Sausage Hall

by Christina James

  “I’ll see you shortly,” she says.

  Eleven

  Juliet was walking back to Laurieston Terrace with Jackie Briggs. As she passed Laurieston House, she glanced up at the first-floor windows and saw a hand holding back the vertical blind. It was quickly released and the blind dropped back into place.

  It was rather less than fifty minutes since she’d talked with Harry Briggs. She was not surprised, however, that when Jackie preceded her up the path and tried the door it was locked. From the moment she’d mentioned it, she’d been sceptical that Harry would wait for her to return. Jackie obviously thought so, too. She took out her latch-key with an apologetic look on her face.

  “Harry!” she called out. “I’m back, love.”

  There was no answer.

  “His mates must have called for him early,” she said to Juliet, her expression wry. “I don’t suppose he’ll be back until late, but you’re welcome to wait if you’d like. Do you fancy a cup of tea now?”

  “No, I’m all right, thanks,” said Juliet, quite shortly for her. “I need to get back to the station. I’ll call your husband to make an appointment to see him tomorrow. Could you write down the number for me?” She handed Jackie her card.

  “There’s a spare card for you, as well,” she added. “In case you remember anything else.” She remembered to smile. “Thank you very much indeed. You’ve been extremely helpful.”

  She was almost back at the gate when a dark blue car slowed and turned into the drive of Laurieston House. Juliet quickened her pace. If it was Ricky MacFadyen, she’d like to take the opportunity for a swift word with him. But on closer inspection the car was much swankier than Ricky’s VW Golf. The driver was a woman. She was attractive in a bohemian sort of way: she had longish unruly ash-blonde hair. The window was open on the driver’s side and the hand that rested there was well-manicured, the nails long and polished a shade of dark red. She wore a large, square, very modern ring on her middle finger. It took Juliet a minute to place her, before recognition dawned. She’d last seen this woman a couple of years back, when she’d been Ronald Atkins’ solicitor. She’d been quite a terrier then, Juliet seemed to recall, tenacious in defending her client’s rights. Rook, that was her name. Jean Rook.

  Juliet debated whether she should hang around until Ricky appeared and apprise him of the lawyer’s arrival. On balance, she decided that it wasn’t a good idea. If Kevan de Vries – or Ms Rook, for that matter – saw them conversing, it would only antagonise them. She could send Ricky a text message, though. Technological dinosaur that he was, he might not pick it up in time, but it was worth a try.

  She had just finished texting Ricky when something shot out of the undergrowth, coming from the direction of Laurieston House. It was some kind of creature, more than a foot in length, long-haired and greasy-looking. Juliet looked down too late to see it clearly, but became suddenly aware of a stinging pain on the side of her left foot. She bent to examine it and saw immediately that the creature had bitten her and drawn blood. It was oozing through a tear in her tights.

  Shaken, she stood for a few moments, supporting herself by holding on to the gatepost of Laurieston House. She took off her shoe and washed the worst of the blood from her foot in the little stream, opening up the tear in the tights to do the job as thoroughly as possible.

  She walked back to her car. Within minutes her foot was throbbing. She debated whether to call in at A & E on her way home, but the fatigue that had been stalking her all day had now kicked in with a vengeance. She decided that her best plan would be to go home, bathe the foot properly, apply some disinfectant and then get an early night. She drove off unsteadily into what was still a shimmering summer’s evening.

  Twelve

  Tim Yates closed the door of his office quietly and sped nimbly down the stairs. It was 5.30 p.m. precisely. Today, he was particularly anxious to reach his house in Edinburgh Drive at a civilised hour and desperate not to get waylaid by Superintendent Thornton. He hoped to make a clean getaway via the back door of Spalding police station and the car park. He knew that Thornton was like a cat on hot bricks over the de Vries case and would probably order Tim to go straight to Sutterton in person if he found out that Ricky MacFadyen, a mere detective constable, and one for whom Thornton had no particular regard, had been assigned to the task. Tim scanned the car park, not without an element of conscious self-parody; he enjoyed pretending to be James Bond on occasion. It was deserted. He made a dash for his aging BMW and leapt into it. Unless Thornton called him back on his mobile, he reckoned he’d succeeded in effecting his escape.

