The Lake House (3 page)

Annie’s cheeks turned pink. ‘Well, it is most of the time. You’re not blaming this one on me; it’s all your fault. Is the rest of her body under there?’

‘I haven’t looked yet, boss. Oh my God, I dragged it out thinking it was my hat. Do you want to do the honours? And what the hell do we do with that? Everyone’s looking.’

Annie slid her torch out of her body armour and shone it underneath the building. She could see Jake’s helmet, which she reached under and grabbed, but there was no sign of a body. She turned around and looked at the size of the head; it wasn’t as big as Jake’s.

‘Should I cover her with your helmet?’

‘Piss off. I have to wear that!’

‘Stop being so dramatic. You can get another one. We can’t just leave her on show for the tourists to stare at; it’s not right or dignified.’

She bent down and placed the helmet on top of the head and Jake cringed.

‘If I get bollocked for not wearing my hat it’s all your fault.’

‘It’s always my fault so it won’t make a difference. Have you notified control?’

‘Yes, CID are on their way, along with CSI and the chief super, and now, thanks to you, when the circus gets here I haven’t got a hat.’

‘I’m doing you a favour. Stop complaining. Anyway, my darling husband, Will, is the on-call detective sergeant tonight so it will be him, and he was going to his dad’s for tea so he won’t take long. At least I hope he won’t.’

‘It’s just like the good old days when you, me and Will were the crime-busting, serial-killer-investigating task force back in Barrow before that evil, murdering bastard Henry Smith came along and ruined everything. Only most of the time they weren’t actually that good. I wonder who is duty CSI. If it’s Debs then we’re all back together. But I have to tell you I have a bad feeling about this, a really bad feeling.’

Annie didn’t say it out loud but so did she. How had the very well-preserved head of a woman who had gone missing from Barrow three months ago turned up in Bowness, on the patch she worked, when all three of them just happened to be on duty? What exactly were the odds of that? There had been no sightings of her stalker, the serial killer Henry Smith, or the nurse he’d escaped with from the secure mental hospital four months ago in the area. Yet she felt sick at the thought that this could be so much more than a coincidence. Jake had gone back to the car and was now taping off the immediate area with a huge roll of blue and white crime-scene tape that was flapping so hard in the wind it looked as if it was going to take off, bringing the tree with it.

There was quite a crowd beginning to gather and Annie pushed the thought of Henry out of her mind as she began to tell people to leave the area because there was nothing for them to see. Which wasn’t strictly true but it was the best she could come up with at this moment in time. Bang went her early finish. Will would be here for hours in charge of the scene. She would be here until they could draft in reinforcements to guard the scene, and then she and Jake would have to go back to type up statements. Will would be working for hours waiting for the scene to be processed and then meeting the undertakers at the hospital.

Technically it was Jake’s job to go and fill out the sudden death forms at the path lab but he would want to get home to his partner, Alex, and Alice, their nine-month-old adopted daughter. Annie knew she would be the one to go instead. She had no children to rush home to. Besides, if Will was working late there wasn’t much point in her finishing early. She may as well stay behind. She turned to hear Jake shouting at a group of tourists who were all chattering excitedly and trying to duck under the tape. She walked over to give him a hand. At least they would be kept busy until reinforcements arrived.

Before long the sky lit up with flashing blue and white lights and the area had soon been completely sealed off. PCSOs had arrived in force to guard the scene and keep the tourists away, and Annie could have kissed every single one of them. Guarding a crime scene for hours on end was her worst nightmare. She had hated the days when she would spend a full shift standing outside a crime scene while it was being processed and didn’t miss it at all. Claire and Sally, along with Sam, Tracy, Tina and Phil, had been drafted in from Barrow, and Annie had thanked them all, promising she would make sure they weren’t forgotten about and that she would bring them a hot drink in an hour. Jake had been so glad to see them he had spent ten minutes gossiping with them all before Annie had dragged him away to go and write their statements up.

