Gift Wrapped (7 page)

In northern France Antoine Chadid sat silently in the living room of his house and read and reread the letter he had received from his brother Jules that day, in which Jules outlined his travelling plans once his present contract of employment had come to its end. His mind turned unbidden to his boyhood and the summers spent with Jules concealed in their hide photographing birds with the camera and its telephoto lens. Sometimes in acts of impish behaviour they would also photograph human activity ... the two young lovers lying in the meadow ... the middle-aged couple arguing ... the drunken man being carried into a vehicle with UK number plates, and then driven away by two despairing women.

It was Wednesday, 22.10 hours.

Thursday, 1 June, 09.20 hours – 22.50 hours

In which James Wenlock's private life unfolds, a woman tells her tale and Carmen Pharoah is at home to the gracious reader.

G
eorge Hennessey leaned leisurely back in his chair and cupped his fleshly and slightly liver-spotted hands round the mug of hot tea which he was holding. ‘Just can't think without this lovely stuff,' he commented, lifting the tea to his lips and, finding it to be still too hot to drink, lowered it again. ‘So,' he said, ‘we can begin to assume that the identity of the person in the shallow grave at Gate Helmsley is that of James Wenlock. The DNA test will be a match, a positive identification. In my old copper's waters I can feel the certainty very strongly: the man's age, the similarity of the e-fit, the local nature of Mr Wenlock's address and his place of employment, the man's height ... everything so far dovetails neatly with the information given in the mis-per report, and so we have quite a mystery on our hands, a murder most foul to solve.'

‘It does seem so, sir.' Somerled Yellich held his own mug of tea in one hand and the opened case file in the other. ‘I've read Carmen's recording and she paints a clear picture of Mr Ordinary, an accountant, with a settled though apparently none too happy marriage by all accounts.'

‘By one account, Somerled, and only by one account.' Hennessey began to sip his mug of tea. ‘So far we only have Mrs Wenlock's view of her marriage.'

Somerled Yellich opened the palm of his hand in acknowledgement of Hennessey's point, and then continued, ‘He had two children, now up and away ... and he had an appropriate standard of living given his reported position in life, an accountant, no less. Was that the impression you two got?'

‘Yes, Sarge.' Carmen Pharoah sat upright in her chair. ‘Yes ... I ... we detected nothing at all that could be seen as suspicious, nothing untoward or out of place, just a widowed lady living alone with two black Labradors, which we didn't see, and she was intent on blaming herself for everything. I dare say it was better than blaming other people for everything but I thought that it did get a little tedious after a while. She was ... is, very self-absorbed, wouldn't you say, Reg? She is very “me, me, me” ... ?'

‘Yes, definitely.' Reginald Webster also clasped his mug of tea with both hands. ‘I would go along fully with that. Nothing to cause suspicion about the house and a woman who thinks it really is all about her but who is not suspicious in herself.'

‘Two adult children,' Hennessey commented. ‘Do we have any suspicions there? I mean to say that if we were to follow the book of rules we'd look at the in-laws before we'd look at the outlaws.'

‘Well ... sir,' Carmen Pharoah was first to respond, ‘Mrs Wenlock didn't hide the fact that the marriage was less than perfect, but she did say that the boys were closer to their father than they were to her and she claimed that they blamed her for his disappearance but, as you say, we have only her word for that. I would think that a visit to the two sons might be ... how shall I put it? Illuminating?'

‘Which is what I was thinking,' Hennessey replied softly. ‘Do we perchance know where each of her sons lives?'

‘No ... sorry, sir.' Pharoah looked embarrassed and glanced at Webster. ‘I'm sorry, we should have ...'

‘No matter,' Hennessey held up his hand, ‘a simple phone call to the good Mrs Wenlock will be sufficient to obtain their addresses. Can you do that please, Carmen? And then you and Reg can visit the sons. I want you two to stay teamed up on this one; you seem to be working well together.'

‘Yes, skipper,' Webster responded alertly.

