Page 49 of Worse Than Murder (DCI Matilda Darke Thriller #13)

W henever I run, now, and I glance up at the hills that surround High Chapel, I see walkers and hikers in groups or walking their dogs. Occasionally, I’ll see a lone walker in the distance and a part of me wonders if it’s Jack Pemberton keeping sentry over the village.

I turn a corner to run along the edge of the lake and stop in my tracks when I see Lynne Pemberton up ahead by the water’s edge.

She’s too close to the water’s edge. As I approach her, slowly, I see that she’s actually standing in the water and it’s licking over her shoes as it sweeps into the shore.

I control my breathing. I’ve been running full pelt, and I’m knackered.

‘Lynne,’ I call out, quietly. She doesn’t hear me. She remains motionless, looking out into the water that has hidden her daughters for thirty years.

‘Lynne,’ I try again, louder this time.

She snaps out of her reverie and turns to see who’s calling her. There are tears streaming down her face. She gives me a pain-filled smile before turning back to the lake.

‘I used to run,’ she says. ‘I didn’t do it for long. I tried one of those spinning classes a few times. They almost killed me.’

I don’t say anything. It’s best to allow Lynne to lead the conversation. I’m glad I’ve finally got her on her own. She might spill something she doesn’t want to reveal in front of her husband.

‘It’s a beautiful part of the country, isn’t it?

’ she says. ‘That’s why tourists come here.

The landscape is stunning. Untouched for centuries.

Hikers. Wild swimmers. They love it. They come to the stables, and they all say how lucky I am to be surrounded by such beauty every single day.

I always thought I was. I can’t say that anymore.

This lake. It isn’t beautiful at all. It’s been the home of my girls for thirty years and I never knew it.

For thirty years, I’ve looked out at this view and breathed in the air, and it’s calmed me when I’ve wanted to scream so loud I hoped my lungs would burst. It’s cruel that what I thought was soothing was actually taunting me.

My girls have been in this water all this time. ’

I sit down and pull my knees up to my chest. I watch Lynne, see the pain etched on her face. I can feel the sadness and torment radiating from her. It’s like looking in a mirror.

Lynne comes over to join me.

‘Do you have kids?’ she asks.

‘No.’

‘From when I was young, all I wanted was to grow up, get married, and have children. Not very modern, is it? I had so many dolls as a child. I called them my babies. I used to say I wanted to have hundreds of children.’ She gives a pained smile at the memory.

‘That’s why I became a midwife. I just loved being around babies. ’

‘Why did you leave?’

‘The stables,’ she sighs. There’s a bitterness to her voice. ‘In the early days, there wasn’t enough work to employ someone. Jack had gone. Iain needed someone to help him, someone who didn’t need paying.’

‘You could have gone back to midwifery once the stables were a success.’

She shrugs. ‘Too much time had gone by. It’s a strange concept; time.

Sometimes you think it moves quickly and other times it seems to go slowly.

Celia and Jennifer have been gone for thirty years.

It seems like a lifetime. Me and Iain celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary last week. Fifteen years gone in a flash.’

‘Did you do anything special?’

‘There’s a restaurant we go to a lot in Kendal. We just went there for a meal.’

‘I know things are dark for you right now, Lynne, but you need to look at what you still have left. Iain clearly loves you. Alison is a credit to you. You have a lovely home and a thriving business.’

‘Iain was my first love,’ she said, wistfully, staring out into the lake. ‘He was so handsome when he was young. All the girls wanted to go out with him. He chose me.’

‘How did you end up marrying his brother?’

‘Iain wasn’t the settling-down type back then. I wanted to get married as soon as I was able to. Like I said, I wanted hundreds of kids.’

‘How did you and Jack end up together?’

‘There was something about Jack that… I don’t know. I always felt he needed saving.’

‘Saving?’

‘He had a sadness around him. I didn’t know it was depression at the time. I just saw this tall, handsome man who needed bringing out of his shell.’

‘Didn’t Iain mind you going out with his brother?’

‘Me and Iain had long since split by then. Besides, Iain was working his way through the village,’ she says with a laugh in her voice. ‘For brothers, they were polar opposites. I mean, they looked alike, but talk about chalk and cheese.’

‘And you ended up back with your first love.’

It’s a while before Lynne speaks. ‘I love Iain for helping me in those early days of the twins going missing, of Jack… he helped me. He saved me. He helped with Alison. He provided support and comfort when I needed it.’

‘Didn’t you want to have more children?’

