Aftermath

FOUR

Saturday, 13th June, 09.00 hours — 15.37 hours.

in which the core issue in the investigation becomes identified.

George Hennessey fought off the urge to sleep and smiled as he glanced round his team of officers assembled round his desk, each drinking tea from half-pint sized mugs patterned with many various logos and colours. Somerled Yellich, Carmen Pharoah, Thomson Ventnor and Reginald Webster, each looking refreshed and alert, and each clearly having benefited from a more solid and refreshing sleep than he had been able to manage until he was jarred into wakefulness at seven a.m. He similarly sipped a mug of hot tea, without which no Englishman can function and so which must be taken before the working day can commence. ‘So,’ Hennessey put his mug down gently on his desktop, ‘we seem to have had a productive day yesterday, all busy. . all got results. . I have the overview, I read the recording before you filed it in here,’ he patted the manila folder, marked just ‘Bromyards Inquiry’ but which was evidently thickening, ‘but we need to share with each other. So, Somerled, as senior man, would you like to kick start us?’

‘Yes, thank you, sir.’ Yellich leaned forwards. ‘I visited two people yesterday, both of whom know the house, Bromyards, very well. Both had very good things to say about Mr Housecarl, but perhaps the most useful information came from the elderly ex-head gardener, a chap called Sparrow, Jeff Sparrow, who told me that the kitchen garden at Bromyards could not, for the main part, be overlooked and that it was abandoned ten years ago, or so, about then, he couldn’t give a certain date.’

‘Yes,’ Hennessey added, ‘that fits in with the date of the abduction of the first victim. .’ he consulted the folder, ‘one Angela Prebble, thirty-three years. . after Veronica Goodwin’s tender twenty-three years, she was the next youngest victim.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Yellich continued. ‘Mr Sparrow also told me that the estate was well policed by poachers from the village. The estate, once it had been abandoned, appears to have been a major source of food for Milking Nook.’ He smiled, ‘I just love that name. I swear. . only in England. . but to continue, the estate was harvested by the locals for its game and fruit. They kept “alien” poachers from neighbouring villages out and kept a protective eye on Mr Housecarl, and didn’t alarm him by letting off shotguns within a quarter of a mile of Bromyards. And yet. . yet one or more persons was able to deposit nine bodies in the kitchen garden without being observed. . but the quarter of a mile from the house is interesting because it explains why no one heard the women. They were gagged with rope ties, that would have prevented them from crying out for help, or from screaming, but they could have made a grunting sound and done so quite loudly, possibly loudly enough to carry for two hundred yards on a still night, especially in winter.’

‘Yes,’ Hennessey sipped his tea. ‘Webster?’

‘They all disappeared in the winter months,’ Webster explained, ‘well, eight did. . the ninth body is as yet unidentified, but barring the possibility that they were kept against their will for up to six months, and if they were taken to Bromyards on the night of their abduction and left in the kitchen garden, then they would have died of hypothermia. They would have probably died before dawn. None had evidence of being clothed. . no zip fasteners, or plastic buttons, or rotted remains of fabric.’

‘So I thought I’d go back and talk to one of the poachers. . I am sure Jeff Sparrow could suggest a likely candidate. He or she could tell me what it would take to get a motor vehicle up to Bromyards without being seen.’

‘Good idea,’ Hennessey smiled. ‘You’ve just talked yourself into a job.’

‘Now,’ Yellich continued, ‘Mr Sparrow did once see a stranger on the estate, a person he described as a “townie”. He gave a reasonable description but this was ten years ago.’

‘So, at the time of the first disappearance?’

‘Yes, sir. He apparently looked as though he was surveying the estate.’

‘Him,’ Hennessey pointed to Yellich, ‘him we need to identify, if we can.’

‘Yes, sir, if we can. Mr Sparrow also made a valid point, being that the man would have had to know the estate was there, the entrance to the drive isn’t grand, it’s modest, just the beginning of a driveway between two trees, no indication that it’s a mile long and leads to a mansion. You’d drive past it without noticing it. That man must have heard about Mr Housecarl abandoning his estate grounds, that information reached his ears by word of mouth. So he links, albeit vicariously, with someone in the village, whether an employee of Mr Housecarl’s or not.’

‘Yes,’ again Hennessey smiled approvingly at Yellich, ‘it’s a link. Ensure you record that in the file.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Pharoah, Ventnor?’

‘We looked into the first identified victim. . the last of the victims, Veronica Goodwin. I’m afraid we came up with a motiveless murder. Lived with her mother, employed at Gordon and Moxon’s, on thin ice at work because of a drink problem, but we came across no one who would want to harm her and no reason for anyone to harm her. She seems to have been a random victim.’

‘All right. So, Webster, back to you. .’

‘Well, the victims we might have identified, eight of the nine, make a strange picture. . their ages are strange.’ Webster glanced at his notes, ‘Twenty-two years. . thirty-three years. . all right, that is the usual sort of age for a woman to fall victim to a serial killer but then the age of the victims rise up to sixty-three. . highly unusual for female victims.’

‘I’ll say.’ Yellich reclined in his chair.

‘We need to find out more about the victims. Women of that age do not walk about the streets late at night; they are at home with their families.’ Hennessey glanced out of the window of his office at the medieval walls of the city and noticed that they were beginning to crowd with tourists. ‘They will link,’ he said. ‘Somewhere they will have something in common. So. . Ventnor. . you look at Angela Prebble and Paula Rees.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Pharoah.’

‘Sir?’

‘Gladys Penta and Rosemary Arkwright.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Webster. . Helena Tunnicliffe and Roslyn Farmfield.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And you’d also better have Denise Clay as well.’

‘Understood, sir.’

‘Review here at nine tomorrow. Sunday working I know, but needs must.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘For myself, I have a summons to see the Commander and then a press conference. I think I know what he wants.’

The man killed James Post by strangling him.

The man knew the other man was not up to it, not up to it at all, too weak, utterly spineless. So, when it was that James Post came running up the drive of the man’s house, his face red with exertion, and panting so desperately that the man considered stepping back and letting the Post’s heart do the job for him. But James Post calmed and sat on the man’s couch, his face getting progressively paler as his breathing eased and he became a small man. . worried. . scared. . a man who was childlike in his fear, so the other man, the householder, had always thought. . and childlike in the absence of patience, childlike in his cruelty to his victims. . to their victims. The householder had always scoffed at the notion of childhood innocence. Children, he had always argued, are psychopaths, damaging living things and each other with their absence of empathy. That is why scissors in primary schools are blunt with rounded ends, so that children do not stab each other. And here he is, he that can be so gleefully cruel, shaking with fear on the sofa, whimpering, ‘What are we going to do? What are we going to do?’ And so the second man, the calmer of the two, the householder, advanced on the whimpering man with his huge hands outstretched and calmly encircled the second man’s neck with them and began to squeeze, and when James Post looked at him with terror in his eyes, the second man smiled at him and he continued smiling at him until James Post had stopped clawing at his hands and his body fallen limp. He carried James Post’s body into his study and laid it on the floor and then drove into York looking for a suitable container. He found one in a charity shop. It was sufficiently large and robust, and he paid twice the asking price for it and left the shop with, ‘Thank you, sir, very generous,’ singing in his ears.

