In Vino Veritas

by Peter Turnbull

  Yewdall did not respond but instead she asked, ‘I gather that you and your wife had separated at the time she dis-appeared … pending a divorce.’

  ‘Yes.’ Woodhuyse ran the fingers of his left hand through his hair. ‘Yes, we were separated, that was the case, and yes, we were getting divorced. It was all very bloody … all very messy, there is no point at all in trying to tell you otherwise. Victoria was a gold-digger. She was a young woman with all the makings of a very good serial divorcee: marry a succession of wealthy men and then divorce them after a few very short years and take half their wealth with her. She was a calculating, heartless, mercenary little cow.’

  ‘So it must have been quite convenient for you when she disappeared?’ Yewdall prompted. ‘It saved you an awful lot of money, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Woodhuyse nodded in agreement. ‘It was hugely convenient and I will not even attempt to deny it. Someone did me a huge favour there. I had lost all feeling towards her … all positive feelings anyway. I had no fondness for her anymore. At the end we even slept in separate rooms. I came to accept that she was angling for a divorce. She was making my life very difficult. I assume that you think that I murdered her to avoid a costly divorce settlement?’

  ‘We are not assuming anything,’ Tom Ainsclough replied flatly.

  ‘Or suspect I murdered her.’ Woodhuyse gave a very slight smile. ‘I mean, otherwise you would not be here, would you?’

  ‘Frankly we would still be here,’ Ainsclough insisted, ‘trying to acquire as much background information about the deceased. But we do not suspect anyone yet.’

  ‘Yet,’ Woodhuyse echoed.

  ‘Yes … yet,’ Ainsclough repeated. ‘As I said, right now we are making ourselves acquainted with all the facts of the case, the lifestyle of the victim, and establishing the identity of principal people in the victim’s life at the time of her death. It is just routine that we call on you like this. Suspicion will come later. Right now we are keeping an open mind and exploring all avenues. We are not discounting anything or anyone.’

  ‘It’s still open season,’ Yewdall offered with a smile. ‘It’s still very early days. So, can we ask … what do you do for a living, Mr Woodhuyse?’

  ‘I’m in the world of finance,’ Woodhuyse replied in a matter-of-fact manner. ‘I see you are taking notes?’

  ‘Yes, just the normal procedure.’ Yewdall laid her ballpoint pen on the surface of her notepad. ‘We can’t be expected to remember everything.’

  ‘Yes, I can understand that. I think I should tell you that my name is spelled H-U-Y-S-E although pronounced “Woodhouse”, as though it was spelled H-O-U-S-E.’

  ‘Ah …’ Penny Yewdall wrote on her pad. ‘Yes, I was forgetting. Thank you.’

  ‘You seem to be doing very well out of your occupation, Mr Woodhuyse, if you don’t mind me saying?’ Tom Ainsclough observed.

  ‘I don’t mind you saying at all.’ Woodhuyse inclined his head to one side as if in receipt of a compliment. ‘I’m not complaining about how my life has worked out. The contents of the house are all bought and paid for, but the house is still mortgaged and the Porsche outside is leased, so I am not as well off as appearances might dictate. Had Victoria lived to see the divorce proceedings become final she would have been a little disappointed with the outcome … more than a little disappointed, in fact. If the house was sold her share of my wealth would barely have covered her legal bills. I am afraid that I gave her the overall impression that I was wealthier than was in fact the case.’

  ‘I see.’ Penny Yewdall tapped her notepad with her ballpoint pen.

  ‘I let her assume the house was owned outright,’ Woodhuyse continued, ‘when in fact it was still heavily mortgaged. It still is mortgaged, but not as heavily as it was when Victoria lived here. I have made some good money in the last ten years. I’m afraid it was all a bit of a con …’ Woodhuyse paused. ‘I let her assume that all the flash cars I drove were owned when in fact they were leased. So she would have been quite deflated by the details of my actual wealth. I say this because I think it is significant. I didn’t save as much money by avoiding a divorce as the police might think.’

  ‘That is an interesting point.’ Yewdall nodded briefly. ‘It would certainly reduce your motivation to murder your wife, but we would have to delve into your finances to confirm that.’

  ‘You’ll need to acquire a court order for that,’ Woodhuyse insisted, ‘but once that has been obtained, then …’ he added with a smile, ‘be my guest, delve all you care to delve.’

