Deliver Us from Evil

TWO

Wednesday, March twenty-fifth, 15.43 hours — 22.30 hours in which more is learned of the deceased and Mr and Mrs Yellich are at home to the gracious reader.

The immediate, and what was also to prove the lasting impression for Webster and Yellich was that the house and its owner had both seen better days; both were elderly in their own way and probably because of that both seemed to the officers to be ideally suited to each other. Both, as Webster had just that afternoon heard Mr Hemmings say to describe his late wife, were ‘beyond the first flush of youth’. Well beyond it.

The house was called ‘Lakeview’, oddly, thought Yellich, because any observation of the surrounding area or a glance at the map of the district did not show the presence of any body of water in the vicinity. It was situated on the B1363 near to Sutton-on-the-Forest, could be easily seen from the road and was probably, Yellich estimated, a quarter of a mile across open fields from the tarmac. It seemed to occupy a natural hollow in the landscape which Webster thought unusual because that part of the Vale of York he understood to be particularly prone to flooding. The grounds of the house seemed to be generous with the front gate of the property being much closer to the road than the house. The frost-covered grounds, whilst vast, were also overgrown and it seemed to both officers that they needed ‘rescuing’ rather than ‘tidying’. The traces of a landscaped garden could be clearly seen but the garden had, by the time Yellich and Webster called, largely been allowed to revert to nature. The building had been blackened by nineteenth century industrial pollution which had evidently been carried from the manufacturing areas of Leeds and Sheffield by the south-westerly winds. The house had an aged and worn look with the roofline at each side of the tall central chimney seeming to sag before being lifted up again at the gable ends. The house was of two storeys and, thought Webster, unlikely to have a cellar given the height of the water table in the area. The front door was set significantly to the right hand side of the building and enclosed in a wooden porch which, like the house itself, was decayed, with peeling paintwork and one or two broken panes of glass. The building was, he observed, potentially very interesting but had sadly been allowed to deteriorate to the point that it was, unlike the garden, clearly beyond rescue. It had been, by all appearances, crumbling for some considerable time and would continue to crumble until it was bulldozed into extinction, to be remembered only in the dim recesses of individual memories and old sepia prints which captured it in its heyday.

Yellich halted the car on crunching gravel in front of the misshapen metal gate and, without waiting to be bidden, Webster, the junior officer, left the car and walked to the gate. It was, he found, fastened to the drystone wall with only a loop of blue nylon rope which was noosed over a protruding stone in the top of the wall. He unhooked the rope which allowed the gate to swing on its hinges with a loud squeaking sound that seemed to penetrate the still silence and to do so deeply. He looked about him. The frost was obviously not giving up without a struggle and the sun had that day been unable to penetrate the grey cloud cover. The black of the house and the black of the leafless canopy of a stand of trees were the only other colours he could detect. Webster stood by the gate as Yellich drove the car slowly through the gateway. He then closed the gate and secured the loop of rope over the stone in the wall. Then there was only stillness and silence.

Webster rejoined Yellich in the car and Yellich approached the house, continuing to drive slowly, and — sensibly, thought Webster, very, very sensibly — sounded the horn as he did so. Rural dwelling people have a larger sense of personal space than the urban dwellers, so Webster had noticed and had also been advised, and do not care to be taken by surprise. A dog was heard to bark, clearly in response to the sound of the car’s horn. As the car approached the house the officers saw the lean-to, which had been hidden from view by shrubbery, and which sheltered two vehicles. One, very practically, thought Yellich, was a Land Rover, the other a Wolseley saloon, white, with a red flash, of 1960s vintage. The dog, when it appeared, was a large Alsatian, alert, well groomed and clearly well nourished. It had the run of the grounds and as Yellich halted the car it put its large, very large, paws up against the window of the driver’s side and barked and growled menacingly.

‘Nice doggy. . good doggy,’ Yellich said with a smile. Beside him Webster chuckled and said, ‘After you, sarge. . you go first. . he seems to like you.’

Caution sensibly being observed, Yellich and Webster sat inside the car for, they later estimated, two or three minutes, until an elderly man appeared, exiting the ancient house via the decaying wooden porch. He stood looking suspiciously at the officers. Yellich held up his ID and wound the window down an inch and yelled, ‘Police’. The elderly man nodded and called the Alsatian back to where he stood and, as it reached him, bent and ruffled its ears as Yellich heard him say, ‘Good boy, good dog’.

‘Police,’ Yellich said again as he and Webster stepped out of the car.

‘Yes. . I gathered.’ The man was stooped with age and walked with the aid of a gnarled wooden stick which he gripped tightly in an equally gnarled hand. Both officers had the impression that the man had once been powerfully built and athletic. ‘Can I help you?’ he asked, speaking with a cultured voice of received pronunciation without any trace of a regional accent.

‘We hope so, sir. Is this the house of Mr Beattie?’ Yellich asked.

‘It is.’

‘Mr Alexander Beattie?’

‘It is,’ the man held eye contact with Yellich, ‘I am he. Confess I have not been called Alexander for a while though, Alex is usually it. It’s been Alex for a long time now. . an awful long time.’

‘Yes, sir. Can we have a word with you, please?’ Yellich replied with a smile. ‘We just need some information; it’s nothing for you to worry about.’

‘I’m eighty-three,’ Beattie responded with a similar smile. ‘It’ll have to be pretty damned serious for me to be called on by the police for something I’ve done amiss. .’ he laughed softly and warmly. ‘Mind you, the company in jail would be welcome. . no. . no. . probably not, but do come in. Don’t mind the dog, he’s got a loud bark, but he’s got failing hind legs. He can’t stand for very long before his hind quarters give way. . a bit like his owner really. . it’s a design fault in Alsatians, so the vet once told me. You could even probably outrun him. Well, one of you would get away anyway and his bite ain’t what it used to be. None of us is getting any younger. It seems the way of it is that some of us just have to hang around the old place longer than others but nobody’s clock goes backwards. Do come in.’ He turned his back on the officers and walked slowly towards the house. He wore brown cavalry twill trousers, a bright yellow cardigan and black shoes. Despite being stooped with age Yellich guessed Beattie was probably still six feet tall, and that he would have cut a fine figure in his day.

Yellich and Webster followed Beattie into his house and saw that the interior was as original and as tired as the exterior. The porch gave directly on to a large kitchen with an unevenly stone-flagged floor and a large, solid table covered with a green cloth. To the left, as the officers entered, was an ancient cast iron range. The rear door of the kitchen gave way to a scullery with a door with a glass pane which looked out on to the overgrown rear garden and to the white-coated hills beyond. Beattie took a kettle and filled it from the taps of a galvanized iron sink which stood beyond and beside the range. The taps seemed to Yellich to be original and were clearly attached to lead piping which, he thought, would throw the health and safety people into apoplexy, but they had evidently done Alexander Beattie little harm and he doubted that the cup of tea they were going to be kindly offered would similarly be harmful to either him or Webster. He glanced round the kitchen and suddenly felt himself to be in a time capsule. He searched for some precise indication of the date of the building and, finding none, he settled for ‘about two hundred years old, early, very early nineteenth century’. The elderly Alsatian had walked slowly to a blanket in the corner by the scullery door and had collapsed resignedly upon it, no longer being concerned by Yellich and Webster’s presence.

