Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 114, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 697 & 698, September/October 1999

The Last of the Rosenthals by Peter Turnbull

©1999 by Peter Turnbull

The stories on which Peter Turnbull has made his name as a crime writer nearly all feature the police of Glasgow’s fictional P Division. But some years ago, Mr. Turnbull, who had for many years worked in Glasgow, returned to his native Yorkshire and began a new series involving a police department in the city of York, where, as you’ll see, the mood and character of the people is very different from that of Glasgow.

SATURDAY 18:00 HRS — 24:00 HRS

The man stepped off the cream-coloured Rider York single-decker as it stopped at the railway station. He stood in front of the stone buildings of the station and then turned and looked at the ancient city walls and the blue, cloudless August sky above. Still just six P.M., a Saturday, and was he in the mood for a session. Was he ever! He knew, just knew, that he’d be having dim recollections of returning home later that evening. He crossed the Ouse by Londel Bridge and walked into the first pub he saw. Just to get one in while it was still quiet. The beer went down like silk so he had another, feeling at home in the low beams and wooden bar and sanded floorboards. The pub had been refurbished to make it appear old and had, in the man’s view, largely succeeded. The young barman in a crisp white shirt, black trousers, “Rupert” by his name badge, “Here to Serve You,” approached the man as he drained his glass for the second time and said, “Another one, sir?”

“Not yet.” The man shook his head. He left the pub and walked the narrow, winding streets to Friargate, where the stone buildings have life-size stone cats attached to the window sills, and walked into Friargate Police Station and up to the enquiry desk.

“Yes, sir?” The fresh-faced young constable looked up at the ruddy-faced man who approached the desk.

“I’ve got a body to report.” The man smiled, feeling pleased with himself, but he couldn’t help noticing that the constable looked even younger than “Rupert — Here to Serve You.”

The constable reached for the referral pad and picked up a ballpoint. “Yes, sir,” he said. “A body, you say?”

“Aye.”

“Been drinking, sir?”

“Two pints. Just now while it’s quiet.”

“Not in a hurry to report your find, are you?”

“No.”

“I see. Can I have your name please, sir?”

The man gave his name as Michael Dondo and his age as fifty-six years. His occupation was farm labourer and his address, 6, Primrose Row, Leavening. “Tied cottages,” he said. “Owned by Chevingtons. That’s the way farming is now. When I was a lad, you worked for a farmer, now you work for a company, with their business managers dashing about in their fancy cars. And they’ve ripped up all the hedgerows. I had to do that. Some of them over a thousand years old. But I had to do it or get my cards.”

“Yes, Mr. Dondo. The body, where is it?”

“Got a map?”

The map, when produced, revealed itself to be an Ordnance survey map, pinned to a large sheet of hardboard. It was lifted from behind the desk and laid onto the desk top. Dondo studied it and eventually stabbed it with a stubby finger, the nail of which, the constable noted, was bitten to the quick. “There,” he said.

The constable looked at the map, at where Dondo had stabbed it. “Just here, you say?... Where these two lanes...”

But Dondo had left the Victorian red-brick building. He had walked away silently, as the constable had noticed large men sometimes can. It was a Saturday night and Michael Dondo wanted a session on the beer.

Bill Hatch was pleased to see the trees. Saplings really, not yet trees, and that pleased him further. He had been enjoying a Saturday evening at home, just him and Sam the Labrador, Veronica having puttered away in her 2CV that morning with a “Bye, Dad,” and he knew to expect her when he saw her. He had driven to Doncaster at the closing of the day’s trading and purchased assorted unsaleable apples from the market traders in the open market, those that were bruised or half crushed. The traders, familiar with his routine, had put aside sacks of such apples to await his arrival. He bought, all told, four large sackfuls of such fruit and returned to Hambleton with them in the back of his Land Rover. He had turned into the driveway of his home and noticed, with a fatherly eye of concern, that Veronica had still not returned. He enjoyed the warmth of Sam’s greeting, and the dog accompanied him as he stored three sacks of fruit in a dry shed. The other he took to the orchard. Standing at the orchard wall, he distributed the fruit liberally across the orchard by hand for Wilfred and Wilfreda, his two Gloucester Old Sport or “Orchard” pigs to find in their own time. They were, at the time, sheltering from the sun in their stye. He walked back into the house and washed and settled down to enjoy a quiet and pleasant night in, although he had not fully discounted the possibility that he and Sam might stroll down to The Feathers for a pint of brown and mild; at that time of the day, when the sun had set over the flat, green fields of this part of Yorkshire, and when the pubs were still emptier than they were full.

Then his phone rang.

Bill Hatch levered himself out of the reclining Parker Knoll and shuffled into the hallway, checkered shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, baggy corduroy trousers, short, stocky, balding. He lifted the phone and said, “Hatch.” Then he listened. Then he said, “I couldn’t find that, too obscure. What’s the nearest village?... Right. Can you have a car or motorcyclist wait for me in the middle of the village, somewhere in the square if it’s got a square, or in the main street if it hasn’t got a square? Tell him to look out for my car... Yes, same one... I mean, would I ever sell it? I’m going to have it stuffed when I die. I’ll be there in about an hour. I’m afraid I can’t be much sooner than that, but if the body is badly decomposed, a delay of sixty minutes at this stage won’t make any difference.”

