After the Flood

by Peter Turnbull

  ‘Hobson’s choice, if you ask me, sir…and you did leave because of the corruption.’

  ‘Yes, but I took it. It’s still with me, that money. It’s a long time ago now but when I returned to England I used it to buy my first house. As I, as we, have moved up the housing ladder, that money has moved up with us. It’s still in our bricks and mortar. My children will inherit it. If I donate the corresponding amount in today’s terms to a charity, would that solve the problem? Would I be giving tainted money to charity? The tainted money is in the house, in my finances, like a dormant virus. I should never have gone to Hong Kong, never. I keep that photograph of myself because it’s part of my history and I want to be reminded of it, of my time there. If you forget your past, you are doomed to relive it.’

  ‘Good point, sir.’

  ‘It’s not original. Santayana said it; the exact quote, I think, is “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it.’”

  ‘Santayana, sir? I don’t know that name.’

  ‘George Santayana, a Spaniard, born mid to late nineteenth century, taught at Harvard.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘A man of wisdom.’

  ‘Seems so.’

  ‘But back on track, George: you will let me know of anything like that, even the slightest suspicion?’

  ‘I will, sir.’

  ‘Good. Now, the other point. George, I cast no critical comment on your work, but are things all right with you?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I feel on top of things.’

  ‘You’ll be making retirement plans?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I plan to travel about Great Britain. There are many parts of this right little, tight little island that I haven’t visited. I plan to travel widely but within these shores, and to stay awhile in each place—not an “If it’s Tuesday this must be Ipswich” sort of holiday, but a getting to know the locality as much as I can. When you’re alone in a strange town and have a night to kill, the best form of entertainment is to visit five or six pubs, have a pint in each and just keep your eyes and ears open; you really get a feel of the local community.’

  ‘I’ll remember that. How do you feel when you drive to work each morning? Confident? Happy?’

  ‘Well, yes…unless something is troubling me.’

  ‘This morning?’

  ‘Confident, content, planning the day, knew I had a phone call to make, wanted to apprise you, sir…normal thoughts about the day ahead.’

  ‘I want you to enjoy your retirement, George. Only a few years to go. I have also told you about one of my teachers, from my schooldays, Johnny Taighe…’

  ‘I think you have, sir.’

  ‘Smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish—his red nose said so—carried too much weight. He was close to retirement, should have been allowed to soft-pedal, but they pressured him, gave him a job he wasn’t up to. No energy left, he was burnt out, and they piled on the pressure; he keeled with a massive coronary. All the warning signs were there—the smoking, the drinking, the weight, that false good humour that says nervousness, unhappiness—and his colleagues missed them all. It won’t happen to any of my staff.’

  ‘Well, I’m not overweight, sir, I no longer smoke, I drink minimally and feel sufficiently energetic. I don’t want to police a desk, but thanks for the concern.’

  ‘All right, but no comment was intended about your performance. I have no complaint about it.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. Will that be all?’

  ‘Yes, thanks, George. Thank you.’

  It was midday. Hennessey signed out and walked the walls to Lendal Bridge, then to the Old Starre Inn in Stonegate, for a pub lunch of passing satisfaction. He ate it in a seat in the comer, beneath a framed print of an old map of ‘Yorkshyrre, with ye famous and Fayre citie York defcribed’.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t here then, Mr Yellich.’ The man was sharply dressed, cleanshaven, with a gentle whiff of aftershave. His office was neat, functional, airy and well lit; a large calendar beneath a photograph of an early model of a BMW hung on the wall. ‘Can’t think who could help you. Ah, wait! Tom Dyett might.’ The man picked up his phone and dialled a two-figure number. ‘Julie,’ he said when his call was answered, ‘is Tom Dyett in at the moment? Thanks.’ He replaced the phone. ‘Well, he’s working at the moment. If he can’t help you, you’ve drawn a blank. Possibly. Tom is the only one who is still with us who was here twelve years ago. I’ll take you to him.’

  Yellich was escorted to the workshop of the dealership, where tools clanged and buzzed, where mechanics in light blue overalls with Ferguson in German racing silver printed on the back leaned over open bonnets, or peered up at the underneath of cars on the ramps.

  Tom Dyett was a short, stocky, middle-aged man who wore spectacles. He held up a dirty, oil-caked palm and said, ‘Won’t shake hands.’

  ‘I’ll leave you two, then.’ The salesman turned and walked away.

