Tope The Dacre Dilemma

The enthralling English cozy crime series
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-0-7490-3272-2
Verlag: Allison & Busby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 15, 276 Seiten

Reihe: Lake District Mysteries

Simmy Brown is four months pregnant, working partly from home, partly from her Windermere florist shop and very much feeling her age when her husband, Christopher, asks her to deliver flowers to Eleanor Padgett. As an expert in antique textiles, Eleanor has been a considerable help to him at his auction house. The visit out to the charming Lake District village of Dacre is squeezed into Simmy's endless to-do list. It is a moment of calm to appreciate the approach of spring and the interesting churchyard, but this is shattered when she discovers the body of a young man among the graves. It is not long before Simmy once again finds herself in a complex and puzzling investigation, led by DI Moxon and aided by her friends Ben and Bonnie.

Rebecca Tope is the author of three bestselling crime series, set in the Cotswolds, Lake District and West Country. She lives on a smallholding in rural Herefordshire, where she enjoys the silence and plants a lot of trees.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Tope, Rebecca

Leseproben

Chapter Two

‘I’m not going to listen to any more about the ravages that pregnancy inflicts on my body,’ Simmy announced at bedtime. ‘You’d think it was an absolute miracle than any baby ever gets born at all without killing its wretched mother in the process.’ She had been for an antenatal visit a few days earlier, and was still suffering from the effects. Because her first child had been stillborn, there was a flag against her name and an automatic assumption that she was high risk. Since Robin had been born with no complications whatsoever, this struck Simmy as excessive.

‘It’s all nonsense,’ Christopher agreed. ‘You’ll sail through it like you did with Robin.’ His complacency at having successfully fathered a second child was showing no sign of abating. His own approach to childbirth was relaxed, almost to the point of being cavalier. He believed that nature got it right much more often than not, and deplored the general habit of interfering and panicking. Simmy’s mother, Angie, held the same opinions, even more forcefully.

Simmy suspected that Christopher believed, on some level, that his own sturdy genes were responsible for Robin’s easy birth and general good health. Which meant the same would happen with this next one. In his mind, it was his prodigious fertility that had achieved what Simmy had pessimistically assumed was never going to happen. But Simmy knew better. This child’s existence was due almost entirely to an irresistible rush of hormones at Christmas. She had felt it happen, and knew that her husband’s contribution, though undeniably crucial, had been a much lesser part of the picture than he liked to believe.

‘So far, so good,’ she said cautiously. ‘We’re not there yet by a long way. I feel as if I’m at the mercy of nature, and can only sit passively waiting and trusting all will be well.’

He nodded. ‘Very wise. Although even I think we ought to make a few plans along the way.’

Simmy had still not dared to think seriously about the implications for her business. There were times when Windermere seemed impossibly far away, down through the Kirkstone Pass and Troutbeck in all weathers, costing so much in time and fuel and complicated planning. Bonnie was thoroughly competent to handle customers, make up bouquets, wreaths and floral displays, take orders, and manage the day-to-day running of the shop, but she could not yet drive, and therefore make deliveries. Which meant the need for another full-time employee in the shape of Verity. Business had been so good that spring that Ben Harkness’s schoolgirl sister Tanya had been given all the work she could handle on the Saturday shifts, taking phone calls and online orders, but still Simmy had to be available for deliveries alongside Verity, as well as devoting long hours to actually making up a good proportion of the orders. ‘We have to be a hundred per cent reliable,’ Simmy kept saying. ‘Everything depends on reputation.’

‘It’s getting to be too much,’ Bonnie insisted. ‘We’re all exhausted and it’s only April.’

‘It won’t be as hectic from here on, now we’ve had Valentine’s and Mother’s Day,’ Simmy promised, as she did every year. ‘And Easter was much busier than we bargained for. We’ll be scrambling for business for much of the summer, you see.’

‘We’ll still need another person who can drive,’ said Bonnie. ‘And don’t look at me, because I’ve got my hands full to bursting in the shop.’

‘I know,’ sighed Simmy. ‘I’m thinking about it.’

‘Then we could increase the area we cover,’ Bonnie pressed on. ‘Maybe all the way down to Kendal, although none of us wants to go any further south, I suppose.’

‘It would make more sense to spread over to Ambleside and Pooley Bridge. Nearer to me.’