Hatch drove into Selby, passing beneath the Abbey, and then took the road to York, driving through the city centre, the ancient buildings, the modern buildings, the open-topped double-decker buses full of gaping tourists, the slow-moving Ouse — a calm and peaceful stretch of water when he drove over it that evening but prone to rising angrily in the spring, damaging property and taking life. He left the city, as directed, on the Malton Road, turning right between flat green fields and woodland, the occasional cottage, the occasional Country Life type of property, large and prestigious. He came eventually to Leppington, turned left into the centre of the village. As he did so, a police motorcyclist, clearly awaiting his arrival, raised a hand in recognition, then executed a graceful, though in Hatch’s understanding a totally illegal U-turn, and drove out of the village in the direction that Hatch was already travelling, beckoning Hatch to follow.

The motorcyclist escorted Hatch a short way beyond Leppington and then slowed. In front of the motorcyclist Hatch clearly made out police activity, two area cars, a black, windowless mortuary van, unmarked cars, blue and white police tape hanging limply in the still air of the early evening. Hatch halted his Land Rover behind the mortuary van and clambered out, taking his black bag with him. As he did so, Ken Menninot walked towards him. After the preliminaries Ken Menninot said, “It’s in the copse.”

“Corpse in the copse.” Bill Hatch fell into step with Menninot as the two men walked towards a stand of trees.

“Fella came into Friargate this evening, gave his name and address, and told us where we’d find the body. When the duty officer looked up from the map, the fella had gone... I know we don’t like wasting words in this part of the world...”

“Just like that?” Hatch grinned.

“Just like that. We’ll go and have a chat with him later, he may be able to offer more information — he’s a son of the soil and works locally, going by the address he gave — but the important thing is that we found what he said we’d find and we found it where he said we’d find it. That’s enough to be going on with.” They approached the blue and white tape, a constable in a white shirt lifted it as they approached, and Menninot and Hatch ducked underneath it. “You know,” Menninot continued, “the thing that gets me is that he clearly, calmly went on with his day’s work, went home, washed, changed, went into York, had a beer or two, and only then did he wander into the nick and report his find. Calm or what?”

The two men stepped into the shade of the copse and then followed a path which ran beside a clump of tall nettles, beyond which a second constable, also in a white shirt, stood with a manner of noticeable reverence. The constable saluted Menninot and then stepped aside, allowing Menninot and Hatch access to a spread of black plastic sheeting which lay on the ground.

Hatch knelt and lifted up the sheeting, releasing a storm of flies as he did so. He involuntarily flinched and then let the sheeting fall back. “Can’t really get angry about the guy who reported it.” Hatch stood. “She’s been here awhile. A female...” He bent down and pulled the plastic sheeting completely from the body. “Laid out... see... arms by the side of the body, legs together, head upright... Even suicides have some last-minute movement so that they’re found curled up or on their side or reaching for a phone as if in the last moment of life they decide that life might be worth living after all. It makes me think that you’re already looking at suspicious circumstances.”

“Oh?”

“Well, she has been laid out, as I said. The only time that I have seen a corpse in such a position is when they’ve been murdered elsewhere and dumped at the place where found.”

“I see.”

“Look, I can’t do anything here, she’s too badly decomposed. You’re looking at a period of time between death and the present measured in months. Not years, not weeks, but months. August now; without sticking my neck out then, I’d say she was brought here in the deep midwinter. January or February, I’d say.”

“January or February,” Menninot echoed.

“About then. All I can do now is ask that the body be conveyed to the York District Hospital for my attention. I’ll do the post mortem tomorrow if you don’t mind. I mean, where’s the hurry? The most important twenty-four hours of a murder inquiry is the first twenty-four hours after the event and that, as we all agree, is long past. What will you do now?”

“Go through this copse with a fine-toothed comb, as procedure dictates. Yourself?”

“Supper at home, then a pint if I can get in before the Saturday night crush.”

Hatch returned to Hambleton. Feeling bold, he experimented with spaghetti bolognese and surprised himself that he had prepared a passable meal. It was both tasty and filling, all that is required of “survival cooking.” Later he took Sam in the direction of The Feathers, but upon approaching it he saw that he was too late for a quiet pint, the youth of Hambleton were already spilling out of the pub in noisy good humour, taking their lager into the evening with the sound of computer games filling the pub. Bill Hatch strolled past the pub rather than turn round and give the impression to the youth of the village that he disapproved of them. He walked on with Sam for a further fifteen minutes, a short, balding man and his best friend enjoying each other’s company on a calm and balmy summer’s evening. Later, at home, he rummaged about his kitchen and found a bottle of Black Sheep. He poured it into a tankard and enjoyed it whilst sitting on the back step with Sam beside him and the sounds of Wilfred and Wilfreda snorting and grunting with satisfaction as they foraged the orchard for the scattered apples. Still later, in bed, he felt unable to sleep until he heard the whirring of Veronica’s 2CV approach the house, until he heard her footfall on the gravel, her key in the lock, and Sam’s welcoming bark. It doesn’t matter how old they are, you can never sleep if you’re worrying about them. Someone had said that to Hatch when Veronica was still a babe in arms. How right, he thought, how right that person was. He heard the clock chime midnight. And he thought of the trees, the oak saplings, and how they promised so much for the future. They would, he thought, be there — fine, handsome trees — in three hundred years’ time. He was pleased he had seen them.

