The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime, Volume 8

Monday

The man was about thirty years old, the woman, thought George Hennessey, was approximately the same age, perhaps a little younger. Both were slender, both athletic looking and they lay fully clothed side by side in the meadow, among the buttercups. Hennessey pondered their clothing, both wore good quality designer wear: she has a blouse and skirt and crocodile-skin shoes; he wore a safari jacket over a blue T-shirt and white trousers. Both had expensive wrist watches. She wore a wedding ring and an engagement ring; he wore a wedding ring only. And they both looked like each other, both in their feminine and masculine way, they looked similar, same balanced face, and Hennessey could see the basis for mutual attraction: if they looked at each other they’d see the opposite sex version of themselves. He took off his straw hat and brushed a troublesome fly from his face. He glanced around him, meadows, woods and fields in every direction and above a vast near cloudless sky, scarred it seemed to him by the condensation trail of a high flying airliner, KLM or Lufthansa probably, flying westwards from continental Europe to North America. Then, nearer at hand the blue and white police tape suspended from four metal posts which had been driven into the rock hard soil, for this was mid June and the Vale of York baked under a relentless sun.

Dr Louise D’Acre stood and glanced at Hennessey. “Well, all I can do is confirm Dr Mann’s finding. Life is extinct. There is no obvious cause of death, not that I can see. They look as though they are sleeping, no putrefaction, just the hint of rigor, but they are definitely sleeping their final sleep. If you have done here, they can be removed to the York City Hospital for the post-mortem.” Dr D’Acre was a slim woman in her forties, close-cropped hair, a trace of lipstick, but very, very feminine. She held a brief momentary eye contact with George Hennessey and then turned away.

“Yellich.” Hennessey turned to his sergeant. “Have we finished here? Photographs, fingerprints?”

“Yes, all done and dusted. Still to sweep the field though.”

“Of course.” Hennessey turned to Louise D’Acre. “All done.”

“Good. I’ll have the bodies removed then.” She placed a rectal thermometer inside her black bag. “Just as soon as they’ve been identified, then I’ll see what I find.”

“Identification won’t be a problem.”

“You think so?”

“Two people, young, wealthy, both married, probably to each other... they’ll be socially integrated and easily missed. It’s the down and outs estranged from any kin that take a while to be identified.”

“I can imagine.”

“Nothing so useful as a handbag or a wallet to point us in the right direction. Strange really, if they had been robbed, their watches would have gone.”

“There’s definitely the hand of another here though,” Louise D’Acre spoke quietly. “What I can tell you is that they died at the same time, at the same instant, possibly within a few seconds of each other, as if in a suicide pact, but with such a pact, we would expect to see some evidence of suicide, a bottle of pills, a firearm. Death came from without, most definitely, by which I mean they didn’t die of natural causes; two people, especially in the prime of life, do not die from natural causes at the same time in the same immediate, side by side proximity of each other. They just don’t. But I’ll get there.” She smiled and nodded and walked away across the meadow, of green grass, ankle-high buttercups, and of the occasional fluttering blue butterfly, to the road where her distinctive motorcar was parked beside a black, windowless mortuary van.

Wealth. It was the one word which spoke loudly to Hennessey. He’d used it in talking to Dr D’Acre earlier that morning and now examining the clothes he used it again. “There’s money here, Yellich. Real wealth.”

“There is isn’t there?” Yellich examined the clothing; all seemed new, very little worn, even the hidden-from-view underclothing had a newness about them. His offhand comment about there being nothing useful like a name stitched to the collars earned him a disapproving glance from the Chief Inspector. “Well I don’t know about the female garments,” Yellich struggled to regain credibility, “but you know, sir, there’s only one shop in the Vale of York that would sell gents clothing at this quality and price and that’s ‘Phillips and Tapely’s’ near the Minster.”

“Ah... I’m a Marks and Spencer man myself.”

