by J. R. Ellis
Ian was eating a bowl of cereal at the kitchen table. He was usually reasonably well behaved. Lesley was the problem. She was surly, unkempt and kept company with a group of rather wild and unruly characters, some in her school sixth form and some, her mother suspected, of indeterminate age and from dubious parts of town. She was constantly being called into school over some disciplinary matter and Granger was afraid that Lesley might be expelled at the end of the lower sixth.
Granger was about to call her again when she slouched into the room yawning and dressed in a parody of the dress code they were supposed to follow. She’d often been sent home for infringements in her appearance. She was wearing a school skirt, but very short, with stockings full of holes; a white blouse beneath a leather jacket and a school tie wrapped contemptuously round her neck. Granger thought about advising her to change but decided she hadn’t time.
‘Look at you,’ said Ian. ‘I wish we could wear stuff like that.’
‘Wait your turn,’ replied Lesley. ‘Little year tens have to do as they’re told.’
‘Don’t forget to take your rings out,’ said her mother. Lesley and her friends were heavily into body piercings and tattoos, but the school insisted that rings be removed on the premises. Lesley ignored her.
‘It’s Goth Weekend starting tomorrow; we’re going down to the old town in the evening and again on Saturday.’
‘Who’s “we”?’ asked Granger, annoyed by Lesley’s blunt announcement. She never asked permission to do anything until it was all arranged and fait accompli. Even then it was usually a statement rather than a request. She was still underage to be wandering about the town at night and no doubt going into pubs. Granger doubted that pubs performed the normal ID checks in the busy chaos of Goth Weekend. She shared the police-parent nightmare of their offspring being arrested and the news being splashed across the papers.
‘Amelia, Mandy, Robin and some more; we’re all meeting up in our goth stuff. I hope it’s as good as last year.’
Granger winced at the memory of picking Lesley up by the harbour at nearly midnight and whisking her and one of her friends away from drunken men dressed as Dracula. That had led to her daughter being grounded for a good two months. But she was a year older now, and she might be more sensible.
Granger frowned at this thought; who was she kidding?
‘Well, I hope it doesn’t end up like last year, but we’ll talk about it later, I have to go now,’ she said. Lesley was putting bread into the toaster. ‘You’re going to be late, aren’t you?’
‘I don’t have anything till English at eleven.’
‘Yes, but I thought the rule was you had to be there for registration at nine and then do private study?’ She shook her head. ‘Oh, I don’t have time for this; see you both tonight.’ She grabbed her bag and headed for the door.
‘Bye, Mum,’ called Ian.
‘Bye,’ grunted Lesley.
The Airbnb was eerily quiet. After she’d spoken to her father, Louise sat thinking for a while on the sofa in the large sitting room. It was still early and no one else was up. They were all shattered by the events of the previous day. She ought to speak to her mum soon before she learned snippets of information from the media and started to worry. Julia lived alone in Leeds. She and Oldroyd had been separated since Louise was a young teenager. Wearily she phoned her and explained what had happened. Julia had heard nothing and so was both shocked and reassured by what Louise had to say. She was just on her way to work at the college where she was a lecturer, so they planned to speak again in the evening.
Louise ended the call with a sigh. Everything seemed to be an enormous effort. She shuffled into the kitchen to make coffee and peeped into the bedroom she was sharing with Maggie to find her still asleep. There were two more bedrooms on the floor above: Ben was in one which he’d planned to share with Jack when the latter arrived; the other, now empty, had been Dominic and Andrea’s room. Louise couldn’t bring herself to climb the stairs and see how Ben was, in part because she didn’t want to go near the vacant room. She suddenly realised that she was cold and turned the heating on. The gentle thrum of the boiler and the water going through the pipes was somehow reassuring.
She turned on the television with the volume down low and switched to the news. She was pleased that, when the item came up, there were still few details being presented and that the story only seemed to be on the local news. She knew that the profile of the case would become more prominent when the police investigation really got under way. She and the others would have to brace themselves for more intensive questioning and the media people would descend on the town. She hoped her dad could get over quickly because she was worried about how that investigation would go. She badly needed to talk to him about it.
Her phone pinged. She was pleased to get a message from him saying he was on his way. He was also bringing Steph, that nice detective sergeant she’d met a few times before. That was good.
Then the phoned pinged again. She looked at the name that came up and her stomach lurched. It was a text from Dominic.
Oldroyd said little on the journey from Harrogate over to Whitby. For once his attention wasn’t on the attractions and curiosities of the Yorkshire landscape. He texted Louise to ask if she’d contacted her mother and received an affirmative answer. He then rang his partner Deborah, a clinical psychologist, to briefly explain what had happened and that he might be away for a few days. She was her usual understanding self and said she would call him in the evening.
It was only when they’d passed the natural amphitheatre of the Hole of Horcum and the RAF station on Fylingdales Moor that he started to notice his surroundings. He pointed to the strange pyramid of the current radar system.
‘Do you remember the golf ball radomes that used to be there?’ he said to Steph.
