"I thought you tape-recorded interviews these days?"
"It isn't an interview in that sense. You are not a suspect. This could just as easily take place in your home or anywhere else that's convenient. Right now, the only convenient place is just here."
"I see."
"We've got to identify the victim."
"It's not my husband?"
"There's ninety-nine chances in one hundred that it is, but the gunshot wounds would make identification of the body…well, a little difficult. We've got to use other methods."
"Such as?"
"Well, was there likely to have been any other adult male in the home last night, or really at any other time?"
"No, not at any time, in fact. We hardly had any visitors."
"Your husband works from home, I believe?"
"Yes, most of his work is done on the phone or by mail. He doesn't like people calling, he's set in his ways."
"All right." Hennessey paused. "There are quite a few questions we have to ask…if it gets too much, just let me know."
Mrs Ossler nodded. "I'm fine, it's good to talk…if I was by myself…I don't know what I'd do, drink myself stupid I dare say."
"Well, try to avoid that, for your sake. Alcohol is a false friend, solves nothing. Makes things worse, in fact. But your husband, does he have a tattoo?"
"Left arm. Just here." She tapped her left forearm.
"Can you describe it?"
"A naked woman, what else? He had it done when he was very young and grew to be embarrassed about it. It's a woman, particularly large breasted and long legged, one hand behind her head, the other on her hip."
Hennessey drew a sharp breath.
"So it is him?"
"That description perfectly fits the tattoo observed on the deceased."
"Will you confirm it by checking his prints?"
Hennessey raised his eyebrows. "So, we will know him? We're doing a CR check as a matter of course but it's useful to know that we're going to get a result."
"CR?"
"Criminal Records."
"Yes, you'll have his fingerprints filed away. He got drunk once and told me he had a record. Nathan Hugh Ossler is his name."
"Any aliases?"
"None that I am aware of."
"Date of birth?"
"Well, he's fifty-six, March the first…you can work out the date of birth."
"Easily. What offences has he committed?"
"Fraud, lately. When he was a youngster he was convicted for rowdy behaviour, drunk and disorderly, that sort of thing."
"Dare say we'll find out. Is there anyone you can stay with for the next day or two? You'll have to get the house cleaned."
"Cleaned?"
"Well, there's still blood on the wall of the room where he was shot."
"The police won't clean that. That's up to the householder."
"I see."
"My brother. I suppose I could go back there. He'll let me keep the dogs…oh…"
"They're fine. They're in the shed, plenty of water."
"The shed?"
"If there was no family about we'd have taken them to the kennels we use in such circumstances."
"I see."
"Couldn't let them in the house, the house is still a crime scene. They've plenty of water and the window's open. There's also a constable in attendance. They'll be fine for an hour or two yet."
"Thanks…if Shane doesn't want them I suppose the kennels are the answer for a day or two."
"So, you were with your brother last night?"
"Yes, aye…Nathan won't have Shane near the house." She paused and glanced at the floor. "Wouldn't have him near the house."
"Was there bad blood between your late husband and your brother?"
"No…" she shook her head, "my brother, Shane, he's made his peace offerings, he's built his part of the bridge, but Nathan wouldn't have anything to do with him, says he's a ne'er-do-well, a tearaway. Nathan said that he rescued me from all that, but Shane would pull me back. Shane reckoned it was because he reminded Nathan of what he himself was like at the same age and so Nathan didn't like him.
"That's perceptive of your brother."
Mrs Ossler smiled. "That's Shane. He's got more about him than folk will give him credit for. Anyway, that was the set-up. I could visit Shane, but Shane couldn't visit me. So that's where I was this weekend, with my brother in York."
"All weekend?"
"From Saturday lunch time until this morning. I was collected this morning by the police officer but I was due back today anyway."
"Unusual, isn't it?"
"What is?"
"Well, you'll forgive me but when folk usually visit for the weekend they usually depart on the Sunday to be at home on Monday morning."
