Fear of Drowning

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘NW2 on a civil servant’s salary?’

  ‘Father was a generous man. He subsidized Nicola and myself. I can live off the base and enjoy a full social life because of Father. The salary I receive is a token payment. Service officers have to have private means.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really.’

  ‘And you have suddenly begun speaking of your father in the past tense.’

  ‘No, I haven’t. His money is in the past tense. I suppose I should say that he was a businessman.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’s broke.’ Williams smiled. ‘You think it’s funny that I laugh? What else can I do? It’s better than crying.’

  ‘Lieutenant Williams, what do you think has happened to your parents?’

  ‘I think they’ve done a moonlight flit.’

  ‘When did you learn this?’

  ‘Well, I’ve suspected for a while, but all our, that is mine and Nicky’s, fears were confirmed on Saturday. That’s why I didn’t remain long at the house on Sunday morning. I wanted to get home. I was in a state of…’

  ‘Anger?’

  ‘No … numbness. Shock. My world closed in very suddenly on Saturday night.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I thought you’d say that.’

  ‘When men go broke they often leave unpaid debts.’

  ‘Yes. But I don’t know if my father owed money.’

  ‘What does it mean for you?’

  ‘It means I shall have to leave the navy.’

  ‘Bother you?’

  ‘Yes. Not too bothered about leaving the Halley.’ Williams looked disdainfully around him. ‘But the navy … it’s been my life since I was seventeen. Can’t survive without father’s money … so I’ll have to resign and make my way in civilian life. Daresay I can do that if I have to, and it looks like I’ll have to.’

  2

  Tuesday afternoon and evening

  … in which Chief Inspector Hennessey enjoys a history lesson and expresses grave concerns.

  ‘The Fulling mill appeared in England in the thirteenth century and this particular example is believed to date from the mid-fourteenth century. A Fulling mill consisted of an axel or spindle onto which were attached a row of spinning wheels. The axel was driven by water power. The original mill was covered by a shed in which the millers worked on a daily basis, returning home each evening. It was thus the first form of factory. As can be seen, the stream has now dried up but the banks and the bed of the stream are still discernible.’

  Hennessey read the notice attached to the wall and then looked down through the glass plate which was mounted on a brick-built square and elevated above floor level to waist height. He saw a pale, grey, decayed length of timber about six feet in length which lay across a shallow trench. It was to his eyes, nothing he thought special to look at, the sort of thing he would glance at once and forget, but equally, the sort of thing which would send a medievalist into a paroxysm of ecstasy. He turned his attention to the wall and pondered the reproductions of eighteenth-century prints of fox-hunting scenes, the originals clearly having been painted in the days when it was believed horses leapt rather than ran when they galloped. Beside the fox-hunting scenes was a reproduction of a seventeenth-century map of Yorkshire with ‘the most famous and faire Citie of Yorke defcribed’, and Hennessey studied the map, tracing the towns along the route of the present A1. He envied Yellich the ability to sit so patiently still. Hennessey had always had a restless nature, really since adolescence, utterly unable to sit still.

  The room itself was the entrance hallway of the Mill restaurant, tastefully decorated in maroon. The reception desk stood against the wall beside the Fulling mill display case. It had a low ceiling with the beams exposed. Hennessey thought the beams seemed original to the later building. Opposite the reception desk the wall was given over to a vast window which looked out onto a garden, then a green meadow on which a herd of Herefords grazed contentedly, then there was the river Derwent, and beyond that more pasture with the occasional clump of trees, and ultimately, a flat skyline and then the vast blue sky.

  ‘Gentlemen.’ The proprietor of the Mill beamed and bumbled into the reception area, hands outstretched, swarthy, sallow, olive-skinned, dark-haired, white teeth. ‘How do you do? How can I help you?’

  ‘I’m well, thank you.’ Hennessey accepted the man’s hand, as Yellich stood and also shook the man’s hand. ‘We’d like to ask you some questions, if we may?’

  ‘Certainly, certainly.’ The man’s warmth did not seem, to Hennessey, to be diminishing. He thought him a man with a clear conscience. ‘We can go to the dining room. It’s empty at the moment.’

