EQMM, August 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "And what proof do you have for all this?"

  "You said it. She contaminated the evidence by holding Kyra to her own body."

  "That's not proof. To a jury that's a mother grieving."

  "You're a detective. Doesn't it bother you that she could get away with this?"

  "People do get away with murder, Diana."

  "I guess my only hope is that she gets drunk one night and the booze and the guilt get the best of her and she confesses."

  He studied me for a moment, then said, “There is one thing Monique Lancer could do that would at least let you know she did it."

  "What?"

  "Take you on as a client."

  "What would that prove?"

  "You're the one who knows for sure she was using Kyra to get Jimmy Whitelaw. If she did kill her daughter, she'd be even more worried about you. But taking you on as a client would give her control over you. Make you hers. Ease her worries."

  A loud noise came from the bar area as a man fell off his barstool. Two waiters picked him up. It was Ryan Johns. As they dragged him out of the restaurant he spotted me and yelled, “Diana, you're a lonely, bitter woman."

  The diners peered at me. There was a ripple of laughter. Heath raised his eyebrows.

  "Ryan Johns. He lives next-door,” I tried to explain.

  "Are you a lonely, bitter woman, Diana?” Intimacy warmed his voice.

  "Are you a lonely, bitter man?"

  We leaned closer, our lips touching. I took Leo Heath home that night. I let myself experience the warmth and passion of another man in my bed.

  When I got up late the next morning he was gone. There was no note. In the kitchen I checked my voice mail. He had left a message.

  "I had an early meeting. I didn't want to wake you. I thought of writing you a note, but I have writer's block. I'll call you in a little while.” I smiled as he hung up.

  Then I heard Monique Lancer's voice. She asked me to come on board. To be her client. After all, we had been through so much together. How could she not take me on? “I'll call again. We need each other, Diana,” she added, then hung up.

  My skin turned cold.

  I took my coffee and stood on my deck and breathed in the morning air and thought of Kyra and me sitting on the bus bench together. I had let her go. I should have held on to her tight. You only have such a short time to hold on to the living.

  Someone yawned loudly. I peered over the rail. Ryan Johns was passed out on the walkway. I put my coffee down and grabbed the hose that was curled in the corner and turned it on full force. I aimed it at him. He jolted up, shaking like a bear.

  "Jesus Christ, Diana."

  "I'm not a bitter woman."

  "What?” He staggered to his feet.

  "Lonely. And very, very sad. But I'm not bitter."

  "Does that mean I'm not a hack?"

  "No!” I went into the living room.

  The phone was ringing.

  (c)2007 by Melodie Johnson Howe

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  THE ESTATE by Peter Turnbull

  Chief Inspector Hennessey and Detective Sergeant Yellich, the protagonists of several recent EQMM tales, including this one, are also featured in a series of novels by England's Peter Turnbull. The latest one to see print in the U.S. is Chelsea Smile (Severn House/ May 2007). We'll have more from Mr. Turnbull later this year.

  MONDAY

  Oddly, it reminded Hennessey of the folk song—the leaf on the twig, the twig on the branch, the branch on the tree, the tree in the wood, all down in the valley-oh ... because here was the land, and here was the house, and here was the garden, and there was the shed and the bottom of the garden, and there was the body. All down in the valley-oh....

  Except it wasn't a valley. There are no valleys in the Vale of York, which is really one huge, flat-bottomed valley—not real valleys, such as there are to be had to the north or the west. This was only a small, narrow indentation which was known locally and unofficially as “the valley."

  George Hennessey turned from the sun-decayed corpse of a male who had died in youth, lowered himself beneath the blue and white police tape that cordoned off the area behind the rotting potting shed where the body was found, and walked through the knee-high grass to where Yellich and Louise D'Acre stood. “Who found the body?"

  "Don't know, sir.” Detective Sergeant Yellich brushed a fly from his face. “Anonymous call. The officer who took the call said the voice sounded young and agitated."

  "Young?"

