The Troutbeck Testimony

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘Yeah, well – I could never manage to keep everything as immaculate as some of those places, even if I tried.’

  Russell was the first to escape from the latest batch of guests, and came huffing into the kitchen where Simmy was talking to Bertie. The dog was in his usual basket, in defiance of health and safety regulations, cocking an encouraging ear at her muttered commentary on the running of a B&B. ‘Nice people,’ said Russell.

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Are you eating with us?’

  ‘If that’s all right.’

  ‘Cottage pie in the oven.’

  ‘Lovely.’ She took a breath. ‘Dad? I don’t really get why you went to the police about those men you heard on Monday. It’s so out of character. Moxon came to see me about it last night.’

  Russell came as close to looking furtive as his open face could manage. ‘I thought that might happen. Sorry if it annoyed you. I lay awake for hours on Monday night debating with myself. In the end, I couldn’t not do it, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘Well now there’s been a murder, so I suppose that justifies you.’ Her words were only the faintest approximation to her own thoughts and feelings. Rather, they reflected what she assumed was Russell’s view. ‘You’ll be able to provide supporting testimony or whatever they call it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said her father thickly. ‘I was badly thrown when I heard about that. It never crossed my mind that somebody could be killed.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it did. What have they told you about it?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ve got to go and talk to your friend again tomorrow. Apparently he’s tied up all day today interviewing friends and relations of the dead man.’

  ‘I saw a poster on a tree just up the road here – asking for help to find a lost dog. Apparently they’re all over the place, and I never noticed. Moxon seemed to think there was a connection between the dead man and dognapping. What do you think?’

  ‘I don’t think anything. But Moxon might want us to go and show him where we saw the dead dog on Monday. It probably won’t still be there, of course, if we’re right about it being in that man’s bag. Or if it is still there …’ He shuddered and left the thought unfinished.

  ‘It’ll be very nasty. Birds and so forth.’ Simmy mirrored his shiver at the image that came to mind. ‘Do you think we could find it again, anyway?’

  ‘Oh, yes. It was on that straight part, where we crossed a little beck and saw those tadpoles in a pool. Just a little way before that. Surely you remember?’

  ‘Not as well as you,’ she admitted. ‘I was too taken up with the view.’

  ‘Your mother thinks I’m losing my wits.’

  ‘She might have a point.’

  ‘Just because I check that we’re properly locked up at bedtime, she’s diagnosed some sort of syndrome. Pre-Alzheimer’s, I imagine. She doesn’t acknowledge that she’s the one out of step with the world. Everybody but her thinks it’s entirely reasonable to give some thought to security.’

  ‘I suppose it’s the sudden change of character that’s disturbed her. You didn’t used to worry about that sort of thing.’

  ‘A year ago, I had no need to worry. Then you turn up, and suddenly we’ve got dead bodies all over the place, and hospitals and policemen and I don’t know what.’

  ‘So it’s my fault.’ A low-level irritation was rapidly turning into full-scale anger.

  ‘In a way – yes it is.’ Simmy was reminded that none of the usual knee-jerk ploys ever worked when arguing with her father. He was too well focused and too honest. Self-pity, avoidance, accusations all rolled off him as he stuck to his main point.

  As usual, she was disarmed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said more quietly. ‘I know it’s been traumatic for you at times. But we’ve always recovered and carried on as before. It’s a shock to me to find how closely I’ve come to violence, simply by delivering flowers, but there it is. It’s all about the flowers, really. They’re an integral part of the big moments in people’s lives. Moments of change and crisis. I can’t do anything about that, apart from abandoning the whole business.’

  ‘I know,’ said Russell.

  Angie joined them five minutes later, flopping down into a kitchen chair. ‘You got the easy end of that,’ she accused her husband. ‘Mine are absolute pigs. I’m going to put rat poison in their scrambled eggs tomorrow.’

  It was not a new threat, and it appeared to serve its purpose of making Angie feel better. Politeness was one thing – which she managed quite well – but subservience to demanding and arrogant guests was quite another.

  ‘What did they do?’ asked Russell recklessly.

