The Grasmere Grudge

by Rebecca Tope

  He reached out and turned the key in the ignition. ‘We can’t just sit here,’ he said. ‘We can go back to Keswick, get some fish and chips, and call it a day. There’s nothing else we can do for anybody until tomorrow. Let’s lock the door and turn off the phones and forget them all.’

  ‘That would be wonderful,’ she sighed. ‘But please don’t drive so fast this time.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Saturday evening did not work out quite as planned. When they got back to the saleroom, Christopher found a note in an envelope pinned to the locked gate, with his name on it. It turned out to be from Josephine, his office manager, with a list of things she felt needed his attention. Reproach rose from every line. ‘What an old-fashioned way to communicate,’ said Simmy. ‘Why didn’t she text or email or phone?’

  ‘She’s a weird person,’ he said. ‘Still likes to have everything on paper.’

  ‘Have you got to do anything this evening?’ She tried to read the note over his shoulder, but he was holding it away from her. ‘What does she say?’

  ‘It’s just business stuff. Somebody’s saying we got a lot number wrong, and some other person’s gone off with the thing they paid for. We’ll have to check the cameras to see where it went.’

  ‘Cameras?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He pointed to three different spots across the parking area. ‘We’ve got twelve of them, all round the place, inside and out. Every move anyone makes is filmed, from the minute we open the gates on a Saturday.’

  ‘Blimey! That’s very Big Brotherish.’

  ‘We don’t make any secret of it. It works incredibly well at stopping anyone nicking anything.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said doubtfully, thinking of her father’s likely response to such levels of surveillance. She didn’t think he’d been aware of it during their day at the sale a few months earlier.

  ‘And Josephine says there’s a strange car still in the yard, and she wonders if it belongs to somebody I know.’ He grinned. ‘She means yours.’

  ‘Do you think she knows it’s mine?’

  ‘She doesn’t miss much.’

  ‘And all she has to do is check the cameras and see who drove it in.’ She shivered. ‘I don’t like that.’

  ‘You’re living in the past, Sim. We’re all caught on camera all the time. It’s an inevitable part of living in Britain. I don’t even think about it any more. It did come as a shock, though, when I got back from travelling. Now, if you want to drop out of sight, you have to go to Panama or a remote part of Alaska.’

  ‘I don’t think there are many cameras in Windermere.’

  ‘More than you think. They’re so cheap now that ordinary citizens put them up on their houses.’

  ‘So – can we go, or do you have to do a job for Josephine?’

  ‘We can go. All this can wait.’ He folded the note and flipped it over his shoulder onto the back seat. ‘Go and get your car. Drive out in front of me, and I’ll lock the gate behind us. I’ll get us some supper. You go ahead and make yourself at home. You know where the spare key lives.’

  Christopher’s flat was the upper floor of a substantial 1930s house on the edge of Keswick. Simmy had been there a number of times, but only once spent the night. She found it unsettling, for some reason. Since his parents had died, he had added various pieces of furniture from their Bowness bungalow, so it had a disorganised, cluttered feel. There were very few books and not a single picture on the walls. When she queried this, he shrugged and said, ‘How do you choose? Once you start, you end up covering every wall with them.’ She hadn’t found a credible answer to that.

  His bed was even narrower than hers, which made for uncomfortable nights. Remembering that, she inwardly sighed. Why had she agreed to stay over, anyway, she asked herself. Having got in using the key he kept under a stone halfway down the alleyway between his house and the next, she collapsed onto the sofa. It was good that he trusted her to be there alone, she reflected, even as she felt guilty at the thought. What did she think he might have to hide? It all went back to Moxon’s revelations, the previous day. Suspicion was in the air, and Christopher had become tainted with it. Ever since he found the body on Monday, he had behaved differently from how she might have expected. She kept telling herself he was sad, shocked, scared, as well as angry. But he had also shown defensiveness, avoidance and even an odd detachment. When he promised Philip he would do his best to find out the truth, she had been surprised. It had clashed with so much of what he had said and done all week. There were odd little pieces of behaviour that she kept trying to reconcile with the man and his story – and failing. There had been something strange between him and Flo Penrose, for example, and just now his reaction to Philip’s news about the stumpwork had been curious, with hindsight. Moxon’s concern that Christopher was hiding something was feeling more credible all the time. The alarming thought that she had promised to marry a man she barely knew rendered her silent when he came back with their fish supper.

