Sausage Hall

by Christina James

  She carried out a further search for the sister and found nothing more of interest. She moved to the next page of the search engine, then on to the third. Halfway down the page she read: “Mrs Rhodes’ sister, Sophia Peacock, lived at Sleaford Manor . . .” Excited, she clicked on the link. It took her some minutes to find the extract that she was looking for; infuriatingly, the link led first to the title page of a digitised text entitled Makers of the Nineteenth Century. Impatiently, Katrin ploughed through it until she reached the quoted passage:

  Mrs Rhodes’ sister, Sophia Peacock, lived at Sleaford Manor in the Belvoir country, where she often had one or more of the vicar’s children to stay, her special favourite being Frank, whom she practically adopted. Cecil was often there for the holidays, and found himself in a circle of relations and acquaintances. His aunt Sophy was always a good friend to him, and she was one of the few to whom in those early days he confided his plans and aspirations. Some Willson cousins lived two miles away at Rauceby; the Finch Hattons at Haverholm close by, and the family of Mr. Yerburgh, rector of Sleaford, were close friends, and Frank had Eton companions to stay there.

  There’s the link! Katrin was exultant. Rhodes had had an aunt in Sleaford and spent a chunk of his childhood there. How far was it from Sleaford to Sutterton? Eighteen miles, or 26 minutes by car, Google informed her. It was close enough for Rhodes and Frederick Jacobs to have had friends or acquaintances in common and therefore opportunities to meet socially. There was something else about the paragraph that tugged at Katrin’s memory as she was reading it. She worked through it again, more slowly. Rauceby! The hospital was familiar to her as a now defunct former refuge for the mentally ill. Although it was now no longer in use, she’d visited it on one occasion, when it had been opened to the public, and in common with others had shuddered at the padded cell, the facilities for electric shock treatment and other barbarisms that had seemed more fitting props for the Middle Ages than the twentieth century.

  She half-remembered that, before it became a ‘mental hospital’, in the late nineteenth century it had been a sanatorium – an isolation hospital for sufferers from tuberculosis. She knew from the Wikipedia article that Rhodes had been a delicate child. Had he been diagnosed with tuberculosis? Frederick Jacobs was also frequently ill – or at any rate as an adult used indisposition as an excuse for not fulfilling his farming duties. Had he also been sent to the Rauceby sanatorium when he was young?

  Eton was another possible line of enquiry. She knew that Cecil himself had not been sent to the school like his brother, ostensibly because of his poor health, but possibly also because his father’s finances could not stand the strain of paying two sets of fees. But his elder brother Frank, the Etonian, was Aunt Sophy’s favourite and he and Cecil, who were close, both stayed with her. Perhaps Frederick was originally one of Frank’s school friends?

  Katrin accessed several more promising articles, but could find nothing to link the two men directly. Still, she felt exhilarated. She’d discovered enough coincidences and common interests for it to be probable that they were acquaintances, colleagues, or even friends. She’d need to dig deeper by consulting more scholarly material about Rhodes: an authentic biography that mapped his life in detail. She might even be able to find more about Frederick Jacobs; in old Lincolnshire directories, for example. She’d need to visit the county archives and a big library.

  Katrin cut and pasted the snippet about Aunt Sophy, added it to the Wikipedia article about Rhodes, saved it and printed the whole lot out for Juliet. She scribbled a few sentences to Juliet, addressed an envelope and consigned all the documents to the post tray. Juliet would receive it the following day and would no doubt agree with Katrin’s deductions. But neither of them could get further until she unearthed more information. Finding the opportunity for this would be the next challenge. Katrin sighed as she forced herself back to the de Vries accounts. She knew that, however diligently she worked on these for Superintendent Thornton, he wouldn’t allow her to pursue her Rhodes leads in work hours. As Juliet was still in hospital, she’d probably have to sacrifice a day’s holiday to the cause.

