The Hawkshead Hostage

by Rebecca Tope

  ‘There’s been another development,’ he said suddenly. ‘I wasn’t sure I ought to tell you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know a man called Ninian Tripp?’

  ‘Of course. He’s a mate of Corinne’s. And Simmy has a thing with him. Everybody knows Ninian.’

  ‘Okay. Well Mrs Brown left me a voicemail a little while ago, to say Mr Tripp thinks he saw Ben in a car last night. With a man and a woman. Somewhere towards Grasmere.’

  ‘Simmy told you? Why didn’t Ninian do it himself?’

  ‘Why, indeed. Do you think that’s significant?’

  ‘Not really. Just typical.’

  They exchanged smiles full of the shared knowledge that Ninian was not a very worthy person when it came to the things that mattered. A bit like Melanie, thought Bonnie unkindly. ‘Is he sure it was Ben?’ Interesting, she noted, that her instant reaction had been that of course it wasn’t Ben. Ninian was too dreamy to provide reliable evidence. ‘What would that mean – if it was him?’

  ‘God knows.’

  ‘A man and a woman. What else does he remember?’

  ‘I’ve got somebody with him now, trying to find out.’ He made a tetchy little click with his tongue. ‘I don’t have to do everything myself, you know.’

  ‘I never said you did. It’s just – it mostly is you, though, isn’t it? That’s what Simmy would say.’

  He inhaled deeply and worked his shoulders. ‘Go home,’ he said. ‘We can’t do any more this evening. I mean – you can’t. I’m trusting you not to go off again on your own, all right?’

  ‘I won’t go anywhere today,’ she compromised. ‘Corinne’s made a cottage pie.’

  ‘Nice.’

  Bonnie’s history of disordered eating, involving a lot of missed schooling and periods in hospital, made any reference to food hazardous. Even Moxon, only vaguely aware of the story, clearly felt himself on shaky ground.

  ‘I’m over all that,’ she assured him. ‘Ben’s straightened me out. I owe everything to Ben,’ she finished with a wild look. ‘That’s why he’s got to be all right. Do you see?’

  ‘I do, indeed. His mother would no doubt say the same.’ It was a gentle reproof that Ben himself would appreciate. ‘First thing in the morning, we’ll be pulling out every stop to find him. That’s a promise.’ He put a hand on his heart like a man from an earlier age. ‘A solemn promise.’

  Bonnie was only slightly impressed. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll be off, then.’ She was back in the low evening light of the lakeside street before he could say any more.

  But the day was not quite done yet. Corinne was uncharacteristically annoyed when she got back. ‘Sneaking off like that – again,’ she accused. ‘What am I supposed to think? You did it deliberately, making sure I was busy in the kitchen, you little beast.’

  ‘I called you,’ Bonnie defended.

  ‘Right. About an hour after you’d gone. What good was that supposed to do?’

  ‘It wasn’t an hour. Nothing like.’

  ‘Just don’t do it again. I’m on your side, you little idiot. Why do you think you have to lie and play games with me? That’s what I don’t understand.’

  Bonnie sighed. She didn’t entirely understand it herself. It seemed to be engrained in her bones, the need to outwit and escape. People were so often in her way, blocking her path, threatening to confine her somehow or other. It had produced an instinct to go her own way whenever she could. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Is the cottage pie ready?’

  ‘Dried up by now.’

  ‘It’ll be fine with some ketchup. I want lots.’ It was a shabby trick, she knew, but one she could not resist using. Any hint of appetite earned a high degree of favour, even from Corinne, who knew the score better than most.

  ‘That’s good.’ Corinne smiled forgivingly.

  Then the doorbell rang, and Bonnie left her foster mother to answer it, while she tucked into a moderate helping of the food. It was delicious, she had to admit. Corinne added mushrooms and herbs and soy sauce, besides grating celeriac into the mashed potato. There was no better cottage pie in the world. That was unarguable.

  ‘Visitor for you,’ Corinne announced, three minutes later. Bonnie looked up to see a person she had no reason to expect to see that evening. A person she had not thought kindly of over the past few hours.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘Don’t stop,’ said Melanie, indicating the plate of food. ‘I’ll talk while you eat.’ Her voice was husky and there were grey smudges under her eyes.

