Wednesday afternoon and evening
…in which Chief Inspector Hennessey meets a ruined man, is annoyed and impressed by a scientist, and both he and Sergeant Yellich each make their favourite journey: home.
Rufus Williams sat impassively in the interview room.
Hennessey was puzzled by his calmness, but then, he thought, this was probably his way of reacting to misfortune, a state of denial, he believed it to be called—‘It’s not really happening, it isn’t really, it’ll sort itself out, he’s not really dead, it just looks that way.’
‘Would you like us to contact the Metropolitan Police to ask them to break the news to your sister?’
‘No. I’ll do that. Thanks, anyway.’
‘As you wish. We only have to inform one next of kin. The rest is up to the family.’
‘I am aware of that.’
‘Difficult as it must be for you, sir,’ Hennessey pressed forward. ‘I’m afraid we have to ask you some questions.’
‘Of course.’
‘This has now officially become a murder enquiry, a double murder enquiry, and so we must ask you not to go near your parents’ bungalow. It’s become a crime scene.’
‘So they were murdered at home?’
‘We don’t know that. It’s been ransacked and for that reason alone we have declared it a crime scene. We’ve still to establish the location of the murders. For all we know there might be two different locations.’
‘How did they die?’
‘Beaten about the head with a blunt instrument.’
Williams shook his head slowly. ‘There’s something unreal about this.’ Hennessey nodded. This, he thought, was more like a normal reaction, more natural, more appropriate than the reaction that Yellich had reported: the obsession with the young able seaman, that was a clear denial reaction.
‘One thing we are certain of is that your parents were not robbed. Money was not the motive.’
‘I could have told you that. They have no money. None at all.’ Williams looked Hennessey square in the eye. ‘No money at all.’
‘So it’s fair to say that no one would benefit from their death, financially speaking?’
‘That’s fair.’
‘Not even you and your sister…I mean the bungalow, any insurance policies…’
‘If anything, it will be scraps. I don’t know the extent of his bank accounts or building society accounts, if any, nor of his insurance policies. If any. The death certificate will only have been issued today. I’ve got to start wrapping up his estate…I just don’t have the information you want but I suspect that if he left anything, it will be only enough to pay for his funeral.’
‘What about the bungalow?’
‘What about it?’
‘It must be worth something?’
‘It is, but not to us. So I believe, anyway. I don’t know the extent of it but I suspect that Father had borrowed money from the bank, using the bungalow as collateral. He had been unable to repay the loan. So I believe, anyway.’
‘All right. So neither your sister nor you would benefit from the death of your parents?’
‘No.’
‘Mr…’
‘Lieutenant.’
‘Lieutenant Williams, your parents were beaten about the head, that’s passion. They were buried in a shallow grave, that’s absence of premeditation. Who do you know, would have such feelings for your parents that they would want to kill them in such a violent way? Their murder was one of suddenly unleashed rage.’
‘You’ve asked me this before and I still can’t bring anyone to mind who would want to do that.’ Williams shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. But then again, he was a businessman…’
‘And businessmen make enemies. I know.’
‘Mother did once tell of a spat with a fellow called Richardson.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Irishman, has a temper. So she said.’
‘Tell me about him.’
‘Don’t know about him, but apparently Father had let him down in some way. I don’t know the details, but Richardson felt he’d been let down by Father and was in a bad financial way because of it. You’ll have to ask Richardson.’
‘We will. He’s a builder, isn’t he?’
‘I believe so.’
‘Your father…you said he helped you financially?’
Williams scowled. Then he said ‘Well, yes.’
‘To a great extent?’
‘That’s relative. He helped me keep away from poverty. I could enjoy the social life of a naval officer without worrying too much.’
‘I see,’ Hennessey said. ‘What will you do now?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, from what you’ve told me, you’re now dependent upon your salary and that can’t be much.’
‘Confess I haven’t thought too much about it. I’ve a little in the bank. That’s a useful cushion, but it won’t last forever. Looks like civvy street for me, as I’ve said before. Maybe that’s not a bad thing, I’m not going anywhere in the navy.’
‘Confess, I thought you were a bit old for your rank.’
Williams’s eyes narrowed.
‘Always been in the navy?’
‘Since I was seventeen.’
‘Sea service?
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘But you don’t wear spectacles?’
‘Meaning?’
‘Well, meaning that I did my National Service in the Andrew.’
‘And?’
‘Well, I did my tour, I saw the world as far as Portsmouth, but I came away with the impression that shore-based personnel are seen as second-raters by the sea service personnel.’
‘That attitude exists.’
‘It is also my experience that shore-based personnel had some medical problem that prevented them serving at sea, most wore spectacles, for example.’
‘I fail to see your point.’
‘Frankly, I don’t know what the point is myself…but something doesn’t add up.’
‘Will that be all, Chief Inspector? I’ve got responsibilities to attend to, both family and professional.’
‘Yes…’ Hennessey stood. ‘Sorry to have detained you.’
‘Neither breakfast nor lunch.’ Hennessey swallowed the coffee in his mug.
‘Sorry, sir?’ Yellich sat opposite him. ‘The Williamses didn’t have anything to eat after their meal at the Mill. That was their last meal in life.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Yet they were seen on the Sunday afternoon, so they forewent breakfast and lunch.’
‘Not difficult to see why, boss. I mean, if they had pushed the boat out as much as the restaurateur said they had then they’d probably want nothing all day Sunday except coffee, endless mugs of same. Then maybe a cheese sandwich in the evening.’
‘Fair point, so we don’t go down that alley. The bug that Dr D’Acre found on Mrs Williams’s clothing, in amongst the soil, was it?’
‘Yes, sir, she said it could have been caught in a shovelful of flying soil as it fluttered by.’
‘It was a moth. So it means they were buried at night.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Specifically last night.’
‘Right. So we have the time window that Dr D’Acre proposes. From Sunday morning to this morning, specifically the hours of darkness of last night which is when she believes the Williamses were buried?’
‘Yes, boss.’
Hennessey paused. ‘Fifty-four cubic feet.’
‘Boss?’
‘A grave six feet long and three feet wide and three feet deep is fifty-four cubic feet. And that’s fifty-four cubic feet of clay. This is the Vale of York, remember. Even in my prime I couldn’t dig that sort of hole in six hours, which is the amount of darkness there was last night. So who’s on the scene with a physique that could enable him to shift fifty-four cubic feet of clay in six hours? Clay that’s been baked hard, to boot?’
‘Tim Sheringham, for one.’