The Bowness Bequest Page 4

  Bonnie narrowed her eyes at him. ‘Logic, Ben. Watch the logic. You’re arguing from the general to the particular. I never said I wanted to visit all of them – just this one.’

  ‘I can’t see why you should,’ said Simmy. ‘He really isn’t very interesting.’

  ‘Maybe not, but I get the feeling his son might be,’ said Bonnie slyly.

  ‘Who? Eddie?’ Simmy was bemused.

  ‘Not Eddie – his big brother. Christopher. I saw you with him last week, when he came in about the funeral flowers.’ She giggled. ‘I’ve never seen you like that with a man before.’

  ‘I’ve literally known him all my life. How do you expect me to be with him?’

  Bonnie said nothing more, and Ben knew better than to speak out of turn. A moment later the telephone rang about an order and the subject was dropped. Ben hung around for another ten minutes and then wandered out into the dark street, where evening had come even earlier than usual, thanks to the persistent cloud. ‘Meet you down there,’ he said over his shoulder to his girlfriend. Simmy fleetingly wondered how the arrangement had been made so swiftly and certainly. It sometimes seemed that the youngsters communicated by telepathy.

  Bonnie left at five, with Simmy planning a further hour or so creating a display needed for the following morning. ‘See you tomorrow,’ she said absently. ‘Thanks, Bonnie.’ She was constructing a substantial piece for a local hotel to position in the foyer. It consisted mostly of evergreens and berries, with a group of hothouse gerberas in the centre. Their stalks were floppy and uncooperative, until she was forced to wire them from top to bottom – a fiddly and time-consuming task.

  Her mobile warbled at her while she had her hands fully occupied, but she managed to reach it after a few seconds, stretching across to the shelf where she’d left it, still holding the flowers in place with the other hand.

  ‘Simmy?’ came Bonnie’s little voice, sounding even more childlike and breathless than normal. ‘We’re at Mr Henderson’s house, and I think he must be dead. We can see him lying on the floor, in the living room. Ben’s calling the police now. I thought you’d want to know right away. No, that’s not really right. I wanted to hear your voice. It’s really scary. We think he must be dead.’

  Carefully, Simmy released the drooping gerbera, and put her free hand over her stomach. ‘He must have had a heart attack or something,’ she said.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. There’s a terrible lot of blood. Ben says somebody’s killed him.’

  Chapter Four

  Simmy’s immediate response, which lasted roughly five seconds, had been to assume that Bonnie was making a singularly insensitive joke. There had been a number of murders and criminal acts that had involved Simmy and Ben, over the past year, with Bonnie being drawn into the maelstrom as well, since becoming part of Persimmon Petals. Melanie Todd, who Bonnie had replaced in the shop, also counted herself as one of the little gang of amateur sleuths, but in reality she had generally been very much on the sidelines. One major exception had been that summer, when the girl had cradled a dead man’s head in her lap on the edge of a lake. If there was now another murder, Melanie was going to find herself entirely out of the picture, and Simmy presumed that this would be just as she wanted it.

  The entire distressing history flashed through Simmy’s mind, even before Bonnie finished speaking. By then, Simmy had understood that the girl wasn’t joking. And yet there was no conceivable reason why Kit Henderson should come to a violent end in his own living room. Unless … ‘It must be suicide,’ she said. ‘That must have been what Eddie was worried about this morning.’ She thought back over the conversation. ‘Although he never said anything about it, did he?’

  Bonnie was still breathless, almost whispering. ‘He didn’t do it to himself, Simmy. No way. It’s much more horrible than that.’

  ‘Oh. Why are you phoning me about it?’ This question burst from her with some force. ‘It has nothing whatsoever to do with me, does it?’

  ‘Simmy—’ Then she was cut off, with sounds of a car engine, doors slamming, male voices. ‘I’d better go.’