SUNDAY

It was already hot by 09:30. Bill Hatch sat at the wooden table on the lawn of his house, pored over the Sunday Times, absorbing himself as usual in the Books section, with a tall, silver pot of percolated coffee beside him. Sam, avoiding the heat, had, after a brief exploration of the garden, retreated to the cool of the house. In the distance, across the fields, the remnants of a heat haze was being burnt off by the sun. When he felt awash with coffee and his mind nourished by intelligent journalism, he went into the house to prepare breakfast. Being a medical man, he was all too aware of the dangers of unhealthy eating, especially in middle age, but he had sprung, proudly so, from the section of the population which the British call the “working class” and Sunday just wasn’t Sunday without a breakfast of bacon, eggs, black pudding, sausage, and fried bread. On that morning he had thankfully finished his breakfast and was pondering more caffeine when his phone rang.

“D.C. Sant here, sir.”

“Sant?”

“Friargate.”

“Aha, yes, the P.M. I said I’d do it today and I will, but it’s too early to expect me...”

“Yes, sir. D. S. Menninot asked me to phone you this morning. He said I should allow you time for your breakfast...”

“Yes?” A note of puzzlement crept into Hatch’s voice.

“Well, to cut a long story short, your attendance at the scene of the crime is requested. If not required.”

“Not a second corpse?”

“I’m afraid so, sir. It was found yesterday evening. D.S. Menninot was reluctant to call you back, said that you had your mind set on a pint, left a note for the day shift to phone you.”

“Good of him. But you could have called me back. That’s what I’m here for.”

“I think D. S. Menninot felt that it wasn’t such a time-pressing situation. The second corpse is as decomposed as the first, if not more so. “I’m sure an evidently recent corpse would have been a different matter.”

“I’m sure it would be, too. Right, I’ll be there as soon as.”

Hatch scribbled a note for the still slumbering Veronica, whom he expected to rise at about one P.M. If not later. He secured the house with Sam inside. He drove to the copse beyond Leppington.

He parked his Land Rover behind a police vehicle and once again, black bag in hand, approached the blue and white police tape which delineated the scene of crime. He was approached by a youthful-looking C.I.D. officer.

“D.C. Sant?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you for coming so promptly.”

“Couldn’t place you at first. Know you by a different name?”

“De Larrabeitta, sir. Recently divorced and returned to my original surname. I turned convention on its head and took my wife’s name rather than she taking mine. It’s pleased my father that I’ve gone back to my original name; we can trace our line of Sants back to the Crusades. All I’ve got to do now is produce a son.”

“Good for you. Getting divorced, I mean. It takes courage and faith in yourself. Take it from one who knows.”

In the copse, Hatch once again allowed himself to glance at the saplings and then followed Sant to where the second body lay in a shallow grave. He knelt and brushed soil away from the bones. “Male,” he said. “Fractured skull.”

“Apparently D. S. Menninot made a thorough search of the copse yesterday, found nothing of note, but the dogs just wouldn’t leave and started pawing at the ground. We’re now satisfied that there are no more bodies in this location.”

“Well, I’m gratified to hear it. Two corpses, two postmortems is sufficient for one Sunday. You’ll be representing the police at the P.M.’s?”

“Yes, sir. I’m on duty. It falls to me to do so.”

“Been to many P.M.’s?”

“Not so many, sir.”

“Well, meet me at York District at two P.M., Department of Pathology, and you’ll have two more P.M.’s to your credit. But as with his friend, there’s little I can do here, save to take a soil and vegetation sample from the copse. I’ll do that and then rendezvous with you at two P.M. And bring him,” Hatch nodded at the corpse. “Bring him with you.”

MONDAY

Leif Vossion sat upright in his chair. “Observations?”

“Well.” David Sant sat stiffly in front of Vossion and glanced over Vossion’s shoulder through the small window at the York city-scape, with its blend of ancient and modern. Then he turned his attention back to Vossion, the blond-haired man whose hair was swept back and hung over his collar, long and lean of face with steely blue eyes, a man who from a distance looked much, much younger than his actual middle years, and close at hand had a face etched with the pain of personal tragedy. “I can only repeat what Bill Hatch has been able to tell us: male and female, young adult, twenty-five to forty-five years, he’ll be doing a cross section of their teeth to determine their ages within a year of their actual age. Both died from a blow to the head, delivered from behind. The male, who was buried, was murdered when foliage was on the trees; he had rotting leaves in the soil that covered him.”

“He was murdered in the summer?”

“Yes, sir. The woman was laid out on the ground as if she was murdered six months later, in the winter, when the soil was concrete-hard and requisite shallow grave could not be dug. It would seem that they, the two bodies, were connected in some way. Same method of murder, same location used to dump the bodies, both left neatly. The man buried, the woman laid out. Same murderer.”

“Reasonable deduction.”

“Back to the teeth, always a gold mine of information, the teeth, according to Bill Hatch.” Sant began to relax, feeling he was in his stride. “Bill Hatch points out that the teeth had no decay, not the slightest, which is unheard of for people in the age range in which Bill Hatch places the bodies. Unless...”

“Unless?”

“They have spent the greater part of their lives in Eastern Europe and have lived off a spartan, sugar-free diet.”

