The Ambleside Alibi: 2

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘That’s Mum’s uncle, not her cousin,’ said Melanie, irritably. ‘And they live down south. I never even saw them. I can’t remember who all those cousins, are. There are too many of them.’

  ‘How many have you got, then?’ It was evident that Mrs Ellis already knew the answer to that.

  ‘Six.’ The sense of a contest lost was clearly in the air. ‘So far.’

  ‘You still think that useless Robin’s going to settle down and start a family? He must be forty-five if he’s a day.’

  Again, Ben took charge. ‘They had two girls – the Josephs,’ he prompted. ‘Did they ever have anything to do with the Clark twins?’

  ‘How d’you mean? Sam – give us a hand here, will you? Penny Clark’s eldest. What’s his name … Edward, is it? Didn’t he have a bit of a thing for that Nicola Joseph, years back?’

  ‘Broke his heart,’ confirmed the old man with a minimal nod. His chin was already pressed into his neck, from the angle of his chair, which somehow arranged for his face to be pointed towards the television while much of his body was horizontal. ‘She never would have truck with him.’

  Simmy bit back the explanation for this, unsure of the Ellis couple’s reaction to lesbianism. She could see Ben mentally filing away this flimsy connection, for further analysis later. She also found herself entertaining a rogue theory about a brief experimental encounter resulting in a child that got itself hurriedly adopted, in total secrecy. Despite the emphatic denials from Nicola, the possibility remained. What the implications might be for the murdered Nancy Clark remained stubbornly obscure.

  Ben tried one more time to get more of a grasp of Nancy Clark’s life and character. ‘So she worked at a clinic,’ he summarised. ‘A private place, you mean?’

  ‘As far as I can recall, yes.’

  ‘And she had an affair with the top consultant there?’

  ‘That’s what they said.’ Barbara Ellis drew a deep breath. ‘The main thing about Nancy, you see, was that she was a very nasty person. Had been from a small girl. Never worked out why. Always sly and unkind, she was. Selfish, too. Scowled the whole time and was a devil for pinching. I never did like a girl who pinched.’

  ‘Did she pinch you?’ asked Melanie.

  ‘She certainly did. More than once. It was a relief when she got sent up to the grammar and we didn’t have to bother with her any more.’

  Another forty minutes passed, in which more names were thrown out, forcing Ben to extract a notepad and ballpoint from the small rucksack he’d brought with him, and start writing down some of the blizzard of information. His questions were becoming more sporadic, his face flushed from the warm room and the futile efforts to draw anything resembling a logical thread from Mrs Ellis’s recollections. At last, Melanie called a halt. ‘Gran, we’ll have to go,’ she said. ‘It’s dark already, and there’s been snow up at Troutbeck. Simmy’s scared of the drive home. I’ll wash those mugs for you, shall I, before we go?’

  ‘You will not. But you’re a good girl for offering.’ The proud grandmother patted the girl’s back. ‘You were always the special one, our Melly. But don’t go boasting to the others about it, will you? No good can come of it. Just remember your old granny when you’re rich and famous.’

  The departure took a few more minutes, with Ben solemnly shaking hands with his informant, and Simmy expressing effusive thanks. The man of the house had slipped into a deep sleep half an hour before, and was oblivious to everything around him.

  ‘Still don’t know what it was all about,’ sighed Mrs Ellis. ‘All this digging into the past. What good’s it going to do you? But I must admit it was nice, for a change. Nice to know I can still dredge it all up when I try. Makes a life worth something, if you know what I mean.’

  Simmy entertained slippery thoughts about identity and the meaning of any individual’s span on earth. When it came right down to it, she supposed that all a person really amounted to was the sum of their memories. ‘I know what you mean,’ she said.

  Chapter Twelve

  They all piled into Simmy’s car, without even thinking about it. ‘So where does that leave us?’ asked Ben, blowing out his cheeks. ‘What a woman! My granny can hardly remember what day it is. She’s never told me a thing about her early life.’

  ‘It’s just the way she is,’ said Melanie proudly. ‘I did tell you. That was nothing to how she can be sometimes. It’s not just the past. She remembers everything that happened last week as well.’

