The Altered Case (20 page)

‘Indeed.' Tipton smiled.

‘Well, Mr Tipton,' Mrs McNair interrupted, ‘the officers are inquiring about a brief handled by this firm some thirty years ago.'

‘The Parr family,' Yellich added. ‘Mr and Mrs Parr and their daughters.'

‘Oh yes, the family who disappeared while in York and hence, I assume, the interest of the York police?'

‘Yes, that family,' Webster confirmed. ‘Parents, two daughters and another female believed to have been living with them at the time and who was of the same age group as the daughters.'

‘Yes, I do recall those clients. I remember it very well, but the fifth person, the family friend, that is news to me. I really have no recollection of a fifth person in the situation. Have they been found?'

‘Yes,' Yellich replied.

‘Alive? Alive after thirty years?' A note of optimism was in Tipton's voice.

‘Sadly, no,' Webster replied solemnly. ‘All five are deceased. They were found in a hole in the ground, quite a deep hole, so not the conventional shallow grave, but very deep. They were clearly not intended to be found. Ever.'

‘Oh,' Tipton sighed. ‘So sorry. Were they dug up by some form of building work?'

‘No, in fact two schoolboys came across the grave when it was freshly filled in,' Webster explained. ‘It took them thirty years to realize the significance of what they had found and to come forward and give information.'

‘Well I never.' Tipton heaved a deep breath. ‘Thirty years . . . And it took them that long to realize what they had seen?'

‘Yes,' Webster replied, ‘but at least they came forward, which is the main thing.'

‘There is that in their favour.' Tipton opened his palm.

‘And in fairness it was a freshly harvested field, so not so obviously a grave,' Webster explained.

‘I see,' Tipton replied softly.

‘Do you know who was the interested partner?' Mrs McNair asked.

‘Yes, ma'am.' Tipton addressed Mrs McNair. ‘That was Mr Hillyard.'

‘Retired,' Mrs McNair explained, ‘just in the last year or two.'

‘So we might still be able to speak to him?' Yellich asked.

‘You might, if he agrees to speak to you,' Mrs McNair replied icily. ‘If not, you'll have to subpoena him.'

‘Yes,' Yellich answered drily, ‘we know the procedure.'

‘Do you know anything of the Parr case, Mr Tipton?' Mrs McNair asked.

‘I can recall only the gist.' Tipton glanced at Yellich.

‘And the gist, even the gist will have to remain confidential, Mr Tipton. The gist is too close to the details.'

‘As you say, ma'am' Tipton stood. ‘I would like to leave early today, ma'am; I have a dental appointment. I did put it in the book, ma'am.'

‘Of course, Mr Tipton.' Mrs McNair smiled a thin smile as if to say, ‘Thank you for towing the party line,' and then added, ‘Thank you for your time.'

Mrs McNair waited until Mr Tipton had left her office before speaking. ‘Not much of a useful visit for you, gentlemen. I am sorry that we could not have been more helpful.' She stood and extended her hand, then held Yellich's hand for an instant, very loosely, before pushing it away from her, as if handing it back to him. She did not extend her hand to Webster.

‘Well, we only called here on the off chance anyway.' Yellich turned to go. ‘We really travelled south to interview the Parrs' surviving son and that proved to be very useful indeed.'

‘Very useful,' Webster echoed, with a smile.

‘Oh . . .' Mrs McNair looked crestfallen. ‘I assumed . . .'

‘And we will be able to obtain a subpoena to oblige Mr Hillyard to provide a statement and for Oldfield and Fairly to allow the police to access all the relevant documents held in your vault,' Webster added. ‘So, quite a useful trip south. Good day.'

‘It's the breathtaking wonder of the microchip.' Thomson Ventnor sat opposite Robert McKenzie in the agent's room in Full Sutton prison.

‘Really?'

‘Yes, really, and it shows the value of methodical recording, and keeping hold of all records and all photographs no matter how dated. We put your father's details into our search engine: Scottish, approximate age, description, ginger hair, married . . . at least one child.'

‘You can do that?' Mr McKenzie sounded genuinely surprised.

‘Oh yes, and it threw up one name . . . Robert McKenzie . . . but Robert McKenzie senior and also Robert McKenzie junior. The man in our dated files, identified by a member of the public, had a son whom he called after himself. We are interested to know all about the man who hired a mechanical digger thirty years ago.'

