The Altered Case (10 page)

‘Really!' Carmen Pharoah gasped. ‘I mean, was the car really left like that?'

‘Yes, really.' Adrian Clough raised his eyebrows. ‘Really, really left like that.'

‘Suggesting what?' Carmen Pharoah asked. ‘What is in your mind, Adrian?'

‘Well, in my mind . . .' Adrian Clough seemed pleased his opinion was sought. ‘Suggesting the possibility that leaving the window open would destroy any fingerprints that might have been left by a felon or felons that had not been wiped. It's an old dodge, as you will likely know, exposure to the atmosphere, the moving air, will cause latents to degrade much more rapidly than those in enclosed spaces.'

‘Yes.' Carmen Pharoah smiled. ‘An old dodge, as you say.'

‘But quite frankly,' Adrian Clough continued, ‘I think the more likely explanation was that the Mercedes Benz was left like that so as to be an open invitation to car thieves, in the hope that joyriders might come across it and take it for a spin and then set fire to it, that would really cover the tracks of any felon.'

‘Yes.' Carmen Pharoah nodded in agreement. ‘It certainly would, especially if it was torched, as you say.'

‘If not joyriders then car thieves, it was an open invitation to one or the other. You could have sold that car in the Arab market or the Russian market with no questions asked, that would get it well out of the reach of the British police.'

‘Certainly would.' Carmen Pharoah put her empty teacup down on the hearth tiles. ‘That was a lovely cup of tea, just what I needed. I can understand that reasoning.'

‘And Leeman Road car park was a good place to leave a car if you wanted it stolen,' Adrian Clough added. ‘A gang or separate groups of car thieves were active in central York at the time.'

‘Thus implying local knowledge?' Carmen Pharoah suggested.

‘Possibly,' Adrian Clough agreed, ‘but only possibly. May just be coincidental, but in the event we were lucky because we acquired it before it could be stolen. We phoned the address of the owners and a maid answered.'

‘A maid?'

‘Yes . . . so further indicating that the Parrs were monied. She told us the family had gone to York for a few days. It was just about then that the hotel phoned us to say a family had done a moonlight, giving the name of the family. So we linked that to the abandoned Mercedes and then Mrs Parr's brother phoned.'

‘Mr Verity?'

‘Yes, so we opened the missing person report and appealed to the media. A missing family . . . quite a splash it made, as I said, but we heard not a whisper. We heard not a dicky bird, until now.' Adrian Clough sighed. ‘I'm glad I lived to see this development.'

‘And now with an extra body thrown into the mix,' Carmen Pharoah added.

‘Yes.' Clough raised his eyebrows. ‘As you say, Carmen, with an extra body thrown into the mix.'

Taking her leave of Mr Clough with no small measure of thanks, Carmen Pharoah walked away from his house feeling a most profound sense of humility, combined with a great sense of privilege that she had met the gentleman, and she felt pleasure in having made a small contribution to his life as it was drawing to its close.

‘Thirty years.' The man grinned. ‘Seriously? In excess of a quarter of a century?'

‘It's a bit of a long shot,' Hennessey replied, sharing the man's humour, ‘but I've shot longer shots in my time, and, yes, I am afraid that we are serious, very serious.'

‘And long shots have paid off before,' Yellich added, ‘in fact they have paid off most handsomely. Frankly, the thought of letting an investigation grind to a halt for the sake of turning over a stone is . . . well . . . shall I say, it is a thought which provides me with no comfort.'

‘Nor me,' Hennessey echoed. ‘I don't have the fortitude to withstand such guilt and despair.'

‘That I can well understand, very well understand,' the man replied, ‘and in fact I might indeed be able to help you, gentlemen. Do please take a pew.' John Bateman by the nameplate on his desktop, of Marshall and Evans Plant Hire Co. Ltd, was a tall, thin man whom, both officers noted, was immaculately dressed, though not wholly to the taste of either Hennessey or Yellich. The plum coloured suit, the yellow tie, the small, almost ladylike watch he wore, it was a dress sense which did not appeal to the officers. The man, the officers also noted, had only one arm. The left arm seemed to have been lost just above the elbow, and the left sleeve of his jacket was hitched up to the shoulder and held in place with a large safety pin. He tapped his left arm as he saw the officers, noting the image he presented. ‘They offered me a prosthetic arm but I declined, I mean, everyone can tell it's plastic. I have the same attitude to false teeth. If they had any medical value I would wear them, but they are just cosmetic. If I had lost my leg I would have used a crutch. I just have no time at all for cosmetics, no time at all.'