‘So how can I help you?’ Beattie struck a match, held it to a ring on top of the range, and the gas of the stove ignited with a loud ‘woosh’ sound. He put three mugs on the table and took a bottle of milk from a bowl of water in the sink and put it beside the mugs. He then put the kettle atop the gas flames.

‘It’s about a lady called Edith Hemmings,’ Yellich said.

‘Edith Hemmings?’ Beattie looked puzzled. ‘Sorry. . gentlemen, oh do please take a seat by the way. Edith Hemmings. . I am sorry, I can’t place that name.’

‘We believe that she used to work here.’

‘I have had a few helpers. . companions so-called, all employed by my son. . Edith. . but no Edith. That is an old and quite an unusual name in fact — I knew one girl of that name in my youth. I’d remember another Edith. I am sure I would.’

‘A Canadian lady,’ Yellich prompted.

Beattie groaned. ‘Oh, her. .’ a note of anger crept into his voice. He leaned back against the range. ‘That damned female!’

Yellich and Webster glanced at each other. Yellich said, ‘I see we are in the right place.’

‘Yes,’ Beattie moved to his right and rested against the sink. ‘If it is about her, then yes, you certainly are in the right place. Must be all of two years since she left, probably a little more. I didn’t know her as “Edith” though; it was “Julia” when she was here.’

‘She lived here?’

‘Yes, as you see, this house is too remote for a daily help, so yes, she had a room here. All my companions did. My son appointed her, dare say he meant well. He’s retired now. . and. . well, he has his family and health issues, so he planted her here to look after the old boy so he wouldn’t have to worry about him, just as he planted other women here before Julia. She was a daily help. . a housekeeper. . a companion all rolled into one. Very few want to live here, and none who are prepared to do so ever remain very long. You know over the years I have come to realize that the sort of women who are prepared to live and work here are those who do so for the same reason that men join the French Foreign Legion. Running away, d’you see? They want a place to hide. . or a place to forget their past.’

‘Interesting.’

‘She was the last companion I had. Prefer it alone now anyway. . me and Ben Tinsley, we keep a watchful eye on each other. His house is that way.’ He pointed to the wall behind him as the aluminium kettle began to whistle. ‘We each leave a light on, a specific light in each of our houses, it’s on all night. If his isn’t on when I retire for the night I phone him and if he doesn’t answer I will phone you good people and ask you to check on him, if you can. If you say you can’t, for any reason, I check on him the next morning and he does the same for me. He’s a curmudgeonly old billy goat. . dare say he thinks the same of me but we are useful to each other. I also move my Land Rover, take it out of the shed and leave it at the front of the house, then put it under cover again at night just to let him know I’m alive during the day. He does the same thing with his Land Rover. Haven’t moved it yet so I’ll do that when you’ve gone or he’ll be phoning me. It also helps to keep the burglars away, some movement makes the house look lived in. Nothing to steal anyway.’ He slowly and carefully poured a little boiling water from the kettle into a large china teapot, rinsed it out, holding it with both hands, then reached for a packet of loose tea. He put four generous teaspoons full of tea into the pot and then poured in the remainder of the steaming water from the kettle.

‘Mrs Hemmings. . or Julia. .’ Yellich pulled the conversation back on track, ‘the Canadian lady. .’

‘She wasn’t a lady,’ Beattie responded quickly and indignantly. ‘And she was Canadienne,’ Beattie spelled the word, ‘or so she claimed. A French Canadian female, le Canadienne yclept “Julia”. I did believe her on that point because Mrs Beattie, by coincidence, was also Canadian. You see, in the days when all the UK seemed to be emigrating to Canada and Australia and New Zealand, she emigrated east to the UK, bless her soul, to search for her fortune. We found each other and had a long and very happy union.’

‘Congratulations,’ Yellich smiled.

‘Yes. . I. . we were very fortunate and I am not ungrateful, not ungrateful at all. I have sat on the sidelines of some very bloody divorces in my time, and yes, we were a lucky pair. Ours was a good marriage. A very good one. I do not worry about Mrs Beattie now, she is safe. I would have worried greatly about her if I had gone before. She never did well on her own but I am a much more independent spirit than she was.’ He poured the tea from the pot into the mugs and invited the officers to help themselves to milk. Both did so. ‘So, the Canadienne,’ Beattie sat at the table with Yellich and Webster, ‘well, she came from French Canada, so she said, a small town called Montmorency which is near Quebec City. I looked it up once and it is there, right where she said it would be, on the banks of the St Lawrence, a few miles downstream from Quebec. She left the town when she was five, so she told me, and she hinted at a bit of a tough life. . poverty, orphanage. . that sort of thing. She didn’t talk about her early life much but she definitely was Canadian. Having lived with one for the best part of half a century, I should know, she was the real thing, believe me. “The real deal,” as my great grandson might say. . he has a strange way of talking. . children seem to these days. Sugar, gentlemen?’

‘No, thanks,’ Yellich said.

Webster also politely declined.

‘She spent most of her life in Barrie. . so she told me.’

‘Barrie?’

‘Yes,’ Beattie spelled the name, ‘so Barrie in Canada, not Barry in South Wales. It’s a town, beside a lake, if not a city, of generous size to the north of Toronto in Ontario province. Mrs Beattie actually came from Toronto and we used to visit her family for extended holidays, usually over Christmas, always damned cold it was. I would often say I would not be dreaming of a white Christmas this year, I am going to see one.’ His chest heaved with suppressed laughter as he gripped his mug in large, reddened hands. ‘Occasionally we’d go across in the summer but usually we visited at Christmas; my in-laws liked to have their family around them at Christmas. It was a bit of a tradition with them. Well she, the Canadienne, the one you know as Edith and I knew as Julia, knew Toronto very well, very well indeed, like she was a native of the city. She and I would talk about it, the city, and she knew the place, she knew it all right, knew little streets and bars and parks in the suburbs, but she always insisted that Barrie was her home. She might have been born in Montmorency but her roots were in Barrie. It’s about an hour’s drive north of Toronto which is close in Canadian terms. Very close, believe me. In fact one of my brothers-in-law used to drive two hours to work and two hours back again. He thought nothing of it, which astounded me.’

Webster groaned. ‘Astounds me also, sir.’

‘Yes,’ Beattie glanced at him, ‘hardly bears thinking about, does it? Up at six, leave for work at seven, back home again twelve hours later having driven over four hundred miles. . five days a week. He spent the weekend recovering and then was up again at six on Monday morning and off he’d go. I used to commute from Beverley to Hull — I was a buyer for a shipping line until I retired twenty years ago — and my brother-in-law once said he thought my journey to work was like a walk to the bottom of the garden and back.’

‘Edith. . Julia,’ Yellich appealed.

‘Yes. . sorry.’

‘Do you know how or why she came to be living in the UK?’

‘No, I don’t, she never said why. She came to me from a fox-hunting family in East Yorkshire. It turned out that the glowing reference she came with was a piece of convincing fiction. Fellow wrote it to get rid of her. Now I know why.’

‘We’ll have to visit him. Can you let us have his address?’

‘Yes. No problem. . I have it filed away.’

‘So what did she do in this house?’

‘In terms of her employment or her crimes?’ Beattie raised his eyebrows.

‘Both.’

‘She arrived carrying just one suitcase. . and quickly settled in, seemed to be quite pleased, quite content. She seemed to have a no-one-can-get-at-me-here sort of attitude. You remember the French Foreign Legion Syndrome I mentioned? She was escaping; she was running away. . that was a strong impression I had and my old and remote house seemed to suit her purpose, admirably so.’

