The Hawkshead Hostage (15 page)

‘I’ll kill him,’ said Helen through gritted teeth. ‘He’ll wish he really had been kidnapped when I’ve finished with him.’

‘I ought to get back.’ She was very aware that she depended on Helen for transport. ‘Can you bear to take me?’

‘Gladly. Do you think they’ll take that liaison woman away now? That would be a plus, anyway.’

Simmy shrugged. ‘Don’t ask me.’

They drove back, hardly speaking. ‘We never had lunch,’ Helen remembered. ‘The Elleray’s probably open, if you fancy something.’

Simmy resisted the temptation. ‘I have to open the shop, and see if there are any new orders. If I lose business, that’ll just add insult to injury. And I suppose there’s a chance that Ben could call me there.’

Helen blinked. ‘At the shop? Why?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I didn’t answer the mobile yesterday. Although, after that, I don’t imagine I’m anywhere on his list of useful people.’

‘What was all that with Bonnie and photos on his phone?’

Again Simmy said, ‘Don’t ask me. I’ve completely lost the plot now.’

‘Come on – don’t give me that. You can read his mind better than any of us.’

‘What?’ She was genuinely amazed. ‘Better than Bonnie? Or Melanie? That’s not true at all, Helen.’

‘Think about it. Clear away all the police stuff and those people just now. Get back to yesterday and that phone message. What does your gut tell you happened?’

‘At the time I was convinced he was in trouble. But now I can easily see that he could have decided to play detective. He could have run away from the killers and hidden somewhere, watching them. Then he’d follow them somehow … although, if they had a car, I don’t really see how.’

‘It was all very close to the hotel, right? And there are all sorts of outbuildings and small rooms and cellars where someone could hide. What if he’s been there all along?’

‘Impossible,’ said Simmy firmly. ‘Somebody would see him. The police must have searched the whole property. They’ve got a huge team there, with an
incident room and everything. It’s crawling with them.’

Helen sighed. ‘Well, here we are in Windermere again. I’m going home. Corinne’s got to get that exhaust fixed. Bonnie isn’t likely to escape back to Hawkshead for a third time, is she? You should keep her in the shop with you. Give her some work to do.’

Simmy resented the implication, but had to concede that it merited consideration. ‘I’m worried about Melanie,’ she admitted. ‘She didn’t sound like her usual self at all when I phoned her.’

‘That Moxon man is a bit limp, isn’t he? Seems completely out of his depth. If Ben really were in danger, I’d be very unhappy to be relying on him to save him.’

Simmy’s unease was growing. ‘I won’t be satisfied until I’ve got Ben right here in front of me.’

Helen laughed. ‘You sound more like his mother than I do. I’ve decided not to worry about him any more. When the girls get back from school I’ll tell them he’s all right. After all, that’s what his message said, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Simmy agreed. ‘That’s what it said.’ But she had no illusions as to Helen’s true feelings. Her words might have been courageous, but they were far from convincing.

Ben might be okay, but Melanie definitely was not. Simmy had spent barely an hour in her belatedly opened shop before her worries about the girl got the better of her. She had hoped that Bonnie might materialise and take over, but there was no sign of her. One customer had been in and bought half a dozen yellow roses, and two orders for the weekend had popped up on the computer. The intervening silence gave her far too much opportunity for anxious reflection.

At half past three, she phoned Melanie again. ‘Simmy – what now?’ came the instant response.

‘Just wondering if anything’s happening,’ said Simmy. ‘Sorry if I’m a bother.’

‘No, you’re not. I didn’t mean it the way it sounded. I’m trying to get back to the hotel, but the car isn’t here. And I don’t really know if I should. Nobody can tell me whether I’m needed or not.’

‘Would this be one of your days, normally?’

‘Yes. But they’re probably not taking any new guests while all this police stuff is going on. The ones who
are
there are most likely wanting to leave, now their holidays have been spoilt. It’d be just my luck if the whole place went bust because of this.’

