The Whitby Murders (A Yorkshire Murder Mystery)

by J. R. Ellis

  ‘True enough,’ replied Oldroyd. ‘And very dark. Fate has some cruel twists at times.’

  ‘So, I’m afraid that’s it, sir.’

  ‘Okay. Well done, and don’t worry. This grafting is all part of the job; sometimes you have to sift through a lot of dross, as it were, before you find the diamond. It looks like things are swinging back to this end. Our main hope now is to capture Pesku and see if we can get her to tell us what’s been going on. She’s definitely involved in some way. You might as well stay there and do your final interview tomorrow. Come back over the weekend.’

  ‘All right, sir.’ The conversation ended, and Oldroyd hung up the phone.

  ‘Was that your sergeant again?’ asked Deborah.

  ‘It was. He sounded disappointed. He’s always so keen to do well and help make progress in a case, but he’s finding that it doesn’t always go the way you’d like it to.’

  ‘No, that’s the same in many professions.’ Deborah took a drink from a glass of wine and then she sat back in the sofa and sighed. ‘Well, I must say, this is the life. It’s so relaxing to get away for a while and be by the sea. What’s the plan tomorrow? Will you be busy all day?’

  ‘I’ll have to check in with Alice Granger and see how the hunt for Pesku is going. Other than that, I thought we might pay a visit to the museum in Pannett Park as the weather’s not going to be brilliant. Have you ever been?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, it’s a wonderfully eccentric collection of all kinds of stuff.’

  ‘Sounds good. I can’t wait.’

  Louise answered the door when Steph knocked. It was six o’clock. Julia was still at work.

  ‘Hi,’ said Steph.

  ‘Hi. So you want to come in for a minute?’

  ‘I won’t, if that’s okay? I’ve got to get back home, and I’m pretty knackered. Here’s the key.’ She handed it over to Louise who thanked her. ‘How about meeting up on Saturday for a coffee in town?’

  Louise looked uncomfortable and hesitant. ‘Sorry, I can’t. I’ve got to go out to the flat and I’m . . . I’m meeting someone.’

  Steph looked at her with concern. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Yes fine. Well, you know, not really, but I think I’m getting a bit better day by day. Maybe we could meet up next week sometime?’

  ‘Fine. Okay, then I’ll be off.’

  ‘Bye for now.’

  Steph got back in her car but sat thinking for a moment before she started the engine. There was clearly something Louise was not telling her.

  The next day was Friday and Halloween. It dawned quiet and still with heavy, dark clouds settling a gloom over the day.

  DC Hampton and his team continued their search for Pesku early in the day. They split up, some searching back alleys and outhouses in the town centre and some going round more suburban areas asking people to be careful about who might be hiding in their garage or shed. A message had gone out on local radio with a description of Pesku and the usual injunction to be wary and not to approach the person, who may be dangerous. So far there were no reports of any sightings. There were also officers watching the bus and train stations.

  Hampton was coordinating the search and was in contact with the teams. He was with a small group combing the area around where Pesku had escaped from him and Granger.

  ‘Any luck?’ asked another DC as Hampton finished a radio call from the team doing street searches.

  ‘No, and I don’t think they’re going to find her out there in the residential areas. I think she’ll be down here somewhere in the old town. This is the area she knew best as she worked at the escape room and she wasn’t that familiar with Whitby as a whole. She could easily get lost if she strayed from here.’

  ‘Yeah, I think you’re right. We’ll just have to knock on doors and check possible hiding places until something turns up. Somebody must have seen her.’

  At Whitby Police HQ, an animated Granger had news for Oldroyd. ‘I’ve got some revelations about Elaine Pesku. We contacted the Romanian authorities and they had nothing on anyone of that name, but when we sent her photograph through, which we found amongst her things in her room in that house, they recognised her immediately. Her real name is Irina Albesku and she is wanted big time in Bucharest. She was part of a drugs gang and is suspected of being involved in some pretty nasty murders. She fled the country over a year ago and disappeared. The fact that she could come here and successfully take on a new identity with a passport and probably other documents is testimony to the fact that she knew some high-level and clever people in the underworld.’