‘Yes. . you said, it appears to be a significant observation.’

‘So, she was supposed to be a daily help and a companion, a housekeeper all rolled into one. No precise job description. She used the car to go shopping — the Wolseley, she couldn’t handle the Land Rover, so she used the Wolseley. I gave her an allowance for that, to buy petrol and food for the both of us, and she was a little liberal with it, more than a little liberal if truth be told.’

‘Oh?’ Yellich sipped his tea.

‘For example, she left at three p.m. to drive to the village to buy some food for the old boy,’ Beattie tapped his chest, ‘and she would return at midnight smelling of alcohol and the old boy went without his supper.’

‘I see.’

‘That tended only to happen latterly. She was here for about six months and she tended to stay out late drinking the food money only in the last week or two. But by the time she left my bank account had been plundered.’

‘How did she manage that?’

‘She had access to the cheque book for my current account. She forged my signature and bought things by mail order which she then pawned or sold for a fraction of their true value, or so my son believed when he looked into the matter. I never knew about it because she would take delivery of the parcel when it arrived. We found a lot of pawn tickets in her room and it was my son who then put two and two together.’

‘Did you report that to the police?’

‘Oh yes. . yes, we did straight away, of course we did, but the police said they couldn’t do anything until she “surfaces”, as they put it. But she had gone deep; I wasn’t going to get any money back nor was I going to recover the valuables she stole from the house. She was very cavalier in her attitude. She was the “Cavalier Canadienne”. She pursued her own agenda, didn’t seem to take anything seriously apart from her own survival, of course. . laughing at me as she bled me dry. . she was aloof. . she was distant. . she was. .’

‘Cavalier,’ Yellich finished the sentence. ‘Yes, we get the picture. We grasp the character. “Cavalier” seems just the word, the very word.’

‘But worried,’ Beattie added, ‘she was also worried. Exploiting me but also was always glancing over her shoulder. Sleeping, it seemed, with one eye open. There was something, some person in her life that she wasn’t cavalier about. She was afraid of being seen, I mean afraid of being recognized.’

‘You believe so?’

‘Yes. You saw my lovely old Wolseley, 1968 model?’

‘We did notice it. Nice car.’

‘Yes. I like it. It’s the only one in the Vale. . a classic.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well. . Old Ben, the grumpy old boy who looks for my light each night as I do for his, he told me a few times that he had seen a blonde woman driving the car. It transpired to be madam with a wig upon her head. That we pieced together after she had gone.’

‘We?’

‘My son and grandsons.’

‘I see.’

‘Did she leave anything behind?’

‘Nothing at all of any value.’

‘I have a note of the crime number the police gave me together with the address of the fox-hunting lowlife that gave her such a glowing reference that caused my son to appoint her. That’s all that remained of Julia Ossetti.’

‘You could take action against him, sue him, for example.’

‘What with?’ Beattie forced a smile. ‘I have no money, hardly anything in the bank, just a small pension trickling in, no valuables in the house. Just me and T-Rex here.’ He pointed to the elderly Alsatian which slowly and briefly wagged its tail in recognition of its name and then settled back on to its blanket with a deep sigh.

‘Can we see her room, please?’

‘Certainly,’ Beattie stood slowly and invited the officers to follow him. He led them along a long narrow corridor to a flight of wooden stairs. Both officers felt that the house could only be described as ‘depressing’. It was dark, cold, and had decades-old wallpaper peeling from the walls. It seemed to the officers that the deeper Beattie led them into the house the more depressing it became.

‘It’s a matter of pride,’ Beattie explained as, with evident difficulty, he climbed the stairs.

‘What is, sir?’

‘Not giving in to the cold. I just wear thermal underwear all the time, sometimes two layers. It does the job pleasingly well. Mrs Beattie felt the same. In the depths of winter we would put up camp beds in the kitchen, the old cast iron range we used for cooking retained its warmth well into the night, you see; warmer than being upstairs in the bedroom. Very efficient. I still use the same method to get through the cold days. Not cold any more. . winter has gone. . I sleep in my bedroom these nights.’

‘You don’t think this is cold, sir?’ Yellich felt the chill within the house reach his bones.

‘No. . nowhere near, the cut-off point is when your breath condenses in the house; we are a long way from that point. We just have to get through this late frost and then it will be spring.’ He turned at the top of the staircase and led Yellich and Webster along a narrow corridor of creaking bare floorboards with a single window at the end of it; a naked light bulb hung forlornly from a black entwined electric cable just inside the window. ‘That’s the light I keep on to let the old boy who lives across the fields know that I am still alive. I’ll switch it on when it gets dark.’ He stopped by a door and opened it. ‘This was her room.’ He stepped aside.

Yellich and Webster entered the room and saw that it was spartan in the extreme. It contained a single metal framed bed with a hard looking mattress, a small wardrobe of perhaps the 1930s in terms of its age and a chest of drawers of what seemed to the officers to be of the same vintage. There was also a dressing table with a mirror attached to it and an upright chair in front of it. The floorboards, like the corridor outside the room, were without covering. The room was illuminated by a single light bulb which, similar to the light bulb in the corridor, was naked and hung from the ceiling at the end of a length of entwined electric cable of the type used in houses prior to the Second World War. There was no source of heating in the room. The window looked out across the fields at the front of the house to the road and to the hills beyond the road.

‘Do you see what I mean?’ Beattie said triumphantly. ‘I mean about the French Foreign Legion Syndrome. Who would accept this accommodation unless they had to? She was on the run all right. It should have made both me and my son suspicious.’

‘Seems so.’ Yellich looked at the cell-like room in the isolated prison-like house. He thought Beattie to be correct. Only a very frightened person would accept live-in accommodation of this low standard. There was not even a lock on the door. He asked if anyone visited her.

‘No. . not a visitor, no one called on her. . but. . since you mention it. .’

‘But?’ Yellich pressed.

‘There was the large bearded man. I saw him a few times standing on the edge of the road, just looking at the house. I do not often look out of the house and so he was probably there more often than the three times I saw him.’

‘That’s interesting.’ Yellich spoke softly, looking out of the window of the room. ‘Was Edith. . or Julia. . in the house at the time, can you recall?’

‘It was about the time she left, a few months ago, come to think of it. I well recall I mentioned it to her, that is to say that I had seen a man standing by the road looking at the house. She seemed worried by the information. Then she left. But she was planning to leave anyway. She had been emptying my bank account for weeks before I saw the man for the first time. Perhaps his arrival was just coincidence. Perhaps she thought she had taken me for all she could and was going to make tracks anyway. . but she did seem frightened when I described him to her.’

‘Can you describe him for us now? Can you remember his appearance?’

‘Well, the eyesight isn’t what it used to be. He was a large man, bearded, like I said, solidly built. He wore a fur hat.’

‘A fur hat?’

‘Yes. A man’s fur hat, like you see Russian soldiers wearing.’

‘I know the type.’

‘Light coloured. Not dark, so Arctic fox, not rabbit fur.’

‘And not frightened of being seen?’

‘No, he wasn’t, now you mention it. He did not seem to care if he was seen. Red jacket. . tartan pattern.’

‘Seems like someone we ought to talk to; he obviously had some interest in the house.’ Yellich turned to Webster who nodded in agreement.

