The Altered Case (23 page)

‘You are joking.' Webster grinned.

‘Nope, it was her name and that's why I remember it. She was not happy with the name. I commented on it and she just snarled as though she had heard the jokes and comments often enough. She said she wished her parents had gone the whole hog and called her “Boadicea”; pronouncing it “Bo-di-see-a” rather than “Boo-dikka”, being the correct rendering.'

‘Really?' Yellich replied. ‘That's the correct pronunciation?'

‘Yes, the Romans would have called her by the first pronunciation. She and the Iceni would have used the second.' Hillyard smiled. ‘Another history lesson for you, Mr Yellich.'

‘Indeed, sir.' Yellich returned the smile.

‘But,' Hillyard continued, ‘Nigel Parr and Florence Nightingale gelled well. They found each other all right.'

‘And he avoided the trip north?' Yellich asked.

‘So it seemed. He went somewhere with Florence Nightingale.'

‘Probably saved his life,' Webster commented.

‘Probably,' Hillyard replied, ‘dare say we'll never know.' He drummed his fingers on the window sill. ‘You know, I never did take to him at all, as I said, and Gerald became worried about him.'

‘Oh?' Yellich queried.

‘Yes, over a beer one evening Gerald confessed to me that he thought that they had made a terrible mistake in fostering him. He grew to feel that they had brought something poisonous into their home. He really was quite depressed about it.'

Yellich glanced at Webster. ‘That is interesting, because his brother-in-law clearly thought otherwise.'

‘Whose brother-in-law?'

‘Gerald Parr's brother-in-law, chap yclept Verity. He collected Parr's possessions from the police station in York when they had been reported as missing persons. Anyway, he settled money on Nigel following the sale of Parr's property and it was sufficient for Nigel to buy a modest two bedroomed conversion, also in Camden.'

Yellich and Webster watched the colour drain from Hillyard's face.

‘We visited him this afternoon,' Yellich explained slowly, ‘tracked him down. It wasn't difficult because he'd kept the Parr surname rather than reverting to his own.'

‘He was in the phone book,' Webster added.

‘Yes, we visited him prior to calling on Oldfield and Fairly, meeting Mr Tipton and then your good self,' Yellich continued. ‘One contact led to another for us today.'

Hillyard's head sank forward. He glanced up at Yellich and then at Webster. ‘I did wonder what had become of young Nigel Parr, but I can tell you that he didn't receive any money from Gerald Parr's brother-in-law following the sale of the Parrs' property.'

‘No?' Yellich and Webster both sat forward, their interest raised.

‘No, Elizabeth Parr didn't have a brother. Both Gerald and Elizabeth were only children, neither of them had any siblings, their children grew up without anyone to call aunt or uncle.'

Again Yellich and Webster glanced at each other. ‘But the house sale,' Yellich asked, ‘that must have happened?'

‘Yes, it did. Gerald and Elizabeth made wills and asked Oldfield and Fairly to accept power of attorney and act as executors in the event of a common calamity; that is, if, for example, both Gerald and Elizabeth were to lose their lives at the same time . . . a car crash, for example.'

‘Yes . . . yes,' Yellich replied.

‘So after two years they were officially deemed deceased, along with the beneficiaries of their will . . . or wills . . . being their two daughters . . . then Oldfield and Fairly liquidated everything, cleared the house and sold the contents, then sold the property . . . and the money in question is still gathering interest in a trust fund administered by Oldfield and Fairly, where it will remain until a lawful claimant presents themselves.' Hillyard paused. ‘So wherever Nigel Parr got the money to buy his little pad in Camden it did not come from the estate of Gerald and Elizabeth Parr.'

Yellich reclined in his chair. ‘Now that is very interesting.'

‘Very interesting, indeed,' Webster added. ‘When did you last see Nigel Parr?'

‘When Gerald and Elizabeth were still alive. By the time we accessed the property – we had to use bailiffs, then change the locks – Nigel had flown the coop. I assumed that he had been told he wasn't going to inherit anything and had left to make his own way in life. I only ever gave him a passing thought after that.'

Walking back to High Barnet tube station in the warm dusk, Webster said, ‘So, now what? Back to Camden and arrest Nigel Parr? He's got some explaining to do methinks.'

