The Royal Baths Murder

by J. R. Ellis

  ‘Yes, he would enjoy planning it from the comfort of his bed,’ laughed Andy. ‘What do you make of this similarity between his book and the murder, sir?’

  ‘Not much at the moment. It’s all a bit thin. Much more likely to be a coincidence.’

  When they arrived at the desk, there was a man waiting for them. He had longish black hair and was wearing jeans and a leather jacket. He addressed the detectives rather nervously.

  ‘Oh, er, hi, I’m Ben Poole. Pat Hughes said you wanted to speak to me. I suppose it’s about Damian Penrose. Sorry to hear that he . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ said Oldroyd. Patricia Hughes was working hard for them. ‘Can you come this way?’

  After the detectives had left his room, Derryvale reached for his phone.

  ‘Ah, Esther, have you heard? . . . Yes, delightful, isn’t it? The police have already been to see me. I interviewed them in my room.’ He burst into laughter. ‘Oh yes, they’ll be wanting to talk to you soon, and mind what you say to them, you know what the police are like . . . Well, of course you know what they’re like, you write about them all the time.’ He guffawed again at his own joke. ‘Yes, let’s meet up this evening to celebrate . . . What do you mean that’s bad taste? I haven’t felt so pleased about anything in years, and don’t tell me you don’t feel the same; that obnoxious bastard . . . Yes. Anyway, I’ll see you tonight. Bye. Oh, and by the way, the police have spotted a similarity between one of my books and Penrose’s death . . . I know, it’s absolutely hilarious, isn’t it? . . . Oh, Esther, well, I think it is. Bye again.’

  He rested the phone on his belly, lay back on his pillow and smiled. He found it impossible to think about Penrose’s death in any way other than with pleasure. He began to sing to himself and eventually to contemplate that it might at last be time to emerge from his bed.

  Ben Poole sat stiff and upright on a chair in Barry Evans’s office, looking as if he’d been called to the headmaster’s study.

  ‘So I hear you had a difficult session with Damian Penrose last night?’ began Oldroyd.

  ‘Yes. Pat Hughes warned me about him, but I’ve chaired events with him before. He’s always the same; he makes the whole thing about himself. Whatever I asked in the interview section, he simply brought it back to how good he was. It was supposed to be about him giving some insights into his craft in order to help aspiring writers. He didn’t seem interested, just kept talking as if it’s all only about natural talent: either you’ve got it or you haven’t, and, of course, he thinks he has.’

  ‘You felt that was a bad attitude?’

  ‘Yes. It angers me when writers are so lacking in generosity to others. You can be sure they’ve been helped or given a break by someone at some time in their career, whatever they might say. All he wanted was to rubbish the opposition.’

  ‘And then people started to throw contentious questions at him?’

  Ben shuddered a little at the memory. ‘They did. In a way, I can’t blame them. He was so insufferably arrogant, but it got personal and I had to intervene. I tried to get the session back on course but without much success. It just sort of fizzled out. I don’t know what the audience thought, but I found it embarrassing.’

  ‘So that wasn’t your first encounter with him?’

  ‘No, I’ve encountered him several times.’

  ‘But you didn’t know him that well?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did you do after that event?’

  ‘I left the hotel. I would normally go with the guest to the bar for a drink but I didn’t want to spend any more time with Penrose. I walked home. I stopped for a drink on the way back. I live out at Oatlands.’

  ‘OK, and what about this morning?’

  ‘I got up at six, although I didn’t sleep well after all that stress last night. I go to the gym early on Thursday mornings. Then I came here. I’ve got another event this morning, or I had. I don’t know if it’s going ahead.’

  ‘Can anyone verify your movements?’

  ‘My wife, Geraldine. She’s an artist and works from home. Also the people at the gym.’

  ‘Have you had any dealings with Penrose other than festival events?’

  Ben hesitated. ‘Not directly, but I do some work for John Sinclair. He has a publishing business. Penrose was involved with that but it . . . it turned nasty.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be talking to John. He will explain; it was all about money. I think Penrose helped John to start up his business but pulled out when it wasn’t making as much money as he’d hoped.’

  ‘I see. Did you ever hear John Sinclair threaten Penrose?’

  ‘John can be short-tempered. He’s a passionate man, passionate about books. I have heard him say bad things about Penrose, but never that he would like to kill him or anything like that.’

  ‘He was here last night, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, I understand he confronted Penrose in the bar along with a few others who’d been at the event.’

  ‘He did, and it got unpleasant. Do you know the others: Esther Stevenson? Charles Derryvale?’

  ‘Yes, of course. They’re local celebrities on the literary scene, colourful characters as well.’

  ‘They also seem to have hated Penrose. Did you ever witness them threatening him?’

  ‘No. But Penrose was a very unpleasant character. I’m sure he had many enemies.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right,’ concluded Oldroyd thoughtfully.

  After Ben had left, the two detectives had their first case discussion. Barry Evans had arranged for coffee to be brought to the makeshift incident room, along with some tempting Danish pastries. Andy was tucking in, while Oldroyd struggled hard to resist.

