The Troutbeck Testimony E-Book

Rebecca Tope

• Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Lake District Mysteries
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 407

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

A huge funeral for Windermere's popular resident, Barbara Dodge, is taking place and florist Persimmon 'Simmy' Brown and her new assistant, Bonnie Lawson are busy compiling wreaths in preparation. There's word of a series of sinister dognappings occurring in nearby Troutbeck and whilst taking a walk up Wansfell Pike, Simmy and her father, Russell, stumble on a dog, strangled to death - it's not long before Simmy reluctantly finds herself caught up in a murder investigation .

Leseprobe

The Troutbeck Testimony

REBECCA TOPE

For Esther and her gang of devoted friends Izzy, Bev, Karen, Hannah, Gemma, Red, Debbie, Evie and all their babies

Contents

Title PageDedicationMapAuthor’s NoteChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenChapter NineteenChapter TwentyChapter Twenty-OneChapter Twenty-TwoChapter Twenty-ThreeChapter Twenty-FourChapter Twenty-FiveChapter Twenty-SixAbout the AuthorBy Rebecca TopeCopyright

Author’s Note

As with other titles in the series, the villages and public buildings in this story are all real. But Simmy’s shop and the B&B are invented.

Chapter One

The first anniversary of Persimmon Brown’s opening of her florist shop in the Lake District had almost coincided with Easter and an explosion of spring flowers and blossom. Wordsworth’s daffodils performed to their greatest strength and pussy willow attracted hosts of honey bees who had failed to notice that they were meant to be in terminal decline. A month later, on the first long weekend in May, walking along a sheltered footpath to the west of Troutbeck, Simmy – officially Ms Persimmon Brown – could hear an energetic buzzing and murmured ‘something something something in the bee-loud glade’ to herself. Not Wordsworth, she was sure, but somebody like Yeats or Hardy. She would ask her young friend Ben, who knew everything.

The sun was warm on her shoulders; the light so clear that she could pick out numerous fast-growing lambs on the fells far above the village. Every weekend throughout the coming summer, she promised herself, she would get up at first light and go for an early walk. The anniversary had been a time for resolutions and one of them was to make much better use of the natural delights that surrounded her.

She felt an almost pagan euphoria at the burgeoning landscape, vibrant with flora and fauna at the start of another cycle of life. Her mother would say it was a mark in Christianity’s favour that it had been clever enough to superimpose all its biggest rituals onto far more ancient moments in the natural year, with Easter an obvious example.

There was now a bonus Spring Bank Holiday that Simmy was savouring with complete abandonment. The late morning, with a sunny afternoon still ahead of her, brought feelings of richness and privilege that were almost shameful. But she had earned it, she reminded herself. The winter had been grey and protracted, interspersed with a number of unpleasant adventures. She had been repeatedly drawn into events that demonstrated the darker side of human behaviour, forced to confront far too much reality.

Now that spring had arrived with such a colourful crash, she was determined to shake all that off and concentrate on her flowers.

The plan for the day was to meet her father, Russell Straw, for a long-promised fellside walk after a modest lunch at the Mortal Man. The full walk, along Nanny Lane and up to the summit of Wansfell Pike – and back – was easily four miles in total, with some steep sections of stony path. ‘By rights, we should go across to the Troutbeck Tongue at the same time, but that’s rather ambitious,’ Russell conceded.

‘I shall want some fortification first,’ Simmy had warned him. ‘And if there’s the slightest risk of rain, I’m cancelling the whole idea. Neither of us is fit enough to do anything rash.’

There was no suggestion of rain, the sky a uniform blue in every direction. It was, in fact, the most perfect day for very many months and Simmy was duly thankful for it. Her father would bring water, map, and dog. She would provide a camera, mobile phone and two slabs of Kendal mint cake.

The fells above Troutbeck were stark, dramatic and uncaring. There were barely any flowers or trees adorning them, other than the tiny resilient blooms that crouched underfoot. More than happy to accommodate her father’s wishes, Simmy nonetheless preferred the softer and more moderated lower levels. This explained her morning stroll, taking a zigzag route from her house to the hostelry along lanes that had been colonised by humanity, with gardens and houses taking their place in the picture. The bees at least agreed with her. Azaleas and rhododendrons were in bud, reminding her of her startled surprise at the vibrant colours, the year before. Not just the natural purples and pinks, but brilliant orange, deepest crimson and a wide array of other hues shouted from gardens all over the relatively balmy area around Windermere and Ambleside. Even the wilder reaches of Coniston boasted spectacular displays. Aware that it might be foolish to expend energy on this pre-walk stroll, she nonetheless felt the need to exploit the sunshine and the flamboyant floral displays. It was semi-professional, too – she ought to be apprised of the full range of seasonal blossoms in gardens, in order to echo and embellish them in the offerings she stocked at the shop. Flowers were her business, and any lateral information she could acquire would always come in useful.

Her father was waiting for her at the pub, sitting at an outside table on a lower level, with his dog. She kissed the man and patted the animal. ‘Is he going to cope with such a long walk?’ she wondered. It was a rather ancient Lakeland terrier, officially named Bertie, but mostly just called ‘the dog’. His forebears had failed a purity test, it seemed, and poor Bertie had found himself rejected as breeding stock and consigned to a rescue centre until eventually rescued by kindly Russell Straw.

