Gift Wrapped by Peter Turnbull Page A

friends in the Fleece, so far as you are aware ... or were aware?’
    â€˜Yes.’ Tony Wenlock nodded in agreement. ‘So far as I was aware.’
    â€˜Do you know the names of any of his drinking friends?’ Reginald Webster’s eye was caught by a blue and red high-sided vehicle travelling at speed along the road in front of Tony Wenlock’s house.
    â€˜No ... sorry,’ Wenlock replied, ‘and the old publican retired to Spain some years ago. The Fleece is now run by a fairly young husband and wife team, but I think that some of the older patrons will remember Dad. I am sure they might be able and willing to assist you.’
    Nigel March, certified accountant, looked uncomfortable, or so thought Somerled Yellich, and he duly commented upon it.
    â€˜Well ...’ March sat upright in the chair and clasped his thin hands in front of him, resting his elbows on his knees, ‘that’s probably because I am feeling quite uncomfortable. I confess that I have not felt quite so uncomfortable for a very long time ... for many, many a long year.’ He spoke willingly to Yellich and Ventnor but did so in a near monotone, and Yellich clearly and immediately saw what Clarence Bellingham had meant when he described Nigel March as being ‘me robot’ and wholly perfunctory. Pedantic might, Yellich thought, also be a word which would accurately describe the man. Despite acknowledging his emotional discomfort, he impressed Yellich and Ventnor as a man who went through the motions without actually engaging in life.
    â€˜So why are you feeling so uncomfortable?’ Yellich asked quietly and then glanced quickly around the room. It was, he found, pleasantly furnished with prints of rural Yorkshire hanging on the wall as decorations. It had a window which, like that of Clarence Bellingham’s office, looked out across St Leonard’s Place, though it did so from two floors lower in the building. At that moment part of the window was partially open, allowing fresh air to ingress but also allowing the ingress of the sounds of the traffic in the street below.
    â€˜Well, I mean ... wouldn’t you?’ March was dressed soberly and probably appropriately for an accountant in a dull grey suit with an inexpensive brown tie over a white shirt. He wore a wristwatch but no wedding ring. His feet were encased in unseasonal and heavy-looking highly polished black shoes. He was, Yellich guessed, in his mid-fifties.
    â€˜Only if I had something to hide,’ Yellich replied promptly. ‘Have you got something to hide, Mr March?’
    â€˜No ... nothing, nothing at all,’ March replied equally promptly. ‘Nothing that the police would be interested in, anyway.’
    â€˜We’ll take your word for that.’ Yellich smiled. ‘So ... please tell us about James Wenlock. All that you know about him.’
    â€˜Yes, I understand that you believe him to have been murdered?’ March spoke flatly.
    â€˜Yes ... yes, we do,’ Yellich replied. ‘We still have to confirm his identity but all indications are that the skeleton we found is that of Mr Wenlock ... his earthly remains.’
    â€˜James ... he just vanished,’ March began. ‘Just vanished.’
    â€˜So we understand. We are told that you knew Mr Wenlock quite well?’ Yellich asked.
    â€˜Yes,’ March continued to speak in a monotone but seemed to be growing less fearful, ‘I knew him.’
    â€˜Well?’ Yellich pressed. ‘Did you know him well?’
    â€˜A bit. We liked each other as colleagues but we didn’t go out together for a drink in the evening after work like some men do in here. I never visited his house and he never visited mine. But we got on well in the office during the working day.’
    â€˜I see, so just a couple of colleagues who liked each other?’ Yellich confirmed.
    â€˜Yes.’ March nodded. ‘That is about the long and the