Just Desserts (3 page)

‘I'll do some more asking around. Interesting countryside as soon as you get clear of Salthaven,' said Leo. ‘Do you ever get out into it?'

‘I don't have the time. I'm working.'

‘That's a shame. Not even during your lunch breaks?'

A very slight look of evasion slid across Tom's face. That in itself was enough to shake Penny. Tom didn't
do
evasion. ‘No, I generally eat a sandwich at my desk and work through.'

‘Tom's work is very important. Mother, did I tell you what Bobby said at nursery this week? Mrs Field said it was really intelligent for a two-year-old.'

It was all very much as normal – but it wasn't quite. As Penny listened and watched in between putting the last touches to lunch, she wondered if the others had noticed anything wrong. But why would they? Frances, her younger daughter, habitually went round in a world of her own. Leo didn't know Lucinda and Tom well enough to judge.

Penny knew though. You can't fool a mother. As it was, it wasn't until she got out ice cream for dessert that she saw Lucinda's eyes light up with unforced enthusiasm. At least that hadn't changed. Ever since Lucinda was tiny it had always restored Penny's belief in basic human nature that her poised, self-possessed eldest child lost all sense of her own importance when faced with ice cream. With any luck, this would mellow Lucinda into a more approachable mood, so she could actually talk to her and find out what might be wrong.

‘We had some lovely ice cream the other day,' she said. ‘At the Dun Cow of all places. It was the most sublime –'

‘A plane crash?' said Tom, interrupting suddenly. ‘Did you say earlier that you were looking into an old plane crash?'

Leo nodded, eyes alert.

‘I've just remembered that the workmen resurfacing the road outside my window at work a while back were talking about when rescue services dredged the tarn in search of a ditched aeroplane. It was years ago and these men's fathers used to laugh about it, for some reason. Might that have been the one?'

‘It could have been,' said Leo. ‘Interesting that the dredging was seen as amusing. When was this? Can you remember the guys' names or which tarn they were discussing?'

But that was the limit of Tom's knowledge on the subject. They had just been the road menders. He turned the subject to a discussion of Bobby's nursery curriculum and how he and Lucinda were both hoping the Christmas production at the end of term wouldn't interfere too much with the children's progress.

‘He's only two!' said Penny, unable to help herself.

‘Christmas production?' Frances emerged from her dream world. She was the artistic one in the family and now gazed at her nephew with speculative interest. ‘What's he going to be? I can make him a costume.'

Lucinda's eyes met those of her husband, both of them clearly appalled at the thought of Bobby dressed in one of Frances's fabulous ragbag outfits, yet scrupulously unwilling to discourage her in practising for her chosen career.

At that moment, looking at her daughter and son-in-law united in alarm, Penny's uppermost emotion was sharp relief that nothing was truly wrong between them. She was so grateful she dolloped more ice cream into Lucinda's bowl and gave Bobby another helping of chocolate pudding. It said much for Lucinda and Tom's state of mind that neither of them noticed.

Leo saw the exact moment when Penny relaxed. Good, he thought. Lucinda might be a tiresomely self-satisfied young woman, but he didn't want Penny worried about her. He chuckled inwardly at Bobby's chocolate-smeared face. His parents were going to notice any moment now and there would be an outcry. A civilised one, because that was the sort of people they were. This was all to the good, because Tom wouldn't be able – out of sheer good manners – to avoid Leo's innocent questions about the comings and goings at Lowdale Screw Fittings.

Accordingly, when Lucinda gave a faint scream at her son's face and Tom urged her in a low voice to clean Bobby as if it didn't matter and not give him complexes for life about eating chocolate, Leo struck.

‘I suppose you're used to roadworks up at the Enterprise Park, are you? There looked to be a number of new developments when we drove past. Very encouraging in a recession.'

As he had hoped, Tom glanced at him in a harassed way, caught between politeness to a guest and concern for his son's psyche. ‘Some, yes. But it's only usually a case of leaving five minutes earlier to get to work on time.'