‘Methinks likewise,' Yellich replied. ‘But he's not going anywhere. No, we return to York, and tomorrow we talk this over with the boss. Softly, softly, catchee monkey, that's the trick, we must not go blundering into things.'

‘Softly, softly,' Webster echoed, ‘suits me.'

Later, much later that evening, Reginald Webster crept into his bedroom in his house on the outskirts of Selby. As he entered the room his wife levered herself up and groped for her watch.

‘Sorry, Joyce,' he whispered, ‘didn't mean to wake you.'

‘I was getting worried. I know you phoned and said you'd be late but I can't help worrying.' Joyce Webster lifted the glass cover from her watch and read the time with her fingertips. ‘So late.'

‘Yes.' Webster let his clothes lay where they fell and slid into the bed beside her, folding his arms about her. ‘Rather later than I had anticipated but it was a very productive day . . . very useful.'

It was Thursday, 01.35 hours.

Thursday, 09.45 hours – 16.45 hours

in which Webster, accompanied by Ventnor, returns to the south of England, Carmen Pharoah silences a pub and the most courteous reader is introduced to George Hennessey's pride and issue.

W
ebster held his mug of tea in both hands. ‘Met a solicitor yesterday, worked for a firm, one of whom was called Fairly . . . A solicitor called “Fairly”!'

‘I can top that,' Ventnor said above the laughter. ‘I met the wife of a solicitor called “Fleece”.'

George Hennessey joined in the laughter. ‘A lawyer called “Fleece”, that I do like. But let's get down to business; it seems to have been a very productive day yesterday, going by what I have heard.' He glanced to his left out of the window of his office, his eye being caught by movement on the wall, and saw a group of brightly dressed tourists ambling along the battlements. He turned back to the group of CID officers. ‘So, who wants to kick off? Thomson, why don't you start the ball rolling.'

‘Very good, boss.' Thomson Ventnor leaned forwards. ‘Well, the Mrs Fleece I mentioned was a mate of Michelle Lemmon. It seems she was hitching a ride home with the Parr family, who were travelling to York to talk business with someone. She was returning home to patch things up with her parents. She appeared to have stayed with some other friend between the time of arriving in York and guiding the Parrs to their destination. Thus far that person has not come forward, but the Parrs were in York for two days before they went missing, so she was probably sleeping on someone's couch plucking up the courage to go home. In the afternoon I went to Full Sutton, interviewed the son of the man identified as having hired the mechanical digger. He's a lifer in for murder but he was very cooperative. He confirmed that his father did hire the digger and he went out with him to dig the hole, but was sent away as a lookout before the bodies arrived and returned once the hole had been filled in, but he made the clear statement that his father told him that he was employed by the landowner to dig the hole.'

‘Farrent?' Hennessey confirmed.

‘Yes, sir. I didn't get it down in writing because it was hearsay, but if the Crown Prosecution Service would like a statement – a signed and written statement – I can easily return.'

‘Yes, but as you say, it was hearsay, so I don't think you'll have to do that. All right, Somerled and Reginald, what did you turn up?'

‘Quite a lot, sir.' Yellich leaned forwards as Thomson Ventnor sat back in his chair. ‘The dispute between the Parrs and the Farrents is over the ownership of a huge area of land which was probably acquired fraudulently by the Farrents in the aftermath of the Civil War.'

‘Strewth . . . that's four hundred years ago.'

‘Yes, sir, but it was explained to us that because both families were direct descendants of the original Parr and Farrent families, then the land ownership could be contested.'

‘How interesting.' Hennessey sipped his tea. ‘So that's why the Parrs came to York. Why didn't they let their lawyers handle the situation?'

‘They were advised by a family friend to sort something out with the Farrents, come to some agreement then ask the courts to ratify it. The gentleman to whom we spoke used a Scottish expression to explain the advice: “The law's expensive, take a pint and settle”.'

‘That sounds to be good advice,' Hennessey growled.

‘It was probably the suggestion that the families divide the land equally and call that the end of the matter,' Yellich explained. ‘We are talking of vast acreage, I should explain.'

‘The Parrs had a strong case, it seems?'

