by Rebecca Tope
‘Oh, nothing to worry about. Just sick and tired, literally. Worried. A bit scared, to be absolutely honest. I wish Persimmon hadn’t been here on Sunday. It has to have had a bad effect on her and the baby. That blasted man – why did he have to die here?’
‘Very thoughtless of him,’ Russell agreed. ‘Sim’s going to be all right, though. She was on tremendous form before lunch on Sunday.’ He was awkwardly trying to change the subject, searching for some diversion. ‘Did we tell you we saw that Candy Proctor woman protesting about the Patterdale plan? Very strident, she was, shouting at poor old Ninian.’
Angie showed a flicker of interest. ‘Sounds as if half the population of Cumbria was there.’
‘Not quite. But it was quite busy. Tristan Wilkins, and quite a few I knew by sight. The whole thing strikes me as a bit silly, actually. I’m not sure it would be so terrible for a few new chalets to go up in a discreet valley over there.’
‘Was Ninian protesting?’
‘No, no. He was just hanging about. I told you – the Proctor person was arguing with him. He seems to think it’s all a foregone conclusion and protesting’s just a waste of time.’
‘And you’re sure you didn’t see Mr Childers?’
Russell sighed at the failure of his ruse. ‘I told you before – even if he’d walked right past us, I wouldn’t have known him. I’m not too good at faces at the best of times, and that would have been a miracle, after seeing him for about five seconds on Friday.’
‘I have to admit he was very ordinary-looking. The picture they showed of him on the news last night could have been anybody.’
‘Within certain parameters, of course,’ Russell corrected. ‘And I dare say anyone who knew him would recognise him.’
‘Poor man,’ she sighed. ‘Nobody should die as young as that.’
‘Oh well. It’ll be all the same in the long run,’ he said weakly.
‘In the long run we’re all dead,’ said Angie.
‘That’s what I meant,’ said her husband.
Chapter Seven
Simmy awoke on Tuesday morning to the shreds of a jumble of bad dreams. Her father’s dog had consumed something poisonous and lay twitching on the kitchen floor, Bonnie and Ben had unaccountably run headlong into the waters of Windermere and a beautiful house in Patterdale had collapsed into rubble as she watched. As she went downstairs, she felt the strongest fluttering so far from the baby. A strange, unreal sensation that brought a rush of euphoria at the very definite miracle of new life. A cliché, admittedly, but no less true for that. All the time-worn phrases went through her mind. A new little person, dependent and demanding, vulnerable and life-changing, nestling there inside her. The real truth was that nothing else mattered very much, at that moment. Christopher had asked her, not so long ago, whether she would want to be married to him if there was no baby. It was, of course, impossible to give an answer – and now there was no need, anyway. She had the man and the baby – if she could manage to keep the child alive.
Bonnie was ten minutes late to work. ‘Sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I overslept.’
‘No problem. The mornings are getting darker now, aren’t they? Makes it harder to get out of bed.’
‘Mm,’ said Bonnie.
Simmy wanted to share her sentimental baby thoughts, but decided against it. Bonnie was too young, too fragile to fully grasp the complex immensity of parenthood. She and Ben, as far as Simmy knew, still had not consummated their relationship. Wary of inflicting new and unpredictable damage on her, the young man had nobly refrained – apparently with Bonnie’s full agreement. There were still aspects of life that she found deeply stressful, still moments of paralysis and panic.
‘Well, work to do,’ Simmy said fatuously. ‘I’ve got to take the funeral wreaths first, and then I’m supposed to go down to Newby Bridge at lunchtime, aren’t I?’
‘Gerberas and carnations,’ Bonnie nodded. ‘With plenty of purple.’
‘How’s Ben?’
‘Busy. He says the timetable’s in chaos and they left him off one of the most important lists, so he’s missed three lectures already. I think he’s feeling disillusioned.’
‘He’ll probably do them a spreadsheet, so they can get it right in future.’
‘An algorithm, actually. But he likes most of the lecturers so far. And there’s a woman tutor, he says has to be at least eighty, who reminds him of your mother.’
‘Gosh.’
‘It’s a different world,’ Bonnie said sadly. ‘I can’t even imagine it, most of the time.’