‘Isn't it noisy with all the workmen clattering about? And the comings and goings? I noticed a digger and trucks outside the Screw Fittings place. There was enough building material piled up to last into the middle of next year.'

‘Yes.' Tom gave a distracted look at Bobby. ‘Yes, it's always busy there. But it doesn't really bother me. Once I'm inside, I'm inside.'

Leo could well believe that. ‘Good thing, though, if they're keeping local firms in business.'

Tom frowned, his attention caught. ‘It's odd you should say that. When our offices were being spruced up over the summer, we used local men. But none of the lorries going to Lowdale Screw Fittings are from this area at all. I've noticed when I've been stuck behind them.'

Leo would have bet on that too. He exhaled with satisfaction and proceeded to extract details in a delicately unobtrusive manner. One thing about geeks, they might only focus on one thing at a time, but they had tremendous powers of observation when forced to be idle.

‘Thank you for lunch,' he said to Penny as she saw him out. ‘I've got a fair bit to work on now.'

‘Glad to be of service. Off you go, or you'll miss the bus.'

‘I can't run for it, that's for sure, not after that meal.' Behind him, he heard the sitting-room door opening. In a moment of pure devilry, he wondered what sort of outcry he'd provoke if he brushed Penny's cheek with his lips.

‘Don't even think it,' she said.

He quirked his eyebrow at her. ‘You can read minds?'

‘Believe it.'

He laughed. ‘See you soon.'

Penny shut the door, chuckling. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?' she asked Lucinda.

But her daughter was now in a hurry, having seen Leo safely off the premises. ‘We have to go. I need to read through the Salthaven Show schedule again and work out what I've got time to make before next week, and Tom has an important meeting to prepare for tomorrow.'

Was it just bending down to pick Bobby up that had brought that faint wash of colour to Tom's face? Penny felt a chill of worry all over again. ‘I hope you're not working too hard, Tom. You both need to spend time with Bobby – children grow up so fast at this age.'

‘We do know, Mother,' said Lucinda. ‘We've read the books.'

Humph. Penny cast around impotently for something she could do. The memory of her meal with Leo gave her an idea. She'd book them a nice dinner out for Lucinda's birthday – not at the Dun Cow, however good the ice cream – with a taxi to take them there and back so they could have a drink, and she would babysit.

‘And I don't care if they think I'm bossy,' she said to Leo when she met him in the town centre for coffee next day. ‘Didn't you think something was wrong between them?'

Leo's smile was wry. ‘I don't have the greatest of records regarding relationships. They were united over Bobby, that's for sure.'

Penny put her hand on his arm. ‘Oh, Leo, I'm sorry. I saw your face when you were playing with him. It'll work out – you'll get more frequent access to your own son if you keep trying.'

‘Only if my ex-wife has a personality transplant.' He took a quick breath and changed the subject. ‘I've been checking up on those firms Tom mentioned. The ones working for Lowdale Screw Fittings. He was right. None of them are local.'

‘They must have been cheaper than the local ones then. You said the company was struggling financially.'

‘No, I said it
ought
to be. But it isn't. And these contractors are more expensive than the local ones, which makes it even stranger that they are being used. There's something else I don't understand. Why is the cover-up such an open secret?'

She shrugged. ‘Can't keep much to yourself in Salthaven.'

‘The government can if they really want to. There could be something going on in the house next door to you, you could have lived there twenty years, holidayed with your neighbours, and been godparents to each other's children and you'd never know.'

Penny felt a tiny rush of impatience. ‘So?'

He smiled and spread his hands. ‘So it's a decoy,' he said softly. ‘And somewhere in Salthaven is the
real
top-secret lab.'

Chapter Two

Penny felt her mouth drop open. ‘A second secret lab in Salthaven? Leo, are you taking some kind of medication? These things simply don't happen! What would be the point?'

