Aftermath. Part 1

AFTERMATH.

Peter Turnbull.

PROLOGUE.

*It's the look, that short-lived look in their eyes.' The man smiled at the recollection of pleasant memories. *When they realize what's happening . . . that look of betrayal. I mean that they realize that they have been betrayed.' The woman hooked her arm inside the man's arm as they walked.

*It's always the same,' the man replied, *like will find like. You found me and I found you.'

*Like finds like,' the woman echoed.

They halted to enjoy the view across the Vale of York to where the City of York lay nestled amid a lush patchwork of fields and small stands of woodland.

*It's like an addict with his drug . . . you need the next fix . . . you need the next look in the victim's eyes.'

*And you need a partner you can trust,' the woman added. *It's all about trust.'

*Yes . . . I knew we were made for each other . . . I saw it in your eyes.'

The woman laughed softly. *The cat was the first . . . that old cat . . . years ago now.'

*Yes, but the look that flashed across its eyes was identical.'

*Delicious . . . delicious. And we were both still at school then.'

*No. I had already left . . . one year ahead of you. Remember? But all so naive and needy.'

*All so naive or so needy, mainly needy . . . but all had that same look in the eyes when their time came.'

*A few escaped,' the woman commented as her eye was drawn to a hovering sparrowhawk above the adjacent field. *What was that girl's name . . .? Tilly something . . . she didn't keep the rendezvous . . . saved her life by doing so . . . it was like she smelled a rat. She didn't report us though.'

*She had nothing to report. We just invited her to go to the coast with us.'

*We should have kept photographs.' The woman sighed.

*That would have been suicidal. They have nothing to link us to them when they are found and I want to continue to enjoy walks like this, on days like this, for a few years yet.'

*I suppose you are right . . . glad we stopped though . . . you were right about that. Quit while ahead . . . but those looks they gave at the end . . . those looks . . . heavenly.'

ONE.

Wednesday, 10th June a 10.05 hours to 16.35 hours in which an enclosed garden gives up its dead.

John Seers tried to a.n.a.lyse his fear, or his fears. He sat and wondered why it was that he should feel so apprehensive when there was nothing tangible to fear a nothing at all. The large old house was quiet, utterly silent, which was only to be expected because he was the sole person in the building. John Seers reasoned that any other person who might be in the building would probably be just as wary of him as he would be of them. Unless it was not another person in the building but other persons, then, then he would have cause to fear. But he was alone, he was quite definitely the only human being in the house, and not only was he alone but people knew where he was and would come looking for him should he fall and fracture his leg or sustain some other disabling mishap, and thus not return by the appointed hour. He also carried his mobile phone, and even though the old house was remote, the signal strength had proved quite adequate should he need to summon a.s.sistance. In the end John Seers concluded that he was fearing only fear itself and that he was experiencing the sense of vulnerability, quite intensely so, of being a lone human being. Human beings, Seers reasoned, have achieved dominance because they have developed technology and because they function in cooperating groups, but as individuals, without technology, shelter, or a means to start a life saving and/or defensive fire, then the human being is vulnerable and an easy prey for many predators. Seers was content in the knowledge that he was alone in the house, and he did not expect to be attacked by a pack of ravenous baboons, nor by a pride of equally hungry lions, but yet, when his eyes fell on an axe helve which lay propped against the scullery wall, cobwebbed and dust covered, he picked it up and held it in his right hand, comforted by its weight, as he advanced from room to room.

