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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
Simmy Brown is four months pregnant, working partly from home, partly from her Windermere florist shop and very much feeling her age when her husband, Christopher, asks her to deliver flowers to Eleanor Padgett. As an expert in antique textiles, Eleanor has been a considerable help to him at his auction house. The visit out to the charming Lake District village of Dacre is squeezed into Simmy's endless to-do list. It is a moment of calm to appreciate the approach of spring and the interesting churchyard, but this is shattered when she discovers the body of a young man among the graves. It is not long before Simmy once again finds herself in a complex and puzzling investigation, led by DI Moxon and aided by her friends Ben and Bonnie.
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Seitenzahl: 391
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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The Dacre Dilemma
REBECCA TOPE2
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Another one for Pat, with everlasting thanks for her help and support
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Contents
Author’s Note
Dacre is a real village, but the characters and properties in this story are the product of my imagination. Some tinkering with the layout has been necessary for the purposes of the plot. However, there really are bears in the churchyard, along with Willie Whitelaw.8
Chapter One
‘The obvious thing is to send her some flowers,’ said Simmy.
Christopher’s grateful relief was palpable. ‘Of course it is,’ he said with a wide smile. ‘Why didn’t I think of that? So I can leave it to you then, can I?’
‘I suppose so. Where does she live?’
He paused. ‘Ah – that might be a problem. As I understand it, she’s in a camper van somewhere in Dacre while she does some work for the people at the castle. She’ll be there for another few days, apparently. There’s a big old tapestry she’s repairing.’
Simmy’s face manifested exasperation. ‘That’s no good then, is it? I’m not going tramping around fields all the way down in Dacre trying to find her.’ She pushed back a strand of hair, and sighed. Getting it cut had been on her to-do list for well over a month.
Christopher answered patiently. ‘Dacre’s really no distance away, and it’s probably quite easy to find the camper. It’ll be 10near the castle – or even on their land. I’ll phone and ask her for detailed directions.’
Simmy relaxed. After all, it had been her idea to start with. ‘All right, then. Just let me know when you’ve found out for sure, and I’ll take her a nice bouquet of freesias and snapdragons – or something. I’ll give you a discount price.’
‘Right,’ he nodded peaceably. ‘Thanks.’
They were at the end of their evening meal, with their son Robin, aged two, finishing up a bowl of rice pudding with raisins. It was mid-April and Simmy had recently gone back to work at her florist shop in Windermere virtually full-time, leaving the child with a minder in Pooley Bridge for two days and her parents for two and sometimes three each week. The logistics were often daunting, but the longer days and milder weather made it feasible. At least she wouldn’t get stuck in snowdrifts. Angie and Russell lived close to Keswick, where Christopher worked, so he did much of the delivering and collecting, although he was not entirely dependable. His responsibilities at the auction house routinely took precedence over Simmy’s at the shop, which she accepted as inevitable, but on the whole they shared the driving without argument. She was grateful to have managed such a long break for Robin’s early years, observing how other mothers suffered from acutely divided loyalties when they were forced back to work within months of giving birth.
‘Busy day tomorrow?’ Christopher asked, as they did the washing-up together.
‘Not too bad. Friday’s going to be a bit hectic, probably. There’s a spate of weddings coming up.’
The Windermere florist shop had suffered from her 11prolonged absence as well as from a new rival business setting up in nearby Bowness. New initiatives and a lot of effort were called for if enough income could be generated to justify the bother that full-time work gave rise to. ‘Extra profit with no extra outlay is what I need,’ she’d said more than once. She and her colleague Bonnie Lawson spent hours each week brainstorming ideas as to how this might be achieved. They had worked long hours over Easter, nearly two weeks previously, and were still recovering. Fortunately, the days following the holiday had been slow, giving space for future planning.
Meanwhile, her husband was going through similar challenges at his own place of work. Not too long ago, he had become proprietor and chief auctioneer at a busy saleroom just outside Keswick. Like Simmy, he had accepted the fact that survival depended on constant small changes that did not repel regulars, but which attracted new customers across a wider field. The scope was immense, with a range of items sold covering virtually any object acquired for ornament or utility, well made and carrying its own snippet of history. Books, pictures, furniture, furnishings, ornaments … the list grew longer every time Christopher paused to consider it. And every category demanded research, knowledge, valuation and integrity. The auction house had also always handled items that were in no way antiques – garden tools, lawnmowers, white goods, beds, clothes, toys – as well as older and more valuable things. The previous owner of the business had insisted it brought in buyers who came for a cheap carpet but ended up bidding for a nice old clock that caught their eye as well. ‘It’s a mistake to go too far upmarket,’ 12he would say. But Christopher, encouraged by his latest employee, Ben Harkness, was starting to disagree. ‘The big money’s in genuine antiques,’ they told each other. ‘Perfect condition, proper provenance and scarcity value.’ It turned out that the north of England was a rich source of such treasures. Despite the plethora of television programmes attesting to this bounty, actual individuals willing and able to capitalise on it were still thin on the ground, and the Keswick operation enjoyed something close to a monopoly. Christopher bought a larger van, and devoted two days every week to house clearances – sticking as far as possible to those houses recently inhabited by an elderly person who had died. The wealth of accumulated possessions could sometimes be awe-inspiring. Less impressive was the careless attitude of relatives, who often lacked any feeling of respect or sentiment towards the lovingly hoarded things. ‘Just take it all,’ they would say.
