‘How did it go?’ Bonnie asked, the moment she stepped into the shop next morning. ‘At the hotel, I mean.’
‘Really well. Although I have a feeling I didn’t ask for enough money. It seemed like a lot until I broke it down, and then it was too late. It’s okay, though. I’ll just have to be extra clever at what I use.’
‘The delivery van’s here.’ Bonnie cocked her head at a vehicle pulling up outside.
The girl helped the van man to unload, admiring the closely packed blooms as she always did before releasing them from their captivity and giving them a drink. ‘Look at this colour!’ she cried, holding a pale-mauve primula aloft. ‘And what’s with all this eucalyptus?’
‘That’s for the foyer. It’s going to be mainly mauves and purples. Eucalyptus is perfect for that.’
‘What are the others?’
Simmy produced the black vase. ‘This one’s going in the lounge, at the end of the week. Today, I’m only doing the reception area and the big space upstairs. It’s called a solar, because it gets so much sun.’
‘Sounds nice,’ said the girl, sounding wistful. ‘Wish I could see it.’
‘We’ll work something out so you can,’ Simmy promised, thinking the girl probably hadn’t ever seen the inside of an expensive hotel.
By ten o’clock, she had assembled everything she needed and loaded it into her van. She had also checked the computer for new orders and left Bonnie with all the usual instructions for taking charge of the shop. ‘I should be back by twelve,’ she said. ‘Have fun.’
Bonnie’s mobile prevented her from responding. ‘It’s Ben,’ she said with an unconscious grin.
For no good reason, Simmy hovered in the doorway while the youngsters conversed. Within half a minute it turned out that she had been right to do so. Bonnie flapped an urgent hand at her, saying, ‘Yes, she’s here. You only just caught her.’ She held out the phone. ‘He wants to speak to you.’
‘Hi, Ben. How are you?’ she greeted him.
‘Okay. Listen – are you coming to Hawkshead this morning? Bonnie said you were, when I spoke to her last night.’
‘Yes. I’m just leaving. Why?’
‘I’m stuck here, that’s why. I assumed I’d got a lift sorted, but they’ve gone without me. Probably my own fault, for boasting about how much I like hiking. Then I went for the bus, but they cancelled the next one. I’m far too knackered to walk to the ferry. It’s hot. And Bonnie says you’re coming here anyway, so that seems the perfect solution. Don’t you think?’
‘It’s no problem for me. Where will you be?’
‘In the car park. The one on the left as you go into the village.’
‘You’ll have to amuse yourself while I do the flowers in the hotel. Is that okay? I should be finished by twelve at the latest.’
‘It’ll have to be,’ he said ungraciously, before asking, ‘but can’t I come with you to do the arranging? I could guard the van or something. It’s going to be boring otherwise, kicking my heels in Hawkshead.’
It occurred to Simmy that sitting in a van was hardly exciting, but she guessed the boy was in need of a rest. He’d probably fall asleep. ‘I suppose so. Stand where I can see you, then, and I’ll be there in about twenty-five minutes, I should think.’
‘Thanks a bundle, Sim,’ he said. ‘Can I talk to Bonnie again now?’
Resisting the urge to give Bonnie a repeat set of instructions, Simmy set out. It was a route she was beginning to find familiar, and to savour accordingly. From Windermere to Ambleside the road followed the eastern edge of the lake, often within a few feet of the lapping water. There were huge, high trees along this road, as there were bordering much of the A591, all the way from Ings. They gave the impression that there was a forest just waiting for its chance to become once again the dominant feature it must have been a millennium ago. If people and sheep were sent into an enchanted sleep for a few years, they would awake to dense vegetation on all sides.
Then she was passing the marinas and jetties that formed the southern fringe of Ambleside, curving around the very northern tip of Lake Windermere, and into the twisting little lanes that led to Hawkshead. It was a total of nine miles, and it always took at least twenty minutes. She had to follow behind two cars obviously driven by visitors, so her predicted time of arrival in Hawkshead was exceeded slightly. Ben was standing conspicuously in the entrance to the car park, scanning every vehicle with close attention.
