The Staveley Suspect

by Rebecca Tope

‘I can’t ask somebody of fourteen to do too much. It’s bad enough with you looking so young. And Corinne would be so useful working out the quickest routes.’

  ‘I’ll tell her you really want her. Let’s hope it’s awful weather. That might change her mind.’

  ‘We can’t rely on that. I was depending on her.’

  ‘I’ll tell her, but don’t hold your breath,’ said Bonnie again, showing far too little concern for what felt to Simmy like a major disappointment. ‘Doesn’t look as if Ben’s coming.’

  It was only five minutes after the boy’s normal time to turn up. ‘His timetable’s all different now, though, isn’t it?’ said Simmy.

  ‘Not so much different as non-existent. They don’t have proper lessons any more, just loads of revision, and practicals and special small-group stuff for some of the subjects. I don’t know how the teachers cope with it. They’ve got all the other years to deal with as well, and their timetables haven’t changed. I guess I won’t see him until tomorrow, now.’

  Simmy found herself unable to recall much detail from her sixth-form years. The first term had been spent mooning over Christopher, followed by endless dithering over what she wanted to do by way of further education. It all felt like a very long time ago. ‘I expect they let him get on with most of it in his own way,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Bonnie nodded. ‘He knows more than most of them by now.’

  ‘Oh, well, Saturday tomorrow.’ It was fatuous, no doubt, but she found herself very much anticipating the end of the week. In the summer she might keep the shop open until well into the afternoon, but at this time of year it was quite reasonable to close soon after one. She and Christopher would have the next day together, not doing anything very much. The very laziness of it was appealing, with no firm plans and the prospect of a cosy Sunday adding to a sense of luxurious possibility.

  ‘You’ll be seeing Anita Olsen again, will you?’ Bonnie’s question was strikingly casual. Simmy was instantly alerted.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. What makes you say that?’

  ‘Nothing special. But you’ve been acting as if the whole thing wasn’t happening, and I can’t stand it any longer. I can’t actually think about anything else. That Declan was a real character, you know. His wife and kids adored him, but plenty of people didn’t.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Facebook,’ said Bonnie tiredly. ‘What else?’

  ‘Show me.’

  The girl brandished her phone, tapped it a time or two and started flicking the screen with a delicate finger. ‘There, look.’

  Simmy focused on a succession of comments. Old Dec finally got what was coming … Shame to die so young, but you can’t say he wasn’t warned … He lived in a world of his own most of the time … The original Walter Mitty – no idea of his own limitations … What? Declan dead, and never repaid what he owed me? … Come on, mates, have a thought for his family …

  ‘I see what you mean,’ said Simmy faintly. ‘They don’t care what they say, do they?’

  ‘This is mild,’ Bonnie told her. ‘People say terrible things to each other, most of the time.’

  ‘So I gather. Do you think one of these people might have killed him?’ She paused to think a moment. ‘Do you think his mother’s seen all this? Or his wife?’

  Bonnie shrugged. ‘Daughters, probably. Wife possibly. Mother – not so sure. If Anita’s really the killer, she’ll be glad, of course.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Glad there were so many others who might want him dead. Muddies the water. The police are going to be all over this, trying to track them all. It’ll keep them well busy.’

  ‘I still can’t get much of an idea of him. Everybody seems to have a different impression. To hear Gillian talk, he was a real loser, wheedling and whining about something he was never going to have. And these Facebook people obviously didn’t like him much. And yet poor Debbie was so fond of him.’

  ‘Yeah. But it’s the same with everybody, isn’t it? What the family sees of them is nothing like the person they are outside – in the pub and all that.’ Bonnie paused. ‘That’s a bit muddled, isn’t it, but you know what I mean.’

  ‘I do, but isn’t it mostly the other way round? I mean, people are usually nastier at home than they are in social situations. Declan sounds as if he was more popular with his family than anyone else.’

  ‘Not with his mother-in-law,’ Bonnie reminded her. ‘She’s family as well.’