It was with no little reluctance that George Hennessey tapped on Commander Sharkey’s door, and it was with no little reluctance that he accepted the invitation to sit in the chair in front of the Commander’s desk.

‘Things all right for you, George?’ Sharkey asked warmly, but there was a nervousness in the warmth. ‘I mean, I have no complaints about you but I am still worried. Not overburdened?’

‘No, sir, thank you all the same.’

‘It’s just that Johnny Taighe won’t happen on my watch. It was a bad show. You know, I think about him more and more often. Our very able maths teacher left our school to advance himself and Johnny Taighe, who taught lower school maths, was told to teach final year maths to national certificate level. He just couldn’t do it. He once froze in front of the blackboard because he couldn’t understand the problem he’d put up, and he went and sat in a vacant seat next to a very able pupil and said, “What do you think we should do now?” That stays with me, George, a teacher leaving the front of the class to go and sit among the pupils because he couldn’t understand the subject he was supposed to teach.’

‘That is. . unfortunate. . yes, sir.’

‘And he had a beer belly and a large, red nose, so he was drinking heavily. . self-medicating with alcohol, and smoking too much. . and was full of false good humour, all the indicators, and none of his colleagues picked up on them. He went home one night, complained of feeling unwell and had a massive coronary. That is not going to happen on my watch, so if things are getting too much for you, then let me know.’

‘I am all right, sir,’ Hennessey held up his hand. ‘Thank you, but I am well on top of things now I have Pharoah, Webster and Ventnor to assist me, and Sergeant Yellich. I am more desk-bound than anything. I do miss front line policing though and go out when I can.’

‘Yes, I have noticed. . but you are sure you’re on top of things?’

‘Fully.’

‘Good. . well, like I said, I have no indications to the contrary but I want you to reach retirement. You don’t have long to go, unlike me.’ Sharkey smiled, he was fully ten years Hennessey’s junior. He was a short man, short for a police officer, and an observer would perhaps see him as being immaculately dressed. His desktop was, to Hennessey’s mind, always unhealthily neat and uncluttered, very precise and with everything ‘just so’. Sharkey would not, thought Hennessey, be an easy man to live with. Behind him, on the wall of his office, were two framed photographs, one showing a younger Sharkey in the uniform of an officer in the British Army, and the other showing a similar younger Sharkey in the uniform of an officer in the Royal Hong Kong Police. ‘The other thing, George. . it concerns me. . is what I was part of when I wore that uniform.’ He half turned and indicated the photograph of him in the Royal Hong Kong Police. ‘I keep it there as a kind of presence. . this photograph,’ he indicated the photograph of himself in the Army, ‘this I am proud of. . but the Hong Kong experience. I was and remain contaminated. It wasn’t what you might call active corruption, it was of a passive nature and I was only there for a brief period of time but. . I was told not to go into a certain area of the city on a specific night and I did not, I took my patrol elsewhere and the following morning there would be a brown paper envelope full of cash in my desk drawer. That’s just the way it was. If I had blown the whistle or taken my patrol where I was told not to take it, I would have had my throat cut, I’d disappear, be found floating in the harbour. I got out when I could but I couldn’t cope with anything like that here in Micklegate Bar. You must tell me if there is a whiff of anything like that.’

‘Yes, sir, I will. . you have my word.’

‘Thank you, George. Thank you.’

The man eyed Yellich with what seemed to Yellich to be an expression of approval and appreciation and also a degree of recognition of a kindred spirit. ‘You’re a hunter,’ he said.

Yellich smiled. ‘A hunter? Confess I have been called many things in my life but a hunter, that’s a new one. Why do you say that?’

‘It’s in your eyes. . looking, constantly looking. . left to right. . noticing but you stand still.’

Yellich pursed his lips. ‘I’ll be careful not to give myself away.’

‘You can’t hide it, not from someone that can recognize it.’

The man stood in his front garden, spade in hand. He was of a lean, sinewy build. He wore baggy gardening trousers and he had rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows. His head was shielded from the sun with a white wide-brimmed canvas cricketer’s hat. Beyond the man’s garden was a field of ripening wheat and beyond that a small stand of trees, and then began the undulating grass covered hills of the Yorkshire Wolds, all beneath a vast canopy of blue, scarred at that moment with the vapour trail of an airliner flying high over England from Continental Europe to North America, within which, thought Yellich, the passengers in the window seats would be looking down on a panorama of England. ‘So, they told you where to find me at the pub?’ He glanced questioningly at his watch.

‘The publican told me. He was outside the pub stacking empty beer kegs. I assured him that I was making inquiries re the dead bodies found at Bromyards and I only wanted information about poaching on the estate. I told him I wouldn’t be getting anybody charged. We’re looking for a felon, or felons, who murdered nine women; we are not bothered about a pheasant or two being taken, especially if we haven’t received a complaint from the landowner.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘The publican said that you hadn’t done it for a long time and you might have given up the game, but he said that you’d be the man to ask.’

‘Charlie? Yes, he’s good like that but I haven’t retired. . no poacher ever retires, just stop when they have to but they never decide to stop. If their health fails they’ll stop. . if they get gaoled they’ll stop. So, anyway, how can I help you?’

‘Well, it’s simply this, Dick,’ Yellich said. ‘You don’t mind if I call you Dick?’

‘No. . Dick is fine,’ Dick Fallon replied, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. Yellich thought that he also had hunter’s eyes, searching, searching and missing little. He drove the spade into the soil and rested one hand upon the handle.

‘We have spoken to a few people and they told us that the poachers on the Bromyards estate kept an eye on Mr Housecarl.’

‘Yes. . yes, that’s a fair thing to say. He was very good to the village. . he’ll be missed.’

‘So we understand. So, the question is, what difficulty would a man or men have in getting a body on to the estate, from the public highway right up to Bromyards and depositing it in the kitchen garden, and do that about once a year for about ten years?’

‘Ten bodies?’

‘Nine. .’

Dick Fallon glanced at the soil he had turned, creating neat lines of deep trenches in the ground, opening it in good time to let the first of the frost in, when autumn arrives. ‘That is a question because not a lot goes unseen here. Like all villages, you can walk for miles without seeing anybody, but you can put good money on the chance that someone will have their eyes on you at any one time.’ Fallon looked around him. ‘Bad weather would be a good time. . less game about in the winter; the trout pond will have frozen over. .’

‘Good point.’

‘But poachers set snares and will go and check on them all year round.’

‘Yes, but less so in the winter?’

‘Yes. . and a rainy, stormy night, that sort of weather keeps the game well down and the poachers well at home.’

‘That’s a good point. Weekends or weekday?’

‘Weekday. . too many of the village children exploring the grounds at weekends, especially in the summer, but they wouldn’t go near the house for fear of disturbing Mr Housecarl, they were very well warned about that.’

‘I see,’ Yellich nodded, ‘that is another good point.’

‘He or they wouldn’t go near the estate in the snow.’

‘You think not?’

‘I think not. They’d leave tracks and there’d be the danger of getting stuck in a snow drift. The drive is a mile long and not kept clear of snow.’

‘Again. . useful.’ Yellich’s eye was caught by a yellowhammer which alighted a nearby fence post, one of a number of black pitch pointed staves which separated Dick Fallon’s garden from the adjacent field. He had not seen an example of that species in many, many years and the sight of a relatively rare bird uplifted his spirits.

