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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Lake District Mysteries
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
Returning from a much-needed holiday, Persimmon 'Simmy' Brown discovers that life in the Lake District is, as ever, far from relaxing. Before she can enjoy the idea of being the future Mrs Chris Henderson, her fiancé discovers the body of his friend, antique dealer Jonathan Woolley, brutally strangled in a house in Grasmere. Enlisting the help of her friends and amateur detectives Ben and Bonnie, the investigation appears to ask more questions than it answers as historical grudges against the dead man are revealed. It seems that many people had a reason for wanting him dead. But with Chris's increasingly evasive and odd behaviour, Simmy begins to wonder if he is more involved in the murder than he is saying. How can she put her trust in a man with something to hide?
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The Grasmere Grudge
REBECCA TOPE
For Caitlin and with thanks to Jennifer Margrave for help with the legal stuff
Contents
Author’s Note
As with all the other titles in this series, the story is set in real places. However, I have slightly expanded Banerigg, and invented a medical facility in Kendal. Also, the auction house in Keswick is entirely imaginary.
Chapter One
Not even the late arrival at Manchester airport, or the screaming toddler in the next row on the plane, or the pouring rain when they got outside could sully the euphoric mood. Simmy and Christopher had just experienced the best week of their lives in the sunny Canary Islands, and nothing could dampen their spirits.
‘And we still have all day tomorrow,’ sighed Simmy, when they were in the car. ‘Isn’t that wonderful!’
‘Just make sure I don’t fall asleep between here and Troutbeck. It’s been a long day. It’ll be two in the morning before we get there.’
‘I could sing to you,’ she suggested.
‘Maybe not. Lord – look at that rain! In June! The farmers will be in despair.’
‘Aren’t they always?’ she laughed.
They fell into Simmy’s bed in the small hours of Sunday morning, and didn’t wake until half past nine. Outside, it was cloudy but dry. Christopher’s car was parked crookedly in the road just past Simmy’s cottage, there being no space for both his and hers inside the gate. Troutbeck had not evolved with vehicular traffic in mind. Large delivery trucks or lorries transporting animals had to inch between parked cars and stone walls. Drivers unfamiliar with the place were liable to find their wing mirrors cracked and their tempers frayed if they did not quickly adapt.
‘Must have rained all week,’ said Christopher, looking out of the bedroom window. ‘There’s mud everywhere.’
‘What a ridiculous place to live. Can we emigrate, do you think?’
‘Nowhere’s perfect,’ he told her. ‘Although I always think Tangier is close. It’s got a lot going for it.’
‘Yes, you said.’ After a partnership of six months or so, they had reached the point of repetition. Simmy didn’t mind that, but now and then she pointed it out.
‘Sorry. I know I’m a boring old fart.’
‘You are,’ she said happily.
‘And you love me for it.’
‘Fool that I am.’
‘And if I’m old, then so are you, remember.’ They had been born on the same day, their mothers bonded in the maternity ward; a fact that created a sense, at times, that they were more siblings than lovers.
She rolled out of bed and joined him at the window. ‘Bit different from the mountains of Lanzarote,’ she said.
‘Still mountains, though. Sort of.’
Wansfell rose before their gaze, its detail blurred in the unseasonably poor light. ‘Not a flicker of sunshine,’ he complained. ‘It’s a disgrace.’
‘Don’t take it personally. It’ll make it easier to go back to work tomorrow if the weather’s bad.’
‘Don’t mention work,’ he groaned, with exaggerated drama.
‘We should tell people we’re back.’ Simmy had parents and Chris had siblings – none of whom would be particularly anxious for news of them. ‘And check for messages.’ They’d agreed to leave their phones behind for the duration of the holiday, as a boldly unconventional move that would horrify most people they knew. A holiday meant leaving everything behind, Christopher had insisted. He had roamed the world in his twenties, never telling anybody where he was going, and the habit had stuck.
But it had been harder for Simmy. ‘What if my father has another stroke?’ she’d worried. ‘Or the shop burns down? Or my house is burgled?’
‘It’ll have to wait until you’re back,’ he replied. ‘It’s only a week, after all. I used to drop out for months.’
‘Those were the good old days.’ It seemed almost criminal to simply disappear in this brave new world of the twenty-first century.
When they finally checked their phones, Simmy had no meaningful messages at all, but Chris had several. ‘Grasmere again,’ he sighed.
‘What?’
‘That house clearance I told you about. There are complications, evidently. I knew there would be. There’s been too many people involved, right from the start.’
‘Do they need you to do anything?’
‘They did, three days ago. With any luck, they’ve sorted it without me by now.’
Simmy found the whole subject of house clearances profoundly appealing, as well as somewhat melancholy. It seemed there was a burgeoning number of them, as old people – almost always women – died in their nineties, leaving good-sized houses stuffed to the rafters with treasures. Their space-limited descendants closed their eyes, held their noses and called for the professionals to dispose of it all as best they might. Much of the treasure found its way to Christopher Henderson’s auction house. ‘Not so much treasure as junk,’ he’d said more than once.
