by Rebecca Tope
‘Ben – I told you, I’m not driving anywhere in all this snow.’
‘Look out of the window. The sun’s shining. It’s about seven degrees out there. I bet you every morsel of snow’ll be gone by eleven. Don’t be so soft.’
She swallowed down her protests at being spoken to like that. Ben was her friend, even if he was twenty-one years her junior. They had fallen into easy conversation within moments of first meeting and had enjoyed a mutual liking ever since. Besides, he was almost certain to be right about the weather. In true geeky fashion, he was always well aware of the elements and what they would deliver next.
‘My dad said it would snow again today, worse than before.’
‘Well, he’s wrong. The forecast has changed drastically since this time yesterday.’
‘Even so, we can’t just descend on Melanie’s gran without warning,’ she objected weakly.
‘Which is why I’m going to call her now and see if she thinks it’ll be okay.’ The exaggerated patience was definitely patronising. ‘Can you be down here at two, and we’ll take it from there? I’ll get back to you if it’s not going to happen, right? If you don’t hear anything, assume that’s the plan.’
‘Where, exactly?’
‘My house. You can find it, can’t you? Helm Road. House with yellow door.’ He added the number for good measure, and she confirmed that she could easily find it. ‘But I haven’t said I’ll come yet,’ she remembered crossly. ‘I’ve got things to do here.’ The last was not really true. Sunday afternoons could stretch boringly slowly, occupied only by housework, if there was no prospect of a walk or shop-related paperwork.
‘You’ll come,’ he laughed. ‘If you don’t hear back from me, assume it’s all fixed. Right?’
‘Don’t tell Melanie what Scott said,’ she urged. ‘She might pass it back to Joe and that’d cause trouble for Scott.’
He was silent for a few seconds. ‘Wilf said the same thing. But she’ll be furious when she finds out. We ought not to have secrets from each other. We’re a gang, after all.’
‘Are we?’ Was it possible for a thirty-eight-year-old florist to be in a gang? It sounded ridiculously childish, the way he said it. And at the same time, it gave her a ridiculously childish thrill.
‘Definitely,’ he asserted. ‘See you later.’
Without Ben, life would be very different, she reflected, over her solitary lunch of lamb chops. Her mother had somehow befriended a smallholder in Coniston, years ago, who sold her whole carcases for the freezer at rock-bottom prices. Since Angie’s freezers were always uncomfortably full, Simmy was used as an overflow – which meant she always had more than enough meat to eat. Not to mention all the apples that accumulated through the autumn, to be stewed with blackberries or plums and used for pies all through the winter. Seldom enticed by the lavish displays on supermarket shelves, Simmy was glad to keep things basic, seasonal and cheap.
Ben was a dynamo, a hothouse of ambitions and theories. He had eagerly involved himself in solving the investigation into the violent deaths of two men back in October, putting himself in sufficient danger to warrant a warning from Detective Inspector Moxon not to be so cavalier in future. At the same time, he had earned gratitude and admiration from the relatives of the victims. Not to mention envy from Melanie and bewilderment from his parents. He relished the intellectual puzzle that lay at the heart of any but the most straightforward murder. He reminded Simmy and Melanie that a significant proportion of homicides were never solved. Killers escaped without punishment and families remained stuck in agonised frustration.
None of which was of much help to Simmy as she tried to establish her own role in the Ambleside murder. By any reckoning, she was being inexorably drawn in – first by the accident of being able to give Mr Kitchener an alibi, then by her lunch with DI Moxon in the pub and now by Ben’s increasing conviction that there was a definite connection between Mrs Mary Joseph and Miss Nancy Clark. This last was still hard to believe, based, as it seemed to be, on the most tenuous of links.
But Ben had been right about the snow, and Russell had been wrong, which was not unusual. Although the fells were still white, the roads were clear and there was no sign of ice. So long as she got home again by about five, she supposed she could make the short trip down to Bowness and back without undue risk. With a host of very mixed feelings, she drove carefully down the twists and turns of Holbeck Lane and out onto the main road a mile or two south of Ambleside.