  The dining room was a long, narrow room with a ceiling noticeably higher than that of the reception area. It had tables along the walls, but no room for tables in the centre of the floor.

  ‘Rivers change course, you see,’ said the man, indicating a table near the door. ‘When we opened the restaurant, we commissioned a local historian to research the history of the building. It was she who discovered the original Fulling mill and wrote the notice for us. She also notified the academic historians at the university and they came and photographed the length of wood and took measurements of it. I confess I would have chopped it up for firewood, but they were all very excited about it. She found out that a larger watermill had been built over the site of the original Fulling mill when the river ran nearer the building than it does today. The watermill closed down in the nineteenth century, very early nineteenth century, couldn’t compete with steam, and in the near two hundred years since it has closed, the river has migrated to its present course. Rivers do that, apparently. We bought the building as a ruin about five years ago and decided to build up the best restaurant in the Vale of York.’

  ‘And have you?’ Hennessey found himself liking the man.

  ‘We think so.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Me and my brother. I am Mario Vialli and my brother is Bruno Vialli. We are of Siena. My brother has studied under the most famous chefs in the world, and I am the businessman. He has the kitchen and I have the office. Together, we do our very best for the customers. My brother has great flair but he is not a businessman. I, on the other hand, have inherited our dear mother’s shrewdness.’

  ‘Siena, you say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I have been there. I was there during the Palio.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I didn’t see anything, couldn’t get near … the crowd was immense. As I recall, it was the horse of the contrada of the tortoise which won.’

  ‘Ha! That is the enemy of our contrada. We are of the contrada of the horse. The best.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So, how can I help the police?’

  ‘On Saturday’ – Hennessey allowed a serious tone to enter his voice – ‘a family by the name of Williams were dining here. Parents and an adult son and daughter.’

  ‘Yes.’ Mario Vialli nodded. ‘They sat at that table there. I know the Williamses well. Is there some problem?’

  ‘Mr and Mrs Williams have disappeared, but there’s worrying circumstances which makes us inclined to treat it with more gravity than we normally would treat a mis per, as we call it.’

  ‘Oh…’ Vialli appeared genuinely saddened, and seemed to Hennessey to be very much in the manner of Italians as Hennessey had found them, wearing their emotion on their sleeve. ‘That is bad, bad … bad.’

  ‘It’s very worrying. You seem to know the Williamses well?’

  ‘I do … Mr…?’

  ‘Hennessey. I’m sorry, I’m Chief Inspector Hennessey and this is Sergeant Yellich … we seem to have leapt straight into the conversation.’

  ‘My fault, forgive me.’

  ‘No, the fault is mine. But the Williamses…’

  ‘They’ve been valued customers for about ten years. We had another restaurant before we opened the Mill and we brought many loyal customers wi
th us when we opened.’

  ‘The other restaurant was in this locality?’

  ‘Yes. Not far from here.’

  ‘Interesting. I had the impression that the Williamses were incomers to the Vale.’

  ‘Oh, no. They did move address a month or two ago. I know that they moved recently because their names are on our gourmet list. Every two months we have a gourmet evening with a great chef. They have been to one or two gourmet evenings, but they did notify us of their change of address.’

  ‘I see. What are they like as a family?’

  ‘Very English. It amuses me to look at them, but I didn’t mean that in a rude way. Occasionally you meet someone who is just his nationality … in Italian we would say “quintessenza”.’

  ‘Quintessential.’

  ‘There is such a word in English? Quintessential? So?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, that is the Williamses. Very warm, probably not as reserved as some English, but their walk … they way they sit, the way they use their cutlery. So English. A delight to serve. The staff love them, for their manner as well as the generosity of their tips.’

  ‘So, as a family?’

  ‘Well, close, I think. Over the years I have observed them value each other’s company. The son seemed angry about something but it didn’t affect the other three, they seemed to be quite happy.’

  ‘Angry?’

