H&Y20 - Deliver Us from Evil (8 page)

‘Really? York Police, I mean . . .’

‘Yes, really.’

‘All right. So, how can I help you?’ Tinsley sat back on the sofa, ‘I am intrigued.’

‘Mr Beattie advised us that once a bearded man in a fur hat and tartan patterned jacket seemed to paying a lot of interest in his house. This was a couple of years ago, or so. He also said you may have got a look at him.’

‘The Canadian? Yes . . . but that’s going back a good few months now, nearly two years, as you say . . . time flies so.’

‘Tell us about him, if you would,’ Yellich asked. ‘All you can remember.’

‘What is there to say?’ Tinsley sighed. ‘Little to tell,’ he paused as the clock in his hallway chimed the hour with the Westminster chimes. ‘I used to see him in the village, that is Stillington, closest village to here, I really knew him from there. He used to enjoy a beer in The Hunter’s Moon.’

‘The Hunter’s Moon in Stillington?’ Webster wrote in his notebook.

‘On the high street, you can’t miss it. It was Terry the publican who told me he was a Canadian; they had a chat now and again, you see. Terry’s good like that, he checks out strangers but does so in a friendly, chatty way. But yes, he was a Canadian. Tall, well built, beard, as you say, and yes, I saw him on the roadway just staring at Beattie’s ruin and also I saw as he drove past in his car. He was clearly hanging around the area. The building had some fascination for him, it really did. That house, Beattie could have bought an easily run, warm, comfortable house but they bought that . . . ruin . . . no wonder his wife didn’t last, but he seems to be sticking it out, stubborn old fool that he is. I tell you, if he were a plant he’d be moss which grows in the tundra, thriving in the cold. But the Canadian, he was a married man . . . I can tell you that.’

‘Married?’

‘Yes. High quality clothes, had a car . . . probably a hire car, it was the sort bought in large numbers by fleet operators. He hung around for a couple of weeks, so he must have stayed somewhere local and he didn’t look like the youth hostel type. He wasn’t frightened of being seen, that was something else about him, just standing there, as though he possibly even wanted to be seen.’

‘Intimidating? Would you say it was an intimidating gesture on his part?’

Tinsley pursed his lips, ‘Yes . . . yes, I dare say that you could say that. Intimidating.’

‘But you never spoke to him?’

‘No. Drove past him so got a closer look . . . then later I saw him in the village once or twice . . . heard about him from the boys in The Hunter’s Moon. I’d try there if I was you.’

‘I think we will. Thank you . . . that’s very helpful.’

‘You might have to knock on the door.’

‘At this hour!’ Yellich grinned. ‘He’ll have been open since eleven a.m.’

‘He would if he was in the centre of York, but these are getting to be hard times, pubs in the country can’t pay if they open each day all day. Sometimes it’s weekend trade only . . . especially lately.’

‘I see,’ Yellich nodded his head slowly. ‘Well, thanks anyway. Enjoy your fire.’

George Hennessey once again read the inscription beneath the names on the war memorial inside the doors of the central post office in York, ‘Pass friend, all’s well’, as he exited the building, and was once again moved by it. He stepped out into a mist-laden street and strolled along Stonegate to the Minster where he saw the tops of all three square towers were hidden from view, and the building itself seemed, in the diminishing light, to have taken on an eerie and foreboding presence. Foot traffic was light and seemed to Hennessey to be local people in the main, hurrying about their business, with just one or two very evident tourists staring in awe at the Minster, or in fascination at the Roman remains, or at the ancient buildings close by.

