‘Mr Hennessey, you do me a disservice.’

‘I’m coming up to retirement, Shored-up, long earned, long looked forward to and, I feel, much deserved, and you and I are going to meet on my second last day of employment.’

‘We are?’

‘We are. And just for my edification, for my ears and no other ears, you will tell me what you did that we don’t know about: how many scams have you been involved in, how many times have you sold partnerships in the Humber Bridge Company to unsuspecting widows? Or shares in Colombian tin mines?’

‘You know, I have a respect for you, Mr Hennessey, you are the only police officer to have secured a conviction against me.’

‘I remember. You got five years for fraud.’

‘It was, in effect, a three-year holiday in Ford open prison. On the first day they said, “If you go out, please don’t cut a hole in the fence, just walk out through the gate, we won’t stop you.” Then I knew I was home. Got fit in the gym, read a lot…missed the ladies though, did miss the ladies. And the occasional glass of chilled Frascati.’

‘So you have information for me?’

‘Good heavens, no.’ Shored-up looked and sounded shocked.

‘Shored-up…’ Hennessey stopped walking and menaced Shored-up with eye contact.

‘Nothing for you, old man. What’s that quaint Yorkshire expression, “nowt for nowt and damn little for sixpence”. No, I’ve got something to sell.’

‘How much?’

‘At least two hundred pounds.’

‘Two hundred…my super will not run to that.’

‘He’ll have to.’ Shored-up continued to walk. Reluctantly, Hennessey fell in with him. ‘It’s worth it. I know the value of my information, my track record in these matters is good.’

‘I’ll give you that,’ Hennessey growled.

‘How much police time can be bought for two hundred pounds?’

‘Not a lot.’

‘About a man day when all travelling expenses and clerical and admin support are taken into account?’

‘About.’

‘With this information you can crack the case.’

‘Which case?’

‘The Williams murder case.’

‘What do you know about that?’

‘Two hundred pounds worth. It’s worth more, but seeing as it’s you, and seeing that Max Williams and I knew each other…’

‘You did?’

‘Business partners…Max, good man, he put up some money to fund a venture I had devised, quite a lot of money…would have made us both rich…unfortunately, while the idea was brilliant, the timing was faulty and the public just were not ready for the product and poor Max lost his money and I had to go back to taking what work I could.’

‘I bet. How many Social Security numbers have you got, Shored-up?’

‘Oh, more than one, a fella can’t live on what the Social Security pay, oh no…you see, if the government would enable honest folk to live on Social Security, then honest folk wouldn’t have to be dishonest in order to make ends meet. So increase benefit levels. It would be less expensive in the long run, less thieving, less police needed, less court time.’

‘Never figured you for a liberal, Shored-up. You live and you learn.’

‘Two hundred pounds. Times are hard. And that’s cheap.’

‘All right, but if it turns out to be duff, not only will it be the last bit of grass I buy from you, but I’ll pull your ever expanding file and I’ll nail you for something, and your feet won’t touch.’

‘I do enjoy a challenge, Mr Hennessey.’

‘So?’

‘Well, about ten years ago.’

‘Ten years?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘Well, you know, the other day, I was talking to a fella and he told me that he was talking to a fella…and the upshot of this is that ten years ago poor Max Williams’s brother died.’ ‘I didn’t know Max Williams had a brother.’

‘Well now, I’m earning my crust already, am I not?’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, not only did Max Williams’s brother die about ten years ago, but many and much were the questions and rumours surrounding his death.’

‘Ah…’

‘What is said is that a man who was a church warden, a venerable man of the Almighty, a pillar of the community in which he lived, which was out near Malton.’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘Well, said church warden saw a young man in a sports car in the vicinity of the deceased’s house at about the time he died in mysterious circumstances, it could even have been the same day.’

‘Yes?’

‘The church warden saw the young man again at the funeral of the man, Marcus Williams by name.’

‘A relative?’

‘Probably. Young man in a naval officer’s uniform.’

Hennessey shot a glance at Shored-up but said nothing.

‘The real significance is that Marcus Williams was a recluse. Just wouldn’t let anybody near him unless he knew them.’

Yellich returned to Micklegate Bar Police Station, choosing to walk the walls from Lendal Bridge to Micklegate Bar. He went to Hennessey’s office and tapped the door frame, the door being ajar, Hennessey at his desk with furrowed brows.

‘You look worried, boss.’

‘It’ll keep. How did you get on?’

‘Went into a time warp. Apart from the size of their cheque books and the computers, the Yorkshire and Lancashire Bank belongs to a different era, Bakelite telephones, bell pulls to summon the staff…tell you, Dr D’Acre would be at home there.’

‘What do you mean, Yellich?’

‘Well, her and that old car she runs…’

‘You do her a disservice; she told me once that “that old car she runs”, was her father’s first and only car, he cherished it, she loved him, when he died she clung on to it. Has it looked after by a small independent garage, the proprietor and mechanics drool over the machine and the proprietor has won her promise to let him have first refusal if she ever comes to sell it.’

‘Guarantees good service, if nothing else.’

‘Cynicism doesn’t really become you, Yellich. How did you get on?’

‘Well, in a nutshell, Mrs Richardson doesn’t really have an alibi. Says she was in Ireland over the last weekend but can’t prove it.’

‘How convenient for her.’

‘Max Williams, according to his bank manager, inherited six million pounds ten years ago and blew the lot. Inherited it from his brother who lived…’

‘Near Malton.’

‘Yes, how did you know that, boss?’

Hennessey told Yellich about his meeting with Shored-up.

He glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘Tomorrow, I want you to drive out to Malton.’

Friday

…in which Sergeant Yellich probes a poignant life.

Yellich drove from York to Malton through the rich countryside of North Yorkshire. It was, he reflected, rich in many ways, rich in terms of nature’s bounty, and he felt indeed fortunate to be living and working in this part of the world.

And it was rich in terms of the wealth of the folk who live here. Here is old farming money, as evinced by large houses setback from the road, of John Deeres in the field, of Mercedes Benz and Range Rovers parked outside grocery stores. The area between York and Malton is an area where the main roads are narrow and not heavily occupied with traffic, of villages which give the impression of having changed little in the last two or three generations, of gently undulating landscape, a patchwork of fields under corn, of green pasture, of darker green woodland. Yellich entered Malton, located the police station and parked in a ‘police only’ parking bay, leaving a yellow ‘police’ sticker on his windscreen.

Later, sitting at a vacant desk over a hospitable cup of coffee, with a warm invitation to help himself to further cups, and enjoying the calm of Malton Police Station, he settled back and read the file about the death of Marcus Williams, some ten years previous.

Marcus Williams, it had been recorded, had lived for many years at Oakfield House, Little Asham, Malton. A young officer who was clearly destined to go far in the police had compiled the report and had put much detail into it. Oakfield House, he had recorded, was a seven-bedroomed mansion dating from the early nineteenth century and stood in five acres of grounds, which were all that remained of the original estate. The officer had further revealed his dedication to his career by providing not just a detailed description of Oakfield House, but a map as well, hand drawn, but neat, as if lifted from rough workings, which showed that Oakfield House was geographically remote. It was not so much in Little Asham, rather that was the nearest village. It probably, thought Yellich, stood within the ancient parish boundary of Little Asham, but only just. He saw that to reach Oakfield House, he had to take a minor road from Malton towards Asham-on-the-hill, then to proceed to the village of Great Asham, beyond which was Little Asham, and beyond which, at the end of an unadopted road, stood Oakfield House. The distance between Malton Police Station/Post Office, the alternative centres of any town, and Oakfield House, was given as seven miles: approx.