‘You know, if I were up to no good I’d go on the estate in the forenoon come to think of it.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, poachers don’t like staying out all night; they like to go to bed. . some have jobs to go to. If they don’t, they’ll sleep late. So about seven, eight, nine a.m. that would be a good time to drive on to the estate with headlights off and dump a body in the kitchen garden and drive away again, and if the rain was really siling down and the wind was blowing it sideways then, that would be a very good time to do it with little risk of being seen, and if you didn’t drive through the village, if you approached from the south and left by the south, you wouldn’t have to go through Milking Nook.’

‘This has been very useful.’

‘I’ll put the word round the village. If anyone knows anything, they’ll contact you.’

‘A tall, well-built man was seen, a “townie”. Could be unconnected but we’d like to trace him, though it was about ten years ago that he was seen on the estate. .’

Fallon smiled a wry knowing smile, ‘About when it all started, like he was checking the place out? I’ll say you want to talk to him. . but, yes. . tall, well-built townie. I’ll put the word out for you about him as well, though it’s probably out already if you’ve talked to other villagers, but I’ll mention it this lunchtime. I take lunch at the pub you see.’

Crestfallen. It was the only word Ventnor could think of to describe David Prebble. He seemed utterly crestfallen. ‘I did wonder, you couldn’t help but wonder.’ Prebble looked down at the ground and seemed unable to take his gaze anywhere else. Ventnor saw him as a short, sturdy man with receding grey hair and who was casually dressed in khaki shorts, leather sandals and a white tee shirt with, somewhat incongruously, Ventnor thought, ‘Hawaii’ emblazoned upon it in eye-catching blue. He seemed to Ventnor to dress like Ventnor did when off duty, sleepily grabbing the first clean item of clothing which came to hand each morning and caring nothing about the image he presented. ‘You’d better come in, sir.’ He stepped aside to allow Ventnor to enter his house. Ventnor found the interior of Prebble’s house to be untidy and poorly ventilated and as such, having a musty smell. Ventnor counted three flies buzzing against the window pane and saw a further two contentedly walking across the glass. ‘See me,’ Prebble smiled meekly, ‘I’m just not the best housekeeper in the world.’ He spoke with a distinct Scottish accent of the Western Isles, softer than the harsh sounding accent of Scotland’s Central Belt. ‘I let things go a wee bit after Angela disappeared and,’ he indicated the room, ‘this is tidy, sir. I mean, I keep things clean, as clean as I can, but I let things lie where I drop them. I know where everything is though. I mean, see that pile of clothes there?’ Prebble pointed to a collection of outer garments which occupied an armchair. ‘In that lot, about halfway down is a pair of binoculars. I haven’t used them since spring time two years ago when I took them to the Dales to look for the peregrine falcon that was reported to be there, and they’ll stay there until I need them again. My wallet’s in my other pair of shorts. This is how I live but our Angie, she couldn’t bear anything out of place. Fussy she was and I did wonder if she was one of the women that had been found. Milking Nook. . what a name for a village, eh?’

‘You are Mr Prebble?’ Ventnor spoke firmly. ‘I’m sorry but I have to be certain as to whom I am talking.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Prebble answered promptly, sharply, deferentially. He was significantly older than Ventnor. ‘David, “Davy”, Prebble. . railwayman all my days, ticket office clerk. It pays our. . my, it pays my mortgage. As you see, the house is no fancy mansion.’

‘It’s very cosy,’ Ventnor smiled. It was, he thought, a fair description of the Prebble household, at the back of the railway station, clearly conveniently close to Davy Prebble’s place of work. ‘These are solid houses. There’s a lot to be said for houses of this vintage. I would not buy a modern house. . nothing later than 1939 for me. I have an inter-war house.’

‘Good for you, sir. As you say, solidly built, it did me and Angie all right.’

‘Good. So. . I read the missing persons report on Angela. You are. . you were Mr and Mrs Prebble?’

‘No, sir. We were Mr and Miss Prebble, brother and sister. We used to live in a small town, a village really on the Isle of Lewis, it was very Free Church of Scotland, which is really anything but free in its attitude. . Sabbath observation, no alcohol on Sundays, all amusement is sinful and then when our Angie fell pregnant to a local boy. . well, the shame was too much for her to bear, so she allowed the bairn to be put up for adoption and she grew to regret that decision so she did, and she especially regretted it after moving to England where folk don’t think the same. . not having a wedded parent is not seen as being so bad.’

‘No, it’s not shameful at all,’ Ventnor agreed, ‘not any more at least.’

‘So, well, I’d been out. . out of the “Wee Free’s” influence. I joined the RAF and did three years with them, just the minimum service. . the air force regiment. . guarding air fields with my rifle and Alsatian, but it did what I wanted it to do, it freed me from the “Free’s”, it got me out of Stornoway, got me away from all that attitude. So, when Angie said she couldn’t go to the Kirk and be made to stand up in front of the congregation to be named along with all the other fallen women of the town and so was going to leave the island, I said I’d go with her. We pooled our money together, so we did, and worked out how far we could get to, and the answer was York. That was twenty years ago, about that sort of time. We rented accommodation and then got jobs, got a mortgage on this wee house and we moved in and let the neighbours think we were man and wife, until they got to be friends and then we told them the truth, but emphasized we had separate rooms. There was nothing like that going on, sir, not ever, nothing untoward at all.’

‘All right. . all right.’

‘Well, do sit down if you can find a space,’ Dave Prebble said with a sheepish smile, ‘it’s all clean. Untidy, yes, but clean. I scrub the bath and toilet and change the bed linen each week, and take clothes to the launderette each week, but things sort of stay where I drop them.’

Ventnor mumbled his thanks and sat on the settee next to a pile of railway enthusiast magazines.

‘So, she has been found,’ Prebble lowered himself on to a pile of clothing and settled as if perched on them, working his way into them until he was comfortable. ‘Her body has been found?’

‘Possibly. We still have to confirm the identity.’

‘I understand, but it’s going to be her. We were very close and I knew harm had come to her when she didn’t return home. She had no reason to run away. . she had no one to go to. She pined for the bairn but she hated Stornoway and she wouldn’t return there. I walked the streets looking for her. I knew I wouldn’t find her but I couldn’t stay at home. . those long nights, then they became weeks, then months. . then years, nearly ten years. I accepted the inevitable a long time ago and realized the only reason the police would call on me was if she had been found.’

‘Well, as I say, there is no definite match but a woman. . the remains of a woman, who was Angela’s height and age at the time of Angela’s disappearance is one of the remains you have heard about.’

‘Yes. . I did wonder, as I told you. How can I help you?’

‘With her positive identification. A full-face photograph, anything with her DNA on it. . failing that, anything with your DNA will do.’

‘DNA. Yes, I heard about that, better at eliminating than proving, I believe?’

‘Yes. British courts cannot convict on DNA evidence alone, but as you say, it’s useful for eliminating suspects and very useful for establishing identities, as in this case.’

‘I see. I don’t think I have a photograph you can use; we didn’t photograph each other as a married couple might. We holidayed separately which is when you’d likely take photographs of each other.’

‘All right, but we’ll need something of hers.’

‘I’ll see what’s in her room.’

