Deliver Us from Evil

FIVE

Monday, March thirtieth, 09.15 hours in which the story of Heather Ossetti is told, Ventnor faces a decision and the culprit is apprehended.

Park Gate Christian Retirement Community was a new build development at the south-east side of Barrie, close to the beginning of flat, open country, a single track railway line and local amenities, yet offered easy access to the modest city centre should any resident wish to travel in to downtown Barrie. At the entrance was a tree, the trunk of which had been carved with human-like faces evoking a totem pole of native Canadian culture. Yellich parked his car in the small car park close to the main entrance and reported to the reception desk. He saw small shops, a hairdresser, a communal hall for meetings and church services, and a dining hall. All was clean and fresh and new and, he thought, it was also comfortable and homely. The warm mannered receptionist directed him to a tunnel from the main block to the residential block. ‘Very useful in winter,’ she explained, ‘but convenient at any time.’

At the end of the tunnel — which was about two hundred feet long, Yellich guessed, and, intriguingly for a first time passenger, bent in the middle — he took the stairs up to the ground floor and then easily located the flat he sought. He pressed the doorbell. The door was opened by a tall, silver-haired woman who beamed her welcome, ‘Mr Yellich, from England?’

‘Yes, madam.’ Yellich took off his hat.

‘Reception buzzed me right now, letting me know you had arrived. . real good of them. Do come in. A visitor from England. . my. .’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’ Yellich entered the small but neat and cosy flat with views towards the woodland at the rear of the complex. ‘It’s good of you to receive me at such short notice and so early.’ He saw a small kitchen cum dining room, a sitting room, a toilet/shower and a bedroom. All an elderly person could want or need, and especially one within a self-contained supervised community of similarly aged persons. It was, he thought, not unlike a university hall of residence except for those at the other end of adulthood. He was well able to envisage similar complexes opening in the UK especially given Britain’s ageing population. ‘It’s very good of you to see me,’ he repeated.

‘No worries, it gets me up and I am now free for the rest of the day.’

‘Well, thanks, anyway.’ Yellich smelled the scent of air freshener.

‘Please, do take a seat. We seniors do so value visitors, even those on business. We see each other, and our relatives visit, but a new face is so welcome. . and from overseas. I take communal supper. I will have something to say at the table this evening.’

‘Communal supper?’

‘Yes, it’s my choice. We can prepare all our meals if we wish or have all our meals in the dining room and anything in between. I don’t eat much breakfast or lunch and so I prepare those meals in here in my little apartment but have booked in for the evening meal each day and that practise gets me out as well as keeping me in touch with the other seniors. Coffee? Tea?’

‘Tea for me, please.’

‘I ought to have known. . you English and your tea.’ She smiled and went into her kitchen.

Moments later when Yellich and the lady upon whom he was calling each sat holding a cup of tea served in good china cups upon matching saucers, Yellich asked, ‘Can I confirm that you are Rebecca James?’

‘Yes, I am. Born to adversity James. That is I.’

‘Adversity?’

‘That’s what the name Rebecca means, apparently. My lovely parents just didn’t do their homework. But in fairness, I can’t say it applied to me. I had my ups and downs like everybody else but I can’t say my life has been one of endless adversity.’

‘I am pleased for you.’

‘You are married, aren’t you, Mr Yellich?’

‘I am?’ Yellich was puzzled, but was enjoying the warmth in Rebecca James’s eyes.

‘Yes. You have that comforted look about you. . married men have it, bachelors don’t.’

‘Astute of you,’ Yellich inclined his head. ‘Sorry it shows.’

‘You can’t hide it. Children, do you have any, can I ask?’

‘One son. He has special needs.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘So were we at first, I have to be honest, but he gives us so much and a whole new world of special needs children and their parents has opened up to us and we have made some very good friends. . some really valuable friends.’

‘Good, good for you and your family.’

‘Thank you.’

‘So how can I help the British Police?’

‘I visited Safe Harbour this morning.’

‘Ah. .’ Rebecca James smiled. ‘My dreadful past is catching up with me.’

‘Yes, but in a good way. Hastings Drive?’

‘Yes. . yes, I lived there for many years. I was an approved foster parent. I have had many children through my hands, some stayed for many years, others were short term but I am proud of what I did. I know I was a good and a successful foster parent because some of the longer stay children visit me now here in Park Gate and introduce me to their children.’

‘Well, my turn to say “good for you”.’

‘Thank you. I never had children of my own. . I couldn’t. . medical reasons.’

‘Sorry. . that must have been difficult to come to terms with.’

‘Yes it was,’ Rebecca James breathed deeply. ‘So I settled for the next best thing, I cared for other people’s children, but I did my best for all of them.’

‘As you have shown by them visiting you. It is one of your children that I am calling in respect of.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, I dare say that I have some bad news for you I’m afraid.’

‘They are in trouble with the British Police?’ A note of alarm crept into Rebecca James’s voice.

‘No. . no, I am sorry but the child, now an adult, in question is deceased.’

‘Oh,’ Rebecca James put her hand up to her forehead. ‘This has happened before. Parents whose children predecease them experience something they should not experience but so many children have passed through my hands that occasionally I do hear of their passing. It is always a saddening experience. Always.’

‘Yes, I can imagine.’

‘A few did not make it through the danger years. . car crashes, bar fights. . often caused by alcohol and one or two girls died young, drug overdoses or abusive relationships which culminated in murder. So who are you interested in?’

‘Heather Ossetti.’

Rebecca James groaned, ‘Oh, yes, Miss Ossetti, yes I do recall her very well. She was not one of the good ones. You remember the good ones and you remember the bad ones. She was a bad one, a very bad one. Excuse me, I have her photograph.’ Rebecca James rose from the chair with a suppleness and agility which both surprised and impressed Yellich and, as if reading his mind, she grinned and said, ‘Yoga,’ and added, ‘not a recent convert either. I took it up when I was in my early thirties. Watch. .’ and, facing Yellich, she stood with her feet slightly apart, and keeping her legs straight, bent forward and touched her toes with evident ease and stood up again. ‘Not bad for an old silver one, eh?’

Yellich gasped. ‘I couldn’t do that. . heavens. . not bad at all, very impressive in fact.’

