by Rebecca Tope
‘A few. I need to get more.’
‘Did you notice how smug and secretive Moxo was looking just now? Must have been something you said.’
‘What? No, I didn’t notice anything like that. Are you sure?’
‘Pretty much. He nodded quietly to himself, a couple of times. I think he’s got an idea.’ Ben did not look entirely happy about his observations. ‘I wish I knew what it was. He thinks he’s shielding me from being upset or whatever, but he’s only making me frustrated and cross.’
‘Do you want me to light the fire, then? Are you cold? The heating’s on.’
‘Don’t do it just for me. Do you ever light it?’
‘Not very often. Weekends, sometimes. It’s a bit of a hassle.’ The wood-burning stove had been in the house when she bought it, and at first she’d taken pride in its efficient warming of the whole building. But then she’d run out of logs, and also of places to dump the ash that it produced, and almost forgotten its existence.
She wanted to ask him about Helen, and whether they’d managed a sensible conversation since Simmy’s visit. But it was too hazardous an area to venture into without some sort of assurance that she wouldn’t be overstepping an emotional mark. ‘Are you staying for tea?’ she asked. ‘I need to wait a bit before driving. I had two pints of beer at lunchtime.’
‘It’s only four o’clock,’ he pointed out. ‘I can stay till about five. There’s an essay to finish before tomorrow.’
‘Right, then. So what do you want to do between now and then?’
He gave her a considering look, and she noticed almost for the first time how he’d matured in the year since she’d met him. She’d been automatically using the word ‘boy’ when thinking about him, but now that seemed wrong. He was a young man, legally adult, in a close relationship and proving himself to be academically excellent. His interest in forensics and police work had not wavered in all the time she’d known him, his goals just as clear as ever. ‘I want to talk about dead people,’ he said. ‘If that’s all right with you. Everyone seems to think I’ve gone soft or scared, or something. They’re totally wrong. I wasn’t bothered about seeing the Henderson man dead – only very surprised, and worried about Bonnie. I squatted down and really looked at him. And that meant I left traces for the cops to find. I admit I panicked when I realised what that could lead to. I mean – if I’d been on the forensics team, I’d have fingered myself as the killer.’ He smiled. ‘Should have known better, obviously.’
‘“Fingered”,’ Simmy repeated sceptically. ‘Never heard anyone actually say that.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Yes. Sorry. Bonnie was scared, as well. She really thought you’d be charged with murder.’
‘I know. But she’ll be okay. She’s working out her own theory of who did it. Apparently her main suspect is Lynn Henderson, or whatever her married name is.’
‘How does she work that out? Has she even met the woman?’
‘Possibly not. She drew up a list of means, motives and opportunities, and that’s who it flagged up. I’m not entirely sure of the workings.’
‘I’d have thought Hannah and George were a lot more likely. Hannah’s angry about something, and George has never been very rational. My mother used to say he had a sinister look in his eye.’
‘He’s certainly keeping out of the limelight, isn’t he? Does anyone even know where he is?’
‘Eddie probably does. I assume he’s at home, minding his own business.’ Then she remembered Christopher’s morning phone call. ‘Hannah’s summoned the whole family to a meeting. I think it’s this evening. Except she was scared to approach George directly, so wanted Christopher to do it. Eddie was being awkward about it as well.’
‘There has to be something in their past that explains the killing,’ Ben mused. ‘All these hints and winks about Mr Henderson and other women have to be the key to it. And his wife dying opened the way for whoever it was to get to him and do the deed.’
‘Bonnie thought they might have deliberately got you and her involved. If so, that points directly to Eddie. He had a good idea that she’d be turning up at the bungalow, and he might have worked out that she’d take someone with her. It would make a clever smokescreen.’
‘I thought that for a bit. But it’s full of holes when you really look at it. The timing would have to rely on a lot of unpredictables. The person would have to keep Kit alive and talking if we’d turned up late. Someone else might have come to the door first. All those women who make pies for a man when his wife dies. There are whole armies of them, apparently.’
