Fear of Drowning

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘I didn’t kill them.’

  ‘You know Tim Sheringham?’

  ‘Are you asking my client or telling him?’ Monica Have eyed Hennessey with a gimlet-like gaze.

  Hennessey paused. ‘Do you know Tim Sheringham, he of Sheringham’s Gym?’

  ‘Aye, I do.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘We have a beer occasionally. Nothing more than that.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Do you use anabolic steroids to build your body?’

  ‘No. I don’t need to.’

  ‘Tim Sheringham’s in the frame for this as well.’

  ‘This?’ Monica Have said, without looking at anybody.

  ‘The double murder of Mr and Mrs Williams.’

  ‘Thank you, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Tim Sheringham’s in the frame for the double murder of Mr and Mrs Williams as well as you, Mr Richardson.’

  ‘So go and give him a hard time.’

  ‘You both have motive, you both know each other, you’re both strong men, well able to dig the grave in which the bodies were found in the time you had to dig it in, and neither of you have an alibi.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘And the house, the murder scene was cleaned thoroughly, painstakingly. As if by a woman.’

  Richardson’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘What I’m saying, Mr Richardson, is that with your anger towards Williams, and with Tim Sheringham’s double motivation which you may or may not be fully aware of, fuelled with a little alcohol, feeding and reinforcing each other, you visited the Williamses’ house, where you battered them to death, and later, the following night, you buried their bodies in a field, close to their house. Didn’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you got your wife to clean up the mess.’

  ‘No!’ Richardson stood up. Yellich did the same ‘You leave my wife out of this.’

  ‘Out of what?’

  ‘This!’ Richardson sank back into his chair. ‘My life is ruined, without this. I don’t need to make it worse by serving life for murder. I don’t want my wife’s life ruined. She’s done nothing to deserve this.’

  ‘But you have. Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘No. No, I haven’t.’

  ‘Chief Inspector.’ Monica Have spoke slowly. ‘I have to insist that now you either charge my client with the double murder of Mr and Mrs Williams, or you discharge him from custody pending further enquiries. You have no evidence on which to hold him, and in the absence of a confession, I have to say that your only option is that of the latter.’

  Hennessey sat back in his chair, glanced at Yellich, who raised his eyebrows. He then said, ‘This interview is terminated at … 10.45 a.m.’ He switched off the tape recorder. The red recording light faded. He took one of the cassettes and placed it in the case and handed it to Monica Have.

  * * *

  Bravado.

  Smug. Well turned out, muscular, handsome, smiling, holding eye contact, but inside, Hennessey knew, inside Tim Sheringham was shaking like a leaf.

  The twin spools of the tape recorder spun slowly. The duty solicitor turned to Hennessey as if to say, ‘A pause is a pause but this has gone on too long.’ Hennessey, undeterred by whatever the duty solicitor might think, had to concede that Sheringham was bearing up well, standing up to questioning, hard questioning, very well. Very well indeed. He’d been here before, he knew the value of not saying anything he didn’t have to say.

  ‘You murdered Max Williams because he was pulling out of a drug deal he was financing, and threatening to inform on you.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  Another pause. Beside him, Hennessey felt Yellich stiffen and then relax.

  ‘Mr McCarty informs me otherwise.’

  ‘Mr who?’

  ‘Mr McCarty. Sergeant McCarty, Drug Squad.’

  ‘Oh yes…’ Sheringham smiled. ‘I remember him now.’

  ‘I bet you do,’ Hennessey growled, fighting back a growing dislike for Sheringham. ‘Have quite a motivation, have you not?’

  ‘Have I? Not?’

  The duty solicitor, a small, bespectacled man who had given his name as Fee, and who Hennessey had not met before, glanced at Hennessey but said nothing.

  ‘You were having an affair with Mrs Williams, she threatened to inform your wife of that and she had photographs that compromised you. And he, well, he had information which could jail you and he was going to spill, he’d already been interviewed by the Drug Squad, and he was going to go along with a sting operation and you found out, or you suspected, and so you bumped them off.’

