game. They’ll slip up one day but these fellas are very clever, very thorough. They seem to be well aware that every contact leaves a trace. . so very careful. . most carefully not wanting to cut themselves it seems, so as not to leave DNA behind. . clean breaking of panes of glass has become their hallmark.’
‘Right,’ Hennessey sat forward, ‘so Webster and Yellich, I want you two to team up. Find this damned Canadian and find out more about the victim. She came from somewhere and he has gone somewhere. Pursue both lines of enquiry. At some point they will converge.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Yellich replied promptly.
‘For myself, I intend to visit a gentleman who has been helpful before. I doubt he will know the Canadian man but he might know Mrs Hemmings. If she has been stealing from her employers in the Vale for a number of years then my man will probably know her. Was the date of entry stamped on her passport?’
‘No, sir.’
‘No matter. So the other place of employment she had before she worked for Beattie. . that will have to be visited, and we also need to find the guest house he used when he was in the area.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, leave it to you two gentlemen to see what you see and to find what you find.’
‘It’s been over two years now, confess it seems like it was yesterday. Damned woman. . I feel that this house was contaminated by her.’
The address of the man who had employed Edith Hemmings nee Avrille and whose character reference Alexander Beattie described as a ‘work of convincing fiction’ revealed itself to be a large and a lovingly tended property set in its own grounds with stables adjoining the main building. Other outbuildings were visible, including a large greenhouse development. Upon halting the car on the gravel in front of the house and drawing back the metal ring pull by the front door, Yellich and Webster were greeted leisurely by an elderly butler. The man wore a dark jacket with grey pinstriped trousers and highly polished shoes. He was clearly a man with a serious attitude to his position and closely examined the IDs of both officers. He then invited Yellich and Webster into the house, showing them into a large wood panelled foyer in which a log fire crackled and burned welcomingly in a cast iron grate within a stone built fireplace. He then asked the officers to wait and excused himself. The fire seemed to speak to the officers of emotional warmth as well as of a very welcome heat. The foyer was further softened by two large, highly polished brass pots which stood either side of the door and within each of which a thriving yucca plant was established. The foyer smelled of wood smoke mingling with furniture polish.
The butler returned after an absence of about five minutes, Webster guessed, and he warmly and politely invited the officers into an anteroom softly but tastefully furnished with armchairs and a table surrounded by upright chairs. The room, Yellich and Webster noted, was smaller than the foyer but was similarly appointed with wood panelling and had an equally welcoming log fire burning in a cast iron grate. Oil paintings of rural scenes hung on the wall. The butler invited the officers to sit, saying, ‘Mr Rigall will be with you shortly.’
‘Shortly’ transpired to be very short. In fact no more than sixty seconds after Yellich and Webster were left in the room to await Mr Rigall, the man entered. He was tall, powerfully built, dressed in faded denim jeans and a blue shirt over which he wore a large, sloppy woollen cardigan. He was clean shaven, short-haired and he smelled of aftershave. Webster and Yellich stood as he entered the room and he waved them to resume their seats. Rigall apologized for keeping them waiting, explaining in a soft voice that he had been under the shower when they called. ‘I am a bit of a late riser,’ he added by means of explanation. ‘How can I help you?’
Webster explained the reason for their visit.
Rigall groaned and sank into a leather clad armchair. He then said, ‘It’s been two years now. . confess it seems like it was yesterday. Damn woman.’
‘Tell us about her. . please,’ Yellich asked, as Webster took his notebook from his jacket.
‘Where to start?’ He twisted his body and took a packet of cigarettes from his jeans pocket. ‘Sorry. . do you mind?’
‘Not at all, sir.’
‘Would either of you gentlemen like a cigarette?’
‘No, thank you, sir,’ Webster said as Yellich gave his head a brief shake, and added. ‘Thank you anyway, sir.’
