Peter Turnbull - Aftermath

‘Yes, sir, I will. . you have my word.’

‘Thank you, George. Thank you.’

The man eyed Yellich with what seemed to Yellich to be an expression of approval and appreciation and also a degree of recognition of a kindred spirit. ‘You’re a hunter,’ he said.

Yellich smiled. ‘A hunter? Confess I have been called many things in my life but a hunter, that’s a new one. Why do you say that?’

‘It’s in your eyes. . looking, constantly looking. . left to right. . noticing but you stand still.’

Yellich pursed his lips. ‘I’ll be careful not to give myself away.’

‘You can’t hide it, not from someone that can recognize it.’

The man stood in his front garden, spade in hand. He was of a lean, sinewy build. He wore baggy gardening trousers and he had rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows. His head was shielded from the sun with a white wide-brimmed canvas cricketer’s hat. Beyond the man’s garden was a field of ripening wheat and beyond that a small stand of trees, and then began the undulating grass covered hills of the Yorkshire Wolds, all beneath a vast canopy of blue, scarred at that moment with the vapour trail of an airliner flying high over England from Continental Europe to North America, within which, thought Yellich, the passengers in the window seats would be looking down on a panorama of England. ‘So, they told you where to find me at the pub?’ He glanced questioningly at his watch.

‘The publican told me. He was outside the pub stacking empty beer kegs. I assured him that I was making inquiries re the dead bodies found at Bromyards and I only wanted information about poaching on the estate. I told him I wouldn’t be getting anybody charged. We’re looking for a felon, or felons, who murdered nine women; we are not bothered about a pheasant or two being taken, especially if we haven’t received a complaint from the landowner.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘The publican said that you hadn’t done it for a long time and you might have given up the game, but he said that you’d be the man to ask.’

‘Charlie? Yes, he’s good like that but I haven’t retired. . no poacher ever retires, just stop when they have to but they never decide to stop. If their health fails they’ll stop. . if they get gaoled they’ll stop. So, anyway, how can I help you?’

‘Well, it’s simply this, Dick,’ Yellich said. ‘You don’t mind if I call you Dick?’

‘No. . Dick is fine,’ Dick Fallon replied, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. Yellich thought that he also had hunter’s eyes, searching, searching and missing little. He drove the spade into the soil and rested one hand upon the handle.

‘We have spoken to a few people and they told us that the poachers on the Bromyards estate kept an eye on Mr Housecarl.’

‘Yes. . yes, that’s a fair thing to say. He was very good to the village. . he’ll be missed.’

‘So we understand. So, the question is, what difficulty would a man or men have in getting a body on to the estate, from the public highway right up to Bromyards and depositing it in the kitchen garden, and do that about once a year for about ten years?’

‘Ten bodies?’

‘Nine. .’

Dick Fallon glanced at the soil he had turned, creating neat lines of deep trenches in the ground, opening it in good time to let the first of the frost in, when autumn arrives. ‘That is a question because not a lot goes unseen here. Like all villages, you can walk for miles without seeing anybody, but you can put good money on the chance that someone will have their eyes on you at any one time.’ Fallon looked around him. ‘Bad weather would be a good time. . less game about in the winter; the trout pond will have frozen over. .’

‘Good point.’

‘But poachers set snares and will go and check on them all year round.’

‘Yes, but less so in the winter?’

‘Yes. . and a rainy, stormy night, that sort of weather keeps the game well down and the poachers well at home.’

‘That’s a good point. Weekends or weekday?’

‘Weekday. . too many of the village children exploring the grounds at weekends, especially in the summer, but they wouldn’t go near the house for fear of disturbing Mr Housecarl, they were very well warned about that.’

‘I see,’ Yellich nodded, ‘that is another good point.’

‘He or they wouldn’t go near the estate in the snow.’

‘You think not?’

‘I think not. They’d leave tracks and there’d be the danger of getting stuck in a snow drift. The drive is a mile long and not kept clear of snow.’

‘Again. . useful.’ Yellich’s eye was caught by a yellowhammer which alighted a nearby fence post, one of a number of black pitch pointed staves which separated Dick Fallon’s garden from the adjacent field. He had not seen an example of that species in many, many years and the sight of a relatively rare bird uplifted his spirits.

‘You know, if I were up to no good I’d go on the estate in the forenoon come to think of it.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, poachers don’t like staying out all night; they like to go to bed. . some have jobs to go to. If they don’t, they’ll sleep late. So about seven, eight, nine a.m. that would be a good time to drive on to the estate with headlights off and dump a body in the kitchen garden and drive away again, and if the rain was really siling down and the wind was blowing it sideways then, that would be a very good time to do it with little risk of being seen, and if you didn’t drive through the village, if you approached from the south and left by the south, you wouldn’t have to go through Milking Nook.’

‘This has been very useful.’

‘I’ll put the word round the village. If anyone knows anything, they’ll contact you.’

‘A tall, well-built man was seen, a “townie”. Could be unconnected but we’d like to trace him, though it was about ten years ago that he was seen on the estate. .’

Fallon smiled a wry knowing smile, ‘About when it all started, like he was checking the place out? I’ll say you want to talk to him. . but, yes. . tall, well-built townie. I’ll put the word out for you about him as well, though it’s probably out already if you’ve talked to other villagers, but I’ll mention it this lunchtime. I take lunch at the pub you see.’

Crestfallen. It was the only word Ventnor could think of to describe David Prebble. He seemed utterly crestfallen. ‘I did wonder, you couldn’t help but wonder.’ Prebble looked down at the ground and seemed unable to take his gaze anywhere else. Ventnor saw him as a short, sturdy man with receding grey hair and who was casually dressed in khaki shorts, leather sandals and a white tee shirt with, somewhat incongruously, Ventnor thought, ‘Hawaii’ emblazoned upon it in eye-catching blue. He seemed to Ventnor to dress like Ventnor did when off duty, sleepily grabbing the first clean item of clothing which came to hand each morning and caring nothing about the image he presented. ‘You’d better come in, sir.’ He stepped aside to allow Ventnor to enter his house. Ventnor found the interior of Prebble’s house to be untidy and poorly ventilated and as such, having a musty smell. Ventnor counted three flies buzzing against the window pane and saw a further two contentedly walking across the glass. ‘See me,’ Prebble smiled meekly, ‘I’m just not the best housekeeper in the world.’ He spoke with a distinct Scottish accent of the Western Isles, softer than the harsh sounding accent of Scotland’s Central Belt. ‘I let things go a wee bit after Angela disappeared and,’ he indicated the room, ‘this is tidy, sir. I mean, I keep things clean, as clean as I can, but I let things lie where I drop them. I know where everything is though. I mean, see that pile of clothes there?’ Prebble pointed to a collection of outer garments which occupied an armchair. ‘In that lot, about halfway down is a pair of binoculars. I haven’t used them since spring time two years ago when I took them to the Dales to look for the peregrine falcon that was reported to be there, and they’ll stay there until I need them again. My wallet’s in my other pair of shorts. This is how I live but our Angie, she couldn’t bear anything out of place. Fussy she was and I did wonder if she was one of the women that had been found. Milking Nook. . what a name for a village, eh?’