The Troutbeck Testimony (9 page)

‘It must be a strange business,’ said Russell thoughtfully. ‘The way you have to rely on something as precarious as human memory and observation. Even though Simmy and I made a little game of it, and even wrote things down, I’m not sure we’d give very dependable testimony in a court of law. The car number is the only hard fact.’

‘The part about the cap has been helpful,’ Moxon reminded him.

Russell smiled faintly. ‘But not much else. If they
were
planning a burglary, that doesn’t seem especially relevant. Either they were new at it, or they were highly successful at getting away with it, given that they didn’t have a police record.’

‘
He
didn’t have one – McNaughton, I mean. The other chap could be different. That’s why it would be useful if Mrs Brown could have a look at some mugshots for us, just in case he or the man with the beard are in our system.’

Simmy groaned again at the prospect. Time was going to
be very short the next day as it was, without spending hours looking at photos of hardened criminals. ‘The people at the pub will have got a much better look at both of them,’ she argued. ‘And they probably even know who they are. I only got a quick glimpse of them through a car window.’

‘Nobody’s got anything helpful to say,’ he sighed. ‘They can’t even remember who we’re talking about.’

‘You showed them a picture of Travis?’

‘Nobody recognises it. And they’re all adamant that there has been no sign of any dogs being kidnapped in Troutbeck. It’s a very dog-friendly pub, and they seemed to take exception to the very idea. Personally I’m starting to doubt that it’s relevant – dognapping, I mean. The frustrating fact is, we were within an inch of making some arrests on that front, when all this blew up. Now we haven’t got enough pairs of hands for both that and the homicide. If we could find some link between the two, that’d help, of course,’ he added reflectively. ‘Which your observations led me to hope for, briefly.’

‘It really did look like a dead animal in that bag,’ Simmy insisted. ‘Heavy, lumpy. I was even sure I could see where stiff legs were making the whole thing awkward to carry.’

‘There’s nothing to say there couldn’t have been
two
dead dogs,’ said Moxon with a sigh. ‘To my knowledge, at least five have going missing this year, just from our local area. But they all date back to March or earlier, and they were all returned safe and sound. All the same, their people were extremely upset about it.’

‘It’s a rotten thing to do,’ said Russell feelingly. ‘The dogs must be so bewildered and frightened. I don’t imagine they look after them very well.’

‘They seemed to survive pretty well, actually. It’s the
people
who suffer lasting trauma.’

‘And you haven’t caught anybody?’

‘Not yet, no.’

All three fell silent, as they contemplated the limitations of the police and the wickedness of humanity.

Simmy left her parents’ house at eight-thirty and was home fifteen minutes later. It was dark, with rain predicted for the following day. The uncertainty of May evenings was all part of the Lakeland experience, she was discovering. One day it might be light until nine, and the next, it was dusky gloom at seven. It all depended on the degree of cloud cover. It comprised a substantial proportion of many a conversation in the village shop and other points of local contact. Nervous drivers would dither as to whether to venture out, not knowing what level of visibility they would meet on the way home.

She switched on the lights in both the downstairs rooms and pulled the curtains closed. This was not a regular routine, but she had found herself, in recent months, disliking the idea that persons outside might see into the house and track her movements. She could not rid herself of the image of the man in the passenger seat of the Renault as it left the pub on Monday. In his forties, with dark hair cut short and taller than his companion. She had lodged those few details by voicing them aloud to her father, and in so doing had irrevocably lost many others. She had admitted to Moxon that she was far from sure that she would know him again, which made her virtually useless as a witness.

It all went round and round in her head, the presence
of the murder scene feeling a lot closer than the half-mile it actually was. Her mind dwelt obsessively on the mystery of violent death. Once before she had witnessed the death of a man she had known, albeit briefly. This time it was even more brief, but the impossible change from living to dead carried the same impact. Accepting Moxon’s certainty that it was the same man she had seen, she kept recalling his hands and strong forearms on the steering wheel, swinging the car around the gravelled area and out into the little road. Muscle and blood and all five senses alive and fully functioning – and now not. Now he was inert and in all essentials gone forever. It happened every minute of every day, around the world and it remained as profoundly inexplicable as it always had. No wonder that nobody willingly dwelt on it, that the conspiracy to ignore and conceal it explained a great deal of human behaviour. It made one’s head turn to jelly and one’s flesh crawl with dread.

