by Rebecca Tope
‘I mean precisely that,’ said Simmy.
Ben wouldn’t give up. ‘You’ve got to explain,’ he insisted. ‘It’s not fair otherwise.’
‘I get it,’ said Bonnie. ‘Or I think I do.’ She clasped Ben’s hand, and gave it a little shake. ‘Don’t get heavy with her, okay? It might be completely wrong. Just a lot of ideas coming together and adding up to a wild theory. And that’s what caused all the trouble to start with.’ She gave Simmy a tragic look. ‘It was all my fault, wasn’t it?’
‘I think you’re just one link in a chain. But she’s right,’ Simmy told Ben. ‘We mustn’t rush anything now.’ She met Bonnie’s eyes with her own surge of admiration. Everything she knew or suspected about the girl was swamped by a sense that here was a very special person, with talents in abundance. Her understanding of human complications had doubtless been gained through hard experience, giving her a core of steel beneath the fragile exterior. At the same time, this was balanced by an alarming tendency to ignore authority, to march into situations that she couldn’t control and to lie her way out of trouble if it suited her.
Melanie was wrong about Bonnie and Ben, Simmy realised. Ben was all theory and bloodless facts. He hadn’t known fear or despair or loss of control in his comfortable middle-class family. Bonnie could teach him a lot that was missing from his character. And he could give her a degree of stability and confidence. Knowing it was sentimental, Simmy nonetheless felt that this was a perfect match, which she would do well to safeguard to the best of her ability. Ben would teach Bonnie to tread more carefully and think more logically. Each would help the other to grow up.
‘So what happens now?’ asked Ben, striving to remain cool in the face of two implacable females.
‘I think I will have to go to Moxon, but first I ought to see my parents. I want to make sure they’re okay. Plus, there’s something I need to ask them.’
‘Do you want us to mind the shop for you?’ asked Bonnie. ‘You could go right away then.’
Simmy looked at her, aware all over again of just how young she was. She supposed there was no official regulation setting a minimum age at which someone could be in charge of a shop, but anybody coming in and finding two seventeen-year-olds there on their own might have concerns. Especially if there was canoodling of some sort going on.
‘No, no, thanks all the same,’ she said. ‘I can close up in an hour or so anyway. If I went now, I’d only have to come back to lock up everything and set the alarm.’ Only then did she remember how Bonnie and her friends had effectively broken into the rooms upstairs, without permission. However vigorously the justifications for it might be made, this was still a strong sign that trust could yet be misplaced. ‘I’ll make us some coffee, and we can hang on until one o’clock.’
‘This is beyond weird,’ said Ben. ‘You think you’ve worked out who killed Travis McNaughton, and Bonnie’s read your thoughts by magic, but now you’re in no hurry to go and tell the cops, either of you? You’re happy to let them waste time and taxpayers’ cash on some false trail, until you can find a minute to do your civic duty. Is that right?’
Simmy grimaced at him. ‘That’s the bare bones of it. But how many times have you said yourself, there’s no case without hard evidence?’
‘So? If you can point them to the right person, then they can find some evidence. They’ll know where to look. They can compare what they’ve got with your person’s fingerprints or whatever. That’s the way it works.’ He scowled at her. ‘As you know very well.’
Simmy turned her back on him, and went to put the kettle on in the back room. She was not surprised to find her hands were shaking. The impact of her theory had been slow to come, but now that Bonnie had apparently reached the same conclusion, with very little help, the implications were forcing themselves on her. It was both more and less frightening, having a second person with the same idea. If it was true, then Bonnie could back her up, add her own details to the picture, and share her trepidation. If it was false, all the risks of slander and unforeseen consequences were doubled, and Bonnie might well spread unjustified rumours before she could be stopped.
She repeated the steps of her reasoning to herself, and formulated the central question she needed to ask her father before she could take it any further. She made herself a mug of strong coffee, and filled a chipped brown teapot for the others. They were so young, she reflected again – too young to have acquired a taste for coffee. Ben would drink it, but could never quite suppress his shudder of distaste. It made Simmy smile. Teenagers took to beer and vodka much more quickly than they developed a liking for coffee.