‘Sensible. Wish I didn’t but with my wife no longer here to tell me off I have picked up quite a few bad habits, this being one such. I manage the estate and have some business interests but you know, I confess I quite enjoyed surrendering my everyday life to my wife’s control, it seemed to take the pressure off me when I came home. . and she had a strict “no smoking” rule so I observed it. It was her house and she was the boss. It would not suit all men but it suited me.’ He lit the cigarette with an inexpensive blue coloured disposable lighter. ‘We were an odd couple in many regards. She was a small, quick woman who could be sharp-tongued and very quick-tempered when it suited her. I do not apologize for it, I am well built and much slower moving than she was, much calmer in my attitude. We were yang and yin. We were just like a hand and a glove.’ He drew deeply on the cigarette. ‘She died suddenly in a riding accident. . sorry to ramble but I promise that it all builds up to explaining how the Canadian creature came to live here. It is the background.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Webster replied, gently sensing that Tony Rigall also needed to tell them the story for his own highly personal reasons.
‘No one saw the accident. Her horse found its way back to the stables whinnying in distress. . snorting and neighing. . heavens, the damn thing actually raised the alarm. She and her horse loved each other; there was a real bond there, a real relationship. Any other beast would have just stood there chewing the grass waiting for someone to lead it home, but “Scarlet” — her horse, she had a distinct reddish tinge on her flank, hence her name — Scarlet galloped home, back to the stables, and raised the alarm. Two of the estate workers followed her back to where my wife was lying motionless on the ground.’ He paused. ‘Anyway, she was DOA at the hospital. It was a blessing. There is such a thing as a “quality of life”. She was thirty-five, still a young woman. The fracture was high up on the spine near the base of the neck. One vertebra lower and she would have been a tetraplegic, paralysed from the neck down and with another forty plus years of life left to live. Trapped on a lifeless body, her head would have been perched on the top of a vegetable. She was very physical, horse riding, swimming, cross-country running, hill walking, you name it. . all on top of managing the house. She had a way with the staff; she could inspire them to want to work for her, she was a natural leader. She ran a very peaceful and efficient home. . she created a very happy ship.’
‘I am sorry,’ Webster offered. ‘That is tragic.’
‘Thank you, but life has to go on and I think of her as lucky dead, rather than dead lucky.’
‘Yes,’ Yellich spoke softly. ‘I know what you mean.’
‘Do you?’
‘Yes, I think I do. We see life. . police officers see life, it’s the nature of the beast. . and I think I fear permanent severe disability more than I fear death. As you say, sir, there has to be a certain quality of life, a certain minimum quality to make life bearable.’
‘Yes,’ Tony Rigall smiled, ‘that’s a very good way of putting it. So there was, overnight, a huge gap in the house and it was shortly after that occurring that that woman arrived. That damned Canadian. No one could have replaced Amelia. . no one. . and I didn’t want to replace her on an emotional level, no one could have done that, as I said, but I did need someone to organize the house. We. . I had a cook. . I didn’t want her to cook in the kitchen and we had maids to clean, so I advertised for. . for I don’t know what. . a house manager, someone to run the place on a day-to-day basis in the way my lovely wife had done. Someone to keep the overview.’ Rigall leaned back in his chair and glanced upwards. ‘Big mistake. . that was the story of Julia arriving. . she had no references but no one else wanted the job and she impressed well at the interview.’
‘Where did she come from? Did she say?’ Yellich glanced upwards at the ornate ceiling.
‘Canada. She was newly arrived from Canada. She said that she was looking for a new start in life.’ Rigall drew heavily on the cigarette. ‘She seemed to settle in, seemed to be pleasant at first. Then our cook left without saying why she was leaving, and then the maids. I knew the maids would leave when cook left because the maids were. . well, I don’t want to sound patronizing but by means of explanation I’ll describe them as “simple-minded”, and cook kept an eye on them. She was very protective towards them, motherly almost. She wouldn’t let anyone put upon them. . but cook leaving was a shock, cook was really in with the bricks. It turned out that the Canadian female just irritated her; she just wouldn’t stay out of the kitchen, always interfering. In any house of this size the kitchen belongs to the cook and if you don’t know that, or don’t accept that, then you are in trouble. That’s the rule.
