Lost Cause Read online

  Lost Cause

  Cover

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56 One Hour Earlier

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Acknowledgements

  Canelo Crime

  About the Author

  Also by Rachel Lynch

  Copyright

  Cover

  Table of Contents

  Start of Content

  Chapter 1

  A waste removal lorry crawled along at a plodding pace. It was unhurried. Rubbish collection rounds in the Lake District were protracted affairs. Nonchalant sheep, devoted walkers, map-wielding tourists, overladen caravans and the odd eighty-tonne vehicle delivering building supplies to a cul-de-sac, all got in the way.

  The men were chirpy – it was still a man’s job – and swapped jokes as they waved at patiently waiting car drivers and caught up on gossip from the Daily Mail. It was particularly difficult work at this time of year, when winter gripped the National Park and covered her with a blanket of white for a couple of months, and slowed everything down. The men were used to it and wore thick gloves, woollen hats and undergarments. Their breath billowed in clouds in front of them every time they spoke. In years gone by, the vapour would have been made up of cigarette smoke from fags hanging from the side of every worker’s mouth, but not in today’s health-conscious society: it was banned on the job, and the smokers had to wait until they got back to the depot to stand in the designated smoking area, just outside of the back gate.

  Someone beeped a horn.

  One of the men, dragging two heavy purple waste wheelie bins, looked up at where the noise had come from and scowled.

  ‘How long you gonna be, mate?’ asked a man with his head stuck out of the driver’s-side window of a new silver Mercedes.

  ‘As long as it takes. Mate,’ the worker replied, turning round and putting his back to the stranger. The others smirked and carried on with their tasks. There was no time to give everyone an explanation of their progress. Especially a fancy Merc driver who thought himself a cut above. They worked against a tight timeline, each worker an automaton, dragging, pushing, locking, changing, emptying and lining up. It was like watching a production line. It was a far cry from the days when burly, statuesque men carried tin bins on their shoulders and emptied them by hand. Now, the scrawniest teenager could get a job dragging a plastic tub to a machine that did all the work.

  The Mercedes driver shook his head and banged his steering wheel. He was going to be late.

  Despite snow piled up on the sides of the road, the sky was bright blue and every now and again a bin worker stopped to remove a hat, or his high-visibility orange jacket, throwing it into the cabin, where the driver was warm and dry.

  He’d watched from the high vantage point of the lorry’s cab as the exchange with the silver Merc took place, and slowed down a little to further frustrate the guy driving. It was a regular pastime to make the job more interesting. He manoeuvred the vehicle deftly round a parked car, taking care to avoid the dry-stone wall on the other side. They were halfway along a narrow road, which was inhabited by possibly five residents, as well as one at the very end, before it opened up and split into two. Why the Merc was using this route was baffling, unless he wasn’t local and didn’t know either the waste disposal days or the tightness of this route. Or maybe he was one of the residents, though the workers recognised most of the homeowners on their rounds, and they didn’t think he was.

  ‘Jesus!’ One of the men tasked with lining the bins up bent over and vomit spewed out of his mouth.

  ‘Jim! You all right, mate?’ one of his colleagues asked.

  The Merc driver rolled his eyes. A milk delivery van was behind him, and then two more vehicles behind that. They all came to a grinding halt. A sheep bleated from behind a stone wall in the distance.

  ‘That fucking stinks.’ Jim pointed to a wheelie bin.

  His fellow worker was puzzled: they came across foul-smelling waste all day long, and he was at a loss to see what Jim could have found so repulsive. The lad was obviously ill.

  Then he smelled it. He covered his mouth and backed away. He stepped from behind the lorry and beckoned to the driver in his cab to wait before he moved off. The driver gave him a thumbs up, which was acknowledged through the reflection in the wing mirror.

  ‘Fucking hell.’

  An older guy, seasoned by years of malodorous fumes, stepped forward and walked past Jim and his colleague. A car door slammed and the Merc owner joined them.

  ‘What’s the hold-up? Christ! That reeks!’ He also covered his mouth and watched as the one worker seemingly immune to noxious, foetid fumes approached the offending wheelie bin and opened the lid. He peered in, and the others were satisfied to see that even he covered his mouth. He continued to look inside the receptacle and then slammed the lid and backed away. He walked towards them, the colour drained away from his face.

  ‘What is it?’ they all asked in unison.

  ‘It’s a fucking arm,’ he said, as he bent over and retched on the side of the road, wasting this morning’s fine cup of tea and thick bacon sandwich slathered in brown sauce. The spew steamed, and he could smell the vinegar of the sauce, and the smoke of the bacon.

  Chapter 2

  Kelly Porter ran along the Ullswater Road, flanked by grey dry-stone walls on one side and the beautiful lake on the other. From Pooley Bridge, where she lived in a small cottage overlooking the River Eamont, towards Aira Force, the traffic was minimal at this time of the year, especially this early in the morning, and she only saw the odd car speeding towards her. She was a confident runner and made her presence known on the road, though anyone who cared for her would have covered their eyes, trying not to wince at the risks she took. Especially with the thick piles of snow shovelled to the sides of the road. But a local was used to it.

