The Coniston Case Read online

  ‘You won’t see anything,’ said Ben. ‘It’s too murky. But I suggest you take the ferry, if you do want to go over there. It’s more fun that way and a lot quicker.’

  ‘So some people say,’ muttered Simmy. She found the ferry unsettling, for reasons she couldn’t properly explain.

  Melanie’s mobile phone beeped and she read a text message with a yelp. ‘It’s Joe. Listen to this. “Body found near Coniston Water. Your boss involved.”’ She looked warily at Simmy. ‘I guess Moxon’s going to be back before we know it.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Simmy, not sure whether she was angry or scared, but suspecting it was probably both. ‘Why does he say I’m involved?’

  ‘Because you are, most likely,’ said Ben. He gave Melanie a dark look. ‘Still seeing Joe, then? Last I heard, Wilf thought you’d packed him in.’

  ‘I’m not not seeing him,’ said Melanie pedantically. ‘We still go out once or twice a week, but I’m making sure he knows he’s not to take anything for granted. He thinks if he feeds me inside information like this, I’ll stick with him.’

  ‘And is he wrong about that?’

  ‘Mind your own business.’

  ‘It is my business,’ Ben flashed. ‘I have to put up with Wilf going on about it all the time. And you can’t pretend it’s fair on Joe, either. Poor bloke probably thinks you’ll marry him in a couple of years.’

  Melanie dimpled complacently. ‘Tough,’ she said.

  Kathy was hovering near the door, waiting for a chance to announce her departure. ‘I’ll be back by four at the latest,’ she said. ‘If you need me, call me. This is the number.’ She produced a card from her bag on which were printed her name and mobile number and nothing else. ‘I’ve got cards for every occasion,’ she boasted. ‘Like you with the flowers. Joanna does them for me.’

  Catching up with the doings of Joanna and Claudia was going to be high on the agenda if she and Kathy ever managed to sit down quietly together, thought Simmy. ‘Thanks,’ she said, taking the card.

  ‘You don’t have to worry,’ Ben reassured Simmy. ‘Joe means Mr Hayter, obviously. It’s nothing new.’

  Melanie slapped herself lightly on the cheek. ‘Of course that’s it. What an idiot. I was thinking they’d found someone else.’

  Simmy heaved a sigh of relief. ‘I’m an idiot, as well. Tell Joe not to do that again. It’s not helpful.’

  Ben reluctantly went back to school, and Melanie conscientiously organised the assembled bouquets for delivery next day. She listed the addresses and amended the route she’d devised for Simmy to follow for maximum efficiency. ‘You’ll have to be closed for most of the morning,’ she said regretfully. Melanie almost never managed to be in the shop on a Friday, due to the inflexible timetable at the college she attended part-time. Her diploma in hotel management was nearing completion and her results to date were so good that she was determined to get the highest possible mark overall. That meant diligent attendance and a lot of additional homework. In the six months that Simmy had known her, she had made astonishing progress on every level. She was even working on improving her accent, with special attention to the vowel sounds.

  Work in the back room was almost finished, and no more orders had come through. ‘We needn’t have sent Kathy away,’ said Melanie. ‘You could have had a nice chat.’

  ‘We can do that this evening.’

  ‘She’s nice. When did you last see her?’

  ‘Not since I moved here. I thought she’d forgotten all about me. And she’s only here now because she’s got some sort of business in the area over the weekend.’

  ‘What does she do? Was she on the same course as you?’

  ‘No, no. We met at a wine tasting, years ago. She’s a civil servant. Never talks about her job. Our husbands were being all pretentious about wine, and we drifted off into a corner and got to know each other. We just clicked. You know how that goes.’

  ‘Not really.’ Melanie seemed a bit wistful. ‘I haven’t made a proper new friend since I was twelve.’

  ‘Me. Ben.’

  ‘S’pose so. But all my girlfriends are from school. I don’t much like the ones at college. The best one packed in the course just as I was getting to know her better.’

