Perils and Dangers

by Peter Turnbull

  Yellich found the keys, two in all, just where Sadie Ossler had said they were likely to be, in a drawer in a desk of his office, conveniently labelled "warehouse" among a collection of other keys, some of which were labelled, some not. He retreated from the house. It was the only word he felt appropriate, retreat, to withdraw in good order, locked the premises behind him and drove to Haxby airfield, near Wetherby.

  It was hard not to smile and so Yellich did so. So this, he thought, this is the warehouse, and wondered what lies Ossler had been telling his wife and hard-bitten secretary. For this was not in any man's language, a warehouse, this, in any man's language was a shed. It was neatly painted, it had a row of plants either side of the front door. It was at the address given, a disused airfield, now a business park, surrounded by modern buildings, each of which buzzed with shirt-sleeved or summer-skirted activity and it was the correct building, the sign on the front door—Ossler Incorporated—said so. But a warehouse it was not.

  The interior was even less impressive than the exterior. Inside it was almost empty. A filing cabinet and a desk with a chair were the only items in the building. The remainder was merely walls and ceiling and floor of naked, untreated pine wood. Yellich left the door open, allowing the shed to "breathe" for he found the air stuffy and sour, caused by the summer conditions and the lack of ventilation. He crossed the echoing floor to the desk and the filing cabinet and found that the second key on the keyring, the smaller of the two, was the key to the filing cabinet. That too was empty, save for two loose-leaf files, one labelled West and the other labelled Hargrave. He sat at the desk and began to read.

  The West file first. It was, of the two, simply the first that came to hand. It contained only a photocopy of an article which had clearly been printed twenty years earlier by the Luton Chronicle entitled "Local Hero". It showed the photograph of a beaming Nigel West "aged 20 years" which formed part of a story about a "locally born" Nigel, now a student at Derwent Teacher Training College in Carlisle, who had rescued a fellow student when the latter had "got into difficulty" while canoeing on Coniston Water and was in danger of drowning. Nigel West was quoted as saying, "It was nothing really, I was just there, I don't know what all the fuss is about." The article concluded that "Nigel hopes to qualify as a PE teacher in twelve months' time". And that was all the file contained and a bemused and perplexed Yellich said "So what?" to himself and laid the file on the desk top.

  The file labelled Hargrave was equally sparse in terms of content. A copy of a marriage certificate of five years previous, one Richard Humby married Thomasina Hargrave at St Oswald's Church, Little Handy, West Yorkshire. The Hargrave file was not though sparse in terms of information, for it contained a second marriage certificate, this time of the marriage at York Registry Office dated three years earlier than the first marriage certificate, recording the marriage of Richard Humby and Claire Longstreet. This, Yellich thought, could only mean one thing, especially since George Hennessey had told him about Ossler describing himself as a professional blackmailer, "the trick is to turn the screw on people who can't go to the police". Yellich looked out of the window of the shed at a jet plane's white vapour trail high up in the blue and said "bigamy". He collected both files, and locking the door of the shed, being the premises of Ossler Incorporated, behind him, carried them to his car and drove away.

  Hennessey drove to the village of Little Scotterly and parked his car in the square, doubtless, he felt, it was the scene of a busy market at least one day per week, though at the time the polished cobbles served as a rare restriction-free car parking space. He had never been to the village before, as he had earlier indicated to Nigel West, and found it pleasing to the eye. The buildings on either side of the square seemed to converge on an ancient church with a square tower, an equally ancient yew in the boneyard and with a set of decaying stocks by the church gate, but not on sanctified ground itself. A war memorial stood at the further end of the square, which, by its shape, appeared to be a scaled-down version of Cleopatra's Needle. Hennessey walked towards it, it having lately become his habit to make a point of reading the names on each memorial which he had not previously encountered. He didn't know why he did it, an act of gratitude? An act of compassion for those who had died so young in a foreign land, and in a war that was not of their making and then only after enduring such hardships? And it was sparing a thought for the women: each name represented a young widow who would face a bleak future, or a woman who would never find a husband. Perhaps, he thought, it was a gesture of thanks for his own now gentle and silvered existence. Or perhaps it was because his own elder brother had failed to make it through the "danger years" by reason of motorcycle rather than enemy action, and following his death there had always been a hole in Hennessey's life where there should have been someone to follow.

