‘Not legal,’ Tinsley pointed to the fire, and did so with clear embarrassment.
‘I know.’ Yellich read the room, photographs of family on the wall and mantelpiece, a compact television and a pile of magazines about walking in the country and coarse fishing. A physically fit widower, fond of his family, living within his means, enjoying solitary pursuits: nothing for the officers to be at all suspicious about. ‘But we won’t report you.’
‘Thank you. This is the country, I am not polluting anyone else’s breathing air and there is nothing like a coal fire. You just can’t beat coal for a home fire. Take it from me, you just can’t beat a coal fire. Do take a seat, please.’
The officers sat in deep comfortable armchairs covered with flower patterned material.
‘So how can I help you?’ Tinsley sat on a matching sofa. ‘I saw you at Beattie’s house, house. . mausoleum more like, if you ask me. I mean, what is he proving living in such cold conditions? He sees it as an achievement to get through the winter without heating, miserly old fool that he is. I tell you, he is the sort of man who would buy a poppy for one Remembrance Sunday, pay next to nothing for it and wear it for the next ten Remembrance Sundays until it falls apart, then he buys another one for a penny or two and wears that for the first week in each November until that too falls apart, and so on and so forth. That’s Beattie, claiming poverty but I bet he has a pile tucked away somewhere. Anyway I knew you were cops so I didn’t interfere.’
‘You knew?’ Webster asked.
‘Yes. You looked confident, were a pair and calling during the hours of daylight. Also you are both in good physical shape. But I took a few photographs of you anyway,’ Tinsley smiled.
‘You did?’
‘Yes I did. Just in case. And I also made sure I got your car registration in one of the shots. I used a telephoto lens, you see, then I saw Beattie invite you into his house. . so I relaxed.’
‘Good for you.’
‘I’ll send prints of them to you when I develop the film. Malton Police Station?’
‘No. York. Micklegate Bar. But we’d still like to see them.’
‘Really? York Police, I mean. .’
‘Yes, really.’
‘All right. So, how can I help you?’ Tinsley sat back on the sofa, ‘I am intrigued.’
‘Mr Beattie advised us that once a bearded man in a fur hat and tartan patterned jacket seemed to paying a lot of interest in his house. This was a couple of years ago, or so. He also said you may have got a look at him.’
‘The Canadian? Yes. . but that’s going back a good few months now, nearly two years, as you say. . time flies so.’
‘Tell us about him, if you would,’ Yellich asked. ‘All you can remember.’
‘What is there to say?’ Tinsley sighed. ‘Little to tell,’ he paused as the clock in his hallway chimed the hour with the Westminster chimes. ‘I used to see him in the village, that is Stillington, closest village to here, I really knew him from there. He used to enjoy a beer in The Hunter’s Moon.’
‘The Hunter’s Moon in Stillington?’ Webster wrote in his notebook.
‘On the high street, you can’t miss it. It was Terry the publican who told me he was a Canadian; they had a chat now and again, you see. Terry’s good like that, he checks out strangers but does so in a friendly, chatty way. But yes, he was a Canadian. Tall, well built, beard, as you say, and yes, I saw him on the roadway just staring at Beattie’s ruin and also I saw as he drove past in his car. He was clearly hanging around the area. The building had some fascination for him, it really did. That house, Beattie could have bought an easily run, warm, comfortable house but they bought that. . ruin. . no wonder his wife didn’t last, but he seems to be sticking it out, stubborn old fool that he is. I tell you, if he were a plant he’d be moss which grows in the tundra, thriving in the cold. But the Canadian, he was a married man. . I can tell you that.’
‘Married?’
‘Yes. High quality clothes, had a car. . probably a hire car, it was the sort bought in large numbers by fleet operators. He hung around for a couple of weeks, so he must have stayed somewhere local and he didn’t look like the youth hostel type. He wasn’t frightened of being seen, that was something else about him, just standing there, as though he possibly even wanted to be seen.’
‘Intimidating? Would you say it was an intimidating gesture on his part?’
Tinsley pursed his lips, ‘Yes. . yes, I dare say that you could say that. Intimidating.’
‘But you never spoke to him?’
‘No. Drove past him so got a closer look. . then later I saw him in the village once or twice. . heard about him from the boys in The Hunter’s Moon. I’d try there if I was you.’
‘I think we will. Thank you. . that’s very helpful.’
‘You might have to knock on the door.’
‘At this hour!’ Yellich grinned. ‘He’ll have been open since eleven a.m.’
‘He would if he was in the centre of York, but these are getting to be hard times, pubs in the country can’t pay if they open each day all day. Sometimes it’s weekend trade only. . especially lately.’
‘I see,’ Yellich nodded his head slowly. ‘Well, thanks anyway. Enjoy your fire.’
George Hennessey once again read the inscription beneath the names on the war memorial inside the doors of the central post office in York, ‘Pass friend, all’s well’, as he exited the building, and was once again moved by it. He stepped out into a mist-laden street and strolled along Stonegate to the Minster where he saw the tops of all three square towers were hidden from view, and the building itself seemed, in the diminishing light, to have taken on an eerie and foreboding presence. Foot traffic was light and seemed to Hennessey to be local people in the main, hurrying about their business, with just one or two very evident tourists staring in awe at the Minster, or in fascination at the Roman remains, or at the ancient buildings close by.
In the shadow of the Minster two women played musical instruments for passing change. The first woman was in her early twenties, tall, slender, wearing expensive looking footwear and equally expensive looking outer clothing. She played a violin and to Hennessey’s ear did so impressively well. She had, Hennessey observed, been blessed with classical good looks and her blonde hair draped over her shoulders which moved slightly from side to side as her slender and nimble fingers danced along the neck of the violin and her other hand gently held the bow which she moved lightly, but at speed, across the strings. She was, by her countenance, utterly focused. The black bowler hat at her feet was, Hennessey noted, understandably full of coins and even one or two five pound notes. The second woman sat a few feet behind the violinist, in the doorway of a temporarily vacant shop unit. She huddled in a blanket and picked out ‘Edelweiss’ from The Sound of Music on a cheap tin whistle. The plastic cup in front of her contained few, very few, low denomination coins. Her demeanour was, assessed Hennessey, one of detachment. She played mechanically, he thought, but her mind was elsewhere. His urge was to place an appreciative coin or two in the bowler hat but he paused as he pondered the clear privilege of birth of the violinist. She seemed to him to be the product of an expensive education and certainly was busking to ease the financial burden of her university course, and York University, at that; one of England’s finest. Her clothing, her violin, the music stand, even the bowler hat on the paving stones at her feet all spoke of wealth. Hennessey found himself becoming intrigued by the drawn and haggard-faced tin whistle player and so he walked towards her and dropped a pound coin in her plastic cup. The woman’s eyes widened at his generosity and she looked up at him as if to say ‘Thank you’, to which Hennessey said, ‘Let me buy you a coffee.’
The woman stopped playing. ‘A coffee?’
‘I could run to a late lunch. When did you last eat?’