Read Online The Ambleside Alibi: 2 by Rebecca Tope - Free Book Online Page A

Simmy had carelessly broken her own moral code, and deserved to suffer for it.
    She was still reproaching herself at half past ten, when the fifth customer came in. It was Wilf Harkness, brother to Ben and one-time boyfriend of Melanie. Simmy had barely met him, and had to think for a moment before she could remember who he was. ‘Hi,’ she said cautiously, thinking it might be better to pretend ignorance, at least to start with.
    He looked past her to the back of the shop. ‘Is Melanie here?’ he asked.
    ‘Not on a Friday. She’s got lectures.’
    ‘Ah.’ His disappointment was palpable.
    Simmy examined his face. Grey eyes, deeply set, and a beaky nose combined to make him look melancholy even when he smiled. Any resemblance to Ben lay only in the shape of the head and tone of the voice. Wilf was two years older and worked in the kitchens at a major local hotel. He had a towering ambition to be a chef, according to his brother.
    ‘Can I give her a message? She’ll be in tomorrow.’
    ‘No, not really. I’m Wilf, in case you didn’t know. I came here with Ben once.’
    ‘I remember,’ she nodded. ‘It’s nice to meet you again.’
    ‘Ben thinks a lot of you.’ He sounded almost wistful, and it occurred to her that he might be feeling somewhat left out, after the dramatic events in October. ‘He’s always talking about you.’
    She laughed. ‘That sounds bad. I worked out that I’m easily old enough to be his mother.’
    ‘You don’t look it,’ he said gallantly. ‘Ben’s a geek, which means he’s old before his time. You’ve probably noticed.’
    ‘I don’t think I’d have put it quite like that, but I know what you mean. Can you come back tomorrow, if you want to catch Melanie? She usually gets here by nine-thirty.’
    ‘I’m not sure I’ll have the courage to try again,’ he said glumly. ‘She’s still with that Joe Wheeler, isn’t she?’
    ‘As far as I know, yes.’
    ‘You’d know if she wasn’t,’ he said sagaciously. ‘She’d tell you all about it, blow by blow.’
    ‘I imagine she would,’ Simmy agreed, lost for anything to offer him by way of consolation. Joe Wheeler was a ginger-haired police constable, with roughly half Melanie’sIQ, as far as Simmy could tell. It seemed obvious to both her and Ben that Wilf would be a considerably better bet. In the long run, Simmy was hopeful that Melanie herself would come to realise this. Meanwhile, Wilf could very easily find somebody else – although that didn’t look likely just for the moment.
    ‘But she does love being involved with the police,’ he went on. ‘I can’t offer anything half as exciting.’
    ‘Exciting!’ she moaned. ‘That’s not the kind of excitement any right-thinking person could wish for. I don’t think Melanie wants anything of the sort. She might like to feel
involved
, I suppose, with a connection to what’s going on—’ She stopped herself, horrified at the direction her words were taking her. ‘Listen to me, talking as if it was a regular occurrence. I didn’t mean that at all. All that business is over with now.’
    ‘Is it?’ His grey eyes held hers. ‘Ben says there’s been a murder in Ambleside this week, and you three have been discussing it. If Mel can get some inside information from Joe, that’s going to … you know … strengthen the bond, sort of thing.’
    ‘It might,’ she admitted. ‘If Joe really did know anything, and if he was daft enough to pass it on. Sounds like cause for dismissal to me, actually. Besides,’ she added emphatically, ‘we none of us has any connection whatever with this new murder. We don’t have to give it any thought or worry about it, or talk about it.’
    ‘That’s not what Ben says,’ said Wilf.

    There were two deliveries to be made that day, in diametrically opposite directions. Simmy had decided to leave them untillunchtime, closing the shop for an hour or so. It was something she tried not to do, but there were days when it was