The Ambleside Alibi: 2

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘Oh, yes. Every year, actually. Mum went out there five or six times, and Brenda came here a lot. But she never stayed long, and never looked up old friends. Especially not Nicola.’

  ‘Is she married?’ Simmy asked.

  ‘Of course not. She’s a lesbian. She’s got a partner, Ellie. They live in Darwin. It’s very hot.’

  ‘So – Brenda knew about the egg donation. Did she know there was a child as a result of it?’

  He stared at her. ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Didn’t you know about it, then?’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that time. Except I knew Nicola quite well, because I was working for her dad. She used to come in and do a bit of casual work when we were busy. And she always wanted the offcuts from the printworks, for some reason.’

  ‘It’ll all come out now, anyway,’ said Ben.

  ‘What will?’

  ‘The whole story,’ said the boy with some exasperation. ‘Haven’t you come to tell it to us yourself?’

  ‘Egg donation,’ the man muttered. ‘What’s that, anyway?’

  ‘That girl, Candida Hawkins – she’s Nicola’s biological daughter. She came from Nicola’s egg,’ said Simmy, hearing how peculiar it sounded, as she spoke.

  ‘Right.’ He was obviously having trouble grasping the concept. ‘Do I know Candida Hawkins?’ He blinked in confusion.

  ‘Let’s get back to Brenda,’ urged Ben.

  Mr Kitchener complied with relief. ‘She went to the police yesterday afternoon, and demanded they exhume our mother’s body. She’s convinced there was foul play. They fobbed her off, but she went back again first thing today, and they told her there was no need to do an exhumation, because Nicola had already confessed to killing her. After everything else she’s done, I’m quite surprised they even remembered my poor old mum. She used the same method as with Nancy. She must have been so happy when the police thought I did it.’ He gave Simmy a dog-like smile of devotion. ‘And thanks to you, that was never a serious proposition.’

  ‘But it does bring the total back to five,’ Simmy realised. ‘She’s practically a serial killer.’

  Mr Kitchener was intent on a complete debriefing. ‘Brenda came and talked to me about a whole lot of things, last night. We had a bottle of wine and cried together. She’s always been a good sister to me. We’ve got a lot of history, with the way our dad was. She did her best to keep him off me. No wonder she never wanted any truck with men. And now our dear old mum gets herself killed by a madwoman.’ He sniffed ominously.

  ‘But why?’ Ben demanded.

  ‘Bren thinks it must have been that Mum knew something about Nicola that had to be kept from that partner of hers. Now I realise it was because of this egg thing.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Ben. ‘This was ages before Simmy delivered the flowers, wasn’t it? So the whole thing goes a lot further back than we thought.’

  ‘Makes you wonder whether there were others, years ago, who might have gone the same way,’ said Melanie. ‘How could anybody live like that – always terrified of a secret coming out and killing anyone who might give it away?’

  ‘So Brenda never said anything about the egg donation?’ asked Simmy. ‘Doesn’t she realise that that’s what this whole business is about?’

  ‘I expect she does, but she wouldn’t talk about that sort of thing with me.’ He smiled weakly. ‘Bit of a prude is our Brenda, funnily enough.’

  ‘If she killed Mrs Kitchener with an air embolism, there’ll be no way they can find evidence of it now,’ Ben asserted. ‘So no sense in doing an exhumation. Lucky she confessed. They’d never prove it otherwise.’

  ‘So how did they know Nancy Clark had been murdered, then?’ For the first time this detail occurred to Simmy.

  Melanie and Ben grinned at her like clever twins. ‘A fluke,’ said Ben. ‘Miss Clark was diabetic, so she’d had countless insulin injections in the past few years. It was all rather obvious – especially because Moxo himself is diabetic, so he knew the procedure.’

  ‘Explain,’ ordered Simmy.

