“University of York, this is Debbie.”
“Hello, Debbie. This is Detective Inspector Thatcher of North Yorkshire Police. I’m calling to get in touch with Harry Cuthbert.” I saw Mills poke his head up across the room. “I understand he’s a member of staff at the university.”
“He is, but he has been away at a conference for a few days. He’s not currently on campus.”
I almost swore, loudly. “Do you have his contact information so that I could reach him at home?”
There was a crackling pause as she hesitated. “I have his office number,” Debbie said at last. “His assistant should be there to answer.”
“Perfect,” I replied, picking up a pencil and jotting it down as she recited it twice.
“Her name is Gwen Dale,” Debbie told me afterwards.
“Thank you, Debbie. You’ve been very helpful.” I hung up, only then to dial again, this time Gwen’s number. It rang for ages, and I almost gave up, but at the last second, someone answered.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice echoed down the line. She was outside, or in a rush. Interesting.
“Is this Gwen Dale?”
“Speaking.”
“I’m Detective Inspector Thatcher, North Yorkshire Police. I’m calling for Mr Harry Cuthbert.”
“Inspector?” she repeated, her voice almost lost in the wind. Mills got up again and made his way over, leaning against the desk as we waited. “Hold on one moment.” I could just about hear her talking to someone away from the phone, voices low and hard to distinguish.
“Yes, hello,” a man’s voice called through. “Inspector?”
“Is this Harry Cuthbert?” I asked, putting him on speaker so that Mills could hear.
“It is.” He sounded impatient and like he was moving. There was the sound of a door opening and closing, and then all was quiet. “Sorry about that, just got off the train.” His voice was clear now, free from all the wind and voices. “You’re an Inspector?”
“I am. Inspector Thatcher, North Yorkshire Police.”
“Is this about Viviane Charles?”
Mills and I shared a look as Harry said that.
“It is,” I confirmed.
There was a pause, and then he said, “I’ve been at a conference since Saturday afternoon. I’ve only just been able to get back. I’m heading to the house now, Inspector, if you’re able to meet me there. Else I could come to the station afterwards?” He was very polite, very helpful, and I frowned at the phone, sharing a look with Mills. He made a face, shrugging as I looked back at the phone.
“We’ll meet you at the house, Mr Cuthbert.”
“Excellent. Well, not excellent, but… you know. See you there.”
I hung up, leaning back in my chair with a very confused look on my face.
“Been away at a conference,” Mills repeated, picking up a pen and twirling it in his fingers. “Convenient timing?”
“Maybe. Seems eager to help,” I pointed out. People rarely offered themselves to us directly, even more rarely volunteered to come to us. “And he knew her by name.”
“What do you have on him?” Mills asked, crossing to his desk to pull his coat on.
“He works at the university,” I told him. “Oversees its collections in the history department.”
“That lines up with a few of our theories,” Mills commented.
“Certainly does,” I agreed. “I suppose we should go and find out what he knows.”
“Takes about twenty minutes to get to the house from the train station,” Mills said. “We’ll get there before him.”
“Good. Let’s meet him outside.”
“Don’t want him to speak to anyone before us?” Mills asked, a slight curl on his mouth.
“Something along those lines,” I replied, sticking my phone in my pocket and wrenching the door open.
Sharp was approaching us from the hall, stopping as we left the office and met her halfway.
“Where to?” she asked.
“We’re meeting with the owner of the house, Harry Cuthbert.”
“Cuthbert?” she repeated. “Sounds familiar. Where are you meeting him?”
“At the house,” I told her, “though he did offer to come here.”
Sharp’s angled eyebrows rose. “Did he? Alright, hopefully, you get something good from him.”
“HQ been on the phone?” Mills asked.
“With a very public suicide-turned-murder?” she scoffed. “Yes, they certainly have.”
“We’ll get something soon,” I assured her.