"No reason for me to return on the Sunday, always return on the Monday. No job for my hubby to be packed off to, no children to get off to school."
"Fair enough. Your husband won't collect you then?"
"Won't deliver me either. Such is his disapproval of Shane. Or was his disapproval of Shane. It's lucky I get my monthly visit. First weekend of the month, that's the agreement. On Nathan's say-so: that would be a better way of putting it."
"I see. Sorry…your Christian name is?"
"Sadie. Sadie and Shane. Our parents didn't put a great deal of thought into our names, first ones that came to mind I reckon. I'd like to have had a classy name like…Anthea, Clarissa…and I would have liked Shane to have a sensible name. Shane, it's like a cowboy's name, a name like John. What's your first name, Mr Hennessey?"
"George."
"That's a good solid name. Shane could have done with a name like that. He's a good solid character. But Sadie…it's sad. Poor, sad Sadie."
"Sad Sadie?"
"It's what I got at school. Our parents didn't have a lot of money. Thank God for the charity shops. Sad Sadie, the cast-off kid. Eventually we got put into a children's home."
"That's school life. Those wounds never heal."
"You had similar experiences?"
"No," Hennessey grimaced. "No, I gave it out. To my endless regret and guilt. But we digress. So, you remained in your brother's company over the weekend?"
"Yes."
"In his house?"
"We went into York. Drinking most of the time in the Brown Bear. Touching base see, smoking fags, drinking beer, talking about motorbikes, it's the class of folk I belong to, I need that once a month as much as I need to see our Shane."
"That's useful," Hennessey smiled. "Neither you nor your brother are suspects but all that corroboration, all those witnesses to your presence, it means you're both well out of the frame. We'll still have to see your brother though."
"You will?"
"Yes. Just procedure. Don't be alarmed. Are you alarmed?"
"No, not about this, it's just our Shane…he's done a few daft things, he doesn't like the police, he's a biker."
"I see. Well we won't take his attitude personally. You feeling tired? How about a coffee?"
They sat in silence drinking the vending-machine coffee.
Hennessey broke the silence by saying that "this stuff" always reminded him of ersatz coffee. Sadie Ossler asked him what "ersatz" coffee was and so Hennessey told her.
"So tell me about your husband," Hennessey asked her when they had both tossed their empty plastic cups into the wastepaper bin, though not before Sadie Ossler had torn hers from rim to base into a series of narrow strips.
"What else can I say? He was all right. All bark really, no actual violence. If I'm not grief-stricken it's because I didn't love him." She looked up and held eye contact with Hennessey. "I didn't, I just didn't love him. That's it. There are marriages and there are marriages and somewhere out there, there might actually be two people who do really love each other but me and Nathan, we were not the two."
"Probably makes you similar to the majority."
"You think? I thought it was just me and him."
"Mr
s Ossler…Sadie…I am shortly to retire and I have been a police officer pretty well all my working life. It's a job which is better than working and teaches you about life and I can tell you that the distribution of love, sex and money are identical: at any one time, the great majority of any or all is enjoyed by the absolute minority of people."
Sadie Ossler smiled. "I like that. I'll tell Shane and his mates, they're always going on about not having enough dosh. Yeah, they'll like that, it'll earn me a laugh and make them feel better."
"So, your marriage?"
"Well, he was a lot older than me, he bought me like he buys all his possessions…me…my job is to be there and look the part, rich man with his plaything, and this…" she tapped her ring, "this makes me a prisoner. I would have been better off being his mistress. I could have walked out at any time then. But the living was good. Like I said, I come from poverty so money means a lot to the likes of me. It's not so much the good things in life, the house, the BMW, the jewellery, it was knowing that with Nathan I'd never have to go hungry again. I'd help Shane out that way. Used to take a big bag of stuff each time I visited him."
"Stuff?"
"Food, as much non-perishable as I could carry, which is always the heaviest, tins and the like. Helped Shane to keep going. But Nathan, not an easy man to live with."
