The Ambleside Alibi: 2 (23 page)

‘So – that does make the girl Mrs Joseph’s granddaughter,’ Melanie summarised. ‘If she looks like
Mr
Joseph, that clinches it. We need to find her and get the cops to do a DNA test on her.’

‘Wouldn’t prove anything,’ Mr Kitchener pointed out. ‘Even if she is the granddaughter, that doesn’t make her a murderer.’

‘They’re looking for her, don’t worry,’ said Simmy, thinking Melanie’s lack of logic felt more persuasive than Ben’s insistence on rational processes. ‘She was here at the Elleray half an hour ago, but when we got here, she’d gone. But Nicola and Gwen were here. They probably saw her.’ The puzzle came apart again. ‘And that’s weird, isn’t it? I mean – do they
know
her at all?’

‘What do you mean, she was here? Who says? Nobody else even knows what she looks like.’

‘Except me,’ Mr Kitchener reminded them. ‘But I still don’t know who she is, or why she matters. Because I am
not
in “cahoots” with her.’

‘Moxon got a call from someone saying there was a girl in the pub who they thought might be her. They’ve had dozens of police people searching for her all week, apparently. We were in Troutbeck, looking for the men who helped her push her car back onto the road. Except we never got started, because the phone call came.’

‘Dozens of police people?’ Mr Kitchener seemed awestruck. ‘All for horrible Nancy Clark who got what she deserved?’

‘Nobody deserves to be murdered,’ said Simmy angrily. The matter had become inescapably personal for her.

‘Some people do,’ he persisted. ‘And I’ve met a few of them in my time.’

‘She could be Matt Joseph’s
daughter
,’ Melanie interjected, with a note of triumph. ‘That would be more likely, if she looks so like him. I know – she’s the result of incest. He made one of his girls pregnant, and it was all hushed up, but Nancy Clark found out about it, and now somebody wants it kept quiet. The girl herself, most likely. I mean – you wouldn’t want people to know that about you, would you?’

‘Shut up,’ Simmy begged her. ‘That’s horrible. And it can’t be right, because the police have double-treble checked, and there are definitely no secret babies. You can’t just hide the fact that you’ve had a baby, these days. Nicola’s a virgin, anyway. She signed a legal thing to say she was.’

Mr Kitchener gave an embarrassed cough.

Melanie gave a sceptical sniff. ‘She might have been lying. And I think you
can
hide a baby if you try hard enough. Besides, if Candida has come back to confront
them, they didn’t do a very good job of it, did they? She’s tracked them down.’

‘To kill them,’ said Simmy dramatically.

‘No – she sent the old lady flowers, remember?’

‘And it’s bloody old Nancy that got killed,’ said Mr Kitchener.

‘And nearly you,’ added Melanie. ‘But we’re getting closer. This is brainstorming,’ she informed them. ‘That’s what we’re doing. It’s a very useful tool.’

‘And now we can stop. Please. I need to get home. Back to my parents’, I mean.’ Simmy thought of her abandoned little house with a painful stab of guilt. ‘They’ll be wondering whether I want lunch or not.’

‘Thank you for talking to me,’ said Mr Kitchener, a shade too humbly. ‘I appreciate it.’

‘Do you need a lift anywhere?’ Melanie offered. ‘I’m at your disposal once I’ve taken Simmy home.’

‘No, no, thanks. I’ve got to get back to Ambleside. The bus goes any time now.’

‘Bus?’ Simmy queried. Surely he had a car of his own? ‘Where’s your car?’

He coughed, with renewed embarrassment. ‘Lost my licence,’ he mumbled. ‘I thought you knew.’

‘No, I didn’t.’ She had no idea why he might have been banned from driving, but it made him even more of a loser than she’d first realised. She sighed.

Melanie and Mr Kitchener both got out, while Simmy waited impatiently to get moving. She needed the loo and was cold from sitting in an unheated car for half an hour.

‘Did that get anybody anywhere?’ she asked Melanie,
when they finally got started. ‘Or have we just gone round in another circle?’

‘We need to think. And where did Moxo dash off to, anyway? Is something going on?’

‘He’s very self-important today. With his dozens of officers prowling around Windermere and Ambleside. Why Windermere, anyway?’ she wondered for the first time. ‘Nobody’s suggested anything bad’s going to happen down here.’

‘
You’re
here now, that’s why,’ said Melanie with heavy emphasis. ‘What did you think?’

‘No – that’s not it. He’s not worried about me. He’s looking for that girl. He must think she’s the killer.’

