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

‘Not much of an idea, actually,’ said Oliver. ‘They’re very skilled at not giving anything away.’

‘Well, they probably don’t think it was a burglar,’ said Simmy. ‘Even if it’s a lot easier to imagine a drug-crazed teenager lashing out at the householder who hears a noise while they’re taking stuff. Something random like that, with no real malice behind it. Don’t you think?’ She was voicing her thoughts as they occurred, trying to remain conciliatory towards the man who Christopher clearly respected. Oliver had, after all, always been very generous and patient with his new partner, who had been welcomed into the business with no discernible reservations.

‘The police didn’t confide in me,’ Oliver said tightly. ‘They probably have me on their list of potential suspects, in fact. I’ve known Josie for twenty-five years, near enough. Like you, they seem to think that should give me special insight into why she was killed, at the very least.’

‘I know how that goes,’ said Christopher. ‘Being in the spotlight just because you knew the victim. At least you didn’t find Jo’s body. That takes things to a whole new level, believe me.’

‘Poor Fiona,’ Oliver sighed. ‘We really ought not to have sent her to the house like that.’

‘That was mostly me,’ said Christopher. ‘You hadn’t shown up at that point.’

‘But I agreed to it, on the phone,’ Oliver reminded him.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter now. What’s done is done.’ said Christopher. ‘Nobody could have known what Fiona was going to find.’

‘Never crossed my mind,’ Oliver agreed. ‘Not in a million years.’

‘Well, perhaps that wasn’t true of everybody,’ said Simmy softly. Both men gave her startled looks but said nothing. Again, she understood that she had crossed a line, but the knowledge only made her impatient. She wondered if it would be sensible to introduce the subject of Fabian Crick and his relations. The conversation was drying up, with the food suddenly occupying more attention than anything else. Oliver tucked determinedly into a steak, which was very much too rare for Simmy’s sensibilities. Then, the last of it gone he said, ‘Of course, my money’s on that wretched Armitage bloke. He was probably feeling pretty murderous when Josie turned him down.’ He looked from face to face. ‘I don’t suppose you know him, do you?’

It seemed to Simmy then that the case was solved, just like that. ‘You mean one of Fabian Crick’s uncles, do you?’ she said quietly. ‘Or someone else in that family? Or Fabian himself?’

‘What do you mean – turned him down?’ Christopher demanded, a second later.

‘Ah. I see you do at least have some idea of the connection. But no, actually. I wasn’t thinking of anyone named Fabian. I was talking about Richmond Armitage. The one who lives in Workington. The one who wanted to marry our precious Josephine.’

Chapter Eleven

‘But he must be twenty years older than her,’ said Simmy. ‘At least.’

Both men looked at her, eyebrows raised. ‘So what?’ said Oliver brusquely. Again, Simmy had the sense that she’d shown insufficient respect, that she was coming across as insolent. ‘Actually, I believe it’s somewhat less than that. Jo was a fair bit older than she looked.’

‘We know about Richmond,’ Simmy said. ‘He’s Fabian’s uncle, Aunt Hilda’s brother. Fabian has asked Christopher to find him, as it happens. We know he lives in Workington and has two sons. Are you saying you think he killed Josephine?’

‘Slow down a minute,’ Oliver complained, swiping a melodramatic hand across his brow. ‘I never said anything of the sort. Are we even talking about the same people? Hilda, you say? I do remember her. But who’s Fabian?’

‘I met him in Africa, a million years ago,’ said Christopher. ‘He’s just resurfaced, in the past few days. Now he lives practically next door to us, in Glenridding. He’s been telling us about his family. Josephine told him where he could find me. He’s been here at the saleroom recently, renewing an old friendship with her. The whole family knew her from schooldays, according to him.’

‘Does Richmond go to your auctions?’ Simmy asked, still trying to complete the circle of acquaintance and work out how everyone connected.

‘What?’ Oliver barked.

‘It’s a simple question.’ She glimpsed Christopher grimacing, as he sat beside his boss. However hard she tried, she was never going to manage to be sufficiently tractable in her dealings with Oliver. The man was too pompous and self-important to be treated with deference.

‘No, no, I wouldn’t think so. Of course I can’t know everyone who’s there. I don’t follow every transaction. But I do know who the regulars are – I remember their bidder numbers and their little habits.’

‘But you brought his name up. You obviously know him.’

‘Years ago now, he used to drop in to see Josie. His wife had gone off or died – I don’t remember. Josie liked him well enough, but he was totally uninterested in antiques. He couldn’t tell a Moorcroft from a Poole, or a kelim from a bearskin. Josephine used to talk about how uselessly ignorant he was.’

In Simmy’s mind, the circle was not so much closing as growing convoluted swirls, that linked to other circles. ‘You said he wanted to marry Josephine? When was that? Is it a recent thing?’

‘No, it goes back a while. A long while. She used to get the girls in the office to say she wasn’t there when he phoned her, once he got too pressing. It wasn’t far off being stalked, at one point. It’s probably twelve or fifteen years ago or thereabouts that it started. She’d have been hitting forty, and he was a well-set-up farmer approaching sixty. He was scouting around for a new wife. I never really understood what her problem was. It would have been a good move from her point of view. He wasn’t in Workington, though. That must have happened more recently.’

‘You think he could have killed her, then?’ This time Christopher butted in. ‘Like Simmy said?’

‘I wouldn’t dream of making such