The Ambleside Alibi: 2 Page 6

  ‘Ah.’ His disappointment was palpable.

  Simmy examined his face. Grey eyes, deeply set, and a beaky nose combined to make him look melancholy even when he smiled. Any resemblance to Ben lay only in the shape of the head and tone of the voice. Wilf was two years older and worked in the kitchens at a major local hotel. He had a towering ambition to be a chef, according to his brother.

  ‘Can I give her a message? She’ll be in tomorrow.’

  ‘No, not really. I’m Wilf, in case you didn’t know. I came here with Ben once.’

  ‘I remember,’ she nodded. ‘It’s nice to meet you again.’

  ‘Ben thinks a lot of you.’ He sounded almost wistful, and it occurred to her that he might be feeling somewhat left out, after the dramatic events in October. ‘He’s always talking about you.’

  She laughed. ‘That sounds bad. I worked out that I’m easily old enough to be his mother.’

  ‘You don’t look it,’ he said gallantly. ‘Ben’s a geek, which means he’s old before his time. You’ve probably noticed.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d have put it quite like that, but I know what you mean. Can you come back tomorrow, if you want to catch Melanie? She usually gets here by nine-thirty.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’ll have the courage to try again,’ he said glumly. ‘She’s still with that Joe Wheeler, isn’t she?’

  ‘As far as I know, yes.’

  ‘You’d know if she wasn’t,’ he said sagaciously. ‘She’d tell you all about it, blow by blow.’

  ‘I imagine she would,’ Simmy agreed, lost for anything to offer him by way of consolation. Joe Wheeler was a ginger-haired police constable, with roughly half Melanie’s IQ, as far as Simmy could tell. It seemed obvious to both her and Ben that Wilf would be a considerably better bet. In the long run, Simmy was hopeful that Melanie herself would come to realise this. Meanwhile, Wilf could very easily find somebody else – although that didn’t look likely just for the moment.

  ‘But she does love being involved with the police,’ he went on. ‘I can’t offer anything half as exciting.’

  ‘Exciting!’ she moaned. ‘That’s not the kind of excitement any right-thinking person could wish for. I don’t think Melanie wants anything of the sort. She might like to feel involved, I suppose, with a connection to what’s going on—’ She stopped herself, horrified at the direction her words were taking her. ‘Listen to me, talking as if it was a regular occurrence. I didn’t mean that at all. All that business is over with now.’

  ‘Is it?’ His grey eyes held hers. ‘Ben says there’s been a murder in Ambleside this week, and you three have been discussing it. If Mel can get some inside information from Joe, that’s going to … you know … strengthen the bond, sort of thing.’

  ‘It might,’ she admitted. ‘If Joe really did know anything, and if he was daft enough to pass it on. Sounds like cause for dismissal to me, actually. Besides,’ she added emphatically, ‘we none of us has any connection whatever with this new murder. We don’t have to give it any thought or worry about it, or talk about it.’

  ‘That’s not what Ben says,’ said Wilf.

  There were two deliveries to be made that day, in diametrically opposite directions. Simmy had decided to leave them until lunchtime, closing the shop for an hour or so. It was something she tried not to do, but there were days when it was inevitable. The first was a traditional but expensive sheaf of red roses from a man to his wife on their anniversary. They lived just north of Newby Bridge, which would take a minimum of ten minutes to reach, and much more likely to be over fifteen. But then she could zoom along the main roads to Staveley, where the second delivery was due. It would in theory be possible to perform both visits within an hour.

  The second bouquet was composed of the more exotic and flamboyant end of the floral spectrum. Gerberas in red, pink and orange were teamed with clusters of red holly berries and two peach-coloured roses. Encircling the flowers were glossy evergreen leaves. It was unsubtle, but perfect for the season. The occasion was a sixtieth birthday, but the order had added a note: ‘Make it as Christmassy as you like.’ Simmy had taken this as permission to go overboard on the reds.

