The Altered Case

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘Seems so, sir.’ Yellich glanced round the room. He saw solid but tasteful furniture, sober decor, with a hint of wealth provided by clearly original oil paintings hanging on the wall.

  ‘I understand that you have the outline of the story from our clerk, Mr Tipton?’ Hillyard clarified.

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Yellich felt himself settling into the great comfort of the armchair. ‘Just the barest outline . . . a land dispute we believe, but one which goes back a few hundred years.’

  ‘Yes, that is the essence of it. Mr Tipton is a good man, a very good man, very discreet.’

  ‘How well did you know the case, sir?’

  ‘Very well indeed. I also got to know the family, the Parrs, prior to the land dispute issue emerging and we just seemed to click. I was a family friend not just their solicitor. We exchanged Christmas cards, that sort of thing, and one day I bumped into Gerald Parr in Camden High Street late one morning as I was looking for a place to partake of luncheon, my usual dining place having closed quite unexpectedly, and, good man that he was, he invited me to his home for lunch and I accepted. I had met his lady wife before but not his children; never been to his house.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Well, what can I say?’ Hillyard continued. ‘Hardly know how to describe what I met . . . the house . . . the family, sort of eccentric, jumbly, mumbly, happy-go-lucky crew. So much so, and, I kid you not, that as myself and Gerald were sitting at the breakfast bar in their kitchen and were both tucking into our Spanish omelettes when in trooped their daughters . . . Isabella and . . . What was the name of the second daughter, the younger one? Her name escapes me . . .’

  ‘Alexandra,’ Webster prompted, his eyes drawn to the vast crimson sunset. ‘Her name was Alexandra.’

  ‘Ah, yes.’ Hillyard smiled. ‘Of course, Sandy for short. Anyway, in they came, then they were in their late teens, and they were both totally naked.’

  ‘Really!’ Yellich smiled and gasped at the same time.

  ‘Yes, really.’ Hillyard also smiled. ‘I confess it was quite an eye-fest for me . . . being my age at the time . . . and a lifetime since I had seen a nubile woman, naked, and just inches from me. They were a little on the short side. The family was very short in terms of stature.’

  ‘Yes,’ Yellich commented, ‘we discovered that.’

  ‘But heavens, they were in the right proportion . . . The two girls just breezed in without saying a word. They knew I was there and calmly made themselves a mug of tea each and calmly walked out again. It was a most pleasing sight . . . it brightened my lunch no end.’ Hillyard chuckled.

  ‘I imagine it would.’ Yellich smiled.

  ‘Gerald looked a bit sheepish and said, “It’s their form of self-expression” or something of that sort and added “Why should they be ashamed of their bodies?”’

  ‘A liberal-minded family,’ Yellich observed.

  ‘Very . . . liberal-minded in the extreme. It was just that sort of family; very bohemian. Gerald was an artist after all. Their lifestyle would not have suited me or my wife; we both have more conservative tastes, as do most members of the legal profession.’

  ‘Yes.’ Yellich continued to read the room. ‘Yes, I would also be of the same persuasion, as most police officers, similar to lawyers, are conservative in terms of taste.’

  ‘Well . . . to continue.’ Hillyard relaxed back in his chair. ‘I visited the family a few times after that and came to know them quite well. Their easy-going lifestyle was like a ray of sunshine in the closed world of Oldfield and Fairly and then . . . then arose the issue of the “Altered Case”.’

  ‘Of which we know very little,’ Yellich appealed.

  Hillyard took a deep breath. ‘I will tell you the story as succinctly as I can. It turned on the issue of ownership of land, that is to say the disputed ownership of a substantial amount of land. I mean about half of Yorkshire, an area measured in hundreds of square miles; that sort of area of land.’

  ‘I see,’ Yellich replied. ‘So big money was involved?’

  ‘Huge money.’ Hillyard raised his eyebrows and nodded gently. ‘An awful lot of pennies. Gerald Parr is a direct descendent of the family who had lost the land in the seventeenth century.’

  ‘Ah . . .’ Yellich replied.

