by Rebecca Tope
Ben smiled. ‘He probably is. But somebody isn’t.’
‘Who?’
‘I’m not there yet. I might need to talk to Moxo again first.’
‘He’s not going to tell you anything important, is he?’ said Simmy sceptically.
‘He might. He must remember how helpful I was, when there was that business in Ambleside.’ There was a hint of wistfulness in his tone. Moxon had never dismissed Ben’s efforts to assist with investigations as most professional police detectives would, but neither did he allow him to get too close. It struck the man as almost perverse, the way Ben had actually discovered bodies, and been in the exact spot at the exact moment, more than once. There was an uneasy respect between the two that had grown over time.
‘That book you were left,’ Bonnie interrupted. ‘Full of those weird pictures. Could there be clues in there somehow?’
‘Absolutely impossible,’ said Ben. ‘They were done seventy years ago or something. And how would it work, anyway?’
‘Except we were talking about ways that it might mean something,’ Simmy reminded him. ‘Not the actual book but the fact that she gave it to me in the first place.’
Ben shook himself. ‘Think!’ he commanded. ‘Both of you.’ Then he visibly followed his own instruction, his eyes flittering from side to side. ‘That meeting last night. The one Hannah called for all the siblings. Did it happen?’
‘Yes, they all showed up except for Eddie, and Hannah gave them all a job to do. Christopher is supposed to be chasing the coroner’s officer today, so they can get on with fixing the funeral.’
‘Urghh! Family meetings,’ Bonnie groaned. ‘Never a good idea.’
Ben and Simmy met this with equally blank looks. ‘Doesn’t happen at the Harkness household,’ said Ben.
‘And our family’s so small, we wouldn’t know we were even having a meeting,’ said Simmy.
‘So you don’t think they started accusing each other of murdering their dad, then,’ said Ben.
‘Of course they didn’t,’ snapped Simmy. ‘And even if they did, they wouldn’t tell anybody, would they? What if one of them confessed to the killing, and the others all agreed to cover it up and provide alibis or whatever?’
‘What if they all did it together?’ said Bonnie in a hushed voice.
‘I don’t think any of them did it,’ said Ben. ‘But they might well have worked out who did, if they got their heads together.’
‘Then they’d tell the police,’ said Simmy.
‘Or maybe they’d go for revenge more directly. That George looked capable of something like that.’
‘I could phone Chris, then,’ Simmy offered, feeling warm at the prospect. ‘What do you want me to ask him? I don’t actually think there’s anything more he’ll tell me, after last night. Just that Hannah was bossy as usual and they don’t sound particularly united as a family.’
‘Just see if anything new’s developed today,’ said Ben.
‘Okay,’ she said doubtfully, and got her phone from her pocket.
‘Are you going to do it now?’ Ben looked impressed. ‘Won’t he be at work?’
‘What if he is?’
Ben’s parents were both old-fashioned professionals who had firmly and absolutely banned any contact from their children during working hours, unless somebody was actually dying. In his world, you just didn’t break that edict. But Simmy had no such inhibitions. Her mother had worked in offices of various sorts, welcoming the interruption of a personal call. To a lesser degree, the same was true of her father.
So she phoned Chris, using the mobile number he had put into her phone over lunch at the pub. He answered cheerfully, with no detectable undercurrents in his voice. ‘Hey! I was just going to call you. Must be telepathy.’
‘Are you having a good day?’
‘Quiet. Typical Monday. Although a man came in just now with the most gorgeous piece of Carlton I’ve ever seen. Tree and swallow pattern. Perfect condition. I nearly swooned, it was so lovely.’
‘Nice,’ she said weakly, having no idea what he was talking about. ‘Has Eddie shown up yet?’
‘He wasn’t missing. And yes, he sent us all an email saying his exhaust fell off. It was a bit of a drama apparently. Looks as if we all had a busy day yesterday,’ he added, with a little laugh.
‘Well today isn’t at all busy here. Although Hannah’s husband came in this morning, with Malcolm Wetherton. Apparently your dad’s funeral is pencilled in for the end of next week. Is that right? Did you get some sense out of the coroner’s officer that quickly?’
