“That would be best,” she said. She put the phone down precipitately. Tim cursed. He would have to search through his notebook for the number now. He knew that if it had been Juliet, she would already have programmed it into her own mobile.
He found the number without too much trouble. His call was answered immediately.
“Yes?”
“Mr de Vries? It’s DI Yates. I’m still investigating the skeletons that were found in your cellar. I’d like your permission to carry out a further search, if that’s OK with you? It’s a forlorn hope, I know, but there may be something else down there that can throw more light on who those women were and how they died. I’m not suggesting that you or your family are implicated in any way, as you know.”
There was a sigh at the other end of the phone, followed by some seconds of silence before Kevan de Vries replied.
“Have you talked to Miss Rook about this?”
“No, sir. Technically speaking, we don’t need to, as we already have a warrant. This is a courtesy call, more than anything.”
“I see. When do you want to do it?”
“From eleven o’clock today, if convenient.”
“Of course it’s not convenient,” Kevan de Vries shot back, “but, as it happens, if you must go poking about in there again, I’d prefer it if you were to do it now. My wife has returned from St Lucia. I’ve just picked her up at the airport – you’re lucky she isn’t with me at this moment. I certainly don’t want her peace of mind to be disturbed any more than it is already by having you and your men clodhopping around the house.”
“I understand. Thank you, sir.” Tim congratulated himself on the pragmatic politeness of his reply. Not so long ago, he would have retaliated to such rudeness in kind. He felt Juliet’s invisible presence, standing like a guardian angel at his elbow. He hesitated about whether to enquire after Joanna de Vries and decided that he should. “I hope that Mrs de Vries is no worse?” he ventured.
“Who knows the real answer to that? Physically, she’s slipping away inch by inch. Mentally, she’s much more agitated than when I left her. You may not be surprised to hear that your investigation is a contributing factor.”
“I’m sorry about that, sir. When will you arrive home with her?”
“Probably early this evening. I’m taking her straight to see our son. You’ve caught me just as I was returning to the airport terminal for something. She’s waiting for me in the car. I don’t want her upset by your calls.”
“I understand, sir. Thank you for agreeing to the search. How shall I gain entry to your house?”
“Jackie Briggs should be there at the moment. She can let you in. Where are you? Are you in Sutterton now?”
“No, I’m in Spalding. I can be there in twenty minutes. There’ll be some colleagues helping me: the same officers who assisted DC MacFadyen earlier in the week.”
“Jackie should still be there when you arrive, but just to make sure I’ll give her a call. I know that she has several jobs in the village. I’ll ask her to leave the key with Harry Briggs if she’s finished her work at Laurieston and plans on going out again. You know where their house is, I take it?”
“Yes, sir, thank you.” Inwardly, Tim cursed again. He didn’t want Harry Briggs clinging to him like a leech while they were carrying out the search. He suspected that Harry might alert Tony Sentance to their presence, as well. Still, it was unlikely that Jackie would keep the visit to herself, even if she was able to wait until he arrived.
“And DI Yates?” Kevan de Vries’ tone was suddenly devoid of its former hauteur. He sounded almost supplicatory.
“Yes, Mr de Vries?”
“Could you do me an immense favour, and make sure that you and your colleagues have left for the day by the time that I come home with Joanna? It shouldn’t be before six this evening, but if it’s earlier I’ll call you while we’re en route. It’s essential that I try to keep her as calm and tranquil as possible. I hope that you’ll be able to complete whatever it is you’re doing by the end of the afternoon, but if not and you have to return tomorrow, so be it. At least it will give me a little time to explain to her. She doesn’t know about the skeletons yet, you see.”
“Of course,” said Tim. “We’ll try to make it as easy as we can. Thank you again for co-operating with us.”