‘So what can you tell me about your sister which you think might be relevant to her disappearance?’

‘Glad you added that bit at the end,’ Prebble grinned, ‘because I can tell you a lot about her.’

‘Yes, imagine you can,’ Ventnor smiled. ‘Did she have any enemies, for instance?’

Prebble teetered back on the pile of clothes. ‘No, I don’t think she did. I think it’s safe for me to say that. She had folk she didn’t like. . like all those petty minded Wee Free’s at home. She hated the social worker who persuaded her to give up the bairn for adoption when she should have supported her and encouraged her to keep it, and that was before it was born. . so he was taken from her immediately. She didn’t even get to hold him, not even for a few seconds, that “holier than thou” bitch, Angela hated her, but she wasn’t even sixteen at the time, she was little more than a child herself. He’ll be a man in his twenties now. We don’t even know what his Christian name is. So she had a lot of bad feelings for all that crew up there, but I know of no one who’d want to harm her.’

‘Fair enough. What did your sister do for a living?’

‘Nursery nurse, she worked in a nursery, next best thing to having her own child I suppose.’

‘Which nursery was that?’

‘St Urban’s “First Steps” nursery. . it’s still there, attached to St Urban’s Primary School in Escrick, all part of the St Urban’s experience. Start at eighteen months, or two years, or three years, go right through to eighteen and leave to attend university. Roman Catholic foundation, a very good school; leave full of Catholic guilt, so they say, but they get excellent results. . so they say.’

‘I see.’

‘Well, Angie was down the soft end before they start filling them with the notion of sin and eternal damnation. She was all cuddly toys and beginning of speech. . toilet training. Paid badly but she was content and we survived.’

‘Did she have any friends?’

‘A few. . colleagues mostly, but by and large we kept to ourselves.’

‘Understood. So what was she like as a person?’

‘Angie?’ Davy Prebble inclined his head to one side. ‘I’d describe her as quiet. She would go out occasionally but was always home by nine p.m.’

‘Did she meet up with her colleagues in the evening? That is on those evenings that she did go out?’

‘I can’t tell you, sir, I didn’t pry. She just said she had been with “friends”.’

‘OK. . but you wouldn’t know the names of any of her friends?’ Ventnor pressed Prebble.

‘Just one, as I recall, she mentioned him once or twice, a guy by the name of Ronald Malpass.’

Ventnor wrote ‘Malpass, Ronald’, in his notebook.

‘Aye, Ronald, our Angie seemed fair fond of him so she did, fair fond. . had a lot of time for him.’

‘Do you know of his address?’

‘Yes. .’ Davy Prebble’s eyes brightened and he held up his index finger. ‘Yes, I do. . excuse me.’ He slid off the pile of clothes and left the room returning a few moments later with a handful of letters. He held them up triumphantly. ‘This is the mail that Angie received after she went missing. I kept them all, not many, but I kept them all. After a while all that was addressed to her was junk mail, which I put in the bin, but these came for her. So, she disappeared in late November of that year and she got these Christmas cards and one of them,’ he looked on the reverse of each card, ‘one of them. . yes, this one. . has the sender’s address on the back of the envelope, in the continental style of doing things. Here you are. .’

Ronald Malpass

2 Portland Street

Hutton Cranswick

He handed the envelope to Ventnor who copied the address into his notebook.

‘That’s quite a journey, Hutton Cranswick, it’s out by Driffield. Quite a well to do little place by all accounts but I have never actually been there; it was Angie who told me it was a well to do wee place.’

Ventnor looked at the postmark and saw the envelope had been posted on the fifteenth of December that year. ‘Would you mind if I opened this envelope?’

Prebble looked uncomfortable. ‘Frankly, I would. Can you wait until her identity is confirmed? If it is then you can open and read all the letters.’

‘That’s fair. I’ll need something with her DNA or a swab of your DNA.’

‘Her hairbrush, how about that? It has some of her hair in the bristles.’

‘Ideal,’ Ventnor smiled. ‘Ideal.’

The man and woman sat side by side on the settee looking at the television and as they watched George Hennessey rise and leave the press conference the woman turned to the man and smiled. ‘You have made quite a splash, darling.’

‘We,’ the man squeezed her hand gently, ‘we have made quite a splash. It’s international news, apparently.’

‘Yes. . the yellow helicopter hovering over York. . it’s not the police helicopter. . it must belong to a television news company, taking footage of York and out to Bromyards. . especially Bromyards. It looks quaint from the air. . they both do.’

‘As you say. . quaint. But soon it will be time.’

‘Yes, darling. . I know.’

‘Gladys,’ the man sighed deeply. ‘It’s been six or seven years. . possibly more, I have lost count.’ He dropped the sponge into the red plastic bucket of warm soapy water and turned away from the car he was cleaning. ‘I’m not really supposed to do this,’ he nodded at the car, ‘water’s getting short.’

‘I know,’ Carmen Pharoah replied in a solemn tone of voice.

‘Well, there’s no hosepipe ban yet and, as you see, I use a bucket of water, but I need something to do. Even now I still need something to do, I get a bit lost without her. . but I use the bath water to water the garden, so I am economizing.’

‘Good for you.’

‘Well let’s talk inside. .’

The interior of Martyn Penta’s house was, Carmen Pharoah observed, neat, and clean and tidy. ‘The maids have just been in,’ he explained.

‘The maids?’

‘A team of cleaning women, young women really, plus one man-maid, help me keep on top of the house. I could not manage it on my own, heavens no.’

Carmen Pharoah smiled. The interior of the house did indeed smell strongly of cleaning liquids and air freshener. ‘I see.’

‘Well, do take a pew.’

Carmen Pharoah settled on to the deeply upholstered and wide leather-bound settee and read affluence in the room, but this was after all Heslington, and Martyn Penta was, after all, an accountant. ‘You are not working today, Mr Penta?’

‘Yes, I am, I’m working at home. I do that usually unless I have clients to interview. I very rarely go into the office these days courtesy of IT and the web. I can do everything in my study upstairs that I can in my office in York. Any documents I need can be faxed to me and I can send by fax, but I was in a putting-off-work frame of mind today so I washed the car as an excuse not to go up to my study. . then I got your phone call about Gladys. So I carried on washing the car until you arrived. . and here you are.’

‘Yes, sir, here I am.’

‘She hated that name.’

‘Gladys?’

‘Yes, she said it made her sound Edwardian.’ Martyn Penta smiled as if recovering a pleasant memory. Carmen Pharoah observed him to be a well-set man in his middle years, clean-shaven and wearing expensive looking casual clothes, even to wash the car. ‘It made her sound as old as her great aunt after whom she was named, so she said, and did she hate it, but she wouldn’t change it out of a sense of loyalty to her parents. . So what news do you have?’

‘We believe she might have been found.’

‘Alive!’

‘Sadly, no, I do regret to say.’

‘Well, it was too much to hope but you do read of such things, someone suddenly losing their memory and is committed to an institution, and then banging their head and remembering everything.’

‘Stuff of fiction, I’m afraid.’

‘Yes, these days of records and files which follow you around, not so easy as it was for the Victorians who could stage their suicide and disappear, and reinvent themselves with a new name in another city. . usually having emptied the bank account just beforehand.’

‘You sound disappointed.’

