The Ambleside Alibi: 2 (24 page)

Simmy took it awkwardly. ‘Thanks,’ she said, remembering the disappointing quality of the flowers.

‘You really can trust us,’ said Mrs Hawkins, with an amused smile. ‘I promise you. We’ll drive you home again afterwards, obviously.’

‘Where are you staying?’ Russell Straw asked, speaking for the first time. Simmy could see that he was trying to hide his bewilderment with a sensible pragmatic question.

‘Not the Belsfield,’ Jane laughed. ‘But I gather they do a good dinner, and they still had a table to spare. Most places are completely booked.’

‘We’re staying at the Elleray,’ Candida answered the question. ‘We’ve been there two days already. We’re going home tomorrow.’

Simmy visualised Gwen and Nicola sitting in the bar
that morning. Had they known the Hawkins women were there? Had they already met and settled the mystery of Candy’s birth? Was everything amicably resolved by now, with the injured florist the only remaining loose end?

‘Think about it,’ Jane urged her. ‘The table’s booked for seven. We’ll come for you here at six-thirty. You can tell anyone you like, if you’re worried about trusting us. There’s no secrets, nothing sinister. I can understand you’d be nervous, after what happened to you, but we aim to convince you that it had nothing whatever to do with us.’

‘Who said I thought it did?’

‘We’ll explain all that, as well. We’ve got something else to do this afternoon. Here’s my phone number …’ She held out a card. ‘Call us if you really won’t come. Otherwise, we’ll see you at six-thirty.’

Simmy took the card, knowing she would accept the invitation. Knowing that they knew she would, because what woman anywhere in the world could resist the lure of a mystery solved, an explanation made and a lavish free dinner into the bargain?

The afternoon drifted by slowly, with Simmy wondering what she ought to wear for her special treat. ‘You can’t hope to do better than that suit,’ said Angie. ‘You haven’t got it dirty this morning, have you?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Simmy looked down at herself. ‘But it’ll feel strange not changing into something else.’

‘Add a scarf, earrings, smart shoes …’

‘All of which are up at Troutbeck,’ Simmy reminded her.

‘Dad can drive you there to fetch them.’

‘I suppose so.’ The prospect was unappealing. She felt instinctively that she should conserve her energy for the evening to come. Just getting in and out of a car was a challenge, and risked aggravating her fragile bones. ‘And what about my head? I look terrible like this. My hair needs washing – what’s left of it.’

‘We can do that, at least.’

‘Only if we take the dressing off. And what about the stitches? Are they allowed to get wet?’

‘I don’t see why not. We’ll use that baby shampoo I’ve got for guests. It’s been tested on rabbits’ eyes, so your skull should cope with it.’

‘Oh, hush, Angie,’ scolded Russell. ‘You know they don’t do that any more.’

‘I bet they do,’ said Angie darkly.

‘I don’t think she ought to go, anyway.’ Russell folded his arms and attempted a demeanour of authority. ‘The idea’s ridiculous.’

‘You’re right,’ Simmy told him. ‘But I’m going anyway. I can’t resist it. And when you think about it, there’s really no chance at all that they’ll do anything to hurt me. Not now we know who they are and where they’re staying. If I’m not back by half past nine, you just call the police.’

‘Three hours after they’ve spirited you away and done their worst with you.’

‘That sort of thing only happens in stories, Dad. I know – we can call the Elleray now and check that they really are staying there. Would that help?’

He mulled it over and shook his head. ‘They could have used false names – to us as well. How would we ever find them if they just disappeared with you?’

‘Take the registration number of their car when they come to fetch me. Even if it’s a hired one, they’ll have had to give ID to get it.’

‘What if they come in a taxi?’

She had no reply to that.

‘See?’ he said, like a child.

‘It’ll be all right, Dad,’ she insisted. They both recognised that the scene rightly belonged to a time in their lives over twenty years earlier, except that now there was a genuine
reason to be anxious. Something awful really had happened to Simmy, and her father was more than justified in reacting as he did. ‘Mum’s not worried, is she?’ Simmy pointed out.

‘She’s confused, the same as me. Listen – I want you to send me a text message every hour, on the hour. Just put “OK” or something. What are these damned gadgets good for if not to set a parent’s mind at rest?’

‘All right, then,’ she agreed, almost liking the idea. ‘Should I start at seven or eight?’

‘Seven, of course.’

Angie washed her daughter’s hair with extreme care, having picked away the hospital dressing and examined the wound. ‘It’s quite small, considering,’ she remarked. ‘And looks clean. No pus or angry red swelling.’

‘It feels all right.’ Simmy ran delicate exploratory fingers over the place, which was at the back of her head. ‘Except for the shorn area.’

‘If I remember rightly, that’s the toughest part of your skull. Did you land on it, do you think?’

