The Altered Case (17 page)

‘I see.' Yellich paused.

‘How did you find me anyway?' Parr asked.

‘Telephone directory,' Yellich explained. ‘There are not many N. Parrs in Camden. We just assumed you'd stay in the Camden area, hence my first question after I introduced myself, asking if you were related to Mr and Mrs Gerald and Elizabeth Parr of Camden.'

‘I see.' Parr sipped his tea. ‘I did wonder, once I had put the phone down.'

‘Well,' Yellich continued, ‘we really need your help in respect of confirmation of the identity of the deceased family . . . a sample of DNA for example.'

‘Can't help you there I'm afraid.' Parr shrugged.

‘Oh?'

‘Well, you will have heard about the skeletons, if not seen them?'

‘Yes, heard reports,' Yellich replied.

‘Doubtless their stature or lack of will have been remarked upon?'

‘Short . . .'

‘Very short.' Parr smiled. ‘And look at me, I am just shy of six feet tall . . . well, tall enough to be a police officer.'

‘Ah . . .' Yellich sat forward.

‘Perhaps you thought some form of anomaly within the family?' Parr relaxed in his chair. ‘I am fostered. I am not of their bloodline.'

‘Oh.' Webster allowed his disappointment to show.

‘I was a Victorian-style foundling. I was wrapped inside a blanket and placed inside a telephone box, or so the story goes, very late one night. I was just a few days old. The person who left me there, probably my mother, just seemed to have laid me on the ground and dialled three nines and then vanished into the night. It was during the winter months, so I was told, but I was left there well wrapped up and the police responded to the emergency number very quickly.'

‘As they would,' Yellich replied.

‘Yes.' Parr nodded. ‘As they would.'

‘So I was found with a note pinned to my blankets.' Parr shrugged again. ‘It was apparently written in a rounded female hand and it read, “Please look after him, I can't”.'

‘Not a good start in life,' Yellich observed.

‘There have been better starts but it was probably all for the best,' Nigel Parr replied. ‘I wouldn't have had the best of childhoods with a mother who could not care for me, no matter what reason. So I was fostered by the Parrs after a few years in an institution. They were a mad, happy, strange family. Mad, but mad in a harmless way; eccentric, a little off centre . . . just . . . just . . .'

‘Dotty?' Webster suggested.

‘Yes.' Parr beamed. ‘Dotty, that's the very word to describe them. Utterly harmless, and they created a very stimulating house, if artistic expression is your thing. You know . . . children's paintings pinned up everywhere, branches of trees steam cleaned and then varnished or painted for decoration, “art trouvé” I think it's called . . . and a veritable zoo of pets, not just cats and dogs but hamsters and a rat.'

‘A rat!' Yellich gasped.

‘Yes, a tame rat. Believe me.' Parr grinned widely. ‘It had a personality. It really was a very intelligent creature. Tortoise in the garden . . . tropical fish in a heated and illuminated tank . . . horses in stables north of London. They were very warm and eccentric, and I grew up feeling fully part and parcel of the family; They never once reminded me that I was fostered. Not once.'

‘Good for them.' Webster took another bread roll.

‘I was indeed lucky.' Parr glanced at the floor. ‘But what a family, the girls would bring stray dogs home and the dogs would stay. All the dogs were strays in fact. And the whole family smoked cannabis.'

‘You did what!' Yellich gasped.

‘Smoked dope,' Parr confirmed. ‘I kid you not, as a family we smoked dope. I mean liberal minded is just not the word to describe that lifestyle. The Parrs valued education but were suspicious of formal schooling, and so they never minded much if we played truant, as we often did. They believed that the thrill of escaping and the hours of freedom were much better for our development than was sitting in a stuffy classroom and not really absorbing anything, and I have to say that they were probably correct. I was not damaged by it because I still went to college, which is where I got my real education.'

‘I have indeed heard that observation –' Webster glanced at Yellich and then addressed Parr – ‘that what you use in your day-to-day life you had acquired by the age of eleven and from what you learned in your professional training, but you use very little of what you might have learned from the ages of twelve to sixteen.'

