The Patterdale Plot

by Rebecca Tope

  Moxon gave her a long, searching look. ‘Not sleeping? Flashbacks?’

  ‘A bit,’ she admitted.

  ‘There’s help available for that, you know. Just to get you through the first part. I can recommend it.’

  She gave him a watery smile. ‘It’s a whole lot of things at once, that’s the trouble. The effect on the business is a worry. People have been cancelling. And then there’s the baby … And it’s getting more and more urgent that they find somewhere to live. Personally, I think it’s daft to fixate on Patterdale. It wouldn’t hurt Christopher to drive from Ambleside to Keswick, for example. I think he’s being a bit selfish about it, to be perfectly honest.’

  ‘Patterdale’s lovely,’ Russell argued. ‘And the latest idea is that they might decide to build something from scratch.’

  Moxon blew out his cheeks. ‘They’d be very lucky to manage that.’

  ‘Yes, well, we know of a little plot of land that might be available for the purpose,’ said Russell.

  ‘Wait a minute. Is this all connected somehow? You’re telling me that there’s some complicated rumour or early leak about a cluster of chalets, as well as a building plot – all in Patterdale, the whole thing arousing unusual levels of interest down here in Bowness? And somehow it links to a man who died here this week of apparently deliberate poisoning?’

  ‘That seems to sum it up pretty well,’ said Russell.

  ‘Huh! Sounds a complete muddle to me,’ said Angie. ‘The only thing that would make sense is if there’d been some great big conspiracy from the start – right back to when Grant Childers booked the room here six weeks ago now. They told him then that they wanted him to speak at the meeting. Candy Proctor told him she was full, which is why we got landed with him. Some nonsense about changing the dates because of having to count red squirrels. It all sounded very fishy to me. How can they have taken six weeks to organise all this protest malarkey?’

  Both men stared at her. Angie Straw had never been prone to theorising about the various crimes that her daughter had stumbled upon in her role as florist. She had impatiently instructed Simmy to stay out of anything of the sort, and to distance herself from young Ben Harkness, who revelled in such murder investigations.

  ‘She really was full,’ said Moxon. ‘I’ve seen her bookings diary.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t doubt it. But that still doesn’t explain anything, does it?’

  Russell was looking puzzled. ‘The timing is peculiar, though. Angie’s right. Doesn’t it feel to you as if there’s some complicated plot going on, with carefully laid plans going right back to the end of August?’

  ‘More likely it’s just Persimmon’s jinx at work again,’ said Angie, who seemed mildly alarmed at her husband’s support.

  ‘She saw him die as well,’ Moxon gently reminded her, always quick to defend Simmy.

  ‘She did. But it appears to have had a lesser effect on her.’

  ‘Hormones,’ said Russell, with a look that boasted See how enlightened I am.

  ‘She’s probably worrying more about you than about herself,’ Moxon pressed his defence of a woman he was unmistakably fond of. He and Simmy understood each other in a way they both found special.

  ‘Yes, she’s quite a little saint,’ snapped Angie. ‘Everybody knows that.’

  Russell seemed about to say Hormones again, before thinking better of it.

  Angie had the grace to look chagrined at her own words, and hastily changed the subject. ‘So – where did we get to? You accept that it was definitely murder, right?’

  Moxon nodded. ‘I agree with you that a suicide would be extremely unlikely to ask “Why?” in the way you say he did.’

  ‘And you seem to be assuming it was somebody around here that did it, rather than someone back at home, giving him a specially prepared drink in a bottle to bring with him? We are sure it was drink, are we? As opposed to food.’

  ‘That’s what the pathologist tells us, yes.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’

  ‘We did think of that,’ Moxon said. ‘I mean, the possibility that he brought it with him from home. But we couldn’t find any signs of a container in his room or his car. Of course, if he did bring it with him, and drank it while he was out, there might well not be any evidence to that effect. The toxicology people think he must have taken it no more than an hour before he died. They say he must have felt ill almost immediately. I think I can be permitted to tell you we found a ticket in his wallet for the lake cruise Sunday lunchtime, and we’ve been trying to trace anybody who saw him then. It’s been quite time-consuming, but given that most people book online, there is a list of about twenty-two people we know were on the boat with him. There are lots of others who booked on the day and didn’t have to give their names.’

