The Ullswater Undertaking

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘It all connects,’ she said urgently. ‘Uncle Richmond wanted to marry Josephine. If we take Fabian and his cousins at face value, they might well have been trying to tell us they thought it was him, but didn’t dare say so outright. They said they came to persuade us that it wasn’t any of them, and that they thought Aunt Hilda was the main person to focus on.’

  ‘Where do the police come in? Had they all been interviewed? Where is there the slightest morsel of evidence?’

  ‘I don’t know. Not one of them even mentioned the police. That’s odd, isn’t it?’

  ‘They sound worried. Do they know about me and Bonnie and all the other murders we’ve been connected with? Do they know about you and Detective Moxon? Was the whole business just one big smokescreen? What did Christopher think?’

  Christopher was at that moment giving Robin his bedtime bath, expecting Simmy to join them for the final stages, which went much more easily with a second pair of hands. ‘He’s a lot more engaged than usual,’ Simmy said in a low voice. ‘It’s probably because he knew Josephine and cares about what happened to her. But he’s also feeling guilty about that promise he made to Fabian, the idiot. The man has some hold over him that seems unreasonable to me.’

  ‘Might there be more to it than he’s told you?’

  ‘It’s possible, but I don’t think so. If there is, he’s forgotten what it is. Fabian’s incapable of saying anything directly, which doesn’t help. He comes at everything sideways and changes the subject until you don’t know what he’s talking about. I’m not sure he’s quite right in the head.’

  ‘Which we’re doing now,’ said Ben. ‘We’re missing a whole lot out. We’ve been here before, charging along without any idea of where the police investigation has got to. Isn’t that where Chris could be useful? What happened yesterday when he was interviewed?’

  Simmy hesitated, trying to think. ‘Just the obvious questions. He gave them Fabian’s name, as someone who knew Josephine, as well as the rest of the family.’

  ‘Did he? Would that be a normal thing to do? Why would the police ask him to list all her acquaintances? That should be Oliver or the people next door, surely?’

  ‘He probably thought it would be helpful to make them realise that she’d grown up locally and knew a lot of people from the distant past. He was probably thinking that’s the sort of thing you’d approve of.’

  ‘Me? Why would he care what I thought?’

  ‘Or perhaps it was just that Fabian’s sudden appearance coincided so totally with the murder, that it would feel wrong not to say something. That’s probably it. I mean – it was odd, the way it happened. And then, at the same time, we could give Fabian a pretty good alibi for Sunday night.’

  ‘And there lies the crux of it,’ said Ben heavily. ‘You might well have been set up for that very reason. Which Christopher might have figured out and concluded that he ought to name Fabian, as a sort of self-protection. Anyway,’ he burst out, ‘why can’t you just go and ask him? Get all this cleared up, before we go any further.’

  ‘We’ve got to put the baby to bed first. Look – can you get here tomorrow? We can talk it all through then.’

  ‘Not easily. You need to come here. Again. There’s a whole lot I have to show you about Hilda. She really was quite a woman. The papers were full of her at one time.’

  ‘You definitely won’t be going back to Newcastle this week, then?’

  Ben groaned. ‘Don’t let’s get into that. It’s all a real mess just now. We can’t guarantee that I’ll be here beyond this weekend. As things stand, I’m in disgrace with just about everybody.’

  ‘So a nice complicated murder is just what you need to distract you.’

  ‘Precisely,’ he said.

  They left it that Simmy would drive down to Bowness at some point the next day. ‘Make it early, if you can,’ he urged. ‘There’s a lot we need to catch up with.’

  After Robin had been left snugly in his cot, Christopher and Simmy slumped together on their small sofa and reviewed the day.

  ‘We need to get the marriage licence and book the registrar,’ he said. ‘Do we know how to do that?’

  She understood that he was conceding superior knowledge to her, since his own first marriage had been conducted on an island in the Caribbean. ‘I can’t remember,’ she admitted. ‘It was so long ago. It might be different now.’

  ‘I went to a wedding last year. It was in a register office. As far as I could tell, the couple pretty much wrote the whole thing themselves. It was all over in about three minutes, and the word “contract” seemed to feature prominently. I thought it was a bit soulless.’