‘You saw her in Troutbeck, remember. She could be anywhere.’

They were outside Beck View in under three minutes. ‘Thanks, Mel. At least you’re all up to date now with everything that’s been going on. You can’t say you’ve been left out this time, can you?’

‘Is that your dad’s car?’ Melanie was frowning at a black Volvo parked just ahead of them.

‘No, of course not. His is in the drive, look.’

‘Hmm. Well maybe you’ve got a visitor, then.’

‘Or maybe somebody just bagged a handy space.’

But when she got herself inside the house, calling ‘I’m back!’ down the passage from the front door, she discovered that Melanie had been absolutely right.

‘At last!’ Her mother appeared from the living room, with a harassed expression. ‘We wondered where on earth you’d got to. There’s somebody here to see you.’

Her first thought, rather to her own surprise, was that it was Ninian Tripp. Or Julie. But her mother’s tone implied somebody more unexpected than that. A childish notion flittered through her mind that it was Santa Claus, or a long-lost fairy godmother.

‘I’ve got to go to the loo,’ she said urgently. ‘If that’s okay.’

‘Hurry up, then. We don’t know what to say to her.’

The silky skirt was blessedly easy to manoeuvre, and she was quickly back in the living room doorway. The woman standing by the empty fireplace was familiar, but it took a few moments for Simmy to identify her. When she did, she wasn’t sure how to address her. She could hardly say ‘Davy!’, as if to a friend, but she could not recall hearing a surname. ‘Hello,’ she managed. ‘What a surprise.’ 

‘We’ll leave you to it, then,’ said Angie, with a show of briskness. Russell was already disappearing towards the kitchen. ‘Just give me a call if you want anything.’

‘Thanks, Mum,’ said Simmy, wondering whether the visitor had been sitting down at any stage, or remained stiffly standing as she waited. ‘Well – here I am,’ she added superfluously.

‘I needed to see you,’ said Mrs Joseph’s elder daughter. ‘I hope it’s not a nuisance.’ She didn’t look as if this was any real concern to her.

‘How did you know where I was?’ It was a foolish question, but the feeling that she was fair game for a succession of people, wanted or not, was an unpleasant one.

‘I asked around,’ was the unsatisfactory reply. ‘It didn’t take long.’

‘I saw your sister this morning.’ That too was a silly thing to say, she supposed. It was probably axiomatic that you did not volunteer information during a murder enquiry. The complications of who knew what were all part of it. It was unwise to make any assumptions. But Simmy had lost patience with this sort of behaviour at some point in recent days. She could not begin to imagine why this woman should want to see her.

Davy seemed uninterested in her sister. ‘I wanted to see you because of what happened to you at the weekend,’ she said, speaking haltingly. ‘I gather it happened close to my mother’s house, and the police were informed that you were there in the hope of seeing her. They came to see us yesterday, with a whole lot of questions that I felt were entirely beside the point. I wanted to clarify in my own
mind and more importantly yours that there is absolutely no connection between my family and your … mishap. I don’t know the details, of course, but it’s clear that the police have got hold of the idea that we as a family are involved. The assumption on all sides is that there’s a link between the murder of the old lady in Ambleside and the attack on you a few days later. That’s as maybe, but it appals me that some people have implicated my relatives in the business.’ She stood there, one hand on the back of Angie’s best sofa, her shoulders square and her jaw tight. ‘I have no idea why such a link might be made,’ she went on, ‘because the only possible common factor must be you. And all you did was to deliver flowers from some troublemaker, on the day the old woman was murdered. Unless you can tell me differently.’

Simmy had been transfixed by this speech, still barely inside the room. Now she finally managed to sit down and draw breath. ‘No, I can’t tell you differently,’ she said. ‘I
agree
with you, more or less. At least I would have done a few days ago. Now it all seems very much more complicated than either of us would wish. I mean – there does seem to be a connection somewhere, but I don’t really understand what it is. For a start, most of the people involved do actually know each other. Your father was at school with Nancy Clark and Mrs Kitchener.
Mr
Kitchener worked for him – your father.’

‘Wait!’ Davy ordered. ‘Who are these Kitcheners? I don’t know them.’

‘He’s called Malcolm. He was suspected of the murder, until I gave him an alibi. His mother died a month or so ago, and I did the flowers for the funeral. I’ve just been
talking to him. And he’s been to see Mrs Ellis – who knows absolutely
everybody
. Although your mother seems to have been on the outside. Nobody really knows her very well, as far as I can gather.’

