The Altered Case (25 page)

‘As soon as I can.' George Hennessey chuckled. ‘I like spoiling them.'

‘And we are anxious to meet your lady friend. I am sure she's a lovely lady; she clearly makes you very happy. You look so fulfilled these days.' Charles Hennessey leaned back in his chair. ‘You deserve it, father. It's only when I became a parent that I realized how hard it was for you to bring me up by yourself.'

‘I didn't do it by myself.'

‘A housekeeper and a nursery place isn't the same as a partner; it's not the same at all. You deserve a medal for what you did.'

‘Whatever.' George Hennessey beckoned the young waitress. ‘Can we have our bill, please?' he asked as she approached the table.

Somerled Yellich and Carmen Pharoah stood calmly side by side in front of the front door of Thomas Farrent's bungalow, having rung the doorbell, twice, to announce their presence. After a brief period of waiting Thomas Farrent pulled the door open and, standing firmly and squarely on the threshold, he glared angrily at the two officers. ‘What do you want!' he demanded.

‘Police.' Yellich showed Farrent his ID.

‘I know,' Farrent snarled. ‘I recognize you. You were here before and I saw you talking to my wife the day she disappeared. So where is she? What are you putting into her head?' He turned to Carmen Pharoah. ‘Don't recognize you, never seen you before.'

‘She's a police officer also,' Yellich said calmly. ‘We don't know where your wife is. We are here in response to the missing person report you made.'

‘We always make a house call upon such reports being filed,' Carmen Pharoah added. ‘It's routine.'

‘Why?' Farrent gripped the door with his right hand, causing his knuckles to whiten.

‘To confirm the report; to check that she is not here.'

‘Well, she isn't.' Thomas Farrent made to close the door. Somerled Yellich extended his hand and held the door open. ‘It's not a question of myself and my partner disbelieving you, sir, it is just that we have to check inside the house.'

‘Search it?' Farrent gasped.

‘And the outbuildings.' Carmen Pharoah smiled. ‘Just to make sure. Anywhere she might be hiding.'

‘Or anywhere I might have stashed her body, isn't that what you really mean?' Farrent's anger showed no sign of abating. He was, thought Yellich, a man who, when threatened, responds with fight not flight, and Farrent's fight was the fight of a man who felt frightened, very frightened indeed.

‘If you like, sir.' Yellich retained his calm attitude. ‘But we still have to check the house, room by room, even cupboard by cupboard.'

‘Cupboards!' Farrent wailed.

‘Yes, sir. Rooms, cupboards, anywhere that is large enough to conceal an adult human being,' Carmen Pharoah explained.

‘And the outbuildings?' Farrent growled.

‘Yes, sir,' Carmen Pharoah replied. ‘The outbuildings as well.'

‘Everything . . . everywhere,' Yellich said calmly. ‘Everything.'

Somerled Yellich and Carmen Pharoah stepped over the threshold and entered Farrent's bungalow. A musty smell greeted them. From the hallway they walked into a living room which was noticeably untidy; not particularly unclean or unhygienic, thought Carmen Pharoah, but untidy, with many items just lying about and not put away. There was also an atmosphere about the room which she sensed, and she began to feel unnerved and very appreciative of the presence of Somerled Yellich. The lounge led on to a corridor from which bedrooms were accessed, and also a wide and spacious bathroom, which, like the living room, was in an untidy state, as was the master bedroom. The two officers made a detailed search of the house, opening cupboards, checking under beds, and Yellich accumulated dust when investigating the loft space. There was no sign of Mrs Farrent.

‘Satisfied?' Farrent asked with a certain undisguised smugness.

‘Yes,' Somerled Yellich replied, ‘yes, we are.'

‘Your cooperation is appreciated. Thank you.' Carmen Pharoah spoke softly. ‘Just the outbuildings now.'

‘When did you last see your wife?' Yellich asked.

‘The day before I reported her as missing.' Farrent paused. ‘That was the day I saw you talking to her in the middle of York.'

‘Actually,' Yellich replied, ‘we didn't talk.'

‘I saw you!' Farrent raised his voice.

‘We did not talk. Hardly one word was exchanged, I assure you. You pulled her away before either of us could really say anything.'

‘Why don't I believe you?' Farrent growled.

