The Windermere Witness (15 page)

‘That’s right. Eleanor took me to talk to Bridget and Peter and the other three men—’

‘Who were?’ the detective interrupted.

‘Oh, you know. Glenn Adams, Felix something, in the wheelchair, and Pablo, the Spanish one.’

‘All right. Carry on.’

‘They wanted to talk to me, after they heard about Mr Baxter. Why? Is that a problem?’

‘It could be, yes. As I understood it, you had no
connections with the Baxter family before Saturday. And now you seem rather … intimate with them.’

‘I did the flowers for the wedding, which means I met Bridget and her mother to discuss what they wanted, on two occasions. I’m not the least bit
intimate
with them.’

‘And now you’ve forged a bond with the other witness from yesterday.’ He cocked his head at Ben. ‘Is this a habit with you?’

‘Is what a habit?’

‘Making such instant friendships. I have to say I find it very unusual.’

Simmy blinked, speechless. There was a definite accusation in his tone. She tried to order her thoughts, to understand what he was meaning to say.

Melanie was not so intimidated. ‘There’s nothing at all unusual about it,’ she burst out. ‘Simmy was approached by Bridget Baxter’s mother, and asked to look after her little girl. And George Baxter wanted her to tell him about Markie, but before they could meet, he was murdered. What’s so suspicious about that?’

He sighed. ‘Thank you, Miss Todd. I’m sure Mrs Brown appreciates your loyalty, but it isn’t very helpful.’

‘Stop it,’ Simmy ordered. ‘This is ridiculous.’

‘Si-i-i-im,’ cautioned Melanie, suddenly deferential. ‘I’m not sure—’

‘It’s all right,’ Moxon interrupted. ‘I must say it’s quite refreshing to be told off like that. It looks as if we need to start again – again. Third time lucky. I wasn’t trying to accuse you of anything. At least, I was hoping to get some sort of grasp of how things had developed since I last saw you. Less than twenty-four hours ago, that was. We’ve got most of the
Cumbria force brought in, as you might imagine, nobody’s getting any sleep, nobody’s turned up any proper evidence. So I thought it might come back to you, somehow.’

‘I’m a last resort,’ nodded Simmy. ‘I see.’

‘You don’t think she did it, then?’ Ben ventured, his face paler than ever.

Moxon laughed sourly. ‘Did you see her doing it, yesterday?’

‘No, of course I didn’t.’

‘And she didn’t see you, so you can provide excellent cover for each other, can’t you?’

Melanie’s intake of breath was impossible to ignore. All three looked at her. ‘Sorry,’ Moxon grimaced. ‘There I go again.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Simmy. ‘We’re just not used to the way the police mind works. I for one haven’t the slightest idea how you might go about finding the murderer – or murder
ers
, I suppose.’

He grimaced again, and Simmy was reminded of the solid male phalanx at Storrs, the day before. So many broad shoulders and strong necks, revealing a muscular power that could kill and capture weaker mortals on a whim. Except that George Baxter must also have been one of these alpha males, with money and status in abundance. She realised she was thinking of young Bridget, who had taken on the character of a helpless pawn in Simmy’s mind. And Lucy, even more so, another girl child at the mercy of unreliable adults.

‘Evidence,’ said Melanie. ‘They have to look for evidence.’

‘We have to protect the public – that’s our chief role. That’s why I’m here, basically. Not to alarm you, but there
is
a killer out there, and you do live alone.’ He was speaking exclusively to Simmy, as he had tried to do since he arrived. Ben and Melanie were little more than irritants, it seemed.

‘So? What do you want me to do?’

‘Take sensible precautions. Lock doors and windows. Don’t open the door to anyone you don’t know.’

She shivered. ‘If somebody wants to shoot me, I don’t see how I can stop them. What if they’re hiding under my bed when I get home? Or lying on the back seat of my car when I get in to drive home this evening?’

‘Those things only happen in the movies,’ said Ben stoutly. ‘Not in real life.’

‘I don’t believe you.
He
thinks otherwise,’ she tipped her chin at Moxon. ‘Plus we know for a fact that there is someone out there with a gun.’

