Read The Ambleside Alibi: 2 for Free Online

swallowed up by the frothing becks or the bronze clumps of bracken that might somehow encase them like mummies. The near-black stone of the houses seemed to darken in the wintry light, making them look comfortless and unfriendly in the undulating streets. Further north and west, where the hills rose higher and the shelter of trees dwindled away, it seemed to her like a land from a northern fairy tale, where no right-thinking human would venture. Thirlmere, Ullswater, Haweswater – they were all within a day or two’s walk of her home, and yet felt impossibly distant. She could drive to them in under an hour, but seeing them from a car was barely to see them at all. She felt an increasing duty to explore the whole region, awarethat she was privileged to live in a place that the whole world regarded as being of spectacular beauty.
    Her father had expressed a vague intention to go with her on some of these walks. He had acquired his own eccentric store of knowledge about the history of the area. He focused on characters that others ignored: Baddeley, Bolton, Christopher North. He could expatiate at length on these and many others, and did so over breakfast served to unresisting guests at the B&B. He sought out little-known corners of lake and forest and showed them to Simmy on the map. But in reality, the weather was never quite right, or he had too much to do in the garden. ‘In the spring,’ he promised. ‘We’ll go and explore Elterwater and Grizedale in the spring.’
    ‘I’d never heard of either of them until now,’ she admitted. Only a few days later, the funeral of Mrs Kitchener had prompted her to go to Grizedale for a look. She reported back to her father that it was mainly a large forest full of trails for cyclists and a lot of very strange wooden statues. ‘But the church at Rusland is gorgeous,’ she added.
    She was, however, increasingly familiar with Ambleside, virtual neighbour of Windermere. Her Troutbeck home was situated between the two, and she welcomed opportunities to walk the smaller lanes in either direction. She had watched the onset of winter on the slopes of Wansfell and considered herself to be well into the early stages of addiction to the landscape surrounding her.
    ‘Hello again, Helen,’ she wrote to her friend from college. ‘How are things with you? I’ve had a very eventful year, leaving Worcester and starting again in the Lakes. My Windermere shop is up and running, and my little house inTroutbeck is solid enough to cope with whatever the winter brings – I hope! I’ve made a few new friends here, and got myself involved in a ghastly murder investigation, a couple of months ago. And now there’s been another one – murder, I mean. I’ve just come from the police station, actually. The local detective inspector is an intriguing chap, I must say. I always seem to be arguing with him, which probably isn’t a very good idea. But don’t worry – I’m not planning to see him again. My parents are fit and well, and their B&B is legendary, thanks to my mother’s unusual approach. She lets people bring their dogs and smoke, and tries to stop them watching television – not always successfully of course. Some people are incorrigible addicts. Everybody loves it, and they all keep rebooking, so she must be doing something right. Christmas will be quiet, I expect – just me and Mum and Dad, pulling crackers together. Let me know what’s happening with you.’
    She proceeded to compose similar letters to three more old friends, none of whom had yet visited her in her new home, before deciding her hand was too stiff for any more writing. Everyone else could have a few lines inside the card itself.
    Shortly before nine, she had a phone call from her mother – an unusual event. ‘The cat’s been run over,’ she began, with no discernible emotion. ‘It’s broken its pelvis, apparently. And leg. They’re going to pin it all back together tomorrow.’
    ‘Poor thing. Sounds