She carried the rattling tray back into the shop and quickly plonked it down beside the computer. Bonnie had her phone to her ear.
‘Who’s she calling?’ she asked Ben, with a sudden apprehension.
‘Corinne, I think.’ His frustration was still in evidence. ‘Neither of you are telling me anything.’ He paused. ‘Is, I mean. Neither one of you is telling me.’
‘Don’t be pedantic,’ she said, relieved that he was not so angry that he couldn’t monitor his own use of syntax. ‘You’re just like my father.’
‘We hold the survival of the language in our hands,’ he claimed, with a reluctant grin.
‘You mean you’re holding back a natural evolutionary progress.’ It was an exchange they’d had before, more than once. She was glad of the distraction, until she heard Bonnie say something that alarmed her.
‘I think you should go and warn her,’ came the incredible words.
Without thinking, Simmy snatched the phone away from the girl, and pressed its red button to abort the call. ‘What are you doing?’ she cried.
Bonnie cowered away, her expression confused and scared. ‘What?’ she whispered. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Warn who?’ Simmy demanded.
‘Nobody you know. There’s a woman who works in the library. She found me some books about flowers that I thought would be useful for my job here with you. Corinne got a call from her just now, saying they’ve arrived, and would I go and collect them. Corinne’s going to do it for me.’
Simmy’s eyes narrowed. ‘Come off it. What’s that got to do with warning somebody?’
‘I just meant we should warn her I might not return them very quickly. I’ll want to make notes and stuff, and I might take a while. Honestly, Simmy, that’s all it was. You never let me finish what I was going to say.’
‘I wish I could believe you.’ It was the plain truth. She wished profoundly that she could take the girl at her word. But the story felt thin and hastily invented.
‘If it was what you think, I’d be an idiot to say it right here in front of you, wouldn’t I? I’d know it’d make you mad.’
Ben was once again open-mouthed as he watched them. But he knew whose side he was on. ‘You’re being a right bitch today,’ he told Simmy. ‘D’you know that?’
She was instantly deflated. Perhaps Bonnie was as innocent as she claimed, after all. Her final point was a good one, anyway. She felt strung out and barely in control. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Here.’ And she gave the girl her phone back.
She poured out two mugs of tea and they all drank in silence for a minute or two. The next few hours loomed ominously, as she tried to thread her way through a legal and moral quagmire that she would far rather ignore completely. The indistinct face of Travis McNaughton hovered insistently in her mind’s eye, along with everything she knew about him. By no means a saint or a pillar of the community, he had nonetheless not in any way at all deserved to die so horribly, at such an early age. The savage injustice of it was dreadful, an extreme consequence of a chain of events that had been none of his making. The collateral trauma to the woman who found him in a lake of blood was almost as shattering. The taint left on the yard and surrounding area, like a returning ghost, was imbued with shame and irrevocable tragedy.
‘Right,’ she said. ‘You two can go now. Please don’t say anything to anybody, Bonnie. I’
m trusting you, okay? It’s important. You can call me later today to see how it went, if you like.’
‘No, I’m coming with you,’ said the girl. ‘You won’t be able to stop me, so don’t even try.’
The core of steel had never been more apparent. ‘Well, all right,’ said Simmy. ‘But I don’t like it.’
‘And if she’s there, I’m going to be as well,’ said Ben.
Again, Simmy felt the mixture of gladness and annoyance. Moxon would perceive them as a deputation, rather than a friendly offer of help from someone already involved in his investigations. Because underlying everything else was a sense that she should in some way atone for the way she had thought and behaved towards DI Moxon, ever since first meeting him. She had misjudged him, at the very least. There had been moments when she’d felt repulsed by him, and might not have adequately concealed her reaction. And although she had done everything she could to help when he’d been hurt, she had failed to follow it up afterwards with visits or enquiries as to how he was mending.