‘Oh yes. And if he doesn’t we’ll have to carry him.’

‘When did you last take him on a jaunt like this?’

‘About eighteen months ago. We’ve been waiting all this time for you.’

‘Dad! That’s ridiculous.’ In spite of herself, she laughed. ‘Poor old chap. He won’t know what’s hit him. His feet will be sore for weeks.’

‘Not a bit of it. He spends all his time digging up stones. His feet are as tough as iron. He could easily outwalk both of us. Now let’s get on with it. I want to set off by one at the latest.’

That gave them forty-five minutes to eat a hearty pub lunch with beer to wash it down. ‘We shouldn’t walk on full stomachs,’ Simmy remarked. ‘We’ll get a stitch.’

‘Better than trying to do it empty. We need the food to give us stamina.’

‘At least we’ve got the weather for it. And listen to those birds!’ A pair of collared doves cooed at them from an overhead wire, the gentle three-note song a backdrop that Simmy always loved, despite the blatant lack of musical variety. Her habit of feeding garden birds had attracted another pair of doves to her own little patch, a few hundred yards from the pub, and she had grown used to waking to their call, imagining that they were deliberately asking her for some breakfast.

Russell cocked his head. ‘They’re not native, you know. They’re quite recent immigrants. I mean recent. I was about ten years old when the first ones settled here. The BBC put them in a medieval radio play by mistake not long ago. Lots of people wrote in about it.’

‘Well, they’re very welcome as far as I’m concerned.’

‘I agree with you. I also like grey squirrels, even if I get lynched for saying so.’

She laughed again, after a wary glance around. In Troutbeck, the red squirrel was verging on the sacred and the grey accordingly considered devilish. Anyone overhearing Russell was liable to take exception to his views. But nobody at the neighbouring tables was reacting. Nothing could sully her delight at the carefree afternoon ahead with the best of all possible fathers. It took a lot to disturb Russell Straw – but then a lot had happened in recent times, and his daughter had certainly caused him some worry over the winter. His wife was the powerful half in the marriage, leaving him to contented pottering and sporadic researches into local history. They ran a somewhat eccentric bed-and-breakfast business in Windermere, in which Angie Straw broke a lot of rules and earned a lot of profound gratitude in the process. Her reviews on TripAdvisor veered from the horrified to the euphoric, depending on how much individuality her guests could stomach. She was a capricious mixture of old fashioned and hippy, refusing to use guests’ first names unless they insisted, and cheerfully producing full breakfasts at ten-thirty, if that’s what people wanted.

‘Let me just pop to the lav and then we can be off,’ Russell said. ‘Mind the dog, will you?’

She took the lead attached to Bertie and nodded. The sun was as high as it was going to get, and the afternoon stretched ahead of them with no sense of urgency. The sky remained an unbroken blue. The views from the summit of Wansfell Pike would be spectacular. At least two lakes would be visible, and any number of fells on all sides. Russell knew the names of most of the main landmarks, and had a map with which to identify others. Simmy had only a rudimentary and theoretical knowledge of any of it.

Bertie whined and pulled annoyingly. ‘He’ll be back in a minute,’ Simmy told him. ‘Don’t be silly.’ Dogs were generally annoying, to her way of thinking. So dreadfully dependent and needy all the time. It had come as a surprise when her parents rescued this little specimen, and even more so when Russell developed such a fondness for it. To Simmy’s eyes, the animal lacked character, which Russell insisted was a consequence of his harsh life, full of betrayal and confusion. ‘He just wants everything nice and peaceful from here on,’ he said.

Which was generally what he got, apart from a never-ending procession of B&B guests, who mostly patted his head and then left him alone.

‘You were a long time,’ she told him, when her father eventually returned.

‘I know.’ He was frowning distractedly. ‘I overheard something, outside the gents, and I have no idea what to make of it. I kept out of sight for a minute, just in case they didn’t like the idea of anyone hearing them.’

‘Oh?’

‘Two men talking. It sounds a bit wild, I know, but I think they were planning a burglary.’

Chapter Two

‘What did they say, exactly?’ Simmy’s first reaction was impatience at the threat to interrupt their plans. ‘Did you see them?’

‘No, but one had a broad Cumbrian accent and the other sounded vaguely Scots.’ He recited with concentrated deliberation: ‘“We should come back here this time tomorrow. The old man’s always out on a Tuesday, so that’s our chance.” Then the other one said, “What about Tim?” And the first one said, “He can be the lookout. He’ll be perfect for that.” And then there was some more that I didn’t hear properly. I wonder who the old man is?’

‘Dad! They could have been talking about digging a ditch for him or cleaning his windows or delivering a surprise birthday present … or …’ Her imagination ran dry at that point.

‘What about the need for a lookout? That’s nothing innocent, is it? And there was something about the tone. It was furtive. Why hide away behind a pub to discuss something harmless?’ He rubbed his bushy hair. ‘But I can’t do anything, can I? You can’t report people just for talking.’

‘Actually, I expect you can, these days. But I wouldn’t like to hear Mum on the subject, if you try it.’

Russell groaned. ‘Arresting people before they commit the crime. Anticipating what they might do. In a way, it does make sense. Like preventive medicine. But in practice, of course, it’s ludicrous.’

