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

the vendor had complained that we didn’t list it properly. I was only doing it because he’d been off sick and there wasn’t anyone else. Everyone could see I wasn’t ready to be dropped in the deep end like that.’ He stared at Ben. ‘Why, out of all the thousands of lots I’ve sold since then, did you have to choose this one?’

‘That woman was Aunt Hilda,’ said Simmy slowly. ‘The very one you promised Fabian you’d go and see. We found boxes with this lot number on them in her garage.’

‘Oh,’ said Christopher. ‘Then I can only assume it must be karma, chasing me up because I didn’t do what I promised Fabian.’

‘That’ll be it,’ said Ben. ‘Who’s the Bolt person?’

‘The name rings a bell, but I don’t think I ever met him. He’s in London, deals in memorabilia.’

‘So what was in the boxes that was worth more than six pounds?’

‘I have no idea. I never even looked properly. The woman held up a bundle of letters and waved them in my face. They didn’t look like anything special to me – not even in envelopes with stamps on. Sometimes that’s the only reason people buy that sort of stuff. She must have had a good look at them at the viewing the previous day, and spotted something. But there was no reserve, so there was nothing to stop her buying them for a few quid. Actually, I think if she’d waited, I’d have dropped down even lower.’

‘Nobody else bidded for them?’

Christopher shook his head.

‘Well, it’s a fascinating insight into how it all works,’ said Ben happily. ‘Even though it might not be relevant to anything. The 1940s was a long time ago.’

Simmy was only half listening to the conversation, as she bent over Robin and tried to interest him in a plastic toy attached to the buggy. His jerky, swiping motions persuaded her that he was trying to grab for it, and that made her proud of his obvious intelligence. ‘If the vendor knew he was selling something valuable, he’d have made a point of it, wouldn’t he? I mean, you wouldn’t just bung an original letter from Hitler or someone in a job lot without a reserve, would you?’ said Ben.

‘Exactly what I said to Oliver,’ Christopher agreed. ‘I assumed he was just disappointed in a general sort of way. He apologised eventually and said there was no real harm done. Turned out the buyer was a better friend than the vendor. So at least she was happy with us.’

‘Did Oliver see the letters?’ asked Simmy. ‘Isn’t he interested in that sort of thing?’

Christopher groaned helplessly. ‘I really don’t know. And I’d much prefer it if you didn’t ask him. It took him quite a while to get over being cross with me for being so sloppy. Josephine tried to defend me, I remember. Told him that none of it was my fault.’

‘And she would have known who the woman was, because of her friendship with that family,’ Simmy noted.

‘It does all connect,’ said Ben, obviously thinking hard. ‘Papers, letters, history. And that nephew trying to write Hilda’s life story. She was probably co-operating with him and feeding him information, with hard evidence to back it all up. You know something? We might yet find some real evidence concerning her baby. The date’s about right, after all.’

Christopher had transferred much of his attention to his son. The word ‘baby’ could only refer to Robin – but that was puzzling. He frowned. ‘What baby?’

‘Hilda claimed she had a baby out of wedlock somewhere late in the 1940s. I’m sure I told you. It was in the papers,’ said Simmy. ‘Not at the time, but years later, when she tried to sue the father, or something.’

‘Old history,’ Christopher said. ‘Why does it matter now?’

‘It might well matter if the father was somebody important, as seems very likely. And now we’re wondering whether that baby might possibly have been Richmond – abandoned because of his missing arm. People didn’t like defects in those days.’

‘And Hilda really didn’t like them. Fabian told us that,’ Christopher added thoughtfully. ‘Do the dates fit?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘Which somehow seems to bring us back to Hitler,’ said Christopher, with another frown, this time a more playful one. ‘Please don’t tell me that Richmond Armitage is Hitler’s lost love child.’

‘No – because Hitler died three years before the child was born,’ said Simmy irritably.

Ben was still scrolling up and down the auction house database. Suddenly he took out a notebook and pencil and jotted something down. ‘What’s that?’ demanded Christopher.

‘Just the basics. Simmy’s going to want to go in a minute and I don’t want to keep her waiting. Bonnie needs her at the shop.’

‘Annoyingly, this young man has just filled his nappy,’ said Simmy. ‘It was only on for five minutes, too. I’ll do it in the loo, if you like. Lucky I put two spares in the bag.’

Christopher groaned again and rubbed the top of his head. ‘Do it anywhere you want. I’m really not enjoying today,’ he complained. ‘Nobody’s telling me anything. Even Oliver’s gone all tight-lipped. He’s upset the girls, and as for Jack – I think he’s weeping in a corner somewhere. He was very attached to Josephine, apparently, although I can’t say I ever noticed.’

‘It’s all here,’ said Ben obscurely. ‘It just needs to be figured out.’

‘You need to do an algorithm,’ teased Simmy over her shoulder, as she headed for the toilet.

‘I do,’ he agreed with perfect seriousness.

‘We forgot to tell him about Chrissie Harriman,’ said Simmy in the car. ‘I keep forgetting to tell people things. I should phone Moxon and update him, I suppose.’

‘You’ll get at least two Brownie points.’

‘What did you write in the notebook?’

‘Just the Bolt person’s email address,’ he said airily. ‘That can’t hurt anything, can it?’

‘I don’t know. It’s probably breaking data protection laws – as you jolly well ought to know.’

‘That’s why I didn’t tell Christopher what I was doing. Nobody’s ever going