  ‘Let’s go outside.’ Tom Dyett nodded to the open doorway which led to the car park at the rear of the dealership.

  ‘Wouldn’t have his job.’ Dyett nodded over his shoulder. ‘Young Ferguson, or “Ferguson the youth” as he’s known on the shop floor. It was his father that started this outfit. Look at all this metal.’ Dyett looked out over the car park. ‘There must be sixty cars here, all wanting owners. What this represents in money I can’t imagine. The cheapest must be priced about the same as your annual salary, and don’t ask about the most expensive. All he’s got to do is sell them. They haven’t sold a car for three weeks. Me, I don’t run a car, more trouble than they’re worth. I can take ‘em apart and put ‘em back together, but I travel by bus. It’s good to get outside.’ He breathed deeply. ‘So, how can I help you?’

  ‘We’re trying to trace a man.’ Yellich looked over the roofs of the cars to the grassy bank that surrounded the car park, the high metal fence atop the bank, the blue sky above. ‘He was known to drive a BMW with a Ferguson’s sticker in the rear window. Doesn’t mean he’s a customer, of course, could have bought the motor second-hand, but just in case he was a customer, then he’d be in his forties, large, well built, light-coloured hair, well dressed. Ring any bells?’

  ‘Bit pukka? Posh accent?’

  ‘Yes.’ Yellich allowed a note of hope to enter his voice.

  ‘Well, this is serious-money territory, so a lot of our customers are pukka, but the blond hair, that sounds like Mr Quinlan.’

  ‘Quinlan?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Andrew Quinlan. He’s an accountant—was then, hasn’t been back for a few years now, probably changed his make of car, Rolls-Royce by now, probably. But he wasn’t toffee-nosed like some of our customers. He’d chat to you, pass the time of day…helped me financially.’

  ‘Loaned money?’

  ‘No…advice. Ferguson’s don’t give pensions, they can’t, so I asked Mr Quinlan for advice. He told me to avoid private pensions because you pay more in than you get out. He suggested I borrow some money and buy a terraced house to let to students, told me where in the city to buy the house, told me the name of a reputable finance house to borrow from. I’ve got six houses now. The rental is more than the payments and I’ll have the loans paid off before I retire, then the rent is all profit, after tax, and maintenance to the buildings. A very nice pension, thank you very much. I owe that to Mr Quinlan.’

  ‘Andrew Quinlan,’ Yellich repeated, then added, ‘Thank you, thank you very much, Mr Dyett.’

  ‘Hope he’s not in trouble.’

  ‘I don’t know myself, yet.’

  ‘Wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to him. Like I said, I’m financially safe because of him. ‘Well, if you could give him my regards.’

  ‘Yes, if I can.’

  Yellich returned to the airy, well-lit office of ‘Ferguson the youth’ and asked if he could access the computerised files for one Andrew Quinlan. The address flashed upon the screen: Cuckoo’s Nest, East Riding Way, Nether Poppleton.

  ‘Pukka all right,’ said Yelli
ch, noting the address in his book. ‘Very pukka.’

  SIX

  In which the chief inspector visits Leeds and is later at home to the gentle reader.

  WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, 6th APRIL

  Hennessey took the train to Leeds. He had lived with a long-term, near-lifelong dislike of motor transport, save perhaps buses, and had always far, far preferred travel by train. For the second time in the space of twenty-four hours he travelled by Northern Spirit from York Station, although on this occasion he terminated his journey at Leeds, and, being unfamiliar with the city, he took a taxi to Victoria Road.

  Victoria Road, he found, was a long, straight, gently inclined thoroughfare lined with spacious-looking nineteenth-century houses in terraces. There were small shops and launderettes and Indian restaurants at intervals amid the red-brick terraces. A group of youthful-looking people stood at a bus shelter: university students, Hennessey guessed. Number 181 was at the bottom end of the road, close to the intersection with a winding main road, generously lined with mature trees.

  He walked up the short flight of steps to the green-painted door on to which the numbers ‘1’, ‘8’ and ‘1’ had been screwed in individual brass numerals. He pressed the doorbell but heard no sound from within, so he tapped the small metal knocker. He was about to knock again when the door opened slowly to reveal a frail, elderly woman and a dark, cavernous hallway behind her.

  ‘Mrs Wall?’

  ‘Yes, I am Mrs Wall.’ The woman spoke clearly, strongly. Her body may well have succumbed to age but Hennessey was grateful to find that her mind was still youthful and strong.