  Forty-Three

  The whole nightmarish episode with Archie was even worse than I expected it to be. I asked the little twat of a housemaster how best to break it to him and with sickening coyness he offered to break it to Archie himself. I told him in no uncertain terms where to get off, which meant that I was probably not in the best frame of mind when Archie was eventually brought to me. I blurted out that Joanna was dead very clumsily. But to be honest, there was no good way of doing it, no chance ever of softening the blow. If the little housemaster had any inkling of how to ‘take into account Archie’s condition’, as he so unctuously put it, he didn’t pass it on to me.

  What happened next was only too predictable. Archie flung himself at me, kicking, biting and sobbing. I let him carry on for as long as he could. I felt that I deserved it, even enjoyed it in a weird way, as if accepting some kind of just retribution. The housemaster just flattened himself against the wall and watched. He seemed not so much terrified as totally effete. That wasn’t really a surprise, either.

  Eventually Archie tore himself away from me and hurled himself into a corner. He knelt on the floor with his back to both of us and began to rock backwards and forwards, banging his head rhythmically against the wall.

  Forty-Four

  Tim watched as Professor Salkeld supervised the removal of Joanna de Vries’ corpse from Laurieston House. It had been put into a body bag and strapped to a stretcher, but even though it was thus tidied out of sight he found the spectacle both macabre and unnerving. He was convinced something was badly amiss in this house and he wasn’t just thinking of the accidental death of a terminally-ill woman.

  Stuart Salkeld had said very little since, together with Patti Gardner, he’d re-emerged from the cellar, so Tim was surprised when he came clambering back out of the ambulance. Patti was standing in the open doorway of Laurieston House, smoking a cigarette. Salkeld edged past her, sniffing appreciatively at the smoke that she was exhaling.

  “DI Yates? A word, if you have time.”

  “Of course.”

  Tim led him back into the drawing-room. It seemed as if days, rather than hours, had passed since he’d sat here with Kevan de Vries and Jean Rook, tensely awaiting the professor’s arrival.

  Professor Salkeld fixed Tim with his bright blue eyes and began talking in his usual terse fashion, wasting no time with preamble.

  “I don’t think she died of a broken neck.”

  “She couldn’t have been pushed, then?”

  “Oh, she could have been pushed, and fallen awkwardly, too. But I’ve yet to establish the cause of death. I’ll need to perform an autopsy to be sure, but I suspect that it was an aneurysm of the brain.”

  “So she passed out and then fell?”

  “If I’m correct, yes.”

  “And you’re saying that no-one else was there? But, if that’s the case, I don’t understand why she . . .”

  The professor cut in.

  “Still good at jumping to conclusions, I see! I’m very far from saying that no-one else was there. In fact, I think it is quite impossible that she was alone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “As you correctly observed, the head was lying at a very awkward angle in relation to the body. I think that someone lifted her up after she fell, perhaps tried to revive her and, when they realised it was hopeless, dropped her again, probably none too ceremoniously, perhaps because they panicked.”

  “And left the house?”

  “So it would seem. Or left the cellar, and quite precipitately, at any rate.”

  “But Kevan de Vries was the only other person . . .”

  “That’s your problem, not mine. I refuse to speculate.”

  “Indeed. Might it be possible to find fingerprints on the body, if the pers
on who lifted her wasn’t wearing gloves?”

  Tim found to his surprise that his question triggered one of the longest speeches that he’d ever heard Stuart Salkeld make.

  “Fingerprints are created from oils that come off the perpetrator’s skin. It’s hard work getting good ones under most circumstances, but usually easier when they occur on hard or smooth objects. Human skin has neither of these properties. Therefore, although it is certainly possible to get fingerprints off a body, the oils are similar to those of the victim and tend to mix, which can make them smudge. A lot depends on how much skin can be tested for the prints. They’re not going to be easy to find and it is important to know where to look for them.”

  “Well, I’d be grateful if you’d do your best. Would you like Patti to come with you, to help?”

  The professor threw Tim a withering look.

