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- Herausgeber: Allison & Busby
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Serie: Lake District Mysteries
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
Spring has brought many new beginnings into the world of florist Persimmon 'Simmy' Brown. Not only has her baby arrived, but she and her fiancé Christopher have moved to the historic village of Hartsop in the Lake District - and they still intend to say their vows before the height of summer. But when a former acquaintance of Christopher's reminds him of a promise he made a decade previously, their lives soon take a sinister - and deadly - turn. Yet even with a young baby to consider Simmy cannot ignore her instinct to investigate, especially with the personal link to her soon-to-be husband. Ably assisted by her would-be detective friend Ben, can Simmy puzzle out this reckoning from the past and protect her family in time for the wedding bells to chime?
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The Ullswater Undertaking
REBECCA TOPE
With thanks to Pat who almost single-handedly saw me through the horrors of 2020
Contents
Author’s Note
The villages and towns in this story are real but the individual houses and the saleroom in Keswick are invented. I do not entirely vouch for the accuracy of the bus schedules.
Chapter One
Four in the morning in the middle of April was not at all a bad time to be awake, Simmy was discovering. At the age of eighteen days, little Robin was adamant that he had to be fed at this very hour and his mother had no wish to disappoint him. The hours when he was asleep felt like wasted time to her, in the first flush of euphoric disbelief at his very existence. The birth had been ridiculously quick and easy, reaching the hospital in Barrow with barely ten minutes to spare, before sliding him out with scarcely a yelp. ‘Classic second labour,’ said the midwife knowingly. Simmy had flinched at this reminder, sorry that these would be the first words the new baby was to hear.
A boy! A living, breathing, flourishing boy, weighing nine pounds and apparently pleased to find himself in the world. Christopher, his father, had been almost as incapable as Simmy was of believing he was real. ‘Well, the Hendersons are good at boys,’ he said. Two more ghosts joined that of Simmy’s first baby – the new child would have no Henderson grandparents.
It took them all day to select the baby’s name, and then it seemed destined and obvious and permanent. Not only a subtle homage to the Winnie-the-Pooh books, but other agreeable associations. ‘A robin’s a lovely little bird,’ said Simmy.
‘Not to mention Robin Goodfellow,’ said Simmy’s father, when the decision was conveyed to him. ‘That should ensure that he keeps you on your toes. I believe he was actually a hobgoblin.’
‘Thanks, Dad,’ laughed Simmy.
‘Basically it’s just a really nice name,’ said the new father. ‘And we do owe my friend Robin several favours. He worked his socks off trying to find us somewhere to live. He’ll think we’ve named our son after him.’
‘“Our son”,’ Simmy repeated with a soppy smile, quashing the flicker of regret at having the man for ever connected to the baby. She’d forgotten all about Mr Robin Stirling, the estate agent.
Now Christopher was asleep, Simmy was settled into the cosy nursing chair her father had bought her and Robin was placidly suckling. Saturday would be under way before long, and Chris would have to spend a long day auctioning off 750 lots at his workplace in Keswick. The auction house had survived its moment of notoriety the previous year when it sold a piece of Tudor embroidery for a headline-making sum, and was hurtling from one success to another, with income from commissions rocketing up. People from all over the world were spending incredible sums on quality antiques and random collections of memorabilia from house clearances – a situation, Christopher insisted, that would only get bigger and better in the coming years.
Even if the Chinese economy floundered, there were Americans, Japanese, Indians and even newly affluent Africans eager to buy goods that had originated from their countries. They wanted them back and were willing to pay whatever it took.
Outside it was windy. The building was not yet quite weatherproof in some parts, having been built as a large stone barn some two hundred years previously. There had been a very hasty conversion undergone over the winter months, creating an upper storey, staircase and fully fitted kitchen and bathroom. Other rooms were still a work in progress, with walls unplastered and floors uncovered.
Robin the elder, friend of Christopher, had valiantly handled the sale of Simmy’s Troutbeck cottage, selling it for more than the original asking price, two weeks before Christmas. It had been on the market a mere ten days. ‘Of course, he’ll get a good share of the commission,’ Simmy reminded Christopher when he showed signs of going overboard with his gratitude. Try as she might, she wasn’t entirely able to like the man. Giving her baby his name had been an accident, on that first day. She’d been thinking almost entirely about cheerful little birds. And Robin Stirling had not after all found them a place to live. The barn had been – incredibly – just given to them by a woman in a rush to escape the area and all it meant to her. As a result they had more money than Simmy had ever thought possible, just sitting in a pathetically low interest bank account.
Dawn was breaking, pink-tinged clouds racing across the fells, driven by the wind. Outside was the tiny settlement of Hartsop, a few miles south of Patterdale, itself another short distance from Ullswater and Glenridding. Simmy had never before seen it in spring, and the experience was intoxicating. She was working up a routine of bundling the baby into a sling and walking a mile or two along a rough track that ran alongside the beck to the southern tip of the lake. The first such walk had been on Robin’s eighth day, and Simmy had managed almost a mile, feeling light-headed with responsibility for the little life tied on her front, as well as exhilaration at this new phase of her life. She had repeated the walk three more times since then. Christopher worried that she would slip and fall, with Robin altering her centre of gravity. Before they’d moved here he had repeatedly insisted they get a dog. Now, with all this walking, it made even more sense. ‘A golden retriever,’ he begged. ‘Or an Irish setter.’
