“Hello again, Rita. Sorry to bother you so much during one day, but we’ve been looking into the fake music box and its manufacturer, and we were wondering if anything else in the house might not be as genuine as it appears.”
It was quiet for a moment, and then she asked, “Do you mean the objects that Josephine found?”
“Potentially. We want to go back to the house with you and Harry and take a look around. We’ll need you to tell us which ones specifically Josephine found.”
Another pause, longer this time, and I could almost hear her hesitation. “Back to the house?” she asked, a waver in her voice.
“Sergeant Mills and I will be with you the entire time,” I assured her, “and we’ll bring another officer to keep a watch outside in case someone arrives.”
“Can you hang on one moment, Inspector?” she asked.
“Of course.” I heard her place the phone down on something, her feet echoing away. I sat and stared at the things on my desk as I waited, wiping some dust guiltily off my mother’s picture.
“Hi,” Rita breathed down the phone. “Freddie will drive me round and wait outside, if that’s okay.”
“Sounds very reasonable to me.”
“Now?” she asked. I looked over at Mills, who just put down the phone from Harry, and gave me a nod.
“As soon as you can get there,” I answered.
“Alright. See you, then.” Rita hung up the phone, and I rose from my desk, poking my head out from the office door, scanning the room.
“Smith!” Her head, bent over her computer, popped up, and she quickly jogged over. “Are you in the middle of something, or can I steal you?”
“Bit of paperwork to finish up,” she said, disgruntled. “Steal away.”
“Mills and I are heading back to Henbell House with Harry Cuthbert and Rita Jones. I wondered if you might along, keep a watch on the street for us in case anybody else shows up.”
Smith nodded. “Can do, sir. Do you want some radios?”
“Good idea,” I admired. “Go and fetch them. I’ll update Sharp.”
Sharp was on the phone when I approached her open door, but she clocked me hovering and waved me in. I sat down, feeling a tad awkward as she finished her conversation and hung up with an irritated sigh.
“Thatcher. How went the Dales?”
“Horace Dibbit definitely made the fake music box,” I told her. “Though he didn’t care to mention who he had made it for, nor of having knowledge of it being stolen.”
Sharp’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not surprised,” she huffed. “It’s not the sort of thing people go around projecting from rooftops.”
“No,” I agreed. “But we know that he made it, and it got myself and Mills wondering what other sort of fakes might have been placed in the house. Ones with equally identifiable marks.”
“By the manager?” Sharp asked, leaning forward curiously.
“Most likely.”
“That might unravel a few knots. What’s the plan?”
“Mills and I will go to the house with Rita and Harry, see what they can identify for us. Most likely, we’ll bring them back here, let Philips have a go and if need be, get in touch with Liene. Dr Dorland,” I amended quickly. Sharp’s brow rose, and a small smile curled around her mouth, but she made no mention of my slip.
“Good plan.”
“And I’ll take Smith,” I added. “Post her outside to keep a watch on the street.”
Sharp nodded. “No complaints from me, Thatcher. On your bike. But when you’re done there, you’re done for the day, got it? You need your rest, especially what with your head.”
“My head is fine.”
“You look like my son did when he got hit with a cricket ball.” I winced. “Go on.” She waved me away. “Find us a killer.”
I nodded and gave her a smile, going to fetch Mills, and we headed downstairs to where Smith awaited us, three radios in hand. We each clipped one to our shoulders and headed out, climbing into Mills’s car and peeling back the house yet again.
Harry was already there when we arrived, stood in the open doorway dressed in a long green coat that almost resembled a smoking jacket, his feet stuffed into a pair of beaten-up Dr Martens. He gave us a wave as we parked, and as we all filed from the car, a rickety old Beetle trundled up, Rita and Freddie inside. Freddie parked behind us, and Rita climbed out, still in her large jumper. Only the slippers were gone now, replaced by some Converse. Freddie leant over the roof of the car, nodding to me.