“So am I, sir, police officer’s salary being what it is, but you can’t help the old envious eye glancing into their window as you walk past. Only the seriously wealthy folk go there, only the ‘Yorkshire Life’ set. So I believe.”

“Be out of my pocket as well then. Right, Yellich, you’ve talked yourself into a job. You’ll have to take photographs of the clothing, especially the designer label, and take the photographs to the shop...”

“Phillips and Tapely’s?”

“Yes... the actual clothing will have to go to the Forensic Science lab at Wetherby to be put under the microscope.”

“Of course.”

“Every contact leaves a trace, and often said trace is microscopic. I’ll ask the advice of the female officers about the female garments, they might suggest a likely outlet.”

Yellich being a native of York knew the value of walking the medieval walls when in the city centre, quicker and more convenient than the twentieth-century pavements below. That day the walls were crowded with tourists, but it didn’t stop his enjoyment of the walk, the railway station, the ancient roofs, the newer buildings blending sensitively and the Minster there, solid, dependable, a truly magnificent building in his view. Without it there just wouldn’t be a city. He stepped off the wall, as he had to at Lendal Bridge, walked up Museum Street and on into Drummond Place, and right at the Minster where stood the half-timbered medieval building that was the premises of Phillips and Tapely’s, Gentlemen’s Outfitters since 1810. Yellich pulled open the door, a bell jangled, and he stepped into the cool, dark silence and, he found, somewhat sleepy atmosphere of the shop; with dullcoloured rather than light-coloured clothing on display, of wooden counters and drawers constructed with painstaking carpentry. A young man, sharply dressed, near snapped to attention as Yellich entered the shop. “Yes, sir, how can I help you?”

“Police.” Yellich showed his ID, and was amused by the crestfallen look on the assistant’s face as he realized he wasn’t going to sell anything, that this caller was not a customer. “I wonder if you can help me?”

“If I can, sir.”

“I have some photographs here...” Yellich took the recently produced black-and-white and colour prints from a brown envelope, and placed them on the counter, “...of clothing, as you see...”

“Yes... we do sell clothing like this. I presume that’s what you’d like to know?” said with a smile, and Yellich began to warm to the young man. “The jacket particularly, and the shoes... the label ‘Giovanni’, an Italian manufacturer, very stylish, favoured by the younger gentleman... We are the only outlet for the ‘Giovanni’ range in the north of England.”

“Good, progress...” Yellich handed the shop assistant a photograph of the male deceased who appeared as though he was in a restful, trouble-free sleep. “Do you recognize this gentleman?”

“As a customer? No I don’t but we don’t have many such young customers... Mr Wednesday will help you if anyone can. Top of the stairs, turn left. Mr Wednesday is the under manager. I’d escort you, sir, but this is what we call the ‘door’ counter, always has to be staffed. I welcome and say ‘good day’ to customers as they enter and leave, as well as sell, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Just keep walking when you turn left, his office is the door just beyond ‘evening wear’.”

“Just after evening wear,” Yellich echoed.

“I’ll let him know you’re on the way up, sir.” The assistant reached below the counter and lifted a telephone.

James Wednesday, for that was the name on the door of his office, was a short and portly man, rather severely dressed, to Yellich’s taste, in his black suit. He had the appearance of an undertaker, and Yellich found him to have the sombre, serious manner of an undertaker. His office window looked out on to Minster Yard and the Minster itself. He invited Yellich to sit in the upholstered leather chair which stood in front of his desk. The chair creaked as Yellich sat.

“This photograph, Mr Wednesday,” Yellich handed the photograph of the deceased male to the under manager. “Do you recognize him? One of your customers perhaps?”

“Yes. I can. It’s Dominic Westwood, yes, that’s Mr Westwood the younger all right. He has an account with us. Pays it sometimes as well, unlike most of our customers, who seem to think that a man really shouldn’t pay his tailor.”

“How do you stay in business?” Yellich couldn’t resist the question.

