The Troutbeck Testimony Read online

  ‘You,’ he said disarmingly.

  ‘Nin – I’ve got a mass of work to do. If you really wanted me, you’d have shown up over the weekend. Two and a half days were completely free, and you didn’t appear for any of it.’

  ‘You were busy with your dad, or so you told me.’

  ‘There was still Sunday, and quite a lot of Saturday. Where were you? I tried phoning. I nearly came to see you.’

  ‘Why didn’t you? It’s easier for you. I have to wait for a bus, or walk, if I’m to get all the way up to Troutbeck.’

  She had unlocked the door, turning her back on him and trying to identify her emotions. Impatience, confusion, a niggle of apprehension were all on the list. ‘I didn’t know whether you’d be there. Whether you’d want me. I never know.’

  ‘I’m here now,’ he said, as if that solved everything.

  She sighed. Somehow it was her failing, not his, that made things so difficult. If she had driven up to his tiny cottage on the edge of Brant Fell, he’d have welcomed her and probably even taken her to bed. She knew that. She knew he assumed an easy bohemian relationship that saw no need for plans or telephones or irritating reproaches. The problem was that she still needed a clear invitation before risking it. She needed to know he wasn’t constructing a delicate piece of pottery, or sleeping off a heavy bout of drinking or smoking pot. Or even entertaining another woman. She had no real evidence that he was loyal to her alone. He made no promises. Against her will, she found herself comparing him with the ultra-responsible and painfully devoted DI Moxon. A devotion that made very few demands, and which endured rejection and indifference with a terrible stoicism.

  ‘I’m busy,’ she repeated. ‘Sorry, but there’s that enormous funeral on Friday, which is taking up all my time.’

  ‘Ah yes. The sainted Barbara Hodge. Choirs of angels must be singing her to rest, at this very moment.’

  ‘Did you ever meet her?’

  ‘Once by accident. I had a stall at a craft fair and she came by, doing her grand lady act. Bought one of my pieces, as it happens. I was gobsmacked. I think it was the only thing I sold all day. Kept me in bread and milk for a fortnight.’

  ‘So you’ll go to the funeral, then?’ she teased.

  ‘In your dreams. A better idea would be to break into the house while everybody’s at the church and take the pot back. It’ll go to some undeserving nephew otherwise.’

  ‘I didn’t hear that,’ said Simmy. ‘Now, get out of my way. It’s nearly nine already. I suppose Bonnie’ll be here soon.’

  ‘Who?’ He frowned worriedly, as if the name should be familiar.

  ‘The new girl. Melanie found her. She’s here all week, learning the ropes.’

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘Small. Fragile. Pale. But she seems bright enough and fairly interested in the business.’

  ‘Can’t wait to meet her,’ he grinned. ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Young enough to be your daughter.’

  ‘Come on!’ he remonstrated. ‘Don’t give me that look. I might be feckless, but nobody’s ever accused me of lusting after young girls. To be honest, I find them boring. Except your Melanie, of course.’

  ‘Right. Now go.’

  He went, humming a tune Simmy didn’t recognise. She watched him cross the little street and disappear towards the northern end of town. If he had suddenly dematerialised in a puff of white mist, she would hardly have been surprised. Ninian was elusive, almost slippery in his unreliable availability. His body was narrow and pale and bony, although his potter’s hands were strong. He was easy to love, but impossible to depend on. She sighed and went out to the back room where stacks of funeral flowers awaited her nimble fingers.

  Bonnie arrived at precisely nine o’clock, standing hesitantly just inside the shop. Simmy peered around the door of the cool room and called a welcome.

  ‘Should I turn the sign to “Open”?’ asked the girl. ‘You do open at nine, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks. You’re very punctual.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure what time you wanted me, actually. And I didn’t know whether Melanie was coming in today, either. She didn’t sound very sure, did she? You might not want both of us together.’

  ‘She said she wouldn’t be in until this afternoon, if at all. She’s sent you instead. She’s not going to be here much at all from now on, as far as I know.’ The pang at the loss of her assistant was sharper than anticipated. ‘I’m really going to miss her.’

  ‘She is amazing,’ Bonnie agreed. ‘I wish I could be more like her.’

  Simmy cocked her head and smiled. ‘I think you are quite like her, actually. In some ways, at least.’

