Gift Wrapped (8 page)

‘Where is he?' Yellich asked. ‘We would like to talk to him.'

‘He'll likely be at his desk. If not there then he'll be in the building somewhere.' Bellingham smiled again.

‘Thank you; we'll go and have a chat with him.' Yellich paused and then added, ‘What do you know of James Wenlock's home life?'

‘Again, it's not something he and I ever talked about. My home life wasn't exactly happy and I used to stay late to avoid going back, but you know, these days I can't wait to get home.'

‘Oh,' Yellich replied warmly, ‘you and your wife were able to settle your differences?'

‘We did that all right, we settled it all very well. We got divorced.' Clarence Bellingham chuckled at his own joke. ‘These days I love the journey home because I have found that going home to an empty house is also going home to a tranquil house. My heavens, I should have got divorced years and years ago. All those long years of arguments and all that horrible silent tension ... all that could have been avoided ... but so far as I could observe, James Wenlock never showed any sort of reluctance to go home at the end of the working day, none at all. He would just tidy his desk, walk out of the building to the car park we use, get into his Audi and he'd purr away, chrome wheels, tinted windscreen, all that Flash Harry number ... His was a real poser's car, which we didn't approve of, but we had no control over his choice of car or all the add-on goodies it boasted. We didn't like the boy-racer image – not as an accountant with this firm,' Bellingham grimaced, ‘but we couldn't do anything about it.'

‘It certainly isn't the image that springs to my mind when I think of an accountant and his choice of car,' Yellich replied.

‘No ... and as I said, it was not an image that the partners of Russell Square were wholly in favour of, but we had no control over that aspect of his life.' Bellingham spoke thoughtfully and softly. ‘And, as I also said, he was efficient at his job ... quite a good team player as well. He seemed to be a popular member of staff.'

‘I see. Well, thank you, Mr Bellingham.' Yellich stood, as did Ventnor. ‘So, we'll go and find your Mr March ... if we may?'

‘Yes, I am sure we can allow you the use of one of our interview rooms. They might be found to be a little small – each one has four easy chairs around a low table – and perhaps a little cramped but I am sure they'll suffice. We have four such rooms; there is almost always at least one that is vacant at any one time so that will give you privacy.' Bellingham reached for the phone which sat on his desk and picked up the handset. ‘Carol ... can you connect me with Nigel March, please? Thank you.' He cupped his hand over the phone. ‘I'll take you to the interview room. I'm going to ask March to meet us there. I'll introduce you to him, then I'll leave you in peace and privacy.'

‘This ...' Tony Wenlock sat heavily in an armchair in the living room of his house, ‘this is a sobering time for our family, very sobering. I have had to take some time off work ... hate to do that ... it looks bad.'

‘Yes, I ... we can imagine.' Carmen Pharoah sat opposite Tony Wenlock in the second armchair. ‘It can't be an easy time.' She paused. ‘Can we ask, what is the nature of your employment, sir?'

‘Surprisingly, you might think, I am an accountant.' Tony Wenlock forced a smile. ‘Like father like son, but I went to university and I have a charter. I did that because I felt that it was what my father would have wanted. In the end I didn't want to fall far from the tree. I was seventeen when he disappeared ... I was planning to read maths at university but then decided on accountancy when Dad vanished. I did that out of respect to my father.'

‘That is quite a sensitive age,' Carmen Pharoah observed. ‘Seventeen is a very difficult age to lose your father.'

‘Yes, and it was all the more difficult because we didn't know what had happened to him. That was the horrible part. All sorts of things run through your mind.' Tony Wenlock wore a neatly trimmed beard and had, it seemed to Pharoah, good muscle tone, as if he was no stranger to the inside of a gymnasium. ‘You think, “Did he run away? Did he run from us? Were we to blame for him leaving like he did?” It's the not knowing that really reaches you. In a sense if we had had a grave to visit then that would have been preferable because at least then we would have known what had happened to him.' Tony Wenlock was dressed in a blue T-shirt and faded blue denim jeans, and he had moccasin slippers on his feet. His home was of the Victorian era, sparsely furnished with rugs on varnished floorboards rather than fitted carpets. A pile of children's toys had been allowed to accumulate in the bay of the window. All were made of chunky plastic and brightly coloured. ‘But no age is good for that to happen: seven, seventeen, twenty-seven. No age. My brother was just fourteen and he took it particularly badly. I suddenly found myself having to be the strong one, the head of the household, pulling through and holding the family together.'