‘Misdirection. My point is that a proper secret research centre really would be secret, even in busy, nosy Salthaven. I've been able – or more likely, been allowed – to gather information indicating that whatever is going on at the Lowdale Screw Fittings warehouse is covert. Now, much as I'd like to put that down to my considerable investigative skills, it's too easy. I think it's a decoy, Penny, a sacrificial ‘undercover lab' to focus attention there and not on the real one, wherever it is. In which case, why are Lowdale Screw Fittings building an extension that they can't possibly need?'

‘Now you're outsmarting yourself.' She patted his knee. ‘Still, it's nice for a man to have a hobby.'

He got to his feet. ‘Nothing like a vote of confidence. Let's go up to Lowdale again. It there isn't anything there, they won't mind us looking.'

‘I can't. Sorry, Leo, but I'm busy for the rest of the day. I can take you tomorrow, if you want. There's no hurry, is there? It's not about to run away.'

He looked at her sadly. ‘No sense of adventure, that's your trouble.'

‘But I
do
have sense. Shoo, I need to go home and book Lucinda and Tom a nice restaurant for her birthday. Dinner out will do them the world of good.'

That was a nuisance, but Leo allowed that Penny did have a life of her own to get on with. Full of frustrated energy, he hurried back to the newspaper office and up to the archives floor. He'd put in a couple of hours digging around on the Andrew Collins plane crash. As always, just breathing in the scent of old newsprint awakened his hunter-gatherer instincts. He loved the whole business of sleuthing through reports for clues, letting his mind expand as he read, his brain on a hair trigger for that tiny paragraph or throwaway sentence that would tug him in a different direction. And then tallying the reports with interviews – the huge, glorious mish-mash of facts which, given the right twist, would suddenly fall into place and call itself a story.

Jack Scrivener. A local man called Jack Scrivener had seen the plane crash. Leo read again the succinct few lines that had started him off on this quest, cursing the unimaginative, long-departed reporter. The man didn't deserve the job-title. The Fifties might have been times of austerity, but surely planes falling out of the sky weren't common enough that the local paper would make so little of this one? Why was there no follow up?

He closed his eyes, picturing the scene. It had been a dark wet autumn day, Jack hadn't heard anything due to the crashing waves, but he'd seen the glint of a plane overhead and then felt the ground shake as it came down into the tarn in a boiling, hissing burst. Leo sat back, tapping his fingers on the desk. Something didn't add up. Something was wrong.

He rang Penny. ‘Do you know of a Jack Scrivener?'

‘I don't think so. The name doesn't ring a bell. Hold on.' A timer sounded in the background. There was a pause and the sound of clattering metal.

‘What are you cooking?'

‘Dundee cake for the Salthaven Show next week.'

‘Cake? Will it last until next week?' said Leo, fascinated.

‘It will if I don't tell anyone I've made it. Who is this Scrivener chap anyway?'

‘The witness to Andrew Collins's plane crash.'

‘So he'd be, what, eighty or so by now? Ask at the Over-60s tomorrow. They'll be a lot more likely to remember him.'

Tomorrow! Leo ground his teeth. He wanted to find out
now.

‘Jack Scrivener?' The name caused a tiny ripple of interest. Eyebrows were raised. Significant looks were exchanged. Leo felt a tingle of excitement in his blood – he was onto something!

‘Bit of a scoundrel, was Jack,' said Mrs Lane. ‘Didn't do poor Margery any favours. Been gone these thirty years or more.'

‘Passed away?' said Leo. ‘That's a shame.'

‘I didn't say that, but he might have done by now for all I know. No, they emigrated. Margery had family in New Zealand to speak for them. She was a good girl, but I often wondered if her family knew what they were taking on with him.'

‘Not one of the world's grafters, then?'

‘Ha! He'd have anything off you if it was free and he didn't have to work too hard for it. Mind you, he could charm the trout from the stream and the rabbit out of its hole. They didn't go hungry.'

In other words, Jack was just the sort to be loafing around on the fells ready to witness a plane crash. Leo gave his most winning smile and set about finding out more.

