Gift Wrapped (18 page)

‘Fancy a beer?' Ventnor asked.

‘Can't, sorry,' Yellich replied warmly. ‘I'm on guard duty this afternoon and evening, and I don't like drinking at lunch time anyway ... you lose the afternoon.'

‘Dare say you're right,' Ventnor felt in his pocket for his car keys, ‘silly of me to ask really. I have things to do today as well. See you on Monday, Sarge.'

Somerled Yellich returned home and parked his car in front of his new-build house on an estate of similar houses in the expanded village of Huntingdon, to the north of York, and walked casually up the short drive to the front door. As he opened the door and entered his house Jeremy ran towards him with a squeal of delight. Yellich braced himself for the impact, and responded to his son's warm welcome with an equal display of warm emotion. He washed and changed into casual clothing and over lunch with Sara and Jeremy he commented favourably on Sara's haircut. ‘Reminds me of the time I first set eyes on you at that party,' he smiled, ‘so slender and in a pair of jeans and such short hair. I saw you from behind and thought it was a sixteen-year-old boy who had wangled himself an invitation and wondered who had let him get near the punch bowl.'

‘I've filled out a little since then.' Sara Yellich put an extra helping of salad on to Jeremy's plate.

‘Not by very much,' Yellich replied, ‘not by very much at all. It is clear that I am married to the most beautiful woman in Yorkshire, if not the world.' This comment caused his wife to blush and look down at her plate.

After lunch and extracting a promise from Sara that she would drive safely and be back home by nine p.m., he took Jeremy for a walk in the meadows to the west of the village, where they spent the late afternoon together and identified plants and birds. In the evening Jeremy impressed Somerled Yellich by being able to tell complicated times such as twenty-five minutes to two and seventeen minutes past nine. Jeremy was, according to the school he attended, quite advanced for a twelve-year-old.

Somerled and Sara Yellich had, like all parents of children with learning difficulties, been disappointed to learn of their son's condition, but slowly, over the years, a whole new world had opened up to them. They met and befriended parents of similar children to Jeremy. Somerled and Sara had also learned to revel in the abundance of love and warmth which their son showed, knowing that he would never be a surly and difficult adolescent. With support and care and stimulation Jeremy could, they were told, achieve the functioning level of a ten-year-old by the time he reached adulthood and then be capable of semi-independent living in a hostel where he would have his own room and be able to prepare his own meals if he chose to do so, but where staff would be permanently on hand should difficulties arise.

Somerled Yellich put his son to bed at eight thirty and waited for Sara, who arrived at nine fifteen, panting her apologies. It had, Yellich thought, been a busy week and by then he felt very tired. He retired to bed, leaving Sara, who elected to stay up to watch the late film, and he slept a full and a nourishing sleep.

Thompson Ventnor spent that Saturday afternoon cleaning his house, doing the week's accumulated washing up and shopping for food to sustain him during the coming week. That evening he took a bus to the outskirts of York and alighted at a bus stop at the extreme edge of the city's suburban development. He walked slowly from the bus stop to the gates of a Victorian era mansion and strolled up the drive. At the building itself he opened the front door and was met by a blast of hot air. He signed in the visitor's book and then ascended a wide, carpeted stairway and entered a large room in which elderly people were sitting against the walls and being attended by two women in nurses' uniform. In the far corner of the room one elderly man's face lit up with pleasure as he recognized Ventnor, but by the time Ventnor had crossed the floor to where the elderly man was seated, and said, ‘Hello, Dad,' the elderly man was staring vacantly into space and giggling softly to himself.

Ventnor returned to the centre of York and decided to ‘kill' the remaining light hours by taking a bus to Harrogate. He spent an hour walking the streets of the spa town until dusk, at which point he returned by bus to York. At York he walked into a pub and had a beer, then another, then another. From the pub he went to Caesar's Nightclub and got into a conversation with a lady who had, he thought, plastered her make-up upon her face in layers. He left the club alone and, finding it a pleasant summer's night, decided to walk home to Dringhouses.

It was Sunday, 02.35 hours.