  They ate it with relish, even so. Chris had eaten almost nothing all day, so took more than his share of chips at Simmy’s invitation. She watched him, comparing the familiar face with the unknowable mind behind it. Nobody really knew anybody, she told herself. All those thousands of thoughts that flashed through every hour of the day couldn’t possibly be revealed to another person, however intimate and honest they might both want to be. The accompanying feelings were seldom easy to put into words, and they too flickered by in a chaotic stream. It was all perfectly normal. Ben would say it was the penalty they all paid for their excessively large brains. Where animals would carelessly huddle together for warmth and safety, communicating quite well enough for their needs, human beings had to analyse and argue and anguish about identity and relationships and what was going to happen next.

  ‘You’re quiet,’ he said, eventually.

  ‘Yes. There’s a lot to process.’

  ‘Is there?’

  She looked into his eyes, wondering whether he was teasing, or being deliberately stupid as a way of fending her off. ‘You know there is. Why – does it bother you?’

  ‘Does what bother me?’

  ‘The fact that I might start talking about murder, or marriage, or houses or work. All the things we do actually need to talk about.’

  ‘I thought we’d decided the main points. We’ll go and buy an engagement ring next weekend, if you like.’

  ‘Okay. But you’re dodging the issue. Issues. You’ve just made a promise to Philip that you’ll do all you can to find who killed Jonathan. I can’t escape the impression that there’s a lot more you could be telling me – and the police. You do know, don’t you, that they get very annoyed with people who withhold information? Even if it incriminates you, you’re supposed to tell them everything you know. Otherwise they can have you for obstructing the course of justice or whatever they call it.’

  He chewed slowly, watching her face. His eyes revealed nothing. ‘Do you think I’ve been lying?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s not what I said. Of course I don’t think that. Lying isn’t the same as keeping something back. But you know people from all over the area. They know you. You handle their precious things and do that charismatic auctioneer act. You knew that stumpwork came from Kathleen Leeson’s house, didn’t you?’

  ‘I promise you I didn’t. Not for sure, anyway.’

  ‘Okay. But now you’ve made that promise to Philip, you’ve got to make more of an effort to help the investigation – don’t you think? You should tell the police everything else that might help. Everything you’ve been holding back.’

  ‘Which is precisely nothing. I said whatever I thought would make Philip feel better. Anyone would have said the same. He’s not going to know, is he? I doubt if he’ll ever regain consciousness now. He’ll die happy. Isn’t that what everyone wants?’

  ‘They want to be able to believe people’s promises, I should think. And it’s daft to say there’s nothing you can do. You know all th
e people who might have killed your friend. You were on the scene moments after it happened. Don’t you think you owe it to yourself if not Philip to put in a bit of effort to—’

  ‘Help the police with their enquiries?’ he interrupted. ‘I did some of that, and it was extremely unpleasant, let me tell you. I told them everything I could think of about Jon’s work, social life, marriage. None of it seems to have done the blindest bit of good. Now you’ve gone all sniffy on me, because I told a dying man what he wanted to hear.’

  She held her ground. Whatever else she might be feeling, she wasn’t the least bit scared of him, as she had occasionally been of Tony. But neither was she sorry for what she’d said. ‘Well, all right, but I still think you’re ducking out of it. When I tell Ben—’

  Again, he interrupted her. ‘Oh, I wondered when that was going to come. Your precious Ben can put me to shame every time, can’t he! You don’t seem to understand that he’s a boy, and I’m a grown man. I’ve got responsibilities. He’s got all the time he wants to play his clever games. The way I see it, the police are there to solve murders, not me. They’re going to be a lot better at it, too. Ben Harkness doesn’t know any of the people involved – he never met Jonathan, never knew what he was like. He’ll go home and draw diagrams, and invent theories, and if the police listen to him for more than ten seconds, I’ll think they’re wasting my taxpayer’s money. I’ve had enough of it, Sim. I want you to talk to me about houses and our wedding, and the babies we want to have. Is that so awful? Eh?’

