The Ambleside Alibi: 2

by Rebecca Tope

  She proceeded to compose similar letters to three more old friends, none of whom had yet visited her in her new home, before deciding her hand was too stiff for any more writing. Everyone else could have a few lines inside the card itself.

  Shortly before nine, she had a phone call from her mother – an unusual event. ‘The cat’s been run over,’ she began, with no discernible emotion. ‘It’s broken its pelvis, apparently. And leg. They’re going to pin it all back together tomorrow.’

  ‘Poor thing. Sounds expensive. Is Daddy upset?’

  ‘Quite. It’s his animal, really. He’ll have to do all the nursing.’

  ‘So?’ The cat was a good-tempered male tabby that spent most of its time in the kitchen at Beck View. Health inspectors that showed up sporadically to check that the B&B was being run on acceptable lines would always raise their eyebrows and make critical comments on their clipboards, but Angie never took any notice. At least there were unlikely to be any mice contaminating the groceries, she would say.

  ‘So he says he won’t be free to go out with you on Sunday morning. Apparently you had a plan.’

  ‘Nothing definite. There was some talk of walking to Garburn and Castle Crag, but only if the weather was right. How do you nurse a cat, anyway?’

  ‘Goodness knows. I imagine we’re about to find out.’

  ‘Did the driver stop, then? How did you find him?’

  ‘It was a woman. She did stop, and took Chucky to the people next door. They sent her here. She was quite upset, to give her her due. Offered to drive us to the vet, but we wouldn’t let her. For a start, we haven’t ever needed a vet before. We didn’t know where to go. Turned out, it’s barely five minutes from here. Dad carried him down.’

  Simmy remembered her own lack of local knowledge, when it came to locating the police station. But she had more of an excuse – she had only lived in the area for a year. Angie and Russell Straw were both every bit as unobservant of their immediate surroundings as their daughter was.

  ‘Poor cat,’ she said again. ‘I’ll come round on Saturday and bring him some sardines, then, shall I?’

  ‘Yes, do,’ said her mother. ‘Pity about the walk. I was looking forward to having the place to myself for a bit.’

  Chapter Four

  Her conversations with Melanie and Julie returned to her, as she lay waiting to fall asleep. Melanie would be thrilled by the latest involvement with a murder; a response that Simmy found unsettling. The obvious explanation for it was that the girl had a boyfriend who happened to be a police constable, which gave her some sort of special interest in criminal matters. There were also the recent high-profile murders, from which Melanie had been almost entirely excluded by various accidents of timing. She had firmly insisted that if anything of the sort were to happen again, she wanted to be right in the middle of it.

  ‘It won’t happen again,’ Simmy had told her repeatedly. ‘Lightning doesn’t strike twice.’ But now, with the killing of a defenceless woman in Ambleside, and Simmy named as an alibi for a suspect, it seemed she had spoken too soon. But still she resisted any idea that she might find herself significantly involved again. She had vouched for Mr Kitchener as any passer-by would do, and that was the end of it. If his fingerprints were in the victim’s house, then there had to be an innocent explanation for it. She thrust aside the niggling questions that wormed their way into her head. How did the police know the prints – or DNA, or whatever – belonged to Mr K? Wouldn’t that mean they already had him on record, in their database? And wasn’t there a rule that said they could only retain material from convicted criminals? She was hazy on that question, and rejected any temptation to check with Ben, who would undoubtedly know the answer.

  Only by forcing her thoughts onto other matters could she close out these annoying questions. The flowers for Mrs Joseph came to mind, sent by an unknown granddaughter. That really was an interesting little mystery that she’d have liked to solve for her own satisfaction. The customer had given an address in Liverpool, explaining she had found Persimmon Petals online and thought it would be cheapest to phone her directly, rather than go through Interflora or such. She had given a credit card number that involved a confirmation that the address was valid. Her name was Candida Hawkins. ‘But don’t you dare tell Mrs Joseph that,’ she adjured Simmy. ‘She’s not to know my name.’ Simmy had readily given an undertaking to respect the client’s confidentiality. Even so, she kept it clear in her mind. Candida was a memorable name, anyway, and one she had briefly considered for her own daughter, during her pregnancy. Tony had said it was pretentious.