As Tim pressed the red button to finish the call, he reflected that, unpleasant and difficult though it might be, it would be interesting to meet Joanna de Vries. He was sure that the miasma of tension and unhappiness that seemed to descend upon Kevan de Vries every time he mentioned his wife could not be explained solely by her illness. De Vries was also unique among the parents of Tim’s acquaintance in never seeming to express anything but irritation and anxiety when he talked about his son. Were they just a dysfunctional family, or was there a more tangible reason for the tangle of misery that had swamped their household?
Twenty-Nine
I’m sitting in the car outside Archie’s school. Joanna is visiting Archie at this moment. She has forbidden me to accompany her. She’s enlisted the support of that smug little runt of a housemaster, who’s just been out to the car to shake my hand and assure me that, regrettably, he agrees with her that my presence will make Archie too agitated. I’ve refused his invitation to wait in the reception area with its plush tea machine. I suppose that he thinks that he’s just about been polite enough to persuade me to continue to pay his inflated fees. If he stopped to think at all, he’d realise that, however much I might despise him, I have no option but to continue sending Archie to the school, even when Joanna is no longer with us, unless Archie turns against the place. Archie himself pulls all the levers in that respect.
Joanna’s illness and her bizarre relationship with Sentance have not only imprisoned me completely, they’ve also wrong-footed me. I might as well be wearing a strait-jacket for my sins. If only I could get her to talk to me civilly, I wouldn’t feel so trapped. I don’t expect to receive any of the vestiges of love that she has left in her: I’ve come to recognise that the huge reservoir of affection and generosity with which she used to be filled has gradually seeped away with her pain. Mortal illness is more hideous than I could ever have imagined. The small stock of concern and fondness that she has left is all for Archie. Her son. She makes a point of emphasising that. Archie is my son. He’s my heir, if he’s ever well enough to shape up to it, but I’m not allowed to be his father. Except for Opa, fathers seem destined to fail in our family.
I’m mildly irritated by what that detective’s up to, but I know there’s no point in crossing him. I want him out of my hair as quickly as possible and now that he knows that Joanna has come home she’s removed my excuse to push him to hurry himself. I’m certain that Jean would have tried to stall him when he asked to search the house again, but I know there’s no point. It would have irritated him and he’d have got what he wanted in the end. Jean should confine herself to getting to the bottom of this passport business. I’ll tell her that next time we speak. Perhaps she’s working on it now: she seems to have gone to ground for the past forty-eight hours. She doesn’t know that Joanna’s back. Not that Joanna would consider that Jean is entitled to know her movements.
As if I’ve summoned her with my thoughts, my mobile rings and I see Jean’s number flash on to the display.
“Jean. How are you?”
“I’m fine, Kevan. What about you? Briggs tells me that Joanna’s returned to the UK.”
“It’s not up to Briggs to pass around information about my family. Why have you been in touch with him, anyway?”
“I rang you at home and he answered. He was there with Jackie. He said that she was there because the police were about to return. What exactly is happening? And why don’t you want me to know that Joanna’s back?”
“If Jackie’s still at the house, I don’t see why she’s asked Briggs to be there too. I shall have
to speak to her about that. The police are still working on their investigation into the skeletons – it’s nothing to do with me or Joanna. I gave them permission to search further, therefore. It’s best that they think that I’m co-operating as much as I can. And I have no objection to your knowing that Joanna’s here: of course I don’t. But, equally, you will be aware that Joanna herself won’t be delighted to see you. I suggest that you continue your work on the passport business from your office as much as possible, now that she’s going to be at Laurieston again.”
“If you say so, Kevan. I know that we no longer have a . . . social relationship. You should have told me about the police, though. I could have stopped them from being so precipitate in their demands.”
“I agree that they only gave me short notice, but it actually suits me to get them to do as much as they can while Joanna isn’t there. I’ve explained this to them. She’ll be upset enough about it as it is.”
“You haven’t told her, then? About the skeletons?”
“No, not yet. She’s with Archie at the moment. That’s why she came home: because he appeared to be going into a relapse again. She didn’t want to stay at St Lucia on her own, anyway.”
“So he provided her with the perfect excuse to do exactly as she wanted?”
