A Dreadful Past

Contents

Cover

Recent Titles by Peter Turnbull from Severn House

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Epilogue

The Hennessey and Yellich Series

ONCE A BIKER

NO STONE UNTURNED

TURNING POINT

INFORMED CONSENT

DELIVER US FROM EVIL

AFTERMATH

THE ALTERED CASE

GIFT WRAPPED

A DREADFUL PAST

The Harry Vicary Series

IMPROVING THE SILENCE

DEEP COVER

THE GARDEN PARTY

DENIAL OF MURDER

IN VINO VERITAS

 

 

 

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First published in Great Britain and the USA 2016 by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

This eBook edition first published in 2016 by Severn House Digital

an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

Trade paperback edition first published

in Great Britain and the USA 2016 by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD

Copyright © 2016 by Peter Turnbull.

The right of Peter Turnbull to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8635-4 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-740-1 (trade paper)

ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-804-9 (e-book)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

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In which a man is arrested and Detective Chief Inspector George Hennessey is at home to the gracious reader.

A
rresting.

It was the only word which the man could think of, both then and later, to describe the effect of the sudden visual impact he experienced. He felt himself arrested. It was an arresting moment. An observer would see him as being tall and distinguished in appearance. The man was clean-shaven with short, neatly kept silver – but not grey – hair, and had been strolling quite calmly and contentedly along narrow Stonegate towards York Minster one late afternoon near the end of spring, midweek, when he paused outside a small antiques shop and began to cast his eye with nothing more than idle curiosity over the items on display in the curved, multi-paned window. As the man glanced at the antiques on display his mind was suddenly cast back a few years in time and to another city, and indeed to another country, when he had entered a similar shop in order to spend a modest inheritance. He had once – sensibly, he had always thought – been exhorted to ‘earn your beer money but use your inheritance, or spend it wisely'. The small inheritance in question, being just a few hundred pounds, had been bequeathed to him by an elderly distant relative, and so he had felt it appropriate to use it to buy something antique and had further decided upon buying an antique clock. The man had on that day settled into a pleasant conversation with the antiquarian and they spoke together at length about ancient timepieces, during which discussion the antiques dealer had produced a gold gentleman's pocket watch and chain from a purple velvet bag which, he informed the man, dated to the early or mid-eighteenth century. The man was permitted to hold it for a brief period and had then returned it to the antiques dealer, declaring it to be probably the oldest man-made object he had held though perhaps not seen. He had then purchased a late-Victorian mantelpiece clock which, over the years, had kept tolerably accurate time, chimed pleasantly nearly upon the hour and had come to occupy a permanent place on a shelf in his study, surrounded by his books. The clock was, he had always believed, a suitably appropriate use of the modest but very thoughtful inheritance, and he had thus followed the sensible advice he had once been given.

On that late afternoon in the early May of the year, when the man stopped at the antiques shop in a street in the medieval centre of the city of York and glanced with idle curiosity at the items on display, his gaze came to fall upon a vase, and as it did so he felt a chill run down his spine. His forehead and his scalp seemed to contract and he felt a sudden hollowness in his chest as he was transfixed, completely arrested by the sudden and wholly unexpected sight of the item.

The man felt unsteady on his feet as he struggled to collect himself. He made a slight gasping sound and then eventually recovered, though not before he felt his heart miss a beat. There was, he realized, no doubt about it. Not the slightest doubt at all. It was
the
vase. The vase which had been, and still was, unique. There was no other.

He entered the shop, causing the black-painted door to push against a spring-loaded bell which made a loud jingling sound as he opened it, and found, despite his growing sense of urgency, time to reflect on how appropriate such a Victorian device was for an antiques shop. The man discovered the interior of the shop to be equally appropriate and it was, he thought, quite like stepping back in time. The interior was dimly lit, with only the natural light from the narrow street illuminating the shop. It had a musty but calm atmosphere – quite settled, the man reflected – with the only sound being the measured steady tick from an unseen clock. The man stood still and patiently until the antiquary came bumbling unhurriedly from the back room of the shop and stood facing his prospective customer, there being no counter as such, just a small floor space amid a collection of items of varying size, shape and age, but all clearly antique, there being nothing that the man could see or date as being later than 1900 A.D. The man thought the antiques dealer to be something of an antique himself. He was short and balding, with round-rimmed spectacles which seemed to be perched on the end of his nose, and he appeared to be approaching, if not beyond, state retirement age. The antiques dealer wore a loose-fitting grey woollen cardigan, brown corduroy trousers and heavy-looking black shoes. A little unkindly perhaps, the man thought that the image the antiquary presented made him think of an illustration he had once seen of Mr Mole in
The Wind in the Willows
. It had been in a copy of the book he had once been given, by a doting maiden aunt, for a birthday gift, given to him, in fact, by the self-same elderly relative who, in the fullness of time, had left him a modest amount of money which he had used to buy a mantelpiece clock and had put gratefully and reverently in his study among his books.