It had taken Christopher a while to appreciate the extent to which Simmy proved useful to the auction business in her role as florist, apprised of recent deaths as she was. With perfect delicacy, after a few weeks Christopher would drop a leaflet through the letterbox advertising his services. ‘We make a great team,’ he boasted to his wife. While never actually working together, they were equally trusted to deal sensitively with families suffering a recent loss. When it came to disposing of the belongings of someone who had died, a wide variety of arrangements was possible in a sector that saw virtually no regulation. Those specialising in house clearance might charge the family and then proceed to make profits on the contents. Christopher made a point of not only charging nothing, but also giving the 13family a percentage of his proceeds. ‘It’s still a lot more profitable than if they brought the stuff directly to auction themselves,’ he said. ‘Besides which, the families always think they’ve got the better deal, which makes for plenty of goodwill.’ The main competition came from charities, who scooped everything up for their high street shops, as well as charging a fee. But there remained plenty of business for Christopher and his team. They had space for storage, contacts at the Council and the knowledge to spot nearly all the hidden treasure. The fact that recent experience had slightly dented initial enthusiasm was not allowed to put them off. ‘After all, we made a nice profit in the end,’ said Ben bracingly. The big house in Borrowdale had brought with it more than Victoriana and dusty candlesticks.
But there was a darker side to the Hendersons’ reputation across the region. Between them they had become known to have been involved in a worrying number of violent deaths, helping the police in several murder investigations.
The flowers that Christopher now wanted to send were for a woman called Eleanor Padgett. Simmy had never met her, but she had been Christopher’s main topic of conversation for the past few weeks. ‘I swear she’s a time traveller,’ he said, and, ‘There’s magic in the way she works.’ Eleanor was indeed something of an anomaly. Her expertise was in textiles, with special regard to embroidery and tapestry. One of Christopher’s recent clearances had been of the home of a very old woman who had continued to make hangings and cushions, rugs and scarves until the week she died. But she had also collected work by others, some of which had history. ‘And what history,’ Christopher sighed, eager to recount the whole experience to his wife. 14‘There was a sampler for one thing, dated 1710.’ And a tapestry with colours as vivid as new, which Eleanor assured him was Tudor. He went on to describe how the old lady had left a helpful note as to its provenance, but nobody believed it until Eleanor gave it her approval. She had explained how the work had virtually never been exposed to daylight, having been stored in a handsome box that she insisted had to be Elizabethan. The old woman’s claim that it had belonged to her grandmother only took it back to the mid-nineteenth century. She had left a note saying the family had always insisted it came from Haddon Hall near Bakewell. ‘Even that’s thrilling in itself,’ Christopher marvelled as he told the tale. ‘I mean – how did they get it? How on earth has it survived so perfectly? I asked Eleanor what she thought, and she merely smiled and said nobody would ever know. We had all sorts of fun speculating about it, I can tell you. Eleanor came up with one scenario after another, with love affairs and bribery alternating with thieving servant girls and puritanical clergymen.’ The woman’s imagination knew no bounds, and when Christopher tried to repeat some of the stories to his wife, he found himself tangled in illogical plots and contradictory motives. ‘It’s all fantasy, of course,’ he concluded.
Simmy had enjoyed both the story and Christopher’s enthusiasm. ‘Haddon Hall’s extraordinary, all the same,’ she said. ‘I went there with a group of girls when I was a student. You know it was more or less abandoned for about two hundred years?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Christopher. ‘Eleanor told us all about that as well. To hear her, you’d think she was there in 16-something.’15
But now, in the middle of April, Eleanor’s work for the Keswick auction house was done. She had been employed by the owners of Dacre Castle to repair a large collection of old rugs and wall-hangings, which was her original reason for being in the Lake District. A casual attendance at a Saturday auction had introduced her to Christopher, and led to his asking for her help. ‘She won’t let me pay her,’ he told Simmy. ‘She says it would make more sense for her to pay me, given how much she’s enjoyed it.’
‘Hence the flowers,’ nodded Simmy.
