The Royal Baths Murder

by J. R. Ellis

  ‘I know, but it seems strange. I’m not used to it. You know, after all this time.’

  ‘No, I can understand that. You were with Mum for a long time and you’ve obsessed about work so much that you’re out of practice with people.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘You’ll be fine. Just relax and enjoy it. Anyway, have to dash. I’m working with some difficult clients today: women who’ve been badly abused and knocked about by their partners and they’re in here with their little children who’ve witnessed it. Bastard men, eh? So if you think you’ve got problems – bye!’

  ‘Bye.’ Oldroyd put the phone down, smiled and shook his head as he felt the familiar sense of role reversal that he often experienced with his daughter.

  Derek Fenton walked purposefully through the backways of Harrogate town centre, keeping away from the main streets and looking around constantly to see if there was anyone he knew. He paused behind the Royal Baths and consulted his phone. As he read a text, a figure leaned gingerly around the corner of the building behind him and checked that he was still there. Fenton stuffed the phone in his pocket and headed off through a ginnel behind the Winter Gardens. Steph followed at a careful distance, feeling sure that Fenton was on his way to the council offices in Crescent Gardens. This could be interesting. She’d seen Fenton leave the station, and on a hunch followed him. Unexpectedly, he hadn’t got into his car but had headed for the town centre on foot. She saw that he was a bit edgy and was looking ahead and to the side for people who might recognise him. He didn’t look behind, however. He didn’t expect anyone to be following him.

  Fenton crossed the Winter Gardens, with their ornate bedding, and, with a last look round, increased his speed and disappeared round the council building and into Swan Lane. Steph was some distance behind due to the lack of hiding places, but she crossed the road quickly and headed up a steep bank. At the top was a clump of trees, from which it was possible to see down Swan Lane while hiding behind the foliage. She crouched behind the gnarled old trunk of a sycamore tree and peered towards the building. Fenton was waiting outside one of the rear entrances, but concealed behind a wall. After a couple of minutes, a man emerged from inside and greeted him. Steph felt a tingle of excitement.

  ‘That’s Jack Sandford coming out of the offices, and I think that’s Inspector Fenton,’ said a voice behind her quietly.

  Steph jumped in surprise and turned. There was a man crouched just behind her. He was holding a camera with a large zoom lens and he took some pictures of the two men together. Then he held out his hand. ‘Ben Poole, writer and journalist. I know you’re an officer with West Riding Police and you were working on the Sandford case with Fenton, and I’ve seen you with Chief Inspector Oldroyd. But somehow I don’t think you’re on official police business at the moment.’

  ‘How do you know all that?’

  ‘Any good investigative journalist has his contacts. I know people in the West Riding Police.’

  ‘Do you? It sounds very dodgy to me. Any officer giving information to the public like that would be in serious trouble.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s all in a good cause and no money exchanges hands, I assure you. Sometimes we journalists can get to places the police can’t, but it can be necessary to – how shall I put it? – shortcut the system.’

  They were still watching Fenton and Sandford in the distance, and the conversation went on in whispered voices.

  ‘Why do you think I’m not on official police business?’

  ‘It’s odd that you’re skulking here by yourself.’

  Steph felt outmanoeuvred. ‘OK, you’re right. I have my personal reasons for following that officer. I could ask you the same question: what are you doing here?’

  ‘I think you’ll approve of my motives. I’m trying to expose some corruption in the council. I’ve got a contact in there who’s telling me all kinds of stuff about Sandford – backhanders, nepotism – but we can’t explain how he keeps getting away with it. I’ve suspected for a while that he has a contact in the police.’

  Steph’s heart leaped: she could be about to strike gold! ‘Good. Well, I have my reasons to suspect that officer of corrupt involvement in the same business; he is Detective Inspector Fenton, by the way. But we’ll have to move carefully. Those pictures of them meeting will be very useful but we’ll need more evidence.’

  Ben looked at her quizzically. ‘Why can’t you report your suspicions to your superior officers?’