  ‘Okay. In a nutshell, you inject insulin into fatty tissue, in your stomach, hips – places where there’s some meat. Definitely not into a vein. But the air embolism thing obviously has to go directly into a vein. Moxo saw the site of the fatal injection and made an instant deduction. Plus she was lying on the floor with bruises in all the wrong places. Plus she’d been to the doctor the day before, as fit as a flea. He’d done some routine checks on her and swore there was no way she’d die of heart failure or a coronary the very next day.’

  ‘You got all that from your friend Scott?’ Simmy accused him. ‘And never told us.’

  ‘I told you it was a lethal injection, and it was.’

  ‘So that’s it,’ said Melanie. ‘It really is this time.’ She sighed. ‘Doesn’t seem worth killing anybody for, does it?’

  ‘Just what I was thinking,’ said Simmy.

  ‘I blame that Gwen,’ said Melanie. ‘She must be a real control freak.’

  ‘It does sound like that, but I really liked her,’ gloomed Simmy. ‘She gave me some bedsocks.’

  Ben’s laugh lifted her spirits in seconds. Mr Kitchener added his own contribution, with a reassuring smile. ‘She’s perfectly decent,’ he confirmed. ‘Brenda went to see her today. Said she should have done it years ago and settled old jealousies. Turns out they’ve always been jealous of each other.’

  ‘All over the worthless Nicola,’ sneered Ben.

  ‘Nobody’s worthless,’ the man reproached him. ‘You have to learn that, lad. It matters more than anything.’

  ‘So, what was the motive?’ pressed Melanie.

  ‘Fear,’ said Mr Kitchener. ‘She was terrified that one of them would betray her secret. She’d spent nineteen years keeping it hidden, brushing it out of sight. And almost as bad as Gwen finding out, was her mother knowing about it as well. She simply couldn’t deal with the implications of a daughter showing up.’

  ‘And she thought I might betray her as well,’ said Simmy.

  ‘She was very angry with you,’ he nodded. ‘Must have been, we think. But perhaps it wasn’t planned like the others. She saw you at her mother’s front door on Sunday night and saw red, thinking you’d gone to drop her even further into the doodah. It would appear she was panicking by then, and just firefighting, trying to keep the lid on the whole business.’

  ‘That’s exactly what she said last night,’ Simmy confirmed. ‘So we’ve got it straight at last.’

  ‘You know a lot about it,’ Ben accused Mr Kitchener, a trifle sullenly.

  ‘I’ve spent the past twenty-four hours and more making it my business to uncover the whole story. I saw these two ladies yesterday’ – he smiled at Simmy and Melanie – ‘and talked things through with them. It helped a lot. You told me about the girl, remember? That got me thinking along different lines. Then I popped into the Elleray for some lunch and the chap behind the bar started gossiping about two women he’d got staying there, and pennies began to drop.’ He shook his head in self-reproach. ‘It did occur to me to follow them, last night, but I didn’t know how to go about it, not having a car. I might have pulled you out of the lake a bit sooner, if I’d been there. As it was, it was far too late when I turned up. By then they were winching the car back onto dry land.’

  ‘How did you know where she was? Candida, I mean?’

  ‘They told the Elleray guy that they were dining at the Belsfield. He was not a little miffed about it, actually. Thought it meant his food wasn’t good enough for them.’

  ‘His food’s excellent,’ said Simmy absently. ‘And probably barely half the price.’

  ‘We’ll never know the finer details,’ Ben announced. ‘How A met B and what they said about C. It’d only drive us mad trying to guess. We know everything we need to, now.’ He looked at his watch. ‘And I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Hey!’ Simmy remembered. ‘How did the play go last night?’

  ‘Pretty well. Even
better tonight, obviously.’ He drooped. ‘Shame you won’t see it.’

  Simmy did a rapid inventory of her bones and bruises. ‘I wouldn’t give up hope just yet,’ she said.

  Not many hours later, Melanie escorted her into the large school hall, assisted by Wilf, who was hovering near the door as they went in. ‘I’ve saved some seats at the front,’ he said.