  He was therefore a little disappointed when he reached home to discover that Katrin’s Fiat was not standing in the drive. He tried to parry a sudden stab of worry. She’d not been at work that afternoon and had told him she’d be back by 5 p.m. He hoped that she was OK. He let himself into the house and filled the kettle.

  He had barely plugged it in when he heard Katrin’s key in the lock. He heard her dump her bag on the hall stand, as she always did.

  “Tim?” she called. She sounded excited.

  He hurried out of the kitchen. He needed only to take one look at her face. He opened wide his arms and she rushed into them.

  “It is definitely positive?” he asked, somewhat superfluously.

  “Yes!” she said, her voice muffled from talking into the wool of his jacket. “Let me out, Tim, I can’t breathe.”

  He released her, turned her face up towards his and kissed her several times.

  “Well done!” he said. “I’m so happy.”

  “Me, too,” she said. Less than a year ago she had believed that the news she had received today would never happen, that it was a physiological impossibility.

  “What now?” he asked. “Do you want to call your mother?”

  “No. It’s early days yet and anything could happen.” She put out her hand to touch the wood of the hall stand as she spoke. “But it’s not just that. At the moment, it’s our secret, something to hug to ourselves and hoard for a little while.”

  He smiled at the way she had put it.

  “Would you like to go out to dinner somewhere? A quiet celebration?”

  She paused to consider.

  “No, not even that. I’m happy to stay here and have something simple to eat. An omelette, perhaps.”

  Tim’s smile broadened. He was a good cook, although with a limited repertoire. Soufflé omelettes were one of his specialities.

  “I’ll make us one each,” he said.

  Two hours later they were half-lying on the sofa watching a documentary on the TV, their arms entwined, their empty plates relegated to a tray on the floor. The programme was about the future of the welfare state, but Tim was giving it less than half his attention. About ten per cent of his thoughts were engaged in running over the day’s conversations with Kevan de Vries, including the peculiar interventions from Tony Sentance. He wondered which, if any, of several comments that had struck him as odd or out of place would prove significant. Overlaying this was a sort of general, non-specific feeling of euphoria, tinged with a little bit of apprehension. He was well aware that fatherhood would change his life irrevocably. He knew that, for a policeman, meeting the conflicting demands of parenting and career posed a particular challenge. He was determined that he would rise to it, though he knew that to do so with success would require a great deal of good management and self-discipline. Perhaps entail some job sacrifices, too.

  Katrin was paying diligent attention to the documentary.

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” she exclaimed. Tim looked at the screen. Montagu Philpott, a civil servant employed at the Home Office, was explaining the ‘right to reside’ rule.

  “Just listen to him!” said Katrin. “How is anyone supposed to understand that? I don’t mean the basic rule, but all the exceptions he keeps coming out with!”

  Tim tried
to concentrate. He’d missed too much of the programme to be able to pick up the source of Katrin’s indignation. As a Swiss by birth, she was often sensitive about immigration issues, even though she herself held dual Swiss / British citizenship.

  Tim’s mobile rang. He picked it up to see if he could recognise the caller’s number. If it was Thornton’s, he felt inclined to ignore it. But it was Ricky MacFadyen’s number that came flashing up on the screen.

  Tim disentangled the fingers of his right hand from Katrin’s.

  “Sorry!” he said. “I’m going to have to answer this.”

  She shrugged philosophically. It was one of the great joys of Tim’s marriage that his wife did not object to the unsocial demands of his job. As a police researcher herself, she understood them very clearly. He pressed the ‘accept’ button.

  “DI Yates? It’s DC MacFadyen here.”