  The village of Little Scotterly, he found, had given fifteen sons to "the War to end all wars", three with the surname Toose and a fourth with the surname Tooze. He hoped the mason had not made a mistake; surely not another Toose? The 1939-1945 war had claimed three more village boys though none had a surname that also appeared on the 1914-1918 column of war dead. In Little Scotterly, in the first half of the twentieth century, if you gave a son to the First War, you didn't give a son to the second, or vice versa.

  He turned and surveyed the village; white painted buildings, half-timbered, old sunken roofs. It had, Hennessey thought, an earlier era quality about it. The shops had sun awnings pulled out of the wall above their windows which shaded goods laid out on the pavement for inspection prior to purchase. The pace of the village seemed slower somehow, the speed of the pedestrians, and of the tractor driven through the village by a blonde, bronzed, bare-chested youth, who clearly lived in more fortunate times—not for him an early death in a foreign field by the hand of a man who didn't know his name.

  Hennessey found the Oak. He found it very easily. It was the source of the only bustle in the centre of Little Scotterly. A skip stood in the road outside it, a funnel of yellow plastic buckets, suspended from the roof of the pub led to the skip and occasionally masonry and plaster were tipped down the tunnel and rattled in a dust cloud in the skip. Men in heavy boots, and jeans, open-shirted, some bare-chested, laboured about the building. Hennessey approached, and even from the pavement, became aware of the sound of power drills and the heavy, sickly sweet smell of solvent vapour coming from within the building. A man in a blue hard-hat stood outside the pub and seemed, to Hennessey, to have, by the way he carried himself, some supervisory capacity. He approached the man.

  "Busy?" he asked.

  "Couldn't be busier." The man had a pleasant, affable manner so Hennessey found. "But we're on time."

  "Good for you. On time?"

  "We're refitting and refurbishing and renewing the roof. First refurbishing for thirty years. Started three weeks ago, one week to go. But we're on time."

  "Been closed for three weeks, you say?"

  "Aye. Grand reopening in a week's time, free drink for the crew that day if we maintain the schedule. But we'll do it. This is a good crew, solid grafters, each one, bunch of good lads, set 'em to a task and leave 'em at it. Don't get many crews like this one."

  "Lucky you. Is there another pub in the village?"

  "The Viscount Keppel, yonder." The man pointed along the road. "See the sign?"

  "Ah, yes."

  "It's been the only pub in the village for the last three weeks, it's been doing great business."

  "I'll bet it has. Thanks." Hennessey stepped on the road side of the skip and walked towards The Viscount Keppel. It was, he thought, curious, or perhaps it was not so curious. If Nigel West, Headmaster of Crosshill School had in fact done the very un-Headmasterly thing and gone for a drink in a pub on Sunday evening last, he had not, as he had claimed, gone to the Oak. That was very clear.

  The entrance to The Viscount Keppel was via a narrow door and a cool and a narrow panelled corridor which led to a long narrow bar. Hennessey halted just
inside the entrance to the pub to read a framed note about the venerated person after whom the public house was named.

  "Augustus Keppel," it read, "second son of the Earl of Albemarle, born twenty-fifth of April 1725, served under Hawke in 1757, captured Goree in 1758, took part in the battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759 and commanded at the capture of Havana in 1762. In 1778 he encountered the French fleet off Ushant on twenty-seventh of July, but owing to a disagreement between Keppel and Palliser, his second in command, the French were suffered to escape. Both admirals were tried by court martial but acquitted. In 1782 he was created Viscount Keppel and became the First Lord of the Admiralty. He died in 1786."