  ‘I am Detective Chief Inspector Hennessey of the York Police.’ He showed his ID. T wonder if I can ask you some questions, Mrs Wall?’

  ‘You may. Would you like to come in? Would you care for some tea after your journey?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Mrs Wall turned round slowly and walked back down the corridor. ‘Do come in,’ she said with her back to Hennessey, ‘and please close the door behind you. This is Headingley, twenty-four-hour burglary threat.’

  Hennessey stepped over the threshold of the old house, sweeping off his hat as he did so. The door was large and heavy, but swung easily on its hinges and closed with a satisfyingly loud click of the barrel lock.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Wall in response to the sound.

  She led Hennessey into a large, spacious room. A young woman in an apron looked curiously at him as he entered the room.

  ‘I know what you’re going to say, but he’s a policeman.’

  The younger woman smiled at Hennessey, then turned to Mrs Wall and said, ‘Even so, I wish you’d let me answer the door.’ She turned to Hennessey again and said, ‘One day she’ll answer the door to the wrong person; they just barge in, you know.’

  ‘You worry too much, my child.’ Mrs Wall turned, sank with some effort into an upholstered upright chair, and tipped the walking stick beside it. ‘Good day. Today’s a good day. Didn’t need my stout little crook-handled friend today. Mr, er…?’

  ‘Hennessey.’

  ‘Mr Hennessey has come from York. Do you think he could have a cup of tea, girl?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The ‘child’ or ‘girl’ in question, who Hennessey guessed was in her forties, and with engagement and wedding rings upon the appropriate finger, smiled and walked out of the room.

  ‘Don’t know what I’d do without her,’ Mrs Wall said as the housekeeper left the room. ‘Do sit down, please, Mr Hennessey.’ Hennessey sat in an armchair opposite Mrs Wall, whose manner was formal and reserved, but whose eyes were sincere and warm. ‘Now, young man, what can I do for you?’ She wasn’t a Yorkshirewoman; she was clearly a long-term resident of the county but her accent betrayed her as an incomer. Hennessey thought he detected a trace of Norfolk in her speaking voice, perhaps Suffolk, but definitely East Anglia. ‘Not in any trouble, I hope?’

  ‘Not at all, Mrs Wall. It’s actually in connection with a young man, a name from your past you may remember. Andrew Quinlan.’

  ‘Andrew!’ Mrs Wall smiled. ‘Well, you are picking over an old woman’s memory. Andrew lived with us for a year, in this house; he had the attic bedroom. Lovely young man, seemed to appreciate being a part of a family; he had grown up in a children’s home.’

  ‘So I believe.’

  ‘It’s going back to when Tom was with us.’

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘My youngest. He was born without eyesight or hearing and because he was deaf his speech was limited. You can teach a dumb person to speak if they have sight, because they can see words being mouthed; by mimicking the mouthing action they can learn to enunciate. But Tom had neither sight nor hearing, and although he could make sounds he never could learn to speak. Andrew was placed with us to be Tom’s eyes and ears for a twelve-month period. Andrew came when he was eighteen and Tom was just twelve. He is in an institution now…I grew too frail…’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘It’s thirty years, I should think it’s about thirty years since Andrew came to live with us. I’m eighty-three, Tom is forty-two—he was a late baby; that’ll mean Andrew Quinlan is now in his fifties.’

  The housekeeper entered the room carrying a tray of tea and laid it on the coffee table, which she then picked up and placed just in front of Hennessey. I brought a second cup in case you’d like one, Mrs Wall.’

  ‘I won’t: too soon after lunch.’

  ‘Shall I pour for you, sir?’ the housekeeper asked of Hennessey. Hennessey smiled his thanks and said he’d manage. The housekeeper left the room, padding silently on soft-soled shoes, shutting the door behind her.

  ‘His sister came here too, you know. Never knew he had a sister till she presented herself at my door, about ten years ago, possibly a little more than ten years ago.’

  ‘I’m following the same trail.’ Hennessey poured the tea into a china cup decorated with delicately painted yellow flowers.

  ‘It’s bad, it’s sad, it’s mad when blood relatives become estranged.’ Mrs Wall winced momentarily. ‘I have other children, two sons and a daughter. I insist that they visit Tom as often as they can, and they do. Tom…he has a sense of touch and also of smell, and he uses those to recognise people. He feels your face and takes your scent and can express joy and sorrow, he can be communicated with. He could find his way all over this house and remember where he had left his possessions.

