A Dreadful Past (6 page)

‘Two?' Hennessey echoed.

‘Yes, a barrel lock and a mortise lock which was the lock which really secured the door. It appeared to us that the intruders smashed a pane of glass next to the door which enabled them to reach a hand in and turn back the barrel lock and thus open the door,' Jenny explained. ‘Quite a simple entry.'

‘So the mortise lock wasn't locked?' Hennessey interrupted. ‘That is strange.'

‘It seemed not to be,' Jenny confirmed, ‘but apparently that is, or was, very strange – totally out of character. I recall talking to the son, Noel, when he had travelled from his university following the murders. He was at Durham, I seem to remember and, incidentally, was very rapidly cleared of all suspicion of involvement in the murders either directly or vicariously.'

‘Yes, yes,' Hennessey grunted, ‘we do not think he is in any way implicated.'

‘Good … I am pleased we were right about that … but Noel did inform us that he thought it highly unusual for the mortise to be unlocked,' Jenny explained. ‘You see, it appeared to have been the case that Mr Middleton was very security conscious and he insisted that the mortise be locked at all times … and I mean at all times. Each member of the household carried a key to the mortise lock and another key to the lock was kept captive inside the house on a length of lightweight chain – the sort of chain you'd use to attach a bath plug to the bath.'

‘Yes.' Hennessey nodded. ‘I understand.'

‘But that key, which was there as a permanent fixture so that no one could be trapped in the house in the event of fire, could not be reached from outside the door by smashing any of the glass panes,' Jenny explained. ‘It was kept on a hook hidden from view and well out of reach of anybody outside.'

‘Interesting,' Hennessey commented. ‘I see where you are going.'

‘So when the son, Noel, was told that the mortise appeared to have been unlocked that night and entry had been gained only by turning the barrel lock, the son used words or expressions like “astounding”, “unheard of” and “next to impossible” for the mortise to be left unlocked.'

‘So there is a story there,' Hennessey observed.

‘There may be, but we must not jump to conclusions …' Jenny helped himself to another muffin. ‘You see, equally it may be nothing more than a terrible coincidence that the one night the mortise was left unlocked because of an oversight on the part of one member of the household was the very night that the home was invaded. Though, frankly, I tend to think that there was more to it than that. It was more than an oversight. I think that there was a story, as you suggest.' Jenny paused and glared at the magpie. ‘I swear to you, George, that bird's days are numbered … But anyway, the reason why I think that there was a story was and is because the father, Mr Middleton, held the entire household in the grip of fear. He was a bit of a tyrant, apparently – a lot of a tyrant, in fact – and there would have been consequences for anybody, including his wife and blind daughter, who allowed the mortise to remain unlocked. So, because of that sort of household regime, I tend to think “story” rather than “unlucky coincidence” in respect of the issue of the mortise lock.' Jenny paused. ‘Just look at that bird … it's still staring at us …'

‘Don't let it get to you, Frank,' Hennessey scoffed. ‘You're letting a bird get under your skin.'

‘Whatever …' Jenny growled, ‘but just wait till he's looking down the barrel of a .22 with a telescopic sight. But to continue … The house cleaner who called once a week had a key but she was also cleared of all suspicion. She found the bodies, poor woman … and her emotion was genuine. I saw her later that day – she was still as white as a sheet, still totally unable to speak, clearly in a state of shock. I couldn't, and I still cannot, see her as having any involvement, especially since she had cleaned for the family for years. She was fully trusted by the Middletons and was small and frail looking. She was just not capable of that level of violence, not even against one person, let alone three.'

‘Fair enough,' Hennessey acknowledged. ‘And, as you say, she reported the crime, she remained in the vicinity of the crime scene and is said to have been traumatized. She made the phone call to the police then went into shock. Not the actions or response of a guilty person but we'll visit her anyway – that is, if she's still alive.'

‘Yes, if she's still alive,' Jenny replied, ‘and it's a big if. A very big if indeed. As I recall she was no spring chicken at the time.' Jenny sipped his tea. Then he said, after a pause, ‘You know, in hindsight I don't think that we inquired as much of the neighbours as we could have done. It's something you and your team might like to consider doing.'