  Bonnie flushed and turned away. ‘Where should I put my coat?’ she asked.

  Simmy showed her, as well as pointing out the toilet and emergency fire exit at the back. ‘That’s the basics done,’ she concluded.

  ‘What about upstairs?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘There’s another floor.’ The girl pointed a vertical finger as if thinking Simmy might never have noticed. ‘Does somebody live there?’

  ‘Oh! No. It’s just storage space. The previous people kept loads of stock up there. Technically I can use it how I like, according to the lease. But I’ve not needed it so far. I don’t have a lot of reserve stock. It sounds funny, but I’d almost forgotten about it. There’s no direct access from inside the shop. You have to go out the back and up some metal stairs. Like a fire escape.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Bonnie thoughtfully. ‘Would a person be allowed to live there?’

  ‘Um … I doubt it. There’s no loo or kitchen, for a start.’

  ‘But there’s electric? And water?’

  ‘I think so. It’s in two rooms, back and front. Why? You don’t want it, do you?’

  Bonnie made a grimace, part embarrassment, part rueful amusement. ‘I might,’ she admitted. ‘I could work in exchange for rent. I could just get a little gas ring and kettle, and maybe some sort of chemical toilet?’

  ‘But why? What’s wrong with where you are?’

  Bonnie wriggled her shoulders. ‘Nothing really. I just prefer being on my own.’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it – and go up there for a proper look. That’s not going to happen before next week, with things so busy. And quite honestly, I can’t imagine my landlord would be very happy. Or the council. They’d want it all made official. In their eyes, you’d be a squatter.’

  ‘Right,’ said the girl, as if none of these arguments counted for much. ‘Okay. It was just an idea.’

  A customer interrupted them, and Bonnie watched closely as Simmy dealt with a request for a mixed bouquet. Afterwards, she asked questions that reassured Simmy that her new helper was going to prove rather an asset. The morning drifted along with no mishaps or irritations other than the gloomy weather outside.

  Shortly after midday, a familiar figure appeared. Ben Harkness hefted a heavy schoolbag onto Simmy’s little table and extracted a lunch box. He looked at the girl standing beside Simmy and nodded. ‘Bonnie Lawson,’ he said carelessly. ‘Fancy meeting you here. Started your exams yet?’

  ‘Ben,’ she returned. ‘First one’s on Monday.’

  ‘You know each other,’ Simmy realised, with a sense of being slow-witted. ‘Of course. Are you in the same class?’

  Two identically patronising looks greeted this question. ‘They call them tutor groups now,’ Ben told her. ‘And no, we’re not. Never have been. But everybody knows Bonnie Lawson.’

  ‘They don’t!’ the girl protested. ‘Not like they know Ben Harkness, anyway.’

  ‘We’re both famous,’ he shrugged. Then he looked from one to the other. ‘You’re not working here, are you?’

  ‘That’s the idea, yes. I’m training, at the moment. Melanie thought it would work out. She brought me yesterday.’

  Ben had grown an inch since the start of the year, and was likely to add another by Christmas. He was knob
bly and scrawny and often awkward. His complicated mixture of confidence bordering on arrogance at some times, and acute sensitivity to criticism at others had endeared him to Simmy from the start. Impressive brain power and highly focused ambition singled him out from his peers, and yet he never seemed lonely. He was unquestionably a geek, but the existence of a large family of siblings and well-disposed teachers all seemed to have kept him reasonably normal.

  ‘Training, eh!’ The dash of patronage for a girl his own age was not lost on Simmy, who made a noise of protest. ‘What?’ Ben challenged her.

  ‘She is training. Don’t be so …’

  ‘What?’ said Ben again. ‘I wasn’t being anything.’

  Again there was a feeling that the two youngsters had an understanding between them that excluded Simmy. Bonnie hadn’t blushed or giggled or tried to efface herself in Ben’s presence. There appeared to be a natural ease between them which was both surprising and enviable. As Simmy remembered it, her own school years had involved considerable awkwardness between the sexes.

  ‘Anyway, I’m busy,’ she said crossly.

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ said the boy with a grin.

  She sighed, and then remembered something. ‘Hey, while you’re here, I’ve got a question for you. What’s the poem that has the line about the “bee-loud glade”? Is it Thomas Hardy?’

