Gift Wrapped (23 page)

The gap in George Hennessey's life where an older brother should have been was a permanent void and he could only wonder what sort of man Graham would have become – certainly a good father to some lucky children and a good uncle to Charles. He would also, George Hennessey believed, have been a damn good photographer, a crusading photojournalist capable of changing world opinion with just one photograph; not for Graham Hennessey would be the sleazy world of glamour photography or the privacy-invading, life-ruining world of the paparazzi, but noble photography which people remember. Upon his brother's death he had then met for the first time the incongruity of a summer funeral, how wrong it all seemed for his brother's coffin to be slowly lowered into the ground amid bloom and green and fluttering butterflies and with the sound of ‘Greensleeves' being heard coming from a distant and unseen ice-cream van. It was the same incongruity he was to meet again, twenty years later as he scattered his wife's ashes in an abundant summer garden. All that could have been were it not for a small patch of oil or if Graham's line of travel had been one inch to the left, or one inch to the right.

As George Hennessey approached his house he saw a silver BMW parked half on and half off the kerb outside his house. His heart leapt at the sight and his face cracked into a broad grin. Half an hour later, after a barking, tail-wagging Oscar had been greeted, Charles and George Hennessey were sat on the patio at the back of Hennessey's house, looking out over the garden whilst each sipped a mug of tea.

‘Where are you this week?' George Hennessey broke a short moment of silence which had developed.

‘Leeds,' Charles Hennessey replied. ‘My man is going NG to a serious assault upon his lady wife. He seems to think that said lady wife will withdraw her complaint as she has apparently done on many previous occasions.'

‘Enough is enough, she is saying, I assume?' George Hennessey's eye was caught by a swirling, darting house martin clearly pursuing a flying insect.

‘Yes, that's what she is saying, but he is still refusing to go “G” and so get an automatic one third off his sentence upon conviction. There are many witnesses, you see. He was, I also learned, in the habit of using his wife as a punch bag in the street, in full view of many sympathetic neighbours. Anyway, he refused to take my advice and his solicitors' advice ... and we have to take his instruction ... so, hell mend him, really.' Charles Hennessey stretched his arms and yawned.

‘As you say. How are the children?' George Hennessey looked towards the ground at Oscar criss-crossing the lawn, having evidently picked up an interesting scent.

‘They are very anxious to see Granddad Hennessey again; they want to know when you'll be taking them out for the day once more.' Charles Hennessey smiled. ‘You spoil them rotten.'

‘I know. I love doing it.' George Hennessey laughed softly.

‘So you'll be sending us more work.' Charles Hennessey yawned a second time. ‘More felons for us to defend?'

‘Hope so.' George Hennessey also yawned. ‘We are working on a ten-year-old murder at the moment and in the process discovered a murder which we didn't know had been committed. One felon is in the pipeline, who will need a very good defence counsel unless he does the sensible thing and pleads guilty, as he seems intent to do. Another is out there, awaiting arrest.'

‘So, your friend,' Charles Hennessey queried. ‘When do we meet her?'

‘Soon,' George Hennessey replied, ‘soon. She is anxious to meet you also ... but all in good time.'

It was Monday, 19.45 hours.

Tuesday, 6 June, 09.45 hours – 16.40 hours

In which more is discovered about the Cleg sisters and a dying man gives information.

G
eorge Hennessey sat at his desk and kept his eyes downcast. ‘To recap for the benefit of all, it now seems to be a wheels-within-wheels situation. We have two sisters, two twin sisters, though only one of whom we have thus far met. The husband of one is missing somewhere in France but suspiciously near the Belgian border. The same sister tells us her husband is a geography teacher so that we will know the significance of the numbers on a postcard which was posted to the drop-in centre where she works. We would rapidly have realized what the numbers meant but she was clearly very anxious that we find out sooner rather than later. It transpires that her husband is not an alive and well geo-grapher at all but a taxi driver missing, presumed deceased.'

‘In France,' Webster added, ‘which is difficult for us.'

‘Yes,' Hennessey nodded, ‘he is a self-employed taxi driver or taxi-fleet owner to give him his proper due, and went missing on a holiday he took with the twin sisters. Three left the UK, two returned.' Hennessey glanced at his team: Yellich, Webster, Ventnor, Pharoah. All were attentive, waiting for him to continue speaking. ‘Did we contact the French police, Reg?'

