by Rebecca Tope
‘All those dishonest dealers, stitching the whole thing up,’ Lynn went on. ‘Ordinary people don’t stand a chance.’
‘That’s rubbish. It’s equal chances for everybody. A bid is a bid. And we know who the shysters are. We’ve got ways of dealing with them.’
‘Shysters,’ repeated Simmy, ‘what a wonderful word.’ She was still standing at the table, not trying very hard to tear herself away. ‘Well, I’m really going now. Thanks again for the meal.’ And she really went, slowly winding between the tables, and out through the back entrance to the car park. It was well lit, but she still felt nervous in the shadows under the trees. Experience had taught her caution, forcing her to accept that people would use violence to protect themselves from discovery, once they had committed a crime. And somebody had certainly done that, just a little way down the hill from the hotel, in Bowness.
It was only a little after nine. She would have an hour at home, wondering whether to go to bed early or watch some television, or catch up with some overdue housework. None of those options appealed to her, so she fished her phone out of her bag and turned it on. The possibility of an interesting text was remote, but not out of the question. Other people always seemed to have messages or tweets or Facebook comments to divert them at any hour of the day or night. There was, apparently, a whole huge world of connection out there, where exchanges of news and views went on constantly. Somehow, Simmy had failed to immerse herself in this extraordinary plane of existence.
There was nothing waiting for her. But remembering where she was, she took the initiative and keyed in the number of Ben Harkness’s phone.
He answered immediately. ‘Simmy. Where are you?’ He always asked that. It was a source of frustration to him that his technology told him the identity of the caller but not the location. It wouldn’t be long, he insisted, before that was another automatic feature.
‘About one minute away from your house. The car park of the Belsfield. Are you busy? Can I come for a little chat, do you think?’
‘Um … well … why don’t I come to meet you? We could go somewhere.’
‘Where? I don’t want any more to drink, and it’s cold out.’
‘Right. Okay. Come here, then. But my mother’s going to want to talk to you as well if you do. She’s in a bit of a state.’
‘Poor Helen. I imagine she is, if what Bonnie told me today is true. I do want to hear all about what happened. I expect you want to tell me, don’t you?’
He sighed gustily. ‘I’m not sure I do, actually. It’s been a hellish day. Nobody really listens. Maybe you’d be different. You can’t stay long, though. I’m knackered.’ Not for Ben the late nights that most teenagers saw as a matter of necessity for the maintenance of a cool image. He made no secret of the fact that he liked going to bed at ten, and getting up at a sensible time. Although he did stay up if he had a project to complete, crouched over the desk in his room, reading or working on his laptop.
‘Surely Bonnie listens to you?’
‘Oh, yes, of course she does. It’s everyone else, I mean.’
‘It is a bit late,’ she acknowledged. ‘I should just go home.’ She could hear herself, a woman old enough to be his mother, wistfully wishing she could end the day in his company. It was pathetic.
‘Up to you.’
‘What’re you doing tomorrow?’
‘The usual. College till about two, and then I’ll come and see you and Bon. I’ve got loads to do over the weekend. I’ve got behind with the Latin somehow. And there’s a whole lot of online research I need to catch up with.’ He sounded young and stressed and at odds with the world. All very unusual for him. ‘It’s been a hell of a day,’ he said again. ‘Mostly thanks to my mother.’
‘I want to hear all of it.’
‘You’ll be on her side. Even Bonnie thinks she’s got a point.’
‘Why? What’s she saying?’
‘I can’t tell you now. She’ll hear me. If she had the power, she’d keep me locked up here until the whole Henderson thing is settled. She’s scared I’ll be the next victim – can you believe it? She’s got Moxo thinking along the same lines, which is totally stupid. Oh, she’s coming upstairs with Wilf. I’ll have to go. She told me not to use the phone any more tonight.’
‘Tell her I called you. It’s not your fault.’
‘No. I’ll see you tomorrow. There’s not really much to tell you. Nothing that won’t wait, anyway.’