  ‘Yeats,’ he said carelessly. ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree. “And I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.”’ He rattled off the lines with little feeling. ‘I learnt that when I was fifteen,’ he added. ‘Nice to know it’s still in here, good as new.’

  ‘Wow!’ gasped Bonnie in wonderment. ‘That’s awesome.’

  ‘I thought it was either Hardy or Yeats,’ said Simmy, defensively.

  ‘So what does it have to do with anything?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Nothing, really. Just that it came to me yesterday, and I thought you’d probably know. As you did. Thanks.’

  ‘Um …’ Ben was taking out his phone, which was also a dozen other useful things. ‘There’s a bit of news, I see. A man in Troutbeck? Come to an untimely end?’ His hesitancy was uncharacteristic, but Simmy understood it only too well. ‘Did you know about it?’ the boy concluded.

  ‘Yes, but I’m not thinking about it today. I’ve got far too much else to concentrate on. It’s nothing to do with me.’ The words echoed in her head, taunting her with their mendacity. ‘At least …’ She could see there was no immediate prospect of getting down to her funeral wreaths until Ben was satisfied.

  He was onto her like a snake. ‘At least –’ he prompted. ‘Do you know who he is? I mean was. Anything else you can tell me?’

  ‘Stop it!’ she shouted. ‘Don’t be so damned gleeful about it. A man died in a farmyard yesterday afternoon. That’s all I know. That’s all I want to know.’

  He stared at her, searching for the truth. ‘How do you even know that much? I bet you haven’t seen any news today. What time did you get into the shop this morning?’

  ‘Half past eight. I did an early delivery in Staveley. The woman wasn’t even dressed.’

  ‘Did you have the car radio on?’

  ‘No. Stop it, Ben. I haven’t got time to be interrogated by you. I’ve already had Ninian bothering me, before I even opened up.’

  ‘Surely he wasn’t talking about the dead man?’

  ‘No, actually. I don’t know what he was talking about. Nothing important. I told him about Bonnie.’

  Ben looked at her. ‘Do you know Ninian Tripp, on Brant Fell?’

  Bonnie nodded as if the answer were obvious, and Simmy felt a familiar sense of being at a disadvantage amongst all these people who had known each other for ever.

  ‘Well, he’s her boyfriend,’ said Ben. ‘He makes these pots. He’s okay.’

  Bonnie looked from one to the other. ‘There’ve been murders before, haven’t there? You were hurt,’ she addressed Simmy. ‘It must have been horrible. Now Ben wants to talk about something that happened yesterday, but you don’t. Right? And you know it, don’t you?’ she turned to the boy. ‘You know she wants to stay out of it. Why don’t you just respect that and leave her alone?’

  If defending was going to be done, Simmy would never have dreamt that it would be Bonnie Lawson standing up for Simmy Brown against Ben Harkness. She laughed. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Maybe he’ll listen to you.’

  ‘I knew she’d try and stay clear of it, yeah,’ Ben muttered. ‘But I’m set for a career in forensic archaeology and if I can get some hands-on experience now, it’ll be good. It all started last year in Bowness. Simmy was there. And the Ambleside thing at Christmas – I was really helpful to the police that time.’ He was gaining in volume and assertiveness. ‘I’m not just tormenting her for the hell of it. If this is another murder, I should try and get some inside information about it. See?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Bonnie. ‘But I s’pose it’ll come clear before long.’

  Simmy felt a stab of conscience at concealing so much from Ben. He was so focused and determined in his choice of career that any impediment seemed more than unkind. ‘Moxon came to see me last night,’ she said tiredly. ‘He was really sorry, but my father and I could probably be of help to them. Dad heard some men talking on Monday, outside the pub in Troutbeck. And we took the number of a car and described the men in it. It turns out the car belongs to the dead man, so I suppose I saw him, just a day before he died.’ She shuddered. ‘I hate it, Ben. I absolutely can’t cope with another load of trouble.’

  Ben eyed her uneasily, and took a large bite of a sandwich from his lunch box. ‘Doesn’t sound as if you’ve much to worry about,’ he suggested. ‘Probably there’ll be other locals who can help as much as you.’