In the shadow of the Minster two women played musical instruments for passing change. The first woman was in her early twenties, tall, slender, wearing expensive looking footwear and equally expensive looking outer clothing. She played a violin and to Hennessey’s ear did so impressively well. She had, Hennessey observed, been blessed with classical good looks and her blonde hair draped over her shoulders which moved slightly from side to side as her slender and nimble fingers danced along the neck of the violin and her other hand gently held the bow which she moved lightly, but at speed, across the strings. She was, by her countenance, utterly focused. The black bowler hat at her feet was, Hennessey noted, understandably full of coins and even one or two five pound notes. The second woman sat a few feet behind the violinist, in the doorway of a temporarily vacant shop unit. She huddled in a blanket and picked out ‘Edelweiss’ from
The Sound of Music
on a cheap tin whistle. The plastic cup in front of her contained few, very few, low denomination coins. Her demeanour was, assessed Hennessey, one of detachment. She played mechanically, he thought, but her mind was elsewhere. His urge was to place an appreciative coin or two in the bowler hat but he paused as he pondered the clear privilege of birth of the violinist. She seemed to him to be the product of an expensive education and certainly was busking to ease the financial burden of her university course, and York University, at that; one of England’s finest. Her clothing, her violin, the music stand, even the bowler hat on the paving stones at her feet all spoke of wealth. Hennessey found himself becoming intrigued by the drawn and haggard-faced tin whistle player and so he walked towards her and dropped a pound coin in her plastic cup. The woman’s eyes widened at his generosity and she looked up at him as if to say ‘Thank you’, to which Hennessey said, ‘Let me buy you a coffee.’

The woman stopped playing. ‘A coffee?’

‘I could run to a late lunch. When did you last eat?’

‘Two days ago . . . and not much then . . . a cup of soup and some bread.’

‘Let’s get some hot food inside you. I think we’d better.’

‘Would you?’ she gasped her reply.

‘Yes, I would. You can leave your blanket here. If you fold it neatly no one will take it away.’

The woman, who seemed to Hennessey to be in her mid to late thirties, struggled awkwardly to her feet, out of the blanket. She was dressed in damp looking denim with a red corduroy shirt and inexpensive looking and well worn running shoes.

Hennessey took her to a nearby cafe and they sat at the window seat. The woman received a hostile look from the middle-aged waitress, which Hennessey noticed, and he replied to it with an angry glare which forced the waitress into a hasty retreat. She sent another waitress to take Hennessey’s order. ‘So,’ Hennessey said, ‘tell me about yourself.’

‘Where do I begin?’

‘Your name might be a good place.’

‘You sound like a cop.’

‘That’s probably because I am a cop.’

‘I thought you were.’

‘It’s written on my forehead, I know.’

The woman smiled softly. ‘I have nothing to hide.’

‘I didn’t think you had.’

‘So why the meal?’

‘You are helping yourself. I am impressed. I respect that.’

‘Thanks, but I am not very good. I needed to play “three identifiable tunes”, that’s the rule . . . in order to get my street entertainer’s licence. I found the whistle in a charity shop for a few pence and learned to play ‘Edelweiss’, ‘Bobby Shaftoe’ and ‘Three Blind Mice’ . . . we had lessons on a recorder when I was at secondary school. It was good enough, just good enough to get my licence . . . so I play the three tunes over and over again and bank on the assumption that no one will walk past me twice so no one will hear the same tune from me twice.’

‘But good for you . . .’

The conversation paused as the waitress brought two platefuls of shepherd’s pie and chips with a pot of tea for two.

‘Well, I tried to sell the flesh but I wasn’t very good at it . . . couldn’t go through with it.’

‘Good,’ Hennessey smiled, ‘I’m pleased you avoided that . . . never leads a girl anywhere but trouble.’

‘Hardly a girl, I was thirty-six when I tried it.’

‘Even so . . . anyway, you still haven’t told me your name.’

‘Tilly Pakenham.’

‘Tilly?’

‘Short for Matilda. Sounds posh but it’s not, not like the violinist, she’s posh. My dad is a bus driver . . . we lived in a council house.’

‘You could have fooled me. You have a pleasant speaking voice.’

‘It’s true . . . the speaking voice was acquired by listening to Radio Four, the old self-improvement number . . . went well until I fell from grace.’

‘What happened?’ Hennessey glanced round the cafe. He had not been in it before, it was of new design and did not try to evoke ‘the old’. It had a large window fronting on to the street, metal tables with metal chairs, it was light, airy, spacious, the food was of a reasonable quality, he thought, and the portions were generous. The disapproving reaction of the first waitress to Matilda Pakenham’s presence had been, thus far, the only unpleasant aspect.

‘What do you think? Why do so many women fall from grace?’ She imitated shooting herself in the head. ‘Bad choice of husband, that is the sort of mistake that can carry a long way in any woman’s life. Are you married?’

‘Long time widower.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Well, as I said, a long time widower. All adjustments have been made. So, carry on . . .’

