Lurking.
An assignation with a lover?
His thoughts were a maelstrom.
Noakes’s voice broke into these speculations.
‘Any idea if it was a man or a woman . . . ?’
Animal, vegetable or frigging mineral more like, if what that drama teacher had said about Shawcross was accurate. Friends with benefits! And her a teacher!
‘I couldn’t say, Sergeant . . . Though I believe the heroine of her novel was sexually fluid.’
That bloody figures.
At that moment, a young girl whom Markham recognized from reception came towards them. As soon as the DI set eyes on her, he knew something was badly wrong. His whole body tensed.
‘Inspector Markham, there’s been a call for you.’ Instinctively, he reached for his mobile before remembering that they’d handed their phones in at the front desk.
‘I took the message,’ she said, her smile faltering as she picked up on the detectives’ tension. Nervously, she handed the DI a note.
Markham’s face betrayed nothing.
‘Duty calls,’ he said with assumed insouciance. ‘Ms Shaw, many thanks for seeing us. You’ve been a great help.’
‘I only wish I could have done more, Inspector.’ Ronnie Shaw shook hands all round and headed back to her ward.
Markham said nothing until they found themselves back in the hospital forecourt.
‘What is it, guv?’
The DI’s face seemed to have turned to marble.
‘The night patrol’s found a body at the community centre.’
Noakes looked back at the hospital, almost fancying that he saw deranged faces pressed up against those permanently sealed windows, sneering and jeering at them.
He found his voice. ‘Who is it, guv?’
‘Tariq Azhar.’
13. Baiting the Trap
‘Who discovered the body?’
‘Well, it was Mr Burt actually, Inspector.’ PC Dave Elson’s tone was wooden, but the sideways look he shot at Noakes expressed a conviction that they had their man. ‘Remarkable how he always manages to be on the spot.’
As soon as Markham heard the news about Tariq Azhar, he knew where they would find him.
In that strange hollowed out water feature at the bottom of the community centre garden.
‘What brought you out here, Mr Burt?’ he said gently to the glassy-eyed caretaker.
‘Dunno . . . just felt like a walk and ended up by the fountain.’ Squirming under the grim intensity of Noakes’s gaze, he added, ‘I’ve always liked it . . .’
Channelling his inner Barbara Hepworth. Even Burton found it unconvincing.
But the DI nodded encouragingly, his eyes steady and kind.
The caretaker seemed to take heart.
‘Sometimes I stand inside and it’s like I’m invisible . . . peaceful . . .’
Noakes could see the attraction of hiding from his juggernaut sister and nitpicking Peter Elford.
‘What happened this evening, Mr Burt?’
‘I walked round the fountain . . . just running my hands over the stone . . . I looked inside . . . and that’s when I saw him.’ The man’s thin locks were plastered to his skull with sweat.
‘Mr Azhar?’
‘Yeah . . . He was stood there, sort of nodding with his eyes shut. For a moment I thought he might’ve gone in there to meditate . . . part of his religion or something . . .’
Noakes turned his snort of derision into a cough.
‘Then what?’
‘That’s when I saw the blood on his shirt and trousers . . .’
‘Did you touch him?’
‘No . . . I called his name but knew it was no use . . . he was dead.’
‘You didn’t see anyone else on the premises? Didn’t notice anything unusual or out of the ordinary?’
‘It was only me there . . . me and . . . Tariq . . .’
The caretaker was trembling violently now. Delayed shock, thought Markham.
He turned to Dave Elson’s brawny fellow officer. ‘Constable McCann, would you please take Mr Burt home and see that he gets a hot drink.’
The heavily built six-footer took the caretaker’s arm and marched him, none too gently, away to his flat.
The little party contemplated the water feature in silence. It felt curiously isolated, for all that the SOCOs were busy shrouding the site with tarpaulin and arc lights.
Azhar’s body had been manoeuvred out of the narrow cavity by Dimples Davidson and his team with a dexterity which somehow belied the horror of what had been done to the young Asian. For his throat had been cut in a single savage slashing stroke that had almost decapitated him. ‘The vic was a slight man,’ the pathologist said in answer to the question which hung in the air. ‘A single assailant could have done it and then wedged him into this . . .’ he regarded the fountain with distaste, ‘thing.’