  "A teenager, a young teenager, thirteen or fourteen ... so he thought. A very nervous voice, shaking with fear, told us a body was lying at the bottom of the garden of the Old Rectory ‘in the valley,’ then put the phone down. The officer who took the call has some knowledge of this area and knew what was meant by ‘the valley.’ Sounds a bit to me like a youth and his mates were exploring the old house, found the body, acted responsibly and called us. Got a fright, all right ... these deserted old houses are a magnet for youth, especially in the school holidays. I did the same thing when I was a lad."

  "Can't blame them, as you say, few of us have gone through boyhood without exploring a derelict building.” He turned to Dr. D'Acre.

  "I don't know and I don't know.” She smiled. “I anticipate your question, Chief Inspector.” She held eye contact but her manner was that of professional detachment. Hennessey could detect no trace of emotion. Aloof almost. “I don't yet know how he died, and I don't know when he died. But think in terms of months. You've seen the extent of the decomposition.” She was a slender woman, short-cropped dark hair, greying at the roots, no makeup save for a little pale lipstick upon a smooth, balanced, very feminine face.

  "Aye...” Hennessey looked about him. The overgrown garden, the crumbling house, the rotting outbuildings ... under a vast, blue, cloudless sky over which a jet plane, flying from Continental Europe to North America, was drawing a slender white vapour trail. Hennessey imagined the captain speaking. “We are now flying over the north of England, passengers on the starboard side of the aircraft may be able to see the city of York..."

  "It's easy to see how the lad or lads got in, sir."

  "Lads.” Hennessey smiled. “Exploring old houses is a group activity. But continue, please..."

  "Gate at the bottom of the garden, smashed off its hinges, the wood is so rotten it crumbles to the touch. It leads to a service road, which leads to a minor road, which leads to the main road. The nearest village is Little Haxty, with Great Haxty a quarter of a mile beyond. Village boys letting the devil make work for idle hands."

  "Well, I hope they got frightened back to the safety of the village green and a harmless game of cricket.” Hennessey looked at the house. All the windows were broken, but the roof seemed to be intact. If the internal timbers were sound, the structure could be rescued. The renovation of old buildings was something Hennessey greatly approved of. But he loathed property developers who destroy town centres to build multi-storey car parks or plough up green fields so as to build hypermarkets on the edge of cities. “I wonder, do you think we have caught the extent of the crime scene, Sergeant?"

  "Sir?” Yellich raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  "Well, I notice that you have drawn quite a small crime scene around the body."

  "Well, that's where the body is ... behind the shed ... between the shed and the wall."

  "In a garden like this?” Hennessey swept his hand over the waist-high grass in which he and Yellich and Dr. D'Acre stood. “Are you sure there are not more bodies hereabouts?"

  Yellich's jaw sagged. “I'll ... I'll get right on it, sir."

  "And the house too, Yellich. My waters tell me that that building has secrets to tell."

  "Yes, boss.” Yellich turned and addressed a group of uniformed police. “Constables ... Sergeant..."

  "Dr. D'Acre,” Hennessey said with a smile, “can we ask you to remain for a while? I have a feeling that your presence will be further required."


  "I can wait, of course.” She was dressed in a green disposable coverall, latex gloves, and a paper hat with an elasticated rim. “But that body, the body so far, can be removed if you have taken all the photographs.... If you do that, I can begin to collect insects from beneath the body to help ascertain the approximate date of death. Not the time—the exact time is largely a media invention—but it seems we are beginning to take on that responsibility now."

  "Life imitating art?"

  "It's not supposed to. Well, I'll wait in my car ... I have a flask of tea.... There's nothing to pull me back to York City Hospital, it's quiet at the moment. It happens like that ... quiet then busy, then quiet again, but I know what you mean about this garden, and the old house. There's a coldness here, even on a day like today."

  There were, in the event, three more bodies discovered, all in the house. One body on the stairs, with a knife in hand, two more in an upstairs room lying amid antique clocks, watches, porcelain, gold and silver jewellery, and small, easily handled oil paintings.

  After a careful examination of the bodies, Louise D'Acre said, “They died about six months ago. On or shortly after the eleventh of January."