‘But you’ll go and see him next month, won’t you? Then you’ll get a much better picture.’
‘Yeah,’ she sighed.
‘You didn’t mention the dead man at Beck View, I presume?’
‘No.’ This, Simmy guessed, was the source of much of the melancholy. ‘But I wanted to.’
‘I’m sure you did. Let’s just hope the police get it all sorted quickly. The family went to see the room last night, apparently.’
‘We don’t know anything about him, do we?’ Bonnie burst out. ‘He’s just a tourist from the Midlands who ate something that killed him. There’s no story. It might not even be a murder at all. I’m going to try not to think about it, because then I can tell myself that Ben’s not missing anything. Does that make sense?’
‘Fine by me,’ said Simmy heartily, as she pressed a gentle hand against her belly. ‘I’ve got plenty of other things to think about.’ Then she added, ‘You haven’t forgotten you’ll be on your own tomorrow, have you?’
‘All day?’
‘Oh no. The appointment’s at ten, so we should be away easily by eleven. We did think we might dash up to Patterdale for lunch, and then back here, maybe around half past two. You can phone me if there’s any problem, and I can come straight here instead of Patterdale.’
‘Yeah, yeah. That’ll be okay. I hadn’t forgotten, anyway. I thought I’d do something about the cards. They’re looking a bit tired.’
Persimmon Petals sold ribbons, cards and ‘favours’ for people who wanted to construct their own floral tributes, rather than leave it to the florist. Not very many chose to do so, which meant the same cards languished on the rack for months on end.
‘Good idea,’ said Simmy.
The day drifted on in much the same vein. The trip to the undertaker was quickly accomplished, and two new orders duly processed. The drive down to Newby Bridge was made memorable solely because a black cat ran across her path as she passed Storrs, which she chose to regard as a good omen.
Customers were sparse, and the atmosphere was dreamy and distracted, each woman preoccupied by her own thoughts. And then at three-thirty the door opened, and for a moment Simmy was transported back in time. ‘Hiya!’ chirped the new arrival. ‘How’s things?’
It was Tanya Harkness, Ben’s young sister – one of three younger sisters. Four years junior to him, she had the same lanky shape, and carried a rucksack on one shoulder just as Ben always did. She had the same intelligent expression, and the same light-brown hair.
‘Gosh – I thought you were Ben for a second,’ laughed Simmy. ‘He comes in here just like that.’
‘Tsch,’ said the girl dismissively.
Bonnie came forward in a rush. ‘Hey – good to see you! You okay?’
Tanya set down her bag and looked from face to face. ‘There’s been a murder,’ she said accusingly. ‘Hasn’t there? And don’t pretend you don’t know about it, either.’
‘How on earth do you know?’ Simmy demanded.
‘Police all over one of the cruise boats on the lake. Some tweets about people dying in B&Bs. And my mum was accosted by a woman because she knows Simmy’s folks and saw police activity there on Sunday, and there’s something about somebody sabotaging conservation efforts up by Ullswater, which I didn’t really understand.’ She rattled off her evidence with total confidence, again reminding Simmy of Ben. ‘There’s sure to be something on the news by now, as well. I haven’t had
time to look yet.’
‘None of that gets us very far,’ Bonnie observed. ‘Apart from the tweets, maybe. Some relative of the dead man must have posted them.’
‘Why do people do that?’ Simmy asked, more of herself than the girls. During a fairly recent episode in Staveley, Twitter had been awash with vitriolic assertions that she had found deeply shocking.
‘How do you know all this, anyway?’ Bonnie went on. ‘Haven’t you been at school all day?’
‘Yes, but Natalie’s at home with conjunctivitis, and she’s been texting me all day with a whole lot of stuff she’s gleaned. She went out for a bit at lunchtime and saw the police on the boat. And Mum was in such a rage about the woman who ranted at her that she splurged it all on poor Nat just now.’
‘It might be about something else entirely,’ said Simmy, who was floundering badly. ‘You’re connecting up a whole lot of separate issues.’