‘Neighbours?' Hennessey glanced at Jenny. ‘I didn't know that there were any neighbours.'

‘There weren't, not as in the sense of neighbours in a street in a city, but there were other homes dotted about the area. We went to the adjacent farms and spoke to the residents. The Middleton home used to be a small working farm; Charles Middleton bought it and let the greater part of the acreage return to wilderness. He obviously liked a lot of space around him, and that was his downfall because there was no safety in numbers in his household situation, no close neighbour to report a disturbance,' Jenny explained. ‘The sort of folk who live out that way would be the sort of folk to come forward if they had information but we should still have knocked on more doors than we did. I think that we should have cast a wider net; that's a bit of wisdom in hindsight for you, George. We didn't inquire widely enough.'

‘Well, we'll do that,' Hennessey replied. ‘That's a stone for us to turn over. Do you mind if I have the last muffin? And look …' he added, with a broad grin, ‘the rain has held off. We were lucky.'

The man stood in the gloom hunched over the thick leather-bound ledger, slowly licking his thumb and then using that thumb to turn each page. ‘I don't understand computers,' he explained softly, ‘and I don't like change and I don't like modern technology. I know very well how to get energy from running water with the use of a water wheel or turbine, I know how to get heat from a lump of coal and I know how a windmill works. I know all that but I don't understand nuclear fission or fusion or whatever it's called so I don't like nuclear power. I don't like it at all.' He paused. ‘Oh, yes … oh, yes … here it is … a Wedgwood vase, a Jasperware fumigating pot vase, made in the 1860s for Piesse and Lubin of Londinium.' Bernard Wilcher rotated the ledger so that Yellich and Webster could read the entry. ‘And I don't like credit cards either,' he added. ‘That's because I don't … can't understand how money can go down a telephone line or bounce off a satellite or whatever it does. I like hard cash or a cheque. I can understand hard cash or cheques. Did you know the first cheque for one million pounds was written in the Cardiff Coal Exchange during the nineteenth century?'

‘I confess I didn't,' Yellich replied patiently as he read the ledger and copied the details of the transaction into his notebook. ‘You paid one hundred pound for the vase, I see,' Yellich commented, ‘and then sold it to Mr Middleton for two hundred pounds.'

‘Yes, both fair prices given my costs.' Wilcher took the spectacles off his nose and cleaned the lenses with his cardigan. ‘Shops in this part of York have a very high rent … really extortionate rents, if you ask me. But I pass the cost of renting on to my customers and I make a comfortable enough living.'

‘Fair enough,' Yellich replied absentmindedly. ‘Sorry, I can't make out your handwriting, sir. Who did you buy the vase from?' He rotated the ledge so that Bernard Wilcher could consult it.

‘Yes, my handwriting … I get many complaints about my handwriting. It has not improved over the years but at least it hasn't got worse either. So who did I buy it from? Yes … I bought it from a gentleman called Jerome Aspall. At least he said that that was his name – Jerome Aspall. I do not check identities; I cannot, in the sense that I have no legal right. All I can do is write down the name that the selling customer provides. I can and could believe Aspall. I once knew a man by that name, a long time ago now, but Jerome … Well, I confess that I thought that that was a little fanciful, most fanciful, in fact,' Wilcher mumbled. ‘He stuck in my mind, the man from whom I bought the vase in question. I remember him well. He had a patch over one of his eyes and a Staffordshire bull terrier on a chain. He cut a menacing image. Most menacing. Damned dog kept growling at me … came into my shop, if you please, and growled at me. I confess that I fancied the dog had taken the young man's eye out.'

‘Young man?' Yellich commented.

‘Yes … late teens, early twenties,' Wilcher advised. ‘That sort of age.'

‘Did you ask him where he had obtained the vase?' Yellich wrote the vendor's name and his approximate age in his notebook.

