by J. R. Ellis
‘Yes, but there was nothing. The only unusual thing was a kind of adult dressing-up box with all kinds of outfits in it. The father said they enjoyed dressing-up for special occasions. You know, parties and bits of plays they were in. They were both into acting, weren’t they?’
‘Yes, and ironically they were doing it on their last day in the escape room.’
‘That’s just what I thought. But altogether not much of any use there. We went on to Imperial College and spoke to Ben Morton’s head of department. She gave him a good report, although she did say he kept himself to himself. He’s very keen on his own artwork apparently. She made him sound a bit like the classic struggling artist, you know, keeping himself from starvation in the old garret by doing a bit of teaching. So again nothing of real substance, I’m afraid.’
‘Good work, don’t worry if you think you haven’t made the big breakthrough. All these people need to be followed up.’
‘Right, sir. Well . . . next up is Garner and Maggie Hinton. After that I’ll speak to the people who worked with Holgate and Barnes.’
‘Good. Have a nice evening, then.’
‘I will, sir. I’m going out with a mate of mine from well back. It’s usually a good night with him.’
‘Okay . . . well, don’t overdo it. Does Steph know about this great carousal?’
Andy laughed. ‘She does, sir. I always warn her when I’m going to meet up with Jason. She worries I’ll revert to my teenage years and get arrested for being drunk and disorderly.’
Oldroyd laughed too. ‘Well, make sure it doesn’t happen. Bye for now.’
The call ended, leaving Oldroyd thoughtful. Deborah returned.
‘How did it go?’ she asked.
‘Nothing particularly startling, but he said something which made me think.’
‘What’s new?’ laughed Deborah.
‘I tell you, mate, I’ve absolutely had enough. That place is a madhouse and so are all the other ones like it.’
Jason looked tired. He and Andy were having a few cocktails in a smart bar in Canary Wharf not far from where Jason worked. Andy was quite concerned; he’d never seen his normally ebullient friend so downcast.
‘Why’s that?’ he asked.
‘All you do all day is chase money and gamble with it. It’s true what they say, it’s just a giant casino.’
‘I could’ve told you that years ago.’
‘I know, but I wouldn’t have listened.’ Jason finished his drink. ‘Fancy another?’
‘Yeah, but we’ll have to go steady if we’re hitting it later.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe we won’t. My round.’ Jason went to the bar while Andy reflected on his friend’s sombre mood.
‘So what happened to the old mischief-maker who enjoyed playing the system and sailing close to the wind?’ he asked as his friend returned with the drinks.
Jason shrugged. ‘After a while it’s just boring. It’s like getting one over on the teachers at school.’ He took a drink and seemed to look into the distance. ‘I think I’m finally growing up.’
‘Wow.’ Andy briefly considered teasing him about this but he saw that Jason was serious. ‘So what are you thinking of doing?’
Jason gave him a shy look. ‘Don’t laugh, but I quite like the idea of being a maths teacher. In a hard school. I think I’d know how to get through to the kids and make a difference.’
‘Bloody hell! Talk about poacher and gamekeeper. But it’s great. You’d have a big cut in salary, you realise.’
‘Yeah, but I might achieve something worthwhile apart from making rich people even richer.’
Andy clapped.
‘Oh, don’t,’ said Jason.
‘No, mate, don’t get me wrong, I really think it’s fantastic, and I think you’d be good at it. You would get through to those kids.’
Jason’s face lit up and Andy realised he’d been hoping for his approval.
‘I’ve already made some enquiries and I can do a post graduate certificate in education through this Teaching in London thing. There’s actually some kind of golden hello package for maths teachers. They’re short of them. Come on, let’s drink up and go for a pizza, and I’ll tell you more about it.’
Pleased to see the old energy back in his friend, Andy readily agreed. His phone rang. It was Steph.
‘Hi, how’s it going?’ she asked. ‘Still sober, I hope.’