  She mentally tidied away the day as she waited for sleep. It had been a lot more eventful than any for some weeks. The last thought she had before falling asleep was of Ninian Tripp, and how his name conjured fairy tales and earlier times.

  Thursday dawned bright and sunny, with the light flooding the hills across the lake, visible from her bedroom window. A stirring of childish excitement at the prospect of Christmas gripped her. The carols and good cheer would make the centre of Windermere a pleasing place to be for the coming week or two. The necessity of some kind of festival to tide everyone through the winter could not be dodged. The celebration of a birth was, at the very least, a clever way of creating a sense of anticipation and possibility for the coming seasons. Even though the infant Jesus was a most unrealistic baby, whether in medieval paintings or primary school nativity plays, the idea was there. The days stopped getting shorter, and by Twelfth Night could just be perceived as lengthening again. For a florist, there was a cornucopia of spring blooms to look forward to. It was intoxicating to think of the narcissi, tulips, irises and much besides, all due to appear in a few months’ time. Simmy lay in bed, quietly rejoicing in the prospects ahead.

  She drove down to the shop, arriving at eight-thirty. A delivery from the wholesalers was due at any moment. Melanie would turn up sometime between nine and ten. She and Simmy were both fairly relaxed about timekeeping, especially when business was as quiet as it had been recently. So long as flowers got to funerals and weddings on time, other commissions tended to be reasonably flexible. The sense of well-being continued into the morning, enhanced by an order for a lavish anniversary bouquet, to be delivered the next afternoon to a house in Newby Bridge.

  Then the shop door pinged, and Mr Kitchener walked in. He looked gaunt and embarrassed, and Simmy wished, not for the first time, that she wasn’t quite so easy to find.

  ‘Hello!’ she greeted him, with a wholly excessive effusion.

  ‘Hello,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve just come about yesterday. It was very nice of you to get me out of trouble like that. I’d probably still be there otherwise.’

  ‘I only told the truth.’ Already she was starting to share his awkwardness. ‘There’s no need to thank me.’

  ‘You must have been wondering what it was all about. How much did they tell you?’

  This was turning difficult. Surely he must know that she’d have been told he was being questioned about the murder? But how did you say that to someone? How did you voice the fact that he had been, albeit fleetingly, suspected of the most terrible crime?

  ‘Oh – you know – just the basics. It was obviously all a big mistake. And I bet you could have named all sorts of people who could vouch for you, not just me. The women who run the café, for a start.’

  ‘They wouldn’t remember me. Just another faceless customer to them. It was the greatest piece of luck that you were there. I promise you, I’d have been in very hot water without you.’

  ‘Why?’ she couldn’t help asking. ‘What evidence was there against you?’

  ‘The old lady knew my mother. I’d been to the house several times. She and I didn’t get along, and the neighbours reported a row we had, not so long ago.’ He shifted restlessly, unable to meet her eye. ‘I was actually a lodger there, at one point. Ages ago now, when my wife threw me out, but people round here don’t forget a thing.’

  ‘I see,’ said Simmy sl
owly. ‘You were in the system because of the row, is that it? On the police computer or something?’

  ‘Right,’ he nodded. After a pause, he said, ‘Well, I won’t keep you. Just … thanks again. I owe you one.’

  He turned to go, and came face to face with Melanie, who had just arrived. They sidestepped each other, and he went out into the street. ‘Who was that?’ asked the girl. ‘I’ve seen him before.’

  ‘Mr Kitchener. I told you I saw him yesterday.’ It occurred to her, rather foolishly, that Melanie could therefore offer a sort of backup alibi, if required. Or would it only be hearsay? Somehow, she remembered that lots of apparently good evidence turned out to be mere worthless hearsay, because you couldn’t place any trust in what people said to each other.

