A Dreadful Past (10 page)

‘He sounded to have been very courageous,' Yellich offered. ‘I would like to think that I would be able to do that, in such circumstances. I fear I am too cowardly. But the Middletons …'

‘Yes, as I said, you didn't come to hear about me nor my family nor about my late husband.' Mrs Rutherford sighed. ‘Yes, the Middletons. In fact, you can see their house from my bedroom. It used to be a small farm owned by a grumpy old man and his grumpy old wife, the Thackerys. It was a small farm but he owned it. He owned it outright. He sold it to see him and his wife out in their retirement. The Middletons bought it and made a neat garden round the house but let the bulk of the land grow wild. I dare say the wildlife liked him a lot for that but folk round here thought that it was a bit of an eyesore. He was a lawyer, you see. He had the money to do that. I mean, money to buy a working farm and then not work the land – it takes money to do that.'

‘Did the Middletons have many visitors?' Yellich asked. ‘Would you say that they were a particularly sociable family?'

‘Well …' Mrs Rutherford glanced to her left then turned to Yellich again. ‘As you can see we were not close neighbours – not close in the sense that it was not as though we lived in adjacent terrace houses in a narrow street like the housing you see in the centre of York – but I do think they were quite socially isolated. I don't think that they were particularly unhappy to be like that – they didn't shut the world out, you understand, but equally the world didn't beat a path to their door. I do know that Mrs Middleton had a cleaner who came to “do” for her once a week. In fact, Mrs Middleton often used to come here when the cleaner was there so as to get out of the woman's way.'

‘Yes, it was the cleaner who found the bodies,' Yellich replied. ‘So we understand.'

‘Yes … yes, it was.' Mrs Rutherford took a deep breath. ‘It was apparently quite a shock for the poor woman. You know, Mrs Middleton used to complain to me quite a lot about the cleaner. They knew the wretched woman was overcharging them, you see.'

‘Why did they keep her on,' Yellich sat back in his chair, ‘if that was the case?'

‘Because of the unlikelihood of finding another cleaner who would come out here into the sticks and because she was a thorough cleaner. And, apart from overcharging them, she was an honest woman in her own way. She wasn't light-fingered as some cleaners are wont to be. She was very trustworthy in that respect.'

‘That's interesting,' Yellich replied, ‘quite interesting.'

‘Yes,' Mrs Rutherford continued. ‘I met her once or twice – the cleaning woman, I mean – when I called on the Middletons, as I did infrequently, and I saw why Mrs Middleton used to want to get out of her way when she was there. She seemed to have a chip on her shoulder about being working class and underprivileged, but despite that she stayed with the Middletons for years.' Mrs Rutherford took a deep breath. ‘I remember on one occasion I was in their living room talking to Mrs Middleton when this short and slightly built woman came in wearing a blue smock and started dusting. She moved with great speed – she had very rapid, darting movements. It was as if a whirlwind had entered the room and it seemed that no sooner had she entered it than she had gone again and left a clean and tidy room behind her. Mrs Middleton did once tell me that her cleaner's son had got into trouble with the police and she asked Mrs Middleton if she, that is, the cleaner, could ask Mr Middleton for advice, he being a lawyer. Mrs Middleton apparently told the cleaner that far from asking Mr Middleton for advice, she had better not even mention that her son had a police record because he would probably dismiss her. It would make things difficult for him in his capacity as a lawyer if he were employing a cleaner whose son was a criminal.' Mrs Rutherford paused. ‘You know, I thought at the time that that was quite a strange thing for a wife to do – I mean, keep her husband in the dark about something like that, especially something which could cause him considerable harm, professionally speaking. It wasn't the actions of a dutiful and supportive wife. Not in my view anyway. I certainly would not have kept Freddie in the dark about something like that. Not me … not my Freddie. There were no secrets at all in our marriage.'

‘Yes … yes,' Yellich replied. ‘As you say, it was a strange thing for a wife to do, showing more loyalty to the cleaner than to her husband – very strange indeed. We will look the son up but the cleaner herself does not show up on our records. We have no record for Anne Graham.'