Penny cleared her regular Tuesday morning chores and then turned her attention to where to book dinner for Lucinda and Tom on Friday. She hoped she hadn't left it too late. She'd told Leo she was going to do it yesterday, but had got cold feet and had a flurry of baking instead. She wasn't used to this – her eldest daughter
never
had problems. Lucinda had always looked coolly and dispassionately at life and been one step ahead of it. Even puberty hadn't caught her unprepared. She'd provided Penny with a shopping list of ‘women's things' at the age of eleven and simply ticked the milestone off when the day came.

Penny was not an interfering mother, but she knew something wasn't right with Lucinda's marriage and it was more than she could do to stand idly by without making a push at a remedy. Her mind boggled at the thought of sitting down with her daughter for a cosy chat about affairs of the heart – the way she would with Frances, for instance – so subterfuge was the only answer.

She rang up their favourite restaurant without ado and – ducking out of a personal conversation – emailed Lucinda letting her know of her surprise present.

Twenty minutes later she had a reply saying thank you and they really appreciated it, but Tom wanted a quiet evening at home that day so Lucinda had changed the booking to the following week if that was all right with her.

Penny sat back, dumbstruck and thwarted. How on earth was she to get the pair of them in a mellow mood together? Then she had a truly brilliant idea. She'd go to the Dun Cow and buy a range of their fabulous small ice cream tubs. Lucinda adored ice cream. Penny would hand-deliver them along with a nice bottle of wine on her daughter's birthday morning. Nobody could claim
that
was interfering!

Leo reviewed his notes as he sat on the wall outside the library waiting for Penny. He was nearly onto something, he knew he was. Maybe this return to Lowdale would crystallise it. They could start with the Enterprise Park, then work slowly outwards.

‘Morning, Leo,' called the waitress from the riverside pub near his boat as she hurried past. She had a copy of today's
Salthaven Messenger
sticking out of her tote bag. ‘When are you going to write about the Crown and Anchor, eh?'

‘Whenever my editor coughs up the expenses,' he called back cheerfully.

Other people smiled or waved to him. He realised he was becoming known here. Settling down. It felt strange, gave him a tug of pleasure. It also gave him a sense of all the time he'd wasted in London, when his job had been all important. He hadn't lost this sense of belonging somewhere when his former life had crumpled – it had never been there in the first place.

‘Leo!' Penny was parked precariously half in and half out of the crowded layby. ‘Hurry up.'

He strode across the pavement.

‘Anything useful?' she asked as he folded himself into the car.

‘Bits and pieces. Jack Scrivener was a right rascal. When are you going to get a car with a sensibly sized front seat?'

‘When are you going to start driving yourself?'

He grinned and took out his map, telling her what he'd found out. After a while he fell silent, looking at the coastline. When he'd visited his great uncle as a boy, he'd taken the scenery for granted – now he looked with new eyes. Below him on his left as Penny drove along the coast road was a low-lying stretch of grey-green land between the cliff and the sea, perhaps a mile wide, ribboned with silvery streaks of water. On their right rose a gentle roll of hills, a promise of the heights to come further inland. ‘Do you still see it?' he asked Penny. ‘Do you still see the beauty?'

She flashed him a quick smile. ‘I do when I'm with you. Other times I know it's there, but I don't always appreciate it.'

Just for a moment Leo felt oddly warmed.

‘By the way,' she added. ‘You will have noticed that rain cloud, I assume?'

He waved the weather away as an irrelevancy, continuing to gaze around. ‘I still don't see how anyone, even a devil-may-care test-pilot, could crash into somewhere he must have visited a thousand times.'

‘He might not have visited it a thousand times by air,' pointed out Penny. She frowned. ‘Or maybe he had. Was he actually on a job or had he just borrowed the plane? Was he treating it as a sort of company car to come home in for the weekend?'

Leo was jolted out of his musings. ‘That's an interesting thought.'

‘I was watching an air force documentary last night. Did you see it? It seems they often used to do that kind of thing. If Andrew Collins was originally a WW2 pilot, the habit might have stuck.'

Leo felt that stirring of instinct again. ‘Except this time, instead of a tried and trusted workhorse, he was flying an overbred, hair-trigger stallion. You might have something there.'

