‘Police, ma’am.’ Yewdall produced her ID from her handbag. Ainsclough took his from his jacket pocket.
‘Oh …’ The woman gasped.
‘Mrs Keynes?’ Yewdall asked.
‘Yes … that is I.’ Mrs Keynes’s haughty tone was replaced with a note of fear.
‘Are you the mother of one Victoria Keynes?’ Yewdall asked.
‘Oh …’ Mrs Keynes put her hand to her mouth. The officers noted she had an artist’s hands, narrow and with particularly long fingers. ‘Yes, yes, I am …’ Mrs Keynes’s voice cracked. ‘Is there news of her?’
‘Possibly,’ Yewdall replied softly. ‘Do you think we might come in, please? It would be better than doing this on the doorstep.’
‘Yes … yes, of course … I am sorry.’ Mrs Keynes stepped backwards and stood on one side as Yewdall and Ainsclough entered the front hallway of the bungalow. It was, they noted, a cleanly kept home which smelled of air freshener and wood polish. There was no sound from within the house, no radio or daytime TV. A man approached the officers, walking down the hallway from the direction of what the officers saw, by reason of the open door, to be the living room. The man was noticeably shorter than the woman and wore a lightweight blue woollen pullover despite the summer heat.
‘It’s the police, Eric,’ the woman explained to the man. ‘They have called on us about Victoria.’
‘Oh …’ The man’s jaw sagged and he put his hand up to his chest. ‘Please …’ he addressed the officers, ‘come through here.’ He led Yewdall and Ainsclough down the hallway and back to the living room from whence he came.
‘Excuse me,’ Mrs Keynes said in a hushed tone, causing the officers to stop before entering the living room, ‘my husband has a heart condition and wears a pacemaker,’ she explained. ‘He must avoid exertion and shock.’
‘I see.’ Tom Ainsclough nodded. ‘We’ll be as diplomatic as we can be.’
‘I’d appreciate that.’ Mrs Keynes smiled. ‘We both would. There is a definite skill in breaking bad news. I hope and trust that you are both possessed of it.’
‘You think we have come bearing bad news?’ Yewdall held eye contact with Mrs Keynes.
‘Yes, frankly I do. What else can it be if it’s about Victoria after this length of time?’ Mrs Keynes returned to the front door of the bungalow and shut it gently. She then re-joined the officers. ‘After ten years I doubt that you are going to tell us that she is alive and well and married with a growing family. So, please, if you’d go into the living room? Just follow Eric, my husband.’
‘Please take a seat.’ Eric Keynes swept an extended hand from left to right as the officers entered the room, indicating the settee and two armchairs. Yewdall and Ainsclough sat side by side on the settee while Mr and Mrs Keynes each sat in an armchair, gravitating, quite naturally, to one or the other as if, thought Yewdall, they had been designated ‘his’ and ‘hers’ status, and had acquired such a status over the years of the Keynes’s marriage.
After a moment’s pause, Yewdall spoke in a soft manner. ‘We are sorry to inform you that some remains … some human remains have been discovered. We believe they may, and I emphasise may be the remains of your daughter Victoria, whom you reported missing some ten years ago. A positive match has still to be made but we know when the remains were placed where they were found, and that is about the same time that you reported Victoria missing, and we have determined her height to be similar to Victoria’s height.’
‘Were they, the remains you mention, were they found yesterday?’ Mrs Keynes asked. ‘Sometime in the early afternoon?’
‘Yes.’ Yewdall nodded gently. ‘I believe that they were.’
Mrs Keynes’s head sank forward and then she looked up at her husband. ‘I told you … I told you so.’ Mrs Keynes then addressed Yewdall and Ainsclough. ‘Someone walked over my grave yesterday in the early afternoon … just after lunchtime. I have never experienced the like before, but I was out shopping and I was walking alongside the supermarket car park when I felt myself being consumed by something and I felt a distinct chill go through me. The sensation remained for a few seconds and in certain circumstances a second can be quite a long time. It remained long enough to be significant and distinctive. It was real and it was tangible. I returned home and told Eric that someone had walked over my grave. That must have been the precise moment our daughter’s remains were discovered. Her soul was released and she visited me on her way to the hereafter. We were always very close, she and I. We had more than a mother and daughter bond – we had a special connection.’