  Bonnie obeyed, more to make a point than anything else. Her curiosity was raging, along with a rising excitement. It was barely possible to force the meat and potatoes down her throat. But she was wary of letting her friend see any of this. Melanie’s role in the disappearance of Ben was obscure, and probably peripheral, but in Bonnie’s mind there was an uneasy association.

  ‘So, listen. I’m going to talk about Dan. I need to get it straight in my head, and there’s nobody else I can find to help. I tried to find Simmy’s mum just now. She’s always been incredibly sensible. But she wasn’t there. It was a stupid idea, anyway.’

  ‘Why not Simmy? Isn’t she good at that stuff?’

  Melanie pulled a face. ‘I think I’ve annoyed her. She was quite off earlier on, when she called me. She thinks I’ve gone all self-pity and helplessness. And I wasn’t very nice to her, either.’

  ‘I thought so too,’ said Bonnie. ‘To be honest. You should have been with us today.’

  ‘Yeah, well …’ Melanie wiped a finger below her good eye. ‘It got to me, finding him like that. I couldn’t even think. I just kept feeling his head, all wet and heavy on my legs. I’m going to feel it for the rest of my life.’

  ‘You won’t,’ said Bonnie, through a full mouth. ‘It just seems like that now.’

  ‘Maybe. This afternoon I sort of woke up a bit and started to put my mind more to who might have done it. And I remembered a few things from the past week or two, in the hotel. Things that might have something to do with it.’

  ‘So tell the police,’ Bonnie urged her. ‘They need all the help they can get, if they’re going to find Ben.’

  ‘I thought Ben was okay.’

  ‘He probably isn’t,’ said Bonnie miserably. ‘If he was, he’d have come home by now. The important thing is, if the police can get some idea of who killed Dan, they’ll know who’s taken Ben, as well. Same people. See?’

  Melanie pulled out a chair and sat at right angles to Bonnie, drawing idle circles on the plastic-coated cloth. ‘I don’t know. I mean, about telling the police. It could get the hotel closed down. I have to think of my job, references, and all that. And if there’s really something going on, they’ll find it out without my help. They probably know it already, anyway. There’s a woman who turned up yesterday. They’ll have clocked her by now. She’s been before.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘I’m not sure, but she had something going on with Dan. Not that sort of thing. Business. Something dodgy. He pushed me out of the room before he’d talk to her.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last week. I thought she was making a booking for rooms or a party, but then I wondered if she was an inspector of some sort. You know – health and safety or food hygiene or something. Or even an Egon Ronay spy. But none of that really fitted. There was some understanding between them that they wanted kept secret.’

  ‘I saw two men there today, who looked real villains.’

  Melanie tossed her head impatiently. ‘They’re nothing to do with it. They’ll be the Americans Dan was so worried about. They’re in the hospitality industry, and I got the feeling they might be thinking about buying the hotel outright. Everybody was drilled in advance, making sure we impressed them.’ She gave a hollow laugh. ‘That turned out well, didn’t it.’

  Bonnie gave up trying to eat. ‘They didn’t look like that. More like Mafia bosses.’

  ‘Well, they’d hardly hang around looking like th
at if they’d just killed Dan, would they? Trust me, they’re not important.’

  ‘I don’t know how you can be so sure. They might be bluffing it out. That’d be the clever way to do it.’ Bonnie heard Ben silently applauding her observations. It was exactly what he would think himself. ‘And what about the other guests? That Mr Ferguson – the tall old chap – was at the police station just now with Moxo.’

  ‘Was he? He’s a sweetie, in his way. Just wants some peace and quiet. His wife died. He told me all about it on Monday. I didn’t like him at first. He complained a lot when he arrived. But then he settled down and seemed happier. He even mellowed towards Gentian. Gave her a toffee.’

  Bonnie’s antennae quivered. ‘Isn’t that a bit … you know? Old man giving little girl sweets.’ She waggled her head meaningfully.

  ‘No, no. My God! Gentian’s not the sort of kid anybody could feel like that about. She’d scream the place down, for a start. And she probably knows exactly where to kick a man. She’s a horrible kid, basically. Out of control, with a vicious streak. Likes to cause trouble. Ask Simmy – she saw what she was capable of, on Monday.’

