Waterloo Sunset: A Lake District Mystery #4 (Lake District Mysteries) Read online

  ‘Maybe.’

  A swarthy gondolier whose deep Mediterranean tan didn’t quite match his broad Scouse accent refilled their glasses and took dessert orders. When he had departed, Harry said, ‘I expected you to be more optimistic.’

  ‘Disillusioned by a thousand post-mortems, I’m afraid. The truth is, I’ve lived with death for a long time. Too long.’

  Her melancholy dismayed him. She’d always struck him as so strong, so assured. And now she spoke as if tempted to toss it all away.

  ‘You work so hard to help bereaved families to come to terms with loss. I’ve seen you in action, remember. It’s your vocation. Everyone admires what you’ve achieved.’

  ‘Nothing lasts forever.’

  ‘Ceri…’

  ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t burden you.’ She drank some more Marzemino. ‘In vino veritas, perhaps.’

  ‘You’re not burdening me.’

  ‘Your partner’s lying in hospital, desperately ill. You don’t need me sounding off with self-indulgent angst on top of that. All I’m saying is, don’t take it for granted that the police will solve this case soon. Chances are, they’ll never find who murdered the girls.’

  ‘The kind of man who commits this crime never knows when to stop.’

  ‘Not true, I’m afraid. Think of Jack the Ripper, the Hammersmith murderer, the Zodiac case. The list goes on. Serial killers who stopped before they were caught.’

  ‘Or killed themselves first.’

  Ceri considered this for a long time before giving a shrug of impatience. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘I have to believe justice will be done.’

  ‘Oh, Harry. And you an experienced lawyer. When will you learn?’

  As if to soften the harshness of her words, she stretched a slim hand across the table and laid it on his. A few days ago, he might have dreamed of this. A candle-lit dinner with Ceri Hussain, her cool skin touching his. Yet death and disaster had brought them together. Be careful what you wish for.

  In his jacket pocket, his mobile trilled and gently, he withdrew his hand. Carmel’s mobile number shone on the screen. He could tell from her voice that she was trying not to let her hopes rise too high too soon.

  ‘The surgeon’s pleased with how the operation went. He says Jim’s shown amazing resilience.’

  ‘That’s wonderful.’ He knew the crunch would come when his partner woke up. Would he still be the same man they’d known for so long?

  ‘As for Amazing Grace, I’ve put out feelers. The word is that she isn’t on the books of the escort agency.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  ‘You could do with some good news. Talking of which, are you enjoying the coroner’s company?’

  He threw a quick glance at Ceri. She was savouring the last of her wine, casting a thoughtful eye over framed prints of the Piazza San Marco and the wooden bridge at Accademia.

  ‘Definitely.’

  A throaty chuckle. ‘Have a lovely night.’

  ‘Speak to you tomorrow.’

  When he’d rung off, Ceri smiled. ‘Good news about Jim Crusoe?’

  ‘It’s early days.’ He took a breath. ‘Another thing. It concerns Aled Borth.’

  She frowned. ‘Tell me.’

  He described Grace’s brief encounter in the office with Borth and his fear that she might be a potential victim. As he talked, he became aware that Ceri’s attention had begun to wander.

  ‘You think Borth might be the murderer?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think.’

  ‘And this secretary of yours, she’s called Grace?’

  ‘Grace Samuels, that’s right.’

  ‘Grace Samuels! She used to work for me, did you know?’

  ‘Her c.v. said she once worked in the coroner’s office. I meant to ask if it was before your time.’

  ‘Not quite. We overlapped by a couple of months. An unusual character, Grace, but a first-class secretary. Intelligent and well-organised. Unfortunately, her parents died soon after she began working for me, and after that, she lost the plot. Wanted a change.’

  She sounded as though she didn’t have much patience with people who wanted a change, let alone those who lost the plot. He’d met few women as single-minded about their work as Ceri Hussain. Throwing herself into her job must have helped her to deal with her husband’s death. But maybe she’d come to realise that there’s no pleasure in all work and no play.

  ‘She’s temping now. I guess it suits her, but she doesn’t mix with the other staff. They find her rather strange.’

