Free Deliver Us from Evil by Peter Turnbull Page A

was seen. Red jacket . . . tartan pattern.’
    â€˜Seems like someone we ought to talk to; he obviously had some interest in the house.’ Yellich turned to Webster who nodded in agreement.
    â€˜You could try my neighbour,’ Beattie suggested.
    â€˜Really?’
    â€˜Yes, he saw him once, driving past very slowly. He got a good look at him. He’ll be able to give you more details than I can.’ Beattie stepped into the room and opened a drawer in the dressing table. ‘We kept all the stuff about her in here.’ He took out the reference and read it. ‘Look at what he said, that fox hunter type, “Industrious and utterly trustworthy”. Tosh! But he got rid of her and here . . .’ he took another piece of paper from the drawer, ‘is the crime number I mentioned, given to me in respect of the theft of my money and valuables.’ He handed it to Yellich.
    â€˜Malton Police.’ Yellich read the slip of paper.
    â€˜Yes, that’s the local bobby shop around here. Still a fair few miles away but it’s the local cop shop.’
    â€˜You don’t need it?’
    â€˜No, I can’t claim for the lost money, I verified that with the insurance people, only for items, and she didn’t steal much from the house because there was little to steal. She took some of Mrs Beattie’s jewellery . . . that I would like back but the value of the other stuff was minimal. Valuable only in terms of sentimental value . . . but I refer to them as the “valuables”.’
    â€˜He’s a tight-fisted old thing.’ Ben Tinsley stood defensively in the doorway of his house. ‘Dare say he has little good to say about me but do you know that in the wintertime he sleeps on a camp bed in his kitchen rather than have a heater in his bedroom, him and his wife also when she was with us? But we’re both getting on and we are neighbours, and so I keep an eye on him and he keeps an eye on me.’
    â€˜Yes,’ Yellich smiled, ‘he told us the system you have of leaving a light burning to let each other know you are well. Also of moving his Land Rover about. A good idea.’
    â€˜Not uncommon in the country. But do please come in out of the cold, gentlemen.’
    In contrast to Alexander Beattie’s home, Yellich and Webster found Ben Tinsley’s home was small, warm and dry. A settled coal fire burned gently in the grate.
    â€˜Not legal,’ Tinsley pointed to the fire, and did so with clear embarrassment.
    â€˜I know.’ Yellich read the room, photographs of family on the wall and mantelpiece, a compact television and a pile of magazines about walking in the country and coarse fishing. A physically fit widower, fond of his family, living within his means, enjoying solitary pursuits: nothing for the officers to be at all suspicious about. ‘But we won’t report you.’
    â€˜Thank you. This is the country, I am not polluting anyone else’s breathing air and there is nothing like a coal fire. You just can’t beat coal for a home fire. Take it from me, you just can’t beat a coal fire. Do take a seat, please.’
    The officers sat in deep comfortable armchairs covered with flower patterned material.
    â€˜So how can I help you?’ Tinsley sat on a matching sofa. ‘I saw you at Beattie’s house, house . . . mausoleum more like, if you ask me. I mean, what is he proving living in such cold conditions? He sees it as an achievement to get through the winter without heating, miserly old fool that he is. I tell you, he is the sort of man who would buy a poppy for one Remembrance Sunday, pay next to nothing for it and wear it for the next ten Remembrance Sundays until it falls apart, then he buys another one for a penny or two and wears that for the first week in each November until that too falls apart, and so on and so forth. That’s Beattie, claiming