After the Flood

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘Then left…’

  ‘Leeft?’ The olive-skinned tourist pointed to his right hand. ‘This is leeft, sir?’

  ‘No, sir, that is right.’ The constable pointed to the man’s other hand. ‘That is left.’

  ‘Leeft?’ The man pointed to his left hand.

  ‘Sir…I mean yes, sir, that is left, left…turn left.’

  Yellich smiled to himself and walked to the CID corridor, leaving the constable to struggle and to learn to cope with his exasperation. In his pigeonhole was the result of the nationwide details of women in their forties who were reported missing between twelve and fifteen years ago. Twenty-five of them. Yellich took the computer printout to his desk, made a mug of coffee—without which his mind would not function, at least before midday—and scanned the list. All parts of the British Isles seemed to be represented, but none had a York connection. He sipped the coffee. He didn’t think he could dismiss any of the names, but he might, he thought, just might be able to narrow the list down. It was, he felt, if the skull belonged to one woman and the body to another, reasonable to assume that both women had disappeared at the same time. If bits of the two women were placed in the same hole, then it was likely that the bits were placed there at the same time. Amanda Dunney was reported missing in September twelve years ago. Of the twenty-five names, only two were reported missing at the same time, within a week of Amanda Dunney being reported as a ‘mis-per’. And both just prior to Amanda Dunney, which, if she was murdered to form a smokescreen for another murder, would make sense. Murder the woman you want to murder, then murder Amanda Dunney for her skull and her teeth so as to mislead by dental records.

  The first woman’s home address was given as Bridgnorth, Shropshire. She had been reported missing by her husband, one Nigel Cox. Mrs Marian Cox was a schoolteacher; ‘she had had no known reason to leave her family, especially so close to the start of the school year’ was all the computer printout told Yellich.

  The other woman seemed altogether more promising. She had an address in the city of Kingston-upon-Hull, shortened by all for convenience, even on its railway station nameplates, to ‘Hull’, which was really the name of a small tributary of the mighty Humber. Calling the city Hull was, Yellich often thought, akin to calling London ‘Fleet’ because of the tributary of the Thames of that name. Yellich was not unfamiliar with Hull. He found it a hard city; its status as a seaport saw to that. It was also very windy—its proximity to the North Sea saw to that—nor was it a financially successful city. The last time he had visited he had observed boarded-up shop units in the city centre. But he had met one or two folk from Hull who loved the town, who wouldn’t hear anything said against it, and who missed the wind when they visited inland cities. It was not, he said to himself, for him to judge. None the less, a visit to Kingston-upon-Hull seemed to be in the offing: one Amy Lepping, who was in her forties, had disappeared from her home in Hull a few days before Amanda Dunney had been reported missing from her lodgings. Mrs Lepping was reported missing by her husband, whose occupation was given as ‘farm manager’. Hull was only an hour’s drive from York, and a farm manager could read a rural landscape better than most men: he could identify a pasture that was not likely to be dug up. A pasture on a derelict farm, close to a river, for example. He put the computer printout down, phoned Precentor’s Court Health Centre and asked to be put through to the practice manager.

  ‘Pearson.’ His manner was brisk, efficient.

  ‘DS Yellich, I called on you yesterday. Didn’t think you’d be working on Saturday morning, thought I’d take a chance.’

  ‘I don’t usually, but the surgery is open on Saturday mornings and I have some admin to catch up on.’

  ‘The names you said you’d look up for us…?’

  ‘Bit early in the piece. I’ll need more time than this.’

  ‘Appreciate that, Mr Pearson, but we have had a couple of possible names fed to us, possibly in respect of another incident. I wondered if the names meant anything to you in respect of Amanda Dunney’s patients?’

  ‘Or her victims.’

  ‘As you say. It would be better if you could give me what names you have had time to identify. I presume you are going back to her patient list at the time?’

  ‘Yes, that’s all I can do. Really there are not many, because not all her patients were terminally ill of course; only those who were terminally ill became victims of her twisted ethos.’

  ‘Of course.’ Yellich glanced out of his office window; a sliver of blue rent the grey sky.