But now and then there would be something worth fighting over, and the descendants belatedly realised their mistake. The scope for conflict was considerable when a rare Japanese brush pot emerged from the depths of a forgotten cupboard and earned hundreds of pounds for the house clearance men, because nobody in the family had spotted it. For this reason, many clearance specialists travelled to other regions of the country with their well-filled vans, to use salerooms far from the original house. That way, the descendants would never know how much Mum’s old rubbish sold for. They might already have taken the grandfather clock and Victorian oil painting that they believed to be the most valued objects in the house. ‘Most people are always about ten years out of date when it comes to what’s making money,’ said Christopher.
But the Grasmere house contents were due to be sold nearby in Keswick, because there were no descendants to cause trouble. An old lady had died, and her friend, left to deal with the aftermath, was a frail old man known to Christopher. ‘Leave it to me,’ the auctioneer had said. ‘Where should the proceeds go? Did she leave a will?’
‘Sadly not,’ the old man had replied. ‘Just a little note to say I was the main person to contact if anything happened. She didn’t think she was ever going to die. She was very keen on dogs. There’s a local charity she supported. Maybe they should have some of it. In fact, I believe she already donated a few items to them.’
‘Poor old Philip,’ Christopher had sighed. ‘He really doesn’t want to be bothered with all this business.’
‘Won’t there be horrendous legal complications without a will?’ asked Simmy, when she heard the story.
‘Probably,’ said Chris.
He had gone off on holiday, hoping his friend Jonathan could see to everything. The old lady – Kathleen Leeson by name – had died about a year ago, her house untouched since then. Everyone agreed it couldn’t stay like that, but there were legal issues that lumbered slowly into action, forcing everyone concerned to wait for the deliberations to be completed. Christopher had elaborated bit by bit during the holiday. ‘And on top of all that the old dear wasn’t at all keen on Jon. He visited her a time or two, trying to get her to part with a few things, and she took against him.’
‘Tricky,’ Simmy agreed.
‘I expect it’ll be okay in the end. Jon really is the most obvious chap for the job. But I’m not sure how the neighbours are going to feel, if they see him loading it all into his van. It’s no secret she’d gone off him.’
Simmy’s phone suddenly pinged in her hand. ‘Oh – it’s Ben,’ she announced. ‘He says “Welcome home. Exams all finished. Driving test tomorrow afternoon.” He’ll pass, of course.’
‘Sheldon didn’t,’ said Christopher, shaking his head. ‘Don’t count your chickens.’
Christopher’s admiration for The Big Bang Theory had at first amused and then irritated Simmy. He would quote from it constantly, focusing particularly on Sheldon. ‘That’s so old,’ moaned Bonnie, Simmy’s young assistant. ‘It must have started when I was about seven.’
‘He’ll tire of it eventually,’ said Simmy. ‘He thinks it helps him to understand Ben, because he’s so like Sheldon.’
‘Except he isn’t,’ argued Bonnie, who was Ben’s beloved. ‘He’s totally nothing like him.’
Simmy had watched enough episodes to judge for herself, in the end. Ben himself favoured the even more superseded series Bones, seeing himself as the boy assistant in the forensic laboratory, more than any other TV character. ‘None of them are much like real people,’ Simmy concluded.
Now she said, ‘Ben’s not Sheldon, Chris. I keep telling you that.’
‘Yeah, well, I’ve hardly seen him, have I? All I’ve got to go on is what you’ve told me.’
‘He’s free now for the next three months. His dad’s quite likely to get him a car. If you’re not careful, he’ll be bothering you up in Keswick every five minutes, asking you how an auction house works. He’ll probably drive you mad,’ she finished cheerfully.
‘How do auctions link to forensic whatever-it-is that he’s doing?’
‘I hope it doesn’t,’ she said with feeling. ‘He’s just interested. That might be because I’ve talked about it so much lately. I’ve whetted his appetite.’
‘He’ll be bothering you in the flower shop even more with his girlfriend there all day,’ Christopher countered. ‘Are you going to phone your mum, then?’
The change of subject was the result of their lazy mood, aimlessly taking biscuits to nibble and leaving half-finished mugs of coffee to go cold. Conversation was desultory, neither of them putting much thought into what they were saying. Picking up the threads of normal life was still not urgent. Midday came and went, and still they were half-asleep.
‘We should find something to eat,’ said Simmy, with very little conviction.
Chris wrinkled his nose. ‘Sunday roast in the pub doesn’t really appeal,’ he said. ‘I’m actually not very hungry, anyway.’
‘We will be, though. I suppose we could go to Ambleside or somewhere and buy something.’
‘Food is such a bore. Haven’t you got any baked beans? Eggs? Frozen pizza?’
‘All of the above. Sounds a bit depressing, though.’ She thought of the exotic meals they’d enjoyed on holiday. Fish done Italian-style. Spanish tapas eaten on the pavement in a tiny village. Salads thrown together at a moment’s notice. Everything enhanced by the sunshine and the sense of liberation.
‘England is depressing. Surely you knew that?’
‘No, it’s not. Or only when you compare it to somewhere with a better climate. We both love it, most of the time. After all – you came back, didn’t you? You saw the world and came right back to where your whole family lives. You must love it. Your actions prove it.’
‘I took one look at Coniston Water and that was it,’ he mocked. ‘Trapped for life. Except for when I was nineteen and desperate to get away. I came back because I couldn’t afford anywhere else. I was over thirty by then and didn’t have a pound coin to my name. Sophie made sure of that.’
