‘Yes, sir, he is the owner of the red Vauxhall parked in front of the house.’
‘Yes, I noticed it. I’ll go and talk to him. If you would carry on here, please?’
‘Yes, sir.’
George Hennessey walked slowly from the kitchen garden to the front of the house where the motor vehicles were parked and where, as the day had matured, some element of shade was by then afforded. He identified the red Vauxhall and approached it calmly, smiling gently at the composed looking man who sat in the driver’s seat. ‘Mr Seers?’
‘Yes, that’s me,’ Seers opened the car door and stepped out of the vehicle, ‘John Seers of Seers, Seers and Noble.’
‘A solicitor?’
‘Yes, for my sins,’ Seers shrugged, ‘but it pays the bills.’
‘I haven’t heard of your firm, I regret to say.’
‘We hardly do any criminal work which probably explains it. . not a great deal of money to be made defending murderers. Our firm is principally concerned with commercial law and property. . if the property is large and valuable enough.’
Hennessey indicated Bromyards, ‘This sort of large and valuable?’
‘Yes, this sort of large and valuable. This particular case is quite rare and I pulled rank to get it. . I am a senior partner. . it’s a job that we could give to a junior but I really wanted it, seemed it was going to get me out of our office for a few weeks.’
‘I can understand that,’ Hennessey agreed, ‘I too dislike being desk-bound. So what exactly were you. . your firm. . engaged to do in respect of this property?’
‘To make an inventory of the contents.’ Seers was tall, clean-shaven, a thin but balanced face. He spoke with received pronunciation so George Hennessey noticed and heard. ‘We act for the deceased and the family of the deceased, being one Nicholas Housecarl by name. He was a long-time client of our firm and he left a will in which he directed that his entire estate be liquidated. . everything, Bromyards and its contents, his portfolio of stocks and shares. . everything to be turned into cash and then said cash to be distributed in set percentages of the whole to surviving relatives and designated charities.’
‘I see,’ Hennessey paused. ‘Is Bromyards the full name of the property, not House, Hall, Court, Manor. . or any such name?’
‘No other or second name. The house is called simply “Bromyards”.’
‘I see.’
‘So the first step and the one which would have got me out of our office for quite a few weeks was to make an inventory of the contents.’
‘No small task.’
‘No small task at all, especially when one considers that the items within the house have been accumulating since 1719.’
‘Which is when the house was built?’
‘Which is when the house was built, at the beginning of the reign of George I and in the era of Handel and Bach, and. . I glanced at my son’s history books before I began the inventory. . just to make it even more interesting,’ Seers explained with a brief smile. ‘I really don’t carry that sort of historical knowledge in my head.’
‘Impressed, nonetheless.’
‘Well, I have to detail everything inside the house. . and I mean everything. . from the recently purchased twenty-first century tea mugs in the living area to the dust-sheet covered paintings, which may be old masters lost to the world for centuries and may be worth more than the house itself. . all has to be catalogued. A very, very interesting job.’
‘Sounds so, and I can understand why you pulled rank to get it.’
‘Indeed. . then we have to take the contents into storage by a firm of reputable auctioneers and valued. We use Myles and Innche.’
‘Miles and Inch,’ Hennessey grinned.
‘Yes, it is an unusual name. . both units of linear measurement. . but not spelled the same.’ Seers told Hennessey how the auctioneers was correctly spelled.
‘All right. . so the owner. . the last owner died recently?’
‘Very recently. . a matter of days ago. Poor old gentleman, you see, he had all this to live in. . all this garden and the grounds beyond the garden. . all of it was his and yet his final days were spent in a little room where he cooked, ate and slept, and he used a bathroom across the corridor for his ablutions. He lived in something akin to a dole collector’s miserable accommodation. . and just look at the state of the gardens. Mr Housecarl was a career soldier and his last action in life was a systematic retreat, first from the garden and then from the house, little by little, until he had just one room and a bathroom upstairs on the first floor, and there he made his last stand, fortunately for me, covering the contents of each room with dust sheets before closing the door of said room behind him for the final time.’
‘Eventually fetching up in a box room on the first floor?’
‘So it would seem.’
‘He would normally be our number one suspect, but it seems that he might have known nothing of what was going on outside his house.’
‘Yes. . as I pointed out to the other officers. . the doors, you see. . apart from the door of his box room and the bathroom he used, apart from those two doors, all the hinges on all the doors had stiffened with long-term non-use.’
‘Hasn’t been opened in years, you mean?’
‘If you like, yes, had not been opened in years. That is also apart from the back door and the door of the porch which enclosed it. He had a service from the Meals on Wheels people or rather a privately owned catering company. Meals on Wheels proper provides a service only to those folk who live below a certain income level.’
‘Yes. . yes.’
‘And I understand that a district nurse called once or twice a week, so he was probably visited about four days out of seven.’
‘I see. . that is useful to know, thanks.’
‘So, just four doors opened with ease.’
‘Back porch, back door, his bedroom door and his bathroom door?’
‘Yes. All the others were stiff, seized with, as you say, not being opened in years but. . but. . the door to the kitchen garden had been lubricated. It just did not open easily, it opened almost silently.’
‘Almost silently?’
‘Yes, as though it was overdue for lubrication. I knew then that something was amiss. . but I didn’t think. . wow. .’ Seers shook his head slowly, ‘three skeletons. . all in a row.’
Hennessey kept his own counsel in respect of the discovery of two further skeletons. ‘How long had the deceased, your client, been housebound?’
‘I don’t know, but from my examination of the house I think it could have been a very long time. . twenty, twenty-five years.’
‘As long as that?’
‘Well, he was ninety-seven when he expired, so probably in his seventies when he became housebound. The meals delivery people and the medical people will be able to help you there.’
‘Yes, we’ll be talking to them.’
‘The kitchen garden could have been abandoned thirty plus years ago. . the outbuildings. . it was like going back in time, a car from the 1930s, a lawnmower of similar age, really robust looking garden tools, the sort of kit that would last a gardener all his working life.’ Seers paused. ‘Sorry, this is your area of expertise, not mine, but some years ago, long time ago now, when my wife and I were newly married and in our first house. . our next door neighbour was an elderly lady. . lovely old soul and we noticed how she was often, and I mean very frequently, visited by youths and children, even as young as twelve years, girls as well as boys. She used to call them her “young visitors”. Said young visitors always carried bags which appeared to be laden when they arrived and empty when they left just a few moments later, so they were not stealing from her house and because of that we delayed calling the police. . you gentlemen. . but we did eventually phone the police.’
‘They were depositing stolen goods in her house to collect later.’
‘Yes,’ Seers nodded, ‘that was it exactly.’
‘I was ahead of you. . that does happen from time to time, sadly so,’ Hennessey growled, ‘makes you angry.’