The Windermere Witness (6 page)

He was a solid man, the flesh of his jaw and neck somehow dense and unyielding. His mouth was a thin line, his small hands a pale beige colour. He moved stiffly, as if wearing a corset.

Who
were
these people? Simmy found herself wondering. Why was she there? What did they want of her? If ever
there was a case of intruding on private grief, this had to be it.

‘That police inspector seemed a decent chap,’ Eleanor began yet another new tack. ‘Surprisingly sensitive, I thought. Dealt with George very professionally.’

George glowered. Simmy remembered that Melanie’s Joe had reported Mr Baxter as throwing wild accusations around, in the first moments following the discovery of Markie’s body. He had, apparently, leapt straight to the conclusion that the boy had been murdered. What, she wondered, had DI Moxon made of that?

‘I do want some supper,’ Lucy interrupted. ‘Please.’ She glanced at Simmy, as if to assure her that the earlier nudge towards politeness had been noted.

‘Right, then. Soup, boiled egg and the rest of that crumble we had yesterday – okay?’ Eleanor, who had remained standing near the window, made decisively for the door. The child got up and followed.

Simmy felt a sharp panic at the prospect of being left alone with George. Was she supposed to just blurt out her conversation with Markie, the moment Lucy was out of the way? Or should it wait until the child was fed and put to bed? That could take hours. She herself had yet to find a place to sit. There were upright chairs against the wall, but no sofa or easy chair. ‘Oh, sorry,’ said Eleanor, before disappearing. ‘The sofa’s away being reupholstered, that’s why it seems so uninviting. Grab one of those chairs – they’re not as bad as they look.’

There was something odd about the decision to use this formal room, Simmy felt. Did Eleanor want to keep the family room free of the taint of death? Or did she never
take visitors there? Her head felt swollen with the need to concentrate, whilst not appearing too inquisitive or intrusive.

‘I’ll get us a drink,’ said George heavily. He went to a mahogany sideboard and opened one of the doors. ‘What would you like?’

It was the first time he had looked directly at Simmy, and he seemed to have to force himself. She glimpsed an array of bottles in the cupboard and wondered wildly what she ought to say. ‘Oh – sherry, thanks.’

‘Dry, sweet or Amontillado?’ he asked automatically.

‘Amontillado, please, if that’s all right.’

He extracted a bottle and opened the other door to find glasses. Everything was accomplished deftly, as if for the thousandth time. He poured himself an inch of neat whisky and carried the drinks across the room to where Simmy was perched on a chair that she was fairly sure must be a Chippendale. She considered a host of possible conversation openers:

Did it take you long to get here this morning?

Have you other children?

Eleanor seems to have interesting ideas about home decorating.

I understand that Bridget and Peter have known each other a long time.

I hope Lucy isn’t going to be too badly upset by all this.

And more along similar lines; all of them, except perhaps the first, impossible to utter, for fear of where they might lead. It was equally unacceptable to refer to Markie’s death and
not
to refer to it. She knew, vaguely, where Baxter lived. There had been a prominent magazine feature about the
house he and his present wife had created somewhere in Lancashire. Melanie had shown it to her, when the approach about the wedding flowers first happened. The new wife had evidently remained aloof from the wedding, or perhaps not been invited. The only thing Simmy could recall about her was that she was a landscape gardener and had wrought something miraculous on the exposed coast somewhere north of Fleetwood. Perhaps this would be a safe opener.

But before she could find the breath to speak, George himself was cracking the conversational ice and turning it to steam. ‘One of those cronies of the Harrison-Wests did this,’ he exploded, eyes bulging, fists clenched. ‘The lad was in too deep. I
told
him, years ago, to stay clear of them. But no – he had to follow Bridget wherever she went, whatever cesspit he might fall into because of her.’

Simmy’s insides fluttered at the crazy violence of his words. She thought of the fresh-faced Bridget, so blithe and carefree.
Cesspit?
she queried silently. Then ‘Cronies?’ she said aloud.

‘That Spaniard, for one. And Harrison-West himself, come to that. The golden boy with his easy money. Not so smug after that accident on the mountain, was he? Nearly finished him, that did. If it hadn’t been for Glenn Adams and Bridget, he’d have landed up in the funny farm. And Markie – my Markie – worrying himself to a shadow over it all. “Not your business, boy,” I told him. But he wouldn’t listen. Just kept saying Peter and Bridget needed him.’