‘Actually, he called me at nine o’clock and I passed it on to the others. We’re not at all sure of the date, though. It might be longer. None of us can concentrate on another funeral so soon. I think we’re all still pretty numb about it. I certainly am – I keep letting other things distract me.’ The same little laugh came again. Simmy knew perfectly well what it meant, but was doing her best to resist any response, with Ben and Bonnie listening so intently.
‘I’m not surprised,’ she sympathised. ‘Everyone must be wondering what the police are thinking, and what questions they might ask next.’
‘Oh, I think they’re done with the questions,’ he said, oddly airily. ‘After all, it’s almost a week now.’
‘Yes, but – Chris, your dad was murdered. Somebody deliberately killed him. You must want to know who it was.’
‘Yes, of course I do. We said all this yesterday, didn’t we? It’s too big, Simmy. That sounds daft, but I still can’t help feeling I won’t like it when we finally know who it was. It won’t change anything, will it? I can’t say I’m especially keen to know the reason for it, either. I know my father was no angel. Quite a few people might have reason to hold a grudge against him. Once the whole business is solved, and out in the open, it’s not going to look very good for the Hendersons, is it? As a family, I mean. We’ll be tainted. So forgive me if I don’t want to get mired in all that mucky stuff.’
Simmy met Ben’s eyes, wondering how much he could hear. ‘Mucky stuff?’ she repeated, suddenly remembering the flashback she’d experienced in the middle of the night, in bed with Chris. It all kept coming back to the same thing, until now it felt inevitable, barely even surprising.
‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘Listen – I can’t get away this evening, but I could come tomorrow, after work. Would that be all right?’
‘Lovely,’ she said. ‘And you can tell me all about Carlton – whatever it is.’
‘You don’t know? My God, you’ve got a lot to learn, my girl.’
‘And I bet you have no idea what gypsophila looks like. Or crocosmia. Or syringa.’
‘Touché,’ he said with yet another carefree laugh. ‘See you tomorrow, then.’
‘Did you hear any of that?’ she asked Ben, when the call was ended.
‘Not really.’
‘He’s worried that his father was doing something nasty, and when the story comes out, the whole family is going to be tainted.’ She frowned. ‘But he didn’t sound particularly worried about it. He kept laughing.’
‘Yes, I did catch some of the laughing. Sounded like relief to me. As if he was worried, but now he isn’t.’
‘No, Ben, you’ve got that wrong,’ Bonnie interrupted. ‘He’s just happy that he’s got together with Simmy after all this time. It’s love, that’s all.’
Simmy experienced a jumble of emotions: embarrassment, joy, confusion and more. ‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘Leave my personal life alone, will you? You’re as bad as Melanie, and that’s saying something.’
‘No, but we’re happy for you,’ persisted the girl. ‘It’s good.’
‘All right. But it’s also private, okay? Leave me some dignity, that’s all I ask.’
Ben was waiting for the mushy stuff to stop, so he could get back to the more important matter. Simmy quickly put his waiting at an end. ‘Everything keeps pointing the same way,’ she said. ‘Like all roads leading to the same place. Kit was having
an affair, and now somebody’s punished him for it.’
‘But who would care enough to kill him, other than his wife?’ asked Bonnie. ‘I mean – who else would have got hurt?’
‘The mistress, obviously,’ said Ben, slightly scathingly. ‘If he dumped her, or broke promises – especially after his wife had died and he was free – then the woman scorned would be pretty annoyed about it, wouldn’t she?’
‘So how do we find out who that was?’ asked Simmy. ‘My mother might help, I suppose. She’s already mentioned a woman – girl – called June. But I think that was ages ago. And she was at Fran’s funeral. How would that work?’
‘We’re getting closer,’ said Ben excitedly. ‘I can feel it.’
Before Simmy could say anything to subdue him, the same husky note that had been irritating her increasingly over the past week announced a newcomer.
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘The man himself!’ Ben cried, as triumphant as if his own magic wand had achieved the visitation.
Moxon cast his eyes to the ceiling in amused exasperation. ‘Nice to be made so welcome,’ he said.
‘We’re brainstorming,’ Simmy said.