‘No, I think she was above board and her son would be registered under her married name of Womack,' Mrs Rutherford advised. ‘I was told that when she was divorced she went back to calling herself Miss Graham. She didn't care in the least if folk thought her a spinster. She was happy to be Miss Graham. Much happier being Miss Graham than Mrs Womack.'

‘Womack.' Yellich wrote the name on his notepad.

‘Yes, I am sure of the name, unusual as it is,' Mrs Rutherford replied, ‘because it has an association for me. My almost perfect grasp of French irregular verbs comes from my terror of Miss Womack, the French mistress, at South Glen Park School for Girls, which, despite its name, was in Hertfordshire, not Scotland.'

‘Thank you.' Yellich tapped his notebook with his ballpoint pen. ‘That is something to follow up – Womack. We'll pull his record out of the archives. At this stage everything goes in the pot – every little detail. We don't dismiss anything as irrelevant. So, the murders … when did you become aware of them?'

‘It was when I saw the police activity on the day the bodies were found – all those police vehicles and the black windowless van which I knew to be a mortuary van,' Mrs Rutherford replied. ‘Heavens, I mean to say one couldn't help noticing. All those blue flashing lights out here where nothing ever happens to interest the police. It was only later that day that I heard that the entire family had been murdered. Save for their son, of course. He was away at university. It probably saved his life, being absent like he was.'

‘Did you notice anything unusual at the time?' Yellich asked. ‘Anything which you think might be suspicious?'

‘Just the four figures,' Mrs Rutherford said matter-of-factly. ‘The four human figures … four people.'

‘Four figures?' Yellich echoed. ‘Who were they? They sound interesting.'

‘Heavens, I don't know who they were. How on earth would I know who they were?' Mrs Rutherford glanced at Yellich with clear indignation. ‘The road is about a quarter of a mile from this house, but it was a clear day with perfect visibility and I recall looking out from my bedroom window across the field and seeing four figures standing on the roadside looking at the Middleton house. That was on the day after the murders, and it was not unusual because many ghoulish people came and ogled and gawped at the house for a few days after, but the reason why those four registered with me is that I am sure I saw the same four looking at the house one or two days
before
the murders. I am quite sure that it was the same four people.'

‘That is extremely interesting.' Yellich sat forward. ‘Did you tell the police about that at the time?'

‘No. I was never asked,' Mrs Rutherford replied flatly. ‘The police didn't call on us – they didn't call on me and Freddie. I assume that they thought our house was too far away for us to have seen anything, especially at night. I understand it was during the night that they were murdered?'

Yellich and Webster glanced at each other and both men raised their eyebrows and shrugged their shoulders.

‘Can you describe them?' Webster asked. ‘They are now persons of interest.'

‘Those four … yes, I can. I remember them well because they cut such a striking image. There were two big ones and two small ones,' Mrs Rutherford replied. ‘And they split into two distinct groups of two. The two big ones – the two tall ones – stood close together and then there was a distinct gap and then there was the two small or short ones who also stood close together, but it was definitely a gang of four which had divided into two subgroups. I remember that one of the big ones was quite well-built and seemed to be very agitated, very demonstrative. He moved his arms about when he was talking. The other tall one was quite still – he seemed to have a distinct economy of movement. He was very … I don't know … well, he seemed aloof, almost. The two small ones just stood side by side staring at the Middleton house.'

‘Did they have anything distinctive about them?' Webster wrote on his notepad. ‘Any distinctive clothing, for example?'

‘Only one of the short ones – the stockier of the two short ones. He had a jacket which seemed to have a designer pattern on the back,' Mrs Rutherford advised, ‘but at that distance I couldn't make it out.'

‘Did they have a motor vehicle?' Yellich asked. ‘Did you notice one?'

‘Not that I saw.' Mrs Rutherford spoke firmly. ‘I just recall them as a gang of men composed of two groups of two who were looking at the house a day or two before the murder and were back again a day after the murder.'