  ‘We ought to tell DI Moxon about her,’ said Simmy, aware of a stab from her conscience. ‘She could solve all his crimes for him. She’s wasted as she is.’

  ‘She’s not too keen on the police, as you might have gathered,’ said Melanie. ‘Especially since they stopped Grandad on the dual carriageway for eating a sandwich when he was driving. We’ve never heard the end of that one. She’s quite funny about it sometimes, but I’d hate to be that constable if she meets him again. She’s got quite a temper on her.’

  ‘She was wonderfully welcoming,’ said Simmy. ‘She must have wondered what we were there for. Not that she seemed flustered or anything.’

  ‘She’s never flustered. Plus she’s glad to have someone to eat all the cakes she makes. She’s got tins and tins of them. It’s not just at Christmas. If you go there in the middle of summer, she’ll give you the same thing. I think she and Grandad live on it. She never seems to cook a Sunday roast or anything like that.’

  ‘I’m worried about Mr Kitchener,’ Simmy changed the subject. ‘I can’t get him out of my mind. He saw Candida in the café. He kicked her chair. She looked at him.’

  Ben made a choking, squawking sound. ‘What? You never told us that.’

  ‘It was nothing at the time. But when I saw the girl again this morning, it came back to me. What if there was some sort of plot between them? The kick might have been a signal, that they’d prearranged.’

  ‘Stop!’ Melanie ordered. ‘This isn’t your sort of thing. You’re talking about a conspiracy between Malcolm Kitchener and Mrs Joseph’s granddaughter – what, to kill Nancy Clark? But why?’

  ‘I can’t imagine.’

  ‘Yes, but … no … but,’ said Ben wildly. ‘It does make sense. I mean, the alibi does. If the girl did the killing, under his instruction … no, that doesn’t work. Simmy’s alibi covers both of them, doesn’t it. And if the cops have got their times wrong, then it could just as easily have been Mr K all along. Where does this Candida person fit in?’

  ‘What’s she like?’ Melanie asked, as Ben had done, earlier in the day.

  ‘Confident. Pretends to be ditzy, but isn’t really.’ It was a different answer to the same question.

  ‘The cops thought Kitchener did it,’ said Ben slowly. ‘They must have come up with some sort of motive, as well as means and opportunity. It’s only Simmy’s alibi that wrecked it. But crucially, we’ve got a link!’ He raised a hand in triumph. ‘A proper link this time, between the two old women.’

  ‘Have we?’ Melanie, on the back seat, seemed to be peripheral to the main conversation. She leant forward, pushing her head between the front seats. ‘Explain.’

  ‘The man suspected of killing Miss Clark was seen in a café with the self-proclaimed granddaughter of Mrs Joseph. They looked at each other. That can’t be a coincidence. We’ve already established that there really aren’t any coincidences here at all. It’s all quite logical.’

  ‘Simmy’s a link, as well,’ said Melanie. ‘Plus she did the flowers for Mrs Kitchener. That could have made her son think of flowers as a way of getting at Mrs Joseph – if we’re thinking that’s what he did. Don’t forget that’s why she was in Ambleside in the first place. Flowers that the girl sent. The girl that was in the café at the same time as Mr K. It’s starting to come untangled, now. One step at a time, and there’s a definite thread to it.’ She made string-pulling gestures with her hands that went unseen by the others in the fading light.

  ‘Melanie, that’s brilliant!’ Ben con
gratulated her.

  ‘Getting at Mrs Joseph?’ Simmy repeated. ‘Where did that come from?’

  ‘What if Mr Kitchener is one of those conmen who goes around getting money out of old ladies?’ Melanie was in full spate. ‘He worms his way into their confidence, visits them in their house, gets them to tell him where their valuables are, and then bashes them on the head.’

  Ben cleared his throat. ‘There’s about ten things wrong with that, Mel. It doesn’t fit the facts. For a start, he’s local, so everybody knows him. If it is him that did it, he’s after something other than their valuables. It’s my belief it has to do with his mother. What if he’s taking revenge for something that was done to the old girl years ago? What if he blames them for her bad heart? You heard how interconnected all these people are, since about a hundred years ago.’

  ‘But getting at Mrs Joseph?’ Simmy persisted. ‘I still don’t see it. How can sending a bunch of flowers be getting at her?’