‘Well, good for you. I came with one quick question, actually.’
‘Fire away,’ Ben invited.
‘A question for Mrs Brown.’
Ben waved a graciously permissive hand, and Moxon sighed. ‘All right, then. Have any of the Hendersons mentioned that list to you? The one I showed you.’
‘The one he was holding when he died?’ Ben interrupted eagerly.
‘Right,’ said Moxon patiently. ‘So?’
She had to think.
‘Well, yes, I talked to George about it. And Christopher might have said something, although I can’t remember if he did.’
‘But you didn’t know anything about it before Henderson was killed?’
‘No, no. Absolutely not.’
‘Hm. I was afraid you’d say that.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, it seems strange that she should have such firm wishes, and yet say nothing to any of the family.’
‘Maybe she did. There’s no reason any of them would talk to me about it, is there?’
‘So what are you thinking?’ asked Ben, obviously puzzled.
‘I’m thinking there’s implications here that we haven’t altogether got a grip on.’
‘And it was written by Fran? You’re sure of that?’ Simmy said.
Ben and Bonnie had drawn together, her hand on his forearm. ‘It was,’ the detective nodded.
‘What did it say, exactly?’ asked Ben.
Moxon hesitated. ‘I can’t tell you, you know that. I showed it to Mrs Brown, but you two – well, you know how closely involved you are. It would be highly embarrassing if I had to disclose in court that I let you see it.’
‘Can I tell them roughly what it said?’ asked Simmy.
‘I can’t stop you,’ he smiled.
‘And you can stop calling me Mrs Brown,’ she said. ‘I thought we’d got past that a while ago.’
He smiled and nodded again. ‘Sorry. Force of habit. Professional protocol.’
‘So?’ prompted Ben.
‘It was a list of requests from Fran to Kit. She wanted him to get a dog, buy a new car, plant some trees and one or two other things I can’t remember.’
‘Trees?’ Ben repeated. ‘In that little garden?’
‘Quite sensible ones, really. Cherry, hazel, juniper … they’d all fit, even if the juniper might make it rather dark after a few years.’
‘So where did it come from?’ demanded Ben. ‘The woman had been dead for weeks. And she wouldn’t post it to him, would she? He must have found it tucked away in the house somewhere.’
‘He was holding it when he was killed. There were no other matching pages anywhere in the house. It reads quite strangely when you really look at it.’ Moxon paused for dramatic effect. ‘We think it was in fact sent to someone else, who then took it to the bungalow, and there was some sort of argument or confrontation, at the end of which Mr Henderson was violently murdered.’
‘You don’t say “violently murdered”,’ muttered Ben. ‘That’s a tautology.’
‘No, it’s not, Ben,’ said Bonnie. ‘If you poisoned somebody, that wouldn’t be violent, would it?’
The young man gave his beloved a full-beam smile and Simmy said, ‘My father would be proud of you. Knowing what a tautology is, I mean. If you ask him nicely, I’m sure he’ll adopt you.’
Everyone chuckled, including Bonnie.
‘The page,’ said Moxon. ‘We showed it to all the sons and daughters, and they all said they had never seen it before. We did it simultaneously, to avoid any conferring. They were all quite convincingly bewildered, by all accounts.’
‘Which one did you interview?’ asked Ben.
‘None of them, as it happens. It was done by an assortment of constables and sergeants, on Friday morning.’
‘Nobody said anything to me.’ Simmy found herself slightly miffed at this. She had spoken to all the Hendersons but Lynn since Friday morning. She had spent a night of passion with one of them, for heaven’s sake.
‘Right. That’s all I wanted to know.’ He appeared more satisfied than disappointed. ‘Do you think your mother might have any further light to throw on the matter?’ he asked, far too diffidently for an experienced officer of the law.
‘Well, she was telling me about someone called June, last night. I suppose it’s the same woman who was at the funeral, with a friend of hers. Cheryl Wetherton, married to Malcolm. He keeps turning up here, for various reasons. There was another woman as well, who joined them later on, and seemed to be their friend, but I don’t know her name. They were all sitting together, with Hannah, when I left. They seemed a bit out of place, somehow. Not related or anything. And a bit young to be proper friends. Older than the offspring, younger than the parents. Kind of in between, like early or mid forties.’ She felt herself babbling, trying to be helpful and probably just throwing up an accidental smokescreen.