  ‘Well,’ began Oldroyd, sipping his coffee and trying not to look at the pastries, ‘it looks like we’ve got another puzzler on our hands. Plenty of people with motives but no idea how the crime was committed. I remember promising you that life would be interesting here in Yorkshire when you first arrived and I’ve not been wrong.’

  Andy smiled and swallowed a mouthful of pastry. He vividly remembered his first day at West Riding Police, when Oldroyd had whipped him off to investigate an unusual case in the potholes of the Yorkshire Dales. Police work was very different here from what he’d known at the Met, but no less demanding.

  ‘Yes, sir. Well, they warned me that it would be challenging working for you and they weren’t wrong.’

  ‘No. I always seem to get the difficult ones, but it makes life interesting.’

  ‘Definitely, sir. I wouldn’t have it any different.’

  ‘Good man. So what do you make of what we know so far?’

  Andy quickly downed the last piece of his pastry. ‘As far as the murder goes, someone got in and out of those Baths, so are those people – the receptionist, the bloke who found the body, the cleaner, the maintenance chap, even the manager – lying? It could have been one of them or a group of them, or they could be covering for someone else who came and left before they called us.’

  ‘Yes, that seems the most likely scenario at the moment. The problem is that, although those people had the means and opportunity, they didn’t have a motive. All the people with motives were far away from the Baths, as far as we know.’

  ‘We might find they had motives.’

  ‘Absolutely, it’s very early days, but at the moment I can’t see what a receptionist, a cleaner and a masseur and so on would have had against Penrose that would make them want to kill him. The other problem is that we’d be talking about a conspiracy, and you know how suspicious I always am of those. At least some, if not all, of them would have to be working together, and that always complicates things.’ Oldroyd put his coffee cup down, broke off a small piece of pastry and popped it into his mouth. ‘What do you think of the people we’ve seen here so far?’

  ‘That Derryvale bloke’s a dark horse. He blatantly makes himself out to be Penrose’s worst enemy, as if he doesn’t
care if that makes him seem suspicious, but I think it’s like a double bluff and maybe that similar murder in his book is the same kind of thing. He’s trying to put us off, by making it seem too obvious, but in fact he must be the main suspect at this stage. He was here at the hotel with Penrose and could follow his movements. He must have had an accomplice, but I think he could work out a clever scheme – after all, he does it for a living, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, I agree. What about Patricia Hughes and Ben Poole?’

  Andy shrugged. ‘Maybe, sir. I’m not sure either was telling us everything. There’s a lot more work to do.’

  ‘There is indeed. We’ve only just started, so I think we should get back to HQ briefly and then get on to John Sinclair and Esther Stevenson. Let’s see how they shape up.’

  Ben Poole arrived back at the festival office to find Patricia Hughes at her laptop.

  ‘How did it go?’ she said without looking up from the screen.

  ‘OK.’ He sat down, looked round and leaned towards her. ‘Do you think we should have told them about Clare?’

  Now she did look up. ‘No. Why should we do their work for them? They’ll find out soon enough.’

  ‘But if they think we knew something, they’ll be suspicious of us.’

  ‘Well, we don’t know anything, do we? Or do we?’ She looked at him more intently.

  ‘No, of course not. It’s just that, well, we have to be careful.’

  ‘Look, let’s just concentrate on the festival, shall we? I’ve decided your interview with Jessica Wilson is going ahead. We can’t let the people down who’ve paid for it, so why don’t you go and get ready?’

  ‘Right.’ Ben sighed and Patricia smiled wanly at him.

  ‘Look, Ben, I’m sorry about . . . you know.’

  ‘It’s OK. It’s not your fault, but it’s not easy to take.’

  ‘No, I understand.’

  Oldroyd and Andy had just arrived back at HQ when DI Derek Fenton came to Oldroyd’s office.

  ‘What can I do for you, Derek?’

  ‘Some help, sir, if that’s OK? I know you and the sergeant here are occupied with this Royal Baths case, but I’m dealing with this alleged corruption case at the council. There’s going to be a lot of work involved and I wondered if you’d let me have Sergeant Johnson?’

  Steph Johnson was Andy’s partner and a longstanding member of Oldroyd’s team. She’d worked with him ever since she joined the force not long after leaving school. She and Andy had got together soon after he’d joined West Riding Police from the London Met.

  Oldroyd considered. He was fond of Steph, with whom he had a kind of father–daughter relationship, and he valued her work for him. However, there was no good reason to refuse Fenton’s request; in fact, there were good operational reasons to accept it.

  ‘Fine. I’ll just have a word with her and send her up.’ Fenton’s office was on the floor above.

  Fenton left, and Oldroyd went out into the general office to call Steph in from where she was working, writing a report on a recent investigation. The three sat down together.

  ‘How did it go at the Baths?’ asked Steph.

  ‘Another puzzler,’ replied Andy. ‘A writer bloke with loads of enemies was strangled in a steam room but apparently by nobody. You know, the sort of case DCI Oldroyd and his team specialise in.’ He grinned at his boss.

