The Staveley Suspect

by Rebecca Tope

  But it was Anita who drew Simmy’s attention, time and again. The subtle power of silence was making itself felt across the whole room. Gillian and her mother both glanced repeatedly at the woman, who smiled bravely every time she met a pair of eyes. After twenty minutes or so, Gillian had had enough. ‘Oh, Neet, come on. I know you’re worried, but honestly, there’s nothing more you can do about it now. This party’s for you, remember. You need to tell us what you’d like.’

  Simmy looked at Mrs Percival, wondering whether she knew what her daughter was talking about. Apparently she did, since she looked less bemused than Simmy felt. ‘Darling, poor Mrs Brown doesn’t want to hear all that sort of thing, now does she? She has no idea what’s been going on. Keep it for later.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Gillian adopted an expression of deep contrition. ‘The thing is, you see, Anita’s son-in-law has been causing some concern, and now there’s been some sort of discovery and the police won’t tell the family anything. You can understand how worrying it is for everybody.’

  With a sense of the inevitable, Simmy instantly connected this disclosure with Ben’s report of a body found in Staveley. She looked round at the three women, marvelling at the realisation that somehow she had once again been dropped into the middle of a family catastrophe.

  ‘Oh, Gillian,’ snapped the old lady.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I asked you not to talk about that sort of thing. Never mind, my dear,’ she said to Simmy. ‘There’s no need for you to bother yourself over it. Once we’ve given you the order for the flowers, there’ll be no going back on it, whatever happens.’

  Simmy was impressed, insulted and alarmed all at the same time. Impressed that the implications of the situation for the florist were so clear to the old lady; insulted because there was an assumption that all she cared about was her commission; alarmed because she actually was fearful of cancellation. If the son-in-law turned up dead, there was scant chance of a carefree party only a week or two later.

  Anita finally spoke. ‘That’s not really true, Mrs Percival,’ she said in a low voice. ‘In fact, I think it’s a mistake to be ploughing on with it as if everything was going to be all right. Debbie would see it as heartless and use it as further ammunition against me. Matthew would be just as angry, too. I can’t bear to risk that for something so frivolous.’

  She had a pleasant accent, sounding the ‘r’s like an American and the ‘t’s like a BBC announcer. It made her sound definite and unambiguous. Her height added further authority. Gillian looked at her with something close to sycophancy. ‘Well, I suppose that’s true,’ she sighed. ‘But we have to assume that Declan is perfectly all right. I know it’s awful for poor Debbie – and it probably isn’t anything good – but he can’t possibly be dead.’

  The word echoed ominously. Simmy experienced a fleeting moment of scorn towards the woman. Wasn’t it deeply foolish to say such a thing? The others appeared to feel something similar.

  ‘You can’t know that,’ said Anita. ‘Unless you’re not telling us something, of course.’

  Gillian laughed so wildly that Simmy wondered if the accusation might be true, or close to the truth. At the same time, there was a lightness to the conversation, as if everyone liked everyone else and wished no harm or hurt whatever.

  ‘Girls, girls,’ said Mrs Percival, with deliberate humour that increased the sense of goodwill. ‘Settle down now. I suggest we proceed on the assumption that the party will take place as planned, but make no secret of the fact that there’s a provisional element to it. Mrs Brown – is that acceptable to you? We’d obviously pay you for any inconvenience. We’re very aware that this is a busy time of year for you.’

  Nobody had to say the words Mother’s Day; the meaning was plain. ‘Well …’ Simmy was reluctant to give any firm commitment. An irritation was developing as she considered her options. ‘I think we’d have to agree a deadline. I mean, a date for a final decision.’ She knew there were rules and protocols for cancellations. Weddings were aborted, celebrations abandoned, minds changed, but she had never suffered such a disruption personally. In this case, if she was reading the situation correctly, the chances of the party going ahead were worryingly slim. How many candidates could there be for turning out to be the mysterious body found by the police? It seemed to her almost inevitable that it would prove to be the unfortunate Declan, given that his family already had the idea that it must be, and arrangements for his funeral would obliterate all thoughts of a retirement party.

