The Ullswater Undertaking by Rebecca Tope (read dune .TXT) 📕

‘Are you going to track down Uncle Richmond, then? If so, what’ll you say to him?’

‘I can try and find his phone number, maybe. Or I could just ask Josephine to fill me in on the whole lot of them. That’s the obvious thing to do. She might warn me not to touch any of them with a bargepole.’

‘Fancy her inheriting the house!’ Simmy marvelled for the third or fourth time. It kept hitting her all over again that the apparently unremarkable woman must have hidden and unsuspected depths. ‘They must have been really good friends.’

Christopher shrugged. ‘That’s another thing I can ask her. I’m quite looking forward to hearing all about it.’

Simmy felt another surge of dislike for Fabian. ‘Well, don’t let them drag you in too deep, will you? We’ve got a young baby, remember. I need you here every minute you’re not at work. And it seems to me you can’t possibly have caused him to get written out of his aunt’s will. She must have realised what a slimeball he is and changed her mind – probably five minutes after she told him he was going to be her heir. I don’t think you owe him anything at all.’

‘Well, I beg to differ on that,’ said Christopher with a sigh.

‘We’re going to regret this,’ she warned him. ‘I can feel it in my bones.’

‘Sorry, sorry,’ he grovelled. ‘But what could I do about it? You saw what he was like.’

‘I know. It’s not your fault. But what happens now? He’s going to keep coming back and it’ll be the same thing, over and over again. We’ve probably got him for life. And we don’t even know in any proper detail what he wants us to do.’

‘“Us”?’ echoed Christopher, with an uneasy smile.

‘Yes. You wouldn’t know where to start – and you’ve got plenty of other things to think about. But I’ve got Ben and Bonnie, and Tanya and even Melanie to call on. It’s ages since I’ve seen her. She might have a bit of spare time.’ Melanie Todd was Bonnie’s predecessor in the flower shop. She had moved on to work in a hotel, ambitiously climbing a promising career ladder.

‘Simmy …’ Christopher said warningly, before clamping his lips together. There was nothing he could safely say.

Simmy went on blithely, ‘If anyone can get to the bottom of this, it’s Ben. And Ben’s going to like the story. Fabian Crick won’t know what’s hit him, if I set Ben onto him and his Uncle Richmond.’

‘Serve him right,’ said Christopher, with another cautious smile.

Over breakfast next day, they went back to the subject. ‘I was thinking about it in the night,’ said Simmy. ‘While I was doing the four o’clock feed. Don’t you think that might have just been an opening salvo sort of thing? Checking us out, feeling his way, before he told us anything really important?’

‘Could be. I was thinking about it, too. I need to find out from Josephine just what I might be letting myself in for if I contact the uncle. I’ll have to tread carefully, or she’ll think I’m annoyed with her for giving him my address and number.’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘Surprised more than annoyed. It never occurred to me she might have an interesting past, with boyfriends and dodgy relationships.’

Simmy had refrained from disclosing her own impressions about Josephine. Having met her precisely four times, she was utterly convinced that the woman was besotted with Christopher. She had been working at the auction house for close to twenty years, installing new systems, introducing online bidding, juggling all the buyers and vendors and their complex interactions. Oliver had been the head man for all that time, conducting all the auctions personally, and second to none in his skill at valuations. Right up to the present day, Christopher maintained that Oliver was the object of Josephine’s adoring loyalty, a devotion both safe and misplaced, since Oliver never had any interest in women as love objects. On the arrival of a new young man, eager to learn and thoroughly presentable as a junior auctioneer, Josephine’s affections had very obviously been transferred. Only Christopher himself remained stubbornly oblivious to the fact.

‘Sounds as if she’s useful both ways, if you see what I mean,’ she said. ‘If she’s telling Fabian about you, she can tell you about the whole lot of them.’

‘She’ll probably like that,’ he nodded. ‘It’ll make her feel important. She enjoys being the pivotal person. At least, I think she does. I’m starting to wonder if I know her at all.’

‘Well, at least find out why he’s living in Glenridding, and what it is he wants to happen next.’ She faced him squarely. ‘Do you really feel you owe him anything? Have you any intention of helping him with this weird family mystery?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said frankly. ‘So far, there doesn’t seem to be anything specific I could do, even if I wanted to.’

‘He must have been softening you up, testing the water. After all, he probably realises he hardly knows you at all. Everything cuts both ways, remember. That’s what Ben would say.’

The Monday following a Saturday auction was always busy with buyers collecting their purchases, involving carriers with vans and trailers loading up the larger items, and the more distant online bidders making various arrangements for the delivery of their goods. While the team was quite capable of handling all that, Christopher needed to be there in the interest of public relations. He was in demand on all sides, for chats with a number of regulars about prices, condition and provenance. New buyers wanted to make themselves known to him. And there would often be disputes to resolve, when someone had gone off with the wrong thing, either by accident or design.

‘I’d better be going,’ he said, at half past eight. ‘I won’t be late home.’

Simmy waved as he drove away and went to gather up her baby so she could forget