‘I can only repeat what I have told you.' Yellich fought to remain calm. ‘We did not say anything to each other.'

‘Well, she'd gone the next day. She brought me tea in bed then ran my morning bath, but when I had got dressed and went to the kitchen for her to serve me my breakfast, she wasn't there. Her car was still in the garage but she had gone. She took the housekeeping money with her and she has a credit card to buy petrol, but she can also use it to obtain cash from a cash machine. She's not really allowed to do that,' Farrent added, ‘but I'm not there to stop her and the card is in her name.'

‘Has she made any contact with you?' Yellich asked.

‘None.'

‘Was there any trouble between you at around the time she left the house?'

‘None,' Farrent replied adamantly. ‘No trouble at all. There never has been, she's a good woman. She does as she's told so we never have any trouble.'

Carmen Pharoah felt her scalp crawl.

When Yellich and Pharoah were driving away, having made a thorough search of the outbuildings, Carmen Pharoah said, ‘That house is a crime scene.'

‘Thirty years ago, you mean,' Yellich replied, ‘when the Parrs were murdered there by the Farrents?'

‘No . . . well, that as well, that as well.' Pharoah glanced to her left as Yellich halted the car at the end of the driveway before joining the public highway. ‘But also recently. The disarray, as if things had been more or less put back in place after a fight, but only more or less in place, with other things left lying about; and the atmosphere, a very strange sense of something's happened. Didn't you pick it up?'

‘No.' Yellich drove away, joining the public highway which at that moment was free of traffic. ‘Confess I didn't sense anything like that.'

‘I did,' Carmen Pharoah said flatly. ‘I did, very strongly. I tell you a woman was battered in that living room, and out there somewhere Mrs Farrent is walking about with extensive bruising and a lumpy skull, but no marks are showing on her face or arms or legs; he's too clever and too self-controlled to allow that.'

‘You've come a long way to see me, my old darlings, a long old way.' Florence Nightingale scrutinized Webster's ID card but declined to see Ventnor's. ‘No, pet, if his nibs here is real, then so are you.' She turned. ‘You'd better come in. York . . . that's Yorkshire, right? Me, I've never been north of London and I don't ever want to, darlings. I don't ever want to.' Florence Nightingale led the two officers into her cramped bedsit in a large, converted house. The view from her window showed a terrace of similar houses, all painted white and all of which gleamed in the strong sunlight. ‘Take you long to get here?' Florence Nightingale sank on to an unmade single bed and crossed her legs in what the officers thought was a childlike posture. ‘There's only the one, old gents.' She pointed to an elderly armchair which occupied floor space by the door. ‘You can fight for it.'

‘We'll stand, thanks.' Ventnor glanced round the cluttered, seemingly uncared for room.

‘We'd prefer to stand,' Webster added diplomatically. ‘We've been sitting all day. And to answer your question, about five hours from door to door; two hours from York to King's Cross, half an hour by tube to Waterloo—'

‘Less,' Ventnor said.

‘Yes . . . less,' Webster agreed. ‘One hour to Bournemouth . . . taxi here. There is in fact a direct service between York and Bournemouth but it takes a geological age, and that sort of time we do not have. So about five hours from our door to yours.'

‘Fair enough. You're not lucky to find me in; I never go out, not these days. So, how can I help the Yorkshire plod?' Florence Nightingale glanced up at Ventnor, then at Webster. ‘Not much is it?'

‘What isn't?'

‘This.' Florence Nightingale shrugged. ‘Not much of a home for a woman in her middle-age; not much to show for fifty plus years of life, have I?' She reached for a tobacco tin, opened it and began to roll a cigarette, creating a thin roll-up. Tobacco was evidently in short supply for Florence Nightingale.

‘Well, Miss Nightingale,' Webster began.

‘Why did they do that? Why? I mean, love us and save us, why not go the whole road and call me Hiawatha or Pocahontas?'

Ventnor held up his hand. ‘If it makes you feel better, I once met a girl called Marilyn Monroe.'

‘Really? Oh . . .' Florence Nightingale sighed. ‘The poor cow.'

‘And I,' Webster offered, ‘once escorted two runaway girls back to their children's home, their names being Tina Turner and Diana Ross.'

‘Is that true?'