  ‘Come on, Sim,’ urged Melanie. ‘Look at how worked up you said she was when she came into the shop. The whole family’s in meltdown because of it. It’s not the flowers so much as the message that came with them. It’s a brilliant way of unsettling somebody.’

  ‘It would be a nifty bit of revenge, in fact,’ claimed Ben.

  ‘But she really does think she’s Mrs Joseph’s granddaughter,’ Simmy insisted. ‘She knew she was adopted, because of some genetic thing at school. So she must have got the details from the adoption people, just like you said, and found Mrs J’s birth certificate so she knew her birthday, and sent the flowers on that day.’

  ‘Some genetic thing?’ Ben queried. ‘You never told me that. What was it?’

  ‘I have no idea. Hair colour, or eyes or something, presumably. Or blood group. She said she couldn’t possibly be the biological child of her mother, for some reason.’

  ‘Garbage!’ said Ben. ‘There’s nothing you could glean in school science that would prove anything like that for certain. You’d have to do a DNA test.’

  ‘So maybe she did.’

  ‘She’d have said, wouldn’t she? And how would she get a sample from the old lady for comparison? I’m not sure that story holds any water at all. I think she’s just a stooge for Mr K. I think she lives locally somewhere and made the whole granddaughter story up. She was in Troutbeck this morning looking for you. The thing is,’ he concluded solemnly, ‘you can’t believe everything people say. You have to trust your own senses – and you saw them together in the café, at the same time as Miss Clark was being murdered. That’s the fact of the matter.’

  ‘Yes,’ breathed Melanie. ‘That’s right. Which means it can’t have been Mr Kitchener or Candida who did it.’

  Simmy rubbed her temples, feeling old and slow-witted beside these youngsters. ‘I don’t think they can be so absolutely precise about the timing as that. That’s the whole trouble with alibis – especially if it’s all in the same little town. It’s barely five minutes from one place to the next.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Ben, which got them nowhere.

  Simmy tried to grasp all the implications. ‘So do we think Mrs Joseph is in danger? You said before that we should warn her. She’ll be there on her own in that cottage, same as Miss Clark was. She probably doesn’t lock the door. Nobody seems to around here. She won’t see any reason why she should. Poor old thing. I liked her. I don’t want to be the instrument of some nasty bit of revenge.’ She looked up at the sky, which was dark but cloudless. ‘I think I’m going to go there now and see that she’s all right. I’ll tell her to keep her door locked. And maybe I should tell her Candida Hawkins’ name, after all. Now I’ve met her, I really think she’s genuine. I think she’s just scared to make the final approach. It might be doing everyone a favour if I help it along a bit.’

  ‘That’s a pretty big change of heart, isn’t it? What happened to professional ethics?’

  ‘Well, it’s different now, you see. I met her as an ordinary person, not a professional anything.’

  ‘Too subtle for me,’ said Ben. ‘I think you were right the first time. Except, it might move things along a bit. Make something happen.’

  Simmy shivered. ‘And it might not be anything good. Maybe I’ll just play it by ear, and if it seems reasonable I’ll do it, but only if I’m sure. How’s that?’

  ‘Why not just phone her?’ said Ben. ‘Instead of going all the way up there in the dark.’

  ‘That wouldn’t work. What would I say? I need to lead up to it gradually, testing the water as I go. I need to watch her expression. It might turn out that she’s perfectly all right. She might have somebody with her, or have gone to stay with one of the daughters.’

  ‘Or she might already be dead in her hallway,’ said Melanie. ‘And then you’d spend all night in the nick, answering questions.’

  Simmy winced. ‘Don’t say that. Of course, she might not let me in. She’s not awfully keen on me as it is. But I really think I ought to make an effort. I feel responsible.’ She glared at Ben on the seat next to her, trying to convey that most of her unease was his doing.

  ‘Nothing so far has been your fault,’ he said, as if this was too obvious to need voicing. ‘But if you tell her the girl’s name, you’ll have got yourself more deeply involved. You see that, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so. But it would stop them being so cross with me.’ She could hear the childish desire to be liked in her own voice, and felt foolish. But it was true, for all that.