  ‘She’s right,’ said Anita, as if reading Simmy’s mind. ‘And realistically that moment is now, not sometime next week.’ Simmy gave her a grateful smile, which was returned threefold.

  ‘No, no,’ wailed Gillian. ‘We’re being much too pessimistic. By tomorrow the police are sure to know who it is they’ve found, and then we’ll know exactly what we have to do. One more day won’t hurt, will it? Oh, and before we forget, can you give me your mobile number? Then I can send you a text if there’s any news.’

  There was something peculiar about this little woman, Simmy concluded. The lack of sensitivity towards her colleague was remarkable. And yet Anita did not appear to mind. Perhaps they knew each other so well that it was not even noticeable. Perhaps it revealed a genuine friendship, so deep that there was no need for caution or evasion. And, she remembered, they were solicitors. They knew about crime and evidence and law and extremely bad behaviour. They had to be pragmatic and businesslike and decisive. If Gillian was peculiar, it could be because she wasn’t in good health. There was nothing malign about her and she seemed intensely fond of Anita.

  Barbara Percival was listening intently, but remained silent. One of the privileges of old age was that you could be excused from awkward or complicated judgements if you so chose. Perhaps rightly, she seemed to think that anything she said would be overruled in any case. Despite being the hostess for the proposed party in her highly desirable house, she was not the prime mover, and little was being demanded of her. Simmy almost envied her. She was sitting regally above the fray, paying attention and making suggestions, but not viscerally involved. Everything she said focused minds and forced good sense onto the others. Clever, thought Simmy. All she has to do now is sit there and wait.

  ‘Tomorrow is fine,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t do anything before Monday, anyway. Now I’ve seen the house, I’ve got a few ideas as to what I could do. The colours in this room, for example, will work well with pinks and the paler yellows. Some mauve as well. And the hall needs some whites, I think. If I could have a look at any other rooms …?’

  ‘I’d like some red in here,’ said Gillian. ‘That won’t clash, will it?’

  Two walls of the room were papered with a William Morris design in green and pink, depicting fruit that Simmy suspected were pomegranates. If she could pick up the tones, and then add some rich reds, she might make something quite spectacular, she realised. ‘It would be great,’ she told Gillian. ‘Red instead of yellow – much better.’

  All three women laughed indulgently, refraining from any hint that Gillian might be doing Simmy’s job for her.

  ‘Oh, I do hope we can go ahead,’ Gillian said. ‘Anita deserves a good send-off. She’s worked in the business for thirty-five years, all told.’ She gave her colleague a fond smile. ‘I couldn’t have asked for a better partner.’

  ‘It’s no good, Gillie. You can’t change things by wishing – you know that.’

  ‘Trust Declan,’ sighed Gillian. ‘He’s been a trouble to you from the start, one way or another.’

  Anita forced a smile, and then sighed. ‘But Debbie has always loved him, despite everything. She’ll be desperately worried, poor girl.’

  ‘Yes, well …’ Even Gillian seemed at a loss for something to say to that. She glanced at her mother, as if waiting for her to speak. Simmy’s instinct was to leave them all to it, and make no further investment in the uncertain commission. If the son-in-law was dead, that would be an end to it. She wouldn’t have
any reason to see these people again.

  Not until she was driving away at seven-fifteen did she allow herself to fully consider the fact that Ben had heard or read that foul play was suspected, and would therefore be drawn as if magnetically to every detail of the story. She had repressed any awareness of that aspect of the business during her visit to Staveley, but now it returned with spikes on. And yet, she still saw no reason to involve herself with whatever had been going on. Gillian Townsend would phone and tell her the party was at best postponed, that there would be a period of recovery for the shattered family of her friend, and no more need be said.

  Ben was too busy anyway to pay attention to even the most compelling crime. Bonnie had a cold, and Simmy had to give some consideration to the unwelcome re-emergence of her one-time husband. Staveley could get along perfectly well without any of them.