  ‘Too strong a word. Something had been said to upset him. He left ahead of the others, only by a minute or two, but ahead … a little irritated perhaps. But Mr and Mrs Williams seemed happy and their daughter didn’t seem upset. And they all drove home together in their car, left at about midnight. So their son wasn’t so upset that he didn’t ride home with them.’

  ‘Not a family at war then?’

  ‘Oh no.’ Vialli paused.

  ‘You have something to tell me, Mr Vialli?’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I have been a policeman for a very long time. It’s the best explanation I can offer.’

  ‘Mrs Williams has been coming to the restaurant with a man who is not her husband.’ Vialli spoke matter-of-factly. ‘Not weekly or even monthly, but always on a Wednesday.’

  ‘How long has this been going on?’

  ‘Perhaps a year … longer. They have a “thing” between them.’

  ‘Do you know who he is?’

  ‘A man called Sheringham. He phones and books the table in his name.’

  Yellich took out his notepad and wrote the name down.

  ‘Can you describe him?’

  ‘He’s in his twenties. Much younger than she. Very muscular.’

  As they walked from the restaurant across the gravel car park to where Hennessey had parked his car, Hennessey said, ‘This is murder, Yellich. No, it’s not. It’s double murder.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘Too early to say. What now, boss, back to the station, write this up and then call it a day?’

  ‘No. There’s work to do.’

  ‘It’s past five o’clock, boss.’

  Hennessey paused and held eye contact. ‘There’s work to do.’

  ‘I’ve got a family to go home to, boss.’

  ‘And I haven’t, is that what you’re saying? I’ve got nothing to go home to and so I’m working late to fill up an empty life and I’m selfish keeping you with me. Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘I didn’t mean that, boss.’

  ‘Look, this is a murder enquiry. We haven’t got our corpses yet, but we will. And it’s a recent murder, at this stage every minute is precious. If we were investigating a murder of years ago then perhaps time wouldn’t be so precious. But as it is, it’s very precious. We’re going back to the Williamses’ house. I’ll take the most direct route and we’ll time it.’

  * * *

  ‘Thirty-five minutes, boss,’ Yellich said as Hennessey pulled up outside the Williamses’ bungalow.

  ‘Right. So that ties in with Lieutenant Williams’s statement about getting home at about half past midnight, if Mr Vialli is correct about the time they left the Mill. Let’s have a look inside the house.’

  They left the car, ducked under the blue and white police tape which had been strung across the driveway from gatepost to gatepost and entered the house using the back door key.

  ‘What are we looking for, boss?’

  ‘Don’t know, Yellich.’ Hennessey turned the key in the lock. ‘We’ll know when we find it.’ He opened the door and stepped over the threshold. ‘Oh my…’

  ‘What is it, boss?’

  ‘Just the neatness, the tidiness, the everything-in-its-placeness. I couldn’t relax in this house. Little wonder the son was drawn to the navy. Anyway. If you wanted to find out about a woman’s private life, where would you look?’

  ‘The bedroom. Her dressing table.’

  ‘So would I.’

  ‘And if you wanted to find out about a man’s private life, where would you look?’

  ‘In his study if he has one; among his papers, at any rate.’

  ‘So would I. Man does. Woman is. There is still much truth to that statement, despite what the angry sisterhood might think.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘Right. We’ll stay together. Bedroom first. Bit strong, isn’t it? The smell of disinfectant, bleach as well, I think.’

  ‘Just the sort of house it is, sir. And the windows haven’t been opened much, in this heat, just the ideal conditions to make smells rise.’

  ‘Daresay you’re right. Let’s find out about Mrs Williams.’ Hennessey and Yellich went to the main bedroom of the house and slid between the bed and the dressing table, and Hennessey noted how there wasn’t a seat in front of the dressing table. He said, ‘She must have sat on the bed when putting on her war paint.’

  ‘Must have, sir,’ Yellich muttered, picking up a printed card from the table. ‘But here’s Sheringham.’ He handed the card to Hennessey.

  ‘Sheringham’s Gym.’ Hennessey turned the card over. It was blank on the reverse where he had noticed people often scribble messages of personal note. ‘Holgate, York.’

