sideways glance, before dumping the plans he carried on the table. “If you’ll excuse us, this is dam business.”
Varian jerked his head. “That’s my cue to leave. I need to brief my team. We’ll be back in the morning to lay the charges. Tell Lou she’ll have a new partner at lunchtime and to stay out of the lake until then.”
“Tell her yourself,” Evan sighed. “I’m not on your payroll. And you’ll need permission from the police before you enter that lake.” He waited until Varian had gone before turning his full attention to Jasper. “What’s up?”
Jasper kept his voice low. “I don’t suppose he’s out there listening, but just in case…” He spread the blueprint over the desk. “This is the diagram for the internal walls of the dam. We have an integrity issue. Those explosions in the lake last night caused damage here and here.” His finger stabbed the papers as he spoke.
“Can you repair it?”
“We can patch and reinforce the inside. The problem is, we don’t know what damage was done on the outer walls. We’ll have to drain the lake by six to eight feet to ease the pressure on the entire dam. If we don’t, then the whole dam could fail.”
Evan’s heart pounded and his mouth dried. “When?”
Jasper shrugged. “You tell me. You’re in charge of the contract for the dam’s upkeep.”
“You’re the engineer onsite. I mean it, when? Are you talking next week, or in the next few hours? Or are you simply scaremongering? If she does fail, what damage is there likely to be?”
“Total.”
Evan’s whole body went cold, and he shivered. “I’m sorry?”
“If the dam goes, it will flood the entire valley. The village, manor, school, everything will go. Any loose debris down there will go with it. People will die. And if I find out who ordered the blasting down there—” Jasper let the threat hang.
“He isn’t too far away,” Evan muttered. “He wants to bring the church down.”
“And I’ve told him no, not that he’s listening.”
Evan tapped the plans. “Did the explosions in the lake cause this?”
“Possibly, but I suspect it was caused deliberately. At least the internal damage. I was going to ask Dr. Fitzgerald to dive down and check the outside walls but didn’t like to after all that happened today. I would send my usual diver, but he’s vanished. He’s not at home, and he isn’t answering his phone. I’ve reported him missing. They’re saying another body was found down there…a recent one.”
“Talk to the police about that. I’ve already got permission to dive to check the dam. I know Dr. Fitzgerald was planning on diving first thing anyway, so I’ll go with her—find out what we’re facing. I’ll call head office when I get home and get the team on standby. I can have the whole shooting match here in a matter of hours.”
Jasper jerked his head. “Thanks. Tell Varian not to blast anything until the dam’s been checked completely.”
“Sure. When are you opening the overspill gates?”
“In around ten minutes, to coincide with the tide. A controlled release won’t cause any flooding downstream. You’ll need to sign off on it.”
Evan held out his hand for the paperwork and scrawled his signature on the bottom. “There you go. If the dam does go, how much warning will we get?”
Jasper shrugged. “Depends what we find down there. I just pray she’ll last until morning.”
“You and me both.”
“Thanks, boss. I’m testing the dam alarm system at ten, but I’ll put a warning out before then.”
Evan nodded. “Keep me posted. G’night.”
He headed outside and back to the car. “Home.” He looked at Ira. “There are several calls I need to make.” He paused. “It might be an idea to call your mum as well. Suggest she go to her sister’s in London for a few days. And that she leaves tonight.”
Ira frowned. “Why?”
“We have problems with the dam. If it fails, there might not be much warning.”
“I’ll call her as soon as we get back. Thank you.”
Evan climbed into the front of the car. “Welcome.” He did up his seatbelt and tugged out his phone, hitting the message screen, followed by Ralph’s name. Ralph was his second in command at Xenon and the one man he trusted the most, other than Ira. “Ralph, it’s Evan. Get the whole team on standby to go to Dark Lake. Possibly big problems at the Aberfinay Dam.”
21
Lou headed into the pub, her stomach twisting. She hadn’t had a proper job interview in years. She had no idea what this Professor Cunningham looked like, and she’d never been interviewed in a pub before.
A tall, blond man by the bar stood as she entered. His suit was partly covered by a long dark overcoat. He crossed the crowded pub towards her. “Dr. Fitzgerald?”
She tilted her head. “Are you Professor Cunningham?”
He nodded and held out a hand. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Although I’m surprised you didn’t cancel after all that happened today.” His voice softened. “I’m sorry to hear about the death of your colleague.”
“Thanks,” she said quietly. She blinked hard. She wouldn’t cry again. Not in front of the bloke she was trying to impress.
“Shall we get a table?”
“Sure.” She followed him across the pub to a relatively quiet corner. She sat and sighed. “Sorry, Professor Cunningham. It’s been a very long day.”
He handed her a menu. “I understand. And please, call me Tobias.”
“Only if you call me Lou,” she replied.
“What happened out there on the lake if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Probably exactly what the news said.” Lou opened the menu. “The boat exploded. I’m not sure why, but I can hazard a guess.”
“Sounds intriguing.”
“Far from it. I’ve been here less than a week. In that time, there has been at least
one attempt on my life. Today would make it two. It should have been me on that boat and AJ under the water.” She studied the menu. “Someone doesn’t want me here.”
Tobias glanced up for a second then turned his attention back to the menu. “You really think the boat being destroyed was deliberate? Do you have any idea who would want to hurt you?”
“I can think of someone, yeah.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “It should have been me. Oh, AJ, I’m so sorry.”
Tobias’s hand touched hers for an instant. “I’m sure he doesn’t blame you. So, what do you fancy eating? Unless you’d rather reschedule.”
She shook her head. “No. I’m fine.” Glancing at the menu, she picked the first thing she saw. “Shepherd’s pie, chips, and whatever veg they have.”
“Sounds good. And to drink?”
“Whatever you’re having.”
Tobias rose and carried his menu with him. “Be right back.”
Lou shoved her menu back into the holder on the table and leaned back in her seat. She picked up the beer mat, twisting it over and over in her hand. Around her the hum of conversation continued unabated. Life carried on as normal. But she was, once again, broken.
Tobias came back and set a pint glass in front of her. “Food will be around fifteen minutes. Bitter, OK?”
She rubbed her hand over her eyes. “That’s fine, thank you.”
He sat. “So, why change your mind about the job? When I originally wrote to you, offering you the place sight unseen, you turned me down flat. Most people your age would give their eye teeth to get a professorship so young.”
“My work situation changed. Things have become, shall we say, increasingly difficult. No, to be totally honest with you, difficult doesn’t even begin to cover it. My situation is fast becoming untenable and I don’t mean only because someone wants me dead. Projects I work on get taken away from me just as they get interesting and my theory becomes reality. Someone else gets given first name on my papers. Or I don’t get to write them at all.” She paused. “Sindlesham is one example of that.”