Whatever had gone on at Laurie Fell on Sunday night, and whatever Paul Edderbridge’s part in it, Kelly was all ears. Sometimes she wished that the Lake District had a great fence around it, to keep out troublemakers from the capital, but as long as the rich ran out of space in the city, and there was room here to hide, they’d keep coming. But she had to find out why they needed an insider like Paul to become involved, if he was.

Chapter 48

Paul Edderbridge’s file made for depressing reading. He was a damaged individual whose addiction to petty crime was predictable enough.

Kelly fixed a coffee and took a call from Chief Constable Andrew Harris. She’d given him an update, but she sensed impatience in his voice.

‘How can the AAIB do its job in this snow?’ he asked.

She calmly repeated what Zoe had told her about them having already transferred what they needed to the hangar here in Penrith.

‘Think of it like a plane that goes down in the Atlantic; they might not retrieve everything, but enough to file a confident report,’ she told him.

‘Hmmm,’ he said. He was doing this a lot. It was a warning that he wasn’t happy. And if he wasn’t happy then it usually meant that he had someone breathing down his neck.

‘And the target?’ he’d asked.

‘We’re not sure, sir.’

‘Hmmm. And Lord Reilly’s reason for being at the Laurie Fell estate?’

‘Unclear, sir.’

‘Hmmm. And this local lad, the one identified by the activist as bragging in the pub?’

‘I’m just about to interview him, sir.’

‘Hmmm.’

She appreciated his frustration but she wasn’t in the business of rushing investigations to fit with the media, or the government.

‘Sir, I haven’t all the answers yet, but I’m getting there. We’re analysing the CCTV from the new cameras installed at Aira Force National Trust car park, from Sunday night, to see who travelled along the road to the Laurie Fell.’

‘Hmmm. What about the housekeeper?’

‘Arrested for obstruction, sir. I haven’t enough to arrest her for soliciting underage girls but that’s where I’m heading. We’re trying to squeeze her for information about the last hours leading up to the crash.’

‘Hmmm. This one’s a bit tricky. Ex-school teacher, is she?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘That’s delicate.’

‘Why, sir?’ Kelly’s hackles went up.

‘Well, it’s distracting for the investigation. I see several threads here, Porter.’

He only called her Porter when he was rattled.

‘Sir?’

‘I just think your climate activist thread was more convincing, and the Home Office agrees.’