‘Yes, I think that applies to me.' Parr smiled. ‘The square of the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the two adjacent sides; all very interesting but I never needed that knowledge to pay the gas bill. In fact all that taught me was the correct use of the words “sum” and “adjacent”. I still don't know anything about triangles. I really was much better off truanting in Regent's Park Zoo, or exploring London . . . right out to the East End, sometimes for nothing.'

‘How did you manage that?' Webster was intrigued.

‘Can't do it now because you have to pay on entry, one man operation now.'

‘Same everywhere,' Webster replied, ‘hence the question.'

‘Yes, but the operative word is “now”,' Parr explained. ‘Back in the day when there were conductors we'd get on a bus and run upstairs, and when the conductor came to collect the fare we asked for a destination in the opposite direction and he'd say, “You're going the wrong way, boys”, so we'd get off at the next stop and wait for the next bus and pull the same stunt. You'd get at least one stop in the direction you wanted to go, at least one stop, sometimes two or even three depending on how crowded the bus was or how hard the bus conductor wanted to work. Very occasionally we'd get on a bus where the conductor was having a bad day or had a grudge against London Transport and who felt disinclined to take any fares at all . . . not from anyone. When that happened we rode for free without having to change buses. That was a rare occurrence, though. But I'd come home and tell my parents what I had done, and they thought I had done well and wholly approved of it. Eccentric, as I said.' Parr fell silent. ‘There was always a lot of laughter in the house . . . a lot of care . . . a lot of acceptance, but . . .'

‘But?' Yellich prompted.

‘But . . . but . . . when I reached my teenage years I began to feel different, especially when the growth spurt occurred. I shot up over my sisters and then my mother and then my father, and all in the space of just a few months. I enjoyed the nickname of “Rocket Man” for a while, rocketing up, you see.'

‘Yes,' Webster replied, ‘I understand . . . we understand.'

‘So, suddenly I was the tallest person in the house. We joked about it but I began to feel different and gradually less and less part and parcel of the Parrs of Camden. I eventually left home to go to art college and managed that because of the Parrs' influence and encouragement. I then worked as a commercial artist, which is what my father's occupation was, painting book covers or posters for advertising products; that sort of thing. I also took the photography option with the idea of becoming a photo journalist.'

‘It must pay well,' Yellich commented.

‘You mean that I can afford a two bedroomed conversion in Camden?' Parr smiled. ‘These don't come cheap.'

‘Well . . . yes . . . as you say, this house will not have come cheap.'

‘My inheritance.' Parr smiled. ‘I couldn't afford to buy it, not on the money I make. I am not as successful as my father was.'

‘The Parrs left something to you?' Yellich asked.

‘No . . . no . . . they left me nothing. They used to tell me that being fostered meant nothing at all in terms of belonging to the family, but they were not wholly accurate. You see, being fostered meant that I inherited nothing by right.' Parr raised his eyebrows. ‘I took their name by deed poll but that's all I took.'

‘Yes.' Yellich nodded. ‘I see.'

‘So, it was the case that when the Parr family was deemed to be deceased and their estate was wrapped up we found that they had died intestate. Then, in that case, I was not going to inherit anything.'

‘I see,' Yellich said again with growing curiosity.

‘So their house, which was much, much larger than this, my modest little property, and all the contents therein, and all the money in the bank and all the stocks and shares went to Mr Verity.'

‘Mrs Parr's brother?' Yellich confirmed.

‘Yes,' Parr replied, ‘to him, now sadly deceased. It was explained to me that the mechanism of inheritance is like a cross or like a lift in a building; it goes up and down then from side to side. So in the case of someone who dies intestate, the first beneficiaries are any issue, any children. If there is no issue it then goes up to the person's parents. If there are no parents still alive, which, in my parents' case, they were not, then it goes from side to side.'

‘To brothers and sisters?' Yellich clarified.

‘Yes, to siblings. So down, then up, then from side to side and it stops at the first legal beneficiary, who in this case was Mr Verity, my maternal uncle.'