  ‘It was Gerald Parr’s claim that the deeds of the land, that is to say the title deeds of same, had been unlawfully altered.’

  ‘Hence the “Altered Case”,’ Yellich offered.

  ‘Exactly. It was the claim that the deeds had been unlawfully . . . fraudulently altered so as to confer the ownership of the land on to another family.’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘It was a fraud which was made possible it seems for a number of reasons, the first being that the Parrs were absentee landlords. They lived in a property in the London area but owned the land in Yorkshire, which was largely an unsettled area . . . one or two small farming communities . . . but it was in fact a forest in the true meaning of the word.’

  ‘Which is,’ Yellich asked, ‘not a large wood?’

  ‘No . . . no . . . the word “forest” has come to mean that, but originally it was an area of land subject to forest law, that is to say it was a large area of land reserved for the King and his retinue to hunt royal game; deer, boar, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I see.’ Yellich smiled. ‘I do like a good history lesson.’

  ‘Good . . . so the second reason why the fraud, if it was a fraud – it never went to trial – the second reason why it was possible was that it took place in the years of turmoil following the English Civil War when one family, it is alleged, obtained the deeds of the land in question and scratched out the name “Parr” and substituted their own name, being that of “Farrent”.’

  ‘Ah.’ Yellich glanced at Webster who nodded his head slightly. ‘Yes, we have met Mr Farrent.’

  ‘It was the case,’ Hillyard continued, ‘that the Parrs were Royalists and the Farrents were Parliamentarians; consequently the Farrents enjoyed favour of what passed for justice in the land in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, also sometimes known as the War of the Three Kingdoms.’

  ‘Friends in high places,’ Yellich commented, ‘always useful.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Hillyard replied, ‘as you say, always useful. So the Parrs were dispossessed of the forest in Yorkshire, and they probably did not put up a fight because they doubtless thought that being highly placed Royalists, which they apparently were, they were lucky to keep their heads.’

  ‘I see,’ Yellich commented.

  ‘It was the case,’ Hillyard explained, ‘that many Royalist families lost their lands following the victory of the Parliamentarians. It seemed to be that the attitude was “you’re alive – don’t complain”, and it’s crucial, utterly crucial to the argument that both the families when the case came to light were direct descendants of the Parrs and the Farrents when the deeds were allegedly altered in the 1640s.’

  ‘So,’ Yellich asked, ‘that means that the Parrs had a legal claim to the land which was, in the eyes of the law, equally as strong as it would be if the deeds were altered within the lifetime of the present Parr and Farrent families, Mr Farrent also being a linear descendant of the Farrent who acquired the land in 1640. How interesting,’ Yellich added softly.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Hillyard replied. ‘If the Parr line had dissolved and there was no direct lineal descendant of the Percy Parr who had owned the land before the Civil War, then there would be no legal challenge to the validity of the Farrents’ ownership of the land.’ He paused. ‘So the years went by, the Parrs could not raise an action to dispute the ownership of the land, all they could do was to pass the story of the “Altered Case” down the family from one generation to the next until . . .’ Hillyard raised a finger.

  ‘Duplicate documents?’ Yellich gasped.

  Hillyard nodded his head. ‘Yes, exactly. It was the story that Gerald Parr was sifting through bundles of documents and family heirlooms, which had
been stored in the basement of his property, when he stumbled across a deed which showed one Percy Parr to be the rightful owner of the land in question.’

  ‘Being a large part of Yorkshire?’ Yellich sighed. ‘What a find! Confess I could do with making a find like that in my house.’

  ‘Couldn’t we all?’ Hillyard gave a soft laugh. ‘But it seems that it must have been the case that the original Parr, Percy Parr, either did not know of the document, or did know of it but sensibly kept quiet about its existence given that particular political climate. The policy being that he handed it to his son or sons saying, “Keep this safe and when there is some semblance of law in England and fair justice, then that is the time to dispute ownership”. But it also seems that at some point in the family history, while the story of the “Altered Case” was kept alive, the existence of the duplicate deed seems to have been forgotten.’

  ‘Did Mr Parr have a good case?’ Yellich asked.