He had decided that the best way to commence the project, which he had been advised would take him some four to six weeks to complete, would be to familiarize himself with the interior of the house, including, of course, the cellar and the attic, and then to visit the outbuildings and finally the overgrown garden. He felt he needed to set foot in all parts of the property and so he walked, wearing summer shoes and lightweight all white coveralls, axe helve in one hand and battery operated torch in the other. He opened each door that he came to and shone the beam of the torch into the rooms from which sunlight had been excluded by heavy curtains drawn shut. The torch beam illuminated strange shapes and shadows and mounds and peaks and valleys of darkness caused by the items in the room being covered by dust sheets. Seers went first into each and every room on the ground floor of the house, penetrating the rooms as much as he found possible, taking his time a not a rapid putting his head round the door of each room, glancing once at the interior and then closing the door behind him before moving on to the next room, but rather he loitered in each room, looking up at the ceiling and down at the floor covering. He marvelled at the good fortune of the house being so remote, so isolated, and so thoroughly concealed from view. A more open location and nearer the city, he fancied, would have led to the house and its contents being plundered by thieves in the night, loading up their white vans and selling the items at Bermondsey antique market. Then would have come the squatters or the local teenagers with stones and bricks, ensuring that not one pane of gla.s.s remained intact. Finally would come one or two children, boy children, who did not fully understand what they were doing, or an adult, sinister, lone-acting, who did fully understand what he was doing, but either carrying a can of petrol and a box of matches, and that would have been the fate of Bromyards; all contents purloined, then squatted, then vandalized and finally razed by fire. An unfortunate end to the house initially built in 1719 and added to over the following two hundred and fifty years. Throughout its history it had always been in the hands of the same family, until the last of the line had eventually succ.u.mbed to his frailty and failing health, expiring with nearly three hundred years of inheritance around him.

John Seers ascended the wide wooden stairway, which creaked occasionally under his weight, and so he felt obliged to move to the edge of the stairway where he reasoned the structure would have retained more strength, and did so, choosing the banister side because it offered a handhold in the event of a rotten stair giving way. On the upper floor he discovered more rooms, all of which had been used as bedchambers and the contents therein had similarly been covered in dust sheets. The air in the house was stale, the building poorly ventilated and John Seers had difficulty obtaining deep breaths. Nonetheless, he continued to explore the house, becoming increasingly grateful for the person or persons unknown who had draped the contents of the house with dust sheets: it was going to make his job much cleaner. It was on the upper floor that he found the living quarters of the final occupant of Bromyards, and upon finding them felt the poignancy of the man's last years of life. It seemed clear, that, as the years took their toll, the last owner had retreated first from the grounds, then from the garden, then from the house, until his accommodation was just one self-contained room, and a small room at that, with just a single bed of unwashed sheets and a stack of food in tin cans and a two-ringed gas stove to cook on. A toilet directly across the corridor also doubled as washing facilities for him and any plates and pans he used when preparing and eating his food. That was home for him. Not for him was the vastness of Bromyards and its incalculable cubic feet of volume within its walls and under its roof, but one small room, which was smaller and ruder than had been John Seers' accommodation when he was at university. He closed the door of the small room with a certain yet distinct reverence.

The attic of Bromyards he found to be as he had expected it to be; a disorganized receptacle for a.s.sorted items not required in the living area of the house and which were sufficiently small to be able to be lifted through the trap door, being its sole point of ingress and egress. He saw also that a lot of detritus had acc.u.mulated since 1719. The detritus in the attic had not, he noticed with a groan of dismay, been covered with dust sheets. He dare not proceed further into the cobwebs and the dust without extra thick coveralls. He also saw that he would need a base upon which to stand, there being no proper flooring in the attic, just beams going across the width of the house with thin plaster, which would not take his weight between them. That, though, he reasoned, is what recces are all about. It is the purpose of a recce, to determine what is where and also what is going to be needed. He carefully descended from the attic and returned to the ground floor of the house and searched and found the entrance to the cellar. In the cellar he, for some reason, felt particularly vulnerable. As he swept the room with the beam of his torch he saw that the contents of the cellar seemed to be similar to that of the attic, unwanted items which were perhaps larger and heavier than the ones which had been lifted into the attic. The cellar, accessed by a flight of stone steps, had been built in a pattern of ten chambers and had an earthen floor, which Seers felt was highly unusual for the Vale of York and its low-lying nature, which rendered it p.r.o.ne to flooding. Bromyards, he a.s.sumed, must occupy an island of high ground which thusly permitted the excavation of a cellar over which the house was then built.

