by J. R. Ellis
Maggie gave him a hostile look. ‘You didn’t like him though, did you? He took Andrea from you, didn’t he? I’ll bet you’re glad he’s dead.’
‘Hey, steady on.’ Jack rushed to defend himself. ‘That’s not true. What’s the matter with you?’
‘That wasn’t fair, Mags,’ said Mark. Maggie looked at him sulkily, shook her head and cried again.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she sobbed. ‘I don’t know what to think about anything or anybody. I’m all confused. Why has it all gone wrong like this? We were such a great group of friends and now. It’s just . . .’ She trailed off, unable to make sense of the inexplicable things they were going through. They all sat down, stunned by this latest news.
‘I’ll have to call Louise,’ Maggie said after a while. ‘Can someone please tell me when all this is going to end?’
Louise was still in bed at her mum’s house when her phone rang. Grimacing, she clutched at it on the bedside table, looked at the screen and saw it was Maggie.
‘Maggie?’ There was a pause and she heard the sound of crying.
‘Louise, it’s . . . it’s Dom. They’ve found him . . . dead. He was in the harbour. They’re saying he shot himself and then fell in . . .’
‘Who?’
‘An officer came round. Ben’s gone with him to identify the body. It was that detective constable again. He was very nice but . . . It’s, it’s just awful . . . First Andrea, and now Dom. I can’t deal with it. I keep wanting to wake up from this nightmare.’
Louise could scarcely speak. Although they’d always known this was a possibility, it was no less shocking now that it had happened. ‘Oh my God, that’s bloody terrible,’ she said eventually.
‘I know. Are you coming back over? I really need to talk to you about it. Mark’s here but you and I knew them both for so long. I can’t . . .’ She broke down in tears.
‘Yes, I’m coming back tomorrow,’ said Louise, though she knew her mother would oppose it. ‘I need to be with you too. I can’t believe we’ll never see them again. Bye, see you soon.’ She hung up, sat down and put her face in her hands.
There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs and then a knock on the door and her mother’s anxious voice: ‘Louise? Are you okay? What’s happened?’
‘Come in,’ said Louise. Julia entered the room and sat on the bed next to her daughter. ‘Dom’s dead; they found his body in the harbour.’
‘Oh no. I’m so sorry.’ Julia put her arms round her daughter.
‘Mum, that’s two friends I’ve lost in a few days. What’s going on?’ Louise lay back on the pillow.
‘It’s terrible. You must stay here for a few days until you feel a bit better.’
‘No, Mum, I can’t. I’ve got to go back. Maggie needs me; she’s in a bad state and the police will want to ask more questions.’
‘Surely all that can wait?’
‘No. I can’t run away from it, Mum, and leave Maggie and the others to deal with it without me. I’m going back with Dad as we planned.’
Julia sighed. She knew too much about her daughter’s determined character to argue anymore. She didn’t say this to Louise but at least the fact that the murderer was now dead himself meant that there was no further threat to anyone else.
‘Okay. I’ll go down and get you some breakfast. What would you like?’
‘Just some coffee and toast, thanks.’
Julia left and Louise closed her eyes. How long would this horror go on for? It took her a while to summon up the energy to call her dad.
‘Dad? I suppose you’ve heard?’
‘Yes, love, Dominic’s body was found in the harbour. Inspector Granger called me not long ago. How are you feeling?’
‘Devastated, even though I suppose I knew this could happen.’
‘Yes, well, take it easy.’
‘I’ve got to go back over there with you, Dad. I was explaining to Mum; I can’t just leave the others to cope. Maggie sounded in a bad way. Her boyfriend’s there, but she needs me too. We knew Andrea and Dom for a long time.’
‘Okay, I understand. I can still pick you up tomorrow morning if that’s how you feel. What does Mum think?’
‘She can’t stop me.’
‘That’s true, but be careful and don’t overstretch yourself.’
‘I won’t. I actually think it will be better to be with the others at this point. It feels weird to be here. We can help each other to process it.’
