by Rebecca Tope
Simmy made herself a substantial lunch and then carried the baby upstairs, where she again broke the rule about taking him to bed with her. The builders had gone off somewhere to acquire more materials and everything was quiet.
Cuddled together, with Robin feeding sporadically, they both fell into a doze. When she woke, she didn’t dare move for fear of waking him. The world could carry on in its own wicked way outside – she was doing what nature intended, as well as what she had promised herself. Phone calls would go ignored, knocks on the door unanswered. She would never get these surreal early days back again, with the little bundle of life blossoming before her very eyes, his dependency so inescapable and the trust he placed in her so complete. She knew, dimly, that there would soon be moments when she got it wrong, let him down, went against his wishes and perhaps even hurt him. The early perfection would be spoilt as real life forced itself upon them. She shuddered at the prospect. It seemed such a cruel business, growing up.
But at least he was finally asleep, his head lolling back against her forearm, mouth open. She needed the loo, so began to work her way free of him, leaving him in the middle of the bed. No harm could come to him there. He must be exhausted, she thought, after being awake all morning. Where, she wondered, was Humphrey and what’s-his-name? She couldn’t remember what they’d said about coming back – or whether they had said anything. Builders were notoriously capricious anyway, in their comings and goings. She had already learnt to avoid drifting around the house in nightclothes, as she would probably have done in recent weeks. Breastfeeding was different – she had warned both men from the outset that they would just have to get used to it. No way was she going to shut herself away for their benefit. She would feed in the kitchen if she wanted to and anywhere else that took her fancy. Humphrey had assured her this was not a problem. ‘My missus fed all ours herself,’ he said proudly. But the young assistant had flushed and shuffled his feet. ‘Be an education for you, lad,’ said his senior scornfully.
But she was here on her own now and the usual routine had been shattered. There was no knowing when Robin would wake up – or when Christopher would come home. Things were happening out there, and she was totally isolated from it all. She didn’t even care, she admitted to herself. Josephine was not someone she had feelings for, although she still harboured some anxiety about Fabian Crick. He knew where she lived and was quite capable of showing up at any time – even though she could think of no good reason why he should.
Chapter Five
Christopher surprised her by arriving home at half past four, at least an hour before she expected. ‘She’s dead,’ he said, before he was properly through the door. ‘Sounds as if it was a knife, but all details are being withheld.’ He was obviously quoting an official. ‘We’ve closed early and are staying closed until at least Thursday. Big notice on the gate. Police interviews with all staff will begin imminently.’
He was pale, and as she watched him, he slumped onto a chair that had been left near the door. None of the furniture in the main living space was yet in its permanent position. There was still flooring to be done, as well as more new walls. ‘It’s … shattering,’ said Christopher. ‘She was such a solid person. We all relied on her completely. I can’t imagine the place without her. The moment we got the news, everyone started behaving like headless chickens. Including me. Fiona called the cops; they called Oliver; Oliver came and told all the staff. They want to know about family, friends – all that stuff.’ He started up at Simmy wildly. ‘I’ll have to tell them about Crickers, won’t I?’
‘Of course you will. Why – is that a problem?’
‘He can’t have done it. He wouldn’t pull a knife on anybody. Most likely it was just a burglary gone wrong. I don’t mean just …’ He shook his head in bewilderment. ‘But she did have some decent things in the house. Pictures mostly. She’d got a genuine Stanley Spencer, for one thing. And some nice silver. And about two hundred of those little Limoges boxes. No self-respecting burglar’s going to want those. Even Josie was getting tired of them and kept threatening to put them up for auction. She’d have cheerfully handed them over to a burglar without a struggle.’ He groaned. ‘It wasn’t a burglar, was it? That would be too simple. Poor old Josie. What a ghastly thing.’
‘It must have happened in the night,’ said Simmy, finding herself to be thinking unusually clearly. ‘Before she would normally have left for work, anyway. Where does she live, did you say?’
‘About a mile this side of Keswick. On the little back road that goes to Threlkeld. Just an ordinary house in a row, set back off the road a bit. I’ve only been there once, actually.’
‘Have you spoken to Fiona?’