John Seers emerged from the cellar and left the house by the large front door and began his exploration of the garden and the grounds beyond. Outside he felt uncomfortably warm in his coveralls and kept his eyes downcast to shield them from the glare of the sun, which by mid forenoon was already high in the sky. He found he felt safer in the garden and so reasoned that the fear he had experienced in the house must have been generated by the gloom and the restricted vision of seeing nothing beyond whichever room or corridor he was in at any one time, and yet knowing he was within a very large and unoccupied house. Yet, once in the garden he could survey a greater area illuminated by sunlight and so would have earlier warning of the approach of any threat. Despite this, he still felt comforted and re-a.s.sured by the axe helve he continued to hold.

He probed his way through the gra.s.s which had grown to waist height in places and heard the scurrying of rodents within the gra.s.s as they timidly ran at his approach. The grounds were ma.s.sively overgrown with gra.s.ses dominating the vegetation. Although Seers was able to make out parts of the garden, the border of a lawn, the row of oak trees, the apple orchard with the boughs sagging under the great weight of fruit, he could not exactly say where the garden had ended and the wilderness of the grounds began.

Remaining near the house, he found that the outbuildings were of a solid wooden construction and it seemed, like the house, that they appeared to be still in a structurally sound condition. They had clearly been very well maintained and it looked as if the last person to have had responsibility for them had applied a generous seal of weatherproofing to the buildings in antic.i.p.ation of them being abandoned. Within the buildings were garden tools of an earlier era, solid and heavy and still functional, although an ancient lawnmower had become badly corroded and Seers guessed it was worth only sc.r.a.p value. The garage amid the buildings contained a Talbot of 1930s' vintage which had been left resting on wooden blocks so as to preserve the suspension as much as possible, and when Seers opened the driver's door he found that the interior of the car smelled richly of leather and he experienced a they-don't-make-'em-like-this-anymore moment. Seers knew little about cars but he sensed that the Talbot could be restored and that it was an item of high value. Leaving the garage, he waded through waist-high gra.s.s to a gazebo, the paint of which had peeled over many summers. He ventured towards the structure and found that it seemed solid and immovable. Clearly it had settled and set upon the mechanism on which it had once been rotated in accordance with the movement of the sun across the sky. Unlike the other outbuildings, the gazebo would, so Seers thought, be earmarked for demolition. Brushing a persistent fly from his face Seers turned to the kitchen garden. It was the only part of the property mentioned in the schedule that he had not yet visited. He thought a glance at the kitchen garden and then the overview of Bromyards would be complete and thus a good morning's work be achieved. He would lunch in the village and then return to commence work proper that afternoon.

The kitchen garden was, he discovered, an area of approximately one hundred yards by fifty yards, and was bordered, or enclosed, by a brick wall of some ten feet in height and which had been painted white, as he was to find, on both the interior and the exterior surfaces, with the topmost line of bricks painted black. As had only to be expected, the paint had faded and peeled on the south-facing walls and on the topmost bricks. Access to the kitchen garden was by a single green painted wooden door set, curiously Seers thought, in the section of the wall which was furthest from the house, needlessly extending the walk between the kitchen garden to the kitchen itself. He followed the overgrown path, which led from the house to the kitchen garden with the northern facing wall of the garden to his right. He turned at the end of the wall and stood in front of the door. To his dismay he saw that the door was lockable and he envisaged having to break down the door, leaving the new owners, whoever they may be, to build a replacement.

