Lee looked at her oddly. ‘I can’t remember looking at his feet. I just recall him being undressed.’
Kelly thought it was worth a look around Rydal caves for a pair of boots because if they were to turn up it might corroborate Paul’s story.
‘OK, Lee, thank you.’ Kelly stood up.
‘Will you email me the footage as soon as you get back?’ she asked. ‘Are you intending to stay in the area for the time being? We may need a formal statement from you,’ she said. She didn’t add ‘depending on the footage’ because that might encourage him to tamper with it.
Lee looked forlorn. That hadn’t been part of his plan but reality was something that, once faced, couldn’t be put back in a box.
She walked him out and headed back to her team upstairs.
But she didn’t make it past the door.
Chapter 42
It was a call from Carleton Hall.
‘The chief constable wants you to head over here ASAP,’ the PA said over the phone.
‘I’m busy,’ Kelly said.
She didn’t like the woman. Kelly saw her as the snooty gatekeeper to hell. The PA thought her role above law enforcement. As a result, anybody who was a real copper was beneath her.
Timings were everything and the woman persisted.
‘He’s got a window of fifteen minutes so if you don’t head over now you’ll miss him and of course I’ll have to tell him that you decided something else was more important.’
Something else is more important, you stupid bitch, she felt like saying, but didn’t.
Sighing, she said she’d be there.
She called Kate on hands-free as she drove over to Carleton Hall HQ, filling her in on what Lee Lovett had told her.
‘There’s only one thing that is more urgent than a murder inquiry,’ Kate said. ‘And that’s you heading for a bollocking.’
She parked her car at Carleton Hall and walked slowly to the entrance to the 1960s concrete façade that had been plopped on top of a rather nice nineteenth-century home. Inside, the modern had conquered the historic and it felt like she was inside any cop shop. It was a pity, but most grand public buildings used for the services were now crumbling shadows of their former selves.
Kelly nodded to a few colleagues she knew. The atmosphere at Carleton Hall was different to Eden House. The pace was slower,the dress was more formal and the mood less urgent. It felt like what it was: an admin centre.
There was a new kid on the block. Chief Constable Derek (Del) Booker was approachable, firm but casual, and fair. He had a worn but kind face, like a young Clint Eastwood, and he’d worked in the Manchester Met both with Dan and Fin at various points in their careers. He’d also worked with DCI Craig Lockwood from Barrow-in-Furness, who she rated highly. He was one of the good guys. It still wasn’t a woman, but that was fine by Kelly, if the best candidate got the job. She knew from her days in London that female bosses could be just as brutal as male ones.
She knocked on his door and he shouted for her to enter. He smiled broadly at her when she did and beckoned her to relax and take a seat.
‘Sir,’ she said, sitting.
‘Kelly, I’ll get straight to the point. Your Grasmere case.’
‘Sir?’
To her, the chief looked uncomfortable, but she could have just imagined it.
‘Grasmere? Rydal?’
‘Ah, the double homicide, sir?’
‘Exactly. Where are we?’
‘In what way, sir?’