‘You could try my neighbour,’ Beattie suggested.

‘Really?’

‘Yes, he saw him once, driving past very slowly. He got a good look at him. He’ll be able to give you more details than I can.’ Beattie stepped into the room and opened a drawer in the dressing table. ‘We kept all the stuff about her in here.’ He took out the reference and read it. ‘Look at what he said, that fox hunter type, “Industrious and utterly trustworthy”. Tosh! But he got rid of her and here. .’ he took another piece of paper from the drawer, ‘is the crime number I mentioned, given to me in respect of the theft of my money and valuables.’ He handed it to Yellich.

‘Malton Police.’ Yellich read the slip of paper.

‘Yes, that’s the local bobby shop around here. Still a fair few miles away but it’s the local cop shop.’

‘You don’t need it?’

‘No, I can’t claim for the lost money, I verified that with the insurance people, only for items, and she didn’t steal much from the house because there was little to steal. She took some of Mrs Beattie’s jewellery. . that I would like back but the value of the other stuff was minimal. Valuable only in terms of sentimental value. . but I refer to them as the “valuables”.’

‘He’s a tight-fisted old thing.’ Ben Tinsley stood defensively in the doorway of his house. ‘Dare say he has little good to say about me but do you know that in the wintertime he sleeps on a camp bed in his kitchen rather than have a heater in his bedroom, him and his wife also when she was with us? But we’re both getting on and we are neighbours, and so I keep an eye on him and he keeps an eye on me.’

‘Yes,’ Yellich smiled, ‘he told us the system you have of leaving a light burning to let each other know you are well. Also of moving his Land Rover about. A good idea.’

‘Not uncommon in the country. But do please come in out of the cold, gentlemen.’

In contrast to Alexander Beattie’s home, Yellich and Webster found Ben Tinsley’s home was small, warm and dry. A settled coal fire burned gently in the grate.

‘Not legal,’ Tinsley pointed to the fire, and did so with clear embarrassment.

‘I know.’ Yellich read the room, photographs of family on the wall and mantelpiece, a compact television and a pile of magazines about walking in the country and coarse fishing. A physically fit widower, fond of his family, living within his means, enjoying solitary pursuits: nothing for the officers to be at all suspicious about. ‘But we won’t report you.’

‘Thank you. This is the country, I am not polluting anyone else’s breathing air and there is nothing like a coal fire. You just can’t beat coal for a home fire. Take it from me, you just can’t beat a coal fire. Do take a seat, please.’

The officers sat in deep comfortable armchairs covered with flower patterned material.

‘So how can I help you?’ Tinsley sat on a matching sofa. ‘I saw you at Beattie’s house, house. . mausoleum more like, if you ask me. I mean, what is he proving living in such cold conditions? He sees it as an achievement to get through the winter without heating, miserly old fool that he is. I tell you, he is the sort of man who would buy a poppy for one Remembrance Sunday, pay next to nothing for it and wear it for the next ten Remembrance Sundays until it falls apart, then he buys another one for a penny or two and wears that for the first week in each November until that too falls apart, and so on and so forth. That’s Beattie, claiming poverty but I bet he has a pile tucked away somewhere. Anyway I knew you were cops so I didn’t interfere.’

‘You knew?’ Webster asked.

‘Yes. You looked confident, were a pair and calling during the hours of daylight. Also you are both in good physical shape. But I took a few photographs of you anyway,’ Tinsley smiled.

‘You did?’

‘Yes I did. Just in case. And I also made sure I got your car registration in one of the shots. I used a telephoto lens, you see, then I saw Beattie invite you into his house. . so I relaxed.’

‘Good for you.’

‘I’ll send prints of them to you when I develop the film. Malton Police Station?’

‘No. York. Micklegate Bar. But we’d still like to see them.’

‘Really? York Police, I mean. .’

‘Yes, really.’

‘All right. So, how can I help you?’ Tinsley sat back on the sofa, ‘I am intrigued.’

‘Mr Beattie advised us that once a bearded man in a fur hat and tartan patterned jacket seemed to paying a lot of interest in his house. This was a couple of years ago, or so. He also said you may have got a look at him.’

‘The Canadian? Yes. . but that’s going back a good few months now, nearly two years, as you say. . time flies so.’

‘Tell us about him, if you would,’ Yellich asked. ‘All you can remember.’

‘What is there to say?’ Tinsley sighed. ‘Little to tell,’ he paused as the clock in his hallway chimed the hour with the Westminster chimes. ‘I used to see him in the village, that is Stillington, closest village to here, I really knew him from there. He used to enjoy a beer in The Hunter’s Moon.’

‘The Hunter’s Moon in Stillington?’ Webster wrote in his notebook.

‘On the high street, you can’t miss it. It was Terry the publican who told me he was a Canadian; they had a chat now and again, you see. Terry’s good like that, he checks out strangers but does so in a friendly, chatty way. But yes, he was a Canadian. Tall, well built, beard, as you say, and yes, I saw him on the roadway just staring at Beattie’s ruin and also I saw as he drove past in his car. He was clearly hanging around the area. The building had some fascination for him, it really did. That house, Beattie could have bought an easily run, warm, comfortable house but they bought that. . ruin. . no wonder his wife didn’t last, but he seems to be sticking it out, stubborn old fool that he is. I tell you, if he were a plant he’d be moss which grows in the tundra, thriving in the cold. But the Canadian, he was a married man. . I can tell you that.’

‘Married?’

‘Yes. High quality clothes, had a car. . probably a hire car, it was the sort bought in large numbers by fleet operators. He hung around for a couple of weeks, so he must have stayed somewhere local and he didn’t look like the youth hostel type. He wasn’t frightened of being seen, that was something else about him, just standing there, as though he possibly even wanted to be seen.’

‘Intimidating? Would you say it was an intimidating gesture on his part?’

Tinsley pursed his lips, ‘Yes. . yes, I dare say that you could say that. Intimidating.’

‘But you never spoke to him?’

‘No. Drove past him so got a closer look. . then later I saw him in the village once or twice. . heard about him from the boys in The Hunter’s Moon. I’d try there if I was you.’

‘I think we will. Thank you. . that’s very helpful.’

‘You might have to knock on the door.’

‘At this hour!’ Yellich grinned. ‘He’ll have been open since eleven a.m.’

‘He would if he was in the centre of York, but these are getting to be hard times, pubs in the country can’t pay if they open each day all day. Sometimes it’s weekend trade only. . especially lately.’

‘I see,’ Yellich nodded his head slowly. ‘Well, thanks anyway. Enjoy your fire.’

George Hennessey once again read the inscription beneath the names on the war memorial inside the doors of the central post office in York, ‘Pass friend, all’s well’, as he exited the building, and was once again moved by it. He stepped out into a mist-laden street and strolled along Stonegate to the Minster where he saw the tops of all three square towers were hidden from view, and the building itself seemed, in the diminishing light, to have taken on an eerie and foreboding presence. Foot traffic was light and seemed to Hennessey to be local people in the main, hurrying about their business, with just one or two very evident tourists staring in awe at the Minster, or in fascination at the Roman remains, or at the ancient buildings close by.