‘You know we’re one of five in and around Windermere now,’ Bonnie said, agreeing that expansion was needed. ‘And there’s hardly anything in Ambleside or Keswick. Makes you think.’ She gave Simmy a narrow look. For nearly two years now she had been separated from her beloved Ben, with him working and living in Keswick while she was stuck in Windermere. It never got any easier. Her ambition was to persuade Simmy to open a new shop in the north of the area. The idea was sound, but the effort daunting. With a second child on the way everything felt even more impossible.

‘The trouble is,’ said Simmy, ‘I’m really not a natural entrepreneur. Anyone else would have a whole chain of shops by now, in all these places.’

‘And be well on the way to making a million,’ said Bonnie, her eyes bright. ‘We’ve gotta do it, Sim. We’ll all regret it otherwise.’

‘I know. And I have been talking to someone in Pooley Bridge. More about growing a lot of our own stock than starting another shop – which would mean I could stay up there a bit more, making up orders and finding new customers in that area.’

This conversation had taken place only the previous day, and now, as she drove down through Kirkstone, she gave it more of her undivided consideration. The fact that Christopher wanted her to take flowers to Dacre seemed to reinforce the idea of a satellite of some sort in Pooley Bridge. The town was small, and not far from Penrith, where there were established florists already – but it was surrounded by village settlements which added up to a sizeable population. If Bonnie joined Ben in Keswick, she could get to Pooley Bridge by bus – just.

So why not start a shop in Keswick? Simmy asked herself. It would solve almost every dilemma at a stroke, including being very close to her parents, schools and all the other essentials. Because, she answered herself, that would soon lead to us leaving our current house and moving into town. The one thing she did know was that she had no intention of doing any such thing. They lived in Hartsop, a very tiny village close to Patterdale, with fells and Brothers Water on the doorstep, and Ullswater nearby. The house was a converted barn, with big airy spaces and a very efficient log burner. Simmy loved it.

It was Angie and Russell’s turn to have Robin, and Christopher was not going to be able to collect him at the end of the day – which he normally did – because there was an auction that weekend, and they were a person short in the office. This meant he would have to pitch in with the final touches to the catalogue and his hours were going to be long. At least he would deliver Robin in the morning, which would otherwise be a very substantial round trip for Simmy, up to the A66, westwards to Threlkeld near Keswick, and then straight down the A591 to Windermere. It took at least an hour; fortunately she very rarely had to do it. If her parents wanted to talk, it took longer and made her late for the shop. ‘Can’t stop,’ she always said. ‘I’ll catch up with you when I come back for him.’ But the end of the day was also a rush, with the evening meal to prepare and Robin to put to bed at a respectable time.

Bonnie greeted her with a hefty list of orders and the morning whizzed by. There was no special news to exchange. Verity hovered, waiting for the two tributes destined for a local funeral. ‘Rain at the weekend,’ she said. ‘Why does it always do that?’

A customer excused Simmy and Bonnie from replying. The day was for the most part too busy for any real conversation, anyway. Simmy had a text from Christopher giving a reasonably precise location for Eleanor Padgett’s camper van. ‘There’s a little road going to the church, and she’s on a patch of land just up there. Maybe you could leave work early and go there before collecting R. I’m going to be here till well past six, I’m afraid.’

Questions sprouted in Simmy’s mind. Had Christopher asked the woman for exact directions? If so, was Eleanor expecting the flower delivery? And how was Simmy supposed to get to Threlkeld via Dacre? If she remembered rightly, Dacre was south and east of where she would be heading. ‘Better to collect R first,’ she responded, while wondering why she thought it necessary to say anything. How she chose to arrange her itinerary was really none of his business. The reason, she supposed, was that it was annoying that he hadn’t got it right. Any fool could see that Dacre came after Threlkeld. Given that the flowers were his commission and Robin his son, it did not seem fair that he should give her such misleading advice as to how to satisfy all concerned.

She made up a nice bunch of cosmos and freesias and hothouse lilies, explaining to Bonnie who they were for. ‘I’ll leave a bit early, and do them on the way home with Robin.’

It was a Thursday. Verity was already planning her weekend, and Simmy made sure that Tanya would be free on the Saturday. Bonnie worked five and a half days a week, snatching time with Ben as best she could on Saturday afternoons and Sundays. His...