  ‘You’ll meet loads of people when you start working in a hotel.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The moment had almost arrived when Melanie would have to begin a serious job-finding effort. Her motive for working part-time in a local shop was primarily to improve her customer-service skills. Simmy had found it easy enough to knock some of the sharp corners from the girl, helping her to think twice before showing impatience towards customers. ‘They might be newly bereaved, or wallowing in guilt, or having to adjust to a new situation. You need to go carefully with them.’

  It had worked well, with increasingly few exceptions, although Melanie did have a persistent problem with ditherers that was hard to shift. ‘You’ll come across them all the time in a hotel,’ Simmy warned her. ‘Lots of people have no idea what they want.’

  Melanie could scarcely imagine such a thing; her life decisions had been made years ago. With a mother who coped poorly with the challenges of life, the girl had quickly concluded that she was on her own and would have to concentrate hard if she wanted to better herself. The dramatic gulf between her and the rest of her disorganised family was one obvious explanation for her hesitancy over making friends.

  ‘I need to start earning serious money this summer,’ she said. ‘I can’t go on living at home much longer. It’s driving me mad. There’s nowhere to put anything.’

  ‘You’ll find something easily enough. There must be a hundred hotels within twenty miles of here.’

  ‘A lot more, actually. I’m going to start at the top and work down. Can you practise interviews with me sometime, do you think?’

  ‘Don’t they do that at college?’

  ‘Yeah, but they don’t have much idea of what a real employer wants. You do, because you are one.’

  Simmy laughed. ‘That’s true.’

  The lull in activity was making her feel tired. All week she’d been in a controlled panic, afraid she could never manage to honour all the commitments she’d made. The unpleasantness in Coniston and the tears in Hawkshead had shaken her, making her realise that she was still not fully recovered from the tragic events in Ambleside just before Christmas. It took very little to frighten her now, and that made her angry. She had learnt how humiliating it was to become a victim and how steep a climb it was to emerge from that role without serious lasting damage. The expression on DI Moxon’s face when he looked at her made her feel young and vulnerable, which was not the way she wanted to feel. There was a sneaking sense that he harboured other feelings towards her, as well. Without actually saying so, it was clear that Melanie believed him to be attracted to Simmy as a woman, rather than a witness. In short, he went soft when he was with her. He visited the shop in person when the matter in question could have been handled by a phone call or a visit from someone of much lower rank. He was concerned for her safety and eager to offer protection. There had even been one or two moments when Simmy suspected she had hurt his feelings.

  Darn it, she thought. It’s the same as Melanie with her Wilf – we’ve both got lovelorn swains who we’re not at all sure we want. In fact, she could still not entirely shake off a mild sense of repulsion towards Moxon as a man. He was not good-looking. He did not have an easy manner. On the whole, taking everything into consideration, she would really quite like never to see him again.

  But at least it was looking as if there would be no troublesome police investigation into the death of Mr Hayter. No repeated questions from the detective or eager delvings into people’s motives from Ben. Spring was coming, business was flourishing and all was basically well with her world, she assured herself.

  At half past three, she was amazed to find there was really nothing else to be done. It was all simply sitting in the back room awaiting delivery nex
t day. ‘I’m tempted to take the rest of the day off, if you can hang on here till five,’ she told her assistant. ‘I could take Kathy for a drive before it gets dark.’

  ‘No problem,’ shrugged Melanie. ‘It’s your shop.’

  ‘I think I’ve earned it. And besides, I’d really prefer not to be here if DI Moxon shows up again.’

  ‘Coward,’ said Melanie affectionately.

  Simmy phoned her friend, who answered instantly and was more than ready for a lakeside drive. ‘We can go to Coniston,’ said Simmy. ‘Or Ambleside. Where are you? I’ll come and find you.’

  ‘Outside a big church in Bowness, trying to decide where to go next. I’ll cross over and wait somewhere prominent, so you’ll see me. Just below a smart hotel called the Belsfield – how’s that?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Simmy, repressing a shudder that always came now when she visualised the central part of Bowness-on-Windermere. She had come close to dying there, as well as in Ambleside. And she had witnessed someone else’s death a few yards from the spot where Kathy would be waiting.