The door, in the event, had not been locked and the key then placed on one side, unlabelled. To Seer's surprise it not only opened but it swung open easily, moving silently on its hinges, and at that instant John Seers was stabbed with a sense of real fear, not the fear of the unknown that he had felt in the house, not the fearing of fear itself, not the fear which had largely evaporated upon his leaving the house and stepping out of doors into the sun-drenched garden, but this was fear created by observation, and by logical deduction caused by common sense, or what his cloth-cap wearing coal-mining grandfather would have called *gumption'. Unlike all the other doors in Bromyards, except for the bedroom of the last occupant, which protested when opened because their hinges had seized from under use, the door of the kitchen garden opened noiselessly on lubricated hinges. *Gumption' told him that the door had been frequently and recently used. As the old man had been lying dying in a small room in his huge house, someone, or some persons had been accessing the kitchen garden for purpose or purposes unknown, although the lubricated hinges were testament to the fact that he or she, or they, wished their activity to remain undetected. A house full of valuables, and so easily removed, yet someone was interested only in the kitchen garden? John Seers knew fear and, cautiously, he pushed the door open.

He did not notice the bodies at first. The first thing he saw was the ivy clad surfaces of the walls. Also ivy covered was a large greenhouse still with, so far as he could tell, all panes of gla.s.s still intact. All the hinged panes were closed and Seers knew that that would make the interior of the greenhouse insufferably hot within, he would have to open the windows to allow the structure to *breathe' and then return some time later. The remainder of the kitchen garden was extensively overgrown and once again gra.s.ses had come to dominate the vegetable patches. It was when he once again noticed how aggressive gra.s.s becomes when an area of land is left unattended that the skull grinned at him. He stood, startled for an instant, and then he felt that the skull, human, bleached by the sun and inclined in his direction was not grinning but was somehow saying, *Help me, help me', and beyond the first skull was a second, also human, and beyond that a third. John Seers did not look any further but turned, slowly, and walked back to what he felt to be the safety of his car, and there he took his mobile from his pocket and pressed three nines and told the officer what he had found. *Directions?' he replied to the next query. *Oh, you'll never find it,' he glanced at the road map he had followed earlier that morning, *drive on the road between Leavening and Thixendale . . . don't know its number, it's not given on this map. I'll wait on the road and make myself known to the attending officer. Tell him to look for a bloke in white coveralls standing by a red Vauxhall.'

George Hennessey slowed as he approached the police patrol car, and as he did so the officer standing beside the vehicle drew himself up and stiffened into a near *at attention' position and pointed to the driveway that was the approach to Bromyards. Hennessey turned into the drive-way and nodded in response to the officer's salute. The driveway, Hennessey found, was long, probably a mile he guessed from the road to the house, and was being severely encroached upon by the vegetation at either side, so much so that he felt he was driving his car down a narrow tunnel of endless shrubbery. At the top, or the end of the driveway, the foliage gave way to an open gravel-covered courtyard within which police vehicles, a red Vauxhall, and two black, windowless mortuary department vans were parked. Also in the courtyard was a second unmarked car and a van belonging to the Scene of Crime Unit. Hennessey parked his car beside the mortuary vans and scowled at the drivers and drivers' a.s.sistants of the vans who stood irreverently smoking cigarettes, and were chatting idly, commenting it seemed on articles printed in the day's tabloid press. One of the men responded to Hennessey's scowl by flicking his cigarette defiantly on to the ground and crushing it beneath his foot, all the while holding eye contact with Hennessey. Hennessey, not having any authority over the mortuary van crewmen, could only look away from them as he got out of his car, putting his jacket and panama hat on as he did so. He enquired of a white-shirted constable the whereabouts of DC Webster and, following the constable's directions, walked slowly but with quiet confidence to the kitchen garden wherein he found Webster talking to a scene of crime officer, and as he approached he thought that both men appeared distinctly shaken. Webster smiled briefly at Hennessey as Hennessey approached him.

*Thank you for coming so quickly, sir.' Webster spoke quietly, calmly. *This is bad. It's big and bad and one for you, sir.'