‘Can you find out if he was on a job? Did they keep records?'

‘The company went bust. All the interesting bits were sold to one of their rivals, which in turn was swallowed up by a bigger player again.' It wouldn't stop him trying to find out though. He'd just have to dig a little deeper. He jotted bullet points down on his pad, possible lines of enquiry, places he could ask.

Penny said, ‘It's going to be a lot of work. Is it worth it? A sixty-year-old story for a small regional newspaper.'

He sat bolt upright. ‘Are you mad, woman? What sort of fully paid-up member of the puzzlers' guild are you? It's always worth it. You can't just leave a story.'

‘I'm not saying I don't want to know,' said Penny. ‘But when does the effort taken become too great for the result?'

Inside him, something twisted. ‘Never. The story is always king. Besides, what else have I got to do with my time?' He looked to his left again, at the coastline, at the long strip of beach that the outgoing tide had uncovered. His son would love it here if Kayleigh ever allowed him to come. Leo pictured the pair of them, exploring it together, Daniel digging in the sucking wet sand as he had once done himself – and experiencing the shivery awe of seeing the hole he'd made fill up with seeping water from below.
Oh, Daniel
. Leo ached with the sense of loss.

‘And of course,' said Penny, breaking into his thoughts, ‘if people think you're an amiable loony with nothing better to do than ferret around about the old days, they won't notice that you're searching out the big stories at the same time.'

‘Ha!' Leo's mood lifted, just like that. He glanced fondly at Penny's profile as she slowed down for the turning to the disused road just before the Enterprise Park. He really would have to do something nice for her one of these days.

‘Right,' he said once they were parked in the lane, leaning against the bonnet of her car, eating the filled rolls she'd brought with her, and drinking thermos tea. ‘What can we see?'

‘The sea,' said Penny. ‘Also that dark cloud getting bigger and closer.'

‘And forklifts trundling innocuously between the Screw Fittings warehouses with varying numbers of pallets. And a dumper truck that went into the furthest one ten minutes ago and hasn't come out again.'

‘Probably sheltering from the rain,' murmured Penny, pulling up the hood of her coat.

Leo ate his roll without tasting a single bite. Every sense was telling him he was right. The plane crash story from the Fifties was temporarily forgotten. This was present day and bang up to date. Desultory activity was going on all around the Lowdale Screw Fittings building as a digger levelled the site for the new extension, but an empty yellow dumper truck had definitely gone into that far building and hadn't come out, and a blue one had come out that hadn't gone in. The blue one was obscured by a lorry now, but Leo was sure he'd seen a flash of lifting steel as it emptied its contents on the ground. ‘It wasn't raining ten minutes ago,' he said, arguing her point about the yellow dumper truck.

‘It is now. And there's the lightning.'

Out at sea a vivid jag of pure white froze the scene. Beside him, Penny counted, ‘One mile away, two miles away, three …'

Just before the thunder rumbled around them, Leo felt the ground vibrate beneath his feet.

‘That does it,' said Penny. ‘I'm getting into the car until it blows over.'

The visibility had gone right down. Leo could barely make out the buildings now, let alone the vehicles. He slid thoughtfully into the passenger side. His earlier reflective, borderline-sentimental mood had disappeared. He made rapid shorthand notes, barely aware of Penny beside him. ‘On to the farm then,' he said, putting his notebook away. ‘I'll ask Grandad Fell about Jack Scrivener.'

Arriving at Fellrigg in the driving rain, the welcome was definitely less serene than it had been the week before. Rachel was pleased to see them, no doubt about that the way she ushered them quickly into the warm kitchen, got out cake, and poured tea, but there was a very twitchy air to her. ‘I need to pop back to the dairy, Grandad,' she said as soon as they were settled. ‘You'll be all right with your friends to talk to.'

Glancing through the window, Penny saw her hurrying across the yard looking rattled and feeling around in her pocket. That was interesting. She wondered if she could manufacture an excuse to go back out to her car for something.