  Even on a damp February afternoon there were visitors wandering along the pavements, pausing to gaze at the fells, or to admire the swans which spent most of their time around the jetties. Bowness had more than enough shops, cafes, hotels and attractions to keep a family occupied for a few days, whatever the weather. By comparison, the little town of Windermere had almost nothing. The biggest shop, in prime position, sold ladies’ underwear. There were few if any good views of the lake, either. And yet it had an atmosphere that was so serenely English, so unconcerned about what people thought of it, that it drew enthusiasts in plenty. Beyond the main street there were rows and rows of B&Bs offering sensible facilities as a base for fell walking or sailing or any other Lakeland activity. Simmy for one thought Windermere quite perfect, for the very reason that it hardly even occurred to it to try to please.

  Kathy was standing very visibly at the edge of a pavement unobstructed by parked vehicles. She hopped athletically into the passenger seat, almost before Simmy had stopped. ‘Hiya!’ she said. ‘You were quick.’

  ‘It’s not far. Where do you want to go?’

  ‘It’s up to you. I’m new here and it all sounds wonderfully romantic.’

  ‘It’s often a bit eerie out in the countryside, this time of year.’ And Simmy told her friend about her early-morning drive to Hawkshead, that very day. ‘The sheep are like ghosts, and the trees all seem to be watching you,’ she concluded.

  ‘What about Ambleside, then? I’d like to see all that.’

  ‘I thought, actually, that we might do a loop around Windermere and go up the other side, maybe to Rusland or somewhere. Just driving. There are still plenty of places I’ve never seen. We might even do a circle, through Hawkshead or Ambleside. It’d be dark before we finished, though.’

  ‘Let’s not be too ambitious, then. It’s just nice to sit in the car and talk and get some of the local atmosphere.’

  ‘We must go somewhere,’ said Simmy. ‘Let’s drive down towards Newby Bridge. You see Windermere from the road for much of the way.’

  ‘Is it possible to drive up the other side of it?’

  ‘Not close enough to see the water. You have to go westwards, along another little lake called Esthwaite.’

  ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘Not many people have. It’s got trout. They catch enormous ones, apparently.’

  ‘Yum.’

  ‘We could go for a quick look. There’s a pub at Near Sawrey that might be open.’

  ‘Just drive, Sim. I don’t care where we go.’

  Simmy was already driving, heading southwards out of Bowness. Something in Kathy’s voice made her feel nervous. Her stomach was clenching ominously. ‘Okay,’ she said.

  They passed Storrs, with its big hotel claiming to be a perfect wedding venue. Simmy briefly recounted the sorry story of a wedding there, for which she had done the flowers. ‘It ended very badly,’ she sighed.

  ‘So I gather.’

  ‘Oh? Did I already tell you about it?’ She was sure she hadn’t.

  ‘You were in the papers, love. It was national news for a few days.’

  ‘I suppose it was.’ The idea that people who had once known her might have registered the name in the newspapers was an uncomfortable one that she had pushed away several times over the past months. ‘You should have told me you’d seen it.’

  ‘Should I? Why?’

  Simmy was reminded of Ben’s habit of googling anybody who came to his attention. She had never once considered that there might be people who would google her. ‘It feels funny otherwise,’ she said weakly.

  Kathy didn’t answer.

  ‘We can go in here and admire the lake.’ She turned into a car park which offered a good panorama across the lake, the fells beyond providing a dramatic backdrop. ‘There’s hardly anywhere else they let you park these days.’

  ‘It’s amazing,’ said Kathy. ‘I can’t imagine living here all the time. Do you ever get used to it?’

  ‘I’m afraid you do, rather, although I still feel I’ve wasted the day if I haven’t stopped to look around me for at least a couple of minutes – but it does happen, more all the time. My father’s very good at reminding me. He’s been here for ages, and still thinks it’s magical.’

  ‘I never met your parents.’

  ‘They didn’t come down to Worcester much. When they’re not working, they go off to a Greek island or a city break somewhere, like Berlin. They’ve always done that.’

  ‘Listen, Sim – I suppose I’ll have to tell you. I’m up here for a reason. It’s going to sound ridiculous, so brace yourself.’