  "Well," Hennessey said to himself. "One lives and one learns." He walked to the end of a corridor, turned into the bar and nodded to the publican a man of, Hennessey thought, false good humour; instantly friendly. Such people Hennessey had found have very low flash points and can turn very unpleasant in an instant. "Just reading about Viscount Keppel. I'd heard the name but I had thought that he was executed."

  "You're thinking of Byng." The false, jolly publican wiped a pint glass with a towel. "Same era, but he's the Johnny that lost Minorca to the French, so they shot him. A lot of people get them confused. There's a column to Keppel in Rotherham, a sort of north country Nelson's column but the regulars in here are divided as to which Keppel the column was erected in memory of. There was an Admiral Keppel in the nineteenth century. Both Keppels were admirals but only one was a viscount. The pub is definitely named after the Viscount but nobody can be bothered to travel to Rotherham to research the column."

  "I see."

  "What would you like to drink, sir?"

  "Nothing."

  And George Hennessey was neither disappointed nor surprised to see the joviality of the publican change rapidly to a scowl.

  "Police," he said.

  "Oh…" and the joviality returned.

  "I'd like a little information about a gentleman called West, he lives in the village and drinks locally, so he tells me."

  "Nigel West, the headmaster of the school over at…"

  "Crosshill Comprehensive, yes, that's he."

  "Bit of a toff, approachable though, white house at the end of the village, past the church. It used to be the rectory, and it reckons to be haunted. I mean what would a rectory be without a ghost?"

  "What indeed."

  "But he's not really a drinking man, not a pub goer anyway." The publican replaced the glass and wiped the polished wooden bar top.

  "Interesting."

  "That's not for me to say really, but if Mr West tipples at all, he tipples at home. I mean this village forms part of the catchment area of his school, many of his pupils come in here or the Oak for a drink and we have to chuck 'em out but they're flyer than a barrel load of monkeys, particularly the girls, they can dress up and pass for nineteen-year-olds, when they're only fourteen or fifteen. Then we get prosecuted for selling alcohol to children, and all the magistrates see is a fourteen-year-old girl in her school uniform looking sheepish and the beaks think that's how she looked when she was served her vodka and tonic. Makes us look bad."

  "Occupational hazard, I'd say."

  "It's more than a hazard if your livelihood's on the line." It was a sharp, ill-tempered retort and Hennessey wondered if the Viscount Keppel was known for trouble. He had once read a study into pub violence which concluded that along with factors like the social area in which the pub is situated, the attitude of the publican is critical. An over-controlling publican who fails to realise that it is the patrons, not he, who control the pub, can lead to resentment and hence violence among customers.

  "But Mr West didn't come in here?"

  "I know him and I've never seen him in here."

  "The Oak then? Would you know?"

  "I've never heard tell of him go in there. It attracts the younger set, and he's more likely to rub shoulders with his pupils in there than in here. Of the two pubs in the village, he's likely to come in here and like I said, I've never seen him."

  "Well, thanks. The white house at the end of the village, you say?"

  "Past the church, you can't miss it. It's called the Old Rectory. Yews either side of the drive, metal railings round the garden."

  Hennessey found the building easily, being where the publican of the Viscount said it would be and with the appearance he had described. He walked up the driveway, an alert Springer Spaniel announcing his arrival. He stopped short of the door, staying reverently at the foot of the steps knowing that the dog's frantic barking would force a response from within the house. It came in the form of a small, finely made, nervous-looking woman who did not, to Hennessey's mind, fit the mould of the headmaster's wife. The woman seemed to have "guilty" written on her forehead, so thought Hennessey, and he also saw fear in her eyes.

  "He's not here," she said quickly, apologetically.

  "Who?"

  "My husband. He's not here."

  "How do you know it's him that I have come to see?"

  "Well who else would anybody come to see? Who are you anyway?"

  "Police." He showed his ID. "Nothing to be alarmed about."

  "Oh…what…is it one of the children?"

