The Ullswater Undertaking

by Rebecca Tope

  Blimey, thought Simmy. Some people. ‘Not while he’s asleep,’ she demurred. ‘If he wakes up, I’ll have to feed him.’

  Oliver was standing beside the passenger window, still smiling. ‘Chris says we should get some lunch, so I’ve booked us a table upstairs at the Merienda. They know me there. Lovely cakes.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Simmy, trying not to feel bulldozed. ‘Thanks.’ It occurred to her that he was trying to say that he would be paying for the meal, which meant she ought to be grateful.

  ‘Pattie, come away from that baby,’ he told his employee. ‘You’ll wake it up.’

  So it was Pattie, Simmy thought with relief. ‘I’ll bring him up here again in a week or two,’ she promised. ‘When he’s a bit more sociable. He’s not terribly interesting at the moment.’

  ‘Oh, no – I love them at this stage. All floppy and warm and smelling so heavenly.’ The girl gave a little frisson of ecstasy. ‘And it’s all over so terribly quickly.’

  Simmy felt she’d been ungracious. ‘I’m sorry he’s asleep. Maybe we’ll come back after lunch. Will you still be here?’

  Pattie glanced at Oliver and then at the main building, as if lost for an answer. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Everything’s …’ Her enthusiasm for the baby suddenly evaporated, along with every other cheerful thought. Her face drooped and she was clearly at a loss for words.

  ‘I asked her to come in and have a go at the financials,’ Oliver explained. ‘We generally send out payments for last Saturday’s sale on a Wednesday, you see. We still do it the old-fashioned way, posting cheques to everyone. Josie always said it was simpler than keeping track of hundreds of people’s bank details while making sure nobody steals them. Trouble is, it’s quite labour intensive. How were you getting on?’ he asked Pattie.

  ‘More than halfway,’ she told him. ‘People have been popping in to talk about Josephine, which slowed it down.’

  Simmy concluded that Oliver had not been on the premises all morning, since he seemed unaware of Pattie’s progress. ‘What’s Christopher doing?’ she asked.

  ‘Who knows? Jack wanted him for something, and there’s a bloke from Leicester or somewhere with about twenty pictures he wants valuing. Just turned up with no warning at ten this morning apparently.’ He raised his eyebrows at Pattie, as if she was somehow responsible. ‘I got called in as backup.’

  ‘Happens all the time,’ Pattie murmured.

  Simmy was pleased to see no hint of apology on her face. ‘I suppose it’s what you’re here for,’ she said with a little laugh.

  ‘Among other things,’ Oliver agreed tightly.

  Simmy was losing patience. ‘What time did you tell them for lunch?’

  ‘Twelve-thirty. We need to go soon. Do you need anything – for the baby, I mean?’

  ‘What?’ She could not imagine what he might have in mind. ‘No, thanks. He’s asleep,’ she repeated, thinking that this could not remain true for much longer. ‘When he wakes up I’ll have to find somewhere to feed him. I don’t suppose that’ll be a problem for the Merinda, or whatever it’s called.’

  ‘Merienda. Have you never been there?’

  ‘No. I don’t come to Keswick much. It’s out of my usual stomping ground.’

  ‘Of course. You’ve got the shop in Windermere. I was forgetting.’

  She found herself liking this man less and less with every passing minute. He ought to be much more upset about the murder of his faithful and long-serving employee, for a start, instead of making such a palaver about lunch. He ought, too, to remember not to refer to a person’s precious baby as ‘it’.

  Before she could confirm that she did indeed have a shop in Windermere, Christopher emerged from the main door. He was very much not smiling. He was looking back over his shoulder at a man behind him, with a scowl.

  ‘Hey, Chris – don’t upset the customers,’ Oliver muttered, too quietly for Christopher to hear him. He then went briskly to see what the trouble might be. Pattie remained beside the car, still eyeing the somnolent Robin as if tempted to disobey Simmy and rouse him into wakefulness. Simmy was twisted awkwardly in her seat, watching the baby as well as everything else that was going on.

  Within a couple of minutes, Christopher was back in the car and starting the engine. ‘Bloody prat!’ he snarled, with another scowl at the offending customer.