Out of a strong but opaque instinct, she phoned the one person who might have a reassuring approach to such musings. He answered promptly.

‘Sorry to call so late,’ she said. ‘It’s probably past your bedtime.’

Ben’s snort of derision made her feel better already. ‘What do you want?’ he asked, not quite rudely.

‘I saw Moxon a little while ago, at my parents’ place. I thought you might be interested.’

‘Yeah? Yeah! I am. Of course. What did he say?’

‘The dead man is called Travis McGinty – something like that. He must be the man my father and I saw on Monday, driving away from the Mortal Man. So our descriptions are important to the investigation.’

‘Okay. Didn’t we know all that already? They put his name on the news today anyway. It’s McNaughton, not McGinty. Scottish not Irish. Why do you sound so excited all of a sudden?’

‘I don’t know. I guess it just took a while to realise that it matters. I mean – that if I can help catch a murderer I should do all I can. And it’s very local, after all. It’s making me nervous to think he’s out there somewhere.’

‘Presumably he has no idea you and your father saw him and can describe him. Make sure Moxon doesn’t visit you in a cop car and make it obvious to the whole of Troutbeck.’

‘Too late. And there are
two
men to worry about. Not only did I see one of them very clearly, I actually talked to him last night. And he might easily have seen Moxon coming here. The other one probably didn’t notice me, thank goodness.’

‘Well, I expect you’re safe enough. They’ll be off and away, miles from here by now.’

‘You don’t sound very surprised.’ She wasn’t sure whether to sulk or be glad about that.

‘I already worked out that the men you and your dad saw must be right in the middle of it all. Otherwise, why would Moxon take any notice of what you told him? You’re telling me now that the victim was one of them? So the other one has to be the prime suspect. Doesn’t sound very complicated.’ His disappointment was palpable.

‘There’s a lot they don’t know yet. In fact, I keep reminding myself that the only actual
fact
is the car. If Dad and I hadn’t mucked about taking its number, there’d be no proof at all.’

‘They’ll find plenty, don’t worry. There’s sure to be lots
more stuff going on that we haven’t caught up with yet.’

The
yet
and the
we
both reverberated. Again she had difficulty in reading her own reactions. The prospect of Ben conducting his own amateur investigation with every expectation that she would share each step of his reasoning was wearying. Ben knew a lot about the law and obscure police practices, but he could not claim to have ever actually
solved
anything. He made suggestions and drew diagrams and hovered as close as possible to the action, but seldom anything more. Moxon tolerated him far more patiently than any other senior detective would, probably because Ben was, in the final analysis, extremely serious. He wasn’t getting involved for thrills or mischief, but because he wanted to learn as much as possible before embarking on his degree course. ‘Think of it as work experience,’ he had invited Moxon, more than once.

‘I’m going to be horribly busy over the next two days,’ Simmy told him. ‘So don’t expect much backup from me.’

‘Backup? In what sense do you mean that?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I won’t even manage to
listen
to you, and certainly won’t be able to take you anywhere.’

‘So why did you phone me?’ He seemed genuinely mystified.

‘I’m not sure, really. I got myself in a bit of a state, I suppose, and wanted to hear your sensible voice.’ The anomaly of a mature woman seeking solace from a teenage boy was impossible to ignore. But there had been other occasions when Ben’s friendship had proved therapeutic, however strange that might seem to other people.

‘So what’s with Bonnie Lawson?’ He suddenly changed the subject. ‘Have you any idea what you’ve taken on?’

‘Probably not, but if Melanie vouches for her, it’s got to be all right. Don’t you think?’

‘Melanie’s sister was Bonnie’s best friend, a bit ago. There’s sure to be an agenda, and I’m not sure your interests are on it.’

‘Don’t say that. She asked if she could use the rooms over the shop.’ This was a continuing niggle that Simmy couldn’t shift.

‘What for? To
live
?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about the dog?’

‘What dog?’

‘She’s got her own dog. A fluffy thing that goes everywhere with her. They had to let her have it with her in hospital. Surely you heard about that? The paper did a story about it, because she says it saved her life.’

‘She hasn’t mentioned a dog,’ said Simmy faintly. ‘She didn’t bring it to work with her.’

