Isaac and Larry could not believe the aberration. Amongst the elegant houses in that area was an unpainted and unloved building. At the side of the house, a driveway with an old wooden garage at the end of it, the doors falling off their hinges. In the front garden, the detritus of years.
Isaac, a fastidious man, did not want to go any further, but he had no option.
Larry raised the large brass knocker on the front door and slammed it down hard. After what seemed an eternity, a voice came from inside the house. ‘What do you want?’
‘Detective Chief Inspector Cook, Detective Inspector Hill,’ Isaac said. ‘We have a few questions for you.’
‘I’ve broken no laws. Go away!’
‘Are you the owner of a house in Bedford Gardens, Kensington?’
‘I own a lot of houses.’
‘Your name is Charles Stanford?’
‘I mind my own business; I suggest you do as well.’
Outside the house, on the pavement, an old woman stood. She was dressed for the chilly weather, in a warm coat and a woollen hat.
‘He doesn’t come out often,’ she said. ‘You’ve seen around the place. You’re from the council, another order to clean up, is that it? Not that you’ll have any more luck than the others. The only way is if you come here with a gang of men and do it yourself.’
‘We’re here to see Mr Stanford,’ Larry said. ‘We’re not from the council; we’re police officers.’
‘If it’s as bad in there as it is out here, then the best of luck,’ the woman said as she continued walking down the street.
Isaac knocked on the door, this time with more gusto than Larry had.
‘I’m coming,’ an exasperated voice shouted. ‘Can’t a person be left alone?’
The door eventually opened. ‘Now, what do you want?’
‘136 Bedford Gardens, Kensington. Are you Mr Stanford, the owner of that property?’
‘’It’s one of mine,’ Stanford said. A dishevelled man, he looked destitute and without a penny to his name. But Bridget Halloran, the department’s internet aficionado, had found out that the man owned at least twelve such properties.
‘It’s been empty for a long time.’
‘More years than I care to remember.’
‘May we come in?’ Isaac asked.
Outside on the street, another woman and her dog had appeared.
‘Don’t let that mutt defecate on my pavement,’ Stanford shouted.
Not that it would have made any difference from what Isaac and Larry could see.
Inside the front room – entry had been granted – the curtains hung in shreds. At the rear of the room, magnificent in its heyday with its decorative ceiling, stood a bookcase full of books, some neat and in rows, some thrown on top of each other. An open fireplace held centre stage in the room; in the past, a log fire would have burnt there, but not today. The room was freezing cold, and Isaac and Larry both hunched their shoulders and buttoned up their jackets. Stanford made no reference to the cold, dressed as he was in tracksuit bottoms, a tee-shirt that had possibly been white once and a dressing gown.
‘What is it with Bedford Gardens?’ Stanford asked. He had sat on one of the sofas in the room; a cat, previously asleep on a window sill, taking what heat it could from the weak sun shining through the window, came up close to him, wanting to be allowed to get on his lap. ‘Get away,’ Stanford said as he pushed the animal roughly to the ground.
‘How long has it been empty?’ Larry said. It wasn’t the first house of a recluse he had been in; it was the worst, though. The smell of the flea-infested cat was overpowering. Cobwebs hung from a chandelier in the centre of the ceiling.
‘Ten, maybe twelve years,’ Stanford said. He kept his head low, avoiding eye contact. He had not proffered a hand when the police officers entered, and no cup of tea was likely to be forthcoming.
‘Do you live on your own?’ Isaac asked.
‘I don’t like people. State your business and leave.’
‘Marcus Matthews. Does the name mean anything to you?’
‘Not to me.’
‘We found him on the top floor of your house in Bedford Gardens, or what remains of him. He’s been dead for six years, and you’re the only one with a key to the place.’
‘It’s the land I want, not the house.’
‘You could have demolished it.’
‘Why?’
‘How else could you get the land?’
‘Buy cheap and wait my time.’
‘Twelve years?’
‘I’m in no hurry, and if you’d checked, you would have found out that 136 Bedford Gardens has structural problems.’
‘Why land? Why not fix the house?’ Larry asked.
‘I don’t see why I’m telling you this, but you’re here now. Planning permission won’t allow me to knock it down, too many rules and regulations, preserving England’s heritage and whatever else. Nonsense if you ask me, but then again, I suppose you’re not interested. Why should I spend money fixing the place up when it’s easier to sell the land unencumbered?’
‘The question remains,’ Isaac said, ‘as to why you’re not concerned that Marcus Matthews is dead on the top floor of the house?’
‘You’re asking the wrong person.’
‘Who would be the right person?’
‘I’d find myself a smart police detective and ask him. Why don’t you just do that and leave me alone?’
‘A smart police officer would ask the owner, wouldn’t they?’
‘Then you’ve had a wasted trip. I don’t know how he got there, and as to why, I don’t care.’
Chapter 4
A visit to Stanford’s local police station and a conversation with Inspector Wally Vincent, a smartly-dressed man in his early forties, had revealed the
