DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crime Thrillers: Books 1-3

by Oliver Davies

  He didn’t notice the compliment. It slid over his head as he sidestepped a cyclist. “I wanted to meet Richard Sandow myself,” he was saying as he caught back up to me. “Two heads are better than one, right?”

  “I was wondering what you’d make of him,” I told him, “and I’ll be without your note-taking, which is a shame.”

  “You don’t need it, sir. You’ve been Sharp’s best man long before I showed up.”

  “A year ago,” I commented.

  “What was that, sir?”

  “You joined us a year ago. I’ve never kept a sergeant for a full year,” I told him.

  He smiled, amused. “Feel as if I deserve some sort of certificate. Or one of those patches you get when you learn how to swim.”

  “The sort that gets sewn onto your towel?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll find you one. Bound to be a place here that sells all that nonsense.”

  Mills bent his head and laughed, the wind blowing the strands of his black hair all around his face.

  “Where is this café?” I asked after we rounded yet another corner.

  “Should be just over there.” Mills pointed across the street. “On the map, it wasn’t far from the Minster. There’s a gallery not far from it.”

  “You a gallery man, Mills?” I asked as we stood at the traffic lights.

  “Not so much. My mum is…” he told me, “she studied art history. More of a museum family, us. What about you?” He added the question after a pause of hesitation, his voice quieting. Still uncharted territory for him, asking about my family. And unchartered territory for me, talking about them.

  “My grandmother took me to a lot of garden centres,” I recalled. She’d had to bribe me with toffees, but the memories were fond all the same. “My mother liked castles. She would drive all round the country to look at them.”

  And then some. We’d spent one of my school holidays up in Scotland, driving from castle to castle.

  “The nice ones with all the interesting furniture? Or the ruined kind that have half-collapsed stairs and roofs that drip on you?”

  “Both. But if they had ramparts, they were her favourite.”

  We crossed the street, heading towards the towering shadow of the Minster, the number of tourists growing the closer we got. Mills spotted the café, down a little alley, tucked into a small courtyard filled with early blooming flowers.

  Inside, a number of people sat around, talking and laughing, but it wasn’t hard to spot our man.

  He sat towards the back of the room, dressed in an impeccably clean-cut suit the likes of which I’d only ever seen in London, down Bond Street. His tie, silk no doubt, was an elegant floral pattern, his shoes shining even from across the room. A ring sat on his pinkie finger, hands folded together on the table as he waited, posture perfect. His silver hair was swept back from his face, a pencil moustache perfectly trimmed above his lip like Clark Gables.

  “Think that’s him?” Mills asked. I chuckled, pushing my way through the table to where the man sat.

  “Mr Harrer?” I asked.

  He looked up. “Detective Inspector Thatcher?”

  “The very one,” I smiled, “and sergeant Mills. May we sit?”

  “By all means.” He unfolded his hands, and we sat. “Jeannie told me you were handsome,” he said with a grin.

  “How kind of her,” I replied.

  “And that you have questions for me about this missing painting?”

  “We do,” I confirmed.

  “Please proceed, Inspector.”

  I nodded to Mills, who pulled out his notes on the piece and the artist.

  “It’s a painting of the Hocking Estate,” he told Mr Harrer, “done by Brynmor Ragsdale in the early twentieth century.”

  “Are you familiar with Mr Ragsdale’s work?” I asked him.

  He nodded enthusiastically. “He’s a fine local chap, though not many know about him, sadly. A bit of undiscovered talent, there. A great shame. To those of us in the know,” he winked, “a rare artist to have in your collection. His sketches from the trenches in France are hauntingly beautiful.”

  “For someone in the know then,” I began, “one of his pieces might go for a fair amount of money?”

  He hesitated. “That entirely depends, Inspector. On the buyer, and the piece. His sketches go fairly cheaply, and from what I understand, his descendants have little interest in selling them. His larger canvases, oil mostly,” he informed us, “can fetch a good price when sold correctly.”

  “Correctly?”

  “At an auction,” he told us. “They might not be very aware as to what exactly they are selling. Ragsdale's name is not as well known, so the price would be less.”

  “But if someone like you sold them,” I asked, “they could fetch a higher price?”

  “Certainly. I know my buyers, and I know my art. And my history,” he added cheerily, “for that matter. If someone was determined to sell this piece, selling privately would be in their best interest. Commission rates included Inspector.”

  “If we are right about the thief's knowledge of the piece, it’s likely they would. If they were going to sell,” I said. “Have you any knowledge of a Ragsdale piece coming into sale at all?”

  “No. And I can assure you, Inspector, that I would be all over it like a rash if it were. Those are the sorts of rare opportunities I have constantly have little eyes and ears looking out for.”

  “Are there any other private sellers who might have already caught wind of it?”

  “There are only a handful of us in the city, Inspector. And they all know that Ragsdale pieces come to me first. Nobody else can sell them as well. We have a fragile… sort of understanding. Our business is art,” he said proudly, “and the art must always come first. Over any professional pride, most certainly.”

  “And if you are aware,” I asked in a darkening voice, “that the painting was a stolen piece?”