  ‘What did he do?’ Simmy asked.

  ‘Wanted me to give him a signed statement to the effect that two of his pictures are genuine Russell Chathams, from the 1980s. Lithographs.’

  ‘And aren’t they?’

  ‘They might well be. I’m not qualified to judge. I surprised myself by having heard of the bloke at all. But as it happens, I have. He died not long ago – lived most of his life in Montana.’ He was driving as he talked, heading into the centre of town, apparently on autopilot.

  ‘I’ve never heard of him. Are his pictures valuable?’

  ‘Very much so. Jack Nicholson collects them, among other people. They’re pretty nice. Clever. Not like most of those wild west people, trying to make paintings look like photographs. The point is, what makes him think I’m going to risk my reputation on validating something just so he can make a profit?’

  ‘Outrageous,’ said Simmy, ratcheting up her role as loyal supporter. ‘What was he thinking? Incidentally, where’s Oliver? Shouldn’t we be waiting for him?’

  ‘He said to go ahead. He’s trying to smooth ruffled feathers. I’ll be in for a bollocking, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘Will he say you should have signed the validation or whatever it is?’

  ‘He might.’

  ‘Outrageous,’ she said again.

  This time, Christopher laughed and patted her leg. ‘That’s my girl,’ he said. ‘I’ll let you tell him.’

  Oliver initially took charge of the lunch, treating it as a real occasion, insisting on wine and apologising for the limited menu. ‘They actually do a much better spread in the evening,’ he explained. But Simmy and Christopher ignored him, being far too much engrossed in the fact that there was nowhere to feed the baby, who had woken up hungry and cross. ‘I’m going to just sit here and do it, and eat with one hand,’ Simmy said. ‘Whether people like it or not.’ She awkwardly manipulated her clothing for minimal exposure and tried to stay calm. There were only a few other people present anyway, and they all discreetly averted their gaze.

  ‘You’ll soon get used to this,’ said Christopher. ‘I’m sure it’s easier these days than it used to be.’

  ‘I thought I was used to it,’ she moaned. ‘But this isn’t like the local pub.’

  ‘We need to talk about Josephine,’ Oliver began, looking rather pink. ‘And how we’re going to get along without her.’

  ‘Isn’t it a bit soon?’ Christopher demurred. ‘We haven’t even had the funeral yet. They don’t know who killed her, or why. It’s only been a few days, after all.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Of course that’s all true. But you and I are running a business, remember. And like it or not, poor Josie was the one person who held it all together.’

  Christopher pouted a little at that, indicating a level of disagreement. ‘I think we’ll find it’s all there on the computer if we look. Everyone’s got their own job – logging stuff in, tracking the bids, despatching stuff to the online buyers. We all know the system, if we put our heads together. You especially – after all, you started the whole business in the first place. It must be second nature to you after all this time.’

  ‘It was. But I have to confess there are aspects of those confounded databases that floor me completely. I never have been too great at numbers, if I’m honest.’

  Simmy listened to this with some impatience. Here was the head of the company and senior partner, who had performed the central auctioneering role for twenty years before handing it over to Christopher, claiming ignorance as to how his own business worked. ‘It’s not so much numbers as logic,’ she corrected him. ‘Surely the databases are bas
ically just lists of buyers and sellers, and hammer prices? All logically arranged so anybody can understand them.’

  Oliver widened his eyes in shock at such straight talking. Christopher cleared his throat. Robin smacked his lips and burped lavishly.

  ‘There are guide prices, reserves, commissions, fees on top of all that,’ Christopher said. ‘It’s really not at all simple. Everything has to be inputted, then checked and rationalised. Fiona can do most of it – she’s the one who records every lot as it’s sold and tallies up who owes what at the end of the sale. But she doesn’t have the same grasp as Josephine had.’

  ‘Well, it sounds to me as if you’re getting much too bogged down in all that, when you should be thinking far more about what happened to Josephine. Did you get any sense of what the police might be thinking when they interviewed you? What possible motive can there be, for a start?’ Simmy was channelling Ben, as she often did, bringing the men back to the central point.