‘The vase in the window …' the man began. He had a soft speaking voice. ‘May I have a look at it, please? It is the one on the very left side of the window display as viewed from the pavement.'

‘Yes, yes,' the bumbling antiquary replied, revealing a pronounced sibilant manner of speaking, ‘the Wedgwood? Yes … yes.' He turned slowly and shuffled to the edge of the window. He took the vase gently in both hands, turned back and carefully handed it to his customer. ‘Quite a rare piece – a very rare piece, in fact,' he hissed. ‘As you can see, it is a dark blue Wedgwood Jasperware fumigating ribbon pot vase, made in the 1860s for Piesse and Lubin of London,' he explained, pronouncing ‘a' as ‘ha' and ‘as' as ‘has'.

‘Fumigating?' The man smiled his question and glanced at the antiques dealer. ‘What does that mean in this context?'

‘Ah, yes … you see, sir, it was designed to hold flowers to scent a room in order to smother an unpleasant odour arising from illness or poor sanitation perhaps, rather than a vase to be used to display flowers for the purpose of decoration.' The antiquary continued to hiss his words, pronouncing ‘order' as ‘h-order' and ‘unpleasant' as ‘hunpleasant'.

‘I see; thank you.' The man turned the vase slowly in his hands, examining it in an almost loving manner.

‘It is of reduced value, sadly,' the antiquary explained. ‘It has clearly been broken into a few pieces at some point in its life and has been glued back together, really most painstakingly so. It was evidently most valued by its owner at the time. Other people would have probably thrown the pieces away but the owner clearly thought much of the vase and glued the pieces back together as best as he or she could. It would have taken a lot of time and patience.'

‘Yes …' The man nodded gently. ‘Yes … yes.'

‘The substance of the vase has been glued back together, but as you can see, some of the trimming is missing here and there. You see the bowl mounted on a tripod, which is being entwined by a snake' – the antiquary pronounced ‘entwined' as ‘hentwined' – ‘and part of the snake's body is missing, and there is a darker area beside the tripod, you see … Well, a figure – a human figure – would have been positioned just there but it has sadly gone, most very probably lost in the accident.' The antiquary paused and took a deep breath. ‘The rarity of the piece makes it acceptable on the antique market. Anything less rare with that degree of damage would not be at all acceptable. As it is the vase is worth about one quarter of what it would be worth if it was in pristine condition. If the good gentleman is interested in acquiring the piece, I would willingly and happily sell it for two hundred pounds. I could not go lower. Two hundred pounds is fair and reasonable.'

The man upturned the vase and examined the base. He noticed the initials C.M. had been deeply inscribed thereon.

‘Yes, that really was so very naughty of someone,' the antiquary commented, pronouncing ‘naughty' as ‘h-naughty'. ‘Whoever C.M. was he was very naughty to do that. It took much value from the vase even if it had not been damaged in the way it was damaged.'

‘So … two hundred pounds?' the man confirmed.

‘Yes, sir,' the antiquary hissed, ‘that is, as I said, quite fair and quite reasonable. “A false balance is an abhorrence to the Lord but a just weight is his delight,” as the Book of Proverbs says. I am permitted to make a profit but I do not cheat my customers; I cheat neither those from whom I purchase, nor do I cheat those to whom I sell.'

‘Good for you.' The man smiled. ‘Credit card all right?'

The antiques dealer gave the man a pained look. He clearly, like the goods he sold, belonged to an earlier era.

‘I see … I see.' The man handed the vase back to the antiques dealer. ‘I'll go and find a cash machine in that case. But I really must have this vase. Could you put it on one side for me?'

‘Delighted, sir, most, most delighted.' The antiques dealer turned and placed the vase on the shelf behind him. ‘I will keep it out of the window for a full twenty-four hours – perhaps longer if the gentleman so wishes?'

‘Oh, heavens,' the man smiled broadly and warmly, I'll be back within thirty minutes. ‘Just keep it there … where it is … but I must have that vase, I really must have it.'