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

in her twenties, who Simmy thought was Pattie. Despite her many visits to the business, she was still hazy as to exactly who was who. This particular person had been barely glimpsed in the background, generally with a clipboard in her hand. The other was Oliver, whose beaming expression felt oddly inappropriate. ‘Can we see the baby?’ asked the girl, already peering through the back window next to Robin’s seat. ‘Is he awake? Can we take him out?’

Blimey, thought Simmy. Some people. ‘Not while he’s asleep,’ she demurred. ‘If he wakes up, I’ll have to feed him.’

Oliver was standing beside the passenger window, still smiling. ‘Chris says we should get some lunch, so I’ve booked us a table upstairs at the Merienda. They know me there. Lovely cakes.’

‘Okay,’ said Simmy, trying not to feel bulldozed. ‘Thanks.’ It occurred to her that he was trying to say that he would be paying for the meal, which meant she ought to be grateful.

‘Pattie, come away from that baby,’ he told his employee. ‘You’ll wake it up.’

So it was Pattie, Simmy thought with relief. ‘I’ll bring him up here again in a week or two,’ she promised. ‘When he’s a bit more sociable. He’s not terribly interesting at the moment.’

‘Oh, no – I love them at this stage. All floppy and warm and smelling so heavenly.’ The girl gave a little frisson of ecstasy. ‘And it’s all over so terribly quickly.’

Simmy felt she’d been ungracious. ‘I’m sorry he’s asleep. Maybe we’ll come back after lunch. Will you still be here?’

Pattie glanced at Oliver and then at the main building, as if lost for an answer. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Everything’s …’ Her enthusiasm for the baby suddenly evaporated, along with every other cheerful thought. Her face drooped and she was clearly at a loss for words.

‘I asked her to come in and have a go at the financials,’ Oliver explained. ‘We generally send out payments for last Saturday’s sale on a Wednesday, you see. We still do it the old-fashioned way, posting cheques to everyone. Josie always said it was simpler than keeping track of hundreds of people’s bank details while making sure nobody steals them. Trouble is, it’s quite labour intensive. How were you getting on?’ he asked Pattie.

‘More than halfway,’ she told him. ‘People have been popping in to talk about Josephine, which slowed it down.’

Simmy concluded that Oliver had not been on the premises all morning, since he seemed unaware of Pattie’s progress. ‘What’s Christopher doing?’ she asked.

‘Who knows? Jack wanted him for something, and there’s a bloke from Leicester or somewhere with about twenty pictures he wants valuing. Just turned up with no warning at ten this morning apparently.’ He raised his eyebrows at Pattie, as if she was somehow responsible. ‘I got called in as backup.’

‘Happens all the time,’ Pattie murmured.

Simmy was pleased to see no hint of apology on her face. ‘I suppose it’s what you’re here for,’ she said with a little laugh.

‘Among other things,’ Oliver agreed tightly.

Simmy was losing patience. ‘What time did you tell them for lunch?’

‘Twelve-thirty. We need to go soon. Do you need anything – for the baby, I mean?’

‘What?’ She could not imagine what he might have in mind. ‘No, thanks. He’s asleep,’ she repeated, thinking that this could not remain true for much longer. ‘When he wakes up I’ll have to find somewhere to feed him. I don’t suppose that’ll be a problem for the Merinda, or whatever it’s called.’

‘Merienda. Have you never been there?’

‘No. I don’t come to Keswick much. It’s out of my usual stomping ground.’

‘Of course. You’ve got the shop in Windermere. I was forgetting.’

She found herself liking this man less and less with every passing minute. He ought to be much more upset about the murder of his faithful and long-serving employee, for a start, instead of making such a palaver about lunch. He ought, too, to remember not to refer to a person’s precious baby as ‘it’.

Before she could confirm that she did indeed have a shop in Windermere, Christopher emerged from the main door. He was very much not smiling. He was looking back over his shoulder at a man behind him, with a scowl.

‘Hey, Chris – don’t upset the customers,’ Oliver muttered, too quietly for Christopher to hear him. He then went briskly to see what the trouble might be. Pattie remained beside the car, still eyeing the somnolent Robin as if tempted to disobey Simmy and rouse him into wakefulness. Simmy was twisted awkwardly in her seat, watching the baby as well as everything else that was going on.

Within a couple of minutes, Christopher was back in the car and starting the engine. ‘Bloody prat!’ he snarled, with another scowl at the offending customer.

‘What did he do?’ Simmy asked.

‘Wanted me to give him a signed statement to the effect that two of his pictures are genuine Russell Chathams, from the 1980s. Lithographs.’

‘And aren’t they?’

‘They might well be. I’m not qualified to judge. I surprised myself by having heard of the bloke at all. But as it happens, I have. He died not long ago – lived most of his life in Montana.’ He was driving as he talked, heading into the centre of town, apparently on autopilot.

‘I’ve never heard of him. Are his pictures valuable?’

‘Very much so. Jack Nicholson collects them, among other people. They’re pretty nice. Clever. Not like most of those wild west people, trying to make paintings look like photographs. The point is, what makes him think I’m going to risk my reputation on validating something just so he can make a profit?’

‘Outrageous,’ said Simmy, ratcheting up her role as loyal supporter. ‘What was he thinking? Incidentally, where’s Oliver? Shouldn’t we be waiting for him?’

‘He said to go ahead. He’s trying to smooth ruffled feathers. I’ll be in for a bollocking, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Will he say you should have signed the validation or whatever it is?’

‘He might.’

‘Outrageous,’ she said again.

This time, Christopher laughed and patted her leg. ‘That’s