‘Yes, yes. I do have to ask that question but as with the names all I can do is record what information I am given. The antiques business has a dark side, not unlike the motor trade, and it can be conduit to crime and the underworld. At the top end of the business it's above reproach, again, like the motor trade.' Wilcher sniffed as if suffering from a slight cold. ‘There are gentlemen in the motor trade and there are gentlemen in this business but, as I said, both trades have their ne'er-do-wells, as no doubt you two police officers will very well know. A rogue motor trader will sell you a replacement gearbox for your car at a tenth of the price of a new one if you don't ask too many questions about its provenance. In much the same way a rogue antiques dealer will give you significantly less than the fair price for a carload of antiques without asking too many questions about where said items came from, but he would not be a dealer who is local to the burglary.'

‘No?' Yellich glanced round the gloomy interior of Wilcher's shop. He saw more and more items as his eyes adjusted to the gloom.

‘Oh, no.' Wilcher replaced his spectacles. ‘No. You see, if you burgle a house in York you won't want to sell the proceeds to a local dealer only to then have said proceeds displayed locally. The rightful owners might see them in the shop window and the game will be up.'

‘Which is what happened in this case,' Yellich observed dryly.

‘So I believe … so the gentleman who bought the vase told me,' Wilcher replied, ‘thus neatly illustrating that danger. But you see, local felons all know each other and suspect antiques dealers all know each other, and so if a house in York is burgled the villains will approach a local suspect antiques dealer for advice about where to sell the items and the dealer will put them in touch with a suspect antiques dealer in another part of the UK. The felons will transport the stolen goods to Wales or up to Scotland or down south or whatever, and a suspect dealer in York will purchase the proceeds of a burglary in Wales or Scotland or the south of England and be happy to display them in his shop.'

‘But you don't do that?' Yellich said warmly.

‘No … no … I don't,' Wilcher replied confidently. ‘I like to sleep at night. I wouldn't do it anyway, having been a victim of a burglary myself, but I like sitting at home with my wife, and if the doorbell should ring I like responding to it out of curiosity and not out of fear that it might be the police.'

‘Yes. I cast no aspersion, Mr Wilcher, I assure you,' Yellich answered quickly.

‘I know,' Bernard Wilcher replied equally rapidly. ‘I sensed that in the tone of your voice. I am not at all offended.'

‘So …' Yellich continued, ‘… who would you know in York, in the antiques trade, who might be a little suspect? Especially a little suspect twenty years ago?'

‘It didn't come from me.' Wilcher became guarded. ‘I don't want a brick through my window, and that would be the least of my fears. Antiques shops burn very well, or so I am told.'

‘Understood,' Yellich assured Wilcher. ‘It didn't come from you.'

‘Twenty years ago …' Wilcher pondered. ‘Well, in those days it would have been old Harry Lister. He really gave the antiques trade a very bad name. He's retired now. He had a shop further down Stonegate. It's a food shop now, selling locally sourced produce. I buy my lunch there on occasions. Their steak and stilton pies are delicious. They are most highly recommended.'

‘So,' Yellich wrote Harry Lister on his notepad, ‘back to Jerome Aspall. What address did he give?'

‘Tuke Avenue, Tang Hall, 297 Tuke Avenue. He said it was near Coniston Drive, as I recall,' Wilcher read from the ledger. ‘That was the address he gave anyway – 297 Tuke Avenue.'

‘A Tangy,' Yellich exclaimed. ‘Why am I not surprised?'

‘Yes.' Wilcher nodded. ‘The eyepatch and the fighting dog on a chain, not a leather leash, the vase in its broken condition … the rough, self-inflicted tattoos on the back of both hands. His whole image seemed to say “criminal” to me but that vase had been put back together very carefully and with very powerful adhesive. It was “strong in the broken places” as Hemingway said in
A Farewell to Arms
. The welds were stronger than the fragile bits the glue held together. But one hundred was a fair purchase price for me to offer and he seemed to be happy and content enough with that.'

‘Self-inflicted tattoos, you say?' Yellich clarified. ‘That could be interesting.'

‘Yes. He made a right mess, a real dog's breakfast of the job as well,' Bernard Wilcher sniffed, ‘but I did note the initials B.W. on the back of his left hand. It's the sort of thing I'd notice and also remember because they are also my initials.'

‘B.W.' Yellich committed the initials to memory but also wrote them on his notepad. ‘B.W.' he repeated. ‘B.W.'