  A torrent of grievances followed. The couple had wanted blankets rather than a duvet, Sky channels on the TV, skimmed milk in their tea, two chairs in the room and a whole lot more. ‘They don’t know they’re born,’ she raged. ‘Haven’t they seen the measly facilities most places up here provide? I know plenty who don’t give you even one chair in their tiny little rooms. Not to mention a whole room downstairs to do as they like, all day long.’

  Simmy waited it out with dwindling patience. It was true that Beck View gave much better value than most local establishments. Angie was flexible and accommodating to a fault. She permitted smoking in two of her rooms, and was happy for people to bring their dogs. On balance these concessions attracted more guests than they repelled, but those unwary enough to enter the premises expecting neither cigarette nor dog would sometimes raise loud complaints.

  ‘I gather I’m invited to supper,’ she interrupted. ‘That would be nice. I was talking to Dad about his report to the police, actually. I am getting it slightly more clear, but it still seems an odd thing to do.’

  ‘Well, it’s done now,’ said Angie briskly. ‘No sense in going on about it. I expect you’ll be careful up there until the person who killed that man’s caught. I for one am not going to worry about you. Your father doesn’t think you’re the next victim, or anything like that, but it’s not exactly a comfortable situation, is it?’

  Simmy felt besieged. ‘I’m going to use Kirkstone Pass, to avoid Town End, until it’s all been sorted out. I’m hoping I can just stay right out of the whole business. Now, let me tell you about my new assistant. She’s a lot more interesting than men fighting in a farmyard.’

  Two pairs of eyebrows rose encouragingly.

  ‘She’s called Bonnie and she’s seventeen. She’s leaving school any minute now, without doing A-levels. She’s catching up with GCSEs, having missed a lot because she had anorexia. She’s very small and thin and fair.’

  ‘Where does she live?’ asked Angie.

  ‘Heathwaite. I think she said it’s Oakthwaite Road. Not far from here. There’s some sort of family complication because she lives with her aunt. Melanie will tell me about it when I see her, I expect. She’s sure to know the whole story.’

  ‘What’s the aunt called?’

  ‘Corinne something.’

  ‘Aha! I know who they are,’ said Angie in triumph. ‘I’ve seen that girl. She’s not her aunt, though. She does fostering. So she’s Bonnie’s foster mother. She keeps about fifty dogs in cages behind the house. Little fluffy white things. People complain.’

  ‘How do you know it’s the same people?’

  ‘I remember the woman saying she’d got a girl living with her, who helps with the work and has been in hospital with an eating disorder. She was obviously worried about it. I had the impression she thought the authorities might blame her for it.’

  ‘But how did you meet her?’

  ‘It’s a long story. I had a guest who was looking for a puppy, ideally a Lakeland terrier. We told her there was a shortage of them and she’d have to wait years, but I knew of a dog breeder who always had things to sell. You know what dog people are like – they can never resist going to see puppies, given half a chance. We walked round there, back in February or March, and we all got chatting.’

  ‘I’m not sure how you made the connection with B
onnie so quickly.’

  ‘The anorexia, of course. She was there, looking like a child of about seven. Corinne introduced her and let her show us the dogs. And I remember the name Bonnie Lawson. I’m very good with names,’ she reminded Simmy. ‘I have to be, in this job.’

  ‘Did the woman buy a puppy?’ asked Russell.

  ‘She did, actually. It was all a bit of a scandal, to my mind. No questions asked, just bundled the poor little scrap into a cardboard box and let it go without a second glance. I’m sure there must be laws against such irresponsible behaviour.’

  ‘Were they living in tiny squalid cages?’ Russell looked all set to march out and tackle the disgraceful situation. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this before?’

  ‘No, they weren’t. It was all quite clean and pleasant. At least as nice as that boarding kennel we used for Bertie. The animals get to run about in the garden, and some are allowed in the house.’

  ‘There can’t possibly have been fifty, either,’ Simmy said.

  ‘Maybe not quite. There were three litters of puppies, which came to twenty or so. And two or three pregnant bitches. It was really a farming operation. You wonder how they find buyers for so many.’