  She wore thick black Nike leggings, emblazoned with the logo in neon green along the length of her leg. A bright orange sweater made her stand out among the drab, brown stains on the road and the lifeless trees. A snood wrapped round her chin and her long auburn hair was tied tightly behind her head. She was not yet forty; her cheekbones were still high and her eyes bright. Her cheeks were flushed with new life inside her and she pounded the road at a steady rhythm. She could have been mistaken for a ru
nner in her twenties, and vans beeped their appreciation as they passed her, making her smile and wave. Occasionally, if she wasn’t in such a good mood, they’d get a middle finger.

  To Kelly, running along the main road wasn’t a risk. She knew it with her eyes closed and instinctively judged the terrain before her, around every bend and dip in the road. Her breath came in great pillows of vapour and her lungs worked hard to keep the rhythm. There was nothing wrong with keeping up strenuous exercise when pregnant, so her doctor had told her, and she hadn’t noticed much of a difference. But then she was only eight weeks gone. Her abdomen didn’t look any different and no one, except Johnny, knew that there was another human being growing inside her: a person who she had yet to decide if she wanted to meet or not.

  Johnny was adamant: they should raise the child. But Kelly was concerned. Actually, she was terrified. For a start, Johnny had screwed up his first marriage and missed out on the rearing of his only child, Josie. They’d only rekindled their relationship very recently. What if it happened again? No, Johnny was a good man. It wouldn’t happen again. He wasn’t that soldier any more, and he wanted this child.

  Then there was Rob Shawcross. Detective Constable Rob Shawcross, rising star of her department, new father, and showing the signs of what a little person could do to an adult person. It was pure torture. Rob came in to work at Eden House in Penrith, where Kelly ran the serious crime unit for the North Lakes, haggard, sleep-deprived, badly dressed and disoriented. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Kelly watched as the man she’d known as the ultimate vision of fitness and strength crumbled in the wake of a swaddled invader. His once-muscular frame was hunched over, his eyes were haunted and wrinkled and he rushed around, forgetting and dropping things, when once he’d exuded the essence of control and poise.

  His baby was adorable, there was no dispute about that, but he’d decided to keep his parents up for most of the night every night, and catch up on sleep during the day. The dark circles under Rob’s eyes were the colour of the granite fells surrounding the lakes nearby, and they were growing darker by the day. Johnny was turning fifty this year and she would be forty: did they have the energy?

  She pounded the tarmac of the road and wondered if she could give up her life for the sake of what was growing inside her. She took a keen interest in any debates on TV or radio that discussed abortion and the rights of the unborn foetus, and she lacked focus at work, reflecting instead on her own quandary. Johnny said it was her choice, but deep inside she knew that she couldn’t just go ahead and take such a big step alone; she needed his support. She’d never faced a question of this magnitude before, in her personal life at least. She touched her stomach absent-mindedly.

  The only change to her body was a touch of fatigue in the afternoon. It told her to take a nap around three o’clock and she struggled to stay awake. She avoided late briefings at Eden House and opted to stay at her desk, rearranging such activities for morning slots. It was easy to pull off; after all, she was the gaffer. Like today. It was a quiet Monday morning and she’d make her way to the office after she’d made some calls from home.

  But, apart from the physical question of whether she could cope with a screaming baby, there was the moral dilemma that raged in her head. In her line of work, seeing the batshit-crazy stuff people do to one another… why the hell would anyone want to bring another life onto the planet?

  * * *

  The lake was like glass and, at this time of the morning, there were no boats, steamers, dinghies or even paddleboards to be seen. Snow burdened the evergreen foliage of the trees and mist settled in clumps around the inlets of the lake shore. January in the Lakes was about as peaceful as it got. The post-Christmas lull in the tourist trade came as a welcome break for those who lived there, though the small businesses would always welcome trade. Snow was at its deepest; up on the fells it was as thick as a double-decker bus, and treacherous, making it Johnny’s busiest time of year. He was a mountain rescue volunteer and the winter months took him out on the fells in the most extreme conditions. Gullies, cliff edges and changes in terrain were all buried out of sight and caught the unprepared traveller unaware. It was also difficult getting the chopper to the more remote areas and poor visibility made it even worse.