‘Besides, you can’t report them if you didn’t see them. You don’t know who they are.’

He was staring at a red car turning round in the parking area. ‘That might be them, look. Two men in a car.’

Simmy looked. ‘And there’s a boy in the back. Looks about twelve. I suppose they had to make their evil plans at the back of the loos because they didn’t want the kid to hear them?’

‘Good thinking. I’m noting the registration.’ He muttered the numbers to himself as he rummaged in his little rucksack for paper, but could only produce the Ordnance Survey map. ‘Have you got a pencil?’

‘I might have.’ Simmy had thoughtlessly brought her shoulder bag with her, instead of a more suitable receptacle for carrying hiking necessities. ‘Here’s a biro,’ she said after a short search.

‘Thanks.’ Russell took it and started writing on the edge of the map. ‘Red Renault Laguna … now what was the number?’

Simmy blinked. ‘I don’t know. You’re the one playing the detective.’

‘Um … yes. VJ09 something, KB. I think it was CKB. There! That might come in handy, don’t you think?’

‘Description of the criminals,’ she suggested, half joking. ‘From what I could see, I’d say one man is about forty-five, very short dark hair, pale skin and fairly tall. The other – the one driving – is in his early thirties, thin and probably about five foot eight. You can’t really tell when they’re sitting down. He’s got ordinary hair. Mousy.’

Russell kept writing, much to Simmy’s surprise. ‘How can you tell their ages?’ he asked. ‘I find that impossible, now I’m so old. Everybody looks twenty-five to me.’

‘I don’t know. I might be totally wrong. I couldn’t see them very clearly. You shouldn’t write that down as well. It’s … I don’t know … sneaky, I suppose.’ The red car was disappearing in a northerly direction, where it would emerge onto Kirkstone Pass in less than a minute. ‘Let’s just get going, Dad, and forget all about it. Bertie’s getting restless.’ He wasn’t, but it made a good argument.

‘It’s only a bit of fun, Sim,’ he said. ‘Like playing spies when I was a boy. A sort of Just William thing. I’ll tear the page out when I get home, if you like.’

They gathered up their bags and walked out into the small road that ran through Troutbeck. A man with a beard and long untidy hair was standing by the entrance to the car park and nodded to them. Simmy had the impression that he had been watching the car as well. She even thought he might have given them a valedictory wave as they drove off. Bertie tried to go to him, wagging his short tail. Russell pulled him away and the man took no further notice of them.

‘Hopeless judge of character, this dog,’ he muttered, when they were out of earshot. ‘He’d run away with the gypsies, given half a chance.’

The walk proved a ready distraction from boyish spy adventures, the uphill trajectory rendering conversation sporadic and limited to observations on the views and vegetation. Stone walls bordered the lane on each side, and trees had already become a rarity. On a welcome level stretch they paused and looked back.

‘Wow!’ breathed Simmy. ‘We can’t have come all this way already! You can see for miles.’

Russell pointed out various landmarks, with the aid of his map. Indicating a high ridge beyond the village, he drew her attention to a large quarry sitting in the middle of Sour Howes. ‘Even up here, it’s nowhere near being a natural landscape,’ he said. ‘Walls, roads, quarries, dykes – they’ve all changed it. There was probably a great forest covering all this, before mankind turned up and chopped down all the trees. And that caravan park’s a bit of a blot, even if they have tried to keep it inconspicuous.’

‘Like Dartmoor,’ Simmy offered. It was a conversation they’d had more than once, with the usual inconclusive ending. Without the quarries there would be no buildings; without the stone walls all would be disorder. ‘You can’t really unwish the existence of human beings,’ Russell often said. ‘There’s something impossibly illogical about that.’

The philosophy of this sort of remark could quickly make Simmy’s head hurt, with its tendency to drift into Cartesian explorations as to the nature of reality and perception and whether the presence of Homo sapiens comprised an absolute necessity or an accidental aberration. ‘It’s a whole year since I moved here,’ she said, mindful that the walk had been intended as a kind of celebration of this anniversary.

‘Are you glad you did it?’

‘Oh yes,’ she began, automatically. ‘Of course … Although it hasn’t been quite as I expected,’ she finished, more slowly. ‘There’ve been a lot of surprises.’

Her father had urged her from the start to be cautious. ‘It’s going to be a big change,’ he said when she proposed the move. ‘New career, new people, new everything.’

‘I’ll have you, though, won’t I?’

‘That’s what worries me,’ he had replied. ‘You’re thirty-seven, Sim. That’s too old to see yourself as a daughter. You need to be sure you can create a whole autonomous life for yourself that doesn’t revolve around me and your mother.’

Now she was thirty-eight and Russell had not changed his mind on the subject of individualism and independence, despite several instances in which Simmy had needed direct and urgent help.

‘Surprises?’ he echoed.

‘You know what I mean. I never dreamt that floristry would involve so much high emotion and extreme behaviour. It’s been much more eventful than I thought.’

‘Ah, yes. That was a surprise, I know. To me and your mother, as well. I’m not so much thinking about that side of things. I’m really wondering whether you feel we’ve got the balance right, between the three of us. I suppose it seems peculiar of me, but I worry about getting in your way. Sticking my oar in. Queering your pitch – if I’m allowed to say that.’

