The Coniston Case

by Rebecca Tope

  Moxon gave her his full attention. ‘I’m sorry. Is she still missing? I rather assumed, when I didn’t hear from you early today, that that particular problem had resolved itself.’

  Simmy felt a painful inner conflict. On the one hand, her instinct was to tell him the whole story about the email and the visit from Baz and Jo that morning. On the other, she wanted to save him extra work, as well as belatedly obeying Kathy’s injunction to keep the police out of it. She compromised with a brief summary. ‘She emailed me, making a lunchtime appointment,’ she said. ‘So I think we can assume she’s okay. I’ve still got no idea where she’s been or what was going on.’

  ‘But it’s all under control now?’ said Moxon.

  ‘I’ve just thought of something,’ said Melanie slowly. ‘We never talk about poor Mr Braithwaite, do we? He should be the only one we really care about and yet we haven’t even said his name so far.’ She gave Moxon a wide-eyed look of enquiry. ‘That’s not right, is it?’

  The detective smiled at her. ‘Very creditable, I’m sure, but you needn’t worry. There’s a great deal of police work going on behind the scenes. You don’t see it, over on this side of the lake, but Coniston is buzzing, I can assure you.’

  ‘I bet that Pamela Johnson’s having a fine old time, then.’

  ‘Who’s Pamela Johnson?’

  Simmy answered for Melanie. ‘The woman I told you about in Coniston. The one who sent the flowers to Maggie Aston. She says the police questioned her.’ She wanted to add Do keep up, but bit it back. There was bound to be a whole team of police detectives working on the case, with nobody apprised of every detail.

  ‘Of course,’ he nodded. ‘I didn’t speak to her personally.’

  ‘She came here early today, saying much the same sort of thing as Mrs Crabtree. Neither of them enjoyed their police questioning.’ She smiled. ‘I must say, you made it all quite easy the first time it happened to me.’

  ‘It’s never happened to me,’ said Melanie, with a hint of envy. ‘I always miss the most exciting parts.’

  ‘You saw Selena Drury last night,’ Simmy reminded her. ‘That must have been quite exciting.’

  ‘More than waiting for Joe to say something interesting, that’s for sure.’

  Moxon cleared his throat. ‘Selena Drury? Don’t tell me … girlfriend of the Somali bloke. Where was she last night, then?’

  ‘Kendal. Having an Indian meal with Ninian Tripp. And no – you don’t need to know who he is. He isn’t involved in anything. His sister was – is – Selena’s friend, that’s all.’

  ‘At least she wasn’t with Daisy’s fiancé,’ said Ben. ‘Where was he, I wonder? Out kidnapping your mate Kathy, I expect,’ he answered his own question.

  Moxon’s groan was closer to a howl of rage. ‘Kidnapping? Who said anything about kidnapping?’

  Simmy couldn’t remember exactly what she had told him about Kathy, but she thought there might have been some faint implication of the sort. His refusal to pay serious attention to her friend was both hurtful and a relief. Neither did he seem at all concerned about poor Joanna and her anaphylaxis or whatever it was. A thought occurred to her, causing her to bite her lip.

  ‘What?’ demanded Melanie.

  ‘Latex. What’s made of that, then?’ She eyed the youngsters apprehensively, wishing she’d never had the idea.

  ‘Condoms,’ said Ben brightly, with another flash of Catullus before his eyes. ‘She must have been having sex with someone.’

  ‘Baz,’ nodded Simmy.

  ‘Off for a quickie, the moment they left here!’ gasped Melanie.

  ‘Er …?’ Moxon attempted.

  ‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ Simmy said quickly. ‘They’re not breaking any laws.’

  ‘Just university regulations,’ said Melanie sourly. Then she added with a grin, ‘Fancy being allergic to that. Isn’t that what you call nemesis?’

  ‘I suppose it is.’ Simmy smiled in spite of herself.

  Ben glared impatiently at them all. ‘So – what about Mr Braithwaite?’ he reverted to the earlier issue. ‘We’re still not talking about the most important thing.’

  Moxon made a strange gesture with his elbows, which was the closest Simmy had ever seen to somebody throwing up their hands. The meaning was plain: he had had enough. ‘I knew all along I shouldn’t have come,’ he muttered. ‘But when I heard the call for an ambulance go out, I didn’t have much option. Not when I heard the address.’