Ben met her on the doorstep of his parents’ house, and jumped into the passenger seat without a word. He then directed her back the way she had come, to Oak Street, not far from the station. Melanie’s gran lived in a two-storey terrace house, made of the ubiquitous dark stone, Simmy discovered. There was a narrow strip of front garden, hardly big enough to turn round in. A dead-looking shrub pressed itself against the wall of the house. Simmy found herself feeling idiotically shy.
‘Hiya!’ Melanie carolled from somewhere behind them, as they stood at the door. ‘Brill timing, you two. Gran’s ever so excited about all this. She can’t wait to show you her old photos. Brace yourselves.’ She pushed open the door, which was obviously not locked, and led the way into a dark little hallway.
The existence of a grandfather came as a big surprise to Simmy. She was sure she had never once heard Melanie mention him. But there he was, in a deep velvet reclining armchair, his feet almost level with his head, turning an indifferent gaze upon them. ‘Barb!’ he called. ‘They’re here. Melly and her friends. Let themselves in as bold as brass, they have.’
A coal fire was smouldering in a generously sized grate, throwing out heat that had to negotiate the old man’s legs before reaching the rest of the room.
A tall woman with silver hair came through from a door at the back of the room, carrying a substantial wooden tray laden with mugs of tea and heavy dark cake. Her back was straight and her eyes clear. ‘How lovely!’ she breathed. ‘I’m ever so pleased to meet you properly. I’m Barbara Ellis. Call me Barb – everyone does.’
She was addressing Simmy, who held out a hand, and smiled as broadly as she could. ‘I hope we’re not intruding,’ she said. ‘It does seem a bit of a cheek.’ She found that she did recognise the elderly woman, from occasional visits to the shop. The soft accent and intelligent gaze had made an impression on her, but she had never made a connection between the customer and Melanie. Probably because Melanie had never been there when her grandmother called in.
‘Not a bit of it. Melly explained it all. How you’ve met up with Mary Joseph, and this boy here wants to practise for his studies, asking me questions.’ She faltered slightly, and busied herself with handing out the tea and cake. Nobody was offered sugar, and milk had already been added without consultation. Simmy resolved to tell her mother that here was a woman she would find highly compatible. ‘Have I got that right?’ the hostess asked, after a moment. ‘About his studies?’
‘Quite right, Mrs Ellis,’ said Ben heartily. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to use you as a guinea pig, if that’s okay. I need to see what sort of questions to ask, to help you remember things from your past. It’s just practice, you see. Nothing important’s going to come of it. But I just thought that seeing as how you’ve lived here all your life and know so many people, it would be a very interesting experiment.’ He took a large bite of cake and beamed his approval.
Simmy blinked. If Melanie’s gran understood a word of that, she was doing a lot better than Simmy. As far as she could tell, it was pure gobbledygook. For the first time, she wondered what in the world DI Moxon would make of it, if he knew what they were doing.
It seemed that Mrs Ellis was no fool. ‘Doing the police’s job for them, is that it?’ she asked with a wink.
Simmy frowned. ‘Well, actually, the police aren’t at all involved with the Joseph side of things. It’s only Melanie and Ben who keep thinking up wild theories about a connection.
‘Well, I’ve no argument with that. The police are always
six steps behind when it comes to understanding local business. Just look at that boyfriend of Mel’s, Joe Wheeler, who might not be too happy for her to go ferreting out people’s secrets, maybe, but he’s no detective, now is he?’ She laughed, not quite kindly. Ben joined in, ducking his head conspiratorially.
There followed an hour and a half of total recall. Photos were produced and used to spark anecdotes that dated back to the 1950s and beyond. But the big surprise came early on, with a picture of two girls aged about ten, standing arm in arm, with tidy hair and wide smiles. ‘That’s me with Lilian Smart. She was my best friend for years. We met when we first started school, and stayed together till we were fifteen. We both failed the eleven-plus,’ Mrs Ellis laughed. ‘Best thing that could happen to us. Gave us all the time we needed for having fun. Never had much in the way of homework or exams. We used to feel so sorry for those girls at the grammar, with their round shoulders and glasses. We both got jobs the minute we left. By the time we were all twenty, we were like people from different planets. Take those Clark sisters – never stopped trying to make something of themselves and where did it get them?’ She was plainly lost in the 1950s world of home perms and handmade frocks, Friday evening dances and the pursuit of a likely lad.
