Crime in the Heat

by Catherine Moloney

  Markham turned to Doyle. ‘You know what has to be done, Doyle. I want you to call this in and get the crime scene secured. Then make contact with Burton and Noakes. I want them back at base as soon as possible. Whatever they are doing, this takes priority.’

  ‘Understood, boss.’

  ‘Was Loraine poisoned, Inspector? Murdered?’ Her voice was the thinnest whisper.

  Markham knelt down and took her hot, damp hand.

  ‘I think that’s what happened, Thelma, yes.’

  ‘Because of something she knew? Something she kept to herself?’

  ‘That’s what we need to find out.’

  At that moment, Shelly came panting into the room, gaped at Thelma in dismay and herself burst into tears.

  ‘Loraine didn’t suffer did she, Inspector?’ The office manager was imploring. ‘She was such a kindly soul. The patients loved her.’

  ‘I think she didn’t have time to be afraid, Thelma.’ Markham hoped to God it was true. Though there must have been that heart-stopping moment when she realized this was the end . . .

  ‘Shelly,’ he said to the snuffling teenager. ‘I want you to look after Ms Macdonald. Make her a cup of tea, with plenty of sugar. Can you do that for me?’

  The girl nodded, and he could tell she was proud of the commission in the midst of her pain. Placing an awkward arm round Thelma, she supported her into the corridor.

  * * *

  The DI placed a hand on the table to steady himself. It felt as though the incident room was spinning around him.

  Eventually the world was the right way up once more.

  Three murders. Three.

  The words of Noakes’s parting benediction came back to him. ‘When shall we three meet again?’

  ‘In thunder, lightning, or in rain?’ he whispered hoarsely, completing the quotation as though it were some kind of incantation, as though the souls of those three victims hovered a little way above his head waiting for him to make his next move.

  He took a deep breath.

  Now he was ready.

  9. Backs to the Wall

  Later that Thursday afternoon, the team sat closeted in their incident room at the community centre. Noakes’s steak and kidney pie from Greggs sat on the table between them. Kate Burton could have sworn it was curling at the edges. For a wonder, Noakes’s appetite seemed to have vanished. At any rate, it appeared food was the furthest thing from his mind.

  ‘The look on ’er face.’ He shook his head. ‘Horrible.’

  Dimples Davidson had closed Loraine Thornley’s eyes, but their expression had indeed been one of stark terror. As though whatever she saw had seared her eyeballs, as though an indelible image of evil had been imprinted on her retina, never to be erased.

  ‘Is the press conference still going ahead, sir?’

  Markham’s lips were tightly compressed.

  ‘Yes, Doyle. The DCI wants us to pull out all the stops — PR to reassure the community, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Reassure the community! Jesus wept!’ Noakes kicked a leg of the conference table by way of venting his frustration. ‘What does he expect us to say? That there’s a serial running around wi’ a syringe!’

  ‘Look at it from his point of view, Sergeant. This one’s making ripples. And Sidney’ll have the chief constable on his back. Somehow we’ve got to reassure the public.’

  ‘How’re we supposed to do that, guv?’ Another kick at the table leg. ‘We don’ have the foggiest!’ He raised his hands in a gesture of despair. ‘Professor bleeding Plum in the library wi’ a candlestick!’

  Interesting that Noakes too had that sense of a game waiting to be played out.

  ‘What did you get from Bromgrove General?’ Markham asked wearily.

  Kate Burton smartly flipped open her notebook while Noakes and Doyle exchanged meaningful glances.

  ‘Unresolved personal conflict resulting from child protection disclosures, guv.’ She screwed up her eyes, looking more than ever like a myopic basset hound, thought Markham affectionately.

  ‘Basically, Shawcross got a fit of the glums after she ruined a nice young fella’s career,’ Noakes translated.

  ‘It wasn’t quite as simple as that, sir.’ Burton glared at her colleague.

  ‘Yes, it chuffing well was, guv.’ Noakes scowled back. Clearly the entente cordiale was fraying at the edges. ‘Doctor Smarmy dressed it up wi’ lots of bollocks . . . Electra complex this, an adolescent oppositional disorder that . . . But what it boiled down to is, she was an attention-seeking little bitch who screwed up someone else’s life an’ did a fruit-and-nut number afterwards . . . outa guilt.’