  ‘Yes.’ Simmy wanted to add, And she might well see him more objectively than anyone. But she didn’t, because yet again, her thoughts tipped the balance the wrong way. So many of them supported the notion that Anita Olsen had indeed killed her daughter’s husband, and yet that notion remained unacceptable, not least because it would destroy poor Gillian Townsend if it was true.

  Simmy resolved in that moment to make time to do as Gillian had asked, and drive down through Bowness and along the road through Crook. It seemed just as untenable to not do it as to do it. It was ridiculous, intrusive, a waste of time and against her basic nature. But she could not adequately justify rejecting the request. And that was because Gillian was such a nice person, sincere and well-intentioned – and she had called Simmy a ‘dear girl’.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The sun was close to setting as she drove down to Bowness, and when she turned east towards Crook, the dazzling reflection in her mirrors made her realise how blinded drivers might be as they came towards her. Had it been like that last Friday? Had Declan been heading west on his bike, the sun in his eyes? Was that a probable piece of evidence that the whole thing had been an accident? He might have ridden straight into an oncoming car, or at least failed to avoid it, to the driver’s horror. She resolved to mention this to Ben, and maybe even Moxon.

  Much to her surprise, flashes of unconscious observations from the previous week came back to her. The solitary church tower a field or two away to the right had attracted fleeting notice then, and did again now. She would have to ask somebody what it was. The road leading to Staveley went off to the left – another detail she’d forgotten, having automatically followed the sign the first time she’d driven that way. The pub and the small cluster of houses that marked the centre of the village preceded the turning by a short distance. And much of that distance, on the right-hand side, was now decorated with a strand of blue police tape and a modest accumulation of floral tributes, blessedly minus their usual cellophane. ‘Hmm,’ Simmy muttered. ‘Nobody came to me for any of those.’ She had slowed to a crawl, scanning the length of stone wall and grass verge, wondering how it could have been possible to miss seeing a mangled bike and its rider lying there. The ground was bumpy, and there was a shallow ditch, but in early March there was hardly any long grass. There was, however, a small tree of some sort, with branches low down. Blackthorn, Simmy decided. And all the trampling that had taken place all week might well have reduced tussocks and ridges to the relative bareness that was there now.

  At the junction, where she had to turn left, she stopped just after making the turn, pulling the car as far off the road as she could, but still leaving scant room for anyone to pass. The putative rush hour was not at all evident yet. She had not met a single vehicle since leaving Bowness. Quickly she jumped out and walked back. Without knowing what she was doing, she examined the site of Declan Kennedy’s death, and tried to think.

  Nobody had told her which way the cyclist had been facing, but she had assumed he was going towards Bowness. That fitted with him being on the southern side of the road. And now she was close enough for a proper look, she could see that there was in fact more of a ditch than she thought. And more dead, straggly grass with plenty of long stalks to provide a screen. Had he been somersaulted over the car, to land brokenly up against the stone wall? Had he been wearing a helmet? From what she had gathered of his character, she supposed not. Although nothing she’d heard fitted with him riding a bike at all. He hadn’t sounded sporty or environmental
ly conscientious. Perhaps it was a borrowed bicycle, and he was unused to riding it, wobbling and dazzled and doomed. So many unknown factors made her quest thoroughly frustrating.

  Gillian had asked her to try and remember whether she saw anything. Well, she remembered the isolated tower, and the way the fields rose gently on both sides of the road. The stone walls and the pub standing proudly at the centre of the small village. She did not remember anything at all about the sides of the road, or any hint of a collision. No stray shards of metal, no blood, no residual ghostly shimmerings on the air. She could see no other conclusion than that she had passed before the incident took place. In fact, that now seemed almost certain, the more she thought about it.

