A Watery Grave (Karen Cady Book 1), Penny Kline [book recommendations for young adults txt] 📗

‘Surgery’s finished I’m afraid, except for emergencies.’ She broke off, realising that Karen was a stranger, quite apart from the fact that she had no dog on a lead or cat in a basket.

‘I’m a friend of Glen Fortune’s,’ said Karen. ‘I wondered if you’d mind if I walked along with you for a bit – or do you have a car parked nearby?’

‘No car.’ Holly smiled. ‘You’re Tessie are you? He’s told me all about you.’

‘No, no, I’m Karen Cady.’ Holly’s remark had thrown her a little. ‘Tessie’s a friend of mine too. It’s just . . .’

‘Look, this is crazy.’ Holly stopped walking and faced Karen. ‘What is it you want? I can’t stand people who talk in riddles.’

‘Me too.’ Karen knew she would have to ask her straight out. ‘You and Glen . . . I saw Tessie and she thinks – well, Glen’s done this before.’

Holly laughed. ‘She thinks me and Glen . . .? Who was it told her about me? I remember, you’re the one who was walking by the river. The one Glen and Simon stopped to talk to. That’s the trouble with jumping to conclusions—’

‘It wasn’t me, it was her brother. He saw the two of you together, outside the Sports Centre, holding hands.’

She sighed. ‘Nice brother she must have. Look, I don’t really see why I have to explain myself, but if you must know Glen and I are taking part in a kind of exhibition – to raise money for charity. It’s at the Sports Centre – demonstrating different ways of exercising, body-building. Nothing too serious but the guy who runs the gym wants to make a good impression. Hopes it’ll bring in more customers.’

Was she telling the truth? Karen thought she probably was.

‘I’m sorry. It’s nothing to do with me. I just—’

‘I know. You were thinking of Tessie.’ Holly gestured to show which way she was going. ‘I guess if I saw my friend’s bloke with another girl . . . Tell Tessie she’s got nothing to worry about. As a matter of fact I’m getting married next month. My boyfriend’s out in Saudi Arabia but he’s starting a new job in November, up in London. Oh, and the reason Glen and I were holding hands–’

‘I know,’ interrupted Karen, ‘you were practising for the gym display. I believe you, thousands wouldn’t!’

They laughed. In spite of the way they had met, in spite of getting off to a bad start, they seemed to be on the same wavelength.

‘Look, there is just one more thing,’ said Karen, encouraged by the way Holly had reacted to her questioning with such good humour.

‘Yes?’ Holly’s voice had a tone of mock exasperation.

‘You knew Natalie Stevens, didn’t you?’

‘What?’ She stopped walking, almost seemed to have stopped breathing. ‘What about her?’

‘I know Joanne, her sister. Not very well, but I like her. She’s moved into a new flat and–’

‘Really?’ Holly smiled a little. ‘Good for her. I wondered what had happened. It was Natalie I knew best but I always felt sorry for Joanne. I mean, Natalie was bound to be the favourite since Walter Stevens was her real father.’

Karen opened her mouth to say ‘how do you mean?’ then decided to pretend she knew all about the family already. ‘Yes, of course.’

‘Joanne’s father never even saw her, you know. He was killed three months before she was born. Imagine it. Her mother, I mean. I don’t know if I could go on, but you’d have to, I suppose, for the baby’s sake.’

‘D’you know how he died?’

‘Some accident. I forget. Oh, I know, the brakes failed – on his car. Something like that Apparently it was all a bit of a mystery. Natalie used to say her mother must have wanted to get rid of him.’

‘Why would she want to do that?’

‘I’ve no idea. I never took any notice. You know what Natalie was like. Enjoyed dramatising everything, turning it into a TV movie.’

‘I never met her,’ said Karen, ‘but she sounds very different from Joanne.’

‘She was. So different it was hard to believe they had the same mother. She loved animals – especially cats – that’s how we met. She brought Dougal to the surgery, after he’d been in a fight.’

‘Dougal?’ Karen remembered the large tabby with the battered ear.

‘He was Natalie’s. She’d had him since he was a kitten. Joanne had a grey one but it was run over just outside the house.’ She sighed. ‘Poor old Nat, I just wish they’d catch whoever did it. However crazy she was she didn’t deserve to die.’

‘No, of course not.’ Karen was thinking about the diary she and Russell had found at the old hut by the railway line. ‘Look, I’m sorry to keep asking all these questions,’ said Karen, ‘but did Glen know Natalie?’

‘Glen? Why d’you ask?’

‘Oh, no reason in particular. I just wondered if they ever met?’

‘I doubt it. All Natalie’s conquests – she liked to tell us about them, count them up like gold stars for achievement. I felt sorry for her, sorry for anyone who has to behave like that. People said it was because she was so attractive.’

‘Well, she was, wasn’t she?’

‘Oh, yes, she was that all right, but she was never happy. At least I didn’t think she was. Sometimes I got the feeling she thought she hadn’t lived up to her father’s expectations, passed all her exams with flying colours, gone to university and become an accountant or something.’

‘What did Natalie want to do?’

‘I don’t know. Something with animals? A job like mine perhaps. She had some terrible rows with her parents, but I think that was because her father didn’t want her to grow up, would have liked her to stay a little girl for the rest of her life.’ She