“I know you will,” she replied, her eyes flicking up to look at my head. “Provided you stay in one piece long enough to. You.” She pointed at Mills. “Keep an eye on him. I don’t need my DIs wandering around the city battered and beaten trying to reassure the public.”
Mills nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” She nodded shortly and turned, striding off in the other direction. Mills turned to me with a grin, and I shoved his shoulder towards the door.
“Let’s go.”
Fourteen
Thatcher
We took Mills’s car, the small hatchback better suited for zipping around the city streets and arrived at the house before Harry Cuthbert. It was quiet, the museum closed in respect for Viviane, black ribbons now tied onto the pillars outside the doors. We got out of the car, resting against the bonnet, watching the city across the street. It wasn’t raining, finally, but it was due to come again later today. Already dark clouds were making their way over, blocking out the sun and casting a dim gloom over everything.
“Where do you want to start?” Mills asked me, breaking up the sound of the wind and the birds. “How do you want to go about talking to Cuthbert?”
I breathed in deeply, squinting into the street. “We’ll see what he knew about Viviane, whether or not they’ve met before.”
“You think he might be the man she met?”
“Possibly. But that’s a tight schedule given he had this apparent conference of his. Actually, we’ll start with that. Get a good bearing on his whereabouts the past few days.”
The doors behind us opened, and we spun around to find Rita Jones in the door, looking politely confused. Her hair was back in its short glossy curls like she’d walked out of a twenties film, her pale skin offset by red lipstick. Apart from that, she wasn’t much the picture of great health. The shadows still lingered under her eyes, her eye makeup smudged. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was having a hard time sleeping.
“Inspector,” she greeted us. “Sergeant.” Her voice had lost its shake that it had the last time we spoke. Perhaps she was getting used to our presence in her place of work.
“Rita,” I turned around properly and straightened. I hadn’t been expecting to see her here today. “I thought the house was closed.”
“Mr Cuthbert called us in to talk about Viviane, or his assistant did, anyway. My brother…?” she began.
“We left our number with him,” I said. “Tell him to call us back when he can. Ideally, as soon as possible.”
She nodded. “I left him a note on the fridge. Mum used to say he’d forget his own head if it wasn’t screwed onto his neck.” I smiled.
“Is it just you and Ms Goddard?” I asked with a nod to the house.
“Yes. Nia’s youngest has a stomach bug, and she couldn’t come.”
“Have you ever met Harry Cuthbert?” Mills asked her.
Rita shook her head. “He does all the business side of things with Josephine. Sometimes comes in on a Monday to look around on his own.” They were closed on Mondays, I remembered, so she wouldn’t have seen him before.
“Any pictures of him in the place?” I asked. Old families usually had portraits of themselves hanging about.
“In storage in the basement, I think. Most of them are in the family home now, rather than in here.”
“So, you have no idea what he looks like?” I said, searching for actual clarification.
Rita chewed her
lip for a moment, wrapping her arms around herself, her frame lost in her baggy jumper.
“I don’t think so. I can’t picture his face,” she said simply.
“Would Viviane have ever met him?” Mills asked. She’d worked here longer than Rita, it was possible.
“Yes.” Rita nodded. “Said he was a nice man, does a lot of work behind the scenes. Are you here to meet him?”
“We are,” I confirmed with a slight smile.
Rita nodded and opened the door a little further. “Would you like to come in?” She asked hesitantly, glancing at the ominous clouds in the distance.
“Might as well,” I answered, pushing myself away from the car. We followed her inside, and she left the inner doors open for Cuthbert. At the sound of our entrance, Josephine Goddard bustled into the room expectantly.
“Inspector,” she said in a surprised voice. “Back so soon?”
“We’re here to meet with Harry Cuthbert,” I told her. “We shouldn’t take up too much of your time.”
Rita moved around behind us, walking to lean against the counter and looking like she was attempting to shrink back into the wallpaper.
“He should be here any moment,” Josephine said, looking down at her watch. “But trains are never very reliable, are they?”
