The Troutbeck Testimony (15 page)

‘They
are
complicated,’ Bonnie agreed. ‘Which is why I was hoping you’d let me use the flat upstairs.’

‘It’s not a flat, and I’m not getting into that now. Just go, there’s a good girl. I can’t cope with any more today.’

‘Okay, then. What time tomorrow?’

‘You won’t bring the dog, will you?’

‘Not if it’s just for the morning. I’ll do ten till one, shall I? Would that be enough?’

‘I expect so. Ten it is, then. Bye.’ She was strongly tempted to physically march the girl and her pet out into the street, but she restrained herself. A little voice kept reminding her that Melanie had recommended Bonnie, and that would never have happened if there’d been any reason to worry about it.

‘Oh – and don’t worry about your dad,’ Bonnie threw back at the final second. ‘He’ll be fine.’

The effect of this final assurance was, perversely, to make Simmy worry quite a lot.

It was twenty to twelve, too late to catch her parents before the funeral at twelve-thirty. At least, her mother would either have already left, or be too busy with final flourishes to engage in conversation. There was no certainty about Russell. He had never intended to go to the crowded church and say prayers for a woman he barely knew. The suggestion that he should had come as a solution to his trauma of the day before. It would be a way of keeping him at Angie’s side, and possibly distracting him from his own troubles.

But if he remained at home, then a little chat with Simmy would surely be beneficial. Using her mobile, she called the Beck View number. The bed-and-breakfast business demanded that such calls never went unanswered, if at all possible.

The recorded message cut in after five or six peals.
We’re sorry there’s nobody here to speak to you at the moment.
Please leave your name, number, etc and we will phone you back.
The deliberately simple wording always gave Simmy a small pleasure. She left no reply, and finished the call hoping that both parents had gone to help send Barbara Hodge to her rest. That would be good news. And yet her anxiety level remained painfully high.

Her father’s agitation made it impossible to guess his frame of mind at any given moment. If he was still terrified of an arson attack wasn’t it unlikely he would leave the house vulnerable? Had the police somehow reassured him? Had her mother exerted all her considerable force and brooked no argument about going to the funeral?

Or was Russell Straw crouched crazily in the hallway with a bucket of water, afraid to answer the phone in case it was another threat? Somehow this last idea felt most persuasive and Simmy grew almost crazy herself as she let it flourish.

It was ridiculous, she told herself, to feel lonely or isolated either in Windermere or Troutbeck with people in and out of the shop and passing just outside. Even alone in her cottage she was aware of pedestrians and cars passing every few minutes. She might be undersupplied with intimate friends, but she was surrounded by community, comfortable in the society of a wide range of people.

But now she felt very much alone and cut off. Melanie was abandoning her. She had wantonly sent Bonnie away. Ninian was habitually elusive, and Ben had exams. Hanging over her was a powerful obligation to confront the horrible facts of a violent killing, which she could not avoid. Now her father needed her and she had nobody to turn to. She should close the shop and go over to Beck View
and ensure that all was well. There was no good reason not to, and yet she dithered. She wanted more information, moral support, advice. She wanted to be assured that she wasn’t being stupid.

She realised that there was one person who might resolve some of these troubles, or at least listen and advise. A person who was also certain to be busy and burdened by the evil that men do, and who was not in the best of health. A person who was fond of Simmy and fascinated by her, and would very probably be at her side within minutes of a call.

All of which comprised more than enough reason to swallow down any reservations, and key in the number of DI Moxon’s personal phone.

But Moxon didn’t answer his phone.
Obviously
, thought Simmy crossly,
he was at the damned funeral as well as everybody else.
He had put his murder investigation on hold and gone to pay his last respects to a pillar of the community. Simmy was the only person left in the whole Southern Lakes who remained at her post, then. It was a wonder she couldn’t hear the sonorous tones of ‘Abide with Me’ wafting over the deserted town – the church was probably close enough for that, if she opened the shop door and listened hard. But then she gave herself a shake, and registered that there was still traffic outside, and oblivious shoppers strolling along the pavements.

As if to prove the point, one of these shoppers paused, frowned and made a sharp turn into Persimmon Petals, as Simmy watched.

‘I wasn’t sure you’d be open,’ said the young woman. ‘What with that huge funeral going on. I mean – flowers
and stuff.’ She looked round vaguely, before focusing on Bonnie’s display and smiling broadly. ‘Hey! This is cool! Never seen anything like it.’