Melanie leant forward. ‘Gran – slow down a bit, okay? Where’s Lilian Smart now? And I thought you said Nancy Clark was never much good at school. It was her sister Penny who got all the qualifications.’
‘Dead. She’s dead. Just a few weeks ago.’ The old lady shook her head sadly. ‘Lovely funeral, though. Saw your flowers, of course.’ She looked at Simmy. ‘Melly told me to look out for them.’
Simmy quickly went through all the funerals she’d done flowers for recently. ‘Was her name still Smart?’
‘Oh, no. Kitchener. She was Lilian Kitchener.’
‘Oh!’ said Simmy faintly. ‘Yes, I remember. What a coincidence.’ She seemed to be saying that quite a lot these days.
‘Coincidence? Why?’
‘Well – I met her son last week.’ She had no intention of explaining the connection, and why Malcolm Kitchener had been such a presence over the past four or five days. She threw a warning glance at Ben and Melanie, who both gave tiny nods of compliance. ‘He’s taking it hard, missing her badly.’
‘What was she like, Gran?’ Melanie asked.
Mrs Ellis had a deep voice, and now it got even deeper. The words seemed to come from far back in her throat. ‘She had a difficult life,’ she said. ‘Her husband was a swine. The boy had an awful time when he was growing up. There was a girl, as well. Brenda. She got out early. Emigrated to Australia. Never even came back for the funeral.’
‘Her father’s funeral?’ asked Melanie.
‘Neither of them.’
‘She sent flowers,’ said Simmy. ‘It was an Interflora order.’
Lilian Kitchener had become a martyr, it seemed, while her brutish husband was alive. A man who began as a suave charmer, sweeping the girl off her feet at the age of seventeen, and turned nasty before the first bed sheets had been changed, as Mrs Ellis quaintly put it. ‘Lucky for her, he died before he reached fifty. Fell in front of a train, the damn fool. Drunk, of course. Made a terrible mess.’
Ben snorted, trying to suppress a laugh. Melanie’s gran smiled at him. ‘Feel free, lad. It was the best thing that could happen. Gave her thirty years as a merry widow. She’d earned it, bless her.’
Another snort came from the horizontal reclining chair. ‘Don’t get ideas, my girl,’ said old Mr Ellis. ‘I’m good for a few years yet.’
‘You’re no bother,’ his wife told him flatly. ‘Never out of that bloody chair, are you? Can’t even sit up straight when there’s visitors.’ Simmy had inwardly noted the rudeness implied in this, from the outset.
‘You know why that is,’ he defended himself. ‘It’ll break if I keep doing it.’
Everyone laughed at this. It was true he was a heavy man, but the chair looked quite capable of managing a good number of transformations yet. ‘It’s what it’s made for, you fool,’ said his wife. ‘You’ve only had it three months.’
Ben lifted his chin, waiting for a chance to speak, picking up another photo from the array spread across the coffee table. ‘Is this Nancy Clark, did you say? Could you tell us what you remember of her?’ he invited. ‘She never married, did she? Wasn’t that rather unusual?’
‘Career girl. It was Penny that I knew, not Nancy.’ She pointed a finger at Melanie. ‘You got it wrong, girl. Wrong way round. Nancy was the clever one. She did some sort of special exam and got top marks so they sent her off to the grammar. Never saw much of her after that.’ She got up from her place on a three-seater sofa and tipped more coal onto the fire. Her husband sighed his contentment.
Melanie was frowning. ‘Did I get it wrong?’ she asked Simmy.
‘Not the first time. Last week, when you told me about it, you said Nancy was the successful one. Penny married a farmer and had umpteen kids.’
‘Five,’ said Mrs Ellis. ‘She and Nancy were twins, and she had a pair of her own. It goes like that in some families,’ she said knowingly. ‘Three boys and then twin girls. Lovely they are. I saw one of them at the harvest, back in October. Got their own kiddies now, of course. Most of them, anyway. The girls are good with poor Penny, now she’s got that Parkinson’s thing.’
‘Not the one who’s in prison,’ said Simmy, looking round smugly at having held onto that snippet of information.
‘That was a travesty,’ old Sam Ellis spat, to everyone’s surprise. ‘Could have happened to anyone. Poor girl, ruined her life it has.’
Ben was looking immensely interested. ‘What?’ he demanded.
