by J. R. Ellis
Oldroyd and Granger had just finished interviewing Pesku when Oldroyd’s phone rang. It was Steph.
‘You go on to the office,’ he said to Granger. ‘I’ll just take this.’ Granger went off down the corridor.
‘Sir, there’s been a major incident here in Leeds. I want to stress to you that everybody is okay, including Louise.’
Despite this reassurance, Oldroyd felt the anxiety hit his stomach. ‘What the hell’s been going on?’
Steph began to explain.
When Oldroyd didn’t arrive at the office, Granger went to the door to look for him. She saw him in the corridor slumped over and holding on to a radiator.
She ran down to him. ‘Sir, what’s happened?’ She helped him into the office, sat him down and made a drink of hot tea. It was some time before she could get the story out of him. She’d never seen him so shocked and fragile. Haltingly, he explained what had happened in Leeds.
‘So they’ve got Morton . . . but Louise . . . my daughter. He nearly killed her.’ He covered his face with his hands.
‘My God, sir, that’s terrible.’
‘I was here and couldn’t do anything to help. I had no idea she’d actually arranged to meet him at the flat.’
‘Look, sir, it’s probably better that you didn’t know until it was over. Steph sounds to have done a fantastic job. And Louise is okay, remember that.’
‘Yes, yes. It’s just the thought of what could have happened. It’s too horrible to contemplate.’
‘I know, sir. But it’s all over now, and she’s safe,’ repeated Granger.
At that moment Oldroyd’s phone went again. It was Andy asking how everything was progressing.
‘It’s fine, Andy,’ he finally managed to say. ‘It’s all over. We’ve got Pesku here and Steph has arrested Morton in Leeds. They were the murderers. Steph’s done a wonderful job. I’ll tell you more later. Can you send a detailed report on what you’ve found to Inspector Granger?’
‘Okay, sir. I’ll get all this stuff sent up too.’
He ended the call and felt enormous relief that they’d finally got to the end, mixed with the awful shock of knowing how close things had come to further tragedy. He’d never felt so utterly exhausted at the end of a case.
Seven
From Brig O’ Dread when thou may’st pass,
Every nighte and alle,
To Purgatory fire thou com’st at last,
And Christe receive thy saule.
From the Lyke Wake Dirge
It was Sunday morning and Oldroyd and Granger confronted their captive in the interview room. He’d been brought over from Leeds the previous evening. A solicitor sat next to him and a police officer sat on a chair in the corner of the room. Morton was bedraggled and defeated but retained a sullen defiance. Oldroyd stared at him for a few moments, appalled that his daughter had almost entered into a relationship with this man and then nearly been murdered by him.
‘Let’s go right back to the beginning,’ he said. ‘This was one of the most evil and devious schemes I’ve ever encountered in over thirty years of detective work. It was about the shocking betrayal and murder of three innocent people, two of them your own friends, for nothing other than personal gain.’
Morton shrugged but didn’t say anything.
‘It all began about a year ago, didn’t it?’ continued Oldroyd, trying not to express the utter contempt he felt for the man in front of him. ‘You were in Leeds at a conference or something and Andrea, who was also up from London, invited you to the flat she’d inherited from her aunt. She particularly wanted you to see the artwork. If only she’d known what would happen as a result. When you got there you were very impressed by the collection but you were astonished to see one painting that was extremely special.’
Morton’s face lit up at the memory. ‘It was a painting called “Love and Pain” by Edvard Munch. He painted six versions of it and I knew one of them was missing. I couldn’t believe it. I can’t imagine how her aunt ever came to possess it but there it was.’
‘Of course you knew all about that because you were obsessed with vampires.’
Morton’s eyes seemed to take on a mad gleam and he spoke with a terrifying enthusiasm. ‘Oh, yes, the thrill of that darkness and power. That bite of love which gives you complete control. The beauty of the red blood of life spilling out and catapulting the lucky victim into the eternal glamour of the undead. Who could resist that wonderful pain? And to paint such things is an ecstasy. I’ve been in thrall to vampiric art since I saw my first vampire painting. It’s pure joy to . . .’ And so he went on until Oldroyd finally stopped him.
‘I see,’ said Oldroyd, shocked at the sadomasochistic rant he’d just heard. ‘Why did you keep all this a secret? You had exhibitions of your work but I don’t think you ever included anything of this nature.’
Morton smiled. ‘This was private, you see, just for me until I’d become famous and then I would unleash it on the world in all its deadly glory, like Dracula rising from his coffin.’ He stood up and the uniformed officer stirred. Morton’s voice was raised. ‘And all would worship the glory and power of my art!’
‘Sit down!’ said Oldroyd firmly. This broke a spell. Morton seemed to deflate, slumped back onto his chair and wiped his brow with his arm.
‘So,’ continued Oldroyd. ‘You realised that Andrea had no idea about the significance of this painting and how valuable it was so you didn’t say anything. It was your intention from that day onwards to get your hands on it. I suspect you had two contradictory motives. It was a painting you would love to possess, but on the other hand, with the money you could get from selling it, you could give up the distraction of having to earn a basic living through teaching and concentrate on your own art. Your talent could finally be fulfilled. You believe in your unrecognised genius. Am I right?’