Simmy nodded. ‘It was new yesterday. What can I do for you?’

The customer snorted gently at this clichéd question. ‘I dunno, really. Thought my gran might like some flowers, when I go over to hers tonight. She’s cooking,’ she explained. ‘Just a small thing for the table, I thought.’

Simmy suggested freesias, or yellow daisies. ‘Something simple with short stems,’ she added, thinking on her feet.

‘Right. Yellow’s good. Or orange.’ She stared at the colours all around her. ‘You choose, okay.’

The transaction was soon completed, with Simmy issuing instructions for keeping the flowers fresh until the evening, which she felt sure would be ignored. It was not unusual to encounter people who failed to grasp that flowers were living entities, requiring water and light to survive. Once or twice, she had lost patience and snapped, ‘They are
real
, you know.’ And there had been an occasion when she heard herself saying, ‘Haven’t you ever heard of photosynthesis?’ only to receive a blank stare of utter incomprehension.

The customer made her reconsider about closing the shop. She made coffee and replaced the flowers that had been taken from the darker end of the row, and found it was almost one o’clock. Church bells were ringing across the town, audible even inside the shop.
Like a wedding
, Simmy thought, unable to recall the usual practice for a funeral. Perhaps Miss Hodge had made a special request for peals as the coffin was taken outside for burial. The woman had apparently made quite a lot of special requests
for her last day in the world, determined to disappear with all guns blazing, so to speak.

Then it occurred to her that she could just pop over to the church and try to find her parents. If her father had in fact gone with his wife, he would be eager to get home again as soon as the service was over. They wouldn’t go to the buffet that followed in a pub near the church. Protocol might be fuzzy where such things were concerned, but Angie would feel that she came sufficiently low in the pecking order for such an intrusion to be unwarranted. The church part was the main thing, after all.

Quickly, Simmy pulled on her jacket and left the shop through its street door, locking it behind her. The church was barely five minutes’ walk away, but there were various routes to it, with a network of small streets to choose from. It would be all too easy to miss Angie and Russell, once they started on their way home.

She took the most direct course, and very soon found herself on the edge of a milling crowd of people, dressed in dark colours. No nonsense about bright reds and yellows for this lady, she noted. There had been a spate of requests that the celebratory aspect be dominant, over the past year – a habit that Angie especially deplored. ‘It’s just another form of denial,’ she said robustly. ‘Give me the good old Victorian approach, with black shrouds everywhere and a year of mourning.’ Russell had been ordered to stay at home and be miserable for
at least
a year, if she died before him.

The atmosphere was very sombre, possibly even more so than Angie might have wished. In fact, as Simmy looked around her, the pale faces and whispered voices struck her
as decidedly abnormal. Even at her own baby daughter’s funeral, there had been a lightening of mood once the main event was over.

‘Did something happen?’ she asked a woman she knew by sight. ‘I’ve just got here, looking for my parents.’

‘Valerie collapsed, right there at the front of the church. We all thought she was dead for a few minutes. It was dreadful.’ The woman shuddered. ‘I’ve never seen such grief.’

Simmy was lost for words. She could hardly demand a detailed account from somebody she barely knew. It made it even more urgent that she find her mother, who would be able to supply a full description of whatever had happened. She looked around, hoping to see one or other of her parents in the ocean of faces. ‘Gosh!’ she said weakly. ‘Poor woman.’

‘It sounds mad, but honestly, it was exactly as if she’d seen a ghost. She was just getting into the eulogy, looking at everybody – you know, the way people do when they make a speech. Then she went white, and tried to speak, and just – passed out. There’s a man over there who swears she must have seen Barbara, looking up at her. Daft, of course.’

Oh well,
thought Simmy,
looks as if I’ll get all the details, whether I want them or not.

‘So then what? Did they carry on with the service?’

‘Sort of. There were two doctors – at least – in the congregation, and they revived her. She insisted everything carry on, and just sat in a huddle in a front pew, while we tried to sing the next hymn. The vicar did his bit, and then they rang the bells, and we all filed out. They’re doing the interment now. I saw Valerie propped up between two men.
I think they’re cousins or something. It’ll soon be finished. The whole thing was a lot shorter than it was supposed to be. Now nobody knows what’s happening.’