‘Okay. Night, night, then. I hope you sleep well.’
‘You too,’ he said with another loud sigh.
Chapter Twelve
She woke long before sunrise on Friday, thanks to the early night she opted for as the least dreary choice, when she got home from Bowness. Seven o’clock on a November morning was uninviting in every way, but she got up all the same. There was a restless feeling that something was going to happen. The whole week had been a succession of shocks and surprises, revelations and suspicions. It was all scattered amongst Ben, Christopher, Bonnie and other more remote people, and nothing seemed to be connected to anything else. The pleasure she’d felt at inheriting the book of pictures had been overlaid almost immediately by Kit’s death. The book had been forgotten, yet again, the previous afternoon. It was just sitting there in the shop, unprotected. She hoped Christopher was right when he said it had no commercial value. However improbable a break-in at a florist shop might be, it was still conceivable, and to have the book stolen would be awful.
She had a number of tasks piling up at the shop, after a week of distraction. It needed more than a casual dusting and maintenance of stock. Bonnie’s list of hotels to call was a high priority, as was a need to make changes to the general appearance of the place, to reflect the onset of Christmas. So she ate a swift breakfast and left the house shortly after eight. The day would be one of decisive action, she promised herself.
The high street was quiet in the grey light. Everything was still, with a pall of dankness making pavements and other surfaces greasy-looking. The handle of the shop door slipped out of her grasp and she noted that she was leaving wet marks on the floor as she went in. Just the setting for unpleasant surprises – electricity failure or disastrous road accidents – she thought. The world felt unreliable and uncaring. Anyone out on the fells this morning would be chilled and scared. Fires wouldn’t light, and maps would go limp and blurry. Simmy quite often imagined the inhospitable heights, only a few miles beyond the small towns around Windermere, and how easy it would be to perish out there, as a puny scrap of life in the vast wilderness.
She turned on all the lights, activated the computer and tuned the radio in the back room to some cheerful Radio Two music. A consignment of flowers from the previous day had still to be distributed around the shop, as well as turned into two birthday tributes, for delivery that day. Both were very local, and she was tempted to let Bonnie take them. But Bonnie didn’t drive, and it might not look good for a delicate girl like her to be seen walking through town on such an errand. People would pass comment, probably critically, to the effect that Persimmon Brown was exploiting her poor young assistant.
She caught herself up, wondering how she’d come to be so sensitive to criticism. Was she afraid of being blamed for everything that went wrong, because she did feel responsible for her father’s decline? She had been carelessly trusting in situations that called for vigilance; naively unprepared for the wicked things that people could do.
And when, for heaven’s sake, was she ever going to find friends of her own age, instead of devoting so much time and attention to teenagers who could be her children?
Bonnie interrupted these gloomy self-examinings, bursting into the shop with a quick grin as if all was right with the world. ‘Hiya!’ she chirped. ‘What a horrible day!’
‘You seem very cheerful.’
‘Oh, well – you can’t let it get you down, can you? Weekend tomorrow. Christmas not too far away. Corinne’s got a gig she’s been wanting for ages, and Spike’s
foot is all better. And I get paid today,’ she finished.
‘All that and no mention of Ben? I spoke to him last night.’ She bit back the next remark, which might have dampened Bonnie’s mood.
‘Yeah, he said.’ She waved her mobile. ‘Just finished talking to him. He’ll be round here this afternoon, to bring you up to date.’
The afternoon felt rather distant to Simmy. If she maintained her determination to be active and focused all day, there would be a dwindling interest in Ben and his difficulties with the police. ‘Okay,’ she mumbled. ‘Now – there’s a whole lot to do this morning.’
‘Yes, but – don’t you want to hear at least a bit about what happened to Ben yesterday? I mean, when we closed up, he was still thinking they thought he might have done the murder.’
‘I never really worried about that. I’m sure he managed to talk DI Moxon out of that idea.’
‘Well, yes, he did.’
