Thirteen

Half an hour later, Tim had driven to Sutterton and was ringing the doorbell of Laurieston House. He was taken aback when it was opened by a tall woman wearing candelabra earrings, a short red skirt and a clinging black top. He was aware that the ageing bimbo look that she cultivated was misleading, probably deliberately so. He had encountered Jean Rook on previous occasions and knew that she was a force to be reckoned with. So Jean was de Vries’ solicitor. On reflection, Tim was not surprised. Jean Rook was based in Peterborough, which was quite a distance from the de Vries empire, but she was sharper than any of the solicitors he knew in either Spalding or Boston. Whatever else he might be, Kevan de Vries was not behind the door when it came to showing some nous.

“Ms Rook!” he exclaimed. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

He glanced over her head at Ricky MacFadyen, who was standing some way along the passage, almost at the same spot that Tony Sentance had occupied that morning.

“Sorry!” he mouthed. Tim understood at once why their short phone conversation had been so strained.

“I’d like to return the compliment,” Jean Rook said coolly. “But first we’ll wait and see whether it’s warranted, shall we? Talking of warrants, may I see yours?”

Tim nodded gravely and handed it over, congratulating himself on his foresight as he did so. He had a sneaking admiration for Jean Rook, obstructive though she could undoubtedly be. It took some chutzpah to stand there and imply that he was likely to cause unreasonable trouble when human bones had apparently been discovered in her client’s cellar.

“You’d better come in,” she said. “Kevan’s just getting himself a bite to eat. I’d be grateful if you’d talk to me about how you propose to take this forward, so that when he’s ready I can advise him accordingly.”

Tim sensed that she was trying to bounce him into making a quick decision, probably so that she could then raise some objection to it.

“First things first,” he said. “I need to see for myself what’s been found. Could you show me?” he directed the question at Ricky MacFadyen.

“I can show you myself . . .” Jean Rook began. Under her customary veneer of somewhat combative sang-froid, Tim thought that he could detect a hint of nervousness.

“That’s kind, but if this is a crime scene, we need as few people as possible to disturb it until Forensics have done their stuff. Have you been down there already?”

Jean Rook gave an exasperated sigh.

“No, your colleague wouldn’t let me. Your two plods are down there, though. Presumably they know to tread carefully in their size elevens?”

Tim gave her a courteous little nod. Without admitting defeat, she was backing down. It would therefore be counter-productive to precipitate an outright confrontation. He followed Ricky down into the stale-air cool of the cellar. The stone steps were broad and smooth, the sequence of brick-lined rooms into which they led well-built and broad.

Ricky moved without pause through the first of these, which was a kind of underground ante-room or lobby. Beyond it was an archway – there was no door – that gave access to a much larger room with a vaulted ceiling. An assortment of furniture and filing cabinets had been stacked neatly on one side of it. A solid teak workbench ran the length of the opposite wall. Several stone flags had been lifted at one end of this and were piled up on the floor. There was the strong smell of damp earth newly released from long-term enclosure and a slight underlying whiff of decay. Or was that merely Tim’s imagination going to work?

Two policemen were standing as still as sentries, one at either end of the work-bench. Tim recognised one of them.

“Hello, Giash,” he said. “I didn’t realise that you’d got this job. Apologies if I’ve kept you away from bath-time.”

Giash Chakrabati grinned. “Not really my scene, sir. The au pair does all that. She washes both the children and puts them to bed if Padma’s working.”

Padma Chakrabati was a GP. She had recently given birth to the second of their daughters. Tim felt a passing pang of sadness for this child, left to the ministrations of an au pair so early in her life. He gave himself a mental kick. Who knew what domestic compromises he and Katrin might have to make? He realised that Ricky was talking to him.

“The passports were lying near to the end of that workbench when I came here on Sunday,” Ricky was saying. “I thought it might be an idea to search around that area a bit more. I noticed that there seemed to be a piece of yellow paper wedged between the back of the bench and the wall. I crawled below it to try to pull the paper from underneath, and realised that the flags on the floor just there were loose. We decided to lift a couple of them. That’s what we found.”

He indicated the patch of disturbed earth that had been uncovered. Tim bent down to examine it more closely. He could see quite clearly the ray of fine bones embedded in the soil. Ricky was right: it looked like the remains of a human foot.

“Have you talked to de Vries about this?” he asked.

“In so far as Jean Rook would let me. She interrupted almost every other word and finally said that she wanted to wait until you arrived. De Vries said that he needed something to eat at that point. He hasn’t been cautioned.”

“How did he react when you said that you’d found the bones?”

“Difficult to say. I’d have expected him to register surprise, though I didn’t really see that in him. But he didn’t seem to show any guilt or fear of the consequences, either. He didn’t say much at all – ‘Oh, really, I suppose that introduces another complication?’ – or words to that effect. It was almost as if he had something else on his mind and this was just another minor irritation getting in his way. Either that or he’s depressed. I’ve known people with depression behave in that same peculiar detached manner.”

“What about Jean Rook? When did she arrive?”

“She got here before me. I think that de Vries asked her to come. He was obviously pleased that she was with him. She’s been sticking to him like a leech. You’ve got no chance of talking to him on his own.”

“I think that’s the general idea. He told me that he was going to consult his solicitor and I agreed that would be prudent. He didn’t mention that it was Ms Rook!”

“Bit of a handful, isn’t she? But at least she’s managed to stall that Sentance character.”

“He isn’t here too, then?”

“No. I understand that Mr de Vries sent him away this morning, told him to come back later. But Ms Rook spoke to Sentance on the phone and told him not to bother.”

“Hmm, well, that might have been useful in different circumstances, but once we’ve established for sure that these are human remains, we’re going to have to question him, as well as de Vries. Sentance has access to the house and he was here when the de Vries were away.”

Ricky MacFadyen looked doubtful.

“I don’t think these bones were left here during the past few days, sir,” he said.

“Neither do I, Ricky. But Sentance has presumably had his key for years. Along with a few other people – Mrs de Vries, obviously, and apparently her mother, too. We’re going to have to check out all the key-holders. Sentance seems the obvious person to start with, apart from de Vries himself.”