‘I hate to see her go. But she’s got a commission in Laycock next. The National Trust gets most of her work for her. She’s in huge demand.’
‘It pays to specialise,’ murmured Simmy absently. Robin was climbing down from the table and wiping jammy fingers on the top of Cornelia’s head. ‘Stop it,’ Simmy told him. ‘I’ll have to bath her if you do that, and you know that’s no fun for anybody.’
Cornelia was a young black Labrador, woven firmly into the family’s fabric and Robin’s very best friend. He chuckled at the suggestion of a bath for the dog. ‘She’ll splash,’ he said.
‘So let me wipe the jam off before it goes hard,’ said his mother.
Christopher had let the diversion roll past him unnoticed, still talking about Eleanor Padgett. ‘She only came to Keswick a few times, but she made a real impact,’ he went on. ‘There’s something about her – you’ll see what I mean. None of the clichés really fit, but I do keep thinking “a force of nature” is close. She’s like a character out of an Arthurian legend.’16
‘I don’t expect you’re deliberately trying to make me jealous, but I think that’s enough Eleanor worship, all the same.’
‘Good Lord, she’s sixty-five, at least. She’s got grandchildren. I thought it was Lily you were worrying about – who’s probably young enough to be one of those grandkids, come to think of it.’
‘You’re right. I’m an insecure mess. You’ll have to bear with me.’
‘Oh well. Could be worse,’ he shrugged. ‘Did something happen to Cornelia’s head?’
‘Jam.’
‘Yuk! She’ll need a wash.’
‘So she will,’ sighed Simmy. ‘I was just going to do it.’
‘You’re allowed to be insecure if you want,’ he added. ‘In your condition.’
Because Mrs Persimmon Henderson was sixteen and a half weeks pregnant and very much feeling her age.
Chapter Two
‘I’m not going to listen to any more about the ravages that pregnancy inflicts on my body,’ Simmy announced at bedtime. ‘You’d think it was an absolute miracle than any baby ever gets born at all without killing its wretched mother in the process.’ She had been for an antenatal visit a few days earlier, and was still suffering from the effects. Because her first child had been stillborn, there was a flag against her name and an automatic assumption that she was high risk. Since Robin had been born with no complications whatsoever, this struck Simmy as excessive.
‘It’s all nonsense,’ Christopher agreed. ‘You’ll sail through it like you did with Robin.’ His complacency at having successfully fathered a second child was showing no sign of abating. His own approach to childbirth was relaxed, almost to the point of being cavalier. He believed that nature got it right much more often than not, and deplored the general habit of interfering and panicking. 18Simmy’s mother, Angie, held the same opinions, even more forcefully.
Simmy suspected that Christopher believed, on some level, that his own sturdy genes were responsible for Robin’s easy birth and general good health. Which meant the same would happen with this next one. In his mind, it was his prodigious fertility that had achieved what Simmy had pessimistically assumed was never going to happen. But Simmy knew better. This child’s existence was due almost entirely to an irresistible rush of hormones at Christmas. She had felt it happen, and knew that her husband’s contribution, though undeniably crucial, had been a much lesser part of the picture than he liked to believe.
‘So far, so good,’ she said cautiously. ‘We’re not there yet by a long way. I feel as if I’m at the mercy of nature, and can only sit passively waiting and trusting all will be well.’
He nodded. ‘Very wise. Although even I think we ought to make a few plans along the way.’
Simmy had still not dared to think seriously about the implications for her business. There were times when Windermere seemed impossibly far away, down through the Kirkstone Pass and Troutbeck in all weathers, costing so much in time and fuel and complicated planning. Bonnie was thoroughly competent to handle customers, make up bouquets, wreaths and floral displays, take orders, and manage the day-to-day running of the shop, but she could not yet drive, and therefore make deliveries. Which meant the need for another full-time employee in the shape of Verity. Business had been so good that spring that Ben 19Harkness’s schoolgirl sister Tanya had been given all the work she could handle on the Saturday shifts, taking phone calls and online orders, but still Simmy had to be available for deliveries alongside Verity, as well as devoting long hours to actually making up a good proportion of the orders. ‘We have to be a hundred per cent reliable,’ Simmy kept saying. ‘Everything depends on reputation.’
‘It’s getting to be too much,’ Bonnie insisted. ‘We’re all exhausted and it’s only April.’
‘It won’t be as hectic from here on, now we’ve had Valentine’s and Mother’s Day,’ Simmy promised, as she did every year. ‘And Easter was much busier than we bargained for. We’ll be scrambling for business for much of the summer, you see.’
‘We’ll still need another person who can drive,’ said Bonnie. ‘And don’t look at me, because I’ve got my hands full to bursting in the shop.’
‘I know,’ sighed Simmy. ‘I’m thinking about it.’