  ‘I’d be happy with the classic wording. Although I suppose I might feel a bit of a hypocrite, making the same vows that I didn’t stick to the first time.’

  ‘Which ones did you break?’ he asked her, with a teasing smile.

  ‘“As long as you both shall live”, I suppose. We were meant to stick at it for our whole lives.’

  ‘Maybe it’s knowing that so few people can manage it that makes them loosen up on the wording, then. But for myself I can honestly promise you the full list – if I can remember it all. I’m more than happy with “forsaking all others”. What else is there?’

  ‘“To have and to hold” is nice.’

  ‘You and Tony got married in church!’ he realised. ‘Why did that never occur to me?’

  ‘You should have been there. My oldest friend, and all that. Your parents didn’t come either, although we did invite them. Frances wasn’t very well, if I remember rightly.’

  ‘And I was off in Costa Rica or somewhere. I don’t remember even being told you were getting married.’

  ‘And then you got a wife of your own, not much later.’

  ‘I was twenty-six and she was twenty. We were like two silly children.’

  ‘I was twenty-five, which felt quite old at the time. We did well to last as long as we did, I suppose. We just made it to ten years.’

  ‘We split up the week after our second anniversary. I have no idea where she is now.’

  ‘You are properly divorced, I hope? What if she shows up when they do that bit about anybody knowing good cause, or whatever it is?’

  ‘No worries. She married someone else about eight years ago now. I’m sure they’re very happy. Second time around works pretty well, as far as I can see.’

  ‘The triumph of hope over experience,’ said Simmy with a little shiver. ‘And I can think of quite a few which were just as hopeless as the first time.’

  ‘Nonsense! We should look online and find out what the procedure is. June 1st is definite, right? I’ll email my relations and let them all know. Get the show on the road. Which pub are we going to afterwards?’

  ‘Where’s the register office?’

  ‘Um – good question. Penrith I guess, or Carlisle.’ He fished his phone from his pocket and began a search. ‘There’s one at Kendal. Maximum ten people. Looks quite sweet.’ He showed her the pictures. ‘Handy for Angie and Russell.’

  ‘But quite a way for your people. Ten isn’t many. Does that include you and me and the registrar?’

  ‘Doesn’t say. Presumably not. How many do we want? Angie and Russell, Hannah, Lynne, Bonnie, and my brothers. That’s seven – nine if the wives insist on coming. I’ll have to choose who’ll be the best man and make the silly speech afterwards.’

  ‘You forgot Ben. And Helen. I invited them both already.’

  ‘I thought maybe they’d be okay with stepping aside. The whole family can come to the party afterwards.’

  ‘He probably will settle for that. Thanks for including Bonnie at least. She’d be the only non-relative.’

  ‘Bridesmaid. You have to have one to hold your bouquet or something.’

  ‘It sounds lovely,’ she said, suddenly flushing with excitement. ‘Cosy, informal. And then a big party at a pub somewhere.’

  ‘You know what people will say, don’t you? They’ll try and persua
de us to do the whole thing in a posh hotel. Storrs or the Belsfield, probably. Make a twenty-four-hour event of it.’

  ‘Luckily for us there’s nowhere near enough time to organise anything like that. And I think hotel weddings are horrible. Ever since …’ she tailed off.

  ‘Ever since that poor boy died at the wedding at Storrs. Yes, I remember. I think they’re fairly grim, as well. I’m just warning you about my sisters and what they’ll say.’

  ‘I’ll set my mother onto them. She’ll soon put them straight. She’s going to think we’ve got the perfect plan if we do it like this. Quick little ceremony in Kendal, then up the road to Windermere or maybe Troutbeck. Oh – we didn’t count Robin!’ She giggled. ‘He brings it up to ten.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s likely to be a problem.’

  ‘Except he’ll probably bawl through the whole thing. And I’ll have to feed him while promising to love you for ever, or whatever we decide to say.’

  ‘I hope you’ll love me for ever, whatever you promise,’ he said, with an unusual sentimentality. ‘I really do like the idea of being married to you, Persimmon Straw … Brown … whichever. It makes me go all squishy inside to think of it.’