‘Yes, very few can do that once they reach adulthood. I love showing off to the doctors. . but, the album.’ She left the living room and returned a few moments later with a large photograph album. She sat and opened the book which was bound in red leather-like material and began to leaf through it. Eventually she turned the book through a hundred and eighty degrees and handed it to Yellich. ‘Girl on the left hand page,’ she said as she did so. ‘You see why I remember her as being one of the bad ones? Look at those eyes, is that or is that not the very essence of evil?’

‘Oh yes. .’ Yellich gasped and slowly nodded his head. ‘It chills me just to look at the photograph, but in real life. . how was she in actuality?’

‘It’s difficult if not impossible to hide the evil in one’s eyes if it is there and at that age. . she’s about ten years old. . she had still to learn the need to at least attempt to hide it. .’

Yellich studied the photograph. He saw a girl, smartly dressed, neat hair, she was smiling at the camera but not in a way that a young girl would normally smile at a camera in order to please, perhaps in order to comply with a request the photographer might have made, but the smile, Yellich thought, was more in the manner of the young Heather Ossetti sneering or laughing at the camera and the photographer, for above the smile were cold piercing eyes that just did not seem to be a part of said smile. The smile and the look across the eyes were separate, utterly unconnected with each other. ‘Tell me about her,’ he said softly, feeling chilled by what he saw.

‘No. First I think I would like you to tell me what happened to her.’

‘She was murdered.’

Rebecca James nodded. ‘Yes, you know Heather is. . well, she would be the sort of person to invite such upon herself.’

Yellich told her the story.

‘Running, with a stolen identity? That figures, her true personality just would not find a home anywhere, not for any length of time anyway. Well, perhaps only with a needy and a naive man who had no insight, who just could not see that look she displayed. So what can I tell you about her? Very little, I’m afraid, is the honest answer. I was only able to accommodate easily managed and biddable sort of children and that was not the manner of Heather Ossetti, not her manner at all. She was very disruptive, attention seeking, violent to other children but only to those weaker than her. She always attempted to befriend those she saw as stronger than her, but only to manipulate them.’

‘I see.’

‘A lot of damage was done to the building during the time that she was with me but I couldn’t prove it was her.’

‘Damage?’

‘Initials carved in wooden panelling but not the initials H.O., initials of the other children who I knew would not do such damage. She very rapidly managed to turn all the other children against her and managed to create a very bad atmosphere. The children actually began to huddle in a group as if protecting themselves from her.’

‘Interesting.’

‘Frightening I would say, more than just interesting. As was the tendency of things to disappear. That happened a lot when Heather was with me. Things would just disappear from the house and the children complained that their possessions had vanished. The possessions concerned were always small items that a ten-year-old girl could easily conceal and carry out of the house and throw in the lake, just to be spiteful. . but again, nothing was ever seen though I rapidly realized that Heather was responsible and that she needed a highly specialized care regime, and requested. . nay, insisted upon her removal from my home, and she left me a few days later. After she had been moved, no more damage was done, no single item or possession was ever noticed to be missing and the pleasant atmosphere returned.’

‘What do you know of her background?’

‘Very little again, very little information came with her. I believe she was given up for adoption at birth by her parents. . the files will be released to you upon production of a court order should you so wish. If I recall, she had a series of placements, none successful. Even her earliest placement in a nursery was difficult and the home she was in before she came to me was destroyed by fire and all the children had to be re-homed.’

‘Arson?’

‘Yes. . or fire-setting as it’s known in Canada and the United States. . but the inquiry eventually focused on a deliberate attempt to start the fire by one of the children, but which one?’ Rebecca James opened her palm.

‘I think I can guess.’

‘Yes, I think we both can. So she was with me for a few weeks. I didn’t give in easily, as a matter of pride, but eventually I realized that not only could I not do anything for her, but she was a danger to the other children and to the building. It was a large, rambling wooden building, sealed against the rain by pitch as are many houses in Canada. Fire would have engulfed it very quickly and if she set one fire she could set another.’

‘Yes, indeed. Where did she go when she left you?’

‘St Saviours.’

‘A convent?’

‘Yes, a very strict order of nuns. Her situation was conferenced wherein it was deemed she needed that form of close supervision and tight control and that was the last I heard of Heather Ossetti until you mentioned her name this morning. She did not come to visit me, for which I am extremely grateful. Another of my girls went there also, a girl called Edith Lecointe. She lost her life a few years ago. . I read it. . died in the snow one winter. Dare say they helped each other through St Saviours.’

The recording light glowed red, the twin cassettes spun slowly, silently.

‘The place is interview room number three at Micklegate Bar Police Station, York. The time is nine fifteen hours on Monday the thirtieth of March. I am Detective Sergeant Fiona Rivers of the Vale of York Police Female and Child Abuse Unit. I am now going to ask the other people in the room to identify themselves.’

‘Detective Constable Tracy Banks of the Vale of York Police Female and Child Abuse Unit.’

‘Rivers and Banks,’ the man sneered, ‘how quaint.’

‘Just your name, sir,’ Rivers replied sternly.

‘Sigsworth. Noel Sigsworth.’

‘Detective Chief Inspector George Hennessey of the Vale of York Police at Micklegate Bar.’

‘Alexander Milner of Milner, Rhodes and Ferrie, Solicitors, of St Leonard’s Place, York.’

‘Mr Sigsworth, you have been arrested and cautioned in connection with the assault on your ex-wife, Matilda Sigsworth, also known as Matilda or “Tilly” Pakenham.’ Fiona Rivers delivered an ice cold introduction.

‘Wife,’ Sigsworth replied smugly. ‘We are still married.’

‘Very well, correction is noted, though you are estranged.’

‘Is that the case,’ Milner turned to Sigsworth, ‘about being cautioned?’

‘Yes. It was done by the book.’ Sigsworth wore a dark suit with highly polished shoes and he reeked of aftershave.

‘We will be charging you with Grievous Bodily Harm,’ Rivers explained.

‘A tiff. . nothing more.’

‘A tiff which left her with six broken ribs and extensive facial bruising.’

‘You have no proof and she won’t press charges, she never does.’

‘So this is a regular occurrence?’