Monday, 5 June, 10.00 hours – 19.45 hours

In which Reginald Webster acts upon a whim and by thus doing causes an interesting development, and the courteous reader is privy to another demon in George Hennessey's life, but also to the joy therein.

‘S
o ...' George Hennessey leaned forward, placed his elbows on the surface of his desk and clasped his hands together, ‘what has happened, somewhat embarrassingly,' he looked down as he spoke, addressing his assembled team of Yellich, Pharoah, Ventnor and Webster, ‘is that we pursued a man for the murder of James Wenlock, even unto the point of charging him, and it has subsequently transpired that he is proven innocent of that murder. But by means of compensation, in the process of pursuing him for the murder of Mr Wenlock, we have in fact proved his guilt in respect of another murder – an earlier murder – which we did not know had happened because up until last week Henry Hall was known only to be a missing person. So ... to use Carmen's phrase we have avoided getting “egg all over our faces”, but we are still no nearer to the solution of the mystery of the murder of James Wenlock than we were one week ago tomorrow when Mrs Bartlem presented at our enquiry desk with a collection of postcards.'

‘It does mean that we have to give full credibility to the postcards, sir. That's a step forward in itself.' Yellich cradled a mug of tea in his hands. ‘The fact that Shane Bond was in custody when James Wenlock was murdered was never made public. It probably, in fact almost certainly, means that the person who wrote, or rather typed, the postcards knew only that Shane Bond was not the person who did murder James Wenlock because that person knows the identity of the actual killer.'

‘Yes, good point.' Hennessey looked up and smiled at Yellich. ‘Good point indeed, Somerled. So we accept that the sender of the cards knew not only where we could find the corpse of James Wenlock but must know, must also know, the identity of his murderer ...' Hennessey paused. ‘And typewritten postcards ... any thoughts there, anyone?'

‘Typewriters went out with horse-drawn transport,' Pharoah offered, ‘the only place you'd likely to be able to buy a typewriter these days is a charity shop or a curio shop ... or you'd have to take one down from the attic, dust it off and hope to blazes that the ink in the ribbon hasn't evaporated because you can't buy typewriter ribbons any more ... at least, I assume you can't.'

‘Significance?' Hennessey asked, appealing to the group. ‘Come on ... throw anything into the pot, any thoughts at all.'

‘The most likely significance of using a typewriter is that the person who typed the postcards wanted to disguise their handwriting,' Pharoah replied thoughtfully, ‘which probably suggests that they are close, they are linked in some way, to the perpetrators of the murder. You couldn't use a word processor to disguise your handwriting because there is the danger of the message being retained by the machine's memory ... too risky. The use of a typewriter has all the advantages of using a word processor without any of the disadvantages,' she continued. ‘It suggests we are seeking someone with a clear mind if not a clear conscience.'

‘But why postcards?' Ventnor queried as he sucked on a strong mint to smother his stale-beer breath. ‘Why not a blank sheet of paper and a brown envelope? Postcards are read by all who handle them. A threat or an offensive statement on a postcard is deemed to be made in public, the statement could be libellous. Postcards are ... in fact, highly ill-advised as a means of communication for anything but the most inoffensive of greetings ... unless ... unless ... there is some significance to the cards themselves.'

There was then a lull in the conversation. Each member of the team looked down at the floor, or up at the ceiling, or, in the case of George Hennessey, out of his office window at the ancient walls of the city, upon which at that moment walked the very common sight of a group of brightly dressed, sun-hatted tourists. The silence was eventually broken by Webster, who mused, ‘The cards were all of Scarborough, specifically of the harbour area ... probably something is relevant about the harbour? But at any rate, we might wonder if the town of Scarborough has a significance in all this?'

‘The last card received told us to look at James Wenlock's client list.' Pharoah partly put up her hand and then lowered it.

‘You're not at school now, Carmen,' Hennessey grinned, ‘but yes, that is a very good point ... another good point. So we are, it seems, making somewhat useful progress.'

‘It has to be the link,' Yellich offered. ‘It has to be the case that one of James Wenlock's clients has a link of some sort to Scarborough, and that link has some significance to the murder of the man.'