“Were not allowed to graze on chocolate as children.”

“Not able to rather than not allowed.”

“Fair point and a fair observation.”

“It would go along with both bodies being naked when buried or left. As if the clothing, being East European, would aid identification. If Bill Hatch is correct in the first place — they could have both been naturally healthy and from the fair city of York. But no clothing and no jewellery or watches either...”

“It’s worth holding onto, the notion that they are outsiders. So what do you suggest we do?”

“Well, I understand that the fella who reported the body is being interviewed.”

“Carmen Pharoah and Simon Markov are on it at the moment.”

“Well, that being addressed, I’d be inclined to spring a lark, rise a deer, rattle a cage.”

“Meaning?”

“A press release, as big a splash as we can have, two bodies discovered, possibly overseas visitors... it might provoke a member of the public to come forward, it might provoke a panic in a felon, allowing attention to be drawn to him.”

Vossion smiled. “Can you handle that? I don’t think we need hide anything. Everything we know or deduce can be given to the media.”

“I’ve got work to do.” Dondo seemed aggressive, resentful. “I did what’s right. What more do you want?” He addressed his remark to Markov, totally ignoring Carmen Pharoah. It was clear to both officers that Dondo did not care for women police officers and he definitely didn’t like black female police officers. He had initially attempted to freeze Pharoah with a glare which she had been able to hold, comfortably so. Finding that he was unable to intimidate her, he settled for ignoring her and offered his undivided attention to Markov.

“This is more important,” Pharoah said.

Dondo snorted but he didn’t look at her.

“We can do this here or at the police station but we’re going to do it,” Markov said coldly. “In fact, I think I’d prefer to do it at the police station.”

“So would I.” Pharoah eyed Dondo steadily.

“All right, I’m on an hourly rate. I can’t afford to leave the field. So what can I tell you?”

“Saturday?” said Pharoah, tall, lithe, slender.

“I was working. It’s always busy this time of the year, coming up to the harvest. No rest for the likes of me in August and September.”

“So what happened?”

“I was checking the field, walking round the edge checking for flattened wheat — kids, you know, and those loving couples. Fun for them, but expensive for the farmer. Anyway, I was walking past the wood, Coles Wood.”

“Is that what it’s called?” Pharoah pressed.

“Aye, though it’s not a wood anymore. It got felled for timber about thirty years ago. And it got felled to make way for grain. I remember it being felled. I was a young fella then. Now it’s just a third of an acre, if that. Not big enough to be called a wood.” Dondo began to impress Pharoah as having the emotional maturity of a ten-year-old, the sort of grown man who’d take his bat and ball home if he didn’t get his own way. “Anyway, I was passing the wood and heard a noise.”

“Noise?”

“Flies. Thousands of them. So I went in; one or two flies you’d expect in a wood on a hot day, but so many... so I went in to see what they were feeding on. So I saw and then went on with my work.”

“You didn’t report it?”

“I did.”

“My colleague meant sooner,” Markov snarled. “Why didn’t you report it sooner? As in, immediately?”

“I’m on an hourly rate, I told you. Besides which, the person had been a long time dead. I watch cop shows on TV. I know what I’m doing.”

A bead of sweat ran off his brow.

“You think so?” Pharoah glanced beyond Dondo, at a plateau of wheat, then a scattering of red rooftops and beyond, a green hillside and above, a blue, cloudless sky.

“I reported it as soon as I could. I went into York, had a pot or two while the pubs were quiet, went to the cop shop and reported it, left the cop shop, and had some more pots. Then I went home but I don’t remember going home.”

“It’s strange, is it not,” said Pharoah, “that the body should have remained there for so long without being discovered?”

“Is that a question?” Dondo continued to look at Markov.

“It is if you’ve got an answer.”

“It makes sense to me,” Dondo said. “It’s easily overlooked from two roads, it’s not a dense stand of trees so it can be looked into, so it wouldn’t be attractive to young couples that flatten the wheat. It’s too small to walk a dog in, and the amount of flies would put anybody off.”

“But not you?”

“The flies made me curious, but otherwise I wouldn’t have gone into the wood, what’s left of it. It’s just that sort of place you’d walk past, not into.”

“I see.”

“It has nothing for the kids in the village, there’s bigger woods for them with streams and rope swings on the trees. It’s a parcel of land that no one is interested in. Any path in the wood is not man-made, that’s a badger or a fox that’s made that path. And all those nettles... so, aye, it’s not the sort of place anyone would go in.”

“You’d have to know Coles Wood was there, I think,” Pharoah said.

“Is that a question?” This time Dondo turned and looked at Pharoah, as if mellowing. “Can’t pin down your accent, love. Not Yorkshire, are you?”

“East London. So, would someone know it was there as an unattractive place and therefore a good place to dump a body? It would imply local knowledge?”

Dondo shrugged. “I wouldn’t like to say, but I would think it’s more likely to be local knowledge than luck.”

Carmen Pharoah and Simon Markov thanked Dondo and turned to walk back to their car. Dondo called after them and asked them how they had known where to find him.

“Your wife told us,” said Pharoah and instantly regretted it.

“She did, did she,” growled Dondo.

“One hundred and sixty bottles.” The woman smiled at the bottles of sauces, preserves, and jellies on the large table. “And I wipe them clean each morning.”