  Simmy had a liking for Staveley, where she often found herself heading for flower deliveries. The encircling hills gave the village an atmosphere of settled security and permanence that she enjoyed, and once there, having made excellent time on the roads, she habitually lingered over the task as long as possible. Only when a car tooted its horn at her, did she realise she had been driving at twenty miles an hour, peering up at the fells and generally admiring the wintry scene in the continuing sunshine.

  She accelerated moderately into the village centre and found the designated house after a brief search. Making the first deliveries since that to Mrs Joseph, she was inexorably reminded of that episode. The door of the Staveley house opened inwards, she noted. The woman told her no personal details, but grasped the flowers with unambiguous delight. ‘They are good to me,’ she rejoiced, with no further elucidation. ‘Thank you very much. Did you make it up yourself? The bouquet, I mean?’

  ‘Yes I did.’

  ‘It’s gorgeous. You are clever. The roses are absolutely perfect. And the colours!’

  ‘I’m glad you like them.’

  ‘Thank you again,’ said the woman, and the door was gently closed.

  And a happy birthday, Simmy belatedly and silently mouthed. She still wasn’t getting this delivery thing right, she suspected. Probably she should remain faceless and anonymous, just two legs on which to convey the flowers and nothing more. People didn’t want anything beyond that. They wanted to revel in the scents and symbolism of the tribute, savouring the sentiment behind it, and closing out anything extraneous to that.

  She drove back only slightly less slowly, convinced there was no real cause to rush. For some reason she thought of her father, nursing his injured cat. Russell Straw was a kind man, good with animals and children. She remembered that they’d been planning a walk to Garburn, which was near Kentmere, which was approached via Staveley. It all connected, both geographically and psychologically, and explained the sudden intrusion of her father into her thoughts. The area was crying out for exploration, and she had let far too many months pass without any serious efforts to gird up and get going. Now it would all have to wait, and she was annoyed with herself.

  Perhaps there would be a crisp cold winter, in which walking would be perfectly feasible. And then she remembered Melanie’s unsettling prediction of snow, and she sighed. However much she tried to shrug it off, she could not deny that snow frightened her. It concealed landmarks and lured people into crevasses. It fell off hillsides and buried you. It smothered sheep and cattle, and caused barn roofs to collapse. Simmy somehow knew these things, without ever having come close to experiencing them. If it hadn’t been so ridiculous, she might have believed that in a previous life she had met her death in a snowdrift. As it was, she had no livestock to worry about, and even if the road from Troutbeck did become impassable by car, she could still walk down to Windermere in an hour or two. The fear was foolish, but nonetheless real for all that.

  She was hungry, she noticed. Eating quite often got left out of her schedule during the week, with cooking for herself a depressing exercise best ignored. Shopping for food was a disorganised business, with no regular slot for a supermarket visit, much less ordering groceries online. She knew she was thinner than she ought to be, but saw no reason to worry about it. There was always an apple handy at this time of year, since her father passed on the surplus from his fruit trees, carefully wrapped to keep them edible through the winter. She often bought sandwiches in the high street, to have for her lunch, but had neglected to do so this morning. She could yet get something, she supposed – but found herself preferring the idea of something hot. Soup or fish pie – the sort of thing you’d get in a pub.

  There wasn’t really time for anything like that, unless she put on some speed. She would pass the Elleray on t
he way back to the shop, so that seemed the best option. With luck they’d manage to produce something quickly. Otherwise there was the Brookside, close to where her parents lived. That would take longer, as would using any of the local hotels which also offered bar and dining rooms. She was unaccustomed to dropping into pubs unaccompanied, but had no qualms about doing so. People knew her, and seemed to like her. She might find someone to talk to.

  In the event, she met someone she knew even before she’d got inside the building. The stretch of street where parking was permitted offered a convenient space, and she quickly grabbed it. Then she became aware of a blue Volvo that parked behind her. A man got out and waited for her to do likewise. ‘Hello again,’ said DI Moxon.

  ‘Were you following me?’

  ‘Of course not. Or only for the last minute or two. I remembered something else I wanted to ask you.’

  ‘I’m in a rush. I’ve only got twenty minutes at most. The shop’s already been shut for over an hour.’

