The Ullswater Undertaking

by Rebecca Tope

  But – oh God! – it was a grey squirrel! A child of Satan, a loathsome piece of vermin to be stamped into oblivion by the self-appointed guardians of Lake District fauna. There were actually laws about them, although Simmy did not know the details. Genocide, ethnic cleansing – as Russell Straw would say. She ought to throw it into the river and forget she ever saw it. Instead she tucked it into a fold of Robin’s sling, keeping some fabric between child and animal, just in case it might try to bite him. And she gave up any idea of walking to Patterdale, after all.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Christopher came home to find Simmy leaning over a cardboard box filled with a mixture of newspaper and grass, with a bundle of grey fur curled up in one corner. ‘Good God, what’s that?’ he demanded, like any outraged patriarch coming home to find an intruder.

  ‘Sshh!’ she told him. ‘I don’t want the builders to know about it. They probably belong to some outfit that protects red squirrels.’

  ‘Uh-oh,’ said Christopher, looking more closely. ‘Tell me that’s not—’

  Again, she hushed him. ‘I found it on the ground. It’s almost old enough to survive on its own, I think. I couldn’t just leave him, could I? He probably only needs a week or so of help.’

  ‘And then what? Isn’t there a pogrom out against them?’

  She gave him a tragic look. ‘That’s exactly the word for it. I’ve been getting all overwrought and emotional about the whole business. It feels so fascist, don’t you think? Favouring one species over another and talking about foreign invaders that have to be exterminated. It’s impossible not to make comparisons with places like Rwanda and Nazi Germany. It’s a horrible thing to do. It’s bad enough that they wage war on random plants like Himalayan balsam or giant hogweed, but when it comes to animals, I can’t bear it.’

  ‘They’re convinced they’ve got right on their side. I heard they’re thinking of introducing lots of pine martens because they eat grey squirrels but not red ones. It’s bound to end in a whole lot of unforeseen consequences. Like cane toads,’ he added with a grin.

  ‘Why am I not surprised?’

  ‘Well, don’t let it upset you. You’ve probably been unduly influenced by your parents, who can be very … contrary about this sort of thing. Hasn’t your mother deliberately scattered giant hogweed seeds at the end of their garden?’

  ‘And good luck to her,’ said Simmy fiercely.

  ‘In any case, I’m pretty sure this little thing will die. One of its legs looks funny – did you notice? It’s probably been deliberately rejected by its parents as a misfit.’

  Simmy inspected the leg. The lower part of the limb was undoubtedly set at an odd angle. ‘No, I didn’t see that,’ she admitted in a small voice. ‘I expect I’ve interfered with nature, then.’ And she turned a mournful face on her fiancé. ‘That just compounds the moral dilemma.’

  ‘You’re talking with your hormones,’ he concluded. ‘I’ve heard about this sort of thing. Moral dilemmas and the cruelty of the world. It’s all down to bringing a new life into being and worrying about the responsibility of it all.’

  ‘Don’t you feel it as well, then? You brought the life into existence as well as me.’

  ‘I do a bit,’ he laughed. ‘But in my case, it seems to be focused more on worrying about why a perfectly harmless middle-aged woman should be slaughtered in her own home.’

  Simmy’s laugh was breathless with relief. ‘Well, then – we’re both as bad as each other, and that makes everything all right.’

  ‘Good,’ he said and gave her a warm hug.

  ‘Why are you back so early?’ she asked him, a little while later. ‘It’s not even four o’clock yet.’

  ‘They didn’t need me. Now Fiona and Pattie are jostling for Josephine’s job they’re both straining every nerve to show how competent they are. It’s quite funny, actually. They’re grabbing new deliveries the minute they come in, ordering poor Jack about and arguing about whether the old system could be improved. Imagine that! Pattie did have quite a good idea, that I’ll have to run past Oliver and think more about. And we need another pair of hands, at least …’ He tailed off, aware that Simmy’s attention was wandering.

  When he fell silent, she gave herself a little shake. ‘I’ve got two things to tell you. At least.’

  ‘Can we have some tea first? I know you’re the one who’s always meant to be thirsty, but I’m parched.’