‘Then we could increase the area we cover,’ Bonnie pressed on. ‘Maybe all the way down to Kendal, although none of us wants to go any further south, I suppose.’
‘It would make more sense to spread over to Ambleside and Pooley Bridge. Nearer to me.’
‘You know we’re one of five in and around Windermere now,’ Bonnie said, agreeing that expansion was needed. ‘And there’s hardly anything in Ambleside or Keswick. Makes you think.’ She gave Simmy a narrow look. For nearly two years now she had been separated from her beloved Ben, with him working and living in Keswick while she was stuck in Windermere. It never got any easier. Her ambition was to persuade Simmy to open a new shop 20in the north of the area. The idea was sound, but the effort daunting. With a second child on the way everything felt even more impossible.
‘The trouble is,’ said Simmy, ‘I’m really not a natural entrepreneur. Anyone else would have a whole chain of shops by now, in all these places.’
‘And be well on the way to making a million,’ said Bonnie, her eyes bright. ‘We’ve gotta do it, Sim. We’ll all regret it otherwise.’
‘I know. And I have been talking to someone in Pooley Bridge. More about growing a lot of our own stock than starting another shop – which would mean I could stay up there a bit more, making up orders and finding new customers in that area.’
This conversation had taken place only the previous day, and now, as she drove down through Kirkstone, she gave it more of her undivided consideration. The fact that Christopher wanted her to take flowers to Dacre seemed to reinforce the idea of a satellite of some sort in Pooley Bridge. The town was small, and not far from Penrith, where there were established florists already – but it was surrounded by village settlements which added up to a sizeable population. If Bonnie joined Ben in Keswick, she could get to Pooley Bridge by bus – just.
So why not start a shop in Keswick? Simmy asked herself. It would solve almost every dilemma at a stroke, including being very close to her parents, schools and all the other essentials. Because, she answered herself, that would soon lead to us leaving our current house and moving into town. The one thing she did know was that she had no intention of doing any such thing. They lived 21in Hartsop, a very tiny village close to Patterdale, with fells and Brothers Water on the doorstep, and Ullswater nearby. The house was a converted barn, with big airy spaces and a very efficient log burner. Simmy loved it.
It was Angie and Russell’s turn to have Robin, and Christopher was not going to be able to collect him at the end of the day – which he normally did – because there was an auction that weekend, and they were a person short in the office. This meant he would have to pitch in with the final touches to the catalogue and his hours were going to be long. At least he would deliver Robin in the morning, which would otherwise be a very substantial round trip for Simmy, up to the A66, westwards to Threlkeld near Keswick, and then straight down the A591 to Windermere. It took at least an hour; fortunately she very rarely had to do it. If her parents wanted to talk, it took longer and made her late for the shop. ‘Can’t stop,’ she always said. ‘I’ll catch up with you when I come back for him.’ But the end of the day was also a rush, with the evening meal to prepare and Robin to put to bed at a respectable time.
Bonnie greeted her with a hefty list of orders and the morning whizzed by. There was no special news to exchange. Verity hovered, waiting for the two tributes destined for a local funeral. ‘Rain at the weekend,’ she said. ‘Why does it always do that?’
A customer excused Simmy and Bonnie from replying. The day was for the most part too busy for any real conversation, anyway. Simmy had a text from Christopher giving a reasonably precise location for Eleanor Padgett’s camper van. ‘There’s a little road going to the church, and she’s on a patch of land just up there. Maybe you could 22leave work early and go there before collecting R. I’m going to be here till well past six, I’m afraid.’
Questions sprouted in Simmy’s mind. Had Christopher asked the woman for exact directions? If so, was Eleanor expecting the flower delivery? And how was Simmy supposed to get to Threlkeld via Dacre? If she remembered rightly, Dacre was south and east of where she would be heading. ‘Better to collect R first,’ she responded, while wondering why she thought it necessary to say anything. How she chose to arrange her itinerary was really none of his business. The reason, she supposed, was that it was annoying that he hadn’t got it right. Any fool could see that Dacre came after Threlkeld. Given that the flowers were his commission and Robin his son, it did not seem fair that he should give her such misleading advice as to how to satisfy all concerned.
She made up a nice bunch of cosmos and freesias and hothouse lilies, explaining to Bonnie who they were for. ‘I’ll leave a bit early, and do them on the way home with Robin.’