“Don’t go too far, Jean. What Joanna wants and how we arrange our lives is not your affair. What I particularly want you to do is find out where the police have got to with their enquiries into the passports. They’re not the only ones who want to get to the bottom of that. I want my name off their radar as soon as you can possibly manage it. I can try to use my influence with Superintendent Thornton if you think it will do any good?”
“It might come to that, but I’ll try other avenues first. I’ve met DI Yates before, on a case I worked on a couple of years ago. He’s shrewd, and also quite self-aware. It might backfire if we try to go over his head too soon.”
“Well, I’ll leave it to your good judgement. I’m sure that you’ll get the result that we want, one way or another. Christ!”
“What’s the matter?”
“Joanna’s coming back to the car. That little toad of a housemaster has got his arm round her. She looks as if she’s been crying.”
Jean ignores this.
“Do you want me to go to Laurieston and stay there with the police?”
“Certainly not. I’m intending to keep Joanna away from there for the whole of the afternoon, if I can, but if we should arrive back early and you’re there as well as the police, it will only make matters worse.”
“Charmed, I’m sure. Well, I’d better leave you to it, then. I’ll call you again tomorrow.”
“Thanks.” I switch her off, relieved. Another couple of minutes and I would have had to ask her to terminate the call.
Thirty
Almost as soon as Tim had swung the BMW into the sweep of Laurieston House, Giash Chakrabati’s patrol car pulled in behind him. Tim smiled to himself. Giash was ever obliging, always efficient. He had a subtle touch, too. He’d have made an excellent addition to Tim’s team of detectives, but, on the one occasion that Tim had broached this, Giash was adamant that he enjoyed being a uniformed policeman. When Tim had asked why, Giash said (with a meaningful look) that he didn’t like internal intrigue. Tim had been about to probe further when Giash took his mind off it by adding that he thought that it was important to have Asian policemen on the streets, particularly in Lincolnshire, a county that until recently had known few ethnic minorities but in which they were now gathering apace. Local prejudices still ran high.
He got out of the BMW quickly and crunched his way across the gravel before Giash could emerge from his car, bending to tap on the window on the driver’s side. Giash pushed the switch to lower it.
“Thanks for coming so quickly, Giash,” said Tim. “I’d like you to stay here until I’ve announced myself. I’m not sure who’s going to be there to meet us and I’d like to gauge the situation before we all turn up on the doorstep. If Mrs Briggs is on her own, I don’t want to alarm her too much.”
“Should I come with you, sir? She may be happier to see another woman.”
Tim looked across Giash and noticed Verity Tandy for the first time. She looked more prepossessing than last time they’d met. Her hair appeared to be newly washed and she’d pinned it up into a kind of topknot. She was also smiling, which made her white and rather flabby countenance more engaging.
“Good morning, PC Tandy. Thank you – that’s a nice idea. I think I’d rather be on my own at first, though.”
Verity Tandy shrugged, the smile disappearing rapidly. It was an inappropriate gesture to make towards a superior, but he decided to overlook it. Perhaps she was just shy, as Juliet had suggested, and had had to screw up her courage in order to make the suggestion.
“I’ll give you a call when I’ve done the preliminaries,” he said to Giash, who nodded.
Tim scrunched back across the gravel – as on the previous occasion, he wondered in passing why it was so deep – and disappeared into Laurieston’s cavernous porch. He was about to pull on the old-fashioned bell when the door was flung open. A powerfully-built, short and stocky man was standing there. He was looking rather sinister, as if he had been in a fight, because there was a large and none-too-clean dressing stuck on his cheek; it dominated his face. He was wearing work clothes which were serviceable without being shabby. He extended a grubby hand, on the back of which sprouted clumps of coarse black hair, as if he were a dog with the mange.
“Detective Inspector Yates?” he asked, with somewhat forced cordiality. “I’m Harry Briggs, Jackie’s ’usband. Come in. She’s expecting you.”
