The Hawkshead Hostage (7 page)

‘That’s not certain. Probably Miss Todd, but possibly Mrs Boddington-Webster. He works complicated hours.’

‘He lives on the premises, so I suppose that’s not too much of a problem.’

‘Yes, we’ve looked around his room.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Did you know that Miss Todd has been spending some nights here with him?’

‘What?’

‘I don’t expect I should be telling you, but there’s no way we can stop it coming out. I imagine most of the staff are aware of it, anyway. But she told me that you didn’t know. She seems embarrassed about that. She poured it all out the moment I had her on her own.’ He preened slightly at having elicited such intimate information from a girl he knew had never entirely trusted him. The Todd family had an uneasy relationship with the police,
despite Melanie’s dalliance with a constable named Joe.

Simmy hesitated, feeling surprisingly hurt and offended. Why should Melanie tell her who she was sleeping with, anyway? However close their friendship might have been over the winter, it had effectively ended when Melanie moved on with her career. And Simmy was, as she reminded herself regularly, old enough to be Mel’s mother. She reproached herself for her excessive reaction, and fought to stifle the unworthy feelings. ‘Well, that explains why she cried over him,’ she said faintly.

‘How well did
you
know him?’

‘Not at all. I only met him once, yesterday. He seemed very competent. Professional.’ Melanie had used the word
okay
about him, she remembered. Typical British understatement, apparently. ‘Have you told Ben’s parents he’s been abducted?’ she burst out. ‘That’s what matters now. I mean – if you find him, you’ll probably find the person who killed Dan as well. Won’t you?’

He raised two steadying hands. ‘That’s rather a leap,’ he said. ‘But yes, one of our people went down to Helm Road an hour or so ago.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Maybe a bit less than that,’ he amended.

‘They’ll be frantic.’

He tilted his head. ‘I’m not so sure. They’ll be used to the boy going off on his own adventures by now. And we certainly won’t be using the word
abducted
to describe what’s happened.’

‘What else would you call it?’

‘Simply that nobody seems sure of his whereabouts. That we’d like to speak to him about an incident near Hawkshead.’

Simmy sighed. ‘Well Bonnie won’t swallow that, for one. Remember Bonnie Lawson? She and Ben are going out together, or whatever they call it these days. She
loves
him. She’s going to be searching for him.’

‘So you’ve told her?’ He gave her a heavy look, like a reproachful schoolmaster.

‘I have.’

‘Oh, well.’

‘She’s just as likely to find him as any of us,’ Simmy said. ‘They’ve got a very special bond.’

‘We’ll take all the help we can get,’ he said, with a hint of a smile.

She had to force herself to ask the next question. ‘How exactly was he killed? Dan, I mean. Was it that place on his head?’

He understood only too well how resistant she was to this kind of detail. Detective Inspector Nolan Moxon had a habit of reading Persimmon Brown better than she would have liked him to. Where others might puzzle him, she often appeared to be clear as a diamond. It made them both uncomfortably vulnerable and exposed. She had believed initially that he was simply in love with her, while she found his physical presence faintly repellent. Now she had met his wife and seen that he had a solid marriage despite a recent spell of trouble, it was all more complicated. She liked him better now and felt less sorry for him. He had improved his appearance recently, too. Over the winter he had often seemed a trifle unwashed, his hair greasy and his clothes unchanged. There had been subsequent hints of depression and marital distance to explain all that. Furthermore, there had been an intimacy
between them that went beyond the ordinary. They had witnessed each other’s extremes and the resulting relationship could not be denied.

‘We can’t say for certain,’ he said carefully. ‘The police doctor is always very cautious about that until there’s been a proper examination. There is, as you say, evidence of a blow to the head. And he was moved from the attack site to the water. We found the spot where the assault took place.’

‘The place where we found Ben’s phone,’ she said. ‘I suppose we shouldn’t really have touched it.’

He smiled. ‘Anybody would have done the same.’

‘Why would they move him, though?’ She heard the word
they
echoing. ‘Do you think there could have been more than one of them?’

He nodded. ‘One person couldn’t do it alone.’

Simmy had not even begun to consider this idea. Instantly, it made sense. ‘Of course,’ she nodded. ‘A group, perhaps? Some sort of gang? So some of them killed Dan and dumped him in the lake, while others took Ben away.’ She visualised a bunch of hooded youths, up to something dreadful in the woods when Dan came across them. Perhaps they hadn’t meant to kill him. She almost smiled. It would surely be easy for the police to catch up with a whole gang, and make them relinquish the captive Ben. But then she thought again. ‘But
are
there gangs around here? In Hawkshead?’