‘I can’t cope with a dog just yet,’ she always prevaricated. ‘Maybe in the summer.’
The walking was growing more important to her with every passing week. Once she had got as far as the pub in Patterdale, taking almost an hour to gather her strength for the return walk and feeding the baby quietly in a corner. She could not see how a dog would enhance this experience. An Irish setter would run across the road and get killed. A retriever would want her to throw sticks for it. A terrier would chase sheep and a spaniel would get under her feet.
It was a precious interlude, which she knew couldn’t last. Her flower shop down in Windermere was still functioning, with young Bonnie Lawson stepping up magnificently and a temporary woman brought in to help. That had been quite a moment, when Verity Chambers had come into their lives. In her fifties, with a broad Cumbrian accent, she was reassuringly compliant and co-operative. She let a girl less than half her age order her about with apparent contentment, never arguing or complaining. ‘It’s a miracle!’ Bonnie insisted. ‘I can’t get used to it at all. Ben says it’s all an act and she’s just biding her time before she takes over the whole business.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Simmy. ‘She’s just happy to let somebody else carry all the responsibility.’
‘But she does talk far too much, most of it total nonsense,’ Bonnie added.
Verity knew more than enough about flowers to be an asset in the shop. But when it came to taking orders, with the timing often quite crucial, she was useless. Bonnie forbade her from answering the phone under any circumstances, or from going anywhere near the computer. But she could drive and knew her way around the region, so she could be sent out with deliveries. Bonnie still showed no sign of learning to drive.
Christopher woke shortly before seven to find Simmy and his son dozing together in the chair on the other side of the very large bedroom. Simmy had insisted on sitting by the big new window when she fed the baby because it looked out on a most spectacular view. ‘Hey, you two, come back to bed,’ he called.
‘Not worth it now,’ she said. ‘Young Sir is dead to the world. I’ll go and do us some eggs. My mother’s coming later on, when she’s finished the breakfasts.’
‘I remember.’ He got out of bed and joined them. ‘Looks like a nice day.’
‘I watched the sunrise. It was very pink. Shepherd’s warning.’
‘April showers, that’s all.’ He bent over them. ‘He’s going to look like my dad, isn’t he? Same neat little features.’
‘Too soon to say,’ said Simmy. ‘I can see my mother in him every now and then.’
‘She’ll be pleased about that.’
‘She’s just pleased, full stop.’ Angie Straw’s relief at the safe arrival of her only grandchild had been startling to them all. For a whole day, she simply wept, as if a tap had got stuck in the ‘on’ position. Her husband had walked her round the streets of Barrow in an effort to distract her, but in vain. She had rushed back to the maternity ward to check that she hadn’t dreamt the whole thing.
Christopher left home at half past seven for the auction house in Keswick. The drive could take a full half hour if there was tourist traffic on the little road up to the A66. Already, since Easter, the volume of slow-moving cars was growing. The bidding didn’t start until nine-thirty, and Simmy never quite understood why he factored in so much time beforehand.
But she was too busy to worry on this particular Saturday. ‘I’m going to paint some doors,’ she announced. ‘Humphrey’s going to be here just for a bit, getting everything ready for the dining-room wall. He says I’ve made a lot of extra work, insisting on it being double thickness. He’s calling it the Big Undertaking, which I think he thinks is funny.’
‘I don’t expect he really minds the extra work. He can see the logic.’
‘I can’t understand why he ever thought a flimsy partition would be good enough.’
‘He’s lucky we’re not making him build it of natural stone, like the outer ones.’
Simmy grew thoughtful. ‘Did we even think of that?’ Despite her best efforts, the distractions of pregnancy, timings and inconvenient weather had forced them to take the quick and easy options in many instances. Christopher had shown little interest in the finer details. ‘I just want somewhere for us to live,’ he kept saying.
Now he said, ‘Too slow and much too expensive. Personally, I think you can have too much natural stone. It’s not as if we live in the Cotswolds, where it’s so much nicer than what they dig out up here.’
‘Sacrilege!’ she scolded him. ‘Anyway, I thought I might do a bit of paintwork upstairs, while Robin has his morning nap.’
‘You should let them do it, you idiot. That’s what they’re for.’
‘Not at all. They’re builders, not painters. And I like doing it.’
Christopher worried that paint fumes would be bad for his baby, or that somehow Simmy’s milk would be tainted. The entire Straw family mocked him for such needless worries. Once Robin had convinced them that he intended to live and thrive, they began to entertain very few anxieties. It was as if they’d used them all up before the birth, and now it was perfectly obvious that nothing could go wrong. Even Russell, who had slipped into a state of near paranoia in recent times, appeared to be cured of that condition now. He blithely approved of Simmy taking the child out in all weathers, of putting him near open windows or leaving him for ten minutes in the car. ‘That’s the way to do it,’ he yodelled. ‘Bring him up tough.’