The milling about continued, with people craning their necks to see if anyone was issuing guidance somewhere. The undertaker’s team, led by Bruce, was standing stiffly beside the empty hearse, watching impassively. The whole road was blocked by the assembled mourners, making it impossible for them to drive away with dignity. Simmy remembered that poor old Mr Invermore wasn’t until three o’clock. They had a little time to spare.

Simmy worked her way eastwards, thinking that would be the direction taken by her parents and she might head them off. People had begun peeling away, with frustrated expressions. They all wanted to talk about the drama, to know whether the post-funeral spread was still going to happen, and whether they should go to it. Simmy heard snatches of conversation, much of it critical of Valerie. ‘She ought to know how to hold herself together better than that.’ ‘She should never have taken it upon herself to do a eulogy, if she wasn’t up to it.’ ‘Do we really know who she is, anyway?’ ‘Why doesn’t somebody tell us what to do now?’ There was a general sense of having been let down, and cheated of an experience they’d looked forward to. It was shocking for a funeral to deviate from the normal pattern, and somehow blasphemous. There was unease and a desire to lay blame. ‘If she was going to throw a fit, she should have kept it for the graveside,’ said one woman, quite loudly.

‘It was like that bit in
Macbeth
,’ came a familiar voice. ‘Where he sees the ghost of Duncan. I thought she looked paralysed by guilt.’

‘Ben?’ Simmy grabbed a shoulder. ‘What are you doing here?’

The boy shook her off. ‘I thought it would be an experience,’ he muttered.

‘And what’s all this showing off about
Macbeth
?’ she went on, feeling increasingly like his irate mother. ‘You can’t talk like that, you idiot.’

He scowled at her. ‘I can do what I like. It’s true, anyway. She looked as if she was expecting to be struck dead. And then she sort of
was
.’ His excitement was irrepressible. ‘It was awesome! I guess she thinks she let the Hodge lady down somehow. Imagining retribution from beyond the grave. It was like a
movie
, Sim.’

‘And you’re behaving like an eight-year-old. Come with me, before somebody hits you.’

‘Why would they hit me?’ He gave her a bewildered look. ‘I haven’t done anything.’

‘You’re being insensitive.’ She pulled him along, trying not to draw further attention from the milling crowd. ‘Come with me,’ she said again.

He resisted for a few seconds and then did as instructed, still talking. ‘Melanie’s going to be furious about missing it. She’s the only person not here. I saw your mum, in the church.’

‘Did you? Was she on her own?’

‘What? There were about a million people in there.’

‘I mean, was my dad with her?’

‘Not that I could see. Ah – there she is, look.’ He pointed with a triumphant air. ‘You can let go of me now,’ he added.

Simmy’s blood turned to ice. Her heart pounded sickeningly and her knees went weak, before she could
work out what was happening. Angie was dressed in a dark suit, with a pale blouse under it. Her face was serious, and her hair flattened down much more than usual. Ben, unaware of any problem, called to her, ‘Hi, Mrs Straw. We weren’t sure you were at the funeral. We’ve been looking for you.’

Funeral
! Simmy thought shakily. The last time she had seen her mother in those clothes was at the pathetic little ceremony that had marked the disposal of her own stillborn baby. The associations had been powerful enough to render her completely helpless, until she identified them. Before anybody could notice her state, she took a deep breath. Her heart rate subsided, but there was still a cold churning sensation in her middle.

But Angie had seen her daughter’s pale face and shaking hands. ‘Oh, P’Simmon! It’s brought it all back, hasn’t it. I should have known.’

‘It’s that suit,’ Simmy said faintly.

Angie looked down at herself. ‘Of course it is.’ She rubbed her forehead. ‘And now I understand why your father looked exactly the same as you’re looking now. It never even crossed my mind. What a monster I am sometimes.’

‘Dad? Didn’t he go with you? Where is he?’ She looked past her mother to the street outside, expecting to see him.

‘He couldn’t face it. I left him changing duvet covers. You know how long that always takes him.’

‘He didn’t answer the phone.’

‘When?’

‘Ages ago. Just before twelve. I assumed you’d both gone to the funeral.’

‘He’d have been upstairs, and not heard it.’ Angie showed no sign of worry, but Simmy was not reassured.

‘He
always
answers the phone,’ she said.

‘Did you leave a message?’

‘No.’

‘I told him not to answer the phone. If the person who wrote that letter tries to call, I don’t know what he’d do. He’s behaving so oddly, I was almost scared to leave him.’

‘Did you speak to the police?’