Page 17 of The Girls in the Lake
She bent her head, her shoulders heaving up and down and Josh realised she was crying. He sat on the bed next to her and pulled her now tiny frame into his arms. All the anger he’d felt towards her dissipated. They were adults; they could still be friends. He didn’t even think about how Beth might feel about the situation because he knew she would want him to do the right thing.
They sat that way for a few minutes until his phone began to ring loudly in his pocket. Jodie pulled away from him as he fumbled to find it, berating himself for not turning it off when he arrived. He saw Sam’s name on the screen and silenced it. No sooner had he done that than it began to ring again, vibrating and flashing in his hand. Jodie smiled.
‘Go on, you’d better answer that. You’re in demand, Josh, you always have been. Thank you. I’ll let you go and I’ll message you when they say I can leave.’
‘I’ll pick you up; make sure you ring me.’
She nodded and stared down at his phone, knowing it must be important or Sam wouldn’t keep ringing. Standing up, he bent down and brushed his lips against the side of her cheek, left her and walked into the corridor, sliding his finger across the screen.
‘Yeah?’
‘Boss, where are you? We have another body.’
Josh felt his heart sink. ‘Where?’
‘A teenager fishing at Miller Ground pulled it ashore thinking it was a sleeping bag in the lake. Apparently, it’s in a bad way.’
‘Christ.’
‘I’m on my way; do you want picking up? Oh, and Sykes saidThe Tequila Sunrisewasn’t painted. It’s white, probably made of fibreglass or whatever they make modern boats from.’
‘No, I’ll meet you there and tell her thanks.’ He hung up.
Was it a coincidence? Who could it be this time?
If they were in a state, they’d been in the water a while.
Nineteen
Beth arrived home, relieved to be able to finally strip off and bathe away the memories of the day. As she let herself in, she noticed Josh’s car wasn’t on the drive, which was unusual when he’d been on a day shift. Kicking off her boots, she hung her coat in the closet and went to the kitchen, where she opened the fridge and took out a bottle of wine. She wasn’t on call this evening so the plan was to drink a couple of glasses of wine and curl up on the sofa with a book. There was leftover pizza in the fridge she could warm up if she got hungry. Josh would sort something for himself. She liked that about him; he was independent and didn’t rely on her to look after his every need. This was just as well because she didn’t look after her own needs well at the best of times, not since before Robert. How different life had been before the night of her attack. Robert had been her colleague, lover and friend before he’d tried to kill her. Maybe not so much leading up to that night: he’d started to distance himself from her and act a little strange, but she had put it down to stress at work. Never would she have guessed that it was his twisted desire to murder her weighing heavy on his mind, and not his caseload at the hospital. He was onhermind now and she didn’t like that; he didn’t deserve a single segment of her head space. Yet there he was. She was annoyed with herself, and with Charles for shutting her out. It wouldn’t have hurt him to let her observe.
She took her wine glass up to the bathroom, a blissful haven with floor-to-ceiling windows and a clear view of the lake. It was almost dark out and the lake looked majestically foreboding and unforgiving. A cold scene of real natural beauty. Until the summer just past she’d spent every spare minute by the lakeside staring into its inky waters, but ever since she had been nearly killed there it didn’t hold the same appeal; she twisted the pole to close the blinds as soon as she entered the room. The lake brought up many raw memories and tonight they were too much; she could still taste the water in the back of her throat when Phil, Robert’s accomplice, had thrown her overboard, plunging her straight into the murky depths.
Turning on the taps, she took a large gulp of wine, grateful she had something legal and easily accessible to take her mind away from that dark day. The house phone began to ring and she decided not to answer it; whoever it was could ring her mobile if it was important. It stopped, but a few seconds later the ringtone of her mobile filled the air.
‘Hello.’
‘Doctor Adams, I’m sorry to bother you. It’s Jo from call handling. A body has been recovered from Lake Windermere and we wondered if you could attend?’
‘I’m sorry, it’s not my turn to be on call. Have you phoned my colleague, Charles Wilson?’
‘He’s had to attend a family emergency and can’t attend the scene.’
She rolled her eyes and longingly swilled the almost full glass of wine in her other hand.
‘Right, I suppose it’s down to me then?’ She knew it wasn’t the woman on the other end of the phone’s fault and adjusted the tone of her voice. ‘Sorry, long day.’
‘I’m sorry, Doctor Adams, but the DS insisted you were called with it being the second one today.’
‘Don’t be, Jo, it’s not your fault. Where is it?’
‘Miller Ground; are you familiar with the area?’
‘I am.’ Beth used to enjoy a walk along the front of the lake down there, but it had been a while since she’d been.
‘You won’t be able to miss the circus; police cars and an ambulance are already there. Apparently, they are near to the public footpath, if that means anything to you? I’m not familiar with the area.’
‘Yes, it does. Thank you.’
