Nick Weston stifled a yawn as he started up the Subaru Impreza’s engine, turning the climate control onto full heat in an attempt to dry out his trouser legs. To counterbalance the soporific effect he stabbed a finger on the electric window switch, dropping the tinted glass all the way.
By his reckoning, he was running on less than three hours’ sleep and he was desperately tired. The paracetamol Grace had given him had yet to take the edge off his headache, which still seemed to be doing its best to kick him to death from the inside out. He rubbed a weary hand across his face but even the small movement of his skin over his bones hurt.
The dressing-down he’d given Airey on his sheepish return had done nothing to alleviate Nick’s bad temper. The other man had been deliberately obtuse, weathering Nick’s threats with a pretended incomprehension that was difficult to overturn. Damn woodentops. But Nick had seen the quick clench of the man’s hands, the knowing smirk, and had to forcibly restrain himself from clouting the fat Special.
Instead, he’d told him flatly they had reason to believe his daughter, Edith, was involved in the shooting and they’d be investigating her closely. That had wiped the self-satisfied smile off his face.
A PC had been despatched to baby-sit the girl until Nick could question her, but Airey was demanding that a female CSI carry out the necessary examination. He knew there was only Grace and probably hoped he could claim cross-contamination later if he needed to.
Grace consulted her boss back at Hunter Lane and announced she could maintain the integrity of the evidence if she detoured home to shower and change on her way to Tebay. There was no triumph in her voice, but Airey deflated visibly just the same.
With his window down the sound of the big Nissan Navara pickup jarred loudly in Nick’s ears as it pulled alongside the Subaru, nose to tail. He glanced sideways in irritation and found the CSI looking down at him. No surprises there—she’d been doing that all morning.
“If you’d care to follow me,” she said through her own open window, “There’s a lay-by at the top where you can turn round if you don’t fancy risking the gateway.”
He heard the implied criticism of his low-slung vehicle but hadn’t the energy to argue. Instead, he nodded shortly and sped away up the hill, finding a large gravel area full of potholes with only an elderly Land Rover in occupation. Nick swung his car round and gunned it back down to fall in behind.
She set off right away, piloting the big pickup briskly through the twisting corners. This latest example of her competence irked rather than surprised him.
In Orton village, she turned off the main road onto a narrow lane bordered by thick hedges. After only a few hundred yards she pulled to the left through an open gateway and onto a gravel area in front of a pair of pretty stone cottages.
Nick slotted the Subaru in next to her and climbed out, looking about him. Whatever kind of a place he’d imagined Grace McColl living, this wasn’t it.
She’d already jumped down from the pickup, shouldering her camera bag, and was waiting for him with a slightly quizzical expression on her face. He shook his head apologetically and moved to join her.
As she slid her key into the lock, Nick heard a frantic scrabbling on the other side of the door and, as soon as it was open a crack, a long snout thrust through the gap. Then a slender, mushroom-coloured hound burst out and threw itself at Grace’s legs, whimpering.
Grace dumped the camera bag and went to her knees, wrapping her arms around the dog and burying her head against the side of its neck in a hard squeeze that was held a fraction too long to be just a normal greeting. Feeling an intruder, Nick looked away, over the low wall by the door to a brightly planted garden. She’s spent all morning picking over the remains of a dog without a flicker, he thought slowly.
After a moment the dog tired and wriggled loose, retreating a few steps to watch its owner with unblinking amber eyes. It was only then that the animal seemed to notice Nick and something about it grew wary, the silky fur rising a little at the back of its neck.
“Don’t take it personally, but I’m afraid Tallie doesn’t like men very much.” Grace rose, dusting off the legs of her trousers. She skimmed a brief hand over the top of the dog’s head. It finally broke Nick’s gaze and turned away, dismissive, to trot back inside the cottage.
“How convenient for you.”
Grace glanced at him as she retrieved her bag. “For getting rid of unwanted admirers, you mean?” Her voice was gently mocking. “Yes, I suppose it is. But very few of them ever set foot inside my home, so she rarely needs to be so protective. Come through, Mr Weston.” She toed off her boots in the tiny hallway.
Sideways on, he noticed for the first time the tiny crow’s feet radiating outwards from the corners of her eyes. Older than she looks. Late thirties, maybe? Maybe that accounted for the quiet self-confidence.
He had to duck under the low door frame but, once inside, the layout of the cottage was not at all what he was expecting. The living room was open-plan to the exposed rafters revealing a galleried area that he assumed was a bedroom on the upper level. On the ground floor was a small office, and a kitchen at the back, divided from the living area by a breakfast counter.
“As long as you don’t try to follow me up, Tallie should leave you intact,” Grace said, pausing with one hand on the newel post.
Nick watched the dog amble across to lie down pointedly between him and the stairs, just in front of the French windows. She crossed her long forepaws elegantly and never took her eyes off him.
“What breed is she?”
“A Weimaraner,” Grace said over her shoulder as she jogged up the staircase. “She has some convoluted kennel name I can never remember, and never quite lets you forget she comes from a long line of champions.” And with that, she disappeared from view.
Alone, the dog and Nick eyed each other with open animosity. “I might have known you’d have a pedigree.”