‘Okay.’ Simmy had no great objection to mentions of Christopher’s ex-wife, but she had no intention of encouraging a revisit to his marriage. ‘Let me rephrase it, then. We both arrived here after we’d failed up to that point. We started again, and so far it’s working out pretty well.’
‘You’re talking about the Lakes, not England. If I have to be an Englishman, I choose Cumbria as the best place to be it in.’
‘Good,’ she said.
Then she phoned her parents, calculating that they would have finished their midday meal – which was unlikely to be a Sunday roast. They ran a busy bed and breakfast in Windermere, which Simmy feared was making them old before their time. Angie Straw spent her days changing bedding, keeping the dining room clean, buying ingredients in bulk and controlling the diary. Russell, her husband, was of minimal help since the onset of an ill-diagnosed mental condition, which had been exacerbated by a ‘TIA’ – what most people called a ‘mini-stroke’. He required little actual care from his wife, but he had become more of a hindrance to her than the help he had been initially.
‘Was it nice?’ asked Angie.
‘Lovely. Wall-to-wall sunshine. Bit of a shock coming home to all this cloud.’
‘Must be. It rained for four days in a row. There’s mud everywhere.’
‘So I see.’
‘You haven’t seen my rumpus room. There’s been an Old English sheepdog in there, shaking itself dry all over the jigsaws.’
‘Do you want me to come over after work tomorrow? Or should I leave it till Wednesday, as usual?’
‘Entirely up to you. It’s busy here whenever you come.’
‘How’s Dad?’
‘Same as usual. He’s been swotting up on the Canary Islands, so he’ll be wanting to talk to you about it. And he thinks you’re taking him to the auction next weekend. Is that right?’
Simmy hesitated. ‘I’ll have to be in the shop until two. It’s probably not worth going after that. When did I say we could go to Keswick?’
‘Don’t ask me. He seems pretty sure about it, though. You’ll have to let him down gently.’
‘I’ll come tomorrow, then,’ she decided. ‘And sort it out.’
‘Good. Nice to have you home again.’
‘I’m not sure it’s nice to be back,’ Simmy laughed. ‘We could easily have stayed there all summer.’
‘You’d get bored,’ said Angie, and finished the call without another word.
Christopher was in the living room, thumbing his own phone, when she went to find him. ‘Weather all set to improve from tomorrow,’ he reported.
‘Good news for the farmers. My mother sounds exhausted. I’m going there after work tomorrow. My dad thinks I’m taking him to your auction on Saturday. I don’t see how I can. There’ll be loads of catching-up to do at the shop.’
‘You remember we were supposed to be going to the evening sale near Kirkby Lonsdale, do you? It starts at five on Thursday. You said you might come with me, if you can close the shop a bit early. It’s a small two-man enterprise in a village hall. I want to see how they’ve set it up. It’s all quite new.’
‘I had completely forgotten about it,’ she admitted. ‘It does sound like fun, but I’m not sure I ought to take the time off. What time would we have to leave Windermere?’
‘Three-thirty or thereabouts. We should try to get there by half past four, to have a look at what they’re selling. Bonnie can handle things at the shop for a couple of hours, surely?’
Simmy’s head was buzzing. It was unusual for Chris to try to organise her in such a way. He’d gone on playing with his phone as he spoke, and now he showed her what he’d found. ‘Here it is, look,’ he said.
She read the few lines of information, which said hardly anything more than he had already told her. Sellers should deliver their items by midday and take away anything unsold by ten the next morning. Buyers, likewise, should remove their purchases immediately. Fifteen per cent commission. ‘I’ll think about it,’ she said, with scant enthusiasm.
‘Ben could go as well,’ he added, which surprised her even more.
There followed five minutes of easy silence, as Chris slumped comfortably into the sofa cushions, and Simmy opened the modest pile of junk mail that had arrived during her absence. She took it out to the recycling bin by her gate, pausing to scan the sky for signs of improvement. Troutbeck was quiet. A scattering of walkers was visible on the slopes of Wansfell and sheep were bleating not far away. From where she stood, she could see into two gardens up the road, both vibrant with colour. Her own little patch at the front needed weeding. She had been experimenting with sweet peas, and their supporting bamboo poles looked somewhat askew. Wind, she supposed, along with the rain of the previous week.
She drifted back indoors, thinking she really should try to produce a meal of some sort. It was well past lunchtime, and they’d had nothing substantial since the previous day. Scrambled eggs and baked beans were about as good as it was going to get, she thought regretfully. The village shop would have closed for the day, so there was no chance of buying milk or bread. What a bore it was, she thought irritably, echoing Christopher.
He had got off the sofa and was standing in the little hallway. He didn’t move out of her way as she went in. Instead, he reached out and took her right hand. She frowned, wondering what in the world was going on.
‘Simmy … Persimmon … will you marry me?’ he asked.
Chapter Two
Her first thought was that he was tempting fate. The second was that his timing was always going to be reliably bad. Why couldn’t he have done this on a foreign beach, as the sun was setting? The third was not so much a thought as a surge of euphoria.
‘I will,’ she said firmly, suppressing an urge to add, Although … followed by a string of reservations.
‘Good.’ He pulled her into a long warm kiss, which she cut short in order to look into his face. His grey eyes were unclouded, shining with high spirits. His skin seemed to glow, and his mouth was still soft and loose from the kiss. He was glorious to look at.