  ‘Could you be more specific, please?’ asked Fee.

  ‘So you murdered them. Two birds with one stone.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you cleaned the mess up, but not well enough, didn’t get little specks of blood up from under the carpet.’

  Sheringham remained silent. Smiling.

  ‘Then you put them in a shallow grave.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘No. In fact, no, I didn’t.’

  ‘But you benefited from their murder.’

  ‘Well, yes.’ Sheringham pursed his lips. ‘Yes, I have. My marriage may well survive now, for one.’

  ‘And for two, Mr McCarty of the Drug Squad won’t be obtaining the major conviction he was anticipating.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘You know with that anabolic steroid stunt you seem to have skated on very thin ice and got away with it.’

  Sheringham raised his eyebrows.

  ‘But murder. Double murder is a different matter. Not so easy to wriggle out of this one, especially because we can link you with both victims. Not only that, but we can link you with a motivation to murder both victims.’ Sheringham shrugged.

  ‘Tell me about your relationship with Michael Richardson.’

  ‘He’s a mate. Not close. Met at the gym. We have a beer together once or twice a month.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘That’s all.’

  ‘You see, he had a grudge against Williams.’

  ‘I know. He told me. But it was his fault, he should have had money lodged with a solicitor, but he thought Williams’s reputation as a man with a bottomless money bag was safe enough. He won’t make that mistake again.’

  ‘Two of you together, you with a strong motivation to murder both Mr and Mrs Williams and he with a grudge. After a few pints, feeding into each other … then you took turns to do the digging of the grave … two strong blokes, easy work…’

  Sheringham shook his head whilst smiling in a classically patronizing gesture which Hennessey felt was calculated to provoke him into violence. He was forced to concede that Sheringham’s ploy very nearly worked. He counted slowly and silently to ten. ‘Then,’ he said, ‘Mrs Richardson cleaned up.’

  Sheringham remained silent.

  ‘She’s a lazy woman.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Michael Richardson’s wife. I’ve never been in her home, but Mick’s forever complaining about it, fag ash everywhere. I tell you, if I did want someone to clean up after a murder, it wouldn’t be Mrs Richardson.’

  Hennessey glanced at Yellich, who nodded.

  ‘You see,’ Sheringham smiled. ‘You can’t make a case, because there is no case to make. Yes, all right, I have benefited from the murder, hers anyway, it’s a neat and an unexpected solution, but that doesn’t mean to say I murdered them. I didn’t.’

  ‘Chief Inspector Hennessey.’ Fee spoke slowly. ‘I have to move that you now either charge my client or release him from custody pending further enquiries.’

  A pause.

  The twin spools spun.

  Reluctantly, very reluctantly, Hennessey said, ‘This interview is concluded at eleven-fifty-five a.m.’
He switched the machine off and the red light faded.

  * * *

  Hennessey left the interview room and walked down the corridor towards his office and then stopped in his tracks, as if he had received a blow to the stomach. He remained motionless. Then he recommenced walking.

  He walked past his office.

  He walked out of the building.

  He walked the walls. Twice. But took no notice of the ancient city.

  He returned to Micklegate Bar Police Station.

  He went to Sergeant Yellich’s office. Yellich was sitting at his desk. Hennessey stood in front of the desk and said, ‘We’ve been looking in the wrong direction.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘We were right, there is a conspiracy.’ He sat in the chair, folded into it, it seemed to Yellich. ‘And you were right, there is a woman’s hand in this. But it’s not the Richardsons and Sheringham.’

  ‘No, sir?’

  ‘No. Let me get this right in my own head. Ten years ago Marcus Williams died, drowned in his bath. The coroner thought it might have been suicide, hence the open verdict. A young man was seen in the vicinity of the house at the time of his death, that same young man was a mourner at the funeral, when he wore the uniform of a naval officer.’

  ‘Could only have been Rufus Williams.’