  ‘Stayed late last night, really didn’t know how far to go back, but working backwards from the time she was suspended for eighteen months, I found five names, I think…I have the list here somewhere…Yes, here we are…To get the full, complete list of her victims—’

  ‘You’re angry with her, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, that’s why I prefer to refer to her patients as “victims”. You see, she did not just betray her patients, she betrayed her colleagues and the nursing profession in general. So yes, I am angry. That woman betrayed me and everybody who works in this practice in any capacity.’

  ‘I can appreciate your anger. A corrupt police officer in this nick would make me feel betrayed.’

  ‘So, the names…Giles, Mark; Blackburn, Emily; Lepping, Sara, without an “h”; Mulholland, Deirdre; and Galley, Edith. Those were the terminally ill patients on that woman’s patient list for the last eighteen months of her employment with us, but she was here for a number of years, so I’ll go back until she started here. That’ll take a day or two.’

  ‘It’s enough to be going on with, Mr Pearson.’ Yellich shifted the phone from one ear to the other. ‘Can you tell me anything about the patients?’

  ‘Only what’s on the screen when I type in their name.’

  ‘I see. Well, Sara Lepping, what can you tell me about her?’

  ‘Just a second.’ The receiver was laid on the desk and Yellich heard the unmistakable hollow sound of a computer keyboard being tapped, speedily and efficiently.

  The receiver was picked up again, Pearson sighed and said, ‘OK, she’s up on the screen now…oh dear…’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A tragedy: cancer of the ovaries, but she was only twenty years old.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘There’s no rhyme or reason to it all.’

  ‘There isn’t, is there?’

  ‘But twenty years, a miss—single lady. Occupation is given as “student”, next of kin her father, an address in Humberside: Hedon, Tapping Lane, number seven. She’d left home, didn’t return to die there.’

  ‘Stubbornly independent?’

  ‘Or home was so awful she refused to return. One or the other.’

  ‘Well, thanks, that’s been a good help.’

  It had been a pleasant walk. It was one of the walks that George Hennessey knew he would take with him for the remainder of his life. He and his two companions had driven from Masham to a little way beyond the village of Healey, where they had parked the car and had walked the reservoirs, doing a figure of eight round Leighton Reservoir and its smaller neighbour, Roundhill, a pleasant ten miles, approximated George Hennessey, in remote, rough moorland landscape; up on the way out and downhill on the way back. A late pub lunch in Healey and all in good walking weather, a little wind, comfortably above freezing, and no rain. They returned to the hotel and, leaving Oscar in the car, they entered the hotel, one behind the other but as a couple, and asked for their room keys. The receptionist, a different woman from the receptionist who was on duty when they had left that morning, welcomed them with a knowing smile.

  The receptionist had clearly been told of them: the game was working.

  ‘Most pleasant walk.’ Hennessey picked up his key. Thank you for your company.’

  ‘Thank you for yours. It wouldn’t have been half so much fun if I had spent the morning by myself as I had planned.’

  ‘Well…’ Hennessey hesitated. ‘I don’t
wish to be forward, but would you care to join me for dinner again this evening?’

  ‘Only if you would join me in my trip to Harrogate.’

  ‘This afternoon?’

  ‘Yes. I’m told it’s good for antique shops, and I want a dresser for my daughter’s bedroom.’

  ‘I’d like that…haven’t been to Harrogate for years.’

  ‘You know the town?’

  ‘A little.’

  ‘Enough to know where the antique shops are?’

  ‘And the teashops too.’

  ‘I’ll see you just here then, give ourselves a chance to get out of our “walkies”…about half an hour?’

  ‘Half an hour it is.’ Hennessey smiled, and from the comer of his eye noticed the receptionist being barely able to conceal her amusement.