‘I confess I have the same attitude.' George Hennessey adjusted his position in the chair in front of Bateman's desk, which had looked soft but in the event had proved itself to be surprisingly hard. To his right he observed Yellich, who sat in an identical chair, making the selfsame discovery.

‘Yes, I believe that I must have inherited that attitude from an elderly relative of mine. He left one of his legs behind him during the retreat to Dunkirk and I have early memories of him powering along the pavement with a crutch under each arm and me running behind him trying to keep up with him. He just seemed to carry all before him, and he once told me that he walked much more powerfully with two bits of wood under each arm than he had ever done with two good legs. He drank like a fish and he had a wild temper, and if he got into a fight he'd sort out the whole pub with his crutches, or so I was told in later years. I never really knew him. He died when I was still very young but his legend lived on after him, it still does in fact. Folk in our village still talk about him. I lost my arm in a motorcycle accident, nothing so heroic or patriotic in my tale of woe.'

‘I'm sorry,' Hennessey replied, as a pain stabbed at his emotions.

‘Well, the old “put it into context number”, I suppose. I was the pillion, the driver lost his life. My Great Uncle Benjamin Bateman lived without a leg for seventy of his ninety-three years. I dare say I can live without half of one arm, and, like I said, at least I am still here . . . and my friend is in his family plot. You must put these things in context and just knuckle down and get on with life.'

‘Is the correct attitude.' Hennessey rested his hat on his knee. ‘Quite the correct attitude.'

‘Your long shot may just pay off, gentlemen; it just might well pay off. This modest little company keeps all of its records for the five years required by the Inland Revenue and we continue to keep them out of interest, thus forming a company archive, although it is not a complete historical record. There are some gaps, I have to warn you of that. Some have been lost, inexplicably vanished, and we once sacked an employee for gross inefficiency together with an offhand and abusive attitude towards customers. So she walked out and when she had gone we found out that she had removed a few old ledgers with her, just out of spite. We wondered what was in the large shopping bag she carried. She took them because she knew how much we valued them. She probably burned them. Other ledgers were thrown out by an over zealous employee who was just “making room”, she said, for more recent documents. Either way, ledgers have been lost . . . taken, thrown away or just vanished as if we have a poltergeist on the premises.' Bateman paused and held eye contact with Hennessey and Yellich, ‘So all I can do is check . . . September, thirty years ago . . . I'll see what I can find.'

‘If you'll be so good.' Hennessey inclined his head.

Bateman stood. ‘I'll go a few years either side, see what I can find.' He walked out of his office.

Hennessey and Yellich relaxed in their chairs as best they could. They both read a neatly kept office which spoke of efficiency. A large green vase of flowers on Bateman's desk softened the room, as did a colour photograph of the Yorkshire Dales landscape in high summer in a wooden frame which hung on the wall behind his desk. Framed photographs of yellow and green painted earth-moving machines of various sizes hung on the walls of cream-painted plaster. The room smelled powerfully of air freshener, despite an open window, which looked out on to the main street of Catton Hill village. Within ten minutes Bateman returned carrying six slender ledgers, still glistening from evidently being wiped with a damp cloth.

‘They were very dusty, as you might expect, so I wiped them down.' Bateman handed three of the ledgers to Hennessey and three to Yellich.

Hennessey took hold of the ledgers he was given. ‘Thank you, appreciated.'

‘Just the covers,' Bateman added, ‘the pages might be a bit dusty still.'

‘We'll cope with that.' Hennessey opened the topmost of the ledgers at random and saw entries in neat, copperplate letters and numerals. He thought it to be very Victorian in appearance and commented upon it.

‘Yes.' Bateman resumed his seat behind his desk. ‘I dare say you could say that, Victorian . . . quite appropriate. I think we must have been the last plant hire company to introduce new technology and the last to computerize our records. My father didn't like the new machines, as he called them. He was very conservative by nature and he didn't trust what he couldn't understand.'

‘Your father?' Hennessey queried.