  ‘You’ll forgive me, Mr Woodhuyse,’ Ainsclough adjusted his position in the low-slung settee, ‘but I was expecting you to be younger. There must have been quite an age gap between you and your wife?’

  ‘About twenty years.’ Woodhuyse smiled. ‘I am not quite as old as my father-in-law but I am very close to it. Mind you, I have a friend who is older than his father-in-law and his is the most stable and successful marriage I know. But yes, I am getting on now and I am beginning to feel it … Yes, I was nearer to my father-in-law’s age than to Victoria’s age.’

  ‘So … back to your occupation, Mr Woodhuyse,’ Ainsclough pressed. ‘Can you be more specific about exactly what you mean by being in the world of finance?’

  ‘Oh … not easily … I have fingers in many pies.’ Woodhuyse glanced nonchalantly up at the high ceiling of the living room. ‘You know how it is …’

  ‘No,’ Tom Ainsclough sat forward, sensing that Woodhuyse was being evasive, ‘I don’t know how it is; it is not the world I move in.’

  ‘I buy and sell stocks and shares … I make investments … I lend money, but …’ Woodhuyse held up his hand, ‘… don’t misunderstand me, I am not a loan shark. I am not engaged in any form of criminality.’

  ‘I am gratified to hear it,’ Ainsclough replied. ‘We both are.’

  ‘So,’ Penny Yewdall held her pen poised over her notepad, ‘we gather that you were away from London when your wife disappeared?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I was.’ Woodhuyse nodded. ‘I was up in Scotland, to be precise. I have a cast-iron alibi. I was north of the border looking at a timeshare investment opportunity.’

  ‘Buying a timeshare?’ Yewdall asked.

  ‘No!’ Woodhuyse raised his voice in alarm. ‘No, I would never buy a timeshare. I have always thought such purchases were and are very ill-advised. I mean, committed to living in your timeshare for the same two weeks each year … how restricting is that? No, I was up there for the purpose of looking into buying into a consortium which was planning to purchase a large nineteenth-century mansion and convert it into self-contained apartments, each of which could be sold off as individual timeshares. The house itself was too remote to sell the apartments off as individual homes, but the consortium believed that that remoteness would make it a very attractive holiday destination. In the event, I pulled out. I thought that the remoteness would be just as much a stumbling block to a successful development. It was a very nice property though. It was in very good condition, no rot, no damp, being sold at a bargain basement price … but just so … so … remote. So, like I said, I pulled out and I am pleased I did so. The consortium went ahead and bought the property and couldn’t interest anyone in buying a timeshare. Ten years on now and they are in a real mess … and that is an example of me in the “world of finance”. I have two noses … a nose for a good deal and a nose for a bad deal.’ Woodhuyse once again ran his fingers through his hair. ‘So that’s where I was when Victoria disappeared. I was up there for about ten days.’

  ‘And you can prove that?’ Ainsclough asked.

  ‘Well, I could at the time,’ Woodhuyse smiled, ‘and indeed I did so. I could produce credit card bills, hotel bills, fuel purchase bills … I drew money from cash machines and kept my receipts, and each time I drew money my photograph was taken automatically by the cash dispensing machine. My business associates vouched for my presence during the time in question. It was sufficient to satisfy the police at the
time. I assume it’s been documented and remains in her “mis-per” file. I gathered back then that the police refer to missing persons as “mis-pers”.’

  ‘Yes, we do.’ Yewdall nodded. ‘And we’ll check, just for form’s sake but, as you say, if the police were satisfied with your alibi ten years ago, I assume it will doubtless satisfy the police now.’ She paused and then asked, ‘Do you know of or did you know of anyone who would want to harm your wife?’

  ‘No … no, I don’t.’ Woodhuyse held eye contact with Penny Yewdall. ‘I don’t now and I didn’t then. All right, she was awkward … ill-tempered … she would recoil from me sexually … All part of the plan to divorce. She wasn’t univer-sally popular … she had a few friends, all women, but I never knew of anyone who would want to harm her – not to the point of murdering her.’

  ‘But her death was favourable to you, nonetheless,’ Yewdall pressed. ‘As you said yourself, someone saved you some money, if only in legal bills.’