“Really?” Ken Menninot had sat, as invited, at the dining table. He and Mrs. Watham looked at each other across the metal tops of the bottles.

“Oh, yes. One hundred and sixty.”

“I see.”

“So that’s why I missed the lunchtime news.”

“Because of the bottles?”

“Because of cleaning the bottles; the bottles themselves didn’t prevent me from doing anything.”

“I stand corrected.”

“So I caught the three o’clock bulletin and that’s when I heard about the bodies in the wood and so I phoned you.” The air in the guesthouse was heavy with the smell of lavender and wood polish. “And here you are.”

“And here I am.”

“Aye, well, it was the reference to the possibility of them being East Europeans that made my ears prick up. And six months separating their deaths. I believe they were in this guesthouse. I looked up the Visitors Book and here...” She handed Menninot a large blue gilt-edged book. “I’ve marked both pages.”

Menninot turned to the marked pages and noted distinct Eastern European handwriting, the “9” with a curve at the bottom of the stem, for instance. Both entries had the name Rosenthal, both home addresses were given as East Berlin, Partisan Platz, 19. One Julius Rosenthal had booked in on the tenth of June the year previous, and the other, Victoria Rosenthal, had booked in on the sixth of January that year.

“This is quite a breakthrough.” Menninot smiled at Mrs. Watham, a portly, smiling, silver-haired woman. A wedding band and a generous engagement rock spoke of a life before becoming the proprietor of a guesthouse.

“Is it?”

“Oh yes. It looks like they were husband and wife.”

“They were brother and sister.”

“They were?”

“They were. You see, in this line of business guests blend and merge in your mind, but very good ones or very bad ones or very interesting ones stick in your memory. And these two did. He came first, in the summer, very pleasant, very polite, and I wouldn’t have remembered him if he hadn’t left without paying his bill. But now I think there could be a reason for that.”

“The best reason in the world.”

“And I knew in my heart of hearts that he hadn’t deliberately avoided paying his bill, because he left some possessions behind.”

“Do you still have them?”

“In the cellar. Her possessions, too. You see, that’s another reason why I remember them. She came to my door one winter’s day just after Christmas — she was searching for her brother, she said. This house was his last address. When she found out her brother had left owing two nights’ money, I showed her his entry in the Visitors Book. She insisted on paying his bill. Really nice young woman. Both in their late twenties, I’d say. She asked if she could rent the same room as her brother and, well, it was winter, hardly anybody in, so no problem. And I let her have her brother’s things. She seemed upset when I gave them to her.”

“What were they like in terms of personality?”

“He was confident, enthusiastic; she was quiet, full of concern and worry, but anxious to do the right thing, like paying off her brother’s bill. Then she left without paying hers.”

“They didn’t say what had brought them to York?”

“No, they didn’t. Well, he didn’t. She came to look for him, at least I think that was what was happening. They were not tourists. They came to York for a purpose other than walking the walls.”

“Is the room they occupied, occupied at present?”

“Well, it’s let, but the guest is out photographing something or other.”

“Could I, perhaps, see it?”

It was a small room with a view of the Minster in the middle distance. The present guest, Menninot noted, was not a tidy-minded person. Clothes were strewn everywhere.

“There is nothing here of them,” Mrs. Watham said. “I know that this is more for you to say than me, but believe me, this room has been fully occupied since Easter and cleaned daily.”

“I think you’re right. After this length of time, there will be nothing here from a police point of view. Can I see the possessions they left?”

The possessions abandoned by the Rosenthals were, by Western standards, and to Menninot’s eye, cheap and shoddy, plastic designed to look like leather. In one of the bags he found a notepad, and on the notepad was an address — Agrarian and Mercantile Credit Co., Monkgate, York. “I’ll have to take these bags away with me.”

“Please do. They’re of little use to me and I think they’re of little use to their owners now.”

“Passports too,” said Menninot, still rummaging. Julius and Victoria, just as they had signed the Visitors Book. Aged thirty-two and twenty-nine respectively.

“Fax to East Berlin Police via Interpol?” Vossion asked with raised eyebrows. “The story to date and request for any information.”

“I would think so, sir. Meanwhile, TO go and have a chat with Agrarian and Mercantile. See if they can shed light on the matter.”

“Too late now, Ken.” Vossion smiled. “Something that can wait until the morrow.”

Ken Menninot drove home to Beverley and, as usual, found the ancient spire rising from the flat county like a stalagmite a very welcoming sight. He spent a calm and relaxed evening with his wife and two children. He didn’t get many evenings like that. Few, in fact, too few.

Leif Vossion visited his wife and children in their shared plot in Fulford Cemetery. He knelt by the grave, pulling weeds from the gravel.

“Summer,” he said. “Dear hearts, summer. I miss you each day, each of you each day, but somehow summers are the worst; perhaps it’s the long evenings... Nothing to report, really... I’m three days older than I was the last time I came... We’ve been busy... an East German couple... Well, brother and sister, really... We’ve a little to go on but the crime, murder, was committed a long while ago... But I’ll let you know what happens.”

That evening he stood alone at the bar in the saloon of the Fox and Hounds in Easingwold, where he had made his home following the accident. He found himself drinking a lot following the death of his wife and children, whose lives were so needlessly taken by two joy riders in a stolen car. While he had retained the will to live, it no longer seemed to matter that he was drinking himself into an early grave. It didn’t seem to matter at all.