Simmy spent forty minutes painting a door frame before Robin stirred. Angie arrived at eleven, to find her daughter and grandson nestled in the new kitchen. The room had been planned to resemble that of an old farmhouse. It lacked an Aga or Rayburn but had an area at one end with easy chairs and a carpet close to a radiator that was not yet functional. Christopher frequently made the point that it was a perfect spot for a dog bed.
‘Guess what,’ Angie crowed. ‘I’ve just broken a taboo. It was intensely satisfying.’
‘Oh?’
‘Facial hair on women, to be exact. Have you any idea how embarrassing people find that? It’s hilarious, especially in these days of so-called gender fluidity. I noticed this morning that I was getting a bit stubbly, and I said to one of the guests, as she was going out, “Wouldn’t it be great if society would allow women to grow beards?” Honestly – she didn’t know where to look.’ She laughed gleefully. ‘And your father was fantastic. He came up to me and stroked my chin, and said, “I think I might quite fancy that.” Made it all worse for the wretched woman, of course. She’s the type to spend half her money at a beauty clinic.’
‘She won’t be coming back to Beck View in a hurry, then,’ said Simmy.
‘I don’t care. It was worth it to see her face. I’m going to make a habit of it from now on.’
‘Don’t you dare,’ said Simmy.
An hour passed in baby-worship, coffee, idle chat. ‘Are you staying for lunch?’ Simmy asked, at midday.
‘I am – didn’t I say? Or we could go to the pub. Your father says he’ll come up on the bus this afternoon. We can go and meet him. He was thinking we’d have to fetch him from Pooley Bridge, because that’s been the end of the line for the bus since they started those diversions, but it’s running normally again now. I left him compiling a long list of stuff to get from the cash and carry. We’ll go together on the way home.’
‘He won’t be staying long, then. Why didn’t he come with you this morning?’
‘He wasn’t ready. He’d spent ages going over maps with one of the guests and was all behind. And there were beds to change for this evening.’
‘Poor Dad,’ said Simmy regretfully. The demands of the popular bed and breakfast establishment were more and more burdensome, getting in the way of family matters now that Simmy lived so much further away. ‘The bus takes ages.’
‘He likes it. There’s always somebody to chat to. If he really minded, he’d get another car. We don’t have to manage with just one if we don’t want to.’
‘Except you haven’t got space for two. One of them would have to live out in the road.’
‘So what?’
Simmy shrugged. ‘So nothing, I suppose. But I don’t think Dad would like it.’
‘Lucky he likes the bus, then.’
They were going round in circles, but Simmy was made aware of a shift in the triangular dynamic of her family. She had always favoured her father, joking with him, reading his thoughts, sharing his preoccupations. But since the baby, her mother had grown much closer, with a new softness that surprised them all, including Angie herself. It was, of course, a cliché that the arrival of a baby brought the generations together. The surprise was that the maverick Angie Straw should conform to anything so objectionable as a cliché.
They did not go to the pub but had a simple lunch, while Humphrey and his young assistant measured and marked, and started placing battens for the new wall. ‘I love all these smells,’ said Angie. ‘Paint and new wood. It takes me back to when your father and I had to have the floors replaced in our first flat.’
‘It’s nice having the builders here, now Christopher’s back at work. I might get a bit panicky all day on my own, otherwise.’
‘You’ll have to get over that,’ said Angie briskly. ‘The builders won’t be here for ever.’
‘I know they won’t. And they’re not here all day every day as it is. I just wish there were a few more neighbours, I suppose. Proper ones, not second-homers or holiday people.’
‘People are people,’ said Angie vaguely. ‘If you were in a pickle, you could just go to the door and shout, and a dozen hikers would run to your rescue.’
‘True,’ said Simmy, wondering what that would actually be like.
The phone rang shortly before two. ‘It’ll be your father with a change of plan,’ said Angie. ‘He always uses the landline.’ This was a slightly sore point between the two households. When the Hartsop house had requested the installation of Wi-Fi and Sky, an inevitable part of the package had been a fixed telephone line. Christopher had queried it, saying they could function quite well with mobiles, and there had ensued a lengthy harangue about signal reliability and system flexibility, which overrode any objections. ‘It can’t hurt, I suppose,’ said Simmy. Like her mother, she actually preferred using the time-honoured instrument, which was always sitting there on its stand, easy to find and easy to use.
But it wasn’t Russell calling. It was a strange voice, asking for Christopher Henderson. ‘He’s not here, I’m afraid,’ said Simmy.
‘Ah. Well, tell him I called, will you? My name’s Fabian Crick – got that? He’ll remember me. Tell him I’ve come to remind him of his promise to me.’
Simmy shivered slightly. ‘Promise?’ she echoed.
‘Right. It was a while ago now, but he won’t have forgotten. Your husband, or whatever he is, owes me big time. He made an undertaking, ten years ago now, and I’ve come to make good on it. You tell him that.’