*What do we have?'

*So far . . . so far we have five skeletons. Seem to my untrained eye to be exhibiting different rates of decomposition. One is completely skeletal; one still has tissue in evidence.'

*Five?' Hennessey raised an eyebrow. *So far?'

*Yes, sir, so far.' Webster glanced at the garden where three white-shirted constables were carefully probing the vegetation. *As you see, sir, the garden is badly overgrown . . . a few more skeletons, or corpses may still be concealed but we're moving carefully . . . don't want to damage the evidence.'

*Yes . . . a large area search. You don't need more men?'

*I think not, sir.' Webster brushed a fly from his face. *Many hands might well make light work but in this case I think it is more true that too many cooks will spoil the broth.'

*I see.'

*It's also the apparent case that all the bodies are localized within this area . . . within these walls, eventually we'll locate them and do so quite rapidly.'

*So in this . . . remnant of the kitchen garden? Not within the house or the grounds?'

*They'll be searched, of course, sir, but the gentleman who found them mentioned that the hinges of the garden door have been lubricated, uniquely in the house and grounds.'

*I see,' Hennessey watched a constable part the branches of a laurel bush, *that is a fair point.' He turned again to Webster. *You look shaken, Webster. It's not like you.'

*I am, sir. It's not just the skeletons; it's the way that they were restrained.'

*They were restrained?'

*Yes, sir . . . wrists chained together behind their backs and one of their ankles was attached to a long, heavy chain which ran the length of the garden, anch.o.r.ed certainly at this end in a block of concrete. They also seem to have remnants of some type of gag in their mouths.'

*A gag,' Hennessey gasped, *so suggesting they were alive when left here . . . attached to a chain . . .?'

*Yes, sir . . . in full view of the previous skeletons . . . and left to succ.u.mb to thirst or cold. If left in the summer thirst would have taken them, if in winter hypothermia.'

*Better show me.' Hennessey followed Webster who led him to the skeleton which was closest to the door of the garden. *I've asked the pathologist to attend, sir,' Webster explained, *no need for the police surgeon to confirm life extinct in the matter of corpses, as per regulations.'

*Yes . . . good.'

*This is what I mean, sir.' Webster stood over the skeleton of the human being. *The SOCO have taken all photographs.'

Hennessey looked at the corpse and as he did so, he noticed a silence about the scene, even the birds were silent. Hennessey saw instantly that the scene was exactly as Webster had described. The skeleton lay on its side with what appeared to be a length of rope fastened in its mouth tied behind the neck. The rope had largely rotted to the point of disintegration but it was a clear ill.u.s.tration of a simple but efficient gag. It was all that was needed to prevent the victim screaming or shouting for a.s.sistance. The wrists, as Webster had further indicated, were fastened closely together by a small length of lightweight chain and fastened with two small bra.s.s padlocks, and the left ankle had been fastened with a similar length of lightweight chain to a long length of heavy chain. The heavy chain would, by itself, be difficult to pull or drag along the ground but it was, as Webster had indicated, buried at one end and doubtless at the other end also, into large blocks of concrete. *Premeditated,' he said.

*Sir?'

*The way the chain is embedded into the concrete . . . it seems that the chain was covered with concrete powder when it was in a large plastic bucket and the concrete moistened and allowed to harden, but that amount of concrete would take weeks to harden . . . or "cure" as I believe is the correct term.'

*I see what you mean, sir, and it would seem like that was done here . . .'

*Yes, that's what I was thinking. It would be much easier to transport two plastic buckets, some bags of cement, a length of chain and an amount of water and a.s.semble the thing here . . . bring a little at a time and take a few days over the operation. That is premeditation.'

*It is, isn't it, sir?' Webster looked at the length of chain to where it disappeared into undergrowth, by then being probed by the three constables. *So the chain and the blocks of concrete were in place before the first victim was brought here?'