Oldroyd smiled. ‘You’re probably right. You sounded just like Deborah, then. It’s a very mature and healthy attitude.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Come on, let’s go, we need to get out of this place for a while.’
The despondent group of friends had been planning to go out for Sunday brunch until the shocking news of Dominic’s death. Jack, however, had got to his feet to urge them to go ahead with the plan.
‘Someone text Ben; that detective said he wouldn’t be long. He can meet us at the café.’
Mark looked at Maggie, who sighed but got up from the sofa. ‘Okay then, I think you’re right.’
It was a fine day but cold; the first day in the late autumn in which there was a hint of winter. They walked slowly down past Pannett Park, shuffling through the thick autumn leaves. No one said much. They reached a café near the harbour and managed to get a table for four.
They’d not been there long when Ben arrived, looking very sombre.
‘Hi,’ said Jack. ‘How was it?’
‘Pretty grim,’ replied Ben as he sat down. ‘I’ve never seen a dead body before apart from . . . you know. It was Dom all right but he looked different; very still, like a waxwork.’ He shook his head. ‘It was awful.’
‘Oh, poor you!’ said Maggie, sitting next to him. She put her hand on his shoulder. ‘That was a brave thing to do and thanks. I’m glad I didn’t have to do it.’
‘That’s okay. Have you ordered?’
‘No. Here’s a menu.’ They all consulted the menus in silence.
The waitress took their orders and brought their coffees over. The warm drinks and the bustling atmosphere lifted their gloom a little.
Jack took in a deep breath. ‘Do we have to stay round here for much longer? To be honest, it’s giving me the creeps. It’s a shame because it’s such a nice little place but I don’t think I’ll be coming back to Whitby in a hurry.’
‘I assume the police will give us the go-ahead to leave soon,’ said Ben.
‘Yeah,’ said Mark, turning to Maggie, ‘I think we should get back to London. You need to get a bit of distance from all this now. There’s nothing more you can do. The terrible truth is they’re both dead and you can’t change it.’
Maggie winced. ‘It sounds so brutal when you say it like that.’
‘What’s the alternative? Stick around here getting more and more depressed? It’s all over and you have to move on.’
Maggie turned on her partner. ‘It’s easy for you to say; you weren’t really close to them.’ She was close to tears again. ‘It’s bloody hard losing two people like that who you knew for a long time.’ She put her head in her hands. Mark put his arm over her shoulder.
‘I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have said it like that. I was being insensitive.’
‘Mark’s right, though, Maggie,’ said Ben. ‘We need to go and we’ve no choice anyway. The booking on the apartment expires tomorrow, so we have to leave on Tuesday morning. Out by eleven.’
Maggie nodded and wiped her eyes with a tissue. ‘So we all head back to London then?’
‘It’s for the best,’ said Jack.
‘What about Louise? I’m not leaving before she comes back. I need to talk to her. We both knew Dom and Andrea for years.’
‘Isn’t she coming back tomorrow? That’s Monday. We’ll still be here.’
Maggie closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘Yes of course. Oh, I’m so bloody shook up and confused! I don’t even know what day it is.’
‘Don’t worry,�
� said Mark reassuringly. ‘It’s only to be expected.’
‘You two look completely knackered as well,’ said Maggie, looking at Ben and Jack, who had gone silent and appeared to be nearly falling asleep.
‘I stayed out too late last night,’ replied Ben, yawning. ‘I found a pub with live music and they had an extension until one o’clock; must be because of the Goth Weekend. Where did you get to?’ Jack and Ben had gone out the previous night and left Mark and Maggie together in the apartment.
‘Oh, that place wasn’t my scene,’ said Jack. ‘I found a club in some cellar behind a pub in that old street – Church Street, isn’t it? It’s all a bit hazy.’
‘Church Street?’ said Maggie. ‘Did you hear or see anything of what happened with Dom? The police said he went to a pub down there and fired some shots.’
‘Naw. I was inside and the music was pretty loud. They were blasting out the goth stuff: Dark Wave, Banshees. I don’t think I would have heard anything.’