‘Dad! There’s nothing going on in my life that you could possibly disrupt. It is peculiar, you know, you talking like this. Other parents don’t go in for so much agonising about being too interfering. And you’re a million miles from anything like that – you always have been.’

‘So then I worry I’ve gone too far the other way.’

‘Stop it. I’m perfectly all right with things as they are. This past year has been exactly what I need to get over – you know – everything that happened. The business is working out nicely. I’ve got friends, interests …’ she tailed off, painfully aware that when it came to friends and interests, her parents both felt things were somewhat thin. She had not made friends easily, and any incipient interests had been dashed by the succession of calamities that had befallen her since the autumn. Calamities which had come on top of the loss of her baby and collapse of her marriage. Regaining any sort of balance after these events had been slow and exhausting, and she was still unsure whether she had accomplished it.

‘You were lucky to find Melanie,’ he said. ‘She’s been a big help.’

‘Yes, and she’s leaving in a week or two. She’s already doing way fewer hours, because she’s job-hunting. I was a fool to think it was sensible to employ somebody on such a short-term basis. I was scared that a permanent person would end up wanting to become a partner in the business. I can’t even remember now why that would have been such a bad thing.’

‘She’ll stay in touch. You’ve been very good for her, you know. She won’t forget you.’

They were approaching the pinnacle of Wansfell Pike, the ground growing steeper again and the landscape more stark. The path divided, and they took the left-hand branch, which had no stone walls to mark it. Tufty grass and lichened rocks were doing their best to create an appearance of green, but there remained a persistent greyish hue on all sides. The bright sky of the morning was hazing over as they climbed. ‘At last we can truly call this spring,’ said Russell. ‘With summer only a few weeks away. You know – it doesn’t matter how old you get, it still comes as a pleasant surprise every single time.’

The exposed fellside made Simmy think about guilty secrets and how hard it would be to hide anything out here. She had grown up in Worcestershire, where there were great trees and ancient verdant banks and concealed pathways in which all manner of illicit behaviours could be conducted out of sight. Up here, a human figure would be visible for miles, witnessed by walkers who came onto the fells during every season of the year. It made her feel oddly safe, and somehow cleansed. Admittedly, violent crimes had been perpetrated close by in recent times, but mostly amongst man-made settlements, not in the wide open pikes and fells.

‘This is glorious,’ she said, throwing her arms wide. ‘How could you possibly think I could regret having come here?’

Then Bertie started yapping at something he’d found behind a large boulder and Simmy knew instantly that her sense of safety and cleanliness was about to be wrecked.

Chapter Three

‘It’s a dead dog, of all things,’ said Russell. ‘Poor creature! What can it have died of?’

‘Exhaustion?’ Simmy suggested.

‘Its people wouldn’t just leave it here, would they? They have funerals for dogs these days.’

‘It doesn’t look damaged.’ She spoke optimistically, having avoided a prolonged inspection of the corpse. ‘Does it?’

Her father was less squeamish and leant down for a closer look. ‘It’s stiff,’ he pronounced. ‘And I have an awful feeling it’s been strangled. Or had its neck broken, more like. It’s a terrier, some sort of Jack Russell. Male. Neutered.’ He was getting into his stride, reminding Simmy of young Ben Harkness and his forensic tendencies.

‘Leave it, Dad. There’s nothing we can do, is there?’

‘Seems a shame.’ Of the three Straws, only Russell had any particular feeling for dogs. Simmy and her mother found them irritating, as a general rule. He straightened and sighed. ‘But you’re right, of course. We might watch out for any lost dog notices when we get back, though.’

‘Right. We’ll do that.’ The outline of Wansfell Pike still lay ahead and above and Simmy was eager to achieve it. It was three o’clock and the afternoon would soon be waning. ‘Come on, then.’

Bertie had been hovering a few yards away, evidently discomposed by the body of a fellow canine. His relief as the people began moving again was palpable. His little legs revealed unlimited energy as he trotted ahead, the dark-sand colour of his coat camouflaged against the bare rocks. ‘Good boy,’ Russell approved, for no apparent reason.

Simmy paused to examine a small beck trickling between rocks and creating a modest pool close to the path. ‘Oh, look!’ she exclaimed. ‘Tadpoles!’ There were numerous big-headed creatures with wriggling tails visible in the clear water. Russell turned back to see, and together they watched and reminisced about occasions where they’d made homes for just such as these, waiting for them to grow legs and miraculously turn into frogs. ‘Pity we haven’t got a jar to take them home in,’ said Russell. ‘They could live in my pond.’

It was windy on top of Wansfell. Simmy breathed the untainted air and turned in a slow circle. Windermere was spread out below them, to the south-west, its entire length plain to see. Rocky ridges were visible in a rippling pattern, rising and falling into the far distance. The one to the north had a stone wall running along its brow. Patches of surviving forest lined the edges of the lake. ‘Wow!’ she gasped. ‘This is amazing!’ She pulled her camera from the shoulder bag and spent ten minutes setting up her shots. Photography was something she had always taken seriously, but had given little time to in the past few years. Her husband had given her an expensive ‘bridge’ camera, during her pregnancy, saying she would have to capture every passing moment of their child’s early life. Remembering those words had made using the camera impossible for at least a year after the baby was lost.