‘So, an accountant,' Hennessey continued, ‘and those four postcards of Scarborough which started it all, that is a mystery within a mystery. Somebody wanted James Wenlock's body to be found, someone with a conscience perhaps? We might never know ... but anyway, the sender of the cards is of interest but not a priority.' Hennessey gulped his tea, then reached forward and lifted up the copy of the
Yellow Pages
which lay on his desk top and turned to ‘Accountants'. ‘Yes ...' he said, ‘here we are ... Russell Square, Chartered Accountants and with an address in Saint Leonard's Place, just where Mrs Wenlock said they'd be and just where any self-respecting firm of accountants would indeed locate themselves. So, Somerled ... a visit for you and Thompson to undertake.'

‘Yes, sir,' Yellich again replied promptly.

‘I can report,' Hennessey advised, ‘that the forensic science laboratory came back with a negative result in respect of the postcards; there were no latents at all and the postage stamps were of the modern self-adhesive type so no DNA could be obtained from any saliva, as would be the case if the stamps had been licked. The postcards themselves unfortunately did not have a barcode on the reverse, which might otherwise have helped us pin down a retail outlet. Some postcards do ... but these did not, so the sender was either lucky or he or she knew what they were doing when they selected the cards.' Hennessey paused. ‘Right ... so we all know what we are doing?'

‘Yes, skipper,' Somerled Yellich replied. ‘Understood.'

‘Yes, boss,' Webster echoed. ‘Clear as daylight.'

‘Good, and also remember it is essential that you let me or anyone else in the team know if you deviate from your assigned visits.' Hennessey leaned forward. ‘I must know – we must know – where each other is at all times.'

‘Understood.' Reginald Webster replied for the whole team. ‘That's also as clear as daylight.'

‘James Wenlock.' The man's face initially, briefly, beamed with pleasure and warmth then very quickly turned into a scowl. ‘Yes ... yes, he was employed here, he was one of the team ...' Clarence Bellingham had revealed himself to be a portly man when he'd received Somerled Yellich and Thompson Ventnor in his office. He had a full, round face and, Yellich thought, for an accountant, was somewhat flamboyantly dressed in a plum-coloured suit, a blue shirt and a loud yellow bow tie. His office walls were lined with leather-bound books, save for the fourth wall in which the door was set and which was reserved for the display of prints of famous paintings. Bellingham, Yellich noted as he recognized Vermeer's, Bruegel's, Frabritius's and de Hooch's work, clearly favoured the Dutch and Flemish schools. The man himself sat behind a heavy-looking, highly polished wooden desk. Ventnor and Yellich sat in leather armchairs in front of him. The carpet was deep-piled and dark brown in colour. The room smelled richly of furniture polish and the view from the widow overlooked St Leonard's Place and the theatre. ‘Yes, James, or “Jimmy”, but we at Russell Square frown on nicknames really. So, James Wenlock was with us for about ... how long? About ... yes, about fifteen years, I believe, and then he vanished. It was all very odd. A real mystery. He was a certified accountant, a lower status than a chartered accountant like me,' Bellingham added, a little smugly in Yellich's view. ‘I am a chartered accountant as are, of course, all the partners in Russell Square. The salaried staff are certified accountants but they do sterling work, really they are the backbone of our service.'

‘I see.' Somerled Yellich sat forward. ‘Would you say, Mr Bellingham, that so far as you can recall, James Wenlock was happy and content whilst he was employed at Russell Square?'

‘I would say so,' Bellingham replied cautiously. ‘He wasn't a management problem in any way, which is often the sign of a malcontent in employment. He was with us for quite a number of years, as I said. He qualified on the job rather than by attending university and obtaining his charter. All certified accountants do that, you see. They qualify by taking a series of professional body exams whilst working.'

‘He came up through tools, as it were?' Yellich asked.

‘Yes, you could say that ... he came up through the tools. Somerled,' Bellingham beamed, ‘S-o-r-e-l-y? That is an unusual name.'

‘Gaelic,' Yellich replied and told Bellingham the correct spelling of his name.

‘Yes ... I thought it must have been. I have a very distant relative with that name and I have never known how it was spelled, until now. So, it's S-o-m-e-r-l-e-d. How interesting. You know, as I child I would invent puns on his name such as, “he is sorely missed” and “my cousin sorely injured himself”, though I kept it all to myself. I sensed it would not go down very well with my straight-laced parents ... but it did amuse me. I'm sorry, I digress ...'

‘No matter, sir, no matter. So, can I ask, is there anything that you might think relevant to Mr Wenlock's disappearance and to his murder?'