Simmy said nothing, but before she could end the call, there was a final remark. ‘Oh yes – and tell him I’m living in Ullswater now. Just up the road, in fact.’
‘Who was that?’ asked Angie.
‘Um … somebody who knew Christopher some time ago. He didn’t sound very friendly.’ She frowned worriedly. ‘And he says he lives just up the road.’
‘I dare say Christopher knows quite a few shady characters, one way or another,’ said Angie, as if that was perfectly fine with her. ‘I’m sure he can handle them. Nothing for you to worry about.’
‘I hope not,’ said Simmy, eyeing her baby son on his grandmother’s lap. ‘We need to go and meet Dad from the bus. It’s due in ten minutes, isn’t it? Then we can all go for a stroll through the village together.’
‘Good idea. You’ll need to wrap the little one up warm, though. There’s quite a nasty little wind today.’
The bus was prompt, and Russell was the only passenger to alight at the Hartsop stop, to nobody’s surprise, despite it being a pleasant spring weekend. Tourists might be constantly urged to use buses wherever possible, but the schedules did little to entice anyone to comply. A walk on the fells would be rendered far less relaxing if imbued with worry about missing the only bus back to the hotel or B&B. Hartsop boasted a fair-sized car park at the foot of the Dodd, and almost everyone gratefully used it.
‘Hello, my lad,’ Russell greeted Robin, who was asleep. ‘Enjoying the fresh air, are you?’
‘He’s due to wake up any minute now,’ said Simmy.
Russell nudged his wife. ‘Who knew that sleeping could run so beautifully to schedule?’ he teased. ‘If I remember rightly, we had no such expectations when we had our infant.’
‘I don’t suppose it’ll last,’ said Angie.
They all strolled down the winding little road that was the centre of Hartsop, remarking on the bluebells and celandines that grew on any available patch of uncultivated land. There were stone walls separating the few houses from the road, with narrow grass verges fringing them. In April these verges exuberantly sported wild flowers, if allowed to. Above them the dramatic conical hill known as Hartsop Dodd cast a shadow. ‘It reminds me of The Old Man of Coniston,’ said Simmy. ‘Except it has a lot less character. But they both loom over the settlement as if humanity was just a minor intrusion on the grander scale of things.’
‘That’s my girl,’ said Russell cheerfully. ‘Seeing the bigger picture. I must say I’m glad you moved here. It’s opened up a whole new area for me to explore.’
Angie sighed. ‘You’re both bonkers. If you look more closely, you can see humanity crawling all over that hill, leaving tracks and scaring the sheep.’
‘And I suppose the sheep are only there because of humanity, anyway,’ Simmy said.
‘Right,’ Russell confirmed. ‘Without them, the whole landscape would be covered in trees. Once you realise that, it completely changes how you see the fells. They’re like someone with a shaven head. It’s not natural.’
It was a recurring debate across the whole region – whether or not sheep had always been there, running wild and eating baby trees, or whether they had been artificially introduced, thereby destroying the essential harmonies and systems that nature intended. There were plenty of voices raised in favour of bare uplands, claiming they favoured certain birds and butterflies that would not prosper if there was nothing but trees everywhere. Russell Straw tended to the anti-sheep argument, but he insisted that he remained open-minded on the subject. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘we all know the sheep aren’t going anywhere.’
They went back to the house for a drink, while Russell rhapsodised about the winding road from Windermere, and how it got worse and worse after Kirkstone Pass. ‘It’s as if someone deliberately set out to play a joke on all these tourists,’ he chuckled. ‘The stone walls look as if they move in the night, just to trick everybody.’
‘A cruel joke, if you ask me,’ said Simmy, who was apprehensive about driving down to her Windermere shop along that very road, in all weathers. ‘I don’t know how they navigate a bus round those awful bends.’
‘It’s only four or five miles,’ shrugged Russell. ‘After Patterdale it’s almost civilised.’
‘Which is the bit that Christopher gets to use,’ Simmy pointed out. ‘His drive to work is a dream compared to what mine’s going to be.’
‘Too late to worry about that now,’ said Angie. ‘But I suggest you make sure you keep your car serviced. Good tyres and so forth.’
The family spent a lazy couple of hours together in the barn conversion, making unrealistic plans for the summer and discussing various memorable guests at the Beck View B&B. Robin woke as predicted and entertained his grandfather for half an hour. The Straws left at four-thirty, giving Simmy a full two hours to catch up with some sleep before Christopher came home. On Angie’s firm insistence, she took the baby to bed with her, feeling as if she was breaking at least three cast-iron laws. As she drifted into sleep, she remembered the ominous tones of the man on the phone who was intent on meeting Christopher. What had her fiancé promised to do, and what would be the penalty for failing to have done it?
Chapter Two
‘So who’s Fabian Crick?’ Simmy remembered to ask, nearly an hour after Christopher got home. ‘He phoned here this afternoon, wanting you.’
She watched his face closely, having no idea what to expect. All she could discern was sheer astonishment. ‘Crickers? Is that who you mean? He’s dead, as far as I know. Last I saw him was in Botswana, where he was dying of sleeping sickness. A tsetse fly bit him.’