She set it to monochrome, on a whim, recalling early Lakeland pictures where the shapes and misty gradations had managed to reveal more than bright colours would have done.

Russell waited contentedly, the dog flopping down at his side. ‘Did you bring the mint cake?’ he asked.

‘I most certainly did. A whole slab each.’

‘We’ll need it, if we’re to take in Baystones. It’s a bit windy, but I think you’ll like it.’

‘Um …?’

‘It’s this ridge, look.’ He pointed in a direction that Simmy guessed might be north. ‘It’s got that helpful stone wall to make sure we don’t get lost.’

Simmy cocked an eyebrow at the dozen or more other walkers spread across the landscape. ‘Not much risk of that,’ she judged.

‘All the same, the wall helps to keep us straight,’ he persisted. Staying on the subject, he went on, ‘Then we double back, meeting Nanny Lane again at the point where we branched off. All quite simple.’

‘If we carried on from here, we’d come to Ambleside, right?’ Simmy remembered an evening several months earlier, spent in a large house close to the spot where the path emerged onto an Ambleside street. She had been curious about how everything connected up ever since then.

‘Right. But we don’t wanna do that, do we? We’d end up without any transport.’ He mimicked a TV quizmaster whose name Simmy had forgotten, and she laughed obligingly.

‘Another time,’ she agreed equably.

The sense of being on top of the world continued all along the ridge, following a path that was barely visible at times, and which at one point necessitated a slippery climb up and over a broken wall. Russell’s pace was slowing, Simmy noticed. Eventually they came to a small cairn that Russell said marked the top of Baystones. ‘Stones – geddit?’ he smiled, still with the transatlantic accent. ‘We’re at the furthest point of the path here. We need to turn back towards the village and find this lane, look.’ He prodded his map, which to Simmy’s amateurish eye looked to be covered in confusing dotted lines that doubled back on themselves and traversed ominous scribbles that indicated rocky terrain.

‘Lead the way,’ she invited trustingly.

The way turned out to be less straightforward than anticipated, and despite being able to see Troutbeck below them, the actual detail of how to get there became unclear. When they found themselves in an oozing bog with thick, brown sludge covering their shoes, they both knew a moment of panic. ‘Lucky it’s not Dartmoor,’ panted Russell. ‘We’d be swallowed up, never to be seen again.’

A few determined strides saw them back on drier ground, and a more obvious path visible ahead. ‘Must have lost the track for a minute,’ said Russell apologetically. ‘We’ll be more careful from here on.’ He looked pale, Simmy noticed, and was moving more slowly. They had been out far longer than she had expected, and climbed more steeply. She couldn’t remember a more demanding walk – and yet it was known to be one of the more gentle examples in the area.

Still, there was no choice but to carry on, and the ground sloped reassuringly downwards as they headed in the direction of the village, with the final section of Nanny Lane almost uncomfortably steep. Bertie gave himself up to the temptation to scamper down the hill, scenting the end of his marathon. ‘The old chap’s survived his long walk pretty well,’ laughed Russell. ‘Better than his aged master, anyway.’

‘I still think he’ll have sore feet tomorrow.’

‘I doubt it. He’s bred to this place, after all.’

‘Unlike either of us. I have a feeling we’ve both overdone it.’

‘Not at all. It’s just what we needed,’ he protested.

‘What’s in that bag, do you think?’ She changed the subject abruptly as they rounded a bend in the track and found themselves following a man carrying a bulky black plastic sack. It was an incongruous sight, where walkers wore backpacks or canvas satchels.

‘I have no idea,’ said Russell quickly; but Simmy had already conceived a suspicion. Something about the obvious weight of the bag, the way it was held slightly away from the man’s legs, and – most conclusively – the interest Bertie was showing in it, led to an inescapable conclusion.

‘It’s that dead dog, isn’t it?’ she muttered. ‘He’s been up and collected it.’

‘Could be. What if it is?’

From the back, the man was unidentifiable. His clothes were unfamiliar, but Simmy was not generally very observant of people’s garments. She thought she would recognise any permanent resident of Troutbeck, perhaps even from behind. But she was too tired to try to catch up and overtake the man, so as to see his face.

Then fate stepped in. The man was clearly irritated by Bertie’s attentions, and moved sideways in an effort to avoid him. His foot landed on a patch of slippery mud, and slid from under him. In a second he was almost horizontal, one side of his body propped against the stone wall bordering the track, the black bag still held tightly. A wordless cry escaped him, and Bertie sidled away with a guilty expression.

‘Uh-oh,’ said Russell and went to assist. ‘Bertie, that was all your fault.’

The man was up on his feet before Russell or Simmy could reach him. His right side was generously coated with dark-brown mud, which appeared to be the only damage. ‘Are you okay?’ asked Russell.

Simmy had a good look at his face, as it twisted in disgust and fury. It was the same man she had seen standing outside the pub, a few hours earlier. Weathered skin, beard and penetrating brown eyes. He had donned a greasy-looking hat for his fellside walk, and his clothes had apparently not been especially clean even before his fall into the unfortunate patch of mud. ‘Bad luck,’ she said to him. ‘There must be a spring just here, making it so boggy. The rest of the track’s almost dry.’