‘I don’t think I am,’ said Tanya, yet again uncannily channelling her brother. The same air of patient forbearance in the face of adult dim-wittedness was impossible to ignore. ‘Because it happened at Beck View, didn’t it? And you were there, and the man was into conservation, and there’s something going on up in Patterdale.’
‘Stop it!’ Simmy ordered sharply. ‘It’s just not possible that you’ve put together any remotely coherent picture from scraps of texts from your sister. Especially when you must have had lessons all day, and school’s only been out for about twenty minutes.’
‘You’ll have to listen to her, Sim,’ said Bonnie. ‘From what I can gather, she’s got quite a lot of important things to tell us. And if we don’t let her talk, she’ll go to Moxon and we’ll miss all the excitement.’
Tanya laughed. ‘No, I won’t do that. He’ll know most of it already, so there wouldn’t be any point. But I might go to Ben instead,’ she finished darkly.
‘Don’t you dare!’ Bonnie and Simmy spoke in unison, equally appalled at the suggestion.
‘All right, then. So just listen for a minute, will you?’
Simmy had already known she had no choice, from the moment Tanya mentioned Patterdale. The place already had deep personal implications for her, the name imbued with heightened significance. ‘Go on, then,’ she sighed.
‘Firstly – it looks as if your man went on the cruise boat on Sunday. Assuming it’s his murder they’re investigating, that seems an obvious deduction. What I don’t know is exactly how he died. Did somebody follow him after the boat ride, and get at him somehow? You know – I was there on Sunday morning myself, watching all the tourists.’
‘He was poisoned,’ Bonnie volunteered, with an eagerness that Simmy found insensitive. ‘So maybe somebody gave him something on the boat, and he didn’t eat – or drink – it until later. Pity you didn’t know him. You could have been a brilliant witness if you’d seen him.’
‘Perhaps I did, without realising. Wouldn’t that be great!’
Simmy was getting cross. ‘Stop it, both of you,’ she ordered. ‘It looks as if practically everybody was in Bowness on Sunday. My dad and I walked the dog down there, as well. We didn’t see you,’ she said to Tanya. ‘And there’s absolutely no reason to think Mr Childers was there.’
‘Childers? Is that his name?’ Tanya muttered the name again, to fix it in her memory. ‘I was there from eleven to twelve, more or less. Natalie was meant to be with me, but she couldn’t face being seen with her eyes all red and crusty. She does look disgusting, I must admit.’
‘I think it’s very likely the man was there as well,’ Bonnie insisted. ‘You said he went out on Sunday, and most likely came in while you were having lunch. Right? Where else would he go? He was on foot, I assume?’
‘I don’t know. He might have gone for a drive. I don’t remember anybody saying one way or the other. Probably nobody actually knows. And we’re not sure when he came back in. My mum thought she heard him earlier, but she wasn’t very definite about it.’
Bonnie wouldn’t stop. ‘That’s quite important, surely? Won’t they have searched his room for traces of food or drink containing poison?’
‘I expect they have. I don’t know everything that’s been going on.’
Tanya joined in again. ‘We’ve been daft not to think of it before. It means he might have brought the poisoned whatever-it-was from home, and it’s his girlfriend who’s responsible.’
‘Has he got a girlfriend?’ Bonnie wondered. ‘Didn’t you say he only had a mother and two sisters?’
‘The point is that if he did eat something that killed him, there are about a hundred places he could have got it, even if he didn’t bring it from home. But it’s quite likely that he did have it with him before he arrived here,’ said Simmy, feeling a surge of relief at this thought. It not only exonerated her parents, but everyone she knew in the whole of the Lake District.
‘You’re worried that your mum’s going to get the blame,’ said Tanya soothingly. ‘I can see that must be scary.’
‘That was my dad’s instant reaction. He said something like, “Good God, what have we fed him?”, which was understandable, I suppose. But he didn’t have breakfast, so they didn’t feed him anything.’
‘That’s lucky.’
Bonnie was scowling, which was unusual. ‘Hey, what’s the matter?’ Simmy asked.
‘Nothing, really. Just missing Ben. It feels all wrong without him. All we’re doing is making silly guesses, without any evidence. Even with Simmy having actually seen the man die, we still don’t know any of the important facts. Who exactly was he? Did anyone around here know him? Where do we even start?’