  ‘Come on, then. We’ll have lunch together. This a regular watering hole for you, then?’

  ‘Actually, no. I’ve only been a few times. I was hoping they might have some fish pie. I got a craving just now.’

  He gave her a look that could only be described as quizzical. She could not imagine what had brought it about. ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘When a woman mentions a craving, I always imagine she must be pregnant.’

  ‘Huh!’ she snorted, trying to quell the flash of pain caused by the remark. Insensitive beast, she thought. He knew about her stillborn baby – she had told him about it on their very first meeting. Obviously, he had forgotten all about it.

  ‘Time for my lunch, too,’ he went on obliviously. ‘Can I join you?’

  ‘I suppose so. But I really do have to be quick. I can’t close the shop for long without risking losing customers.’

  The man behind the bar clearly knew exactly who the detective was, and became galvanised when he said they hoped they could provide a swift lunch. ‘Lucky there’s no Christmas party on today,’ Simmy remarked, looking round at the numerous empty tables. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘There’s one this evening,’ said the barman. ‘Local undertaker and all their staff.’

  ‘The undertaker’s ball,’ said Moxon with a laugh. ‘That should be a riot.’

  ‘They’re lovely people,’ said the man, with a slight sniff. Simmy was glad to see that Moxon was managing to annoy others as well as her.

  They sat at a corner table, Simmy drinking beer and Moxon sticking conscientiously to fruit juice. She had been cheered to find they could supply a fish pie, and he ordered steak and chips. They carefully paid separately, in advance. He was already questioning her, long before the food arrived. ‘Has the Kitchener man approached you?’

  ‘Actually, yes. He came into the shop yesterday to thank me. He didn’t stay long.’

  ‘He owes you.’

  ‘Anybody would have done just as well as me. He was lucky I remembered him.’

  ‘He was, wasn’t he?’ He leant forward. ‘Is there any chance at all that he could have known you’d be going to that café in advance, and positioned himself where you’d see him?’

  ‘None whatsoever. I didn’t know myself. Normally I’d just have driven straight back here after making a delivery. I just fancied a quick coffee, for once.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘You really want to pin this on him, don’t you?’

  He shook his head reproachfully. ‘It’s not like that. Not at all.’

  ‘So why this persistence? It obviously wasn’t him. Ben says—’ She stopped herself with a gulp. What was she thinking of? At best, Moxon would think her an idiot for discussing police procedure with a seventeen-year-old boy.

  But it was too late. ‘Ben? Would that be young Mr Harkness, by any chance? You’ve talked this over with him, have you?’

  ‘He saw me leaving the police station, and wanted to know what it was all about.’

  ‘And you told him.’ The detective sighed.

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘We do try to keep these things under wraps. It doesn’t help the investigation if it’s common knowledge who we’ve been questioning. We’ve had very good cooperation from the press so far.’ He sighed again. ‘Not that it’s a very newsworthy murder, I suppose.’

  ‘Ben won’t tell anybody. And he might even help. He is very clever.’

  ‘So what were you going to say, when you stopped? Something that the boy said.’

  ‘Well – just that you must have information about Mrs Clark’s being alive that morning, shortly before you found her. I mean, you must know the time of death quite accurately.’ She found herself struggling for words. She couldn’t say the body must have still been warm or anything so graphic. Ben would have had no such hesitation, with his predilection for gruesome TV series and forensic interests. When Simmy let herself think about even the peripheral realities of a murder, she felt sick. Crushed skulls, flowing blood, gasps for air or shrieks of pain all made her shudder.

  ‘You know her name?’

  ‘Didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I might have done. But she was Miss Clark, not Mrs.’

  ‘Right. I remember. Melanie said it was on TV last night, in the news. They gave her name. And her granny was at school with her sister,’ she added, unable to resist scoring a point.

  ‘What? Whose granny?’

  ‘Melanie’s. They all know each other, apparently. Penny Clark was in the same class as Mel’s mother’s mother. Nancy was her twin, but she went to a different school.’

  ‘Penny is Mrs Hopkins now. Married to a farmer with five children. One of them’s in jail.’