It was a Thursday. Verity was already planning her weekend, and Simmy made sure that Tanya would be free on the Saturday. Bonnie worked five and a half days a week, snatching time with Ben as best she could on Saturday afternoons and Sundays. His family lived in Bowness, adjacent to Windermere, which meant he had every reason to drive down from Keswick to see them as well as Bonnie – which he did not always do, especially on an auction weekend. Bonnie Lawson was all too familiar with the Cumbrian bus service, as a result. 23
Thanks to stopping for a cup of tea and a lengthy debriefing session in which her parents recounted every detail of Robin’s day, it was half past five before Simmy and her little boy drove slowly into the village of Dacre, approaching from the north. The small winding road, with gentle dips and rises, was a stark contrast to the sweeping A66. Fields and clumps of trees were on both sides and there were few open vistas. For the mile from the main road there were no buildings. It felt like a road to nowhere, hidden and forgotten, until suddenly there was a pub on the right, and one or two white houses on the left, and she was in charming little Dacre.
She slowed to a crawl, trying to remember Christopher’s instructions. There was an opening almost opposite the pub, which she briefly considered, but decided it was not the one she wanted. It came to her notice that there was a small group of people standing beside some tubs of spring flowers in the forecourt of the pub, apparently having a heated discussion. Simmy paid minimal attention, but her eye was caught by one man’s large bald head that had apparently been oiled and polished. His cranial skin was the colour of copper and Simmy’s unconscious compared it to a shiny kettle that stood on one of her windowsills at home. The man he was addressing had a bushy white beard. Beyond that, she was only dimly aware of a woman with very short hair and someone else standing a little apart. It was none of her business and she was impatient to find the Padgett woman and get home. There was a minor but nagging pain in her lower back and she was hungry.
Continuing a few yards down the road, the directions became clear; she turned left and after a scant thirty yards, 24instantly identified the gate into the churchyard on her right and the board announcing the name of the church. A stone house stood at right angles to the track down to the church gate. Ahead the road dwindled to a rough grassy lane leading to another house and a footpath that led more or less northwards. She wished she had taken the trouble to memorise the area on the map they had pinned on the wall at home. The place was showing signs of being rather more interesting than she had expected. On her left was an opening into a small scrappy area on which was parked a perky yellow camper van with a sleek shape that suggested something newer than the classic VW version. Simmy drove into the ungated opening and then sat in her car, taking a moment to admire the yellow vehicle from end to end. It had found a corner where there was mostly just grass. The rest of the patch was host to thistles and brambles. There were houses very close by, whose occupants might have wondered at the intruder.
‘Here we are,’ she said, more to herself than her dozing child. There was no answer from the back. Gathering up the flowers on the front seat, Simmy went in search of the woman her husband admired so much.
It was not hard to find her. Looking up from the prickly ground, Simmy met the gaze of a person who must have seen her coming. Standing on the step into her van, Eleanor Padgett looked exactly as Christopher had described her. Wearing a big hand-knitted jumper in a shade of bluey-grey that was very like the colour of her eyes, and narrow-legged jeans, she had silver-grey hair and creamy skin. She also had deep-set eyes that were the first thing Simmy noticed. The brows above them were wide and somehow furry. As 25she got closer, Simmy felt a ridiculous urge to stroke them.
She was almost as tall as Simmy, and the added height from standing on the step gave the impression of a calm priestess, giving audience to a supplicant. ‘Hello?’ she said.
‘These are from Christopher Henderson,’ said Simmy, proffering the flowers. ‘He really appreciates the help you gave him.’
‘How nice! And how clever of you to find me.’
‘He told me where you were. We thought you might be in the castle grounds …’ She tailed off, hearing the irrelevance of her own words.
‘They let me use their facilities, but they prefer not to have me too close. They like to keep themselves private, and it suits me well enough. The castle’s only just over there, so it’s no problem. Dacre’s a sweet little village, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been here before. I’m still learning my way around this part of the Lakes. I was in Windermere – well, Troutbeck, actually – until two years ago. And it’s all been pretty busy since then.’
‘It must be wonderful to actually live here, though. I’m desperately jealous.’
‘Yes, we’ve been very lucky.’ There didn’t seem to be much more to say and Simmy could find no excuse to stay any longer; yet she was reluctant to leave. She could hear birds singing in the trees around the churchyard, and smell the indefinable approach of spring. Something pleasantly damp and grassy was in the air. The Padgett woman was watching her, as if expecting something more. ‘We keep saying we’ll do more exploring,’ Simmy burbled. ‘I’m sure there’s all sorts of interesting things right here.’ She looked 26around again. ‘I might have driven through this village, I suppose, taking a short cut from Pooley Bridge. I think I must have done. But I never noticed the church until now. Or the pub.’ Again she heard herself with embarrassment. ‘Sorry – I’m wittering,’ she finished.
‘So you don’t know about the bears?’
‘Pardon?’
‘The churchyard – it’s got bears in it.’
‘Surely not.’
The woman laughed. ‘Statues, that is. Come and look. They’re very special, but not many people seem to know about them. Oh – and Willie Whitelaw’s buried in the new part. Remember him?’