"Oh?
"He drank for one thing. I mean drinks, capital 'D', not like the pints me and Shane's mates drink, but spirits, vodka mainly, that's his tipple. He'd got a bit old, see, he wasn't interested in sex. We've been married for three years and I can count on the fingers of my hands…well I've got to a state where I don't miss it. I realised straight away what sort of man I'd married. He would show me off, he wasn't really interested in me or my body but I looked the part and that was that. Showed me off like a trophy, when he did bother to take me out. But we survived as a sort of couple. Him in his room, me in mine."
"Separate bedrooms?"
"Better that way. Having to share a bed with him…ugh…It's more honest."
"I can understand that. On a wider basis, would you say that your husband was a popular man?"
"Definitely not. Believe me, the world hated Nathan Ossler. Even his own son hates him."
"He's got a son?"
"From his previous marriage. There's no contact between them. He's a grown man now, older than me in fact. My stepson is older than me."
"Do you have his address?"
"At home. He lives close by, Selby, in fact."
"Ah, yes, delightful town. But we'll have to have his address."
"Well, if you'll take me home, I'll let you have it. I can pick some things up, collect the dogs…would you mind…the dogs I mean?"
"Not at all. Your brother won't mind them?"
"No, he…" She seemed to be about to say something, checked herself and then said no, he wouldn't mind. But the way she stopped herself in mid-sentence registered with George Hennessey.
"Back to your husband…and the issue of his popularity, or lack of same."
"Well, he had a fight in the golf clubhouse last week, or the week before."
"Oh?"
"Had an argument with a lady, the wife of another member, poured his drink down her front and I mean down her front, down her cleavage. Her husband attacked him but Nathan was a match for him. It was like a bar brawl that you see in western films, other members separated them but Nathan was clearly the guilty party and was booted out. Didn't bother him though, didn't let it show if it did. I was there, I just wanted the earth to swallow me up."
"What was the name of the man and wife whom he assaulted."
"Hargrave. Richard and Thorn."
Hennessey glanced at her. "Richard and Tom?"
"T. h. o. m." she smiled. "Thomasina."
"Ah…we have the Western Isles culture to thank for that. The traditional practice on Skye and points west and north is to name the boy before he's born and if it should not be a 'he' then the name still applies with an 'a' tagged on to the end, so we have Edwina's and Thomasina's and the like. Do you know their address?"
"No."
"No matter. A phone call to the secretary of…?"
"The York and District Ancient."
"Expensive."
"The most expensive north of the Humber and south of the Tyne. So they say."
"The issue of your husband's popularity…what I'm driving at is, do you know, off hand, of anybody who'd want to murder your husband?"
"Not off hand. But from what I found out there'd be folk queuing up to shoot him. His first wife was murdered, did you know that?"
A pause. A silence. Then Hennessey said, "I didn't know that."
"Shot. Funny that."
"I didn't know that either."
"Not an English way of death, as you said, but it happened to both husband and wife, both at home too. I suppose that there is such a thing as coincidence after all."
"You'd better believe it. But tell me more."
"You know all about it. It happened here in York. About eight years ago."
Hennessey sat back in this chair. ''That murder?"
"Shot on the doorstep. All I know is what he told me. Had a townhouse then, narrow-fronted but very deep, about two hundred years old…no front garden, though, front door opened on to the pavement, down a few steps, but on to the pavement."
"Yes, I know the type of house…you can sit in your front room and the only thing that separates you from the foot passengers on the pavement is a pane of glass. Lovely houses, though."
"Anyway, he had a duffle-coat he was fond of wearing, only he wore it, so he told me, except once…his wife grabbed it, she was just nipping out for a couple of minutes, it was raining, night time as well…his coat was hanging in the hall and rather than go upstairs to get hers—"
"Understandable."
"Aye. So she puts it on. puts up the cowl to cover her head against the rain, opened the door—"
"And was shot. I remember the case now. Dark, rainy night, nobody about…drew a blank on it."