  ‘Is it any wonder? All that pagan nonsense.’

  ‘Pagan nonsense?’

  ‘Didn’t you know? After the death of her mum and dad, she got into nature worship. God knows what it involves. Dancing round Stonehenge skyclad on Midsummer’s Eve, for all I know.’

  ‘Midsummer’s Eve?’

  She stared at him. ‘What…oh, you’re not wondering if Grace sent you that message, are you?’

  ***

  ‘Grace just wouldn’t behave like that,’ Ceri said as they left the restaurant. ‘Besides, why would she?’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’ Harry exhaled. ‘I may not be the best boss in the world, but I’m not quite bad enough for the staff to wish me dead.’

  She laughed. ‘I’m sure they love working for you.’

  Darkness had fallen. In the distance, drunken delegates to the John Lennon Convention were caterwauling Imagine as they made their way back to their hotels.

  Harry walked to the edge of the river and looked across towards the lights of Wirral shining in the blackness.

  ‘The longest day,’ Ceri said, ‘and it’s nearly over.’

  ‘Did you know, Midsummer is one of those quarter days of the legal calendar when servants were hired and rent and rates were due? I suppose I shouldn’t worry. The true significance of Midsummer’s Eve is legal, not pagan.’

  ‘Now I know everything,’ she said softly, and leaned towards him.

  But the moment was ruined as he missed his footing on the cobbled walkway. They had polished off a couple of bottles of wine as they chatted through the meal. Just as well Ceri had arrived in a taxi; it wouldn’t do for a coroner to drink and drive.

  ‘I ought to call a cab,’ she said, when she’d stopped laughing.

  He caught a hesitation in the words. At once his legs felt weak. Nothing to do with the alcohol this time. His head was clear enough for him to see that a door had opened. Wait a few seconds and it would shut again.

  Take your chance.

  ‘Would you like to come back for coffee?’

  She stopped to consider him. Her face was in shadows and he couldn’t read her expression.

  ‘We’ve just had coffee.’

  Blown it. Oh God. He shouldn’t have tempted fate by tidying up the mess in his flat before he met her at The Lido.

  ‘I mean…I’ve enjoyed your company.’

  She brushed his shoulder with her fingertips. ‘And I’ve enjoyed yours, Harry. Thank you.’

  ‘So…?’

  She laughed. ‘As it happens, I could use another shot of caffeine. It’s a shame to rush off. But I mustn’t stay too late.’

  ‘No, no, of course, that’s fine.’ He tried not to stammer with delight. ‘My place is only a stone’s throw away. I can ring for a cab when you’re ready to go.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Before he knew what was happening, she’d linked her arm with his and they were heading for Empire Dock. The evening air was mellow, her touch felt warm and close. How long since he’d last brought a woman back home? His life was slipping like sand through his fingers. A week ago he’d dreamt he had driven his car into a sea of mud in the middle of nowhere. When he put his foot down, the wheels spun, but the car didn’t move. He woke in a cold sweat, but he was living the dream. He was trapped in his work and needed to escape.

  ‘You’re very quiet,’ Ceri said.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No need to apologise. Let
’s enjoy the evening.’

  Her closeness made him light-headed, in a way the booze never could. As he unlocked his front door, panic seized him. What if his unknown enemy had trashed his home while he’d been out, and sprayed it with graffiti about death on Midsummer’s Eve?

  But the flat was silent and untouched. He padded into the kitchen and poured coffee into a filter. Over his shoulder he saw her kneeling down to take a look at his music collection.

  ‘Choose whatever you like,’ he said.

  ‘I have a soft spot for Elvis Costello.’

  As the coffee machine chugged, the flat filled with the raw vocal of What’s Her Name Today? Dark words wrestling with a lush melody. As she settled on the sofa and kicked off her shoes, his stomach fluttered. Her mood seemed fragile. Even at the end of a meal as long and leisurely as a trip down the Grand Canal, he’d seen the way she turned and twisted her napkin as they talked, squeezing it into a tight little ball. Probably this was the first time she’d been alone with a man like this since her husband’s terrible death. How to avoid the one false move that would ruin everything?

