The Coniston Case (15 page)

Simmy slept badly, tormented by dreams in one of which Ben fell down a deep chasm on the side of a mountain and DI Moxon hauled him out on the end of a rope. Following closely on that one was another in which Simmy’s mother berated her for wearing her best shoes to walk through a snowy field to reach her car, which had one door dangling off.

Nothing about Kathy, she noted when she woke up at seven-thirty. At least, nothing she could remember.

The lack of urgent cooperation by the police was worse than frustrating. It implied that she was overreacting, and that was humiliating. If they would only instigate a search for the Subaru, as well as visit the Cockermouth pub where Kathy had used the phone, then everything might have quickly come right. As it was, she, Simmy, felt she had little choice but to go to the pub herself and see if Kathy was there. But she had a shop to run, and
Saturday mornings often saw a good deal of business. She might leave Melanie in charge, of course, but would have to explain the whole story first. And Melanie preferred not to be left alone without a good reason. She liked to chat between customers, and there was undeniably plenty for them to discuss.

It would have to wait until after they closed at one, she decided with a sigh. Perhaps by then everything would have come right by itself.

Melanie was in the shop before her, at the indecently early hour of eight forty-five. ‘Blimey!’ said Simmy. ‘Why so keen?’

The girl gave her one of her accusing looks. ‘I missed out again,’ she said bitterly. ‘Why does everything have to happen on a Friday?’

Simmy tried to remember all the events of the previous day, and was forced to concede that there had been a lot. ‘Good question,’ she smiled. ‘It’ll take all morning to bring you up to date.’

‘You can start with a woman called Selena Jury.’

‘Drury. Do you know her?’

‘I met her last night in a restaurant in Kendal. She was with Ninian Tripp.’

Simmy took many seconds to absorb this news. ‘She can’t have been,’ she concluded flatly.

‘Well she was. She’s an old friend of his sister, he says. And something happened to her yesterday. Here in the shop, apparently.’

‘No. It was in Newby Bridge – sort of. Someone pretending to be a boyfriend sent flowers to her real boyfriend’s address. Obviously aiming to cause trouble.’

‘Like the others.’

‘Very much like the others, yes. Although a woman in Coniston says she sent the ones to Maggie Aston, and Mrs Crabtree says it was her sister who’s a bit demented, so perhaps they don’t count any more. So that only leaves two, I suppose. Hayter and Drury, and we think Drury has an innocent explanation as well. But now my friend Kathy’s gone missing and I need to get to Cockermouth and try to find her.’ But still at the front of her mind was an image of Ninian spending Valentine’s evening over a romantic meal with a woman. She already thought she knew what her dreams would bring that night. Most likely she would be gouging eyes out or using a silver fork to stab the creature through the heart.

Melanie slumped dramatically as if impossibly overburdened. ‘All that in one day!’ she moaned.

‘There’s probably more that I’ve forgotten. At least I got all the Valentine roses delivered and nobody’s complained. Except Solomon from Somalia, of course.’

‘That’s a joke, right?’ Melanie’s false eye seemed to glitter ominously.

‘No, I’m afraid not. Selena Drury is in a relationship with a man called Solomon, who she said is a Somali. He speaks perfect English and seems to be doing very nicely for himself. He saw me trying to deliver her flowers, but never came out of the house while I was there. Later on, he came here and I had to tell him what’d been going on.’

‘Which was?’

‘I just told you. Someone pretending to be a boyfriend sent them. Another lover.’

‘But she doesn’t live with this Solomon. She told me she was between houses, but was based mainly in Coniston.’

‘Yes, that’s more or less what she told me. She sounded cross but not panicked at all. I thought they both seemed grown up enough to deal with it. Except …’ she frowned, ‘she should have been out with him last night, not Ninian.’

‘I’m only guessing here,’ said Melanie, ‘but I’d say they aren’t dealing with it too well, actually. If she felt the need to run to Ninian for comfort, that suggests things aren’t so good with the boyfriend, doesn’t it?’

Simmy chewed her lip. ‘He didn’t look the type to make a big thing of Valentine’s Day. He probably thinks it’s just a stupid commercial frivolity, not worthy of his attention. He was a very
serious
sort of chap.’

‘Hmm. Well you can’t say that about Ninian.’

‘Or Joe?’

‘Joe’s fairly serious in his way.’ Melanie sighed. ‘When he does try to be fun, it’s mostly to do with football or drinking.’