‘His murder!' Bellingham paled. ‘He was murdered?'

‘Yes, I am sorry to say. The skeleton found at Gate Helmsley ... you may have heard about it in the news.'

‘That was James Wenlock?' Bellingham gasped. ‘I saw the news reports ... yes, I saw them ... my ... that was ... is James Wenlock?'

‘Yes, I'm afraid to say we are all but one hundred per cent certain, just awaiting the DNA test results as we speak, but everything points to the remains as being those of James Wenlock.' Yellich spoke solemnly. ‘We have notified his family. We are certain enough of the identity of the skeleton to do that.'

‘Well I never.' Bellingham glanced to his left and out of his office window towards the cream-coloured walls of the theatre, then turned to the officers. ‘This really is going to take some absorbing ... for all of us who remember him ... my heavens.'

‘So ...' Yellich pressed, ‘if you can, can you tell us what Mr Wenlock was like as an employee?'

‘He seemed to be conscientious, I would have said.' Bellingham looked at his desk top. ‘We certainly never had any form of complaint about him or his work, not that I can recall either from colleagues or clients. He seemed to be a good, steady worker.' Bellingham nodded. ‘Yes, I can say that – he was a good, steady worker.'

‘I see ... and as a person, as a personality, how did he impress?' Yellich asked.

‘Ah, well, as I said ... a reliable worker, no complaints there, but as a person ...' Bellingham paused, looked upwards and seemed to Yellich to consult the ornate plasterwork on the ceiling. ‘Well, I don't wish to speak ill of the dead and to be fair, I didn't know him well, but quite frankly and only so far as I recall, I always found him to be a little smug. Yes, I think I am prepared to say that, a little self-satisfied.'

‘Smug?' Yellich echoed.

‘Yes, I would think that is accurate,' Bellingham confirmed. ‘Self-satisfied, holding himself aloof; a little more deference to the senior partners would not have gone unnoticed and unappreciated. I think it is fair to say that his attitude could be described as one of “hubris”. He always struck me that he carried himself like the chartered accountant he wasn't, instead of carrying himself like the more lowly certified accountant he actually was. And ... and ... it might be relevant to your inquiry that he did seem to be very well off, financially speaking. He must have had private means over and above the salary we paid him ... but then most accountants do.'

‘Really?' Yellich raised his eyebrows. ‘What do you mean, sir?'

‘Oh, yes, you appreciate that our world is the world of finance. When an accountant is at lunch he is invariably also reading the stocks and shares pages in the newspaper and he or she will be almost guaranteed to have a nice little portfolio of gilt-edged securities plus a few pounds risked in recently floated companies. So it wasn't particularly strange that James Wenlock lived in the size of house he lived in and drove the sort of cars I recall he favoured ... top of the range Audis, for example. I merely assumed that he had made a few shrewd investments and I thought no more about it. Either that or he had got himself into the buy-to-let market and was renting out terraced properties near the railway station to university students. I confess that that is also a very nice source of income, very nice indeed.'

‘I see,' Yellich replied. ‘That might be worth our looking into, but Mr Wenlock never spoke of his investments?'

‘Not to me, but then he wouldn't have done so anyway. This is a large company,' Bellingham explained. ‘We have ten chartered accountants and thirty-five certified accountants, and there is little contact between the two. That's the way we like it ... but ... let me think for a moment. You know, you'd better ... or you'd be better, rather, talking to Nigel March. I always used to see them in each other's company.'

‘Nigel March?' Yellich repeated, as it committing the name to memory.

‘Yes ... March ... exactly the same spelling as the month, and also of the small market town of Cambridgeshire.' Bellingham smiled. ‘You know, I always thought that March is a kind of non-month; it is neither winter nor spring in March and you'll probably find Nigel March to be like that, a kind of non-personality, as if living up to his name. I have never found much to get hold of in terms of his character – not much there at all really. I have always thought that Nigel March is a bit like “me robot” – he has a perfunctory attitude to his work, so he does his job and holds his job down. He keeps his head above water ... you can't take that from the man ... but he's a bit pedantic ... quite perfunctory. He goes through the motions but doesn't give much of himself as he gets through his working day. But he'll be able to tell you more about James Wenlock than I probably can.'