  "Oh?” Hennessey was impressed.

  Dr. D'Acre handed him a copy of the Yorkshire Post. “This was on the floor beside one of the bodies. It's folded to the racing page, as you see, with one or two horses circled.... Someone fancied Dancing Lady in the three-ten at Uttoxeter. Ten to one ... not the sort of odds I'd bet on—were I a betting lady. This sort of observation is often a better way of determining the time of death than is medical evidence. Now ... how they died. Head injuries to the three in the house. Still not sure about the cause of death of the body in the garden. All young males. There was an explosion of violence here."

  "We'll see what we find out."

  "Well, I'll get back to York City, prepare the postmortem laboratory. What did I say about a quiet period? ... Nothing happens then they all come at once."

  "Bananas,” Hennessey offered.

  "What?!"

  "I once heard that folk in Wales call their buses ‘bananas’ because instead of one every ten minutes, three arrive together once every half-hour.... They come in bunches, you see."

  "Ah."

  * * * *

  Hennessey leaned back in his chair and studied the sketch he had drawn. Two bodies on the first floor, one body on the stairway holding a knife which had been stained with what he confidently expected to be blood, and a fourth body found at the bottom of the garden. “The knife is interesting."

  "It is, isn't it, boss?” Yellich sat forward, elbows on his knees. “What were they doing, defending their territory? Were more people involved, or was it a gang of four fighting amongst themselves?"

  Yellich looked at Hennessey, the silver hair, the liver-spotted hands, the look in the eyes of wisdom and wounding. “All questions will be answered in due course, Yellich. The booty, any news on that?"

  "Well, it has yet to be identified, sir, but the inventory tallies with the items stolen from Lorriston Hall."

  "Does it indeed?” Hennessey smiled. “I remember that burglary, clever neutralising of a complex alarm system. The thieves hid in the grounds for a day or two, actually made a camp with a fire..."

  "Huge grounds, sir. They were well able to do that."

  "When was the burglary?"

  "Night of the ninth/tenth of January this year."

  "So they did the burglary, made their way out of the grounds a day later, and drove to the Old Rectory to hide the loot, and on the way they stopped so one could buy a copy of that morning's Yorkshire Post. Cool customers."

  "Job for the collator, sir, I've asked him for information about missing persons in the York area, males, twenties, reported in January.” Yellich glanced at his watch. “Won't get a result today now. I should think there'll be something for us early tomorrow."

  * * * *

  Yellich drove home. He found his wife leaning against the working surface of their kitchen. “Jeremy?” he asked.

  "He's been impossible."

  Yellich went into the sitting room. His son, he saw, was sitting cross-legged in front of the television, his eyes too close to the screen. The boy turned and smiled at his father and Yellich saw again how large he was growing. “Daddy!” he said.

  "I hear you've been naughty.” Yellich spoke sternly, causing Jeremy to fling himself on the floor in floods of tears. Later Jeremy, clearly wanting to make peace with his father, insisted on showing him that he could count to twelve ... “So I can count the candles on my birthday cake."

  * * * *

  George Hennessey drove home to his detached house on the Thirsk Road in Easingwold, where he was greeted by Oscar, who jumped up at him and ran barking in circles. He peeled off his lightweight summer jacket and made a mug of tea which he carried out to the garden where he told his wife about his day. An observer would see a silver-haired, middle-aged man talking to himself, but Hennessey felt Jennifer's presence in the garden, her garden, which she had designed while heavily pregnant with their first-born. Then she had died. She had folded and collapsed one hot afternoon in the centre of Easingwold. Sudden Death Syndrome: aged twenty-three years. But she was in the garden, her ashes had been scattered there, but more than that, more, more, much more, her presence was in the garden, and when Hennessey had stood in the garden as he told Jennifer about a new love in his life he felt a rush of warmth come over him.

  He ate his evening meal, a simple beef casserole, phoned his son, now a barrister with a family of his own, read an account of the Battle of Waterloo, walked Oscar, and then walked out again for a pint of stout at the Dove Inn, just the one, before last orders were called.