She felt young – sixteen, to be precise. The years of separation melted away, and here was that tanned Christopher from the Prestatyn beach. Her closest friend, summer after summer, with his four younger siblings providing her with all the experience of a big family she would ever have. They had kissed obsessively that last summer, wanting and needing to take things further, but oddly unable to manage it. Lack of privacy and, perhaps, lack of courage both worked against them. Their parents had become aware of the danger, and there had been no more joint summer holidays after that. She saw Chris three or four more times, writing letters and phoning in a decreasing frequency until life got in the way and they almost forgot each other.
Now the wheel had turned, and here they were again. And he wanted to marry her. They were close to forty, with turbulent events in their respective pasts. His parents were dead, but his siblings remained at close quarters. He and Simmy lived twenty miles apart, each with commitments that would be almost impossible to shed. There was no avoiding the practicalities, she realised. Her unspoken Although … could not be dodged for long.
‘But … how?’ she breathed, hating herself for being the one to raise the question.
‘We’ll find a way. Don’t go all unromantic on me,’ he begged. ‘Not for another few minutes, anyway.’
Romantic? Sweet scents, soft light, moody background music? None of that fitted how she felt. Her momentary lapse into her sixteen-year-old self was already over. Her mind was full of images of her shop, Bonnie, her parents and this much-prized little Troutbeck house. All that would have to be downgraded, if not entirely discarded if – when – she married Chris. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘What do you mean, sorry? You’re not retracting already, are you?’ He hugged her close again. ‘I mean it, Sim. It’s really going to happen. Once that’s settled, everything else’ll just fall into place around it. You’ll see.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But what about …? I mean, shouldn’t we just wait to see …?’ Again she shivered at the sense of tempting fate. ‘We could just give it a few more months.’
He drew back slightly. ‘Oh, I see. What a twit I am. You mean the baby.’
She shivered again at the starkness of the word. ‘There isn’t a baby. That’s the whole point. There might never be a baby. Are we sure we can cope with that?’ She had watched one husband break down at the non-appearance of his expected child. There was terror in the prospect of that happening again.
‘That sounds as if you want a baby more than you want me.’ His frown was only very slight, but his eyes were less clear than before.
‘Oh!’ She hadn’t ever thought in those terms. Her worries had all been about him and how he might deal with childlessness. It was astonishingly difficult to examine her own innermost wishes – like turning a massive container ship around and sending it off in the opposite direction. She knew she did want a baby. She knew she needed a man as a result of this great desire. It had never crossed her mind to deliberately enter into single parenthood via some sort of fertility clinic that would manufacture a child for her at a price. Neither had she contemplated adopting a child. She knew with an equal certainty that she had a definite fondness for Christopher – but was that fondness born of his apparent willingness to share the parenting with her, and nothing more than that?
It hurt to follow this logic. A real pain took root inside her, born of fear and self-dislike and the extreme difficulty of facing the unvarnished truth.
‘I don’t know,’ she said wretchedly. ‘What a horrible person I must be, if that’s true.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not accusing you of anything. I was just hoping we could get to the heart of it and see what we might do about it. We’re not sixteen any more, Simmy. It’s no use pretending we are.’
‘I was, though, for a minute.’
‘So was I. So were we both all last week. Sunshine, chips, the incoming waves. But we’re back on solid ground now, and I want you to marry me. I want a baby – or two – almost as much as you do. I want a proper house and a few of the ordinary things that other people want.’
‘Only a few?’
‘I can do without the garden shed and the designer kitchen. And I’m never going to keep anything tidy. And I’m never going to have as much money as I really want, because I’m incapable of putting in the right sort of effort.’
‘Especially not with two children. You’ll be expected to change nappies and take them for long walks and be home at six o’clock every evening without fail.’
He tilted his head in a warning look. ‘And what if they never happen? What if it’s just you and me?’
It was the vital question, taking her back to the core of things. Before she could answer, his phone rang, loud in the painful silence.
To his credit, he made no move to take the call. But the relief they both felt at the timely interruption could not be concealed. ‘Answer it,’ she said. ‘We need a breather.’
‘Don’t we just,’ he laughed. ‘Did I forget to mention that I really, really love you?’ The insistent device only partly obscured the feeling that these words came wrapped in. ‘It’s Jonathan,’ he reported, having glanced at the screen.
She flipped a hand at him and moved a few steps away.
‘Hi, Jon,’ he said. ‘Something up?’
The one-sided conversation that Simmy could hear gave rise to a wholesale change of mood. Chris was obviously concerned, making his friend repeat himself and asking abrupt questions. Finally, he finished the call and looked at Simmy, his face no longer soft and adoring. ‘He’s got himself into a right bit of bother,’ he said.
Simmy had met Jonathan once, and recognised this as a direct quote. ‘So I gathered,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t hear you promise to dash up there and rescue him.’
Christopher did not smile. ‘Nothing I can do, as far as either of us can work out. The best thing would be for him to keep his head down and let it all blow over.’
‘What, though? What’s his problem?’
‘It’s a long story. And I suddenly feel desperately hungry.’ He looked at his phone. ‘Not surprising, actually. Do you know what time it is?’
She gave it a moment’s reflection. ‘Two, or a bit after?’