‘Right, right.' Hennessey tapped his desk top with his fingertips. ‘So it's a return visit to James Wenlock's employers. Who were they again? A London name ...'

‘Russell Square, sir,' Ventnor advised, ‘Russell Square, Chartered Accountants of Saint Leonard's Place.'

‘Yes, that's it, Russell Square. So you, Thompson ...' Hennessey pointed at Thompson Ventnor.

‘Yes, sir?'

‘And you, Reg ...'

Webster nodded, ‘Yes, sir?'

‘I think that it is time for you two to team up and start working together.'

‘Very good, sir,' Webster replied.

‘The last postcard,' Hennessey advised, ‘has been sent to the forensic science laboratory at Wetherby – a bit of a futile exercise, I think, but we might obtain a DNA match or a fingerprint which is on our database, although I have to say that I hold out little hope. So if you two, Reg and Thompson, don't return from Russell Square with a lead of some sort then we'll have to seek a Scarborough connection in Mr Wenlock's private life, but I confess I am most loath to call on his family again ... not without good reason anyway. So we'll eagerly await your return, and while we do, it's administration for the rest of us, recording on other cases to be completed, and statistical returns for May to be collated. Plenty to do,' he smiled, ‘plenty to do.'

Situated at approximately fifty-seven degrees, six minutes north and one degree, seven minutes west, the town of Huddersfield sits high in the Pennines and thus tends to have windy and somewhat chilly weather conditions, but which the gracious reader might feel is far, far, preferable to the sulphurous miasma which swirls the streets and alleyways of the steel-producing towns further to the south. Huddersfield is situated at the confluence of the River Holme and the River Colne and is home to nearly 150,000 souls. The town is well endowed with buildings of the Victorian era, a very good example of said heritage being that of the railway station, a Grade I listed building, the proud frontage of which is similar to a stately home, and truly established itself during the nineteenth century, when it became a centre for the production of textiles. It is to the town of Huddersfield and to a certain café on the pedestrianized Packhorse Centre to which we now must turn to continue our tale, as within this café a discussion was taking place.

At the back, as far away from the window as possible, and in the corner, the two women sat facing each other; they leaned forward as they spoke in a hushed near whisper. An observer would note a distinct similitude between the two women, although they possessed sufficient difference that they could not be taken for identical twins. Both had thin faces, both were tall, both well dressed, both married, and both adorned with necklaces, jewellery and gold watches. Both wore expensive perfumes. If said observer was near enough to the two women and if he had particularly sharp hearing this is what he would have overheard.

First woman (F.W.) ‘It was quite a risk.'

Second woman (S.W.) ‘Oh, yes, very, very risky. It had to be done, though. It just had to be done. There was no road round it.'

F.W. ‘Oh, I agree. I am not upset, I am just commenting upon the element of risk involved. But, as you say, there was just no road round it. Just no road at all.'

S.W. ‘It's a shame the police were not as much on the ball as we had hoped.'

F.W. ‘Yes, a pity ... but it had to be done.'

S.W. ‘Yes, because, as we have both agreed, they had to get the right man. No one else would do.'

F.W. ‘We'll have to get rid of the typewriter now.'

S.W. ‘Oh, yes, it's done its job. No further need for it now.'

F.W. ‘None at all.'
Here the conversation between the two women paused as a high-pitched sound from a coffee-making machine filled the café for a few seconds. Then their conversation resumed.

S.W. ‘They'll be closing in now. The police will be closing in on him. If they find the typewriter and they are able to match the typeface to the cards we posted ... well ... it will be disastrous ... curtains for little us.'

F.W. ‘Where shall we put it? Any ideas?'

S.W. ‘The river at the bottom of the hill beyond the university. It's the best place.'

F.W. ‘It's a bit shallow, isn't it?'

S.W. ‘It's deep enough and the water will wash any fingerprints off the typewriter.'

F.W. ‘All right, if you think it's safe to do that. When should we go? Now, do you think?'

S.W. ‘In a little while, so not yet, not just yet. The police change their shift at two p.m. There is a little bit of a lull in police activity half an hour either side of then. Few officers are patrolling – the fewer eyes the better, methinks.'