The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 7 Read online

  Police activity.

  Harriet Cooper drove on but she knew from that moment her life was effectively over.

  In which Chief Inspector Hennessey takes charge.

  George Hennessey woke with the sun as he found he often did, early rising in the summer, rising on time but with difficulty in the deep mid-winter. He dressed, went downstairs, breakfasted, let Oscar romp in the rear garden of his house. He propped the main back door open but locked the grill with its dog flap so that Oscar could come and go as he pleased during the day. He drove from Thirsk across flat country to York, to Micklegate Bar Police Station and was at his desk by 8.30 a.m. He had then driven to Northallerton and the H.Q. of the North Yorkshire Police to attend the monthly “Chief Inspector Meeting”. He returned to York for lunch to be informed that Sergeant Yellich required his attendance at a location to the east of the city. “Body discovered, sir,” the uniformed officer said. “Shallow grave job, I believe.” Hennessey decided to forego lunch.

  “Gentleman here found it, skipper.” Yellich indicated to Schofield who stood with his metal detector looking pleased with himself. “Or rather his metal detector did.”

  Hennessey glanced at the screen which encircled a small area of the wood. “Who’s here?”

  “Dr D’Acre, skipper.”

  Hennessey nodded and walked to the screen, opened the flap and stepped inside. Louise D’Acre, slender, short hair, slightly greying, knelt over the body in the shallow grave, by now completely uncovered. She glanced up at Hennessey and then she looked down at the body again. “Young male,” she said, “early twenties, short and slight of build, distinctive red hair, there’s a few strands remaining. He sustained a massive blow to the back of the head. That would have killed him, if he hadn’t been already dead.”

  “Already dead?”

  “Well, we can’t rule out the possibility that he was poisoned or strangled or suffocated, and the blow on the head was just to make sure or if he had been suffocated and his body dropped head first from a high place to make it look as though he fell to his death, but I doubt that will be the case.” She stood and peeled off her latex gloves. “No point in burying him then is there?”

  “Point taken.”

  “There were some possessions buried with him.”

  “Were there indeed?”

  “Beyond the screen.”

  Hennessey stepped out from the screen to where Yellich stood. “Items found with the body?”

  “Here, skipper.” Yellich bent down and picked up a production bag, one rucksack, pockets contained a few things, one of which . . . he delved into the bag and brought out a small clearer bag of cellophane, which contained an I.D. card. “Norbert Parkes, a member of the National Union of Students, least he was twenty years ago. University of York.” He handed the cellophane sachet to Hennessey who pondered the photograph. A thin-faced youth with striking red hair, the I.D. card clearly having been preserved by the thick plastic wallet it was held in, and the Terylene of the rucksack, and several feet of soil to keep out the sun’s rays and the frost’s damage.

  “Get on to the university please Yellich, have an address of one of their students of twenty years hence . . . you know the name.”

  “He’s in a meeting.”

  “Tell him it’s personal and urgent.” The phone line clicked and the Blue Danube Waltz was played, reached the end of the tune then started again.

  “McKay!” The voice was angry, ill-tempered.

  “It’s Harriet Cooper.”

  “I don’t know a Harriet Cooper. I’m in an important meeting, I have to get back to it.”

  “Harriet . . . ‘Hat’ . . . ‘Hat’ Sewell.”

  A pause.

  “Hat . . .”

  “Cameron, they’ve found Norbert’s body.”

  A sigh. A longer pause.

  “Cameron . . .”

  “Yes, I’m still here. We’ve got to meet.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll phone Miles.”

  “Are you still in touch with him?”

  “No. Not since that day.”

  “I only recently remembered doing it.”

  “I never forgot it, not a single day goes by . . . but . . . When is a good time to phone?”

  “Mid afternoon but not at weekends. My husband’s a doctor, this will ruin him. I’ve got two children at school.”

  “I’ve got a business worth three million pounds which will sink if I don’t stay at the helm. And three children. And a wife.”

  “What are we going to do? But we owe Norbert. We owe his family.”

