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

it had double gables, with a front door symmetrically central. Ben pushed through the closed gate and headed along the path. The only non-symmetrical quirk was the fact that the path had to turn at ninety degrees to bring you from gate to door.

‘Has it been cleared of furniture?’ Ben asked. ‘There are still curtains at the window. I wonder what Josephine intended to do with it.’

Simmy was dithering as to whether or not to leave Robin in the car, instinctively weighing up relative risks. A large lorry could smash into the car, which was not completely off the road. Getting the buggy out of the boot and fitting the baby seat to it would be awkward but not dangerous. Having him to consider would make exploring the house more difficult. Then she shook herself. ‘We won’t be able to get in, will we?’ She realised she had imagined them just walking through the front door and making free with the uninhabited building.

‘Not unless we break a window,’ quipped Ben. ‘Maybe at the back …’

‘We’re trespassing, aren’t we? What if someone next door sees us?’

‘If we look purposeful they’ll think we’re here with permission. That one’s sure to be a holiday house, anyway.’

‘It is interesting to see it, I admit.’ She was still standing beside the car, trying to assess the danger of passing traffic to her baby. Finally she decided he was fine where he was for a few minutes. There didn’t seem to be many large lorries on the road that morning anyway and the car was visible for at least a hundred yards.

‘Come on then.’ He headed for a stone path that led to the back of the house, on the side further from next door. ‘I can see a shed.’

It turned out that there was a good-sized garden behind the house, with a wide gate opening onto the track, which dwindled to nothing only a few yards on. The shed proved to be a garage. ‘Why don’t I drive up here?’ Simmy said. ‘That would be safer for Robin.’

‘Feel free. You’ll have to reverse out again, though. This gate’s chained shut, so you’ll never manage to turn round.’

‘I can do reversing,’ she assured him, and fetched the car.

Ben was at the further end of the garden when she joined him again, looking up at the house. ‘No curtains this side,’ he noted. ‘And I can’t see any pictures on the walls. I think someone’s taken everything out. It’s just an empty shell now. Did Josephine cram it all into her house in Keswick – or sell it at the auction house?’

‘I keep wondering who gets it now? We still have to consider it as a possible motive for killing her.’

‘I did have a quick look online last night, but trying to identify a person’s relatives isn’t at all straightforward, if you’ve nothing to go on. You don’t know where to start.’

‘I suppose we’d know by now if she’d left it to Christopher,’ Simmy said with a laugh. ‘She was awfully fond of him.’

‘Dream on. The chances are she didn’t leave it to anybody. Not many people make wills at her age – especially if there’s no immediate family.’ He was staring up at the house. ‘Don’t you think it has a relaxed kind of atmosphere? There’s no hint that anybody’s fighting over it.’

‘It’s neglected and sad,’ Simmy judged. ‘And that could be because there don’t seem to be any women in the picture any more. It’s been owned by one woman after another, and now they’ve gone, it’s lost its soul. Nobody to keep it nice and put its best face on. They won’t get its proper value, looking like this.’ She waved at the straggly garden and the blank walls of the house. ‘Josephine can’t have had time to do anything with it.’

‘Let’s have a look at the garage,’ Ben suggested. When he tried the small door in the side wall, it opened easily. ‘Hey!’ he gasped. ‘Didn’t expect that.’

Simmy followed him in and waited for her eyes to adapt to the gloom. There was no window. A small stack of cardboard trays, the sort used by market traders to carry vegetables and other goods, was against the back wall. A scatter of dusty old magazines was in the top one. She flipped through them, watchful for spiders. Then a sticky label on the edge of the box caught her eye. ‘Oh, it came from Christopher’s saleroom, look. That’s a lot number sticker. It’s got the date on.’

Ben bent over it. ‘Two years ago. What would have been in it, then? Not these boring magazines, surely?’

‘Have a look at the one underneath.’

The second box had the same lot number written on it with a marker pen and contained nothing more than a few sheets of newspaper. ‘Not interesting,’ said Ben. ‘But you know what – Josephine probably left these here.’ He tapped the sticker thoughtfully. ‘There’ll be a record of what this lot was and who it came from – won’t there? It’ll be in an archive on the work computer.’

‘You think?’

‘Unless they delete them after a year, which is unlikely. We need to ask Christopher to have a look. He might not want to tell us who the vendor was, but I expect you can persuade him.’ He took a picture of the sticker and another of the boxes. ‘This is really quite exciting,’ he enthused.

Simmy was standing by the door, where she could see her car. Suddenly it felt irresponsible and risky to leave Robin all by himself out there. Somebody might steal him. Or he could get himself all twisted and choke somehow. ‘I’m not sure I see why it’s anything to get excited about,’ she said. ‘Josephine probably used them to carry stuff, and then just left them here. Now I’ve got to get back to the baby,’ she added. ‘He might be crying.’

‘No problem. I’ve got all I need. And we are trespassing, technically. Better not to get caught.’ He