The Windermere Witness (22 page)

Simmy groaned. ‘This is ridiculous, isn’t it? What are you so scared of? There must be more than you’ve told me.’

‘No, there isn’t. But you can’t understand how they’ve all changed.
All
of them. They know something, and it’s made them strange and horrible.’

Simmy thought of the wild-eyed Peter throwing punches
in the streets of Windermere, and ruefully agreed. ‘You think they know who the murderer is?’

‘Must do. But it can’t have been one of them – can it? Poor sweet Markie, he never hurt anybody, never did anything nasty. What monster could kill him? I’ve been sitting here all day thinking about him. He was just one of
us
, they all loved him.’

‘I saw them together, on Saturday morning. I told you, didn’t I? Standing in a group outside the hotel in the rain. They all looked very
together
, if that makes sense. Relaxed, even.’ She caught herself up. ‘Well, not relaxed exactly. There might have been an undercurrent of tension. They didn’t quite like it when Markie came to talk to me. One of them – Glenn, I think – called to him, wanting to know what he was doing.’

‘It probably seemed a bit odd to them. Markie didn’t usually act of his own accord. He’d wait for somebody else to take the lead.’

They were barely able to see each other in the murky room, and Simmy felt a reluctance to conjure the murdered Markie too vividly. He had, after all, grown up in this very house. She changed the subject determinedly. ‘Have you had anything to eat?’

‘A bit of bread and some ham that was in the fridge. Is that okay?’

‘Of course.’ Simmy went to the window and pulled the curtains across. Then she turned the light on again. ‘We’re going to have to decide what to do. You can’t go on like this, can you?’

‘No. I know I can’t. I’ve been thinking about it and I remembered your mum runs a B&B. Would she have me
for a bit, do you think? As a properly paying guest? You could take me in your car, and nobody would guess where I was.’

Simmy laughed sceptically. ‘She might have done, but she’s a bit off your family, I’m afraid. All thanks to your little sister.’

‘Lucy? What on earth do you mean?’

The story was quickly told. Bridget clearly found it hard to take the matter seriously. ‘Oh well, if it comes to the crunch, my mother will pay up. She always thinks money can put things right – and most of the time it does, actually. With that sort of stuff, anyway.’

‘I’m going to get us something to eat. Then we have to have a serious talk. I really don’t like being so involved, you know.’ It wasn’t strictly true, she admitted to herself. She had long since passed the point where non-involvement felt like any sort of an option.

‘Okay,’ said Bridget in a very small voice. The second syllable was drowned by a thunderous knocking on the front door.

Pablo and Glenn both stood there, solidly shoulder to shoulder, when Simmy opened the door. Glenn carried a bulky bag. ‘Can we come in?’ he said, with an air of urgency. ‘We know Bridget’s here.’

‘She doesn’t want to see you.’

‘We understand that. We’ve left it till now, so she’ll have you to look out for her. We’re not going to hurt her. She’s got nothing to fear from us.’ The emphasis was odd, implying that she might well have something to fear from another quarter.

Grudgingly, she held the door just open enough for them to get in, glancing along the quiet street in the vain hope of seeing a friendly police car gliding past. ‘She isn’t going to like it,’ she warned them.

‘Don’t worry,’ Pablo smiled at her. ‘It’ll be fine, you see. Bridget’s not in any danger at all. She never should have gone off like this.’

‘She had her reasons,’ Simmy defended, already feeling undermined by his charm. No man should be so beautiful. It wasn’t fair.

‘Well, maybe she has,’ growled Glenn, who was so totally unprepossessing next to his friend that it was almost grotesque. His cropped head and thick neck gave him the look of a creature made for sweeping through cold northern waters. A seal, she thought. He’s like a seal.

Subtly they had got themselves into the hallway, before Simmy had quite noticed what was happening. The front door was firmly closed, cutting off any prospect of passing policemen seeing anything unusual. ‘Bridget!’ Glenn called with authority. ‘Come on, girl. We know you’re there.’