In the shadow of the Minster two women played musical instruments for passing change. The first woman was in her early twenties, tall, slender, wearing expensive looking footwear and equally expensive looking outer clothing. She played a violin and to Hennessey’s ear did so impressively well. She had, Hennessey observed, been blessed with classical good looks and her blonde hair draped over her shoulders which moved slightly from side to side as her slender and nimble fingers danced along the neck of the violin and her other hand gently held the bow which she moved lightly, but at speed, across the strings. She was, by her countenance, utterly focused. The black bowler hat at her feet was, Hennessey noted, understandably full of coins and even one or two five pound notes. The second woman sat a few feet behind the violinist, in the doorway of a temporarily vacant shop unit. She huddled in a blanket and picked out ‘Edelweiss’ from The Sound of Music on a cheap tin whistle. The plastic cup in front of her contained few, very few, low denomination coins. Her demeanour was, assessed Hennessey, one of detachment. She played mechanically, he thought, but her mind was elsewhere. His urge was to place an appreciative coin or two in the bowler hat but he paused as he pondered the clear privilege of birth of the violinist. She seemed to him to be the product of an expensive education and certainly was busking to ease the financial burden of her university course, and York University, at that; one of England’s finest. Her clothing, her violin, the music stand, even the bowler hat on the paving stones at her feet all spoke of wealth. Hennessey found himself becoming intrigued by the drawn and haggard-faced tin whistle player and so he walked towards her and dropped a pound coin in her plastic cup. The woman’s eyes widened at his generosity and she looked up at him as if to say ‘Thank you’, to which Hennessey said, ‘Let me buy you a coffee.’

The woman stopped playing. ‘A coffee?’

‘I could run to a late lunch. When did you last eat?’

‘Two days ago. . and not much then. . a cup of soup and some bread.’

‘Let’s get some hot food inside you. I think we’d better.’

‘Would you?’ she gasped her reply.

‘Yes, I would. You can leave your blanket here. If you fold it neatly no one will take it away.’

The woman, who seemed to Hennessey to be in her mid to late thirties, struggled awkwardly to her feet, out of the blanket. She was dressed in damp looking denim with a red corduroy shirt and inexpensive looking and well worn running shoes.

Hennessey took her to a nearby cafe and they sat at the window seat. The woman received a hostile look from the middle-aged waitress, which Hennessey noticed, and he replied to it with an angry glare which forced the waitress into a hasty retreat. She sent another waitress to take Hennessey’s order. ‘So,’ Hennessey said, ‘tell me about yourself.’

‘Where do I begin?’

‘Your name might be a good place.’

‘You sound like a cop.’

‘That’s probably because I am a cop.’

‘I thought you were.’

‘It’s written on my forehead, I know.’

The woman smiled softly. ‘I have nothing to hide.’

‘I didn’t think you had.’

‘So why the meal?’

‘You are helping yourself. I am impressed. I respect that.’

‘Thanks, but I am not very good. I needed to play “three identifiable tunes”, that’s the rule. . in order to get my street entertainer’s licence. I found the whistle in a charity shop for a few pence and learned to play ‘Edelweiss’, ‘Bobby Shaftoe’ and ‘Three Blind Mice’. . we had lessons on a recorder when I was at secondary school. It was good enough, just good enough to get my licence. . so I play the three tunes over and over again and bank on the assumption that no one will walk past me twice so no one will hear the same tune from me twice.’

‘But good for you. .’

The conversation paused as the waitress brought two platefuls of shepherd’s pie and chips with a pot of tea for two.

‘Well, I tried to sell the flesh but I wasn’t very good at it. . couldn’t go through with it.’

‘Good,’ Hennessey smiled, ‘I’m pleased you avoided that. . never leads a girl anywhere but trouble.’

‘Hardly a girl, I was thirty-six when I tried it.’

‘Even so. . anyway, you still haven’t told me your name.’

‘Tilly Pakenham.’

‘Tilly?’

‘Short for Matilda. Sounds posh but it’s not, not like the violinist, she’s posh. My dad is a bus driver. . we lived in a council house.’

‘You could have fooled me. You have a pleasant speaking voice.’

‘It’s true. . the speaking voice was acquired by listening to Radio Four, the old self-improvement number. . went well until I fell from grace.’

‘What happened?’ Hennessey glanced round the cafe. He had not been in it before, it was of new design and did not try to evoke ‘the old’. It had a large window fronting on to the street, metal tables with metal chairs, it was light, airy, spacious, the food was of a reasonable quality, he thought, and the portions were generous. The disapproving reaction of the first waitress to Matilda Pakenham’s presence had been, thus far, the only unpleasant aspect.

‘What do you think? Why do so many women fall from grace?’ She imitated shooting herself in the head. ‘Bad choice of husband, that is the sort of mistake that can carry a long way in any woman’s life. Are you married?’

‘Long time widower.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Well, as I said, a long time widower. All adjustments have been made. So, carry on. .’

‘He was just a no-good, my parents said so the instant they saw him. “Dangerous and no good” was my mother’s reaction. . and women’s intuition being what it is. . and boy was she right or was she right. .? He was a charming man but also a violent control freak.’

Hennessey nodded as he stirred his tea. ‘I know the type; the jails are full of them.’

‘I was his possession, not his wife. He’s a salesman. . film star looks. . the patter. . the eye contact, the charm. . he can make it work and he’s good at his job. . he makes sales. . but once I was present when he got sour with a customer who then said, “Well, you’ve changed your tune”, to which he replied, “I’m only nice if you buy something from me”.’

‘Blimey,’ Hennessey gasped.

‘Yes, that’s him; his surname is even Smiley. . how appropriate. Anyway things just happened once too often and so I walked out.’

‘Good for you.’

‘Went back to using my maiden name but I am too proud to return home.’

‘Which is where?’

‘Northampton. . sunny Northampton. It’s just one of those towns you pass through on your way to somewhere interesting but it’s where my roots are. It’s home and the one place I cannot go.’

‘You could visit. It’s not too far away. . ease yourself back in. .’

‘I could, it’s near enough and far enough, which is how I like it, but he’s looking for me. He didn’t like losing his possession like that, took it as a personal insult.’

‘He is?’

‘Yes.’ Matilda Pakenham sipped her tea. ‘Oh. . that’s nice,’ she sighed. ‘The English and their tea. . but it does have medicinal qualities, it does have more. . more. . uplift than coffee, I find anyway.’

‘Yes. .’

‘I went to Cambridge when I first left, because of the year-round tourist trade, and that’s where I found my tin whistle in a charity shop. Then he found me, slapped me around a bit and pushed me into his car and took me home to where we lived in Grantham and slapped me around a bit more and I escaped again and came to York with a blanket and me old tin whistle.’

‘More year-round tourists?’

‘That was the idea but he’s here looking for me.’

‘How does he know that you are here?’

‘He’ll work it out, he knows about me sitting in doorways playing on the tin tube. . knows I don’t like going too far from Northampton. . he’ll work it out. You know I really believe that I can feel his presence; I can feel him in the air. A few days ago I was walking home from my pitch and I stopped in my tracks and said, “He’s here”.’

‘Interesting. Do you have any children?’

‘No, thank heavens. I’d like a couple, what woman doesn’t? But not by him. So I dare say I am lucky in that respect. . just me and him. . things could be an awful lot more complicated.’

‘Well,’ Hennessey took a business card from his wallet and handed it to Matilda Pakenham, ‘we can’t do anything unless you press charges.’

‘I know, but he’s careful not to slap me in front of witnesses and keeps me locked up until all the bruises have faded.’