  ‘Very good,’ Hillyard replied. ‘If – and only if – the duplicate document was accepted as being authentic. The document analyst engaged by Oldfield and Fairly reported that they believed the document to be authentic. We had not yet begun proceedings but there was some phoning between ourselves and the Farrents’ solicitors in York, a firm called Fyrst, Tend and Byrd. They wanted their own experts to look at the document.’

  ‘Seems fair enough,’ Yellich said.

  ‘Oh, it was most fair,’ Hillyard agreed, ‘most fair and a wholly correct reaction from Farrent’s solicitors. We would have done the same.’

  ‘Where is the document now?’

  ‘In the vaults of Oldfield and Fairly,’ Hillyard replied, ‘and who, it may be said, were smelling large amounts of money . . . It was about this time that I may have done the firm out of a fortune.’

  ‘Oh?’ Yellich queried.

  ‘Yes . . .’ Hillyard paused. ‘Yes, you see, by this time I had grown quite fond of the Parr family and the lawyers . . . the legal teams on both sides were circling like hyenas round a stricken calf . . . and one day after work I called at their house, sat in their lounge and gave them a bit of sound Scottish advice.’

  ‘Scottish advice?’ Yellich queried.

  ‘I have come up in the world from humble stock and am proud of it. My grandmother, God rest her, was the wife of an Aberdeen trawlerman and she lived with the constant fear of losing “her man” – as she was wont to refer to her husband, my grandfather – “losing her man to the sea”, and she contributed to the reputation that the Scots have of being penny pinching; she was just so very tight-fisted. You know, I have a framed print of the Punch cartoon from the nineteenth century which depicts a Scotsman upon his return from London saying to another Scot, “Mon, it’s a ruinous place, I had not been there above two hours when bang went sixpence!”’

  Yellich and Webster grinned.

  ‘Well, my granny, lovely woman, she had that sort of attitude, “Come in, you’ll have had your tea”, but . . . and here it gets less humorous, she was fond of the old Scottish saying, “The law’s expensive, take a pint and settle”.’

  ‘Meaning,’ Yellich asked, ‘have a drink and sit round a table and reach an agreement, there being no need to line the pockets of lawyers?’

  ‘Yes . . . it’s probably what prompted my father to enter the legal profession, canny old soul; he must have worked out that if the law’s expensive it was clearly the game to enter if he wanted to be wealthy. He came south and worked in Kent as a solicitor. My son is now a solicitor, so we are three generations and possibly a fourth and fifth.’

  ‘Well done, sir.’ Yellich inclined his head.

  ‘I am not displeased,’ Hillyard replied, ‘not displeased at all. But that evening I went to see Gerald and Elizabeth and I said, “Look, I am probably talking myself out of a job here but the solicitors on both sides are scenting big money”. I also pointed out that the dispute was not going to be settled in a brief hearing in the magistrates court, but was a case that could drag on for years, and the barristers will drag it out for as long as they can because barristers get paid for court time, so they will slow up the case all they can, and they really know how to charge . . . They all have children in private schools so they charge . . . don’t they just.’

  ‘Yes,’ Yellich growled, ‘I am aware of that tactic. No wonder they are all so wealthy.’

  ‘I won’t comment.’ Hillyard managed a brief smile. ‘Even though the land in question is not as large as the original parcel, it’s been broken up over the years; compulsory purchases to build roads and new rail links, and they lost a lot to the government during the Second World War. The Farrents also sold some of the land to raise money, but nevertheless a substantial amount still remains and since the Farrents have been there for nearly four hundred years it might be agreed that they have some moral claim to the property, especially since they believe that it is theirs; they most probably are entitled to something.’

  ‘Yes, I can understand that.’ Yellich nodded his head. ‘It seems fair.’

  ‘The Farrents would not be thrown off the land,’ Hillyard continued, ‘they would not be cast into homelessness and poverty, and when chatting to another senior partner about the case, Charles Bentley, he said that he could foresee the judgement as being to divide the estate equally. If the second document analysis proved the Parr family’s deed to be authentic, both families would have a claim. Owning the land for four hundred years counts for something.’