‘That’s probably because I am disappointed, disappearing and reinventing myself somewhere else is a fantasy I have long harboured. So, tell me what you have come to tell me.’

Carmen Pharoah told Martyn Penta of the possible inclusion of his late wife’s remains among the human remains found at Bromyards. He fell silent and Carmen Pharoah allowed him a few moments of ‘space’ before she asked what he recalled about his wife’s disappearance.

‘Like it was yesterday. I was away when she vanished. I was attending a conference on the Isle of Man. She wasn’t at home when I returned from the conference but seems to have been missing for about three days, going by the accumulation of mail in the letterbox. I reported her missing the following day, after phoning all her relatives and all our friends.’

‘Did you have any idea where she might have gone?’

‘The only place she went to at all were those wretched meetings.’

‘The meetings?’

‘It was. . they were the only thing she lived for. I loved my wife, I will cherish her memory, but she was a six-cylinder, supercharged, dyed in the wool alcoholic. She was a dry alcoholic; she hadn’t touched a drink for years before she vanished but, as she was fond of saying, once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. She had replaced one addiction with another, “Hello, I am Gladys and I am alcoholic”. “Hello, Gladys” they would all reply. I went to a few meetings with her you see, she became a “personality” within AA, a guest speaker at the various meetings in this region telling folk how she used to drink two bottles of gin each day. . which she did. . up at eight, already drunk by ten a.m., and now she was “free” and the meeting would applaud her, that’s when I stopped going.’

‘Oh.’

‘Attention seeking and replacing one addiction with another. She had got on top of the booze but became obsessed with AA and had little time for me or our marriage. AA was utterly central to her life and I was on the edge. I also found out that Alcoholics Anonymous has a perverted sense of snobbery. I mean, if you get up and say you used to drink beer and only beer nobody would talk to you, even though it might have cost you your job and marriage just as whisky might have, but they were interested in you if you were into spirits or the cheap wine, and they were in awe of Gladys’s two bottle a day habit but she could be knocked off her perch if a three bottles a day person joined the meeting.’

‘That’s quite illuminating.’

‘I had my eyes opened all right. . but she was never home, it was one group in the mornings, another in the afternoon and another in the evenings. I was not even second fiddle to the AA. I was in her life in name only. But I still miss her dreadfully.’

‘I’m sorry. What we really have to do is to confirm her identity. . dental records or a sample of her DNA.’

‘Yes. . she had a climbing accident when she was a young woman; the left side of her face was permanently concave. She was very self-conscious about it; it was then that she started drinking. . distinct injury to her skull. She was lucky to have survived and luckier still to have escaped serious brain damage.’

‘As you say. . that might be sufficient to confirm her identity but what you report about her drink problem might be very significant.’

‘You think so?’

‘Yes,’ Carmen Pharoah stood, ‘I think so. I really think so.’

Thomson Ventnor drove back to Micklegate Bar Police Station, signed in, and went directly to the office of DCI Hennessey. He tapped on the door frame, entered the office and sat, uninvited, in one of the chairs in front of Hennessey’s desk. ‘I am mindful of your previous admonition, boss,’ he explained smiling.

‘Oh?’ Hennessey put his pen down and reclined in his chair. ‘Which particular admonition was that?’

‘Charging off without clearing it with you, sir, even though I had my mobile phone with me,’ he tapped his jacket pocket.

‘Yes, I remember, I am so pleased that you took that issue on board, it is essential that I keep the overview and also it is essential that I know where each of my team is, at all times.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So, do I assume. . may I assume there is a development?’

‘Just another possible contact about one of the victims, Angela Prebble. . she is a Miss Prebble, not Mrs, and the man she shared her house with is her brother, not her husband.’

‘Ah. . I see.’

‘He made reference to her friends but despite that, he painted a picture of a very socially isolated pair of individuals. One friend of hers sent a Christmas card with his name and address on the reverse of the envelope. I feel that he, the friend, might be more in the loop. . in Miss Prebble’s loop than is, or was, her own brother, but I was only briefed to interview the next of kin. I am happy to go and see him alone but I thought I’d better clear it with yourself first, sir, and also do a criminal records check.’

‘Yes, thank you. I am pleased you did that, but it sounds like a two-hander.’ Hennessey reached for his phone and, lifting the receiver, he pressed a four figure internal number. ‘Criminal records?’ he asked when his call was answered. ‘Good. .’ he glanced at Ventnor questioningly.

Ventnor responded, ‘Ronald Malpass, Two Portland Street, Hutton Cranswick.’

Hennessey repeated the name and address and then looked at Ventnor a second time.

Ventnor shook his head and said, ‘No numbers, sir.’

‘No date of birth,’ Hennessey added, as he heard the sound of a computer keyboard being tapped rapidly and efficiently. Then he said, ‘All right, thank you.’ He replaced the phone gently. ‘No major crime. . just a few for drunk and disorderly, and one drunk in charge of a motor vehicle. . all dealt with by the magistrates and some time ago. . all spent convictions now, but I still think I’d like you to take someone with you.’

‘As you wish, sir.’

‘Contact Carmen Pharoah. Ask her to meet you at the address.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The man who had murdered James Post and his wife sat in silence in the living room of their home. The brains of both were active but there was just nothing to say once the man had said, ‘No point in burying. . not now.’

Carmen Pharoah followed Martyn Penta to the door of his house when the mobile phone vibrated in her handbag and played the ‘William Tell Overture’. ‘Excuse me.’ She halted and plunged her hand into her handbag.

‘Of course, and may I compliment you on your choice of ringtone? So many ringtones are for the brain dead.’

Carmen Pharoah smiled at the compliment and then, holding the device to her right ear, said, ‘Hello, Thompson.’ She fell silent before replying, ‘I’ll see you there. I am just leaving Mr Penta’s house now, I’ll see you there. I’ll look for your car.’ She smiled at Martyn Penta as she slid her mobile phone into her handbag. ‘Day in the life of a copper, one thing after the other.’

Martyn Penta opened the door of his house to allow her to egress the building. ‘Well, it’s better than being out of work and thanks, you’ve jolted me into a sense of urgency in respect of my work. I have balance sheets to address.’

In the event, it was Thomson Ventnor who identified Carmen Pharoah’s car and he halted behind it. He left his own car, walked to hers and sat in the front passenger seat. ‘Sorry, I took the wrong turning.’

‘I’ve only just got here myself.’ Carmen Pharoah gazed at the line of detached houses reaching away from her on the right-hand side, to the left was a large village green complete with duck pond and war memorial, beyond which stood a row of prestigious looking houses which seemed to represent the ‘posh’ side of the village green. ‘The address is just up there and round the corner. I enquired at the post office which I found inside the general store. It’s that sort of village.’ She started the engine of her car. ‘Following me or leaving yours here?’

‘Leaving it,’ Ventnor pulled the seat-belt across his chest, ‘pick it up on the way back. This fella has some previous I should tell you, all minor, drink related, all spent.’

‘Drink again?’

‘Yes, may not be anything but alcohol related. Demon drink is getting to be a bit of a common theme.’

‘It is, isn’t it?’ Ventnor glanced at the war memorial as they drove past it. ‘Veronica Goodwin. .’

‘And Gladys Penta. I have just visited her husband. She was the cornerstone of the local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous.’

‘That is interesting.’