  At least I haven’t just delivered any flowers to him, Simmy thought. There had been occasions where the very fact of a floral tribute had appeared to precipitate violence. Or at least it had drawn her into something she would otherwise have been oblivious to. Although, there had been Henderson flowers only a few days before, because there had been a funeral, and Frances had liked the idea of a lot of bright and scented wreaths on her coffin, and made sure everybody knew it. The day before she died, she had summoned all her children to the house, where she had seated herself in a deep armchair and given her instructions. Christopher had described the scene to Simmy and Angie after the funeral, making Angie almost starry-eyed with admiration. ‘She was always such a strong woman,’ she sighed. ‘What a wonderful way to go.’ The dying woman’s refusal to enter into detailed discussions with Angie over her imminent fate had all been forgiven in that moment.

  Simmy was still in the back room, the gerberas still refusing to stand up straight, the phone still in her hand. What ought she to do? She had been given the most unwelcome kind of information, and then left to deal with it as best she might. The loss of Kit was not a personal blow. Even Angie would admit as much. With Frances gone, taking with her nearly forty years’ worth of friendship and shared memories, Kit had already become almost incidental. A bigger concern was Russell, who might extrapolate the man’s murder to mean he himself was equally in danger. ‘I’m a husband, as well,’ he might say, with his recently loosening logic. ‘It might happen to me.’

  The obvious explanation had to be that an intruder had been caught by Kit, who had been overzealous in defending himself. Perhaps the old man had gone for the robber with a poker. Weren’t burglars very often drugged-up and volatile, barely responsible for their actions? Some nasty little lowlife might have simply chosen the bungalow at random, for its shadowy position and unlocked door. Although, if that turned out to be the truth of it, there was even more reason to worry about Russell. Paranoia had been his prime symptom over the past several months, and this could only fuel it further.

  Angrily, Simmy slammed the unoffending phone onto the bench, abandoned the flowers and went through to the shop. She turned off the lights and checked the locks on the street door. Then she went out of the back, into the small streets, where she had left her car that morning. But once in the driving seat, she could not decide where to go. Home to Troutbeck? Or down to Bowness? Or even leave the vehicle where it was, and walk the short distance to her parents’ house?

  Bonnie had done a wrong thing by phoning her when she did. An hour later would have been better: the police would have taken charge, filled in their initial fact sheets and chivvied the youngsters well clear of the scene. As it was, she had been dumped on, and she didn’t like it. There was nobody she could think of who could provide a lap strong enough to receive the news in their turn. So Simmy was stuck with it, and that wasn’t fair. If she ran to her mother and told her what had happened, that would only cause upset before it needed to be caused.

  The loneliness of her situation hit her. She had nobody she could simply go home to, cuddle up with and let the world go its own wicked way without her having to worry about it. She felt exposed and friendless, on that dreary November evening. A man was dead for no good reason, found by two excitable young people who had each other to confide in. Ben would treat it as an intellectual puzzle, and Bonnie would shed the initial shock and fear in the process of assisting Ben.

  She was saved by the phone ringing, as she went on sitting in the unmoving car. ‘Simmy,’ came Ben’s welcome voice. ‘Where are you?’

  She told him, adding, ‘I don’t know what to do. It’s none of my business, is it? Why did Bonnie have to phone me when she did? I’ve been in a real state ever since.’

  ‘She just wanted to hear your voice, I think. She was left out there when I went in the house, and then I called the cops. I di
dn’t think about her at all,’ he admitted with a long palpable sigh. Simmy could almost feel the breath in her ear.

  ‘She said there was a lot of blood.’

  ‘A fair amount, yeah. And it’s no good you saying it’s got nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Why? What do you mean?’

  ‘The man was holding a piece of paper with your name on it, for one thing.’

  Simmy pressed back in her seat, instinctively trying to escape. Then reason kicked in. ‘That’s only because of the will and my bequest. He was probably having another look at it when the intruder barged in and killed him.’

  ‘Bequest?’ Ben repeated, as if the word were new to him. ‘What bequest?’

  ‘Frances left me a book. I forgot to tell you. That’s why I went there yesterday, after work. I’ve known the family literally all my life. She wanted me to have a little something. It’s not a bit important.’

  ‘I expect it is. I knew there must be something like that. Bonnie said it was just that you’d gone to the funeral with your mum, and the Hendersons were practically the only people you knew in the area when you came to live here.’

