Page 24 of The Girls in the Lake
‘What do you want?’
Josh shrugged. ‘I’d have thought it was pretty obvious what we wanted.’ He turned to Sam. ‘Do you think you’d be able to hazard a good guess as to why we’re here if you were Mr Marshall?’
‘I’d like to think so, especially when a dead girl was drinking on my boat just hours before she died. It can’t be good for business. It would certainly make me think twice about stepping on board for a good time.’
The young lad looked at them. ‘Show me your ID. You could be anyone; might be reporters for all I know.’
They both pulled out their warrant cards and held them up.
Pulling himself through the hatch, he moved closer to study them, then nodded and stepped back.
‘Sorry, officers, you can’t be too sure.’
Josh found his attitude more annoying than he let on.
‘Very wise, you can’t be too careful at all. Let’s start again. I’m Detective Sergeant Josh Walker and this is my colleague Detective Constable Sam Thomas. We’d like to talk to you about Leah Burton.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘How well did you know her? How much alcohol did you all consume? Where were you when she went into the water? How about that for starters?’
‘Come down below, it’s cold up here.’
As they followed him downstairs and out of the biting wind, Josh looked around. It was a very nicely fitted out boat with a surprisingly big galley kitchen, a plush seating area and a couple of doors which he assumed led to bedrooms.
‘Nice boat.’
‘Thanks, have a seat.’
Sam and Josh slid into the seated booth behind the table; James sat on a chair opposite them.
‘Do you have parties on here much?’
‘I hire it out for private parties, and occasionally use it myself.’
‘I take it you have all the legal documents and licences for that side of the business?’
James glared at him. ‘Of course. I wouldn’t be able to conduct business without them. The insurance alone probably costs more than your yearly wage.’
Josh didn’t bite. ‘So, where were you when Leah went overboard?’
‘I don’t know when she went into the water. I left around eleven with her friend. We went back to my apartment. Everyone was drunk and I didn’t want to sleep with her on the boat. I wanted some privacy, so we left.’ James ran his fingers through his fringe unnecessarily for the third time in as many minutes.
Josh wondered if it was a nervous twitch, or if he was just that vain – perhaps it was both.
‘Did you sleep with her at your apartment?’
‘What has that got to do with anything? Yes, we did. She was with me until the next morning.’
‘Who was left on the boat?’
‘Ethan and Leah, though I didn’t even know her name until today. They were just a couple of girls we picked up, took for a sail on the lake then slept with.’
‘Ethan said he didn’t sleep with Leah, and the post-mortem confirms there was no sexual activity prior to her death.’
‘Well that’s his loss; he was probably too drunk. He really can’t handle his drink.’
‘Are you in the habit of letting drunk people sleep on your boat – your very expensive boat – unsupervised?’