Carmen Pharoah smiled. ‘That’s exactly what I said.’

‘Well it at least makes a change.’ Hennessey smiled as he made the remark. ‘In fact, I think it’s a first.’

‘It’s a new one on me also, sir.’ The uniformed sergeant of the police was, thought Hennessey, clearly of sufficient years’ service to be able to say that. ‘Usually it’s dog walkers or children’.

‘Or courting couples.’ Hennessey strode across the baked, hard ground, side by side with the sergeant, towards the small stand of trees by which stood a white inflatable tent, the location being cordoned off by a line of blue and white police tape. ‘That’s happened before, a young couple seeking some privacy, entering a secluded area and lo’ and behold, a dead body. . rather putting a damper on any romantic notion they might have been entertaining.’

‘I’ll say,’ the uniformed sergeant replied drily, and without any trace of humour. Hennessey had not met the man before and sensed he was in the company of a bitter man who probably felt he should have achieved a higher rank than he had achieved, and who was approaching his retirement from a modest station.

The police constable at the tape inclined his head in acknowledgement of Hennessey and the sergeant and lifted the tape to allow them to enter the restricted area. The interior of the wooded area was pleasantly shaded but unpleasantly, Hennessey thought, contaminated by the buzzing of a large swarm of flies. Hennessey entered the inflatable tent which stood beside the trees. Dr Mann was already present.

‘Adult male,’ Dr Mann announced, ‘adult of the male sex. I have confirmed life extinct at fourteen twenty hours, about twenty-five minutes ago.’

‘I see. Thank you.’

‘I have contacted York District Hospital and requested the attendance of a forensic pathologist.’

‘Understood. . and again, thank you.’ Hennessey looked at the body. ‘The commander won’t like me being here, he has me desk-bound these days out of concern for my health, but all my team are committed so it’s all hands to the pump.’ He saw the remains, recent remains of a small man, with a pinched and pointed face of the type that often makes appearances before magistrates, and often does so with an air of resentment and indignation that his day has been interrupted for the purpose. Hennessey thought the man had almost ferret-like features. He wore tight-fitting clothing with pointy-toed shoes upon his feet. Hennessey had met the type before, not punching other people but, once the victim had been knocked to the ground, he would wade in, kicking with his pointy-toed shoes and doing considerable damage thereby. ‘Winkle-pickers.’

‘Sorry, sir?’ Dr Man smiled.

‘These shoes, they were fashionable when I left the navy in the 1950s, used to be called “winkle-pickers”. I didn’t know they were still available and worn by the likes of him. He doesn’t look like he could have put up any kind of fight but he wears that sort of shoe, a man in need of victims methinks.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘His age, what do you think?’

‘Middle years,’ Dr Mann replied. ‘Fifties perhaps, he could even be older.’

‘Yes, closer to drawing his state pension than his embittered teenage years, yet still in his teens in his head. I mean, those shoes at that sort of age. Suspicious death though.’

‘Very,’ Dr Mann replied softly, ‘the bruising round his neck, can’t miss it.’

‘Can’t, can you? How long do you think he’s been here?’

‘That’s one for the pathologist but, I’d say he was killed within the last forty-eight hours. . probably twenty-four if no attempt has been made to chill his body,’ the slender turbaned police surgeon replied. ‘But I can’t be drawn, it is not my place.’

‘Neither will the forensic pathologist,’ Hennessey replied with a grin. He turned to the elderly sergeant. ‘Any identification?’

‘None sir, unless it’s well hidden in his clothing. . no wallet that we can find, although we did find his library card.’

‘That might do it.’

‘It’s been bagged and tagged, sir. . local library with a valid date.’

‘Well if it is his card, we have his ID.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So, he was not a wealthy man.’ Hennessey pondered the corpse, cheap, inexpensive clothing and watch. ‘So, not murdered for his money but his wallet, if he had one, was taken, so it must have been taken to frustrate his being identified, but the killer missed the library card. So, in a hurry or just carelessly assuming that his wallet contained all that could identify him.’

‘Forensic pathologist has arrived, sir,’ the young constable at the tape announced in a keen, eager to help manner.

Hennessey turned and felt his heart leap in his chest as he watched the slender figure of Dr D’Acre approach carrying a heavy Gladstone bag. ‘Take her bag for her,’ he asked of the constable, who instantly ran towards Dr D’Acre and relieved her of her burden. He walked half a pace behind her until she reached the tape, upon which he stepped forward and lifted it for her. She smiled her thanks and retook possession of her bag.

Dr D’Acre glanced at the corpse and then gently set her Gladstone bag down upon the ground and opened it. She disturbed the clothing to take a rectal temperature and then a ground temperature. Stony-faced she glanced up at DCI Hennessey and said, ‘I know what you are going to ask, Chief Inspector, and you know what the answer is.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Hennessey smiled. ‘I have learned my lesson, made my journey. . between the time he was last seen alive and the time the body was discovered is as close as medical science can get.’

‘Except possibly in this case. . maggot pupae are in evidence. I’ll take one or two samples, but their presence means he died some time within the last forty-eight hours. . but this heat,’ she brushed flies from her face, ‘it could speed things. Rigor is established and you can see for yourself that as corpses go, this is quite a fresh corpse.’ She paused. ‘I note bruising round the neck.’

‘Yes, ma’am, Dr Mann mentioned those marks.’

‘Could not fail to notice them. . extensive. . not linear, suggestive of manual strangulation. If he had been garrotted with rope, or a length of electrical flex, then we would expect linear bruising, but this is extensive. . and. .’ she felt the scalp of the deceased, ‘a possible skull fracture. Possibly rendered unconscious with strangulation and then he sustained a massive blow to the head to finish him off. I see no sign of a struggle hereabouts, so he was most likely conveyed here possibly within a container, such as a cabin trunk, and deposited where he was found. Definitely murder and within the last forty-eight hours, with a time window of twelve hours either side of that.’

‘Understood and appreciated. It is at least something to go on.’

Dr D’Acre stood. ‘Well, if you have taken all the photographs you need to take, then from my point of view the body can be taken to York District Hospital for the post-mortem.’

‘SOCO?’ Hennessey turned to the uniformed sergeant.

‘Still to arrive, sir.’

Hennessey glanced skywards in a gesture of despair, and noted a single wispy cloud in the canopy of blue. ‘We should bring them with us, then they won’t keep getting lost all the time.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Contact them, if you can, hurry them along. We need their cameras here asap.’

The uniformed sergeant gripped the radio on his lapel and pressed the send button, and walked towards the centre of the field as he did so, presumably, thought Hennessey, that he might achieve a better reception.

‘I presume you are going to remove the scalp?’ Hennessey turned to Dr D’Acre who, dressed in white coveralls in such bright sunshine, caused Hennessey to squint when looking at her.

‘I’ll have to,’ Dr D’Acre replied matter-of-factly, ‘head injuries. I’ll have to look at it. Why do you ask?’

‘It will aid identification if you can delay doing the post-mortem.’

‘I see. Yes, I can delay doing it.’

‘We have what might be his library card. If it is his, it will give us his address, then we can get a next of kin to view the corpse.’

‘Never easy, but yes, I can delay to allow that. Doesn’t sound like you’ll need a great deal of time?’

‘I anticipate it being done today.’