Nobody spoke, until Simmy said, ‘Moxon told me. She got three years for dangerous driving. Killed a child. That’s all I know.’
‘Well, it has nothing to do with anything,’ said Mrs Ellis, with a placatory glance at her husband. He settled down again, after a few angry sniffs.
Ben spoke carefully but persistently. ‘So they all still live in the area, then? Penny’s children, I mean?’
Barbara Ellis read his mind, and swiftly headed him off. ‘Don’t you go suspecting any of them of killing their old auntie,’ she cautioned him. ‘Not one of them would have the gumption, nor any reason to do such a thing. Maybe they had precious little love for her, but that’s a very long way from murder, as even a scrap of a boy like you would understand.’
Ben took this put-down very well, but Melanie protested. ‘Hey, Gran – he’s not to be sneered at, you know. I told you about all those awards he’s got, and how everyone thinks he’s going to be a star one day.’
‘I’m sorry, lad. But it won’t do to start imagining things, will it?’
‘Not at all,’ the boy shook his head. ‘So can we go back to Nancy and find out a bit more about her? She didn’t work as a dentist, did she?’ he asked hopefully.
‘Pardon? Who – Nancy? No, she was at some fancy private clinic. There for years. Chief nurse, or something of the sort. Hobnobbed with the doctors and rich philanthropists, or whatever they call themselves. Never a sign of getting married. Story was she was mistress to one of the top consultant blokes. Wouldn’t have surprised me.’
‘Did Penny tell you that?’ Melanie asked.
‘Might have done. Could have been Lilian, even. Come to think of it, most likely that’s who it was. Lilian was always a great gossip. Nobody’s secrets were safe with her, and she’d have enjoyed putting down the poison about Nancy. Never did like each other, those two. Of course, we’re talking thirty years since. Not sure I can recall just who said what, after all that time.’
Simmy could see Ben having the same idea as her own sudden suspicion. ‘How did she die, exactly? Lilian, I mean?’
‘Heart. Out like a light on the kitchen floor. Never knew what hit her, poor old love. People say that’s a good way to go, but it would never suit me. I’m hoping for a bit of warning first.’
Ben gave a little
shrug, before pressing on. ‘What about the Joseph man? Melanie says he was in your class as well. Married a girl called Mary.’
Mrs Ellis looked blank, interrupted in the expression of her wishes as to how she might die. Then her face became more animated. ‘Matthew? Oh yes, a beautiful boy. Dark, curly hair, fabulous eyelashes.’ She rummaged amongst the photos, in vain. ‘Never did like having his picture taken, though. There was one of the whole class, but he was blurred at the back. Can’t find it now. Anyway, everybody was in love with Matthew Joseph. He went off to Leeds, and worked his way up in the printing trade. Did very well. Mary she was called – the girl he married. A bit older than him, they said. They came back here later on, with the two young girls. Matthew set up his own works in Keswick. But he died too young. I never saw much of him; just heard his name now and then. Saw her out and about a few times, over the years. Got a daughter with a daft name.’
‘Davy,’ nodded Simmy. ‘It’s short for Davida.’
‘Anyway – why do you want to know about Matthew?’
‘Simmy’s had some business with his wife, that’s all. Another coincidence, sort of.’
‘Listen, lad,’ said Mrs Ellis firmly. ‘All these so-called coincidences, they’re nothing of the sort. Think about it, why don’t you. Anyone who’s lived here – Windermere, Ambleside, Bowness – since they were born, they’re bound to know each other. It’s just plain fact. The incomers, well, that’s different. They struggle to understand who everyone is.’ She threw a kindly look at Simmy. ‘But there’s still enough of us in the place to make a kind of … foundation. Do you see? The farmers, butchers, schoolteachers, doctors, shopkeepers – most of them have always lived here, and they stay after they retire. This place is all they know. They’ve got roots. And they all know each other. Most of them have married each other. Look at Melly’s mother. She’s got eighteen cousins, and a good many of them live less than ten miles from here.’ She reflected for a moment. ‘And one of them married Matthew Joseph’s sister,’ she finished in triumph. ‘She’s called Beulah, of all things. She was younger than us. Cross-eyed, poor girl. Sam’s young brother married her. Never had any kids, though.’