‘Seems he recovered and is living right here on your doorstep. He didn’t sound very nice.’
Christopher was lost in reminiscence, once he’d got over his surprise at the man’s continued existence. ‘It must be ten or twelve years ago, at least. We were in an overland group, doing Africa from top to bottom. He was all right, once you got to know him. A bit geeky. Probably on the spectrum, as they say now. Nearly twenty years older than me, but we shared a tent a few times because we were both solo travellers. He was pretty sick by the time we got into the Okavanga and they flew him off to a hospital somewhere. It was all rather a drama.’
Simmy waited for the story to finish, eyebrows slightly raised. Christopher went on in some bewilderment. ‘You’re telling me he called here? How would he know the number? He can’t possibly be living near here. He was in London, I think. Although I remember that his family did live in Cumbria.’
‘I’m just repeating what he said. He wants to talk to you about a promise you made – calling in a favour of some sort.’
‘Oh God!’ Christopher suddenly leant back in the chair by the radiator and stared blindly at the wall in front of him. ‘I did, didn’t I? Lord help me. He probably wants to kill me, then. We’d better bar the doors and windows.’
Simmy’s first concern was for her baby. A threatening man with a grievance against her partner was no joke. ‘You’re not serious?’ she said. ‘What about Robin?’
‘I don’t know. Let me think. Did he leave a number? What did he say exactly?’
‘I can’t remember the exact words. He didn’t sound friendly. You made him a promise and he’s coming to remind you of it. And he now lives in Ullswater. You don’t really think we should worry about him, do you?’
‘I thought he was dead. He was in pretty poor shape even before the fly bit him. Drugs, smoking like a chimney, eating nothing but junk. The medics that came for him obviously thought he’d barely survive the trip to hospital. He and I had ten minutes together in the tent, and he was raving. Something about an aunt who lived in England and needed to hear an important message from him. Honestly, it was like something from a cheap thriller. I don’t remember any details – I didn’t take it at all seriously. I mean – you promise anything to a dying person, don’t you?’
‘Some people do, evidently,’ said Simmy, recalling an instance in Grasmere where Christopher had also made a rash promise to a dying friend. ‘You especially,’ she added.
‘Oh? Maybe I do. It’s wrong, do you think?’
‘It might backfire sometimes,’ she said carefully. ‘Like it seems to have done with this Crick person.’
‘I do remember thinking the aunt sounded interesting and it might be fun to visit her next time I was up here seeing my folks.’ Again, his gaze was on the wall. ‘He called her “the ultimate entrepreneur” I remember. That caught my attention.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah. The thing is, I’d been doing a bit of dealing before that trip – buying indigenous artwork cheap on the streets and selling it for big profits. I’d been boasting about how easy it was to make money if you just found the right niche. And Crickers picked up the fact that I had people in Cumbria, the same as he did. He connected it all up – that’s how his brain worked – and told me I should visit the aunt and see if she had some words of advice for me, and to tell her he was thinking of her in his final days. All rather melodramatic, I admit, but not the sort of urgent message you’re making it sound. I thought I might as well do it, if I was in the area – but by the time I got back here, I’d completely forgotten her name, address – the whole thing. And whatever you say, the fact that I was sure he was dead made it seem a bit pointless.’
Simmy thought of wartime soldiers taking considerable trouble to visit the widows of their dead comrades to describe their final moments and wondered whether Christopher was typical of subsequent generations who disregarded such obligations. ‘You could have told her all about what happened to him. People like to have the full story when someone dies, you know.’
‘I suppose they do,’ he said doubtfully. ‘But I can’t say I saw it like that at the time. She was only an aunt, after all.’
‘The fact remains that you ignored your promise to this man, the way he sees it. And now he wants some sort of recompense.’
‘I didn’t ignore it. My plans changed. It was another three years before I came back here. Anybody would have forgotten after that time. I was young and irresponsible, I admit. I’ll be able to explain it to him. I mean – he’s damned lucky to be alive. And the aunt must have died yonks ago. He probably just wants to rub my nose in it.’
She gave him a suspicious scrutiny. ‘Are you trying to make light of it? He sounded as if it’s been building up to quite a head of resentment.’
Christopher groaned. ‘The honest truth is that I barely even knew the man. It was just my luck that I ended up being the one to watch over him while the medics struggled to get to us. Who knows what might have been happening to him in the past ten years? He might have gone completely round the bend – or the exact opposite. For all I know, he’s married with three kids and working in a bank. He might want to come round for a drink and a laugh about those crazy days in Africa. How am I supposed to know?’
She sighed. ‘Well, I think we can assume he hasn’t been living around here for very long. If he had, don’t you think he’d have found you before this? You were in the paper last year – name, job, everything. Before that, the Henderson name was out there when your father died. He obviously hasn’t been looking for you until recently.’
‘Which phone did he use?’ Christopher asked suddenly.
‘Um – the landline.’
‘So how did he get that number?’
