Page 29 of Worse Than Murder

‘You’re really testing my memory skills today. What was his name? Abbot? Anson? Ashton, that’s it. Something Ashton. Damien Ashton. Wow. My memory is better than I thought,’ she grins. ‘I’m assuming he was interviewed by the police. Everyone was.’

‘Is he still at the school?’

‘No. He left for pastures new a long time back.’ Tania turns the laptop back to her and hammers at the keyboard. ‘Oh.’

‘What?’

‘In 2010, Damien Ashton was working at a school in Newcastle when he was forced to resign for having an affair with a sixteen-year-old boy.’

‘Wow.’

She spins the laptop back around to me. There’s a photo of a tall, plain-looking man in a navy suit and a sombre expression walking into a court building.

‘Where is he now?’

‘No idea. I can do some digging, if you like.’

‘Thanks.’ I turn to look out of the window and see that it’s pitch-dark and a strong wind is blowing. ‘I’d better be getting back before this storm breaks. You can ring me at the restaurant.’

‘Will do. Can I ask you a personal question before you go?’

I nod.

‘Why are you really here and not in Sheffield tearing the city apart looking for the person who killed your family?’

Normally, I wouldn’t answer such a personal question like that from a journalist. The fact that I’m about to proves that I’m not my usual self.

‘Because, the way I feel right now, I’m worried about what I might do when I catch him.’

BBC BREAKING NEWS: The Met Office has issued a rare red weather warning as Storm Gill hits Wales, Northern Ireland, Northwest England, and Southwest Scotland. Wind speeds of up to 95mph are forecast. 5,000 homes in Belfast are already without power.

I’ve never known rain like this. Eerily, the wind has dropped, but the rain is falling in sheets. It’s like standing under a shower. As soon as it started, I had to go out and experience it. After a month of stifling heat, it’s refreshing to feel the spray against my skin. I’m standing at the top of the steps to the restaurant, looking out over the car park and the lake beyond. All I can hear is the sound of rain hammering on the parched land. And that smell! There’s a word for that smell released when rain hits parched earth– petrichor. Don’t ask me how I know that. One of the many useless facts running around my mind.

‘Matilda, you’re getting soaked.’

I turn around and see Sally in the doorway. I look down and see I’ve stepped out further than I thought, and I am, indeed, getting wet. I didn’t even realise. I should go back in, but there’s something about the forcefulness of nature which is bewitching.

‘I’ve got a really bad feeling about this storm,’ Sally says as I go inside, and she closes and locks the door behind me.

* * *

Iain Pemberton slams the back door and enters the kitchen from the utility room. He’s breathless, soaked, and windswept. Lynne resists the urge to laugh at the twig sticking out of his hair as she hands him a towel and takes his jacket and boots from him.

‘You can always tell the people who’ve never been through a storm before. I’ve never seen someone so panicked. And they’re higher up than we are.’

‘Who’s this? Not Shirley and Jim, surely?’ He nods. ‘That’s not like them.’

‘I think it’s Shirley, really. She’s worried about their new extension withstanding the winds. She never trusted that builder.’

‘I didn’t take to him much, either. There’s no way those tiles were new. There’s some soup left over, if you want it.’

‘I’d love some. The wind’s picked up again. It’s really knocked the edge off the temperatures. It feels perishing out there.’

Lynne ladles soup from a pot on the stove into a bowl and takes it over to the table with a chunk of homemade bread. Iain sits down and tucks in. Lynne sits opposite him. She has a worried expression on her face.

‘Iain,’ she begins. ‘I had a call from May earlier.’

‘May?’ he asks, blowing on his soup.