‘Yes, in fact they were picked up by the York Railway Police getting on to a London train and the officers wouldn't believe them when they gave their names.'

Florence Nightingale giggled.

‘They put them in separate rooms,' Webster continued, ‘until they gave the police their real names.'

Florence Nightingale laughed. ‘I feel better already. So, how can I help you, gentlemen? I am so pleased I am not alone with my name, alone in every other way but not with a silly name.' She lit her cigarette. ‘Mind you, we girls can always be rescued by marriage, but that didn't happen to me.'

‘You could have changed your name by deed poll,' Ventnor suggested.

‘Don't you think I thought of that? But it seemed like cheating somehow.' She took a deep drag on the cigarette. ‘So I clung to the hope of marriage . . . some hope.' Florence Nightingale patted her stomach. ‘Fat little me, with two short, fat, little legs.'

After a pause, Webster said, ‘Florence, we hope you can help us.'

‘If I can.' Florence Nightingale exhaled through her nostrils. ‘If I can, darlin'.' She shrugged. ‘I've got nothing to hide from the old plod.' She took another deep drag on the cigarette. ‘I still do a little shoplifting, a little pilfering . . . I think it's called street-level crime. I can't run any more so I don't do bag snatching. Yes, I've been inside; it's OK, a cot and three and some company. I'll probably get myself lifted near Christmas. I hate Christmas Day in this room; just me by myself, a few cans of lager, when the rest of the world is celebrating, that's what it feels like anyway. You know, I am going to really have something of a funeral, just me and the priest. So go ahead, pick my brains; the vodka hasn't left much for you to pick at but you are welcome to what the voddy has left.'

‘OK.' Webster lifted up his right foot and was not surprised when he found that it had adhered to the carpet and he had to tear it loose. ‘So what can you tell us about Nigel Parr, of Camden, thirty years ago.'

‘Oh him . . . a name from my past? I can't remember what happened yesterday but I can remember Nigel Parr. He was part of my youth, when it was all before me. I was a bit of a looker then, I don't mind admitting it; quite slim with the old ding dong of church wedding bells echoing in my future. So, he has surfaced. You know, I thought he might be known to the old plod. He was dodgy, with a mega chip on both shoulders.'

‘Tell us about him,' Ventnor pressed. ‘Anything you think we might be interested in.'

‘Well, where to start.' Florence Nightingale took another deep drag on the thin roll-up and then flicked the ash on to her denim jeans and worked the ash into the weave with a slow, circular movement of the tip of her middle finger. ‘I remember a young guy burning up with resentment towards the family who fostered him. I mean, what did they do to harm him? They took him out of the children's home, where he had been labelled “difficult”, and gave him a proper home . . . and he was resentful. I reckon he'd be resentful if he went to live in a stately home and was given a Ferrari for his eighteenth birthday.'

‘He told you he had been labelled “difficult”?' Webster tore the sole of his right foot from the carpet and put it down in a different location.

‘Yes, after his foster parents had told him that in a sort of look-what-we-did-for-you sort of way. They were apparently pleased with themselves, pleased that they had rescued him in time and set him on the right path. Sent him to a good school and all that, but he saw it like he'd been taken in like a stray dog so that they could feel good about themselves. Me, I would have cared less about their reasons. I grew up in a children's home, you see. I didn't get rescued.'

‘I see.' Ventnor scanned the room, discreetly so, and saw nothing to raise his suspicions.

‘I mean, so long as I was rescued I wouldn't care about the reasons.' Florence Nightingale screwed the butt of the cigarette into a small plastic ashtray, which had clearly been stolen from a pub going by the brewery logo on the rim. ‘Anyway, Nigel didn't see it that way, like I said. He seemed to turn on Mr and Mrs Parr and find ways of doing them harm; like he'd steal things from their house and sell them, even though he didn't need the money, or sometimes he'd take items from the house and throw them away just to be spiteful, and he seemed to gloat when family members were going round the house hunting for whatever item he had thrown away. He used to laugh at Mr Parr's innocence in not realizing what was happening. How Mr Parr would sit on the sofa in the living room and say, “It's a mystery where whatever it was has gone, it's a real mystery.” No mystery at all, the boy he fostered and had brought into his home had thrown it in Regent's Park Canal.'