‘They still have directory enquiries, don’t they?’
‘Do they? Did it not occur to us to go ex-directory, then?’
‘Not to me it didn’t. I quite like being available at the end of a phone.’
‘Did he leave a number for me to call back?’
‘No, but you can get it with 1471. Nobody’s called since then.’
‘Good thinking. I’ll do that – I’m not sitting around waiting for him to condescend to phone back.’ But when he tried to get the number, there was a message: Caller withheld their number. Christopher slammed the phone down and snarled, ‘Now there’s a surprise.’
Robin interrupted at that point with a demand for attention and some food if possible, please. Christopher forgot the phone and applied himself to ten minutes of playtime. ‘A whole day tomorrow for more bonding,’ he rejoiced.
‘We’re not going to Hannah’s then?’ asked Simmy.
‘Nope. That can wait till next weekend. I told her already, it’s too soon. We’re not ready to take him out into the world yet.’
‘I’ve taken him to the pub at least three times. He’ll be three weeks old on Tuesday.’
‘My sisters both saw him when you brought him home. They can wait another week. I want him all to myself.’
‘You should have put in for paternity leave. It’s your legal right.’
‘Don’t start that again.’ They had debated and argued the point endlessly, in Robin’s first few days. Simmy had taken so readily to breastfeeding; the baby was so placid and accommodating; Angie and Russell were so attentive; the auction house was so unusually busy – it all made Christopher feel he would be more use as a father in a few more months’ time. The rules allowed for him to have two weeks paid leave at any point during the coming year, and it seemed to him sensible to postpone it.
‘You’re right. Sorry.’ Simmy’s compliance was genuine. Her days at home with the baby were far less stressful, far more delightful than she had anticipated, partly thanks to the presence of Humphrey the builder and his young workmate. With her habitual tendency to take nothing for granted, she assured Christopher that there would be times when his participation would be indispensable. ‘You can have him all day long when he’s teething.’
‘And all day Sunday, remember. Every Sunday for the rest of my life.’
She laughed and took the baby from him for a feed. Having prepared herself for a total lack of routine, giving feeds whenever the child showed interest, snatching naps when Robin slept and abandoning any thought of housework, the reality was utterly different. The newborn evidently had an active internal clock set to three-hourly intervals. At night this stretched to four blissful hours. He enjoyed his wakeful periods, watching flickering light with as much fascination as he watched his mother’s face. ‘He must be brain damaged,’ said Angie carelessly. ‘No normal baby is as good as this.’
‘He’s just naturally pleased to be alive,’ said Simmy defensively. ‘The health visitor says he’s completely healthy.’
The evening was approaching its early end. Simmy and Christopher often went to bed at nine-thirty, sleeping until Robin called out at midnight. Chris might then go and make a milky drink for them both, which generally ensured that they slept deeply until the 4 a.m. summons. ‘Something’s supposed to change when he gets to three weeks,’ Simmy warned. ‘A growth spurt, apparently.’
Christopher shrugged unconcernedly. ‘Sufficient unto the day,’ he said.
But there was an unfinished conversation hanging over them on this Saturday evening. ‘What if that Crick man turns up when you’re at work?’ she worried. ‘What does he look like? What do you think he wants from you?’
‘He must be late fifties by now, maybe a bit more. I can’t really remember what he looked like. Middle height, thin, quite colourless.’
‘What work did he do? Wasn’t it unusual for a man his age to be doing such a long overland trip?’
‘No idea what work he did. He was a bit of a misfit, I guess. There’s generally a wife as well – kids just gone off and the parents awarding themselves an adventure. But there are always exceptions. The group had people of all ages. The youngest was a girl of nineteen, and there was a couple in their seventies. And a man and his daughter, I remember. And a gay couple from Belgium. Gosh – I haven’t given any of them a thought for years.’
Another detail had snagged Simmy’s attention. ‘You never told me you did antique dealing as long ago as that.’
‘They weren’t antiques. Just local crafts. It was lucky chance initially. I was in Lisbon and came across a sort of emporium selling ethnic stuff. I had a few bits and pieces from Tunisia in my rucksack and popped in to see if there was any interest. The bloke almost bit my hand off. Apparently he’d had trouble getting in and out of North Africa, and suggested I do a few trips on his behalf. I stuck to very small items that fitted into my bag or could be sent through the mail without too much hassle. The customs procedures weren’t very efficient, so I always managed to get through. Technically, there was probably duty to pay.’ He was rambling sleepily, reminiscing without much of a logical thread.
‘Anything else I should know?’ Simmy persisted.
‘Oh – I’ve no idea. The more I try to remember, the less I can dredge up about him. It was all pretty scary and overwrought, with him being so sick. He was practically delirious at times. It was embarrassing for the tour operator, and highly complicated getting him to hospital. He should never have been taken into the Okavanga in the first place. There were arguments about it. All I can remember now is that some female relative living in Cumbria was expecting him to show up for something important. And he asked me to go instead of him and I said I would.’
‘So you made a note of her name and address, right? It was something you both assumed was within your capabilities.’