  “Nothing. Do nothing. If in doubt, do nothing. I’ll phone you at home. You’d better let me have your number.”

  The University Registrar provided the police with Norbert Parkes’ address as recorded by them. It was in Bridlington. Hennessey and Yellich drove there. The address proved to be in small hotel land, near the beach, tall, thin terraced houses with names like “Seaview”, “Holmlea” and “Morevilla”. Many had “no vacancies” signs in the window, attesting to the busy August period, when the coal mines and steelworks in the industrial north close for two or three weeks, the “stop weeks” for maintenance when the steel workers and miners take their families to “Brid” for a fortnight and stay at “Seaview” or “Holmlea” or “Morevilla”: bed, breakfast and evening meal.

  The address provided by the university specifically was 147, Cannaby Terrace. Hennessey and Yellich parked their car as close as they could and then walked to 147, along the terrace, savouring the sea air, the smell of fish and the glimpse of the blue North Sea upon which, a long way out, a white ship sailed northwards. Number 147 was called “Sandene” and had cockleshells cemented to the stone gateposts and also a “no vacancies” sign in the window. Hennessey and Yellich stepped up to the front door and rang the bell. Half an hour later the worst was over.

  “They wouldn’t sell the hotel in case Norbert returned.” Thomas Parkes, a heavily jowled man, remained to speak to Hennessey and Yellich after Mrs Parkes had left the house tearfully to go to their church to light a candle, and Mr Parkes had excused himself to be by himself for a while. “They retired about ten years ago. Their living room is in the basement, their bedroom is in the attic, the middle bit of the house was the guests area, all gone a bit musty now as you see.”

  “What did you know of your brother’s last movements?”

  “Movements or moments?”

  “Movements.”

  “Pleased you said that,” Thomas Parkes forced a smile, “because of his last moments I know nothing. I don’t want to know anything. But at least now the waiting is over. Now we bury him. Say goodbye properly. Last time I saw Norbert he was off to visit some university friends. He’d just graduated, not a good class of degree, but he could use it and said that he’d been invited to help sit a house.”

  “Sit a house?”

  “As in babysitting. Live in a house while the occupants are away so as to keep the property occupied to deter burglars.”

  “I see. You don’t know were that was or whose house?”

  “I don’t. Norbert only had one friend at university. It wasn’t a good experience for him. He was out of his depth, intellectually and socially. Didn’t get acceptance, always a bit of a hanger-on.”

  “You saw that?”

  “No . . . just things he said. Messages he gave out. When he visited home he always caught the last train back. Sometimes he managed to miss that and had an extra night at home . . . messages like that. I went to teacher training college, less taxing, not as pukka . . . I got on better for that. Norbert would have been better going to a teacher training college, more his level. Less of a bad experience for him. He came away using an expression . . . ‘take life easy’ . . . which irritated me.”

  “It would irritate me too.” Hennessey glanced out of the grimy window which looked out to the rear of the house and to the backs of the houses which lined the next street.

  “He had no confidence.
Ask him what he was going to do with his degree and he’d say he was going to ‘take life easy for a while’. He allowed it to enter his thinking and was an excuse for doing nothing. He was like a hippy from the 1960s but without the culture; ‘laid back’ all by himself but it was a reaction to a lack of confidence. So the body, it’s definitely Norbert?”

  “More than likely. Your description fits the description given by the pathologist Dr D’Acre of the appearance of the body as it would be in life. The NUS ID card was found in the rucksack.”

  “I remember his rucksack, a red one.”

  “Sounds like it is him. The dental check will confirm it. You’ll be able to let us have the name of Norbert’s dentist?”

  “Mr Vere, Station Terrace, Bridlington.”

  Yellich wrote the name and address in his notebook.

  “And Norbert’s friend?”

  “Fella called Joe, Joe Patterson. I have Norbert’s address book upstairs, if that would help you.”

  “Ideal,” Hennessey smiled. “Ideal.”

  In which a man of the cloth provides three names and the police decide to rattle a cage or two.

