Page 27 of The Girls in the Lake
‘About our idiot of an employer, that’s what.’ She looked around as if to make sure there was no one else with them then continued. ‘He’s okay, most of the time. But he’s also an arrogant pig. He had a bit of a thing for Julia, but she wasn’t interested in him at all. Men aren’t her type, if you get my drift.’
Josh was a little bit slower on the uptake, so Sam stepped in with the next question.
‘Do you know where she went? We’re trying to locate her.’
Andrea shook her head. ‘I thought she’d had enough and left. We spoke a little but she didn’t speak very good English. Her roommate was better friends with her, she would know.’
‘Is she here?’
‘No, it’s her day off. She disappears to her boyfriend’s; he works at a hotel in Newby Bridge.’
Josh wondered if the person they’d pulled out of the lake was Julia and felt a chill run down his spine.
‘Can you tell me your boss’s name and phone number? We need to speak to him. Also, the name of the hotel in Newby Bridge so we can go and find Julia’s roommate?’
‘Stacey Jefferson is her roommate, and her boyfriend is called Jack. He works at The Swan. Our esteemed employer is Marcus Johnson.’ She walked over to the cash register and opened a black book next to it. Picking up an orange sticky note, she wrote his mobile number down then passed it to Josh.
‘One last thing: on the missing person’s report Stacey submitted she said that Julia had been talking about going home to Poland; do you have her home address?’
‘I don’t. Marcus keeps all the employee files locked up in his office. You’ll have to speak to him.’
‘Stacey also said that Julia had packed her suitcase and has never come back for it; do you know where it is?’
‘Yes, it’s in the storeroom. I’ll go and get it for you. Marcus said if Julia wasn’t coming back to clean out her stuff from the room and put it all in storage… he said he’d give her a month and if she didn’t collect it, he was chucking it into the skip out the back.’
She disappeared, and Josh asked Sam, ‘What do you think?’
‘All a bit suspicious really, isn’t it? We need to speak to Marcus and find out what the situation was, how much he liked her and whether he believes she upped and left out of the blue.’
They heard Andrea before she came back into sight, the wheels on the suitcase clattering along the uneven slate flooring. She came into the bar area dragging the case behind and with a small box tucked under her arm.
‘This is everything that Julia left behind; at least he can’t moan her stuff is taking up valuable space. You might as well take it with you. It’s a bit strange, I’m sure Stacey said her passport is in there. She can’t leave the country without it, surely; she’d want to collect that and her purse. But there is nothing as funny as folk. You wouldn’t believe what guests leave behind: brand-new walking boots because they have a bit of mud on them, North Face jackets galore, make-up, perfume. It never fails to amaze me.’
Josh took the box from her, Sam the case.
‘Thank you, if we need anything else we’ll be in touch.’
He was hoping that if she’d left behind her passport, she’d definitely have left a hairbrush or toothbrush, too, something they could extract DNA from to help identify her. He didn’t think things were looking hopeful they would find Julia alive. They loaded the stuff into the back of the car and headed back to the station, where he would hand the box and case over to the duty CSI, who could then go through it and send off the relevant stuff to the forensic science service labs. Hopefully, they’d have a positive ID for their Jane Doe soon.
Thirty-One
Beth had one more post-mortem to conduct before the end of the day. It wasn’t a full forensic, thankfully, but the sudden death of a seventy-nine-year-old man with a known history of heart disease. She tried desperately to clear her head and concentrate, but every bone in her body was screaming to her it was no coincidence that the bodies of the two girls in the lake HAD showed up at the same time, and both with similar material found under their fingernails. But with no supporting evidence so far, it was impossible to say for sure, not unless the toxicology reports came back for both women showing high levels of drugs in their system, which could explain their sudden desire to go into the unforgiving, bitterly cold water of Lake Windermere. She opened up a new Word document and began to type.
Victims
Both female
Both blonde
Paint chips found under fingernails.
She needed a sample of the paint fromThe Tequila Sunriseand if Josh and his team couldn’t get it to her soon, then she had no other option but to go herself. She’d be damned if she just sat back and let another woman turn up floating in the lake. She finished her cold mug of tea and decided to take an evidence kit home with her. If it wasn’t too late by the time she was done with the old man on her table, she was going to do a detour to the marina. Standing up, she went back into the mortuary where Abe was in the process of setting up.
‘I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you, Abe. You spoil me.’
He laughed. ‘The feeling is kind of mutual, Doc, you’re pretty good to me too.’
‘Why don’t you and Rosie come around to mine next time we’re both not on call? It would be lovely to spend some time with the pair of you, especially when we’re not hovering over a dead body. I could cook you both a meal and you could stop over. A few glasses of wine and a night away, how does that sound?’