  ‘Anything helpful down at the council?’ The DI felt it advisable to shelve specific medical diagnoses for the time being.

  ‘Well, we learned that Phil Carmichael had several brothers and sisters as well as stepsiblings.’

  ‘Traceable?’

  ‘Three of them went into medicine, guv.’ Burton consulted her pocketbook. ‘Someone’s going to ring me back later from the General Register Office.’

  ‘Why’d Loraine Thornley have to die, then?’ Noakes smoothed the candy-striped summer shirt over his ample paunch. ‘Nice harmless woman . . . Never a bad word for anyone by all accounts . . . Even Thelma an’ Shirley had ter admit, she was salt of the earth.’

  ‘She must have noticed something . . . something which didn’t bother her initially but niggled later . . . something which pointed to the killer . . .’ Burton’s conker bob swung to and fro with the force of her earnestness.

  ‘Maybe she planned to tackle the killer privately,’ Doyle offered.

  ‘An’ was bumped off once they twigged she was on to them.’

  Markham raked his hair distractedly. Burton felt a sudden mad urge to run her fingers through the dark locks and smooth out the lines which had furrowed deep grooves in the DI’s forehead.

  She pulled herself together. Noakes was grinning at her like a mischievous gnome. If he made some sarky comment, she felt she might explode.

  Noakes held his peace, though something about the corners of his mouth suggested she hadn’t heard the last of it.

  ‘Right, where are we at?’ the DI demanded bluntly.

  ‘Nympho teacher an’ writer on the side,’ Noakes proffered. ‘Got someone sacked when she was a student at Hope. Kept giving blokes the glad eye after that . . . might’ve been into sixth-formers an’ all.’

  ‘That’s pure speculation, sarge!’ Burton was outraged.

  ‘I reckon she could’ve been playing silly beggars with Peter Elford.’

  Markham recalled what Noakes’s ‘missus’ had told him about patient complaints and the Ombudsman. Perhaps Noakes wasn’t too wide of the mark.

  ‘Prick-tease,’ the DS concluded trenchantly. ‘Nasty little so-and-so . . . messing with folks’ heads . . . Likely pushed someone too far in the end.’

  Markham regarded his colleagues thoughtfully. Kate Burton looked as though she was about to burst a blood vessel. But George Noakes was a canny sharpshooter — and what he said struck a chord with the DI.

  ‘Something was bothering Loraine Thornley,’ he said ruminatively. ‘You spotted that I believe, Kate.’

  ‘That’s correct, sir.’ The DS swept her fringe out of the way. God, Markham thought, she looks about twelve. He recalled what DCI Russel, mentor on the DS training programme and advocate of Burton’s transfer to CID, had said about her father’s opposition to a career with the police because it was ‘no job for a woman’. At times like this, however ‘un-woke’ the sentiment, he felt passionate regret for Kate Burton’s immersion in a world of sickos and misfits.

  Happily oblivious to her boss’s un-PC reflections, Burton proceeded to fill him in. ‘Loraine looked twitchy . . . As though she wanted to say something but couldn’t get the words out.’ Burton’s face fell. ‘I should’ve pushed her, sir, but I was worried if we went in too hard she might clam up completely.’ Her face was taut with anguish. ‘If only I’d known
, sir . . .’

  ‘You did exactly the right thing, Kate.’

  Markham’s gentle smile dissolved something inside her, so that she wanted to cry. Just in the nick of time, she caught Noakes’s eye and thought better of it.

  ‘Hindsight’s a wonderful thing,’ the DI continued. ‘Someone was watching Loraine . . . someone who calculated it was too big a risk to let her live.’ He brought his hand down on the conference table as though to slam it, before reining himself in at the last moment. ‘Loraine knew something that meant danger.’

  ‘Like what?’ Noakes picked up his pie and took a sniff before replacing it in its silver carton.

  ‘That’s what we need to find out, Sergeant.’

  Markham looked at them intently. ‘Right, here’s the plan.’ He locked eyes with each of them in turn. ‘We re-interview all of the staff. Dimples tells me — strictly off the record, you understand — Loraine was likely given an overdose of atropine.’

  ‘What’s that, then?’

  ‘It’s an emergency drug used for minor surgery, Noakes. Readily available in any surgery and a stock ingredient of the GP’s bag.’

  ‘How would it work?’ Doyle was always interested in the scientific detail.