‘She will,’ said Ben. A voice could be heard in the background as one of his relatives shouted for him. ‘Look – I’ve got to go. See you Friday or Saturday, maybe. I’ll call in and chat, if you’ve stopped being busy by then.’

‘Bye, then. And thanks.’

Because it was definitely the case that she now had a whole new set of things to think about, and for that she ought probably to be grateful.

Cynthia Mossop was dressed when Simmy delivered the second lot of flowers in two days marking her birthday. ‘Oh, you poor thing!’ she cried. ‘Coming all this way twice, just because my friends can’t get their act together.’

‘All part of the job,’ said Simmy. ‘Although the weather could be better.’

The weather was in fact atrocious. Rain sheeted down, rendering the outlines of the fells and lakes fuzzy. The roads were splashy and the sky almost low enough to touch. Above Staveley the slopes of Hugill Fell were running with rivulets intent on joining the River Kent, which was the main feature of the valley. At least Ninian wouldn’t be waiting for her again this morning, she thought. While in no way unhappy to see him as a general rule, she was much too busy for him today.

The car had no allotted space behind the shop, which meant finding somewhere on the street that permitted
unrestricted parking. As a general habit, she left it in Lake Road, close to her parents’ house, but sometimes she was forced to use one that turned off the larger road. It was less than five minutes’ walk to the shop, whatever happened. This morning, the rain meant more people had travelled by car than usual, whatever their reason for coming to Windermere. She parked in a handy space in a side road, grabbing an umbrella from the back seat and trotting quickly into the town centre.

Once in the shop, she judged she had fifteen minutes to herself before Bonnie arrived, and she made good use of the time by checking and noting every order for the next day’s funeral. In total, there were fifteen tributes, eight of which had yet to be constructed. Everything had to be meticulously controlled on this momentous occasion. While weddings might require a larger quantity of flowers than this, the urgency associated with a funeral and the horrors that could result from a mistake made this her most demanding experience since opening the business. Nothing could be forgotten because there were no second chances with a funeral.

When Bonnie did arrive, she was soaking wet. Her skimpy hair was plastered to her head, making her look even smaller and younger than before. ‘Haven’t you got a hood?’ Simmy demanded, sounding like her own mother. ‘Look at you! Your
legs
.’ The girl was wearing a short jacket that had obviously not been designed for real weather. It had to be peeled off like a banana skin. Bonnie held it out at arm’s length.

‘You’re completely drenched,’ said Simmy, still not quite able to believe the extent of the wetness. ‘I’ve never seen such a wet person.’

‘I’m okay. It’s warm rain. I rather like it,’ came the careless reply. ‘I did have a nice big mac, but I couldn’t find it this morning.’

‘Well you’ll have to handle the customers for me today, if you think you’re up to it. Melanie did say she’d try and come in for a bit, later on, although she’s a bit unreliable these days. She knows I’m going to be awfully busy, so I guess she will turn up at some point.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ said Bonnie, squaring her wet shoulders. ‘I can shout for you if I need help.’

‘Let me go and find a towel.’ She came back with an inadequate offering from the toilet at the back and briskly rubbed the girl’s hair. ‘My mum says she knows your aunt. Corinne – is that her name? She went to look at some puppies you were selling.’

‘They’re all gone now.’ Bonnie pushed away the towel. Her voice echoed with melancholy. ‘We were closed down just after Easter.’

‘Closed down? Who by?’

‘Local authority. The RSPCA had a complaint about us, and said we were overcrowded. There’s an injunction. They only let us keep Spike and Millie, because they’re both neutered. We’re not allowed to breed again.’

‘You’ve got a dog of your own, I hear. Ben said something about it.’

‘That’s Spike. They wouldn’t dare take him away from me, after all the publicity.’

‘What sort is he?’ asked Simmy, not really interested in the reply.

‘He’s a funny mixture. His mother was a shih-tzu, and his father was a cross between a poodle and a golden
retriever. He’s mostly white and fluffy, but quite big. We had his mum, Delilah. She died last year.’

‘Well, you couldn’t possibly have a dog with you in the rooms upstairs. It makes it even more impossible.’

‘Why?’

‘Well – it’d bark. And those metal stairs would be hopelessly tricky for a dog.’