  ‘You’re not starting a thing with him, are you?’ Melanie asked suspiciously. ‘He’s nothing like good enough for you. He’s got funny legs.’

  ‘It’s a limp. Something wrong with one of his hips, I expect. It makes his legs look strange.’ The brief scene where he kicked the chair in the café came back to her. Would any of those chattering girls have remembered him, she wondered? Was there no one else who could have provided him with an alibi? Suddenly, the responsibility sat heavily on her, making her uneasy. What if he had been cunning enough to make it look as if the murder had happened at a different time than it really had? Was it possible, anyway, for the precise moment to be established? How could twenty minutes in a café be enough to settle the matter conclusively? Without the full story from DI Moxon, she was doomed to ask herself questions like this, with little hope of reliable answers.

  ‘Ben!’ she said aloud. ‘He’d know.’

  ‘Know what?’ Melanie looked at her as if she’d missed something. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Sorry.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Listen, Mel – I suppose I’ll have to tell you, after last time. There was an old lady murdered yesterday in Ambleside. The police thought Mr Kitchener might have something to do with it, but he gave me as an alibi because I saw him in the coffee shop. I had to go and confirm that it was the same man. So they let him go, and he came in just now to thank me. I’m probably not meant to tell anybody about it. Okay?’

  Melanie kept up with this abbreviated summary with impressive ease. ‘I see,’ she said. ‘Thanks for telling me. She was called Nancy Clark, I presume.’

  ‘What? How do you know that?’

  ‘It was on the news last night. Didn’t you watch it? They didn’t say anything much. Hinted that it might be a robbery that went wrong, somehow.’

  Simmy shook her head. ‘My mother phoned to say the cat was run over, and I was writing my Christmas cards. I didn’t bother with the telly.’

  ‘Is it dead? The cat, I mean.’

  ‘No, no. It’s got broken bones and my dad’s going to have to nurse it better. He says he can’t go for a walk with me to Garburn on Sunday.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. It’s going to snow.’

  ‘What?’ Simmy’s heart had done a wild lurch that was wholly uncalled for. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘That’s what they say. It won’t be much, this side of Christmas. Anyway, Garburn’s just a swamp. What would you want to go there for?’ Melanie, despite being born and bred amongst the fells, saw little appeal in being out in them apart from the odd picnic in high summer.

  ‘I want to see it for myself. There’s a track to it, running practically from my front door. It seems all wrong that I’ve never gone up there.’

  ‘Never mind that now. What about this murder? And why did you say Ben would know? What would he know?’

  ‘I can’t remember now.’ The prospect of snow was still alarming her. ‘I never got those winter tyres put on the car,’ she worried. ‘What if I get stuck?’

  ‘You won’t get stuck,’ Melanie pacified her. ‘They salt all the roads. It’s only weather,’ she added bizarrely. ‘And snow at Christmas is nice.’

  A customer saved the conversation from descending into mutual irritation. Simmy went to welcome the elderly man who stood staring at a garland of ivy, eucalyptus and snowberries that Simmy had made two days previously. ‘I’m rather proud of that one,’ she told him.

  ‘Where would you put it?’ he asked doubtfully.

  ‘On a door, maybe. Or it could be a table centrepiece. You could stand a candle in the middle.’

  ‘I was looking for something more … traditional,’ he said. ‘Holly. Evergreens. Red ribbons. You know.’

  She did, and produced a wreath that matched his description quite closely, albeit with the addition of some Douglas fir and a gold-coloured tassel attached to the bottom. ‘I could make one up for you,’ she offered. ‘If you don’t like this.’

  ‘That one’s good enough,’ he nodded. ‘It’s very nice, actually. And I like the model in the window. Very clever, that is. My partner says we should do something of the sort in our garden. Is it difficult to do?’

  She ran through the process with him, warning of the mess involved, with glue and bits of seedpod and stick getting everywhere. ‘But it was rather fun,’ she concluded. ‘Why not have a go, and see how you get on?’