  She went back to the car, just in time to move it for a large Land Rover to squeeze past. The driver gave her a friendly wave, in response to her grimace of apology. Fifteen seconds later, she met two more cars, and then a blue van. ‘And so the rush hour begins,’ she murmured to herself. A glance at her car’s clock told her it was five thirty-five. People hurrying home from Kendal, of course. Soon there would be more, from points further south. Although a moment’s thought provided a geographical correction. The road to Kendal ran eastwards, while she was now heading due north to Staveley. They wouldn’t use this road. These commuters had probably come from Staveley, then – there was some industrial activity there, after all. But which way had Declan’s killer been heading? To or from Bowness? Was it even possible to work that out?

  The road crossed the main A591 and took her into the heart of Staveley, emerging alongside the bus stop where she had first met Gillian and Anita. How had such an innocent rendezvous turned into such a confused and frustrating business? She remembered the two women, one so much taller than the other, smiling at her as she arrived. Even Anita had smiled – something she had scarcely done during subsequent encounters.

  The fish and chip shop was open, a small group of people standing outside. On a whim, she considered buying three dinners, to take to Beck View. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had the real thing, relishing the thought of crisp batter and succulent cod. The road home meant turning left, but the best parking for the chip shop was the other way. Impressed by her own decisiveness, she turned right, and stopped just around the bend from the bus stop. It was a wide space, most likely the village square at some point, its shape ordained by the little river that ran right through the settlement.

  She joined the queue, rooting for money in her shoulder bag, and imagining her father’s delight at her unexpected contribution. Nobody liked cod and chips more than Russell Straw did. He used ketchup like a child, abjuring vinegar as a travesty and a crime against the taste buds. ‘Most people think that about ketchup,’ Angie would say.

  ‘Nonsense,’ argued her husband. ‘By far the greater part of the population regard it as an absolute necessity. You, my dear, are too much in your ivory tower to know.’

  Then the woman at the front of the queue turned to leave, and Simmy saw a familiar face. Familiar, but not readily identifiable. Their eyes met, each with a sudden hesitation. ‘Hello,’ said the woman warily. ‘Haven’t I seen you somewhere recently?’

  ‘I’ve got the flower shop in Windermere. I expect it was there.’

  ‘Of course! You brought me that lovely bouquet last Friday. In Crook. Remember?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ She did remember the whole episode very clearly, and yet it had been entirely overshadowed by her efforts to satisfy Gillian Townsend. Of course, she had driven up the little road towards the golf course, found the cottage, delivered the flowers, and left again without a backward glance. The road had been to the right, on the same side as the abandoned church tower, before the pub and the turning to Staveley.

  ‘You know – I was worried, afterwards, that you might have got involved with that horrible accident, where the man was knocked off his bike. They closed the road for ages, right through the night and into Saturday morning.’

  ‘Did they? I think I must have just missed all that, then.’

  ‘I think you did. It was later in the evening, after it was dark.’

  ‘That was when they found him,’ Simmy realised. ‘Not when he was hit. Nobody seems to know what time that happened.’

  The woman, who was about sixty, full of goodwill and community spirit, widened her eyes. ‘That’s the thing, isn’t it? That’s what makes it such a mystery. I mean – you’ve got to think it was done by accident, but then how could anybody just drive off and leave him? You can’t really blame that silly Kennedy girl and her brother for kicking up such a fuss and saying it was deliberate murder.’

  ‘You know them, do you?’

  ‘Oh, no, not really. Just by sight. My sister lives in the next road.’ She waved a hand towards the main residential part of Staveley, three minutes’ walk away. ‘I shouldn’t call her silly, I know. Poor thing, with those nice little girls. It’s most likely the brother more than her, anyway, making so much unpleasantness. I mean – aren’t things bad enough already, without that?’

  Simmy thought of a question that she should have asked days ago. ‘Where does her brother live?’ She was aware that the people in the queue were only inches away, virtually part of the conversation. One young woman with her back to them had murmured something to herself, apparently in comment.

  ‘Not sure, actually.’

  The young woman turned round. ‘Matthew Olsen lives in Troutbeck,’ she said.

  ‘Really? So do I,’ said Simmy, wondering whether she knew him from the village shop or pub, or as a regular morning commuter past her house. She knew the faces of a dozen men of varying ages and schedules.