  He poured the coffees. She took off her jacket and folded it over a chair. He sat next to her on the sofa, and she half-turned to face him. For a few minutes they small-talked, but he hardly knew what he was saying. Her skin was pale; he was conscious of the swell of her breasts beneath the white vest. Thank God he’d had a few drinks, otherwise his nerves would stretch to breaking point. He might have been an infant paddler straying out of his depth, excited yet fearful of being washed away by a tidal wave. Every now and then, her dark eyes met his; she yielded a trace of a smile, but no clue to what was in her mind.

  He put down his cup and dared to rest his hand on her arm. Touching it so lightly that it might almost be an accident. She didn’t pull away. Her leg moved, grazed against his.

  ‘Thank you, Harry,’ she whispered.

  Their faces moved closer together. Within moments they were kissing, her tongue hot and hungry on his. Her fingers slipped inside his shirt and she began to undo the buttons. He brushed against her breast and she gave a little gasp. His hand moved under her vest, felt the hardness of her vertebrae beneath the smooth skin, worked its way round until it reached the stiffening nipple and she gave a little cry.

  At once she was on top of him. Pushing him beneath her with unexpected strength. Panting hard. His arms were wrapped around her back and he caressed her spine. She stared down at his face, but he wasn’t sure she could see him. It was as if she were gazing through a telescope into the far distance.

  ‘Ceri…’

  She’d seen something through the telescope, something that frightened her. Horror filled the dark eyes and she jerked up and away from him.

  Next moment she was standing up, grabbing at her jacket. He felt as though he’d been kicked in the kidneys. He’d tried to be so careful and still he’d got it wrong.

  ‘I can’t do this.’ Her voice was throaty, unrecognisable. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘What is it?’

  She pulled on her shoes. ‘It’s not you, Harry. It’s me. And it’s Ricky’

  Ricky, the husband who had chased women, suffered depression, failed in business, and finally killed himself. How long would his memory suffocate her?

  He clambered off the sofa and stood in front of her. ‘Please talk to me.’

  ‘Ricky felt rejected. It made him angry and ashamed, made him behave in a way I would never have believed.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have done what he did.’

  She bowed her head, then sucked air into her lungs and looked him in the eye. Her face was dark with grief.

  ‘You don’t understand what I’m saying.’

  ‘Try me.’

  His cheeks burned. She couldn’t guess how desperate he was not to be rejected too.

  ‘I must go now.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘No buts. Please, Harry.’

  It wasn’t going to happen between them after all. He inhaled the warm air. Time to admit defeat. Show a bit of dignity.

  ‘I’ll see you out.’

  ‘No need.’ In two minutes she’d aged ten years. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’

  The door closed behind her and Harry slumped on to the sofa. His heart pounded, his head throbbed. He felt sick with anger and despair.

  ‘It’s not you.’

  The story of my fucking life.

  The Fifth Day

  Chapter Fifteen

  In a dream, his footsteps slapped weathered stone steps as he fled from someone whose face he could not see. At the bottom of the stairs, his path was barred by a mahogany door set within a Gothic arch. He rummaged through his pockets, but he’d lost the key. It must have fallen out as he ran. Too late to go back and hunt for it. He hammered his fists against the iron-strapped planks until his knuckles bled, but nobody came. From the other side of the door came a faint sound. Muffled music, but he couldn’t make out a melody. Thirty feet above his head, a steel door slammed. Heavy boots crashed down the steps, he heard heavy breathing. There was no way out.

  He jabbed at the door and, by a miracle, it swung open, smooth and silent on an oiled hinge. A long stride took him into the chamber on the other side. He spun round and saw an iron bolt gleaming in the candle-light. Crashing it home, he gave a gasp of relief. At last he was safe from his unknown foe.

  High above his head, an organ played. Discordant sounds, a weird pastiche of a funeral march. Swivelling, he was confronted by a dozen leering revellers in a semi-circle. They wore red cloaks and their faces were disguised by Venetian masks. Shafts of light caught a plague-doctor’s scythe-like nose, the colourful squint of a Harlequin cat, a Cubist face smudged by tears, a beast with bared teeth frozen in mid-howl.

