Sausage Hall

by Christina James

  “I’m sorry,” he said to her now. “DI Tim Yates. I don’t think we’ve met?”

  “I’m Verity Tandy, sir,” she said. “I’ve just transferred from Boston. I asked to come to Spalding because my partner’s moving here. Sarge sent me with PC Chakrabati. He and PC Cooper are showing me the ropes.”

  Tim took a step back in order to examine her as well as the dim light allowed. She was of medium height and plump to the point of being obese, with blotchy skin and rather lank semi-curly hair that lay flat on her crown where it was greasiest. Somewhat uncharitably, he thought that a woman like her would be prepared to follow her partner, once she’d managed to hook one. He looked down at her feet and saw that they were surprisingly small and dainty. Presumably Jean Rook had been speaking metaphorically when she’d talked of ‘plods’ and ‘size elevens’, as Giash was neat and wiry, only just tall enough to have qualified for the force, his feet in proportion.

  “Delighted to have you with us,” he said briskly. He turned slightly so as to include Giash in the conversation. “Once Ms Gardner arrives, you can leave, unless she says that she needs you. I’d like you both to come back here first thing tomorrow, though. I shall want the building and its grounds isolated as a crime scene, with one of you on duty at the gate all the time.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Giash. Verity Tandy nodded mutely. Shy or sulky? Tim couldn’t tell which. On first impressions, he didn’t mark her down as one of the force’s bright hopes for the future.

  He pounded back to the top of the cellar stairs. Jean Rook was waiting for him.

  “Mr de Vries will see you now,” she said, as if she were a courtier admitting Tim to the royal presence.

  “Too damn right he will,” Tim thought. Belatedly, he realised that he shouldn’t interview de Vries and Jean while he was alone. It was a thousand pities that Juliet wasn’t here. He could hear Ricky MacFadyen’s footsteps advancing from the cellar. Ricky appeared at the door, brandishing his mobile phone. He was slightly out of breath.

  “DC MacFadyen, when you’ve made that call I’d like you to join us. In the drawing-room?” The question was directed at Jean Rook.

  “I suppose so,” she said. She disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. Kevan de Vries emerged after a short interval and followed her into the drawing-room, barely acknowledging the two policemen. Tim waited for Ricky to make a short call to Patti Gardner, after which they entered the room together. Kevan de Vries and Jean Rook were seated on either side of the fireplace. It struck Tim with some force that they could have been mistaken for a married couple.

  “Good evening, sir. I’m sorry that I’ve had to disturb you again today.”

  “That’s quite all right, Detective Inspector; I told you to do so, although I hadn’t quite envisaged these circumstances.” He had recovered some of the mildly astringent urbanity that he’d displayed during the conversation at the airport. He glanced across at Jean Rook, as if for approval. She crossed her legs, tugged once at the hem of her skirt for form’s sake and poised her pen over her notepad.

  Tim and Ricky sat down awkwardly on one of the two-seater settees. Ricky also took out pen and notebook.

  “Mr de Vries, you know why I’m here. As you’re aware, I asked you if my officers could return this afternoon to begin a search of the premises, following the discovery on Sunday of what were apparently counterfeit passports in your cellar. Further searching has now yielded what appear to be human remains buried under the floor of the cellar. If that turns out to be correct, I must ask you if you had any prior knowledge of them? Can you shed light on how they came to be there?”

  “I should have thought that it’s obvious that I don’t. I would hardly . . .”

  “DI Yates, is this a formal interrogation? If so, don’t you think you should caution Mr de Vries?” Jean Rook’s tone was clinical.

  “It’s informal in the sense that I’m not accusing Mr de Vries of any crime. I’m merely asking him to help us with our enquiries, by supplying as much information as he can.”

  “So if you were to charge him formally, you would wish to caution him and go over the same ground again?”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “In that case, bearing in mind that he is still jet-lagged, I would like to suggest that you desist . . .”

  Kevan de Vries held up his hand in a languidly weary gesture.