‘Yes, sir,' Webster replied, ‘via Interpol, as you requested. No reply yet.'

‘All right.'

‘Their response will be interesting,' Carmen Pharoah offered. ‘I mean, there is no proof that he was reported missing at all, just Mrs Bartlem's word, and her word is becoming suspect.'

‘Good point, Carmen.' Hennessey smiled at Carmen Pharoah. ‘In fact, you have just talked yourself into a job – can you please chase up the French contact, confirm that Mr Edward Bartlem was reported missing, where he was reported missing and enquire as to what information the French authorities were provided with?'

‘Yes, sir,' Pharoah replied briskly, efficiently.

‘He will have been reported,' Hennessey continued. ‘They will definitely have done that. It would be far, far too suspicious if they have not reported him, but check anyway – we must cross all the t's and dot all the i's.'

‘Very good, sir.' Again Carmen Pharoah's response was instant.

‘You know,' Hennessey continued, ‘I am taken by the notion of Paul Bartlem's that his brother Edward, or rather the body of Edward Bartlem, was left in Belgium and his disappearance reported in France. So, can you contact the Belgian authorities as well as the French, please, Carmen? Again, just being thorough.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Provide details of Mr Edward Bartlem's description and ask if it matches the description of any deceased males who might have been found in the border area with France at about or shortly after the time of Edward Bartlem's disappearance.' Hennessey paused and glanced out of his office window. ‘I am nearing my retirement but in my time as a police officer I have known many instances of corpses being found in various states of decomposition; they could not be linked to any locally reported missing person and so they were given a name and buried. But ponder, if you will, how easy it would be to lure somebody to England from Ireland or from the Continent and despatch them somewhere in Britain and allow the corpse to be discovered and start only a local murder investigation?' He paused again and turned to his team. ‘If you ask me, police forces are just too inward looking, and I ask you, has that benefited the criminal or has that benefited the criminal?' He drummed his fingers on his desk top. ‘So why was Mrs Bartlem suddenly so anxious for us to find Mr Wenlock's body ten years after his murder? Who posted the cards and who uses a typewriter these days?'

The officers sitting in front of Hennessey's desk shrugged their shoulders and gently shook their heads. Eventually Yellich replied for the entire team by saying, ‘Well, that's the question to be answered, sir. Answer the first question and we'll most very probably find the answer to the second.'

‘All right,' Hennessey leaned back in his chair, ‘time for action. Carmen, once you have sent the messages to the French and Belgian police, I'd like you to team up with Somerled.'

‘Yes, sir.' Carmen Pharoah glanced approvingly at Somerled Yellich, who nodded at her.

‘I'd like you two to visit Mrs Bartlem,' Hennessey continued.

‘Yes, sir,' Yellich replied.

‘See what you see, find what you find. We'd like to hear her version of her husband's disappearance. Ask her why she told us her husband was a geographer and try to find a connection between her and James Wenlock.'

‘Understood, sir.' Yellich replied again for both himself and Carmen Pharoah.

‘Reginald and Thompson ...' Hennessey turned to Webster and Ventnor.

‘Sir?' Ventnor answered.

‘I'd like you two to go and take the measure of Mr Mellish and, if you can, find the link between him and Mr Wenlock, but do be tactful ... do be circumspect. In fact, all four of you be circumspect – please remember that we are still only making inquiries. We have no suspect or suspects at this time and we don't want to send anyone running for the hills by making accusations or arrests which are too early in the piece. Remember ... softly, softly, catchee monkey.'

‘Understood, sir,' Yellich replied as all four officers stood.

Mrs Julia Bartlem welcomed Somerled Yellich and Carmen Pharoah and invited them into her home in a warm, calm and self-assured manner. The Bartlem house was a detached, nineteenth-century house. It was clearly very well kept and seemed to sit very confidently in about half an acre of land.

