next youngest victim.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Yellich continued. ‘Mr Sparrow also told me that the estate was well policed by poachers from the village. The estate, once it had been abandoned, appears to have been a major source of food for Milking Nook.’ He smiled, ‘I just love that name. I swear. . only in England. . but to continue, the estate was harvested by the locals for its game and fruit. They kept “alien” poachers from neighbouring villages out and kept a protective eye on Mr Housecarl, and didn’t alarm him by letting off shotguns within a quarter of a mile of Bromyards. And yet. . yet one or more persons was able to deposit nine bodies in the kitchen garden without being observed. . but the quarter of a mile from the house is interesting because it explains why no one heard the women. They were gagged with rope ties, that would have prevented them from crying out for help, or from screaming, but they could have made a grunting sound and done so quite loudly, possibly loudly enough to carry for two hundred yards on a still night, especially in winter.’
‘Yes,’ Hennessey sipped his tea. ‘Webster?’
‘They all disappeared in the winter months,’ Webster explained, ‘well, eight did. . the ninth body is as yet unidentified, but barring the possibility that they were kept against their will for up to six months, and if they were taken to Bromyards on the night of their abduction and left in the kitchen garden, then they would have died of hypothermia. They would have probably died before dawn. None had evidence of being clothed. . no zip fasteners, or plastic buttons, or rotted remains of fabric.’
‘So I thought I’d go back and talk to one of the poachers. . I am sure Jeff Sparrow could suggest a likely candidate. He or she could tell me what it would take to get a motor vehicle up to Bromyards without being seen.’
‘Good idea,’ Hennessey smiled. ‘You’ve just talked yourself into a job.’
‘Now,’ Yellich continued, ‘Mr Sparrow did once see a stranger on the estate, a person he described as a “townie”. He gave a reasonable description but this was ten years ago.’
‘So, at the time of the first disappearance?’
‘Yes, sir. He apparently looked as though he was surveying the estate.’
‘Him,’ Hennessey pointed to Yellich, ‘him we need to identify, if we can.’
‘Yes, sir, if we can. Mr Sparrow also made a valid point, being that the man would have had to know the estate was there, the entrance to the drive isn’t grand, it’s modest, just the beginning of a driveway between two trees, no indication that it’s a mile long and leads to a mansion. You’d drive past it without noticing it. That man must have heard about Mr Housecarl abandoning his estate grounds, that information reached his ears by word of mouth. So he links, albeit vicariously, with someone in the village, whether an employee of Mr Housecarl’s or not.’
‘Yes,’ again Hennessey smiled approvingly at Yellich, ‘it’s a link. Ensure you record that in the file.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Pharoah, Ventnor?’
‘We looked into the first identified victim. . the last of the victims, Veronica Goodwin. I’m afraid we came up with a motiveless murder. Lived with her mother, employed at Gordon and Moxon’s, on thin ice at work because of a drink problem, but we came across no one who would want to harm her and no reason for anyone to harm her. She seems to have been a random victim.’
‘All right. So, Webster, back to you. .’
‘Well, the victims we might have identified, eight of the nine, make a strange picture. . their ages are strange.’ Webster glanced at his notes, ‘Twenty-two years. . thirty-three years. . all right, that is the usual sort of age for a woman to fall victim to a serial killer but then the age of the victims rise up to sixty-three. . highly unusual for female victims.’
‘I’ll say.’ Yellich reclined in his chair.
‘We need to find out more about the victims. Women of that age do not walk about the streets late at night; they are at home with their families.’ Hennessey glanced out of the window of his office at the medieval walls of the city and noticed that they were beginning to crowd with tourists. ‘They will link,’ he said. ‘Somewhere they will have something in common. So. . Ventnor. . you look at Angela Prebble and Paula Rees.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Pharoah.’
‘Sir?’
‘Gladys Penta and Rosemary Arkwright.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Webster. . Helena Tunnicliffe and Roslyn Farmfield.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you’d also better have Denise Clay as well.’
‘Understood, sir.’
‘Review here at nine tomorrow. Sunday working I know, but needs must.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘For myself, I have a summons to see the Commander and then a press conference. I think I know what he wants.’
The man killed James Post by strangling him.
The man knew the other man was not up to it, not up to it at all, too weak, utterly spineless. So, when it was that James Post came running up the drive of the man’s house, his face red with exertion, and panting so desperately that the man considered stepping back and letting the Post’s heart do the job for him. But James Post calmed and sat on the man’s couch, his face getting progressively paler as his breathing eased and he became a small man. . worried. . scared. . a man who was childlike in his fear, so the other man, the householder, had always thought. . and childlike in the absence of patience, childlike in his cruelty to his victims. . to their victims. The householder had always scoffed at the notion of childhood innocence. Children, he had always argued, are psychopaths, damaging living things and each other with their absence of empathy. That is why scissors in primary schools are blunt with rounded ends, so that children do not stab each other. And here he is, he that can be so gleefully cruel, shaking with fear on the sofa, whimpering, ‘What are we going to do? What are we going to do?’ And so the second man, the calmer of the two, the householder, advanced on the whimpering man with his huge hands outstretched and calmly encircled the second man’s neck with them and began to squeeze, and when James Post looked at him with terror in his eyes, the second man smiled at him and he continued smiling at him until James Post had stopped clawing at his hands and his body fallen limp. He carried James Post’s body into his study and laid it on the floor and then drove into York looking for a suitable container. He found one in a charity shop. It was sufficiently large and robust, and he paid twice the asking price for it and left the shop with, ‘Thank you, sir, very generous,’ singing in his ears.
It was with no little reluctance that George Hennessey tapped on Commander Sharkey’s door, and it was with no little reluctance that he accepted the invitation to sit in the chair in front of the Commander’s desk.
‘Things all right for you, George?’ Sharkey asked warmly, but there was a nervousness in the warmth. ‘I mean, I have no complaints about you but I am still worried. Not overburdened?’
‘No, sir, thank you all the same.’
‘It’s just that Johnny Taighe won’t happen on my watch. It was a bad show. You know, I think about him more and more often. Our very able maths teacher left our school to advance himself and Johnny Taighe, who taught lower school maths, was told to teach final year maths to national certificate level. He just couldn’t do it. He once froze in front of the blackboard because he couldn’t understand the problem he’d put up, and he went and sat in a vacant seat next to a very able pupil and said, “What do you think we should do now?” That stays with me, George, a teacher leaving the front of the class to go and sit among the pupils because he couldn’t understand the subject he was supposed to teach.’
‘That is. . unfortunate. . yes, sir.’
‘And he had a beer belly and a large, red nose, so he was drinking heavily. . self-medicating with alcohol, and smoking too much. . and was full of false good humour, all the indicators, and none of his colleagues picked up on them. He went home one night, complained of feeling unwell and had a massive coronary. That is not going to happen on my watch, so if things are getting too much for you, then let me know.’
‘I am all right, sir,’ Hennessey held up his hand. ‘Thank you, but I am well on top of things now I have Pharoah, Webster and Ventnor to assist me, and Sergeant Yellich. I am more desk-bound than anything. I do miss
