Free Aftermath by Peter Turnbull Page A

love for her had diminished. If anything, he told her, over the years it had grown stronger, and once again he felt himself surrounded by a warmth which could not be explained by the rays of the sun alone.
    After sunset, and after spending a pleasant two hours reading a recently acquired book about the Zulu wars, which was already a valued addition to his library of military history, and after eating his supper and feeding Oscar, Hennessey took the dog for a walk of fifteen minutes, out to a field where he let the animal explore for thirty minutes and then man and dog returned to Hennessey’s house. Hennessey then walked out again, alone, into Easingwold for a pint of brown and mild, at the Dove Inn, just one before last orders were called.

THREE
    Friday, 12th June – 10.15 hours – Saturday 04.10 hours
in which more is learned about the final victim and the gentle reader is privy to George Hennessey’s demons.
    M rs Penny Merryweather revealed herself to be a slightly built and a warm and a bumbling personality. She was dark-haired and wore a ready smile and also instantly struck Yellich as indeed having a character which well befitted her name. She lived in a small council house set among six other similar houses in the village of Milking Nook. She smiled at Yellich upon him showing her his ID and stepped aside, inviting him into her house. Yellich entered and, following Penny Merryweather’s directions, found himself in a cluttered but neat and cleanly kept living room where he sat, as invited, in one of the two armchairs in the room. Yellich scanned the room and all seemed to him to be in perfect keeping with a householder of Mrs Merryweather’s age and means. The television in the corner was small and probably a black and white set having, thought Yellich, the look of that vintage about it. Framed portraits of children and adults stood along the mantelpiece in a neat row. The wallpaper had faded and, like the television, seemed to Yellich to belong to a different, earlier, era. The room smelled heavily of furniture polish. Mrs Merryweather sat in the second armchair and leaned forward, smiling in what Yellich thought was an eager to please and almost childlike attitude.
    ‘Mr Nicholas Housecarl,’ Yellich began, ‘of Bromyards.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    ‘Deceased. Recently so.’
    ‘Yes, sir, but you can’t say it wasn’t no surprise can you? I mean, his age. He did very well did the old gentleman, very well, all the village said so.’
    ‘I understand that you worked for him?’
    ‘Yes, sir, I was one of the staff at the big house and I was the last to leave. I was still there almost to the end I was . . . even though in the last ten or fifteen years I used to work part time, just two or three afternoons a week and none at all in the depths of winter . . . but still almost to the very end.’
    ‘One of the staff?’ Yellich settled back into the armchair. ‘How many were there?’
    ‘Oh . . . quite a few at one time, sir, quite a few . . . such a big house you see with huge gardens and grounds beyond the garden that needed looking after, not as much as gardens but looking after just the same . . . a large field of grass that Mr Housecarl had scythed once every two years.’
    ‘Scythed?’ Yellich smiled.
    ‘Yes, sir, couldn’t use a motor mower on it because of stuff laying in the grass like rotting tree trunks and so it had to be scythed. You can believe me on that one, sir.’
    ‘How many men did that take?’
    ‘Just the one . . . Brian Foot did that. He used to like working alone did Brian, and, with a huge field to scythe, and that he got paid when it’s done, no matter how long it took to do, it suited him. It wasn’t a crop you see, it just had to be cut but not gathered in. Dare say it’s waist high now, but Brian wasn’t on the staff, retired farmworker brought in to scythe the ten acre once every two years. He didn’t gather the grass he scythed, just let it lay there