Simon Markov stood at the window of the living room of his home and looked out across the park as dusk settled. He heard a noise behind him but didn’t turn. Carmen Pharoah came up and stood behind him and coiled her arms around him, pressing her cheek to his shoulder. “Hungry,” she said softly in a pleading manner.

Markov smiled. “Indian, Chinese, Italian, Greek?”

“Mmmm... Indian.”

TUESDAY

Rosenthal. The name leapt out of the walls at Ken Menninot. He sat as invited in the waiting room of the Agrarian and Mercantile Credit Company’s early-Victorian building of red-brick exterior and dark-panelled interior. The room was adorned with portraits of chairmen past and each one was a Rosenthal. “Well, well, well,” Ken Menninot said aloud and cared not one jot who, if anyone, heard him. Some moments later a young woman in a smart grey suit entered the waiting room and smiled at Menninot. “Mr. Robinson will see you now.”

Menninot followed the young woman along a narrow, low-ceilinged corridor and said, “Rosenthal?”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“I was looking at the portraits of the late chairmen, each one was a Rosenthal.”

“Yes, sir. Family firm.”

“Are you a Rosenthal?”

“No, sir, I’m employed by the family, as we all are who are outside the boardroom. That’s the culture of the firm, sir. You’re either in the boardroom or you’re outside the boardroom.”

“And if you’re in the boardroom, you’re in the family?”

“Yes, sir. Only Rosenthals are in the boardroom.”

“Bit incestuous, isn’t it?”

“If you’d care to follow me, sir?” She walked on in silence until she came to a door marked Peter Robinson. She tapped on the door and opened it. “This is the gentleman from the police, sir.” Robinson stood and extended a hand to Menninot as the young woman closed the door behind her. Menninot accepted Robinson’s hand. It was a warm, firm grip.

“Please...” said Robinson, indicating a leather chair in front of his desk. “It’s not often we get visits from the police.” He resumed his seat.

“I can imagine.” Menninot sat and read Robinson. Smart, alert, a classic young executive. But he also thought that Robinson seemed cautious, overconcentrating. The experienced police officer in Ken Menninot told him the gleam in Robinson’s eye, the brilliant toothpaste-ad smile were hiding something. “We were wondering if you could help us?”

“Yes?”

“Yes, it’s in relation to the double murder which you may have read about, or seen on the TV, the two bodies found in a small wood just outside York.”

“Yes... I read of it.”

“Well, we have identified them as brother and sister.”

“Oh dear, a double tragedy for a family.”

“Indeed... Can I ask if you are related to the Rosenthals?”

“Yes I am, by marriage.”

“I see. You see, I ask because we have established that the murder victims were East Berliners. One victim had a notebook in which the name and address of this company was written. It has just now come to my attention that the family of the owners of this company is Rosenthal.”

“Yes”

“Which is the surname of the two murder victims. They were Julius Rosenthal and his sister Victoria.”

“Oh.”

He was nervous. Very nervous. Ken Menninot enjoyed the spectacle of a bead of sweat running off the young executive’s brow. “Can you shed any light on the connection?”

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“But you don’t deny there is a connection? Same surname, the address of this company in the notebook of the deceased.” Menninot read the room. Airy, everything in its place, plenty of light. A modern room in an old building. “It’s a puzzle, all right, and the key is the Rosenthal family.”

“Well, I can understand your curiosity about the Rosenthals, but I can’t help you.”

“Who is the present chairman?”

“Mr. Isaac.”

“Mr. Isaac Rosenthal?”

“Yes. We refer to the family as Mr. Isaac or Mr. Israel. There was another brother, Mr. Samuel, but he is deceased. Mr. Isaac holds the chairmanship at present.”

“And where would I find him?”

“Today, now?”

“Yes, now. Today.”

“At home. Mr. Isaac delegates a lot, does little actual work. Both he and Mr. Israel are elderly.”

“And home is?”

“The Manor House, Great Saxlingham. You must know where Full Sutton Goal is?”

“Of course.”

“Drive as if going to the prison and then just drive past it, you’ll come to Little Saxlingham and a quarter of a mile beyond is Great Saxlingham. We objected to the prison being built, but in fact you’d hardly know it’s there.”

“We...?”

“The residents of Stamford Bridge and surrounding cottages.”

“You being one?”

“I was too young to protest at the time.”

“You grew up there?”

“Yes.”

“You’d know the area well?”

“As well as anyone.”

“You might know the wood where the bodies were found, Coles Wood?”

“Not by name.”

“Near Leppington.”

“Oh, around there...”

“You know Leppington?”

“I know where it is.”

Ken Menninot drove out to Great Saxlingham. He was not unfamiliar with the village: a main road which curved slightly in the middle; black and white half-timbered houses abutted each other unless separated by a narrow lane; a coaching inn with a covered driveway to the rear of the building; a post office; a baker’s; a butcher’s; a parish church with Norman steeple and blue clock face with gold-painted numerals and clock hands; an ancient graveyard with listing headstones like a gang of drunken men freeze-framed in time, and with the company of a shade-giving yew; a set of stocks beside the war memorial. A cream and red Rider York single-decker shimmered through a heat haze.