  ‘They probably don’t. I imagine a lot end up in rescues or drowned or abandoned on motorways,’ said Russell crossly.

  Angie had been laying the table as they talked, and now brought out a generous cottage pie, along with a dish of carrots and peas. ‘This is why I didn’t tell you about it,’ she snapped. ‘I knew you’d overreact.’

  ‘Well, I’m fond of dogs,’ he protested mildly. ‘I don’t like to think of them suffering.’

  ‘Bonnie wants to move out, anyway,’ said Simmy, to divert the subject. ‘She’s talking about using the rooms above the shop. I’m not sure the council would stand for that, would they?’

  Both parents fell silent as they absorbed this question. ‘She’d be a squatter,’ said Angie, after half a minute, with a nostalgic twinkle in her eye. ‘Remember them?’

  ‘They haven’t gone away. In London, people live in dog kennels and coal sheds and lean-tos under basement steps,’ her husband informed her. ‘I heard a programme about it.’

  ‘She wouldn’t be squatting if I gave her permission, surely?’

  ‘Technically, I think the term would still apply. Best to say nothing about it and tell her to be discreet,’ said Angie. ‘I promise not to tell anybody.’

  Simmy was both amused and exasperated by her mother’s automatic assumption that she would permit Bonnie to use the rooms. The idea was still not at all appealing to her, and the more she returned to it, the more objections presented themselves.

  The meal was interspersed with reminiscences from Angie about the years she’d spent in London after graduating, and how she’d become friendly with a large group of squatters in Chalk Farm and sometimes stayed overnight in their house. Simmy listened in fascination as the details returned in considerable vividness. It felt like total recall, with the atmosphere of the late 1960s as alien and incomprehensible as the 1860s would have been. ‘We were so free. Everything seemed possible. We had money, the pill, education. Even the weather seemed fabulous. I remember weekends on the Heath, wearing the tiniest imaginable bikini and having absolutely nothing to worry about. Except men, of course. There was always some trouble over a man. That’s one thing that doesn’t seem to have changed.’

  ‘But no unwanted pregnancies,’ put in Russell. ‘At least that was the theory. There were posters in the Underground that said “Every baby a wanted baby” or words to that effect.’

  ‘Very idealistic,’ nodded Angie. ‘I had two friends who went for abortions, and two more who got some rather nasty sexually transmitted diseases. I count myself lucky I avoided those particular hazards.’

  The telephone interrupted them. ‘Another couple eager to sample our services,’ sighed Russell as Angie went to answer it.

  But he was wrong. His wife came back, unsmiling, addressing a space between him and their daughter. ‘It’s that Moxon man. He wants to come and talk to you both. Now.’

  Chapter Nine

  A more buoyant man might have manifested satisfaction at finding both his quarries in one room, saving himself a drive out to Troutbeck. But Moxon did not rub his hands together or bounce on his toes or show any signs of enjoying the time and trouble saved. Instead, he sighed and yawned and seemed to have trouble ordering his thoughts.

  ‘Sorry to bother you,’ he began. ‘I hoped this would wait until the morning, but we need to clear a few things up as quickly as we can.’

  Russell was patently wary. He turned his head away and nibbled his lip. ‘I was hoping we wouldn’t have to involve my daughter,’ he mumbled. ‘I expected to see you tomorrow.’

  ‘I know. And if she hadn’t been here, I might have been persuaded that I only needed to speak to you. But I hadn’t much choice in the timing. For a start, we won’t need you to lead us up Wansfell Pike after all. Another walker reported that dead dog this afternoon and we’ve been to remove it. So your theory that it was inside the man’s black sack was unfounded.’

  ‘Was it strangled?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. And that makes us think it very probably has something to do with what happened yesterday in Troutbeck.’

  ‘I see,’ said Russell with a frown. ‘You mean dognapping, I suppose. Do you think something went wrong, and the man got killed while he was trying to steal a dog?’

