“And you’re not worried about being prosecuted?”
“No.” Kelly smiled. “No, I’ve done my homework. Ferreting around an old ruin of disputed ownership and not doing any damage is not trespass. The only property that can be trespassed upon without damage being done is the railway, because your presence is deemed a threat to the safety of the railway users. I’ve been exploring ruins all my life. I’ve been invited to leave the premises once or twice but never even threatened with prosecution for trespass because I do not damage or steal. Done my homework, like I said.”
“Halfway home.”
“Sorry, sir?” Carmen Pharoah glanced sideways at Ken Menninot.
“Nothing, just thinking aloud. I live in Beverley, this drive is taking me halfway home. Then we’ll have to return to York, then I’ll do this drive again, only I hope to complete it this evening.”
“Much better to live over the shop, sir. My journey to work is a brief walk of a few hundred yards. Buckingham Terrace to Friargate via Lendal Bridge. Ten minutes on a good day.”
“Not the right time of life anymore, Carmen. When you get married and start your family, you’ll know the value of living off the patch.”
“Yes...” Carmen Pharoah returned her gaze to the road. At thirty-two she heard her biological clock ticking ever more loudly. D.S. Menninot’s words had reached her... and Wesley hadn’t kept his word... She’d left Stoke Newington Police Station in London, where a black face is accepted, and with the promise of marriage humming a pleasant tune in her ears, had moved to York, where a black face is still an oddity. She had bought property and then Wesley had phoned her and said he’d been thinking... He thought he ought to make his first marriage work... and she was on her own. Again. Ken Menninot parked his car behind the Land Rover he recognised as belonging to Bill Hatch, which itself was parked behind an area car. A constable stood by the roadside, ready to escort them to the old house.
Bill Hatch bumbled out of the house as Ken Menninot and Carmen Pharoah emerged from the foliage. “Dead,” he said, smiling, brushing his wild hair from his eyes. He rested his black leather bag on the ground. “Oh yes, very dead.”
“Do tell.” Menninot smiled. “I recognise the expression of an intrigued pathologist from a hundred yards.”
“Intrigue is the word. Exactly how they died I can’t tell, but I would be surprised if the initial impression is not correct. The male in the upstairs room died of a stab wound to the chest, the female in the grand hall suffered death by strangulation with a ligature. But confirmation, and in what order they died and by whose fair hand, is, as yet, to be ascertained.” He wiped his brow. He was middle-aged and a little overweight, and suffered even in the mild April heat. “They’re both young... in their twenties, possibly early twenties. They’ve been dead for at least twelve months. Both were dark-haired. He was about five ten, and she a diminutive five nothing. About. I’ll have the bodies removed as soon as Scene of Crime has finished popping their flashbulbs and have them taken to the York City. Do you know if the mortuary van has arrived?”
“Not by the time we arrived,” Menninot answered. “Just your beloved Series One and the area car.”
“So I dare say you’ll like to go and view what you must view? Who’ll be representing the police at the P.M.?”
Menninot glanced at Carmen Pharoah. “Would you like to?”
“If you wish, sir.”
“I wish, I think. I’d like to root around here for a bit.”
“It’ll be more interesting than the P.M.” Bill Hatch said, glancing at the building. “Fascinating to walk around, in other circumstances.”
“Well, that’s rank.” Menninot smiled. “It has its privileges.”
Though he did not admit it openly, Ken Menninot very rapidly came to understand Joseph Kelly’s fascination. The opening of long-closed doors, the reaching back in time, the atmosphere, the spirits still in these vast rooms and endless corridors. He went to the rear of the house and then outside to where a Scene of Crime officer was examining the van for latents. Menninot asked him if he had found anything.
“Forlorn hope after this length of time, sir.” The man stepped out of the van and stood up. “I don’t know how long it’s been here with the door open, but long enough for a layer of dust to settle and obscure everything. But I’ll carry on. There’s some nylon cord in the rear. It looks to me to be the same as the type used by the girl who hanged herself — if that’s what happened. I’ve tagged it and I’ll get it up to Wetherby for analysis.”
“Good man. Would it disturb anything if I lifted the bonnet?”
“Not a thing, sir. I’ll get the catch for you, it’s in here somewhere.”
Menninot opened the bonnet and took a note of the chassis number to put through the NVLCC computer at Swansea. Menninot was only on his second cup of coffee when the result came through by fax. The vehicle was a Ford Escort van, black, registered owner was Max Farr, twenty-three years, Ripon Road, Jesmond, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
“A little local knowledge, please.” Menninot held the phone to the side of his head.
“Anything to oblige.” The officer of the Northumberland Police had a cheery attitude.
“Farr. Max Farr, Ripon Road, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Do you know him?”
“I’ll see.”
Menninot heard the unmistakable sound of a computer-terminal keyboard being tapped... a moment’s pause, then, “Yes, yes, we do know him. And so do you. Don’t you do local checks? He’s a mis per.”
“Probably not anymore,” Menninot said, feeling chastened for not doing local checks before phoning another police force.
“He was a student at York University. Reported missing in the summer the year before last, about twenty months ago. His file is cross-referenced to another mis per. Trixie Ellis, also a student, believed to be his girlfriend. Have you found their bodies perchance?”
“Perchance we have.” Menninot went over the nuts and bolts of the find at Pately Hall.
“Sounds ominous enough. But at least we’ll be able to put Mr. and Mrs. Farr out of their misery, though by now they’ll have accepted the worst. Prior to that, he wasn’t known to us. No record at all, a good lad, keeping his nose in the books. Do let us know if we can be of assistance.”
“Certainly we will, though I confess on my waters I think the only thing we’ll be asking you to do is break bad, but not by now unexpected, news to Mr. Farr and his lady wife.” Menninot replaced the phone and pressed a four-figure internal number. “Collator.”
“Sir?”
“Two files, please. One on Max Farr, a mis per of about twenty months ago. It’ll be cross-referenced to another mis per of the same date, one Trixie Ellis. On my desk as soon as.” Menninot glanced at the clock. Still only five p.m. A lot seemed to have happened since he and Carmen Pharoah were asked to go to a remote part of the Wold and rendezvous with two constables in an area car and a member of the public who had reported something suspicious.
The collator brought the files to Menninot. Both were thin, “mis per” only files, a single referral sheet, then nothing. When last seen, both Trixie Ellis and Max Farr had been living at 14 Doncaster Road, York.
Menninot went there. It was a rambling mid-Victorian terraced house which smelled of damp and Menninot fancied that it would be difficult to heat during the winter months.
“We thought they’d eloped.” The young woman blinked behind thick spectacles. She was of short, spindly appearance, very bookish, not for her the cocktail circuit. “They had the front room, they shared it, they were a very together couple. Big Max and Little Trixie. Him so big and her so small.”
“She was a small woman?”
“Oh, yes. She was self-conscious about it. She used to dress cheaply because she was able to buy children’s clothes, no tax, you see, but she really yearned to be taller. The police looked round their room when we realised that they hadn’t eloped, after about a week. But everything was normal, nothing had been packed, everything was there. A lot of cash too.”