‘So that’s all right, isn’t it? Listen, can you do something to freshen this whole place up? You know you want to. Christmas is coming. We might as well make the most of it.’
‘I need a whole lot of decorations for that – glass baubles, silver ribbons, sparkly snowflakes. I’ll have to go to Poundland or somewhere, and it’s still too soon, Simmy. We can’t do it before the end of the month.’
Simmy sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right. But you can sketch out some ideas, and make a list of what you’ll need. It’s only another two and a bit weeks. I’ve got to do two birthday bunches of flowers, and get them delivered. You’re in charge this morning, okay?’
‘All morning?’ Bonnie looked alarmed. ‘It can get busy on a Friday, you know.’
‘Half an hour to get them done and a bit more than that to take them to the people. So no – not the whole morning. I’ll probably be back by half past ten.’
‘Good. I don’t like it when there’s a queue.’
‘Trust me, that won’t happen.’ Simmy quickly gathered the wherewithal for the two orders, and had them assembled in well under the predicted thirty minutes. Her fingers worked automatically, as her eye kept a close check on colour and symmetry. The arranging of flowers was not a subject she had formally studied, other than browsing a number of books and websites for tips. The technicalities of maintaining shape, involving hidden wires and the indispensable oasis, had been picked up as she went along, on the age-old method of trial and error. She did not believe that an appreciation of colour could be taught, in any case. Experiment was the thing here, and a degree of risk-taking.
The finished items were distinctive in both cases. One mixed shades of purple and pale pink, with a splash of red, and greyish foliage. The other was a palette of orange, yellow and bright green. ‘Did the people specify the colours?’ Bonnie asked, when she saw them.
‘Not at all. They said I could use my initiative. I’m not even sure which should go to which customer. They’re both in the same price range.’
‘Who are they?’
‘A woman in a flat, a little way down the road from my parents, who is sixty today, and a younger one in the same street as Melanie’s family. The flowers are from husband and children.’
‘Orange for the sixty-year-old and purple for the young mum, then,’ said Bonnie firmly.
Simmy laughed. ‘I won’t ask why.’ She attached the cards accordingly, and went out to the van, which lived behind the shop.
The deliveries went well. Both women were clearly anticipating some kind of tribute, with relief as apparent as pleasure in their responses. Both expressed admiration for the way the blooms had been arranged, and were suitably effusive in their thanks. Simmy drove back to the shop shortly after ten, thinking the day was going every bit as well as she’d wanted it to.
There was a man talking to Bonnie. It took a few seconds to identify him as Eddie Henderson, given that she could only see him from the back. Her instant reaction was of resistance and impatience. Not again, she thought. This man was the source of much of the trouble there’d been all week. Then she reproached herself for the unfairness of her thought, and overcompensated with a warm greeting. ‘Eddie! How are you doing? I am so terribly sorry about your dad. It must be ghastly for you.’
He turned round, revealing an expression of anger. ‘Ghastly is right, yes,’ he snarled. ‘And I want to find the swine who did it, and make sure he gets what’s coming to him.’
‘Of course you do. We all do.’ She looked around him at Bonnie, who was unusually pink. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘Um …’ said the girl, with an accusing glance at Eddie. ‘I suppose so. He was shouting at me.’
‘I was not! I was just wanting some answers. The police won’t tell me anything, and I can’t get hold of that boyfriend of yours. I phoned the house, but his mother refused to let me speak to him. I remember his mother,’ he added, slightly less angrily. ‘Helen Harkness – she had her whole house recarpeted, about twelve years ago. Spent thousands on it.’
Simmy was still looking at Bonnie, but she processed this information carefully. ‘How did you know? You weren’t living at home then, were you?’
‘It was all he talked about for weeks. And there was some trouble about it with my mother.’
The implication was impossible to ignore. ‘Surely not? I mean – Helen and Kit? Is that what you’re saying?’
Eddie rolled his eyes. Bonnie made a sudden yelp, part amusement, part horror. But Simmy had a feeling this idea was not entirely new – that there had been hints along similar lines earlier in the week.