‘I’m not sure that’s true,’ said Simmy. ‘Although Kit’s probably the sort who would have them all running around after him.’
‘Definitely,’ Ben said. ‘And that’s where we should keep our focus.’ He gave her another serious look. ‘Which is where my mother comes in,’ he said levelly. ‘You don’t have to avoid that subject, you know. I bet she’s said something to you about it.’
‘She has, yes. I don’t know whether she’d got it right, though – about what you were thinking.’
‘What did she say?’
Simmy paused. ‘I don’t think it would be helpful to tell you. It’s not my business.’
‘Fair enough,’ he said, confirming her impression of a new maturity. ‘Let me start, then. It’s really just an extension of what we were saying just now. Following the evidence can lead into very big mistakes. That’s what shocked me so much. The facts are, one: my mother knew Kit Henderson years ago and had more to do with him than any of us knew at the time; two: she behaved very strangely when he was killed; three: she’s got letters from Mrs Henderson tucked away in her desk.’
‘What? How do you know that?’
‘I snooped,’ he said shamelessly. ‘On Wednesday evening. They’re quite strong stuff, complaining about her husband’s unfaithfulness, and not being able to trust him with any woman, even my mum.’
‘And she kept them? Isn’t that rather weird?’
‘She keeps everything. Says letters are the only genuine source of social history for future generations. Of course, she never gets any now. Nobody does.’
‘So?’
‘So I asked her about it, on Saturday, without confessing to looking at the letters. I only read one or two. You can’t get a moment’s privacy in our house. Tanya was shouting for me as usual.’ He sighed. ‘Sisters are God’s way of reminding us that we can expect a lifetime of trouble from women.’
‘Even Bonnie?’
‘Probably,’ he said glumly.
‘And what did your mother say?’ She was finding it unusually difficult to keep him on the main subject.
‘She said she could see how it looked, but she solemnly vowed that she had never had any sort of close relationship with Kit Henderson, and I should be more careful about forming suspicions without enough information. She’s right, of course. What I took to be evidence was really the most flimsy bits of old history. Not facts at all, as it turns out. Made me see what a fool I can be sometimes.’
‘Have you talked about this with Moxon? Why did he bring you here, anyway?’
‘That’s quite a long story. He showed up at the house at half past one, when we were in the middle of a hunk of roast pork. Said he needed to go through one more time the details of what I saw at the bungalow on Tuesday. Checking where I went, basically, and what I touched. He’s very hung up on that letter, or list, or whatever it is.’
‘Did you leave fingerprints on it, or something?’
‘I don’t think so, but I could have done. Anyway, he could see what bedlam it was at the house, so he drove me down to the station, which was more or less deserted, and then after a bit, he said he had something to ask you and did I want to come with him. So that’s what happened. We’d been waiting for you quite a while before you and Christopher came sauntering home like … like Hansel and Gretel or something. Holding hands and not walking straight.’
The simile
gave Simmy a jolt. Hansel and Gretel were brother and sister, which in some ways fitted the relationship she had with Christopher. Were they too close for comfort? Was it unnervingly like incest to be in love with him? ‘Couldn’t you have said Romeo and Juliet?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘You’re too old for either pair. I can’t think of a good comparison, for the moment.’
‘Maybe Moxon wanted you out of his way. Did you think of that?’
‘Not really. This case isn’t like the others, is it? I am very directly involved. I found the body.’ He almost shouted these last words. ‘You can’t get more involved than that. The irony is, that I would quite like to sit this one out, and just get on with all the other stuff in my life. I’ve got no theories about who killed the man. I might have been within seconds of seeing who it was, but those seconds may as well be weeks or months.’
‘Was there no lingering smell?’ she wondered. ‘Something on the air?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ But he grew thoughtful, and she could tell he was putting himself back in the bungalow, wondering whether he might have missed something as insubstantial as a hint of aftershave or garlic-scented sweat. ‘Nope,’ he concluded. ‘No smells.’