‘It’s three-twenty-five. And we haven’t eaten more than a couple of biscuits all day.’
‘What a weird day! I can do eggs and beans, or I suppose we could go down to Bowness and find something. It’s summer – there’ll be ice cream or cream teas, or even fish and chips, if we’re lucky.’
‘I don’t want to go anywhere. Just a tin of baked beans is all I ask. There doesn’t even have to be any toast.’
With a concerted effort, Simmy found a frozen loaf and a long-forgotten tin of spaghetti hoops to go with scrambled eggs in a meal that would have horrified both their mothers. Within ten minutes, they were eating these remnants of a once well-stocked cupboard as if they were dining at the Belsfield in Bowness – which they had done once or twice over the past half-year. ‘I should go shopping one day this week and get something more interesting than this for emergencies,’ she said. ‘I never was very good at catering.’
‘Nobody is any more,’ he consoled her. Then his eyes went misty and he added, ‘Not like in Mexico, where they can produce a fabulous feast in seconds. Guacamole, beans, ribs. Incredible bread. I never ate so well as I did in Mexico. Not to mention the drink, of course.’
‘I might not let you go travelling when we’re married,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Is that going to upset you?’
‘Can’t afford it, anyway. I’m too old for all that rough sleeping or bunking up in hostels with smelly Americans.’
‘Pardon?’
‘They stink of synthetic chemicals. Antiperspirant mostly. And the stuff they wash their clothes in. And extra spray for no reason. And something vile to repel insects. They’re like walking pharmacies. Makes me retch to think of it. Give me good old-fashioned sweat any day.’
‘My mother would agree with you,’ laughed Simmy.
They finished their meal and Simmy went upstairs to unpack her holiday bag. ‘Are you staying tonight as well?’ she asked him, from the top of the stairs.
‘I want to, but that would make tomorrow a real beast – unless I left here at about six.’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’
‘True. I’m just trying to be grown-up and sensible. Of course I’ll stay. If you’ll have me, that is.’
‘It’ll be a come-down after that fabulous big bed.’
Simmy’s bed was a large single, which meant that two people sharing had to remain in close contact all night. She had done her best to get used to it, but it did no favours to the quality of her sleep. ‘I should have got a bigger one months ago,’ she reproached herself.
‘We’ll get ourselves a luxury king-size for our new house,’ he promised.
‘What new house?’ She was in the bedroom, calling down the stairs to him, missing some of his words. It was something they did a lot, and she could always hear her mother shouting, ‘Come downstairs if you want to talk to me,’ as she had done throughout Simmy’s childhood.
Now Christopher said almost the same thing. ‘I’m not having this conversation until you come down again.’
She was at his side two minutes later. ‘What new house?’ she repeated.
‘Well, we can’t live here, and we can’t live in my little hovel, so we’ll have to get somewhere new. Stands to reason.’
It should have been exciting, full of future promise and a whole new beginning. Instead she could only think of money, and her shop and how she would spend her days if she no longer had Persimmon Petals to fill her time. ‘Where?’ she breathed.
‘The logical thing would be halfway between here and Keswick. That’s Grasmere, if you look at a map. In fact, there’s nowhere else but Grasmere that would work. We’d both be about thirty minutes from our places of work. It’d be perfect.’
‘We can’t afford Grasmere. And, besides, there are hardly any ordinary houses. They’re all holiday lets or tea rooms.’
‘Who says? What about all those lovely stone cottages clustered around Dove Cottage, for a start?’
‘Won’t they be a bit pokey, as well as expensive? And there’d be hordes of trippers coming and going all year round.’
‘There’s a few other side streets with some nice properties. Kathleen Leeson had one of them, I think.’
‘Have you ever been to her house?’
He hesitated. ‘No, but I know where it is. Are you thinking it might suit us? It’ll probably go on the market any time now.’
‘I wasn’t thinking that, actually. I was just wondering about all the dusty treasures there might be there.’
‘Always less exciting than you think. Now – stick to the subject. We want to find somewhere to live, remember. There’s a lot of building going on across the road from the main village in Grasmere. Honestly, Sim, I think you should keep an open mind, don’t you?’
She shrugged, unable to cite evidence for her pessimism about property prices, and unwilling to drop the subject of forgotten antiques in locked-up houses. ‘So, tell me about Jonathan,’ she invited. ‘What’s his problem?’
Chapter Three
‘Mainly, it’s the way he makes enemies,’ Christopher began. ‘He says what he thinks and never lets anybody get away with anything. But he’s got a weird sense of fair play. It makes people nervous.’
‘I think I get it. I quite like the sound of that, actually. But what’s the matter now? Why did he phone you? You were talking to him for quite a while.’
‘He wanted me to back him up in a row he’s having with a bloke called Nick. And I’m not sure I should, even though you could say Jon’s officially got right on his side. Nick’s an old-school wheeler-dealer. The sort we auctioneers love to hate. Turns up in a massive van, and bids for all the job lots – big boxes of junk, with a bit of treasure tucked at the bottom. Then sells it at about a thousand per cent profit. All cash, hardly any paper trails. And he’s incredibly clever at it. Jonathan worked with him for a bit and learnt some of his tricks, but they fell out, and it’s been war ever since.’
‘Nasty,’ sighed Simmy, trying to picture it all.