‘So let’s get on with it, then,’ she sighed.
‘What about going to see your folks first?’ asked Bonnie. ‘Something you wanted to ask your dad. We can wait outside, if you’re quick.’
‘Better than that – go and have some lunch,’ she suggested. ‘I’ll get something from my mum, while I’m there. If you still want to come with me, let’s say we meet at the police station at two o’clock. Right?’
‘They’ve closed the front desk, you know,’ said Ben, out of the blue. ‘You can’t just stroll in off the street any more and expect someone to welcome you.’
‘That’s right,’ Bonnie confirmed. ‘I was there a couple of days ago, and it’s all different now.’
‘I’ll phone him, then, and ask what he wants me to do.’
‘Us,’ said Ben. ‘Not just you. All of us.’ He gave her a long look. ‘You can’t shake us off, you know. We’ll stay right outside the house while you talk to your father. Lunch can wait.’
Simmy did not want to speak to Moxon on the phone. She wanted to assess his responses face to face, taking the whole thing step by careful step, ready to modify or even abandon her theories, if he rejected them forcefully enough. She wanted no risk of her words being recorded, either. Making accusations of murder against a person ought not to be done lightly, especially if there was no scrap of hard evidence to support the accusation.
There was also the faint hope that the detective might miraculously have reached the same conclusion as she had; that some information had come to him from another source to lead him to the same point. By delaying as long as she could, she might be making this outcome more likely, letting herself off the painful moral hook she was on.
But she doubted there was to be any reprieve. Murder was murder. It stood huge and implacable before her, as it had done on other occasions, and there was no denying it.
As she ushered the two youngsters out onto the pavement, and set about locking the door behind herself, the reprieve she had despaired of materialised. Both her parents were walking down the street towards her. ‘P’simmon!’ called her mother, ‘I need you to come with us. There’s something we have to do.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
Yet again, Simmy found herself part of an uncomfortably large group of people blocking the pavement in the middle of Windermere. She was primarily delighted to see her father looking fit and well, his face suggesting a full understanding of and concern with the present moment. The jut of her mother’s chin promised something decisive and potentially helpful.
‘We were just coming to you,’ Simmy said faintly. ‘Has something happened?’
‘We had a phone call from Corinne Whatever-her-name-is, twenty minutes ago.’ Angie looked at Bonnie. ‘She said it was your suggestion. All to do with that man and his boy sitting behind me at the funeral. Said we ought to go and talk to—’
Simmy cut her off quickly. ‘So that story about the library books was a complete lie,’ she accused the girl. ‘Really, Bonnie, I can’t believe a word you say, can I? You told Corinne to phone my parents, didn’t you?’
‘Actually, no. I didn’t.’ Bonnie stood her ground and spoke out clearly. ‘How do you think there’d be time? It’s only been ten minutes since I was talking to her. That was after she called your mum.’
Simmy was confounded yet again by the girl’s logic. Accustomed to it from Ben, she had not yet come to expect it from Bonnie. ‘So – what on earth is this all about?’ She was increasingly afraid that a name would be mentioned that ought not to be, until she had shared her thoughts with the police, especially now that there were two more people to hear it. ‘Mum. Do you think you and I could have a quiet word, just the two of us?’
‘Whatever for? There’s no time for that. Corinne wants you and your father to have a good look at the man and his boy, and see if you recognise them. She says they’re in the Elleray having lunch.’
‘Good Lord,’ snapped Simmy. ‘What does it have to do with her? And how does she know they’re in the pub? Where’s she?’
Russell spoke up for the first time. ‘She’s trying to put things right,’ he said. ‘She and that Vic person have had a few ideas, after hearing all about yesterday’s events from Bonnie. Vic knew the murdered man, remember? And now he’s worried that it wasn’t him we saw on Monday after all. If he’s right, it’ll help the police, don’t you see?’
Simmy absorbed this speech slowly. It did nothing to further encourage her as to her father’s return to health. Rather, it sounded like a man desperately trying to sound rational, and failing. ‘We saw him wave to the men in the car,’ she reminded her father. ‘Are you sure you’ve understood him properly?’