  ‘And?’ prompted Russell.

  ‘Nothing conclusive. It’s taken a lot of police hours, as you might imagine. And then there are the last-minute people, who just turn up and hope to get on. There was a dozen or so of them. Some paid cash, and there’s no record of who they are. Not one of them can positively identify Mr Childers from the picture we showed them.’

  ‘He was rather ordinary-looking,’ said Angie.

  ‘Presumably, if one of those passengers gave him the lethal drink, they’d lie about it,’ said Russell.

  ‘Isn’t there any CCTV on the boat?’

  ‘There is not,’ Moxon said. ‘But almost everybody made their own little films of the ride. We’ve watched them all, but can’t see him. Mostly, of course, they’ve concentrated on the lake and the views, not the other passengers.’

  ‘Perhaps we should focus on the plant poison,’ Russell said thoughtfully. ‘Do you think it was something home-grown? On an allotment or in a greenhouse – unless they just picked it from the hedge somewhere. Would that work for this datura stuff? I was always told that the only plant that grows wild in this country that we need worry about is deadly nightshade. That raises the question of premeditation, doesn’t it? I mean – was the killer thinking years ahead, waiting for his seedpods or berries to ripen, or did the presence of poisonous plants in the garden give him the idea?’

  ‘Or her,’ said Angie.

  Moxon merely sighed.

  Russell was obviously enjoying himself. ‘You can see why poisoning used to be so popular, can’t you? There are so many gaps in the chain of evidence, it’s almost impossible to gather real proof. Ben Harkness says there’s no real proof against the Hay Poisoner, even though they hanged him.’

  ‘You could say we’re fortunate that most people don’t know one plant from another, then,’ said Moxon. ‘They just think all berries are poisonous.’

  ‘Which brings us back to Persimmon,’ said Angie, with a quiet moan. ‘She knows which plant is which.’

  ‘But she doesn’t sell the toxic ones,’ Russell reminded her. ‘Not even foxgloves, which I played with quite harmlessly as a child. I used to suck the nectar out of the flowers.’

  ‘Foxgloves are wildflowers. She wouldn’t sell them anyway.’ Angie was drooping. ‘Look, I’m half-asleep here. Is there anything else you want to tell us?’

  ‘Or ask us?’ added her husband.

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ Moxon’s concern reasserted itself. ‘I just wanted to update you, really. Oh – one more thing. Perhaps you could have a look at Mr Childers’ speech, since you were at the meeting. I can email it to you.’

  Russell nodded carelessly. ‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘Let me give you the email address. We’ll have a look at it tonight or tomorrow.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Moxon.

  Russell showed him out with a cheery goodbye and went back to the kitchen with a bounce in his step.

  ‘It’s those pills they gave you,’ Angie accused. ‘They’ve made you quite unbearably chirpy.’

  ‘You’d better start taking them as well, then,’ he said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Simmy’s peaceful slide into sleep did not see her through the night. At thr
ee in the morning she woke with a gasp, fighting the tentacles of a deeply alarming dream. Her first husband Tony had been there, far more furiously angry than she had ever seen him in real life. His mother hovered behind him, the whole scene taking place among strange dead trees. There were berries hanging from the dry branches, which Tony was hacking down with a long knife. When he saw Simmy he brandished the weapon and told her everything was her fault.

  Lying awake in the dark she forced herself to deconstruct the bizarre scene, remembering that she and Christopher had watched a peculiar film called The Lobster two Saturdays ago. The trees in the dream must have come from that. And Tony might be justifiably angry at her pregnancy, after losing the baby he expected to enjoy with her. Another man was going to have what he, Tony, deserved. So Simmy concluded that she felt guilty towards him. That made sense. And the berries – was he planning to poison her and the child? Or did that simply pop up because of the recent death by poisoning? Was there perhaps a clue trying to emerge from her subconscious mind?