‘Yes, sir. I remember passing them whenever we came to Whitby for the day on the coach when I was a small kid. We used to be glad to see them because it meant we weren’t that far away and we’d soon be on the beach. If it wasn’t chucking it down, that is.’ She laughed. ‘Happy days. My mum didn’t have much money after my dad left us, but she always made sure we enjoyed ourselves.’
‘You always do your best for your kids whatever the circumstances.’ He was starting to think gloomy thoughts again, but he caught a glimpse of the sea, which raised his spirits a little. He too remembered coming to Whitby when Louise and her brother Robert were small, to play on the beach and eat fish and chips. How odd to be coming back to the town now in these circumstances. But his daughter needed him, and he was glad to be there for her.
At the Airbnb, they were greeted by a clearly relieved but subdued Louise. She gave Oldroyd a big hug, saying, ‘Oh, Dad!’ but nothing more.
Oldroyd was shocked by how pale and drawn her face was. Her eyes were red; she had clearly been crying. She turned to Steph and hugged her too and then led them into the sitting room, which was still empty. Louise had heard noises from the bedrooms but neither Maggie nor Ben had appeared, even though it was nearly midday. Steph sat on the sofa next to Louise and Oldroyd sat in an armchair opposite. Louise looked bewildered, as if she didn’t know what to say. She held up her phone.
‘I’ve had a text from him. I still can’t believe he did it.’
‘From who?’
‘From Dominic. He says he’s sorry, but I know him. He . . .’ She burst into tears.
‘Okay, love. Take it steady. Go back to the beginning and tell us what happened.’
Between sobs, Louise went yet again through the events of the previous afternoon. She calmed down as she talked.
‘So you saw him stab her?’ asked her father at the end of her account.
‘I saw the knife in his hand as he lunged at her. And then she screamed and the blade was sticking out of her chest. There was blood.’ She shut her eyes.
‘And there was absolutely no doubt that it was him?’
‘No, we were together the whole time. Nobody could have
been pretending to be him or anything. I’ve thought of that. And if it wasn’t him where did Dominic go? It was definitely him when we went into that place.’
‘Right.’ Oldroyd sighed and glanced at Steph. ‘In that case it’s hard to see round the facts, love.’
‘I know, but trust me, Dad, I’ve been over it a thousand times. It’s driving me mad but something’s not right. For a start, I just can’t believe that Dominic would kill anyone, let alone Andrea. He’s not like that. He did care about her.’
‘What do you think the average murderer is like? Most are ordinary people whose feelings get out of control: anger, jealousy and so on, and then they do something out of character. That seems to be what happened here. There was probably something going on that you didn’t know about.’
‘He wouldn’t do it; I know it.’
‘You say they argued quite a lot.’
‘Yes, but they always made up. I told the detective. There was never any violence. No one ever thought anything like this would happen.’
Oldroyd frowned and shook his head. ‘But he’d brought a knife with him, which seems to indicate that he’d planned what he was going to do.’
‘No, Dad, no!’ Louise was getting increasingly agitated and her voice was getting louder.
‘And what about this text you’ve had? You say he’s sorry for what he did. Let’s have a look.’
Louise handed him her phone. Oldroyd read:
OMG what have I done? cant face u all, please forgive me. Dom
‘It sounds as if he’s in a terrible state, but he does seem to be admitting responsibility,’ said Oldroyd gently.
‘But it’s all so weird. Where is he? He runs away and then sends a text?’
‘He must be in shock himself. If he’s hiding somewhere the police will find him.’
Louise put her hands up to her face. ‘And what then? I can’t bear it, and I tell you there’s something weird. I was awake all night thinking about it, but . . .’ She burst into tears; Steph put her arm around her shoulder.
Oldroyd was used to his daughter being feisty and strong. He hadn’t seen her so troubled and upset since she was a child. He wasn’t sure what to say next.
Luckily Steph knew what to do. She spoke gently to Louise. ‘It’s been terrible to see your friend stabbed to death like that, and by another of your friends. You must still be in shock and maybe not seeing things clearly. It’s such a big thing to come to terms with that it would be natural to feel you want to deny it. It doesn’t feel real; in fact, it’s all weird as you keep saying.’
Louise wiped her eyes with a tissue and sighed. ‘Yes, I hear what you’re saying; you think it’s all in my mind and I’m in shock.’ She shook her head. ‘And I know it looks like one of those open-and-shut cases, but it’s not! I’m sure of it. I’m not saying this because I’m feeling emotional or because I’m in denial.’ She looked at Oldroyd with confidence and determination.
She didn’t look like someone whose thinking had been overcome by hysteria. Oldroyd thought about how often he’d listened to his instincts about a case when the facts apparently pointed to a certain conclusion, but he felt there was something wrong. It was a piece of advice he was constantly passing on to Steph and Andy. Had his daughter somehow inherited the faculty? A sort of sixth sense? That was a little fanciful for a rational thinker like him, but he found it hard to ignore her. He shook his head again but smiled this time.
‘What do you want us to do?’
‘Can’t you help the police here?’
‘Hmm, you know that’s not straightforward. Whitby’s not even in the West Riding police area; I’ve got no right to interfere. And then my own daughter’s involved in the case. The whole thing’s a minefield for me.’