  ‘I have my own reasons for that, which I’m not going to divulge. It’s nothing criminal. Just let’s say we’ve both a got a motive for bringing this pair down.’ She gestured towards the two men, who were still talking. Then, as abruptly as he’d appeared, Sandford disappeared back into the building and Fenton headed off down an alleyway towards Ripon Road. He was presumably taking another route back. Luckily, this took him away from their spying position.

  Steph and Ben moved from the tree to hide behind a building so they couldn’t be seen from Swan Lane.

  ‘OK,’ said Ben. ‘I’ll go with that, no questions asked, if you can pin this on Fenton.’

  ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Stephanie Johnson. I was put on the case of Jack Sandford and the contract his wife was given. I was working with Fenton. I went with him to conduct interviews and so on but Fenton suddenly shut the case down – said there was insufficient evidence. I thought it was very strange. He couldn’t possibly have investigated it properly. And it makes it all the more irregular that here he is talking to the main suspect in a case he’s just been investigating.’

  ‘I see. Well, my contact at the council is on the same Procurement Committee. He’s been suspicious of Sandford for some time, and has been monitoring him. Now we’ve identified his police contact, we need to try to track their meetings and get as many photographs of them together as we can.’

  ‘I can find out more about Fenton back at the station.’ She looked at Ben. ‘So do we have a deal? We’re going to work together on this without involving anyone else. You can’t tell anyone about me, even your contact at the council.’

  ‘Fine,’ replied Ben, smiling but still a little puzzled. ‘Aren’t you taking a big risk? If it ever got out that you’ve been investigating on your own like this, you’d be in real trouble, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘That’s my problem. You just keep to your side of the bargain. Anyway’ – she looked round – ‘we should move on; don’t want to be seen together by the wrong people. Let’s exchange numbers, and I’ll be in touch.’

  Esther Stevenson enjoyed walking her dog, Toby. He was an Airedale Terrier, and very lively. Her favourite venue for dog walks was the Valley Gardens and up into the Pinewoods. Today she parked at the edge of the gardens near the top entrance by the children’s playground. It was a pleasant morning, with the sun and fast-moving clouds forming changing patterns of light and shade on the wide areas of grass. She got Toby out of the back of her old Volvo estate car and put his lead on.

  ‘Come on, boy!’ She pulled on the lead and the dog barked in excited anticipation as he trotted beside her. They walked through the old stone gates past the playground, the crazy golf course and the tennis courts, and then turned right down the hill towards the bandstand and the Sun Pavilion. Esther liked to do a circuit down to the bottom entrance, taking in the flowerbeds and stream, before walking back up to the open areas towards the Pinewoods, where she could take Toby’s lead off.

  She walked briskly down the hill and turned at the bottom. She was walking back up the hill by the stream when a voice called out to her from one of the benches that lined the path.

  ‘Ah, Esther! I thought I might find you here. You were always fond of your dogs, weren’t you?’

  Esther stopped and looked towards the speaker. For a moment she was puzzled, before she recognised Damian Penrose’s first wife. ‘It’s Susan, isn’t it? Well, I haven’t seen you for years. What on earth brings you to Harrogate?’

  ‘That’s exactly what your old cr
ony, Charles Derryvale, said the other night when I caught up with him in the bar at The White Swan. I assume you and he still consider yourselves the masters of Yorkshire crime fiction? Why don’t you sit down? I’m hoping that you’ll be able to help me.’ She indicated a space next to her on the bench. Esther regarded her with distaste and remained standing. Toby was sitting obediently beside her.

  ‘It’s been a while but I see you haven’t changed, Susan. I don’t know how you think I can help you and with what. I take it you must be here in connection with Damian’s death in some way, but I’ve no desire to start raking over the past.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not the past that concerns me, Esther; it’s the present and more importantly the future. My future, to be exact. We all know who’s responsible for Damian’s murder, don’t we?’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘Of course. It has to be Clare. She had the most to gain, and we know she planned the Royal Baths refurbishment. It’s obvious. She had the motive and the means. She must have created some secret entrance to those Baths and then she or her accomplice went in and killed Damian. I’ve told the police and Derryvale but they won’t listen. You and I could investigate the matter. I thought it might appeal to you as a crime writer.’