‘Well I never.' McKenzie reclined in the metal chair and looked across the table at Ventnor. ‘My old man reaches out from the grave and gets me visited by the police . . . that is so very nice of him.' He paused, and then added, ‘Mind you, I am very pleased that my dad isn't here to see this.'

‘Oh?' Ventnor looked round the room, crimson-painted walls up to waist height, cream thereafter, white ceiling, a block of opaque glass set high in the wall to permit a little natural light to enter. Metal chairs, metal desk, a large metal, blue polished door with a heavy brass lock. ‘He tried to keep you out of trouble?'

‘He tried.' McKenzie nodded gently. ‘It was a difficult thing to do when he was a petty crook himself, but he did try; always going on about keeping on the right path, saying, “Look what crookin's done for me”, and that old baloney. I suppose it's true but it's also true that the apple never falls far from the tree.'

‘I see,' Ventnor replied, ‘but, as you say, at least he tried.'

‘So, I still followed him, didn't I, became a career criminal?' McKenzie raised his eyebrows in a gesture of despair.

‘Do you think you'll turn yourself around?' Ventnor asked.

‘If I can, but it's not easy. Hardly any job opportunities for someone with a record like mine.' Robert McKenzie sighed. ‘You try to keep out of trouble but the dole money goes nowhere . . . I mean, nowhere. You have contacts, they offer you a job – I mean a criminal job – if a crew needs a driver or a bit of muscle. The offer is made. You think you'll get away with it, but sooner or later you're back inside; it's the old revolving door. So, will I turn myself around? Dunno . . . it's not easy, but, tell you the honest truth, I sometimes wonder if I want to. I sometimes wonder if I am not better off in here. I get the opportunity to exercise, I get three meals a day, I get an education . . . I am doing an Open University course, it could lead to a degree . . .'

‘Good for you.' Ventnor smiled approvingly.

‘Possibly. The course is useful because it keeps my mind focussed on healthy things but what can I do with a degree?'

‘It's a positive thing to do as an end in itself,' Ventnor encouraged. ‘It'll make you feel good about yourself. It's a healthy use of time.'

‘Well, I've got plenty of that, but I'm still on the wrong side of the fence. It's OK for you, sir; you'll retire at fifty-five with an index-linked pension.'

‘I wish I could say something to help you, but I can't.' Ventnor felt at a loss.

‘That's honest of you anyway.' McKenzie nodded. ‘I am old for a lag; turned forty some years ago. I'm overdue for the grey house; I'll be sent there soon. It's for old lags, anyone over fifty. They say it's calm and quiet, like the reading room in a public library, they say.' McKenzie had hard and cold eyes, thought Ventnor, set in a scarred face.

‘Yes.' Ventnor sat forward. ‘I hear the same.'

‘It'll be good to finish off there. My dad keeled over when he was in his early sixties; he had a massive heart attack. It runs in the family, weak hearts, so I am also probably two-thirds through my race. Nothing good behind me and I bet there's nothing good ahead of me.'

‘So, tell me about your father,' Ventnor pressed.

‘That's why you're here?'

‘Yes, I am not soft-soaping you to get your spill on unsolved crimes or to grass anyone up.'

‘Good job.' McKenzie spoke with a sudden menacing edge to his voice. ‘I wouldn't do that anyway.'

‘Understood,' Ventnor replied. ‘I hear what you say, but I am here because I am interested in anything you can tell me about a bit of work your father probably did once. You'd be a mid to late teenager. It was probably legitimate work, a bit of labouring for hard cash. It could also have been iffy . . . it could have been very iffy in fact. There is just the possibility that you know a little about it.'

‘Fair play.' Robert McKenzie leaned forward and rested two muscular arms on the tabletop. ‘That sounds fair. I can't say that I dislike the police. You have a job to do and you've always been fair with me. You have never planted evidence on me, never lied on oath to get a conviction, not like some in here who claim to have that happened to them, and I have long decided that I want to have something to think about when I am dying, something that I can feel good about myself for. So, how can I help you?'