‘Just a few questions, if you don't mind, Mrs Bartlem,' Yellich began as he and Carmen Pharoah accepted Mrs Bartlem's invitation to take a seat and then sank into deep armchairs, whilst she, the lady of the house, chose to sit on the settee, elegantly so and upright, hands folded on her lap, legs together and angled to one side. She wore a figure-hugging three-quarter-length purple dress, and shiny black shoes with a modest heel. ‘It is just the case of dotting a few i's and crossing a few t's – nothing for you to worry about.'

‘I see,' Julia Bartlem smiled as she replied. She seemed calm but Carmen Pharoah, as one woman observing another, detected a wariness bordering on fear behind the smile and the dilated pupils.

‘There are,' Yellich continued, ‘just a few things which to the police just don't seem to add up.' He took his notepad from his jacket pocket.

‘Oh?' Mrs Bartlem inclined her head. She did indeed, Pharoah observed, seem very middle class. She had all the correct mannerisms and had clearly risen up from the council schoolgirl and the late teenager with convictions for shoplifting and breaching the Queen's peace.

‘Well, yes.' Yellich sat back in the armchair. ‘For example, can you please explain to us why you saw fit to tell us that your husband was a geography teacher, when he is in fact missing and presumed deceased, and when with us was a self-employed taxi driver? In fact, he owned a small fleet of taxis; he was much more than a humble driver of a taxi. He was rather a successful businessman.'

‘Ah,' Mrs Bartlem bowed her head, ‘I can really see your suspicion, I really can, but I was just being public spirited; it was nothing for the police to find suspicious ... I wished only to help you out, you see.'

‘So why mislead us?' Yellich held eye contact with her.

‘Oh, I wasn't misleading you, I can assure you,' Mrs Bartlem sounded shocked. ‘Oh no, I wasn't doing that, it is ... it was ... simply the case that I knew the numbers to be map references but I thought that if I told you that my husband was a geography teacher and recognized them as such it would give some credibility to the claim, get you there quicker, all the more speedily.'

‘Get us where?' Yellich snapped.

‘To the identification of the numbers as being map references,' Mrs Bartlem replied defensively.

‘You think we wouldn't have seen them for what they were?' Yellich's voice was heavy with anger. ‘We are not brain-dead numpties, Mrs Bartlem. We have police officers who are graduates, even postgraduates.'

‘Yes, even postgraduates,' Carmen Pharoah echoed. She glanced round the room. It was well appointed; she noted expensive furniture and carpets, a flat-screen television and hard-backed books on shelves.

‘I just said that to help you along,' Mrs Bartlem repeated. ‘I was being public spirited.'

‘It did that but we would have got there quickly enough ourselves, as I said,' Yellich replied coldly. ‘The map reference led us to the grave of an accountant who had vanished some years ago, a gentleman by the name of Wenlock, James Wenlock. Did you know him, by any chance?'

‘Wenlock?' Mrs Bartlem shook her head slowly. ‘That name means nothing to me. Wenlock, you say? No ... the name rings no bells, no bells at all.'

‘All right, but it seems to be the case that you wanted Mr Wenlock's body to be found.' Yellich pressed forward.

‘I didn't want it to be found. How could I? I didn't know it was there. It just seemed to me that the cards looked somewhat suspicious,' Mrs Bartlem protested. ‘In fact, some of the staff at the drop-in centre wanted to tear them up but I thought they were dubious and so brought them to the police station. It seems it was a good job that I did, I'd say,' Mrs Bartlem added indignantly. ‘The body would still be undiscovered if I had not done what I did. Has that occurred to you, I wonder?'

‘Yes ... that is a fair point,' Yellich agreed, ‘but we are police officers, so when folk lie to us we tend to become very suspicious, even if they lied to help us. Can I ask if you are employed, Mrs Bartlem?'

‘I own my late husband's taxi firm,' Mrs Bartlem replied, somewhat smugly in Carmen Pharoah's view. ‘I employ someone to manage it for me, so I have much free time, hence doing charity work at the drop-in centre.' Julia Bartlem smiled gently. ‘I really do enjoy the work I do there. I enjoy helping people ... giving advice ... it's very deeply rewarding.'

‘I see.' Yellich paused. ‘Can I ask – do you own a typewriter?'

‘Not any more,' Julia Bartlem answered quickly.

‘You had one?' Yellich asked.