‘But, Dad, you’ll find a way; you always do. And you know you’re bloody brilliant at solving these puzzling cases.’
Steph laughed.
‘Whoa, wait a minute! I think Steph is right; the problem is more likely to do with you and the state you’re in. But if it makes you feel better I’ll make a few enquiries and see what I can do. I know the inspector you mentioned: Alice Granger, she started out with us and became a detective sergeant before she got the job over here. She’s very good and I don’t think she’ll mind me being around.’
‘And can Steph stay to help you? I’d like that.’
It was like a request from a child; very needy and again most unlike her. He realised how shaky she was and in need of emotional support.
‘That’s asking a lot. I’d have to clear that with DCS Walker and I’m not sure he’ll like the idea of two of his officers away working for another force.’
Louise didn’t say anything and he noticed she was holding Steph’s hand while the detective’s other arm was still around her shoulder. How could he say no?
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Inspector Granger arrived at the escape room to view the murder scene. She’d received brief reports from DC Hampton, who was with her now, that suggested that the case was uncomplicated, but she was intrigued by the unusual setting. She’d heard about escape rooms from her teenage daughter but had never been in one. They stood in the mock graveyard where the crime had taken place.
‘It’s a ghoulish setting for a murder, isn’t it?’ she said, looking round the gothic decor and then at the still-taped-off area where Andrea had been stabbed. ‘So the victim was attacked and fell here?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘And the assailant ran out through there?’ She pointed to the emergency escape.
‘That’s what all the witnesses agreed, ma’am.’
‘Right, let’s have a look. You didn’t find anything?’ she asked as they walked through.
‘No, ma’am, we had a careful look through all this stuff.’ Hampton indicated all the cases and boxes in the storage room. ‘We looked in there too.’ He pointed at the sarcophagus. ‘The lid opens but it was empty inside. We went out into the street, but there was no sign of anything or anybody.’
‘Hmm.’ Granger went over to the strange construction and opened it. It was a good place in which to fit a body, but it was most emphatically empty. She wondered why it was fixed upright onto the wall. It looked like the kind of sarcophagus that a mummy might walk out of in some corny Hammer Horror film.
‘That puzzled me, too, ma’am. I asked the woman who was on duty that day.’ Hampton looked at his notes. ‘Ms Elaine Pesku, Romanian. She said the owner, a Mr Hugh Preston, is intending to expand things by adding this room to the game. He’s storing the stuff in here until he’s got everything. He must have picked it all up from various places.’
‘Where is he?’
‘In Sheffield apparently. He owns a number of these escape rooms in different cities in the north. We’ve tried to contact him but not managed it yet.’
‘Keep at it, and contact Sheffield police to see if they have any leads. Mr Preston might have some useful information.’ Granger looked around both rooms again and frowned. ‘Well, I agree with you that it looks pretty clear-cut. Have we had a forensic report yet?’
‘Yes, ma’am. The victim died of stab wounds as we expected. Also, there is a CCTV video of the murder, which we are acquiring.’
‘Good. Hopefully that will confirm what the witnesses are saying. We’ve got officers out doing a search and messages out to the public to report anything suspicious. So we need to interview all the witnesses more thoroughly but apart from that I think—’ At that moment her phone went off. She answered it and heard a once-familiar voice.
‘Now then, Alice, how are you?’
Granger’s face lit up. ‘Chief Inspector Oldroyd?’
‘That’s right. I got your number from HQ. I’d like to come and talk to you about this escape room murder, if that’s okay with you and your superiors.’
‘I’d be delighted, sir, but why and what on earth are you doing here?’
‘Ah, that’s a bit of a story, Alice. I’ll tell you all about it wh
en I see you. I’ll come down to your HQ in half an hour or so, okay?’
‘Yes, sir, I’ll see you there. I’m on my way back anyway.’
Granger ended the call and smiled to herself. DCI Oldroyd was her mentor; the man who’d taught her most of what she knew. It would be great to work with him again. Not least because when he was around, things often turned out to be unexpectedly interesting.
‘I couldn’t call you before now. I was absolutely knackered last night when we got back. I went straight to bed. I hardly slept until about three this morning; I’ve only just woke up.’
Maggie was in bed, speaking to her boyfriend, Mark, on her phone. Her head was laid back on the pillow.
‘Yeah, I know . . . I’m sorry you had to see it on the news first, the media don’t waste any time . . . It was bloody awful, Mark . . . Yeah, I’m all over the bloody place . . . It would be great if you could come up . . . Oh my God!’ She burst into tears as she remembered the horror of what had happened. ‘No, it’s fine; we’re helping each other . . . We’ll be interviewed again no doubt . . . Yes . . . Can’t wait . . . Love you.’
She put the phone on the bedside table and pulled the duvet back over her. She ought to get up, but she didn’t feel as if she had the energy. She’d heard voices in the living room; Louise was up and had been talking to someone. She looked at her phone. Shit, it was twelve o’clock! The detectives might come round; she’d better get dressed. She didn’t want to get on the wrong side of the police. She got out of bed and suddenly realised she was desperate for some coffee. She pulled on her dressing gown and went downstairs to the kitchen.