‘He was just a no-good, my parents said so the instant they saw him. “Dangerous and no good” was my mother’s reaction . . . and women’s intuition being what it is . . . and boy was she right or was she right . . . ? He was a charming man but also a violent control freak.’

Hennessey nodded as he stirred his tea. ‘I know the type; the jails are full of them.’

‘I was his possession, not his wife. He’s a salesman . . . film star looks . . . the patter . . . the eye contact, the charm . . . he can make it work and he’s good at his job . . . he makes sales . . . but once I was present when he got sour with a customer who then said, “Well, you’ve changed your tune”, to which he replied, “I’m only nice if you buy something from me”.’

‘Blimey,’ Hennessey gasped.

‘Yes, that’s him; his surname is even Smiley . . . how appropriate. Anyway things just happened once too often and so I walked out.’

‘Good for you.’

‘Went back to using my maiden name but I am too proud to return home.’

‘Which is where?’

‘Northampton . . . sunny Northampton. It’s just one of those towns you pass through on your way to somewhere interesting but it’s where my roots are. It’s home and the one place I cannot go.’

‘You could visit. It’s not too far away . . . ease yourself back in . . .’

‘I could, it’s near enough and far enough, which is how I like it, but he’s looking for me. He didn’t like losing his possession like that, took it as a personal insult.’

‘He is?’

‘Yes.’ Matilda Pakenham sipped her tea. ‘Oh . . . that’s nice,’ she sighed. ‘The English and their tea . . . but it does have medicinal qualities, it does have more . . . more . . . uplift than coffee, I find anyway.’

‘Yes . . .’

‘I went to Cambridge when I first left, because of the year-round tourist trade, and that’s where I found my tin whistle in a charity shop. Then he found me, slapped me around a bit and pushed me into his car and took me home to where we lived in Grantham and slapped me around a bit more and I escaped again and came to York with a blanket and me old tin whistle.’

‘More year-round tourists?’

‘That was the idea but he’s here looking for me.’

‘How does he know that you are here?’

‘He’ll work it out, he knows about me sitting in doorways playing on the tin tube . . . knows I don’t like going too far from Northampton . . . he’ll work it out. You know I really believe that I can feel his presence; I can feel him in the air. A few days ago I was walking home from my pitch and I stopped in my tracks and said, “He’s here”.’

‘Interesting. Do you have any children?’

‘No, thank heavens. I’d like a couple, what woman doesn’t? But not by him. So I dare say I am lucky in that respect . . . just me and him . . . things could be an awful lot more complicated.’

‘Well,’ Hennessey took a business card from his wallet and handed it to Matilda Pakenham, ‘we can’t do anything unless you press charges.’

‘I know, but he’s careful not to slap me in front of witnesses and keeps me locked up until all the bruises have faded.’

‘Yes, I know the score . . . but we can offer protection.’

‘OK,’ she slipped the card into her shirt pocket. ‘Thank you, Mr Hennessey.’

‘George,’ Hennessey smiled. ‘Call me George.’

‘It’s the economic depression, you see.’ The man, Roger Blackwood by the nameplate on his desk and by his warm introduction, was a slightly built man, smartly, very smartly dressed and with, Thomson Ventnor found, a very serious attitude. So serious that he guessed it would take much to make the man smile. ‘Those units have been empty for about eighteen months. We haven’t recovered our money. We built them and let them out. All of them. Then the economy took a downturn and the tenants’ businesses folded and they vacated the premises as a consequence of that and we have not been able to re-let them. We will just have to wait for the upswing. Someone forced entry, you say?’

‘It appears so, to Unit Five.’

‘Business is bad. I don’t think the boss will pay for that to be repaired, not in a hurry anyway, but they are so out of the way that that might not be a problem and there is nothing to steal anyway . . . nothing to burn and nothing to vandalize. I think the company will live with the damage until the upswing comes.’

‘I see, but we are more interested in the location than the damage.’

‘Why?’ Blackwood inclined his head. ‘What’s afoot?’

‘Because of the remoteness.’

‘Nothing special about that. The cheap land is reflected in the low rents.’

‘I can understand that.’

‘Unpopular place to work though, very unpopular. One firm had to bus its employees in; no facilities for the workforce during the day, nowhere to spend their lunch breaks . . . especially in the winter. All the workforce could do was shelter and eat their packed lunches. Then the businesses all went bust anyway.’