Sigsworth shrugged. ‘What marriage does not have its difficult periods?’

‘This time is different,’ Hennessey growled. ‘This time she has made a complaint and we have your DNA. She managed to scratch you somewhere. . such as your hand. .’

Sigsworth lifted up his left hand and glanced at the sticking plaster on the back of it. ‘An accident,’ he said.

‘But it’s your DNA. . from your blood, under her fingernails, that’s all the proof we need.’

Sigsworth’s smile was suddenly replaced by a cold hard glare and Hennessey saw the man who allegedly once said, ‘I’m only nice to you if you buy something from me’. It was all Hennessey and the two FCAU officers needed to see. The case against Sigsworth was watertight although he could still charm a jury into returning a not guilty verdict. Such ‘perverse judgements’ are not unknown and men like Sigsworth are adept at jury manipulation. It was a chance the police would have to take.

‘My job. . my career. .’ Sigsworth snarled. ‘I’ll kill the bitch. . she’s dead. .’

Hennessey glanced at the tapes turning silently in the recording machine and then looked at Sigsworth as the colour drained from the man’s face.

‘I didn’t mean that,’ he rapidly recovered his charm. ‘You must know I would never really harm her.’

‘But you said it,’ Hennessey said. ‘It’s now a matter of record. We don’t destroy these tapes.’

‘So if some harm does befall Ms Pakenham,’ DS Rivers added, ‘we’ll know who to look for, won’t we?’

‘And we’ll be asking for an injunction to stop you going anywhere near her or making any form of contact with her whatsoever.’ Hennessey advised in a soft, matter-of-fact manner.

Marianne Auphan stepped out of the shower wrapped in a black towel which Ventnor thought could be fairly described as being about the size of a small country. He propped himself up on his elbows in her bed as he watched her dress. Marianne Auphan occupied what Ventnor thought an ideal home for a single person. Rented, it had a built-in garage on the ground floor with an electronically operated roll-up door. From the garage a small door led into the utility area of the property where there was a gas heater, a washing/drying area, a downstairs toilet and plentiful storage space. Stairs covered with a fawn coloured fitted carpet led up to the front door of the property and turned again and led up to the living area on the first floor where there was a large kitchen, a dining area and a sitting area. The first floor was similarly carpeted and had pine furniture, within it a hi-fi system and also a sensibly sized television. It was, in addition, richly adorned with plants. Marianne Auphan, Ventnor decided, clearly enjoyed caring for living things. Above the living area was a bathroom/shower unit with a second toilet and two bedrooms. The property had an angled roof and access to the loft space was obtained from within a large walk-in cupboard off the larger of the two bedrooms. The rear of the property looked out across a ‘deck’ or elevated wooden patio to an area of open ground, then still snow covered, and industrial units about a quarter of a mile distant, the skyline being interrupted by a circular concrete water tower with the name ‘Barrie’ written large in blue upon a white background. The front of the property looked out across a car park to identical properties being part of the same development. Marianne Auphan’s home could have been in the UK were it not for Canadian idiosyncrasies which Ventnor discovered with interest, such as the light switches which pushed upwards for ‘on’ rather than downwards as in Britain. The whistling kettle on the electric cooker he also thought particularly North American. For unlike the whistling kettles in the UK which make a shrill, high-pitched homely sound, similar to the whistles of British steam locomotives, when it boiled, Marianne Auphan’s kettle made a low, mournful, soulful sound similar, in fact, to the whistles of American steam locomotives. He cared not at all for it.

‘I’ll drive you to the terminal,’ she said, in a quiet but authoritative tone, combing her hair. ‘Then you must take a bus in. I want to be discreet about this.’

‘Agreed.’ Ventnor levered himself out of bed.

‘Take the thirteen bus out to Cundles East and get off at Zehrs. It’s a flat fare but you’ll need the exact money in coins, already.’

Ventnor walked across the carpet to the shower.

‘I don’t eat breakfast, already,’ she called after him, ‘but if you want I can maybe do you an egg on toast. . or something quick like that?’

‘No. . no. .’ Ventnor replied as the hot water drove into the sweat clogged pores of his flesh, ‘whatever you do normally is good with me.’

Later, whilst waiting for the number thirteen bus at the Maple Avenue bus stop, Ventnor was amused to watch a group of young boys play soccer in blazing sunshine, dressed in tee shirt and shorts, in the road between two massive and stubborn snowdrifts, Canada in the spring. Later still he sat opposite Marianne Auphan as she pressed a mug of hot coffee into his hands and held up a manila folder. ‘Nathan Fisco,’ she said. ‘Do you want to read it, or shall I give you the gist of it, already?’

‘Oh. . the gist, please.’ Ventnor sipped lovingly on the coffee.

‘OK. . but listen, within these four walls we’re on the clock now, so we’re cops. . and nothing else. . understood?’

‘Clear as a bell, and agreed.’

‘OK, good. So, Nathan Fisco, he died in a house fire about seven years ago.’

‘Seven.’

‘Yes, Jordana Hoskins was out by a few years but the drink does that to you, already.’

‘I have noticed.’

‘He died in a house fire, like I said.’

‘Witnesses?’

‘None. He was drunk according to the file, dropped a lighted cigarette on an alcohol soaked carpet and. . woosh. . but his lover at the time was. .’ Marianne Auphan let her voice fade to silence.

‘Heather Ossetti. . the fell Heather Ossetti.’ Ventnor sipped his coffee.

‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘got it in one.’

‘Hardly a difficult question.’

‘So we’ll pay a call on his nearest surviving relative. I have phoned him, he is expecting us.’

‘OK, I’ll finish this first, if you don’t mind,’ Ventnor held up his mug of coffee, ‘can’t function without it.’

The young woman knelt and picked up the book of matches. It had, she thought, an interesting cover. She resisted the impulse to throw it into the refuse bag. Given what her employer had told her about the recent police visit she wondered whether it might have some significance.

The man parked his small van on the concrete apron and once again, being irresistibly drawn to the location, he looked over the blue and white police tape at the small workshop. He once again thrilled to the isolation of the vicinity; he savoured the location as he once again felt the power surge. He thought it was wrong, what he had read about why rapists most often let their victims live, because you cannot have a power disparity with a corpse. ‘Oh but you can’, he said to himself as the wind tugged at his coat collar, ‘you so, so can’.