  Esther was forced to laugh at the absurdity of what she’d heard. ‘I’m not surprised they didn’t listen. Don’t you think that’s all very far-fetched? What actual evidence have you got? If I wrote a novel with a flimsy plot like that, no publisher would go anywhere near it. It sounds like wishful thinking to me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I presume if Clare were to be convicted of murder, that might leave you to gain more from Damian’s estate.’

  ‘Well, what if it did? I deserve it anyway. She stole him away from me, remember?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Esther, looking closely at Susan. ‘Maybe there’s more to it than that. This could be an attempt to divert suspicion away from you, the real killer.’

  ‘What? Preposterous!’ exclaimed Susan, and Esther laughed.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t serious but who knows? Your reaction seems to indicate a guilty conscience. Maybe I should investigate you.’

  ‘I’m not staying here to be insulted. But I’ll say this. I have other fish to fry in this matter. One way or another, I’m going to benefit from that man’s murder. What he did to me in life, he will pay for in death, or at least someone will.’

  With this melodramatic announcement, she got up from the bench and strode off haughtily back up the path towards the Pavilion.

  Esther looked down at the dog, still sitting obediently on the path. ‘What did you think of all that, then, Toby?’

  Toby growled in the direction of Susan Lawrence, and then barked excitedly at Esther. He knew it was nearly time for his run over the fields.

  Susan Lawrence walked briskly up to the Magnesia Well Tea Room, a circular structure with Edwardian-style ornamental ironwork, ordered a coffee and sat at a table outside.

  This was the end of her pursuit of Clare Bayliss. She was clearly not going to acquire any support from anyone, so now it was full steam ahead with plan B. Again she had no real evidence for this theory about who killed Damian, but that didn’t deter her.

  She used her mobile to call the same number as she had from her hotel room. ‘It’s me again . . . Don’t ring off this time; I don’t think that would be wise. Remember what I know about you and how that would interest the police . . . Yes, so I think it’s time we met up and discussed things. We can come to some arrangement so that I keep quiet, can’t we? . . . No, I can’t prove anything, but that’s not the point, is it? You don’t want the police on your back, do you? Anyway, you have a good think about it and call me back soon. Don’t leave it too long. I’m getting impatient and I want to get back to London.’ The call ended.

  Susan sat back and sipped her coffee. At last she felt she was making progress.

  Geraldine Poole was at work in her attic studio when the doorbell rang. She went swiftly down the two flights of stairs and reached the hall as the bell sounded for a second time.

  ‘Coming!’ she shouted. She opened the door. It was Clare Bayliss, smartly dressed as usual, but looking very severe. ‘Clare! Well, what a surprise! Come in.’

  Some years previously, Geraldine had started a degree in Architecture at the University of Leeds and had done a work placement with Clare. She’d dropped out of the course after two years due to her poor mental health and done a diploma in Art at a nearby art school instead. She hadn’t seen Clare since that time.

  Clare walked in, looking very serious. She followed Geraldine through to the kitchen and sat at the table.

  ‘Can I get you some coffee?’ asked Geraldine rather nervously. There was something about Clare’s demeanour that she didn’t like.

  ‘No, thank you. I can’t stay long. How are you? Have things worked out for you?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. I’ve never regretted my decision, though I know you wanted me to stay on. We do OK, Ben and I; Ben with his journalism and stuff and me with my paintings. We’ve got a little boy now. Adam. He’s asleep at the moment.’

  ‘Yes. I heard you’d had a baby. Congratulations.’ Clare’s tone changed to signal she was putting an end to the small talk. ‘Look, it’s your husband I’ve really come to see. Is he here?’

  ‘Ben?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No, he’s out at work doing his research.’