He shook his head. ‘She didn’t come back to work. Oliver came and talked to us all – sent us outside to tell everybody to go home. There were a few people collecting purchases from Saturday still hanging about. We weren’t allowed to tell them why – just that there’d been an incident, and the place had to be closed. There’ll be all kinds of rumours flying about by now.’
‘The truth’ll soon be out.’ She put a hand on his shoulder. ‘She must have been very well known. Had she upset anybody lately? She didn’t strike me as especially friendly.’
‘She was sharp sometimes. But always totally fair and straight with them all. Even the absolute idiots who bidded for things by mistake or hadn’t brought any money with them – she never yelled at them or anything. God – I’m glad it wasn’t me who found her. I never want to go through that again.’
Less than a year earlier, Christopher had come closer to violent death than was easily tolerated. Simmy’s association with murders, all of them unsought and accidental, filled him with horror and a powerful sense of resistance. More than once, he had made it clear that he blamed Ben Harkness, which was entirely unjust.
‘Well, have a mug of tea and try not to think about it,’ she advised, waiting for him to take the hint. When at home, almost all kitchen duties devolved onto him since the baby arrived. It took him a while, but he finally got up and went to put the kettle on.
‘How’s the young master been since I phoned you?’ he remembered to ask. ‘Everything seems nice and quiet now.’
‘He dropped off after lunch and hasn’t stirred since. The routine is completely blown. He’ll probably keep us up all night now.’
‘I’ll play with him for a bit – see if that helps.’
‘He’ll like that,’ said Simmy optimistically. She found herself thinking that the benefit might flow the other way – from son to father. Christopher certainly needed some sort of distraction.
The evening felt like an interval between dramatic events. Robin was still playing ducks and drakes with the routine, and showed no signs of settling down to a reasonable bedtime. A suspension in time, waiting for the police to drag Christopher into their investigation, or for Fabian Crick to show up and persuade them of his innocence. ‘How would he have got to Keswick, anyway?’ Simmy mused. ‘That scooter couldn’t possibly have got him there, especially in the night.’
‘If he called a taxi, there’d be records and the police would soon be onto him.’
‘Yes.’
Christopher ruffled his own hair, his expression agonised. ‘I can’t stop thinking about Josephine. It’s going to knock the business sideways, losing her. She’s the lynchpin of the whole place. Nobody else understands the inner workings of the software system.’
Simmy’s mind was still functioning with surprising clarity. Ideas were firing off in all directions, even as she cradled her restless infant. The afternoon playtime with Christopher had not gone well – Robin had been fractious and unco-operative. ‘Is there a rival auction house who thought they could gain an edge by removing your lynchpin?’ she suggested.
‘Come on – that’s a terrible idea,’ Christopher scoffed.
The baby clearly took exception to the loss of his place at the centre of their attention. He protested in the only way he knew. ‘Right �
� one last feed, and then we’re all going to bed,’ said Simmy. ‘And that’s final.’
‘I won’t be able to sleep if I go this early,’ Christopher objected. He looked around the half-finished living area as if in search of amusement. ‘I could watch a bit of telly, maybe.’ The flatscreen TV had been a cheap purchase at the auction. Perfectly good sets went for ten pounds or less at most of the sales. It worked perfectly when connected to the Wi-Fi, but for normal terrestrial channels it was useless. ‘We’ll have to get a proper aerial put up,’ Christopher said, every few days. ‘I might want to watch a documentary sometime. I like documentaries.’
Simmy sighed. ‘You’ll wake me up if you don’t go to bed at the same time as me.’
‘I’ll be really quiet. Once you’re asleep, you won’t hear a thing. Besides, I’ve got to do the washing-up, put the bin out, water the ferns and get some meat out for tomorrow. A housewife’s work is never done, you know.’
‘I think the term is “house husband” in your case.’
‘Nope,’ he disagreed. ‘That’s only for people who are married. Which reminds me—’
‘Stop!’ Simmy interrupted. ‘No way am I going to talk about weddings now. There’s too much else going on.’