‘Yes, my father. Why, is that a problem for you, sir?'

‘No . . . no.' Hennessey shook his head. ‘It's just your nameplate, Mr Bateman; I assumed that you were an employee of Marshall and Evans.'

‘Oh no.' Bateman grinned. ‘It does confuse people at times but you see Messrs Marshall and Evans retired and my father bought the business, and as part of the sale he was allowed to keep trading under the good name of the company. It is quite a standard business practice. So we then continued to trade as Marshall and Evans and they sold the company for more than it was actually worth on paper; the good name counted for something, you see. You can sell a good name.'

‘I see.' Hennessey thumbed through the ledger. ‘Beautiful handwriting.'

‘Indeed . . . we have had our lean years. I mean, which company hasn't? But unlike the majority of plant hire companies we are not tied solely to the building trade. Our customers include farmers and the agricultural industry as a whole. The building of houses might come to a stop from time to time as the national economy rises and falls but there's always wheat to be harvested, potatoes to be scooped up in huge quantities and loaded into the back of huge bulk-carrying lorries, you'll have doubtless seen the like . . . and there's always ditches to be cleared. All used to be done manually, but nowadays it's all done by machine, most of which are hired for the purpose.'

‘I see,' Hennessey said again. ‘That's interesting.'

‘So,' Bateman continued, ‘it is because of our agricultural clients, and only because of them, that we have kept afloat in the inevitable lean times.'

‘You are indeed fortunate.' Yellich also leafed through the ledgers.

‘Yes, we are.' Bateman nodded. ‘And we are not unappreciative. We have a wide client base and farming has meant that this is a stable local economy. It takes a lot to bring agriculture to a standstill.'

‘Dare say that's true.'

Bateman leaned back in his chair. ‘So . . . if you would like to examine the ledgers at your leisure, gentlemen, I can let you have a small office. It has a small desk and a lovely view of our backyard,' he added with a grin.

Hennessey and Yellich gratefully accepted the offer of the small office and settled down to leaf through the ledgers while fortified by cups of tea provided by the smiling receptionist. Looking at the entries for September of the year in question, one entry caught Yellich's eye and he drew Hennessey's attention to it. It was a very significant entry because it was the only entry to record that the hire had been paid for in hard cash. All the other entries read either ‘cheque', ‘credit card', or ‘charge to account'. Laying the other ledgers to one side Hennessey and Yellich carried that particular book to Bateman's office. Upon tapping on the door they were warmly invited to enter.

‘Can you tell me anything about this entry here, Mr Bateman?' Hennessey rotated the ledger and laid it on Bateman's desk. He indicated the relevant entry.

‘Cash,' Bateman read, ‘that is quite unusual, pretty well unique in fact.'

Hennessey stood upright. ‘That is why we are interested in it, from a police officer's point of view.'

‘Can't be traced.' Bateman glanced up at Hennessey and Yellich. ‘Is that the reason for your interest?'

‘Yes,' Hennessey replied, ‘yes, it is. All other forms of payment leave a paper trail but hard cash . . . hard cash . . . the good old folding brown and blue, especially if used and untraceable, has always been a favoured method of doing business in the criminal fraternity.'

‘So I believe . . . so I believe.' Bateman looked at the ledger. ‘So what does the entry tell us? Well, the first thing it tells us is that it dates from the time before we took over the business, just by a couple of years, so we won't be able to tell you anything about it other than what is in the ledger. The handling agent is given as “E.E.”, that would be Edward Evans, of Evans and Marshall. He is still with us.'

‘Still alive?'

‘Yes, very much so. The plant in question, a Bobcat 322 . . . it's a mini digger, the smallest design of digger there is.'

‘I think I know the type,' Yellich observed.

‘Yes.' Bateman glanced at Yellich. ‘Small, green-painted machines. They are very popular with gangs who dig up the pavements or the roads to access gas and/or water mains. The operator often looks to be quite cramped in the cab but they really are a very handy bit of kit, they have a long “reach”, as we say, they can get a long way down into the ground. They are designed for digging long, narrow trenches rather than excavating holes or large, deep foundations, and we often hire them to farmers who use them to clear their ditches. They also have a small shovel under the cab at the front, and so can be used like a very small bulldozer.'