‘Yes, sir, so it seems,' Yellich explained. ‘The document was apparently examined by an expert who reported the signature to be genuine. He did not look at the deed showing the Farrents to be the legal owners. It is the story that the name on the deed was scratched out and replaced by Farrent.'

‘As easy as that?'

‘Well, yes, sir, this was four hundred years ago and the Farrents were Parliamentarians, and it did not help the Parrs that they were high-level Royalists. They didn't kick up a fuss and appear to have kept their heads thereby, but they also kept a duplicate of the original deed showing them, the Parrs, to be the rightful owners of the land.'

‘But who lived on the land?' Hennessey queried.

‘Neither family, sir, both lived in the south. That also helped the Farrents because the Parrs didn't have to be evicted.'

‘Neat for the Farrents, difficult for the Parrs,' Hennessey said quietly.

‘Indeed, sir, but the story of the “Altered Case” lived on in the Parr family by word of mouth from generation to generation, and then, apparently, Gerald Parr came across the duplicate deed and a document expert pronounced it to be genuine . . . so jubilation in the Parr camp . . . but a bolt out of the blue in the Farrent family. If the deeds held by the Farrents proved to have been adulterated then the Parrs had a solid case, but the Farrents, having held the land in good faith for four hundred years also had a claim.'

Hennessey ran his fingers through his hair. ‘So the Parrs wanted their land back and the Farrents were not going to give it up without a fight? That I can understand.'

‘The Farrents hired a firm of solicitors in York, Fyrst, Tend and Byrd . . . very posh . . . don't do criminal work. The two firms of solicitors made initial contact with each other, but it didn't proceed much beyond that because it was just about that time that the Parr family, plus Michelle Lemmon, vanished. It may have been that the Parrs were travelling to York to meet the Farrents for unofficial talks about the issue.'

‘“Take a pint and settle”.' Hennessey drained his mug of tea. ‘The Parrs were on a sticky wicket there. Didn't they realize they might be putting themselves in danger by walking into the Farrents' backyard?'

‘We'll never know, sir,' Yellich replied. ‘No danger at all if they were meeting at the premises of a solicitor's, but the Parrs were a bit of an odd crew by all accounts, a bit eccentric. They might not have seen the danger in going to the Farrents' home to open any discussion, if indeed that's what happened.'

Hennessey folded his hands and leaned forward, resting them on the desktop. ‘So, the motivation for the crime is coming clear and the finger of suspicion points to the Farrents. Anything else before I feed back a significant development?'

‘Yes, sir,' Yellich said. ‘We were misled.'

‘Interesting.' Hennessey smiled. ‘I do so like it when people try to mislead the police. It always means they have something to hide.'

‘Indeed.' Yellich also grinned. ‘Doesn't it make a nice smell? In a nutshell, Nigel Parr, who was fostered by the Parr family and who kept their name, told us that the house in which he lives was bought by money provided for him by Mrs Parr's brother, one Mr Verity, when he, Mr Verity, wrapped up the estate of Gerald and Elizabeth Parr, because Gerald “would want him to have something”. But the solicitor told us that no such relative existed and that the firm of Oldfield and Fairly wrapped up the estate. They liquidated it and all the money generated is still in an account administered by the solicitors.'

Carmen Pharoah gasped. ‘So, who was the man who travelled north to collect the possessions of the Parr family – the possessions they left in the hotel – and drove away in their Mercedes Benz?'

‘Dunno.' Yellich turned to her. ‘But whoever he was, he wasn't Mr Parr's brother-in-law. No such person exists.'

‘That's a very nice weakness to exploit,' Hennessey said with an air of satisfaction. ‘It smells most malodorously. So, what do we know about Nigel Parr?'

Yellich glanced at Webster. ‘He presented well to us, wouldn't you say, Reg?'

‘Yes, he seemed very cooperative, affable, welcomed us into his house. We haven't done a criminal record check on him though . . .' Webster added as an afterthought.

‘Do that,' Hennessey said.

‘Yes, sir,' Webster replied.

‘Dare say I should have thought of that as soon as suspicions arose,' Yellich added.

‘No damage,' Hennessey reassured Yellich. ‘You must have been exhausted, but do it a.s.a.p.'