‘I’m saying she knew him for a short time, several years ago, and I would expect her to show more concern over the fact that he’s been murdered.’
‘She’s only shielding Ben, like a good mother should,’ Bonnie burst out. ‘He had a very nasty experience only a few months ago, and she thought she’d lost him. She can’t face going through anything like that again.’
‘Nobody says she has to. I only want to talk to him. He might have seen something on Tuesday, without realising it.’
Bonnie gave a superior little smile. ‘That isn’t very likely,’ she said. ‘If there was anything there to see, he’ll have told the police exactly what it was.’
Simmy was still thinking about Helen. ‘How long does it take to carpet a house? A week? Probably less. I don’t see how that could provide the basis of a lasting relationship.’
‘It didn’t,’ Eddie said tiredly. ‘But he met Cheryl through Mrs Harkness, and when he got some bonus money because of the big carpet job, he spent most of it on her, and that’s when my mother got mad. Okay?’
Simmy was reminded of Frances Henderson’s funeral, only a week before. There had been a small group of women sitting around a table at the gathering afterwards. Simmy had joined them. They’d introduced themselves rapidly, and the only name that stuck in Simmy’s memory was ‘Cheryl’ pronounced with the hard English ch, rather than the American ‘Sheryl’, which Simmy thought much nicer.
‘She was at the funeral,’ she said.
‘Right. Along with half her family.’ He made a disgusted expression. ‘Can’t think why they bothered. Hannah was pretty sore about it, I can tell you. Said it was offensive to Dad.’
They were getting well away from the main subject, but Simmy could see that this suited Bonnie so well that she was happy to keep it going. Idle chat about distant friends and old histories was surely better than veiled implications as to Ben’s probity, or lack of it.
‘Offensive? How?’
‘It’s a long story. One of many, to be honest with you. I don’t imagine it’s a secret any more, the way my father carried on. It got worse after I left home, and the girls both took it badly. They kept on trying to force him to mend his ways, for Mum’s sake.’
‘Can’t have been very dignified for her,’ said Simmy, trying to imagine her own mother in the same situation. ‘But she had friends to confide in, didn’t she? My mum, for a start. They probably laughed about it,’ she added.
‘Wouldn’t surprise me,’ he admitted. ‘I know I’m never going to understand the ways women react to anything to do with their relationships. They confound me every time.’ He sighed, and Simmy detected some marital dysfunction of his own.
‘I guess consistency isn’t always our strong point,’ she said.
‘That’s not it at all,’ Bonnie interrupted, but before she could elaborate further, the doorbell gave its usual cough and a customer came in.
It was a man in his early fifties, with a jaunty smile. Simmy knew she’d seen him before, but couldn’t place him until several minutes into their conversation. He glanced at Eddie and gave a nod of recognition. ‘Came to put in an order for flowers for your dad,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Don’t expect there’s a date for the funeral yet, but didn’t want to miss the chance. Is there a way that can be done?’
‘Malcolm. That’s good of you. We’ve not begun to think about it yet. The girls might decide we should limit the flowers, but I never like to do that. Especially this time of year. Brightens things up a bit.’
Malcolm swept the scene with a diffident expression. ‘I don’t suppose …? I mean, what’s happening behind the scenes, so to speak? The police and so forth. Any progress on catching the blighter who did it?’
Eddie shrugged uncooperatively. ‘No good asking me, mate. I’m not privy to any of that. If they talk to anybody, it’s our Christopher. Eldest son and all that.’
‘I had a little chat with George last week. He seemed very cut up about your mum. Could hardly get a word out of him.’
‘You were at the funeral!’ said Simmy, at last. ‘I knew I’d seen you somewhere. You were talking to my mother. You took my seat.’ She laughed to dispel any hint of accusation.
The others all gave her looks of patient forbearance, as if she was stating the blindingly obvious.
‘George hasn’t been well,’ said Eddie. ‘Depression, mostly, and some trouble with his liver. We don’t see much of him these days.’