‘June the first,’ he said, more loudly. ‘No ifs, no buts. We can’t go on like this. It’s not decent. All you have to do is put something respectable on and sign some bits of paper. I’ll organise everything.’
‘That’s a lovely date,’ she conceded. ‘But it’s much too soon. There’s far too much to do.’
‘Wrong. It’ll work beautifully, just you see. Bonnie can do the flowers. Ben can write the speeches. Your father can … find something useful to do.’
‘Stop,’ said Simmy again, more weakly this time. ‘It makes me feel tired just to think about it.’
‘But you’re not vetoing it?’
‘No,’ she said, meeting his gaze. ‘No, I’m not vetoing it. I’ll be very happy to marry you on June the first – assuming I can stay awake long enough to make my vows.’
Tuesday brought grey skies and feelings of apprehension. Christopher’s mobile presented him with a text message, requesting his presence at the incident room that had been set up in Keswick no later than ten o’clock. ‘Well, that’s a first,’ he said. ‘Fancy summoning me by text.’
‘Quick, cheap and efficient,’ said Simmy. ‘I don’t expect they’ll keep you very long.’
‘Let’s hope not. What are you doing today?’
‘I’ll be in Windermere for most of it. I’m calling in at the shop, and then having lunch at Beck View. I’m quite likely to be there till teatime. I can tell Ben about everything, can’t I?’
‘Everything?’
‘You know what I mean. Fabian Crick and Josephine and the missing uncle. If the girls are busy in the shop, I might even go round to the Harknesses and talk to him there – although Bonnie wouldn’t like that. Helen might want to see the baby, though.’ Simmy assumed, rightly or wrongly, that everyone in the world was eager to admire young Robin.
Christopher rolled his eyes. ‘Why ask me? It’s not my story.’
‘Isn’t it? I think it sort of is, actually. It all goes back to that promise you made – your undertaking to Fabian. He’d never have tracked you down like he did, if it hadn’t been for that. I admit it’s very vague, but he obviously does want something from you.’
‘All my own stupid fault, then. But there was always going to be the Josephine connection, wasn’t there? When he saw that picture of me in the reception area, he’d have put two and two together even if he wasn’t pursuing me for vengeance – or whatever he’s doing. Even without that, he might have looked me up for old times’ sake. He probably realised that I thought he was dead.’
She gave him a searching look. ‘You do feel guilty about it, don’t you? You say you don’t, but you really do.’
‘I wouldn’t call it guilty, exactly. Uneasy, perhaps. It’s more a matter of how Fabian feels about it. After Sunday evening, I get the strong impression he was checking me out, testing to see if I was still under a sense of obligation to him.’ He frowned. ‘And that’s what makes it so weird to imagine him killing Josephine. It doesn’t fit with anything I thought I’d worked out about him.’
‘I know. I was thinking the same thing. Let’s hope that by the end of today we’ll be better informed. You’ll have some idea about the time she died, and how, and all that. I’d better bustle now. I’m not sure I’ve got any clean clothes. All the washing seems to be baby things these days.’
In the event, she was ready just after nine, the baby strapped into his car seat, a small bag of nappies and spare clothes beside him. Driving with neurotic care, especially on the stretch up to the Kirkstone Pass, she was still parking the cumbersome stroller outside Persimmon Petals in Windermere by nine forty-five. Bonnie came flying out to greet her, peering at Robin’s little face and making idiotic chirping noises. ‘No need for that,’ said Simmy. ‘You saw him only two days ago. It’s fine with me if you think he’s boring.’
‘I don’t think that. I think he’s very sweet, and I want him to be my friend when he’s a bit older. It’s great that you’re so together you can get the two of you here so early. I’m impressed.’
‘I impressed myself,’ Simmy agreed. ‘Especially as we were both wide awake at two o’clock this morning. His routine’s got all muddled up, for some reason.’
‘Oh, routines,’ said Bonnie airily. ‘You should hear Corinne on that subject.’
Simmy could well imagine what Bonnie’s hippyish foster mother might say. Compared to Corinne, Angie Straw was almost conventional. ‘They do make life easier,’ she remarked mildly. ‘But I wouldn’t claim to be obsessive about it. Do you know – the district nurse told me there were apps for monitoring how long they sleep and how many wet nappies there are? And all sorts of other stuff. I mean – why? What’s the point?’