‘Not that we know of. But they come from the cities on motorbikes. Glasgow, even, sometimes.’

‘On their summer holidays?’ She had an image of a battered charabanc full of Glaswegian yobs, waving bottles of beer and looking for trouble. ‘I’m not sure—’

‘No,’ he interrupted. ‘Neither am I. But we’ve got to start somewhere.’

Outside the office there were raised voices. Simmy realised that she and Moxon were probably monopolising the vital heart of the hotel’s operation, even though the phone hadn’t rung and nobody seemed anxious to come in. There would be guests returning from their days out on the fells before long, and the manager was unlikely to want them to walk into the maelstrom of a police investigation. If the short-lived hunt for a small girl had raised complaints, how much more objectionable would a murder investigation be!

‘You won’t need to question all the guests, will you?’ she asked.

‘We’ll want to know where they all were this morning. Routine enquiries, as they say.’

‘The management will hate it.’

‘Too bad. A murder enquiry trumps just about everything. Nobody gets a choice in the matter.’

She shivered. ‘It sounds so horrible. My mother would say—’

‘Yes, I know what your mother would say,’ he interrupted. ‘Now, I’d better go and see what’s happening out there.’

She thought of her flowers, now so irrelevant and trivial. She had been so proud of them, only a couple of hours ago. It didn’t seem fair. All she wanted was to carry on her business, bringing colour and scent and beauty into people’s lives. Instead, there was fear and pain and mystery. She got up from the chair and followed the detective into the foyer, where the first person she saw was a woman she
had only met fleetingly before. But she knew immediately who it was and the recognition was mutual.

‘Where is he?’ the woman cried. ‘What have you got my boy into now?’

Wordlessly, Simmy just stared at Mrs Helen Harkness, mother of the missing Ben.

The injustice of it struck deep. She had been doing the boy a favour, giving him a lift. By rights, it was a job for his mother or father – but they were too busy, otherwise engaged. Moxon came to her rescue. ‘I don’t think Mrs Brown can be held responsible,’ he objected.

‘No, no. I’m sorry.’ Helen’s eyes were wide, her movements jerky. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying. Although …’ She looked back at Simmy. ‘It’s not the first time, is it?’

Simmy couldn’t argue with that. Her very first encounter with Ben had been at the scene of a fatal shooting. Since then there had been other complicated police investigations in which they had been embroiled. Almost from the start, Ben had been passionately interested, deciding that his vocation was as a forensic scientist. Brilliantly clever, his way appeared smooth for the coming years of further education, his eventual career beyond question. He had
attracted favourable attention from an American university, with a promise of a postgraduate place some years hence. Meanwhile he was stacking up A-levels, with one more year at school still to go.

‘I don’t know how worried I should be,’ the woman said. ‘As a rule I’d trust him to know what he was doing. But I’ve never had the police come to the door before. He’s never gone
missing
before.’

Helen Harkness was in her early fifties, mother of five children and a very successful architect. Ben was the second child, his great intelligence something the family had long ago accepted as a mixed blessing. Impatient with his siblings, awkward in social situations, he had gone his own way almost from the start. Both his parents erred on the side of neglect, by modern standards. But thus far, they had never found reason to regret their parenting style.

‘He’s a resourceful lad,’ said Moxon clumsily. ‘But given that he’s still under age, we’re very much taking this seriously. Nobody will be more relieved than me when he’s found,’ he concluded, perhaps rashly. Surely, thought Simmy, his mother and father would be more relieved than even the most dedicated police officer.

‘So where are you looking?’ demanded Mrs Harkness.

Moxon grimaced, showing his teeth and sucking in a long breath. Simmy glanced around at the other people still gathered in the reception area, noting as she did so that her floral display was still quietly trying to enhance the general atmosphere, and failing quite badly. There was no sign of Melanie or Mrs Boddington-Webster. Penny had evidently abandoned her post on the reception desk and was nowhere to be seen, either. The two chambermaids were sitting
together on a small, padded bench, looking even more bewildered than before. A woman in a suit and high heels stood beside the reception desk, clicking fingernails on its surface in a parody of typing or piano playing. Simmy had not seen her before. Nobody was giving her any attention. A uniformed policeman guarded the door into the corridor that Simmy had used on her first visit.

‘Can I go?’ Simmy asked Moxon. ‘You know where to find me.’

‘Er … not just yet. No. Hang on, if you don’t mind.’ He spoke without looking at her, still apparently groping for a response to Ben’s mother’s question.

‘Well, I’ll be in the garden,’ she said. ‘It’s too crowded in here.’

He let her go without protest. She walked across the gravel to the lawn at the side of the main building, where there were seats scattered about. It had a view over Esthwaite.