  Tim noted the speaker’s formality and deduced that Ricky was not alone. Someone was listening as he made the call: probably somebody less in his confidence than the uniforms who had accompanied him to Laurieston House.

  “DC MacFadyen,” he responded, equally formal. “Any news?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sorry to bother you, but I think that you’re needed here. And the SOCOs, too.”

  “That sounds ominous,” said Tim. “What have you found? Let me guess: five illegal immigrants hiding in the cellar, still waiting for their passports!”

  He regretted his flippancy as soon as he’d said it. He hoped that whoever was listening to Ricky didn’t hear the comment. He didn’t know why he’d made it: perhaps his subconscious hadn’t moved on from the documentary.

  “No, sir,” said Ricky, still deadpan, after a short pause. “But I am in Mr de Vries’ cellar; or was until I came up to get a signal. We found some loose flags and pulled them up. There seems to be something underneath them.”

  “What do you mean, ‘something underneath them’? Don’t you know what it is? What makes it such a cause for concern?”

  “I think I know what it is, sir. It looks to me like the bones of a human foot.”

  Thirteen

  Half an hour later, Tim had driven to Sutterton and was ringing the doorbell of Laurieston House. He was taken aback when it was opened by a tall woman wearing candelabra earrings, a short red skirt and a clinging black top. He was aware that the ageing bimbo look that she cultivated was misleading, probably deliberately so. He had encountered Jean Rook on previous occasions and knew that she was a force to be reckoned with. So Jean was de Vries’ solicitor. On reflection, Tim was not surprised. Jean Rook was based in Peterborough, which was quite a distance from the de Vries empire, but she was sharper than any of the solicitors he knew in either Spalding or Boston. Whatever else he might be, Kevan de Vries was not behind the door when it came to showing some nous.

  “Ms Rook!” he exclaimed. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

  He glanced over her head at Ricky MacFadyen, who was standing some way along the passage, almost at the same spot that Tony Sentance had occupied that morning.

  “Sorry!” he mouthed. Tim understood at once why their short phone conversation had been so strained.

  “I’d like to return the compliment,” Jean Rook said coolly. “But first we’ll wait and see whether it’s warranted, shall we? Talking of warrants, may I see yours?”

  Tim nodded gravely and handed it over, congratulating himself on his foresight as he did so. He had a sneaking admiration for Jean Rook, obstructive though she could undoubtedly be. It took some chutzpah to stand there and imply that he was likely to cause unreasonable trouble when human bones had apparently been discovered in her client’s cellar.

  “You’d better come in,” she said. “Kevan’s just getting himself a bite to eat. I’d be grateful if you’d talk to me about how you propose to take this forward, so that when he’s ready I can advise him accordingly.”

  Tim sensed that she was trying to bounce him into making a quick decision, probably so that she could then raise some objection to it.

  “First things first,” he said. “I need to see for myself what’s been found. Could you show me?” he directed the question at Ricky MacFadyen.

  “I can show you myself . . .” Jean Rook began. Under her customary veneer of somewhat combative sang-froid, Tim thought that he could detect a hint of nervousness.

  “That’s kind, but if this is a crime scene, we need as few people as possible to disturb it until Forensics have done their stuff. Have you been down there already?”

  Jean Rook gave an exasperated sigh.

  “No, your colleague wouldn’t let me. Your two plods are down there, though. Presumably they know to tread carefully in their size elevens?”

  Tim gave her a courteous little nod. Without admitting defeat, she was backing down. It would therefore be counter-productive to precipitate an outright confrontation. He followed Ricky down into the stale-air cool of the cellar. The stone steps were broad and smooth, the sequence of brick-lined rooms into which they led well-built and broad.