‘Who is very unlikely to risk being found with it,’ said the detective. ‘He’ll have thrown it into the lake by now. All the same, it might be wise for you to stay with your parents for a few days, just until we catch him.’

Simmy closed her eyes for a moment, and uttered a little moan. ‘I can’t do that. All the rooms are kept for the guests. They’d think it was a ludicrous over-reaction on your part, or a total loss of nerve on mine.’

‘She’d have been fine if you hadn’t come along and scared her like this,’ accused Melanie. ‘Look, Sim – why don’t I come and stay at yours for a night or two? We can do some of the paperwork together. And I can finish my assignment for college. It’s bedlam at my house – I’d get it done much better somewhere quiet.’

Simmy groped for the shreds of her dignity. ‘Thanks Mel. That’s a great idea.’

‘Good.’ Moxon clapped his hands together lightly, as if a difficult task had been accomplished. ‘Very good.’ He turned to leave, and Simmy watched the stubbly back of his neck as he made for the door.

‘Bye, then,’ she called after him.

He gave a little wave, and pulled open the door. All three exhaled as he vanished from sight.

‘He likes you,’ said Mel.

‘You were quite rude to him,’ remarked Ben, with something close to admiration.

‘He seemed to be floundering rather,’ said Simmy thoughtfully. ‘I’ve never seen a detective before. Not close to, anyway. It’s as if he was from another planet. Are they all like that?’

‘Like what?’

‘I can’t think of the words. Stolid, maybe. And careful. Unimaginative. Hidebound. He was actually quite nice on Saturday, but since then I’ve gone off him. I think they’re all so hedged about with regulations and fear of criticism that they become robots.’

‘My boyfriend isn’t like that,’ said Melanie huffily.

‘Give him time,’ said Ben. ‘I know that Joe. You’re too good for him, you know.’

‘Oh yeah? I suppose you’d rather I took up with your precious brother?’

‘He’d suit you better. He’s going to have his own restaurant one of these days, you see. And if you’re doing flowers, that’d work out just right.’

‘I’m not doing flowers, I’m doing hotel management. This is just temporary.’

‘Even better,’ said Ben equably.

‘Come on, you two,’ said Simmy, unable to forget that she was almost old enough to be their mother. ‘There’s work to be done. I still haven’t checked for new orders, or made a list for the next delivery. Melanie – is everything all right in the storeroom?’

‘Everything’s absolutely fine. It’s nearly time for me to knock off. I’ve got a tutorial this afternoon, remember?’ She looked at Ben. ‘Not that you need me here anyway, now you’ve got him.’

‘Of course I need you. I’ll see you on Wednesday.’

‘No you won’t. You’ll see me tonight. I meant it about staying at yours, you know.’

‘Sorry. I forgot.’ The prospect was not entirely appealing. ‘It’s very nice of you. I’ll cook us something, then. Thanks, Mel.’

A customer broke the awkward silence that followed. Simmy went to offer assistance and the others faded from sight.

Half an hour later, Melanie left for her tutorial, promising to be back at five-thirty when Simmy closed the shop. ‘What happens for lunch?’ Ben asked.

‘I bring sandwiches.’

‘I don’t suppose there’s enough to share?’

‘Depends how hungry you are.’

‘I’ll go and get something from the bread shop, then. Won’t be long.’

Alone for ten minutes, Simmy tried to assemble her thoughts. Despite the demands made by Ben and Melanie, the threats issued by DI Moxon, and the sadness over Markie and George Baxter, the face hovering persistently in her mind’s eye was of Bridget, new bride of Peter Harrison-West.

Ben turned out to be good company in the few hours he remained at the shop. He recounted stories of school, and a family holiday that summer on Corsica. ‘The mountains are incredible,’ he enthused. ‘They make the fells look like molehills. The roads are terrifying. Great big gorges you could easily fall into if you weren’t careful. My mum was clinging to the door handle, convinced we were going to drive over the edge. And wild pigs all over the place. You’d never think it was Europe.’

It turned out that the Harkness family was a large one. In addition to the older brother, there were no fewer than three younger sisters. ‘Zoe’s fourteen and the twins are twelve.’

‘Twins!’

‘Yeah. Mum says she ordered them specially. It was amazing when they were little. Even I wasn’t sure which was which. They’re horrible now, of course, especially Tanya. She’s a witch.’