“I’ll wait out here, Rita.”
“Smith, this is Freddie Jones. Freddie, this is Constable Smith. She’ll be keeping an eye on the area,” I made the introductions, and Freddie nodded.
“I’ll keep out of your way, officer,” he said politely, looking at Rita once more before ducking back into the car he was twice the size of.
Rita walked up to the door, returning the smile that Harry gave her.
“Your brother?” he asked.
“The one and only,” she replied.
“How’s the arm?” Harry inquired thoughtfully.
“Been better,” Rita admitted. “Thank you, by the way, for last night.”
“No thanks necessary,” he hurriedly assured her. “None at all.”
Rita smiled a bit brighter and turned to look at me. “You want me to find the things that Josephine brought up from the cellar?”
“As many as you can remember. Harry too, anything that looks out of place, or that you don’t recognise.”
He gave a firm nod and waved an arm inside. “Let’s crack on, then, I suppose.”
We followed Rita inside, leaving Smith positioned like a hawk on the front step, and I handed everyone a pair of gloves.
“I can start upstairs,” Harry suggested. “It’s where we keep most of the family heirlooms.”
“I’ll stay down here with Rita. Mills?”
“I’ll take a look around, sir,” he told me, a drawn look on his face, and I nodded. Our killer got in and out of this house without being seen somehow. Hopefully, he’d figure it out.
As Harry traipsed upstairs and Mills wandered off through the library, I followed Rita into the parlour where she beelined for the mantlepiece and picked up a marble bust.
“She put this on display when I first started working here,” she told me, handing it over. It was lighter than I imagined it to be. Usually, marble was a bit of a trial to lug around. The bust was of a woman, her face heart-shaped, chin pointed, not unlike Rita’s. I held it in the light, looking over the smooth marble and turned it over to look at the bottom of the base. I couldn’t make out any marks, but Horace had been clever with the last one, so I walked back out the entrance and placed it on the desk, ready to take to the car. When I walked back into the parlour, Rita was looking over the bookshelf, running a gloved finger along the shelves.
“How often does Josephine find things?” I asked, startling her slightly.
“Not often. Sometimes she brings things up that have had to have restoration work,” she told me. “Other times, it’s completely different things. See this?” Rita picked up a small ornate box. “It’s a sewing box that belonged to Harry’s great-great-grandmother. Matches one seen in some paintings and photographs.”
She handed it to me, and I took it, happily surprised to find that it had a good weight to it, the metal coloured and worn by the years. I gave it back, watching her place it gently in its rightful place.
“I’ve only worked here three years,” Rita reminded me. “There might be stuff she brought up from before I joined.”
I nodded, having considered that. “Where did you work before?” I asked her, hoping that the small talk would help her relax.
“An art gallery. The one around the corner from Betty’s.”
I could picture her working in an art gallery, could picture her working in Betty’s itself all told.
“What inspired the change?”
“I always wanted to work in a place like this,” she told me. “O
r a National Trust place or something. Where you’re actually inside the history, it’s not all locked up behind glass.”
I nodded. “Will you stay on?” I, nor anyone, would blame her if she decided to look for another job elsewhere after all that had gone on here.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted hesitantly. “After everything that happened to Viv—”
“And to you,” I added.
“And to me. Sometimes I never want to walk back in but, it’s not the house's fault, you know? Someone had to look after it. But we’ll see,” she sighed, crossing the room. We surely would.
Rita pulled out a few more things for me to look at. A vase in the parlour with a bunch of flowers currently living inside and then in the library, one of the paintings on the wall and a small, ornate globe that lived on the desk. I couldn’t see a mark on any of them straight away, but I put each one on the desk, and Rita carried another out, an old-fashioned oil lamp. Harry came down the stairs as we were in there, a few things balanced in his arms and a deep frown on his face.