Kenneth Fisco lived in what Ventnor thought was a modest home in North Barrie, wholly brick built of light shaded material with a darker grey tiled roof. A Humvee stood solidly in the driveway and, being a fawn colour, blended sensitively, thought Ventnor, with the house bricks and the colour of the bricks of neighbouring houses. Kenneth Fisco showed himself to be a slightly built, clean shaven, warm of manner individual. His handshake Ventnor found to be light but not overly so, not a ‘wet lettuce’ shake, and his eye contact seemed to be genuine. It was, he thought, as if Marianne Auphan was introducing one of her friends to another. ‘Have you met Thomson? Thomson, this is Kenneth.’ It was, Ventnor felt, that sort of meeting. The interior of the house revealed itself to be similar to the outside: neat and clean and well ordered. A photograph of the Queen hung on the wall of the entrance hall: no Roman Catholic French Canadian he.

‘So, my father.’ Fisco settled back into an armchair after both Marianne Auphan and Ventnor had, at his invitation, taken a seat on the settee. ‘After all these years, finally there is some police interest. Has new evidence come to light?’

‘Probably,’ Marianne Auphan replied, ‘but more in the manner of a possible connection with other. . other incidents. We have in fact become very interested in Heather Ossetti.’

‘Oh,’ Fisco groaned and looked upwards at the ceiling, ‘that woman. . that. . female,’ pronouncing ‘female’ with a great and clear and distinct anger.

‘You didn’t like her?’

‘Oh. . it shows? No we didn’t. . not me, or my brother. . or my sisters. She was such a deeply unpleasant and dangerous woman and we were children then, we couldn’t defend ourselves and dad was always out of it with the drink.’

‘She was violent?’

‘More verbally than physically but we still had to learn how to duck.’

‘What happened?’ Marianne Auphan conducted the interview; Ventnor was content to remain silent.

‘Well, dad was a good man but only so far as his lights shone and unfortunately for his children they didn’t shine very far.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, he was an adequate provider, can’t fault him there, but he did take a good drink. He was also very needy, emotionally speaking. . I got that impression. I still have it really; I think that mother was a woman with five children, one of whom was her husband.’

‘I have come across similar, already.’ Marianne Auphan spoke with a low, knowledgeable tone. ‘It happens. . or husbands with wives who are more akin to daughters. . very stressful and causes dysfunction in the family.’

‘Yes, well mother died in a car wreck. She was a passenger, wholly the fault of the driver of the other car. After that dad lost the plot, really lost it, found it difficult to hold down a job. . really started drinking very heavily and began to bring all sorts of women home, one being Heather Ossetti. . but unlike the others she hung around, she stayed for months. For some reason our chaotic rundown old house was good enough for her to call home.’

‘Hiding, do you think?’

Fisco paused. ‘No, no I wouldn’t say that. I think, looking back, that it was more in the manner of somebody taking the rough with the smooth.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning she put up with our messy household because it was a meal ticket. Father had a lot of money from mother’s life insurance payout. When Heather left, he had nothing. He, stupid man that he was, that needy little boy inside him, had allowed her to be a co-signatory on his checking account. There were weekly withdrawals, all made out to cash. It was also our inheritance. I admit it would not have gone far between the four of us. . what would have been left when father died, but it would have been something. She kept him well supplied with booze until his account was empty and it was then that he died in a house fire.’

‘What do you remember about the fire?’

‘Nothing at all about the fire itself, we were not there. We returned to a burnt out shell. It’s still there, the burnt timbers. . damn well planned though, the fire I mean.’

‘Oh?’ Ventnor sat forward. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You English?’ Fisco asked, pleasantly.

‘Yes. We’re interested in Heather Ossetti also. So. . what do you mean by well planned?’

‘It seems like it was, looking back, with the wonderful twenty-twenty nature of hindsight.’

‘So what happened?’

‘It was summer. She had bought a whole load of camping gear and she drove us to the coast.’

‘The coast?’ Marianne Auphan queried. ‘From here?’

‘Lake shore. .’ Fisco turned to her. ‘I don’t mean the ocean, I mean down by Lake Simcoe at Safe Harbour, near here. It had some significance for her I think but she never explained what it was. So she bought a heap of camping gear, ran us down to Safe Harbour at the shore of Lake Simcoe and left us to fend for ourselves. We were in no danger. . except from the mosquitoes, it being summer, but you learn to cope with them. . keep a smoky fire going, the flying tigers don’t like smoke. There were other campers around and it was a lake so there were no tides to get caught out by. She said it was for our character development and our drunken old father just went along with it. . and we were children then. What we thought didn’t matter. We really had no say in anything once Heather moved in.’

‘How old were you?’

‘That summer? Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen and twelve. Mother worked hard, harder than my wife. We, my wife and I, we plan to space our children. But. . that summer. . each weekend was always the same; piled the gear and the kids into the back of the station wagon, down to Safe Harbour area on Friday and dropped us off. Towards the end she didn’t even leave the car, just made sure we had everything we needed, that it was all out, and drove off. She’d collect us on the Sunday at about five p.m. Looking back, I now believe that she was getting us out of the way, not just once, on the weekend in question, but establishing a pattern. You see I reckon that she figured that if we kids were away only for the weekend when father died, it would look suspicious, but if we were away every weekend on a character building number then it wouldn’t look so suspicious.’

‘That’s a good point,’ Marianne Auphan said, ‘it goes to premeditation. . very calculating.’

‘That’s what I think. But what was. . what is still very suspicious, really very suspicious, is that the old man only ever used to drink beer, just Budweiser out of cans or bottles. . non-flammable no matter how much he spilled, but on that weekend the carpet was soaked with whisky, so it turned out when the police and the fire service investigated. Then there were all the empty whisky bottles in the garage, they appeared from nowhere that weekend. They were not there when we went camping on the Friday but were there when we came back on the Sunday, giving the authorities the impression that father was a long term whisky drinker. . which, of course, is flammable.’

‘I see,’ Auphan nodded. ‘You are correct, sir, that is very suspicious.’