The Manor House stood beyond the village, four-square and solid; a gravel-covered drive ran between two tall stone gateposts and wide lawns that hissed under rotating hoses direct to the front door of the building. Menninot halted his car a respectable distance from the house and walked to the front door, allowing his feet to crunch the gravel. He rapped the brass knocker twice. It was opened by a middle-aged woman in a starched white blouse and a black dress. “Can I help you, sir?”

“All right, Emily. I’ll attend to this.” The voice came from the interior of the house before Menninot could reply.

“Very good, madam.” Emily retreated into the gloom, to be replaced on the threshold by a woman in her twenties, thought Menninot.

“You’ll be the police officer my husband told us to expect. Mr. ...”

“Menninot. North Yorkshire Constabulary.”

“Aha, yes... I’m old enough to recall the City of York Police Force.”

“That’s going back a little.”

“A lot, really, but change always gives a pleasant illusion of progress.”

Menninot smiled. He enjoyed her dry humour. She was a short woman, little more than five feet tall, short, dark hair, pleasant, balanced features, and would consider herself attractive. She was dressed for riding: khaki jodhpurs, polished black boots, black jacket, hat and whip in hand.

“I’m Mrs. Robinson. You called on my husband earlier today, a short while ago, in fact. He phoned through to say you’d be calling. You’ve rather set the cat among the pigeons. Mr. Isaac and Mr. Israel are in the library now, two old codgers trying to concoct some story to fob you off with. They’re wondering how they’re going to lie their way out of murder. Double murder, in fact.”

Menninot’s jaw dropped.

Mrs. Robinson stepped from the threshold, down the steps, pulling the door shut behind her, and began to walk parallel to the front of the house. She turned and smiled and said, “Well, do you want to know the story or don’t you?”

“Mrs. Robinson, I must caution you...”

“Caution me not, Mr. Menninot. What information I give I give of my own free will. I’m going riding. Come on, you can accompany me to the stables. We can talk there.”

Menninot fell in step with Mrs. Robinson and they walked in silence to the rear of the Manor House where, Menninot saw, were stables and paddocks. As they approached the paddocks a gleaming black stallion whinnied in recognition of Mrs. Robinson and walked towards her. She then went to the paddock fence and stroked the nose of the stallion and patted its neck. “Meet Samson.”

“I’m impressed.”

“Do you know horses, Mr. Menninot?”

“No... I can’t say I do, but even to my untrained eye...”

“Yes, he is beautiful, isn’t he? He’s an American quarter horse. Very valuable. I’m quite the envy of all the stables in this area, aren’t I, Samson? But...” she gave Samson a final pat on his neck, “let’s go into the tack room, out of this heat.” She led Menninot into a room in the stable block in which harnesses were stored, hanging neatly from hooks set high in the wall; shelves held bottles of saddle soap and leather polish. A saddle was laid on a trestle and Mrs. Robinson stepped up and sat astride it. “I’m only happy in one of these,” she explained. “I confess if I could I’d have this arrangement in the living room and sit like this whilst watching television. Better on a horse, though.”

“I imagine. You have information you want to give?”

“Oh yes, freely. You see, I want only to serve the ends of justice.”

“Very public-spirited of you.”

She smiled. “I didn’t say I want to serve the ends of criminal justice. I make no bones about it, Mr. Menninot, there is a different agenda here, for me anyway. For me, this is family justice at stake. For me, it’s natural justice. Your justice and my justice are different, but I think you’ll find that in this case, if you serve one, you also serve the other.”

“I see.” Menninot leaned against a workbench. “I’m all ears.”

“Mr. Israel and Mr. Isaac and my husband Marcus Robinson conspired to murder Julius and Victoria Rosenthal. I was witness to the murder of Victoria, at least the immediate aftermath.”

“And you didn’t come forward?”

“No, I didn’t.” She smiled. “Not at the time. I am doing so now.”

Menninot searched for a word to describe Mrs. Robinson’s honesty. “Disarming” he thought to be an understatement. “Why not?”

“I don’t know... confusion, disbelief, refusal to believe what I’d seen, a state of denial as I think the psychologists call it. The realisation that I was turning in my own uncles and husband... Fear for my safety unless I agreed to go along with it... All of that all rolled into one.”

Menninot could accept that. “Go on.”

“You have to understand that this is a house divided. My father, Mr. Samuel, was the elder brother of Mr. Isaac and Mr. Israel and rightful heir and chairman. But by means of boardroom assassination and ambush and conspiracy, he was forced out of the company. He felt betrayed by his brothers, Mr. Isaac and Mr. Israel, and died an early death, a broken man. The death certificate said ‘heart failure’ but to my mind, to all intents and purposes, he was murdered by his younger brothers. Mr. Isaac and Mr. Israel can’t get rid of me so easily because I inherited a lot of shares in the company, which I refuse to sell, and I’m also the only heir to the whole lot, Mr. Isaac and Mr. Israel never having married. And me an only child. My husband married me only for my money. He told me that once in a drunken rage... in vino veritas.”

“My Latin...”