  ‘He and Andrew bonded with each other. They would go out for afternoons up to Golden Acre Park, or Woodhouse Moor, which, if you don’t know Leeds, is a cultivated park despite its name. And they would hold hands and run on the grass. I went with them when I could, saw how much Tom enjoyed that. That was Andrew’s idea, that’s the sort of young man he was. You see, Mr Hennessey, he realised how frustrated Tom was, intellectually as well as physically. Andrew seemed to “see” Tom. He saw that he had a brain that had no outlet, no expression. He realised that a twelve-year-old boy shouldn’t be cooped up in his body. Other helpers before Andrew would take Tom for a walk, but it was Andrew who actually taught him to run, and to have the confidence to run. Andrew Quinlan was a very good young man.’

  ‘Where did he go when he left your home?’

  ‘He stayed in Leeds. He seemed to take to this area, Headingley, on the borders of Burley Park. Leeds 6 is where all the students live. Most of the houses in Victoria Road are student lets, and the area has a certain “buzz”, a “vibrancy”. I think Andrew picked up on it, and decided to stay. He moved out of our house, but retained contact with us. Sometimes he slipped and referred to this house as “home”. He was clearly very socially isolated, but also clearly he moved on in life, and after he graduated we had no further contact with him.’

  ‘Do you have his last address?’

  ‘I don’t. It would only have been a damp and miserable bedsit. His sister asked the same question, and back then I thought I might have had it, but I’ve had a clear-out since then. I remember I advised
her to go to the university. He studied accountancy. I believe they keep some kind of record of their students’ forwarding address—my dear late husband worked in the university, as an administrator. I invited Andrew’s sister to come back to me if she didn’t get any joy out of the university but she didn’t return, so I can only assume she made progress.’

  Hennessey was shown out by the housekeeper, who before she closed the door behind him said, ‘She’s in dreadful pain, you know, arthritis, but you’d never guess if you didn’t know her. She just refuses to give in.’

  It happened as it always seemed to happen, an unexpected sight of something that triggered the memory. Usually it was the glimpse of a motor-cyclist through the windscreen of his car, often travelling at speed, crouching low over the fuel tank of the machine to reduce wind resistance, but on this occasion it was different. On this occasion it was more poignant. Hennessey had left the Wall household and turned right to walk up Victoria Road to reach the university as directed. He crossed a side street, and as he stepped into the road he glanced up the street. There at the kerb was a young man lavishing love, care and attention on a motor cycle, and suddenly Hennessey was eight years old again, helping Graham polish his beloved Triumph as it stood on its rest against the kerb outside their parents’ little terrace house in Colomb Street, Greenwich. And he remembered how Graham would take him for a spin, round Blackheath Common, or across Tower Bridge to Trafalgar Square and back. Then there was that day, that night, that fateful, horrible night when he lay in bed listening to Graham leave the house, kick his machine roaring into life, listened as Graham rode away down Trafalgar Road, climbing through the gears. He lay there straining to catch every last decibel until all sound of Graham’s bike had been swallowed by the other noises of the night: the ships on the river, the other traffic on Trafalgar Road, the drunken Irishman who walked beneath his window chanting his ‘Hail Mary’s. Hennessey remembered many details of that night, because later on there was a light but authoritative tap on the door, tap, tap—tap, the policeman’s knock, which he would come to use…the sound of voices, his mother wailing…his father coming to his room, fighting back his own tears, to tell him that Graham had ridden to heaven, ‘to save a place for us’. And later, a few days later, the funeral: the coffin being lowered, and on such a fine summer’s day, with birds singing and butterflies flitting through the air. George Hennessey saw then that summer is not the time for a funeral, when all about is green and in full bloom and the sun is high and strong, that that is not the time for a man to die. And no season is the right time to die when one is only eighteen years old. Life, from that moment on, had seemed incomplete. Whereas, before that terrible time, there had been somebody ahead of him, someone to look up to, someone to follow, after that time there had just been a void. Even now, close to the end of his working life, George Hennessey still felt the emptiness where an older brother should be. And all his life he had failed to understand humankind’s love affair with the car or motor cycle. Whether two wheels or four, both, so far as he believed, were the most dangerous machines ever invented. And could he walk up to that young man, polishing his machine, and say, ‘No, don’t get on it’? You cannot tell youth anything; as the car sticker says, hire a teenager while they still know everything, because the young man does not believe he can be killed. For him, as for all youth, death is something that happens to others. It won’t happen to him. Hennessey walked on.