  “Much as I respect Ms Gardner’s forensic prowess, I’m quite capable of carrying out an autopsy on my own.” His tone was severe, but Tim detected a hint of the underlying irony that was often present in the pathologist’s pronouncements. “However, if Ms Gardner would like to accompany me, I’ve no objection to taking a pupil.” Professor Salkeld glanced at his watch. “We need to get away now, though. The sooner I do the autopsy, the better; and that wee lad will be coming home soon, won’t he?”

  The professor gave a deep sigh. Tim had noticed before that he could drop his guard completely when there were children involved.

  Forty-Five

  Jean Rook had not succeeded in reaching Tony Sentance by telephone, so she’d rung Tim to say that she’d left messages for him to meet them at Laurieston House. She’d suggested to Tim that if Kevan de Vries and Archie came home in the meantime, the police might take Sentance to the shoe-box-sized police station which was all that Sutterton could boast and talk to him there. She was being super-helpful now, a development that Tim mistrusted. Ms Rook was not renowned for co-operating with the police.

  Tim had not been able to reach Sentance, either. He reasoned that the man was more likely to obey a summons that came indirectly from ‘Mr Kevan’ than directly from a policeman. It was strange that even de Vries could not raise him. Tim called Ricky to tell him that the coast was clear if de Vries wanted to bring his son home. He thought he might leave it up to de Vries himself to choose whether Sentance was interviewed at his house or not when he finally showed up.

  Jean Rook had said that she’d asked Sentance to come to Laurieston at around 1 p.m. She’d left messages for him at the various de Vries factories and offices and, since it was his habit to call them all at around 11 a.m. each day, he would have received her message by mid-morning at the latest, which would give him plenty of time to reach Sutterton by lunchtime as long as he hadn’t travelled further afield than the Norfolk plant.

  Tim still had almost two hours to kill, therefore. He debated whether it was worth returning to Spalding to see Thornton and decided that it wasn’t. Nevertheless, the Superintendent had been uncharacteristically quiet since he’d been informed of Joanna de Vries’ death, which made Tim a little uneasy. He’d decided to go out to his car so that he could call his boss in privacy when the crunching of the gravel outside announced another arrival. Tim noted that the noise it made was quite loud. Such a sound could possibly have woken Kevan de Vries in the early hours, especially if he was a light sleeper.

  The door opened slowly. Kevan de Vries entered, holding tightly the hand of a young boy. Tim could just glimpse Ricky MacFadyen standing behind them in the driveway at a respectful distance. De Vries was visibly annoyed.

  “DI Yates. I saw your car in the drive. I didn’t expect you still to be here.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr de Vries. I thought that you knew that DC MacFadyen had received a call from me; about ten minutes ago, I think it was.”

  Ricky was hovering in the doorway now, wearing an uncomfortable expression.

  “Indeed. But I thought that the purpose of the call was to indicate that you were about to leave.”

  “No, sir, it was to let you know that . . . it was safe for you to come home.” Tim glanced at the child, who was staring up at him impassively. He had a pinched, sallow little face and a peculiarly remote look in his eye. Tim supposed that he must be very distressed, although his state of mind was unreadable. “But forgive me,” he went on. “It was not originally my intention to disturb you further – though I’m afraid I shall have to leave a PC on guard for the time being. I’m still here myself because Ms Rook has been trying to get hold of Mr Sentance. I understand that she’s asked him to come to your house at around lunchtime.”

  “Oh, God, Sentance. I’d forgotten that I’d asked Jean to call him. But I hadn’t expected to share the meeting with you, DI Yates.”

  “I won’t intrude on your meeting, sir. If you wish, I’ll take Mr Sentance somewhere else to talk to him.”

  There was a small, sharp cry. It reminded Tim of the mewling of a hawk he’d seen at a country fair. It had been caged and shackled prior to taking part in a falconry display. He glanced at the child and saw that his face had turned white and was horribly contorted into a grimace of . . . what? It would be the most natural thing in the world for the boy to show sorrow, even uncontrollable grief. Instead what he was conveying, and most powerfully, was a mixture of disgust and anger.