‘Will you be observing for the police, Chief Inspector?’

‘Yes, I will.’

‘Very good. I’ll return to York District, I have a post-mortem still to conduct. . university student.’

‘Oh. . narcotics overdose?’

‘Don’t believe so, not alcohol either. Found lying in his bed with very blue lips, indication of carbon monoxide poisoning, probably caused by a faulty flue on his gas fire.’

‘He had his gas fire on in this weather?’

‘He was Malaysian; even this weather is cold for them.’

‘I see.’

‘So, how was he discovered?’ Dr D’Acre pointed to the body on the ground covered with the tent.

‘By a swarm of flies.’

‘A swarm of flies?’ she grinned at Hennessey.

‘A sharp-eyed lady in those houses over there. .’ Hennessey pointed to a line of houses on the far side of the field, the ground floors of which were hidden from view. ‘She glanced out of her bedroom window and saw the column of black flies beside the trees. She knew the field is not being used for pastoral grazing at the moment and knew that flies in such numbers are attracted to newly deceased animals or humans, so she strolled across the field and. . here we are.’

‘New one on me, it’s usually dog walkers or courting couples.’

George Hennessey smiled gently, ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it?’

The middle-aged, smartly dressed man stood facing the heavy velvet curtain. He was a small man, so short in stature that Hennessey, standing beside him, felt that he was towering over the man. The room was dark, being dimly lit, heavily carpeted with darkly stained, heavily polished wood panelling on the walls. The man took a deep breath as he and Hennessey waited for the nurse.

‘It won’t be like what you. .’

‘I know,’ the man turned to Hennessey and forced a smile, ‘I have done this before.’

‘Really? I am sorry.’

‘My wife, she was knocked down and killed by a drunken driver and I had to identify the body. As you say, it’s not like it’s portrayed in the films, lifting a sheet over a body that is in a metal drawer. . more sensitive. . the last image I had of my wife was of her sleeping in space.’

At that moment, the smaller of the two doors to the room opened, silently, and a sombre looking nurse entered. She glanced at Hennessey who gave a single slight nod of his head. The nurse then pulled a cord and the velvet curtains slid open, again silently. What was revealed to Hennessey and the man was a pane of glass, and beyond the glass was the body of the man who had been found earlier that day when a householder had noticed a swarm of flies. The body was, by then, tightly swathed in clean white bandages with only the facial features showing. Nothing else could be discerned, just an endless seeming blackness. It was as the man had described, as if the person on the bed was at peace, floating in deep space.

‘Yes,’ the man spoke quietly, ‘yes, that is James, James Post, my younger brother.’

‘Thank you, and I am sorry.’ He once again nodded to the nurse who pulled another cord and shut the curtains. ‘Can you answer some questions?’

‘Here?’

‘No, we’ll go to the interview suite at the police station.’

Hennessey drove Mr Nigel Post, brother of James, to Micklegate Bar Police Station. The journey was passed in silence.

In the interview suite, Nigel Post settled into the chair and glanced round the room at the orange coloured walls and the hard-wearing carpet of similar colour, though of a darker shade of the same. ‘Not as functional as I imagined,’ he commented.

‘We have more functional rooms for interviewing suspects,’ Hennessey replied, ‘upright chairs, table, tape recorders set in the wall, but for less formal Q and As we use this room.’ He sat opposite Nigel Post and rested his notebook on his lap.

‘If you could tell me about your brother?’

Post reclined back in the chair and eyed Hennessey with a look of concern. ‘You would only bring me here and ask that question if there was some suspicion about his death. When my wife was killed by that idiot I was only asked to identify her body.’

‘Yes. .’ Hennessey avoided eye contact with Nigel Post, ‘I am afraid that this is a murder inquiry.’

Post leaned forward. ‘What happened?’

‘We don’t know. Yet. The post-mortem has still to be conducted but injuries were noticed on your brother’s body about his neck and head, and he was found in a field outside York with no identification, no wallet, but we found a library card which led us to your address.’

‘Yes,’ Nigel Post sighed, ‘James used my address as an accommodation address. It had a permanency about it, whereas he could never settle in one address, in the early days he moved from rented flat to rented flat as if he was looking for something and hoped to find it in the next flat he moved into. So it was easier to use my address for things like library membership. . and he just kept up the practice.’

‘I see.’

‘I didn’t mind. It enabled me to keep track of him. He was my brother. . a complete wastrel, but my brother just the same.’

‘Was he employed?’

‘No, he virtually never worked all his life, never had a job.’

‘Never?’

‘Couldn’t hold down any proper half decent job. . tried his hand at self-employment but that was a disaster. Any jobs he did have was cash in hand labouring sort of work. He never seemed to accept adulthood, always dressing in the clothes he wore as a young man.’

‘We noticed his shoes.’

‘That’s exactly what I mean. We both suffered from a lack of height. I am just five foot tall. . both left school early but I got a job and held it down, Department of Highways, local authority, very safe, pays nothing but me and my wife could afford the rent on our house. We didn’t have children.’

‘I see.’

‘But James, he just came and went, never knew what he did. . then the drink took him.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, he was in a bad way with the drink for about ten years. That was a bad time. He became down-and-out, begging for money, filthy clothes. I shudder to think what went down his throat in those years. . poison soup, but that is often the way of it.’

‘Yes.’

‘In this case, he was set upon, beaten up by a gang of youths; small, smelly guy, easy target. He got one hell of a kicking but he was hospitalized, cleaned up, fed properly while the broken bones healed and he dried out. Sober for the first time in years. The hospital contacted me when he was due to be discharged. . I never knew he had been admitted. He only gave them my address when he was about to be discharged. They had incinerated all his clothing as representing a health hazard, he needed some replacement kit so I looked out some of my old clothes and brought them to the hospital, and then dragged him to an AA meeting and sat with him throughout. To his credit he went back, and kept going back and kept dry. He even had a long term girlfriend. . and took a council tenancy, and they had a son, but they split up after a while. Still never held down a job but he kept dry. So that was a big thing.’

‘Good for him.’

‘Yes, for him that was an achievement as I said, one man’s floor being another man’s ceiling. For him to stay dry was a big deal, a very big deal.’

‘Yes, I can understand that. Do you know of anyone who would want to harm him?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t. I knew little of his life. I suspect it was not very. . well. . small guy, no employment to speak of. I suspect it was a quiet life he led. I knew of no friends and I knew of no enemies.’

‘I see.’ Hennessey tapped his notepad with his ballpoint. ‘Do you know what Mr Post’s last known address was?’

‘I have a note of it at home. . but yes. . I have a note of it.’

Carmen Pharoah and Thomson Ventnor walked up the inclined drive to the Malpass home in Hutton Cranswick. The house itself was interwar, large, two storeys, red-tiled roof, generous garden, noted Ventnor, very generous, as he pressed the doorbell. The bell rang a conventional double tone and did so loudly, so loudly that Ventnor did not think it appropriate to press the bell a second time. The door was opened, confidently so, soon upon the bell sounding, by an elegant seeming woman in her mid fifties, Pharoah estimated, who was dressed fetchingly in a yellow knee-length dress and white court shoes. She smiled warmly at the officers, ‘Mr and Mrs Blackhouse? You are a trifle early, but no matter, do come in.’ She stepped to one side. Pharoah and Ventnor remained stationary and stone-faced as they showed the woman their identity cards. ‘Police,’ Ventnor said flatly.