  ‘Is it a man?’ Kathy’s husband, Simon, might well have proved too boring for sustained fidelity, once into their third decade together. He was a college lecturer in modern languages.

  ‘A man? As in a lover? No, you idiot. Valentine’s Day must have addled your brains, if that’s what you think.’

  ‘I expect it has,’ Simmy agreed. ‘So what, then?’

  ‘It’s basically to do with Joanna. She’s fallen in with some people—’

  ‘A cult! You’ve come to rescue her from some bunch of lunatics who think the world will end next week!’

  ‘No! Simmy, listen, will you. For God’s sake!’ The impatient, almost hectoring, tone reminded Simmy that Kathy could be bossy and impatient even with close friends. There had been times when this had made her wonder why she maintained the relationship. Perhaps, too, it explained why she had made inadequate efforts to maintain communication after she moved.

  But she forgave Kathy completely on this occasion, saying, ‘Gosh, I’m turning into Ben Harkness, aren’t I. He makes stupid suggestions like that, all the time. Although quite often they turn out not to be stupid after all.’

  ‘The idea isn’t entirely stupid. I guess you might call it a sort of cult, but they’re perfectly harmless. Their motives are actually very pure. Young and idealistic and all that.’

  Simmy kept quiet with difficulty.

  ‘The thing is, they’re all studying physics at university, and there’s a major module about climate. Meteorology and all that. And they’ve decided to do some experiments of their own, in a region that hasn’t had much industry for ages. It’s something about carbon dioxide, apparently, and some theory about water vapour. There’s a tutor with them, who happens to be the one Jo fell for in her first term. She’s badly smitten, and now they’re up here with nobody watching them, I dread to think what could happen. She’s had one or two health problems lately, on top of everything else.’

  ‘I can see why you’d be worried,’ Simmy sympathised. ‘She’s still pretty young.’

  ‘Right. I really hate to come over as a mother hen, but I do have a bad feeling about it all. Plus, I think it’s time I met this tutor. For all we know, he’s married or something. I don’t want him to break her heart.’

  Hearts. Flowers. The symbols of romantic springtime matings seeme
d to be everywhere, Simmy thought. ‘No,’ she said weakly.

  Kathy went on, spilling out all her worries, and the scrappy pieces of information she’d managed to glean. ‘They’ve been here a week already – on the slopes of the Old Man of Coniston, setting up a whole lot of measuring equipment and so forth. But on Tuesday I had a call from Jo saying there’s been some trouble. Simon says it won’t be anything dangerous, but I’m not so sure. Obviously, I can’t go marching in without warning, like a parent whose kid’s being bullied at primary school. I’ve got to approach it carefully. But now there’s all this bother with you and the police, which seems to be centred on Coniston as well. I can’t believe there’s any connection, but even so …’

  ‘I see,’ said Simmy, not sure that she did. ‘It seems funny, though, the way you’ve just been drifting around Bowness this afternoon, instead of rushing off to find Joanna. Haven’t you heard from her since Tuesday?’

  ‘No – and I wouldn’t expect to. She’s quite convinced she knows what she’s doing.’

  ‘And yet …?’

  ‘If you must know, I was checking something out in Bowness first. One of the group is the daughter of a colleague of mine and she told me Mandy has an aunt living up here, and I found her address on the computer. I thought I’d call in for a chat, just to see if she knew anything.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She wasn’t in.’

  ‘So what was the trouble Jo told you about?’

  ‘The equipment was thrown about and some of it broken. They had to start all over again.’

  ‘Is it out on the open fell? What if it snows? How are they going to keep guard over it?’

  ‘Two of the boys have got all-weather camping gear. They were going to stand guard, around the clock.’

  ‘It does sound a bit dramatic.’

  ‘I wondered whether it might just have been some sheep trampling on the stuff. But Jo laughed at that idea.’

  ‘Did they get permission from the landowner first?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘It’ll be National Park up there. I’m not sure how ownership works, come to think of it. But people aren’t likely to take kindly to a bunch of students playing at science in their precious landscape. They’ll think it’s a survey for a wind farm or a nuclear power station or something. Stuff like that is incredibly sensitive.’