‘Does Moxon think my book is connected?’
‘Book?’
‘The one Fran left me. It’s the only thing he could possibly find that makes me of any interest.’
‘I don’t think he thinks it’s significant. Where is it? Can I have another look at it?’
‘I left it in the kitchen. Let me go and get it. Do you want more tea or anything?’
‘No, thanks.’
She fetched the book and they sat side by side looking through it slowly, page by page. ‘It is lovely, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Even if it isn’t worth anything.’
‘It might be worth something in a hundred years.’ He was running his hand very lightly over a picture of a tangled creeping plant covered in yellow flowers. ‘What’s this?’
‘Jasmine. It’s a climber, but the artist has shown this one sprawling over the ground. The colours are more authentic than most of the others, although she’s made the leaves the wrong shade of green.’
He turned the page. ‘I know this one. It’s a clematis.’
‘Right. But I don’t believe you can get orange ones like that. They’re pink, assuming that’s intended to be a Nelly Moser.’
‘So there’s something wrong with every picture – is that what you’re saying? Do you think she did it deliberately?’
‘If she did, we’ll never know why. More likely, she was colour-blind, and didn’t know what she was doing. Or the light was bad, maybe, if she did them in the evenings.’
‘She was Mr Henderson’s mother-in-law – is that right?’
‘Yes. Fran’s mother. She did these in the 50s, apparently.’
‘Before her daughter was married, then. Before she knew Mr H?’
‘Long before. He’d only have been a little kid when these were done. Why?’
He shrugged. ‘Nothing. I just thought there might be a message in here somewhere.’
‘There might be. Something like “Nothing is as it seems” or “Don’t trust your senses”. Not very likely, though.’
‘And not very encouraging, if Frances knew that’s what it meant when she left it to you in her will. That might suggest she was trying to put you off Christopher.’
Simmy’s heart lurched again. ‘That’s way too convoluted,’ she protested. ‘For a start, Fran couldn’t possibly have known that Chris and I were going to get together again. And if she did, she’d have approved. She always wanted that to happen … although …’ she faltered.
‘Although what?’
‘Well, Chris told me this morning that his father warned him off me. That was directly opposite to what I always thought Fran wanted. I didn’t think of that until now, even though I was really surprised. I was only sixteen. We were only sixteen. Kit probably just thought we were too young to get physical.’
‘You were,’ said Ben with some force. ‘Much too young.’
She carefully avoided looking at him. This might be the answer to a question that had been nagging at her for some time: were Ben and Bonnie having sex? In most couples of their age, it would have been ridiculous to even query it, but Simmy had a growing sense that they were waiting for something, that celibacy had been a core element of their relationship all along. Now it felt as if she had confirmation of this suspicion. And she did not want him to know what she was thinking.
‘Well, if there is a message, I can’t hope to find it, can I? It could be anything.’
He was frowning at the floor. ‘Maybe she had some kind of hunch that her husband was in danger, once she died. So she left you the book, to make sure you had to be in touch with the family again. That would give you and Christopher a chance of getting back together, and somehow, maybe, protecting the old man. Or even, in her mind, making something happen that would keep him safe. Except it didn’t work, did it?’
‘That’s all terribly fanciful,’ she objected. ‘And if it was true, it must implicate one of the children. Offspring – whatever you call them when they’re grown up. Hannah or George, most likely. But if that was right, why wouldn’t she just contact the police and … No, that wouldn’t work, would it?’
‘Precisely. What could she say? “One of my kids is planning to kill their father once I’m dead”? The police, for very good reasons, aren’t authorised to interfere in any way before a crime is committed. I expect I’ve mentioned Minority Report once or twice, haven’t I? It’s a terrifying idea.’
Simmy nodded vaguely. Something about working out who was likely to commit a crime and arresting them in advance. The very fact that it sounded so logical made it all the more dreadful.