‘Yeah, well,’ he said. At least he wasn’t going to make wild accusations against Bertie, she concluded.

‘Have you got far to go?’ asked Russell, sounding hopelessly patronising. ‘Before you can get dry, I mean.’

Simmy hoped fervently that her father wouldn’t invite the man to her cottage to get clean. It was definitely within the bounds of possibility that he would, giving no thought to the consequences. However protective he might wish to be of his daughter, his old-fashioned notions of trust and good fellowship could easily lead her into jeopardy. The man could make a mental note of her few valuable possessions and come back later to steal them. At the very least, he would learn more about her than she wanted him to.

But the danger passed. ‘I’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’ And he loped off, still holding the sinister black bag.

Russell’s car was waiting at the pub, and Simmy invited her father to tea and cake at her cottage. They would drive the few hundred yards, relieved at having no more need to walk. ‘Call Mum and tell her we accomplished our mission,’ she suggested.

‘You think she’ll be worrying? Which one of us is more likely to cause her anxiety, then?’

‘Me, obviously.’ But her father was over seventy and inclined to portliness. Despite all his brave talk, such walks were so infrequent as to present quite a significant physical challenge. Simmy herself had suffered broken bones shortly before Christmas, and still regarded herself as slightly fragile.

‘We’ll do it all again next weekend,’ he said recklessly. ‘I could get used to this.’

‘No, we won’t. I’m happy to explore with you now and then, but I’m not making four-mile hikes a weekly routine,’ she protested.

‘I thought you said you wanted to get outdoors more.’

‘I do. But not a whole afternoon every weekend. I’d get jaded.’

‘Jaded! With all this around us.’ He waved an all-embracing arm at the pikes and fells and howes on every side. ‘We’d never see a hundredth of it, if we went out every Sunday for the next ten years.’

‘It’s lovely, I know,’ she conceded.

‘But …?’ he prompted.

‘But a little goes a long way.’ She felt mean and obstructive. The walk had been a delight in every way, apart from the dead dog. Her father’s company was undemanding in general and more than agreeable much of the time. It made no sense to live in Cumbria and fail to make full use of the opportunities it provided. Perhaps she was too influenced by Melanie who was twenty and regarded the open uplands surrounding her as nothing more than a draw for tourists and a pleasing backdrop to the more urban features of the region. Melanie never walked if she could avoid it, and valued human beings and all their works as the only really meaningful things in life.

Ben Harkness was more complicated. He had an adolescent passion for the vistas and planes of the natural world, eager to render the landscape into words and drawings. Ben was a lad of many skills, and felt constrained to exercise them all as far as was humanly possible. His mother had led family excursions onto the fells from his earliest days and he had no fear of the wilderness. Ben’s problem was that there was never enough time for all the claims on his attention. A precocious student, he was deeply into sixth-form studies, competing as much with himself as with any fellow pupils. His ambition, conceived within days of first meeting Simmy and witnessing a murder, was to become a forensic anthropologist. A dedication to the TV series Bones had a great deal to answer for in this matter. Almost effortlessly, he had found himself a place on the most eminent university course for such studies, due to commence in a year’s time when he would be almost nineteen. He had even landed a provisional agreement to accept him onto a postgraduate programme in America, several years down the line.

‘At my age,’ Russell began, rather ponderously, ‘there is no sense in such a sentiment. There can never be too much of a good thing. Seize the day and all that. I could break my hip at any moment and be confined to the lowlands forever after.’

‘You’re not going to break your hip,’ Simmy said, thinking she had come close to doing exactly that herself not so long ago. ‘Take Mum instead of me sometimes. She’ll be feeling left out if you’re not careful.’

‘Your mother – as you very well know – has little patience for this sort of thing. She regards walking as a bygone means of transport, to be used only in cases of dire necessity. And she’s always too busy, anyway,’ he complained.

‘Cake,’ said Simmy decisively. ‘And stop trying to plan everything in advance. If we’re seizing the day, then let’s just be happy we had such a lovely afternoon.’

She let them into her cottage, eyeing Bertie’s feet critically. Russell noticed and defended his pet. ‘He’s perfectly clean,’ he said.

‘Has that family with the twins gone now? And the other couples?’ asked Simmy, when they were settled in her kitchen. She was referring to the bed-and-breakfast guests who had filled her parents’ house in Windermere to bursting. Although busy throughout the year, the real season began at Easter, with a relentless stream of customers to be expected until October. Simmy made no attempt to follow the endlessly changing names and family compositions, but some stood out of the crowd and made themselves memorable.

‘The twins left this morning, thank the Lord,’ he nodded. ‘The rest have another three days, and there’s another lot due on Wednesday. I’m supposed to be helping with sheets when I get home. And tomorrow I’m destined for the cash and carry.’

‘I’m not expecting many orders for flowers this week. I can do some work on the tax return. I like to get it done early.’

Russell shrugged. Tax was a topic he implacably refused to discuss. If pushed, he would laugh and claim that he and Angie just made up the numbers and hoped for the best. ‘I don’t think we’re cheating anybody,’ he would add.

‘They’ll put you in prison one of these days,’ Simmy warned. ‘And you won’t like that.’

