What Lies Beneath

Chapter 4

4

With the area secured and handed over to the scenes of crime and forensics officers, Caroline and Dexter took Bob and Geoff along the path to the main car park by the fishing lodge. They sat down at a table in the glass-fronted Waterside Cafe, overlooking the water.

‘DS Antoine is going to take some notes, as well as recording this on his phone. Is that okay with you both?’ Caroline asked.

Bob and Geoff nodded, neither of them having said a word since she’d suggested they sit down somewhere warm to chat.

On any other day, their position would’ve given them a superb view of the fishing boats going out, one every few seconds, as the vast expanse of Rutland Water opened up in front of them. Now, though, there was nothing. The boats remained moored up against the jetty, the water off limits for the foreseeable future.

‘Can you talk me through what happened this morning, please?’ Caroline asked, directing her question at Bob. ‘From the beginning.’

‘Well, we arrived here just before eight. That’s when it opens, see. We like to try and get a full day of it if we can. Not much else doing. Geoff picks me up about half seven and we come straight here.’

‘Did you come by car?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Where did you park?’

‘Right outside here, in the car park we just walked through.’

‘So you didn’t get a view of the church until you were out on the water?’

‘No, love. Not really. In any case, you’re hardly on the look out for dead bodies, are you? See the odd fish that’s carked it, if the birds haven’t already had it. That’s about it. Never a human.’

This struck Caroline as an odd way to describe the situation, but she let it fly. ‘So whereabouts were you when you first saw the body?’

‘Well, when we first saw it were a body, we was pretty much on top of it. But Geoff spotted there were something there.’

‘Where were you?’ Caroline asked again.

‘Out on the water.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘Well, I dunno. Not many signposts out there, you know what I mean?’

Geoff cut in. ‘Probably about a third of the way to the Hambleton peninsula. In line with the fishing lodge, I’d say. We hadn’t headed in either direction at that point.’

‘So that’s, what, about three or four hundred metres from the church?’

Geoff shrugged. ‘If you say so. Close enough to see something out the ordinary, but far enough away not to know what it was.’

Caroline felt like she was spinning round in circles. ‘And you say you only realised it was a body when you were quite close?’

‘Yeah. Close as we could get without worrying about beaching it, anyway. Don’t tend to bother wearing our glasses out on the water, see. Not really a whole lot of point. Not unless we’re bird watching.’

‘And you didn’t recognise the person?’

‘Not from the back of his head, no.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I phoned you lot. Bob steered us over to the bank by the main footpath, ‘cos we didn’t know how shallow the rocks got. Figured we had to moor up quick, and soil seemed a better bet than rocks.’

‘Tenner says they charge us for that at the lodge,’ Bob said, interjecting. ‘Not meant to do that, you’re not.’

Caroline forced a smile. ‘I think they’ve probably got bigger things to worry about at the moment. Did either of you see anyone else by the church, or on that area of the water? Either before or after?’

The pair shook their heads. ‘No, no-one,’ Bob said. ‘We was the first ones out on the water. We like to be, see. Didn’t see no-one else over that way. Occasionally see the odd dog walker or jogger on the footpath, but very quiet this morning. Probably the mist. Don’t get many people out until that clears, usually.’

It struck Caroline that there wasn’t a whole lot she was going to get out of Bob and Geoff. She gave Dexter a knowing look, took their contact details and thanked them for their time.

As they stood to leave, a man — who Caroline estimated was in his mid to late sixties and who was wearing a knitted jumper with a bizarre frog pattern — approached them with a polystyrene mug of tea in his hand.

‘Terrible business, that. You’re the police, I presume?’

‘We are, yes,’ Dexter said. ‘And you are?’

‘Oh, sorry,’ the man replied, shuffling the tea into his left hand and extending his right. ‘Howard Smallwood. I’ve lived round here all my life and I’ve never seen anything like this before. Makes you wonder what the world’s coming to, doesn’t it?’

‘Indeed,’ Caroline said, smiling and starting to walk away.

‘If you need anything, by the way, I might be able to help. I’m the president of the local history society. I know all the little nooks and crannies, not to mention most of the people round here. If I can help you join any dots, just give me a shout!’

The man handed each of them a cheap business card with his details on. Caroline gave another smile, inwardly pleased that even in the midst of a violent murder, Rutland still had its eccentric characters to offer.

The air was already warming by the time she and Dexter stepped back outside and into the car park. It was shaping up to be a beautiful day. For one family, though, things were about to get a whole lot darker.