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

from a large woman who was muttering relentlessly at the back of the queue. ‘Shouldn’t leave a slip of a girl like this in charge. How’s she meant to cope? All I came in for was a quick bunch of tulips. I’ve got to be in Bowness in exactly five minutes from now. I’ll be getting a parking ticket at this rate.’ A man in front of her felt compelled to make sympathetic grunts and nods, while casting embarrassed glances all around.

Simmy parked Robin at the back of the shop, in his bulky carry-seat and mentally rolled up her sleeves. ‘Who’s next?’ she asked brightly.

The only man in the queue took a step sideways. ‘Better deal with this lady first,’ he said gallantly.

Bonnie was wrapping a large sheaf of lilies, freesias and gypsophila, refusing to be hurried, her face very pink. The customer was a young woman who was obviously itching to help, her hand hovering near the cellophane, making Bonnie’s task more difficult. ‘Right then,’ said Simmy to the large woman. ‘Tulips, did you say? What colours?’

‘Red and pink, please. A dozen. No need for any fancy wrapping. Just let’s get on with it.’

‘We haven’t got any pink,’ Bonnie said softly.

‘Let me see what I can find,’ said Simmy with a broad, insincere smile.

Five minutes later, the shop was empty except for Bonnie, Simmy and little Robin, who was curled up in his portable chair, a white milky dribble trickling from his mouth. ‘That woman’s never going to come back,’ said Bonnie with a sigh. ‘Don’t you hate people who are in a rush?’

‘Can’t win ’em all,’ said Simmy. ‘The man was nice.’

‘Verity’s going to be back soon. Quick – tell me what you and Ben worked out.’

Simmy’s mind went blank, much to her alarm. ‘Er … he’s checking everybody on the Internet. He thinks there’s an obvious connection between Fabian turning up and Josephine being killed.’

‘Who’s Fabian?’

‘Oh Lord, Bonnie. I can’t go right back to the beginning again. You’ll have to ask Ben. And I should phone Christopher and find out what happened this morning. He was due for a police interview at ten o’clock. The auction house has closed for a couple of days, out of respect for Josephine. Plus, I suspect nobody’s sure how to carry on without her, anyway. She was the one they all relied on.’

‘Surely it’s all on the computer? All the buying and selling and prices and so forth?’

‘There’s always something that isn’t, though. Little details that never got logged, because they were all in Josephine’s head, and everyone knew to ask her if they were stuck.’

‘Like what?’

Simmy shook her head irritably. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Why are you being so … picky? Asking about things that are obvious. The point is, they’re going to be lost without her.’

‘Sorry.’ Bonnie pantomimed excessive meekness, designed to make Simmy feel awful. ‘I just wanted to try and get the whole picture. I’ve never been to one of their auctions, remember. I can’t really imagine what it’s like.’

Simmy responded precisely as she was meant to. ‘No,’ she moaned. ‘I’m the one who’s sorry. It’s been a bit of a busy morning, and my head isn’t working like it should. Helen says motherhood gives you focus and sharpens your wits, but it’s not working for me just at the moment.’

‘Well, don’t worry about the shop. You caught me at a bad time just now. It’s never like that usually. Thanks for rescuing me.’ There was a hint of resentment in the girl’s tone, or at least impatience, which Simmy fully understood. Just when Bonnie had wanted to demonstrate how effortlessly she was coping, fate conspired to show things at their most dysfunctional. ‘I should have ordered more pink tulips,’ she accused herself.

‘I shouldn’t leave you to do the ordering. I can easily manage that myself. There’s plenty I can do, if we’re organised about it. I can park Robin with my mother for an hour or so, two or three days a week, and we’ll muddle through like that until September or thereabouts.’ Again, the mention of a date reminded her. ‘Oh – and we’re getting married in June. I keep forgetting to tell people.’

‘Wow!’ Bonnie was visibly taken aback by this news and greatly cheered. ‘Who’s doing the flowers?’

‘You, obviously. It’ll just be small.’

‘Small! I can already think of at least fifty people who’ll absolutely have to come. Chris’s family for a start must be a dozen or more, counting the children.’

‘It’ll be a weekday. Children will be at school.’

‘Even so – Melanie, Ninian, Ben and his family, me, Corinne, Verity – loads of people.’

‘Ninian?’

‘Why not? He’s a good mate. And you’ll have people from where you used to live, old friends.’

Where Ben and Helen’s reaction had seemed a trifle lukewarm, Bonnie’s was definitely excessive in its enthusiasm. ‘Stop it,’ Simmy begged. ‘It’s just a formality, really. Nothing to make a great song and dance about.’

But Bonnie wouldn’t be repressed. ‘Moxon’s going to want to come. You know how he loves you.’ Detective Inspector Nolan Moxon had crossed paths with Simmy many a time in her accidental involvement with successive murders. He had worried about her, admired her, lost patience with her, always with an avuncular air of concern for her welfare. It was highly likely that he would want to come to her wedding, she acknowledged with a resigned smile.

‘He’ll be welcome,’ said Simmy.

‘When in June? It’s not long, you know.’

‘The first.’

Bonnie squawked and opened her mouth to protest, when Simmy interrupted her. ‘Let’s not talk about that now. I really do have to phone Christopher and get over to Beck View. And Robin must need a new nappy by now.’

‘I won’t say anything about the murder to Verity. She’ll be silly about it. There’s another order just now, so I can send her out again this afternoon.’

‘Is she terribly hard work for you?’ Simmy asked worriedly.

‘I told you – it’s good for me. She could be ever so much worse. And it’s not