  By virtue of the address book, the only “Joe” in the book was deemed to be Joseph Patterson. The phone number beside the name was twenty years old but was rung nonetheless. It proved to be the number of “Joe’s” mother, who provided the police with “dear Joseph’s” present address, in Harrogate. One hour later Hennessey and Yellich knocked on his door.

  “Oh, Norbert.” Joe Patterson had invited the police officers through the pleasant chaos of his house, wife, children, dog, cat, hamsters, to the sanctity and the tranquillity of his study. “He didn’t have an easy time of it. It’s difficult to be accepted if you’re not particularly bright, don’t have a perceptible personality, don’t come from the middle classes.”

  “Which was Norbert Parkes?”

  “As you say.” Patterson sat back, wearing his clerical collar and smooth front, buttonless shirt. “He had nothing to offer, basically that was his problem, no image, no academic skills, no interest outside the course that he could talk about or that would give himself an aspect to himself. He wanted to belong, as we all do, but had nothing to offer as a means of gaining acceptance. So he became a bit of a hanger-on.”

  “Do you remember your social circle at the university?”

  “Oh, like yesterday. Let me see. I suppose the leader of the group was Miles Trewlawney, came from a well established legal family in the Vale of York. He had a real down on Norbert, gave him a hard time, resented people like Norbert attending the university. He was a real snob. I didn’t take to him, but I did like ‘Hat’ Sewell, Harriet to give her her full name, and a Scots lad called Cameron McKay. I was accepted by them and Norbert latched on to me. And we socialized together throughout the three years of the course, with Norbert ‘taking life easy’ all the time.”

  “That’s an expression we’ve heard before today.”

  “It was Norbert’s catch phrase. His excuse for not applying himself. He’d ‘dropped out’ without ever really having ‘dropped in’. I don’t know the full extent of his home circumstances, his background, his growing up, but he wasn’t equipped for life. The overindulged younger son perhaps? I don’t know. But university was a shock when he found he wasn’t the centre of attention and that he was expected to work for his grades. A bit ‘disabled’ in a sense. I suppose that’s why I allowed him to latch on to me.”

  “The last time you saw him?”

  “After graduation. The last time I heard of him though was when I was invited to help Miles housesit his parent’s house. He phoned me up and added with a snigger that ‘Norbert will be there’. I declined. I knew Miles Trewlawney, I knew his invitation to Norbert was only so as to show Norbert what he was missing in terms of quality of lifestyle and to have him there as the butt of all jokes and patronizing comments. And I also thought I’d done enough for Norbert. That was the summer after graduation, twenty years ago. How time flies.”

  Driving back to York Hennessey asked Yellich to prepare a press release, stating that the body discarded in the wood in the Vale of York “is believed to be that of Norbert Parkes who disappeared, aged twenty-one years, twenty years ago”.

  “That,” said Hennessey, “ought to rattle a cage.”

  “Or two,” added Yellich, keeping his eyes on the road.

  Tuesday

  In which three well-set, middle-class felons learn the meaning of Dame Agatha Christie’s observation that “the past casts long shadows”.

  Harriet Cooper noted with distaste how overweight Miles Trewlawney had grown and was impressed how, despite his wealth, how youthful and slender Cameron McKay had remained. They had arranged the meeting at short notice, a rapid ringing round, a meeting place had been agreed as being the car park behind the Rising Sun, a pub they used to drive out to in their student days. The three had arrived within five minutes of each other. She had the modest Ford, her family’s second car, Cameron McKay had a Mercedes Benz, and Miles, of course, had a Rolls Royce. They approached each other, nodding sheepishly. This was not the sort of joyful, hugging, hand-shaking reunion that they might have envisaged having when in their youth.

  “It was on the mid-evening news last night,” Harriet Cooper said.

  “I heard it too,” Cameron McKay nodded. “Believed to be Norbert Parkes. It’s only a matter of time before they confirm identity. I read they can match dental records because teeth don’t decay, well not like flesh. I mean that . . .”