  ‘That’s my thinking. But Marcus Williams wouldn’t allow anybody near him unless he knew them.’

  ‘He also had a pack of very solemn dogs to protect him.’

  ‘Hence Rufus calling on him and getting to know the dogs, getting them to recognize and trust him.’

  ‘How did he get through the gates, boss? They’d be locked.’

  ‘What are the walls of the grounds like?’

  ‘About as high as this room, covered in ivy.’

  ‘Even I, at my venerable age, could clamber over that, Yellich.’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘So that’s how he got in. Keeps the dogs outside. Goes into the house … he’s a big guy, strong guy, separates himself from the dogs … there’s a dog flap in the front door, isn’t there?’

  ‘Yes, boss, easy to jam shut with something though.’

  ‘Oh my … the thought of what happened next … picks his uncle up, carries him upstairs under his arm … removes his clothes without tearing them…’

  ‘Like undressing a child.’

  ‘Forces the taps on. They haven’t been used for years, but he has the strength to free them off. Immerses his uncle and sits on him until he drowns, but makes sure there’s no bruising. Holds him, but not tightly enough to cause injury … then leaves him to be discovered, and he did that because he didn’t know about Marcus Williams’s fear of drowning.’

  ‘That’s a very solemn level of premeditation there, boss, very solemn.’

  ‘Isn’t it? But what’s the motivation, why kill an uncle who has been a source of warmth, when your father has been a source of coldness?’

  ‘Nowt so queer as folk, boss.’

  ‘Which in this case is not the answer, Yellich. What would you kill for, Yellich?’

  ‘Passion, boss. I don’t like to admit it, but I think I could kill for passion, not so much me, but if anyone harmed Sarah or Jeremy, I could kill…’

  ‘That makes you a human being, Yellich. But ponder Rufus Williams, what could motivate him to clamber the walls of Oakfield House, pat the Dobermans on the head as they bound up to him with their little tails wagging, then, leaving the dogs outside, go into the house, and to wherever his uncle is and say, “Hello, little man, I’m here to kill you.” If passion wasn’t the motive, what was?’

  ‘Greed. Lust for filthy lucre.’

  ‘Has to be, doesn’t it? Either out of greed, or fear of poverty, if they are not in fact the same thing. Nicola Williams told me that her brother often used the phrase “drowning in poverty”, or specifically fear of same.’

  ‘I can see an obstacle, boss. An obstruction in sequence of logic.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘How could he know what his uncle was worth? How did he know the uncle would name his brother, the uncle’s brother, Rufus’s father, as main beneficiary?’

  ‘I don’t know and I don’t know. At the end of the day it may be that his fear of drowning in poverty made him think the gamble was worth taking. The gamble being that his uncle was worth enough to murder for, and the gamble that his uncle either had left no will at all, or had named Max Williams, his brother, as main beneficiary in his will; either way, Max Williams would benefit. And if Max Williams benefited, so did Rufus and Nicola. Put them in direct line of inheritance and maybe an earlier access to it, which is how it turned out because both Rufus and Nicola enjoyed a stipend from daddy to supplement their salaries.’

  ‘He just took the risk that Marcus Williams hadn’t left a will naming a cats’ home as the sole beneficiary. Yes, I can see that.’ Yellich paused. ‘But that doesn’t explain what happened at the family bungalow last Saturday night. Suppose only he can tell us that. Shall we bring him in, boss? Time for a quiz session?’

  Hennessey paused. ‘No…’ he said. ‘No, bring his sister in. She’ll be at his rented cottage doing his packing for him. She can tell us what happened at the bungalow, and not only can, but I’ve an old copper’s feeling that she will tell us.’

  * * *

  Nicola Williams trembled with fear, she looked pale, wide-eyed, on the verge of tears.

  Hennessey switched on the tape-recording machine, the twin spools spun, the red recording light glowed. Hennessey said, ‘The date is Saturday, the thirteenth of June…’ He paused. ‘The thirteenth of June … the time is two p.m. The place is Micklegate Bar Police Station in the City of York. I am Chief Inspector Hennessey. I am now going to ask the other people present in the room to identify themselves.’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Yellich.’