‘So we did.’ Russell frowned. ‘Is that helpful?’
Simmy shook her head at him, and turned to her other parent. ‘Mum? Where’s Corinne now? And what on earth does she want from me? She already knows who everybody is.’
‘You’re being deliberately stupid,’ Bonnie accused her. ‘Corinne needs to be sure before she tells the police what she did. Don’t you see that?’
Simmy’s heart thundered at this new twist. She had not factored in any action on the part of Corinne, having filed her away with Vic Corless as being only concerned with snaring animals and driving illegal cars.
Angie pulled at her arm. ‘It can’t do any damage, can it? Just in case they’re right, you should come. It’s the least we can do, if it helps to solve a murder.’
Simmy resisted. ‘It’ll take ages, all the way up there and back.’
‘So what’s the hurry?’
‘It’s pointless. I already know everything I need to.’ Then she had a new thought and completely changed her mind. She turned to Ben and Bonnie. ‘All right, then. I’ll go. Don’t you two come. Wait down by the Baddeley Tower, and I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. I won’t let it take longer than that.’ Then she gave her parents the same treatment. ‘And you needn’t come, either. I’ll run over to the pub, put my head round the door, as if I’m looking for somebody, and be out again in no time.’
‘We’ll come,’ said Angie, brooking no argument. ‘If you want to talk to us as well, you can do it on the way.’
It was the best she could hope for, so she set off at a brisk pace towards the northern part of the town, back towards the church where the funeral had taken place. Ben and Bonnie remained where they were, murmuring questions to each other. Russell fell back as his wife and daughter headed uphill.
‘It’s the wrong way round,’ Simmy began. ‘Corinne’s got everything back to front.’
‘You don’t seem surprised, though. Where were you going just now, with those youngsters?’
‘The police station. I worked something out myself this morning, and wanted to explain it to Moxon. Bonnie thinks she knows what it is, but Ben’s still in the dark. Although now you’ve turned up with this silly wild goose chase, he might get there as well.’
‘There were two men both with boys,’ pante
d Russell. ‘And we need to know which is which.’
‘Yes, Dad.’ Simmy paused to enable him to catch up. ‘That’s right. Except I know already. The ones in the pub are called Eccles. The boy’s Raymond. They’re dognappers. Or the father is.’
‘Oh!’ Angie put a hand to her mouth. ‘Then—’
Simmy watched her warily. ‘Don’t say it. And especially don’t say anything to Corinne, if you’re phoning her back, as I suppose you are. I don’t trust her or Bonnie. They’ve every reason to dislike the man, but for some reason, they seem to be on his side.’
‘Did he kill Mr McNaughton then?’ asked Russell, still breathless. ‘Are we going to call the cops and get him arrested?’
‘No, Dad.’ The realisation that he was nowhere near as recovered as he had first appeared hit Simmy hard. A week ago, he would have been easily keeping pace with her thinking.
The Elleray public house stood four-square in front of them, only five minutes later. The scene of other encounters on previous occasions, Simmy liked it for its lack of pretension and good plain food. It was also convenient for her current purpose, having only one large bar, with no alcoves or high-backed benches where people might hide.
But she had no need to open the door and inspect the drinkers inside. As she approached, the door opened, and two people came out. It was Mr Eccles and his son, talking comfortably together, the man laughing easily.
Simmy stepped forward, doing what she had intended to all along. ‘Excuse me,’ she said pleasantly. ‘You’re Mr Eccles, I think?’
‘That’s me.’ He was surprised but not alarmed in any way.
‘Do you mind if I have a few words with you? I’m Persimmon Brown. I know Corinne and Bonnie Lawson, her foster daughter. They mentioned you.’
‘Good woman, Corinne,’ he nodded. ‘Ray – hold on a sec, will you?’
The boy had started drifting down the street, apparently thinking the adult conversation had nothing in it to interest him.