  ‘Yes.’ Woodhuyse nodded. ‘Yes, I won’t deny that her disappearance was of some financial advantage.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Tom Ainsclough took a statement form from his jacket pocket. ‘I’ll write out a brief statement for you to read and sign, if you’ll be so good. Really, all I will write is to confirm your alibi and also state that you knew and know of no one who would want to harm your wife.’

  ‘All right.’ Woodhuyse smiled a thin smile. ‘I am happy to sign that.’

  Tom Ainsclough wrote a brief statement and then handed it to Woodhuyse, who read it whilst holding the tip of the ballpoint pen in his lips as he did so. Woodhuyse then signed the statement and handed the form and pen back to Ainsclough.

  Yewdall and Ainsclough stood and thanked Woodhuyse for his cooperation. Woodhuyse saw the officers to the door of his house and shut it gently behind them.

  ‘Have you ever seen a whiter building than that?’ Yewdall commented as she and Ainsclough stepped on to the pavement and began to walk to the car.

  ‘Not outside a hospital,’ Ainsclough replied. ‘He clearly has a thing about the colour white.’

  ‘As you say,’ Yewdall replied. Then she asked, ‘Why did you take a written statement from him? It’s a little early in the investigation to be doing that, especially when we’re telling people we’ve no suspects yet.’

  ‘I was curious,’ Ainsclough told her. ‘I wanted to see if we knew him. I wanted his fingerprints on the statement form and on the pen, and him putting the pen to his lips and sucking on it like he did … well, what a stroke of luck that was. Now we have his DNA.’

  Yewdall turned and smiled warmly at him.

  ‘All right, so we can’t use any information we might learn because he didn’t consent and we didn’t have a warrant,’ Ainsclough continued, ‘but the geezer’s got a history … my copper’s intuition tells me so, and if we don’t know him as Elliot Woodhuyse we’ll know him as somebody else. Those icy eyes, that superficial charm … we’ll know him all right, we’ll definitely know him.’ He took an evidence bag from his jacket pocket and put the statement and his pen inside it and sealed it.

  The short man walked up to Ainsclough and Yewdall as they approached their car. He was a muscular-looking man despite his lack of stature. He wore a wide-brimmed cricket hat, a yellow shirt and white trousers, although his footwear seemed to the officers to be unusually heavy for midsummer wear. He smiled a wide, genuine-looking smile and he had a keen, eager, alert look in his eyes. He said, ‘771 WJ?’

  ‘Sorry?’ Penny Yewdall looked down at the short man with a warm expression. ‘What do you mean? What is it?’

  ‘I can’t be seen talking to you,’ the short man explained, ‘but you be coppers … you be the police, I’m thinking?’

  ‘Yes, we’re coppers,’ Yewdall replied. ‘You be thinking correctly. How can we help you?’

  ‘You can’t help me. I can help you. I’m Sean Rooney.’ The man spoke with a distinct though soft Irish accent. ‘I work for Woodhuyse. He’s the man you’ve just called on. Can’t say what I do … a bit of this … a bit of that … some simple gardening like mowing the lawn and trimming the hedges, buying things from the shops. If there’s an odd job to be done for Woodhuyse, then Sean Rooney from Tralee in County Kerry will do it. So 771 WJ.’

  ‘What is that?’ Yewdall asked as she found herself warming more to the alert, eager to please Sean Rooney from Tralee. ‘It sounds like a motor vehicle registration number – quite an old one.’

  ‘’Tis exactly what it is.’ Rooney held up his right index finger. ‘’Tis exactly what it is. You’ll be doing well to remember it now.’

  ‘We will?’ Ainsclough commented.

  ‘Oh, yes, to be sure.’ Rooney smiled. ‘You will.’

  ‘Why?’ Yewdall asked. ‘Why is that, Sean?’

  ‘It is a new car. It was a new car but it had an old registration number. You know how folks give their cars old number plates to make an interesting number,’ Rooney explained, ‘but I wouldn’t do it – it’s like getting yourself tattooed, it makes you a marked man. But that was it: 771 WJ.’

  Penny Yewdall took her notepad and pen from her handbag. She wrote ‘771 WJ’ on a new page. ‘So why tell us about the car, Sean?’