  ‘I bought a few things in Troutbeck. Custard creams, for one.’

  ‘Goody.’ He busied himself with kettle and mugs, and cut two large slices of Corinne’s very stodgy cake, which was all the tastier for its maturity. ‘Can we have this instead of your biscuits?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course we can. Hasn’t it always been a rule to eat things in rotation – I mean, according to their age? It’s wasteful otherwise.’

  They sat at the table, with Robin on his father’s lap, waving his hands in front of his face and following their movements with absorption. ‘Fire away, then,’ he invited.

  ‘First – Ben thinks he’s found something momentous about Aunt Hilda’s past.’ And she repeated the tale of the mysterious baby born over seventy years ago and somehow lost. ‘That is, Ben can’t find any trace. We don’t even know if it was a he or a she. It was a brief scandal that somehow never really went anywhere. Something else must have been in the news at the time that people thought more interesting.’

  ‘Not exactly a secret, then, if it was in the papers.’

  ‘There could have been much more to it. Something about the child that had to be hushed up. Not just its father.’ She eyed her orphan squirrel thoughtfully. ‘Maybe it had a wonky leg, like little Nutkin here.’

  ‘Nutkin?’

  ‘From Beatrix Potter. You remember.’

  ‘I remember the cover of the book, and I could swear that was a squirrel of a different colour.’

  ‘So perhaps that was the real scandal about Hilda’s baby then – it came out the wrong colour. People were horribly prejudiced in those days.’

  ‘Not if its father was a prominent politician. I don’t think there were any black ones in those days. Though there might have been a few Asians. Possibly in the Midlands.’

  ‘I was joking.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Well, the Churchill theory does sound very persuasive. That would have made real headlines. But why didn’t she just name him? What sense was there in telling only half the story?’

  ‘She must have been blackmailing him. Demanding money for her silence. Isn’t that the obvious explanation?’

  ‘Guesswork. As Ben probably already said, where’s the evidence?’

  ‘He would say that,’ she agreed. ‘But I bet you I’m right,’ she insisted. ‘I wonder if we’ll ever know.’

  ‘She hasn’t been dead very long. Sooner or later secrets float to the surface, once a person dies. Probably something incriminating in one of those filing cabinets that have found their way to Josephine’s house – which I think is really a bit weird. Not that it matters much what’s inside them now. So what was the other thing you had to tell me?’

  ‘What? Oh – yes. I met Moxon just now in Troutbeck. Outside the shop. He’s not directly part of the Keswick investigation – but like last time, he gets to see the notes and do some of the peripheral stuff. They got him to do an interview, I suppose on Tuesday when it was all very busy.’

  ‘And that’s you, is it? Peripheral stuff?’

  ‘Potentially,’ she said, with a sniff. ‘Why wouldn’t I be? And he was very nice about Robin, and very upset about Ben going off university. He feels quite paternal towards him, you know. I realised that during that awful thing in Hawkshead.’

  ‘Who does he think killed Josie, then?’

  ‘Come on – you know better than to ask me that. He wants me to go and talk to a woman who lived in the same street, informally. See if I can ferret out any clues that she wouldn’t tell the police.’

  ‘You’re joking! Didn’t he notice you’d
got a new baby?’

  ‘He probably thinks the baby would make a good introduction. A talking point. The woman looks after small children.’

  Christopher leant back and clasped Robin to his chest with both hands. ‘That’s disgusting,’ he said, making a poor show of flippancy. Simmy could see that he was serious.

  ‘I don’t see why. He can’t come to any harm.’

  ‘It’s immoral. Not just exploiting you, but an innocent child as well. Turning you into some sort of undercover informant, because the police haven’t the wits to do the job themselves.’

  ‘It’s not like that at all. There’s no way the police could ever solve this sort of murder without the co-operation of people who know the background and the history and how everything connects up. They’re always working in the dark, completely dependent on what people tell them. And if there’s no goodwill towards them and people won’t open up, they can’t function. I thought you understood all that.’

  ‘I told them about Fabian,’ he said defensively.

  ‘Bully for you. Anyway, I’m going to do what he asks, whatever you say.’