  Tim hated the ‘Does he take sugar?’ approach to communicating with children, so he decided to risk talking to the boy directly.

  “Are you all right? Archie, isn’t it? I’m sorry . . .”

  “I don’t think that Archie’s in a fit state to talk now, DI Yates. I’ll take him to Mrs Briggs and come back to you when he’s settled.”

  “Of course.”

  As they brushed past him, Tim thought that he saw the child try to pull away from de Vries and that the father responded by tightening his grip on the boy’s hand. He was rather surprised to see de Vries knocking on the kitchen door before he opened it – and, now he thought of it, Jackie Briggs had not come running out to see Archie when they had arrived. He supposed that some kind of master-servant etiquette must be at work.

  Now that they were alone in the hallway, he turned to Ricky, who had just closed the front door.

  “Strange kid,” said Tim.

  “You can say that again. I know that anger’s supposed to be a part of grief, but he seems to be eaten up with it. I haven’t heard him say a word yet, either.”

  “Does anything else strike you as odd about him?” said Tim, lowering his voice. Ricky twigged at once and followed suit.

  “Just about everything about him strikes me as odd. What were you thinking of in particular?”

  “Do you know how old he is?”

  “I think he’s nine. Small for his age, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, there’s that, for a start. And then there are his parents.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think about it. Joanna de Vries was tall and blonde and probably, from the photographs here, on the plump side before she got ill. De Vries himself is shorter, granted, but very stocky and also very blond. How did they manage to have a child like him?”

  Ricky shrugged.

  “Stranger things have happened. I’ve read about white women who’ve unexpectedly given birth to black babies and traced it back to a black ancestor that they didn’t know about from four or five generations before.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Tim. “And I can think of a simpler explanation for that, too. But I’d take your point about Archie if I hadn’t found out something else about him as well.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Officially speaking, he doesn’t exist.”

  “Come again?”

  “No British birth certificate has been issued to a boy named Archie or Archibald de Vries during the past twenty years. I’ve had the records at Somerset House checked.”

  “Perhap
s he’s adopted?”

  Tim shook his head.

  “There’s no record of that, either, or that the de Vries are registered as foster parents.”

  “Maybe they did adopt, but just didn’t change the boy’s name? They call him Archie de Vries, but his real name is still the one on his birth certificate?”

  “It’s possible, but I don’t think so. A man like Kevan de Vries would want to make sure that his son took his name and he’d carry out all the correct legal processes necessary, if only to ensure that there would be no arguments when it came to inheriting his wealth.”

  “Then I don’t understand.”

  “Joanna de Vries was diagnosed with leukaemia a long time ago, just a few years after her marriage, in fact . . .”

  “You’re right, Detective Inspector, she was. May I ask what bearing that can possibly have on your investigation into her death?” Kevan de Vries had reappeared silently while they were talking. He’d snapped right back into the cautious urbanity that he’d displayed on his first meeting with Tim. Tim detected an undercurrent of menace in his tone, nevertheless.

  Forty-Six

  Juliet was fingering Florence’s notebook, which had been restored to her by the breakfast orderly. Its fall to the floor had knocked the corners of the boards. With her forefinger, Juliet traced the outline of the flower that had been affixed to its padded cover. She encountered a small tear in the thick paper that was almost concealed by the flower. Curious, but not wishing to damage the journal further, she held it up to scrutinise it. The harsh yellow overhead lights in the ward made it difficult to inspect, but, by turning on her bedside lamp and holding the journal close to its gentler, paler light, she was able to see through the tear that the padding under the cover consisted of some dark, ochre-coloured paper. She could see only a tiny piece of it – it measured perhaps half a square centimetre – but on this small section she could clearly see writing, or at least a few inked strokes that had evidently been formed by a pen.