  Bonnie closed her eyes for a moment, wondering what had gone wrong for young Gentian to earn her such a character analysis.

  ‘Then there’s the Lillywhites,’ Melanie went on. ‘He’s a bully and she’s a doormat. She won’t even breathe until she’s sure it’s okay with him. I’ve never seen anything like it. Their room is weird, as well. Rila – she’s one of the chambermaids – took me for a look. Everything was absolutely pristine. They’d made their bed, wiped down the bathroom, put everything straight. It was just the same as when they’d arrived, except the towels were damp. We didn’t know what to make of it.’

  ‘Force of habit, maybe,’ Bonnie suggested. ‘She’s a boring little housewife who cleans everything every day. Even on holiday, she can’t stop herself.’

  ‘Mentally ill, if you ask me,’ said Melanie.

  ‘And the staff. What about the staff? Isn’t it most likely that one of them had a grievance against Dan and took it to the extreme? Moxon says Ninian saw Ben in a car with a man and a woman. Could that have been the manager and his wife, maybe?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes. Last night. Somewhere up Grasmere way, I think. Of course, Ninian’s an idiot, so it’s probably not right. If it is, then it’s hard to square with the windscreen note and all that.’

  Melanie smacked the table. ‘Yes, Simmy said something about a note. You’ll have to explain what it means.’

  Bonnie gave a full account of the events in Hawkshead, except that she omitted any mention of Ben’s game.

  Melanie repeated part of it. ‘So – he was in a shop with a woman, but she wasn’t really keeping him there. The boy who wrote the note thought Ben was perhaps following her, without her realising?’

  Bonnie rubbed her nose. ‘He didn’t quite say that. That was just what I thought might be going on.’

  ‘It would make sense, though. So then maybe she caught him and was driving him somewhere. If Ninian can be believed, that is. Which he probably can’t.’

  Bonnie groaned. ‘It’s so awful not knowing where he is,’ she burst out. ‘I just want to go out there and find him.’

  ‘He’ll be all right,’ Melanie said with certainty. ‘It’s all completely typical of him. Ninian saw some totally other boy in that car. How big a coincidence would it be, if it really had been him? That wouldn’t happen. But he should come home tonight, all the same. It’s not fair on his mother.’

  ‘Or me!’

  ‘Or you.’

  Bonnie could see that Melanie was making a big effort to be thoughtful and considerate, biting back some sharper remarks. ‘I know it’s not the same, Mel,’ she said. ‘What happened to your Dan is as bad as it can get. But I can’t help being scared for Ben. And I want him. I want to know I can phone him. There’s just a horrible great gap where he’s supposed to be.’

  ‘What are the police doing to find him?’

  ‘Bugger all. They haven’t got a clue. They don’t even know if he really is missing, that’s the trouble. Moxon seems to be half-asleep, and snappy with it. I don’t think he’s up to the job, really. He said himself he didn’t know whether Ben’s a hostage or what. They’ve asked everybody at the hotel a thousand questions and crawled around in the woods, and that’s mostly it, I reckon. I mean – what else is there to do, when you think about it?’

  ‘But Mr Ferguson was here at the station? Is that what you said? Why him?’ Melanie frowned. ‘Maybe he saw something yesterday. Maybe he overheard something.’ She brightened slightly. ‘He is always hanging about, listening to people. Lonely, you see. Nobody much bothers with him, poor old bloke.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ sighed Bonnie. ‘I didn’t even remember who he was when he first came in with Moxo.’

  ‘Why would you?’

  ‘I told you – I was at the hotel today. I saw them all. Even that Gentian and her mother. Seems rather a hard-faced cow. The kid was behaving all right, though. Bored out of her skull, obviously.’

  ‘How was it? At the hotel, I mean.’ There was something wistful in Melanie’s question. ‘I’ve been thinking about it all day.’

  ‘The guests were out on the lawn and the police were inside. They’ve got an incident room where they ask all the questions. I think that’s just for today, though. They’re all coming back here with the paperwork in the morning.’

  ‘They’ll be wanting to know everything about Dan’s life. Don’t they always do that when a person’s murdered?’

  Bonnie wrinkled her nose. ‘Don’t ask me. Why – does he have a wife tucked away somewhere? How old was he, anyway?’