"Scared Nathan. Sold that house and had Thundercliffe Grange built, fenced garden, rose trees, squeaky gates and gravel."
"And the dogs."
"Yes. Nathan wasn't going to sit like a coconut on a shy after that. It was clear to him that he was the intended target. Looks like somebody got it right this time."
"Certainly does." Hennessey absent-mindedly cleaned the end of his pen. "What line of work is your husband in?"
"Making money."
"Specifically?"
"Making money. I mean it. He had no skill, no one business, no expert knowledge. But if he saw an opportunity to turn a profit, he'd be right in there. If something was being sold beneath its true value Nathan would buy it, be it a piece of property or an antique."
"All legal?"
"Now you're asking, Mr Hennessey. I know he has convictions and so it wouldn't surprise me if my husband was a crook, but I didn't get to know anything. I was just there to look the part, like I said."
Hennessey said he'd take Sadie Ossler back to her house. He asked that she wait for him in the foyer and escorted her there. He walked back down the narrow parquet-floored corridor to his office, picked up the phone and jabbed a four-figure internal number. "Collator? Good. DCI Hennessey. There was murder in York, about eight years ago, lady by the name of Ossler…that's Ossler…file on my desk as soon as. Thanks."
Hennessey and Sadie Ossler sat in silence during the drive from Micklegate Bar Police Station to Strensall, and Thundercliffe Grange, still with the blue and white tape strung across the gate, still with the young constable in his summer tunic standing at the gate.
"How long will he be there, he or any police officer?" Sadie Ossler asked. "I mean, for his sake?"
"Dare say we could stand him down now, but we'll keep a presence until dusk. I think if nothing else, it does emphasise to the public that the house is a crime scene and that the police are in possession of it."
They left the car and
walked to the gate of the house, Hennessey receiving a salute from the constable as they approached. They ducked under the tape, Sadie Ossler opening the gate with the usual accompanying squeak. She crunched the gravel until she passed the rose bed and then side-stepped onto the lawn. Following close behind, Hennessey did the same.
"Makes such a racket," Sadie Ossler said as the dogs barked. "I used to ask Nathan why he didn't put a fence between the drive and the lawn to stop people walking on the lawn, never did get an answer. Nathan knew best you see. Even our postman does it, if he's feeling thoughtful."
"He gets past the dogs?"
"They know him. Nathan decided it was a risk worth taking to introduce them, otherwise he'd never get any mail. All right if I let the dogs out of the shed?"
Hennessey said yes, it would be all right but he'd be obliged if they were kept from going into the house. Sadie Ossler opened the shed door and the dogs welcomed her and then darted on to the back lawn of the house. Then she led Hennessey into the house. She walked through the kitchen to the corridor, past the room in which her husband was shot and entered a second room which was also clearly devoted to the pursuit of business.
"This is his study," she said, "as opposed to the typing room where he was found."
"The study." Hennessey looked about him, neatly kept desk and filing cabinet. No decoration at all. Anywhere.
"If the address book is in the house, it's going to be here. I'll leave you to look for it if you like?"
"I'd appreciate it." Hennessey began to rummage through the drawers, totally absorbed with his task, and then looked up and out of the window to the rear aspect of the house and saw Sadie Ossler with the dogs and saw her, glimpsed her by her body language, as a little girl with her pets. She seemed quite out of her depth with all that was going on around her, and in herself, not really, it seemed to Hennessey, to be in touch with the enormity of what had befallen her. She wanted only to play with her dogs. Returning his attention to the room, Hennessey noticed a telephone on the desk and on impulse picked it up and dialled 1471. He was told that a number which he wrote down as it was being dictated, had phoned the Ossler house on Friday last at nineteen thirty hours. He dialled the number.
His call was answered promptly, a cheery female voice said, "Good morning, Crosshill School."
Perils and Dangers Page 3