‘Oh.’ The woman’s face fell; her hand went up to her mouth. ‘I hope there’s no trouble.’

‘Plenty,’ Ventnor replaced his identity card in his wallet. ‘There’s always plenty of trouble but probably not for this house.’

‘How can I help?’

‘We’d like to speak to Mr Malpass, if he is at home.’

‘Yes. . yes he is. I am Mrs Malpass by the way. Do come in. We are waiting for a Mr and Mrs Blackhouse, they have been referred to us.’

‘Referred to you?’ Carmen Pharoah stepped across the threshold of the house.

‘Yes, we offer an alcohol abuse counselling service.’

‘I see.’

‘But. . well. . come in. My husband is in the living room, second door on the left.’

Carmen Pharoah, followed by Thomson Ventnor walked into the living room. A tall, well-dressed man stood as they entered. Carmen Pharoah read the room; she saw it neat, tastefully furnished with dark but highly patterned carpet, furniture covered in pastel shades of blues, with blue tinted wallpaper. The bay window looked out on to an equally neatly kept garden, surrounded on all sides by a ten foot high privet.

‘The police, dear,’ Mrs Malpass announced.

The man stepped forward and extended his hand. ‘Ronald Malpass. This is my wife, Sylvia. How can we help?’ He was smartly dressed in white trousers, summer shoes, blue tee shirt.

‘Just a little information, please,’ Ventnor replied, noting how tall Malpass was, over six feet he guessed.

‘In that case, please take a seat do.’ He indicated the chairs and settee in the room as he resumed his seat in the armchair he had been occupying when the officers had entered. Pharoah and Ventnor sat side by side on the settee and Mrs Malpass sat in the vacant armchair. Carmen Pharoah thought Ronald Malpass overly confident and she also noticed a certain look of worry across Mrs Malpass’s eyes.

‘We understand you know, or knew, a lady called Angela Prebble?’

‘Angie. . Angela. .’ Ronald Malpass sat back in the armchair. ‘That’s a name I have not heard for a while. She disappeared, I believe. . some years ago.’

‘Yes, she did,’ Ventnor replied. ‘She’s reappeared.’

‘Oh. .’ Malpass looked alert, interested. ‘How is she?’

‘Deceased.’

Sylvia Malpass gasped. Ronald Malpass’s brow knitted. He remained silent for a few moments and then asked, ‘What happened?’

‘We don’t know but she has been identified as being one of the bodies found at Bromyards.’

‘Bromyards?’ Malpass queried.

‘The big house,’ Sylvia Malpass explained. ‘It’s been on the news. . in the papers.’

‘Ah. . yes, of course. Oh dear, poor Angela. . we did wonder.’

‘How did you know her?’

‘Socially. . not really very close but we knew her.’

‘How? How did you know her?’

‘Socially. As I said.’

‘Can you be a bit more specific, please?’

‘We were in the same bunch of people, the same group.’

Carmen Pharoah sighed, ‘If you could be. .’

‘Alcoholics Anonymous,’ Sylvia Malpass explained. Then she addressed her husband. ‘It was going to come out.’

‘Thank you,’ Carmen Pharoah smiled at Sylvia Malpass. ‘No shame there, alcoholism is a disease. . no shame at all.’

‘There shouldn’t be,’ Ronald Malpass added, ‘but there is the stigma, it’s always there. But I am dry now. . we both are.’ He held his right hand outstretched, palm down, fingers pressed together. ‘Rock steady,’ he said with a note of pride in his voice. ‘I couldn’t have done that at one time, I would have been shaking like a leaf. Dried out about fifteen years ago, before that there is a ten year gap in my memory, can’t remember a thing I did in those ten years. . but now. . I still enjoy the sensation of waking up with a clear head.’

‘Good for you,’ Thomson Ventnor said. ‘I know it can be quite a battle.’

‘Yes. Why? Are you. .’

‘No,’ Ventnor said. ‘I’m not.’

‘So,’ Carmen Pharoah attempted to pull the conversation back to the relevancy of their visit. ‘Angela Prebble was in Alcoholics Anonymous?’

‘Yes, she was.’

‘And that was the extent of you knowing her?’

‘More or less. . well. . we became friends but not close friends. She was from the West Coast of Scotland and had difficulty settling in Yorkshire, though I confess you do hear Scottish accents quite a lot in Yorkshire, in the pubs and the shops.’

‘You go into pubs?’

‘Oh yes,’ Malpass smiled. ‘Why not? I enjoy pubs. . I. . we. . Sylvia and I, just don’t touch alcohol but pubs are enjoyable places. We are aware that just one drop of alcohol and we’d both be off the wagon. We watch each other.’

‘So we met Angela at AA and then met socially outside AA meetings, a coffee and a chat, but that’s all.’

‘Very well.’

‘Now we do our own thing. We offer alcohol abuse counselling, on a one-to-one, or couple-to-couple basis. Have you ever been to an AA meeting?’

‘Can’t say I have,’ Ventnor said.

‘Me neither.’ Carmen Pharoah noticed a pleasant scent of furniture polish in the room, not too strong, not overpowering, but there, in the background.

‘Well, they are large. . as the name implies, very anonymous and that suits many folk, but we found that others need to feel more like individuals with personalities and identities, and need one-to-one or couple-to-couple support and advice. So we thought we’d offer our experience to others. We let AA know and they refer people to us. . in fact we are. .’

‘Yes, Mr Malpass,’ Pharoah interrupted him. ‘We’ll be on our way soon. Did you see Angela Prebble at all around the time of her disappearance?’

‘I can’t recall. It was a long time ago you see. . years. . ten years. I really don’t know how long ago it was. . I think I was sober then.’

‘You were,’ Sylvia Malpass smiled warmly. ‘You had to have been, we met her in an AA meeting, you’d stopped drinking.’

‘Of course, I had gotten sober; I was a dry alky by then. We joined a drink watchers group which was a spin off from mainstream AA.’

‘Drink watchers?’

‘Yes, we didn’t need the AA approach, “Hello, I’m Ronald and I’m an alcoholic”; we just needed human company to help fill up the evenings, but not necessarily talk about our battle with the bottle. So we’d meet in cafes. In the summer we’d go for walks along the river. We just helped each other get through those awful hours from five until eight p.m. We found that if we could reach eight p.m. without a drink then the desire went. It wasn’t for everyone, some folk drank at home at any time of the day or night, but if you drank because you needed human company and then the drink took you, then our little group was a good place to be. . human contact, a chat, but we kept each other off the booze.’

‘Very good.’

‘So we’d get through until eight and then disperse and meet up again a couple of evenings later.’

‘Not every evening?’

‘No, we couldn’t sustain that. If one of our group could not get through the evening they could go to an AA meeting.’

‘Quite a lifeless house, I thought.’ Carmen Pharoah drove slowly away from the Malpass house.

‘Sort of,’ Ventnor glanced to his left at a 1930s’ Rolls Royce parked sedately in the driveway of a neighbouring house. ‘Dead. . lifeless as you say. No plants. . no books on the shelves.’

‘And alcohol is an issue again. This entire investigation is looking like it’s booze related.’

It was Saturday, 15.37 hours.