‘Okay, don’t worry. We’ll be taking it steady tonight. We’re not in the mood for anything wild.’ He glanced at Jason, who smiled and called out, ‘Hi, Steph!’
‘Hi, Jason, how are you?’
‘Fine. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him. I won’t let him do anything rash.’
She laughed. ‘Well, that’s good to hear, though I’m not sure the carer is that reliable.’
‘Oh, he’s a changed man. Andy will tell you all about it.’
Andy continued the conversation as Jason went off to the toilet. ‘We’re having a few cocktails and then we’re off for a pizza.’
‘Sounds very tame,’ replied Steph. ‘Anyway, how’s work?’
‘Not brilliant; we’re working our way through the list of people the boss gave me, but nothing much is coming up yet.’
‘I can hear you’re disappointed.’
‘Yeah, well, you know how I always like to impress him.’
‘I’m sure he’s just as impressed by your hard work as when you discover something important. You know what he says: often it’s just a question of slogging away until someone gets the breakthrough and everyone’s contribution is equally important.’
‘Yes. The problem with this case as far as I understand it is that the solution may be just what it appeared to be at the beginning so I might be wasting my time. Am I right?’
‘Maybe. But the boss is still convinced that things are not what they appear to be. I have to say he hasn’t convinced me, but we’re carrying on until all the possibilities are excluded. I don’t know who will be proved right.’
‘Well, given past experience I know where my money will be.’
‘Maybe. I called in on Louise. She’s staying in Leeds for a while.’
‘How is she?’
‘Still a bit frail. We get on really well. She told me she’s interested in Ben, the one who tried to save Andrea the victim after she’d been stabbed. She’s been worried about him, so that will have added to the stress. By the way, don’t mention any of that to the boss. She hasn’t said anything to him and the relationship hasn’t really got going yet.’
‘I won’t. Anyway, Jason’s coming back and we’ll be off. Have a good evening. Love you.’
‘Love you, too.’
While Andy and Jason were enjoying their rather sedate evening out, Louise was meeting up with some of her old sixth-form college friends in Leeds. Cynthia, Aisha and Claudia had all come back to the Leeds area after university. They were in one of their favourite haunts from the old days: The Fox and Goose pub near the university and their old sixth-form college.
Although they were glad to be meeting up again, it was a somewhat sombre occasion due to what had happened to their friend Andrea.
‘I still can’t believe she’s gone,’ said Claudia. ‘And you were there when it happened. My God, Louise, it must have been terrible.’
‘It was,’ replied Louise. ‘It’s still difficult to get the images out of my mind.’
‘Ugh!’ Cynthia turned her head away at the idea. ‘How are you coping?’
‘Okay up to a point. I’m staying with my mum, and Dad has arranged for this lovely police sergeant to check on me. She’s really friendly and understanding.’
‘That’s nice.’
‘She was always such a lively person,’ said Aisha, getting back to Andrea. ‘Do you remember she was in all the plays? She was so good – no wonder she got into drama school. It’s so tragic. She could have had a future in acting. Who knows? She could have been famous. What was she up to down there, did you see much of her?’
‘Yes, now and again,’ replied Louise. ‘She was in this little women’s theatre group. They performed in small venues all over the place. She loved it, though it didn’t pay much. We had this group of friends, I don’t know whether it will survive all this, and she and Dominic were part of it. He was keen on acting too.’ A sudden spasm of grief went through her. ‘I still don’t believe he could have killed her. They seemed made for each other.’ Her eyes filled with tears and Aisha passed her a tissue.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Claudia. ‘It must be awful. It was bad enough seeing her die, but her boyfriend stabbing her? I can’t imagine what it must have been like.’
‘It seems unreal, doesn’t it?’ added Cynthia.
Louise looked up. She thought for a moment with a furrowed brow.
‘And she’d just inherited that gorgeous flat from her aunt. That would have helped her financially,’ continued Cynthia.