And mine
, thought Simmy, with the flowers in mind. ‘But you’re mainly upset about Dan,’ she said. ‘Do you want to tell me about him?’

‘Not really. There’s hardly anything to tell. I’d only had two nights with him. I wasn’t madly in love or anything. I don’t want you to think that. It was more a matter of convenience, if I’m honest.’

Her voice sounded hollow, as if she had hammered this approach into her own head, as the one she would find easiest to live with. Simmy had little difficulty in seeing through it. ‘It was still a terrible thing, finding him like that. You might need someone who can talk you through it, better than I can.’

‘Yeah, I’ve got PTSD, or whatever it is. I don’t mind admitting it. I still can’t breathe properly.’

‘It’s only one day ago, Mel. Are you still at home?’

‘No. I came out. It’s nice and sunny. I’m watching the swans and eating an ice cream, in front of the Belsfield. Just getting myself straight, you know?’

‘Come up here then and we can have a chat.’

‘I don’t want to talk, Simmy. There’s nothing to say.’ Then she belied her own words by bursting out, ‘I can’t believe I’ll never see him again – that some total waste of space has wiped him out for no reason, and ruined everything in my life. I know the police think I had something to do with it.
It’s only Moxon who’s speaking up for me, and he’ll cave in if they pressure him. Nobody’s going to give me a job after this. It’ll be like a horrible stink following me around for ever.’

At least she was talking, Simmy told herself. But she shouldn’t be out there in the streets of Bowness, pouring it all into a mobile phone. What comfort could there be in that?

‘You sound pretty bad,’ she said baldly. ‘Let me get my car and drive you back to Hawkshead, if that’s what you want.’

‘No, no. I don’t. I just want it all to be over with. I just wish I’d never said anything to you or Dan about flowers. If you hadn’t been there with Ben, none of this would have happened.’

Simmy went cold. ‘What on earth do you mean? That’s absolute rubbish, Melanie. We didn’t have anything to do with Dan being killed.’

‘No, but I wouldn’t have been the one to find him, would I? And they wouldn’t have dumped him in the lake if Ben hadn’t come across his body. He’d have been in the woods, and somebody else would have found him, probably one of the guests, and most likely after I’d gone home.’

‘I’m not sure what difference that would make, in the long run.’ Simmy wrestled with a rage that was out of all proportion. Melanie didn’t know what she was saying, and couldn’t be blamed for the effect of her words. ‘You sound awfully selfish.’

‘Maybe I do, but it’s how I feel. You wanted to know, didn’t you? You wanted me to talk? Well, that’s it. I try to do you a good turn and this is how it ends up.’

‘Okay. I understand. I can even see that it could look like that. But it’s not going to help to cast blame. The only people who should be blamed for anything are the ones who killed Dan. And don’t forget about
Ben
,’ she finished angrily.

‘I bet he’s perfectly okay. He’ll be playing some weird game, you see.’

‘We still have to find him.’ She devoted a couple of minutes to filling Melanie in on what had happened in Hawkshead. ‘And he probably isn’t half as safe as he thinks he is.’

‘That’s all so typical,’ said Melanie crossly, and finished the call.

Simmy was left with a sense of everybody isolated from everybody else. All of them were alone, or with people who could offer no real help. Herself, Bonnie, Melanie, Ben – they had always worked together before this. They had bounced ideas around and shared their various talents, and caused DI Moxon all kinds of exasperation in the process. This time, the centre of the action was at an uncomfortable distance, and the most vital member of the team was missing. The demands of her business were a distraction, too.

Then she had a visitor who only served to confuse things further.

‘Hiya!’ chirped Ninian Tripp, as if he was the one person in the world she most hoped and expected to see. He was even carrying a bulky canvas bag, which he set down with great care on an empty piece of floor. ‘Brought you some new pots. Sorry it’s taken me so long.’

It had taken him several months. Simmy had long ago given up hope that it would ever happen. ‘Let’s see,’ she said, without enthusiasm.