‘Um …’
‘Home Secretary under Margaret Thatcher, made a lord. You must be a bit young, I suppose.’ The tone was dubious.
‘I never took much interest in politics. I do dimly remember Margaret Thatcher from when I was about five.’
Eleanor Padgett shrugged. ‘I lose track,’ she said.
Simmy felt she had failed a general knowledge test and sighed. ‘I’ll see if my little boy’s awake,’ she said. ‘It sounds like something he might like to see – the bears, not the politician’s grave.’
‘Oh? Have you left him in the car?’
The car was about ten yards away, so Simmy felt no guilt at leaving Robin in it. ‘He’s asleep,’ she said.
‘Oh – I’m not criticising. I always left mine in the car for ages. Jocelyn let the handbrake off once, and it trickled down a slope with them all inside. Scared them rigid. But nobody came to any harm, not even the car.’ She laughed, a rich sound from somewhere in her chest. ‘They tell the 27story against me now, of course. Jocelyn’s motto is “Better safe than sorry”, to my horror. I’m obviously a total failure as a mother.’ She eyed Simmy’s middle. ‘Do I detect another one on the way?’
Simmy’s bump was far from obvious and she was impressed. ‘Well, yes, but I didn’t think it was showing yet.’
‘I have an eye for these things,’ said Eleanor Padgett. She cocked her head. ‘Left it a bit late, dare I say?’
‘Circumstances,’ said Simmy shortly, having no intention of telling her life story on a first encounter. Robin co-operatively woke at that moment, and started trying to climb out of his straps, his bobbing head easily seen through the car window. ‘I’ll get him, then,’ said Simmy.
The woman watched as Simmy extracted the child from his seat. ‘Oh!’ she said, her gaze on his face. ‘Are you Chris Henderson’s wife? That child looks exactly like him.’
‘That’s right. Didn’t I say?’
‘No reason why you should. I didn’t know you did flowers.’
‘Mmm,’ said Simmy, slightly thrown by this person’s powers of observation and deduction.
They processed through the church gate and turned right through a second one which led into the old part of the churchyard. It was fenced off, and presented a dramatically different character from the neat newer section to the left-hand side of the church. The mismatch was almost comical. Even in spring, it was obvious that the grass here was never mowed, the weeds only minimally checked. Just a narrow pathway had been kept clear, presumably for people wanting to view the bears. Eleanor led the way a few yards and then stopped. Robin was wandering at 28liberty, surprised at this new scene, but willing to give it his best go. He stooped to gather something in the long grass, which Simmy couldn’t see.
They were facing into the low sun, not yet sunk behind the trees to the west. Simmy could smell the freesias in the flowers that Eleanor still carried. Birds were still singing, impervious to the human intruders. They had arrived at a strange stone shape very close to a headstone and its grave.
‘Where is this?’ asked Robin, his voice shrill with curiosity, looking around at the big yew trees and the motley-shaped gravestones. The church to their left was itself a handsome reddish building, framed by the yews. The child was now completely awake, and being suddenly presented with a strange woman who was taking them to a wholly unfamiliar place was interesting, if mildly disconcerting. What was he thinking, his mother wondered. He had been taken on lakeside walks and up the lower section of Blencathra by his grandfather, but perhaps not a church since a visit to one in Askham a year or so ago.
‘This is one of the bears,’ said Eleanor. ‘Look at it. There are more further on.’
‘Not a bear,’ Robin objected stoutly. ‘That’s a stone.’
‘A very old stone, that was carved into the shape of a bear a long, long time ago. See his nose? And his big paws?’
The paws were unmistakable, but Simmy could see little sign of a nose. The creature appeared to be clinging to a sort of pillar, its head just a rounded shape bent forward. ‘How old is it?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think anyone knows. There are all sorts of theories about them. The others are exactly like this. Some people believe they come alive and play in the middle of the 29night. And I think the local children give them daisy chains and that sort of thing, in the summer.’
Simmy was juggling worries and impressions, unable to adequately process the present moment. They would be late home, driving into the sun, which she hated. Robin would need fresh clothes for the morning. There was something she’d forgotten to say to Bonnie. She needed to pee. The stone bear was, as Robin had pointed out, just a funny-shaped rock, not even very big. She wasn’t sure that Robin should be given the idea that they might sometimes be animated. ‘We can’t be long,’ she said. ‘It’s getting late.’
‘Not yet six. Why – where do you live?’
‘Hartsop. Half an hour from here, pretty nearly.’
‘I can see it’s not the ideal moment, but I promise you, this is something rather special. Come and see the next one. I’m surprised you don’t know them already, to be honest. How long have you lived here?’