He wasn’t really talking to her, she realised, but more to some invisible controller of destiny, who might just possibly help him to make sense of the calamity that had befallen him.

She could make little of his remarks, other than gleaning a hazy picture of five men – if Markie were included – and one girl, friends for years, with their own secrets and passions impenetrable to an outsider. None of the men was married, as far as she was aware. Had Peter spoilt some sort of pattern by entering into matrimony? Had Markie made trouble somehow? Felix was also planning to marry, according to Melanie. The old bonds would loosen and change, inevitably. Baxter seemed so sure that one of the ‘cronies’ killed the boy, but the thought was deeply repugnant.

‘Surely,’ she protested, ‘none of them would do such a terrible thing to Bridget? Markie was her
brother
.’

Baxter took a breath and stared at a point above her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered. ‘You don’t know any of us, do you? You can’t begin to understand. I’m not sure I do myself. I just keep remembering an incident, when Markie was about fifteen. He fell off a horse. We all blamed Harrison-West for it. Just like when Mainwaring fell off the mountain.’

‘What happened?’ Simmy prompted.

He spoke in fragments. ‘It was the summer. They wanted to go camping near Ennerdale. It’s wild country up there. Nell said Bridget could go, but Markie’s mother put her foot down. He went anyway. Ran off and joined them.’

‘And fell off a horse while they were there?’

‘Trekking,’ he nodded. ‘Broke his arm.’

‘And they all went? Pablo, Glenn – all of them?’

Baxter nodded. ‘Penny was furious. Almost scratched his eyes out.’

‘Whose eyes?’

‘Harrison-West’s. He paid for it all. It was always down to him, when they did those trips. Buying popularity, as I saw it.’

‘You let Bridget go, though. You trusted them?’

‘Safety in numbers,’ he shrugged. ‘Nell said it would be all right. They went off every summer, playing
Swallows
and Amazons
. But Markie was the interloper. He never fitted in. Never had friends of his own age.’ He trailed off, with a deep sigh.

Simmy couldn’t let it end there. ‘But you
trusted
them? With your young daughter?’ she repeated, unable to get to grips with the story she was hearing. ‘All those men so much older than her.’

He smiled grimly. ‘Never too sure about the Spanish bloke,’ he admitted. ‘He’s in insurance, for God’s sake.’

Simmy wanted to ask whether that was better or worse than being a financial advisor or a fund manager. And whether any of them automatically qualified a person for homicide.

She wanted to enquire into the background of everyone at the wedding, for the satisfaction of her own curiosity. Who was Glenn Adams, the shaven-headed best man, for example? And how did Bridget’s parents really feel about their girl marrying a man scarcely younger than themselves? She realised that her image of Peter Harrison-West was of an over-ripe bachelor, too long living alone to readily adapt to the married state. Would his young bride have to fall in with his foibles and routines? Or did she know them already, from earliest childhood? Was the marriage really something very sweet and wholesome, as most people seemed to think?

‘Have you known him long?’ she ventured.

‘Who – the Spaniard? No, I don’t know him at all. I never even spoke to him until last week when we had that stupid pre-wedding party. That was a fiasco, I can tell you. Waste of money on a grand scale.’

Simmy had some acquaintance with the habit of very rich people to watch closely over their pennies. ‘Well, of course,’ Melanie had said when Simmy remarked on the frugality of a funeral of a man known to be well heeled. ‘That’s how they get to be rich in the first place.’

It made sense, but Simmy suspected there was more to it than that. They wanted to escape opprobrium from people less well favoured than themselves. And they wanted to avoid the sheer bad taste of excessively flashy demonstrations. Celebrities, made rich overnight, might indulge in the scattering of their wealth – easy come, easy go – but if you really worked for it, then you didn’t throw it around.

‘Fiasco?’ she echoed.

‘Peter was in a foul mood, for some reason. Nerves, probably. Or somebody said something to him. I don’t know. Bridget was upset, which put a damper on everything. That girl is
never
upset. She’s like some sainted angel, the way she breezes through life, always smiling and thinking of others. Even when her mother and I … well, even then, she sailed through without taking sides or complaining. She gets on with Wanda; she’s besotted with Lucy. And Markie was her best friend,’ he concluded wretchedly.

‘Wanda?’

‘My wife.’