‘Yes, I have all those names from the list of mourners,’ said Moxon. ‘At least, I think I have. Mr and Mrs Wetherton, certainly. And I believe there was a Mrs Ford and a Miss H. Jewel.’
‘Good memory!’ applauded Bonnie, who was apparently finding it difficult to make a single helpful contribution, and was feeling rather left out as a result.
‘I’ve had a week to memorise them,’ he smiled at her. ‘I could easily recite the whole list. Sixty-eight people, counting the vicar and the organist and the woman from the hospice.’
‘And my parents, and a whole lot of Hendersons,’ said Simmy. ‘Yes – we’ve just been trying to get that same list together here. I don’t think I managed more than about thirty-five, though.’
‘We hadn’t finished,’ said Ben.
‘I think you know who did it,’ Bonnie suddenly challenged DI Moxon. ‘You’re just trying to gather evidence now. Won’t you tell us who it is?’
Ben and Simmy both held their breath at this piece of impertinence. Then Ben said, ‘He can’t. That would be slander, apart from anything else.’
‘You’re wrong, anyway,’ said the detective. ‘There are still quite a few people under suspicion. I don’t have anything definite on any of them. Although …’ he lapsed into a moment of silent contemplation. ‘Now, I’m getting an idea.’ He squared his shoulders. ‘Beck View – next stop, Lake Road,’ he said. ‘I suppose they’ll be in, will they?’
‘I couldn’t say,’ Simmy told him. ‘Afternoons are their free time. But I don’t imagine they’ll have gone anywhere in this gloomy weather.’
He was off without another word, leaving the threesome all looking at each other for enlightenment.
‘Who’s Miss H. Jewel?’ asked Ben. ‘You never said anything about her.’
‘No idea. How many names begin with an H, anyway?’
‘Hermione.’
‘Helen.’
‘Hil
da.’
‘Hester.’
‘Harriet.’
‘Hazel!’ said Simmy. ‘Hazel Jewel. Cheryl Wetherton. June something.’ She waited. ‘Think about it, kids. Think hard.’
Both young faces gazed blankly back at her. ‘It’s all thanks to my mother,’ Simmy said. ‘And her obsession with names. I bet she’ll latch onto it, the same as I just have, once she starts talking to Moxon.’
‘What? What is it?’ Ben was shouting furiously, unused to coming second in anything that required intellectual activity.
‘That list of trees that Kit was holding. Cherry, Juniper and Hazel … get it now?’
He mouthed the words twice over, then ‘My God! Cherry for Cheryl, juniper for June and hazel for Hazel. So – you think all three of them have been discarded by the old man, over the years, and got their revenge on him together? They all killed him?’ He frowned. ‘They’d never get away with it, if so. Everyone knows that criminals betray each other, every time.’
‘Why should it be all of them?’ Bonnie asked. ‘Why not just one, with the others not knowing anything about it?’
‘And what about the fact that Fran wrote that list?’ Simmy wondered. ‘And turned the names into trees that she wanted Kit to put in the garden. Which is quite a nasty thing to do, when you think about it.’
‘Very,’ Ben agreed.
‘So – she must have sent it to somebody, and that person took it to show Kit, and then killed him,’ Bonnie summarised. ‘Is that right?’
‘That’s what it looks like,’ said Ben. ‘But there have to be other interpretations. And what other trees or plants were on that list? And did Kit get the message?’
‘Other interpretations?’ asked Simmy.
‘Well, let’s do some more brainstorming. What if Mrs H did send – or give – that list to her husband directly? And it made him think fondly of one of his old girlfriends? So he invited her round for old time’s sake, and she was so outraged she bumped him off?’
‘Doesn’t quite ring true,’ Bonnie demurred. ‘She wouldn’t have gone in the first place unless she still had a soft spot for him. Or unless she went with the intention of killing him, taking her sharpest pair of scissors with her. That seems a bit unlikely.’