  ‘You’ve been talking about me, have you?’

  ‘For the past twenty minutes we have, yes. The police made us go away, but I’d seen the bit of paper, and the open door, and the mugs of cold tea. They should know by now that I’m not stupid.’

  ‘Everybody knows that, Ben,’ said Simmy wearily. ‘What open door?’

  ‘When we got there, the front door was open – just a little bit, not wide. I thought it meant someone had forced it, and broken the catch, so it wouldn’t shut properly, but that wasn’t it. They’d just run off without pulling it shut behind them. Don’t you think that’s weird?’

  ‘Not really. I imagine that a person might not be thinking very straight if they’d just committed murder. Maybe he did leave it wide open and it blew nearly shut after he’d gone.’

  ‘No. I think he – or she – was still there when Bonnie and I showed up. They’d been intending to make a quick getaway, so left it open while they were in the house. That’s what I thought at first, but it doesn’t really work. There might have been a change of plan and he – they – whoever – went out the back way. I heard the kitchen door bang. I was right there, Simmy. Practically in the house with a killer.’ He sounded proud, as if somehow due credit. ‘And I didn’t panic. I walked all round to check, and noted how everything had been left.’

  ‘But you didn’t see anything?’

  ‘Sadly not. Nor did Bonnie.’

  ‘And Kit?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Well – was he …? You know.’ She couldn’t say, Did he die in your arms? Did he say anything? Could you perhaps have saved him?

  ‘You mean, was he already dead. Yes, he was, just. The blood wasn’t flowing. His eyes were glazed. He’d been stabbed about three times, in different places. The wounds were really obvious, with blood all round them. They did it with a pair of sharp scissors. They were on the floor beside him.’ He was barely coherent, pouring out every gruesome detail.

  Simmy stopped him. ‘No, Ben,’ she said. ‘That’s enough. Let me think for a minute. It’s all so ghastly. I mean – scissors? Wouldn’t that take an awful lot of force?’ She didn’t want to talk about it, to imagine it and wonder exactly what it had been like, but neither could she avoid it.

  ‘They were open, I guess. So just one blade was used. I didn’t touch them,’ he added quickly. ‘At least, I don’t think I did. It’s all a bit blurred now, what happened in the first minute or so. They weren’t still sticking in him, anyway.’

  ‘Scissors,’ Simmy said again faintly. Everybody had a pair in their possession, which meant that everybody had the means to commit murder. The everydayness of it added to the horror. And Ben had said it was a repeated attack. In and out, in again – perhaps in ‘a frenzy’, as the police might say. The pain must have been appalling. Pain, fear, shock, disbelief.

  ‘Poor, poor Kit. What a terrible thing.’

  ‘Yes. It came from the front, right into his chest. It didn’t look as if he fought back, either.’ He went silent for a moment, although Simmy could very nearly hear him thinking. ‘You know, there’s a lot of absolute nonsense talked about the dead. They are so … I don’t know … inert. Passive …’

  ‘Dead,’ she finished for him. ‘That’s what dead is, Ben.’ She thought, for the hundred-thousandth time of her own dead baby, inert in her arms, and knew that she was fully conversant with the definition of death.

  ‘And their faces go all loose and relaxed. Expressionless. Even if they died in terrible agony, it couldn’t possibly leave any trace, once all the muscles let go. It’s really very interesting,’ he concluded with an appalling lack of emotion.

  ‘Somebody deliberately killed him,’ she said severely. ‘It’s the worst thing a person can do. And you should not have been there. Nor should Bonnie. That was my fault.’

  ‘Come off it. You’re not telling me you knew we’d coincide with a killer, are you? Because only if you purposely set it all up can you claim any kind of responsibility. That is, for me and Bonnie being there. There might be more mileage in having a look at this bequest thing. That sounds to me as if it could well be useful in the investigation. Are you going to call Moxo about it, or shall I?’

