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

next after her. He’s mid eighties. Then I think Richmond is a good ten years younger again. And Fabian’s mother fits in between somewhere. I can’t find where I wrote it all down now. Is it important?’

‘Probably not. Did they all have the same parents?’

‘I don’t know.’ Ben shook his head irritably, and Robin chose that moment to emit a plaintive cry, as if something had severely disappointed him. Simmy peered into his face and asked him what the problem was. Ben waited patiently. ‘He’s been very peculiar the last day or so,’ Simmy said.

‘Ask my mum for advice. She knows all there is to know about babies.’

Simmy’s instant reaction was to resist asking anyone for help, including Ben’s mother. Helen Harkness had admittedly produced five healthy babies, while maintaining her place in the competitive world of architecture. Simmy had unconsciously assumed that she’d had nannies and home helps and done a minimal amount of the dirty work herself. Although she had shown gratifying enthusiasm for Robin on Tuesday, she had not made any of the usual enquiries that one mother made to another. Sleepless nights, nappy rash, sore nipples. It was as if none of that side of baby care was relevant.

‘We need to know why now,’ said Ben, taking up the thread again, in a new place. ‘That’s always relevant. Why did Fabian show up when he did? The obvious answer has to be Hilda’s death. And something about Josephine inheriting the house. Houses are always relevant, aren’t they?’

‘We thought the one in Grasmere was,’ Simmy agreed. ‘Old ladies and houses obviously go together.’

‘This one’s a lot more than just a house though. Family. History. Money. All good motives for murder.’

‘We don’t seem to be getting anywhere,’ Simmy complained. ‘At first I was blaming Christopher for making that promise ten years ago, but since Josephine was killed, that doesn’t seem so relevant. We’d have been involved anyway.’

‘Would you, though? You’d have the excuse of the baby, and you hardly knew the woman. It was only because of Fabian that you felt a connection. It’s quite flimsy, when you think about it.’

‘I should never have gone to Keswick yesterday. That made it worse – I mean, that pulled me in even further. I got to know some of the auction people and can see how they’re all knocked sideways. Oliver’s trying to keep calm about it, but it’s sure to have interrupted his retirement plans.’

‘Is it? How?’

‘Well – I suppose he thinks he’ll have to train up her replacement and be there more than he really wants. He was there yesterday when I got the impression he wouldn’t have been normally.’

‘He’ll be worried about their reputation,’ said Ben, tapping his teeth with his pen. ‘Although a bit of scandal’s often good for business.’

‘It’s a murder, not a scandal. Not like the thing with Hilda and her baby.’

‘I’m not sure they’re so different.’ He tapped faster. ‘There is a connection somewhere, I know there is.’

‘It’s such a long time ago, Ben. How can a baby born seventy-odd years ago have anything to do with Josephine being killed? It would make a lot more sense if Hilda had been the victim, but she just died of old age.’

‘Did she? Are we sure?’

‘Come on! Don’t start that. From what Fabian says, nobody’s benefited from Josephine’s death. If anything, it’s caused extra trouble for them all.’

‘Can we go and look at Hilda’s house? We can assume there’s nobody living in it. Don’t ask me what we’d be looking for, but it can’t hurt to have a look.’ He tapped his screen and came up with an address in seconds. Then he tapped again and got Google Earth to show the handsome building overlooking Ullswater. ‘Very nice,’ he sighed. ‘Very nice indeed. That’s got to be causing untold ructions, if they can’t decide who gets it now. There could be a clause somewhere that says it reverts to the Armitages in the event of Josephine’s death.’

Simmy gave him a look. ‘Really? That sounds highly unlikely to me. And wouldn’t it incriminate them totally when Josie was murdered?’

Robin had fallen asleep, milky dribble running down his chin, his head flopped back. There was a new rash of pink spots across his nose, which Simmy told herself was entirely normal. Some gobbledygook about the bloodstream flushing out unwanted substances floated around her head. The mysteries of neonatal biochemistry were well beyond her knowledge or interest. Half of it sounded too unlikely to take seriously, anyway.

‘We need to go and look at it,’ Ben remarked carelessly. ‘We could go now, I suppose.’

‘No, Ben. I want to go to Beck View for lunch and pop in to have a chat with Bonnie.’

‘You did all that two days ago.’ His tone was too close to a whine to be taken seriously. ‘We’re stuck until we make something happen somehow. The police are going to be miles ahead of us at this rate.’

‘I didn’t know it was a competition,’ she said. ‘We ought to be pleased if that happens.’

‘Oh, well – I don’t actually expect it will. Have they even interviewed all those Armitages yet?’

‘I assume that happened yesterday – Fabian, anyway. Why would they want to question Uncle Ambrose? Nobody’s said anything about him knowing Josephine.’

‘Ah – but do they know about Uncle Richmond and Josephine? Who apart from Christopher would have told them the man even exists? Which way are they taking the investigation, I wonder?’

‘Good question.’

‘Where’s Helen?’ Simmy asked suddenly. The silence in the house made her think they were the only two in it. ‘Is she out?’

‘What? Oh, yeah. She had to go to Kendal or somewhere to look at an RSJ. Whether it’s big enough to hold up a whole second storey or something. Happens all the time. I keep telling her they could send a picture on Skype and she needn’t go out. It hurts her knee to drive now.’ He grimaced, having finally come to understand how Helen’s incapacity would affect the whole