  ‘Would squatters’ rights apply?’ Webster asked.

  ‘No.’ Hillyard shook his head. ‘Squatters’ rights only apply to houses occupied by people who know they are not the legal owner, not the disputed ownership of hundreds of square miles of land.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Another partner, Adrian Wenlock, also thought that an equal division would be a likely outcome, and he added, “But not for a few years, and what lovely deep pockets”; the other partners chuckled at that, as I also did, but only to go along with them. In my mind I knew what I was going to do.’ Hillyard paused. ‘We do have a conscience, Mr Yellich, despite popular opinion.’

  ‘You were going to tip the Parrs off,’ Yellich replied. ‘A nod and a wink?’

  ‘Yes. That very day, after work, I called on them, with their naked daughters and stray animals and youngsters taken off the street, and said, “Look, Gerald, look, Elizabeth, the received wisdom is that after a lengthy and costly court case you will probably be given half the land in question”.’

  ‘So take a pint and settle?’ Yellich asked.

  ‘I said contact these people, they are not your enemies, you are strangers, talk to them, tell them both families are going to lose a fortune in legal fees only for each family to end up owning half the land at the end of it all. So sit round a table, with or without your solicitors, agree an equal divide, then get the county court to ratify the decision.’ Hillyard stood and walked to the window of the room. ‘It was about then they disappeared, only to be exhumed a few days ago. I may . . . I probably sent them to their deaths, and all the while I thought that I had retired with a clear conscience. Oh, heavens . . . what did I do? The Parr family and the girl they took in . . .’

  ‘You gave good advice, sir,’ Yellich replied. ‘You could not have foreseen what we believe might have happened. No one could.’

  ‘Possibly.’ Hillyard looked into the sunset.

  ‘So the Parrs drove north, leaving the foster son, Nigel, behind?’

  ‘It seems so. Confess I never did take to Nigel. He towered over the family, lowering his head to enter rooms – to get through the doorway, I mean, not bowing out of respect. Found in a phone box I believe. I dare say he could have been rescued if he had been fostered at that age but after ten or so years in an institution he was too far gone. The Parrs tried to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Can’t be done.’ Hillyard turned round. ‘I am not a child psychologist but I do believe that there is much truth in the saying that you can take the child out of the g
hetto but you can’t take the ghetto out of the child. It seems that once that ruthless, survival-at-all-costs attitude has been put into the child then it never, ever, leaves . . . I recall Nigel as being an intense, brooding youth; him and his girlfriend. She was an equally cold fish; one Florence Nightingale.’

  ‘You are joking.’ Webster grinned.

  ‘Nope, it was her name and that’s why I remember it. She was not happy with the name. I commented on it and she just snarled as though she had heard the jokes and comments often enough. She said she wished her parents had gone the whole hog and called her “Boadicea”; pronouncing it “Bo-di-see-a” rather than “Boo-dikka”, being the correct rendering.’

  ‘Really?’ Yellich replied. ‘That’s the correct pronunciation?’

  ‘Yes, the Romans would have called her by the first pronunciation. She and the Iceni would have used the second.’ Hillyard smiled. ‘Another history lesson for you, Mr Yellich.’

  ‘Indeed, sir.’ Yellich returned the smile.

  ‘But,’ Hillyard continued, ‘Nigel Parr and Florence Nightingale gelled well. They found each other all right.’

  ‘And he avoided the trip north?’ Yellich asked.

  ‘So it seemed. He went somewhere with Florence Nightingale.’

  ‘Probably saved his life,’ Webster commented.

  ‘Probably,’ Hillyard replied, ‘dare say we’ll never know.’ He drummed his fingers on the window sill. ‘You know, I never did take to him at all, as I said, and Gerald became worried about him.’

  ‘Oh?’ Yellich queried.

  ‘Yes, over a beer one evening Gerald confessed to me that he thought that they had made a terrible mistake in fostering him. He grew to feel that they had brought something poisonous into their home. He really was quite depressed about it.’

  Yellich glanced at Webster. ‘That is interesting, because his brother-in-law clearly thought otherwise.’