‘A few days ago?’ Yellich could not conceal his excitement.
‘Yes, Tuesday of this week, day before yesterday. It would be mid evening when he called in, seven, eight p.m., that sort of time. He used to stay with Mrs Stand.’
‘Mrs Stand?’
‘Next door but one. . that way,’ the publican pointed to his left. ‘Double fronted house, Broomfield Hotel to give it its proper name, but it’s a guest house. . bed and breakfast, not a proper hotel. He stayed there.’
Yellich smiled. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Thanks a lot.’
George Hennessey spent that morning at his desk addressing necessary paperwork. He was all too aware of the gripes of police officers about the mountain of forms they have to complete and reports they have to write, but he found that he enjoyed paperwork and he gave a lot of care to the task, knowing as he did the necessity of accurate and up-to-the-minute recording. At midday, and noticing the sleet-laden rain had eased, although the cloud cover remained at ten tenths in RAF speak, he stood and clambered into his woollen coat, wound a scarf round his neck and screwed his brown fedora on his head. He walked casually from his office and signed as being ‘out’ at the front desk and, after exchanging a word with the cheery police constable who was on duty there, he stepped out of the building into a grimy Micklegate Bar. He glanced up, as he often did, drawn with horrific fascination, at the spikes on the wall above the arch where the heads of traitors to the Crown were impaled and then left for three years as a warning to any other would-be renegade, the last such impaling taking place during the mid eighteenth century. Hennessey crossed the road and climbed the steps on to the wall and turned to his right to walk the wall from the Bar to Baile Hill, knowing, as every York resident knows, that walking the walls is by far the speediest and most efficient means of crossing the city. The stretch of wall he walked that day was, he always found, the most pleasing, affording good views of the neat and desirable terraced houses of Lower Priory Street and Fairfax and Hampden Streets which stood snugly and smugly ‘within the walls’, and to his right the much less expensive, the less desirable, less cared-for houses of the streets joining Nunnery Lane, being ‘without the walls’. The last few feet of that stretch of wall ended in a small copse which Hennessey always thought had a certain mystical quality about it. He left the wall at Baile Hill, as indeed he had to, and crossed the road bridge over the cold and deceptively sluggish looking River Ouse, turning right on to Tower Street and, exploiting an infrequent gap in the traffic, jogged hurriedly across the road. Once over the River Foss at Castle Mills Bridge, he was, as he always thought, in ‘any town — UK’.
It was an area of small terraced housing with inexpensive cars parked at the kerb. He glimpsed a motorcycle chained to a lamp post, the unexpected sight of which caused a shaft of pain to pierce his chest. He continued, walking up quiet Hope Street, crossing Walmgate and entering Navigation Road. He was by then deeply within the part of the city which could have been anywhere in England. All round him were the same type of small terraced houses with only the light grey colour of the brick suggesting that he was in the Vale of York. Hennessey strolled on and turned into Speculation Street and at the end of the street he walked through the low doorway of The Speculation Inn. He turned immediately to his left and entered the taproom. In the corner, on the hard bench which ran round the corner of the room, in front of a small circular table, sat a slightly built, smartly dressed middle-aged man. The man smiled at Hennessey; Hennessey nodded to the man and walked to the serving hatch, there being no bar in the taproom of The Speculation. Hennessey bought a whisky and soda and a glass of tonic water with lime from the jovial young woman who served him. He carried the drinks across to where the middle-aged man sat and he placed the whisky in front of him. Hennessey then sat on a highly polished stool in front of the man and raised the glass of tonic water, ‘Your health, Shored-Up.’
‘And yours, Mr Hennessey. And yours.’ The man eagerly sipped the whisky. ‘You come to your humble and obedient servant this day as a ray of sunshine would come upon a dark place. I didn’t know how I was going to make that drink last and then you walked in the door. . a saviour to a man in need.’
‘Well, I may have need of you. . anyway I see you survived Her Majesty’s Prison, Shored-Up?’
‘Oh, Mr Hennessey, I tell you, HM hotels are getting rougher and rougher. So very rough. I had to share a cell with three others, and our cell was originally a cell designed for one, and they were all rough boys. . that terrible youth. .’ The man shuddered. ‘How I resent him.’
‘The one that dobbed you in?’
‘Yes, him. . that one. . who dobbed me in, as you say. No sense of honour.’
‘You would have done the same, Shored-Up, especially if it meant avoiding a spell inside. . which is what he avoided.’
‘How is a man to make a decent living? The dole goes nowhere. It wouldn’t keep a church mouse alive. . and I never harmed anyone. . I don’t do violence.’
‘Stealing elderly ladies’ Rolls Royces. .’
‘Yes, but not harming the ladies themselves and so lucrative. . a way of making a living.’
‘So criminal also.’ Hennessey cast an eye over the man’s clothing. Expensive at first glance, threadbare at the second and as always saying ‘charity shops’ very loudly at the third glance. The image of the ‘distressed gentleman’ came to Hennessey’s mind, usefully assisted by the man’s ‘gentlemanly’ manner, which had been honed over the years by observing the real thing. ‘So are you at it again?’
The man shrugged. He delicately sipped the whisky Hennessey had bought him. ‘Chap has to earn his living. . there are no free rides.’
‘You’ve been out how long? Can’t be a full month yet?’
‘Three weeks tomorrow.’ The man smiled, ‘I confess that fresh air never did taste so sweet. Now I am settling into my nice new flat. I gave up the old one; or rather it gave up on me.’
‘Yes, I can imagine you’d have difficulty paying rent when you’re inside doing twelve to the inch.’
‘I had a little put by. I could have kept the flat going but paying rent on an empty flat, it went so much against the grain. Flats are easy to come by, and I quite like my new little drum. And I escaped the torture of sewing mailbags, opted for education, “good citizenship” in the main. Easier and anyway they don’t sew mailbags in the prisons any more. The GC class enabled me to sit and daydream; usually I carried myself off to a sun drenched and very faraway place.’
‘And now you are seeking another victim?’ Hennessey growled.
‘Client, Mr Hennessey, please. They are your humble servant’s clients.’
‘Clients,’ Hennessey sighed, ‘you mean a string of wealthy old ladies who seek male company of the manner that used to be enjoyed by them.’
‘Provide comfort and succour to those in need. . that’s what I do, Mr Hennessey.’
‘Living and dining with ladies who pick up the bill.’
‘And where is the crime in that, Mr Hennessey?’
‘None, none at all, not until you begin to tell them about the tin mine in Bolivia which could produce unheard-of riches and which needs some development money to get it into full production or the location of the treasure-laden ship which went down in a storm some centuries ago. . and would they like to invest in a little mining concern or a salvage venture with a guarantee of their money back plus at least fifty per cent? It’s then it becomes off side, very left field.’
‘But I am also of use to you, Mr Hennessey, am I not?. . great use.’
‘Which is why I am here.’ Hennessey glanced up at the frosted windows upon which was etched the legend ‘Sanders and Penn’s Fine Ales’, being a relic of the earlier days of The Speculation Inn when there was evidently a local brewery called ‘Sanders and Penn’.