‘She hung around for a while after the fire, playing the grieving widow, even though they were not married. We had no home. After a while in a church shelter we were taken in by relatives, which was when Heather left us, and then we entered adulthood, inheriting nothing.’

‘So what do you think happened?’

‘She milked him for all she could, emptied his account. . that is certain. . but why she murdered him, why she didn’t just leave him having taken all his money,’ Fisco shook his head, ‘that I will never know. That we will never know. Either he had woken up to the fact that Heather had bled him dry and was about to make things awkward for her. . or. . she saw an opportunity to do something she could get away with, even if that thing she saw was murder, just for the sake of doing it.’ He shrugged. ‘The house was fairly remote. It was already an inferno by the time the nearest neighbour called nine-one-one and by the time the fire department had arrived at the house it was a pile of ash. Then, like I said, after she hung around for a week or two Heather left. . once we were safely with relatives. She gave a statement about knowing nothing about how the fire started but overplayed dad’s drinking. The coroner recorded death by misadventure. There was smoke in dad’s throat you see. . I don’t know the proper name.’

‘Trachea,’ offered Ventnor.

‘Yes,’ Fisco smiled, ‘that’s the word. Smoke deposits in his trachea, so he was alive when the fire was burning and he breathed in the smoke. That apparently made it accidental.’

‘Apparently?’

‘Well, I don’t drink, I don’t drink at all. . children of heavy drinking parents usually don’t. . but I would have thought it would have taken more than beer to knock someone out and so heavily that they wouldn’t wake up in a fire.’

‘I would think the same,’ Marianne Auphan spoke softly.

‘But no examination for poison in the bloodstream was done and ironically, what was left of him was cremated soon after. The city finished the job the fire had started. But the point is they then could not dig him up and test for poison in his blood. The Coroner just accepted that he was drinking whisky and fell unconscious and dropped his cigarette on the carpet and ‘woosh’, and fortunately his children were at their usual character building camp by the lake an hour’s drive away and Heather was in town shopping. No one saw her leave the house, it being remote you see.’

‘Yes.’

‘What else did you find out about her private or her social life whilst she was living with you. . anything at all?’

‘Nothing. She had no friends that we knew of; I believe that she used to spend her time in McTeer’s Bar on Dunlop Street. . if you know it. You could ask in there. Been a long time now but she might be remembered by someone. . she’s the sort of woman who would make a lasting impression for all the wrong reasons. So it is highly likely that someone in McTeer’s will remember her and may be able to provide some information.’

George Hennessey replaced the phone and stood and walked from his office down the CID corridor to the reception area. He stood beside the uniformed officer who indicated a young woman who sat on the highly polished hardwood bench on the opposite side of the room to the reception desk. Hennessey smiled at the woman. ‘You wish to see me, madam?’

‘Yes, sir.’ The woman stood and approached the reception desk, nervously opening her handbag as she did so. She extracted a clear plastic bag of the type used by banks to contain coins. She placed the bag on the desk. Within the bag was a book of matches. ‘Mrs Stand of the Broomfield Hotel asked me to drop this in, sir.’ The woman had a timid way of speaking and seemed to Hennessey to be working very hard to avoid eye contact. ‘I am to say that it has not been touched except by the chambermaid who picked it up, sir.’

‘Thank you. Appreciate the care and consideration.’ Hennessey picked up the bag and examined the book of matches. It read, ‘Sign of the Whale, Barrie, Ontario’.

‘It was found in the room occupied by the Canadian gentleman, sir. It had slipped down behind the bed and was missed during the first clean, sir. I am in York to buy bacon, sir.’

‘Bacon?’ Hennessey smiled.

‘Yes, sir. It’s cheaper in York.’

‘I see.’

‘So I am to hand it in to you when I am in York, buying the bacon, sir.’

‘Oh. . now I understand. Well, thank you for this Miss. .’

‘Lloyd, sir.’

‘Miss Lloyd, thank you, very much. Thank you very much indeed. And please thank Mrs Stand also.’

Hennessey immediately ordered an email to be sent to DS Yellich, care of the Barrie City Police, advising him that the Canadian he is seeking is probably a customer of the Sign of the Whale bar on Bayfield Street. He added that latents are to be lifted from a book of matches and will be sent to him.

That done he returned to his desk to complete the six month evaluation of DC Pharoah. He was enjoying writing it. It was a positive assessment, very positive. She was making no secret about her desire to return to London eventually, and he knew that when she did, she would leave a gap. A very noticeable gap indeed.

It was an old house, Yellich thought; at least it was old for Canada. Wholly built of timber, it had turret rooms and a porch on the upper floor as well as on the ground floor. It stood isolated from many nearby houses by approximately one hundred feet on either side. The rear garden rose in a gentle slope to a thick stand of woodland. The house was in a rundown condition and so badly in need of paint or varnish weatherproofing that Yellich doubted that it could be saved. Rot, he believed, must be, in fact could not have failed to be, well established in all that exposed wood. Two large Alsatians appeared at the front door window as Yellich closed the car door behind him. An elderly woman opened the front door but kept the screen door shut. She stared intently at him, unafraid and hostile. She was dressed in black and had long, silver hair. Yellich walked up to the screen door and showed his ID.

‘That’s not a police badge,’ the woman snarled.

‘You can phone the Barrie Police for confirmation.’ Yellich spoke calmly.

‘I have my dogs.’

‘I can see.’ Yellich looked at the two Alsatians who growled and barked menacingly at him.

‘Well you look like a policeman, but the dogs will have your smart little ass if you try anything.’

‘Understood.’

‘So what do you want?’

‘Heather Ossetti.’

The elderly woman groaned, ‘That name. . that woman. So long ago now, thirty years. . more. How did you know she lived here?’

‘St Saviours, they gave your home as her discharge address.’

‘I see. They were a bit free with that information.’

‘We assured them it was a murder inquiry. . so they relented. Your address was not freely given.’

‘A mu. . again!’

‘Again?’

The woman ordered the dogs to be quiet and then having opened the screen door led Yellich into a dimly lit, cluttered sitting room. The dogs followed and sat at the woman’s feet, not once taking their eyes off Yellich.

‘You don’t seem to have a good memory of Heather Ossetti. It is Mrs Castle?’