  If so, she couldn’t see it. Tony Brown had been accused of harassment by a midwife who had been present at the stillbirth of baby Edith. She had subsequently attacked him with a knife, claiming extreme provocation. Simmy had been appalled at this unexpected alteration of character in a man she had thought she knew inside out. Now, in the dream, he held the knife and was apparently plotting to poison somebody.

  With a sigh, she turned over and tried to get back to sleep. It took twenty minutes, but she got there eventually.

  Friday morning was hectic from the start. The big Troutbeck funeral sent ripples down to Windermere and no doubt beyond. Dorothea Entwhistle had made the best possible use of her life, despite – or thanks to – being childless and unmarried. From her teenage years she had done good turns, pursued local causes, served on committees and made scores of friends. Simmy did the best job she could on the remaining floral tributes, and then drove all those ordered to the undertaker’s in her van. One of the men she knew by sight came out to chat when he saw her.

  ‘Big funeral,’ she said, eyeing the long shelf of flowers, supplied by every florist in the region. The majority came from Ambleside, she noticed.

  ‘You could say that,’ he nodded. ‘We’ll have to run a special extra vehicle for the flowers. Kevin hates that.’

  ‘Why?’ There seemed to be an implied slight directed at flowers in general.

  ‘It throws the system.’ He shrugged. ‘Though he doesn’t have to make such a fuss over it. We’ve got it all under control.’

  ‘It’ll make a lovely display in the church.’

  ‘It will,’ he agreed. Then he added, ‘Seems she was a nice lady.’

  ‘Got the weather for it, too.’ The sky was lightly overcast, the westerly breeze just enough to stir the autumn leaves, and no stronger. ‘I always think it’s wrong to have a funeral in the sunshine.’

  ‘You’re right there. Nothing worse than sweltering in these clothes, specially when it’s a burial.’

  She was still casting a professional eye over the tributes provided by her rivals. Her gaze was snagged by one with unusual white flowers that she did not recognise. On a closer inspection, she realised that it had been made by an individual mourner, not a florist. There was no ribbon, no discreet supporting wire. ‘Go gently, old girl. It’s been good to know you. Buzz.’ said the card, which was larger than any a florist would supply. She barely glimpsed it before there was a flurry among the funeral vehicles in the yard just beyond the flower racks, and she realised her van was going to be in the way. There were strict parking rules, which all the florists regularly ignored.

  ‘Move it,’ hissed her friend. ‘Bob’s going to bawl you out if you don’t shift it quick.’ Bob was the conductor, senior man of the team, and a stickler for rules. She was out of the gate before the hearse could be impeded, already planning the remainder of the morning.

  Bonnie was in much better spirits than she had been all week. ‘Guess what!’ she trilled, the moment Simmy was within earshot. ‘Ben’s coming home on Sunday. There’s a broken pipe on his floor in halls, and they’ve told them they should try not to be there until it’s fixed, because there won’t be any water. He’s staying tomorrow to finish an essay in the library, and then he’ll get a bus first thing on Sunday.’

  ‘All the way from Newcastle?’

  ‘Um … there was something about staying tomorrow night with another student who lives near Carlisle.’ She frowned. ‘Is Carlisle on the way to Newcastle?’

  ‘More or less. It’ll save Mr Harkness a lot of driving, anyway. When’s he going back?’

  ‘Probably early Monday on the train. He’ll miss a lecture, which is a worry, but nobody can take him, so there’s not much choice.’

  ‘When did he tell you all this?’

  ‘Seven o’clock this morning,’ the girl laughed. ‘They’d been up half the night trying to sort the plumbing out. Three rooms are flooded, apparently.’

  ‘Well, that’s nice,’ said Simmy, wondering whether she’d manage to see Ben herself. She had tried not to admit just how badly she missed him. Bonnie’s deprivation was obviously much worse, but even so, his absence made quite a hole in Simmy’s life as well.

  ‘The trouble is,’ Bonnie’s face had drooped slightly, ‘I don’t know whether it’ll be okay to mention the murder. Helen would tell me not to, if I asked her, but he’s sure to find out eventually, and be cross with me if I don’t say anything.’