‘I’d have loved to,’ she says, a warm smile spreading on her face. ‘Iain can’t have them, though.’

I clear my throat. ‘In your police statement, you said you were having an affair with?—’

‘I didn’t have an affair with Travis,’ she interrupts.

‘But you changed your statement.’

‘Before the girls… before everything happened, I was a different woman. I loved my children with all my heart, but marriage to Jack was… difficult. He couldn’t help it.

It was his moods. They took over him. There were days when he wouldn’t get out of bed, when he wouldn’t talk to anyone.

The atmosphere in that small cottage was unbearable.

When the kids were at nursery and school, I’d go over and see Iain.

’ She looked at me. ‘Like I said, they were opposites.’

‘You were having an affair with Iain?’

She nods. ‘Iain didn’t want Jack to find out.

I didn’t want Jack to find out. Iain and Lionel– Inspector Bell– they were good friends.

Iain told him that I was in bed with Travis at the time the girls went missing.

Lionel said, if I went in and adjusted my statement, just me and him, nobody else would need to find out.

I don’t even think Travis knew about it.

Lionel knew us. He took us at our word.’

I can feel the blood boiling inside me. That’s not how a police investigation is supposed to be run.

You don’t take people at their word just because you know them.

Lionel Bell had a conflict of interest. An outside unit should have been brought in to lead the investigation.

Maybe, then, Celia and Jennifer wouldn’t have been at the bottom of the lake for thirty years.

‘But it means Travis doesn’t have an alibi for the time the twins were taken,’ I say.

‘Jack did it. Jack confessed to Iain, then…’

‘Then what?’

‘I should go,’ she says, quickly standing up.

I follow. ‘Your husband confessed to abusing the twins. It’s looking more than likely that Travis was involved, too. Do you think he abused only them? Do you think it started and stopped with Celia and Jennifer?’

Lynne stops and turns back to me. Her face is ashen. ‘What? You think he… Oh my God!’ She puts her head in her hands.

‘Did you know?’

‘Of course, I didn’t.’

‘Jennifer fell in school a couple of weeks before the summer holiday. She kept saying her arm was hurting her, but the fall only left a graze. That sounds like she had other injuries.’

‘What? No. No. Why are you saying this?’

‘Someone hurt her, Lynne. Someone forcibly grabbed her and hurt her.’

Her face is red. She’s struggling to breathe through the tears.

‘Everything changed when he came here.’

‘Travis?’

‘He wormed his way into our home, into our lives and he destroyed everything. I let him babysit my children. I bloody handed them to him.’

‘Lynne, no, don’t do this to yourself. You weren’t to know. You couldn’t have known.’

‘So, did he and Jack realise they had this affinity for small children and together they…’ She can’t bring herself to say it.

‘I’ve no idea what happened, Lynne. I don’t think we should dwell on that. We can’t do anything to change it. It might be for the best to focus on the positives.’

‘Positives?’ she asks, her head snapping up to look at me. ‘I was married to a paedophile. I had three children to him. He and Travis did God knows what to my children and then he murdered two of them. Where are the positives, Matilda?’

I allow the silence to develop so Lynne can calm down. ‘You’ve been searching for your daughters for thirty years. You’ve got them back. You can bury them. That’s a positive. You’ll have somewhere to go and talk to them.’

She inhales a deep and shaky breath. ‘I… I suppose that’s true.’ She attempts a smile, but she looks to be in great emotional pain.

‘Lynne, before Travis came along, did Jack ever display signs that he?—’

She interrupts: ‘No. Please. No. Don’t do this to me.’

‘Is it possible Travis could have manipulated Jack?—’

‘No!’ Lynne screams. ‘I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to know. My daughters are dead. I’ve found them. I can bury them. I can finally move on.’

‘You can’t, though, can you? Your husband is still out there. He’s still alive, isn’t he?’

‘I… No… I don’t…’

‘Has he been in contact with you? Have you spoken to him?’

‘I have to go,’ Lynne says. She turns and walks away at speed.

‘Someone in Jack’s position wouldn’t have only killed himself. He’d have killed Alison and you to stop you discovering the truth, and there have been too many sightings for it to be a coincidence,’ I call out, running after her.

‘I don’t want to know. I’ve got them back, that’s all that matters. You’ve done enough. You need to leave right now before more damage is done.’

Lynne storms off. I don’t follow. I look back out over the lake. Something has just happened here, and I don’t know what. Whatever it is, I am sure I have answers to questions that have been bugging me for days. If only my head wasn’t too fogged up for me to sort them out.