THE WOODCARVER
Sophie Crybacce found her husband, she found him when she was not looking for him, not expecting to see him, and she found him dead. She had returned from visiting her sister in Sheffield and had chosen to make the homeward journey to York early in the afternoon to avoid the rush-hour traffic which, despite the best efforts of the town planners and the North Yorkshire Highways Department, succeeds in log-jamming the medieval city each weekday between seven and nine A.M., and again between four-thirty and six-thirty p.m. Sophie Crybacce enjoyed the drive, a pleasant summer's day, only an hour between Sheffield and York, hood down, just her and her silver Mercedes Benz sports car, knowing that she was attractive and flaunting it, silk scarf and designer sunglasses. She had become a rich man's wife via the catwalk. She had never enough about her to become a top model, nor had she any desire to be such, having seen the catwalk only as a means of advertising herself as free, available, and in the market for a husband. She had taken her mother's advice. Her mother had been, and in fact was still, an embittered woman who had married 'down,' from relative wealth to the absolute poverty of a life on the dole, never really enough to eat and clothes from the charity shops. She had brought her two daughters up not to repeat her mistakes. The only thing that matters about a man, she would say, is the size of his wallet, not the size of his heart or his brain or anything else, just the size of his wallet; only his wallet and nothing but his wallet. Even before Sophie Crybacce and her sister had started school, their mother had ensured that they both knew how to spell the word 'wallet.' The lesson had, as the north-country expression has it, been 'dinned into' the heads of the two girls. And both had clearly been receptive to her advice, for Carol began to call herself by the classier name of Caroline, and had married a man much, much older than herself who happened to own a steel-making factory, though she constantly assured him that that did not influence her decision when he asked her to marry him. There were not many steelworks left in Sheffield by then, still less in private ownership, but Caroline's husband, who was older than her father, owned one, and a rambling Victorian mansion in the leafy and prestigious suburb of Dore. For if you live in Sheffield and you own a steelworks, then you live in Dore, with a Rolls Royce for him and a car, any car of her choice, for her, which in Caroline's case was a lovely beige BMW. Sophie Crybacce's husband, by contrast, was of her age group, and as well as his money---and she found that he had plenty of that—she liked him for his ruthlessness, his cunning, which she thought could enable him to outfox a fox. His not bothering about the niceties of back-slapping, not he, not Lucian Crybacce, for when he spilled your blood he would smile as he did so and you would see him smile, for when he stabbed, he stabbed from the front. Sophie Crybacce was proud of her husband, and she was proud of her sister, and their mother was proud of both of them. The women saw nothing of their father, who, at their marriages, felt overcome and socially gauche. So much so that on neither occasion could he give his father-of-the-bride speech, and went then to tend his pigeons and to fish in the canal and enjoy a pint of brown-and-mild with his flat-capped mates in the taproom of the Dog and Gun, which was a corner pub in the middle of terraced streets where he had lived all his life, and he did so as though his marriage and parenthood had never happened.
Sophie Crybacce drove into York and turned down Queen Street beneath the walls of the ancient city, across Lendal Bridge, then left in front of the towering splendour of the Minster and out of the city to the expensive northern side, to the village of Pockling-ton, to the Viking-inspired named Foss Avenue, to number 12, her new-built, airy, split-level house. Not quite as striking and impressive as Caroline's ivy-clad mansion, but his and hers, mainly his, and bought and paid for. Not bad for a girl of only twenty-seven, not bad at all, especially when her husband had in excess of thirty years' working life ahead of him. Who knows, she thought, what untold wealth would be theirs when they were as old as Caroline's husband.