“Not in my experience, Ms Goddard,” I replied, remembering a very long journey home from France once that I was not eager to repeat.
“Can we get you some tea?” she offered, glancing at Rita in a way that made me think ‘we’ actually meant ‘she’.
“No, we’d hate to be a bother.”
“No bother,” Rita said earnestly, leaving the counter. “I’d like to be useful.” She smiled and made for the back of the house.
“Use the nice blend, Rita!” Josephine called after her. “Come and sit down, Inspector, sergeant. Please.”
We followed her through to the parlour, a room we hadn’t been in before. It was nice and reminded me of most other parlours in old houses. A wooden rocking, about half the size of a real one, took up the far wall, a large fireplace with an ornate mantel on the other, and the bay window that carved out into the street, wisteria outside keeping some privacy in the room. Sofas with floral patterns sat neatly around a low table, flowers on most of the surfaces. We sat ourselves down on the sofa opposite her, listening to the grandfather clock tick away as we waited for Harry Cuthbert, or the tea, whichever came first.
It was Harry, in the end, the front doors opening loudly and a brusque voice calling out, “Josephine?”
“Oh!” Ms Goddard hopped to her feet and hurried out into the entrance, her voice carrying through the door.
Mills and I rose languidly to our feet as she walked back in, a tall gentleman behind her. I quickly looked at Mills, whose surprise was quickly formed into a blank face, and he gave me a short nod. Harry Cuthbert was indeed tall, with long curly black hair, green eyes, tanned skin, and dressed in an extraordinary dark red coat, earrings flashing as he looked around and spotted us.
“Harry Cuthbert,” he announced himself, walking forward with an outstretched hand. He looked to be around Mills’s age, a faint growth of stubble on his jaw making him look older.
“DI Thatcher, and this is DS Mills. Thank you for meeting with us so soon.”
“Nonsense,” he said after shaking both our hands and sitting on the plain wooden chair between the two sofas. “Should have met you days ago, all told. I’m sorry I couldn’t be here to help then.”
“You were at a conference?” I asked, taking a seat again.
“Yes. Archaeological conference down in Somerset. They find all sorts down in the West Country. It was good, interesting stuff until Gwen called with the news.”
“And you left on Saturday afternoon for your conference?” I checked.
He nodded. “Got on the one o’clock train and arrived in Frome just in time to check into the hotel and grab a bite to eat. Spent the night with some family friends before heading to the conference. Once I heard it had become a homicide investigation,” he shook his head. “I made my excuses pretty quickly.”
“And you’re back just now?” I checked, though the commotion around him on the phone this morning left little room for imagination.
“Just now, I haven't even been home yet. You called Gwen the moment I stepped off the train, which was good luck,” he said, a faint smile on his face. “She might have put you on hold otherwise.”
I couldn’t doubt him much. He had the exact look of a man who’d just spent the morning travelling. He must have gotten up at an ungodly hour to be here as early as he was. It was a long train ride. He looked tired, shadowed under his eyes, his figure slightly hunched, but he seemed happy enough to go on, handsome face smiling.
There was a small rustle behind Josephine, and Rita eased the door open, balancing a tea tray in her arms. Harry shot up, jogging over and taking the tray from her. Rita looked up, confused, looked over his face and then turned to me and jerked her chin his way. This was the man from the restaurant. Harry came over, putting the tray on the table and turned to her.
“You must be Rita Jones. I’m Harry.” He shook her hand, and she managed a smile, taking a seat beside Josephine, who handed out the mugs. There was one for Harry, which he held onto like a life vest.
“Detectives, shall we talk? I can answer any of your questions and then get back to you both,” he said to Josephine and Rita.
“Go right ahead,” Josephine waved a hand, “I’ve some paperwork to fill out, anyway.” She stood, leaving Rita on the sofa.
“This way.” Harry led us from the parlour, through to the library, where he stopped and looked around, focusing on the dark rooms beyond. “In the hall,” he muttered. “I used to slide down that hall in my socks as a boy.”