  “We know what you mean.” Miles Trewlawney cut him off.

  “We’ve got to go to the police.” Harriet Cooper was urgent, agitated. “Make a clean breast of it.”

  “No.” Trewlawney avoided eye contact. “There’ll be no police.”

  “Thought you might say that, Miles.” Cameron McKay glanced coldly at him. “You’ve more to lose than we have. And further from grace to fall, not only your position, but your family’s hard earned reputation in the Vale. What are you, third generation in the firm?”

  “Fifth actually. Well fifth in the family. Third since we amalgamated with Wells and Isles and Co.”

  “Don’t get off the point,” Harriet Cooper snapped. “You’re looking at life, Cameron and I . . . much, much less . . . perverting the course of justice . . .”

  “Accessory to murder.” Trewlawney raised his eyebrows. “We’re all looking at serious time.”

  “Accessory . . .” Cameron McKay’s voice trailed off. “Are you sure?”

  “I am a solicitor.”

  “You’re also motivated to frighten us into silence.”

  “There’s nothing to link us to the murder.” Trewlawney spoke slowly. “Nothing. The police investigation will peter out. It has to, they’re thinly stretched. In a few days time there’ll be another murder, much fresher and the file on Norbert will be put in a drawer to gather dust. We’re all about halfway through our life expectancy, we’ve kept quiet for twenty years, if we can keep quiet for another forty, we’ll have got away with it.”

  “You see, that’s the point, Miles.” Harriet Cooper spoke in the way she only wished she could have spoken to Miles Trewlawney at the time. “I don’t know whether I want to get away with it.”

  “Ah . . .” Trewlawney pulled his shoulders back. “Don’t go soft on me, Harriet. Not after all this time.”

  “Actually, it’s not after all this time, it’s only a month ago in a sense. I buried the memory, you see. It’s very fresh for me. It belongs to yesterday.”

  “And your husband? And your children?”

  “Don’t you think I haven’t thought of them? But what about Norbert’s family? They have a right to know what happened to their son.”

  The conversation fell away into a silence as a young man walked past them to his car. Then Cameron McKay asked, “Did anyone know where Norbert was? Who else knows he was at the house at the time?”

  “Well, he couldn’t have told his parents because he did
n’t know the address.”

  “That’s right,” Cameron McKay said softly. “I remember I picked him up at York Station in my Land Rover. The ‘Great Green Land Crab’ I called it.”

  There was a lull in the conversation then Harriet Cooper said, “Joe Patterson, he knew. He phoned me and asked me if I was going to Miles’ parents house for a few days? I said I was. He said he was undecided but he probably wouldn’t because he was tired of protecting Norbert.”

  “You’ve got a good memory,” Trewlawney sneered.

  “Like I said, for me it’s like it happened yesterday.”

  “But it means Joe Patterson can put Norbert at Miles’ house at the time he disappeared. It’s all they need.”

  “No, that and a confession, perhaps. But that alone won’t be enough to convict.” Trewlawney glared at Harriet Cooper. “So we stay silent. Understood?”

  But driving home Harriet Cooper thought Miles Trewlawney had intimidated her for far too long. And he hadn’t seen the look of shock, horror and betrayal that had flashed across Norbert’s eyes the instant that the pickaxe handle had struck the back of his head. She had. Nor had Miles Trewlawney seen the look of sneering contempt on his own face as he put every ounce of strength he could muster into delivering the blow. She had. She had seen that too.

  And finally, in which a woman reminds her children of Captain Laurence Oates, George Hennessey tells his wife about his lover, and a man thinks a smug thought about his wife.

  The woman pondered whether to wait for her husband to come home but she decided against it, the wrench would, she felt, be too much to bear. But she made an excellent lunch for her two delighted children and then went to speak to the daily help. She explained to the help that she had to go out, and asked her, in return for extra money, if she could wait in the house until her husband returned at about six p.m. so as to ensure the children were supervised by a responsible adult at all times, as the law requires. She then returned to the dining room and said, “I’m going out now. I may be some time.”