The Ullswater Undertaking

Simmy, eyeing her baby son on his grandmother’s lap. ‘We need to go and meet Dad from the bus. It’s due in ten minutes, isn’t it? Then we can all go for a stroll through the village together.’
‘Good idea. You’ll need to wrap the little one up warm, though. There’s quite a nasty little wind today.’
The bus was prompt, and Russell was the only passenger to alight at the Hartsop stop, to nobody’s surprise, despite it being a pleasant spring weekend. Tourists might be constantly urged to use buses wherever possible, but the schedules did little to entice anyone to comply. A walk on the fells would be rendered far less relaxing if imbued with worry about missing the only bus back to the hotel or B&B. Hartsop boasted a fair-sized car park at the foot of the Dodd, and almost everyone gratefully used it.
‘Hello, my lad,’ Russell greeted Robin, who was asleep. ‘Enjoying the fresh air, are you?’
‘He’s due to wake up any minute now,’ said Simmy.
Russell nudged his wife. ‘Who knew that sleeping could run so beautifully to schedule?’ he teased. ‘If I remember rightly, we had no such expectations when we had our infant.’
‘I don’t suppose it’ll last,’ said Angie.
They all strolled down the winding little road that was the centre of Hartsop, remarking on the bluebells and celandines that grew on any available patch of uncultivated land. There were stone walls separating the few houses from the road, with narrow grass verges fringing them. In April these verges exuberantly sported wild flowers, if allowed to. Above them the dramatic conical hill known as Hartsop Dodd cast a shadow. ‘It reminds me of The Old Man of Coniston,’ said Simmy. ‘Except it has a lot less character. But they both loom over the settlement as if humanity was just a minor intrusion on the grander scale of things.’
‘That’s my girl,’ said Russell cheerfully. ‘Seeing the bigger picture. I must say I’m glad you moved here. It’s opened up a whole new area for me to explore.’
Angie sighed. ‘You’re both bonkers. If you look more closely, you can see humanity crawling all over that hill, leaving tracks and scaring the sheep.’
‘And I suppose the sheep are only there because of humanity, anyway,’ Simmy said.
‘Right,’ Russell confirmed. ‘Without them, the whole landscape would be covered in trees. Once you realise that, it completely changes how you see the fells. They’re like someone with a shaven head. It’s not natural.’
It was a recurring debate across the whole region – whether or not sheep had always been there, running wild and eating baby trees, or whether they had been artificially introduced, thereby destroying the essential harmonies and systems that nature intended. There were plenty of voices raised in favour of bare uplands, claiming they favoured certain birds and butterflies that would not prosper if there was nothing but trees everywhere. Russell Straw tended to the anti-sheep argument, but he insisted that he remained open-minded on the subject. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘we all know the sheep aren’t going anywhere.’
They went back to the house for a drink, while Russell rhapsodised about the winding road from Windermere, and how it got worse and worse after Kirkstone Pass. ‘It’s as if someone deliberately set out to play a joke on all these tourists,’ he chuckled. ‘The stone walls look as if they move in the night, just to trick everybody.’
‘A cruel joke, if you ask me,’ said Simmy, who was apprehensive about driving down to her Windermere shop along that very road, in all weathers. ‘I don’t know how they navigate a bus round those awful bends.’
‘It’s only four or five miles,’ shrugged Russell. ‘After Patterdale it’s almost civilised.’
‘Which is the bit that Christopher gets to use,’ Simmy pointed out. ‘His drive to work is a dream compared to what mine’s going to be.’
‘Too late to worry about that now,’ said Angie. ‘But I suggest you make sure you keep your car serviced. Good tyres and so forth.’
The family spent a lazy couple of hours together in the barn conversion, making unrealistic plans for the summer and discussing various memorable guests at the Beck View B&B. Robin woke as predicted and entertained his grandfather for half an hour. The Straws left at four-thirty, giving Simmy a full two hours to catch up with some sleep before Christopher came home. On Angie’s firm insistence, she took the baby to bed with her, feeling as if she was breaking at least three cast-iron laws. As she drifted into sleep, she remembered the ominous tones of the man on the phone who was intent on meeting Christopher. What had her fiancé promised to do, and what would be the penalty for failing to have done it?

Chapter Two
‘So who’s Fabian Crick?’ Simmy remembered to ask, nearly an hour after Christopher got home. ‘He phoned here this afternoon, wanting you.’
She watched his face closely, having no idea what to expect. All she could discern was sheer astonishment. ‘Crickers? Is that who you mean? He’s dead, as far as I know. Last I saw him was in Botswana, where he was dying of sleeping sickness. A tsetse fly bit him.’
‘Seems he recovered and is living right here on your doorstep. He didn’t sound very nice.’
Christopher was lost in reminiscence, once he’d got over his surprise at the man’s continued existence. ‘It must be ten or twelve years ago, at least. We were in an overland group, doing Africa from top to bottom. He was all right, once you got to know him. A bit geeky. Probably on the spectrum, as they say now. Nearly twenty years older than me, but we shared a tent a few times because we were both solo travellers. He was pretty sick by the time we got into the Okavanga and they flew him off to a hospital somewhere. It was all rather a drama.’
Simmy waited for the story to finish, eyebrows slightly raised. Christopher went on in some bewilderment. ‘You’re telling me he called