Together they described somersaults and arcs that Simmy might have performed as she flew off the bridge head first. It was both insensitive and therapeutic of her mother, she discovered. ‘I don’t suppose we’ll ever know for sure, but I think it’s more likely it got bashed on the way downstream. There’s another sore area here.’ She put her fingers to a spot above her left ear. ‘And in plenty of other places.’ The bruising on her chest still couldn’t bear any pressure.

‘I’m not at all sure you ought to go out,’ said Angie. ‘Didn’t the hospital say anything?’

‘I’ve already
been
out,’ Simmy reminded her. ‘And that was fine.’

The hair was dried, and an ordinary sticking plaster applied to the stitches on her scalp. It took the biggest one Angie could find. ‘I thought you said the wound was small,’ Simmy objected. ‘That patch is enormous.’

‘
Relatively
small. It’s still a good two inches long. More than the average cut finger or grazed knee. Which is what these things are intended for. Besides, I need to allow plenty of margin, so the sticky bits don’t pull at the stitches.’

They had tea and scones, and talked about nothing much until six. At that point, Simmy began to feel agitated. Her stomach was churning. She tried to analyse the reasons, prioritising her fears as methodically as she could without revealing a hint of the process to her parents. Angie was rummaging through her jumbled jewellery box in search of earrings or necklace, and Russell had returned to the kitchen to listen to the radio, leaving Simmy alone in the living room for a few minutes.

With no great certainty, she concluded that it was more a worry about going out into the cold, dark night, where there would be icy surfaces, than any apprehension of attack by Candida or Jane Hawkins. Or it could have been nothing more than a generalised loss of confidence in a reliable world. Unknown things might happen. Everything was a risk and there could be no guarantees.

The car arrived precisely at six-thirty. Jane Hawkins came to the door as Simmy made her way down the hall. Russell had announced a sighting from the living room window.

‘Enjoy yourself,’ he called from the doorway. ‘At least
it’s not snowing!’ On the contrary, it was a clear starry night, with every chance of a hard frost.

The car was small and appeared to be red, under the street lights. Jane opened the passenger door, and swung the seat forward so she could climb into the back next to Candida – which she promptly did. Simmy was left on the pavement to get in unaided. She bent down to look at the driver and was astonished to meet the gaze of Nicola Joseph. ‘Oh!’ she said.

‘Hello again. Do you need any help?’

‘Well – can you take the crutches?’ She tried to hang onto the top of the car door while passing the metal poles to the woman. ‘Sorry – no, I can’t do it by myself. I need somebody to hold onto.’

‘Oh, all right.’ The tinge of impatience was uncalled for, Simmy thought. ‘Wait a minute.’ Nicola made a production of unclipping her seat belt and getting out of the car, walking round the back to Simmy’s side. ‘What do you need me to do?’

‘Just keep me balanced. I need to lower myself gently, that’s all.’ She put a hand on Nicola’s shoulder, and sank carefully onto the seat. ‘It’s more difficult in a small car,’ she said, as if needing to justify herself.

‘All set, then?’ Nicola asked, once back in her own seat. Simmy looked round at the pair in the back.

‘Okay,’ Jane and Candida both muttered.

‘You’ve met, then,’ Simmy said fatuously.

‘Eventually,’ said Jane in a tight voice that suggested tribulation and possible ill feeling. ‘I hope it’s all right with you that we’re a foursome? It seemed too good a chance to miss, when Nicola suggested we use this evening for a good long talk.’

‘I’m honoured,’ said Simmy, feeling that this was what she ought to say. The reality was something closer to trepidation. ‘After all, it’s none of my business, is it?’

‘As we said earlier on, we feel guilty at the way you’ve suffered. Don’t we, Candy?’

The girl murmured a wordless agreement.

The distance down to the Belsfield Hotel was less than a mile. In normal circumstances it would be a very easy walk, downhill all the way. Nicola drove quickly and they were in sight of the large floodlit building on the left before they knew it. Simmy was already wondering whether she would be willingly helped out of the car, when they suddenly veered to the right, and onto the hard area where people waited to board lake cruisers. A small green and white building loomed ahead, with a sign offering boat hire, and Simmy shouted, ‘Where are we going?’

‘This is where I always park,’ said Nicola, sounding annoyed. She drove past two jetties where swans congregated during the daytime and rowing boats were generally waiting in rows for people to hire them. Now it was all quiet and deserted.

‘But—’ Something was terribly wrong. The strangeness of driving over an area intended for pedestrians was compounded by a horrified realisation that they had accelerated dramatically, then veered right again, careered down a shallow step and were now facing the black waters of Lake Windermere only four or five feet away. The abrupt swing to the right, accompanied by the increased speed, sent the car tilting onto two wheels, so that it began to slide sideways down the slope into the water.