He peeled back the fabric to reveal three large vases. One was terracotta, one glazed in a lustrous shade of blue, and the last a deep orange. ‘I wanted them all to be different,’ he explained. ‘I like to think they represent Europe, Asia and Africa.’ He tapped each one in turn.

‘Why is Asia blue?’ she wondered.

‘I thought the Himalayas. The icy summit of Everest, sort of notion.’ The pot was roughly triangular, the colour darker at the base. Its mouth was barely two inches across. Simmy tried to visualise the most appropriate flowers for it.

‘I see,’ she said.

‘And the terracotta could equally well be Africa, I know, but I was thinking of Thrace, maybe. Some ancient meeting point, where cultures clashed.’ He indicated the curlicues he had cut into the rim, which was folded back on itself in an elegant line that then flowed inwards and out again, giving the pot an almost female shape, with waist and hips. The orange one was plain, with a matt finish and a crude design in black to suggest a river or snake.

‘They’re too good for this place,’ she said. ‘They’re worth more than my customers would pay. They’re works of art.’

‘Sweet of you to say, but if I could just get people to look at them, I’ll be happy. They can make a talking point, maybe.’

‘They’ll do that, all right.’

‘Are you okay? Have I done something? Or
not
done something, most likely.’

She made a face. ‘Normally I might have had a robust answer to that, but just at the moment, there’s too much else to worry about. Didn’t you hear what happened in Hawkshead yesterday?’ Silly question, she realised. Ninian never listened to the news. He was a latter-day hermit, shut away in a small cottage on the side of a little fell near Bowness.

‘I did not,’ he said. ‘I was hoping there wouldn’t be any more of these happenings that you seem to get yourself drawn into.’

‘I hoped the same thing. But a man was killed up at a hotel there, and Ben’s disappeared. We think he’s doing some sort of idiotic detective work. Moxon’s furious with him, and Bonnie doesn’t know what to believe. Melanie blames me and I just want to get on with my work.’

‘Whoa!’ Ninian put up his hands in a familiar gesture. Unlike Simmy, he was expert at not getting involved in anything unpleasant. Something about him said, Don’t ask me, I’m useless, and people acted accordingly.

‘Never mind,’ she sighed. ‘What price should I put on the vases, then? Or aren’t they for sale?’

‘Eighty quid, twenty-five per cent for you,’ he said promptly.

‘Okay.’ She had no expectations that they would sell, but they would enhance the effect of her flowers, especially if Bonnie was given full rein to arrange them. ‘Is there anything else?’

‘Don’t be like that.’ His boyish smile was sweetly seductive, but her immunity levels had risen considerably in recent weeks. ‘I thought you might want to come over at the weekend.’

‘I don’t think I will,’ she said firmly.

‘My appeal wore off, did it? That’s a pity. We weren’t so bad together, were we?’

‘We were fine, as far as it went.’

He cocked his head at her. ‘Had a better offer?’

The rage that Melanie had engendered was still swirling. ‘Shut up,’ she snapped. ‘Don’t be so
trivial
.’

‘Uh-oh,’ he said. ‘You’ve got me to rights, as they say. The thing is, my love, life
is
trivial. That’s the great secret of existence. But if it helps, I should perhaps tell you that I thought I saw young Mr Harkness in the back of a car with a man, last night. It may not have been him, of course,’ he finished airily.

‘Where? What time was it?’

‘I was on the bus, coming back from Grasmere. It must have been about nine, I guess. The car was going the opposite way from the bus. I don’t remember the exact spot. There was a woman driving, and I thought it a bit funny that nobody was in the front with her. I couldn’t see very well. It was all over in two seconds. But it
did
look like him. And he did not look happy.’

‘What sort of car?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘You’ll have to tell the police.’ She felt almost as unhappy about this as she supposed he did. ‘It throws everything into question all over again. What if he really
has
been kidnapped? That’s what we thought at first. And why would they be going towards Grasmere, of all places?’