‘Had a good holiday?’ she asked him, once he was settled, his rucksack at his feet.
‘Sort of. Not exactly a holiday, though. We walked eighteen miles a day for three days, most of it uphill.’
‘How many of you?’
‘Five. Me, Wilf, a guy called Tom and two brothers, Mo and Sid. Really they’re Mohammed and Sayeed. They’re from Sheffield. Wilf met them a while back. Tom’s my age. He’s here with his family on holiday, but didn’t want to spend the whole time with them.’
‘Sounds like a good group.’
‘They were okay. I chatted a lot to Tom, and he’s quite bright. He’s from Derby. I’ve never been to Derby,’ he added thoughtfully.
‘How did he get together with you, then – he just walked up to you and asked if you’d take him, or what?’
‘More or less. We were in Coniston on the first day, and he got talking to us. We’d got space in one of the tents, so we said okay. No big deal.’
Simmy reflected wistfully on the spontaneous freedom this implied. ‘I suppose he had a phone with him, so he could keep his parents posted.’
‘Yeah, but he only called once, I think.’
‘So you had a good time.’
‘Pretty much. Although the food was rubbish. Burnt sausages, most of the time.’
‘You poor thing. You do seem to have lost a bit of weight, I must say.’ She threw a quick look at his bare legs, which had very little flesh on them. ‘Nice and brown, though. I don’t remember it being sunny.’
‘We had one nice afternoon. Unless it’s scorching from the campfires. Or just dirt.’ He licked a finger and rubbed it on the skin above his knee. ‘It does come off a bit, look.’
She laughed. ‘Maybe you should go down to the lake for a wash while I do my flowers. The hotel’s grounds go right to the edge.’
‘Sounds nice. But I might wander over to Colthouse. I want to see if there’s a path through the woods, or if you need to go around the road.’
‘Why? What’s there? I’ve never heard of it.’
‘Mostly it’s a Quaker meeting house and burial ground, but there’s an Ann Tyson’s House there as well.’
‘Sorry, Ben. None of these things mean anything to me. Well, Quakers, a bit …’
‘Don’t worry about it. It’s a thing I’ve got going with Bonnie. I’ll be sure to be back at the van in plenty of time. I know you’ll be ages.’
In two more minutes they were at the gateway leading to the hotel. ‘Better not park right in the middle of all these Rovers and things,’ she said. ‘It’ll lower the tone.’
‘BMW, Audi, Mercedes, Subaru,’ he noted. ‘Can’t see a Rover.’
‘Smart, is all I mean. My dad always says you can’t get better quality than a Rover.’
‘He has no idea,’ sighed Ben.
Simmy laughed again. It was good to spend a few minutes with the boy, after not seeing him for over a week. He was always good company – unpredictable, funny and immensely knowledgeable. The fact that she was easily old enough to be his mother seldom presented any difficulty. There had been times when he had felt like the parent and she the child.
‘Do you want help with the unloading?’ he asked, with a wary glance over his shoulder at the contents of the van.
‘No, thanks. I’ll have to do it all in the right order. You go and have your walk, if you’ve really got that much energy. I don’t expect anybody would mind if you took the path down to the water. Or you could just stay here and have a little nap.’
‘Can’t do that. It’s no distance to Colthouse from here. Even round the road can’t be more than twenty minutes.’ He got out of the van and stood admiring the lake, stretching away to the right. ‘I quite like Esthwaite,’ he said. ‘It’s so unglamorous compared to most of the others.’
‘I’ll probably only be about an hour, so don’t go far. If I can’t find you, I’ll come down to the lake and look for you. It’s a nice day for a change.’
‘It would turn nice, just as I’m going home. It was cold and windy all the time we were in the fells.’