“You spent a deal of time here?” Mills asked.
“I did,” Harry said fondly. “Born here.” Well, that was a surprise. “Grew up here until mum and dad decided to open it to the public. I didn’t take the news all that well, but I was only around ten.”
“It must be odd to have strangers walking around your home,” Mills said, looking a bit displeased at the thought.
“Place looked a lot different then,” Harry told us. “All of this,” he waved an arm around, “was in storage. Place looked a lot more homely when it was just us. My Winnie-the-Pooh used to sit in that window,” he pointed to the bay window behind us, “keeping an eye out.”
He smiled at the memory and took a seat. Mills and I followed, my knees creaking unpleasantly. Harry looked at me, at my head.
“Can I ask what happened?” he said with a nod in my direction.
“Little mishap with some repairs. You’re not the only one with an old house to look after.”
Harry grinned. “Lives of their own, haven’t they? My dad used to call this place she. Said she was a bigger pain in his arse than my granny and mum combined.”
“What made them decide to open it up?” Mills asked.
“You know,” Harry scratched his chin. “I can’t really remember. Dad had this big, long speech about history and preservation and all that. Helps to bring in some income, I suppose as well. The place is a bit of a money pit otherwise. Not too bad, we had another place to move into, just outside the city. More personal, more private,” he added thoughtfully.
“Is that where you live now?” I asked.
“It is. Me and granny.” He raised his mug with a wink. “Someone’s got to keep her out of trouble.”
“And we understand that you work at the university? Curator of the collections?” I asked.
“That is the university’s fancy way of saying I know what the artefacts are, and how they should be kept. It doesn’t keep me all that busy. This place has the privilege of that. I have a few little bits and pieces,” he said. “Work with some other historical houses in the city, too.”
“Any interest in the antiques business?” I inquired.
“Not really,” he said with a shrug. �
��Unless it’s something for the house, then I don’t have much interest. But we’ve got so much in storage, it’s very rare we ever actually buy anything. Everything here has been owned by Cuthberts.”
“How often do you come here?” Mills asked him.
“Never really when it’s open. Sundays or Mondays I like to come, have free rein, imagine I still live here,” he admitted with a laugh. “Otherwise, Josephine and I do most of our business over the phone. She knows the place well. It’s a well-oiled machine under her.”
“What about Viviane Charles?” I asked him, bracing my arms on my knees. “Did you know her well?”
His face fell a little, and he looked away for a moment. “Not at first,” he said. “But she did work here for six years, and—”
He was cut off shortly by a commotion coming from the other side of the house. We all turned to the door where Josephine and Rita’s voices were raised, shouting from the parlour. The three of us shared a look, placed our mugs down and ran through to the parlour where Josephine and Rita were standing, each trying to wrestle a bag from the other.
“I know what I saw, young lady. Hand it over!” Josephine snapped.
“What you saw?” Rita replied, her low voice fierce. “What right have you got to go snooping through my bag, anyway? You’re mad. Let go!”
“If I know what I saw, then I have every right!”
“No, you don’t. Let go.”
I turned and looked at Mills and Harry, who stared at the scene before us with as much confusion as I felt. Mills returned my look, then gave me a shrug that I took as ‘you’re the SIO, you do it’, for which I would get him back for. I rolled my eyes, turning back to the women and took a few strides towards them.
“Josephine, Rita,” I approached them steadily, my hands out in front of me, keeping my voice level. “What’s this about?”
“She was going through my bag,” Rita told me, not taking her eyes off Goddard. “When I asked for it back, she ran off with it!”
“And for a good reason, too,” Ms Goddard replied bitterly.
“Josephine, let go of the bag, please,” I asked her as calmly as I could. It could be that she had a very good reason to have taken the bag, but it was Rita’s bag.
Dangerous Relics (A DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crimes Book 3) Page 12