‘I see,' Yellich replied.

‘I never really knew Uncle George,' Nigel Parr explained, ‘not when I was growing up, but I was to find that he was of the same stuff and stock as my foster parents in that he was a very generous man, generous beyond measure.'

‘I see.' Yellich remained intrigued.

‘So what happened,' Parr continued, ‘was that he and I sat down about two years after my foster family had disappeared and were then presumed deceased and Uncle George said, “Look, Nigel, I know Gerald, your father, and your mother was my sister, and I know that they would have wanted you to have something, in fact they told me that they intended to include you in their will. I am a solicitor with a firm in the city and I am doing reasonably well, and I want to use the money from Gerald and Elizabeth's house and their estate as a whole to start trust funds for my three children. I don't want anything for myself.” So the upshot was that he sold the home and the contents therein, sold all the stocks and shares . . .'

‘He liquidated the estate,' Yellich said.

‘Yes,' Parr continued, ‘that's the word, he liquidated my parents' estate and instead of dividing the proceeds by three to start trust funds for his children, he divided it by four, giving me an equal fourth of my foster parents' estate.'

‘That was good of him,' Webster commented, ‘very good of him indeed.'

‘Yes, I thought so too.' Nigel Parr paused as another red double-decker bus whirred loudly past the window, drowning any conversation. ‘Legally he was not obliged to give me anything, but what I did inherit was enough to buy this small conversion, well almost enough. I had to take out a small mortgage but that's paid off now. So it's mine, lock, stock and barrel, worth well over a million, being much more than what I paid for it.'

‘Dare say it would be,' Yellich growled.

‘Well, London prices . . . I plan to retire to the country. Dorset, I think, but somewhere in the beautiful south.'

‘So,' Yellich asked, ‘do you know why your parents went to York, taking Michelle Lemmon with them?'

‘No, in a word, I don't . . . neither did Uncle George, but we thought it might be in connection with a property dispute, that is a dispute about the ownership of a parcel of land.'

‘I see,' Yellich replied. ‘Do you know who their solicitors were?'

‘Oldfield and Fairly,' Parr replied confidently. ‘They still are. Oldfield and Fairly have been the Parr family solicitors for a long time.'

‘Where are they?'

Parr paled. ‘Well, last I heard they were in the Camden area . . . but exactly where . . .'

‘We'll find them,' Yellich smiled.

‘Why would you want to speak to them?' Parr seemed to the officers to have become agitated.

‘They might be able to shed light,' Yellich explained.

‘Well, I have told you all there is to know.'

‘You've probably told us all you know.' Yellich smiled. ‘They might know something else. They might be able to shed fresh light.'

Parr did not press his objection further but he could not conceal a look of worry to cross his eyes which was clearly noted and registered by both officers.

Yellich was aware of the need to keep Nigel Parr talking so as to avoid him getting too defensive. ‘So tell us, how did Michelle Lemmon arrive at the Parrs' house?'

Parr opened his fleshy palms in a gesture of despair, though he was also evidently relieved to have to answer a non-threatening question. ‘What can I say? I don't wish to be patronizing but Oranges was brought into the house like the dogs were brought in, like she was a stray. She came home with my sisters one afternoon who all but said, “Can we keep her? Please, please, please can we keep her?” Anyway, it turns out that Oranges had been sleeping rough in Regent's Park which is where my sisters found her.'

‘Is that possible?' Webster asked. ‘I thought it was illegal and there are park wardens to stop that happening.'

‘Yes.' Parr nodded his head slightly in agreement. ‘It most certainly is illegal and, yes, it's also not easy, not easy at all. The park wardens turf the dossers out, helped by the police, and they walk every inch of the park footpaths once the gates are locked. I am told that that is a very pleasant duty during the summer months, having the whole park practically to yourself, but Oranges was a clever old soul and she had apparently found a huge rhododendron bush. She would crawl in there an hour or two before the park was shut and lay there still and quiet. Then, once the park wardens had gone, she settled down for the night, having eaten whatever she could find in the rubbish bins during the day.