  She went home on a road she seldom used, aware of a recently increased level of confidence when it came to driving after dark on the deserted little lanes that connected the various settlements. This time, she was happy to turn off the main road to follow Moorhowe Road as it climbed up to Troutbeck. It was half the distance she would otherwise have to travel, and in the dark it had a pleasing romance to it. Clumps of late snowdrops gleamed luminously in the headlights. Not a single vehicle could be seen, leaving her to imagine herself alone in the world. Where once that would have terrified her, she now found it almost enjoyable. She knew where she was, and that her home was barely three miles away. If her car broke down, she could walk, without any ill effects. There was a new sense of being where she belonged, amongst people of great friendliness and goodwill, in a landscape of utter beauty. She dismissed all thoughts of the missing Declan, as well as the beleaguered Tony, and gave herself up to the mysterious evening shadows of South Cumbria.

  Back in her little house, she found herself humming gently as she prepared a modest meal. She had taken more interest in cooking since Christopher had started coming over regularly. Although they often ate at the local pub, she was eager to demonstrate a level of competence that she hoped she still possessed. She had cooked for herself and Tony as a matter of course – real food from fresh ingredients. Christopher appeared to find this a highly entertaining novelty, acting up accordingly. ‘What’s for supper?’ he would demand, the moment he was in the house.

  But without him, she reverted to the much more boring scrambled eggs, sausages, baked potatoes and cheese on toast. As she ate, she made a phone call.

  ‘Busy?’ she asked him. ‘Any treasures in the sale tomorrow?’

  ‘Of course. Spring cleaning seems to be upon us, and there’s a woman from Penrith getting rid of an attic full of stuff. Lovely things, most of them. I was up there with her two weeks ago, and we’ve been valuing and cataloguing it all right up to three days ago.’

  ‘Anything I might like?’

  ‘Practically all of it – but if you want it, you’ve got to bid properly like everybody else.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll get Bonnie to do it online from work.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I can see that working when she’s trying to serve a customer. I bet you’ve got to do some deliveries tomorrow, so she’ll be in the shop by herself.’

  ‘I wish your sales weren’t on a Saturday. Any other day, and I could probably get away once in a while.’

  It was nothing she hadn’t said before. In fact, during the winter, she had closed the shop one Saturday and gone to Christopher’s auction near Keswick with her father. Russell had bought a china dish and Simmy had enjoyed every moment.

  ‘Actually,’ she said, taking a mouthful of egg, ‘I should probably tell you about a letter I got today.’

  Chapter Four

  It had been a mistake to try to explain the unsavoury story about Tony over the phone. Just as she had yet to hear the details of Christopher’s marriage, he had not been given the full account of hers. It was only four months since they had rediscovered each other, and the logistics of their work and respective homes meant they spent less time together than they would have liked. He managed one or two nights a week, disappearing early in the morning, and most Sundays. But they both had other obligations, including Simmy’s parents.

  They talked about their teenage years, when they first had feelings for each other. They looked to the future and tried to establish a viable pattern in which they could become a proper couple. Each one placed high value on their work. Christopher was soon to become part-owner of the auction house, anticipating a move to sole proprietor when Oliver retired. It had been a rapid progression, full of excitement and challenge. He had been forced to learn about porcelain and glass, furniture and textiles, art and old postcards, and all the history that went with them. ‘I know about two per cent of what I need,’ he said gloomily. ‘Every day I’m confronted by the limitations of my own ignorance. Did you know,’ he went on, eyes wide, ‘that women used to hang a little china pot on the wall beside their dressing table, and put the hair from their brushes into it? A hair pot. When there was enough of it, they sold it to wig makers, or stuffed cushions with it. Sometimes they plaited it into little threads and made pictures with it. Don’t you love that!’

  Simmy countered by sharing her own new discoveries about flowers, their origins and quirks, but she could never make them sound nearly so thrilling as Christopher’s antiques. He was more intrigued by the string of violent crimes she had become embroiled in repeatedly, thanks to her role as florist. ‘Let me get this straight,’ he said. ‘You turn up on a doorstep with a lovely bouquet of roses, and find a body waiting for you.’