‘Yes, I know the score. . but we can offer protection.’

‘OK,’ she slipped the card into her shirt pocket. ‘Thank you, Mr Hennessey.’

‘George,’ Hennessey smiled. ‘Call me George.’

‘It’s the economic depression, you see.’ The man, Roger Blackwood by the nameplate on his desk and by his warm introduction, was a slightly built man, smartly, very smartly dressed and with, Thomson Ventnor found, a very serious attitude. So serious that he guessed it would take much to make the man smile. ‘Those units have been empty for about eighteen months. We haven’t recovered our money. We built them and let them out. All of them. Then the economy took a downturn and the tenants’ businesses folded and they vacated the premises as a consequence of that and we have not been able to re-let them. We will just have to wait for the upswing. Someone forced entry, you say?’

‘It appears so, to Unit Five.’

‘Business is bad. I don’t think the boss will pay for that to be repaired, not in a hurry anyway, but they are so out of the way that that might not be a problem and there is nothing to steal anyway. . nothing to burn and nothing to vandalize. I think the company will live with the damage until the upswing comes.’

‘I see, but we are more interested in the location than the damage.’

‘Why?’ Blackwood inclined his head. ‘What’s afoot?’

‘Because of the remoteness.’

‘Nothing special about that. The cheap land is reflected in the low rents.’

‘I can understand that.’

‘Unpopular place to work though, very unpopular. One firm had to bus its employees in; no facilities for the workforce during the day, nowhere to spend their lunch breaks. . especially in the winter. All the workforce could do was shelter and eat their packed lunches. Then the businesses all went bust anyway.’

‘Yes, but the remoteness suggests local knowledge.’

‘You think so?’

‘We believe it might. . it’s a distinct possibility.’

‘Frankly, I think the remoteness doesn’t imply local knowledge. It doesn’t imply anything at all.’

Thomson Ventnor groaned as he sensed a promising lead evaporate.

‘A bit of research, I would have thought, a bit of exploration, a glance at a map. . just driving about looking for an out-of-the-way place,’ Blackwood explained, ‘or anyone could just have stumbled upon the site.’

It was, conceded Ventnor, a fair and reasonable argument. Local knowledge could not be safely implied. He glanced round Blackwood’s office within the offices of The Ouse, Derwent and Trent Property Company. He saw it to be small, cramped even, but made more bearable by what he thought was intelligent use of available space. He looked out of the window at Stonebow. All concrete and glass. A modern part of the ancient city and not at all to his liking. Parts of ancient York could only be in York but Stonebow was, he often argued, any town in Western Europe.

‘I would think the location would have to be researched. What’s the word? Some reconnaissance would have had to be done, but that’s your business, I do not want to intrude, not really my place to do so. Would need strength though.’

‘Strength?’

‘Yes, I would have thought so. The units were left well secured despite the remoteness of the location. . heavy duty chain and very large padlocks. It would need a bolt cutter and some muscle to get through them.’

‘Good point, I’ll pass that up,’ Ventnor smiled. ‘Has anyone expressed an interest in renting one of the units? Wanting to view them. . very recently?’

‘No and I would have known, any such request would have landed here.’ Roger Blackwood patted the top of his desk. ‘Those units are in my portfolio which is why you are talking to me, not another under manager. So, no, no recent interest.’

‘Thank you anyway,’ Ventnor stood, ‘just covering all our bases.’

‘Of course. . you’ll be paying for the damage of course. . where do we send the invoice?’

‘What damage?’

‘Well, following your phone call I took a quick trip out there to see what was going on.’

‘Yes. .?’

‘And all the units had been forced open. Now new chains and locks will be needed. . so where do we send the invoice?’

‘Well, one person was held in one of the units against her will, we had to check them all. . no time to get warrants or find the key holder. . life might have been at risk. So, no, we won’t be paying for any damage. Good day.’

Hennessey drove sedately home. It was a little early for him to leave Micklegate Bar Police Station but an officer of his rank was permitted a little fluidity in timekeeping in recognition of the extra hours he often, very often, worked. With Yellich and Webster still out visiting there was, he reasoned, little else he could do that day and so he enjoyed an early finish. Upon entering Easingwold and finding the town quiet, he stopped his car on Long Street where the houses and shops were joined, each with the other, to form a continuous roofline along the length of the road. He walked with a heavy heart to where she had fallen, all those years ago, a young woman in the very prime of her life, just three months after the birth of her first child, the first of a planned three for her and her husband George. She had collapsed. Suddenly. People rushed to her aid assuming she had fainted but no pulse could be found. She was declared dead on arrival at the hospital, or Condition Purple, in ambulance speak. Her post-mortem findings led the coroner to rule that she had died of Sudden Death Syndrome, which, Hennessey had come to learn, attacks young people in their twenties and who are in excellent health, causing the life within them to leave as if a light had been switched off and switched at random, and for no clear purpose. Hennessey, holding his three-month-old son in one arm, had used the other to scatter Jennifer’s ashes on the rear lawn of their home in Easingwold, and had then set about rebuilding the garden according to the design she had carefully drawn whilst heavily pregnant with Charles. George Hennessey never thought his wife was here, in Long Street, but felt her presence to be in the garden at the rear of their house. Even as a widower of a cruelly short marriage he always thought that he lived in ‘their’ house and, at the end of each day’s work, no matter what the weather, he would stand on the rear patio and tell Jennifer about his day. During the previous summer he had also told her of a new relationship in his life, whilst assuring her that his love for her was not and never would be diminished, and then he had felt a warmth surround him which could not be explained as coming from the sun alone. It was something deeper, something much, much richer and something very specific to him and him alone.

Carmen Pharoah got out of her car as she saw Stanley Hemmings amble in a lost, dream-like state towards his house. He cut, she thought, a helpless and a hapless figure — small with a battered look about him. He forced a smile when she showed him her ID.

‘Didn’t expect you, Miss, sorry. I just went out for a walk; don’t know what to do now our Edith is no more. Now she’s gone before. Just feel too alone in the house so I go out and walk round, can’t seem to stay settled. I’ll go back to work soon, that’ll keep my mind occupied.’

‘No matter, I thought I’d wait to see if you returned.’

‘Do come in, please.’ He walked up the drive of his house, past a small red van from which ‘EIIR’ had been removed from the sides but a trace of the lettering remained. Ex-Post Office van, deduced Pharoah, most likely bought at an auction. ‘One day I’ll go and see where she was held. . when you tell me where that is.’

‘Keeping it to ourselves for the time being, sir. Don’t want to contaminate the crime scene any.’

‘Oh, yes, like on television. . I watch those television programmes.’

‘Yes.’

‘I laid a bunch of flowers on the canal bank, though, assumed that was all right.’

‘Yes,’ Carmen Pharoah smiled, ‘no harm done there. The principal crime scene is where Mrs Hemmings was held captive.’

Hemmings put his hand inside his jacket pocket and took out a house key. ‘Do come in, Miss,’ he repeated as he unlocked and opened the door. Pharoah noticed how the key turned smoothly in a well lubricated lock. ‘Sorry about the mess, I haven’t tidied up for a bit, didn’t realize how much my wife did until I had to do it all myself.’

‘No matter.’ Carmen Pharoah stepped up the step and over the threshold and into the small kitchen. ‘You should see the houses we have to visit from time to time.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘The reason I have been asked to call is that I wonder if it’s possible for us, the police, to look at Mrs Hemmings’s personal possessions?’