‘What’s the other one called?’

‘Natalie. She’s clever. She’s going to be a computer geek like me.’

‘It sounds wonderful,’ said Simmy wistfully. ‘I’ve hardly got any family at all.’

‘You’ve got all this, though,’ he said, sweeping the shop with a widespread arm. ‘This is really something. Like your own little empire.’

‘You think?’

‘Absolutely. You can do whatever you like with flowers. Have you ever been to the Botanical Garden in the Bronx?’

‘Nope. Have you?’

‘Last Christmas. They do this thing with model buildings, made out of sticks and leaves and seed pods and that. Real buildings from New York, they are. I went round it three times. Mum went off and left me, and I had to get the train back to Grand Central all by myself.’ The pride was more than endearing. ‘There was snow,’ he added for good measure.

‘Wow.’

‘Anyway, the point is, you could try something like that. Make a model of the clock tower, or something. It’s probably not too hard. Then you varnish it to make it keep, and bring it out every Christmas for your window display.’

‘Gosh, Ben, that’s a pretty fantastic idea. You
do
mean the Baddeley clock? Little Lucy Baxter and I stopped to have a good look at it on Saturday, actually.’

‘Lucy Baxter?’

‘I’m not sure that’s her surname, come to think of it. She’s Bridget Baxter’s half-sister. Same mother. She was the flower girl at the wedding. They asked me to look after her, when everything got chaotic, after they found Markie.’

He nodded carelessly, his mind no longer on the murders and the suffering Baxters. ‘So – all you need to do is take a big basket with you to the woods and collect all the bits and pieces. It doesn’t have to be exact, see. You can play about with it, so long as people recognise what it is.’

Simmy was having difficulty in visualising the exact process. ‘You’d have to help me.’

‘That’s what I hoped you’d say,’ he grinned.

‘So what about the Baxter business?’ she said with some difficulty. There was an inner resistance to returning to the subject that needed to be overcome. ‘We can’t carry on as if it never happened.’

‘Hardly,’ he agreed. ‘Bowness is in lockdown, for one thing.’

‘Everyone’s going to be scared at the idea of a sniper picking people off from a top window somewhere. Don’t they have a range of half a mile or something crazy like that?’

‘More than scared. Wasn’t there a thing in Florida, years ago, with two men doing that? Nobody went outside for about a month.’

‘I do vaguely remember, yes. I imagine everyone’s talking about it again now.’

‘Silly, though. It’s obviously about the Baxters – not just random.’

‘You don’t think it extends to you and me, then?’

‘Not really,’ he asserted uneasily. ‘It must be obvious that we don’t know anything.’

‘Right. Except … I sort of
do
know them, now. They’ve drawn me in, so I’m involved with them.’

‘Why would they do that? Sounds weird to me.’

‘My mother thinks they wanted to persuade me of something – maybe that they’re all perfectly innocent and none of them killed anybody.’

Ben mused on this. ‘If that’s true, then it means there’s a conspiracy, doesn’t it? That they really
aren’t
innocent, so they got together to prove something to you. More likely, they wanted to find out how much you know.’

‘But
that
suggests a conspiracy as well. That they’re all in it together. It
did
rather feel like that. It was like a job interview, with a panel of board members all staring at me. And then they hardly asked me anything.’

‘Who are
they
, exactly?’

She listed the remnants of the wedding party – the bride, groom, best man and two ushers. ‘And Eleanor, of course. Bride’s mother. She’s got the little girl, Lucy, and a husband or partner or whatever, Lucy’s father. He sounds intriguing, but I haven’t met him.’

‘And Baxter’s got a wife somewhere, right?’

‘Right. She’s ill, apparently.’

‘They weren’t at the wedding, so they probably didn’t kill Mark.’

‘Markie. Everybody called him Markie. He was about your age.’

‘Yeah, I know. He was in the cricket team at his posh school. We played them a few times.’

Simmy uttered a squeal, part amazement, part exasperation. ‘God, Ben – does everybody know everybody around here? And you – exactly how many talents do you have?’

He ducked his head modestly. ‘I’m a pretty good bowler. And I got a special certificate for languages, in Year Nine.’