  Again, Oliver looked startled, as if a menial was stepping over a line. But I’m the boss seemed to be the unspoken subtext. You shouldn’t speak to me like this.

  ‘Well?’ she challenged him with a bold look. ‘Surely that’s the most important thing?’

  ‘Well …’ Oliver echoed, glancing at Christopher for rescue. ‘I don’t quite see …’

  Christopher attempted an amused laugh. ‘Hey, Sim – it’s not fair to attack him with a baby at your breast. Gives you an advantage. Here – he’s had enough for now. Pass him to me for a bit.’

  She understood that he was exaggerating his parental role for Oliver’s edification, for which she was grateful. Without a murmur she handed Robin over and buttoned herself up, trying to order her wits at the same time.

  Oliver straightened his shoulders. ‘I wouldn’t say that motive is the most important thing, no. It comes very much second to who did it. Who killed a harmless middle-aged woman who never hurt a fly and deserved nothing but admiration?’ The words came out in a stream that sounded rehearsed to Simmy. Probably he had said them several times already.

  ‘I didn’t mean motive specifically, but the whole business. All the same, it would be useful to know whether anybody had anything to gain from killing her. Christopher has told me she had a nice collection of antiques, but we don’t know if any of it was taken. What did Fiona say she found there, when you sent her to look for Josephine?’

  Oliver swallowed. ‘I haven’t asked her for details. All I know is that she couldn’t get in because the door was locked but went round the back and saw Josie in a room there, when she peered through the window.’

  ‘So she called the police?’

  ‘Not immediately. She tried the back door and found it wasn’t locked or damaged. Josie most likely never bothered to lock it – people don’t around here. Fiona wasn’t very clear, but I assume she felt she ought to go in, in case she could save Josie somehow. She did say there was rather a lot of blood.’ He spoke faintly, his head turned away.

  ‘Which must have been completely congealed by that time,’ said Simmy, having learnt more than she really wanted to about how blood behaves when it leaves its rightful channels.

  ‘Simmy!’ Christopher was yet again attempting to silence her. ‘We’re trying to eat.’

  ‘I know – but surely we all want the same thing? If we talk it through, we might find a clue that’s been missed. You two have both spoken to the police – you must have some idea of what they’re thinking.’

  ‘Not much of an idea, actually,’ said Oliver. ‘They’re very skilled at not giving anything away.’

  ‘Well, they probably don’t think it was a burglar,’ said Simmy. ‘Even if it’s a lot easier to imagine a drug-crazed teenager lashing out at the householder who hears a noise while they’re taking stuff. Something random like that, with no real malice behind it. Don’t you think?’ She was voicing her thoughts as they occurred, trying to remain conciliatory towards the man who Christopher clearly respected. Oliver had, after all, always been very generous and patient with his new partner, who had been welcomed into the business with no discernible reservations.

  ‘The police didn’t confide in me,’ Oliver said tightly. ‘They probably have me on their list of potential suspects, in fact. I’ve known Josie for twenty-five years, near enough. Like you, they seem to think that should give me special insight into why she was killed, at the very least.’

  ‘I know how that goes,’ said Christopher. ‘Being in the spotlight just because you knew the victim. At least you didn’t find Jo’s body. That takes things to a whole new level, believe me.’

  ‘Poor Fiona,’ Oliver sighed. ‘We really ought not to have sent her to the house like that.’

  ‘That was mostly me,’ said Christopher. ‘You hadn’t shown up at that point.’

  ‘But I agreed to it, on the phone,’ Oliver reminded him.

  ‘Well, it doesn’t matter now. What’s done is done.’ said Christopher. ‘Nobody could have known what Fiona was going to find.’

  ‘Never crossed my mind,’ Oliver agreed. ‘Not in a million years.’

  ‘Well, perhaps that wasn’t true of everybody,’ said Simmy softly. Both men gave her startled looks but said nothing. Again, she understood that she had crossed a line, but the knowledge only made her impatient. She wondered if it would be sensible to introduce the subject of Fabian Crick and his relations. The conversation was drying up, with the food suddenly occupying more attention than anything else. Oliver tucked determinedly into a steak, which was very much too rare for Simmy’s sensibilities. Then, the last of it gone he said, ‘Of course, my money’s on that wretched Armitage bloke. He was probably feeling pretty murderous when Josie turned him down.’ He looked from face to face. ‘I don’t suppose you know him, do you?’