  ‘I see,’ said Oldroyd. ‘So she would be capable of using a gun?’

  ‘Absolutely. But what are you suggesting?’

  ‘I’m not certain, but surely it’s no accident that someone like that was working at the escape room.’

  ‘We don’t know for sure that she was involved, do we?’ replied Granger. ‘In fact this discovery could explain why she’s run off and disappeared again. It may be nothing to do with the murders and the escape room; she may have just thought that we’d found out who she was and had come to arrest and deport her.’

  ‘I suppose so. We’ll have to wait until we find her.’

  ‘I’ve got Hampton and some other DCs on the job. They’re all local and they’ll find her if anyone can. In the meantime, I’m going to track down where she was at college in London to see if we can find out some more about her time here in Britain. How about you?’

  ‘Oh, I think I’m going to visit the museum.’

  ‘This is one of the most unusual museums I know,’ said Oldroyd eagerly as he and Deborah walked across Pannett Park towards the museum building in the half light of the dim afternoon.

  ‘I’m looking forward to it,’ replied Deborah as she gazed over the still park with the wet grass covered in leaves. ‘It’ll be nice to get inside on a day like this. It’s certainly good weather for Halloween: suitably gloomy and spooky.’

  ‘The place is an amazing cornucopia of all kinds of things. Wait till you see the Hand of Glory.’

  ‘The what?’

  Oldroyd laughed. ‘You’ll see.’

  They reached the museum and art gallery, a simple but handsome neoclassical building erected in the 1920s, went in and bought their tickets from the friendly volunteer on duty. It was such a dark afternoon that the lights were on. Deborah smiled as she looked into the main room, which was packed with glass cases stuffed with exhibits. It was full of the atmosphere of an old museum with all kinds of things bundled together. She could see model ships and a dolls’ house; a shoe collection and fossils. There was a complicated and eccentric machine called the Tempest Prognosticator, invented by a nineteenth-century curator of the museum called George Merryweather. This supposedly detected oncoming storms by means of leeches in bottles of water linked to a bell.

  ‘Look at this,’ said Oldroyd, leading her to a glass case which contained a withered human hand.

  ‘Ugh, that’s revolting. Why is that here?’

  ‘It’s called the Hand of Glory. I think it says this one was found in the wall of a cottage somewhere.’ He read the information board. ‘Yes, that’s right, at Castleton up the river Esk. They used to cut off the hand of a felon who’d been hanged and then make a candle of fat from the same corpse. They believed that if you placed this candle in the hand and lit it, this would render people nearby motionless. Thieves could use this to burgle places and render all the inhabitants helpless while the intruders stole everything they wanted.’

  ‘What a bizarre and gruesome idea!’

  ‘Isn’t it? Fascinating though! Look, I’m just going over there to look at the model ships. Why don’t you have a look at the doll collection? I’ll meet you over there. It’s worth a look.’

  ‘Okay, sounds a bit gender-stereotypical, though,’ said Deborah, laughing as she made her way across the shiny wooden floor past glass cases full of clocks, coins, toys and weapons. She encountered a large to
tem pole and arrived at a large exhibit case full of dolls. Although she’d had dolls as a child she’d always found displays like this a little disturbing. Like ventriloquists’ dummies with their exaggerated features and loose jaws, there was always that uncomfortable feeling that they could somehow come to life. She looked at them individually and shivered. Some had quite evil-looking expressions with broken teeth and missing eyes. She noticed something at the back of the display case; surely that ugly face was moving! She let out a little cry and Oldroyd stepped out from behind the case, laughing. He’d covered himself in a white dust sheet he’d found in the corner of the room so only his head was visible. Then he crouched down behind the exhibits staying absolutely still. To a casual glance it looked as if he was inside the case. When Deborah went past he turned his head slowly and put on a grotesque expression with staring eyes.