  He sat up, affronted. “I would inform the authorities. I am not a criminal, Inspector. I sell art, I do not steal it. Jeannie would have told you that.”

  “I don’t always trust Jeannie on everything she tells me,” I said.

  His wounded expression faded, and he laughed lightly. “No, Inspector, nor I. Good instincts there.”

  “We believe you, Mr Harrer, that you are a good man. And good at your work,” I added with a smile, pulling my card from my pocket. “If you hear anything, from any of your little eyes and ears, please call me directly.”

  He looked down at the card in his fingers and tucked it safely into his breast pocket. “Certainly shall, Inspector, you have my word.”

  “Excuse me, Mr Harrer,” Mills put in, “what about frames?”

  “Frames?”

  “Is a painting worth more in or out of its frame?”

  “Depends on the frame, my boy. Selling it together is always recommended. And, I am assuming here, Lord Hocking would have some very fine frames.”

  “Very fine,” I told him. “Heavy. Gilded.”

  He gave a steady nod. “I doubt they would have been taken apart. Besides, in those older pieces, it’s not as easy as slipping a photograph in and out of a frame. It’s quite the process.”

  “Not something that can be done quickly?” Mills checked.

  “No. Nor without the right tool. If someone had done it, at the scene of the crime,” Harrer dropped his voice to a whisper, “you’d know.”

  “Thank you,” I told him truly. He’d been more helpful than I expected.

  “Anything for Jeannie.” He sighed and stood up, pulling on a long woollen coat. “That girl is trouble, Inspector. But I suspect,” he said, walking around the table and pausing by my shoulder, “that’s why she likes you so much.”

  “And he her,” Mills added dryly.

  Harrer laughed, gave a jaunty wave and strolled off from the café. I turned to glare at Mills, who ducked his smirking face.

  “Shall we get a coffee, sir?” he aske
d. “Before heading off?”

  “You’re buying,” I told him darkly.

  He stood up, still sniggering. “I’ll get a teacake,” he announced, “and we can call it even.”

  Eleven

  Thatcher

  I walked with Mills back to the station to update Sharp in person. She had little to say on what Harrer had told us, nothing more than we already thought, but it was more a question of keeping her in the loop. Doing everything by the book.

  “Someone who knew that crowd would know about private art sales,” I had said to her. “Would likely have some connections to it.”

  “On behalf of their boss, you mean?” she asked, leaning against her window with her arms folded.

  “Perhaps.”

  “I’m following your trail of thought, Thatcher,” she assured me, “but the butler always seems a likely suspect and so always makes an excellent scapegoat.”

  “For a good reason.”

  “I’m not disputing that,” she said, walking towards me, “but I’d wager that there are other people with better reasons to steal from Lord Hocking. Is the butler the sort of man to throw away two generations of a good working relationship, of being almost family, over such a small thing?”

  “Might not be small to him,” I reminded her, “and if they’re the ones throwing it away first, why wouldn’t he do something?”

  “Why now?” she demanded. “When there are still a good few years before he would retire? Why not, when they’re actively searching for his replacement? I don’t doubt your instincts, Thatcher, I never have. But consider the timing of it all. Why would he do this now?”

  I didn’t have an answer for her, but I didn’t think she actually wanted one. Sharp got where she was by making people think, making them backtrack and question and poke. I’d known her long enough to know that she wasn’t making conversation, she was making me think.

  She gave an easy sigh and smiled at me. “Go and see the brother. What you learn there might change the whole course of this case, Thatcher. If we’re talking about a motivation driven by familial spite, he might make the better suspect.”

  But why now? I wondered, not bothering to receive the scold I would get from saying it aloud. I nodded to Sharp, and she sent me from her office.

  I walked over to the desk where Mills and Smith sat, the sergeant flipping through a list of names and numbers, looking as though he’d have more fun swimming along the river in mid-December.

  “Have fun, you two,” I smirked as I walked past, knocking on the table.

  Smith smiled back at me, but Mills glared, already barely begun and already looking dishevelled. I left him there, somewhat gloating, and headed out from the station to my car, hopping in and spent longer than I’d care to admit figuring out my bloody sat nav, inputting the address I had found.

  Sandow’s address was in a town a few miles west of the city. I knew the place vaguely, and mostly from cases rather than sightseeing. A middle-class suburb that hid the darker parts of its society beneath cookie-cutter houses and neat lawns. It wasn’t an entirely bad place to live, but a far cry from the noble estate that Sandow had grown up in. From what I’d found, he’d moved out there about fifteen years ago and had stayed put ever since. It was the years in between, after changing his name and leaving Hocking Estate, that his whereabouts were challenging to pin down. In fact, finding this address had taken a bit more leg work than it usually does. Richard Sandow, it seemed, did not particularly want to be found. A pity for him then, that I had a case to solve.

  Driving out of the city into the few miles of countryside that surrounded the outlying towns, I thought about what Harrer had told us. I was basing much of this case on the fact that the thief knew exactly what they were doing. The timing, the style, the painting itself, all done carefully. If they were going to sell it, I’d wager they would have the sense to go to a man like Harrer, rather than trying their luck on the open market.

