Free Aftermath by Peter Turnbull Page A

full.
    She lay abed listening to the sounds of the night, the trains arriving and departing the railway station, the calm click, click, click of a woman’s high-heeled shoes below her window, which told her all was well, and later, the whine and rattle of the milk float which told her another day had begun.
    George Hennessey similarly returned home at the end of that day. He drove to Easingwold with a sense of ‘something big’ being uncovered, that Veronica Goodwin’s and the other four skeletons were not going to be the sum. He drove through the village of Easingwold with the window of his car wound down and enjoyed the breeze playing about his face and right cheek, and as he passed the place he could not help but glance at the exact spot at which Jennifer had fallen all those years ago on a similar summer’s day. He drove out of Easingwold on the Thirsk Road and his heart leapt as he saw a silver BMW parked half-on, half-off the kerb beside his house. He turned into the driveway and heard a dog bark as the tyres of his car crunched the gravel. At the dog’s bark a man in his late twenties appeared at the bottom of the drive, behind a gate designed to keep the dog from wandering into the road. The two men grinned at each other. The younger man returned inside the house as the older man got out of his car and walked to where the first man had stood, so as to give loving attention to the brown mongrel that was turning in circles and wagging its tail.
    Later, when father and son sat on the patio at the rear of Hennessey’s house, and watching Oscar crisscross the lawn, having clearly picked up an interesting scent, George Hennessey asked, ‘What are you doing . . . where?’
    â€˜Newcastle,’ Charles Hennessey replied, ‘representing a felon who definitely did not commit a series of burglaries during which not a few householders were injured, some seriously, despite leaving his DNA and fingerprints behind him in an easily followed trail . . . he had a crack cocaine habit, you see.’
    â€˜Ah . . .’
    â€˜The police couldn’t lift him because he was unknown to them, no previous convictions, so no record of his DNA or fingerprints.’
    â€˜I see.’
    â€˜So lucky . . . but luck ran out in the form of him getting into a fight in a pub . . . nothing to do with burglaries.’
    â€˜But a recordable offence and the Northumbria Police had his DNA and fingerprints taken.’
    â€˜Yes, so they raided his home and found a number of items taken from the burglaries which he had still to sell for money for crack cocaine . . . and still he is insistent on his innocence. He’s trying to convince himself, of course, as much as anyone else.’
    â€˜I know the type.’
    â€˜I bet you do . . . but will he listen to reason? So, I am instructed to fight his corner with nothing to fight it with. His story that he found the stuff in the street won’t wash and, even so, that is still an admission of theft by finding . . . And you . . . your work?’
    â€˜Five murdered women?’
    â€˜Five!’ Charles Hennessey glanced at his father.
    â€˜Five . . . and my old copper’s waters tell me that there will be more.’
    â€˜What’s the story, so far?’
    Hennessey told his son the details.
    â€˜A big one.’
    â€˜Yes. We have issued a press release, it’ll make this evening’s television news and tomorrow’s newspapers, the press will be all over this one.’
    â€˜And your lady friend?’
    George Hennessey smiled. ‘Very well, thank you. You’ll meet her soon.’
    â€˜We hope so . . . she sounds . . . she sounds just right for you, father. You’ve been on your own quite long enough. I realize now how hard it was for you to be a single parent.’
    â€˜I had help.’
    â€˜Yes, I