‘D’you think it had any significance, doc — him being deposited in an upright position like that?’ Burton knew the memory of Azhar’s emergence from the garden niche would haunt her for a long time to come. ‘Could it have been a ritual . . . ?’
‘More likely to have been convenient . . . easier than sticking him in one of those wheelie bins round the side,’ came the grim response.
‘Didn’t the Incas an’ prehistoric folk bury their dead standing upright . . . out of respect, if they’d been warriors, like? I saw it on Tomorrow’s World,’ Noakes mumbled defensively.
Burton felt inclined to laugh, but there was something oddly comforting in the thought that Tariq Azhar hadn’t been brought low . . . left supine or humbled in the dust.
Davidson was troubled by no such reflections.
‘I doubt the sicko who did this was paying any kind of tribute to that poor lad,’ he said dryly. ‘More a case of expediency . . . With the weekend coming up, they wouldn’t have expected the body to be found for a while . . . maybe even days.’
‘Time of death, doc?’
‘Tch, tch . . . you know me better than that, Inspector.’ The stock rebuke.
‘The body must have been left in the fountain recently.’ Burton’s voice was strained. ‘We were out here just a couple of hours ago.’ She shuddered reflexively. ‘I even stood inside to see what it felt like.’
Davidson relented. ‘He’s been dead no more than an hour. Most probably killed where he was found.’ He glanced at the paper-suited SOCOs quietly moving about their tasks like a sinister priesthood. ‘Right, I’ll be off. Good luck, Markham.’ He recalled Tariq Azhar’s sensitive, refined features with a sharp pang that was unusual for him on such occasions. ‘The feel of not to feel’ was the bluff pathologist’s clinical maxim, but now and again a particular case got under his skin. ‘I’d like to see whoever did this go down for a very long time.’
The team watched his retreating figure in silence.
Then, ‘You know what Sidney’s gonna say.’
‘Only too well, Noakes.’
‘You’ve got to admit, Burt’s looking good for it, guv. I mean, like, he was out here getting all touchy feely over the fountain an’ just fell over the body? Pur-lease.’ Dave Elson nodded his approval.
‘What do you think, Doyle?’ The young DC was looking unusually introspective.
‘I don’t think he’s got what it takes. Sorry, sarge,’ with an apologetic duck of the head to Noakes, ‘but he’s just the local saddo. ’Sides, when me and the boss interviewed him, he seemed frightened . . . almost as though he’d been threatened. That’s right, isn’t it, sir?’
‘Yes, Constable,’ Markham confirmed. ‘He was definitely scared.’
‘Guilty conscience,’ Noakes growled, eliciting a further approving nod from PC Elson.
‘No, Sergeant, I don’t believe so,’ the DI said slowly.
‘Oh, come on, boss.’ Noakes wasn’t going down without a fight. ‘Burt’s got sex pest an’ all-round nutter written all over ’im.’
More vigorous bobs of the head from Elson.
Talk about nodding dog, thought Burton.
‘He may have fancied Shawcross and other attractive women he saw round the centre,’ she said decisively, ‘but no way was he ever going to do anything about it . . . Too much under the cosh for that.’
‘Shirley Bolton said he was sharper than he looks,’ Noakes persisted stubbornly. ‘All that simpleton stuff . . . could be a cover . . .’
‘True, sarge,’ Burton conceded, ‘but there’s the way he walks — all uncoordinated and shambling. That doesn’t look put on to me.’
‘Can’t see him cutting someone’s throat and then getting the body in there,’ Doyle pointed at the fountain, with its eerie nimbus from the arc lights. ‘He doesn’t look able to tie his own shoelaces, let alone pull off something like that.’
‘Okay, Columbo, you tell us who did it then,’ Noakes said amicably.
‘No idea, sarge,’ the youngster admitted. ‘But it looks like Tariq agreed to meet the killer here . . .’
It struck Markham with a chill that Tariq Azhar’s murderer had most likely observed their activities that afternoon from some vantage point before checking that the coast was clear and summoning the Asian to his death.
‘No mobile with the body,’ he mused. ‘So our man probably lured Tariq here with a call or text and then made sure to take the phone away after he was done.’
‘Jus’ like Elford.’