“Often by refusing credit when debt has reached a certain level, by charging interest on overdue accounts and occasionally our lawyers have to make a claim on the estate of a customer if they have departed this life with outstanding debt to the shop. We stay afloat, Mr Yellich, and have done so for two hundred years. So, the police, a photograph of one of our customers who appears to be sleeping — has this particular customer departed his life perchance?”

“Perchance he has.”

“Oh dear, it’s so tedious making a claim on the estate of the departed, but I don’t do it, personally...” He tapped the head of the compact computer on his desk and Yellich was amused that a very conservative gentlemen’s outfitters can still embrace modern technology. “So...” James Wednesday spoke with a matter-of-fact, no trace of emotion manner. “Dominic Westwood, son of Charles Westwood, grandson of Alfred Westwood, gentlemen of this shire. All three have outstanding accounts. Dominic owes us £5,000, not a large sum, his credit limit is £20,000, last paid us two years ago, he owed over £10,000. Both his father and grandfather were customers, I dare say that’s why the manager allowed him a £20,000 credit limit.”

“Address?”

“His, Westwood the younger? It’s the Oast House, Allingham.”

“Allingham?”

“A small village to the north and east of York.”

“We’ll find it. Is he, was he, married?”

“Oh yes, he married Davinia Scott-Harrison a year or two ago. It was the wedding of the year in the Vale. We sold or hired much of the costumes.”

“We’ll go and visit the house.” Yellich retrieved the photograph. “Thank you, you’ve been very helpful.”

“They’re not man and wife.” George Hennessey spoke softly.

Yellich gasped. “I assumed the female...”

“It’s always dangerous to assume, Sergeant. Very dangerous. The female deceased is believed to be one Wendy Richardson, aged about twenty-nine years. Wife of Herbert Richardson, gentleman farmer.”

“How did you find her name, sir?”

“Exactly the same way as you found his, sergeant. I showed the clothes to a group of female officers; they told me that the only outlet for clothing of that cost in York is an outlet called Tomkinson’s. I asked D.C. Kent to visit the shop which is in St Leonard’s Place, very small frontage she tells me, but a deep floor area, and four storeys. But the staff recognized ‘madam’ in the photograph and the manager gave her address. ‘Penny Farm’ in the village of... can you guess?”

“Allingham.”

“Got it in one. Not man and wife, but lived in the same village, were of the same social class, and in death were neatly laid out side by side, as if peacefully sleeping.”

Hennessey watched the man from out of the corner of his eye. The curtain was pulled back by a solemn nurse who tugged a sash cord, and revealed Wendy Richardson with a clean face, wrapped tightly in bandages so that only her forehead to her chin was exposed; even the side of her head was swathed in starched white linen. She lay on a trolley tightly tucked into the blankets and was viewed through a large pane of glass, in a darkened room, so that by some trick of light and shade, she appeared to be floating peacefully in space.

“Yes,” the man nodded, “that is my wife,” then breathed deeply, and hard, and then lunged at the glass and cried, “Wendy! Wendy!” It was all the overacting George Hennessey wanted to see. He knew then, as only an old copper would, that he was standing next to a guilty man.

Hennessey smiled and nodded to the nurse who closed the curtain.

“Do you know how she died?” Herbert Richardson turned to Hennessey. He was a big man, huge, a farmer’s hands, paw-like. His eyes were cold and had anger in them, despite a soft voice.

“We don’t.” Hennessey and he walked away from the room down a corridor in the York City Hospital. “We don’t suspect natural causes, but there’s no clear cause of death.”

They walked on in silence, out of the hospital building into the sunlit expanse of the car park which Hennessey scanned for sight of Louise D’Acre’s distinctive car, and seeing the red and white and chrome Riley circa 1947, her father’s first and only car, a cherished possession, lovingly kept, allowed his eyes to settle on it for a second or two. Then he turned his thoughts to the matter in hand. “When did you last see your wife, Mr Richardson?”

“What!? Oh... don’t know... sorry, can’t think.”

“Well, today’s Monday...”