Unfortunately for Debs, she was the on-duty CSI so she had also had to travel up from Barrow to do the honours and process the crime scene. It was like some big community reunion and Annie had to admit that they had all worked well together and made a pretty good team. It was just a shame about the circumstances, but at least they could now tell this poor woman’s husband where she was. Will’s familiar black BMW pulled up and Annie felt her breath hitch in the back of her throat as she caught sight of him. He waved and she lifted her arm back, wondering if he would still have the same effect on her in ten years’ time. He got out of his car and smiled at his wife. He was there before his boss so he walked across to Annie and pecked her on the cheek.

‘What are you two like? He is supposed to be the one keeping you out of trouble not dragging you into it.’

Will nodded his head in Jake’s direction.

‘I know, but I wish I’d taken a photo of his face. He looked as if he was about to pass out. Have you eaten yet?’

‘Yes, my dad made some lasagne and he’s sent a plateful for you, but am I going to throw it all back up? Is it bad?’

‘It’s bad but not that bad. I’m pretty sure you’ve seen worse.’

Unlike his colleague, Detective Constable Stuart Martin, it took a lot to make Will throw up. He went back to the car to get suited and booted, then he walked across and ducked under the plastic tape. He approached Jake’s helmet, which was lifting slightly with the wind, threatening to blow away again. Turning to make sure there were no members of the public watching he crouched down, blocking the view from the pier as best he could, and lifted the helmet up.

‘Bloody hell.’ The head looked like it had fallen off a waxwork dummy. It was so lifelike but at the same time dead. There was a milky film over the eyes, which were wide open and staring straight at him. He shivered. What an awful way to die. He hoped she had been dead before whoever it was cut it off. Who in their right mind would do this to someone?

‘DS Ashworth to control.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘I can confirm this is a foxtrot.’

A male voice answered instead of the call handler and Will assumed it was the control room inspector.

‘Sergeant, you can’t confirm a foxtrot until the doctor arrives.’

‘I think I can, sir. We have a severed head and no body. Full decapitation. It doesn’t need a doctor to confirm this is a foxtrot.’

‘Now then, DS Ashworth, what have we got here?’

The chief super’s voice boomed down his ear and he jumped. He turned to talk to him and saw the duty detective inspector over by the panda car talking to Jake.

‘Evening, sir. I don’t really know, to be honest. We have a head but no body as yet.’

‘Well, have you called the dog handler out?’

‘No, boss. I’ve only just arrived myself. I’m about to do that now.’

A vision of the dog turning up and running off with their severed head filled Will’s mind and he had to shake himself to stop it. All he knew at this moment in time was that something bad was happening and he didn’t want Annie to be involved in it at all. She had nearly died at the hands of Henry Smith, who had abducted her and put her in the cellar of an abandoned mansion. In fact, he’d nearly killed Will as well. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Annie had found the strength and courage to fight for them both, neither of them would be here today to tell the tale.

Call it his copper’s instinct or a hunch, but whatever it was he knew she needed to be kept out of this and the sooner she left the better. He walked back to the car and, as he began talking on his radio, the hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle. He felt uneasy, as if someone was watching him. Will slowly began to turn around to see if there was anyone in the area who shouldn’t be. His first guess would be that reporter who drove him mad who always managed to appear at every crime scene Will did and completely piss him off, but he wouldn’t know about this and, if he did, he wouldn’t be here yet. Will scanned the area, but it was getting darker by the minute and it was hard to tell who or what he was looking for.

His gaze fell on the lake where there were lots of boats, some moored and others sailing around. He had the distinct feeling that someone was out there, watching him from a distance, but he had no idea who or why.

Chapter Two

Annie stretched out and was relieved to find Will still asleep next to her. She’d finished much later than she should have and had waited at the hospital for him to finish up with the head. He’d confirmed that Annie had been right. The victim’s name was Beth O’Connor. They had managed to ID her from the missing person’s posters that had been put all over the town and the police station. It wasn’t an official identification – that would happen first thing in the morning with her husband having that gruesome job – but Will was happy enough that it was her. She was so well preserved he thought that she’d either only been killed within the last twenty-four hours or been kept in a freezer somewhere. The whole thing made Annie shiver and she hoped that Beth had been decapitated once she was dead, because it didn’t bear thinking about if she hadn’t.