‘Yes, of course. . by all means.’ Hemmings peeled off his jacket, reached for the kettle and filled it with water from the tap, and did so as if on autopilot, Carmen Pharoah observed, as if in a state of shock or as if a lifetime’s habit was to boil a kettle of water immediately upon returning home. ‘Her room is the back bedroom. Please. .’ he indicated the hallway which led to the stairs.

‘Her room? You don’t. . you didn’t. .?’

‘No,’ he turned to her with an icy expression, ‘we didn’t share a marital bed. Not lately anyway. We had an understanding, you see. It suited us both.’

‘I see. Can I go up?’

‘Yes,’ Hemmings lit the gas ring and placed the kettle upon it, ‘the back bedroom. . that is. . that was Edith’s room.’

Carmen Pharoah climbed the narrow stairway of the house and entered the rear bedroom. She encountered a musty smell within the room which had only a single unmade bed, a wardrobe and a dressing table. Carmen Pharoah pondered the unmade bed. Had Mrs Hemmings departed with some urgency? Did her husband care so little for her, despite his apparent grief, that he did not go into her room at all? When she was a missing person, making up her bed in anticipation of her return would have been the act of a worried and caring husband, or so Carmen Pharoah would have thought, but was it in fact the case that the quality of their marriage had deteriorated to the point that they were banned from each other’s room? Perhaps. . perhaps. . perhaps. Carmen Pharoah walked across the threadbare carpet to the dressing table. It seemed to her to be a sensible place to start looking, though she did not know what exactly she was searching for. Upon the table, in front of the mirror, was an array of cosmetics and a few items of jewellery, all of which she classed as ‘mid range’. Nothing there indicated wealth, nor equally of her struggling finances. It was, it seemed, fully in keeping with the house, a modest, three bedroom semi owned by a supervisor in the biscuit factory. Just Dringhouses, York. Comfortable. And mid range items within.

In the drawer of the dressing table she found Edith Hemmings’s birth certificate which put her age at forty-seven years, her birthplace as Ottawa, Canada and her maiden name as Aurille. Also in the drawer she found a Canadian passport in the name of Edith Avrille. The passport was still valid. Mr Hemmings had probably been her first husband although Carmen Pharoah knew that obtaining a passport in one’s maiden name, or renewing a passport in a woman’s maiden name, was not an uncommon practice, nor was it particularly difficult. She replaced the passport and took hold of a hardback notebook within which were written musings and overused sayings, ‘Don’t light a fire you can’t put out’ and ‘Pain is temporary but failure lasts a lifetime’ being but two. Also in the book were a number of addresses: St Joseph’s, Riddeau Terrace, Ottawa; Liff and Company, Barrie, Ontario; forty-three Allison Heights, Barrie; nineteen Wilbury Street, Barrie, Ontario. Carmen Pharoah felt it safe to disregard the single line entreaties to Edith Hemmings striving for common sense and proceeded to copy down all the addresses in the notebook. She then opened the wardrobe, rummaged through the clothing, felt her way across the top of the shelf in the wardrobe and, finding nothing else of promising significance, returned downstairs. She found Stanley Hemmings still in the kitchen, sipping a cup of tea. ‘I have all I need,’ she told him, calmly.

‘Oh. What are you taking?’ Hemmings sounded alarmed.

‘Nothing. I am leaving everything where I found it. I have seen the birth certificate and passport and found her notebook; I have made a few notes but left everything in its proper place. We would ask you to do the same. Please do not clear the room, not just yet.’

‘Yes, understood. I won’t. I’ll be cremating her, by the way.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I’ll be cremating her. Just thought you might be interested or would want to know. They have released the body.’

‘I see. . yes, the post-mortem was conclusive.’

‘Yes. . so they cut her up so much it just seems the right thing to do is to cremate her. She won’t rest at peace with her insides cut open. She was neat like that. Liked things just so, did our Edith.’

‘Have you anybody to keep an eye on you, Mr Hemmings, to look in on you at a time like this?’

‘At a time like this I am best on my own, but thank you very much for your concern. Best back to work in my brown smock. . but again, thank you for your concern, Miss. I appreciate it,’ he added with a weak smile.

Carmen Pharoah let herself out of the house and walked slowly back to where she had parked her car, feeling a strange sense that she had visited emptiness.

‘He’s right.’ Terry Selsey, proprietor of The Hunter’s Moon, leaned on the highly polished bar of the pub, having handed a coffee each to Yellich and Webster. ‘It’s the recession, you see. This is a struggling pub at the best of times. It struggled when I opened for seven days a week, when folk had money to spend, and I just kept my head above water, but only just. Then customers stopped coming in and the hard times began. I had to let staff go, one by one, and now me and the wife run it between us. Just the two of us. We tried everything to lure the punters in, put on food but nobody had the money to eat out. Lowered the price of the beer until we were virtually selling it at cost but still nobody came in. So now we don’t open until eight p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday and even then it’s like this most of the time.’ He nodded to the empty chairs and to the silence. ‘I’d even welcome a fight to break up because that would mean there were customers in the place. . that it should come to thinking like that.’

‘I know what you mean.’ Yellich stirred his coffee.

‘Do you?’ Selsey snarled. ‘You with your security of employment, early retirement at fifty-five years, inflation-proof pension. . do you know what I mean?’ Selsey’s eyebrows knitted. He was clearly, thought Yellich, a man with a short fuse.

‘I meant,’ Yellich replied calmly, ‘I knew what you meant about wanting a fight to break up because that meant you had customers in the pub.’ He thought Selsey to be like many publicans he had met. He was a man with a ready smile, superficial joviality, but with the ability to turn and growl at the slightest provocation. It occurred to Yellich that a change in attitude on Selsey’s part might generate a little more business for The Hunter’s Moon. ‘So, the Canadian?’ Yellich asked.

‘Yes,’ Selsey glanced to one side. ‘He came in a few times, when we were busier; this is going back a couple of years mind. He went into the Black Bull further up the street as well but in the end he seemed to prefer this pub. The Bull is also a weekend-only shop now. Never caught his name but he seemed a likeable bloke, friendly when you talked to him, wore a wedding ring, but he definitely had an agenda.’

‘An agenda?’

‘Yes, by that I mean he wasn’t on holiday or on vacation as he might have said. The Canadian, he was a man with a mission. He liked his English beer, though, drove away well over the legal limit but he could handle it. He had to go back to Malton.’

‘Malton?’

‘Yes, he said that once at about nine thirty one evening and he sank his pint in a hurry, as though he was under time pressure. I thought then that it was a good thirty minutes drive. . so he had to be home by ten, wherever “home” was, as though he was staying at a guest house which locked the doors at ten p.m. sharp.’

‘All right. That’s interesting. Did he ever indicate to you or anyone that you know of, did he ever hint at his purpose? I mean did he indicate the nature of the agenda you mention?’

‘No. . not to me though he was apparently interested in the old house out of the village, the crumbling mess occupied by an old boy called Beattie. You can’t miss it.’

‘Yes, we have visited Mr Beattie. He also mentioned the large, well built man looking at his house but he thought that the Canadian, being the man in question, was more interested in the occupants than he was interested in the house itself.’

‘Occupants? Since his wife died the old boy is the sole occupant, the old boy who is rumoured not to feel the cold. . they say he sleeps in his kitchen.’