‘She minds her own business, that’s why.’

‘Anyway, it all keeps coming back to this girl – the one who sent the flowers. She’s the key to it all, but nobody knows her, nobody’s seen her – except me. Somehow she really does seem to be a relative of yours. Mr Kitchener says she looks like your father.’

‘What?
What
did you say?’ Fury turned her nose and cheeks deep pink. ‘How many times do we have to tell you she is nothing whatever to do with us?’

Simmy sighed, refusing to be intimidated. ‘I know. But why is she here? What’s the point, if she’s really not connected? Do you think she’s just some madwoman who latched onto your family at random? That’s not very plausible, is it?’

Davy backtracked. ‘You gave the Kitchener man an alibi – is that what you said?’

‘Yes. I saw him in the Giggling Goose, at the time of the murder. And the girl was there as well.’ She conveyed this final fact with some reluctance. It still bothered her that the two people most likely to be killers were in the same place at the same time. The notion of a conspiracy refused to go away.

‘I don’t
care
. I just want all this to stop, and let my mother get back to normal. She keeps on about it. And Gwen’s getting difficult again.’

Simmy did a double take. ‘Pardon?’

‘Oh, nothing. She’s fine, really. But she’s always been a
bit … volatile. She’s had a hard life, before she met Nicola. They’ve been very good for each other, on the whole. Nicola was always unsettled and dissatisfied, before Gwen came along. Now they’ve been together for ages and it’s come as a big relief.’

‘So what’s her problem now? She seems all right to me. She gave me some bedsocks.’

Davy loosened slightly at this. ‘Did she? There you are then,’ as if a point had been proved.

‘She’s nice. I saw them – Gwen and Nicola – this morning.’ Perhaps this would register better a second time.

‘Did you? Where?’

‘In the Elleray.’

‘Good Lord! What were you doing there? What time was it?’

Discretion asserted itself. ‘Oh, I was just tagging along with someone.’

Davy tipped her head like a disappointed teacher. ‘Come on – your mother already told me you’d gone off with the policeman … detective, whatever he is. He’s not stalking my
sister
now, is he?’

The emphasis in this remark suggested that Moxon had been stalking one relative after another, which seemed unlikely. Unless she had inadvertently included Candida Hawkins as a relative – contradicting everything she’d been saying.

Simmy did not reply, and the conversation sank into a short silence. ‘Well, I’d better go. I know none of this is your fault. You had a terrible experience, of course. I don’t want you to think any of us wish you ill, in any way. My mother likes you, despite everything.’

Despite what, Simmy wondered? The flowers, she realised – the cheap bouquet that had started it all off. ‘No, it wasn’t my fault,’ she said. ‘I’ve done nothing at all wrong – except it was daft of me to go up to Ambleside on Sunday. I knew at the time, really.’

‘So why did you?’

‘I’m not sure now. Something about warning your mother. After talking to Mrs Ellis, it felt as if she might be at risk. And I was toying with the idea of telling her the name of the girl who sent the flowers, after all. But she wasn’t there, so I needn’t have bothered.’

‘You have no reason to worry about my mother.’ The stiffness was back. ‘But I would be extremely grateful if you would tell me the person’s name now. Then your part will be finished. You’ll have no reason to concern yourself about any of us, for another second, but just get on with your own life. That’s really what I came to say. Just concentrate on getting better, and stay out of it. You’ll be doing everybody a favour, then. Including yourself.’

‘I would if I could,’ said Simmy. ‘Believe me.’

‘So …?’

‘What?’

‘The name.’

Simmy tried, but found her tongue had frozen up. ‘I can’t,’ she discovered. ‘I daren’t. I don’t know where it might lead. I don’t think I would have been able to tell your mother, either. It just seems wrong. Dangerous. I’m sorry. Perhaps you need to follow your own advice, and just forget it all. Leave everything to the police. You said yourself, there’s no reason for your family to be involved. Go home and have a happy Christmas.’

Davy made no further attempt to persuade her. She muttered something about being on duty at the hospital for most of the Christmas holiday, and made her departure.

Lunch was a frosty affair, with Angie making no attempt to conceal her feelings. Even Russell, normally so unflappable, was quiet and unsmiling. Simmy could hardly blame them. She had turned their lives upside down, losing them business, and then disappeared for half the morning without a backward glance. They had expected a helpless invalid, quietly recovering with a book or DVD – not an unpredictable figure at the centre of a murder investigation.
Whatever next?
was the question circling the dining table as they ate the carelessly assembled meal.