  Ricky moved without pause through the first of these, which was a kind of underground ante-room or lobby. Beyond it was an archway – there was no door – that gave access to a much larger room with a vaulted ceiling. An assortment of furniture and filing cabinets had been stacked neatly on one side of it. A solid teak workbench ran the length of the opposite wall. Several stone flags had been lifted at one end of this and were piled up on the floor. There was the strong smell of damp earth newly released from long-term enclosure and a slight underlying whiff of decay. Or was that merely Tim’s imagination going to work?

  Two policemen were standing as still as sentries, one at either end of the work-bench. Tim recognised one of them.

  “Hello, Giash,” he said. “I didn’t realise that you’d got this job. Apologies if I’ve kept you away from bath-time.”

  Giash Chakrabati grinned. “Not really my scene, sir. The au pair does all that. She washes both the children and puts them to bed if Padma’s working.”

  Padma Chakrabati was a GP. She had recently given birth to the second of their daughters. Tim felt a passing pang of sadness for this child, left to the ministrations of an au pair so early in her life. He gave himself a mental kick. Who knew what domestic compromises he and Katrin might have to make? He realised that Ricky was talking to him.

  “The passports were lying near to the end of that workbench when I came here on Sunday,” Ricky was saying. “I thought it might be an idea to search around that area a bit more. I noticed that there seemed to be a piece of yellow paper wedged between the back of the bench and the wall. I crawled below it to try to pull the paper from underneath, and realised that the flags on the floor just there were loose. We decided to lift a couple of them. That’s what we found.”

  He indicated the patch of disturbed earth that had been uncovered. Tim bent down to examine it more closely. He could see quite clearly the ray of fine bones embedded in the soil. Ricky was right: it looked like the remains of a human foot.

  “Have you talked to de Vries about this?” he asked.

  “In so far as Jean Rook would let me. She interrupted almost every other word and finally said that she wanted to wait until you arrived. De Vries said that he needed something to eat at that point. He hasn’t been cautioned.”

  “How did he react when you said that you’d found the bones?”

  “Difficult to say. I’d have expected him to register surprise, though I didn’t really see that in him. But he didn’t seem to show any guilt or fear of the consequences, either. He didn’t say much at all – ‘Oh, really, I suppose that introduces another complication?’ – or words to that effect. It was almost as if he had something else on his mind and this was just another minor irritation getting in his way. Either that or he’s depressed. I’ve known people with depression behave in that same peculiar detached manner
.”

  “What about Jean Rook? When did she arrive?”

  “She got here before me. I think that de Vries asked her to come. He was obviously pleased that she was with him. She’s been sticking to him like a leech. You’ve got no chance of talking to him on his own.”

  “I think that’s the general idea. He told me that he was going to consult his solicitor and I agreed that would be prudent. He didn’t mention that it was Ms Rook!”

  “Bit of a handful, isn’t she? But at least she’s managed to stall that Sentance character.”

  “He isn’t here too, then?”

  “No. I understand that Mr de Vries sent him away this morning, told him to come back later. But Ms Rook spoke to Sentance on the phone and told him not to bother.”

  “Hmm, well, that might have been useful in different circumstances, but once we’ve established for sure that these are human remains, we’re going to have to question him, as well as de Vries. Sentance has access to the house and he was here when the de Vries were away.”

  Ricky MacFadyen looked doubtful.

  “I don’t think these bones were left here during the past few days, sir,” he said.

  “Neither do I, Ricky. But Sentance has presumably had his key for years. Along with a few other people – Mrs de Vries, obviously, and apparently her mother, too. We’re going to have to check out all the key-holders. Sentance seems the obvious person to start with, apart from de Vries himself.”

  Fourteen

  “Get this cordoned off as a crime scene, Ricky,” Tim said, “and call Patti Gardner.” He turned to Giash Chakrabati and his colleague, who had been standing in the shadows next to Giash, and was about to give them an instruction when he noticed for the first time that the colleague was a woman PC and not one he knew. He’d assumed without paying attention that it was Gary Cooper, probably because Giash and Gary usually worked together.