  ‘So that’s all right then,’ she said comfortably.

  Robin woke them at one-fifteen and again at four forty-five. ‘Short night,’ said Christopher, aiming at a philosophical tone. ‘Is this still the growth spurt?’

  ‘Probably. I can take him to be weighed on Friday, and woe betide him if he hasn’t gained at least four ounces.’

  ‘Friday’s tomorrow now,’ said Christopher pedantically. ‘Another week almost gone.’

  Simmy ignored this remark and concentrated on her baby. She could feel the weight of the entire western culture screaming at her that her milk must be drying up, that the solution quite obviously lay in a full bottle of formula and it was little short of perversity to insist on exclusive use of the breast. She had been almost completely unaware of this doctrine until her second encounter with a health visitor. The woman had pursed her lips, smiled insincerely and said that of course breast was best. Except when … and proceeded to list numerous instances where salvation lay in a bottle. Simmy did not possess a bottle and had no intention of getting one. She knew that it would represent a malign temptation, not very different from how a litre of Jack Daniel’s would to a recovering alcoholic. It was all her mother’s doing of course. Angie had conceived a burning passion for breastfeeding forty years before and clung to it ever since. And nobody would lightly flout Angie Straw’s edicts.

  Fortunately, Robin was on her side. When she changed his nappy, the old one was heavy with wee. There was obviously plenty of fluid going through his system. Anyone could have a wakeful night without causing panic. ‘He’ll probably sleep all morning now,’ she murmured, suspecting that Christopher had gone back to sleep.

  Nobody stirred again until eight, when Christopher emerged from sleep in a panic, remembering that he was going back to work that day. Simmy never got her morning tea, and breakfast dwindled to a slightly overdone slice of toast. ‘I need to eat more than this,’ she complained.

  ‘You can get yourself a bowl of cereal, can’t you?’ was the unsympathetic answer. ‘You’re not an invalid.’

  He was right, of course. ‘We’re running low on bread,’ he went on. ‘And a few other things.’

  ‘I could do a supermarket order and get them to deliver,’ she said doubtfully. Neither of them really liked this means of provisioning themselves. It made more traffic on the winding lanes and removed any interest or pleasure from the shopping process. ‘Or maybe I should pop down to the shop in Troutbeck. They’ve got the basics, at least.’

  ‘Blasphemy,’ he quipped. ‘How dare you consider anything other than St Tesco or Sainsbury?’

  ‘I want to go there anyway,’ she said. ‘I thought the Mortal Man would be nice for our post-wedding bun fight. Troutbeck’s fairly easy to get to, and I do have sentimental feelings about it.’

  ‘It would be perfect,’ he said slowly, savouring the suggestion. ‘That’s a brilliant idea.’

  After he had gone, she indulged in twenty minutes of mindless domestic ease, the baby asleep, birds singing outside, no builders yet arrived and no really crucial need to be anywhere.

  And then she remembered Ben, and the lack of bread, and the pressing urgency of the wedding plans, and Robin’s abandonment of a perfectly fine routine, and went upstairs to get herself dressed.

  At ten she phoned Ben and said she could probably be with him by eleven, with luck – rather later than they had agreed the evening before. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said. ‘Today’s a bit disorganised, and everything’s later than it should be. But I can’t come tomorrow because it’s the baby clinic.’

  ‘Does that take all day?’ he asked as if that really might be a possibility.

  ‘No, but it’s going to be traumatic for both of us. We won’t want to do anything else.’

  ‘Well, there does seem to be a lot to discuss,’ he said diffidently. ‘That’s if you want to stay involved. I mean – you could just drop the whole thing, I guess.’

  ‘I don’t think I could. Fabian Crick isn’t a person you can just drop. He’s sort of sticky – like chewing gum on your shoe, if that isn’t outrageously rude. It’s all far too close to us to be avoided. And I did like Uncle Ambrose,’ she added inconsequentially.

  ‘Good. Well, Bonnie’s going to miss the fun again. Although she and I went over everything last night. She had some good ideas.’

  ‘She always does,’ said Simmy warmly.