  Simmy almost felt like comforting him. He seemed young and confused and oddly embarrassed. ‘It’s all a big muddle,’ she said. ‘But you’re sure to catch whoever did it, in the end.’

  ‘It’s just a matter of seeing the big picture,’ said Melanie.

  All three of them looked at her. Simmy had been told from the first – by DI Moxon – that seeing the big picture was her special talent. Ben reminded her of it repeatedly, in Melanie’s hearing. Now the girl was producing it with a straight face as if it was the single thing the police detective had to bear in mind.

  Ben laughed. ‘She’s right,’ he said. ‘All these flower deliveries and mean messages are a smokescreen. They’re not the important stuff at all. We’ve already decided they have nothing whatever to do with the Hayter and Braithwaite business.’

  Nobody answered him at first. There was an implied insolence in his tone, but his words were quite possibly a very accurate summary of the situation. Then Moxon spoke heavily. ‘A smokescreen implies a deliberate concealment of the truth. If that’s what you mean, then they are relevant, aren’t they?’

  Ben puffed out his cheeks. ‘S’pose so,’ he admitted.

  ‘In any case, I trust you can depend on us to make all the appropriate investigations? Whether or not that includes those people named to us by Ms Brown is for us to decide – don’t you agree?’

  Ben nodded, his face reddening. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled.

  ‘No problem, sonny. Just try to keep in mind where the line comes, all right? And while we’re about it, I could also suggest that a little more respect for the dead wouldn’t come amiss. I understand how it is – it happens with some of my younger colleagues as well – but the fact is, there’s nothing more serious than the taking of a life. Try to imagine how you’d feel if it was your own brother, or even an uncle you don’t often see. You can’t, I know. So let me tell you it’s a very big thing.’

  Poor Ben, thought Simmy. He’d had a week of being put in his place by various people. But she was on Moxon’s side, more or less. Ben had been flippant, when he shouldn’t have been. ‘He’s learning,’ she said, putting an unwise arm around the boy’s shoulders. ‘Enough of the lecture, okay?’

  Ben wriggled free and moved to the back of the shop. Melanie gave Simmy a small shake of her head, warning her to leave him alone. Simmy felt overwhelmed by the need to coddle fragile male egos; Moxon wasn’t much better than the boy.

  ‘I’d better go,’ said the detective again. ‘You’ll be wanting to get some work done.’ The total absence of any customers during the time he’d been there was impossible to ignore. Simmy felt a fraud, like a child merely playing at shopkeeping.

  The three of them watched him go, their heads swirling with names and theories and the solemn facts of murder.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘He’s right,’ said Simmy. ‘Might as well shut up shop for the day. We’re just wasting time here.’

  ‘You can’t,’ said Melanie. ‘It’s only half past eleven. Loads of people could come in yet.’

  ‘They won’t, though, will they? And I should be doing something about telling Kathy about Joanna. Whatever daft game she’s playing, she’ll want to know what’s happened.’

  ‘What if they’ve taken Joanna to Barrow?’ said Ben. ‘If Kathy’s car’s out of action, she’ll never get there to visit.’

  ‘I can take her.’ The prospect of a two-hour round trip did nothing for Simmy’s delicate bones, which began aching in anticipation. ‘I suppose. After I’ve
found her in Coniston.’

  ‘We’re all stunned,’ said Melanie. ‘Look at us – just standing here, with no idea what happens next. But I bet they’ve taken Jo to Kendal, not Barrow. She’ll have responded to that jab they gave her by now, and just need observation for a bit.’

  Simmy and Ben offered no argument to this. ‘Sounds as if you know the routine,’ said Ben.

  ‘When you’ve got as many relatives as I have you learn a lot about medical services. I’ve got four grandparents, five great-aunts and uncles and about twenty assorted cousins and siblings. They’re all pretty accident-prone. Kendal hasn’t got a casualty department, but they do most other things. It’s nice in there.’

  ‘How will we find out?’ Simmy had a vision of Joanna languishing in a strange ward somewhere and nobody knowing where she was.

  ‘She’ll phone somebody. Her dad, probably.’