‘Yes. Mary Castle. Well, would you have a good memory of her if she killed your husband. . or in your case, if she killed your wife?’

‘Tell me what happened.’ Yellich sat back in the chair. The pattern was, he thought, becoming well established, and as such he anticipated hearing of a murder which doubtless had looked like an accident.

‘She came here from the nuns. She was quiet, shy, reserved. . but that was an act.’

‘You think so?’

‘I think so. The report about her was good, positive. . a quiet girl it said, hard working, but those nuns don’t stand any nonsense and it rapidly became clear to me that Heather Ossetti had realized that she couldn’t beat them and so she did the next best thing, she just didn’t let the nuns at St Saviours get hold of her personality. You know the score; it was the old manipulation by obedience two step.’

‘I see.’

‘We were vetted by St Saviours. They don’t like discharging their girls just like that, that’s the quickest way to the red light district in Toronto.’

‘Yes.’

‘So they employ halfway houses, hopefully to give them some experience of family life. Both the girls we had before went on to get married but Heather. . she was certainly frightened of the nuns but not of us. Pretty soon she was testing the limits, then pushing them, never enough for us to order her out but enough for my husband to say we’ve made a mistake with this one. We could have turned her out. . she was seventeen. . could have and we damn well should have.’

‘But you didn’t.’

Mary Castle shook her head, sorrowfully. ‘No, it was the onset of winter so we decided to keep her until the spring. There is sometimes a false spring in Ontario, just when you think summer has arrived, and it’s then that the snow returns with a vengeance.’

‘Yes, it can be like that in the UK. So what happened?’

‘My husband died. Misadventure.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘Just out there,’ she turned to her left, ‘out there at the rear of the house. Not out in the backwoods among the spruce, but just a few feet from safety.’

‘Tragic. . that really is. . very tragic.’

‘Yes. It makes it annoying as well as tragic. So close to home. Hell, he was at home, just outside the house and in his garden.’

‘So what was the story?’

‘It was the last of the winter. He went to work as usual that morning. . and just didn’t come home, or so we thought. He worked in Toronto and they still talk about the winter of 1944 in that city when thirty-eight people died in a snowstorm. It snowed hard that day like the winter of ’44. I was out that day visiting my sister. He wasn’t home when I returned but I wasn’t worried because Earl, that was my husband’s name, Earl Castle, Earl always said, “If the weather is bad don’t worry because I am a survivor. I’ll be holed up some place, so don’t worry.” I assumed he’d stayed in his office overnight. He’d done that before along with his co-workers. So the next morning I phoned the company he worked for and was told his car was in the car park all right but that was because he and a co-worker, who also lived in Barrie, had decided to share a car home. They had made it home in a blizzard. The co-worker dropped Earl off at the front gate and had driven on home to his house.’

‘He didn’t wait to see him enter the house?’

‘No, he couldn’t see the front door from the road anyway. . near white-out. . but there is a guide rope from the gate to the door.’

‘I noticed it.’

‘Yes. So he, the co-worker, drove away. He also had to get home as soon as he could. .’

‘Yes. . understandable.’

‘He said there was about two feet of snow when he drove away after dropping Earl off and it was still falling. The next morning the house was surrounded by snow, six to eight feet deep in places.’

‘Good grief,’ Yellich gasped.

‘Well, that’s Canada. The snow lay, and it lay, then eventually it thawed and Earl’s body was exposed. Fully clothed, still holding his briefcase. For some reason he wandered round the back of the house and lay down.’

‘What do you think happened?’

‘I have only suspicion.’

‘That’s good enough. Between you and me, that’s good enough.’

‘Well, who was at the house that day but Ossetti.’

‘She locked him out?’

‘Don’t think so. Earl was a strong, stocky man, he could have forced entry. He was also unlikely to go round the back of the house to force entry. If he couldn’t get in the front he would have gone to our neighbours to seek shelter. . we are lifelong friends and they would have taken him in without a moment’s hesitation. I came home later and got in without any bother. No. . I think something forced him or lured him out to the back of the house.’

‘All right,’ Yellich glanced uneasily at the Alsatians.

‘He had a slight graze on his forehead which could have been accidental, but also it could have been not so.’

‘Yes.’

‘The inquest was full of assumptions — there was no hard evidence to be had, just assumptions. . slipped in the snow, banged his head, became disorientated, wandered round the back of the house. . so it was recorded as being death by misadventure.’

‘But your alternative theory?’

‘Is that Heather Ossetti overheard us talking about her and that prompted a first strike, a pre-emptive strike. She banged Earl on the head but not sufficient to cause any severe injury and then led him in a semi-conscious state outside and let him lay down as the snow covered him. . and he succumbed to hypothermia and suffocation.’

‘Not an unusual death in Canada I am led to believe.’

‘Not at all and quite convenient if you want murder to look like an accident. Snow can be very useful in that way.’

‘Did you notify the police?’

‘Of course, the following day, but they had their hands full rescuing stranded people, people whose lives were at risk. They couldn’t leave that to search for a body in the snow and by that time, if he hadn’t found shelter, that’s what Earl would have been, a corpse covered in snow.’

‘That could not have been easy for you.’

‘It wasn’t. We searched, me and her, the Ossetti female, we searched as best we could, poking the snow with long sticks, but as I said, it was eight feet deep in places. All I could do was wait for the thaw which came a few days later. It was the last snow of that winter and the true spring followed on not far behind. The snow melted so rapidly that there were floods and it was then that his body was exposed.’

‘I am very sorry.’

‘Twenty plus years ago now. I cherished his memory, I still do and that has kept me going as the years went by.’

‘Heather Ossetti?’

‘Stayed. She stayed with me. Couldn’t be more helpful, eager to go shopping for me, which is quite a trek to the nearest store. Neither of us could drive and the bus service in those days was best described as indifferent. Then, one day, she wasn’t here any more. She’d left a few possessions but had taken mine.’

‘Yours?’ Yellich gasped. ‘Yours?’

‘In my grief I didn’t notice small but valuable items had gone missing. . jewellery. . Earl’s collection of pocket watches. . the silverware. No wonder she was keen to go shopping, she was taking more out of the house than she was bringing home. So Earl had gone, our valuables had gone and she had gone. . like the snow. . just melted away leaving me alone in the springtime and the beginning of a very long autumn of my life. Just me. Earl and I had no children. So just me alone.’