  The frame was something else that caught my interest, and I was glad that Mills had brought it up when he did. It would be taken, all in one, which means it would have been harder for the thief to smuggle out from the house; it’s not like they simply rolled up the canvas and tucked it inside their jacket. A full, heavy frame wouldn’t have been easy to manoeuvre.

  I shoved the thoughts aside, my attention needed now to focus on the man I was about to meet. Other than those few years of having dropped off the face of the earth and having little to no connection to his well-known family at all, I had only a few scraps of information on the man. A medical man, ending up in the hospital, he had kept his marriage announcement out of the public eye, as well as the birth of his son and granddaughter. As far as the world was aware, he was just another average man who had severed himself from his family. A family of centuries-old nobility who receive threats from animal activists and are probably in some strange, convoluted way related to the royal family. I hadn’t gone that far back in the family tree, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Families like these were all connected in some way or another, down the line, tangling lines of history. How they kept their money, my grandfather used to tell me as a child, struggling with my homework, it’s how they kept the power in one place. And when a member of the family goes rogue, like Richard Sandow had, they vanished. The estate has a lord, and it has an heir. Who cares about the rest of the family? I was sure such ideas would be enough to fill a man with spite, but then, that rather depended on the man.

  I pulled up in front of a modest two-story house, just off from the town centre. A neat garden, clean cars, fresh paint on the doors. It was altogether tidier than the estate, but it looked like the estate would eat it for breakfast. I stayed sat in my car for a moment, looking up at the house and then with a sigh, got out and walked up the short path to ring the doorbell.

  It opened quickly, a grey-haired lady standing there holding a mixing bowl under her arm.

  “Hello,” she said, looking a trifle confused.

  “Hello. Forgive my intrusion.” I pulled out my warrant card. “I’m Detective Inspector Thatcher, North York police. I’m looking for Mr Richard Sandow. Is he in?”

  Her eyes widened as she looked from my ID to me and nodded, stepping back a bit and letting me into the house. She led me down the small corridor and into a living room, infinitely more modern than Lord Hocking’s was.

  “Is he in trouble?” she asked.

  “No. I just have a few questions for him.”

  She nodded. “I’ll call him in for you. Can I get you a cup of tea, Inspector?”

  “Thank you, but no, I’m alright, Mrs Sandow?” I checked quickly. She gave another nod and hurried from the room.

  As I waited, I paced around, looking at the photographs that hung on the walls and were propped up on the mantelpiece. Mr and Mrs Sandow were in most of them. A young lad grew up through them, and a little girl after that, the granddaughter no doubt.

  Nothing to do with the estate, I noticed. Nothing of Lord Hocking. There was one small picture, old and faded, of a young girl, several decades ago. She had the same round face as Lord Hocking, the same upturned nose. Rosemary, I believed. And there was one more picture, so close to the bookshelf that you wouldn’t really see it if you didn’t look. Three children, two quite young, but I recognised the oldest as Henry Hocking. The little ones beside him, Rupert and the yet unmet Rose.

  So, he had some connection then, or at least, enough of one to show an interest in his nieces and nephews. I wonder how he got the picture.

  “Inspector?” The door opened and Richard Sandow strolled in, shutting the door behind him. In-person, the resemblance to his brother was uncanny. Minus the red face and slightly rounded stomach, he looked just like his older brother. There was even something of him in Henry, I now realised. Strong genes in this family. He wore a pair of simple trousers and a jumper, his feet stuffed into slippers that shuffled over the carpet as he walked towards me, hands outstretched. I took it, finding it old and weak in grip.
>
  “Mr Sandow?”

  “In the flesh. Please.” He indicated an armchair, and I sat down as he lowered himself into the one opposite. “I would make an educated guess,” he began, “and presume that this is about the painting stolen from Hocking Estate?”

  “It is. How did you become aware of it?”

  “I saw it in the paper,” he said, busying himself by fishing out a handkerchief.

  “Have you spoken to Lord Hocking since it happened?”

  He looked back at me, almost pityingly, and shook his head. “Not much I can really do to help, is there?”

  “I disagree.”

  He looked at me for a moment, with the same unreadable sort of authority that his brother had and nodded. “Please go ahead.”

  “We believe that the theft is a personal attack on your brother, Mr Sandow. And that until the matter is resolved, he and his family might be in some small amount of danger.”

  His face didn’t change. “And that includes me?”

  “If the thief is aware of your existence, yes. I would like to know whatever they might know. I need to tick off every box, as it were.”

  He nodded for me to continue.

  “I understand,” I tried to keep my voice as diplomatic as I could, “that you and brother had some sort of altercation. And that you left the family home and took your father’s name.”

  “All true,” he confirmed.

  “According to a source we found,” I added, “it was due to a woman.”

  He laughed at that. “How simple that makes it all sound, eh?”

  “Would you be willing to tell me a little about what happened?”

  “Need to cross me off your list of suspects, do you?”

  “I do,” I confirmed easily, “but I’d like to know more about the painting itself, and why your brother is so fond of it.”

  Mr Sandow gave another nod, his gaze roaming to the window behind me, to the photograph by the bookshelf, and landed once more on my face, his expression solemn, but peaceful.