‘It happens. It’s all a big game, with rules, when you boil it down. But Jon has a way of making his own rules. And now someone’s dobbed Nick in to the taxman, and he’s convinced it was Jon.’
‘And was it?’
‘He says not, but it’s the sort of thing he might do, on a whim. You can go online anonymously and just give a name and address and leave it to them. Treacherous thing to do. But Nick gets away with so much, it makes a lot of people mad.’
‘Does Nick pay any tax?’
‘I doubt it. I never asked him.’
‘Does Jonathan?’
‘He does. That’s the whole point. He’s insanely meticulous with the paperwork, which is odd, I suppose. Registered himself for VAT, which the girls in the office curse him for every time we sell anything for him.’
‘I see what you mean about rules,’ Simmy commented. ‘He sounds a bit obsessive about them.’
‘He is a bit, yes. But he doesn’t always understand the unspoken ones that have to do with people and how they interact. He’s no good at that stuff.’
‘On the spectrum,’ said Simmy. ‘Like most British men, according to my mother.’
‘Whatever. Anyway, Jon wants me to talk to Nick, and persuade him that nobody gave him away and it’s just a random check. After all, the tax people are obviously interested in our line of business. Everyone uses cash and, even if they’ve got a docket for their total sales, they’ll be doing little deals in the car park without even thinking about it.’
‘They’ll probably ask you about Nick anyway, then.’
‘They probably will,’ he agreed. ‘And I’ve got no problem in sticking up for Jon, if Nick plays rough. He’s a good bloke, under his grubby exterior. They both are, basically, but Nick can take care of himself. I’m not so sure about Jon.’
‘You should be careful,’ she said, without thinking.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh – I don’t know. I must be channelling my father. It just sounds rather fraught. I mean, Jonathan must be quite worried to phone you on a Sunday afternoon about it. He’d already texted you, hadn’t he?’
‘That was about something different.’ He sighed. ‘Which still isn’t finally sorted, but it’s not going to be long now. He wants me to put pressure on the legal people. I told him that’s a long way beyond my pay grade, but he still wants to see me about it all, sometime this week.’
‘You’re talking about the house clearance in Grasmere?’
‘Right. The people who take charge of this sort of thing have kept it all sealed up until somebody got around to ticking all the boxes. Poor old Philip thinks he’ll be dead before it’s all finished.’ He wiped a hand across his brow in a parody of exhaustion. ‘It’s all too much. I need you to rescue me from it all. Oh – silly me. That’s what you’ve just done, isn’t it? A week on a faraway island was supposed to recharge my batteries. Now they’re already running down again.’
Simmy laughed. ‘All these men in your life! You make it sound so exciting and important. I don’t understand a fraction of it. How does it all get decided, for a start?’
‘You don’t want to know. There’s a cruel and unnecessary punishment for people who let their old folks die without making a will. Except the big guns are only brought in when there are no relations, and the friends can’t prove their honesty.’
‘Seems fair enough to me.’
‘It’s very fair. But incredibly long-winded. I do my best not to get involved in any of that stuff, but it catches up with me from time to time.’
She knew they were deliberately prolonging this conversation, for fear of having to face difficult personal questions. Or one particular personal question, which was still hanging in the air. It had occurred to her before that absolute frankness in a relationship might sound desirable, but it failed to recognise that most people had a very shaky grasp of their own inner workings. Try as they might, they couldn’t capture all the nuances and contradictions that governed their emotions. She had discovered that something that felt true one day might change overnight into something much less dependable. If you put that thing into words on a Monday, you might well be in trouble if it came back to bite you on Tuesday, when your feelings had altered. Safer, then, not to say much in the first place.
But Christopher had other ideas. Having made his proposal and had it accepted, he was eager to take things to the next stage. ‘We don’t want a big production of a wedding, do we? Do you think September’s too soon? What’s this house of yours worth?’ Before she could say much, he was looking at property websites. ‘Hardly anything for sale in Grasmere at the moment. But I don’t think it’s any more expensive than here.’
‘Chris, you’re going too fast.’ She looked round at her pleasant living room, with favourite pieces of furniture from her home with Tony in Worcestershire. Moving up to the Lake District had been traumatic and exhausting. Another move was not entirely appealing.
‘Why? What is there to wait for?’ He was genuinely confused. ‘Have I missed something?’
‘Not really. It’s just me. I’m a moral coward. You’re making it all sound easy and obvious. And I suppose it is – I just need to get it all clear in my mind. The shop …’
‘What about the shop? Nothing needs to change where that’s concerned.’
And so they went on, with Christopher making strenuous efforts to be patient and understanding in the face of her worries. She could see he wanted reassurance that she really did love him, really wanted to marry him and live with him. And she really did – in theory. But his earlier question – would she love him enough, if there was just him and no baby? – remained unanswered. She needed someone uninvolved to talk it over with, space away from Chris to carefully analyse the answer. And he lacked the patience to let her have that. Eventually, he brought himself back to this core issue.
‘I want a baby as well,’ he insisted. ‘And I get that it’s less urgent for me. I’ve got twenty years to play with – although I don’t much fancy changing nappies when I’m sixty. But – God, Sim – here I am, offering you the best chance you’re ever going to get of achieving your dearest wish, and you’re putting up objections.’