  But it was good that he was so busy. They both needed distraction. Long evenings in front of the fire had become the norm and, usually, before they could discuss their options – or her options – she’d be asleep. They had both agreed to share their dilemma with somebody else but neither could decide who. Out of Kelly’s colleagues, the best person would probably be DS Umshaw. Kate had three daughters and there was nothing she didn’t know about raising kids. However, should Kelly decide not to go ahead with the pregnancy, Kate may possibly judge her harshly and that would make work uncomfortable. One could never guess what people’s views were. Johnny had thought about talking to Ted Wallis, the coroner, but he happened also to be Kelly’s father and so was involved already. Kelly knew that Ted longed to be a grandparent, so he couldn’t exactly be trusted to be impartial. It would also make work more difficult if every time she had to deal with the senior coroner she was reminded of her emotional state.

  Johnny would go crazy should he find out she was running alone, in such icy conditions, and along a main road, but at least she’d left her headphones at home. After the murder of a female jogger in a park in Penrith last year, who was approached unawares with her music blaring, Kelly had promised him she wouldn’t use them. But she missed them. Music when she ran was like a dramatic context in which to think. Without the pounding of loud beats, running lost its lustre and seemed more taxing. Maybe she’d use them but not tell him. The area had almost got over the paranoia since the murder, as the perpetrators had been caught, thanks to Kelly. Surely it was a one-off, and safe now?

  She grew warm and took off her gloves, stuffing them into her pockets. The snood round her neck suddenly felt claustrophobic and her hat made her head itch. She had an overwhelming desire for ice cream. As a police officer, she never left home without her debit card. Johnny called it ‘fighting order’, a phrase he had used in his army days when he and his fellow soldiers would go out armed with only their cash card, a cigarette lighter and a condom.

  The nearest ice cream shop was in Glenridding, which was probably another twenty minutes’ running. Pooley Bridge was forty minutes behind her. She decided to carry on to the small village, which was a well-used base for climbing Helvellyn, as well having the best views over the lake and being a popular place to get married. Maybe she’d call Johnny for a lift when she got there. Rummaging around her pockets, trying to zip away her gloves, she realised that she had her wireless headphones with her after all, and she plugged them in. The sound was welcome and made her smile as she faced the last leg of her run. Johnny needn’t know.

  Her worries cleared and her thoughts turned to her work – or, more specifically, the disappearance of a woman from Ambleside close to the lovely village of Grasmere, last week after the bank holiday Monday for New Year, which had fallen on the weekend. Lisa Lau had been reported missing by her employer, a guest-house owner in Glenridding. All the preliminary enquiries had been carried out by uniforms over a huge area: the woman’s background, last known movements, any sightings of her and witness statements. The Chinese embassy was informed by the Foreign Office, because the woman was a Chinese national with a work permit. There was a rumour that she had been pursuing some after-dark activities in areas known for soliciting, such as nearby Bowness, and even as far south as Barrow-in-Furness, but none of that had been substantiated. Sex work went on in every corner of the UK – of that there was no doubt – but proving it was an entirely different matter. There were also plenty of Chinese nationals with work permits in Cumbria, working in restaurants and hotels; Lisa wouldn’t stand out for her looks.

  The case had put her back in touch with DI Craig Lockwood, the head of serious crime for the South Lakes, which had been a happy reintroduction. She’
d worked with him on several occasions and enjoyed the way his mind worked. They were similar. More than similar: they got each other. It had been a pleasing reunion, but they both agreed, after a sighting of the woman at Preston train station, that Miss Lau had more than likely taken off to better job opportunities, and the case was transferred to Lancashire Police. The witness had seemed credible, though CCTV was slow in coming through to confirm. Still, there was no evidence of any concerns for her welfare. The woman was, after all, twenty-three years of age; she could do whatever she liked, as long as she didn’t outstay her work permit. Kelly had made a note of its expiry, which was this coming weekend, and moved on; but occasionally, like now, she found herself wondering if she and Craig had done everything.

  The woman was probably safe and sound in a new job in Preston, she thought. The boss who’d reported her missing was frank about his low opinion of her work ethic: she wasn’t missed. The parting wasn’t unexpected.

  * * *

  By the time Kelly rounded the corner and entered the outskirts of the town, she’d begun to tremble slightly thanks to low blood sugar, and she knew the colour would have drained out of her. It was happening a lot lately and was another indicator of her changing body. She walked to her favourite ice cream parlour with her hands on her hips, trying to settle her breathing. It was inside the tourist information office and so opened earlier in the year than all the others. The quality of its product didn’t hurt either. Early-morning walkers stopped there before heading out onto the hills.

  Once inside, she ordered a double chocolate and mint cone and watched the woman serving her, checking she was getting her money’s worth. Recently she’d begun to understand cravings and how they really felt. It wasn’t just a desire, it was a mad obsession that would not abate until satiated. She reckoned it was how murderers felt.

  Once outside, she bit into the ice cream and gulped it down. A couple walked past her and stared but Kelly kept chomping, dribbling stray drips down her running top, which she wiped with her hand and sucked too. When she reached the cone, she kept going and crunched the thing down in one. When she’d finished she stared at her hand as if surprised that there was none left. She turned round and went back inside to order another cone, this time with strawberries and caramel.