It had been the strangest sight to see the head being zipped into a black full-length body bag. It reminded her of something out of the old horror films she’d watched when she was a kid. The whole situation was awful. Not wanting to disturb Will she crept out of the bedroom. They had been living in their house on the outskirts of Hawkshead village for six months now and there had been no sign of… Annie didn’t like to say her name in case it summoned her back. But there was no sign of the woman who, in 1732, had killed an entire family and been hunted down by a group of men and hung from the very beams of the front porch of this house for her crimes.

If Annie had known the story about the house there was no way she would have bought it, but she hadn’t, and when Will had taken her there she had fallen in love with it. After a serious head injury at the hands of Mike, her first husband who had also been killed, she had developed a psychic sixth sense. Sometimes she thought she could hear the laughter of the young boys who had been murdered in the house but she didn’t mind that. At least they were happy now and they didn’t bother her or Will. Except for the odd things being moved around everything was fine. She was so forgetful she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t her who had misplaced them.

As long as the ghosts were happy then so was she. Even Jake, who had been terrified of coming into the cottage at first, was now content to sit on the sofa drinking wine until the early hours. He had told her that they’d done a good job and the house didn’t feel anything but cosy now, which was good because she would have hated it if her two best friends and their adorable nine-month-old daughter had refused to come and visit. Jake and Alex were so content with their lives and their perfect family that it made her heart ache. This weekend she was definitely going to broach the subject of children with Will. They had been married for six months and, although there was no rush for a baby, the more she thought about it the more she wanted one. Whoever would have thought that she’d become a broody old mare? It was all Jake’s fault.

She showered, dressed and made breakfast, leaving a plate of bacon, eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes in the microwave for Will, and then she set off for work. It was her last shift and then her long weekend off. After yesterday she was ready for it. There would be mountains of house-to-house and CCTV inquiries to do today because of the head yesterday. She hoped to God that someone had found the body and that it and the head had been reunited. Otherwise their tasks would also include searching every boat, boathouse, shed and garden to see if the body could be located. She drove to the car ferry, which would take her across the lake in a fraction of the time it would take her to drive around. There were only four cars in front of her so she might even be able to pop into the café for a skinny latte to take to the station with her. Gustav, the manager, still had a bit of a thing for her even though she had shown him her wedding ring, much to her inspector’s amusement. He would sense Annie walk through the door and within minutes he would be passing her a hot drink and begging her for a date. Will didn’t find it quite so amusing as Cathy did, but he knew Annie wasn’t about to go running off with an Italian barista because he gave her free coffee.

She parked her brand-new Mercedes outside the café and stuck the hazard lights on. The car had been a wedding present from Will to replace the beloved Mini Cooper she had managed to write off. She had been gutted when she’d woken from her coma in the hospital to find out she’d completely wrecked it. Will had offered to replace the Mini with an identical one, but somehow, as much as Annie loved it, she couldn’t face driving one again – at least not for a while. It would always remind her of Betsy Baker and the crash that could have killed her. There. She could say the woman’s name now that she was outside her house. She just wouldn’t have it spoken inside. Before she’d even got inside the café Gustav was walking towards her with a large takeaway coffee in his hand.

‘So, my lovely police lady, what’s been happening down by the pier? Is it true you found a severed head?’

He made a swiping motion across his throat with his hand. ‘This is bad news, very bad news. I want you to take care, Annie. I have a bad feeling about this. In my country severed heads mean you have pissed off someone in the Family.’ He leant closer and whispered, ‘You know who the Family are? The Mafia. Or it means there is a crazy person running around. Either way you should not get involved. Why don’t you come and work for me? I will train you to make the best coffee in town and you can work with me all day and drink as much coffee as you like.’