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

‘He must have been standing right there while she was talking. She could have just given him the number. That in itself suggests she didn’t trust him. How nice of her to protect us like that.’

Christopher straightened up, the baby and his seat in one hand. ‘We wouldn’t be so hard to find, once anyone knew we lived around here. But I agree I’m more comfortable meeting him on neutral territory.’

‘You still feel responsible,’ she realised. ‘This is still the result of that undertaking you made to Fabian. Honestly, love, I don’t think you need reproach yourself about it any more.’

‘It’s more a sense of drowning in a bog of Armitage and Crick business. As soon as I think I’ve got myself out of it, I’m dragged down again. I’m hoping we can give this bloke what he wants and that’ll be an end to it.’

‘Optimistic,’ she murmured. ‘Could it be that he got wind of Ben’s researches somehow and doesn’t like it?’

‘Don’t see how. Come on, anyway, and let’s get it over with.’

‘Let me put my shoes on, and I’m ready. I hope the squirrel will be all right. Thank goodness we haven’t got a dog.’

‘A dog would have finished it off before you even noticed it,’ said Christopher sourly.

The man at the pub was recognisably the father of Petrock, the aspiring writer. The same features looked up at the little family, merely grooved and solidified by age. Simmy stared at him, and Christopher muttered, ‘Looks like an Aztec.’ They stood just inside the door, uncertain of the next move. There were only three other people in the bar.

‘Mr Armitage?’ said Christopher, too loudly. ‘I understand you wanted to talk to us.’

The man did not get up but waved at the window seat facing him across the table. He had a pint of beer in front of him. Simmy shuffled along the seat, taking Robin in his little chair and leaving space for Christopher. She was trying to give all her attention to the matter in hand, dredging up the scattered details she’d gleaned about Richmond. For the first time she wondered about his wife, mother of the two grown sons. She can’t have lasted long, if Richmond had been proposing to Josephine for so many years.

‘I’ve had the police after me,’ he said without preamble. ‘And I’m told that’s down to you two.’

‘Er …’ said Christopher. ‘I don’t think …’ He looked to Simmy for help.

‘Who told you that?’ she demanded.

‘My relatives. According to them, you’ve got us all mixed up with this bugger of a murder, when it’s got nothing whatever to do with us. Josie was our friend. Why d’you think we’d kill her? What’s that about?’

‘We’ve never said anything to suggest otherwise,’ said Simmy, her thoughts assembling themselves with very little effort. ‘But you should understand that Fabian came to us on Sunday, asking us to find you for him and see if we could somehow bring you back together. Sort of go-betweens. Since then, we’ve realised that this was just some kind of ruse, but we don’t understand what it’s all about. I mean – obviously he knew where you were all along. Because here you are,’ she finished with a hint of triumph.

‘You don’t get it at all, do you?’ He seemed genuinely confounded by their stupidity. ‘You’re talking as if my brothers and nephew and sons are all of a package. I can tell you, that’s not the way it is, not at all.’

He then lifted the tankard to his lips with his left hand. His right arm did not move, and Simmy suddenly understood that it stopped well above the elbow. The man only had one arm. By a leap of association, she connected this fact to her rescued squirrel and its wonky leg. A great wave of pity and concern swept through her, exacerbated, she supposed, by maternal hormones. From one irrational moment to the next, she found herself unalterably on Uncle Richmond’s side.

But Christopher was far from sharing her reaction. ‘You said “relatives” just now, as if you see them as a package yourself,’ he accused. ‘We can’t hope to understand if nobody tells us, can we? You’ve dragged us up here for some unknown reason, which is pretty much the same as the way Fabian’s been behaving. We’d really prefer it if you all just left us alone. As you see, we’ve got enough on our plate as it is.’ He indicated the sleeping baby. ‘If you’ve got us here to tell us to back off, then that’s absolutely fine with us.’

‘No,’ said Richmond Armitage tiredly. ‘I wanted to tell you the exact opposite of that.’

Robin was remarkably docile throughout the hour-long session with Richmond. Beer was consumed, along with a bar meal when they realised how late it was getting. Questions were raised and answered, details filled in and affection established. This was a nice man, Simmy concluded, in spite of his somewhat sinister appearance. But she still regarded the rest of the family as being at best self-serving and argumentative. ‘I really don’t feel very warm towards any of them,’ said Richmond.

‘Even your sons? Even poor old Ambrose?’ Simmy asked.

‘Ambrose doesn’t really count. He opted out decades ago.’

‘And yet he came to see us yesterday,’ said Christopher. ‘And he seemed to know pretty well what was what.’

‘You surprise me. I suppose Fabian felt there would be strength in numbers.’

‘Is it a fight, then?’ Simmy wondered.

‘In a subtle sort of way, I imagine it is. Fabian’s panicked about poor Josie, and my sons are squabbling over Hilda’s life history.’

‘It all comes down to her, doesn’t it?’ said Simmy. ‘That’s why Fabian’s dragged Christopher into it.’

Richmond was clearly puzzled by this. ‘How d’you mean?’

‘Well, you might not know that he made a promise ten years ago, when he thought Fabian was dying. He was supposed to go to Hilda and give her a message – tell her how she was in Fabian’s thoughts