‘There is still no evidence …’ Yewdall began.
‘It will be Victoria.’ Mrs Keynes spoke emphatically. ‘Do not dismiss the paranormal. I am not a psychic but I have learned not to dismiss the paranormal. I have seen ghosts where other people cannot see anything and I have had contact with the dead and I know, I just know, that Victoria came to visit me yesterday in the early afternoon.’
‘We’ll see what Timmy does,’ Eric Keynes added. ‘We’ll probably know before you do if the remains of which you speak are those of our daughter. If they are those of our daughter he will be very helpful today and tomorrow.’
‘Timmy?’ Tom Ainsclough queried.
‘Timmy … yes … he’s the poltergeist who lives in this house,’ Eric Keynes explained in a calm, matter-of-fact manner. ‘He’s about ten years old and plays pranks from time to time but he also does helpful things for us.’
‘He puts milk in the fridge to stop it going sour and he switches off the oven to prevent our meal being ruined,’ Mrs Keynes added, equally calmly.
‘The first we knew that there was a presence in this house was shortly after we moved in – that was when Victoria was about three years old, during the summer months, about this time of year, in fact, and then later that year, in the autumn, we returned home one Saturday when there was about twenty minutes of daylight left and that path out there …’ Eric Keynes pointed over his shoulder to the garden at the rear of the bungalow, ‘… that path out there was covered in a blanket of leaves and I turned to Gillian and said, “Well, that’s a job for me tomorrow. I’ll have to sweep all those leaves up”.’
‘That’s what he said.’ Gillian Keynes smiled at Yewdall, but there was a faraway look in her eyes.
‘So I got up the next morning,’ Eric Keynes continued, ‘after a calm, windless night, and knock me down with a feather but there wasn’t a single leaf on the pathway. Not one.’
‘That’s true.’ Gillian Keynes clasped her hands together and rested them on her lap. She still possessed a distant look in her eyes. ‘We knew then that we had a fourth person in the house. But as well as helping us, he plays pranks. He hides things and we find them weeks later in the most unlikely places, like the framed photograph of the three of us, me, Eric and Victoria, taken for us by another holidaymaker when we went to the Gower Peninsula in Wales one summer. We kept it on the mantelpiece and suddenly it wasn’t there, it had just gone missing. Months went by and then one day Eric found it in the garden shed standing on top of an upturned plant pot.’
‘Weird,’ Yewdall commented. ‘I couldn’t live like that.’
‘There is no sense of fear … not with Timmy,’ Eric Keynes explained. ‘We contacted a spiritualist who visited us and was able to contact him, and who told us that his name was Jonathan and he was very happy when he lived here. But when there have been difficulties, Timmy … we still call him Timmy … becomes particularly helpful. When Victoria disappeared a lot of things were done for us. We’d get up in the morning to find the kettle had been boiled for us to make our morning tea, and once we returned home to find all the washing up, which had accumulated in the sink, had been done for us.’
‘How interesting,’ Yewdall sighed, ‘but I still couldn’t live like that.’
‘The point is,’ Eric Keynes explained, ‘that if the remains are those of Victoria we can expect Timmy to become particularly helpful. It’ll be his way of being su
pportive of us through our time of need, which is why I believe that we will know before you know that our daughter’s remains have been found.’
‘I always thought poltergeists were harmful and violent,’ Ainsclough commented.
‘They have that reputation,’ Eric Keynes glanced down at the carpet, ‘but they are not all like that. Fortunately.’
‘Unfortunately we can’t rely on the supernatural to confirm the identity of the remains as being those of Victoria – we need to be more scientific.’ Tom Ainsclough held eye contact with Eric Keynes, and as he did so he detected a coldness in them. ‘We’ll come to that in a moment, but what can you tell us about Victoria at the time she disappeared, assuming the remains are hers?’
‘Assuming …’ Eric Keynes repeated. ‘You wouldn’t be assuming that if you were not certain in yourself that they are the remains of our daughter, but as you say, everything points to them being our daughter’s bones …’
‘Is that Victoria?’ Penny Yewdall spoke suddenly, indicating a framed photograph on the mantelpiece.