Simmy watched uncomprehendingly as Nicola somehow
opened her door and jumped out, leaving one foot to kick down on the accelerator. ‘I can’t help it,’ she said wildly. ‘I need this to happen. It’ll look like an accident.’

She spun away with a small cry, leaving three trapped passengers to plunge over a low wooden platform and into the cold water. The door that Nicola had left open swung itself closed as if slammed by an invisible hand. ‘We won’t drown,’ said Simmy to the others. ‘It’s not deep enough.’ But the Hawkins women in the back were both squealing, and the car kept rolling onto its side and sinking down into water that was a lot deeper than might have been expected.

The heavy metal box that was the car embedded itself on its right side, tipping Simmy painfully onto the gear stick and then the steering wheel. The engine went on running for a moment, before dying with a gurgle. Cold water poured in over Simmy’s feet and then knees. ‘Don’t panic!’ she said. ‘Candida – can you see if you can open the driver’s door? It’s on your side.’

There was no way they would drown, she kept telling herself. They’d be cold and wet, but not dead. But the car was sinking lower and Candida was making no progress getting the door open. She was having to reach over the driver’s seat and could get no leverage on the door handle, and no weight behind it to shove it open. Lights from the nearby street cast a dull orange glow through the car windows. ‘Somebody must have seen us,’ cried Jane. ‘Surely they must.’

It had all happened so quickly that Simmy could well imagine that the whole incident could have gone unobserved. There was no activity on the waterside on a cold December evening. Cars driving past would hardly notice movement
amongst all the clutter of kiosk and uprights that bordered the jetties, even if they were barely twelve feet away. The roof of a car sticking out of the water might eventually attract attention, but there was no guarantee.

Candida was crying as she pushed ineffectually at the door. Her mother was making strange bleating sounds, at the same time as throwing her weight against Simmy’s seat, as if hoping to dislodge it completely. ‘Don’t do that,’ Simmy ordered her. ‘It’s making things worse.’ Water had reached their waists, as they awkwardly strained to lift themselves away from it. Already Simmy’s feet were numb. ‘How deep is it here?’ Candida asked hysterically.

‘I have no idea,’ Simmy gasped back. The car being on its side actually helped, in a way, she realised. It was, after all, wider than it was high. She guessed they had a foot or two to go, and the water really couldn’t be deep enough to swallow the whole car.

‘I’ll try and open my door.’ She pulled the handle set into the inside of the door, and exerted all the upwards pressure she could, clumsily trying to find something to brace against. Pain exploded in her pelvis and ribs. ‘Aargghh!’ she screamed. For the first time, stark fear gripped her. If she couldn’t move, she would be in the car until she died. She waited for the pain to subside, aware that her scream had frozen the others into silence. She fought to prevent herself from collapsing into absolute panic. Pain, fear, confusion, shock – and many allied reactions – turned her flesh cold and her mind numb. Somewhere she understood that the situation was not entirely unprecedented, but unlike the earlier one, she was conscious this time and required to save herself if remotely possible. She was also not alone.

There were two people in there with her, neither of them handicapped by physical injury. They had to be able to open one of the doors. Dry land was only three or four steps away. The car was stuck in soft shingle and mud, so it was unlikely to sink any further. Simmy forced herself to think in simple factual bytes. ‘Help the girl to push,’ Simmy shouted at Jane. ‘Don’t just
sit
there.’

Wasn’t panic meant to galvanise people into superhuman feats of strength? Didn’t they rip the doors off planes to escape after a crash? Where was the survival instinct when you needed it?

‘I can’t undo my seat belt,’ came a strangled reply. ‘I’ve been trying and trying.’

‘What?’

‘It doesn’t work properly. I had to force it in and now it won’t release.’

‘Shout,’ ordered Simmy. ‘Scream as loud as you can.’

The resulting noise couldn’t fail to alert somebody, she was sure. The idea occurred to open the window beside her, for the sound to carry. But there was no handle – just an electric button, which was unlikely to work, now the car had died. But she tried it anyway, and the glass slid down a few obliging inches. ‘Again!’ she ordered.

‘All right,’ came a new voice, muffled but authoritative. Simmy had no idea where it came from, and for a second imagined it was a supernatural being of some sort. An angel, perhaps.

The door she was hoping to open was wrenched violently away from her, and she pushed her head up and out to see what was happening. Water flowed around her knees, swilling into her lap and completing the ruin of the
lovely wool and silk skirt. ‘Who’s in here?’ said the voice.

A woman was bending down to peer into the car. Simmy reidentified it from an angel to Gwen, partner of the treacherous Nicola. But the recognition brought no new fears with it. She was considerably beyond drawing any sort of rational conclusions from whatever might happen from here on.

Nobody answered the question. ‘Just get us
out
,’ shrilled Jane. ‘For God’s sake.’