‘Oh, I wanted to ask you about that,’ said Louise, coming out of her reverie. ‘There’s a bit of a mystery about a picture that’s missing from the hall. It’s probably not important . . . but did any of you ever visit her in that flat?’
They all shook their heads except Aisha. ‘I went round a few times but I couldn’t tell you anything about the paintings except there were a lot of them. It was a brilliant collection, like going round a gallery. One time I bumped into her in the market and she asked me to the flat. She said she was just on a flying visit. It was a lovely flat; her aunt had wonderful taste. There was someone just leaving the flat as I arrived. There wasn’t time for her to introduce me but when we got inside she said it was a friend of hers from London and they’d admired the paintings too. I wondered if that person was an art dealer and she was going to sell some of them. I know she needed the money.’
‘You see, one of those paintings is missing,’ said Louise. ‘My dad noticed there was a space on the wall. I’ve been to the flat plenty of times, but there’s no way I could remember that particular painting.’
‘Well, maybe she did sell one?’
‘I don’t know. She was very attached to all her aunt’s stuff. I don’t think she would. Her cleaner, who’s also my mum’s cleaner, noticed this picture was missing too, but she seemed to think it only disappeared after Andrea had . . . died.’ The last word was a struggle to get out.
‘Look,’ said Claudia, ‘forget it, it’s not important. This is what happens when you have a shock or a lot of stress – some trivial thing gets blown out of proportion and you can’t deal with it or get it out of your mind. You need to leave it to your dad and the other detectives to sort everything out. It’s their job.’
Louise smiled. ‘You’re right. Let’s change the subject, shall we? Who wants another drink? It’s my round.’ She went to the bar feeling much better for the support of her friends. However, things had been said that had set her thinking again.
Early next morning in Whitby a group of kids on their way to school were playing on a stretch of waste ground near a builder’s yard on the edge of an industrial park. There was a large, old, rusty skip full of various kinds of rubbish ready to be taken to the landfill site. Their parents had told these children to keep away from things like this as they could be dangerous. That made it more exciting. Their favourite game was climbing up the step overhanging the sides of the skip and walking over the rubbish.
A boy and a girl had made it onto the top and another boy was climbing up when there was a screech of metal tearing and the side of the old skip where he was ascending gave way. The boy fell to the ground, followed by lots of the rubbish from the skip. His friends heard him cry out.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah.’
The others laughed. Two of them pulled some rotting planks from on top of their friend and helped him up. He was filthy but unhurt. A third went to look at what had fallen out of the skip. Amongst the empty paint containers and broken furniture he saw something alarming.
‘Oh God! What’s that? It stinks,’ he cried.
The others turned to see their friend looking at something rolled up in some kind of old sheet. The smell hit them.
‘Oh shit! That’s hair!’ The girl pointed to the end of the rolled-up thing. ‘It’s a body!’
They screamed, turned away and sprinted back home, not knowing or caring that the search for Hugh Preston, owner of the Dracula’s Lair Escape Room, was over.
‘He’s been there for some time, over a week according to a cursory examination. The cause of death was a stab wound to the chest.’
Inspector Granger and Oldroyd were at the scene of the children’s gruesome discovery. It was a chilly, dark day with a heavy grey sky. Blue-and-white tape cordoned off the skip, and a police constable was on duty. A quantity of rubbish, which had fallen from the skip with the body, lay strewn around.
‘He must have been in a nasty state,’ Oldroyd said. ‘Not a nice experience for those kids.’
‘No, I agree,’ said Granger with a grim smile. ‘That’ll teach them to climb onto things like this when they’ve been told not to. They were sent away with a severe warning not to play on skips like that.’
‘Right, I suppose it’s called learning the hard way. They’ll certainly never forget this. So I assume his killer hid his body in here, believing that the skip would be taken to the tip and the body would end up lost in a massive pile of landfill rubbish.’
‘Yes, I think so. But apparently this skip is used for general rubbish that accumulates around the industrial park. So it’s not emptied very often. That’s why it took some time for the body to be discovered.’