McTeer’s Bar on Dunlop Street was housed in what was clearly one of the original buildings of Barrie. It was of three storeys and flat roofed. The interior was darkened, the effect being obtained by tinted windows which Ventnor noticed could be wound upwards and thus spoke for the high temperatures experienced in the locality in the midsummer. Illumination on that day was gained by a few dim lights and numerous flickering television screens. Ventnor counted twenty-three and noted that each screen was tuned into a different channel from the others. The sound of the televisions was muted, the background entertainment being a radio channel which, as elsewhere when Ventnor had heard it, was playing songs which had been popular in the UK twenty years earlier. The proprietor was a heavy set, well built, bald headed man. ‘Help you guys?’ he asked, placing two meaty paws on the bar.

‘Police.’ Auphan showed the bartender her badge.

‘I know,’ the man smiled. ‘I don’t need to see your badge. It’s written on your forehead. So, help you?’

Auphan levered herself on to a high chair in front of the bar. Ventnor stood. ‘Ossetti,’ Auphan said, ‘Heather Ossetti.’

‘What about her?’

‘You know her?’

‘She used to be one of the regulars. We haven’t seen her in here for some time though. . like a few years.’

‘You won’t be seeing her again.’

‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Yeah. . she’s dead, already.’

The bartender’s head sagged. He allowed himself a generous few moments to recover. ‘So what happened?’

‘She was murdered. In England.’ Ventnor spoke for the first time.

‘You English, buddy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Another cop?’

‘Yes.’

‘So she was iced over in the UK?’

‘Yes, that’s a good way of putting it, a very appropriate way in fact.’ Ventnor glanced round the bar. It was almost empty, just two other patrons sitting separately, both males, both reading tabloid newspapers.

‘But you’re over here looking for someone for it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Someone from Barrie went all the way to the UK to see to Ossetti?’

‘We believe so. Do you know who would want to harm her?’

The man looked uncomfortable. He glanced around him. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t know anyone who’d want to harm her.’

‘Yes you do,’ Auphan spoke coldly. ‘Your body language is all wrong. We could come back later when the bar is full. We could even take you into custody for withholding information. . we have a lot of empty buckets waiting to be filled.’

‘Won’t make any difference, within two hours all the customers will know I’ve been talking to the law. Barrie is a very small town.’

‘Just one name and we’re out of here.’

‘OK, but it didn’t come from me.’

‘Scout’s honour, already.’ Auphan remained stone faced.

‘Tenby.’

‘Tenby?’

‘You should look into the death of Felicity Tenby. She was eight years old when she died. . Ossetti’s fingerprints were all over that incident.’

‘Eight!’ Ventnor groaned.

But by then the barman had pushed himself into a standing position and was walking away into the gloom.

‘Tenby,’ Yellich responded. ‘Same name.’

‘Yes.’ Auphan sat at her desk.

Ventnor glanced out of the office window at the vehicles on Highway 400.

‘Showed the barman at the Sign of the Whale bar the E-FIT and that is when he gave me the name Hank Tenby. He gave me his address as well but said Hank wouldn’t hurt anybody.’

‘That’s for us to decide,’ Auphan said, ‘but we were given the same name, as we have told you. Same surname anyway.’

‘So we visit,’ Yellich addressed Marianne Auphan, ‘but not all three.’

‘Agreed. That would be too heavy handed. Just you and me, Somerled. Just you and me. The two lines of inquiry have now converged as we knew they would.’

It was, thought Yellich, a very accurate E-FIT. The man who opened the door of the condominium overlooking Kempenfelt Bay did indeed appear to be very similar to the E-FIT image compiled of the man who had stayed at the Broomhurst Hotel and who showed great interest in the old, cold, rambling house in which Heather Ossetti had recently once lived and worked. A little shorter than was described but the same man.

‘You’ll be the British police officer.’ The man spoke in a slow but warm voice. ‘They phoned me, the people at the Sign of the Whale, telling me a British cop was looking for me and that they had given him my address.’

‘Yes, I am DS Yellich, Vale of York Police.’

‘Marianne Auphan, Barrie City Police.’

‘How can I help you?’

‘Be better if we talk inside.’

‘OK.’ The man stood aside, allowing the officers to enter his apartment.

Inside, the apartment showed itself to be on two levels, and built into a tower block. The rooftops of Barrie were seen below to the left and the right and the bay lay in front of it. The apartment was clean, neat and decorated in a modern manner, so thought Yellich, modern art prints on the wall, pine furniture and a flat screen television on the wall, the latter being, in Yellich’s opinion, tastelessly large and more suited to a cinema than the living room of a home.

‘You are Hank Tenby?’ Yellich asked.

‘Yes,’ the man nodded. ‘Please take a seat.’ When he and the two officers were seated he said, ‘This can only be about the Ossetti female.’

‘Yes, it is. We are investigating her murder. A man of your description was seen apparently stalking her for quite some time before she died. . so you will appreciate our interest in you,’ Yellich explained.

Tenby’s reaction came as a surprise to both officers, for he sat back and smiled broadly. ‘Well, how appropriate.’

‘You, of course, know nothing about her murder, already?’ Auphan spoke coldly.

‘No, already,’ Tenby continued to smile, ‘but the news is very welcome.’

‘It is?’

‘Oh. . very welcome. . I can’t tell you how welcome it is.’

‘We’ve been asked to look into the death of Felicity Tenby. There is no record in our files. Who is she?’

‘My niece, on my brother’s side of the family.’

‘What happened?’

‘She died. She ate a laburnum seed.’

‘Oh. . we have laburnum in the UK. It does happen occasionally that children eat the seed.’

‘This was more sinister. . it was not an accident.’

‘In what way?’ Auphan pressed.

‘My brother and his wife had hired the Ossetti woman as a home help during my sister-in-law’s second pregnancy. They lived just outside Barrie, in Orillia.’

‘Yes. .’ Auphan nodded.

‘They had a house with a large garden. In the garden, tucked away among the shrubs right at the bottom, was a laburnum tree. None of us knew the tree was poisonous until it was too late.’

‘I see.’