“I don’t recognise any of these,” he muttered deeply as Rita took some of the things from his arms. “Not from growing up, not from any old pictures. Not at all.” I took one from him as he and Rita balanced the rest on the desk and looked it over. It was an ornamental duck, silver and blue, and I turned it around in my hands, looking closely at the beautifully intricate details in the wings and feathers.
“That for one,” Harry pointed at it. “No Cuthbert would have an ornamental duck in their bedroom.”
“Does your family have some strange vendetta against ducks?” Rita asked him amusedly.
“We very well might, for all you know,” he replied. “It’s more the style of it than anything else.”
“Where was it?” Rita asked.
“The Green Bedroom.”
I was looking at the duck upside down, studying the flippers and then I saw it. Nestled on the underbelly of the duck, a few, faint marks. I ran my finger over them, just about able to feel the grooves, and I turned the desk light on, holding the duck underneath. Rita and Harry gathered around me, peering over. The same marks as before, Horace Dibbit’s marks.
“We’ll take these back to the station,” I told them. “and we have an expert in a museum working on this case with us. She’ll give them all a check for authenticity.”
“Which expert?” Harry asked, leaning on the desk close beside Rita.
“Dr Liene Dorland.”
“Dr Dorland?” he repeated, looking impressed.
“You’ve met?” I asked.
“No, but I know her by reputation. She’s one of the best in the city.”
“I’ll be sure to let her know,” I informed him, placing the duck on the table. I wandered over to the door, leaving Harry and Rita to tease each other quietly, sticking my head to look at Smith. She didn’t turn her head from the road, but she gave me a slight nod.
“You’d make a good Queen’s Guard,” I told her.
“Thank you, sir. If I ever apply for the job, I’ll ask you to write me a letter of recommendation.”
“I don’t think you can apply,” I told her, walking out to join her. “I think you’ve got to join the military.”
“Oh. Never mind then.” Smith’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “They have too many rules.”
“More than us?” I quipped.
“Plus, those hats,” she shuddered.
I laughed. “How are we looking out here?” I asked.
“We’ve had a few gaping nosy parkers who are still curious about the case, but I think I scared them off nicely,” Smith noted.
“Well done.”
“Otherwise, it’s been quiet. No dawdling cars, nobody walking past a weird number of times. So far, so good, sir.”
“Excellent.” I nodded. “We have a few things to take to the museum, and maybe the station when we’re done, so we’ll drop you off first.”
“I don’t mind tagging along, sir,” Smith told me. “Anything to put off that paperwork for a while longer.” She finally turned, looking at me with a slightly panicked look. “Please don’t tell the boss.”
“Sharp hates paperwork more than anyone I’ve ever met,” I told her with a laugh, which was unfair, since she had more paperwork than the rest of us combined. “Your secret’s safe with me, Smith.”
“Much obliged, sir.”
“I’ll leave you to it.” I clapped her on the shoulder and turned back to the door. “We shouldn’t be much longer.”
Smith nodded, turning her stony face back towards the main streets that looped around the house. Freddie was still sitting in his car, his legs bent up underneath him like a straw, feet propped on the dashboard as he flicked through a book, occasionally looking up and towards the street or the house. I gave him a nod when he met my gaze and then went back into the house.
“Mills?” I called into the radio.
“Just finished downstairs, sir. No unusual points of entry, no sign of a break, and there’s the CCTV out in the yard, anyway.” I heard the faint sound of the downstairs door shutting as I walked back into the house. Rita and Harry were looking over the things on the desk, comparing some of them to an old photo album.
“Pulled it out from the library,” Harry told me as I joined them, looking proudly over the leather-bound book. “Wondered if we might spot any, but then we considered that they might be copies.”
“Might be,” I confirmed with a grimace. Though what happened to the originals was another question altogether.
“Sir?” Mills’s voice came sharply through the radio.
“Go ahead,” I answered, turning from the other two slightly.