  ‘Moxo’ was Detective Inspector Nolan Moxon, well known to Simmy, Ben and all their friends and relations, having been comprehensively assisted by them in a number of previous murder cases. He and Simmy had developed a friendship increasingly enriched by mutual respect and understanding. He had patiently waited for her to like him, making no secret of how much he liked her. He was one of the few people she allowed to see how alone and vulnerable she often felt. Beneath the respect and liking and understanding, there lay a solid stratum of trust, born of extreme danger at certain moments in the recent past.

  ‘He’s going to want to see you pretty soon, isn’t he?’ she said. ‘You being the one who found the body.’

  ‘Right. I’m there now, as it happens. He’s due back within the hour, once he’s done all the business at the house.’

  ‘So you tell him about my bequest. Be my guest. Tell him I’m going home now, and will be in bed by ten, so if he wants to ask me some questions, it’ll have to wait until tomorrow.’ She looked at her watch. It was half past seven. ‘And don’t let him keep you late. I bet you’ve got plenty of homework.’

  He made a sound that could only be termed a guffaw. ‘Don’t worry about that. This is the best homework I could hope for. Actual real-life forensics. Real death, I mean.’ He laughed again. ‘All the lessons and books and films in the world can’t make up for the thing itself.’

  ‘Stop it,’ she ordered. At any moment he was going to say how lucky he was to have been the first on the murder scene. And if he said that, there would be small flickers of suspicion in the mind of the police that it was possibly a little bit too lucky. And if there was that kind of thinking about Ben, could it not all too easily extend to Simmy as well?

  Ben was following her thoughts. ‘They will be a bit discomposed by the coincidence,’ he realised. ‘After all, I didn’t have a very good reason for being there, did I?’

  ‘It was Bonnie’s idea.’ That, too, was an unsettling thought. ‘And I went along with it. I colluded.’

  ‘Well, then,’ he said, as if there was no more reason to worry.

  The conversation ended with Simmy feeling both better and worse. Better because she knew more of the story, worse because she could see no way of avoiding yet another involvement. She drove home, trying to construct a picture from the facts she knew. It wasn’t long before she was asking herself – what of George and Eddie and Christopher and their sisters? This second major bereavement within a fortnight would knock them all sideways. There would be reproach and recrimination, with Eddie claiming to have known there was cause for concern, and the others wondering if there had been more they could have do
ne.

  Or – and the thought knocked the breath out of her – what if one of them had killed the old man, from some long-standing resentment or injustice? What if Hannah or George or Eddie or Lynn had done it? Even, unthinkably, the eldest and best of them – Christopher himself?

  Chapter Five

  Wednesday morning dawned even more slowly and darkly than the previous day had done. The very word ‘dawn’ was a joke. Night seemed to hold on, fighting off the feeble sun, until well into the official daytime hours. Outside Simmy’s house there were cars passing, their headlights on, their drivers half asleep like hibernating animals prematurely woken. She made no attempt to hurry over breakfast – which comprised porridge and scrambled eggs, because lunch was always meagre or non-existent. She resisted thoughts about Kit Henderson lying dead on the floor, and Bonnie being upset at the sight of him. Instead, she approached the matter sideways, via the book Frances had left her. She took it down from the mantelpiece where she had placed it on Monday evening. Somehow she felt even less worthy of it than she had at the start. Frances had snubbed her own daughters, as well as a daughter-in-law. Eddie had a wife who might well have enjoyed it, and George was apparently in a relationship with a woman named Leonora, who had come with him to his mother’s funeral.

  The book had something over fifty pages, like a large photo album. It was handsomely bound, with marbled endpapers. Somebody had made a proper project of it, preserving the paintings it contained. The story she had so far was nowhere near complete, she realised. There was a lot more meaning than she had first appreciated. There were tissue leaves protecting every picture, the whole thing harking back to an earlier century where people took care over their handiwork. But how much had Frances herself loved it? Had she been as careless of her mother’s treasured artwork as her own daughters seemed to be? Had her father perhaps arranged the professional binding as a gift to his wife? There ought to be a dedication or explanation somewhere, surely? All the first page said was ‘Flower Paintings by Clarissa Edwards’ in flowing calligraphy.