She parked the car in the driveway and got out of the vehicle in the way she had been taught in deportment, to swivel on her bottom with both knees and ankles together, knees raised and toes pointed downwards. 'A man may split his legs when getting out of a horseless carriage, but a lady never does, never, never, not even when wearing slacks, if you really must wear such unladylike attire.... Never.' It was then she noticed that the front door of her house was ajar. That was unusual. It was very unusual. She walked from the car to the gloss-black painted door, her heels clicking on the concrete driveway beside the modest but neatly clipped lawn, and approached the door slowly. She glanced to her left and right. All was quiet in Foss Avenue, second cars on the driveways, no children playing, not at that time of the day and few at any other time. This was a place of upward mobility, a place where children came 'later' if at all. She opened the door, pushing it wide, and called out, 'Lucian . . . hello ...' and her voice echoed in the spacious building. But there was no reply.
She saw the blood first, a smear, very noticeable in her 'just so' home, then beyond the smear was a splatter, and beyond the splatter was a pool, and beyond the pool was her husband, crumpled on the floor, his white-towelling dressing gown having turned crimson.
George Hennessey turned his car into Foss Avenue and smiled warmly, as he always did, when he saw the car, a red-and-white Riley, circa 1947: sleek, with running boards, a 'just don't make 'em like that anymore' sort of car. Still in daily service and maintained, he knew, by a small garage whose proprietor drooled over the vehicle and had, by means of pestering for years and years, finally extracted a promise from the owner that should she ever sell the car, she would offer him first refusal. It was a promise the car's owner had been able to give because she knew that she would never sell the vehicle: It had belonged to her father and in time she would bequeath it to her son. Yet giving the promise meant the garage proprietor would care for the vehicle as if it were his own. Behind the Riley was Sergeant Yellich's fawn-coloured Escort, modest by comparison, and behind that was the police car with the blue flashing light on its roof. The vehicles were parked outside a house across the. door of which a blue-and-white police tape had been tied, and in front of which a constable stood. Hennessey halted his car behind the police car and stepped out onto the pavement. He glanced about him and saw a few people looking at the scene, discreetly so, from the front windows of their houses. He walked up to the house and stooped under the police tape and entered the building just as the bulb in the scene-of-crime officer's camera flashed. Sergeant Yellich stood in the hallway. Hennessey swept his hat from his wavy silver hair and nodded to Yellich.
'Afternoon, sir,' Yellich said briskly. 'One deceased male, believed to be one Lucian Crybacce.'
'Crybacce? Unusual name.'
'It is a bit, isn't it, sir? He was stabbed repeatedly in the chest. He was found by his wife, lady in the front room.'
'Lead on, Yellich, lead on. Introduce me.'
Yellich opened the living room door and entered. Hennessey followed him and read the room: deep pile carpet, expensive furniture, ceiling-height mirror, top-of-the-range hi-fi; a room of wealth, but yet, he thought, a room which lacked life, akin to a photograph in an
'This is Detective Inspector Hennessey.' Yellich spoke to Sophie Crybacce. Then said, 'Mrs. Crybacce, sir. She found the body and phoned the police.'
Hennessey nodded at the tearful lady, ashen-faced, wide-eyed. 'I'm sorry. Not a good day for you, madam.'
'I came home about an hour ago now, less. I've been to Sheffield to visit my sister. . . . The front door was open, Lucian was in the kitchen ... blood everywhere.'
'The obvious question—'
'No.' Sophie Crybacce cut Hennessey off in mid sentence. 'No, I don't know anyone who'd want to murder him.'
'Have you noticed anything missing from your home?'
'No. ... If it was burglary, this wouldn't be here.' She indicated the hi-fi. 'I haven't checked my jewellery, but there's no indication of the house having been ransacked, as you see.'
'The door was ajar?'
'Yes.'
'No sign of it having been forced?'
'No ... well, see for yourself. He's in his dressing gown. He must have opened the door to pick up the mail. He would have switched off the alarm before opening the door. You see, my husband, his ... he was ... a businessman, an estate agent. ... He was frightened of petrol being poured through the letter box and set alight, so he had one of those metal postboxes attached to the outside of the house.... You probably noticed it.'
'I did, in fact. Confess I've been toying with the idea of having one fixed to the outside of my house for the same reason. You know, Britain is one of the few countries in the world where folks' mail is pushed through a flap in