Morton nodded and smiled. He seemed to appreciate Oldroyd’s understanding of his motives.
‘There was the painting hidden in a collection. If you could get rid of Andrea Barnes, you could remove it and even if someone noticed that a painting was missing no one would remember what it was and no one knew its worth. Then you could sell it anonymously. Lost paintings are always being discovered, aren’t they?’
‘Yes. I asked her questions and it was clear that there was no one around who could have known about the painting so no one would report it stolen.’
‘I’m sure you did. But unfortunately you forgot that there was someone else besides Andrea who was familiar with everything in the house, even if she didn’t know much about the works of art. The cleaner, Mrs Adams . . . She told Louise about the artwork that was missing and described it. That made Louise suspicious, especially when she learned that you’d been in Andrea’s house. But we’ll come to that later.
‘The problem was: how could you get rid of Andrea? It had to happen in a way that drew all attention away from you. Suicide, accident, or being murdered by someone else. I imagine it was very difficult to think how it could be done until a number of things came together for you, which they sometimes have a devilish habit of doing for someone planning a wicked crime.
‘It started with one of your students – Elaine Pesku. She was Romanian. You began an affair with her. She was very cagey about her previous life, so you decided to investigate a little. You discovered that she was a criminal on the run, and her real name was Irina Albesku. She had a violent past as part of a drugs gang in Bucharest. How did you get all that information?’
At this point, the solicitor advised Morton that he didn’t have to say anything. Morton, however, shook his head. It seemed that he realised it was all over. And he wanted to talk about his plan. It appeared to Oldroyd as though he was proud of it. He smiled. ‘I have a friend who’s a detective; he owes me a few favours. It didn’t take him long with a photograph of her to find what I wanted.’
Oldroyd nodded. ‘More likely you blackmailed him over something, but never mind about that for the moment. The bi
g break finally came over the summer. Elaine, let’s continue to call her that, had come up here to Whitby for a summer job and you came to see her.’
‘She was working in this escape room on a Dracula theme . . . in Whitby of all places, where Dracula himself arrived in England. She showed me round. I suddenly had this incredible idea. It was so ingenious. It was a thing of beauty. It brought everything together.’
‘Your concept of beauty is a very dark one,’ replied Oldroyd sharply. ‘Anyway, I think by then your affair with Elaine was probably near its end, but she was a useful, tough accomplice, having a violent past and being used to handling a gun.’
‘It was her who got the gun,’ said Morton. ‘She seemed to have some connections with the underworld over here.’
Oldroyd paused. It was time to play his card. ‘We have apprehended Elaine Pesku and her account of the scheme you played out together was that it was entirely your idea and you forced her into assisting you. Is that true?’
Morton shook his head again. ‘It’s true that I hinted that I could reveal what I knew about her, but she was more interested in getting her share of the money from us selling that picture. She was up for it all, so don’t let her play the victim. She’s a ruthless woman.’
Oldroyd smiled. He would never have seen Pesku as a victim. It was interesting to play accomplices off against each other. It usually worked and they ended up telling you more than they intended in order to incriminate the other.
‘Anyway,’ he continued. ‘The first victim was the unfortunate Hugh Preston. He made the mistake of telling Elaine about the trick sarcophagus. Having checked that he hadn’t told anyone else, you killed him and hid his body in the skip.’
‘Yes,’ said Morton. ‘We couldn’t risk anyone else finding out. Of course you did eventually.’ He shot Oldroyd an evil look. ‘It was good practice for the main event. Elaine lured him into the escape room office when he was paying a visit one day after the escape room had closed. I stabbed him with the same knife I used on Andrea and then we went out in the night to dispose of his body. It was like a rehearsal. I never thought those bloody kids would discover the body; that was a stroke of bad luck.’
Oldroyd frowned and shook his head. ‘So,’ he continued, ‘the main scheme depended on getting the confidence of Andrea and her boyfriend Dominic and exploiting their love of dressing up and drama. You were all coming up to Whitby for the Goth Weekend, which I imagine was your suggestion in the first place, and to add to the excitement and the horror, you suggested a practical joke. What would happen was this: Dominic and Andrea would pretend to have rows with each other and then when you were all in the escape room, Dominic would pretend to completely lose it and stab her.’
Morton seemed to relish the memory. ‘Yes, everyone thought the Goth Weekend was a great idea so I booked an Airbnb and organised the escape room with Elaine. No one knew about her connection with me. Then one night I was in a pub in London with Dom and Andrea, and I suggested we should perform this trick while we were up in Whitby taking part in this vampire-themed game. It would be perfect for the Goth Weekend. We would all be dressed up in a spooky environment: perfect. They were eating out of the palm of my hand; they thought it was a fantastic idea. They both had a great sense of humour and loved jokes. Everybody would laugh about it for days. We came up to Whitby the week before without anyone knowing. I explained everything and we practised it. It all fell into place. I remembered that Dom had told us about the gun his uncle had given him, so I carefully asked him a little more and he said it was a Glock pistol. So Elaine got hold of a similar model, along with a silencer. Like I said, she has lots of contacts in the underworld.’
