‘That could not have been easy for you.’
‘It wasn’t. We searched, me and her, the Ossetti female, we searched as best we could, poking the snow with long sticks, but as I said, it was eight feet deep in places. All I could do was wait for the thaw which came a few days later. It was the last snow of that winter and the true spring followed on not far behind. The snow melted so rapidly that there were floods and it was then that his body was exposed.’
‘I am very sorry.’
‘Twenty plus years ago now. I cherished his memory, I still do and that has kept me going as the years went by.’
‘Heather Ossetti?’
‘Stayed. She stayed with me. Couldn’t be more helpful, eager to go shopping for me, which is quite a trek to the nearest store. Neither of us could drive and the bus service in those days was best described as indifferent. Then, one day, she wasn’t here any more. She’d left a few possessions but had taken mine.’
‘Yours?’ Yellich gasped. ‘Yours?’
‘In my grief I didn’t notice small but valuable items had gone missing. . jewellery. . Earl’s collection of pocket watches. . the silverware. No wonder she was keen to go shopping, she was taking more out of the house than she was bringing home. So Earl had gone, our valuables had gone and she had gone. . like the snow. . just melted away leaving me alone in the springtime and the beginning of a very long autumn of my life. Just me. Earl and I had no children. So just me alone.’
McTeer’s Bar on Dunlop Street was housed in what was clearly one of the original buildings of Barrie. It was of three storeys and flat roofed. The interior was darkened, the effect being obtained by tinted windows which Ventnor noticed could be wound upwards and thus spoke for the high temperatures experienced in the locality in the midsummer. Illumination on that day was gained by a few dim lights and numerous flickering television screens. Ventnor counted twenty-three and noted that each screen was tuned into a different channel from the others. The sound of the televisions was muted, the background entertainment being a radio channel which, as elsewhere when Ventnor had heard it, was playing songs which had been popular in the UK twenty years earlier. The proprietor was a heavy set, well built, bald headed man. ‘Help you guys?’ he asked, placing two meaty paws on the bar.
‘Police.’ Auphan showed the bartender her badge.
‘I know,’ the man smiled. ‘I don’t need to see your badge. It’s written on your forehead. So, help you?’
Auphan levered herself on to a high chair in front of the bar. Ventnor stood. ‘Ossetti,’ Auphan said, ‘Heather Ossetti.’
‘What about her?’
‘You know her?’
‘She used to be one of the regulars. We haven’t seen her in here for some time though. . like a few years.’
‘You won’t be seeing her again.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘Yeah. . she’s dead, already.’
The bartender’s head sagged. He allowed himself a generous few moments to recover. ‘So what happened?’
‘She was murdered. In England.’ Ventnor spoke for the first time.
‘You English, buddy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Another cop?’
‘Yes.’
‘So she was iced over in the UK?’
‘Yes, that’s a good way of putting it, a very appropriate way in fact.’ Ventnor glanced round the bar. It was almost empty, just two other patrons sitting separately, both males, both reading tabloid newspapers.
‘But you’re over here looking for someone for it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Someone from Barrie went all the way to the UK to see to Ossetti?’
‘We believe so. Do you know who would want to harm her?’
The man looked uncomfortable. He glanced around him. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t know anyone who’d want to harm her.’
‘Yes you do,’ Auphan spoke coldly. ‘Your body language is all wrong. We could come back later when the bar is full. We could even take you into custody for withholding information. . we have a lot of empty buckets waiting to be filled.’
‘Won’t make any difference, within two hours all the customers will know I’ve been talking to the law. Barrie is a very small town.’
‘Just one name and we’re out of here.’
‘OK, but it didn’t come from me.’
‘Scout’s honour, already.’ Auphan remained stone faced.
‘Tenby.’
‘Tenby?’
‘You should look into the death of Felicity Tenby. She was eight years old when she died. . Ossetti’s fingerprints were all over that incident.’
‘Eight!’ Ventnor groaned.
But by then the barman had pushed himself into a standing position and was walking away into the gloom.
‘Tenby,’ Yellich responded. ‘Same name.’
‘Yes.’ Auphan sat at her desk.
Ventnor glanced out of the office window at the vehicles on Highway 400.
‘Showed the barman at the Sign of the Whale bar the E-FIT and that is when he gave me the name Hank Tenby. He gave me his address as well but said Hank wouldn’t hurt anybody.’
‘That’s for us to decide,’ Auphan said, ‘but we were given the same name, as we have told you. Same surname anyway.’
‘So we visit,’ Yellich addressed Marianne Auphan, ‘but not all three.’
‘Agreed. That would be too heavy handed. Just you and me, Somerled. Just you and me. The two lines of inquiry have now converged as we knew they would.’
It was, thought Yellich, a very accurate E-FIT. The man who opened the door of the condominium overlooking Kempenfelt Bay did indeed appear to be very similar to the E-FIT image compiled of the man who had stayed at the Broomhurst Hotel and who showed great interest in the old, cold, rambling house in which Heather Ossetti had recently once lived and worked. A little shorter than was described but the same man.
‘You’ll be the British police officer.’ The man spoke in a slow but warm voice. ‘They phoned me, the people at the Sign of the Whale, telling me a British cop was looking for me and that they had given him my address.’
‘Yes, I am DS Yellich, Vale of York Police.’
‘Marianne Auphan, Barrie City Police.’
‘How can I help you?’
‘Be better if we talk inside.’
‘OK.’ The man stood aside, allowing the officers to enter his apartment.
Inside, the apartment showed itself to be on two levels, and built into a tower block. The rooftops of Barrie were seen below to the left and the right and the bay lay in front of it. The apartment was clean, neat and decorated in a modern manner, so thought Yellich, modern art prints on the wall, pine furniture and a flat screen television on the wall, the latter being, in Yellich’s opinion, tastelessly large and more suited to a cinema than the living room of a home.
‘You are Hank Tenby?’ Yellich asked.
‘Yes,’ the man nodded. ‘Please take a seat.’ When he and the two officers were seated he said, ‘This can only be about the Ossetti female.’
‘Yes, it is. We are investigating her murder. A man of your description was seen apparently stalking her for quite some time before she died. . so you will appreciate our interest in you,’ Yellich explained.
Tenby’s reaction came as a surprise to both officers, for he sat back and smiled broadly. ‘Well, how appropriate.’
‘You, of course, know nothing about her murder, already?’ Auphan spoke coldly.
‘No, already,’ Tenby continued to smile, ‘but the news is very welcome.’
‘It is?’
‘Oh. . very welcome. . I can’t tell you how welcome it is.’
‘We’ve been asked to look into the death of Felicity Tenby. There is no record in our files. Who is she?’
‘My niece, on my brother’s side of the family.’
‘What happened?’
‘She died. She ate a laburnum seed.’
‘Oh. . we have laburnum in the UK. It does happen occasionally that children eat the seed.’
‘This was more sinister. . it was not an accident.’
‘In what way?’ Auphan pressed.
‘My brother and his wife had hired the Ossetti woman as a home help during my sister-in-law’s second pregnancy. They lived just outside Barrie, in Orillia.’