Simmy chafed at the questions. Hadn’t she already disclosed more than enough? She had initially liked this woman’s cavalier spirit, echoing her own mother’s approach to life, but now there was something else emerging that she liked rather less. A refusal to take opposition, perhaps. An assumption that she, Eleanor Padgett, knew best. It was a familiar trait in people Simmy found herself up against. She lacked willpower of her own, she had long ago concluded. She let others lead, and then resented them for it. Here we go again, said a little voice in her head.
There was a sound of raised voices coming from behind them. ‘Are those men still arguing?’ she wondered aloud. ‘They were at it when I came past, must be ten minutes or more. That’s a long time to keep a disagreement going.’30
‘But where the bloody hell are they?’ came words loud enough to hear across a hundred yards or so. ‘You must have seen them.’
‘It’s Mr Steele,’ said Eleanor. ‘He’s got a very loud voice.’
‘Is he big and bald and looks as if he’s lived in Africa or somewhere for much of his life?’
Eleanor laughed. ‘That’s him. He’s got the right name – looks as if he’s made of metal.’
‘Should be Copper, not Steele, though,’ said Simmy.
‘I think he’s always lived here, actually. He certainly knows everybody.’ She led them further along the same little path to a spot behind a large yew tree. There was still an air of determination about her that reinforced Simmy’s hesitancy.
‘More bear?’ said Robin, pointing to a second statue. ‘And a red man,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘On the floor.’
The two women reacted in entirely different ways. Eleanor rushed to the prone figure, dropping to her knees, throwing aside Christopher’s floral tribute, and emitting a deep distraught ‘Ohhh.’ Simmy, after five endless seconds of scrutiny, gathered up her child and turned her back on the bloodstained body of a person who had been too young to be called a man. As she fled back to her car, she could not have stated for sure that it had even been a male. Enough that it was dead – and absolutely dreadful.
Chapter Three
All Simmy’s thoughts were for her children. Not only Robin, sitting on her lap in the driving seat, weeping bitter little-boy tears that forced themselves out from some reluctant depths. Even at two, he seemed aware that crying was viscerally wrong for a boy. He smacked a hand violently against his mother’s leg, because she had upset him by being in such a rush and having that look on her face that was scary.
Not only did Simmy ache for him, and not only for the unborn mystery inside her, no bigger than a pear – but also for the little daughter she had allowed to perish by carelessly failing to provide an adequate placenta. The body in the churchyard threatened them all, by being young and alone and unprotected. Its image was branded into her mind’s eye, streaked with blood, twisted and lifeless. Some mother had allowed this to happen, and Simmy would not associate herself with anyone so feckless. She hugged Robin even closer, squashing him under the steering wheel 32as he twisted against her. In her dash to remove him from the awful scene, she knew she must have frightened him more than if they had quietly stood and accepted what lay before them. Almost certainly, he would take his response from her – and it had not been wise. But who in the world could ever have done the wise thing? She had seen dead bodies before, but never with so much blood on them, and never with a precious, vulnerable, impressionable child in her care. Whoever had attacked the victim had surely been full of hate, and if that was so, then how very much more terrible to do it in a churchyard beside an ancient stone bear.
She found herself sharing her son’s reaction of fierce rejection. He was fighting to change reality, to make everything different, his tears an acknowledgement that this was beyond his power. It made them both angry that a sweet-smelling evening in the springtime of the year should bring such horror. ‘It’s all right,’ she crooned. ‘We’re all right. We’ll go home now, and forget about it. That lady can sort it out.’
‘Mmm,’ said Robin, rubbing his face against her chest. ‘Nasty man.’
‘What’s that in your hand?’ Belatedly she noticed that the small fist was clutching something white. She gently prised the fingers open, to reveal two pristine cigarettes, slightly crumpled by the tight grasp, but obviously fallen from a packet and never used.
‘Where did you get them?’ she asked, before recalling his pause to collect something in the churchyard. ‘Oh, never mind. We should throw them away. They’re nasty.’
The child resisted, without answering the question, and Simmy heard herself use the same word that Robin had 33applied to the gory body. How foolish that was, she chided herself. The cigarettes were clean, sweet-smelling, somehow virginal and enticing. She had smoked in her twenties, never much enjoying it, but always powerfully attracted by that moment of opening a new packet and taking out the first one. Everything about it was a sensory delight in those seconds. Whether or not her child became a smoker was not at all high on her list of worries. Here and now she was petrified that the sight of a dead youngster would be very much more damaging.
‘We have to throw them away,’ she said. ‘And you’ve got to get back into your seat.’ With a poor grace, Robin submitted and everything slowly returned to some semblance of normality.
He won’t remember it, she assured herself. He was only just over two, and despite being forward in his language, and relaxed in his general view of the world, he was unformed and unknowing. If she recovered her balance now, steering him away from any more panicky behaviour, it would indeed be all right, as she had promised.