  ‘Oh, your face!’ he exclaimed.

  Despite being shocked, she had to laugh. ‘You bugger! You really had me there! Oh, it’s a great place for a practical joke, isn’t it? But it could have gone wrong. What if I’d fallen into the glass or had a heart attack?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s likely and—’ Suddenly his expression changed. Something had moved in his mind again, but no clear idea emerged. ‘Fancy some tea in the café?’ he said.

  ‘Lovely.’

  Later on they went for another meal at the Seagull Café and Oldroyd was rather distracted throughout the evening. On the way back to the hotel Halloween was in full swing with groups of children dressed in ghoulish costumes wandering around supervised by adults. As they knocked on doors their cries of ‘Trick or Treat!’ could be heard again and again. For some reason this chant stayed with Oldroyd and kept him awake far into the night. He felt as if he was on the verge of an insight but it stayed tantalisingly out of reach.

  Early next morning, Oldroyd was merging from sleep and his mind was still playing the phrase over: ‘Trick or Treat’ ‘Trick or Treat’ Then: ‘Trick!’ ‘Trick!’ ‘Trick!’

  The single word resonated louder and louder, and he sprung awake. His subconscious must have been working overnight. Things had suddenly become much clearer. He flung the duvet back and jumped out of bed.

  ‘Of course,’ he muttered to himself as he grabbed his phone. ‘That’s what was going on. Why didn’t I realise it sooner? All the evidence was there in front of me if I’d put it all together.’

  A very groggy voice answered the phone.

  ‘Sir?’ It was Andy.

  ‘Andy! I know it’s early but tell me again what Holgate’s boss told you about Holgate being a joker.’

  Andy was in bed, screwing his eyes up against the light. He scratched his head and then shook it to help get his brain into gear. ‘He said Holgate had a good sense of humour and enjoyed practical jokes, like pretending to be stabbed.’

  ‘And he used a false knife?’

  ‘Yes, but, sir, we talked about this yesterday. He wasn’t using a trick knife in that escape room; that woman died of stab wounds.’

  ‘She did, but that’s not incompatible with his use of a trick knife,’ Oldroyd replied enigmatically.

  ‘What, sir? You’ve completely lost me.’

  ‘Never mind. I just wanted to confirm what you’d said. Time to get up anyway, you lazy so-and-so, I can tell you’re still in bed. More information later – I think I’m really on to something now.’

  ‘Okay, sir.’ Andy put the phone down and yawned. He couldn’t understand where his boss was coming from, but he was glad to hear him so upbeat and back to his bumptious self.

  Oldroyd made another call. ‘Alice? Yes, it’s Jim Oldroyd. Sorry to ring you so early but the answer has come to me. I know what happened and how those two were murdered in the escape room and I’m pretty sure I know who was responsible. Yes, they were both murdered. It was a clever scheme. I just need to confirm one or two things. Can you meet me in an hour at the station? Excellent. See you there.’

  Deborah moaned and turned over. ‘What’s going on, Jim?’ she murmured.

  ‘I think we’ve got a breakthrough in the case. I have to meet Alice Granger at the station. I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Okay.’ Deborah pulled the duvet back over herself and went back to sleep.

  ‘Can you get that video footage up from the CCTV at the escape room? I want to have another look.’ Oldroyd sat next to Granger at her desk at Whitby police HQ while she brought the video up on her computer. He was full of energy and eagerness after the recent lull in the investigation. ‘It’s the bit just after Holgate stabs her.’

  Granger fast forwarded through bizarre speeded-up scenes of the group in their goth costumes. She stopped when Holgate ran to the emergency exit which led to the storeroom. Ben Morton was leaning over Andrea at the bottom of the picture. You could see the white dress stained with blood, but their faces were not visible.