She tried to calculate the near-forgotten system of school exams and tests. ‘You’re in Year Twelve now – is that right? AS level? How many GCSEs did you get?’

‘Thirteen,’ he mumbled.

‘How many were A-star?’

‘Only ten. I made a silly mistake in Russian, and had an off-day for drama. And I only got B for political geography. They couldn’t fit it into the timetable, so I had to do it on my own.’

‘Bloody hell, Ben. Most people are thrilled if they get nine passes. Melanie got seven, if I remember rightly.’

‘Yeah, well. It comes easily to me, that’s all. More luck than anything.’

‘I assume you’re brilliant with computers, too? And you’ve read all the English classics, and can quote
Hamlet
from start to finish?’

‘Of course not. Don’t tease.’

She laughed. ‘Sorry. Are your parents teachers?’

‘Dad is. Modern languages. Not at my school, though. My mum’s an architect. She works from home.’

The third customer of the day put the conversation on hold. Flowers were required for a christening, which was a first for Simmy. The challenge absorbed her for twenty minutes, the baby’s aunt and godmother delighted to be drawn into the decision-making and shown various options. Ben faded from sight, in a fashion that was starting to feel familiar. She suspected he was still within earshot, curious to follow the process. The required flowers were to be a centrepiece for the party after the church ceremony. The baby was a girl, but the two women agreed that pink was too obvious as the main colour. ‘Creamy white and pale
yellow,’ said Simmy. ‘With a few of the palest pink rosebuds scattered here and there. Lily of the valley, stephanotis, honeysuckle … maybe that’s too many rich scents together. Cut the honeysuckle …’ She scribbled notes, with a few sketched shapes, showing the customer what she was doing. At the end, they exchanged satisfied sighs.

‘You’re good!’ congratulated the woman. ‘Really good. It’s going to be gorgeous.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ promised Simmy. Without warning, the thought that she might have created something similar for her own baby if she had lived brought a tightness to her throat. She forced a smile and closed her sketch pad.

The afternoon meandered on, with Ben departing at half past three. He did not seem to be in any hurry. ‘Are you sure you won’t be in trouble for missing school?’ she checked.

‘Should be okay. I’ll swing it somehow.’

‘You must be their star pupil. They’ll give you some leeway, thanks to your brilliant results. Must look great on the league table.’

He rolled his eyes, and hovered in the doorway. ‘Of course,’ he began, ‘one sure-fire way of being safe from the killer is to get him caught and locked up where he can’t do any harm.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ she scoffed. ‘And how are we going to do that?’

‘We’ll have to think about it, won’t we?’ And he was gone.

Melanie phoned at five with a change of plan. ‘I’ll come up to your place at about six,’ she said. ‘I’ll need my wheels for tomorrow. There’s a lecture at ten.’

‘Look,’ Simmy began. ‘You really don’t have to do this, you know.’

‘Yes, I do. It’ll be fun. You said you’d cook, remember.’

‘I did. And I will. It’s nice of you, Mel. You must have better things to do.’

‘Shut up,’ said Melanie.

By six-thirty they were both in Simmy’s kitchen, circling each other attentively. Melanie had brought her laptop, with every intention of devoting the evening to her assignment. ‘Where should I go? I don’t want to be in your way.’

Simmy hesitated. ‘There aren’t many tables. Either in here or upstairs in the spare room, I suppose. There’s nowhere in the living room that would work.’

‘I’ll go upstairs. Then you can watch telly in peace.’

The prospect of another person staying all night in the spare room was unsettling. Since coming to Cumbria, she had only entertained one guest, and that had been awkward. Tony’s sister had foisted herself on Simmy, distraught at their break-up, eager to take Simmy’s side and condemn all men as impossible. She had managed to say exactly the wrong thing at least a dozen times a day. After two nights, Simmy had used the demands of setting up a new business as an excuse to send her packing. ‘I’m really sorry, Cat, but I can’t spare any more time for you. I’ve got a list a mile long of jobs to be seen to. The shop opens in two weeks, and I’m nowhere near ready.’