  “It’s all right, Jean. I’ll answer the questions. As you’re aware, my intention is to return to Joanna as quickly as I can. If this helps, I’m happy to comply.” He turned back to Tim.

  “I really have no idea, and I’m as horrified as you are.”

  “Has the cellar been refitted during the time that you’ve owned this house?”

  “No, not in my time, and as far as I know, not in my grandfather’s, either. The cellar was just as it is now when I was a child coming to visit. That big old workbench was already there and the floor was flagged, just as you see it now. The only addition I’ve made is to have the third room – the one beyond the one where the workbench stands – turned into a wine-cellar.”

  “What about the furniture that’s piled against the wall?”

  “Some of it was removed from the main part of the house by my wife. She’s kept a lot of my grandfather’s things, but some of his stuff was just too big and heavy for our tastes. Some of it’s been there much longer.”

  “You inherited this house from your grandfather?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Did your father pre-decease him?”

  Kevan de Vries gave a disdainful shrug.

  “Who knows, Detective Inspector? He may still be alive. My understanding is that he disappeared from the scene before I was born. My grandfather had two daughters, my mother and my aunt. No sons. I fulfil that role.”

  “De Vries was your mother’s maiden name?”

  “It was her only name. I’m sure I don’t need to spell it out further. I’ve always been happy to bear my grandfather’s name. I’m proud of what he achieved.”

  “Quite. You’re suggesting that the flagged floors and the workbench have been in the cellar since the house was built?”

  Jean Rook opened her mouth to speak, but once again Kevan de Vries raised his hand to silence her.

  “I’m suggesting that they were there when my grandfather bought the house, which was when I was quite a small child. Obviously I can’t say exactly how old they are.”

  “Who holds the deeds?”

  “They’re stored at my offices,” said Jean Rook. “I assume that you’re interested in knowing who the previous owner was?”

  “Possibly,” Tim said. “That depends on how long ago the bones were buried, if indeed they’re human.”

  “I know who the previous owner was,” Kevan de Vries volunteered unexpectedly. “It was an old lady. Her name was Mrs Jacobs. I believe that Jackie Briggs’s grandmother acted as a sort of paid companion to her.”

  He was suddenly silent. He twisted his head to look back at the door. His face assumed an anxious look: anxious, but deeply absorbed. He didn’t speak for several minutes. He cast his eyes about the room, not vacantly, but as if searching for something, or someone, not visible.

  “Mr de Vries, are you quite well?” Tim asked at length.

  Fifteen

  Shit! Shit! Shit! I don’t believe this. It’s like some kind of gruesome joke. Bones in the cellar! God only knows what is going on. Jean thinks that Sentance is behind it all, but I can’t see it. He’s self-seeking, certainly, and probably dishonest, but I doubt he’s a murderer. I don’t think that he’s got it in him, to be frank. I’m going to have it out with him, whatever Jean says about keeping him at arm’s length. I suppose we’d better wait until they’ve put a date on the bones first, as that Yates says. But fuck it. If it had just been the passports, I thought I might have had a chance with Thornton. Got him to see
that Yates is over-keen, let me go back to Joanna on compassionate grounds. He’s not likely to let me go if he thinks I’m a murder suspect, though, is he? Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

  What am I going to say to Joanna? I promised I’d call her again this evening. She was upset enough when I told her about the search. She’s going to be desperately unhappy about them digging up the cellar, pulling the house about. We’ll have the whole ‘I want to come home’ thing all over again. I probably won’t be able to make her stay put this time, either. Especially if she finds out that Jean’s here. I’m surprised that she hasn’t asked about Jean already. When Sentance started on about contacting my solicitor, she must have known who he meant.

  Jean’s been almost manic since she got here. I don’t know what her game is, either. She’s doing her job superbly well, as always, but there’s more to it than that. She must know that there’s no use her trying to rekindle old flames. I’m sure she’d have the good taste not to try while Joanna’s still alive and, if she hasn’t, she’s surely got enough sense to know what I’d think about it.

