Aftermath by Peter Turnbull Read Free Book Online Page A

to, I’m sure, and she should still be with us. She’ll be in her sixties now, but today that’s no age at all.’
    â€˜Do you know if Mr Housecarl had any visitors?’
    â€˜The meal delivery service . . . the district nurse . . . myself. There was an arrangement whereby the rear door was kept open to allow us access . . . by open I mean unlocked.’
    â€˜Risky.’
    â€˜Not without its risks, I concede, but it was not as though it was an unsecured door on a “sink estate” or on a house in a fashionable suburb. A felon wouldn’t stumble across Bromyards; he’d have to know it was there.’
    Webster smiled warmly, ‘That’s a good point, sir, very pertinent indeed. I’ll pass that up to my boss.’ He stood, ‘Well, thank you, this has indeed been useful. So we can rule out Mr Housecarl as being a part of this.’
    â€˜Yes, I think you can. And it means that I can go to his funeral. I don’t attend the funerals of all my patients but I want to attend this, although there won’t be many there.’
    â€˜Where is it and when?’
    â€˜I don’t know, I’ll have to find that out. The funeral director is Canverrie and Son of York.’
    Webster scribbled the name on his notepad.
    It was Thursday, 12.17 p.m.
    George Hennessey relaxed in his chair and read, and then re-read, the report which had been faxed to him from Dr D’Acre for his urgent attention. He read that, as Dr D’Acre had anticipated, she had not, she regretted, been able to establish the cause of death in any of the five corpses which had been found in the kitchen garden at Bromyards. Though she hoped her findings could help in identifying the victims. Each, she was able to confirm, was female. Each was an adult, although the age at death appeared to be varied, all had some degree of dental work, and all said dental work appeared to be British in nature. They were not foreign women. All were northern European in respect of their ethnicity. No personal artefacts were found on the skeletons, no rings or watches or bracelets, nor were there any evidence of clothing found, no zip fasteners or plastic buttons, for example. The latest victim had in life been a tall, young woman (her skull had not properly knitted together, thus placing her age at less than twenty-five years) probably standing about five foot eleven, or even six foot, in life. By contrast, the other four skeletons were all significantly shorter, none taller than five feet five inches when alive. Dr D’Acre’s report concluded with an apology for not being more helpful.
    â€˜Still very helpful though,’ he murmured as he placed the report in the thickening folder, as yet marked only as ‘Bromyards – 10/6’ and then glanced up in response to a gentle tap on the door frame of his office. Carmen Pharoah stood in the doorway, looking pleased with herself, Hennessey observed. He also saw that she held a manila folder in her right hand.
    â€˜DC Pharoah,’ Hennessey greeted her warmly, ‘do come in and take a pew.’
    Carmen Pharoah walked silently on rubber-soled shoes into Hennessey’s office and sat with a natural grace of movement on one of the upright chairs in front of Hennessey’s desk. She glanced hurriedly out of the small window of Hennessey’s office at the medieval walls of York, then bathed in sunshine and crowded with brightly dressed tourists. She turned to Hennessey. ‘We might have a match to the deceased, sir. Well, one of them, I should say.’
    â€˜Oh? I am impressed.’
    â€˜Yes, sir.’ She opened the folder she carried.
    Hennessey held up a fleshy hand, ‘Just tell me the gist.’
    â€˜Well, sir, I read the preliminary findings in the file . . . and I thought . . . not many six-foot tall women in York . . . and the age, twenty-five years or