  ‘You’re the florist, then,’ said the interloper. ‘from Windermere.’

  Simmy smiled in acknowledgement, fighting the flush of anxious shame that arose from being caught gossiping about a sudden violent death in this community where everybody knew each other. She and the woman from Crook had been indiscreet, she realised.

  But then the queue moved forward, and Simmy had to assemble her thoughts. Angie preferred haddock to cod, more for reasons of conservation than taste. Russell teased her about it every time. The first woman became concerned for her cooling dinner, and with barely another word trotted away to her car. The young one was giving her order to the man behind the counter. There were two men behind Simmy, wearing work clothes with splashes of plaster or cement all over them. One spoke to the other in what Simmy thought was Polish.

  The fish and chips were well received, all the more so for Angie’s complete failure to prepare an evening meal. ‘You did say I was to leave it to you, didn’t you?’ she asked her daughter, with unusual vagueness. ‘But when you weren’t here by six, I began to wonder.’

  ‘It’s only quarter past. How’s Dad?’

  ‘He’s a bit droopy today. Slept in late, and then spent most of the day on the sofa with a book.’

  Simmy resolved not to worry until compelled to. ‘Well, that’s not so surprising, is it, after everything that’s happened.’

  Angie shrugged. ‘He was full of beans yesterday, as if it was all a lot of nonsense. I’ll never forgive him for breaking all that china.’

  ‘I expect you will eventually. When does he have to go for a check-up? They’ll want to keep an eye on him, won’t they?’

  ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? In the olden days, there’d have been a doctor or at least a district nurse calling in every day. Now you have to fight for an appointment, and when you get one, they act as if they’re doing you an enormous favour.’

  ‘He’s got pills to take, hasn’t he? Maybe they’ve made him sleepy.’

  ‘Very likely. Lord knows what’s in them.’

  Russell came into the kitchen willingly enough when told there was cod and chips waiting for him. They sat round the pine table, the Lakeland terrier at his master’s feet. ‘The poor dog’s been neglected,’ said Angie. ‘He hasn’t had a walk for days.’

  Simmy resisted the implication tha
t she should add dog-walking to the list of tasks she was taking on. It was already dawning on her that the help she currently provided might become permanent. It might even escalate, until she was spending every evening at Beck View and probably much of every Sunday. Would Christopher go with her, if so, she wondered. He had always got on well with Russell and Angie, but Simmy was wary of encouraging any thoughts that she and Chris were getting serious as a couple. She needed just a few more weeks before she’d be ready for that.

  Throughout the hours spent that evening with her parents, she was mentally rehearsing her findings in Crook and Staveley. Not that they amounted to very much, but amongst the various snippets there could perhaps be something that would help Gillian and Anita. There had been no plan to meet again, mainly because Simmy had given no clear undertaking to do as Gillian asked. That left her free to duck the whole business, she supposed, if that was what she wanted. First, she needed some quiet moments in which to note down everything she’d seen and heard. Ben Harkness had taught her the value of recording even the most obvious facts, building up a picture and spotting connections.

  And then what? If she did leap to a conclusion, as she suspected she might, what should she do with it? Go straight to Moxon, trusting him to act in the interests of truth and justice, or confine herself to the Kendal solicitors who might distort or embellish to suit their own ends? There ought not to be any dilemma at all, put like that. And yet, Gillian’s evident fears that Anita would be scapegoated, thanks to local politics and family animosities, weighed heavily on her. The sense that the young detectives were withholding substantial amounts of information from her was perversely provocative. Never particularly competitive, she suddenly found herself wanting to show them she could play the game as well as they could. There was a generational element, too, with them taking the part of the son and daughter, while Simmy favoured the mother. And if plain and simple justice was the issue, then it was starkly apparent that Anita could not have killed her son-in-law. She would have had to be in two places at once, in two different vehicles, and in two different frames of mind. Nobody could wantonly slaughter a cyclist, then rapidly materialise in Staveley looking perfectly calm and unruffled.