‘Good for you.' Carmen Pharoah smiled approvingly, then asked, ‘Mrs Wenlock – that is, your mother – told us that you and your brother blamed her for your father's disappearance?'

‘Oh, she would, that's just the sort of thing that she would say and it doesn't surprise me that she told you that.' Tony Wenlock sighed heavily. ‘She's a very difficult woman. She really is bad news. She might have presented well to the police but you can take it from me she is an attention-seeking, self-pitying game player and has probably built our resentment of her up into something which is a lot greater than it actually is. She continually holds herself up as though she is blamed for all the family ills, and yes, I do permit her only limited access to my children but not because I blame her for Father's disappearance. She is a very unhealthy personality. She is not a good influence on the children. She is very manipulative.'

‘I see,' Reginald Webster growled.

‘Their marriage wasn't as bad as she will have had you believe,' Tony Wenlock continued. ‘It worked and they never got anywhere near a divorce. It was never, ever as extreme or as desperate as that. We, that is, my brother and I, might have said something about her driving him away, but if we did say that it was said in the heat of the moment by two confused teenagers whose emotions were suddenly all over the place. We never really blamed her at all for his disappearance. We always assumed some form of misadventure had befallen him because we knew he'd never leave his family ... he just wouldn't ... not Dad. Not the old dad we knew. We never assumed that he'd been murdered ... heavens, no. We always thought his body would be lying somewhere, hidden from view, waiting to be discovered by chance, as indeed such things do happen from time to time.'

‘Indeed they do.' Carmen Pharoah nodded her agreement.

‘So ... you can say ... and we learn that it was not a blissfully happy home, but it was a more successful family, a more healthy family than Mrs Wenlock portrays and certainly far from murderous?' Webster asked.

‘Yes ... yes,' Tony Wenlock nodded slightly, ‘you can say that, especially it being far from murderous. The culprit, whoever he or she is, is some person or persons unknown, wholly outside the family. You can definitely say that.'

‘Very well, that helps.' Reginald Webster sat forward. ‘So, if you can tell us what you can recall about your father at the time of his disappearance ... his mood, his attitude, any changes in his day-to-day life, anything of significance, even the slightest significance, that you might remember.'

‘I remember the time very well – who wouldn't?' Tony Wenlock put his hand to his forehead. ‘He was working long hours and often came home quite tired, that I recall well. He didn't normally work late, you see. He was a creature of habit. For many years he'd return at six p.m. and then go up to the Fleece.'

‘The Fleece?' Pharoah queried.

‘The Golden Fleece pub in Selby, in the centre of the town. Dad had a penchant for a rum and coke or two each evening, to my – our – mother's displeasure, but she accepted it. He'd return at about eight p.m., we'd eat as a family and then he'd amble off to bed at about ten p.m. for an early night. That was the established pattern for many, many years until about twelve months before he died, when he began to come home late each evening and noticeably without the smell of alcohol on his breath. He told us; or rather he told our mother, that he was suddenly under a lot of pressure with an important client to look after. Doing a good job of the account would help his career, so he said – well, so he apparently said. It was a large account, he told Mother, which was in a dreadful mess and with HM Inland Revenue looking for blood. He had to rescue what he could and save as much of the client's scalp as he could. No tax reportedly had been paid for years, but equally, many claims against tax had been made. So he came home late, with that as his story, ate alone and went up to sleep always looking utterly exhausted. That was the way it was for ten, perhaps twelve months before he disappeared.'

‘All right, that's a different image.' Reginald Webster wrote in his notepad. ‘Did he, do you know, have any enemies – any that you know of?'

‘None that I or we ever knew of.' Tony Wenlock relaxed back in his chair. ‘I mean, he never seemed to be frightened of anything. He was never afraid to go out of the house in the evening, even in the dark nights, nor was he at all afraid to leave the house in the mornings.'