‘Is that detective coming back?’ Angie asked.

‘I don’t know.’ It was Moxon who had done most to upset her mother, Simmy supposed. ‘He’s not a bad chap, you know. He’s doing a difficult job, after all.’

‘I understand that. I have nothing against him personally. He’s not interested in me, thank goodness. I just wish …’ She gave a dramatic sigh and left the sentence unfinished.

‘So do I,’ said Simmy. ‘None of this was my choosing.’

‘You
say
that,’ Angie burst out. ‘But it’s not entirely true, is it? I still don’t have the slightest idea why you went back to Ambleside on Sunday. What were you thinking of? If it had nothing to do with you, why not just stay out of it altogether?’

‘Because I’d met the granddaughter by then,’ said Simmy. ‘It’s as simple as that. I couldn’t just leave it there.’

‘I don’t see why not.’

‘It’s hard to explain. I never met Nancy Clark, so why
should I care what happened to her? I think I cared more about Mr Kitchener. He seems so pathetic – he has done since I first met him. And vulnerable. You should have seen him sitting there in the police station. He’s such a sad little man.’

‘And you thought you could save him?’ asked her father, with a frown. ‘I don’t think I’m following that train of thought very well.’

‘No. It’s not logical. I can’t actually explain why I went up there on Sunday, except it seemed to be right, somehow. I wasn’t even going to see Mr K. It was Mrs Joseph I was looking for. I felt bad about her, and wanted to put things straight. Or something.’

‘You might have
died
,’ Russell shivered. It was the first time this had been spoken aloud between them. ‘Most people would have died.’

‘I was lucky.’

‘So why push your luck by going off again?’ Angie demanded. ‘Somebody out there intends to harm you. You should stay here out of the way.’

‘I can’t do that for ever, can I? I can’t just put my life on hold indefinitely. I’ve got to open the shop, go back to Troutbeck, rescue my car, get on with things.’

‘So you’re confronting the faceless killer,’ said Russell, smiling at last. ‘Brave girl.’

Angie just tutted in frustration, but the air was clearer than it had been.

Undeniably drained by the events of the day so far, Simmy agreed to stretch out on the sofa after lunch, and have a proper rest. She had actually fallen into a doze when the
doorbell rang again, and she started awake with a great
thump
of her heart. Was Moxon back? What had he been doing, anyway, when he had rushed off leaving her with Melanie? His mysterious team and professional discretion made his activities deeply opaque to her.

Voices came through from the hallway, neither of them Moxon’s. There seemed to be two callers, both female. Listening intently, Simmy recognised one of them and rolled herself awkwardly off the sofa to go and investigate.

Before she could find her crutches and get herself upright, a little group came into the room. Her father pushed the door wider, and admitted Candida Hawkins and another woman. They stood looking at her, without speaking. ‘Hello,’ said Simmy.

‘You poor thing!’ cried the girl. ‘I was so
appalled
when I heard what had happened to you. I had to come and see how you were getting on.’

‘You said you were going home on Sunday. Didn’t you go?’

‘I was going, but I changed my mind. Things got a bit difficult. This is my mother.’

‘Jane Hawkins,’ the woman introduced herself. She seemed to be around sixty, well dressed and expensively groomed. Her hair was cut like a helmet, a very
natural-looking
mid-brown colour. ‘Candy and I have an apology to make to you. It appears that we might have got you into trouble with the Josephs. We wondered whether you’d be well enough to accept a little treat from us in recompense?’

Simmy’s eyes stretched wide. She wondered whether she might be dreaming. ‘Treat?’ she repeated.

‘Dinner at the Belsfield, perhaps? We can explain everything
to you, as we eat. I always think that’s the most civilised way of doing things.’

Her daughter laughed. ‘That’s definitely true. She always thinks people won’t escape if they’re sitting at the dinner table when she starts telling them what’s what. Mind you, my father has been known to make a run for it, even then.’

The original alarm that Simmy had felt came back. Who
were
these people, anyway? The idea of going off with them into the dark night was not reassuring. ‘I don’t think I can,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you owe me anything.’ Then she had a thought. ‘Except I gather your credit card doesn’t work, so you probably do still owe me for those flowers.’

‘Oh, my God!’ squealed the girl. ‘That’s so embarrassing. I forgot it had been cancelled. Let me give you the cash instead.’ She pulled a wallet from a shoulder bag and took out a twenty-pound note. ‘Is this enough?’