This was met with silence. Simmy knew herself to be a traitor for letting them in. It was quite possible that the young bride had already vanished through the back door and out over the dark fells at the first sound of Glenn’s gravelly voice.

‘Where is she?’ asked Pablo. ‘I know she was here this afternoon. I could see her bag in the kitchen.’

So that was it
, thought Simmy. Bridget’s distinctive purple bag, in which she had brought minimal necessities for herself, ought to have been safely out of sight upstairs, but she must have brought it down for some reason.

‘Damn you, Glenn,’ came a sulky voice. ‘What do you want?’

‘I’ve got a whole lot to tell you,’ he replied, following the voice. ‘I can’t pretend it’s good news, but there’s no danger to you. I’m not even going to try and take you away from here. It’s actually quite a clever place to be for a little while.’

They all moved into the living room and encircled Bridget where she remained crouched on the sofa. Pablo hung back slightly, obviously meaning to leave all the talking to his friend. He was planning to go back to London, Simmy remembered. She had assumed he would be already gone, from what Moxon had said. Something must have happened to stop him.

‘Something’s happened,’ she said aloud. ‘Hasn’t it? Something to do with Peter?’

‘Peter’s gone a bit off the rails, yes,’ Glenn agreed. ‘I’m afraid it was Bridget disappearing the way she did that finished him. He’s been out there searching all day.’

‘He hit Ben Harkness in the face,’ said Simmy. ‘This afternoon. Ben said he’s liable to get arrested, the way he’s behaving.’

‘Who the hell is Ben Harkness?’ Glenn demanded, plainly displeased at this intervention.

‘The boy who was there when George Baxter was shot on Sunday. He’s another witness.’

‘Never heard of him,’ Glenn dismissed. ‘Why did he have to provoke Peter? Wasn’t that rather stupid? Unless …’ he paused meaningfully, as if a highly alarming thought had just struck him.

‘Unless what?’ asked Bridget.

‘Never mind for a minute. Let me start at the beginning. It might fit together later on.’ Again his pause was full of heavy significance. ‘The thing is, Peter has admitted to me that it was him.’

They all stared at him, Pablo included. ‘Him what?’ said Bridget. ‘What are you talking about?’

Glenn reached into his sturdy leather bag and carefully
brought forth a gun, gleaming with menace, to Simmy’s eyes. ‘This is what killed George,’ he said softly. ‘It’s Peter’s. He asked me to hide it for him.’

‘You’re joking!’ Bridget sat up straight, then leant forward for a better look. Simmy caught Pablo glancing at the window, as if to be sure they could not be observed. ‘I never saw it before. Peter has never had a gun like that.’

‘I promise you, it’s his. It used to be his father’s. It’s rather special, actually. A fine old Mk I Lee-Enfield.’

‘Is it registered?’ asked Simmy.

Glenn laughed. ‘I think not. The old man had it from
his
father, back in the dark ages. The story goes that it was abandoned at Dunkirk and Peter’s grandpa “rescued” it. It should have been returned to munitions but he stashed it away and kept it ever since. It works, though. It works a treat.’ He stroked the shining wooden stock, as if it were the neck of a beloved horse. ‘Straight as a die. Quiet, accurate and lethal.’

Pablo was shifting uneasily from foot to foot. ‘I didn’t know …’ he began. ‘I had no idea.’

‘Before your time, old chum. It must have been twenty-five years ago it last saw the light of day. Peter’s old dad took him and me out into the woods for a bit of target practice a few times. But even he was worried about the damage it could do. So he locked it away again and warned us never to touch it. I think he meant to give it to a museum or something, but never got around to it.’

Simmy had lost any sense of a role in this startling turn of events. All she could do was watch and listen until the misty implications took on a clearer form. The gun that had killed George Baxter was there in front of them – that was
the only fact she could yet grasp. Bridget did not appear to be doing much better.

‘Why have
you
got it?’ she managed, after a lengthy silence.