‘Oh, he feels it all right,’ Yellich replied, ‘he feels it, he just has a different attitude towards it than do the rest of us. We believe that when the Canadian was in the vicinity he, that is Mr Beattie, had a live-in help. . a lady. . as a domestic assistant. We believe that she was the object of the Canadian gentleman’s interest.’

‘Ah. . of that I know nothing. He said nothing about that when he was drinking his beer.’

‘I see. Did he talk to any other customers in the pub?’

‘Anybody who talked to him but he preferred his own company. He came in for a few beers, not idle chat. He was that sort of man.’

‘Did you find out anything about him, anything at all?’

‘Came from Barrie, he said. He did tell me that.’

‘Barrie?’

‘Confess I had never heard of the place, but it’s north of Toronto. I could name Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver as Canadian cities but never heard of Barrie. . spelled with an “ie” at the end, not a “y”.’

‘Well, you got closer than anyone, physically closer, that is to say, and so we’d like you to help us construct a photofit of the man, or rather a computer generated image. What time would suit you?’

Selsey gave Yellich a sour look, ‘If you could manage to avoid weekend evenings I’d appreciate it.’

‘Later today perhaps?’ Yellich suggested. ‘Would that be convenient?’

Carmen Pharoah drove away from Stanley Hemmings’s house and then parked her car and walked back the 200 yards and knocked on his neighbour’s door. Her knock sounded loudly and hollowly within the house. As she waited for the knock to be answered she glanced at Hemmings’s house. She did not see him and thus was relieved that he clearly had not seen her. If he had noticed her it would not have mattered, but on balance, she preferred him not to have seen her. It made things easier somehow. The door was eventually opened by a late middle-aged woman, short, with a pinched face, who met Carmen Pharoah with a cold stare and clear dislike of Afro-Caribbeans.

‘What?’ She demanded. ‘What is it? What do you want? Who are you?’

‘Police.’ Carmen Pharoah showed the woman her ID.

‘Oh?’ The woman seemed to relax her attitude a little, though she still demanded ‘What?’ for a fourth time.

‘May I come inside? I’d like to ask you some questions.’ Carmen Pharoah asked calmly.

‘About what?’

‘Your neighbour.’

‘Which neighbour?’

‘Mr Hemmings.’

‘Oh. . those two?’ The woman sniffed disapprovingly.

‘Yes, those two.’

The woman stepped nimbly to one side and allowed Carmen Pharoah to enter her house. Carmen Pharoah read a neat, well kept, clean but spartan home; hence, she realized, the echoing quality to her knock, there being little to soften the sound. ‘Second on the left,’ the woman said, closing the front door behind her.

Carmen Pharoah entered the living room which had upholstered furniture and a table covered in a brown cloth. Of daffodils in vases and a small television set in the corner of the room on a small table. A modest coke fire glowed dimly in the hearth. The window of the room looked out over a small but well tended rear garden and the wooden fence which divided her property from Stanley Hemmings’s property.

‘Well, sit down,’ the woman spoke snappily, ‘the chairs don’t bite.’

‘Thank you.’ Carmen Pharoah settled on the settee and opened her notepad. ‘Can I ask your name, please?’

‘Winterton. Amelia. Miss.’

‘Occupation, please.’

‘Schoolteacher, retired recently, a few months ago. Still don’t know what to do with all my free time.’

Carmen Pharoah shuddered internally. She felt she knew the type of schoolteacher Winterton, Amelia, Miss, had been, acid-tongued, short-tempered. She had survived just one such teacher in her primary school on St Kitts.

‘So, you are enquiring about the couple next door?’

‘Yes. . yes, we are.’

‘She disappeared I heard. . it’s the talk of the street.’

‘So we believe.’

‘Oh, well, don’t know what I can tell you. . probably not much at all. He was a long time bachelor and then he takes her for his wife. I don’t think she was a happy woman.’

‘Why do you say that? Did they argue?’

‘No, I never heard any arguments or rows, nothing like that, not ever. She just didn’t seem right for him. If you ask me they made an odd couple. You know Stanley, he works in the biscuit factory, harmless, kind old man, sort of character that you find in children’s books, like the toymaker, and she. . sort of brash and materialistic. I just never saw her looking happy, if you see what I mean, and often going out alone. . separate. . by herself. But when we talked, over the back fence sort of chats, that is Stanley and I, I never talked to her, he just sang her praises all the time. Edith did this and Edith does that. He seemed so proud of her, but frankly I never saw her do anything. . good or bad. You know once I called round one Sunday morning because the brain-dead paperboy had delivered their newspapers to my address by mistake and he was in the kitchen in a pinafore very contentedly preparing Sunday lunch and I called again the same day and he was back in the pinafore equally contentedly doing the washing-up, and madam was just nowhere to be seen. He seemed to worship her and do everything in the house. She just scowled all the time.’

‘I see.’

‘Mind you, that Sunday I mention, in fairness that was just one day and so it might have been atypical. But I never saw her do any work. Never saw her weed the garden, put out the laundry on the line. She never brought shopping home, only him, only ever him in the garden, only ever him bringing the shopping home. She seemed to be content to stay in the house. They went out together occasionally in their little ex-post office van. She also wore a wig, she seemed to fancy being a blonde from time to time.’

‘Yes. . the wig.’

‘She would go out alone in the evening. That’s something she did do, go out by herself. I heard her heels click, click, click away into the night and she’d return late at night. It was a strange union, ill-matched. I could never see what they saw in each other. He seems lost now though. You know I went round yesterday to see if he needed any help at this difficult time. . found him sobbing his eyes out. . poor man. . he must have loved her very much.’

Yellich and Webster returned to Micklegate Bar Police Station. Upon arrival they shared the recording to be added to the file of the murder of Edith Hemmings. Yellich recorded the longer interview with Alexander Beattie and Webster the two shorter interviews with Ben Tinsley and Terry Selsey.

Yellich then drove thankfully home to his new build house in Huntingdon to the north of York. He halted the car by the side of the road as Jeremy ran out of the house to greet him and Yellich braced himself for the impact of the heavy, and large for his age, twelve-year-old. Father and son walked hand in hand back to the house where Sara Yellich welcomed her husband with a warm smile and told him that Jeremy had been a very good boy since he returned home from school that afternoon. Later, when he had changed into more casual clothes, Somerled Yellich took Jeremy for a walk in the fields close to their home as a reward for being a good boy and they observed the beginning of spring, the snowdrops and crocuses, the first leaves on some species of tree. . and geese. . a skein of geese flying northwards against the grey sky.

Somerled and Sara Yellich had, like all couples in such circumstances, experienced feelings of disappointment when told that their son would not be of normal intelligence but would be deemed ‘special needs’. In Jeremy Yellich’s case the diagnosis being Down’s Syndrome. But as Jeremy grew a new world opened up to them as they met other parents of similar children and formed real and lasting friendships with them. Jeremy too had given so much, developing as he had into a loving and trusting individual and one who would never be a source of angst to his parents as he grew into a teenager. For Jeremy Yellich the future would be of semi-independent living in a supervised hostel as he entered what might, sadly, be a short adult life with him achieving a mental age of approximately twelve years.

Later that evening Somerled and Sara Yellich sat with each other, resting against each other sipping wine and listening to Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto. There was just nothing they needed or had to say to each other.