‘Yes, Sergeant. The same pattern. And no doubt the same forensically aware modus operandi, so very unlikely we’ll get useful trace evidence.’
Markham looked exhausted, thought Burton, with dark smudges under the eyes. But he spoke with calm authority.
‘Elson, I want you to ensure the area’s as secure as it can be. There are uniforms front and back now, but give everywhere a final once-over please.’
‘Will do, boss.’ If he was disappointed that Chris Burt’s arrest did not appear to be imminent, the patrolman gave no sign of it. ‘I’ll drive by the librarian lady’s place after that, shall I?’
‘Yes, please. Regular checks,’ he sighed, ‘but I think she’s safe for tonight . . .’
Elson plodded off on his mission.
‘I don’t think she’s in danger,’ Markham repeated. ‘Tariq Azhar was the immediate threat, not Shirley.’
‘But why, sir?’ Burton burst out. ‘I mean, everyone liked him . . . he didn’t seem wary of anyone . . . he was relaxed as you like at the wake, no sign of anything wrong . . .’
The DI rubbed his eyes as though to clear them.
‘We need to know what he was doing after the wake — where he went, who he talked to. Something happened which made him a threat . . .’
‘He guessed the killer’s identity,’ Burton hazarded.
‘Yes, I think that’s right, Kate.’ Markham spoke with growing conviction. ‘Ronnie Shaw spoke of Rebecca having someone at the centre “in her pocket”. The way she spoke, it sounded like it may have been a sexual liaison . . . something illicit . . . something furtive and naughty that she almost hugged to herself . . .’
‘And Tariq suddenly twigged who she was getting off with . . .’ Noakes looked bemused. ‘But none of ’em fits . . .’
‘What if it was a woman,’ Burton said suddenly.
‘What!’ Noakes’s jaw dropped, heightening his resemblance to an outraged pachyderm. ‘You gotta be kidding me.’
‘Think about it, sarge,’ she said earnestly. ‘Ronnie said the heroine of Rebecca’s novel was “sexually fluid” and Rebecca herself was obviously . . . well . . . unconventional when it came to sex . . . may even have had issues round men after what happened with Phil Carmichael . . . The secret attraction at the centre could’ve been a woman.’
‘D’you honestly see Shawcross having a wing ding with them crones — Macdonald an’ Bolton? Pur-lease.’
‘Maybe it was a sixth-form student.’ But Burton sounded defeated.
‘You’re quite right, Kate. We need to keep an open mind,’ Markham said, noting her dejected posture.
She visibly brightened at his approval, the basset hound chirpiness reasserting itself. Silly bint, thought Noakes. It’s like watching Crufts . . . in a minute she’ll sit up and beg.
‘We could get Leo Cartwright back in, boss.’ Doyle was anxious to have his twopenn’orth. ‘Didn’t Cartwright say he’d seen Tariq down the squash courts at the sports centre? What if Cartwright knows more than he’s saying?’
Markham recalled Cartwright’s interest in Rebecca Shawcross’s missing novel. Suddenly, he heard Matthew Sullivan’s voice. ‘I caught him having a root round her workstation the other day . . . said he was looking for some manuscript or other.’ What if that manuscript had turned up?
‘It’s nine o’clock now,’ the DI said. ‘Saturday tomorrow.’ Four murders in a week, he thought, his heart in his boots. The DCI would be peppering. ‘Let’s get Cartwright in first thing tomorrow and press him hard. If Rebecca was having therapy,’ he caught Noakes’s jaundiced eye, ‘or pursuing a clandestine sexual relationship, his insights could help us.’
‘D’you reckon he’s been holding back, boss?’
‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised, Doyle.’ Markham sighed. ‘Maybe out of misplaced loyalty . . . or maybe he’s got his own agenda . . . But it’s end game now, so we go in hard.’
‘We could lift him tonight, boss.’ Doyle was eager.
‘Your zeal is most commendable, Constable. But we’re all shattered. Besides,’ he tried not to groan, ‘there’ll be the DCI first thing tomorrow and I don’t want to do anything precipitate until I see the lie of the land.’
Which, translated, meant he needed to gauge the feasibility of fending off Sidney with more BS courtesy of Chris Carstairs. He’d be lucky if the DCI didn’t insist on Chris Burt’s immediate detention. The caretaker was the ideal candidate from his superior’s point of view, being mere plankton as opposed to a big fish of the civic ecosystem.