‘It’s bad news, Brid,’ Glenn said with exquisite gentleness. ‘We need to hide this beauty for a bit, while we think things through. I’m going to dismantle it first, so it’ll be less obvious.’

‘Why? You’ve got to explain it properly, Glenn. Pablo – what’s he trying to say?’

Pablo put his hands up and shook his head. ‘This is down to Glenn,’ he said.

Glenn went on speaking. ‘Peter’s not thinking straight. You know what he was like, just before the wedding. If you ask me, Markie must have said something to him, out there in the rain, and he just lost control. You’ve seen the way that can happen sometimes.’

Bridget’s eyes bulged with horror. ‘No!’ she screamed. ‘Not Peter! It can’t be. You’re saying
Peter
killed Markie? My lovely brother? How could that be true?’

‘It is, though. He told me, last night. He was in pieces, because he thinks you suspect him, and that’s why you ran away. He says he did it so he could be sure of having you all to himself, just as he’s wanted for so long.’

‘Where is he now? I must go to him.’ Then she slumped back. ‘No, I can’t. I can’t bear to touch him, if it’s true. But it
isn’t
true. Glenn, you must have got it wrong. Peter must have lent the gun to somebody else, and they did it. That’s it! You haven’t been listening properly. You don’t listen very well, do you? Not usually. You always think you know what people are thinking, without asking them.
That’s how it is now. You’ve completely misunderstood. Pablo?’ she appealed to the other man, who was sitting on the arm of a chair, his face white.

‘I think it’s right, Briddy,’ he said softly. ‘Peter’s been really wild for days now. He’s got something terrible on his mind. Anybody can see that. But we want to protect him – and you. Don’t we, Glenn?’

‘Of course we do. Thanks, Pablo – I knew you’d see how it should be.’

Simmy continued to watch the handsome Spaniard closely. She was certain he had no prior knowledge of Glenn’s bombshell. But his instinctive reaction was obviously pleasing to Glenn, who looked as if something had fallen neatly into place for him.

‘Protect?’ repeated Bridget. ‘What does that mean?’

‘We hide the gun, close ranks, get Peter to calm down, and say nothing,’ Glenn summarised. ‘There’s no evidence, nothing to justify charging him.’

Bridget’s face brightened slightly, as she pondered on this. Then she posed a very pertinent question: ‘But – what about Simmy? She’s already told the police I’m here and now she’s in on it all.’

Both men focused unblinking stares onto Simmy. ‘It’s my belief she’ll see the natural justice in what I’m saying,’ Glenn murmured, his voice hypnotic. ‘What good can it do now to drag the whole family through a ghastly murder trial? Peter will suffer agonies of remorse, for the rest of his life. He acted out of love. But of course it’s all in ruins now. He never expected you to find out, you see. He assumed the two of you would have a happy married life together, with nobody getting between you.’

‘Does he know you’re here now, telling me?’

Simmy was examining the rising terror inside her own body. However pleasant and calm Glenn might be, he could quite easily force her physically to do whatever he chose. Pablo would help him. Pablo was a henchman to the core, loyal and dependent. They were discussing a double murder as if it were a minor financial oversight, a small transgression that was best forgotten. Bridget was functioning remarkably well, too. Was this simply the result of her spoilt, lawless childhood, where she always did whatever she liked? Was she so far from normal social ethics that she really could believe that Glenn was right?

Glenn answered her question carelessly. ‘No, he doesn’t. He thinks I’ve gone up into the fells to hide the gun. He told me to wrap it in oilcloth, and keep it in this bag. He loves it, I think. You can see why, can’t you?’ Again he stroked the old wooden stock.

‘Looks to me as if you love it, as well,’ Bridget snapped. ‘You’re all as bad as each other.’

Glenn chuckled, and looked towards Pablo. ‘One for all and all for one, eh?’

