What Lies Beneath

Chapter 2

2

Caroline Hills had her own Sunday routine, albeit a much simpler one: pancakes.

She wasn’t a stickler for routine, but the sizzle of batter in a frying pan on Sunday mornings was one stitch that connected her family with their previous life in London. And it was a good stitch; not like those rotten, frayed ones which had needed pulling out.

Rutland seemed a million miles from Cricklewood, and that was no bad thing. London was a past life — one which was best left alone.

‘Tea?’ Mark asked, placing one hand on the small of her back as he kissed her on the cheek.

‘Coffee, please. Black.’

‘Ooh. One of those?’

‘Didn’t sleep well. Kept tossing and turning.’

Mark forced a smile. ‘Ah. I slept like a log. Sorry.’

‘I noticed,’ she said, smiling.

‘Listen, I was going to suggest we all go for a walk or a bike ride later. It’s meant to be a nice day, once the mist clears. Will do the boys the world of good, too. Get them off that bloody Xbox for a couple of hours.’

She couldn’t argue with that. Josh was as addicted to console games as any other ten-year-old. But it was the frequency with which six-year-old Archie played them that worried her most. Back in London, it hadn’t been an issue. The odd game of FIFA or Fortnite was preferable to the boys walking the streets of Cricklewood and Neasden. But Rutland was a different world altogether, and she knew it’d be good for the boys to get out and about a bit more.

Caroline remembered how her husband’s eyes had lit up when he’d found out about Rutland’s cycling and leisure scene. He’d always cycled when they’d lived in London and was a fitness fanatic. Try as she might, she couldn’t think of anything she’d rather do less.

‘Yeah, maybe,’ she said. ‘Let’s see how the weather turns out.’

‘I was thinking we could even pop into a village pub somewhere, get to know a few of the locals.’

Caroline raised an eyebrow.

‘It’d be good to make some contacts,’ he said. ‘Friends, even. It’s a pretty sociable place, and I feel like we should at least try to join in. I still can’t get used to people saying hello when you walk past them in the street.’ Mark stirred the mug of instant coffee and handed it to her. ‘It’ll be good for the boys,’ he said.

‘Yeah, you’re probably right. Let’s wait for it to warm up a bit first, though, eh? I haven’t quite acclimatised enough to have stocked up on jodhpurs and waxed jackets yet.’

‘Ooh arr, you’re a local now, missus!’ Mark teased, embarrassing himself with a faux West Country accent rather than the gentle East Midlands burr of the local area.

Caroline shook her head and laughed before turning back towards the stove and flipping the gently sizzling pancakes.

‘Nearly ready?’ Mark asked.

‘Almost.’

‘Boys, grub’s up!’ he yelled, without taking even a cursory step towards the bottom of the stairs.

Seconds later came the sound of feet thundering down the staircase, before two hungry faces — complete with bed-head hair — arrived in the kitchen.

‘I hope you two are hungry,’ Caroline said. ‘I think I’ve done too much batter.’

‘Extra energy for the cycle ride,’ Mark added.

‘Are we going for a bike ride?’ Archie asked.

‘Maybe. We’ll see what the weather does,’ Caroline said.

‘Doesn’t look brilliant from here,’ Josh mumbled, another sign of becoming a teenager long before his time.

‘My app says the mist’ll clear by ten,’ Mark said, playing with his phone. ‘It’s meant to get up to twenty degrees after that.’

‘And in old money?’ Caroline asked, sliding three pancakes onto separate plates. With only three frying pans, she always made sure the family ate first. She’d have whatever was left.

‘Sixty-eight,’ Mark said.

Caroline smiled a little and nodded. Perhaps it wasn’t going to be such a bad day after all.

As she poured more batter into the pans, she noticed the sound of her work phone vibrating on the table in the hall.

‘Ah, can you grab that for me?’ she said, not noticing that Mark was already making his way out of the kitchen to do so. He returned a few seconds later and handed the phone to her.

When she saw Dexter Antoine’s name on the screen, she had a feeling it wasn’t going to be good news.

‘Dex, what’s up?’ she said, answering the call.

‘Morning. Sorry, but I hope you didn’t have plans for today.’

‘Uh, well sort of,’ she said, looking at Mark. ‘Why?’

‘Someone’s found a body on the water over at Normanton. Looks like murder. Do you want me to phone it through to the boys at EMSOU?’

Caroline knew when she took the job as the sole Detective Inspector of Rutland Police that it was usual practice for homicides and other major and violent crimes to be handed to the regional East Midlands Special Operations Unit. Whereas they had a dedicated major crime unit, Rutland Police was by far the smallest force in the entire country.

Rutland itself was barely sixteen by eighteen miles in size and the smallest historic county in England, with fewer than forty-thousand inhabitants. It was what had appealed most to Caroline when she’d decided to escape the Met. As much as she’d enjoyed the change of pace, it had been a huge shift for her.

In the Met, she’d known her place. There were plenty of large investigations for her to get her teeth into and prove herself. Here, though, things had been different. She’d seen the capabilities of her team, but she hadn’t yet had the chance to show them what she was made of.

‘No,’ she said, not even needing to think about her answer. ‘No, we’ll take it.’

There was a moment of silence at the other end of the phone. ‘Are you sure? First responders seemed pretty sure we’re looking at murder.’

‘Yes, I’m sure. It’s my patch, and official procedure is that cases are only handed over on my say-so. And I’m not saying so.’

‘Well, if you’re sure. It’d probably be good to come down and have a look first, then we can decide what to do.’

‘Dex, I’m not handing it over. Text me the postcode, will you?’

There was another moment of silence. ‘Well, it’s Normanton Church. You’ve heard of it, right?’

‘Yeah, course. But I don’t want to get lost on the way. Just easier to stick it into the satnav, isn’t it? What’s the postcode?’

‘Uh, I’m not really sure it has one. I can look.’

Caroline sighed. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll find it. Meet me there.’