  ‘Right,’ said Oldroyd. ‘You can’t see much because Morton’s in the way . . . and that’s deliberate. I think she was probably whispering something to Morton at this point.’

  ‘But she’d been stabbed,’ protested Granger. Oldroyd shook his head.

  ‘No. We found some stomach medicine capsules among Barnes’s things. I think she used them for something. You see, Holgate only stabbed her with a false knife, and then’ – he paused, and the effect was dramatic – ‘Morton used the real thing.’

  ‘Morton! You think he was the murderer?’ Granger considered this for a moment. ‘Well, that would tie up with what I discovered yesterday about Pesku. She was a student at the Imperial College of Art, where one of her tutors was Ben Morton.’

  ‘Well, well, at last we’ve got the vital link. What was she doing up here?’

  ‘As far as we can tell, she came up here for a holiday job.’

  ‘And if Morton came to see her, he might have got some ideas. Excellent! It’s all fitting together at last.’

  ‘But what was the motive to kill one of his own friends, sir?’

  ‘I’m not certain yet and it wasn’t just Barnes. Pesku was the accomplice. I believe she killed Holgate in the storeroom. I have an idea what it was all about, but we urgently need to tell Andy to get some support and go round to arrest Morton. I’m assuming he’s back in London. I’m going to ring Andy now.’

  Andy answered after a pause. It was still only eight o’clock in the morning. ‘Morning again, sir. It seems all go today. Has something happened?’

  ‘Yes, so get yourself moving! I assume you’re out of bed now. We think we know who the perpetrator is: it’s Ben Morton, and his accomplice was Elaine Pesku. We’ll deal with her, but he’s down there near you. His London address is in that file I gave you. Get some officers from the Met to help you and get round there and arrest him. And watch it, he could be dangerous.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I’m on to it.’

  ‘Also, look out for an old painting. It might not look much, but it’s very valuable and I think he may have it. If you find it take care with it.’

  ‘Right, sir.’

  Oldroyd ended the call and thought carefully about his next action. Should he ring Louise to tell her about Ben Morton? It would be a terrible shock after all she’d already been through and Ben was miles away in London. It would probably be better to keep her in the dark until they’d wrapped it all up and then he could break it to her gently.

  Andy Carter swung into action after he’d spoken to Oldroyd. He collected Jenkins and DC Brook from the Met and they sped to Morton’s address in Notting Hill. It was still quite early for a Saturday morning when they arrived. The door was opened by a bleary-eyed housemate of Morton’s. He looked like a student and was younger than Morton.

  ‘Police,’ announced Andy, holding up his ID. ‘We understand Ben Morton lives here.’

  ‘That’s right. But what—’

  ‘We need to speak to him.’

  ‘Okay, come in. His room’s on the first floor, but I think I heard him go out.’

  The detectives piled up
the stairs and Andy hammered on the door without response. ‘Morton, open up. It’s the police,’ he shouted, but there was still no response. He turned to the person who’d let them in. ‘Is there a spare key?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Okay.’ Andy put his shoulder to the door and burst it open. They entered a large bedroom which was crammed with painting materials, half-finished canvases and pieces of frame. In one corner was a small untidy bed and a desk covered with papers. The most striking things were a number of completed paintings on the walls. Black and red swirls of colour surrounded vampires, bats, dripping blood and fangs biting into necks. Intense and diabolical red eyes stared out from beneath black wing-like capes.

  ‘Bloody hell, Sarge!’ said Jenkins. ‘This bloke must be a bit of a weirdo to paint that stuff. It’s like a horror film.’

  ‘Well, he certainly liked his vampires, that’s for sure.’ He turned to the young man who was peering into the room. ‘Did he tell anyone where he was going?’

  ‘I don’t know. What’s all this about?’

  ‘He’s wanted for a very serious crime so you’d better call everyone together and we’ll see if anyone knows where he’s gone.’ The young man disappeared. The detectives put on their gloves.

  ‘Sarge, look at this. You said there was a painting missing.’