‘Search me,’ said Bonnie. ‘Come on in, anyway.’ She watched as Simmy deftly detached the seat from the rest of the vehicle and carried the sleeping infant into the shop. ‘Is he going to wake up?’
‘Impossible to say, the way he’s been. Is it busy?’ She looked round the shop, as if to locate lurking customers. ‘Where’s Verity?’
‘Out on a delivery. It’s much as usual. No panics.’
Simmy wasted no time. ‘You won’t have heard there was a murder yesterday in Keswick,’ she began.
‘Oh, yes – Ben saw something about that online,’ Bonnie said quickly. ‘Yesterday sometime. He wanted me to ask you about it.’
‘And we want to talk to him, as well. He’ll be pleased to know it’s seriously complicated.’
‘We? You mean you and Christopher? That’s a turn-up. He usually wants to stay well clear, doesn’t he? Especially after what happened in Grasmere. And I’m sure I heard you say, only two days ago, that you weren’t going to allow anything unpleasant anywhere near you and your baby for at least a year.’
‘There’s no avoiding it, Bonnie. It’s somebody Christopher knows. Again. It’s finally dawned on me that antiques are just as dangerous as flowers when it comes to arousing strong passions.’
Bonnie giggled. ‘Most people would say they’re a lot more so. There’s money in antiques, but not in flowers. Unless it’s a black tulip, of course.’ She paused, then asked, ‘So who’s dead?’
‘It’s the woman who manages the office side of the business. His right-hand assistant, who is completely indispensable. It’s rather a disaster.’
‘Blimey! That’s not funny, then, is it? Pretty close to home. Who wanted her dead? How did it happen?’
‘Too soon to say. There are other complications, which I can’t go into now. We need to wait and see what happens today – the police are interviewing everyone as we speak.’
‘Blimey,’ said Bonnie again. ‘That’s going to give Ben something to think about.’
‘What’s he doing today?’
‘Nothing muc
h. He’s in a real tizzy over whether or not he’s going back to Newcastle this week. It’s all got a bit awkward. People want to talk to him. I suppose they think it’s bad for their image if someone as clever as him doesn’t want to stay. They’ll have counsellors and whatnot after him.’ Bonnie shook her head in exasperation. She knew quite a lot about counsellors after her own badly disrupted childhood. Then she smiled. ‘This is perfect timing. A murder’s going to help him decide to stay here for a bit. Shall I get him to come up here? Or what?’
‘It’ll be rather a crowd with Verity as well. But it sounds as if I should talk to him, just in case he commits himself to going back to Newcastle. I could maybe go over there and at least tell him the basics now. Assuming there isn’t anything you want me to do in the shop? I can come back later, if there is.’
‘You need to look over the invoices. The delivery people have whacked on an extra hundred or so, and I can’t work out why. And Verity wants to talk to you – something about paying for fuel for the van.’
‘Urghh,’ said Simmy.
As if catching her mood, the baby began to wake up, jerking his arms and frowning. Within seconds he was wailing at full pitch. A customer walked into a flurry of highly unprofessional activity. ‘Sorry,’ Simmy said. Hurriedly she carried Robin into the small back room and offered him the breast. He took it suspiciously, still scowling.
‘Don’t muck about,’ Simmy told him crossly. ‘There’s no time for any nonsense.’ And then she heard herself and groaned. Already, then, it was starting. Robin was going to have to learn that he was not in fact the centre of the universe, that there would be times when he would be expected to stay in the background and share attention with other matters. And that was patently unfair, given that he was a mere three weeks old. Of course he had every right to assume he took priority over all else. Furthermore, it seemed evident that he could not just read her thoughts but gauge her unarticulated feelings. He knew when she was agitated or impatient or inattentive. He could sense the loosening of her dedication to his every whim and made his feelings about that very clear. And yet, how many infants successfully maintained this intimate bond for more than a few early weeks? Their mothers had jobs, other children, worries, illnesses – they could not guarantee to be there every second of every day. And the kids survived, didn’t they?