  Simmy remembered Moxon’s gesture, as if throwing everything aside, and was tempted to do the same. ‘I’m furious with Kathy,’ she realised. ‘Going off in the middle of everything. What on earth has possessed her?’

  ‘I think she really might have been kidnapped,’ said Ben warily. His wounded feelings were recovering rather slowly. ‘It would explain quite a lot.’

  ‘Kidnapped by who?’ Simmy demanded angrily. ‘Nobody up here even knows her. And people don’t get kidnapped in real life, do they? Only the children of millionaires, and even then it’s about once every twenty years.’

  ‘Something’s going on with her, though, isn’t it?’ Ben retorted. ‘After we’ve had murder and suicide and malicious messages, why is kidnap such a daft idea?’

  ‘Good question,’ nodded Melanie. ‘And the answers to the whole thing could easily lie with whatever’s happened to Kathy. And that means we have to go now and find her in Coniston. All of us,’ she finished firmly.

  ‘Wilf and Scott are there already,’ Ben belatedly told them. ‘They might have found something.’

  ‘What do you mean, Wilf and Scott are there?’ demanded Simmy.

  ‘They’re fell walking up there somewhere,’ said Ben with a grimace. ‘Because of Mr Hayter’s death, sort of.’

  ‘I can’t imagine what you think they could have found,’ said Simmy. ‘How do you find evidence to explain a suicide, for heaven’s sake? He’s not going to leave a note tucked under a stone out on the fells, is he?’

  Ben smiled at the image. ‘Probably not. I think, really, they just wanted to get out there as a change of scene. Wilf likes to do that when he can.’

  ‘In a freezing cold gale?’ Simmy objected. ‘It must be absolutely awful out there today.’ She peered outside, angling her head to see the sky above the buildings. ‘Look at the way those clouds are racing past!’ She shivered. ‘No way am I going any further than the centre of Coniston.’

  ‘You might change your mind when you’ve heard what Kathy has to say,’ Melanie suggested. ‘Sounds as if she’s got quite a story to tell.’

  Simmy said nothing, but started carrying flowers from the shop into the room at the back, where they would sit in the chilly temperatures until Monday morning. A few red roses remained, which she planned to incorporate into bouquets early the next week. Idly, she assembled a rich colour scheme more appropriate to autumn than spring, adding some rather gaudy tulips that had been forced in a foreign field. It made her think of her own neglected garden in Troutbeck, where there would be frothy white blossom on the blackthorn and hawthorn that formed her hedge, in another month or two. Most of the colour tended to yellows and white, even in summer, and she found herself planning bolder hues for the coming seasons.

  Why, she asked herself, couldn’t she be left in peace to do her modest cultivating, instead of being forced to rush around the country lanes in a car with a broken wing mirror? If Melanie and Ben were both coming, she couldn’t take the van. The whole Coniston business might well have nothing whatever to do with her, if Ben was right in thinking the floral deliveries were simply a smokescreen. Kathy was, of course, the answer. Somehow her friend had got into trouble, and Simmy’s assistance was required. There had even been a hint, expressed by Ben, if she remembered rightly, that Kathy was in fact involved with Mr Braithwaite’s murder. She could have seen something on Thursday that meant she had to be kept silent. Apparently nobody had set eyes on her friend for twenty-four hours. She sighed in resignation. When it came to the crunch, she knew she really did want to find out the truth. She just didn’t want to get hurt or scared in the process.

  Ben had followed Simmy to the front of the shop when she went to look at the sky. Now he shouted, ‘Oh – there she is!’ and pulled the door open before anyone could react.

  ‘There who is?’ asked Melanie.

  ‘A girl,’ said Simmy. ‘Look.’

  Ben had approached a fair-headed young woman bundled in a big black coat, as she walked along the pavement with her head down. She stopped and stared at him when he spoke. Simmy and Melanie could just hear him urging, ‘Please come in for a minute. We’d really like to talk to you.’

  ‘I bet I know who that is,’ said Melanie.

  Simmy’s mind was working more slowly. All she could think was that it was one of Joanna’s college friends, working up at Coniston. But then, how would Ben know her?

  Unprotestingly, the newcomer followed Ben into the shop. ‘This is Daisy Hayter,’ he said. ‘I saw you earlier on at the police station,’ he explained. ‘With Solomon Samalar.’