  Simmy had pushed her chair back and was fighting with a succession of clashing emotions. Resistance, resignation, bewilderment and irritation swirled together. The deduction she was reaching was that the bearded man was not a dog kidnapper, or murderer, at least of animals. There was nothing to incriminate him at all, except the fact that he was acquainted with the murdered man, and had seen him the day before he died. And that hardly seemed suspicious.

  All she could think was that every conversation seemed to circle around dogs, and however hard she tried, this element reduced the importance of the case for her. Dogs were of secondary significance. Stealing them and even killing them was not so terribly wicked, to her mind. But then, there was also a dead man to factor in. An annoying dead man who must have somehow got in the way of dog abductors and been savagely attacked as a result, or possibly he had been an abductor himself, as her father had said.

  ‘Who was he, then?’ she asked, slightly too loudly. ‘The man who was killed. I heard he was wounded in his throat.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘The man with the bag. He accosted me last night when I was in my garden.’

  ‘Accosted?’ All three people looked at her in alarm.

  ‘Not physically. But he knew who I was, and deliberately set out to scare me, or so it seemed. I assume he recognised me and Dad from Monday, when we saw him. And I thought perhaps he’d seen you leave my house. He turned up only a few minutes later. And he definitely knew the murdered man. He told me his name. I don’t think he lives in Troutbeck, though. I’ve never seen him around.’

  ‘Travis McNaughton,’ said Moxon with a frown. ‘What’s the bearded man’s name, then? We still haven’t identified him.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Simmy felt foolish and incompetent. ‘I didn’t ask.’

  ‘Well, he’s obviously relevant.’

  ‘Is it true?’ asked Angie. ‘About the man’s throat?’

  ‘His jugular was cut. He bled to death,’ said Moxon tightly. ‘A local woman found him, and regrettably made it considerably more public than we would have liked. Several local people saw her and the story had already spread before we arrived at the scene.’

  ‘Was he a dognapper?’ asked Simmy. ‘Is that what it’s all about?’

  ‘As far as we can tell, not at all. He came from Glasgow originally, but had lived in Carlisle for most of his life. He drove a red Renault Laguna, with a registration plate matching the one your father gave me yesterday.’

  Very little in this résumé of the facts came as a su
rprise.

  ‘What about his little boy?’ asked Simmy. ‘Is he back with his mother now? Has she let you question him?’

  ‘He’s not so little,’ Moxon corrected her. ‘He’s thirteen. But he’s not helping much with the most important questions. All I know is his dad left him on his own in the car while he went for a chat with someone in the pub, on Monday. Then on Tuesday, Travis went off on his own, late morning, leaving the boy in the house by himself.’

  ‘Did he go in the car?’ asked Russell.

  ‘Yes, but it’s not anywhere in Troutbeck. We still haven’t found it.’

  ‘The other man,’ said Simmy urgently. ‘He must have been meeting the other man. And the boy must know who he is.’

  ‘He says he’s got no idea. Never seen him before. He said they dropped him off in a pub car park miles up on the fells. Probably the one at Broad Stone. But nobody up there saw anything, as far as we can discover.’

  ‘You’ve been very diligent,’ said Russell approvingly.

  ‘It’s a murder enquiry, Mr Straw. We’re obliged to follow every lead, as quickly as we can. Now, I have to ask you, can we be absolutely sure the men you heard were the same men you saw driving away? I know it seems obvious, but as far as actual evidence is concerned, there does appear to be room for doubt.’

  Simmy heard her friend Ben’s disembodied voice in her ear, stressing the importance of unambiguous evidence in police prosecutions. ‘That would mean there were four men,’ she said, as if making an immense discovery.

  ‘Was the pub busy? A Bank Holiday lunchtime, sunny and mild. I would imagine it might have been.’

  ‘It was, quite,’ she conceded.

  ‘So four men either together or in two distinct pairs wouldn’t be very surprising.’

  Simmy turned to her father. ‘This is your testimony, not mine. Why am I answering for you?’

  ‘Why, indeed,’ Russell agreed. ‘Shall we let the inspector guide us as to just what he needs us to tell him?’