The Hawkshead Hostage by Rebecca Tope Read Free Book Online Page A

Ben. On the voicemail.’
    Melanie competently accessed the recording, a frown deepening on her face. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘That sounds bad.’ She blinked in rapid thought. ‘What time was this?’
    ‘I don’t know. Doesn’t it tell you?’
    Melanie listened again. ‘Eleven thirty-two.’ She looked at the clock above the reception desk. ‘More than half an hour ago. We’ll have to go and see what’s happened.’ She frowned even more deeply. ‘That’s plenty of time for him to run back up here, isn’t it? Do you know where he went exactly?’
    ‘Something about a place called Colthouse. But he says he’s near some woods, doesn’t he?’
    ‘There are trees at the top end of the lake. It’s all very close. About two minutes’ walk from here. Where’s Dan?’ Melanie addressed the receptionist, wife of the manager, and apparently sole representative of the senior staff. ‘Where’s your husband? Who’s here?’
    ‘You know as well as I do,’ said Mrs Boddington-Webster. ‘Jeremy went into Hawkshead, and Jake doesn’t come in today. The lunches are all done in advance on a Tuesday.’
    ‘What about Dan?’
    ‘Good question.’
    ‘Come on ,’ urged Simmy. ‘We have to find Ben. He sounded so … desperate. Didn’t he?’ She appealed to Melanie for confirmation.
    ‘He did rather. Not like himself. Something obviously scared him.’ The girl’s face had been steadily paling since she’d heard Ben’s message. ‘Why hasn’t he come back, or phoned again?’
    ‘I daren’t even think,’ said Simmy. She began to leave the building by the front door.
    ‘No, not that way. It’s much quicker to go out of the back,’ said Melanie, already leading the way. The others followed her out, across the gravelled area, past the stables and down a gentle slope to the lake, barely seventy-five yards distant. It was actually part of the hotel’s grounds until the final few yards, the water lapping almost imperceptibly at the grassy edge. The ground was unusually flat for the area; no great rising fells or dense woodlands bordered Esthwaite, which dreamt away the days in a glassy calm. As before, therewere two or three small rowing boats sitting motionless on the water, with anglers in them.
    ‘Won’t those people have seen anything going on?’ asked Simmy. ‘Should we shout to them?’
    ‘They won’t take any notice,’ said Melanie. ‘They ignore everything happening onshore. I think half of them are asleep most of the time, anyway.’
    ‘Trees. Ben said there was a body under trees at the top end of the lake.’ Simmy had been repeating the words to herself as they ran down to the water. ‘Must be over there.’ She pointed to her left, where a small path wound its way amongst a scattering of rocks towards a patch of woodland. She could see a dead tree and a section of new-looking fencing on either side of it. There was a small field between where they stood and the trees, containing several cows. ‘Do you think a cow attacked Ben?’ It was a hopeful, almost comical, idea. The ‘Hey!’ that she had heard might have been addressed to a belligerent animal. ‘He might have climbed a tree to escape.’
    Melanie made a sound of restrained derision at this. The trees were not large, on the whole, and even if one had proved climbable, they both knew that Ben would not run away from a cow. He would stand his ground and shout at it until it backed off. There were no calves to be seen, and all country people knew that the only cattle to be feared were protective mothers and dairy bulls.
    It was the manager’s wife who made the first discovery. ‘Oh my God,’ she said, as she bent down and picked up a black, rectangular plastic object from beside a tuft of long grass. ‘Is this your friend’s?’
    Melanie snatched it and flittered a thumb over thescreen. No buttons these days, Simmy noted, with a sense of never having a hope of keeping up. Even in the midst of her horrified suspicions, she