  There’s a light tap at the kitchen door and I know that she’s back. She tells me that the cops want to see me in the drawing-room. She’ll be there too, of course. I surprise myself by suggesting that she should be a little less combative with them. God knows I don’t want them in the house, but we’re not likely to be rid of them unless we attempt some semblance of co-operation. She nods, but in her ‘I’m the lawyer and I know best’ way.

  I sit through their so-called interview in a kind of dream, as if I’m viewing them through glass. I know, although they say they’re not accusing me . . . yet, that I’m bound to be a suspect. I worry that they’ll say that Joanna’s a suspect, too. Jean keeps on retaliating like a terrier that’s caught a rat bigger than itself. I cut her short on a couple of occasions, but politely, naturally. I suddenly find her outfit offensive. I think I understand the rationale behind the way that she dresses: she lures blokes like me into her web and hoodwinks the coppers into thinking that she’s dim at the same time. She’s getting too old for it, even so. She should try a bit more grace and dignity. God, am I weary with all of this! I honestly believe that if they charge me with murder now I won’t have the energy to defend myself.

  Yates starts talking about the deeds of Laurieston and who owned it before Opa. I’m transported back almost forty years, to a hot and stifling day in August. What year would it have been? I suppose the deeds will say. I think it was one of those two fierce summers in the mid-1970s. I was a small boy, holding Opa’s hand, standing beside him in the porch as he rang the bell.

  A tall woman with silver hair opened the door. She was dressed in old-fashioned clothes: a high-necked blouse made of some lacy material and a wide brown skirt that almost reached her ankles. I noticed that she walked with a limp. When I looked down, I saw that one of her ankles was very swollen. Her shoes were shiny brown lace-ups with suede panels inserted at the sides. I’d never seen shoes like them.

  “You’ve come to see Mrs Jacobs?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said my grandfather. “I understood that her son would be here, too.”

  “Mr Gordon? He’s not here yet. Do you want to see Madam on her own?” She uttered the word ‘madam’ in a curious way. When I thought about it afterwards, I realised that it was the opposite of respectful. At the time I was more taken with the name ‘Mr Gordon’. I thought I’d like to be called ‘Mr’ followed by my first name, not my surname, just like Mrs Jacobs’ son.

  The tall woman opened the door wider and motioned to us to enter. My grandfather went first, pulling me after him. We stood in the hall while the woman knocked on what is now the drawing-room door, the room we’re sitting in. A feeble voice said, “Come in.”

  “I’ll just go first and make sure that she’s decent,” said the woman, her brown skirt swishing as she limped into the room and turned to close the door. “Sit down, if you’d like to.” She indicated a high-backed wooden settle that had been placed against the wall. Opa lifted me on to it. I swung my legs and looked down at the floor tiles between my sandalled feet. They’re still there now. They’re made of tiny mosaic pieces in brown, blue, cream and dull red. They create an elaborate pattern of what I now know are stylised fleurs-de-lys, their bold cream swirls dramatic against the other, more muted colours.

  After a while, when the woman hadn’t returned, Opa came to sit beside me. He fixed his eyes on the wall opposite.

  “Bless my soul!” he said. Being an ex-pat Dutchman, he liked to cultivate phrases that he thought were very British. He never managed to rid himself of his guttural accent, though.

  I looked up to where his gaze had fallen. Ornamenting the wall were several rows of pictures, hung vertically in threes, framed in what as an adult I came to identify as passe-partout. They were in sepia. I’d never seen brown photographs before and I was fascinated by them. Opa clearly disapproved. I could see that the pictures were strange. They were all of the same man, a man with whiskers on his face, dressed in pale clothes and a hat like a white policeman’s helmet. But what held both me and my grandfather transfixed was not the man himself, but his companions. In each of the photographs he was posing sometimes with one, sometimes with several black women. Some had bones or beads pushed through their noses, or ear-lobes distorted by the weight of heavy earrings. All wore elaborate many-tiered necklaces. Every one of them was naked to the waist. All were grinning at the camera. The bewhiskered man grinned, too.