*It seems likely . . . and the skeletons are of different ages, you say?' Hennessey considered the crime scene.

*It appears so, sir. As you see it's badly run down. The owner . . . the last owner . . . died recently.'

*I see. Well, dead or not he is going to be our number one suspect.'

*It would seem likely, sir, but frankly I doubt that will be the case, not after what Mr Seers told me.'

*Mr Seers? Who is he?'

*The member of the public who found the skeletons . . . he saw three . . . and raised the alarm. We subsequently discovered two further skeletons and at which point you arrived, sir.'

*Very well,' Hennessey brushed another fly away from his face. *Is he still here?'

*Yes, sir, he is the owner of the red Vauxhall parked in front of the house.'

*Yes, I noticed it. I'll go and talk to him. If you would carry on here, please?'

*Yes, sir.'

George Hennessey walked slowly from the kitchen garden to the front of the house where the motor vehicles were parked and where, as the day had matured, some element of shade was by then afforded. He identified the red Vauxhall and approached it calmly, smiling gently at the composed looking man who sat in the driver's seat. *Mr Seers?'

*Yes, that's me,' Seers opened the car door and stepped out of the vehicle, *John Seers of Seers, Seers and n.o.ble.'

*A solicitor?'

*Yes, for my sins,' Seers shrugged, *but it pays the bills.'

*I haven't heard of your firm, I regret to say.'

*We hardly do any criminal work which probably explains it . . . not a great deal of money to be made defending murderers. Our firm is princ.i.p.ally concerned with commercial law and property . . . if the property is large and valuable enough.'

Hennessey indicated Bromyards, *This sort of large and valuable?'

*Yes, this sort of large and valuable. This particular case is quite rare and I pulled rank to get it . . . I am a senior partner . . . it's a job that we could give to a junior but I really wanted it, seemed it was going to get me out of our office for a few weeks.'

*I can understand that,' Hennessey agreed, *I too dislike being desk-bound. So what exactly were you . . . your firm . . . engaged to do in respect of this property?'

*To make an inventory of the contents.' Seers was tall, clean-shaven, a thin but balanced face. He spoke with received p.r.o.nunciation so George Hennessey noticed and heard. *We act for the deceased and the family of the deceased, being one Nicholas Housecarl by name. He was a long-time client of our firm and he left a will in which he directed that his entire estate be liquidated . . . everything, Bromyards and its contents, his portfolio of stocks and shares . . . everything to be turned into cash and then said cash to be distributed in set percentages of the whole to surviving relatives and designated charities.'

*I see,' Hennessey paused. *Is Bromyards the full name of the property, not House, Hall, Court, Manor . . . or any such name?'

*No other or second name. The house is called simply "Bromyards".'

*I see.'

*So the first step and the one which would have got me out of our office for quite a few weeks was to make an inventory of the contents.'

*No small task.'

*No small task at all, especially when one considers that the items within the house have been acc.u.mulating since 1719.'

*Which is when the house was built?'

*Which is when the house was built, at the beginning of the reign of George I and in the era of Handel and Bach, and . . . I glanced at my son's history books before I began the inventory . . . just to make it even more interesting,' Seers explained with a brief smile. *I really don't carry that sort of historical knowledge in my head.'

*Impressed, nonetheless.'

*Well, I have to detail everything inside the house . . . and I mean everything . . . from the recently purchased twenty-first century tea mugs in the living area to the dust-sheet covered paintings, which may be old masters lost to the world for centuries and may be worth more than the house itself . . . all has to be catalogued. A very, very interesting job.'

*Sounds so, and I can understand why you pulled rank to get it.'

*Indeed . . . then we have to take the contents into storage by a firm of reputable auctioneers and valued. We use Myles and Innche.'

*Miles and Inch,' Hennessey grinned.

*Yes, it is an unusual name . . . both units of linear measurement . . . but not spelled the same.' Seers told Hennessey how the auctioneers was correctly spelled.