They fell silent, thinking about men and the difficulties they presented in so many ways. Then Melanie shook herself. ‘What’s this about Kathy? Where did she go?’

Simmy did her best to summarise the sequence of events since the previous morning. ‘DI Moxon doesn’t seem at all worried about her. I suppose if she can make a phone call and tell me lies about it, she can’t be in too much trouble.’

‘I’d have thought the opposite, actually. Why would she lie to you if she wasn’t being forced to? It’s irresponsible of
the police just to brush it away like that. But listen – I’ve got a mate in Cockermouth. She’s called Mary Ann and she works in a hotel there. We can get her to go round to that pub at lunchtime and see what’s what. She’ll be up for that.’

‘You’ve never mentioned her before.’ Melanie’s social circle was an ongoing mystery to Simmy. The people she described as friends mainly appeared to be little more than acquaintances, with no single name recurring often enough to suggest a genuine intimate.

‘I bet I have. She was on my course, but didn’t finish. Her sister got her a place with a big hotel chain, doing the website or database or something. She’s already got all the qualifications for that stuff, so didn’t see any point in carrying on with management. She’s from Dumfries originally.’

It rang no bells with Simmy, but she was more or less willing to let this Mary Ann deputise for her if it saved a long drive up to Cockermouth. ‘Okay, then,’ she agreed. ‘If she wouldn’t mind.’

But before anything could be done about it, there was a knocking at the street door, which was still locked. Simmy looked at her watch. ‘Still only five to nine,’ she said. ‘What’s the rush?’

‘Someone forgot to send a Valentine,’ said Melanie. ‘And wants to pretend it’s all our fault.’

But when Simmy went to the door she recognised the long mane of hair belonging to Joanna Colhoun. Beside her was a young man Simmy had not seen before. She turned the sign to Open and unbolted the door.

‘Sorry!’ Joanna panted breathlessly. ‘We thought you’d be open by now. This is Baz.’

Simmy gave him a brief look. He was dark-haired, with blue eyes and a long sharp nose. He looked too old to be a student, but rather young to be a tutor. ‘Hello,’ she said, ‘Your mother …’ addressing the girl.

‘Oh, yes. That’s why we came. She’s all right, you see. Panic over. She sent a message to my dad. She’s really sorry to have messed you about so much. You must be really pissed about it. The thing is, apparently, she managed to get her car started again before the RAC man turned up, and just drove to the nearest main road, in case it conked out again. But the really mad part is …’ here she laughed merrily, ‘she
ran over
her phone. Don’t ask me how, but she did. Smashed it to bits. But she didn’t think it was a problem until she realised she couldn’t remember anybody’s number. Not even mine. She says she was starving hungry by then, so headed up towards Keswick, with the car flashing all sorts of warning lights at her, thinking she’d find a pub and a garage and a phone all at the same time.’

‘Your dad phoned and told you all this, did he? He actually spoke to Kathy?’

Joanna looked questioningly at Baz. ‘He did, didn’t he?’

Her beloved put an arm around her and squeezed. ‘That’s right, sweetie. And your dad’s been trying to get hold of you, but there wasn’t a signal.’

‘So how did all these messages get passed around?’ Simmy asked.

‘Um … I think Dad called our guest house in Coniston, and the woman gave him Baz’s mobile number. Something like that.’

‘As it happens,’ Simmy disclosed, ‘Kathy called me last night, from somewhere in Cockermouth.’

‘What? She can’t have done. I mean – why didn’t you contact me and tell me she was okay? I was really worried all night.’

‘I assumed she
had
,’ said Simmy, not quite truthfully. She had not in fact considered Joanna’s anxiety at all, much to her shame.

Again, the girl turned great spaniel eyes onto Baz. ‘What does it mean?’ she whimpered.

‘God knows,’ he said. ‘When you meet up with her, it’ll all be explained.’

‘Yes. But where is she
now
?’

‘She’ll be fine,’ said Baz blandly. ‘She’s getting her car sorted and buying a new phone. And she knows you’re still busy, doesn’t she? After what you said to her yesterday.’

‘Oh, don’t.’ Joanna shuddered. ‘I was so
horrible
to her.’ She gave him a gentle prod. ‘That was
your
fault, you know. You told me nobody should know … oh! Sorry.’ She went pink and clamped her mouth shut.

‘Well, she was definitely in Cockermouth yesterday,’ said Simmy, determined to stay well out of any romantic implications. ‘Even though she didn’t say where she was. It took the police computer to find out that it was a pub in the main street there.’