  ‘Is it anything to do with the dead dog you found, do you think?’ asked Bonnie. ‘I keep worrying about that. I wonder if its people ever found it.’ The faint air of reproach hinted that the girl thought Simmy and her father should have done more than they did to put things right. She also looked rather agitated, Simmy realised.

  ‘Dead dog?’ said Ben. ‘Where?’

  ‘Halfway up Wansfell Pike,’ said Simmy. ‘I can’t imagine it’s got anything to do with anything. But probably Dad said something about it to Moxon. We saw a man later on carrying something we thought might be that dog. In a black bin liner sort of thing.’ A new surge of irritation against her father gripped her. Any involvement with this case was definitely going to be all his fault. ‘And then that same man—’

  Ben cut her short. ‘Your dad spoke to Moxon?’ While still treading carefully, he was clearly not going to remain silent.

  ‘He did. I still can’t quite believe it, but my mother thinks it’s all pointing to a change of character, probably due to what’s happened over the past months. He’s got a lot more anxious and thinks I need protecting. Although that doesn’t really explain why he’s suddenly turned into such a good citizen. There was never the slightest suggestion that anybody was planning to hurt me. He just heard two men talking and thought it sounded as if they might be planning to rob somebody. That’s the whole thing. Nothing the least bit sinister.’

  ‘Unless he didn’t tell you the whole story,’ said Ben. ‘What about this man with a bag? He sounds a bit dodgy.’

  ‘I saw him again last night,’ Simmy picked up where she’d been interrupted, and briefly told them what had happened.

  ‘What’s his name? Where does he live? Didn’t you ask him what he had in the bag?’ Ben fired the questions at her with rising incredulity, as she shook her head after each one. ‘Simmy! What’s the matter with you? How could you not even find out his name?’

  ‘I just wanted him to go. He made me feel … I hate to use the stupid word, but he really did make me feel uncomfortable. As if he knew he could do anything he liked to me, and I’d never be able to stop him.
’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Bonnie, with feeling. ‘So, what did this man look like?’

  ‘Quite tall, with a beard. Probably about my age or a bit younger. Dark eyes.’

  ‘And your father saw him too – on Monday?’ Ben asked. ‘Is that right?’

  Simmy nodded. ‘He fell over and got muddy. But I have no idea whether my father mentioned him to the police. I suppose he must have done.’

  ‘And the beardy man knew the chap who’s been killed? Told you his name?’

  ‘Yes. He said it was all round the village because the woman who found the body knew him and made a big noise about it. It sounded as if she was hysterical, poor thing. Covered in blood.’

  Ben’s eyes narrowed. ‘Really? How come?’

  ‘I don’t know, Ben. She probably tried to do first aid on him or something. The man said his throat was damaged.’ She couldn’t bring herself to repeat the actual words. Her own throat went tight at the image they conjured.

  ‘Hmm.’ Ben’s eyes were shining in an unwholesome excitement at this latest crime. ‘Doesn’t sound as if there’s much doubt it was murder, then.’

  ‘My father’s really going to wish he kept quiet.’

  ‘Right,’ said Bonnie. ‘Especially when he realises he’s landed you in the middle of it. If he was trying to protect you, he’s made a poor job of it, hasn’t he?’

  ‘That’s a horrid thing to say,’ Simmy protested. ‘He must have thought he was doing the right thing.’

  Bonnie raised her hands in surrender. ‘Sorry. But facts are facts,’ she added obscurely. ‘I mean, there have been dognappings around here. You must have seen the notices everywhere. So if somebody’s been killed close to where you saw a dead dog, and where other dogs have been stolen, that’s probably what this is all about. And what you and your father saw will confirm that, in the minds of the police.’ She closed her lips, as if feeling she might have said too much.

  ‘I don’t see it,’ Simmy insisted. ‘Why would dognappers kill a dog, for a start? Don’t they want a ransom or something? Then they give the animal back, and things carry on as before.’ The whole idea continued to strike her as unimportant, even mildly comic. Nobody answered and she went on, ‘As far as I’m concerned, I just want to get on with my work.’ As if to emphasise the point, a pair of young women came chattering into the shop, pausing to look around at the flowers and associated goods for sale, as everybody did. Simmy went to greet them, relief rendering her idiotically effusive.