He stood for a moment, letting his gaze travel slowly over the interior of the room, recording every detail out of habit. The far wall held several paintings—bold, abstract originals, arranged with flair. Opposite, the triangle of wall space under the slope of the stairs housed a custom bookcase, shelves crammed at least two deep with well-thumbed paperback novels, lurid modern crime thrillers mixed in with the classics. He tilted his head to check out some of the titles and the floor lurched abruptly under his feet, making him stagger.
“There’s a cool pack in the freezer,” Grace’s voice said from above his head. He glanced up and found her leaning on the balcony, looking down without expression. “If you wrap it in a cloth and put it on the back of your neck for ten minutes while I get changed, it will do wonders for that bad head.”
He thought about claiming such a measure was unnecessary but the pain had become a throbbing stake through his eyeball.
“Thank you.”
She smiled briefly at his capitulation and withdrew. A few moments later Nick heard the sound of running water in the shower. He tried not to allow his imagination to take charge, but the mental image of that long sleek body naked and slick with soap was unexpectedly vivid. He glanced at the stairs. The dog growled somewhere deep in her chest.
“Don’t worry,” Nick murmured, lips twisting in wry self-contempt, “Even if you didn’t take my balls off, she certainly would.”
Curiosity made him stick his nose into the study while the opportunity presented itself. A small desk filled the space below the window, home to a blank-screened MacBook, an anglepoise lamp, and a phone/fax with the message light flashing. Avoiding temptation, Nick turned his back on it.
Another bookcase lined the far wall floor to ceiling, filled mostly with textbooks and scientific journals, dotted with glossy tomes on the art of photography.
The remaining two walls were covered with the real thing—dramatic Lakeland landscapes, moody black-and-white cityscapes, a group of racehorses frozen at full stretch, and a stunning portrait of a well-kept man in early middle age with obvious Italian heritage and a widow’s peak, captured staring straight into the lens with amused arrogance, a champagne flute in his hand. He was wearing black tie as though the picture had been taken at a formal wedding, with a sunlit stone balustrade visible behind him.
The subjects were diverse, but he recognised a single eye. Grace’s own work, he guessed. It said something about her that she hid them away in here. He didn’t claim to be an expert, but to him they certainly looked good enough for public display.
So, was she merely modest, he wondered? Or, deep down, just as insecure as everybody else?
Overhead, the shower cut off. Nick moved through to the kitchen area, taking in the lack of clutter on the immaculate work surfaces. It was a small kitchen, which might account for the unnatural order, unless…ah!
He’d opened the fridge door first, just to be nosy. All it contained was a bottle of rather good white wine with the cork untouched, a half-round of brie, some limp celery, and an open tin of dog food sealed by a plastic cap. The freezer was little better stocked.
So that’s why it’s so suspiciously tidy…she doesn’t cook.
He grinned, pleased to have found a weakness, and quickly found the pack she’d described. As soon as he pressed the icy mass to the nape of his neck, the pressure inside his skull seemed to ease. Damn women. Do they always have to be right about everything?
Which brought him straight back to Lisa, the cause of his bad temper, bad behaviour, and bad head.
Oh, he couldn’t blame his girlfriend for all of it, of course. When he’d first put in for the transfer to the wilds of the Lake District he’d been happy—even eager—to come here.
The arguments for the move had been sound enough, he recognised bitterly. Lisa’s retired parents still lived in the village north of Kendal where she’d grown up. They were itching to see more of their granddaughter, and the prospect of free childcare had added weight to Lisa’s drip-drip campaign.
She could get back to her hairdressing, she told him, instead of being stuck in with the baby all day. Why should he be the only one with a career?
But Nick had loved undercover work with the Met. Loved it right to the point where it had nearly killed him. Still, he’d been prepared to give it up—if not for Lisa’s sake then for little Sophie’s.
Sophie was a delicate little slip of a thing, hair so blonde she could have been Swedish, eyes the colour of cornflowers. He’d known right from the first moment he laid eyes on her that she’d turn out to be a real heartbreaker.
Yesterday had been her fourth birthday.
Yesterday had also been the day Lisa told him it was all over. The day he could no longer pretend their separation was a temporary blip. As soon as he’d arrived at Lisa’s parents’ place in Staveley for Sophie’s party, Lisa had started niggling away at him until he snapped, as she’d known he would. He wondered why he’d never seen it before, that the only reason she provoked him was so she could claim he was the one who started it.
Lisa liked a good row. She was a shouter and a stamper and a thrower of things. In their early days together Nick was shocked by her vehemence, even when he knew well her passionate nature. That was, after all, how Sophie had come along.
This row was different, though. Premeditated was the best way to describe it. And as soon as he’d taken the bait she’d sprung the trap.
She’d had enough, she told him. She wanted out. It wasn’t working. He was too married to his job, too focused away from her needs, from Sophie’s.
Too superfluous to requirements.
She hadn’t actually said that last bit, of course. No need.
Nick hadn’t responded well. Afterwards, he realised there probably wasn’t a right response.
How long was she planning this?
He’d spent a restless and uncomfortable night alone in the flat they’d rented together in Kendal, staring at the ceiling, and went into work early to wrestle with paperwork. Normally he was organised, prided himself on it, but that morning the type all blurred into meaningless smears on the paper.
When the call had come, he couldn’t have been more grateful for the sergeant’s interruption.