Tim’s hackles rose at the effrontery of the man. He was increasingly doubtful that his original assessment of Kevan de Vries had been correct. First Tony Sentance and now Harry Briggs seemed to be treating their boss’s home as if they owned it. Under his suave, apparently controlling exterior, was de Vries actually a pushover? Or did he let these people domineer him for some other reason?
Tim was spared the handshake, because at that moment Jackie Briggs emerged from the recesses of the hall and ducked around her husband. Tim noted that she was wearing the pinafore dress that she’d been dressed in at their first meeting, when he and Juliet had escorted Kevan de Vries home from the airport. Clearly she thought it a suitable outfit in which to receive visitors, or visiting policemen, anyway. The shirt she’d chosen today was short-sleeved, but as on Monday it was pinned at the throat with the same large, old-fashioned brooch that she’d used then to fasten the collar tightly up to her neck. The result was almost a parody of primness.
“DI Yates,” she said in a high, uncertain voice. “Mr Kevan said that I should expect you.”
“Good afternoon, Mrs Briggs. It’s good of you to have waited for me. Mr de Vries said that he’d ask your husband to take over if you had other business to attend to. I hadn’t expected to see both of you here, though.”
“Oh, Harry’s come because I popped home to change after I’d finished the cleaning. I was hardly respectable!” She gave an affected little laugh, as if she’d said something risqué. “I’ve only just got back again.”
Tim nodded at Harry Briggs.
“Thank you, Mr Briggs.” He turned back to Jackie. “If you’re able to stay, we won’t need to keep your husband any longer.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but before she could say any more Harry Briggs jumped in.
“I’ll stay now I’m here,” he said gruffly. “Jackie doesn’t like it down the cellar. She gets claustrophobic.”
“There’s no need for either of you to accompany us . . .”
“I think I’d better,” said Harry, more overtly hostile now. “I’ve had a word with Mr Sentance, and he thinks I should. I can help with some of the moving, if you like. How many of you are there, three?”
“Yes.
My two colleagues are waiting outside.”
“D’you want me to fetch them in?”
“That’s not necessary,” said Tim. “I’ll get them myself in a bit. They’re just . . .” his voice trailed off. He had no need to offer Harry Briggs an explanation and realised belatedly that to do so would only weaken his own position. He wondered why Briggs had involved Tony Sentance. He supposed it was nothing to do with him, but it offered yet another example of these two men’s apparently working behind their boss’s back, in cahoots with each other. He fixed Briggs steadily with his eye.
“Mr Briggs, if you have instructions from Mr de Vries to remain here while we’re on the premises, of course I’m in no position to object. But, much as I value your offer of help, I’m afraid you’ll have to allow us to do our work in the cellar on our own. There’s a risk of contaminating the evidence, otherwise.”
“What evidence?”
“That’s what we’re here to find out. It’s nothing that need concern you. I’m pretty certain that the bones that were found down there had already been here for many years before you were even born.”
Jackie Briggs laid her hand gently on Briggs’s arm.
“Why don’t you come with me to make some tea, Harry?” she said appeasingly.
Harry Briggs moved as if to shake her off, but thought better of it. He disengaged himself quite firmly from her grasp and turned back into the house without another word.
“You’ll have to excuse Harry,” she said to Tim, giving him a wan smile. “He was shaken up by that young hooligan on Sunday. He’s not been himself since. He’s ever so polite normally.”
“I understand,” said Tim, smiling more readily himself. He liked Mrs Briggs, but he would stake his life that her husband was not the solid gold citizen she was at pains to suggest. Whether she really believed her assessment of his character or had introduced it from a misplaced conviction of loyalty was impossible to gauge. Tim remembered, even if Briggs had no other pressing work to take him elsewhere, that Jackie herself was holding down three jobs. “Thank you, Mrs Briggs. I know that Mr de Vries wanted one of you to stay here, but since your husband clearly doesn’t intend to leave, don’t let us keep you from your other work.”
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