  His voice softened, and he pulled her into him, knocking her empty polystyrene fish container onto the floor. ‘I never said I would play detective games with you, did I? Are you going to ditch me because of that? You look as if you might.’ He turned her face to his and stared at it. ‘You’re scaring me, to be absolutely honest.’

  It was one of the most revealing speeches she’d ever heard him make, and it turned many of her thoughts on their head. Was she just playing childish games with Ben and Bonnie? It had never felt like that. DI Moxon might have moments of exasperation, but he did take the three of them seriously. Then she began to see that this might well be how it looked to an outsider. And Christopher was an outsider, having seen very little of Simmy’s friends. He had only visited her parents three times since his own mum and dad had died, despite the two families having been very close in the past. Simmy had taken him there for Sunday lunch on these three occasions. The conversation had not touched on murder investigations, mainly because Simmy and her mother had an agreement to keep such matters away from Russell, if possible. He had an inflated sense of danger, verging on paranoia, and rightly or wrongly they did their best to avoid arousing this fear.

  ‘I’m not going to ditch you,’ she said calmly. ‘We’re going to tackle this whole thing like adults. I can see your point and I hope you can see mine. I agree with you that the murder of a man you knew is not the biggest thing in our lives, but it’s pretty high on the list. I don’t think we can get on with anything else until we’ve done our best to get it resolved.’

  He was still watching her face. ‘How?’ he said.

  ‘For a start, by telling Ben what Philip said about the stumpwork. It’ll make a big difference to his thinking. And I want space to think things through – I’ve met some people, heard some talk, had a few ideas. I want to share all that with Ben, because he’s so good at making connections, and he can check it out on the Internet and find out all sorts of details that could be relevant. It might look like a game to you, but it’s more than that. It’s what he does.’

  Christopher sighed. ‘You want space,’ he repeated. ‘Isn’t that code for cooling off a relationship? It feels like rejection, like being pushed away. You came to my sale today, and then dashed off when your friend Bonnie called you. To be honest, I was quite surprised when you came back again. You chatted to the Pruitt – is that his name? – man, and never told me what he said. That man can cause a lot of trouble for me, and there’s you being all friendly with him. And then I hear you’ve been asking about Nick, in the tea room. I can’t make sense of what you think you’re doing.’

  ‘Oh.’ She frowned at the floor. ‘How can Mr Pruitt cause trouble?’

  ‘He’s the only thing between me and being charged with murder. You must see that. All he has to do is adjust his story a bit, and I’m toast.’

  ‘What story? He saw you come out of the house looking distraught and called the police for you. That’s quite bad already, looked at in a certain way. How can he make it worse? And why on earth would he want to?’

  ‘I don’t trust him. It feels as if he’s got some hold over me, because I was so emotional and messed up after I found Jon. Why was he at the auction? The only answer that makes any sense is that he wanted to have another look at me, for some reason.’

  Simmy did not at all like the way this was going. ‘I really don’t understand why you’re scared of him. Maybe I’m being thick, but I can’t see how he can possibly cause trouble. More than that – I don’t see why he should. If you don’t know each other, he’s got no reason to tell lies about you, has he? And if he changes his story now, it’s him that’ll look suspicious, not you.’

  Christopher scratched his head vigorously. ‘I suppose he must have known Jonathan, from seeing him at the auction. But he never said anything about that on Monday. He left the identification business all up to me. I expect I’m being paranoid – but I can’t shake the feeling that he’s up to something.’

  ‘He says he used to go to the saleroom quite often before you took over as auctioneer.’