“Yes... well, yesterday morning. She went out at lunch time, just before really, about eleven-thirty, to meet her sister she said. Phoned me to say she’d be staying at her sister’s house overnight, so I wasn’t to worry if she didn’t return. She often said that. She and her sister were very close.”

They stopped at Richardson’s gleaming Range Rover.

“You’re a farmer, I believe, Mr Richardson?”

“Yes, I don’t do much of the actual work, I have a manager to attend to that. I’m more of a pen-pusher than a bale-heaver, if you see what I mean.”

“I think I do.” He patted the Range Rover. “It clearly pays.”

“Don’t be too taken in by the image. It’s run out of the business, still being paid for as well.”

“Even so... Mr Richardson, I can tell you that your wife was found out of doors; she and a deceased male were lying next to each other.”

“She was what!?” Richardson turned to face Hennessey.

“She was lying next to the life extinct body of a man we believe to be called Dominic Westwood.”

“Westwood?”

“Do you know the name?”

“Westwood... there’s a family with that name in the village but we do not mix socially.”

“I think he will be of that family. Allingham is not a large village, there cannot be many Westwoods.”

“I know only the one family in the village of that name.”

“I see. Were you and your wife happily married?”

“Very. We hadn’t been married long and we were enthusiastic about our union, wanted children. Yes, yes, we were happy.”

“You know of no one who’d want to harm your wife?”

“No one at all. She was well liked, much respected.” Richardson opened the door of his Range Rover.

“Where will you be if we need to contact you, Mr Richardson?”

“At the farm. Penny Farm, Allingham. Large white Georgian house, easily seen from the village cross.”

“Yes, that is my husband,” Marina Westwood said, and she said it without a trace of emotion. Then she put her long hair to her nose and sniffed. “Chlorine.” She turned to Hennessey. “The constable said I could dry but not shower. I was in the pool you see, when the constable came, told me I was needed to identify someone. I wanted to shower the chlorine out of my hair but that takes an hour. So he said I couldn’t. Smells of chlorine. Shower when I get back.”

Detached, utterly completely detached. Hennessey was astounded, frightened even. This smartly dressed woman with long, yellow hair, high heels to compensate for her small stature, was looking through a pane of glass at the body of her husband and all she was concerned about was the chlorine in her hair. “Yes,” she said, “that’s Dominic. He looks like he’s sleeping, sort of floating. I thought you were going to pull him out of a drawer.”

And the nurse, used to many and varied emotions at the viewing of the deceased for purposes of identification, could only gasp at Marina Westwood’s lack of emotion.

Hennessey nodded his thanks to the nurse who shut the curtains and seemed to hurry from the room — to escape Marina Westwood? To tell her colleagues what she witnessed? Hennessey thought probably both.

“Your husband died in mysterious circumstances, Mrs Westwood.” Hennessey and she remained in the viewing room for a few moments.

“Oh?”

“He was found deceased in the company of a woman identified as Wendy Richardson, of Penny Farm, Allingham.”

“Oh.”

“Do you know her?”

“Yes... no... know of her, not speak to.”

“Do you know of anyone who’d want to harm your husband, Mrs Westwood?”

“I don’t. Dominic had no enemies. Rivals perhaps, but no enemies.”

“He was a businessman?”

“He had a computer company. Software.”

Whatever that is, thought Hennessey, who was proud to be the last surviving member of the human race who didn’t possess or know how to use a computer.

“A farm worker found the bodies,” Hennessey confirmed. “He thought they were two lovers, though it was a bit early in the morning for that sort of thing. Also thought they were a bit long in the tooth for it as well, but left them at it. When he returned, retracing his steps an hour later, saw they hadn’t moved, he took a closer look. And we are here.”

“I was getting a bit curious.” She sniffed at her hair. “I wondered where he’d got to when he didn’t turn up last night. I thought he had had too much beer again, and stayed somewhere rather than drive home. He’s done that before. He’s sensible like that.”