‘He’d be fine with them. He’s very agile.’

‘I’m not going to argue with you about it now. There’s too much to do. You’ll have to go home and get more clothes. I can’t have you dripping all day. Look at the puddles you’ve made already. How long would it take you?’

‘Probably about forty minutes, there and back. But I can’t do that. It’ll confuse Spike if I show up and then go again. He hates us being separated. I’ll be all right. I’m not cold.’

‘You will be.’

Bonnie simply stood where she was, fluffing out her hair and making soft squelching sounds with her sodden trainers. ‘Oh, there’s something I forgot to tell you. I’ll be going to the funeral tomorrow. Miss Hodge was really nice to Corinne and me last year. I ought to go and pay my respects, because Corinne says she can’t make it. I won’t stay for the thing afterwards, though.’

Simmy digested this carefully. ‘Am I missing something?’ she wondered. ‘You seem to know a lot of people. And they all know you.’

‘Oh, I’m nobody special. In fact, that’s my motto. Little Bonnie Lawson from a big untidy family, that’s me. Nobody pays her any attention.’

Simmy felt a growing impatience. ‘I’m not sure I believe that. It’s not the impression I’ve been getting so far. Now,
for heaven’s sake, what are we going to do about your clothes? There’s absolutely nothing here.’ She entertained wild thoughts of going across the street to the large lingerie shop and trying to buy a warm vest as being better than nothing.

‘I could try phoning Mel and see if she could bring me something when she comes in.’

‘She’s twice as big as you. Nothing would fit.’
Three times as big, more like it,
she thought.

‘I mean, something of Chloe’s. Mel’s sister. She’s my friend. We were best friends from Year Eight on. That’s how Melanie knows me. Didn’t she say that on Tuesday?’

‘Possibly. Phone her, then, and see if she can help. And tell her to bring a brolly so you can get home again.’

‘It’ll have stopped raining by then. Sorry to be such a nuisance, Simmy. I didn’t think, did I? I just set out, and sloshed through the puddles, thinking how lovely it all was. I never dreamt anybody would mind.’

‘Your aunt won’t be too happy if you get pneumonia.’ Simmy vaguely suspected that someone so malnourished might well be unusually vulnerable to all sorts of infections and problems.

‘She’s not actually my aunt. She’s just Corinne, okay. I’ll explain it all to you sometime.’

Simmy refrained from admitting that she knew this already, and more besides. She almost ran through to the back room, acutely aware of having lost a precious half-hour and throwing her schedule as a result. There’d be no time to stop for lunch, at this rate. And that brought to mind the other problem surrounding Bonnie. The girl was supposed to eat. Simmy had made that assumption the day before, and now
felt obliged to ensure that she did so. Irritation blossomed as the numerous responsibilities associated with her new assistant weighed her down. It felt like a real imposition, that she had not invited. It was all Melanie’s fault, she decided. If and when she showed up, Simmy would have a word with her. If she had time.

The two main floral tributes for the funeral were going to require considerable care. A wire frame had to be constructed for a cushion of blooms intended to sit on the middle of the coffin’s lid. It would be the focal point of the procession from Barbara Hodge’s house to the church, and then out to the graveyard. Every flower had to be precisely positioned and anchored, and a place found for the little ceramic addition that Valerie had supplied. It would take well over an hour to make.

There were voices out in the shop, as far as Simmy could tell discussing something quite calmly. She resisted the temptation to have a look, and pushed away a mental picture of Bonnie as a dripping object of surprised concern to any customer. There was every chance that the girl would overcome any awkwardness with her blithe manner, but it was still potentially embarrassing. For the first time, Simmy saw personal implications in the fact that Bonnie seemed well known throughout the town. Word would already be spreading that she had found a position in Persimmon Petals and now there would be additional spice to the story.
That Bonnie Lawson was soaking wet in the flower shop this morning. Like a drowned rat she was. And her such a fragile little thing – you’d think she would be better looked after, wouldn’t you?
And Simmy would look bad, as a neglectful mother figure.