‘The police have plenty of facts already,’ Tanya reminded her. ‘And they’ll want Mr and Mrs Straw to remember every word the man said – including when he booked the room. There’s sure to be a few clues, like whether he did know people here. Has he stayed at Beck View before?’
‘I can answer that, at least,’ said Simmy. ‘No, they’d never seen him until he arrived on Friday evening. He had a laptop with him. Presumably the police will be examining it for that sort of information. They don’t need us getting in their way, do they? We can just leave everything to them and get on with our lives.’
There was a short silence, during which the two girls exchanged meaningful glances. ‘It’s because you’re pregnant,’ said Tanya kindly. ‘I get that. But think of your poor mother. Surely you want to do anything you can to get everything settled and back to normal, for her sake?’
‘Within reason,’ said Simmy, feeling humiliatingly patronised by a child of fourteen. ‘But I really don’t see how we can add anything to the police investigation. They’ve got all the right tools for it, plus it’s what they’re there for. It’s different this time, in all sorts of ways. We don’t have any special knowledge of the person who’s died. We don’t know his friends or relations. He’s just a stranger who ate something that killed him. The fact that he was in my parents’ house isn’t very relevant, when you think about it.’
‘Hm,’ said Tanya, momentarily lost for words.
‘But somebody local probably did kill him,’ said Bonnie thoughtfully, much to Simmy’s disappointment. ‘Because if he arrived on Friday with food or drink in his car, surely he’d have finished it before Sunday? And that means we can at the very least ask around, to see if there’s a connection with the lake cruise. If Tanya’s right, then that’s what the police are thinking. They might have found a ticket in the man’s pocket.’ She lifted her chin triumphantly at this thought. ‘I bet you that’s what happened. It fits beautifully.’
‘And if it did, the police will be questioning everyone they can about what happened on the boat. Do they have a passenger list?’ asked Simmy.
‘Of course not. You buy a ticket at the kiosk and just walk on. They don’t ask you your name, or even film everybody.’ It was Tanya speaking. ‘I know, because Wilf worked on that boat when he was sixteen.’ Wilf was her older brother.
‘That was years ago. It might be diffe
rent now,’ said Bonnie. ‘I bet most people get their tickets online, for a start. And then there would be a record of them.’ She produced her phone and began the familiar swiping and thumbing until the information was laid bare. ‘Yes, you can book online. We’re right at the end of the summer season. Chances are he chose the Yellow Cruise. Ninety minutes, up and down the lake. Good way to see the scenery and pass the time.’
‘All of which the police will already know,’ said Simmy tiredly. Where were her customers when she needed them? The conversation was irritating her more all the time, the two girls making her feel old and slow and very much detached. ‘Go home, Tanya. I’m sure you’ve got homework to do.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘But nothing. You’re coming in on Saturday, aren’t you? If there hasn’t been any progress by then, you can talk about it all morning. I’m going to need a day off, with all that wedding stuff to do on Friday.’
As if by some malign telepathy, the shop phone began to ring. Simmy answered it, to be informed by the local undertaker that there was a big funeral due to take place in Troutbeck on Friday afternoon. The unusually short notice was sending everybody into a tizzy, especially as flowers were being actively invited from all the mourners. ‘You’ll be deluged,’ said Janice, who was the woman in the office, who knew everything and had control of the diary. ‘All hands to the pump.’
Simmy conveyed this news to both girls. ‘That’s Thursday sorted, then,’ she said. ‘As well as tomorrow afternoon, most likely.’
‘Good to be busy,’ said Bonnie bravely. ‘Can I make one or two wreaths, do you think?’
‘I expect you’ll have to,’ sighed Simmy.
Tanya finally decided to leave. ‘Bye, then,’ she chirped. ‘See you on Saturday, Bon. If not before. Call me if there’s anything … you know.’
‘Right. And you the same. You’re closer to it than me. Keep an eye out, okay?’
Tanya turned to go, but had to pause to allow a woman to come into the shop. With a polite smile, she waited for the doorway to be clear, but her courtesy went ignored. The newcomer headed straight for Simmy, words already tumbling from her lips.
