The Lake House. Helen Phifer
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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.’
Annie laughed. ‘I know who the Family are and somehow I don’t think they have any reason to be leaving heads under boathouses around here, but thank you for your concern. You are such a sweetie. And thank you for the job offer. You know I may take you up on that one day when catching criminals becomes too much.’
He bent towards her and kissed her cheek. ‘That would make my life complete. I hope Mr Annie realises how lucky he is.’
He winked at her and went back to work, and although she was touched Annie wondered exactly how much Gustav knew about her life and why he would be worried about her.
Annie didn’t take any notice of the new girl who was working on the till and listening to every word of their exchange. There were new staff in the shop on a weekly basis. The only constant was Gustav, but the girl on the till never took her eyes off Annie because she knew exactly who she was. She had just never actually seen her in person.
Megan Tyler hated this job. She was a fully trained psychiatric nurse. She hadn’t spent three years of her life writing the most boring essays to end up making coffee, but then she had to remind herself that it had been her choice. She had thrown away a perfectly good career because she had become infatuated with one of England’s worst serial killers. Henry Smith had almost died at the hands of Annie Graham when it should have been the other way around. When the story had broken and the headlines on all the tabloids screamed about what a monster he was, Megan had found that she admired him a little. Then he’d been sent to the ward that she worked on. When he was well enough after a long time in intensive care, she had got to know the well-spoken, gentle, polite older man. She had become infatuated with him. She had read every article and a book about his crimes but was unable to connect the man she was reading about with the man she took breakfast to and chatted about the weather with every morning.
Megan had lost her own father when she was nine years old. He had been killed in a hit-and-run accident. In the early days she had asked herself if she wasn’t looking to Henry to become a father figure to her, but the more she got to know him the more she realised it wasn’t a father she needed. She had become deeply attached to him and had developed just as much of a secret crush on him as he had on this bloody Annie Graham. It had been Megan’s choice to help him escape and she realised that she’d thrown her whole life away to be with him, but she admired him and wanted to be just like him so it would all be worth it in the end.
They needed the money working in the coffee shop brought in – plus it was a perfect excuse for her to get to know Henry’s little crush, who was a regular customer. Megan couldn’t help but wonder why so many men were besotted with this Annie Graham. She supposed she was pretty and she did have lovely, thick, black curls, but she wasn’t dead skinny and drop-dead gorgeous. She was just normal. It must be her personality, or then again it could be the shiny black sports car that was parked outside on the double yellow lines with the hazard lights flashing – Megan hadn’t told Henry about the car yet. Whatever it was, Megan would like to get to know her better before they killed her.
***
Ninety-year-old Miss Martha Beckett had noticed the bad smell that was lingering in the downstairs