  ‘Blurred vision, sweating, respiratory depression, paralysis of the extremities.’

  ‘Christ, sounds like a nerve-agent or summat . . . what the Russkies would use to finish off spies.’ Noakes was appalled.

  ‘How long would it take to . . . cause death, sir?’

  ‘Normally around five to thirty minutes, Kate.’ Markham said soberly. ‘But Loraine Thornley had a heart condition, so a dose the size of the one the killer administered would’ve been calamitous.’ He smiled bracingly. ‘It’d have put her in a coma very quickly. Just that flash of terror . . . barely time for her to react, and then nothing.’

  ‘Her arm was bruised all the way up.’

  ‘Well, she had the kind of papery skin that bruises easily. But yes, Dimples thinks there was some kind of struggle . . . defensive injuries . . .’

  Doyle looked like he was going to be sick. Markham remembered the young detective talking of Loraine Thornley’s resemblance to his nan.

  ‘It would’ve been over quickly,’ he said helplessly, thinking that, to the community midwife, those desperate seconds must have seemed an eternity.

  ‘The killer took a chance,’ Burton mused.

  ‘Go on, Kate.’ The DI was glad to get off the subject of defensive injuries.

  ‘Well, there was no knowing how long Maureen Stanley would be delayed . . . she could’ve rocked up right in the middle of the assault.’

  Noakes smirked evilly. ‘Tonsil hockey wi’ Doc Troughton,’ he said flatly. ‘If the killer knew the two of ’em were having a snogeroo, they knew they were safe for ten minutes or so.’

  Tonsil hockey. Snogeroo. Noakes could give Jilly Cooper a run for her money, his boss reflected. Kate Burton’s expression was wintry.

  ‘That’s pure supposition,’ she said with marked distaste and what Markham privately thought of as her Queen Victoria face. ‘We’ve got no evidence that Maureen Stanley and Doctor Troughton are,’ now Doyle was grinning too, ‘up to . . . anything illicit.’

  ‘Oh come on, luv.’ Noakes was at his man-of-the-world patronizing best. ‘I mean, did you clock the way Stanley looks at him? Like he’s Bromgrove’s answer to Doctor Kildare.’ He smacked his lips lubriciously. ‘You c’n see the receptionists have twigged it.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Markham said repressively. ‘But Kate’s right — the killer was taking a colossal risk.’ Again, that prickle at the base of his spine. ‘Which means they’re decompensating.’

  ‘Eh?’ Noakes always mistrusted ‘psychological crip crap’.

  ‘Needing to kill with increasing frequency,’ Burton said.

  Here it comes, Doyle thought grimly, as the DS took a deep breath. A big fat dissertation on the likes of Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer. Burton would be in frigging clover.

  Perhaps Markham sensed mutiny in the ranks. At any rate, he hastily interposed, ‘I think it was likely a combination of the need for emotional release and expediency,’ he said. ‘Loraine Thornley was first and foremost a threat.’

  Burton looked somewhat disappointed to have been deprived of a foray into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders but took it with good grace. ‘So we start over with the staff then, sir?’

  ‘That’s right, Kate.’ Markham rapped the table for emphasis. ‘Someone here must have noticed something.’ He paused for added effect. ‘I want to know what it was . . . however seemingly trivial or insignificant, I want to know.’

  ‘Oh, by the way, sir.’ Burton consulted the pocketbook once more. ‘Rebecca Shawcross’s funeral . . . it’s tomorrow.’

  ‘What? ’Ow come?’ Noakes challenged belligerently. ‘She only died Monday.’ His tone was disbelieving. ‘What makes her so special then?’

  ‘Dunno, sarge.’ Burton sounded tired, defeated. ‘Beats me . . . I think they’re pulling strings down at the council. You know, with her being Ted Shawcross’s daughter. Her mum’s in a care home, so there’s no family left to speak of.’

  ‘Ours not to reason why.’ Markham too sounded defeated. ‘When’s the service? And where’s the venue, Kate?’

  ‘Midday. The crematorium at Bromgrove North,’ she replied, referring to the municipal cemetery.

  ‘I know, I know,’ the DI said as he registered his colleagues’ dismayed expressions. ‘We all hate that place . . . sent too many poor souls on their way through those curtains.’

  ‘It’s different these days,’ Noakes said unexpectedly. ‘Apparently, folk leave before they do the . . . chimney bit.’