  ‘Not quite. No, not even close. But somehow or other I get to be a link in a chain. And then DI Moxon chases after me, and Ben gets to work in finding the solution, and it’s always very nasty.’ She had grossly oversimplified, of course. No two cases were remotely the same. There had been people exploiting Valentine’s Day; people using flowers to send a threatening message; people using Simmy as a witness. Every time it was different, and every time she strove in vain to remove herself from the whole business.

  So now there was a new element to talk about – one that neither of them found appealing. As Simmy haltingly gave the bones of the story about Tony and the midwife, admitting that she barely understood it herself, Christopher went quieter and quieter. In the end, she said, ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Uh-huh. I don’t see why they would need you, though. The facts are pretty clear already. All you can say is, yes, I had a stillborn baby and yes, this woman was one of the midwives. All that’s a matter of record anyway, isn’t it?’

  She admired his courage in uttering the word stillborn. She could tell that he’d had to make an effort to say it. When they had first got together, back in November, he had made a fairly bad mess of accommodating this inescapable fact about her, and since then it had not been mentioned. With her outspoken mother in mind, Simmy had worried about the development of a taboo between them, but had lacked the strength to tackle it. It would lead to a second no-go area, which was the question of whether they should deliberately try to have a baby or two of their own. Time was against them, which only made it more difficult.

  ‘They might want my impressions of her. Was she kind or not – did I notice how my husband was reacting to her? That sort of thing.’

  ‘They each did something criminal, then. But her crime is a lot worse than his. So she needs to prove provocation, and that’s where you come in. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, all we can do is wait and see what happens. Things okay other than that, are they?’

  She kept back the Staveley story, for reasons she didn’t quite grasp. It was unfinished, something and nothing – and she had a superstitious feeling that the less said about it the better. Christopher was easily diverted into further descriptions of the following day’s lots. The contents of the Penrith attic were to be accompanied by the results of two substantial house clearances, and there was a new dealer to the area, who was eager to bu
y stock. ‘Pictures are his thing. I have a feeling he’ll be driving some of the prices up, which is always good. It kills me sometimes, the way perfectly good oil paintings go for ten quid.’

  They ended by arranging what they would do on Sunday. Brunch, they decided. And a walk, if it wasn’t raining. ‘And I should go to Grasmere sometime soon,’ he added. ‘Maybe we could go there for the walk?’

  ‘What’s at Grasmere?’

  ‘It’s an old family friend. He came to my mother’s funeral, actually, but I only had a couple of words with him. Now he’s phoned to say he’s got to move to a sheltered housing place, and can I look at the contents of his house. Happens all the time.’ His sigh was one of sheer satisfaction, and Simmy laughed.

  ‘Grasmere it is, then,’ she said.

  Saturday morning was cloudy and damp, but not actually raining. Bonnie’s cold was no worse, and she sported a warm long-sleeved jacket that came up to her chin. ‘That’s much better,’ said Simmy. Bonnie was nearly eighteen and everyone would probably always treat her as if she were twelve. Concern for her welfare followed her around; her efforts to shrug it off were more automatic than genuine. The morning was busy with orders coming through and people calling in. Simmy had to go to Newby Bridge with an anniversary tribute, and then Troutbeck Bridge with another. Bonnie was left to handle the shop, which she did with no difficulty.

  They closed at two-thirty, later than the 2 p.m. announced on the door. Feeling under pressure, Simmy went directly to her parents’ home on the edge of Windermere. Her mother immediately set her to work ironing sheets and pillowcases, and then cleaning the porcelain and china items in the dining room, which was used exclusively for the guests’ breakfasts. These were mainly decorative jugs and teapots that ranged along a shelf, never actually used, but valued as having belonged to Angie’s grandmother. Simmy had to concede that they looked delightful when the sun caught them – although that was almost always a moment that went unwitnessed. The dining room window faced west, the sun paying a fleeting evening visit before sinking behind trees and buildings.