  ‘Thirty-one. He said he was married for a year or two and then divorced. The job took up practically all his time. A wife wouldn’t see much of him.’

  ‘Didn’t stop him having one, though. You told us on Monday that he was smarmy. That’s the word you used. Smarmy.’

  ‘I know. Everybody’s going to keep reminding me of that. It was just an act, all that. Really he was great. Really nice, you know?’ Tears escaped down her cheek. The false eye, to Bonnie’s fascination, appeared to lack the equipment for crying. ‘I can’t stop crying, every time I think about him,’ Melanie sniffed. ‘I never cry. It’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Don’t mind me.’

  The older girl laughed through the tears. ‘I should have been there with you all today. I knew I should – but I couldn’t make myself get there. It would be just like going to work, but absolutely different at the same time. I just kept hearing Dan’s dead, Dan’s dead in my head, on and on. And the way some of those cops looked at me yesterday wasn’t nice. There I was, soaking wet and shivering, and nobody really bothered to see if I was okay. I hated the whole lot of them. I wanted a bomb to drop on the hotel and kill everybody in it. Even Simmy.’

  Bonnie’s heart lurched. ‘Why, what did Simmy do?’

  ‘Not much. Not for a while, anyhow. She just hung about, getting in the way. Once they’d got Ben’s message off her phone, they didn’t need her any more, but she kept on sticking around looking tragic. I mean – it really isn’t anything to do with her, is it?’

  ‘She took Ben there in the first place.’ Bonnie eyed Melanie carefully as she said this, aware that she was repeating something Simmy had said.

  ‘Right. I told her it was all her fault, because of that.’

  ‘You didn’t really mean it. It’s not so terrible.’

  ‘She didn’t like it.’

  ‘I know. But she can be annoying. Sounds as if you think the same. Like a mother one minute, and just one of us the next. Why doesn’t she get a life?’

  ‘We are her life,’ said Melanie. ‘That’s the trouble.’

  Corinne interrupted their rather hollow laughter, opening the door and saying, ‘Time to break it up, girls. I need to get in here.’ She threw a frustrated glance at Bonnie’s half-eaten cottage pie. ‘Something wrong with it?�
� she demanded.

  ‘Of course not.’ Bonnie gave her a look that warned her not to play such a tired old game. ‘It was scrumptious.’

  ‘Right. Well, there’s a whole lot more we can have warmed up tomorrow. And probably the next day as well.’

  ‘Can’t wait,’ said Bonnie, thinking that the crispy edges of warmed-up cottage pie were really very appetising. People always thought that a person with anorexia took no pleasure in the flavours and textures of food, but they were wrong. Plenty of things got her saliva flowing. It was all the stuff that came with it that caused the difficulties.

  ‘Going to the shop tomorrow, are you?’ Corinne asked. Then she looked at Melanie. ‘And the hotel? Or has normal life ceased altogether?’

  Both girls went blank. It was a question neither of them had yet addressed.

  ‘I see it has,’ observed Corinne. ‘Well, that won’t do, will it?’

  ‘You’re as worried about Ben as we are,’ Bonnie told her. ‘So you can stop pretending.’

  ‘All I want is for you to stay where I can see you. That’s enough for me to worry about, just at the moment.’ Corinne made a playful pretend cuff at Bonnie’s head, successfully lightening the atmosphere as she did it.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Melanie. ‘Sorry I put you off your supper.’

  ‘Phone me tomorrow, then. We’ll go and see Simmy and work out a plan.’

  Melanie got up and Corinne groaned theatrically. ‘And what’s poor old Moxon going to think about that?’ she asked.

  Bonnie slept badly, dropping into tangled dreams for short spells and then surfacing to find that reality was no better. She could find no logical thread to follow, nothing that prompted her to explore a particular place, or approach a particular person. The previous day had been a model of clarity by comparison. All she could think of was that she should phone Melanie, and they would go together to the shop and try to construct a credible theory. That’s what Ben would do. He would draw a diagram with circles and arrows and neat remarks. He would list every known fact, and every individual involved. She recited some of these facts to herself – mysterious, smart woman at the hotel, with some link to Dan. Possible sighting by Ninian. No, no – that wasn’t a fact, she told herself. That was a useless diversion, taking them away from the proper path.