The Ullswater Undertaking Rebecca Tope (good books to read for young adults .TXT) 📖

going on?’ The idea of Christopher complying with some crackpot scheme orchestrated by Fabian Crick was outrageous. Completely out of character. And potentially dangerous. What would the police think? And what was there to do in Ullswater?

The only answer she could think of was that they must be visiting Aunt Hilda’s house. If they’d gone to Fabian’s rented place, whatever that comprised, he’d most likely have said ‘Glenridding’ not ‘Ullswater’, although locally the terms appeared to be almost interchangeable. She desperately wanted to follow the men and find out what they were doing. But she couldn’t because she had a baby to think about. She started to call Christopher on the phone, and then killed the call before it could connect. Instead she phoned Ben Harkness.

‘Any progress?’ she asked, with a strong sense of self-control. She wasn’t going to complain about her man going off or the frustration arising from having to consider the baby before making any sort of move.

‘Plenty,’ he said excitedly. ‘I found Uncle Richmond quite easily. He’s got two sons, an ex-wife and lives on a farm near Workington. The wife might be dead – she hasn’t lived with him for about twenty years, as far as I can see from the voting register.’

‘Wow!’ Simmy applauded. Then, ‘Well done.’

‘It’s perfectly simple when you know how to go about it. But lots of people give up when they realise they don’t even supply proper phonebooks any more.’

‘Have you found out anything else about him?’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, what does he do? I mean, is it a proper big working farm?’

‘Have a heart,’ he protested. ‘It’s not dairy, but I haven’t traced the exact nature and number of his livestock. Although he did achieve a brief week or two of fame four years ago when he dug up a piece of Roman treasure in a field. That’s quite an interesting story, but not pertinent, as far as I can see.’

‘Was he metal detecting?’

‘No, funnily enough. He was just digging for some reason and there it was.’

‘Couldn’t that be why Fabian’s looking for him? He probably thinks there’s money sloshing about.’

‘There isn’t. It wasn’t a treasure trove and he just got a modest finder’s fee.’

‘It’s a nice bit of background, even so.’

‘I can’t say I’ve got any sort of feeling for the actual man. I couldn’t find a picture of him. You only get random snippets from searching newspapers, but it’s a start.’

‘So it would be easy enough just to go and find him,’ she said slowly. ‘If we wanted to.’

‘Assuming you’d be up for a drive to Workington. Which might be a bit of a hassle with the baby. And why would you?’

‘I don’t know.’ She was trying to straighten her thoughts. ‘But you know what – Christopher’s told the police all about the Armitages and their connection to Josephine. So they’ll be tracking Richmond down, the same as you’ve just done.’ She felt herself shiver. ‘That feels a bit treacherous, actually. They’re not going to like it, are they?’

‘Nobody likes the intrusions that go on when there’s a murder investigation. And the chances are pretty good that one of the family did it – or knows who did. Did Chris say any more about how she was killed, by the way?’

‘No. They won’t have told him that, will they?’

‘Who found the body?’

‘A woman from the auction house called Fiona. I suppose she’ll know if it was a knife or a gun or—’

‘A garotte,’ said Ben with slightly too much relish.

With a jolt, Simmy remembered that her fiancé had gone off with a man who was at best unreliable. But before she could convey this worrying development to Ben, the boy read her mind.

‘That’s where we need Christopher,’ he said urgently. ‘He can surely find out a whole lot more about the entire family just by asking Fabian Crick, and I bet he’s gleaned quite a bit today as well. If this promise he made to Fabian means anything, then he’s working blind unless he gets more actual facts. Although that might turn out to be totally irrelevant now Josephine’s dead.’

Simmy spluttered. ‘I’m not sure I followed that last part, but let’s hope he’s doing exactly that as we speak. Finding out about the family, I mean.’ She quickly described the note and the anxiety it caused her. ‘I’m quite scared,’ she admitted. ‘Everything’s completely different now from how it was on Sunday. There’s a murderer out there.’

‘I wouldn’t worry about Chris. It doesn’t sound as if the Crick chap’s very tough.’

‘He might have hidden skills, like judo or something. He might have a knife.’

‘Don’t get in a state. If he’s only in Glenridding, you can go and see for yourself, can’t you? Has he gone in the car? If so, you’ll easily find it, won’t you? It’s a small place.’

‘Not that small. There are quite a few houses. And what about the baby,’ she wailed. ‘I can’t strap him into his blasted seat again and take him with me, if there’s a chance there’ll be trouble.’

‘Calm down,’ said the youth, who was half her age. ‘Take some breaths. Nothing’s going to happen to any of you. Why would it? We already decided there’s virtually no chance that the Crick man killed Josephine. He’s probably a lot more scared than you are, thinking the police might be after him.’

‘If they are, it’ll be thanks to Christopher, and that might make him mad.’

‘It sounds to me as if Christopher went perfectly willingly. It might even have been his idea – trying to get more information. Anyway, we found Uncle Richmond. That’s a step forward. Next step ought to be to go and talk to him, don’t you think?’

‘In theory,’ she agreed cautiously, trying to keep pace with Ben’s thought processes. ‘But really it’s got to be Christopher, not us. All we can do is tell him the address. He’ll probably think phoning is the best he can do – if he does anything at all. It’s probably much more sensible to