  Yellich replaced the receiver and pondered his next move. The man Lepping was clearly a man to be met, a man with a motive to harm Amanda Dunney, a man whose wife also disappeared at the time of Amanda Dunney’s disappearance. It was at times like this that he felt the absence of a senior officer, but he knew the investigation must not be allowed to lose momentum. He was also keenly aware that his next board would be strongly influenced by evidence of his ability to act on his own initiative. On that basis, he thought, Humberside beckoned, and the first port of call would be to the Humberside Police, a courtesy call and a request for any local knowledge about Lepping esquire.

  ‘I checked with Directory Enquiries.’ Yellich extended his hand and accepted the mug of coffee from the duty CID officer of the Humberside Police. It had taken him just one hour to drive to Hull, across flat wolds landscape, and, as on earlier occasions when entering Hull, he had the sensation of driving down into something. But he didn’t like the south of England any better: life in the south seemed so soft to him that he always felt that he was cheating, somehow. All it meant, he decided as he picked his way along Anlaby Road, amongst slow-moving traffic, was that in Great Britain, with all its rich variety within such a small island, he had found the few square miles where he felt at home and content. ‘So I came here, only had to ask directions once.’

  ‘You don’t know Hull?’

  ‘Not well. I am intrigued by a street called The Land of Green Ginger.’

  ‘Oh, yes, it’s in the Old Town, the museums are down that way.’ Detective Sergeant Pippa Booth was, thought Yellich, a perfect example of the often made observation that when the Vikings eventually left this part of England they just didn’t leave place names behind but their genes as well. ‘Hedon has a historical claim to fame too.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Had an outbreak of cholera there in the nineteenth century, lost a lot of folk, more per capita than the city of Hull. It was before they knew what caused the disease, and folk pointed to it as proof that cholera was airborne. How else could the disease reach Hedon unless it was carried on the wind? In fact we now know it was caused by a combination of a near-drought and a low fall.’

  ‘Fall?’

  ‘The inclining of the drains to the river.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘The drains just dried up and the human waste from the privies seeped into the soil and contaminated the well.’

  ‘Fascinating.’

  There was a knock on the door. DS Booth said, ‘Yes?’ The door opened and a young, eager-looking constable entered holding a file.

  ‘The file you asked for, sarge.’

  ‘Many thanks.’ Pippa Booth accepted the file with a gracious, well-mannered smile. ‘So…’ she said as the constable left the room, closing the door gently behind him, ‘the file on Sydney Lepping, no less.’

  ‘Slender,’ Yellich observed.

  ‘Clearly not a bad lad, by comparison.’ Pippa Booth opened the file. ‘Well, all happened in the last ten years, nothing known of him before that. It appears to be all drink-related: breach of the peace…drink-driving…driving whilst disqualified…assault…then nothing for the last five years. Seems to have calmed down, or maybe he is no longer with us, one of the two. Last address is given as Wickersley Avenue, number fifty-seven. There’s reference here to the reason for your visit, his wife’s disappearance. The mis-per report is in the void, but all information is duplicated here. The wife, Amy Lepping, nee Martin, was reported missing shortly after the death of their daughter, Sara.’

  ‘Yes, she was a student at York, cancer.’

  ‘Oh…’

  ‘Yes, tragic isn’t it?’

  ‘So he lost his wife and daughter within a few weeks of each other. No mention of any other relative that might give the man reason to continue with this life.’

  Pippa Booth scanned the file. ‘His first occupation was given as “farm manager”, but at his last offence he was listed as “unemployed”, the inference being that he lost his job because of his offending or drinking—possibly the latter. A sudden drink problem late in life can lead to absenteeism in a man who was previously a good worker. And now you suspect him of murder?’

  ‘He’s a suspect, one of a few. Many people had a motive to murder Amanda Dunney.’

  ‘I should think they did. Withholding morphine so they’d get to heaven more quickly, I have never heard the like. Nonsense as well, if you ask me. I may have been a cop for too long but I see that as a thin excuse for a spiteful and sadistic form of pleasure-taking.’

  ‘The practice manager is of the same opinion. He has little time for her memory.’