‘Not that, exactly. More that I was planning to come back here to catch up with the family, and he made the connection, geographically speaking. It must have seemed too neat to ignore. Haven’t I said all this already?’
‘But you promised him.’
‘I did. I admit that I did say I’d do it. Whatever it was. It seems like a tremendously long time ago now.’
‘Ten years isn’t so long, really. He obviously hasn’t forgotten.’
‘Right. And some people take great exception to broken promises.’
‘Which explains your first reaction, when you said he’d probably kill you. Which suggests he’s quite a scary person.’
‘Scary like a zombie’s scary. My first reaction was that he’d risen from the dead and was out for revenge. On calm reflection, I doubt if he’s more than slightly annoyed. He probably just wants to come and say hi, for old times’ sake.’
‘Hm,’ said Simmy, and fell asleep.
There were visitors just after Sunday lunch, in the shape of Bonnie Lawson and her beloved Ben Harkness, home from university for the Easter vacation. Although they had initially intended to emulate Russell Straw the previous day and come by bus, in the event they were transported by Corinne, Bonnie’s foster mother.
‘I just had to see the baby,’ she explained. ‘I’ll only stay a minute. I brought cake.’ She proffered a creased cardboard box containing a modest-sized piece of fruit cake. ‘I made it last week. It’s a bit soggy,’ she added.
Simmy was fond of the woman and more than happy to drop Robin into her outstretched arms. All the usual blandishments were uttered, and Robin co-operated handsomely. ‘I’ll go up to Penrith while I’m here,’ said Corinne. ‘I need to see a man about a trailer.’
Christopher looked up. ‘Oh? Taking up antique dealing, then?’ To him trailers only meant one thing.
Corinne gave him a blank stare. ‘Absolutely not. It’s for the sheep.’
Bonnie hurried to elucidate. ‘Corinne’s got four Jacobs in the field behind her house. They’re quite new. She has to get hay and stuff for them, so needs a trailer.’
‘I already got the towbar put on,’ said Corinne. ‘It’s all rather exciting.’ She laughed. ‘So I could collect these two on my way back, if you like. But I don’t think I’ll be very long.’
‘That’s okay,’ said Simmy. ‘They may as well stay the afternoon now. One of us will drive them home again. Are you hungry?’ she asked the youngsters when Corinne had gone.
‘Not very,’ said Bonnie. ‘We had a big breakfast. It was more brunch, really.’
Neither visitor was unduly interested in the baby, beyond admiring his new skill of smiling. ‘He seems a cheerful character,’ said Ben.
Christopher was showing only minor irritation at being invaded by his partner’s friends. It was chilly outside, with flurries of rain, so any prospect of a decent walk had already been abandoned. ‘Ben goes back on Thursday, so this is his last chance to see Simmy,’ said Bonnie. ‘Although …’ She looked at her boyfriend, eyebrows raised.
Christopher failed to notice the hesitation and busied himself supplying home-made cake. ‘Angie left us a huge fruit loaf thing yesterday, and we’ll never eat all of it. Plus Corinne brought some as well.’
They ate cake quietly for a few minutes. Simmy noticed glances and even a nudge between Ben and Bonnie and guessed there was something significant waiting to be said. Her first guess was that Bonnie was going to announce that she could no longer endure the ten weeks of term time without Ben and was therefore following him to Newcastle, leaving Simmy with nobody to manage the shop. After that, her imagination ran dry.
‘So – what’s been happening?’ she prompted. ‘Did it go all right yesterday? Has Verity been okay?’
‘Fine. It’s all fine,’ Bonnie assured her. ‘If you come down one day this week to go over the finances, that’s all we need, really. It’s gone quiet again now Easter’s over.’ There had been the usual hectic rush for Mother’s Day and Easter. Simmy had dreaded going into labour on Mother’s Day, because that had been the day her ill-fated first baby had been stillborn, an anniversary that should not be allowed to taint the first hours of the new baby’s life. As it turned out, Robin had waited another nine days to put in an appearance. Simmy had actually managed to juggle orders for flowers, insisting that spending two full days at the shop in the fortieth week of pregnancy was very therapeutic. ‘It passes the time very nicely,’ she had said.
Verity had been kept extremely busy rushing around with deliveries, and Ben’s young sister, Tanya, had done sterling work supplying bouquets and suchlike to customers in the shop alongside Bonnie.
‘We did well, didn’t we?’ said Simmy now. ‘Between us, we’ve kept the show very nicely on the road.’
‘How’s the auction business?’ Ben asked Christopher. ‘I meant to go again over the vac, but it’s impossible to get there without a car. I see you had some memorabilia yesterday. I was looking through the catalogue online. Looked interesting.’
‘Box of old papers,’ Christopher nodded. ‘Nothing special. We get them a lot. Mostly it’s from house clearances – the family just tip everything out of the bureau or whatever and hope there’s nothing important amongst it. Nobody’s got time these days to have a proper look through. It often goes to someone who wants the stamps, if there are bundles of old letters.’
‘Or old photos,’ said Simmy. ‘Those cartes de visite are quite collectable.’