“Who would benefit from his death, do you know?”

“Me, I suppose, I’m his wife. I’ll get everything. Everything that’s paid for anyway. Debt didn’t seem to bother Dominic.”

“Were you happily married?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

Yellich drove home to his modest new-build house in Huntingdon, to his wife and son. His wife explained that Jeremy had been “impossible” all day and she needed “space”, so she put on a hat and went for a walk. Yellich went into the living room. Jeremy, cross legged and sitting far too close to the television set, turned and beamed at his father. Yellich smiled back. Jeremy was twelve years old, he could tell the time and point to every vowel sound letter in the alphabet, including the letter “y”.

Hennessey too drove home, to his detached house in Easingwold, to a warm welcome from “Oscar”, his brown mongrel. Later in the evening, he stood in the landscaped rear garden which had been planned by his wife shortly before she died, suddenly, inexplicably, as if she fainted, but it was life, not consciousness, which had left her. “Sudden Death Syndrome” was entered on her certificate, “aged twenty-three years”. And in the thirty years since her death, her garden, where her ashes were scattered, had matured to become a place of tranquillity. Each day, winter and summer, rain or shine, Hennessey would stand in the garden telling Jennifer of his day. “Just lying there,” he said to the grass, to the shrubs, to the apple trees, to the “going forth” at the bottom of the garden, where lived the frogs in a pond, “the farm worker thought they were lovers at first. Don’t like the widow of the deceased male, haven’t made up my mind about the widower, but the widow, she’s an odd fish and no mistake.”

Tuesday

Hennessey held the phone to his ear. “They drowned?”

“That’s what I said.” Louise D’Acre trapped her phone between her ear and her shoulder, using both hands to read through her notes. “In fresh water, or they had had a heart attack.”

“I’m sorry, Dr D’Acre, I don’t follow.” Hennessey moved the phone from one ear to the other as he “heard” Dr D’Acre smile down the phone.

“I’m the one who should be sorry, I’m not making a great deal of sense, am I? I was puzzled because the cause of death was apparent upon investigation, both corpses show evidence of vagal inhibition of the heart, which brought on a fatal heart attack. Death from such causes is often associated with shock, especially in the frail elderly, but as I pointed out, both died at exactly the same time. So what caused two young and healthy people to die of shock at the same time? That had me foxed. And if their deaths hadn’t been linked, if their bodies had been found miles apart for example and at different times, I probably wouldn’t have looked for a link, and so put death down to heart failure, cause by vagal inhibition. But they were clearly linked, so I had a closer look and found the answer in the marrow of the long bones.”

Thus far Hennessey had written “heart attack” on his notepad but continued to listen patiently.

“I found diatoms in the long bones.”

“Diatoms?”

“Wee beasties, as a Scotsman might say. Micro-organisms that live in the water, they get into the marrow of the long bones of a drowning victim. They differ from salt water to fresh water, these are fresh-water diatoms. The victims blood has expanded in the veins caused by the fresh water joining the blood stream, salt water doesn’t do that, so they drowned in fresh water. And I would guess a struggle for life induced vagal inhibition, which brought on a heart attack. No signs of violence though, except for small areas of light bruising round the ankles of both victims. Both of her ankles, and one of his ankles.”

“The ankles?”

“They were held face down in a large body of water by someone holding their ankles. The water was clean, not polluted, and heavily chlorinated. A swimming pool, for example.”

“Funny you should say that.”

“Why, is that significant?”

“Very.”

“Well, diatoms differ from one body of water to another; if you could obtain a sample of water from the pool in question, I could tell you if our two friends here drowned in that pool.”

“What are you looking for, boss?” Yellich drove out to Oast House, Allingham.

“A swimming pool.” Hennessey sat in the front passenger seat and went on to tell Yellich about Marina Westwood’s hair smelling of chlorine; he also told him about diatoms and vagal inhibition.

The Westwood house in Allingham was a sprawling bungalow set in expansive grounds. A large car and a small car stood in front of the building, saying clearly “his and hers”.