‘Heather Ossetti was asked to watch Felicity for an hour or so while my brother and his wife went out to the mall. Came back to police cars and an ambulance outside their house. Felicity had swallowed a laburnum seed and had died.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘The family rallied round and Ossetti was there, full of tears, and she said in a whiny, pathetic voice, “I told her not to eat laburnum, I told her”.’

Auphan groaned. ‘You mean she put the suggestion into the little girl’s head by telling her not to do it?’

‘We believe so. . possibly, in fact highly likely she said it in a very gentle voice and with a smile. . but none of us being there. . She might even have given her a laburnum seed to eat and said, “Try this, it’s good”, and Felicity was the sort of girl who’d eat one if an adult told her it was good.

‘The women of our family saw through Ossetti before the men did. . all that female intuition. . but by then she had fled, she’d done what she intended to do, taken a life without being able to be prosecuted for it. But my sister-in-law is one of five sisters, they would have killed her for doing that to Felicity, and Ossetti knew that so she fled.’

‘You followed her to England. Why?’

‘To kill her,’ he spoke matter-of-factly. ‘I went to England to kill her. With me though it was more in cold anger than in hot passion. All I had to go on in terms of her whereabouts was a postcard she had sent to her buddies care of McTeer’s Bar, a postcard of the city of York. I teach. . at the university in Toronto. . Modern History. I don’t have academic permanency, just a series of short-term contracts, so when I had time I flew over a few times and gradually hunted her down. It took a year or two. Had to make sure it was her, she was well disguised.’

‘We know.’

‘Eventually I cornered her in the street in York with folk all around us. I told her. I said, “I have come all this way to kill you and you know what? When it comes to it you’re just not worth it. I don’t see why our family should lose two people because of you. We lost Felicity. . I don’t want our family to lose me as well.” I mean, twenty years in a British prison, then extradited back to. . back to nothing. . stripped of my job prospects, and too old to work anyway. She would have won twice over but I said to her, “Don’t ever return to Ontario because if you do, then I know a bunch of women who will tear you apart” and since Ontario province is her home, that would leave her rootless for life. Then I turned and walked away. . went to London and the following day I threw a couple of coins in a fountain and then took the subway out to the airport and flew home.’

‘We’ll have to take a statement,’ Yellich said, ‘but that won’t be the end of it.’

‘I appreciate that,’ Tenby smiled. ‘My denial is not proof of my innocence. I will cooperate all I can, but I have delivered myself and my family from evil. . delivered us from evil. . real evil. . a weight is lifted from us.’

Marianne Auphan stood naked at the window of her bedroom and watched as a yellow tractor trailer entered the yard of the business premises a quarter of a mile away across the open field which still boasted remnants of snow despite the hot sun and clear blue sky. ‘Well, one of us will have to relocate. .’

‘I know,’ Ventnor, also naked, lay atop the bed and looked up at the ceiling. ‘I know.’

‘And it won’t be me, I am too strongly rooted in Canada, this is my home. You have a decision to make.’

‘I know that also.’ Ventnor rolled on his side and looked at her. ‘I know that. . don’t I know that, already.’

Carmen Pharoah and Reginald Webster drove out to the derelict business park where Edith Hemmings/Heather Ossetti had been held captive prior to being strangled and left for dead beside the canal. They had photographs to take of the location to complete their report. As they approached they saw a small figure in a raincoat and hat standing in front of the unit in which Ossetti had been kept hostage and as they drew nearer the figure was recognized to be that of Mr Stanley Hemmings. His small red van was parked close by.

The two officers left their vehicle and approached Hemmings. ‘I am just trying to get some closure,’ he explained in a shaky voice.

‘How did you know she was held here?’ Webster asked. ‘Not just at this site, but in this very unit?’

‘You told me.’

‘No we didn’t,’ Carmen Pharoah spoke quietly, ‘we kept this quiet. No one, only the police, knew that this was where your wife was kept before she was murdered.’

‘I think you’d better come with us,’ Webster added. ‘Do we need handcuffs?’

‘No,’ Hemmings shook his head slowly. ‘No, you don’t need them.’

The middle-aged man and woman, clearly, to an observer, very comfortable in each other’s company, sat beside the log fire in the pub. They wore walking boots and had placed their knapsacks on the floor at their feet.

‘Her husband was her last victim in a sense,’ the man said. ‘Harmless sort, worked in a biscuit factory, and who brought evil into the house where he had grown up. Could no longer cope with her endless complaints that compared him to the other men she had had, constantly telling him that she was now demeaning herself being with him. Eventually, the worm turned. .’

‘What will he collect, do you think?’

‘Life. . but he’ll serve only about five years, probably less. . come out to nothing but the dole for the rest of his days. Well, dare say we got our man and the Canadians got their first female serial killer.’

‘Second,’ the woman smiled at him.

‘Second?’

‘Yes, you’re forgetting Karla Homolka. . remember? Murdered three teenage girls, her together with her boyfriend, one of their victims being Homolka’s own younger sister.’

‘Ah, yes. . how could I forget her? So they got their second female serial killer.’

‘That they know of.’

‘Yes, that they know of,’ the man nodded. ‘Frightens me sometimes. .’

‘What does?’ She laid her hand on his.

‘What is going on out there that we don’t know about, all the missing person reports that should be murder inquiries. . but just think. . all that travel and the expense of same and the felon was under our noses all the time.’

‘Annoying,’ said the woman. ‘Must have been a good experience for DS Yellich and DC Ventnor though. I would have found it very interesting.’

‘Don’t know what they thought about it. Yellich seems happy to be back home with his family. .’ The man paused. ‘Ventnor, he’s returned as though he is incubating a tropical disease. He’s listless and detached and has somehow acquired the annoying habit of adding the word “already” to the end of every sentence he speaks.’

‘Oh, that could be irritating, already,’ the woman smiled, ‘but you know what’s happened there?’

‘No.’

‘He’s in love, already.’

The man groaned and then fell silent as a cheery young woman approached them carrying a tray of steaming food. ‘The steak and kidney pie?’ she asked.

‘That’s me.’ George Hennessey released his hand from the woman’s gentle caress.

‘And I’m the cottage pie,’ said Louise D’Acre.