  “Extraordinary!” said my grandfather, more or less talking to himself. “Those photographs are probably valuable. Not to my taste, though. No. Not at all.” He was emphatic about this, as if he’d been caught practising some vice.

  The drawing-room door opened at that moment and the tall silver-haired woman limped out. Opa jumped to his feet. He motioned to me to stand and I scrambled off the settle.

  “Mrs Jacobs will see you now,” she said.

  “Thank you,” said Opa, with a short bow. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

  “I’m Beatrice Izatt. Mrs. I’m Mrs Jacobs’ housekeeper, or companion, as she prefers to put it.”

  He bowed again. Mrs Izatt lowered her voice.

  “She’s not too bad, today,” she said, sotto voce, “but don’t be surprised if her attention wanders, or she nods off while you’re talking to her. If you can persuade her to let me show you around the house, I’ll be happy to do so. If you can’t, you’ll have to wait until Mr Gordon arrives. She doesn’t know that the house is to be sold, so don’t alarm her. Just say that you’d like to see her lovely home. She won’t think it’s odd. People did that sort of thing when she was young and she spends most of her time living in the past now.”

  I felt rather afraid. I sensed that my grandfather was apprehensive, too. He took hold of my hand again and led me through the drawing-room door. Mrs Izatt followed us.

  The room that we entered smelt fusty and was far too warm. It was also very dark. The heavy curtains had been drawn. The only light came from two little electric wall-lamps that had been fixed to brackets on either side of the bed. The bed itself was an enormous four-poster, around which smaller items of furniture had been crowded with more reference to usefulness than aesthetics. There were several small tables, a two-seater sofa and a commode. In the further reaches of the darkness gleamed a dressing-table mirror. The fireplace was as it is now, but not in use. An embroidered firescreen stood in front of it. Although the day was warm, one bar of the electric fire that stood in front of that had been switched on. I can see it as clearly now as . . .

  “Mr de Vries, are you quite well?”

  It is the red-haired policeman speaking. I’m brought rudely back to the whole mess of Joanna, Jean, Sentance and the bones in the cellar.

  “Yes, of course. I’m sorry. I just drifted off for a moment.”

  “Kevan, if you’re not up to this . . .”

 
“Stop trying to mollycoddle me, Jean. When I’m unable to cope, I assure you that you will be the first to know. You can then relay the message to DI Yates, even if he happens to be sitting beside me at the time.”

  Sixteen

  Juliet Armstrong awoke in her neat small flat and consulted the clock on her bedside table: 7.45 a.m. She’d overslept. She turned over and groaned. Her mouth was dry and there was a pounding in her head. She sat up and felt the room lurch into a spin. She tried to swallow and was alarmed to find that her throat was so dry and swollen that it was difficult for her to breathe. It felt constricted, as if something malicious and scratchy, like a giant twig, had become lodged there.

  Juliet had been a policewoman for more than ten years. During the whole of that time, she had never missed a day except to take annual leave or attend the occasional funeral. She was loath to break this record by calling in sick. She resolved to have a cup of tea and see how she felt before making such an extreme decision. She swung her legs out of bed and got slowly to her feet. She made a grab for the top of the chest of drawers as it disappeared into a blurred morass that jumbled together ceiling, carpet and door. Juliet collapsed to the floor, going down heavily, knocking her head on the side of the chest of drawers as she fell.

  Seventeen

  “DI Yates!”

  Tim had taken a detour to Laurieston House to call in briefly on Patti Gardner, but she’d arrived only just before him and made it clear that it would be some time before she could produce constructive results. Tim took the dismissal good-naturedly; in any case, he needed to get to Spalding while it was still early. He’d reached his car when he turned to see Jackie Briggs standing in front of him.

  “The lady policeman said that you were interested in knowing more about Laurieston House. My grandmother was housekeeper to the old lady who owned it before it was sold to Mr Kevan’s grandfather. She gave my grandmother her diary. I thought you might like to see it.”