“The Morning Room, sir. I’ve got a broken window, glass all over the floor and what looks like some faint boot prints. And something else,” he added, his voice fading. “Looks like what was once a very nice woollen bag before the rain got to it. I think—” He broke off for a second, the radio crackling. “I think I’ve got our murder weapon, sir.”
Twenty-Six
Mills
This case bothered Thatcher. I knew it was. It bothered me too. It seemed to be an endless case of two steps forward and one step back, no closer to understanding how the music boxes ended up in Henbell House, or any of this, in any way, helps us find Viviane’s killer. The fear was that they were right under our nose, potentially in our very company as we entered the house.
Forensics hadn’t been able to pull up much after their look around here, but most of the rooms were shut up and locked. Our killer made it inside somehow, and that was a particular thorn in my side.
With Smith standing watch outside, Thatcher handed out some gloves to the rest of us, his grey eyes weary.
“I can start upstairs. It’s where we keep most of the family heirlooms,” Harry said, pulling his gloves on.
Thatcher gave him an approving nod. “I’ll stay down here with Rita,” he said in his gravelly voice. “Mills?”
I met his gaze and said, “I’ll take a look around, sir.”
He got my meaning and nodded, so I headed round through the Library towards the back of the house. Downstairs seemed the most obvious place to start, since we knew they had been there last night. Harry had gotten here before the rest of us, so the doors were kindly all unlocked, and I had no trouble heading down in the kitchen.
It was a nice room, but I could see how it would be eerie in the night-time. The fireplace, built into the wall, was huge, like a giant gaping mouth opening up to swallow something whole. The chimney was vast, and I ducked down to peer up it, the bricks within blackened in thick layers of soot. It rose all the way up, I knew, and I doubted our killer decided to pull a Victorian chimney sweep stunt.
I left the fireplace and walked around the rest of the room, looking at the dusty jelly moulds lining the cupboards, the faded cookbooks and lopsided chairs. A thin stream of light came in from the windows above my head, and I turned around, squinting up at them to get a proper look. The windows
were large, easily large enough for a person to get through, and they were level with the ground outside, dropping within down onto a counter. It’d be quite the task getting from all the way up there, down here, I thought. Especially quietly and without making a mess. And getting back up, an entirely new problem. Nothing seemed to be disturbed on the counters, the assortment of plates and bottles still sitting in a thin layer of dust, no strange marks or patterns in the dust.
I walked around the rest of the kitchen, poking my head into the little storage rooms and larders that led off from it, not finding any way in or out. Along the stone hallway running by the kitchen, there were a few oddly shaped rooms from the house’s bygone era of servants and butlers, and I methodically began searching them, stepping over the cellar door tentatively. Perhaps we should have another good look down there at some point.
The first door had a small wooden sign, identifying it as the Butler’s Room. Inside was a low, metal bed, a chest of drawers and a large desk, decorated with old leather ledgers and dried-up fountain pens. It looked almost ready to be opened to the public, but the sheets on the bed had little cartoon astronauts on them, and there was a plastic box of children’s toys tucked into one corner. The family must have left a few things behind when they moved. I shut the door to the room and moved onto the next, a long thin room lined with cubby holes, a great big, stained slab of wood down the middle. There were some old shoes hanging about, and a beautiful polish box sat beside some old rags stained with black and orange. Strange, that people used to have rooms specifically for having things polished.
Most of the rooms that came next were the same. Odd little time capsules with random modern-day objects left inside. I passed a laundry room with an old-fashioned pump, several rubber ducks hanging out in the bottom of the deep basin, and another office, the housekeepers this time, with a box of old VHS tapes left on the desk. None of them had any other doors, no way in or out and in all of them, a thin layer of dust hung about on the furniture, the floorboards and the carpets. No footprints or fingerprints, and they all shared the same musty old smell of an antique shop or second-hand bookstore.
DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crime Thrillers: Books 1-3 Page 71