  ‘Pity she didn’t live long enough to experience the pain of cancer herself, that would have changed her mind. Not much salvation in that form of suffering. Yes, I can see why Lepping would be a prime suspect all right. He’s a man with a violent streak, according to his track.’ Pippa Booth tapped the file. ‘And a skeleton of A. N. Other woman was found with Amanda Dunney’s skull, you say? I wonder if Dunney knew her name meant “toilet” in some circles. Seems appropriate in a way.’

  ‘Never heard that.’ Yellich smiled.

  ‘I think Aussies use the term, and the Kiwis as well, and it was used in these parts until recently. My father grew up on a farm just to the north of Hull and he recalls a two-person outside toilet—two people could sit side by side, you see—which he referred to as a “two-man dunny”. Well, to continue, the bits of the other woman are those of a woman who was aged mid-forties when she died, found in the same hole in the ground as Amanda Dunney’s skull, who was reported missing at about the same time that Mrs Amy Lepping was reported missing. Do you intend to arrest Lepping?’

  ‘If he’s still with us, as you say, but I don’t know. At the moment I think I want to take the measure of the man, feel my way forward.’

  ‘Proceed with caution, you think?’

  ‘I think so, that’s the ticket.’

  ‘I think I’d like to come with you. If the body is that of Mrs Lepping it’s one for us anyway. Would you mind?’

  ‘Not at all. It would be my pleasure.’

  ‘And it would get me out.’ Pippa Booth reached for her handbag. ‘Had a loathsome encounter this morning, ugh. Makes me want to have a shower.’

  ‘Oh?’ Yellich stood.

  ‘A hardened criminal, from a family of hardened criminals. And he’s still not a teenager. Lot of bag-snatching in Hull, elderly women in the main, all describe a little lad that tears along the pavement like a mini-tornado, powers into them, snatches their bag and tears away. About twenty incidents. Today we caught him; a couple of plainclothes boys saw everything and he ran into them.’

  ‘Good for them.’

  ‘But…’ Pippa Booth smiled and raised a finger. ‘He gives up without a struggle and admits to stealing the one bag the police saw him steal, because his dad had told him to give up without a fight if he was caught bang to rights, and admit to what he can’t get out of, but otherwise “cough to nowt”. So we lean on him, hard-cop soft-cop routine, a social worker in the room as the law dictates, but would he cough? Would he ever. He was harder than all three adults put together. All we could do was charge
him with the one incident. After the tape recorder was switched off and the social worker was about to take him away to a lovely warm children’s home—’

  ‘From which he’ll abscond.’

  ‘Of course, goes without saying. Anyway, he said, win some lose some, get caught, get away with it, but get away with more than you get caught for, that way you come out on top. His dad told him that as well.’

  ‘Blimey, and how old is he, twelve?’

  ‘Nine. He’s nine years old.’

  Hennessey and D’Acre drove to Harrogate. The day remained overcast with a little intermittent rain. Hennessey parked near the station and he and Louise D’Acre strolled arm-in-arm round the spa town with its graceful Victorian buildings, wide streets, massively generous ‘stray’—a cultivated, grassed-over area in the centre of the town, crisscrossed by tree-lined roads. They walked, as they had intended, from one antique shop to another but, not being able to find a dresser to Louise D’Acre’s liking, or price range, abandoned the search in favour of a window table in a tearoom, a pot of Earl Grey and a Yorkshire ‘fat rascal’ each.

  ‘Well, yours or mine?’ Louise D’Acre ate the last morsel of her ‘fat rascal’ and patted her lips with the napkin.

  Hennessey grinned. ‘Whose bed did we use last time?’

  ‘Mine.’

  ‘Did we?’

  ‘Yes, the hotel in Buxton. You remember, the baking hot day. My Riley overheated on the drive back to York.’

  ‘Oh yes, of course. It was a long time ago. Last summer.’

  ‘Quite a good one that; the hotel staff could barely contain their mirth.’

  ‘I remember, they were mostly very young. I think they were amused that people of our age can still have romantic encounters.’

  ‘What joys await them.’

  ‘Indeed. They reminded me of the young female assistant I bought some massage oil from—she clearly couldn’t believe that someone old enough to be her grandfather would want to smooth that stuff all over someone else’s body.’