Simmy remembered DI Moxon saying the exact same thing. Had he got the measure of these men already? Was he actually a step ahead of them, waiting for one of them to break ranks, to drop their guard and give themselves away? Was he outside at this very moment, listening with some electronic gadget to all that was being said? That would be too much to hope for, she supposed. But it made her feel better, just to imagine it.

Fear was slowly being diluted by sadness. Peter Harrison-West had become a tragic figure over the past
day or so, in an inexorable process reminiscent of a Shakespearean drama. ‘He can’t get away with it,’ she said reluctantly, knowing she should remain quiet and pretend to agree with them. ‘He’s dangerous. He could do it again at any moment, if he’s as off the rails as you say.’ Where Bridget was already starting to collude with the impossible plan, Simmy still clung to ordinary reasonableness, the rules of society without which chaos would reign. ‘He can’t just be left to roam free.’

Bridget met her eyes, with a maturity that Simmy had not expected. ‘He won’t do it again,’ she said. ‘And he won’t get away with it. But there are different kinds of punishment. That’s what Glenn means. Peter’s going to lose everything now, without having to go to prison for the rest of his life. I told you he was weak – remember? He kept it well hidden all this time, and I pretended not to see it. Markie saw it, though. He tried to tell me that marrying Peter was a horrible mistake, and I told Peter about it. I shouldn’t have done that.’

‘Because it got him killed?’

‘Yes. No. Wait a minute. I need to think.’

‘You don’t need to think,’ Simmy argued. ‘You need to act responsibly and tell these two that there’s no choice. They have to go to the police. From the sound of it, Peter’s likely to hand himself in, anyway – but we can’t rely on that.’

‘Unlikely,’ Glenn contradicted. ‘Unthinkable. He wouldn’t bring so much shame on Bridget.’

‘We would have been all right,’ Bridget spoke with the force of conviction. ‘Peter and I would have been perfectly all right, if Markie had kept quiet. I could have helped
him get more confident. I’d have been a good wife to him. I
loved
him.’ Tears began to drop slowly down her face. ‘And now it’s all a dreadful mess.’

‘We can sort it,’ Glenn urged her. ‘We really can. Pablo’s going back to London tomorrow. Felix doesn’t know what’s been happening today, so he’s in the clear. It’ll be just you and me still here, making sure all the tracks are covered.’

‘And Simmy,’ Bridget reminded him. ‘I don’t see how you can be sure about Simmy.’

‘I don’t think she can cause any real trouble. If she goes to the police with what she’s heard, it will only be hearsay evidence. I can make sure the gun is spirited away before anyone can even get here. I took the risk deliberately of letting her share in my news, partly so you’d have someone to take care of you, and partly because I wanted a witness, strange as that might seem.’

A witness! Again! Simmy felt defeated by this recurring role, for which she had not asked, and to which she was not equal.

‘Did Peter
say
he killed them? Both of them? In so many words?’ Bridget asked.

Glenn inclined his head in a silent confirmation.

‘Really? You wouldn’t lie about it?’

‘I’m afraid he really did. He thought you’d already worked it out, and that there was nothing more to lose. That’s why he told me.’

Pablo cleared his throat and everyone looked at him. ‘I saw them talking,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t hear all they said, but it looked just as Glenn’s telling you. Peter was in an awful state. I’ve never seen anybody like it in my life. He was tearing his own hair out at one point.’

‘I did my best to calm him down. I told him you’d always loved him, and that you’d very likely forgive him in time.’

‘Did you? I can’t even imagine what that would be like. I’m not sure I understand what forgiveness is, when it comes to it. Do you think we could just go on as normal, after all this?’

‘People do,’ he said. ‘All the time. They get over things.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Simmy. ‘That’s complete rubbish. There are some kinds of damage you can’t ever hope to repair.’

‘For you, perhaps,’ he flashed back. ‘But Bridget’s young and strong. She’s not stupid or bitter or …’ He seemed lost for another word, or perhaps aware that he was saying too much. ‘She’ll get over it,’ he asserted. ‘Of course she will.’