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

‘I expect it was. And I do feel awful about poor Josephine, but not awful enough to crush the excitement of working out what happened. The two aren’t incompatible, after all.’

They were interrupted at this point by Robin’s demands, which both parents devoted all their energy to satisfying. ‘I have to say I’m enjoying this a lot more than I thought I would,’ said Christopher, as he lifted his little son out of the bath and wrapped him in a towel. ‘I mean – I knew I wanted children, but I expected to have to wait a year or two before they … I don’t know … became real to me, I suppose.’

‘He is very real, isn’t he,’ Simmy agreed. ‘A proper little person.’ Which little Edith had never been, she sadly admitted to herself. A stillborn baby had no chance of overcoming the fantasies and dreams of its parents, never asserting its own personality.

An hour later, just as Simmy was rehearsing what she would say in an overdue phone call to Moxon, she saw a figure passing the kitchen window. ‘Damn it,’ she said. ‘Not again. That looks horribly like Fabian.’

Chapter Nineteen

And it was. ‘Quick – don’t let him in,’ Simmy hissed, already knowing that such a move was impossible. ‘At least tell him to go away. Doesn’t that damned scooter ever run out of battery? He must be breaking all records, the way he’s up and down the road all the time.’

But Christopher was incapable of telling anyone to go away. ‘Thank goodness it’s only him this time,’ he muttered, before opening the door. ‘Fabian,’ he said flatly. ‘Fancy seeing you again.’

‘Sorry, sorry.’ The man came in, left shoulder first, appearing to have shrunk and somehow twisted since they’d last seen him. Simmy was put in mind of Derek Jacobi in the part of Claudius on the TV series she had watched on video with her father in her teens.

‘Are you ill?’ she asked him with a frown.

‘No more than usual. Stress doesn’t help. You’ve got to do something.’ He looked from face to face, mutating from Claudius into Uriah Heap. ‘It’s all wrong. And – sorry to say it – but it’s all your fault. Yes, it is, very much so. I can’t stand another day like this.’ His twitch added to the figure of pathos that he presented.

‘Explain,’ said Christopher, waving him in and closing the door behind him. ‘What on earth do you think we can do?’

‘Find out who killed Josie, of course. You and that boy in Bowness. The police are practically camping on my doorstep, watching everything I do. And it’s the same for the others – Petrock and Keith anyway. It’s not right. We never touched her. We all loved her.’

Simmy forced herself to relax, refusing to accept the burden that Fabian was trying to unload. This was what he did, she thought. He used other people, made them give assurances and undertakings that they never wanted to. ‘I suppose they’re just following the evidence,’ she said calmly.

‘What evidence?’ Fabian shot back. ‘There can’t be any evidence. It’s all wrong, I tell you.’

‘Don’t get upset,’ said Christopher. ‘Have a drink and then go back home. You’ve probably been overreacting.’

‘Home!’ said the man bitterly. ‘A mean little room that costs more than you’d believe. I’m at the end of my rope, I can tell you. I’d be better off in gaol, and that’s the truth. Maybe I’ll go out and stab someone, just so’s I can get a free bed.’

Neither of his listeners responded to that. Not our problem, Simmy repeated silently. She had learnt some time ago that you couldn’t rescue people from their own bad choices or character defects. Fabian apparently thought otherwise. He had said it was their fault, and in a small annoying way he was probably right. Christopher had given Fabian’s name to the police, as well as failing in his mission to go and see Aunt Hilda. It was not entirely unreasonable to feel affronted by both those details, she supposed.

‘What am I supposed to do?’ Fabian whined on. ‘How can any of us carry on as normal with all this suspicion hanging over us? You’ve got everything upside down, making things hard for us without any grounds for it. No evidence as you call it. And you won’t listen when we tell you to look somewhere else for her killer.’

‘If you know who it was, why don’t you just tell us? Or the police? Why are we having all these games?’

‘You think they’d believe us? We hoped you two and your little friends would get to the truth and make sure we were off the hook. Instead, you’ve done the opposite. We’re all feeling the stress, wondering if one of us might be next.’

This was a whole new idea, and Simmy stared at him. ‘That’s ridiculous,’ she decided. ‘You’re just being dramatic for the sake of it.’

‘And you’re not?’ he flashed back, suddenly savage. ‘All you had to do was listen, and instead you go charging around with that boy, upsetting everything.’

‘Listen to what? If you’ve been dropping subtle hints, I’m afraid we’ve missed them. You’ll have to be a lot more plain-spoken. Let me say it again – if you know who killed Josephine, just tell us. Simple as that. No messing about. No more games.’

‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘But I’ve a very good idea.’ He twitched for a full fifteen seconds, and then said, ‘We’re not stupid enough to just give you a name. Anybody knows that’s the quickest way to disaster.’

None of them had moved to sit down, but stood uncomfortably in the big main room. Simmy was moving around the room, talking and thinking and feeling a rising anger. ‘So let’s cut through some of this nonsense,’ she said, looking at Christopher, who appeared to be following some very absorbing chain of thought. ‘Ben thought Richmond might have been Hilda’s child, given away because of his arm.