  ‘Nicola Williams.’

  ‘Miss Williams, can you confirm that you are here of your own volition?’

  ‘I have not been arrested, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Do you wish a solicitor to be present?’

  ‘No.’

  Hennessey paused; he didn’t know how to approach Miss Williams. He felt he could work his way round the edges in ever diminishing circles and, by that means, get to the heart of the matter, or he could cut the Gordian knot. He felt both Yellich and Nicola Williams waiting his gambit. He decided on the latter option, risky as it was, he would cut the knot. ‘Miss Williams, I have been hearing a lot about drowning lately. I have to tell you that you too are in danger of drowning.’

  ‘I am?’

  ‘Yes. You are in danger of drowning in criminality. I can throw you a lifeline, it’s up to you to decide to catch it or not. You are standing on the side of the road, a vehicle is approaching you, it is a bus, but it is more than that, it is the last bus. You can catch it or let it go past you. The lifeline, the last bus, you have this one opportunity to help yourself. If you don’t take this opportunity you start to work against yourself. If you’re frightened of drowning, I suggest that you help yourself. I was talking to a barrister the other day who told me that it’s always best to play with a straight bat.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What I mean is that we will be reopening the investigation into your uncle’s death. We now believe he was murdered by your brother. By doing so, he made your father wealthier by six million pounds, more when Oakfield House was sold. That made you and your brother stand to inherit the money in the fullness of time, in the interim you could access it to featherbed your lifestyle.’

  ‘You’ve done your homework.’

  ‘So you’re catching the last bus?’

  ‘What else can I do?’ She sighed and looked at the floor. A tension left the small room.

  ‘Not a great deal.’ Hennessey spoke softly after a pause to allow Nicola Williams’s reply to register. ‘In fact, any other strategy will only worm you into a hole you’ll never get out of. Don’t drown, stay as ne
ar the surface as possible.’

  ‘The straight bat?’

  ‘The straight bat. What did you know of your uncle’s murder?’

  ‘Nothing for ten years, until a week ago this evening. I thought that Uncle Marcus had drowned in the bath.’

  ‘What happened last Saturday night?’

  ‘Rufus killed Mummy and Daddy.’

  Another pause. ‘I’m pleased for you, and I’m pleased for myself that you’re taking this stance, but here I have to caution you…’

  ‘I don’t want to be cautioned … I’m in a state of shock … I still want to wake up. The only way I can come to terms with what has happened is to tell you … you see, it was at the meal at the Mill that we learned the truth … that we were broke … we had nothing … Daddy just laughed at it. He was a strange man, obsessed with petty things, everything in the home had to be “just so”, but big issues, the important things in life, just didn’t reach him. Anyway, we left the Mill, Rufus had gone into a cold fury … we drove home. I drove. Mummy was crying, Daddy was singing, Rufus was staring straight ahead, not even blinking…’

  ‘Rufus could kill your uncle so as to put your uncle’s fortune into the hands of your father but he couldn’t control your father’s spending of it.’

  Nicola Williams wiped her eyes. ‘If you’re used to having money then poverty hides a real fear … it would be bad enough if Daddy had lost his money … but what Rufus couldn’t handle was that he’d murdered for that money … then Daddy had squandered it. He’d murdered for nothing.’

  ‘Poor Rufus,’ growled Yellich. Hennessey glared at him.

  ‘That money, properly invested…’ Nicola Williams took deep breaths … ‘What we could have had if only Uncle Marcus had drowned, if only Daddy had just an ounce of Uncle Marcus’s business sense … if only…’ She forced a smile. ‘That’s going to be the hallmark of the rest of my life … if only. This time last week, it didn’t matter that I was a low-grade civil servant in my thirties, because Daddy’s money paid the rent and bought my clothes and kept my car on the road … now all I’ve got is my salary.’

  ‘You may not even have that.’