Frustration over Ben was making her jittery, so that sitting still was almost impossible. She understood for the first time the full meaning of the word ‘wired’. It was as if electrical filaments were firing in all her limbs, as well as inside her head. There had to be a solution to the crisis, an explanation for what had happened. The abductors must have left clues – they must
want
something. Either they would kill their captive or make some sort of demand using him as leverage. Except that none of this fitted the scanty facts. Much more likely that they had panicked when they realised he had seen Dan’s body, and his killers, and been bundled into some sort of vehicle simply to prevent him from calling for help. Which he had been doing, Simmy
remembered miserably, and she had stupidly failed to heed his call. So then, they would drive him away to a remote spot – in which the whole region abounded, after all – and then what? Leave him tied and bound, to starve to death? Arrange for him to escape after a period of time in which they could get far away? Drug him with some mind-altering substance that would dislocate his memory and perhaps leave him permanently damaged? Her imaginings grew darker and more terrifying, her anguished concern for her young friend less and less bearable.

She paced around, sometimes managing to sit down for a few minutes before jumping up again. The afternoon was sunny and much warmer than in recent days. She once again lost track of time, but became increasingly aware of thirst and hunger. She had consumed nothing since breakfast, and it now must be over halfway through the afternoon. Where could she get a drink? she wondered. When would Moxon finally get around to properly interviewing her?

There was no very obvious police activity, except for the usual tape marking off the area where Dan’s body had been found, but the doctor, photographer, and the body itself had all gone, blessedly quickly. Simmy had learnt for herself that sometimes a murder victim could lie where it fell for the best part of a day while authorities circled around it. Moxon and a few others were conducting interviews somewhere inside the hotel. Down on the little lake there were people in rowing boats, just enjoying the water, not even pretending to be catching fish. The mismatch between her thoughts and the world before her eyes made everything worse. And then, as if to reinforce the same feeling, a child’s cheerful chirruping broke into the gloom.

‘Race you, Mummy!’ it yodelled. ‘Right round the hotel and in through the back.’

‘Oh, no, Genny. I’m exhausted already.’

Genny – short for Gentian, of course. Why not have opted for Jennifer in the first place and have done with it, Simmy wondered sourly. The child itself now came hurtling around the corner, elbows pumping with the effort, despite her mother’s refusal to participate. ‘Oh! Hello,’ she said, spotting Simmy. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Nothing much.’ She had been unconsciously pacing up and down the grass, sometimes watching the boats on the lake and then turning away to gaze up at the road into Hawkshead. ‘Have you had a good day?’

‘It was okay. We went to Bowness and had ice cream.’

‘Gentian, you ungrateful child. We did
far
more interesting things than that.’ Her mother had come within earshot, evidently relieved that the race had been aborted. She gave Simmy a look of appeal. ‘She’s never satisfied,’ she complained.

Simmy just smiled wanly. It wouldn’t be long before the woman realised that things were not as they ought to be at the hotel, but Simmy was not going to be the one to explain. There were sure to be details the police wouldn’t want spread around. And Gentian showed ominous signs of being unhealthily thrilled by any hint of murder and mystery. Another little Ben Harkness in the making, in all probability.

The front entrance to the hotel was not visible from where they were standing, so they were not prepared for the sudden appearance of the woman in the smart clothes and unsuitable shoes. She was scowling down
at a mobile phone, barely looking where she was going.

‘She looks cross,’ said Gentian cheerfully and loudly.

The woman inevitably heard her and redirected her gaze accordingly. ‘I bloody well am,’ she said. ‘What sort of a hotel is this, where they can’t even handle a simple enquiry? And why are there police all over the place?’

Simmy gave her a cool appraisal. To anybody with half a brain, it must be obvious that something bad had happened. ‘Do you work here?’ the woman asked her.

‘No, I don’t. I think the hotel staff are in the middle of a crisis, don’t you? They might be a bit too busy to deal with casual questions. Why don’t you just phone them tomorrow?’

‘Highly unprofessional,’ the woman sneered. ‘They’ll never prosper if that’s their attitude.’

‘What crisis?’ demanded Gentian’s mother. Simmy had quite forgotten her name, if indeed she had ever heard it. It struck her that these two women had much in common. Both expected instant attention and servility. Something had given them each a powerful sense of entitlement. Neither could permit a little matter like a murder or abduction, divert them from their own wishes – unless the victim happened to be connected to them, of course. Then all hell would break loose.

‘I’m sorry. It’s not up to me to explain it. I’m sure neither of you is the least bit involved. I suggest you just get on with … whatever, and wait for things to get back to normal.’ Which they never would, of course, she realised. Not with Dan Yates dead and gone for ever. Not with the taint of murder hanging over the place for years to come.