Yellich and Webster drove away from The Beeches in silence, broken by Yellich, who said, ‘There's a bloke called Womack to look up in Criminal Records – there won't be many of them – and we have a gang of four males to trace … after twenty years. That will be a little more difficult.'

‘Yes.' Webster, at the wheel, accelerated steadily away. ‘Two big ones and two small ones, and one of the short ones had a jacket with a designer pattern on the back. That's not a lot to go on. Not much to go on at all.'

‘You know that this, what we're doing, is very Oriental.' The first man absentmindedly kicked a small stone along the footpath. He casually watched it bounce ahead of him before coming to rest beside the grass verge.

‘What do you mean?' The second man turned and glanced at the first. ‘Oriental?'

‘Oh, nothing really,' the first man replied. ‘It is just something I remember reading a long, long time ago. Whether it is true or not I don't know but I read that when westerners want to talk in private they go into a small room together but Orientals go and sit in the middle of a field. So, apparently, this is more Oriental than Western.'

‘Well, so long as we have privacy,' the second man replied dryly. ‘That's the main thing, but it's an interesting observation nonetheless.'

The two men continued to walk slowly side by side along the path. To their right was a solidly fenced-off railway line. Flat fields stretched away to the left and right. To their left was a canal. An onlooker would see two men in their mid-to late forties strolling calmly side by side, utterly relaxed in each other's company: a pair of old friends who knew exactly what each other was thinking and feeling.

‘I confess, now that you mention it,' the second man continued, ‘that I think I'd be more comfortable talking like this inside a room than in the middle of a field but, inside or outside, what are we going to do? We have to do something. We have to take the initiative.'

The first man fell and remained silent, then his eye was caught by a mallard swimming contentedly towards the two men upon the calm surface of the canal. He picked up a stone and flung it aggressively at the bird, which then took to the air in flapping, squawking fear.

‘I see you have not lost the killer instinct.' The second man grinned approvingly. ‘You might need it.'

‘I know,' the first man returned the grin, ‘but you know, I … We should have known it all wouldn't lie down and die. Now it's in the news again.'

‘Not a clever choice of words, but I do so know what you mean.' The second man fixed his eyes straight ahead of him. ‘But some murders are never solved – some people go missing and are never found. That indeed happened to one of my parishioners before I arrived and took up my incumbency. She went out to buy food to make a meal to feed her family one morning and she never returned. She left everything she would have taken if she was walking out to start a new life … her valuables, her documents, her favourite clothing … she just vanished.'

‘I once read of a homeowner who lifted the patio at the back of his house and found five skeletons all in a row,' the first man replied. ‘They were dated by the Victorian-era coins in their pockets: man, woman and three children. Someone got away with something there all right.'

‘Seems so but that doesn't help us now, and anyway, it was a lot easier to get away with murder in those days,' the second man growled. ‘I mean here, today, now … well … I won't say anything. I can keep my mouth shut and I know you'll be the same. We've got too much to lose, you and me, but what about those two? They won't have much to lose at all. What about them? What do we do with them?'

‘I know – that's why I contacted you. We need a game plan.' The first man looked at his feet as he walked. ‘As you say, it's us two who need to take the initiative. And we need to act quickly.'

‘We don't even know where they are …' The second man spoke with a note of alarm. ‘Where do we start looking?'

‘They'll be in the system.' The first man spoke reassuringly. ‘Don't worry about finding them; I promise you that that will be the easy bit. But what then?'

‘We have to silence them,' the second man said matter-of-factly as he let his eye wander over the landscape, the flat expanse of green and occasionally isolated stands of woodland, the vast blue sky with a scattering of white cloud. ‘I don't think we have any other option. We have no other option.'

‘Yes, you're right.' The first man nodded. ‘There's no other option. They're just two more. We can look at it like that. Just another two more to add to the tally. How many did we do?'

‘Twelve. At least twelve,' the second man replied with evident relish in his voice. ‘We enjoyed it. It was a thrill. At the time. I have different values now.'