‘We’re going home. It’s meatballs for supper, and poor Cornelia must be wanting hers as well.’
‘Yeah.’
It was tempting to think that between them they had achieved the impossible and changed reality into something familiar and dull, after all. It was her role, her duty, to do just that. Any obligation people might try to place on her shoulders with regard to a dead youngster was shrugged off. It was nothing to do with her. Let Eleanor Padgett cope with it. And Mr Copperhead Steele looked as if he could rise to a challenge easily enough, if he was asked.34
She drove the few yards back to the village centre, but before she could turn left and head for the A592 and home, the man she had just been thinking about stepped in front of the car. He then went to the driver’s window and gestured for Simmy to open it. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked her.
‘In the churchyard,’ she stammered. ‘You can go and see.’ He was alone, with no sign of his elderly antagonist or anybody else. He was big and strong-looking, but Simmy did not feel unduly threatened. His expression was wild, more like a fox fleeing the hunt than a hound intent on killing. ‘I can’t stay. I’m sorry – I’ve got my little boy. Eleanor Padgett is there. There’s nothing to be done.’
His frown deepened. ‘In the churchyard? That’s the camper van woman shouting, is it?’
He had not asked exactly what was in the churchyard. Did that mean he already knew? Simmy eyed his hands, which were both resting against the car as he leant through the window. Had they just been used to kill? She merely nodded and put the car into gear. ‘I have to go.’
He emitted a loud huff of frustration and turned away. ‘Go then,’ he said. ‘I’ll know where to come if I need you.’ He made a show of scrutinising her and her car, including its registration number. ‘You shouldn’t be hard to find.’
He was talking like a policeman, and Simmy wondered if he might be some sort of Special, or at least the Chair of the Parish Council. ‘And I know you,’ she shouted back at him, suddenly defiant. None of this was her fault and she was in no mood to comply with the usual protocols. ‘Mr Steele.’ Then she drove off.
There wasn’t much traffic down past Ullswater, through 35Glenridding and Patterdale and home to little Hartsop, which didn’t care a bit about a murder in Dacre. Although she supposed that in coming days that might well change.
Christopher met her at the door, having heard the car. ‘I’ve just got here. I thought you’d be back well before this. Is everything all right?’ he asked. ‘Did you find the camper van okay?’
In the past two minutes, Simmy had admitted to herself that she had done wrong. She knew she could not escape this new catastrophe, however much she might want to. It was not even a new dilemma. There had been variations on a similar theme ever since she had found Christopher again, after half a lifetime of separation. There had been trouble in Bowness that reunited them. And before that, with Ben and Bonnie and a girl called Melanie, there had been involvement with murder. The operative word, of course, being involvement.
‘No, not really,’ she told her husband. ‘Everything is really not all right.’ Into her mind came the image of the forgotten flowers, lying beside a nasty mutilated body. ‘Robin just saw his first murder victim.’
It took half a minute to tell the story, couched as it was in euphemisms and long words that would not remind the little boy of what had happened. ‘I ran away,’ she concluded. ‘But I expect they’ll come after me. A man more or less warned me that would happen.’
‘Did you tell Eleanor who you were?’
‘She worked it out as soon as she set eyes on Robin. Said he’s the image of you.’
Christopher laughed and took Robin onto his lap. ‘How was your day?’ he asked his son.36
Cornelia nudged a jealous nose against her master’s hand. ‘Wanted Corny to come,’ the child admitted.
‘You know why she couldn’t, don’t you? We told you. Grandad’s got a poorly back and can’t play with her properly. And she might push him over. He couldn’t manage you and Cornelia, could he?’
Robin laughed understandingly. The dog often pushed him over in her exuberance. Russell Straw was suffering from a mild bout of sciatica. Tolerance levels towards the young dog in both the Straws were getting lower all the time, and Cornelia was lucky if she had one day a week with them. Christopher took her to the auction house once in a while, and a local girl walked her on the days she was left at home. The arrival of another baby would be very good news for the dog, which felt like an added bonus.
Christopher had taken the report of a murder in Dacre rather lightly, perhaps because he understood that Robin should not be further upset. Preparations for the evening meal fell mainly to Simmy, but her husband kept her company in the kitchen while she cobbled together a meal from the freezer in jerky interrupted stages, interrogating herself as she worked. They said little, with Simmy compulsively reproaching herself. She should have stayed in Dacre, at least long enough to tell Eleanor what she intended to do and why. Even long enough to rescue the poor flowers and take them to the camper van. ‘I behaved dreadfully,’ she moaned to Christopher.
‘Of course you didn’t,’ he corrected her. ‘None of it was anything to do with you. I can’t imagine Eleanor would criticise you for it. She should never have taken you there in the first place.’37