She quashed these thoughts down and carried on with the floral cushion. The problem was that while it presented a technical challenge, it did not occupy her whole mind. After the first dozen flower heads had been put into position, the rest fell into place almost automatically. Nimble fingers pressed them into the mesh and checked they were properly anchored. Every few minutes she stood back to examine the effect. It was destined to be an impressive piece of work. A shame, she thought, that the dead woman wouldn’t see it. Funeral flowers served many purposes, their quantity and quality dictated mostly by the preferences of the deceased. Ironic, Simmy always thought. And really rather wasteful. There was still a slight awkwardness as to the subsequent fate of tributes, when the cremation or burial was over. Relatives took them home reluctantly, and old people’s residences would often plead for respite as yet another batch of flowers was deposited on them. In a busy season they could find themselves inundated. Undertakers factored in post-funeral flower deliveries as part of the overall service.

And still, waiting sneakily behind these trains of thought, was the fact of a murder in Troutbeck. Ben would probably be industriously seeking out further information from his network of contacts. His brother’s friend worked in the mortuary where post-mortems were carried out. Melanie maintained a lopsided relationship with a police constable and passed any snippets directly to Ben. The boy was adept at tracking online news reports and gossip. Before long he would be apprised of a great many details. And there would be no chance of preventing him from sharing them with her. She had, after all, rashly invited him to do exactly that.

Her own shaky analysis of what had happened was along the lines of a dognapping episode gone wrong, in spite of Moxon’s doubts about that. Either that or a burglary. She visualised a scenario where the criminals had been discovered and chased by an irate householder into the empty farmyard. But there her imagination failed. Surely nobody could be so irate as to slash a man’s throat with a sharp implement? And where had the second felon been throughout the chase? He, then, had taken against his companion for some reason, and attacked him in a murderous frenzy.

She tried to force her thoughts on to another track. Whatever had happened, the police would surely have little difficulty in resolving the matter. Issues of forensic evidence; finding witnesses to who was where when; examining decomposing canine bodies and an investigation into the wider world of animal theft would all eventually receive their due attention, and order would be restored. None of it would require any further assistance from Simmy or her father, or so she hoped. There was every prospect of an arrest and charge that very day, she told herself, with outrageous optimism.

It was quiet again in the shop, and Simmy was thirsty. Breakfast had been several hours ago, after all. Again she felt burdened by the apparent requirements of her new assistant. She ought to force Bonnie to eat a biscuit or something. She ought to have done much more than that, at the outset – such as contacting the girl’s legal guardian and checking that it was all right with them for her to be working in the shop. The casual arrangement had seemed entirely unremarkable at first, but by this, the third day, a
whole lot of complications were starting to dawn. Bonnie’s imperviousness to heavy rain was alarming, for one thing. And Simmy had been lax in failing to get her dry. Now the cushion was finished, she could breathe more easily. None of the other orders was for anything so demanding. She filled the kettle and set it boiling, and went out to the shop.

‘Tea or coffee?’ she asked.

‘Oh – neither, thanks. I mainly just drink water, or juice.’

‘You had tea yesterday.’

‘I mean, in the mornings. Sorry – you’ll get used to my silly ways. Don’t worry about it.’

‘Did you get Melanie? Is she bringing clothes?’ The girl looked no less wet after an hour or more. ‘Who was that in the shop just now?’

‘Oh, just somebody buying a mixed bunch. It was easy so I didn’t bother you. She paid with cash.’

‘Was she surprised at how wet you are?’

‘I made a joke about it. She said she remembered walking through a downpour in London years ago, and what fun it had been.’

‘Hmmm.’ Simmy felt middle-aged and dour. She had never willingly walked through a downpour in London or anywhere else. Getting wet had always struck her as a highly undesirable experience, especially when wearing normal clothes. Even swimming wasn’t her favourite activity.

‘Melanie said she’d be here about eleven for a couple of hours. She sounded a bit stressed out, actually. Something to do with the car, I think.’

‘She’s always stressed about that car. I’ll leave all the computer stuff for her, then. She can check for new orders and sort out tomorrow’s deliveries for me. I need
to get back to making the next funeral wreath.’

‘Can I see what you’ve done so far?’

‘If you want.’

Simmy stood back diffidently as Bonnie admired the cushion. ‘It’s fabulous!’ she squealed. ‘I could never manage anything like that. Where did you learn to do it?’

‘I took a course, before moving up here, but mainly it’s trial and error, and practice. I had to look through my notes to see exactly how to get started, I must admit. This is only the third one of this style I’ve ever done.’