Marina Westwood opened the door almost immediately upon Hennessey ringing the door bell. She looked surprised to see Hennessey. Hennessey remarked upon the fact.

“No... no...” she stammered. She was dressed fetchingly in faded jeans, leather belt and a blue T-shirt. “Well I suppose I am... I thought that yesterday was it, just identify him. What do you want?”

“Your husband died in suspicious circumstances. We’d like to look at your house.”

“Do you have a warrant? On television...”

“Do we need one?” asked Hennessey.

“Are you hiding something?” asked Yellich.

“No,” she shrugged offhandedly, and stepped aside, allowing the police officers to step over the threshold.

It was a large, spacious house inside, very light, very airy, with interior walls of unfaced brick.

“Where is the swimming pool?” Hennessey asked suddenly.

“Down there.” Then Marina Westwood’s face paled.

Hennessey saw her pale and he knew a chord had been struck, and he knew this inquiry was drawing to an early close. It was so often the case, he thought, before you look at the outlaws look at the in-laws. “If you’d lead the way?”

Marina Westwood led them down a narrow corridor to the indoor swimming pool. Thirty-feet long, twenty wide, brick walls on three sides, the fourth wall was given over to tall windows which looked out over the rear lawn. Hennessey took a test tube from his pocket and knelt and dipped it into the pool and sealed the contents. “You haven’t changed the water in this pool since they drowned in it, have you?”

“No.”

A pause, a look of horror flashed across her face. Marina Westwood screamed and ran from the poolside into the body of the house. Yellich lunged at her as she ran past him, missed and started to run after her.

“Don’t.” Hennessey placed the test tube in his jacket pocket. “She’s not running from us, she’s running from herself, either that or she’s engaging with life for the first time. Either way, we’ll find her sobbing on the sofa somewhere.”

In the event they found her on the rear patio looking out over the garden, sobbing quietly. Hennessey stood beside her.

“You know,” she said, “this was all going to be mine.”

“Was.”

“Can’t profit from a crime, can you?”

“No.”

“His brother will inherit it all now.”

“But it wasn’t your idea to murder them?”

“No, it was his.”

“Richardson?”

“Yes,” she nodded as she watched a pair of swans, keeping perfect stations with each other like aircraft in formation, swept low over the house. “Won’t see that goal will I?”

“No. No, you won’t. Wasn’t even your idea, was it?”

“No. It was his. My marriage wasn’t good. My husband was carrying on with Wendy Richardson. I found out about it. Went to see Herbert Richardson. He went cold with anger. He said we should do something. I told him that every Sunday afternoon they swim at our house, I’m out then, but I know they do it. I gave him a key. Came back Sunday evening and he was in the house, by the pool, soaked to the skin. My husband and her lying on the poolside. He’d just jumped into the pool, grabbed them, held them by their ankles face down until they drowned. He’s a big man, strong enough to do that.”

“Then?”

“Well, then we dressed them. It’s not easy dressing a dead body.”

“I can imagine.”

“But we managed it. Took them out and laid them side by side in a field. Herbert Richardson said, ‘That’ll fox ’em.’”

“Which it did,” Hennessey thought... “and there lay your undoing.”

“Where will we find Richardson now?”

“At home. He said to carry on as though nothing had happened. So he’ll be at Penny Farm. There’s nothing between us, me and him. We have nothing in common.”

And Hennessey thought, but did not say, “Except double murder. You’ve got that in common.”

That evening, with both Herbert Richardson and Marina Westwood in the cells having been charged with the murders of Dominic Westwood and Wendy Richardson, Hennessey drove out to Skelton, taking an overnight bag with him. He walked up to a half-timbered house and tapped on the door. The door was opened, by a woman who smiled warmly at him.

“Evening, madam.” Hennessey stepped over the threshold and kissed the woman.

“The children are in bed,” said Louise D’Acre. “We can go straight up.”