  ‘Yes, poking his nose into other people’s business.’

  ‘What!’ The abruptness shocked Geraldine. Clare gave her a hard stare.

  ‘I’m sorry to say this to you, Geraldine, but I know he fancies himself as Harrogate’s heroic investigative reporter. I’m afraid I’m here to warn him to stay away from my husband and his affairs.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t heard about the accusations that my husband persuaded a council committee to award me the contract to redesign and refurbish the Royal Baths? It’s rubbish, of course, but we don’t want any tittle-tattle to get into the local rags, and that’s where your husband comes in.’

  ‘But he hasn’t done anything.’

  ‘Good – well, let’s keep it that way. Tell him to steer clear. We don’t want things to get nasty.’

  ‘Nasty? What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ll leave that to your imagination, Geraldine. Now, I’m afraid I have to leave. I have work to be getting on with. Sorry I can’t spare any time to reminisce about when we worked together.’ She smiled icily at Geraldine. ‘I hope things continue to go well for you.’

  Geraldine shut the door behind Clare with a trembling hand. Saying she would ‘leave that to your imagination’ had had exactly the effect on Geraldine’s anxious personality that Clare had presumably intended.

  She sat down at the table and fumbled in her pocket for her phone. It was a shock. She’d never seen Clare behave like that; she’d always been so kind and helpful. Anxious thoughts raced through her mind: could Ben get into trouble? Might he lose his income from his journalism? How would they manage then? By the time she’d rung his number, she’d worked herself up into a panic, but unfortunately he did not reply, and all she got was the request to leave a message.

  ‘How are you, then, sir? Have you recovered?’ asked Andy.

  Oldroyd and Andy were walking down to The White Swan to interview Susan Lawrence, the strange loose cannon in this case. The Met enquiry had not come up with anything significant about her, but Oldroyd wanted to press her for more information about Penrose’s past.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks.’ Oldroyd was feeling much better and was in one of his mischievous moods. As they entered Crown Place, Oldroyd stopped by the Royal Pump Room.

  ‘Have you ever been in there, Andy?’ he said, pointing to the elegant nineteenth-century stone rotunda.

  ‘No, sir, what is it?’

  ‘Oh, it’s an important part of Harrogate’s history. You know this town grew up as a spa, where
people came to drink the mineral waters? Well, this was built over one of the most important springs, so the water could be served to people. Let’s go in and have a quick look.’

  They went in through the Edwardian glazed extension with its copper roof and had a brief glance at the museum exhibits. They stood by a wooden bar with pumps like those in a pub.

  ‘So all the rich people with their gout and ulcers came here to drink this stuff, thinking it would cure them?’

  ‘That’s right. And they pumped it up like beer.’

  ‘I prefer beer and the National Health Service.’

  ‘No doubt.’ There was a glint in Oldroyd’s eye. ‘But why don’t you try some? Here, drink this.’ There were some glasses of the mineral water to sample; he picked up a glassful and handed it to Andy. ‘It can’t do you any harm.’

  Andy shrugged and downed the contents of the glass. His face contorted. ‘Oh my God, sir, that’s disgusting! It tastes like rotten eggs!’

  ‘That’s because it’s sulphur water and there’s lots of sulphur in eggs.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ continued Andy, clutching his stomach. ‘And they drank that to improve their health! It seems more like the murder weapon in one of our cases!’

  Oldroyd was in fits of laughter. ‘Thousands of glasses of it were drunk every day. There was a woman called Betty Lupton, who spent sixty years dispensing the stuff in the early nineteenth century. There was a hospital too, where people went for what they called hydropathic treatments: bathing in the water, massages and stuff.’

  ‘It reminds me of those treatments we learned about at school in History,’ said Andy, who was still grimacing. ‘You know, bloodletting and putting leeches on you and stuff like that. The cures probably killed more people than the diseases.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Oldroyd. ‘Anyway, we’d better be off. I want to catch this woman and ask her some questions before she causes any more trouble.’