  It seemed to Simmy then that the case was solved, just like that. ‘You mean one of Fabian Crick’s uncles, do you?’ she said quietly. ‘Or someone else in that family? Or Fabian himself?’

  ‘What do you mean – turned him down?’ Christopher demanded, a second later.

  ‘Ah. I see you do at least have some idea of the connection. But no, actually. I wasn’t thinking of anyone named Fabian. I was talking about Richmond Armitage. The one who lives in Workington. The one who wanted to marry our precious Josephine.’

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘But he must be twenty years older than her,’ said Simmy. ‘At least.’

  Both men looked at her, eyebrows raised. ‘So what?’ said Oliver brusquely. Again, Simmy had the sense that she’d shown insufficient respect, that she was coming across as insolent. ‘Actually, I believe it’s somewhat less than that. Jo was a fair bit older than she looked.’

  ‘We know about Richmond,’ Simmy said. ‘He’s Fabian’s uncle, Aunt Hilda’s brother. Fabian has asked Christopher to find him, as it happens. We know he lives in Workington and has two sons. Are you saying you think he killed Josephine?’

  ‘Slow down a minute,’ Oliver complained, swiping a melodramatic hand across his brow. ‘I never said anything of the sort. Are we even talking about the same people? Hilda, you say? I do remember her. But who’s Fabian?’

  ‘I met him in Africa, a million years ago,’ said Christopher. ‘He’s just resurfaced, in the past few days. Now he lives practically next door to us, in Glenridding. He’s been telling us about his family. Josephine told him where he could find me. He’s been here at the saleroom recently, renewing an old friendship with her. The whole family knew her from schooldays, according to him.’

  ‘Does Richmond go to your auctions?’ Simmy asked, still trying to complete the circle of acquaintance and work out how everyone connected.

  ‘What?’ Oliver barked.

  ‘It’s a simple question.’ She glimpsed Christopher grimacing, as he sat beside his boss. However hard she tried, she was never going to manage to be sufficiently tractable in her dealings with Oliver. The man was too pompous and self-important to be treated with deference.

  ‘No, no, I wo
uldn’t think so. Of course I can’t know everyone who’s there. I don’t follow every transaction. But I do know who the regulars are – I remember their bidder numbers and their little habits.’

  ‘But you brought his name up. You obviously know him.’

  ‘Years ago now, he used to drop in to see Josie. His wife had gone off or died – I don’t remember. Josie liked him well enough, but he was totally uninterested in antiques. He couldn’t tell a Moorcroft from a Poole, or a kelim from a bearskin. Josephine used to talk about how uselessly ignorant he was.’

  In Simmy’s mind, the circle was not so much closing as growing convoluted swirls, that linked to other circles. ‘You said he wanted to marry Josephine? When was that? Is it a recent thing?’

  ‘No, it goes back a while. A long while. She used to get the girls in the office to say she wasn’t there when he phoned her, once he got too pressing. It wasn’t far off being stalked, at one point. It’s probably twelve or fifteen years ago or thereabouts that it started. She’d have been hitting forty, and he was a well-set-up farmer approaching sixty. He was scouting around for a new wife. I never really understood what her problem was. It would have been a good move from her point of view. He wasn’t in Workington, though. That must have happened more recently.’

  ‘You think he could have killed her, then?’ This time Christopher butted in. ‘Like Simmy said?’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of making such a slanderous accusation. The idea didn’t come from me, remember.’ He forced a laugh. ‘And I don’t find it very convincing, anyway. He might have done it all those years ago, but it’s a bit late in the day now.’ He looked from one face to the other. ‘I think we should all be very careful in what we say. You’ve both got your teeth into this. I hadn’t realised.’ He sat back, his eyes narrowed. ‘And it’s a dangerous game to be playing. Haven’t you got better things to do?’ He looked meaningfully at the baby.