  ‘Maybe Moxon will have solved it by then,’ said Simmy, with an optimism that felt wildly unwarranted. ‘It would be all right to tell Ben, if that happened.’

  There were wisps of her dream still floating around her head. The berries especially haunted her. She had hoped to share it with Bonnie, but other topics were taking priority. ‘Christopher told me his friend Robin might have found us a house,’ she began, in an attempt to distract the girl. ‘He’s given us a heads-up, before it’s officially on the market.’

  ‘Great,’ mumbled Bonnie. ‘That’s you sorted, then.’

  ‘Hardly. But it is getting urgent. We can’t decide anything while it goes on like this.’

  ‘Sell yours and rent somewhere bigger,’ said Bonnie, as she had many times before. ‘That’s the simplest thing to do.’

  ‘It’s not actually much easier to rent than buy these days. Chris is going to have to move in with me in Troutbeck, and we’ll drive each other mad.’

  Two customers came in, jostling each other for first place through the door. Bonnie and Simmy smoothly attended to one each, supplying the requirements quickly, smiling patiently. ‘That doesn’t happen very often,’ Simmy remarked, when they’d gone.

  ‘It was fun. Do you think they knew each other?’

  ‘That never occurred to me. What makes you think they might?’

  Bonnie laughed. ‘Bored housewives, playing silly games. Racing each other to the Zumba class, or whatever it is.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Why would they want flowers for a Zumba class?’

  ‘A present for the teacher.’

  It was a cheerful little interlude, born of Bonnie’s good news, and Simmy was more than willing to participate. Her own worries were not of Bonnie’s making, and she did her best not to bring them to work. Their discussions of sudden deaths and motives for murder could become intense at times, largely thanks to Ben Harkness and his avid interest in the whole subject. They would often argue, even taking opposing sides if there were suspects with equal claim to the role of killer, but on the whole Simmy felt confident that she was behaving in Bonnie’s best interests. While much less fragile than she looked, the girl had known very hard times, and could still be badly affected by certain situations. Ben had been her mentor as well as her boyfriend, teaching her Latin, history, poetry, and much more, often wrapped up in a game, or a complicated project.

  Thinking of Ben apparently conjured his mother, because ten minutes later Helen Harkness came into the shop, with a wary expression. ‘Ar
e you busy? Am I interrupting anything important?’

  ‘I’ve got half an hour or so,’ said Simmy. ‘Then I’m popping up to Waterhead with a delivery. After that, I’ve got to do a room in a hotel for a wedding tomorrow.’

  ‘If you’ve come to warn us not to talk to Ben about the murder, there’s no need,’ said Bonnie.

  ‘I believe you. The fact is, I gather you two were at that peculiar meeting last night, and I wondered how it went. What were your impressions?’

  ‘Who told you it was peculiar?’ wondered Simmy.

  ‘Three different people. Nobody seemed to understand what the actual point of it was. After going to so much trouble and expense, there must have been a good reason – but somehow it never got across.’

  ‘That’s what we thought − more or less − as well,’ said Simmy. ‘Bonnie had an idea it was some sort of complicated scheme to pre-empt the buildings before they’ve even put the application in.’

  Helen shook her head. ‘That wouldn’t be unusual. If somebody in the council office had leaked the plan to Tristan, he might have picked it up and run with it, calling the meeting and handing out leaflets. That would make sense. But why? Why should a semi-retired man who lives in Bowness, tending his roses and minding other people’s business, care about a few new chalets all the way up in Patterdale?’

  ‘There has to be more to it,’ said Bonnie. ‘Which is what I said last night. There was no proper message, except for wanting people to sign up to a protest group. He didn’t want to answer questions, either.’

  ‘Maybe it’s just his habit of minding other people’s business, as you say,’ Simmy said.

  ‘I don’t think so. He’s more about recycling and picking up after dogs and banning bonfires. The nit-picky stuff.’

  ‘What about Candy Proctor? She was handing out the leaflets on Sunday, and is obviously working with Tristan. She sat at the front last night. She keeps popping up, actually. She knew the man who died at Beck View. And he was supposed to speak at the meeting. Everything links up through her, when you think about it.’