‘Yes,’ Gillian Keynes looked longingly at the photograph, ‘that is Victoria. She was our only child. She was very warm spirited, a very pleasant young woman … we loved her deeply. She worked in a bank, just a lowly position. She was quite short and was a little self-conscious about it.’
‘She took after me,’ Eric Keynes shrugged, ‘me, her little old dad. It isn’t the case that sons take after their fathers and daughters take after their mothers … that might be a rule of thumb but it doesn’t always apply and it didn’t apply in the case of our little nuclear family, otherwise Vicky would have been as tall as her mother, a lanky five feet ten inches … instead she was a half pint, like her old man. I’m five foot two inches tall.’
‘Then she got married.’ Mrs Keynes looked down and to one side.
‘You sound as though you did not approve of the match,’ Yewdall observed.
‘We didn’t care for him at all,’ Eric Keynes growled. ‘Not at all, not one little bit, and neither did our dogs.’
‘The dogs?’ Yewdall queried.
‘We had two mongrels, about the size of a Springer Spaniel. They looked like scaled-down Labradors and both had calm, very placid natures,’ Gillian Keynes explained. ‘Sooty and Sweep, we called them – hardly original, but that was what we called them and when he first came into the house, instead of barking at him as they would normally react to a stranger coming into their domain, they both turned away from him and sat in the corner of the room, just staring at him.’
‘That says a lot,’ Yewdall observed.
‘It says everything.’ Eric Keynes continued to growl. ‘Dogs and children don’t lie, and they have an intuition which adult humans lack, but he had all the superficial charm of the classic psychopath. He was tall and handsome and wealthy, with his black Porsche and its tinted windows. He was a city trader and much older than her but Victoria … Vicky, she was awestruck. She believed that she had fallen on her feet, but we, well, we shared the dogs’ opinion of him … We didn’t like him at all and that wasn’t the worst of it … the full worst of it was that it was me who introduced them.’
‘Really?’ Yewdall raised her eyebrows.
‘Yes. Try living with that.’ Eric Keynes sighed. ‘I went to visit my brother Zolton over in Pinner and Vicky came with me … on a Sunday … just for the ride out, and he was there. He had some business dealings with him.’
‘Zolton?’ Tom Ainsclough queried.
‘My brother … our father is Polish and our mother’s English. They had two sons; the eldest was named after his Polish grandfather and the youngest after his English grandfather, so we became Zolton and Eric Keynes. Our father anglicized his name before he married,’ Keynes explained, ‘but that’s how they met … when I suggested she come with me to visit Zolton.’
‘She was very reluctant,’ Gillian Keynes added, ‘but I persuaded her to go. I said her uncle Zolton would love to see her … and that was Victoria, so very compliant. She went and because she went she met her husband … we’re both to blame … and they married with indecent haste.’ Gillian Keynes sighed. ‘It was all so fast … all too fast.’
‘And he would be?’ Yewdall held her pen poised over her notepad.
‘He would be one Elliot Woodhuyse,’ Eric Keynes informed. ‘His name is spelled H-U-Y-S-E but pronounced “house” … Woodhuyse.’
‘I see.’ Penny Yewdall wrote the name on her notepad. ‘Interesting name,’ she commented, and then looked up at Gillian Keynes and said, ‘but Victoria was reported to be a missing person under her maiden name. We have her in our files as Victoria Keynes with her parents as her next of kin.’
‘Yes … that,’ Gillian Keynes explained, ‘is because the marriage was not a resounding success. It lasted all of eighteen months. She left him and returned to live under her maiden name.’
‘I see,’ Yewdall said again and tapped her notepad thoughtfully. ‘We also have an alternative address for her as being … where is it?’ She turned to the pages of her notepad. ‘Ah, yes, here it is … c/o Parker, in Samos Road, Anerley.’
‘Yes, Dorothy Parker. She and Victoria were friends from the time she worked in the bank and they kept in touch with each other. Victoria moved in with her when she walked out on her husband – it was only later that she returned to live here and only for a very brief period before she disappeared. She had not even removed all her possessions from Dorothy’s house, but she often went out and visited Dorothy Parker,’ Gillian Keynes said. ‘The two girls were very close.’
‘We’ll have to call on her,’ Ainsclough stated.
‘I’d advise it,’ Eric Keynes once again growled.