Baz pushed forward. ‘Police?’ he rasped.

‘Yes. You probably haven’t heard that there was a murder this week in Coniston, and I’ve been marginally involved. I know Joanna said it wasn’t worth worrying them about your mother, but I didn’t agree.’ She straightened her spine and lifted her chin, as if to say
And I’m the responsible adult around here, after all
.

The young man backed down, with a little nod. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘No problem. We can just call them and say it’s all sorted now.’

Joanna gave him a surprised look. ‘But you said—’

He gave her a quelling glance. ‘No probs, Jo. We’ll be off tomorrow anyway, so we don’t have to worry.’

‘Did you finish your project, then?’ asked Simmy.

‘More or less. It’s not really something that can ever be “finished” as such. It’s permanently ongoing. We’ve got some decent data to play with, anyhow. Makes a change from all those bloody computer models.’

Simmy was lost and glanced at Melanie to see if she was equally bemused. The girl was straightening some irises in a bucket, pretending to ignore the conversation. ‘Right,’ said Simmy vaguely.

‘So, that’s it, then.’ Baz clapped his hands together. ‘All settled, nothing else to worry about. Can’t think why Jo’s old lady had to come up here in the first place, to be honest. All she’s done is cause a lot of bother for nothing.’

‘I think she was worried about Jo,’ said Simmy, still feeling decidedly cool towards this insensitive young man. Her irritation extended to Joanna as well. The whole exercise felt irresponsible and dangerous, made worse by its secretive nature. ‘Perhaps if you’d explained more clearly what you were doing, none of this confusion would have happened.’

‘There’s no mystery about it,’ flashed Baz. ‘We’re measuring rainfall, temperature, hours of sunlight, CO
₂
levels and wind speed, over a period of a year in an identical spot to the one where an amateur scientist made the
same measurements in 1887. It will provide a very useful comparison. There are other student groups involved, so we can spread the work through the year. But somebody’s blabbed about it on Facebook and now the whole thing’s got blown all out of proportion.’

‘Gosh! That sounds complicated,’ said Simmy.

‘There’s no substitute for real data, you see,’ said Joanna earnestly. ‘It has to be taken into account. If we get cracking first thing on Monday, setting the record straight, they’ll soon be thanking us.’

‘Good,’ Simmy agreed. ‘Although—’

‘Oh, we realise it’s just a snapshot, a tiny detail in the whole picture. But it’s a lot better than most of what’s been used up to now. A
whole year
of statistics, then and now, from the same place. It’s got to be useful.’

Simmy was entirely unqualified to comment. ‘Well, it sounds very worthwhile,’ she said feebly.

Baz smiled tolerantly and ushered his friend back towards the door. ‘We need to go now,’ he said. ‘See you sometime. Jo and I have a lot to do.’ The girl giggled revealingly.

‘Be careful,’ said Simmy, with a sudden pang of concern.

‘No worries,’ Baz laughed and they were gone.

Melanie said nothing for a whole minute. Then, ‘So we can forget about Kathy, can we?’ she remarked. ‘Which is good, because I think this Jury person is a lot more interesting.’

‘Drury. I’m not sure she is, really. And I don’t think we can forget about Kathy for a moment. That story was rubbish. Nobody ever runs over their own phone, for a start. She’d never have gone aimlessly driving round like that, either. I don’t like that Baz one little bit.’

‘So I noticed. But he’s very nice-looking. Sort of Johnny Deppish, when he was young.’

‘I wish I could just forget everything and go back to bed, to be honest. I got through Valentine’s all right. What more can anybody want from me?’

‘Don’t ask me.’ Melanie sounded cross, causing Simmy to suppress a sigh. The girl burst out, ‘I give up. I don’t know who half these people are, so why should I waste my time bothering with them? You and Ben always charge ahead without keeping me in the loop. I’d be better off forgetting all about murders and stuff and just minding my own business. And I suppose we don’t need Mary Ann now, after all.’

‘Think yourself lucky,’ Simmy said. ‘I wish I could forget it all myself.’ Then she had a thought. ‘But you’ll have to speak to Moxon or someone anyway. They want a description of the person who ordered the flowers for Selena Drury.’

‘What?’

‘You took the order, sometime last week. You were talking about it on Wednesday. That man who dashed in and said he was rushing for a train. Remember? He was wearing a long coat. I hardly saw him.’