‘Of course.’
Of course
. She knew that.
Keep up, Sim
, she
ordered herself. So why wasn’t Wanda at the wedding, at her husband’s side, supporting him in his loss?

He answered the silent question. ‘She was meaning to be there, obviously. She thinks the world of Bridget. But she’s ill. Something she ate. Can’t keep anything down. Doctors think it must be e-Coli, which would make it a serious business. She’s thin enough as it is.’

‘Worrying,’ she sympathised.

‘Yes.’

‘That police detective seems to be quite … well, he seems to know what he’s doing.’

George shook his head angrily. ‘Wasting time, asking all those stupid questions. Needs to cut to the chase, before the trail goes cold.’ The hunting metaphor wasn’t surprising, she supposed, but it sat very awkwardly with her impression of DI Moxon.

‘They’ll be doing a lot of forensic stuff,’ she said vaguely. ‘It’s probably much more proactive than it looks.’

‘I
told
him it had to be one of the gang – most likely the Spaniard. He was in a real state through the ceremony, dancing about, eyes everywhere. A picture of guilt, if we’d only realised at the time what he’d done. I
told
that detective bloke all about it. There were money issues, damn it. Markie’s got a lot coming to him, it needs to be managed properly—’ He stopped on a choking breath, as he heard himself. ‘What’ll happen to it now?’ he whimpered.

Give it to Bridget
, Simmy thought. Wasn’t she just as fitting an heir as Markie?

‘Pablo handled Markie’s money?’ she queried. ‘But you said he was in insurance.’

‘Life insurance. Covering his back. It’s complicated.’

She threw caution out of the window. ‘But how would he benefit from Markie’s death?’ she asked.

‘Benefit?’ The man blinked at her, mastering his anguish with an effort. ‘He’ll be given merry hell, if there’s a payout. The boy’s life was insured for millions.’

‘So he’d be more likely to do everything in his power to keep him alive, then – wouldn’t he? Why would he murder him?’

She tried hard to keep abreast of the flying shards of information. If Markie’s life was insured, wouldn’t his parents get the payout when he died?

Baxter closed his eyes. ‘He’s quite liable to have taken out a counter policy, a gamble if you like, betting the lad would die young.’

‘What? That can’t be legal, surely?’ The murky practices of high finance were no less obscure to her than to any other ordinary person, its language so alienating that she preferred to ignore it completely. ‘And if he did do that, the police will discover it.’

He nodded with a brief smile, suggestive of a cunning satisfaction. ‘They will now I’ve spoken to them,’ he said.

‘But you don’t know for certain. You’re just guessing.’

‘It’s what I would have done,’ said the City financier, without a shadow of shame.

‘You would have killed another man’s son? The brother of your friend’s fiancée?’ She gave herself a mental gold star for getting the relationships right first time.

‘No, of course not. I mean I’d have tried to cover all the bases. Make sure it was win-win. It’s second nature.’

Simmy felt a quiver of fear at the effortless power these men could wield. Nothing could break their hold on the
purse strings; as soon as the rules changed or tightened, they found a loophole, like rats shut out of the food store, making an alternative entrance overnight. The comparison with rats seemed to hold good in other ways, once she began to think about it. Ruthless, sharp, hungry and with no sense of moderation – both groups fitted these epithets quite neatly.

‘But—’ She wanted to shout at him, to accuse his entire breed of inhumanity and wholesale lack of integrity. She wanted to tell him his way of behaving was sick and corrupt and small wonder it ended up with the death of an innocent boy. And yet he had just lost his only son, and was therefore not to be shouted at. She wondered how gently DI Moxon had treated him. Had the detective taken Baxter’s accusation against Pablo and the others seriously? Perhaps, by now, the whole business had been settled, the Spaniard in custody making a tearful confession.

Baxter interrupted whatever she might have said, with a flapping gesture in front of his face. The sort of gesture people made when they were choking and did not want to be slapped on the back or given water. His face darkened, and his eyes were different. She watched him as the actual irreversible truth of Markie’s death hit him for the first time. She watched inner defences crumble, and waves of horror replace the all-too-easy anger and intellectualising. She watched him blunder across the room, push back a curtain and stare blindly out at the uncaring lake and mountains outside, now dotted with lights as night took hold. He was shaking, his teeth chattering. Simmy considered fetching Eleanor to deal with him, but remembered the child, who might come as well and be traumatised by the sight of a man collapsing in front of her.