  Daisy looked around the shop in bewilderment. ‘Why do you want to talk to me?’ she asked. ‘Who are you all?’

  Even Ben had difficulty in answering that coherently. Simmy did her best to concentrate, wondering what indirect connection they could justifiably claim with this person – who did indeed resemble Scarlett Johansson, with pretty pouting lips and curly fair hair. The boy made an impressive attempt to explain. ‘We know about your father, you see,’ he began. ‘And the other man, Mr Braithwaite. They lived together – didn’t they? Your father went missing. We know he died. We’re very sorry,’ he went on clumsily. ‘It must have been horrible for you. We know you’re getting married, as well.’

  Daisy took a step backwards. ‘That doesn’t tell me anything. What do you want?’

  ‘Well …’ Ben turned to Simmy for rescue. ‘Nothing, really. We just …’

  Simmy stepped in. ‘I took some flowers addressed to your father to the Coniston house last Monday. They had a message wishing him well in his new job. But I gave them to the other man, because he told me he was Mr Hayter. Then on Thursday, the police asked me to tell them whether the other man, when he’d been murdered, was the one I gave the flowers to. And he was.’

  ‘Well done, Sim,’ murmured Melanie. ‘Clear as mud.’

  But Daisy seemed to have found a glimmer of reason in the little speech. ‘Tim,’ she said. ‘My father was his tenant. They didn’t really live together in the way you mean.’

  ‘That’s not what the neighbours thought,’ said Melanie.

  Daisy ignored her. ‘I remember seeing the flowers, when I went there with Uncle Nolan on Wednesday. But we didn’t find a card with them. Did you say they were for a new job? That doesn’t make any sense. He wasn’t starting a new job.’ Her voice faltered, and tears filled her eyes. ‘Unless you count battling against oesophageal cancer a new job.’ She stumbled over the long word, leaving out at least one syllable.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Simmy. ‘Come and sit down.’ She rolled her eyes at the others, warning them to stay quiet and not make things worse. Daisy passively did as Simmy ordered, mopping her eyes with a tissue and sniffing.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s all very raw. My mother’s being so awful, as well as James being such a plonker. They’re both just making it all worse.’ She attempted a rueful laugh. ‘And then Tim gets himself killed, on top of everything else. It was bad enough before that, but now …’

  ‘It must be overwhelming,’ said Simmy, trying to reconcile the ‘Uncle Nolan’ person with DI Mo
xon.

  ‘It is,’ Daisy agreed wholeheartedly. ‘Just one horrible thing after another. Now I don’t even know whether I’m really getting married on Saturday. I don’t know if I even want to.’

  ‘I did the other flowers as well,’ Simmy admitted. ‘Which is why I know so much of the story.’

  ‘What? What flowers are you talking about now?’

  Oh God, thought Simmy. Didn’t she know about that? Hadn’t Moxon just said that she did? Yes, he definitely had. ‘The ones to Miss Drury … from your fiancé, Mr Goss. James, is it?’

  ‘Did you? That was such a rotten thing for James to do. What was he thinking?’

  ‘Have you asked him?’

  ‘I can’t find him.’

  ‘Is he missing?’ Ben demanded, unable to stay quiet another moment.

  Daisy lifted her head proudly. ‘Of course not. What do you mean?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘My father was missing. Nobody knew where he was. He went out onto the fells on Monday night and died there from an overdose and exposure. He wasn’t found until Wednesday. It’s not like that with James. He’s just … worried. Nervous. Overwhelmed,’ she concluded with a grateful look at Simmy. ‘And he wanted to make a point, I think.’

  ‘A point?’ Simmy said, puzzled.

  ‘Oh – it’s hard to explain. Men have always chased after me, since I was about sixteen. I’ve been engaged a couple of times before, actually. One was to Jasper Braithwaite, Tim’s son. He’s really nice, but I realised I couldn’t marry him when he decided to become a vet. I mean – I just wasn’t ready for that sort of life. He’s doing farm animals, you see.’

  ‘Not really,’ murmured Simmy. ‘Are you scared of cows or something?’

  Daisy smiled weakly. ‘It’s not that. But I want to live in a city, with plenty of night life and music and all that. James has his own business. He’s doing very well for himself.’ She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘I’m going to handle all his paperwork for him. We’ll be partners in every sense.’