  "No…no…I told you, Mrs West, it's nothing to be alarmed about." Hennessey took off his hat and felt the sun on his thinned hair and scalp. He found time to enjoy the blackbird's song and his eye was caught by a grey squirrel scurrying up a tree beside the West's house. He replaced his hat. He knew from experience that the scalp is no place to be sunburned.

  "My husband's at work."

  "I know, I've just visited him."

  "Oh…why…?"

  "Where were you on Sunday evening, Mrs West?"

  "Here. All evening. Just me and the children. All evening, yes, all evening. Why?"

  "Your husband wasn't home with you?"

  "No. He went out."

  "Where?"

  "He didn't tell me…he never does. He says it's not my place to know."

  "He says that?"

  "Don't all men? And he makes the decisions. I've got to pack. We're going to France you see, on holiday. My husband owns a house there."

  "He owns it?"

  "Yes. He owns it. I've got to go. It's supposed to be done by the time he gets home…he's got a terrible temper. If anything isn't right…"

  "Wait a moment," Hennessey insisted, allowing a note of authority to enter his voice.

  "Yes?" But by now the door was half closed, a fearful, thin face peered between the door and the frame.

  "What time did your husband go out on Sunday evening?"

  "About nine o'clock."

  "And return?"

  "After midnight."

  "Was there beer on his breath?"

  "No…no. My husband doesn't drink." She shut the door firmly and Hennessey heard her running into the old rambling building, hurrying to do the packing, to do it perfectly before He got home.

  Like father, like son. Yellich, never having met Nathan Ossler, thought that he could well imagine him in life if the adage about fathers and sons was accurate. For here was Oliver Ossler, a thin, and thin-faced man, a sharp dresser, gold-capped teeth, who smiled because it seemed to Yellich that he muchly liked himself, though Yellich did not like him at all, right from the outset.

  "Me and his wife," sneered Ossler. "Me and that mousy thing from the children's home and the gutter. The will has yet to be read but me, me and thing, we have been advised by my father that his will is clear, she gets the house and all the contents, lock, stock and barrel, all bought and paid for, I get his capital. My father had his faults but he did what he said he'd do: always. Always did something if he said he was going to do it. Sometimes did something without saying he was going to do it, but he never said he'd do something and then not do it. So we already know how much she's worth, a-lot-of-money. She won't be able to afford to continue living there but if she plays her cards right—sells it, trades down—she won't have any money trouble
s for the rest of her natural. Me, I'm left with either a few pounds or a few million pounds or anything in between depending on how much daddy dearest had in his Post Office savings account. Thundercliffe Grange…would you credit it. I remember watching television when I was about ten years old, dad was in the room, we were watching a TV drama, some costume drama or other, and a house was called 'Thundercliffe Grange' and dad said, 'That's a good name for a house. I'll have that name for a house some day'."

  "Does what he says, as you say."

  Yellich read the office, neat, controlled, dominated, small windows beneath a low medieval ceiling looked out onto the narrow bustle of Bootham Bar. A calendar behind the man revealed June to be a scantily dressed young female reclining over the bonnet of a black Porsche. He said "You're a businessman yourself?"

  "Following the old man's footsteps, you mean? Well yes and no. Yes, in the sense that I am also like he was, a self-employed businessman, but no in the sense that I am not following in his shoes. I'm building my own business and doing well. I'm a factoring agent. I lend money to struggling companies against their assets. I lend when and where banks wouldn't in which case I can demand a high rate of interest, and I lend when and where banks would also lend but at a lower rate of interest. It's risk free really, as is the nature of usury. If they don't pay up, plus interest, I seize their assets. It's not a popular way of doing business."

  "That I can well understand." Yellich inclined his head away from the man, she, the girl on the Porsche, had suddenly became a lot more attractive than Oliver Ossler and in a sense no less two-dimensional.

  "But I have no shortage of customers. I have paid off my mortgage, own a Range Rover, and a yacht I keep at Hull Marina and I'm still nearer thirty than forty."

  "Lucky you."