‘Kidnapped?’

She explained as briefly as she could, but Ninian asked a lot of very basic questions, which was annoying. When she’d
finished, he simply said, ‘It probably wasn’t him, anyway.’

She studied him doubtfully. His information was both unwelcome and unreliable. She would have to do something with it – or force Ninian to do it himself. ‘I expect it was,’ she sighed. ‘Not many people look like Ben.’

‘I might even have dreamt it,’ he said, infuriatingly. ‘I was dozing on and off. You know how you do in buses. It’s a conditioned reflex or something.’

‘You didn’t dream it, Ninian. Be sensible.’

‘I don’t altogether follow this message thing in Hawkshead. But you all ended up thinking Ben was okay – is that right?’

‘Moxon did, anyway. He was cross about it, wasting police time when he’s meant to be investigating a murder. And we all know Ben – he
would
do that sort of thing. Bonnie believed it, which convinced the rest of us, including his mother, pretty much.’

Ninian nodded, with a little frown. ‘If the baddies are driving around in plain sight, other people might have seen them, then. It seems a bit unlikely, really, that it
was
Ben in the car. He’d have been banging on the window or trying to open the door, if they’d kidnapped him. Golly Moses, it’s a real muddle, isn’t it,’ he finished.

‘If there was a man in the back with him, he was probably not able to do anything like that. He might even have had his hands tied.’

‘Mm.’

‘We’ll have to tell Moxon,’ Simmy said, with a sinking feeling. ‘And that’ll start everything up again. Poor Helen!’

‘Helen?’

‘Mrs Harkness. Ben’s mother. She won’t know what to think.’

‘How is that different? Surely nobody knows anyway? After all, the boy’s still missing from home, whether I saw him or not.’

She picked up the landline phone. ‘Call the police,’ she ordered. ‘I’ve got Moxon’s number here, look.’ She extracted a rather crumpled card from a little pile next to the till. It had been used quite a lot over the past few months. She had thought of throwing it away, several times, but that had felt like tempting fate. Fate evidently wasn’t interested in such minor details. There was no escaping Moxon, with or without his card.

Ninian flinched away from the phone. ‘You do it,’ he whined. ‘You know him much better than I do.’

She’d expected this. ‘I’m not doing any of the talking. Stand still until I’m through to him.’

But she didn’t get through. The call went to voicemail. ‘Hello, this is Simmy Brown,’ she dictated. ‘I’m with Ninian Tripp, who thinks he saw Ben in a car last night, between Grasmere and Ambleside. He was with a man and a woman. He doesn’t remember anything about the car. We’re at the shop, but I’ll be closing at five.’

‘Saved by the wonders of technology,’ Ninian said. ‘Thanks, Sim. I know I’m a wimp. You’re much better off without me.’

They were back to the earlier topic, she realised miserably. Ninian was offering her uncomplicated sex, which ought to be enough for a woman of her age and situation. She ought to jump at the chance, according to most people she knew. She could hear her mother expressing amazement at her lack of enthusiasm. In the sixties, nobody would ever turn down an offer of going to
bed with a healthy, good-natured man like Ninian. Or so Angie claimed. Simmy had never quite believed it had ever been as easy as that. For herself, it was impossible to avoid thinking ahead. She knew she would end up feeling grubby and very slightly ashamed at the meaningless encounter. Nothing was ever going to come of it. She and Ninian were not in love. They were never going to live together and have babies. The sex they had thus far engaged in was friendly enough, but nothing special. While she knew that her attitude and expectations were almost entirely created by the culture of romance and couplehood that persisted all around her, this did nothing to change them. If she couldn’t have a complete relationship with a man who took an obvious delight in her whole self, with prospects for the future and a thorough mutual trust, she was never really going to be interested.

She gave a little wriggle of her shoulders, and dodged the subject. ‘Do you remember
anything
about the woman who was driving the car?’ she asked.