‘Oh?’
‘Yes, coming and going at all hours of the day and night. He used to have a drink problem many years ago, that’s why she left him.’
‘She?’
‘A woman and her children. They were not married, they cohabited.’
‘Did you see anyone call. . any friends, for example?’
‘Him! With friends?’ She snorted with laughter. ‘He just kept himself to himself, never even knocked on my door to borrow a drop of milk if he ran out of the stuff. He was the quiet man on the stair but always seemed preoccupied.’
‘But you don’t know with what?’
‘No, not in the twenty years I have been here. The others on the stair will probably say the same about him. Ask them if you like.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Ventnor turned away, ‘we will.’ Then he turned back and asked of the woman as an afterthought, ‘Did Mr Post own a car?’
‘No.’ The woman answered clearly. ‘He walked from his home and walked back. I never even saw him get out of a car, or into one as a passenger.’
Somerled Yellich handed the photographs back to Hennessey, all printed in black and white on coarse matt finish, sixteen prints, some of which showed a victim, clearly a victim, a middle-aged man or woman, dressed in ill-fitting rags, the men with distinct facial hair and all with matted scalp hair, all lying or kneeling or on all fours, all with that look of resignation or despair or bewilderment, which was also in the eyes of the victims photographed in the kitchen garden at Bromyards. Yet, in the photographs of the victims taken out of doors, the photographer had clearly knelt to get the camera angle level with the eyes, so that he not only captured the look therein but also a distinct landmark. In one, the background showed the unmistakable outline of the Forth Railway Bridge, another showed the entrance to the Box Railway Tunnel in Wiltshire. Yet another showing Boston Stump in Lincolnshire, and yet another which showed not a famous landmark but a road signpost which was easily distinguished and read ‘St Mabyn — 1 mile’.
‘St Mabyn?’ Hennessey queried taking back the prints from Yellich.
‘It’s in Cornwall, boss. I looked it up in my road atlas.’
‘Cornwall,’ Hennessey sighed, ‘Cornwall. . so we have Scotland, Wiltshire, Lincolnshire and Cornwall, as well as others whose landmarks have still to be identified.’
‘Yes, sir. . and then five showing no body at all, just Post standing in a Hindley-esque manner, looking down at the ground on which he is standing, and, like Myra Hindley, he seems to have favoured moorland.’
‘Yes, sir, and also like Hindley, he is unlikely to have taken those pictures of himself by himself. It’s possible with a delayed shutter mechanism, but the remoteness of all the locations and Post did not drive. . he had an accomplice or accomplices.’
‘Yes.’ Hennessey looked at the five photographs which just showed James Post, small, diminutive, standing over a small plot of land which clearly had some dreadful significance for him, but a significance, despite its dread nature, which was evidently also a source of pride for him.
‘So we have twenty-five victims and that is the twenty-five which they catalogued. There’ll be more.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘We need to know more about James Post.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘He’s the key to this.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Yellich stood.
‘I am going to take learned advice.’
‘Understood, sir.’
‘If. . if. . your enquiries about James Post lead to the mention of a name Malpass, let me know immediately.’
‘Malpass, sir?’
‘Yes, Mr and Mrs Malpass. If you do hear mention of that name I want to know and I’ll tell you why at that point.’
‘We have interviewed them, sir. Ventnor and Pharoah. .’
‘I know,’ Hennessey smiled. ‘I know.’
‘But if they’re suspects we should move before they kill again. . surely?’ Yellich’s voice rose.
‘No. .’ Hennessey leaned back in his chair. ‘They are not suspects, not yet, and if I am right there’s no more danger.’
‘No danger, sir? They’re serial killers!’
‘Yes. . and their last victim was James Post. If I am right, it’s all been happening around us without us knowing anything about it and we have come in at the aftermath. But I want to bounce my thoughts off a learned brain before I decide how to proceed. And I need more on James Post. Get Webster on it with you.’
Webster thought Mrs Lismore to be a kindly lady. She seemed warm of manner, she was a woman whose eyes sparkled and her smile seemed to Webster to be genuine. She was slender and short, with close cropped hair, and stood on the threshold of her house on the Tang Hall Estate having fully opened the door. ‘I was,’ she said, ‘until I moved out. . I am Mrs Lismore now. This is going back some years. How did you find me?’
‘Housing Department,’ Webster said, ‘when I told them it was an important investigation.’
‘All right, well now you’ve found me. Would you like to come in? Better than standing out here, even on a pleasant day like today.’
The inside of Mrs Lismore’s flat was, Webster found, neat and clean, though a little Spartan and spoke of a limited income. Webster accepted her invitation to sit down. ‘I told them my partner was abusive,’ Mrs Lismore explained as she too settled into an armchair, ‘and I let them assume I meant physically abusive, and so they rehoused me and the children here. . just a few streets away but he never bothers us.’
‘He won’t be bothering you ever again anyway.’
‘Oh. .?’ Colour drained from her face. ‘You’re not telling me he’s dead?’
‘Yes, I am. He was found deceased in a field outside York. We traced him by a library card in his pocket and his brother made the identification.’
‘Oh. .’
‘But we need to know as much about him as possible. We believe he might have been involved in a serious crime which we are still investigating.’
‘I see. . that’s unlike him, he was an alcoholic and that’s why I left, just picked up the children I had had with my husband and walked into the Housing Department and said, “I have walked out of an abusive relationship”. They put us in a woman’s shelter and then allocated me this tenancy. So, he was a drinker but never a criminal. I do find that surprising.’
‘It probably was a development in his life which occurred after you left him,’ Webster suggested, ‘but the manner of Mr Post’s death suggests he was a deliberate target, he was not a random victim who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘What was the manner. . can I ask?’
‘Strangled and then battered to death, and his identification removed from his person.’
‘But they missed the library card?’
‘Yes.’
‘I see. . certainly sounds like someone wanted him dead, I’ll give you that.’
‘So, accepting you had little or nothing to do with Mr Post in the last few years. . but might you know of any enemies he had?’
‘No. . no I don’t’
‘Friends?’
‘Again, no. I do wish I could help. He drove any friends he might have had away from him.’
‘How did he deal with his drink problem?’
‘Alcoholics Anonymous. . eventually. It was a long time before he got round to going there, but in the end he went and they helped him stay off the bottle. . so I heard.’
‘Long shot, but we had to ask.’
‘My son could help you. . well, he might be able to.’
‘Your son?’
‘Kenneth. He works in the Civil Service. Nothing special, fairly low grade and money’s tight for him. . State Pensions Department on the Stonebow. He is Jim Post’s natural son but he took my name. I believe he tried to get to know his father in the last year or so once he. . his father. . had dried out.’