‘No.’
‘Hey, I’ll tell you who I did see though,’ said Ben. ‘I almost forgot. That bloke who was playing Dracula at the escape room. He was walking towards the swing bridge. I recognised him out of his vampire stuff and I think he recognised me, but he looked away and just went on.’
‘You go over that bridge to get to Church Street,’ said Maggie thoughtfully. ‘Maybe he had something to do with it.’
‘With what?’ said Jack.
‘Dom’s death.’
‘How?’
‘I dunno. He was in the escape room when it all happened.’
‘So what? Look, stop trying to make something out of nothing. Dom killed Andrea and then he killed himself. It’s absolutely terrible but it’s all finished with. I’m not surprised that bloke didn’t want to talk to Ben after what happened; he must be as traumatised as the rest of us.’ Jack was sounding very exasperated.
Maggie didn’t reply.
The waitress brought their food, and for a few minutes they made a lacklustre attempt to eat.
‘I think I’m going to head back,’ said Ben when he’d finished eating. He got some money out of his wallet. ‘Here’s my share of the bill. I need to lie down for a while.’
‘Me too,’ added Jack, who similarly produced some cash.
‘What do you want to do?’ said Mark to Maggie. ‘Do you fancy a walk up through the park? It’s still fine. I think the fresh air will do you good.’
Maggie agreed. They paid the bill and left.
As she and Mark walked slowly back up the hill and turned into Pannett Park up some steep steps, Maggie reflected sadly on how such an exciting weekend had turned so horrible and tragic. When they reached the centre of the park they saw a children’s playground and she couldn’t prevent herself from being overwhelmed by sadness again. She and Andrea had talked a number of times about whether they would have a family one day and Andrea was keen. She’d said she liked children. Now it would never happen.
‘It’s strange how so much can be wiped out so quickly,’ she said. ‘Andrea had so much living to do. And so did Dom.’
‘Yes. Now we know how people feel after car accidents and stuff when someone dies suddenly and nobody was expecting it.’
‘I suppose so.’
A woman with two kids went past them. The kids were dressed in mini goth costumes and had skeleton masks. Maggie found it chilling.
‘Oh, look at that! It’s awful; they’re only children,’ she said.
Mark laughed. ‘They’re only having fun. You know what kids are like; they want to get in on the act with the goth thing. Or maybe they’re rehearsing for next week. It’s Halloween on Friday.’
Maggie shuddered. ‘So it is. I used to enjoy that when I was a kid. Not anymore.’
‘Someday you will, especially if you have kids of your own.’
Maggie tried to look ahead and imagine how she might feel about everything years into the future, but she found it impossible.
Three
When thou from hence away art past,
Every nighte and alle,
To Whinny muir thou com’st at last,
And Christ receive thy saule.
From the Lyke Wake Dirge
It was early on Monday morning when Alice Granger knocked on Lesley’s bedroom door.
‘Lesley, can I come in?’
‘Yeah.’
Granger went inside to find her daughter still in bed.
‘Aren’t you going to school today?’
Lesley turned over and yawned. ‘Yeah, later. I don’t have a class till History at ten o’clock and I’m not going to registration. It’s a complete waste of time. It’s just like when we had form period when we were younger. We never do anything.’
Granger would normally have challenged her daughter, but in the circumstances decided to pass it over. Lesley had gone straight to bed on the Saturday evening after the trauma down at the Old Ship, spending most of Sunday in her room, no doubt frantically texting her friends about what had happened.
‘We need to talk about Saturday,’ said Granger, sitting on a chair by the side of the bed.
‘Do we have to? I’m okay about it, really.’
‘I’m glad to hear that, but I was thinking with my police officer’s hat on. I told you yesterday that a body has been found in the water near where the last shot was heard.’
‘Yeah, well, I wasn’t surprised. They were obviously mad.’
‘That’s why I need to talk to you: you’re a witness, you see, so I need to ask you some questions.’