  The other three looked at him.

  ‘The coffin goes through the curtains . . . little doors, what have you . . . after everyone’s left the chapel . . . gone to look at wreaths an’ stuff on the grass outside.’ Clearly gratified to be the purveyor of information about mourning protocols, he added, ‘Less upsetting for the rellies, you see. Mind,’ he frowned, ‘there was that story in the Gazette ’bout some poor family only being allowed two and a half minutes wi’ the ashes cos that’s what was written on some frigging timetable. I mean, I ask you!’

  Markham felt they were on dangerous ground.

  ‘Well, I’ll make sure we have an opportunity to pay our respects properly, Sergeant.’

  ‘Shall I get the staff together, sir?’ Kate Burton too wanted to leave the subject of crematoria.

  ‘If you would, Kate.’ The DI’s approving smile made her blush so that she looked almost pretty.

  Daft bint, Noakes thought, but there was no malice in the reflection.

  ‘What about you, guv?’

  Markham looked shattered, though he somehow managed to make even exhaustion appear the acme of elegance.

  ‘I’m off for a quick word with Mat Sullivan,’ he said.

  ‘Oh aye,’ said Noakes, making a great show of consulting his watch. ‘Gets time off for good behaviour, does he?’

  ‘Mat’s high enough up the totem pole to do a bunk now and again, Sergeant.’ Markham smiled in mild reproof. ‘We’ll be in the café in Waterstone’s.’

  ‘Waddya hoping for, guv?’ Noakes’s shrewd gaze was fastened on him.

  ‘To be honest, I don’t know.’ Markham’s handsome face looked more pouchy and ravaged than they had ever seen it. ‘I guess I’m hoping for some insights into Rebecca Shawcross . . . Don’t feel I’ve got the measure of her somehow.’ Steepling his long, elegant fingers together, he added softly, ‘But she was the first . . . the key to it all. Once we have a handle on her, the rest will follow.’

  It sounded like a valiant exercise in self-persuasion.

  The DI heaved himself to his feet and headed for the door.

  Then halted, remembering Muriel Noakes’s uncharacteristically tremulous expression.

  He whirled round.

  ‘Don’t lay a finger on that pi
e, Noakesy. Don’t even think about it!’

  ‘Lost my appetite, ain’t I?’ Noakes sounded virtuously aggrieved.

  ‘I’m relying on you, Kate.’ Markham shot her a meaningful look.

  ‘No worries, sir.’ Burton swooped on the offending comestible and bore it to the wastepaper basket.

  Markham smiled to himself. He could absolutely trust Kate to save Noakes from himself. No backsliding!

  * * *

  Waterstone’s was a favourite haunt of Markham and Olivia. Especially at this time on a weekday.

  Many a time the bookshop’s café had afforded a safe refuge from Sidney and his myrmidons. The subdued clatter of cups and saucers, the hum of voices and soothing hiss of the cappuccino maker . . . Markham felt he had died and gone to heaven.

  Matthew Sullivan regarded his friend with amusement.

  ‘Jesus, Gil, you look awful. A hundred and ten at least.’

  ‘Thanks for that, Mat. This caramel latte takes the sting out of it.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’ His friend grinned and they sipped their drinks in companionable silence.

  Eventually Markham roused himself from the agreeable stupor.

  ‘Nice disappearing act you pulled for those student interviews, Mat.’

  ‘Yeah, well I knew I wouldn’t be bringing anything to the party, Gil.’ Sullivan made a face. ‘That bad, was it?’

  ‘And then some.’ Markham took a long draught of his coffee. God, it felt good. If only he could stay here all day.

  ‘Shawcross really dug her creative writing.’ Markham uncannily replicated Tyrone’s goofy whine.

  ‘Sorry, Gil.’ Sullivan had the grace to look somewhat shamefaced. ‘I guessed how it would go . . . Thought I might puke if I had to watch Mary Atkins doing her caring thing.’ He flashed a grin. ‘Plus I have the delightful Tyrone four times a week, so I figured I could do without scrabbling around in the grubby depths of his psyche.’

  ‘Well, Tyrone — sorry, Ty — told us Rebecca was reduced to tears by some tale of woe about PTSD and survivor’s guilt. What was she, Mat? Hope Academy’s very own Virginia Woolf?’

  Sullivan looked uncomfortable, stirring his cappuccino with unnecessary vigour.