  ‘I don’t remember him. I didn’t recognise him on Monday. Maybe that annoyed him – do you think?’

  ‘What Ben would want to know is – why was he there in the first place? At Mrs Leeson’s house. The street is a dead end, and he didn’t have a dog with him, did he? That’s what’s sinister, surely? Unless he lives right there, of course.’ That idea was new, and superficially persuasive.

  ‘I don’t think he does. He gave his address when he phoned 999. I think he said Easedale Road, which is a few minutes away.’

  ‘Oh well,’ said Simmy defeatedly. ‘I suppose it’ll all become clear eventually.’

  ‘You think? What if they never find the killer? What if I have to spend the rest of my life dealing with people’s suspicions that I had something to do with it? It would rule out any hope of living in Grasmere, for a start.’

  Something in his voice made her sit up. ‘Chris, now you’re scaring me. What haven’t you told me? I can see it on your face – there’s a whole lot more to this than you’ve said. Isn’t there?’

  ‘No, not really. I can’t get you to understand what it was like on Monday. Let me try and go through it all again. Everything happened so fast, I couldn’t keep up. I couldn’t work out any of the implications. I didn’t know what I should say or do. There was poor old Jon, in the middle of a perfectly normal day, his face all black and ghastly. I just ran. And there was this man, standing there as if he was waiting for me. For a crazy moment, I thought he was my dad, and I was ten years old again. I grabbed him and cried. I put my face on his shoulder and shed real tears. He pushed me away, took me behind a wall and made me explain. It must have been ten minutes before we went back into the house. He didn’t recognise me at first, but then it dawned on him that I was the auctioneer. Then he called 999. While we were waiting for the police he kept talking, trying to make me explain why I was there and who Jon was, and how we knew each other. He was nearly as bad as the cops in Penrith, but a lot more gentle. And now I don’t remember what I said, or what he must have thought – or what he told the police. They soon let him go, anyway.’

  ‘Okay, stop. I need to think.’ She put her hands to her temples and closed her eyes. ‘It sounds as if he might have been following you, the way you tell it now. As if he might have been looking for Jonathan as well, even. Don’t you think?’

  He stared at her. ‘When I started thinking like that, I th
ought I was being paranoid.’

  ‘Why did the police let him go so quickly? That’s what sounds odd. Surely he would have seemed to them as significant as you? It would look as if you both found the body, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘We told them how it was.’

  ‘And they obviously believed you. Did the Pruitt man touch Jonathan, as well as you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I remember him staying well back, by the door. I think not.’

  She exhaled, letting out tension and frustration. She needed Ben. The narrow bed upstairs was not calling to her in any way, and she found herself wondering whether she’d left it too late to make an excuse to slink off home to Troutbeck. Christopher was draining a large glass of wine and eyeing the bottle speculatively. They’d talked for nearly an hour, all of it about murder, with the worrying result that they seemed to like each other slightly less than before. They hadn’t harmonised their emotions, filled each other’s gaps, consoled each other’s ruffled feelings.

  ‘Valerie Woolley tomorrow,’ he groaned, after a few minutes of silence. ‘She’s going to ask me exactly the same tedious questions that you just subjected me to. I’m tempted to be out when she arrives and avoid her completely.’

  ‘You wouldn’t do that,’ said Simmy, hopefully.

  ‘Only because she’d keep after me until I gave her what she wants. Did you say you wanted to be with me when I talk to her?’

  ‘I think I did – but now I’m not so sure. Actually, Chris, would it be absolutely dreadful of me if I bunked off home now? I’m not in the mood for sex, to put it bluntly, and there isn’t really anywhere for me to sleep. It’s been a long day for both of us.’

  He looked at her in utter confusion. ‘What did I say? What have I done?’

  ‘Nothing, you fool. It’s no big deal. I just want my own bed. It’s going to be a warm night, and we’ll never manage to sleep squashed together in yours. Can’t we be adult enough to manage times when we don’t both want to be together? We probably need to talk it over sometime soon – the ground rules, and what we both think it means to be married.’