  Christopher took a deep breath and rubbed the baby’s head with his chin. ‘Okay. I overreacted. I still haven’t caught up with the way you and that detective are with each other. But I don’t get how this could work. What are you going to do? Knock on some strange woman’s door with Robin under your arm, and say, “Look at my lovely baby. Can I come in so you can admire him?” Or what? How can you even think that would work?’

  ‘I haven’t thought it through yet.’

  ‘Well, I can’t see any choice but to use subterfuge. You’ll be deceiving this poor woman, whoever she is, into being all friendly and chatty, when all the time you’re storing up everything she says to tell the police. It’s immoral,’ he repeated ‘Whichever way you look at it. And it’s pretty silly, if you think about it.’

  Simmy had to admit he had a point. ‘I expect I’ll lose her address if I’m not careful. He jotted it on a flimsy bit of paper.’ She pulled it out of her pocket. ‘Harriman’s her name.’

  Christopher stared at her, as if she’d just told an outrageous joke that he was struggling to find funny. ‘You’re not serious? You don’t mean Chrissie Harriman, do you?’

  ‘I haven’t got a first name for her. Why?’

  ‘She’s only one of our most regular vendors. It’s a rare sale that doesn’t have ten or twenty lots from her. Cameras and binoculars mainly. We never can understand where she gets them all from.’

  ‘Can’t be the same woman. This one’s a grandmother who spends all her time minding small children. How old is your Chrissie?’

  ‘Sixty or thereabouts, I’d say. Very active, dashing all over the country. So no, it can’t be her. Very likely related, all the same.’

  ‘Husband’s sister, at a guess. I suppose the connection might be helpful. I could pretend I wanted Chrissie but went to the wrong house. Moxon said I should just show up and get chatting. It sounded quite easy, the way he said it.’ She pulled a rueful face.

  ‘Drop it, Sim. Don’t let him drag you into it. He’s got no right.’

  ‘I never actually said I’d do it. But if she does know things about Josephine that would get the investigation on the right track, then I really ought to have a go. That’s what Ben would say.’

  ‘Then let Ben do it,’ Christopher snapped.

  ‘That’s probably a very good idea,’ said Simmy placidly.

  The afternoon ended with no firm plans made, and no real disagreements hovering over them. The builders went home, Robin enjoyed a lengthy feed and Christopher actually spent some time out in the garden, pulling out young buttercups and thistles, which Simmy conceded were unambiguously weeds and definitely undesirable. She lay back on the sofa and gave herself permission to go blank, merely gazing rapturously at her baby’s face. She had forgotten the appointment at the clinic next day and the fact that she was soon getting married. Ben and Moxon and Oliver and her parents all faded into the background for a whole blissful hour. This was all perfectly acceptable, because she was a new mother, and nothing was more important than that.

  But it was only sustainable for an hour. Her brain came awake again in spite of itself. Questions were swirling and ideas about the Armitages and how they were the only credible suspects for the murder. Just as she was musing yet again on Uncle Richmond, the landline summoned their attention.

  Christopher had just come in, and he answered it, but his monosyllabic responses left Simmy no wiser as to what the call was about. He did say, ‘No, no, we’ll come there. We might be a while,’ at one point. And ‘I hope he’s not causing you any bother?’

  Could it be Ben, she wondered. Or, more likely, Fabian Crick. Impatiently she waited for enlightenment.

  It came soon enough. ‘A man called Richmond Armitage is at the pub in Patterdale, asking how to find us. Luckily the landlady didn’t much like the look of him, so said she’d phone us. Can’t imagine how she found the number. I said we – or I if you don’t want to – would meet him there.’

  ‘Yes, I heard that bit. I gave her our number last week because she offered to put me in touch with a woman at Glenridding with a baby, who might like to go for walks or something. And yes, I’m coming. Robin can lie on my lap in the car just for that little way.’

  ‘No, he can’t,’ said Christopher with uncharacteristic firmness. ‘That’s just the sort of thinking that leads to disaster. If he’s coming, he’s got to go in his seat properly.’

  ‘You’re right,’ she conceded. ‘But you can strap him in, because he’s going to hate the person who does it.’