“In wine there is truth. You speak your mind when you are drunk. My husband comes from a family who have suffered ‘downward social mobility’ as the phrase has it. His parents have turned to the Distressed Gentlefolk’s Association for financial relief. They have the class, the style, the background, but no money and none in the offing, either, except what may come their way should their son marry into it. No wonder they were delighted at our marriage. I dare say we all fear the knock of poverty on our front door, but poverty knocks hardest on the door of those who have grown used to wealth and then have lost it.”

“That’s debatable,” Menninot said coldly. Privately he thought the statement reprehensible and one which could only be the product of a smug, self-satisfied mind. But he wanted the cooperation of this woman and so he kept his opinion to himself.

“My husband has no feelings for me. I have none for him. My uncles need me to keep the company together upon their deaths, but I hold them responsible for my father’s death. He was a lovely man.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, that was the state of play until about a year ago, yes, summer last year. Strained relationships, but everything in stalemate. Then Julius Rosenthal arrived totally out of the blue and upset the apple cart. He arrived at our front door one summer evening. He was overcome with joy at having found us, but the reaction he got was frosty. I met him once, briefly; he seemed confused by then and I never saw him again. It wasn’t until much later that I learned that he had been murdered.” She paused. “This is difficult.”

“Take your time. You’re doing fine.”

“Well... in the winter, this winter last, I received a phone call from a woman who spoke word-perfect English but with a strong German accent. She introduced herself as Victoria Rosenthal, my relative from Germany. She was Julius’s sister, she said, and could she meet me?”

“So you did?”

“In a cafe in York. We had a long lunch together, a very long lunch. The story she told was that before the Second World War my grandfather, my father’s father, Moses Rosenthal, received a visit from a relative, a blood relative, also a Rosenthal, who was a German Jew. This was when things were getting difficult for European Jewry and this man was unable to emigrate but he was able to visit, and he did so, bringing a fortune with him which he converted into British currency, into sterling. He asked my grandfather if he would look after the money for him until he or his heirs could recover it. My grandfather agreed and gave a receipt, agreeing to repay the money with interest upon demand. He took the money into the company accounts and gave his relative a receipt in the company name. This man returned to Germany with the receipt, and the story was that he buried it in a bottle with a sealed top which was inside a crush-proof container in woodland to the west of Berlin. The location was known by all the German Rosenthals of our line and passed on to their children. But so few Rosenthals survived the war, and even those who did were in the East. But eventually the wall came down, the Iron Curtain was raised, and Julius visited West Germany and located the wood and the marker in the wood — an ancient oak tree, I believe — and one night dug up his fortune. He saved sufficient money to travel to England, and wrote daily letters to his sister, telling her of his progress. The last letter she received from him told her how he was about to call on ‘our English relatives with the receipt.’ ”

Menninot groaned. “Don’t tell me, neither he nor the receipt were seen again.”

“In a word, yes. But at the time I didn’t know what had happened. A woman, you see, I was squeezed out of the business side of things. I knew nothing of the receipt until Victoria told me, though she was more concerned for Julius’s safety than the money. But when she asked about the receipt, I suggested she direct her enquiries to my uncles. Naivete is not the word... If only I had known I was directing her to her death.”

“So she called on the house, this house?”

“Yes. But on the occasion of her visit I was at home and I was drawn to the sound of a disturbance downstairs. I went downstairs and looked around and I eventually found my husband and my two uncles bundling the naked body of Victoria into the rear of the Range Rover and I heard my husband say, ‘I’ll put her with her brother. Nobody goes into that wood.’ ”

“You’ll sign a statement to that effect?”

“I will. Anyway, they looked up and saw me and came clean. Apparently the amount of money we were obliged to pay Julius and Victoria was sufficient to ruin the company. Nearly one million pounds in today’s value. My uncles were furious that their father had given a receipt in the company name. If he had given a personal receipt, they wouldn’t have been obliged to honour it, but the company goes on from generation to generation. While we may wither and perish like leaves on a tree, nothing changes the company. And the receipt was enforceable. They saw only one way out, and my husband did the cold deed in both cases. How was it that their bodies were found?”

“A farm worker investigating the reason for a large number of flies in the copse.”

“Well, my husband can spend many years kicking himself for that. He planned to bury Victoria’s body in the spring when the ground was no longer frozen. If he had done that...”

“But he didn’t. Why do you think Victoria phoned and asked to speak to you?”

“Woman to woman, I think. Julius would have told her the composition of the family, two very elderly men, a male relative by marriage, and me. If I was in her position, I would have done the same, especially since she was seeking her brother rather than her fortune. I suppose now you’ll be wanting to question Mr. Isaac and Mr. Israel and my husband?”

“We will. But right now I want you to postpone your ride. I want to take a statement from you. We’ll have to go to Friargate to do that.”

“Very well.” She slid from the saddle. “But when the time comes, I suggest that you talk to Mr. Isaac first. He’s plagued with guilt, drinking heavily, and he has an internal growth. He’s not long for the world, and he knows it. He won’t want to die with all this on his conscience. Mr. Israel and my husband will be more stubborn, but with my statement, and with the pile of burnt East German clothing you’ll find buried behind the stables, and with Mr. Isaac’s confession, you should have all you need.”

“And where does that leave you, Mrs. Robinson?”

“It leaves me the last of the Rosenthals, about to divorce my husband, who cannot, anyway, profit from a crime. So says the law of our land.”

“Set to inherit it all?”

“Yes. But the ends of justice have been met. Your justice and mine.”