‘Thank you.' Ventnor held eye contact with McKenzie. ‘Thank you very much. Well, your father fits the description and has been identified from this photograph of the man . . . as the man who once hired a small mechanical digger from a plant hire company. He collected it using a trailer pulled by a Land Rover and he returned it the following day. He is reported to have paid for the hire with a large wedge of hard cash. I can tell you he was entrusted with a large amount of money . . . a suitcase full of the stuff, by all accounts.'

‘Entrusted.' McKenzie took a breath. ‘Or someone had something to hold over him, something that made the old man scared of stealing it, because the old man was a tea leaf. He was just so light-fingered, it wasn't true. I don't know about a suitcase full of money, but it does make sense of what he once said when he was on the way out . . . and a mechanical digger . . . a small one. I did go and dig a hole with him one night in a field.'

‘You did?' Ventnor's interest rose sharply.

‘Yes, it was out in the sticks one night. It was a freshly harvested field; I can remember the stubble underfoot.'

‘That sounds like the incident we are interested in. Go on . . . please go on.'

‘So, it was the people who were found, that missing family? It was that hole?' McKenzie asked.

‘Yes.' Ventnor sat back in his chair. ‘Yes, it was that family. It was that hole.'

‘Well, well, I never figured the old man for the big “M”. I thought he was nothing more than a small-fry tea leaf. He's just gone up in my estimation.' McKenzie grinned. ‘So, like father like son, only I got caught.'

‘Possibly, but he was also possibly no more than a gofer.' Ventnor glanced round the room again, finding it hard and functional. ‘He was probably not a murderer.'

‘Probably you're right, but even if he dug a hole and helped to put bodies away, that makes him a conspirator, doesn't it?' McKenzie spoke eagerly. ‘He was an accessory after the fact?'

‘Yes,' Ventnor agreed. ‘Yes, it does.'

‘So he was bigger than I thought.' McKenzie seemed to Ventnor to be glowing with sudden pride. ‘Good for the old boy.'

‘Do you know who paid him to collect the digger and excavate the hole?'

‘The landowner,' McKenzie replied quietly. ‘My old man told me it was the landowner who wanted the hole dug on his land but it had to be done at night. I was the lookout . . . I kept the edge. Then, when the hole was dug, the old man told me to take a hike, so I went, not too far away really, just into a nearby wood, took cover and looked back. Then I saw headlights approaching, driving across the field . . . but it was a four-by-four, I could tell by the way it bounced across the field. It stopped hard by where the hole was, then a few minutes later it drove away and I heard the digger start up. When I got back the old man was filling the hole in. So, he was more than a gofer.' McKenzie's chest swelled. ‘He put those bodies away, my old man did, conspiracy to murder . . . not bad.'

Ventnor paused. He felt he should be used to the misplaced sense of pride exhibited by criminals but it still came as a shock to him whenever it was met. ‘What was it he said when he was dying? You mentioned it just now.'

‘Oh . . . yes . . . that he was given a large bag of cash once and he was tempted to run away with it, but he didn't because it would mean running out on his family. He had a sense of honour, my old man.' McKenzie smiled. ‘He did have a sense of duty to his family. He also said the people he was working for were a heavy duty team. They were, he told me, not the sort of people you'd want to mess with. He said the wedge he got for the job was a good size so he settled for that. You know he probably saved his life by taking that decision, putting his family first.'

‘He probably did.' Ventnor nodded in agreement. ‘But your father definitely told you that he was paid to dig the hole by the landowner?'

‘Yes. A guy called Farrent, I think. The old man often did work for Farrent, so they knew each other and he knew Farrent wasn't to be messed with,' McKenzie added. ‘Not to be messed with . . . not at all was he a man to mess with.'

‘Heavy duty.' Ventnor stood.

‘Very heavy. You don't want to take a statement?'

‘No point.' Ventnor tapped on the door of the agent's room. ‘It would be hearsay but, nonetheless, it has been very useful hearsay. Best of luck in the grey house when they do decide to move you.'

Yellich and Webster stepped out of the dim interior of the chambers of Oldfield and Fairly into Camden Street, which was bathed in the brilliant sunshine of a late afternoon in mid September. The white-painted buildings reflected the glare of the sun and caused the two officers to half close their eyes.

‘So you survived the Great Camden Ice Maiden?' Mr Tipton stood by the railings close to the steps leading up to the premises of Oldfield and Fairly.