‘She’ll be able to tell you more about Victoria than we could, I am sure she will.’ Gillian Keynes sat back in the armchair she occupied. ‘As is the way of it … friends know things which parents are not privy to.’
‘Do you know if any suspicion fell on Elliot Woodhuyse in respect of your daughter’s disappearance?’ Yewdall asked.
‘Yes it did, but not for long,’ Eric Keynes advised. ‘He had a cast-iron alibi for the time of Vicky’s disappearance. As I recall, he was north of the border, up in Scotland on a business trip, and the police told us they don’t investigate the disappearance of adults unless there is clear evidence of foul play.’
‘Yes,’ Yewdall confirmed, ‘that is indeed the policy.’
‘So there was no body and therefore no investigation.’ Eric Keynes sighed. ‘Her case went cold and her file gathered dust.’
‘It is often the manner of it,’ Yewdall replied apologetically. She then asked, ‘Was it in keeping with Victoria’s personality that she would disappear for extended periods?’
‘No.’ Eric Keynes shook his head. ‘Definitely not – she wasn’t at all like that. She would always let us know where she was and what time she intended to return home. She was always very good like that.’
‘And your suspicion, off the record?’ Yewdall asked.
‘Off the record? Her husband did her in or paid for someone to do her in while he was up in bonnie Scotland fixing his cast-iron alibi.’ Eric Keynes spoke slowly then fell silent, setting his jaw firm.
‘So what do you think his motivation was?’ Yewdall asked.
‘Money.’ Gillian Keynes made the motion of rubbing her thumb and forefinger together. ‘Ye olde filthy lucre. We never had much – we were both schoolteachers. Teaching never did pay well. In a sense it is vastly more important than teaching any other age range … without that foundation, no person can learn anything … but we were able to afford to buy this little house … Woodhuyse was dripping with the stuff, though, and so Victoria was confident of a good settlement.’
‘So she was proceeding with a divorce?’ Yewdall clarified.
‘Oh, yes, and she was doing so with a lawyer who was attacking the case like a hungry wolf. She began to demonstrate a ruthlessness about her which we had not seen. Victoria was the wronged pa
rty and her lawyer was determined to take Woodhuyse to the cleaners on her behalf.’ Gillian Keynes glanced towards the fireplace. ‘I wonder if it was worth it? A young woman’s life … for money? It is as my old grandmother used to say: “There’s no pockets in a shroud”.’
‘Well,’ Tom Ainsclough glanced at Penny Yewdall, who nodded in agreement and closed her notebook. ‘Thank you, this has been very useful. We still have to confirm the identity of the remains. We can do that by taking a sample of your DNA or we can compare the teeth in the remains to your daughter’s dental records. Do you have a preference?’
‘Her dental records, if you don’t mind,’ Eric Keynes replied quickly. ‘I’m sorry but I care not for the idea of my mouth being swabbed so as to confirm my daughter’s death.’
‘Fair enough.’ Ainsclough smiled briefly. ‘I’d probably feel the same. Who was her dentist?’
‘Mr Graham,’ Eric Keynes advised. ‘He’s been our family dentist for ever and Vicky never changed to another one.’
‘Mr Graham,’ Yewdall repeated. ‘I can remember that.’
‘Percival Graham by the nameplate on his surgery door. His surgery is a converted semi-detached house further down the road … in that direction.’ Eric Keynes pointed to his left. ‘You can’t miss it.’
‘Thank you. We’ll call on him with a warrant to oblige him to release Victoria’s dental records to our forensic pathologists’ team.’ Tom Ainsclough stood. ‘Thank you again for your information, but I am afraid you must prepare yourself for some bad news.’
‘No,’ Eric Keynes also stood, ‘it will be good news. After this length of time it will be good news. It will be Vicky and we can now bring closure to it all. We’ll have a funeral … and then we’ll have a grave to visit, and that is a lot, lot better than not knowing. I’ll see you to the door.’
Victor Swannell approached a blue-painted door for the second time that day. On the second occasion he did it in the company of Frankie Brunnie. The second of the two blue-painted doors was of a lighter shade of blue, much faded and indeed even peeling in some places. The door was the front door of a house in Raul Road in Peckham, SE15. Solid Victorian houses stood at either end of the short road, with low-rise post-Second World War flats occupying both sides of the road in the middle section.
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