She smiled helplessly. ‘I told you – I’m a coward. And a bit of a pessimist at heart. You’re right. I’m fantastically lucky to have you. They’re not objections, anyway. Just reservations. Maybe not even that. I am going to marry you, okay? I just want you to be clear as to what you’re getting.’
He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Cliché, my love. That line’s from a film, if I’m not mistaken. I know exactly what I’ll be getting. I can give you a list of your qualities, and why I love you, if that’ll help.’
She laughed. ‘No, don’t do that. It’d be embarrassing.’
At seven they walked to the nearby village pub and drank beer with sandwiches. At nine, they remembered how short the previous night had been and took themselves to Simmy’s narrow bed. ‘The holiday officially ends now,’ said Chris sleepily. ‘Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of our lives.’
‘And that’s a cliché, if ever there was one,’ said Simmy.
Monday arrived in a flash, birds singing outside at four-thirty, and the sun making itself felt an hour later. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea,’ said Simmy, without moving.
‘No, you won’t. We’re not starting that game.’
‘But I’m your fiancée now. I exist to serve.’
‘Shut up, woman. I can recognise a trap when I see one.’
‘Good luck with everything, then,’ she said. ‘Give us a kiss and I’ll see you next weekend.’
He moaned. ‘We can’t go on like this. You know we can’t. It’s cruel. And don’t say we can do FaceTime or whatever it is now. The very idea freaks me out.’
‘And me. We could meet halfway one evening for a meal. Or something. I’ll phone you after work. Or more likely after I’ve been to Beck View.’
‘Great! We could have a look at properties in Grasmere.’
‘Go, Chris. It was a lovely holiday. Really lovely. And it’s sunny out there, look. Just like Lanzarote.’
‘Bye, then,’ he said, and went heavily down the stairs, like a banished schoolboy. It bothered Simmy slightly that she couldn’t be sure whether or not he was play-acting.
She was at her Windermere shop twenty minutes earlier than necessary, having been unable to get back to sleep after Chris’s departure. It was a forlorn scene with all the cut flowers missing from their usual buckets and pots. She and Bonnie had cleared them all away before closing up for a week. The pot plants looked lonely and neglected, even though Bonnie had been in twice to water them while Simmy was away. The table she used as a counter was bare, because the computer had been removed and all the scattered paperwork tidied up and dealt with.
That at least could be quickly rectified, and she extracted the laptop from the bag on her shoulder and set it up in its rightful place. If everything went according to plan, there would be a large delivery of summer blooms at any moment. June was a time for scent and colour, but ironically these were so freely available in the countless lovely Cumbrian gardens that fewer people felt moved to come to a florist and buy them. The embellishment of house interiors was lower priority when life was mostly conducted outdoors for the few brief months of summer. The business survived mainly on orders for deliveries of flowers for special occasions in this season of the year.
The computer needed close attention. The message that no deliveries could be made for the week she’d been away had to be deleted, for a start. Emails had to be carefully sifted and the point made on various sites that Persimmon Petals was fully operational and eager for custom. She was still working on all this when the doorbell pinged, and Bonnie Lawson came in.
‘Hiya!’ she chirruped. ‘Hard at it already, then? Gosh, you’ve got a fabulous tan! Was it amazing? Did you get back on time? Are the pot plants okay?’ The questions poured out, giving no opportunity for reply.
Simmy looked up at her assistant with a smile. The girl was wearing a thin cotton top and cut-off trousers. Her hair was as wild and fair as ever, forming a silvery halo around her face. Her skin showed no sign whatsoever of having been exposed to sunshine. ‘Everything’s fine,’ Simmy said. ‘Did you have a good week?’
‘Ben had his last exam on Friday. We were out all day on Saturday. First, we did a boat trip on Windermere, then we went over to Hawkshead on the ferry with the bikes. It rained a bit, though.’ She sighed. ‘It rained nearly every day you were away.’
‘So I gathered from my mother and the mud on the roads. Chris and I timed it well.’
‘Was it amazing?’ Bonnie asked again.
‘There’s a volcano, and the plants are all succulents and cacti, growing in black soil. Hardly any grass. Whole fields of lava, like the surface of the moon or something. A few really nice beaches. Brilliant food, if you get out into the smaller inland places.’
‘And Chris liked it, did he?’
‘Chris was very happy,’ said Simmy with a secretive smile. ‘Everything went perfectly, in fact.’
Bonnie was giving her a searching look when the doorbell pinged again and the first customer of the day arrived.
Five customers later, it was past twelve o’clock. The expected wholesale delivery had given them more work to do than was comfortable, arranging the new flowers for maximum effect. Bonnie tackled the window display and Simmy found two new orders on the computer. ‘A birthday in Bowness, and a baby in … gosh, somewhere called Banerigg – if that’s how you say it. Where on earth’s that?’
‘I think it’s on the edge of Grasmere – the lake, not the town. You’ll need the map.’
‘Why are they sending me all the way up there?’ grumbled Simmy. ‘They should use a closer florist, from Ambleside, if not Grasmere. It’s nine miles from here.’
‘Reputation,’ said Bonnie. ‘Did you say “baby”?’
‘I did. The message reads, “Welcome to little Lucy May Penrose, from Great-Granny Sarah.” And there’s to be baby’s breath, pink rosebuds and honeysuckle. I guess Great-Granny Sarah just picked me out with a pin on Google. She lives in Bristol, so she probably doesn’t know much about the geography up here.’