  ‘Do you want us to come with you?’ Melanie asked. ‘Because if you do, it’ll have to be quick. I’m seeing Joe this evening.’

  ‘And I’m rehearsing my lines,’ said Ben.

  ‘No, no. That would be all wrong. We don’t want to look like a deputation,’ Simmy assured them. ‘I’ll just say I was in Ambleside, and thought I’d drop in to say hello.’

  ‘She’ll think that’s very strange,’ said Melanie. ‘It’s not as if you’re her friend.’

  ‘I don’t care what she thinks. I just want to be sure she’s all right. I’ll say I’ve been worrying about her, and felt bad about not cooperating when she came to see me. It’s true, after all.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ said Melanie, as if Simmy needed her permission.

  ‘You won’t be home by five,’ Ben observed. ‘There might be a frost later on.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Simmy. ‘Only this morning you were telling me I was being scared for nothing.’ She tried not to visualise the steep winding road back to Troutbeck, where treacherous patches of ice could so easily lie in wait for her. ‘I’m taking you home, and then I’m going to Ambleside.’

  ‘Not me. I’ll walk,’ said Melanie, already opening the door. Simmy had never yet seen the Todd house, and suspected that her assistant was ashamed of it.

  Ten minutes later, she was heading north on the road to Ambleside, rehearsing exactly what she would say to Mrs Joseph, if and when the old lady opened the door to her.

  Parking was complicated in the poor light, with very few available spaces in the twisting streets at the northern end of the town, but eventually she tucked it into a quiet yard not far from the Unicorn pub, hoping nobody would object on a Sunday. She automatically took her shoulder bag with her and locked the car, before making for the upper reaches of Ambleside. This entailed a walk up Peggy Hill, having negotiated the short white-painted tunnel that curved around and up the lower part of the hill. Christmas lights twinkled from the surrounding shops and houses, but it was still uncomfortably dark in the narrow streets. For a few moments, she lost her bearings, unsure of whether she needed to traverse another row of houses before locating the one she wanted. She tried to remember the number, in vain, but a distinctive shrub beside a front porch jogged her memory, and she knocked on the door of the adjacent whitewashed cottage. Most of the houses up here were white, as were several in Troutbeck. It was the only permitted colour, it seemed, other than the natural dark grey stone.

  There was no reply to her knock an
d she tried again, remembering to stand well back from the outward-opening door. She felt the usual irrational rejection that came with the situation. After she’d gone to so much trouble, the least the woman could do was to be at home. It was no time to be out – unless, of course, she was at church. That was all too possible. There might be a special carol service going on somewhere. The thought had not occurred to her until that moment. Even if it had, she would not have known the usual time for Sunday services. It was just after five, and the word evensong flitted into her mind, with images of candlelight and angelic children singing ‘Silent Night’.

  She turned to go, pressing into the stone wall opposite the cottage to allow a car to creep past. These streets had never been designed for modern traffic, and vehicles were forced to park at all kinds of awkward angles, with no suggestion of garages or carports. Once in, there was often no choice but to go out again in reverse – which was why Simmy never even considered bringing her own car this far up the hill. The car pulled up a few yards further on, but nobody got out. Simmy assumed it must be a couple, using the car as an undisturbed place for a kiss and a cuddle, or an intense conversation. She could dimly see two heads in the front.

  Slowly, with a dragging sense of disappointment, she retraced her steps down the hill. Perhaps if she dawdled enough, she would meet Mrs Joseph coming towards her, and be invited back for tea. Stock Ghyll dashed past on her right, deep in a cleft between the buildings. In summer, customers at the Giggling Goose sat outside, overlooking the stream. A stone ledge provided a high seat for children, held tightly by their parents, so they could see the water below them. On a winter night, the ghyll was more sound than sight, the water loud and urgent. There were no people visible, and Simmy paused to absorb the distinctive atmosphere. It pleased her that there was no need to walk up onto the fells in order to savour the elements that made up the whole region. Hurtling water, implacable stone, a sense of timelessness – they were all right there in the little town. She leant her forearms on the stone ledge, and gazed down at the flickering shadowy water twenty feet or so below her. Her coat was thick and warm, but her feet were slightly cold, despite the ankle boots she was wearing.