God, what a night!
‘We’re getting closer,’ he said quietly. ‘The net’s closing in. Maybe with Cartwright we’ll find something to bait the trap.’
* * *
Unsurprisingly, Markham slept badly.
Six a.m. saw him at the little breakfast bar sipping black coffee while Olivia made toast.
‘You were tossing and turning all night, Gil,’ she said sympathetically. ‘Bad dreams?’
‘Noakes said something about Incas and Aztecs burying their dead upright. I kept seeing a seated mummy in a cave . . . someone was unwrapping the bandages . . . It had Tariq Azhar’s face . . .’
‘That’s Horizon for you,’ she said lightly putting a plate of thickly buttered wholemeal in front of him.
‘Tomorrow’s World, actually.’ He grimaced. ‘Noakes is full of surprises these days . . . But I just couldn’t get that image out of my head.’
‘You liked Tariq,’ his girlfriend said.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Didn’t you say he was in a relationship with someone at the centre?’
‘That was Noakes’s theory . . . he figured Tariq had something going with the other therapist Jenni Harte . . . But I think they were just very good friends.’ Suddenly he put his toast down, all appetite gone.
‘What is it, Gil?’
‘I have to break his death to her later today. The centre’s shut, obviously, but she’ll need to know . . . being the one who was closest to him.’
‘What about family?’
‘One brother in America and parents in Pakistan.’ He sighed heavily. ‘They’ve been notified . . . the brother’s a professor at Johns Hopkins, but his wife has some form of leukaemia, so it may be a week or more before he can coordinate the travel arrangements. But then,’ he concluded sadly, ‘Tariq isn’t going anywhere.’
‘What’s the plan for today?’ Olivia asked softly.
‘Sidney first . . . followed by an interview with Leo Cartwright . . . then we’ll likely have another crack at Chris Burt . . .’
Olivia laughed mirthless
ly. ‘I suppose Sidney’ll have you waterboarding the caretaker.’
‘Well, he’s not the only one to favour Guantanamo-style tactics . . . Noakesy’s keen to pin it on Burt too.’ He grinned. ‘Not often he and Sidney see eye to eye, but in this case . . .’
‘What do you think, Gil?’
‘No, I don’t believe it’s Burt. He’s got Asperger’s for one thing . . . and for another, he just doesn’t look like a killer to me.’ Markham toyed with his toast. ‘I think he may have his suspicions, though . . .’
‘You mean, he may know who the murderer is?’
‘Yep.’ He chewed unenthusiastically before swallowing more coffee. ‘But something tells me he’s been warned off . . . Doyle noticed it too . . .’
‘How’s Doyle doing these days?’ Olivia liked the boyish DC.
‘Enthusiastic as ever and enjoying the law degree, I believe.’
‘What about his love life?’
Markham chuckled. ‘Seems to be on an even keel . . . Obviously Noakes is on hand with appropriate advice.’
‘CID’s very own agony uncle.’ His girlfriend was clearly tickled by the thought. Then she became serious once more. ‘D’you think Leo knows something too?’
‘There may be something . . . some detail . . .’ Markham struggled to formulate his thoughts. ‘Something he knows but doesn’t realize is significant . . .’
‘A clue to the murderer’s identity?’
‘Yes.’
Olivia stared into her mug of black coffee as though its depths held an answer to the riddle.
‘And you’ve ruled out the doctor — Phil Carmichael’s stepbrother?’
‘Doctor Troughton — or, as Noakes calls him, “Doctor Troutface”? Carmichael’s suicide gave him a motive alright and he’d confronted Rebecca, but I don’t think he killed her . . . And not just because of the Hippocratic oath or anything like that . . . After Shipman, we know what doctors are capable of . . .’ He took another swill of coffee. ‘He was upfront about hating her, but as for homicidal violence . . . no,’ he shook his head.
‘Sounds like any of them could’ve done it, Gil.’
‘That’s just it.’ He threw up his hands as though in supplication. ‘Any of them could’ve administered atropine to Loraine Thornley. It would just have been a question of going to the supplies cupboard, watching and waiting . . .’
Crime in the Heat Page 18