  ‘So I’ll see you about eleven, then?’ He paused. ‘Why is the baby clinic traumatic?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I couldn’t possibly explain. It’ll be our first one, so I really don’t know what’ll happen. Just fear of the unknown, I expect.’ But she knew there would be talk of vaccinations and contraception and sleeping arrangements and the ever-daunting business of the infant’s weight. None of it appealed to her in the slightest.

  ‘Is it compulsory?’ Ben wondered.

  ‘Probably,’ she said miserably.

  Robin was sleepily unco-operative when she tried to give him a feed before setting out for Bowness. Then, when she strapped him into his car seat, he woke up and complained vociferously. ‘Stop it,’ she told him. ‘You had your chance.’ An automatic calculation told her he had taken almost no sustenance for over five hours. ‘Just let’s get to Ben’s, okay? Shouldn’t be long.’

  It was twenty-five minutes in total, the baby screaming the entire way. There was a bottleneck on the road into Windermere for no obvious reason, and again on the final stretch before turning into Helm Road where the Harknesses lived. Even two minutes in a stationary car with a howling baby was a whole new kind of torture, Simmy discovered.

  The only parking space she could find was a hundred yards further down the road. Without bothering to release the seat, she unbuckled the baby and cantered up to Ben’s front door with Robin under her arm. ‘Sorry,’ she panted, when Ben appeared. ‘I’ll have to feed him before anything else.’

  ‘No problem,’ he said calmly. ‘I can see I’ll soon be getting used to this.’

  Robin quickly redeemed himself, feeding composedly while Simmy tried to relax. ‘It’s a complete tyranny,’ she said, ‘I never properly realised that before. He has all the power. If I dared to try to cross him, I’d definitely get the worst of it.’

  ‘Survival,’ nodded Ben. ‘Stands to reason when you think about it.’

  ‘Well, it’s quite a shock to the system, I can tell you.’ She exhaled exaggeratedly. ‘So let’s get down to business.’

  ‘Yes, let’s. Just look what I found!’ He laid out a page of notes and another covered with one of his typical diagrams. ‘Aunt Hilda was quite a girl.’

  Simmy made no attempt to decipher the handwriting. ‘Just tell me,’ she ordered.

  ‘Okay. Well, in 1962, when she was in her thirties, she made a paternity
claim against the son of a very famous man. A member of a political dynasty, if you like. Her story was that over a decade earlier, when she was only twenty she had given birth to a child that was fathered by this person during an important conference at Chequers. You know what Chequers is, don’t you?’

  ‘I do,’ she said. ‘Of course. What was she doing there?’

  ‘Working as a secretary. Anyway, the whole thing seems to have been politically motivated, trying to wreck careers and so forth.’

  ‘What happened to the baby? Who was the man? Stop being so mysterious.’

  ‘Don’t know for sure, but the strong hint is that it was most likely Randolph Churchill. He was quite a womaniser and was out of parliament because he lost his seat in 1945. I could go on. I read up on him – he was handsome and keen on drink, and constantly in trouble.’

  ‘Was he married?’

  ‘He was between wives. He married for the second time at the end of that year, but it sounds as if he was perfectly capable of seducing a secretary and fathering her child in the meantime.’

  Simmy didn’t know what to make of this discovery. ‘Petrock mentioned some newspaper scandal,’ she remembered. ‘He said it was spurious.’

  ‘So it might well have been. But all that came ages later, in the 1960s. The odd thing is that Hilda deliberately set it going. She went to the papers and claimed to want the whole thing exposed to view.’

  ‘Did she want money? What happened to the child?’ Simmy burst out.

  ‘You already asked me that. I couldn’t find any answer. Adopted, presumably.’

  ‘But how much of a scandal would that really have been?’ Simmy wondered.

  ‘You need to understand how hypocritical they were in those days. Being born out of wedlock was a hugely shameful thing. People didn’t tell their kids they were adopted. The chances of the man who brought you up being your biological father were surprisingly small. I mean – not small, but probably only about seventy per cent. Before DNA, there was much less chance of being found out. All I could discover was a potential scandal that was quickly hushed up, with no harm done. Hilda said there were letters that could prove her story, but they were never produced. And they wouldn’t have been hard proof anyway.’