‘It would be an interesting experience. Besides, I’d just put all the blame on your mother. She does the books.’

‘I really did enjoy the walk, Dad.’ She was feeling that perhaps he’d gained a different impression. ‘It was all wonderful, apart from that poor dog. Do you think it belonged to that man? If so, how did he know where to find it? And why was it up on the fells in the first place?’

‘I’ve been wondering the same thing. Could be somebody mentioned it to him, and he went off to find it. It did seem to be the sort of dog a man like him would have.’

‘But you thought it had been deliberately killed. That might lead to a whole lot of trouble, if the man knows who did it. He looked as if he’d make a worrying enemy.’ Again she winced at the thought of the bearded individual being invited into her house. ‘I thought you might offer him my facilities to get himself cleaned up.’

‘I nearly did,’ Russell admitted. ‘I didn’t think there was anything objectionable about him.’

‘I’m probably being prejudiced,’ she said. ‘But I thought he was actually rather unsavoury.’

‘You could talk to your friendly local detective about him,’ her father suggested. ‘After all, it’s illegal to go around murdering dogs. It might be a useful clue in something they’re already working on.’

‘I can think of at least five reasons for not doing that. First, I don’t even know if he’s back at work after what happened at Coniston. It’s only about six weeks ago, after all. Second, he’s much too senior to take an interest. And he’s not mine in any sense at all. I don’t think I like him much, as I keep telling you.’

‘Like him or not, you’re connected. And he likes you. You shouldn’t upset him – he might come in useful one day.’

DI Moxon had not yet proved useful to Simmy in any way she could think of. He had drawn her into no fewer than three murder investigations since her arrival in Cumbria, and however irrational it might be, she blamed him for the resulting unpleasantness. Her involvement had arisen each time from an innocent flower delivery – deliveries that frequently turned out to be considerably less innocent than first assumed. All the detective inspector had done was follow up leads, request witness statements and do his best to provide protection. But still the associations persisted, and Simmy failed to discern within herself a responding affection to that which he plainly felt for her.

‘He won’t,’ she told her father. ‘However could he, anyway? All he does is upset me and get me into trouble.’

‘Poor man,’ sighed Russell. ‘You’re a cruel woman.’

‘You could drop into the police station in Bowness on your way home, I suppose,’ she continued, ignoring the jibe. ‘You can describe the dog better than I can, anyway.’

‘And while I’m at it, I could tell them about the suspicious men at the pub.’

She blinked. ‘I’d completely forgotten about them. Don’t, Dad. It probably wasn’t anything at all sinister. Leave it. And don’t forget to phone Mum.’

He smiled patiently at her and took the phone that Simmy produced from the pocket of her weatherproof jacket hanging on the back of a chair.

Chapter Four

Tuesday morning at Persimmon Petals in Windermere began as quietly as Simmy had expected it to. Melanie had important college assignments to finish and job applications to complete, which meant her attendance at the shop was more sporadic than usual. Simmy had little difficulty in coping unaided, with only one urgent order for flowers waiting on the computer when she opened the shop. A lady by the name of Cynthia Mossop living in Staveley was having a birthday the next day. It would be relatively simple to make up the bouquet last thing on Tuesday and deliver the flowers before work the next day. She had performed similar logistical miracles many times before. Other orders were for later in the week.

And then, to her surprise, Melanie came into the shop at ten o’clock. Behind her, like a shy little dog, came a fair-haired girl about half Melanie’s size.

‘Come on, she won’t hurt you,’ Mel urged impatiently. ‘This is Bonnie,’ she told Simmy without preamble. ‘She wants my job after I leave.’

Simmy eyed the newcomer with her characteristic goodwill. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘Pleased to meet you, Bonnie.’

‘She’s a friend of my sister’s, actually. She was thinking of going into hairdressing, but she’s allergic to the chemicals or something.’

‘How old are you?’ Simmy asked, thinking the girl couldn’t possibly be over fifteen.

‘Seventeen,’ came a breathy reply. ‘And a quarter.’

‘Are you still at school?’

‘Sort of. We finish this term. I’m not going in much at the moment. My aunt says I need to get a job for the summer.’

‘Just for the summer? What’s happening after that?’

Bonnie shrugged. ‘Dunno, really. I might want to stay here – if you take me on, that is. I’m not good enough for college. Won’t get many GCSEs. Just art and English if I’m lucky.’ Her shoulders hunched again, in a forlorn demonstration of low self-esteem.

Simmy looked at Melanie and raised her eyebrows. ‘What do you know about flowers?’

Melanie answered for her protégée. ‘She knows more than I did when I started here. She’s very artistic. She just needs … you know, a bit of encouragement. You’ll get along fine together, trust me.’

Simmy’s instincts were sending confusing messages. The girl was so small and colourless, so silent and somehow sad that any risk of hurting her feelings was terrifying. Such a little mouse would require constant care. But Melanie’s people skills were not to be dismissed. Her burgeoning loyalty to Simmy was such that she had repeatedly expressed an intention to find a successor for when she left. And it was a relief to be handed someone on a plate, without a string of interviews and hard decisions.

‘Bonnie’s an unusual name,’ she ventured. ‘Is it short for something?’