  The play was a revelation to Simmy. The antics of the lion gave rise to agonising laughter that set her broken rib back several days. Ben, the scrawny adolescent boy, was transformed into a gruff warrior wrestling with insuperable moral difficulties. The acting made Simmy’s head spin, until she forgot entirely that it was Ben Harkness she was watching. The message of the play seemed to come and go, until she gave up trying to grasp it. None of the characters seemed to be able to put their ideals into practice – that much she understood. It had unmissable implications for modern times, in the reaction of authority to unpopular sentiments and the power of the masses to demonise certain individuals. It raised questions of martyrdom and persecution and the lure of warfare with a light touch that turned uncomfortable moments quickly to comedy.

  It bothered her not at all that Christianity came out of it so badly in the first act, because the direction of the play made it plain that the real Christian was Androcles, who made the audience laugh and clap with almost every line. What bothered her more was that Ben had not been given the starring role. The Androcles boy was good, but Ben was light years better.

  ‘Wow!’ she gasped, when the final curtain came down. ‘That was amazing.’

  She looked at the youngsters on either side of her, eager to debate the themes of the play. But they had no eyes for her. Wilf was leaning back in his chair, his gaze running past her to Melanie, who was equally canted backwards. Simmy sat forward, fumbling for her crutches. ‘You should have said you wanted to sit together,’ she complained.

  ‘Yes, we should,’ Melanie said. ‘Next time, we will.’

  On the way out, they almost collided with Ninian Tripp, and Simmy automatically looked round for Julie, associating the two in her mind. But her friend was nowhere in sight. ‘Hello!’ she greeted him. ‘On your own?’

  He pushed long hair from his face. ‘I am, yes.’

  ‘Do you know any of them? The people in the play?’

  ‘Oh, no. It’s just that I’m mad keen on Shaw, and when I saw they were doing it, I had to get a ticket. Wasn’t it wonderful? Didn’t they make a brilliant job of it!’ He was pink with enthusiasm.

  Simmy wanted very much to stay and talk to him about it, but Melanie was clucking round her and insisting she be driven home immediately. ‘You’re dreadfully pale,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry,’ she told him, helplessly.

  Her mother helped her to bed, listening to an account of the play. ‘It puts things into perspective,’ Simmy said haltingly. ‘Made me see Nicola Joseph as a martyr, in her own way. Nobody likes major changes in their lives, do they? Look at you, and the way having me here has been so difficult.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Angie. ‘Have I been that awful?’

  ‘Not at all. It’s just human nature. But, Mum – can we make another change to the plan for Christmas Day?’

  Angie looked wary. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Can we invite Ninian Tripp to join us for Christmas dinner?’

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  About the Author

  REBECCA TOPE lives on a smallholding in Herefordshire, with a full complement of livestock, but manages to travel the world and enjoy civilisation from time to time as well. Most of her varied experiences and activities find their way into her books, sooner or later.

  www.rebeccatope.com

  By Rebecca Tope

  THE LAKE DISTRICT MYSTERIES

  The Windermere Witness

  The Ambleside Alibi

  THE COTSWOLD MYSTERIES

  A Cotswold Killing

  A Cotswold Ordeal

  Death in the Cotswolds

  A Cotswold Mystery

  Blood in the Cotswolds

  Slaughter in the Cotswolds

  Fear in the Cotswolds

  A Grave in the Cotswolds

  Deception in the Cotswolds

  Malice in the Cotswolds

  Shadows in the Cotswolds

  THE WEST COUNTRY MYSTERIES

  A Dirty Death

  Dark Undertakings

  Death of a Friend

  Grave Concerns

  A Death to Record

  The Sting of Death

  A Market for Murder

  Copyright

  Allison & Busby Limited

  12 Fitzroy Mews

  London W1T 6DW

  www.allisonandbusby.com

  First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2013.

  This ebook edition published by Allison & Busby in 2013.

  Copyright © 2013 by REBECCA TOPE

  The moral right of the author is hereby asserted

  in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978–0–7490–1279–3