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

Simmy wondered whether the patronising look Pattie had given the man had been the cause of his withdrawal. Had she hurt his feelings? Was there some sort of history between the two of them? She found herself brimming with questions to ask Christopher in the car.

Chapter Twelve

But there was a new distraction when they got back into the car. Simmy’s phone was poking out of her bag and reflexively she switched it on to check for messages, once she’d secured Robin back into his seat. There was a text from Ben. Where are you? What’s happening? I have info about Hilda you should know.

She replied briefly saying they were driving home from Keswick and she would call him in an hour or so. ‘Ben says he’s found out more about Hilda,’ she reported, as Christopher turned onto the sweeping A66, which was one of Simmy’s least favourite Lakeland roads. It felt alien – too new and brash and hurtling for the region. Once they’d left it for the much smaller lanes down to Patterdale and Hartsop, she felt more at ease. Christopher was an erratic driver, never seeming to fit his speed to the conditions, causing Simmy to look for excuses not to ride with him more than necessary.

‘Oh?’ was all he said.

‘What’s the matter? Why are you so quiet?’

‘Nothing much. Oliver was awfully pompous, wasn’t he? I’ve hardly ever seen him in that sort of context. He’s always very businesslike at work.’

‘He was okay,’ she argued, aware that she was contradicting herself. ‘He’s the sort of man who’s uneasy around babies and female flesh. Has he ever had a serious relationship?’

‘That’s what everybody wants to know. We all assume he’s gay, but there’s never been a sign of a paramour. If that’s an acceptable word. He’s away a lot, of course. He might have someone tucked away in a town flat somewhere. My guess is he hates to seem like a stereotype, but really he is. Those soft grey waistcoats and girly fingers – did you notice? All ideal for handling delicate antiques and confirming his image as an expert. But there’s more to him than that. He’s no fool.’

‘I didn’t notice the waistcoat or the fingers,’ she admitted. ‘But it was a perfectly nice lunch, and you obviously need to stay on the right side of him.’ And she went on to quiz him about relationships between the saleroom staff, and whether Pattie stood any chance of stepping into Josephine’s shoes.

‘Fiona wouldn’t like it,’ he said. ‘But Pattie does have a point. Fiona’s fine with the things and coping with the stressful days when everyone’s running round in circles, but she wouldn’t make a good team leader. I can’t imagine her issuing instructions or trying to teach anybody how to do something. She’s quite driven, I suppose, but only on her own narrow business. She doesn’t do idle chatter and seems uninterested in anyone else’s lives.’

‘Was Josephine interested in other people’s lives?’

‘Oh yes! She knew the names and birthdays of everyone’s spouse, child and mother-in-law. Not just the staff but most of the vendors and buyers as well. And she had a phenomenal memory for past sales – prices, who bought what, all that stuff. Sometimes it felt as if she imbued the things with a character – a soul, if you like. She’d go all wistful about a bronze figurine we sold twenty years ago. Or if a stray plate showed up, she’d agonise because it could have been matched up with a set that went for six quid back in 2009, because it wasn’t complete. All that sort of thing. She lived and breathed the place. We all wondered whether she had any life at all outside the auction house.’

This was a new angle on the woman, and Simmy took time to absorb it. ‘She did, though, if she took so much interest in people’s lives. That must have extended beyond her workplace, surely? And what was that about filing cabinets?’

‘Say again.’

‘Oliver said she was slumped between the filing cabinets – something like that.’

‘Did he? Sounds unlikely.’

‘It’s definitely what he said.’

Christopher had nothing more to offer on that topic, so they returned to the question of Josephine’s social life. ‘She did keep up with Fabian, after all,’ said Simmy. ‘And she had a cat.’

Christopher laughed. ‘Another stereotype, then.’

‘You could say that. Maybe anybody who works in the same job for decades turns into a bit of a type. They get stuck in the same routines and are surrounded by the same people every day. Doesn’t that sound sad? A wasted life.’

Christopher nodded. ‘That’s what I envied about my dad – going to all those different houses, no two days the same. The stories he came home with! It was life’s rich tapestry, all right.’ Kit Henderson had been a carpet fitter for much of his working life.

‘What about you? You’re not trying to tell me you’ll be wanting to move on one of these days, are you? Take up car maintenance or become a postman?’ She was fleetingly concerned that this really might happen. For herself, she had no great argument with a modest number of routines, if they meant she always knew where the next loaf of bread was coming from.

‘Definitely not car maintenance. All that horrible oil! And I don’t think a postman’s pay is enough to tempt me.’

‘I wonder about Aunt Hilda,’ she went on, thinking of Ben’s message. ‘She must have been open to change and risk, the way she made such a success. Building up a business and then selling it, and going on to something new. It takes courage, especially for a woman.’

He made a sound that suggested disagreement. ‘I’m not sure we can believe all of it. I mean – we’ve only got Fabian’s word, and he could have been exaggerating. Wouldn’t she be a sort of female Richard Branson, if it’s all true? We would have heard of her.’

‘It is true.