‘They didn’t suspect a thing,’ continued Oldroyd. ‘Why should they? It was meant to be a clever practical joke that would amuse their friends and they played their parts to perfection, even having an argument the night before to establish they were in a bad mood with each other. It turned out to be a devilish confidence trick in which they lost their lives. They unwittingly collaborated in their own murders.
‘Dominic stabbed her with a false knife, one where the blade retracts inside the handle as it meets the body so it looks as if the blade is entering the flesh and then he ran out through the emergency exit. There was a bag of fake blood inside her dress and Andrea also had capsules of the same blood in her mouth, which she crushed with her teeth. She got the blood from a joke shop for use on her Dracula’s bride costume but she also poured some into these capsules which she’d emptied of stomach medicine. The blood seemed to flow out of her mouth. You rushed across to help her while Dominic ran out of the room. While the attention was on him you stabbed her in the chest with a real knife and hid the false one. Both knives looked very similar.’
Morton laughed. ‘She said “Has he gone out?” I didn’t reply. While Maggie was in the other room I covered Andrea’s mouth hard with my hand and sunk the knife in. Then I pulled the empty capsules out of her mouth and wiped away all the fake blood. The only blood left on her mouth was hers. I pulled out the empty bag from inside her dress. It didn’t matter that there was fake blood mixed with her own on the costume because that was meant to look bloody. She really had been stabbed to death. It was so neatly done. I’d checked where all the CCTV cameras were positioned, and I knew the real stabbing would not be captured on film.’ His eyes sparkled at the memory.
Oldroyd was appalled at the pride and relish with which Morton was describing his calculated murder of Andrea Barnes.
Ben continued. ‘The plan was for Dominic to briefly hide inside the sarcophagus. Then he would burst out when Andrea came back to life to general relief and then to applause and hilarity. The perfect gothic trick: an extension of the escape room game we were playing. Elaine’s role was to assist with this trick. She had rushed round from reception into the storage room which contained the sarcophagus. She was waiting behind the door and her job was to block it with a packing case when Dominic had come through. This would give them time for the next stage. Elaine was to help him into the sarcophagus, shut the lid and then get back quickly to reception.’
‘But she didn’t do that, did she?’ asked Oldroyd.
‘No, she blocked the door and got him into the sarcophagus all right, but then she shot him in the side of the head with the silenced pistol, closed the lid and turned the sarcophagus round. Dominic had no idea that the thing rotated, and he never found out. It was a marvellous trick within a trick and it worked perfectly. There was too much commotion in the room where we were for anybody to hear the thud of the silencer. She did it all very efficiently; she was no victim. She had already got Andrea’s phone out of her bag while we were still in the first room and deleted any texts between us that might be incriminating.’
Oldroyd saw where this was going and intervened. ‘So when Maggie finally pushed through the door, Dominic was nowhere to be seen. And you were nearly home and dry.’
Morton suddenly turned angry. ‘The plan would have worked if you hadn’t come over. You and that bloody daughter of yours. I tried to arrange the escape room for a time before she got to Whitby. I knew she would be trouble and there was the added threat that you might get involved: Daddy, the great detective. But she turned up in time to take part. Bloody bitch!’
Red-faced, Oldroyd got up from his chair and had to be restrained by Granger. After a moment he sat down again, struggling to control his feelings. Granger carried on the interrogation.
‘So you played the part of the caring friend who tried to save the victim’s life while administering the death blow, at the same time as your accomplice murdered the poor woman’s partner. Are you proud of that?’
Morton shrugged again. He’d returned to a sullen silence.
‘You must have been pleased that part one of the scheme had worked so well. Part two involved creating the fiction that Holgate was still alive, but in a deranged state. Was that what all that stuff with the text messages and meeting in the churchyard was about?’
‘So what happened when you staged the suicide?’ asked Oldroyd, who had recovered some composure. He was relieved that Morton was not only putting up no defence, but seemed eager to tell them all about what he’d done.
‘It was easy. Elaine dressed as Dominic again and conducted that scene at the pub, firing the gun and causing mayhem. It created the impression that he’d lost his sanity. She ran down the alley into darkness by the harbour where I was waiting with a change of clothes. She fired the gun again and we hid behind one of the buildings. She took off the mask, cape, hood and black trousers and put on a skirt and coat. Then we carefully made our way back to Church Street and mingled with the crowd. I even walked back to the pub to see what people were saying about what had happened.’
‘And you dumped Holgate’s body into the harbour?’
‘Yes, we’d already got his body out of the escape room and into the boot of my car, which no one knew was in Whitby. I rented a garage near to where Elaine was staying. We dressed him in the clothes Elaine had worn earlier in the evening and in the middle of the night when everything had gone quiet, we drove down and waited until there was absolutely no one around. Then we got the body into the water.’
‘What about the gun?’