The girl shook her head, with a very small sigh. ‘No – it’s from Gone with the Wind. You know – the little girl who dies. My mum and dad were mad about that film around the time I was born.’

‘I see.’ It struck Simmy as not a little macabre to choose the name of a dead child for their own baby. And lost babies were always going to be a very sensitive matter for Simmy, who had suffered a stillbirth herself and had no other offspring.

Melanie was closely monitoring every word and nuance. ‘Give her a try, Sim. Why not? She can come in every day this week as a trial run, if you like.’

‘You’ll need to handle money and the computer, and write messages on the cards, and take orders,’ Simmy rattled off briskly. ‘Can you manage all that sort of thing?’

Bonnie met her gaze with a sudden directness. ‘I can write, if that’s what you mean. And count,’ she added. ‘I pick things up quickly.’

‘She’s not stupid,’ Melanie summarised. ‘It’s just she’s not too good at exams and pressure and that stuff.’ She tilted her head and Simmy had the impression there was a lot more she needed to know, but that Melanie couldn’t disclose it in Bonnie’s presence.

‘I had anorexia,’ Bonnie supplied for herself. ‘It got really bad last year. I missed a lot of school. That’s why I’m older than the rest of Year Eleven. I’m all right now. It’s not been decided about A-levels yet. I might go to a college to do them.’

The tiny figure suddenly made a lot more sense. She must weigh barely six stone, Simmy guessed. The translucent skin and wispy hair confirmed the story and compounded Simmy’s urge to take this little thing to her bosom. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘That must have been grim.’

‘She’ll tell you all about it, I expect,’ said Melanie, who seemed almost painfully robust in comparison to Bonnie. ‘She’s had loads of counselling and stuff, so she understands all about it now.’

‘I’m not going to pry,’ said Simmy, rather stiffly.

‘So you’ll take me, then?’ Again, the girl met Simmy’s eyes with none of the initial shyness. It was already becoming clear that there was more to Bonnie than might at first appear.

‘If Melanie recommends you, I wouldn’t dream of arguing.’

All three exhaled, as if an important and difficult problem had been finally resolved. Which it had, Simmy supposed.

‘So, how was your Bank Holiday?’ Melanie asked, with an alert look that suggested she had something of her own to impart on the subject.

‘Restful, mostly,’ said Simmy. ‘I walked up to Wansfell Pike with my father. And then along a ridge to a pile of stones. We saw a dead dog,’ she added, for no discernible reason. ‘And my dad heard two men planning a crime.’ She laughed at their expressions. ‘Actually, I don’t suppose it was anything suspicious, but he got quite excited about it.’

‘Oh no! Had the dead dog been shot?’ The question came from Bonnie, whose blue eyes were wide with outrage. ‘Those farmers are much too quick to use their guns, if they think their sheep are going to be chased.’

‘No, no.’ She could hardly add strangled, actually, for fear of further alarming the girl. ‘There wasn’t any blood on it. But it was quite a nasty surprise. As my dad said, people don’t just abandon their dogs when they die. Some of them hold real funerals, apparently.’

‘Course they don’t,’ scoffed Melanie. ‘What a daft idea!’

‘They do,’ Bonnie assured her. Then she asked Simmy, ‘What sort was it?’

‘Some sort of terrier. Jack Russell, maybe.’ Simmy was vague about dog breeds. ‘White and brown, with shortish legs.’

‘What did your dad hear, then?’ asked Melanie. ‘Were these men crouching behind a rock on Wansfell?’

‘No, they were at the pub in Troutbeck, and then they drove away in a red car. There was a boy in the back, as well,’ she added, on a sudden thought.

‘What?’

‘They said he could be the lookout. That’s the bit that does sound rather suspicious.’

Bonnie was shifting restlessly from foot to foot. ‘My aunt breeds dogs,’ she said. ‘Or she used to, until a little while ago. She absolutely adored them. But things have got difficult, lately. There’s a gang of dognappers working in this area.’ Her face tightened. ‘Sounds as if you might have got them in Troutbeck now.’

‘Lucky I haven’t got a dog, then,’ said Simmy lightly.

‘I didn’t know you weren’t breeding any more,’ Melanie said to Bonnie. ‘It was bringing in some useful cash, wasn’t it?’

Simmy recalled hearing of a farmer near Coniston who was making thousands of pounds a year from Border terriers. ‘I gather it can be lucrative,’ she said.

‘When it works,’ Bonnie nodded. ‘A lot can go wrong.’

‘Like my father’s Lakeland terrier. He ended up in a rescue because he wasn’t right for breeding.’

‘Too right,’ Melanie said darkly. She was fighting a recurring battle with her mother over a rescue dog that had failed to come up to expectations. Mrs Todd wanted to send it back, and Melanie was trying to convince her that it was irresponsible to keep adopting dogs for a few months only to reject them in the end. It pained Melanie more every time it happened, but she was helpless to prevent it. ‘As far as I can see, there are already way too many dogs in the world.’

‘You can’t generalise,’ said Bonnie diffidently. ‘Some are in huge demand and some end up in rescues. There’s not much connection between the two.’

Simmy had nothing more to contribute to the conversation. She wished she’d had the sense to stay off the subject. ‘What about you?’ she asked Melanie. ‘The Bank Holiday weekend, I mean.’