  ‘Nice and central,’ Yellich offered. ‘A lot of mixed housing there, plenty of old properties that could be turned into a gym.’

  ‘We’ll pay a call there.’ Hennessey took a note of the address and then began to open the drawers of Mrs Williams’s dressing table. In a deep drawer, at the back, behind expensive lingerie, was a small black notebook. It contained a series of entries, but one, ‘Tim – the gym’, and then the phone number of Sheringham’s Gym, stood out. ‘Tim Sheringham,’ Hennessey mused. ‘We ought to have a chat with him.’

  ‘You know, boss, in the CID training course, they impressed on us not to leap to conclusions, and not to dismiss the unlikely. That’s what they said.’

  ‘Did they indeed? Let’s look at the study.’

  Yellich turned and left the room. Hennessey followed.

  ‘Yes, sir. They said that “improbable” and “impossible” are two different words, each with their own meaning, and CID officers shouldn’t blur the meanings.’

  ‘Don’t say.’ The two men stood in the living room of the house. ‘I never actually did CID training. In my day, you were just promoted and you got on with it, learning as you went along.’

  ‘The point being, that what is improbable is not impossible.’

  ‘Well, there’s wisdom for you.’

  ‘Well, this is just a long-winded way of saying I think your waters are right. I thought it suspicious all along but I didn’t dismiss kidnap or embezzlement.’

  ‘Now you do?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘We can still be wrong. I hope for Max and Amanda Williams’s sake that we are. You said there was a study?’

  ‘Here, sir. A little cubby hole with a bureau.’

  Which Hennessey thought a very apt description. It was a small indentation off the dining room, which adjoi
ned the living room; it had no door and contained just a modern, neat-looking, angular bureau, and a modern, upright chair, with the bureau having been pushed lengthways into the indentation and the chair wedged against it. He, like Yellich, noted that a person sitting on the chair had to place his or her legs at either side of it in order to be sitting at the bureau. Hennessey, feeling his joints to be too old for such acrobatics, stood beside the chair and lowered the bureau lid.

  ‘Everything shipshape and Bristol fashion,’ Yellich said, nothing the neatness of the papers in the bureau. ‘Just like the rest of the house.’

  ‘Everything what fashion?’

  ‘Bristol fashion, boss. Mate of mine has a small yacht, a twenty-five footer, keeps it in Hull Marina, uses that expression a lot.’

  ‘Well, Bristol must be a neat town.’

  ‘Don’t know, boss. I’ve never been there.’

  Hennessey threw him a pained look and then returned his attention to the contents of the bureau. He studied the Williamses’ credit card statements. He gasped. The Williamses’ credit limit was sufficient to buy a very good prestige secondhand car, maybe even a new car at the bottom end of the market. The balance outstanding was about the same amount. Against the ‘payment received, thank you’ the sum was modest in the extreme. Less than a meal for two in a good restaurant. ‘Look at that, Yellich.’ Yellich pondered the statements. ‘He’s been living at the edge of his credit. He’s been spending money like…’

  ‘Like there’s no tomorrow. Apt, don’t you think?’

  ‘Double suicide, do you think, boss? Blow it all away then top themselves. It’s not unknown.’

  ‘Well, they’ve still got the bungalow … so all is not lost. But if they have been murdered, it wasn’t for their money. And you were right to rule out kidnap and embezzlement. Nothing here to pay a ransom, nothing to embezzle. It veers me still further to the belief that the Williamses are no longer with us by the hand of A. N. Other, or others.’

  The phone in the bungalow rang. Yellich and Hennessey looked at each other. Hennessey said, ‘Better answer it.’

  Yellich strode into the living room. He picked up the warbling phone and said, ‘Hello … DS Yellich, North Yorkshire Police. Who is this?… Oh … right … well, no, we don’t know what has happened to your parents. Can you hold the line, please?’ Yellich pressed the monitor button on the phone and called to Hennessey. ‘It’s the daughter, sir, Nicola. She says she just heard from her brother and has phoned home. She says that there’s no logic to her actions if her parents are missing, but she did it anyway on a whim. I can understand that, boss.’