‘Very well.' Webster again wrote in his notepad. ‘I am sorry if we seem to be clutching at straws but it is early days yet.'

‘I am equally sorry if I am not being of much assistance.' Tony Wenlock shrugged his shoulders in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Now we have another issue to live with – that our father was murdered.' Wenlock paused. ‘You know, I feel confident enough to say that if it was murder it is probably, highly likely, in fact, to be a case of mistaken identity, or a random attack by a lunatic who was out looking for a victim and any man would do. He had no enemies and who on earth would want to kill a harmless accountant?' Tony Wenlock shrugged. ‘Accountants ... we are like librarians – a harmless bunch of souls, we really are ... adding up columns of figures all day. Who are we a threat towards?'

Carmen Pharoah smiled. ‘Well, I am sure it's more involved than that but I take your point, sir.' Then she continued, ‘Can we ask if your family, that is to say your father's family, benefited in any way from his disappearance?'

‘No, they didn't; in fact, it made things more difficult. Quite a lot more difficult, I can tell you,' Tony Wenlock grimaced. ‘The house was fully paid off so that was a blessing. We kept the roof over our heads, and Father had left a nice little portfolio of stocks and shares which kept us going, but we grew to depend on charity shops for clothing and kitchenware. Holidays ... ? We couldn't even dream about going on holiday ...'

‘Yes, so Mrs Wenlock indicated,' Reginald Webster commented.

‘So we were certainly not so destitute that Mother had to go out and find a job; we continued to eat and my brother and I were able to continue with our studies without having to find work,' Tony Wenlock continued. ‘But the insurance company wouldn't pay out on his life insurance policy without the requisite death certificate. You know, I dare say we can make that claim now, that is, once the DNA test confirms his identity. That will be a useful bit of money for the family.'

‘So ... no hardship but equally no benefit either,' Carmen Pharoah said. ‘Just the emotional trauma for you to cope with?'

‘Yes, that's a good way of putting it – no hardship but no benefit either.' Tony Wenlock nodded. ‘Now we'll have a funeral to arrange, and that will finally bring some closure for us.'

‘Did your father have friends?' Reginald Webster asked.

‘I assume so,' Tony Wenlock replied indignantly. ‘He wasn't a recluse.'

‘I mean ... sorry ... I mean did he have any friends with whom he was particularly close ... or any brothers or sisters?' Webster clarified.

‘No and no.' Tony Wenlock sat forward. ‘He had his drinking mates up at the Fleece but I don't think he had any really close friends. If he needed someone he'd very likely turn to Mother, come to think of it, and he was an only child, so he had no brothers or sisters to be of assistance in times of need.'

‘So,' Pharoah said, ‘it would be fair to say that your father's life revolved around his home, his work and his friends in the Fleece, so far as you are aware ... or were aware?'

‘Yes.' Tony Wenlock nodded in agreement. ‘So far as I was aware.'

‘Do you know the names of any of his drinking friends?' Reginald Webster's eye was caught by a blue and red high-sided vehicle travelling at speed along the road in front of Tony Wenlock's house.

‘No ... sorry,' Wenlock replied, ‘and the old publican retired to Spain some years ago. The Fleece is now run by a fairly young husband and wife team, but I think that some of the older patrons will remember Dad. I am sure they might be able and willing to assist you.'

Nigel March, certified accountant, looked uncomfortable, or so thought Somerled Yellich, and he duly commented upon it.

‘Well ...' March sat upright in the chair and clasped his thin hands in front of him, resting his elbows on his knees, ‘that's probably because I am feeling quite uncomfortable. I confess that I have not felt quite so uncomfortable for a very long time ... for many, many a long year.' He spoke willingly to Yellich and Ventnor but did so in a near monotone, and Yellich clearly and immediately saw what Clarence Bellingham had meant when he described Nigel March as being ‘me robot' and wholly perfunctory. Pedantic might, Yellich thought, also be a word which would accurately describe the man. Despite acknowledging his emotional discomfort, he impressed Yellich and Ventnor as a man who went through the motions without actually engaging in life.