less able to withstand the cold, but she evidently had full and unrestricted access to toilet facilities. . her clothing wasn’t soiled. I will trawl for poisons as a matter of course but I do not expect to find any. I’ll send a blood sample to toxicology anyway. So, my findings will be that she was held against her will for forty-eight hours, deprived of food and fluid in that time but had access to toileting facilities, though probably not a water flush otherwise she would have drunk something. She was then strangled, removed to the place where she was found and left for dead, but briefly regained consciousness before dying of hypothermia. Murder. Without a doubt. Murder.’
Hennessey nodded his thanks, ‘Appreciated, ma’am.’
Less than an hour later George Hennessey stood silently beside a sombre Somerled Yellich and an equally sombre Carmen Pharoah. ‘It was’, they both assured Hennessey, ‘definitely the place where she was kept.’
The ‘place’ was a prefabricated metal building with a concrete floor, which had been stripped of all plant and machinery that it might once have contained, so all that remained were a few empty shelves, a two-year-old calendar on the wall, discarded plastic bags, a few isolated pieces of paper on the floor and a chemical toilet, without any form of enclosure, furthest from the entrance doorway, in the corner. A length of medium weight chain was attached to the wall close to the toilet. Two shorter lengths of a lighter gauge chain and four small brass padlocks lay on the floor, also close to the toilet.
‘Two short lengths of lightweight chain to bind her feet and hands — ’ Yellich pointed them out to Hennessey, ‘well, to bind her wrists and ankles, I should say.’
‘Better,’ Hennessey turned to Yellich and smiled — ‘but I knew what you meant.’
‘Yes, sir. . and a larger length of chain to stop her wandering too far about the floor or escaping. The lightweight chain is of sufficient length to allow her a little freedom of movement, I would think.’
‘Yes.’ Hennessey looked at the interior of the metal shed. There was, he noted, with no small amount of dismay, no source of heating nor any form of comfort. The woman had just the cold concrete floor to lie or stand or sit on. The floor area was large enough to accommodate, he guessed, perhaps five or six average size cars, and the length of chain he further guessed would have permitted her to access approximately half that area. The shed itself was one of five similar sheds, and occupied a remote location on the eastern edge of the city of York, some two or three miles from the nearest occupied dwelling, or so it appeared to Hennessey.
‘All the other units are empty, sir,’ Yellich spoke quietly. ‘That is to say, they are not in current use. They are all solidly padlocked up. It seems to have been a small-scale industrial estate, now abandoned. This particular shed had been broken into, someone had forced entry.’
‘I see. .’ Hennessey murmured and then said, ‘It explains the electricity bill.’
‘Yes, sir, she had quite a presence of mind, as you say.’
‘Yes. . she was kept here for two days or at least not fed for the last two days she was here. . not allowed water either.’
‘Two days?’
‘Yes, so Dr D’Acre estimates by the absence of food in the stomach and the shrunken kidneys. . no food or water for forty-eight hours. She would have been very cold and much weakened by the absence of sustenance. She would not have had the strength to shout, no one would hear her if she did and who would wander up here? It is too remote to be of interest to teenage vandals, and it is the wrong time of year anyway. Vandalism tends to be a summer and autumn activity, as we know, and the criminal fraternity would know the sheds had been stripped bare, that is assuming that the others are as empty as this one.’
‘We still have to check them, sir.’
‘Yes, better make sure none of the others contain any bad news. Is SOCO on its way?’
‘Yes, sir, hopefully they won’t get lost this time,’ Yellich added with a smile.
‘Good. She died of exposure by the way, froze to death as we first thought.’
‘I see, sir.’
‘But strangled prior to that and then taken out of doors and left for dead.’ Hennessey pointed to a length of electricity cable which lay snake-like on the floor. ‘Have you touched that?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Don’t. The person who kept her here didn’t pick up after himself. . the chain, the padlocks, it’s all here and that cable was probably used to strangle her. It’s all still here. It’ll be much too much to hope that the murderer left his dabs on the chain or the locks or the cable, but ask SOCO to check them anyway, and then get them off to Wetherby. The scientists might get DNA traces. . they’ll certainly get hers but maybe someone else’s also. Do that as soon as you can.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Yellich replied briskly.
‘I’m going back to the station. Who’s there? Do you know?’
‘Webster, sir. Webster’s holding the fort.’
‘Webster? All right, he’ll do. . I’ll phone him from here on my mobile.’
Reginald Webster gently tapped on the highly polished wooden frame of the doorway to George Hennessey’s office and entered. Hennessey, sitting in the chair behind his desk, looked up and smiled as Reginald Webster entered. Webster always found Hennessey’s office to be much on the small side for one of Detective Chief Inspector’s rank and he noticed again how spartan Hennessey kept it, with just a Police Mutual calendar on the wall as the only form of softening or decoration. A small table stood in the corner by the office window upon which sat an electric kettle, a box of fair trade teabags, powdered milk and half a dozen half pint drinking mugs. The window itself offered a view across Micklegate Bar of the walls of the city, at that moment glistening with rapidly evaporating frost.
‘You were quite correct, sir.’ Webster slid unbidden on to the chair which stood in front of Hennessey’s desk. He handed Hennessey a manila folder. ‘Seems to be the deceased, sir, one Mrs Edith Hemmings, forty-seven years, and with a home address here in York.’
‘It’s her,’ Hennessey spoke matter-of-factly as he considered the photograph which was attached to the missing person’s file. ‘It’s a match. “Dringhouses”,’ he read the address on the file, ‘modest address, self-respecting people, privately owned homes but by her clothing. . you know. . I thought she’d be much more. . more. .’
‘Monied?’ Webster suggested.
‘Yes, that’s the word I was looking for, more monied.’ He paused. ‘Well, there is an unpleasant job to be done now.’
‘But the post-mortem has been done, sir.’
‘Yes, and Dr D’Acre had no need to disturb the face.’
‘I see. . useful.’
‘Yes. Phone York District Hospital and ask them to prepare the body for viewing, then do the necessary, please. I see that it was her husband who reported her missing?’
‘Yes, sir. . two days ago.’
‘Next of kin. He’ll be the one to take.’ Hennessey handed the folder back to Webster. ‘Talk to him afterwards. . see where you get but don’t put him on his guard.’
‘You’ve found her and you want me to identify the body?’ Stanley Hemmings revealed himself to be a short, slightly built man with closely trimmed, slicked down hair which was parted in the centre as in the fashion of the Victorians, so Webster understood it to have been. It was certainly, he thought, an unusual hairstyle for the early twenty-first century. Most unusual indeed. Hemmings wore dark clothing as if he was prematurely in mourning, black trousers, a brown woollen pullover, black shoes, grey shirt, black tie.
‘Possibly,’ Webster replied. ‘But yes, we need confirmation of the identity of a body which may be that of Mrs Hemmings.’
‘My neighbour told me that that would be the way of it.’
‘Really?’ Webster stood outside the front door of the Hemmingses’ house in Dringhouses and found it to be just as Hennessey had described: modest, yet self-respecting. A three bedroom semi-detached inter-war house with a small neatly kept garden to the front, on a matured estate of identical houses.
‘Yes. He told me that if two officers call, they will want information, but if one calls it is to collect you to view Edith’s body, or a body which might be Edith. He said it was the first indication you’ll get. . two call, the police have questions, but if one calls it’s because they have found her body.’
‘Or
‘I’ll get my coat. . just a minute, please.’ Hemmings turned and went back inside his house.
In the car, driving to York District Hospital, Webster broke the uncomfortable silence by saying, ‘It won’t be