Christopher snorted. ‘Nobody’s got them amongst their personal papers any more. They died out a century and more ago. The photos are all from the 1950s now – Auntie Sylvia on the beach, and babies in paddling pools. And dogs. Usually out of focus.’
‘I’d love to have bought that box, all the same,’ said Ben wistfully.
‘You should have said. I could have kept it for you. It went for eight quid, I think.’
Ben grimaced. ‘Don’t tell me that,’ he said.
‘There’ll be more. Let me know another time, and we’ll do a deal.’
‘Thanks,’ said Ben. Then, after a short silence, he went on, ‘Actually, I suppose this gives me an opening to tell you my news.’ He gave Bonnie a look that seemed to Simmy to contain a degree of apprehension.
‘What?’ Simmy demanded.
Chapter Three
‘Well …’ Ben started nervously, ‘the thing is, I’ve decided to change my course.’ Before anybody could speak, he rushed on. ‘I’ve done two terms now and I’m absolutely sure I went for the wrong subject. I know it’s embarrassing and makes me look an idiot, but I can’t help that. What I’m doing is too narrow, too restricting. I was too young when I made the decision, and never even considered changing it.’ He was addressing Simmy exclusively. ‘I feel I’m letting you down,’ he concluded in a quiet voice.
‘Me? It’s none of my business, is it? What are you going to do instead? Have you told your parents? Will the university just let you change, halfway through the year?’
‘You and Moxon, he means,’ Bonnie explained. ‘After all this time, all through the A-levels and everything, you’ve both been so proud of him. More than Helen and David, really.’
Simmy was horrified. ‘You can’t possibly think I was pressurising you.’ She wanted to throw it back at him, to explain that she had always taken her lead from what he showed every sign of wanting. She regarded herself as little more than a bystander, watching with awe as the young genius forged his way through the educational system. Instead, she felt close to tears and said nothing more.
‘History,’ said Ben quickly. ‘I want to change to history. It fits infinitely better with my interests – and abilities. I like researching and making timelines and that sort of thing.’
‘Yes, but …’ said Simmy. ‘Don’t those things come into the course you’re doing?’
‘Not really.’ He worked his shoulders, and Bonnie patted his leg. ‘It’s more than that, if I’m honest. I don’t much like university life. I expected to meet people like me, as well as people who knew more and were sharper and quicker …’
‘He means cleverer,’ said Bonnie, with a little nod.
‘And didn’t you?’ asked Christopher.
‘Sort of. The trouble is, they’re still like schoolkids, trying to devalue their own abilities. And they’re so helpless. And timid. I tried telling a couple of them about what happened to me in Hawkshead, and they almost ran out of the room. I’m telling you, most of them are like six-year-olds. I can’t even talk to them.’
‘So how will a history course be better?’ wondered Christopher.
Ben grimaced. ‘Good question. I was thinking maybe I could do it through the OU instead. Maybe there’d be a lot of much older students at the tutorials and things, and I might get on better with them.’
‘It sounds to me as if you’ve been horribly miserable,’ said Simmy, feeling an overwhelming sympathy for him.
‘He has,’ said Bonnie. ‘It’s been awful.’
‘Not all the time,’ said Ben. ‘And I really did go for the wrong course. I’ve been very stupid, I know now. Letting all those childish adventures dictate my entire career.’
‘Childish?’ Again, Simmy felt like crying. ‘People have died. You were always so clever, and focused. Don’t rubbish all that now. It’s one thing to feel you don’t fit the life there and another to chuck away the actual studies.’ She looked from Bonnie to Christopher for support. ‘Say something, one of you!’
‘I don’t think you need get upset,’ said Christopher carefully. ‘He’s trying to explain, and you need to stop being so defensive.’ He looked at the youngster. ‘And maybe you could be a bit more sensitive in what you say. Things are a bit overwrought in this house just now.’ He indicated the baby lying on the sofa fast asleep. ‘Even the best of babies creates a degree of stress. Hormones, if I’m allowed to say that.’
‘It’s probably true,’ said Simmy with a short burst of slightly damp laughter. ‘Everything gets out of proportion somehow. It’s like living in a weird sort of bubble.’
‘He didn’t mean to say childish,’ Bonnie explained. ‘He said it much better when he told me.’ She gave Ben an accusing glare. ‘He got it from that quote in the Bible about putting away childish things. You know?’
She was met with blank looks.
‘Anyway, I think he’s right – history is much better. I mean, that’s what we’ve been doing for the past two years, when you think about it – isn’t it? Researching, checking facts, looking at past influences. Not all the time, I know, but some of the murders have needed that kind of work. So he’s not rubbishing anything. Just broadening it out.’
‘Thanks, kid,’ said Ben softly, giving Simmy a wary look. ‘Sorry if I was clumsy.’
‘Maybe it’s just Newcastle that doesn’t suit you,’ suggested Christopher. ‘What about transferring somewhere else? I mean a real university with all the other things that go with it. Theatres and sports and interest groups and things you’d enjoy. Would the OU even have you, under the circumstances?’
