Free H&Y20 - Deliver Us from Evil by Peter Turnbull Page A

would,’ Yellich asked. ‘All you can remember.’
    ‘What is there to say?’ Tinsley sighed. ‘Little to tell,’ he paused as the clock in his hallway chimed the hour with the Westminster chimes. ‘I used to see him in the village, that is Stillington, closest village to here, I really knew him from there. He used to enjoy a beer in The Hunter’s Moon.’
    ‘The Hunter’s Moon in Stillington?’ Webster wrote in his notebook.
    ‘On the high street, you can’t miss it. It was Terry the publican who told me he was a Canadian; they had a chat now and again, you see. Terry’s good like that, he checks out strangers but does so in a friendly, chatty way. But yes, he was a Canadian. Tall, well built, beard, as you say, and yes, I saw him on the roadway just staring at Beattie’s ruin and also I saw as he drove past in his car. He was clearly hanging around the area. The building had some fascination for him, it really did. That house, Beattie could have bought an easily run, warm, comfortable house but they bought that . . . ruin . . . no wonder his wife didn’t last, but he seems to be sticking it out, stubborn old fool that he is. I tell you, if he were a plant he’d be moss which grows in the tundra, thriving in the cold. But the Canadian, he was a married man . . . I can tell you that.’
    ‘Married?’
    ‘Yes. High quality clothes, had a car . . . probably a hire car, it was the sort bought in large numbers by fleet operators. He hung around for a couple of weeks, so he must have stayed somewhere local and he didn’t look like the youth hostel type. He wasn’t frightened of being seen, that was something else about him, just standing there, as though he possibly even wanted to be seen.’
    ‘Intimidating? Would you say it was an intimidating gesture on his part?’
    Tinsley pursed his lips, ‘Yes . . . yes, I dare say that you could say that. Intimidating.’
    ‘But you never spoke to him?’
    ‘No. Drove past him so got a closer look . . . then later I saw him in the village once or twice . . . heard about him from the boys in The Hunter’s Moon. I’d try there if I was you.’
    ‘I think we will. Thank you . . . that’s very helpful.’
    ‘You might have to knock on the door.’
    ‘At this hour!’ Yellich grinned. ‘He’ll have been open since eleven a.m.’
    ‘He would if he was in the centre of York, but these are getting to be hard times, pubs in the country can’t pay if they open each day all day. Sometimes it’s weekend trade only . . . especially lately.’
    ‘I see,’ Yellich nodded his head slowly. ‘Well, thanks anyway. Enjoy your fire.’
    George Hennessey once again read the inscription beneath the names on the war memorial inside the doors of the central post office in York, ‘Pass friend, all’s well’, as he exited the building, and was once again moved by it. He stepped out into a mist-laden street and strolled along Stonegate to the Minster where he saw the tops of all three square towers were hidden from view, and the building itself seemed, in the diminishing light, to have taken on an eerie and foreboding presence. Foot traffic was light and seemed to Hennessey to be local people in the main, hurrying about their business, with just one or two very evident tourists staring in awe at the Minster, or in fascination at the Roman remains, or at the ancient buildings close by.
    In the shadow of the Minster two women played musical instruments for passing change. The first woman was in her early twenties, tall, slender, wearing expensive looking footwear and equally expensive looking outer clothing. She played a violin and to Hennessey’s ear did so impressively well. She had, Hennessey observed, been blessed with classical good looks and her blonde hair draped over her shoulders which moved slightly from side to side as her slender and nimble fingers danced along the neck of the violin and her other hand gently held the bow which she moved