‘You know,’ said Ben, his eyes sparkling, ‘I really think we might be getting somewhere. It’s all in the family. That’s what makes the most sense. Isn’t that what everyone’s been thinking all along, one way or another?’
Before she could respond, there was a knock at her door.
‘Probably my mum, come to collect me,’ said Ben. ‘I texted her a bit ago to tell her I was still here.’
But it wasn’t Helen Harkness. It was George Henderson, the missing brother, with a thunderous look on his small face, which was so like that of his father.
Chapter Nineteen
Simmy was pathetically glad to have Ben at her side, as the irate man marched into her living room. ‘Is Christopher here?’ he demanded. ‘Hannah said this was where he must be.’
‘He’s not. What do you want, George? Stop being so aggressive.’
‘Is this George Henderson?’ asked Ben, standing up tall and solid. ‘I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Ben Harkness. I found your father’s body on Tuesday. I offer you my condolences.’
Simmy almost laughed. It was so typically Ben that she wanted to hug him. But that would have spoilt the effect. George, who was perhaps half an inch shorter than Ben, was stopped in his tracks. ‘Thanks,’ he muttered. ‘It’s been a pretty bad time for us, as you might imagine.’
Simmy watched the two men get the measure of each other. George was thirty-five, already losing his hair. His skin was a hue that made you think of creatures that lived out of the sunlight. There was a crease between his eyes that made him look permanently angry. But in the eyes themselves there was a lost, bewildered look that Simmy remembered from twenty years ago. It had made her want to avoid him then, and it did still. Something had always been just a bit wrong with George – a fact that everybody knew, but nobody would admit. His fights with Hannah had provided an easy focus for their reproaches, and even offered an explanation. He had been displaced by two small girls, losing his role as youngest, and never quite finding where he belonged from that day on. But there might have been more to it than that, Simmy now realised. Something that concerned his parents, rather than his siblings.
‘I gather that Hannah has called a meeting of
all five of you,’ said Simmy, still marvelling that George had driven all the way up to Troutbeck, and somehow managed to find her cottage. ‘How did you know where I live? Why not just phone me?’
‘I wanted to see you in person. What’s going on between you and my brother? When did it start? I need to understand what everyone’s doing. I thought when Mum died that was the worst that could happen. The world fell apart then. And now it’s even worse.’ He sat down suddenly on the spot where Ben had recently been. ‘And you found him.’ He stared accusingly at Ben. ‘Dead on the floor of his own house. It’s monstrous. Grotesque. I can’t believe it.’
‘True, all the same,’ said Ben flatly.
‘So who did it?’ The man stared helplessly from one face to the other and back again. ‘Who would do that?’
Simmy could hear Ben silently answering well, you maybe, as she was herself. But looking at George, she knew it could not have been him. Nobody could act as well as that.
‘Sounds as if not many people really liked him,’ Ben said neutrally.
‘That’s no reason to kill him,’ George protested. ‘I mean, none of us really liked him, if we’re honest, but plenty of people don’t like their fathers – or don’t approve of them, more like. It’s probably the normal thing, if everyone was honest about it. No man wants to be like their father, when you think about it.’
‘That’s true,’ said Ben, with a show of eagerness. ‘I grasped that only a little while ago. It’s one of the curses of the human condition. All fathers want their sons to be a clone of them, but the sons want the absolute opposite. Tragic, really. Men are far better off just having daughters.’
Simmy snorted a truncated laugh. ‘My father agrees with you. Thanks the Lord that he never had a son. Far too competitive, he says.’
‘Wise man, your dad.’
‘It’s all in the Bible,’ said George heavily. ‘Cain and Abel, for a start.’
Ben’s eagerness burgeoned. ‘Yes! Although it gets a bit complicated in that instance. Abel’s seen as the good one, for trying to please his dad, and Cain’s the wicked evil murderer. I suppose your brother Eddie qualified as Abel – but which of you and Christopher is the killer, in that scenario?’