  Melanie had drifted into the back room, to perform one of her key tasks of sorting out the latest consignment from the wholesaler. A stickler for using everything in proper date order, she would line up the flowers accordingly, replacing the oldest stock in the shop with something a day or two fresher. Unusually for her age group, she deplored waste above everything else. If Simmy complained that hardly anything on display was really recent, Melanie would simply accuse her of over ordering. Between them, they had established an acceptable balance, with Simmy forced to admit that her assistant had a point about wastage.

  The man bought the garland, referring again to his partner, who turned out to be called Jim.

  ‘So much for gay men being supercreative,’ said Melanie, who often managed to overhear conversation from the storeroom. ‘He didn’t seem to have the slightest idea what he was doing, did he?’

  ‘At least he was trying,’ Simmy defended. She had rather enjoyed the man’s willingness to learn, despite his failure to buy the more unusual decoration. She had taken some trouble over it, worrying that the snowberries would drop off prematurely, or turn brown.

  Another Interflora order popped up on the computer, for delivery the following day, which gave Simmy something to do for the next hour, selecting and assembling components for the two bouquets now on order. Only very fleetingly did images of poor Nancy Clark intrude, lying in a pool of blood in her hallway, betrayed by the visitor she had willingly admitted. Whatever she might have thought the previous evening, Simmy was resolved not to open the door to anybody she didn’t know until the killer had been well and truly caught.

  The sunshine outside persisted, but failed to bring shoppers onto the streets in any appreciable numbers. On such days, Melanie’s presence was essentially superfluous, and Simmy would be tempted to leave the girl in charge of the shop and find some reason to get out and about. With no deliveries to make, she considered the idea of dropping into one or two local restaurants and suggesting they add festive floral decorations to their tables. There were still a few who had made vague promises to think about regular orders of flowers, but never followed through. It was an aspect of the business that she did not enjoy, but which she knew could make a big difference, if performed effectively. Melanie saw it as a way of meeting new people – something she regularly accused Simmy of failing to do.

  But the timing was all wrong. Restaurants would be hectically busy with Christmas parties until well into the afternoon. Then they would be girding themselves for more busyness in the evening. They would have no time or inclination to discuss flowers. Should have done it a month ago, Simmy reproached herself.

  So it was with undiluted pleasure that she greeted young Ben Harkness when he materialised just before four o’clock. ‘Hey, Ben,’ she cried. ‘Nice to see you. It’s been ages.’

  The boy raised h
is eyebrows in a brief response and slung his heavy school bag onto the floor. At seventeen, he was still growing, with a thin neck and round shoulders. He spent too much time at the computer, in Simmy’s opinion, but had a sort of gracefulness that she found endearing. ‘Busy,’ he said.

  ‘Exams?’

  He shook his head. ‘Play rehearsals, mainly. I got you a ticket, if you’re interested.’

  ‘Wow! What’s the play?’

  ‘Androcles and the Lion, would you believe? It’s been a nightmare learning all the lines.’

  ‘Why? Have you got a big part?’

  He gave her a straight look. ‘Do you know it? The play?’

  ‘Um … Sorry. I know I ought to know, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it.’ Drama was definitely not one of her special interests, although she had made an effort with Shakespeare at one point in her early thirties. ‘Who wrote it?’

  ‘Shaw, actually. It’s about how states treat their minorities, and eccentrics. And it’s terribly rude about Christianity. But it’s quite short – only two acts.’

  ‘And I suppose you’re Androcles?’

  ‘No, I’m Ferrovius. It’s a big part. It’s daft for me to be doing it at all, when I’m not even taking drama.’ He sighed. ‘But they said it would look good on my CV – which is bonkers, actually. But it is sort of fun. Makes a change.’

  ‘Come off it,’ put in Melanie, who had expressed an intention of going home over an hour before, but somehow never quite gone. ‘You love it, if I know you. You’ll be brilliant, obviously.’

  He grimaced. ‘Doubt it. And there’s not much take-up of the tickets. There’s only about fifteen parts in the whole thing, and the families aren’t bothered if their kid isn’t in it. Big mistake, but you can’t tell Old Anthill anything.’