He moved off at a trot, down the moderate slope to the edge of the water. As far as Simmy could see, there were no paths in the direction he’d indicated. Instead there was a fenced-off area of woodland that looked impenetrably dense. The lake lapped almost imperceptibly against the grassy bank. She watched Ben for a moment and then got straight to work.
The next forty minutes were spent in total concentration on the flowers. The black vase had been set aside as destined for the dining room on Friday, so she used two of the rose bowls from the dairy. Somebody – presumably Dan – had brought them into the foyer for her. On closer inspection, she liked them less. They were certainly in keeping with the house – florid Victorian pinks and greens decorated them and their pedestals. One had a long crack in it, and the other looked as if it had been washed in a very hot dishwasher, leading to a patchy fading of the design. They were not a matching pair, and not of the best quality. She would use them for this week, while searching out something better for the future. Her friend Ninian Tripp could make himself useful in that department, even if he wouldn’t have time to fashion something himself. He was a potter, after all, with vases one of his best lines. In time, he could very likely produce a set of perfectly gorgeous items for the hotel.
Thoughts of Ninian always brought their own special set of frustrations. He and Simmy were conducting a sporadic relationship, for which neither of them seemed to feel a great deal of commitment. It was agreeable to spend a night in his isolated little house on Brant Fell with trees all around. It was equally agreeable to have somebody to eat and chat with at the end of a day’s work in the shop. But Ninian would never be an object of great passion; nor would he qualify as a father to any baby she might yet manage to produce to compensate somehow for the poor, lost little Edith. As the months rolled by, Simmy increasingly gave up any hope that such a child might ever exist. She was thirty-eight already. Surely her destiny was firmly set now as a flourishing businesswoman with a growing complement of friends in this beautiful part of England that she was still getting to know?
She completed the display for the reception first. Tendrils of scented honeysuckle wove amongst the cool shades of eucalyptus and the bolder allium. The primulas were tricky to position and certain to go limp by Friday. The colours were a risk – not many people would dare combine the orangey shades of honeysuckle with mauve and purple, but – as one of her tutors had often said – in nature almost any combination could be found, so there should be no firm rules when it came to arranging flowers.
Upstairs in the solar, she worked faster, the finished effect clear in her mind’s eye. The shape was the thing – a semicircle to represent a rising sun – with the colours falling easily into place. Set against a wall, only one face of the display would show, so she was able to keep it almost two-dimensional. When she stepped back to assess it, she was impressed by her own work. It was undeniably flamboyant, celebrating the light and heat of summer, certain to warm the spirits of anybody who saw it.
She had left her phone, with notebook and wallet, in the van. Carrying her bag of oasis, ribbons, ties and other necessities, she went back to the vehicle. Nobody had spoken to her, and she had not set eyes on Melanie. A few guests had drifted past her in the reception area, but said nothing. A woman she supposed was Mrs Bodgett appeared from a room and fiddled with a few things behind the reception desk, at one point. She looked to be about thirty-five, with enormous false eyelashes and a lot of make-up. She smiled and mumbled something, but it was hardly a conversation.
Out of habit, Simmy switched on the phone, and within a few seconds it gave the little song that told her she had a message. Bonnie, she supposed, with a question about the shop. It was voicemail, not a text, which suggested it might be urgent. With a sigh, Simmy put the phone to her ear, reluctant to discover what mistake the girl might have made without having recourse to advice.
‘Simmy!’ came a high-pitched voice, full of panic. ‘There’s a body here. Under the trees, at the very top end of the lake. I don’t know what to do. Well, I’ll have to call 999. Who knows when you’ll get this … Hey!’ The phone went silent in her hand, even though she continued to listen for further speech.
It was Ben. The last syllable had been closer to a scream than a shout. For quite a long moment, Simmy merely sat there, inwardly cursing. Because her first reaction was that the boy was having a laugh, playing a joke on her. There had been bodies before, associated with flower deliveries and malign uses thereof. Not until that final word did she understand that this was real, and that the boy was not merely panicked but terrified.