The spare room was small and poorly furnished, but it did boast a table big enough to hold a laptop and a few books, as well as a lamp and a vase of flowers. ‘That’ll do perfectly,’ said Melanie, when they went to inspect it. ‘And
don’t worry about making up the bed for me. I brought a sleeping bag.’

Simmy felt a surge of gratitude. ‘You thought of everything,’ she said. ‘You are good.’

‘Just organised,’ said Melanie modestly. She busied herself setting up the computer and bringing an untidy sheaf of notes and worksheets from her bag. Simmy watched her fondly, drifting into nostalgic memories of her own student days. It was a few minutes before she recalled more immediate concerns.

‘Do you know what Ben said, just as he was leaving?’ she asked Mel. ‘He said we should see if we can catch the murderer. That way we won’t have to worry any more about more trouble.’

Melanie barely reacted. ‘Obviously,’ she shrugged. ‘I could have worked that out.’

‘So, how do you think we might go about it? You’re the one with the policeman boyfriend. What’s the procedure?’

It was like releasing a cork from a gassy bottle of wine. Melanie turned away from her homework and faced Simmy eagerly. ‘The first thing is, we don’t say a word to Joe. That’d just get us all into trouble, including him. We need to find a reason to talk to the family, and the people at the hotels – both of them. We have to make notes and test theories. Ben and I can do some more googling, and see what George Baxter was into, business-wise. We might be able to find out what was in his will, as well. Don’t they publish them?’

‘Not for a long time, I think. He’s bound to have left a lot to Bridget, surely.’

‘Which makes her a suspect.’

‘No it doesn’t. Don’t be stupid. She couldn’t possibly
have killed Markie. Nor her father. You should see how upset she is.’

‘The wife, then. She’s his official next of kin.’

‘I don’t think this sort of speculating is very helpful,’ Simmy said irritably. ‘We need to be sensible about it.’

‘And I suppose
Ben
is Mr Sensible, is he?’

‘He’s certainly clever.’

‘Tell me about it. The head teacher went mad when Ben got that languages thing in Year Nine. He was in the top five in the country, or something. What d’you expect when his dad teaches German and Spanish and all the rest of it?’

‘He told me about that. Don’t you like him, then?’

Melanie puffed out her cheeks to express the range of complexities associated with this question. ‘He’s a geek. What’s not to like?’

‘Has he got friends?’

‘One or two geeks like him. They go LARPing and that.’

‘What?’

‘You know – live action role play. Joe did it for a bit, before I was going with him. Said it was childish. It’s what geeks do, basically.’

‘Well, I like him. He seems very mature to me.’

Melanie merely laughed at that, and Simmy went to prepare a meal for them, wondering what on earth she had got herself into.

Down in Bowness, Ben too was going over recent events. He had made somewhat too light of his absence from school and would undoubtedly have been missed from the afternoon classes, and the non-appearance noted in the register. But they wouldn’t do anything about it until the
next day. He would have to account for himself, and be treated like a much younger child for a while. While lip service might be paid to the increasing freedoms that came with maturity, a schoolboy was a schoolboy and the rules were implacable. Watching Wilf’s autonomous lifestyle was both frustrating and inspiring. One day he too would be able to go where he liked, any time he wanted. He would be a student at Durham or Manchester and organise his time to his own satisfaction. Only another year to go. He found himself calculating the number of hours still to be spent at school, the number of ‘Present!’ responses he would have to make, before it was all over.

He had been unsettled by the florist woman, whose name, impossibly, turned out to be Persimmon. He was half in love with her already, for that detail alone. She was so direct, so engaged, so approachable. She had listened to everything he said, and replied easily, without first processing her thoughts into appropriate language, as teachers always did. She was transparent – that was it. She had no resistance to letting people see who she was. She was a proper grown-up, and yet felt like a contemporary. Melanie Todd must have had a shock when she first started working there, finding herself taken seriously for the first time in her life. Everyone knew the Todds were too scatterbrained to finish a sentence; too disorganised to get their kids to school on time. Melanie had always stood out as different, but it had been a battle. ‘There but for the grace of God go we,’ his mother said, more than once. Her own large family only escaped the same fate because they had a bigger house and more self-confidence. She had first encountered Mrs Todd outside the gates of
the primary school, and used her as an object lesson ever since.