  ‘Why tell you about the car?’ Sean Rooney parroted. ‘I’ll tell you why about the car. It was a car which belonged to Mrs Woodhuyse’s friend, right at the time she went missing. The owner of that car called round at the house every time Elliot Woodhuyse was out somewhere … crooking … or whatever he was up to.’

  ‘Crooking?’ Ainsclough repeated. ‘Woodhuyse is a wrong ’un, is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Yes, I tell you, Woodhuyse is so bent he looks straight,’ Rooney informed him. ‘You should see some of the heavy-end villains that call round to the house, them and their hard-faced girlfriends. I can’t tell you what his game is but I’m on to a winner that it will interest the police. Anyway, I’ve got to fly before he gets suspicious, but the owner of 771 WJ can tell you things. I’m sure she can – her and Mrs Woodhuyse seemed as close as my two sisters. When they get together you can’t get between them.’ Sean Rooney neatly skirted round the two officers and jogged down Springfield Road towards Woodhuyse’s property making a short, lightly stepping figure of a man.

  ‘771 WJ.’ Penny Yewdall turned to Tom Ainsclough. ‘You know it looks like your intuition may be correct; the fingerprints and the DNA you collected might indeed yield an interesting result … heavy-end villains with hard-faced girlfriends … and a friend who would only visit Mrs Woodhuyse when he was out somewhere.’

  It was Friday, 17.35 hours.

  SIX

  Saturday, 09.50 hours – 22.40 hours

  ‘He pays in hard cash, as regular as clockwork.’ The man wore an open-necked blue shirt and long khaki shorts which covered his knees. ‘Every month, first of the month a man called Danby … yes, David Danby. He has been renting the lock-up now for fifteen years. He is one damn good tenant. I wish I had more like him. He never complains about the annual rent increase, he just wants written confirmation of it – possibly for income tax purposes, but the rent increases … can’t be helped. The competition in this business is fierce and that keeps the rent as low as possible. I tell you, the fuss some people make when the rent goes up even if it is impossible to avoid, but not Mr Danby.’

  ‘What is he like as a person? How do you find him?’ Brunnie asked.

  ‘I hardly know him,’ the man replied. ‘He calls in each month, pays the rent, gets the rent book marked up and then leaves, barely ever says more than a “hello” or a “good morning”. I have little need to say anything more than a polite reply because he pays his rent on time and his tenancy never requires repair. He would tell me if it did.’

  ‘You are Mr Kirkwood of Kirkwood Rents?’ Swannell confirmed.

  ‘No … no.’ The man smiled. He was short, balding and had a neatly trimmed moustache. ‘No,’ he repeated, ‘I am Mr Lee Kilroy of Kirkwood Rents. That’s Kil
roy as in “Kilroy was here”. I bought the entire portfolio from a Mr Dew, as in “Dew point”, the temperature at which water vapour condenses.’

  ‘Yes, we know,’ Brunnie growled. ‘We went to school as well as you.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Kilroy replied sheepishly, ‘and anyway, Mr Dew bought the portfolio from a Mr Kirkwood who had built it up over many years. But it’s composed only of commercial lets because he was apparently a Primitive Methodist and could not countenance being party to the eviction of a family for no matter what reason, but he had no qualms about evicting businessmen from their rents for rent arrears or if the rental was being used for criminal or immoral purposes. So the portfolio is of entirely commercial properties, and that suits me for the same reason that it suited Joshua Kirkwood because, although I am not a Primitive Methodist, I would still find it difficult to evict a family … but I would have no difficulty in evicting a jobbing painter and decorator who didn’t pay his rent. I mean, ladders and pots of paint don’t know they’re homeless.’

  ‘I can understand that attitude,’ Swannell commented.

  ‘So can I.’ Brunnie nodded his approval. ‘So can I.’

  ‘So,’ Kilroy continued, ‘I have met him often but each time it was fleeting so I have not really formed an opinion of the gentleman and his property is sound, as I said. He has never complained about broken glass or a leaky roof. It’s a small rental, a little larger than a garage next to a house in suburbia.’

  ‘We know,’ Brunnie advised. ‘We’ve been there.’

  ‘Ah … then you’ll know it’s a storage facility used by Mr Danby in his capacity as a self-employed plumber. That is what is listed here.’

  ‘It might have been used for that reason at one point but not anymore,’ Swannell said.