  His eyes smarted, his sinuses ached. The air was thick with smoky incense. He was in a basement, eerie and unfamiliar. A trail of dark smears on the stone flags led into darkness. The masked figures began to moan and keen. Their chant was wordless, rhythmic, threatening. From the midst of the semi-circle, the plague-doctor beckoned him. Harry sensed that something lay beyond the revellers, something hidden and grotesque.

  He took a pace forward and peered through the holes in the masks. It felt like gazing into the souls of the creatures who confronted him. He recognised the pale eyes of Victor Creevey. The Cubist mask belonged to Barney Eagleson, the man who embalmed the dead for a living. The beast with bared teeth was Casper May, and the Harlequin cat his wife. Juliet’s small mouth formed into a smile but he knew better than to let her fool him once again. Any moment now, she would spit and scratch.

  The plague-doctor cackled and unsheathed a claw. A knife glittered in the gloom. Harry had seen that blade before, Tom Gunter had caressed it in the gardens of the Parish Church. With a jolt of dismay, he realised that the mournful brown eyes behind the mask did not belong to Tom. The plague-doctor was Ceri Hussain.

  Harry was mesmerised. He couldn’t move, he was at the mercy of the creature with the cruel beak. But the plague-doctor merely stepped aside, to permit a glimpse of what lay beyond. A mortuary slab, with a slender figure in a plain white gown stretched out upon it. A woman with long dark hair.

  ‘Ka-Yu?’

  As he whispered her name, the woman began to stir. So she was not dead after all. Her upper body rose, her arm reached out. She turned to look at him.

  Her olive face was perfect and unmarked, her eyes heavy-lidded, as though the sound of his voice had roused her from a long, untroubled slumber.

  ‘Ka-Yu, can you hear me?’

  But when she opened her mouth to answer, no sound came. Nothing was there but a black void. He caught a glimpse of a hacked-off stump and his stomach heaved.

  Ka-Yu had no tongue.

  ***

  He woke in a sweat and ran to the bathroom. When he tried to be sick, nothing happened, so he stripped off and walked under an icy shower, desperate to sluice away the memory of Kay’s mutilated mouth. As soon as he’d towelled himself dry, he went t
o the kitchen and made himself a pot of Columbian Roast. Though he couldn’t stop yawning, there was no sense in going to bed. He hadn’t a chance of sleep.

  Ceri’s departure had left him numb. The first gulp of coffee scalded his throat, but he didn’t care. He needed to feel something, needed to have a purpose, a mystery to solve. This wasn’t just about him, or Midsummer’s Eve. Kay was dead, Jim barely alive, and Carmel’s heart was close to breaking.

  He switched on the television for the early news. In the absence of a quick arrest in the hunt for Ka-Yu Cheung’s killer, they fell back on words of wisdom from Maeve Hopes. She was wearing a little black dress, perhaps out of respect for the deceased, perhaps because it showed her slim figure to considerable advantage. Harry’s eyes were drawn to her beaky nose. Like the plague-doctor in his dream.

  ‘Most serial killings are solved because the culprit makes a mistake.’ She gave the camera an encouraging smile. ‘For all we know, he has already left the tell-tale clue that will lead the police to his door.’

  Pray God she was right. He dared not share Ceri’s pessimism, dared not persuade himself that the murderer would never be caught. Or that he would only be caught if another woman died.

  ***

  ‘Jim had a quiet night.’ Carmel’s voice kept breaking up on the mobile, yet for all her weariness, this morning she sounded less desolate. ‘The nurse seems pleased, though I’m not counting any chickens. I’m about to nip over to the office for an hour, and catch up on some urgent stuff.’

  ‘Practise the art of delegation. Nobody’s indispensable. And you must be exhausted.’

  ‘You must be joking. No way do I want the Police Authority to figure out that I’m dispensable. Otherwise I might finish up working for you again. Besides, you want the inside track on the murders, don’t you?’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Anyway, if nobody’s indispensable, why are you already in the office? You never used to start this early. Surely you’re too long in the tooth to become a workaholic?’