‘Lucky for us. We needed a break in our investigation. And I was saying only yesterday that we probably wouldn’t get any more leads here in Whitby,’ observed Oldroyd. ‘I think we can assume his murder is connected with the case though you’ll need to check that there are no other people around with a motive to kill him.’
‘It would be a great coincidence if there were, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes, I’m thinking he was killed because he knew about the trick sarcophagus. We were clearly never meant to find his body or work out how the trick worked.’
‘They reckoned without you, sir,’ said Granger teasingly. ‘That still doesn’t necessarily mean that the obvious solution to the case is wrong. Holgate could have murdered him after he was told about the sarcophagus.’
‘In theory, yes, but in that scenario Holgate premeditates the killing of two people and then himself; he’s a violent, deranged murderer and suicide who carries weapons. No one we’ve spoken to has seen any sign of him being like that. Also how would he have known Hugh Preston? There’s no evidence that Holgate ever came to Whitby before last week.’
‘The problem with that is neither did the rest of the group. In fact, only Barnes, who was killed, came regularly to Whitby.’
‘Hmm, so who did Preston tell about the trick sarcophagus?’ mused Oldroyd.
‘Whoever it was clearly holds the key to this mystery.’
They were sauntering back to Granger’s car when Oldroyd suddenly stopped. ‘Wait. I’ve got an idea. Let’s go back to the escape room. I’ve got a feeling we didn’t look there carefully enough.’
Dracula’s Lair seemed even creepier when it was dark and deserted than when it had been full of police officers. Granger managed to find a light switch and opened the creaking door into the game’s first room, but Oldroyd strode on past the reception desk.
‘Let’s look in here first.’
To Granger’s surprise, he opened the door to the toilets and went in. ‘Yes,’ she heard him cry. ‘I thought so.’
She followed him in. There was a narrow anteroom with doors marked ‘Men’ and ‘Women’ for the toilets.
‘What is it, sir?’
‘There’s another emergency exit door in here,’ he said, pointing to a third door. ‘I think we’ll find that this leads out onto the street, not far from the exit door from that room with the sarcophagus.’
&nb
sp; ‘So someone could have moved quickly between the two?’
‘Yes, without going through the rooms set up for the game.’
‘You’re thinking of Elaine Pesku? The receptionist?’
‘I am. If I remember rightly, Louise said in her statement that when she got to reception to raise the alarm, Pesku was just coming through the door to the toilet. That’s a very effective cover. She could have been returning from that storage room which held the sarcophagus. We’ve focused too much on the main characters in this drama, looking for motives and we’ve overlooked others.’
‘So you think she was lying when she told Hampton she knew nothing about the sarcophagus?’
‘I do. What made me think about her was when you said whoever knew about that trick could hold the key to the mystery and she’s the obvious person when you think about it. Preston must have told her. Then I remembered what Louise said. There was no one else in reception so she could easily have used the two emergency doors to go to the room where Holgate was. She’s involved in this somehow. We need to get after her.’
‘Do you think she murdered Preston?’
‘Maybe, but if she was involved we know that she was working with at least one other person because there’s no way she could have stabbed Barnes.’
‘What about motive, sir? We’ve nothing to link her to anyone in that group, never mind the actual victims. The only person who had any connection with her was the actor Philip Owen and he had no link with anyone else either.’
‘We may have to consider him again too, but the urgent need is to find Pesku before any news of the discovery of Preston’s body gets out. Once she hears about it she’ll probably disappear.’
Oldroyd’s phone went. It was Steph calling from the Harrogate HQ. ‘Morning, sir. I hope things are going well.’
‘Yes, things are livening up over here.’ He told her about the discovery of the body. ‘I’m pretty sure this means what we’ve been presented with is not the real story. We’re going to track down Pesku and see what she has to say.’
‘Right, sir. Is there anything I can do at this end?’