‘I hope she didn’t prick her screen,’ giggled Bonnie. ‘When does she want it?’
‘As soon as possible. I’ll have to take it this evening, I suppose. But I said I’d call in on my parents.’
‘It’s really not far,’ Bonnie assured her. ‘Look – here it is.’ She proffered her all-purpose smartphone, showing a map. ‘It’s on the 591. But there are hardly any houses there.’
‘There’s a postcode. I expect I’ll find it. I’ll have to tell my mum I won’t be seeing them this evening, after all.’
‘It’s pretty nice up there,’ Bonnie encouraged. ‘It’ll be a nice little jaunt for you.’
Not for another twenty minutes did Simmy remember that she had suggested to Chris that they meet one evening in Grasmere. Was this too soon in the week? Should she let him know she’d be there and see what he said? It seemed silly, and even a bit tight-lipped, not to say anything. But the prospect of rerunning the same conversations again so soon made her feel pressured and slightly panicked. She needed some time to think before that could be readily faced.
Only three more people came in for flowers during the afternoon, giving Simmy time to assemble the bouquet for little Lucy May. ‘Lucky I’ve got some baby’s breath,’ she muttered. ‘even if it is more than a week old.’
‘It lasts for ages,’ said Bonnie. ‘That’s why we didn’t throw it out before you went away.’
The girl had been looking at her phone even more than usual in the past hour or so. ‘Are you waiting for something?’ asked Simmy.
‘It’s Ben’s driving test at two forty-five. He must be finishing any time now.’
‘Oh, drat! I forgot all about it. I was going to send him a good luck message.’
‘He didn’t want to make a thing of it. I’m surprised he told you.’
‘I got a text yesterday saying welcome home. He mentioned it then.’
‘He’s dead scared, you know. It’s quite funny, really, when he’s been fine all through the A-levels. I can understand, though. This is so much more physical. And he’s got to take other people into account and keep his eyes open the whole time. I mean – he’s got to really concentrate.’
‘That shouldn’t be a problem, surely?’
‘He overthinks things. He watches what a lorry’s doing a hundred yards up the road and misses the cyclist that’s only inches away. And people keep comparing him to Sheldon Cooper, which isn’t very helpful.’
Simmy refrained from admitting that Christopher Henderson had been one of those people. ‘I’m sure he’ll be fine. And if he fails this time, he can do it again in a month or two, can’t he?’
‘Ben doesn’t handle failure very well,’ said Bonnie regretfully. ‘Oh! Here it is … Failed. Just one word. Damn it.’ She slumped against the wall at the back of the shop and stared at her screen. ‘That’s such a downer. What if it’s an omen for his exam results? That’s what Corinne’s going to think. She always says he’s got too many big ideas for his own good.’
‘It’s not an omen. That’s ridiculous. Most people fail first time. It was probably some tiny little technicality. You know what they’re like, these examiners.’
‘Not really. What am I going to say to him?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ said Simmy, who genuinely had no idea what the best response would be.
While she was still thinking about the unprecedented word ‘failure’ used in conjunction with Ben Harkness, Simmy’s own phone tinkled to indicate a text from Chris. We need to buy a ring. Always nice jewellery at the auction, of course. You should be here on Saturday.
There was a pleasing subtlety to it that made her smile and feel more confident. I might close at 12 and get there for 1, if that’s any good, she replied.
Better than nothing, he flashed back.
‘This must stop,’ she ordained, talking to both Bonnie and herself. ‘Texting at work is a very bad habit.’
‘Better than waffling on and on like some people do,’ said Bonnie. ‘I was kept waiting well over five minutes in a shop last week, in Bowness, while the girl chatted to some friend on her phone. It was a disgrace. I was just going to walk out when she finally finished.’
‘Lucky it wasn’t my mum. She’d have started throwing things.’
They both laughed – all the more so because the image was not so very far from reality.
‘What did you say to him, then?’ Simmy asked a few minutes later.
‘I said it wasn’t a disaster, and I loved him just the same.’ Bonnie and Ben were both delightfully unselfconscious about how they felt towards each other.
Simmy wished she could be like that too, but strongly suspected that it was already too late. ‘Perfect,’ she said, with a smile.
The bouquet for Lucy May was a work of art, though she said so herself. Delicate, fresh, distinctive – it seemed to symbolise all that was wonderful in a new baby. ‘Wow!’ said Bonnie. ‘You’re brilliant at this job, you know. It’s absolutely gorgeous.’
They closed up at five and, having made a quick call to her mother, Simmy carried the flowers to her car, parked several streets away. The traffic was heavy between Windermere and Ambleside but thinned out after that. Her satnav directed her to an isolated little house up a short but steep track off the main road where it ran alongside the small lake of Grasmere. Five minutes before arriving, she thought she heard a warble from the phone in her bag, but the focus required for getting to the right place made her instantly forget about it.
She left the car on a small rough patch beside a stone wall and got out with the flowers. She could hear the baby crying through the closed front door. She had to ring three times before anybody came. Then a tear-stained woman in her thirties flung it open, holding a near-naked infant tight against her chest – which did little to stifle the cries. She took in Simmy and the flowers with total lack of comprehension.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘Take her, before I murder the little beast.’