  ‘Really? What did he do?’

  ‘She, actually. She killed a child on the road. Drunk driving. Got three years for it.’

  Simmy winced. ‘How awful!’

  ‘Miss Clark was her aunt.’

  ‘Yes. I see.’ A thought struck her. ‘The child wasn’t Mr Kitchener’s, was it?’

  Moxon smiled and gave a slow head shake. ‘No connection with him at all. The connection with Miss Clark was through his mother.’

  ‘Who died a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Right.’

  The food arrived and they ate quickly. Simmy reviewed their conversation. ‘What else did you want to ask me? Surely it wasn’t just whether Mr K had seen me again?’

  ‘I was wondering what you thought of him. How well you knew him. Exactly what he said to you on Wednesday morning. We got a bit sidetracked,’ he apologised. ‘As we so often seem to do.’

  ‘Do we?’ The we gave her pause. Did he think of her as in some special sort of relationship with him? Was there more going on than she had suspected? She had no idea whether he was married or not; she had liked him to start with, although there had never been anything of a sexual attraction. He had told her she was unusual, with a useful approach to police enquiries. Did he think she was encouraging him? Was she?

  ‘Well?’ he prompted.

  ‘Oh! Well, I felt sorry for him. He took his mother’s death very hard. I get the impression he’s lonely. He’s divorced and there was no mention of anyone else on his flowers. I mean, they were just from him. He spent a lot on them. He looks thin, don’t you think? And a bit grubby. Not looking after himself too well. He was Mrs … Miss Clark’s lodger for a while. Then I assume he moved in with his mum, maybe because they both felt they needed to be looked after. He’d do the DIY jobs and she’d do the ironing and all that sort of thing. How am I doing?’

  He made a face, suggesting it was much as he’d expected. ‘He’s not the only one who looks thin. That fish thing’s good, is it?’

  She had finished it within five minutes, as well as draining her beer. ‘Lovely, thanks. Now, I really have to go. Good luck with everything. It sounds like rather a muddle.’

  ‘It is,’ he agreed. ‘And I can’t pretend you’ve helped at all.’

  ‘
I did my best,’ she defended, before grasping that he was joking. Or was he? She probably hadn’t helped, if he was still hoping to pin the crime on Mr Kitchener. But it had been an essentially amicable conversation, until this last remark. Was he angry with her? It was difficult to read him, as he continued to sit at the table when she got up. Even after several encounters, he still seemed alien, a man from another world. She could not imagine touching his skin or handling his clothes. There was an invisible patina to him that was not quite greasy or repellent, but which put him beyond any wish for closer contact. It was, she believed, mainly due to his job. Just as you hesitated to shake hands with an undertaker, you were reluctant to get inside the mind of a man who devoted his life to catching criminals. They both inhabited a shadowy realm that ordinary mortals preferred to ignore. She thought again of Melanie and her Constable Joe, and wondered whether the girl had come close to any of these same resistances. And if not yet, would she ever?

  ‘Thank you,’ he said heavily.

  ‘Bye, then.’ She left him finishing his chips and trotted hurriedly to her car.

  Nobody was waiting on the doorstep when she got back to the shop, which made her feel she had rushed for no good reason. Where was Ninian Tripp with his vases, for one thing? She admitted to herself that she had been anticipating his return ever since she’d opened at nine o’clock. His grey eyes and clear skin had made a far more positive impression on her than DI Moxon had done. Ninian was somehow wholesome, despite his troubled background and undercurrents of desperation. He had a sweet smile and scruffy clothes, and a faintly earthy scent that was probably clay. Ninian made things come alive under his hands, like God fashioning Adam. Moxon sniffed out guilty secrets and confronted people at their worst. While knowing it was unfair to compare them, Simmy found herself doing exactly that.

  The next person to come into the shop was a complete surprise on a number of levels. Simmy’s initial reaction was to anticipate reproach of some sort. The next was acute curiosity. Finally, she felt concern. Here was trouble, she realised. ‘Hello,’ she said quietly. ‘Mrs Joseph, isn’t it?’