  * * * *

  TUESDAY

  Yellich showed the list to Hennessey. “Ready and waiting in my pigeonhole as I thought it would be, sir. It could only be our four."

  "Three brothers, and a fourth man.” Hennessey pondered the list. “Do we know them? Their names are familiar, I think."

  "We certainly do, sir, the infamous ‘Dee Quinn’ family. Father and mother are longtime petty felons, David and Dorothy Quinn. Once married they had the same initials, D.Q.... what a wonderful method of confusing the law, they thought, so their children were all D. Quinn as well: The girls were Diana and Dana, the boys, as you see, were Dean, Daniel, and Dermott. They live on the Oakleaf estate, and even for that estate, the ‘Dee Quinns’ are bad news."

  "And the other name? Bobby Bishop?"

  "Not known to us, sir, but he lives, or lived, on the Oakleaf estate. As you see, reported missing at the same time as the Quinn brothers. And that estate being what it is ... crime is a way of life there, so much so that it's not seen as crime unless certain rules are broken.... The estate is a law unto itself. If you leave something lying about and it gets stolen, you don't complain, but murder is out."

  "I'm relieved to hear it.” Hennessey grinned. “Time to pay a call on the Quinns."

  The Quinn household was in the centre of the Oakleaf estate. The front garden was overgrown, the paint peeled from the door, and bits of an old motorbike lay strewn on the path. One window frame was broken and had been boarded up with cardboard. Hennessey knocked on the front door. It was flung open by a short, stocky man who glared at his callers with eyes set deep in his skull. “You police?"

  "Yes.” Hennessey reached for his ID.

  "You don't need that. You've got police written on your forehead, and I recognise that one.” David Quinn pointed to Yellich. “He lifted me once."

  "Mr. Quinn, we may have some bad news for you."

  "Oh...?” His look remained aggressive. “My boys?"

  "Probably."

  He took a deep breath but restrained his emotions. The estate hard man wasn't going to let his weakness show. “Tell me."

  "Four bodies have been discovered. They still have to be identified."

  "I'll do that. I knew. Told them it was too big."

  "What was?"
<
br />   "Lorriston Hall. Shouldn't have done palaces ... but would they listen? Should have kept their crooking small-time while they were still only in their twenties. What happened?"

  "We don't know yet. The bodies were found in the Old Rectory near the Haxtys."

  "Aye.... “The man nodded. “They got out.... I read of the burglary. I thought the big man had sent a private team after them, but they got to the Rectory?"

  "Yes. You know it?"

  "Aye ... they used it to store treasure."

  "Treasure? Is that what you call it?"

  "So what's wrong with the word? Can't stash it here, you busies will come crawling all over the house. They had to stash it somewhere while they got rid of it, a bit at a time. They took quarter of a million pounds’ worth, they'd be lucky to get twenty thousand for it, but that's not bad for a night's work."

  "We recovered the ‘treasure.’ It was all still there and a newspaper bought by one of the gang on the morning of the eleventh. So what happened to your sons and Bobby Bishop happened on the second night after the robbery."

  David Quinn nodded slowly. “It's that Bobby Bishop. I warned them about the Bishops. ‘Don't go near the Bishops....’ I said that. They're not hard, but they have no honour. I knew Terence Bishop, his father, when I was in Armley Gaol. Devious ... like father, like son.... Three brothers, that's loyalty, that would work, but bring the likes of a Bishop in and he'll turn on you ... that's what happened.... He wanted the treasure for himself, got all three somehow but one managed to get him ... I know. I just know that's what happened. I know my boys, I know the Bishops. When can I see my boys?"

  "You can't.... They died six months ago. I'm very sorry. It's going to have to be a case of identifying them by their dental records.... If you could tell us the name of your dentist?"

  "The Dental Hospital. This family has been struck off the list of every doctor and dentist in York."

  "Thanks. And sorry..."

  "Aye. Bishop would have jumped them. It would take a Bishop to do that. They wanted him because he could get past the alarm system, but that didn't mean he wouldn't jump them after it was done."