Free The Troutbeck Testimony by Rebecca Tope

yesterday.’
    Ben had grown an inch since the start of the year, and was likely to add another by Christmas. He was knobblyand scrawny and often awkward. His complicated mixture of confidence bordering on arrogance at some times, and acute sensitivity to criticism at others had endeared him to Simmy from the start. Impressive brain power and highly focused ambition singled him out from his peers, and yet he never seemed lonely. He was unquestionably a geek, but the existence of a large family of siblings and well-disposed teachers all seemed to have kept him reasonably normal.
    ‘Training, eh!’ The dash of patronage for a girl his own age was not lost on Simmy, who made a noise of protest. ‘What?’ Ben challenged her.
    ‘She is training. Don’t be so …’
    ‘What?’ said Ben again. ‘I wasn’t being anything.’
    Again there was a feeling that the two youngsters had an understanding between them that excluded Simmy. Bonnie hadn’t blushed or giggled or tried to efface herself in Ben’s presence. There appeared to be a natural ease between them which was both surprising and enviable. As Simmy remembered it, her own school years had involved considerable awkwardness between the sexes.
    ‘Anyway, I’m busy,’ she said crossly.
    ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ said the boy with a grin.
    She sighed, and then remembered something. ‘Hey, while you’re here, I’ve got a question for you. What’s the poem that has the line about the “bee-loud glade”? Is it Thomas Hardy?’
    ‘Yeats,’ he said carelessly. ‘ The Lake Isle of Innisfree . “And I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made; Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee, And live alone in the bee-loud glade.”’ He rattled off the lineswith little feeling. ‘I learnt that when I was fifteen,’ he added. ‘Nice to know it’s still in here, good as new.’
    ‘Wow!’ gasped Bonnie in wonderment. ‘That’s awesome.’
    ‘I thought it was either Hardy or Yeats,’ said Simmy, defensively.
    ‘So what does it have to do with anything?’ Ben asked.
    ‘Nothing, really. Just that it came to me yesterday, and I thought you’d probably know. As you did. Thanks.’
    ‘Um …’ Ben was taking out his phone, which was also a dozen other useful things. ‘There’s a bit of news, I see. A man in Troutbeck? Come to an untimely end?’ His hesitancy was uncharacteristic, but Simmy understood it only too well. ‘Did you know about it?’ the boy concluded.
    ‘Yes, but I’m not thinking about it today. I’ve got far too much else to concentrate on. It’s nothing to do with me.’ The words echoed in her head, taunting her with their mendacity. ‘At least …’ She could see there was no immediate prospect of getting down to her funeral wreaths until Ben was satisfied.
    He was onto her like a snake. ‘At least –’ he prompted. ‘Do you know who he is? I mean was . Anything else you can tell me?’
    ‘Stop it!’ she shouted. ‘Don’t be so damned gleeful about it. A man died in a farmyard yesterday afternoon. That’s all I know. That’s all I want to know.’
    He stared at her, searching for the truth. ‘How do you even know that much? I bet you haven’t seen any news today. What time did you get into the shop this morning?’
    ‘Half past eight. I did an early delivery in Staveley. The woman wasn’t even dressed.’
    ‘Did you have the car radio on?’
    ‘No. Stop it, Ben. I haven’t got time to be interrogated by you. I’ve already had Ninian bothering me, before I even opened up.’
    ‘Surely he wasn’t talking about the dead man?’
    ‘No, actually. I don’t know what he was talking about. Nothing important. I told him about Bonnie.’
    Ben looked at her. ‘Do you know Ninian Tripp, on Brant Fell?’
    Bonnie nodded as if the answer were obvious, and Simmy felt a familiar sense of being at a disadvantage amongst all these people who had known