  ‘This is very weird,’ she continued a moment later. ‘It can only have been Fabian or Richmond’s sons who told his uncle about us, so why not give out our address as well? Did the pub lady say what he looked like?’

  ‘No, but I got the impression she was nervous of him.’

  ‘He must have been standing right there while she was talking. She could have just given him the number. That in itself suggests she didn’t trust him. How nice of her to protect us like that.’

  Christopher straightened up, the baby and his seat in one hand. ‘We wouldn’t be so hard to find, once anyone knew we lived around here. But I agree I’m more comfortable meeting him on neutral territory.’

  ‘You still feel responsible,’ she realised. ‘This is still the result of that undertaking you made to Fabian. Honestly, love, I don’t think you need reproach yourself about it any more.’

  ‘It’s more a sense of drowning in a bog of Armitage and Crick business. As soon as I think I’ve got myself out of it, I’m dragged down again. I’m hoping we can give this bloke what he wants and that’ll be an end to it.’

  ‘Optimistic,’ she murmured. ‘Could it be that he got wind of Ben’s researches somehow and doesn’t like it?’

  ‘Don’t see how. Come on, anyway, and let’s get it over with.’

  ‘Let me put my shoes on, and I’m ready. I hope the squirrel will be all right. Thank goodness we haven’t got a dog.’

  ‘A dog would have finished it off before you even noticed it,’ said Christopher sourly.

  The man at the pub was recognisably the father of Petrock, the aspiring writer. The same features looked up at the little family, merely grooved and solidified by age. Simmy stared at him, and Christopher muttered, ‘Looks like an Aztec.’ They stood just inside the door, uncertain of the next move. There were only three other people in the bar.

  ‘Mr Armitage?’ said Christopher, too loudly. ‘I understand you wanted to talk to us.’

  The man did not get up but waved at the window seat facing him across the table. He had a pint of beer in front of him. Simmy shuffled along the seat, taking Robin in his little chair and leaving space for Christopher. She was trying to give all her attention to the matter in hand, dredging up the scattered details she’d gleaned about Richmond. For the first time she wondered about his wife, mother of the two grown sons. She c
an’t have lasted long, if Richmond had been proposing to Josephine for so many years.

  ‘I’ve had the police after me,’ he said without preamble. ‘And I’m told that’s down to you two.’

  ‘Er …’ said Christopher. ‘I don’t think …’ He looked to Simmy for help.

  ‘Who told you that?’ she demanded.

  ‘My relatives. According to them, you’ve got us all mixed up with this bugger of a murder, when it’s got nothing whatever to do with us. Josie was our friend. Why d’you think we’d kill her? What’s that about?’

  ‘We’ve never said anything to suggest otherwise,’ said Simmy, her thoughts assembling themselves with very little effort. ‘But you should understand that Fabian came to us on Sunday, asking us to find you for him and see if we could somehow bring you back together. Sort of go-betweens. Since then, we’ve realised that this was just some kind of ruse, but we don’t understand what it’s all about. I mean – obviously he knew where you were all along. Because here you are,’ she finished with a hint of triumph.

  ‘You don’t get it at all, do you?’ He seemed genuinely confounded by their stupidity. ‘You’re talking as if my brothers and nephew and sons are all of a package. I can tell you, that’s not the way it is, not at all.’

  He then lifted the tankard to his lips with his left hand. His right arm did not move, and Simmy suddenly understood that it stopped well above the elbow. The man only had one arm. By a leap of association, she connected this fact to her rescued squirrel and its wonky leg. A great wave of pity and concern swept through her, exacerbated, she supposed, by maternal hormones. From one irrational moment to the next, she found herself unalterably on Uncle Richmond’s side.

  But Christopher was far from sharing her reaction. ‘You said “relatives” just now, as if you see them as a package yourself,’ he accused. ‘We can’t hope to understand if nobody tells us, can we? You’ve dragged us up here for some unknown reason, which is pretty much the same as the way Fabian’s been behaving. We’d really prefer it if you all just left us alone. As you see, we’ve got enough on our plate as it is.’ He indicated the sleeping baby. ‘If you’ve got us here to tell us to back off, then that’s absolutely fine with us.’