‘God, I never thought about it like that.’
‘If you don’t like it I can get one of my detective constables to come out and interview you instead.’
‘Are any of them fit?’
Granger laughed. ‘Yes, I suppose one or two are, but I don’t think they’ll show any interest in you, especially knowing that you’re my daughter. Can’t you just tell me what you saw?’
‘Okay.’ Lesley sat up in bed and closed her eyes as she summoned up her memories of Saturday night. ‘We were outside sitting at one of the tables. I was facing down Church Street and there were lots of people in goth stuff, you know. The street was packed with them. I saw this person coming down the street staggering from side to side. I thought they were drunk until they got close and I saw they were dressed like Dracula. They stopped near the pub and just looked towards it for a while, then pulled out a gun. I don’t know what it was, but something made me think this was serious. I mean guns aren’t really a part of goth costumes so what were they doing? Some people thought it was a joke and were laughing, but I called to my friends to get down. We were just getting under the table when they fired the first shot; then there was another. Then there was chaos: screaming, people running all over the place, chairs turned over. There was a third shot in the distance. We stayed underneath the table until everything went quiet and then crept out slowly. Mandy was in a right state, but I felt okay.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Because I don’t think we were ever in danger. I don’t think they meant to shoot anybody. They deliberately aimed at things rather than people. That’s why I’m not surprised they killed themselves; they were obviously deranged. Anyway, after that I called you and we walked back to the bridge.’
‘Right. I think you were very sharp to notice what was happening and very brave.’
Lesley shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
‘I just want to ask you a bit more about this figure. You keep referring to them as “they” even though they were dressed as Dracula. He’s usually a man, isn’t he?’
‘Not necessarily. Women dress as vampires too. It was a fairly tall figure but there was a mask over the face, so it was impossible to tell whether it was a man or a woman.’
‘They didn’t say anything then?’
‘No.’
‘And nothing to give away whether it was male or female?’
‘No, but as they found the body, don’t you know that it was
a man?’
‘Probably, but we have to be very careful not to make assumptions: in this case that the figure you saw was the person whose body was found. Anyway, thank you for that. You’ll have to write it up as a statement but that won’t take long. You could do it now.’ Granger got up from the chair. ‘I’ve got to get off for work. So get out of bed now and tomorrow you’ll have to make it to registration. I’m sure it can’t be that bad.’
Lesley sighed and pulled the duvet back over her head.
‘It’s getting worse over there, Jim.’ Back in Harrogate, Oldroyd was in Tom Walker’s office. ‘I saw it on the news last night; a body found in the harbour.’
‘Yes, Tom, not entirely unexpected. He’s the suspect, and he’s been on the run and behaving strangely since the murder. He threatened to kill himself and it seems like he has. So this could be the end of it.’
Walker looked at him closely. ‘You don’t think so, though, do you?’
Oldroyd smiled. ‘To be honest, no. It’s an instinct thing again. You know how you sometimes feel after many years in this game. There are some things that don’t ring true for me. I won’t bore you with the details.’
‘So you want to carry on over there for a while?’
‘Yes, if that’s okay. I have a plan of what I’d like to do and it may involve swapping DS Johnson for DS Carter at some point if that’s okay?’
Walker grunted. ‘Well, I’ve had such a glowing report from Inspector Granger over there about how helpful you’ve been and asking if the secondment can continue. It’ll be a big feather in our cap if there is a twist to this case and you can crack it. So you’d better get over there. I’ll be able to tell Watkins what an excellent force he’s got here in Harrogate. He should be proud, but he’s not interested in real police work, just bureaucracy and image. Do you know what the latest thing is? He’s . . .’
Oldroyd usually found a way of subtly curtailing Walker’s rants against his superior, but as Walker was allowing him to continue over in Whitby, he felt it judicious to hear his boss out on this occasion.
It was a little while before he could escape to the old Saab, where Louise and Steph were waiting for him. Louise was still insisting that she go back over to Whitby with him, despite her mother’s pleas.
