was the sort of girl who’d eat one if an adult told her it was good.
‘The women of our family saw through Ossetti before the men did. . all that female intuition. . but by then she had fled, she’d done what she intended to do, taken a life without being able to be prosecuted for it. But my sister-in-law is one of five sisters, they would have killed her for doing that to Felicity, and Ossetti knew that so she fled.’
‘You followed her to England. Why?’
‘To kill her,’ he spoke matter-of-factly. ‘I went to England to kill her. With me though it was more in cold anger than in hot passion. All I had to go on in terms of her whereabouts was a postcard she had sent to her buddies care of McTeer’s Bar, a postcard of the city of York. I teach. . at the university in Toronto. . Modern History. I don’t have academic permanency, just a series of short-term contracts, so when I had time I flew over a few times and gradually hunted her down. It took a year or two. Had to make sure it was her, she was well disguised.’
‘We know.’
‘Eventually I cornered her in the street in York with folk all around us. I told her. I said, “I have come all this way to kill you and you know what? When it comes to it you’re just not worth it. I don’t see why our family should lose two people because of you. We lost Felicity. . I don’t want our family to lose me as well.” I mean, twenty years in a British prison, then extradited back to. . back to nothing. . stripped of my job prospects, and too old to work anyway. She would have won twice over but I said to her, “Don’t ever return to Ontario because if you do, then I know a bunch of women who will tear you apart” and since Ontario province is her home, that would leave her rootless for life. Then I turned and walked away. . went to London and the following day I threw a couple of coins in a fountain and then took the subway out to the airport and flew home.’
‘We’ll have to take a statement,’ Yellich said, ‘but that won’t be the end of it.’
‘I appreciate that,’ Tenby smiled. ‘My denial is not proof of my innocence. I will cooperate all I can, but I have delivered myself and my family from evil. . delivered us from evil. . real evil. . a weight is lifted from us.’
Marianne Auphan stood naked at the window of her bedroom and watched as a yellow tractor trailer entered the yard of the business premises a quarter of a mile away across the open field which still boasted remnants of snow despite the hot sun and clear blue sky. ‘Well, one of us will have to relocate. .’
‘I know,’ Ventnor, also naked, lay atop the bed and looked up at the ceiling. ‘I know.’
‘And it won’t be me, I am too strongly rooted in Canada, this is my home. You have a decision to make.’
‘I know that also.’ Ventnor rolled on his side and looked at her. ‘I know that. . don’t I know that, already.’
Carmen Pharoah and Reginald Webster drove out to the derelict business park where Edith Hemmings/Heather Ossetti had been held captive prior to being strangled and left for dead beside the canal. They had photographs to take of the location to complete their report. As they approached they saw a small figure in a raincoat and hat standing in front of the unit in which Ossetti had been kept hostage and as they drew nearer the figure was recognized to be that of Mr Stanley Hemmings. His small red van was parked close by.
The two officers left their vehicle and approached Hemmings. ‘I am just trying to get some closure,’ he explained in a shaky voice.
‘How did you know she was held here?’ Webster asked. ‘Not just at this site, but in this very unit?’
‘You told me.’
‘No we didn’t,’ Carmen Pharoah spoke quietly, ‘we kept this quiet. No one, only the police, knew that this was where your wife was kept before she was murdered.’
‘I think you’d better come with us,’ Webster added. ‘Do we need handcuffs?’
‘No,’ Hemmings shook his head slowly. ‘No, you don’t need them.’
The middle-aged man and woman, clearly, to an observer, very comfortable in each other’s company, sat beside the log fire in the pub. They wore walking boots and had placed their knapsacks on the floor at their feet.
‘Her husband was her last victim in a sense,’ the man said. ‘Harmless sort, worked in a biscuit factory, and who brought evil into the house where he had grown up. Could no longer cope with her endless complaints that compared him to the other men she had had, constantly telling him that she was now demeaning herself being with him. Eventually, the worm turned. .’
‘What will he collect, do you think?’
‘Life. . but he’ll serve only about five years, probably less. . come out to nothing but the dole for the rest of his days. Well, dare say we got our man and the Canadians got their first female serial killer.’
‘Second,’ the woman smiled at him.
‘Second?’
‘Yes, you’re forgetting Karla Homolka. . remember? Murdered three teenage girls, her together with her boyfriend, one of their victims being Homolka’s own younger sister.’
‘Ah, yes. . how could I forget her? So they got their second female serial killer.’
‘That they know of.’
‘Yes, that they know of,’ the man nodded. ‘Frightens me sometimes. .’
‘What does?’ She laid her hand on his.
‘What is going on out there that we don’t know about, all the missing person reports that should be murder inquiries. . but just think. . all that travel and the expense of same and the felon was under our noses all the time.’
‘Annoying,’ said the woman. ‘Must have been a good experience for DS Yellich and DC Ventnor though. I would have found it very interesting.’
‘Don’t know what they thought about it. Yellich seems happy to be back home with his family. .’ The man paused. ‘Ventnor, he’s returned as though he is incubating a tropical disease. He’s listless and detached and has somehow acquired the annoying habit of adding the word “already” to the end of every sentence he speaks.’
‘Oh, that could be irritating, already,’ the woman smiled, ‘but you know what’s happened there?’
‘No.’
‘He’s in love, already.’
The man groaned and then fell silent as a cheery young woman approached them carrying a tray of steaming food. ‘The steak and kidney pie?’ she asked.
‘That’s me.’ George Hennessey released his hand from the woman’s gentle caress.
‘And I’m the cottage pie,’ said Louise D’Acre.