‘You were here before,’ Gentian’s mother accused. ‘Who
are
you?’

‘Nobody important.’ She found she was rather enjoying the withholding of information. It went against so many social expectations, where gossip ruled supreme and nobody could let a question go unanswered. It made her feel special and rather powerful. She resolved to do it more often in the future.

The effect was also gratifying. The woman’s mouth fell open and her cheeks darkened. ‘Sorry,’ Simmy added, ‘but that’s all there is to it.’

‘Well, I just hope we can get tea in the lounge, as usual,’ the woman huffed. ‘That’s all I can say.’

The one in the suit had clearly had enough. ‘I’m leaving,’ she said, as if this would cause acute consternation in her listeners. Simmy wondered why she’d walked around the side of the hotel in the first place, instead of going directly to her car. Then she reproached herself for her own paranoid suspicion. Anybody might feel drawn to give the place a good look, besides wanting to catch a view of the lake.

Gentian did a little skip, merely to remind everybody that she existed. ‘I want lemonade,’ she said. ‘They do
amazing
lemonade.’

This reference only served to make Simmy feel more desperately thirsty than before. Perhaps she could join the guests in their quest for tea. It sounded as if it must already be that sort of time. As if in confirmation, two more cars came along the drive, crunching over the gravel. In a collective move, the three women and small girl all shifted position so as to see who emerged from the vehicles. They drifted across the lawn in a smooth arc until they were
level with the corner of the hotel. The first car to arrive disgorged two people. Simmy recognised the middle-aged couple she had seen on Monday. The woman, who Simmy remembered was called Rosemary, was carrying a bulky carrier bag, while the man remained fussily locking and then checking the car doors. They looked as if they’d spent a strenuous morning shopping – which seemed unlikely, given the location, despite the galleries and china shops in Hawkshead. The smart woman, to Simmy’s surprise, went over and spoke to the Lillywhites. Spreading the poison about the hotel, Simmy supposed, or trying to elicit another lot of complaints to use as ammunition. She couldn’t hear what was said, but it looked amicable enough. To judge from the body language, the couple were not displeased by the approach, showing no hint of indignation or concern.

The second car contained two men in their twenties. Only when they had climbed out and were standing shoulder to shoulder staring at the hotel did Simmy guess they might be police detectives. How many more people would be shipped in before the day was done, she wondered. Then one of them turned and bent over the back seat of the car. When he straightened again, he was holding a large camera with a long lens.

‘Surely they can’t be reporters,’ she muttered.

But it would seem that they were just that. They observed the various cars scattered around and apparently recognised one or two of them. The one without the camera spotted Simmy and headed for her. ‘Sounds as if there’s been some trouble up here,’ he said.

‘Oh?’ Again she enjoyed the sensation of deliberately withholding information.

‘Do you work here?’

‘No.’

‘Who are you, then?’

‘I might ask you the same question.’

‘We can see DI Moxon’s car, as well as another police vehicle. We’ve heard the call for a body to be taken to the mortuary. And there’s also something about a missing person. A boy, by the sound of it. So stop messing about and tell us what’s going on.’

‘Why on earth should I? You still haven’t introduced yourself.’

‘We’re from the
Gazette
. We thought there might be a statement by now. The police actually find us pretty useful, you know,’ he finished defensively.

‘Surely the statement would be made to all the media people together? Surely it’s very intrusive of you to come here hoping for special treatment? If somebody has died, then don’t you risk upsetting the friends and relatives?’

‘Oh, you’re no use at all,’ he snapped and turned away from her. His eye fell on the Lillywhites, who had still not made it into the hotel, and he headed for them. Simmy relaxed, knowing the couple could have nothing interesting to impart. Her main feeling was concern that careless words spread by the media would jeopardise the search for Ben. At the very least, it would make his captors more careful. As she watched the frustrated journalist ask his probing questions, she was rescued by the detective inspector hurrying out from the main entrance.

‘Jamie Murray – get away from these people,’ he said, sounding more irritated than angry. ‘You should know better.’

‘Mr Moxon, sir. Can you give us at least the basics?’

‘Not until we make our official statement. 6 p.m., in Hawkshead. The main car park, most likely. Until then, you are officially requested to say nothing. This is all extremely sensitive. Your editor will already have been contacted, most likely. Now go away and leave these good people in peace.’ He addressed the Lillywhites. ‘I’m afraid there’s been some trouble here today. Could you come with me, please, and I’ll go over it with you. I’m Detective Inspector Moxon,’ he added. Then he noticed Simmy. ‘Mrs Brown. Oh lord, I’m sorry.’