Angelina, it appeared, had done the same. It was probably what made her choose a house here to settle in. Her passion for the area stretched back at least to the Rydal Caves painting that hung in Hampton-Dent’s New York office, and the magazine told them the reveal party was three years ago.
Kelly examined the six drawings found in the suitcase in the walls of room 13. One painting was of the Skelwith Bridge, and it re-imagined the legend Tommy had told her. There was a horse and cart and inside, a black figure, hidden from view. It felt as though there was movement in the paint as the carriage rushed across the bridge, presumably, away from Queen Elizabeth’s spies.
Next was a painting of the largest Rydal cave. The cavern wasn’t natural, but carved from centuries of slate mining. What was left was a cathedral-like structure which drew visitors in a steady stream all year round. Kelly’s eyes were pulled to the stepping stones, the famous entrance to the cave. Like the other visual, there was extraordinary movement in the piece. A lone figure walked across the stones and was hidden from view like the stranger in the carriage, but this one carried something. He or she wore a cape, placing the era long ago, and faced away from the painter. Kelly smiled but she didn’t know why. It evoked something in her. Wasn’t that what good art did? It was different to the grand painting in New York, it was simpler somehow, with a message.
The package under the figure’s arm looked like a pile of papers, just like the ones they’d pulled out of the mattress in Angelina’s room. But it could have been anything. Kelly’sromanticism and sense of drama was heightened the wearier she became, and it was late.
She refocused.
There was a similarity between them. A flow, as if they belonged together.
She opened the other attachments and studied the other four examples of Angelina’s work.
Then she saw it.
They made a pattern. They told a story.
The carriage on the Skelwith Bridge, the stepping stones in Rydal cave…
Kelly thought back to what Tommy had said about the legend of the spies who’d perished in the water. The legend said there was one traveller left in room 13 and he’d hidden in the walls but had been discovered. She flicked around the paintings and found one of what looked like the inside of room 13. There were four beautiful flagstones on the floor.
Stone.
The walls were stone, the bridge was stone, the steps were stone…
She opened her MacBook and arranged them differently on the much larger screen.
The stone bridge had six flagstones on the roadway passing over the bridge. There were five stepping stones. Four stone slabs on the floor of room 13, three keystones in front of the carriage, two boulders at the entrance to the cave, and a single rock in the water.
Numbers 1 through to 6.
It meant something.
She rubbed her eyes and held her head in her hands.
Whatever it meant – if anything at all – she wasn’t going to piece it together tonight. Her head was too fuzzy.
She yawned as she googled the cave at Rydal, that Hampton-Dent was so taken with. And she saw that the single stone in the final painting was exactly as it was when Angelina had painted it. It was off to the left of the stepping stones, next to the hollowed-out wall of the cave, on its own, beckoning her somehow. Kelly zoomed in.
But her brain was blank.
She heard Ted playing with Lizzie and her daughter scream in delight.
She switched off the light and headed back to cold fish pie.
Chapter 37
On Friday morning, Kelly felt fresher, but this case was taking over her every waking thought and some of her unconscious ones too.
Last night she’d dreamt Lizzie opened a sachet ofYouthBlastand sucked it dry, and started foaming at the mouth and convulsing. She’d woken in a sweat and had to pad next door to her daughter to check on her. She’d started checking food labels too.
Everybody at work had.
Kelly was first into the office and she examined the footage of the fall again. The influencer’s video had been isolated in parts so the audio and visual were now separated at Kelly’s request. It had been sent to a specialist here in the Lakes who’d forensically isolated the talking off camera that Kelly had heard. At first, without isolation, she’d heard an American accent, and when she’d met Hank she’d known it was his voice. Now, she rewound it several times to make sure.
She compared it to the visual which was on a different file. She watched the footage a few times, concentrating on where Tilda Dent was looking. And she focused on the background. The YouTuber who’d recorded it was American and had argued that the laws of the UK didn’t apply to her, so she’d been reminded that the UK and the USA had a mutual legal assistance treaty (MLAT). So far, the footage hadn’t been shared again, as far as Kelly’s team was aware, and Meta and X had blocked it. They relied on Emma to police activity like it. She knew how to do a quick check of viral posts, as well as for individuals. She was quicker than their digital department. The other matter that must be dealt with, via the US Embassy, was the factthat private security had cocked their weapons on British soil. The bodyguards were presumed currently resident at Dow Bank House, but they’d been filmed and thathadbeen shared on social media. It made the Cumbria police look like fools.
The woman had started filming after Jamie’s body had hit the floor, but only by a matter of seconds. Kelly guessed she was used to whipping her iPhone out at a moment’s notice to get a potential post that might attract more financial endorsement for her channel. She’d been investigated. The woman was harmless enough. No criminal record, no link to the victim apart from the obvious invite to the conference, and she had clearly been downstairs when the fall happened. What interested Kelly more was the footage itself. The woman’s hand was steady as a rock as she filmed. She didn’t comment, indicating her experience when it came to filming live disasters unfolding in real time. She whipped around the scene like a pro.