  ‘At least it’s never boring,’ Oldroyd replied. Steph’s eyes brightened; she was looking forward to being involved in this. Oldroyd, however, delivered the unwelcome news. ‘Steph, Derek Fenton has just been in; he wants you on that council corruption case. I couldn’t really refuse him. He needs support and it would be greedy of me to keep both of you.’

  Steph was very disappointed, but tried hard to conceal it. ‘That’s fine, sir. Shall I go up now?’

  ‘If you would.’

  Steph left the office grim-faced. She had another reason for not wanting to work with Fenton. His behaviour towards her was unpleasant in a way that amounted to sexual harassment. He stood too close to her at the photocopier and often made comments about her appearance. When she’d tackled him about it, he’d turned hostile, pulled rank and threatened to spread false rumours about her and Oldroyd. Since then she’d tried to avoid him, but she knew he was still watching her and it made her feel uncomfortable.

  When she arrived at Fenton’s office, her heart sank further. Fenton was behind his desk, and lounging in nearby chairs were two male DCs who regularly worked with him: DC Hancock and DC Turnbull, or ‘Cock and Bull’, as they were widely known. They were notorious for their unreconstructed behaviour and had both been cautioned in the past for their smutty talk and sexist attitudes, but to no avail. They enjoyed Fenton’s protection.

  Turnbull greeted Steph with a leering grin. ‘Ooh! Aren’t we lucky, sir? The chief inspector’s let us have his favourite sergeant to work with us.’

  ‘Cut it out,’ said Steph firmly, attempting to nip things in the bud.

  ‘Sergeant,’ replied Fenton abruptly, ‘that’s uncalled for. I expect everyone who works with me to be able to take a joke.’

  Steph did not reply, and Turnbull smirked like a schoolboy who had got away with a prank. Her mood darkened still further as she contemplated the reality of working with these three.

  ‘Not to worry, sir. I expect Sarge is just a little nervous now she’s away from the chief inspector and lover boy,’ said Hancock, who sat in a chair with his legs splayed apart, displaying his crotch towards Steph. At the insulting reference to Andy, Steph glared at Fenton.

  ‘OK, that’s enough, shut up, you dickhead,’ Fenton said to Hancock, but the two DCs just laughed. ‘Let’s make a move,’ said Fenton. ‘The sergeant and I are going to do an interview on this corruption case. You two get on with writing the reports on that assault case at The Horse and Groom.’

  ‘OK, sir, enjoy yourself,’ said Turnbull, with a revolting leer at Steph.

  The DCs left the office and Fenton turned to Steph with a nasty smile on his face. ‘At last,’ he declaimed dramatically. ‘Just the two of us. What I’ve been waiting for ever since you came here.’

  Instinctively, Steph drew back and edged to the door. She didn’t think he would try anything on now, but she was going to have to stay on the alert. Clearly she was in for a difficult time.

  Two

  There is the Sulpher and Stincking spaw, not improperly term’d for the Smell being so very strong and offensive that I could not force my horse near the Well.

  Celia Fiennes’s Visit to Harrogate recorded in Journeys Through England on a Side Saddle in the time of William and Mary 1685–1710

  Unaware of Steph’s ordeal, Oldroyd and Andy walked through Harrogate to James Street in order to find John Sinclair’s office. James Street was a pleasant, arcaded thoroughfare lined with expensive shops. Between two of these shops, Andy found the number Patricia Hughes had given them. It was on a black door, to which a square plate was fastened, announcing ‘Sinclair Publications’. Andy rang the bell. Immediately a buzzer sounded and the detectives entered. Steep steps rose in front of them. At the top they knocked on a glass-panelled door.

  ‘Come in!’

  Oldroyd opened the door to reveal a cramped office overlooking the street outside. Books covered tables and the floor in high and unsteady-looking piles. A young woman sat at a computer, which was perched on a small table, near a man sitting at a larger wooden desk. He was thin, with longish dark hair streaked with grey, and a swarthy complexion. He looked towards the door over his reading glasses. ‘Yes, what can I do for you?’

  ‘Police,’ announced Oldroyd as he and Andy showed their IDs. ‘We’re investigating the murder of Damian Penrose. I assume you’re John Sinclair?’

  ‘What?’ Sinclair was either genuinely shocked or a very good actor, thought Oldroyd. ‘But how? Where?’

  ‘He was strangled this morning at the Royal Baths.’

  ‘Good God! I . . . er, yes, I am, er . . .’ He looked across
to his assistant. ‘Amy, why don’t you go for your lunch break now? I need to talk to these gentlemen in private.’

  Without a word, the woman got up, slipped on a jacket and left the office. Sinclair seemed too stunned to speak for a moment.

  ‘Er, sit down.’ He pointed to two chairs at the side of his desk. The detectives stepped gingerly between the piles of books to reach them.

  ‘Look,’ said Sinclair, more directly, as if he’d decided what line he was going to take, ‘I’m sure you’ve got me down as a suspect. It was no secret that Damian and I had a bad relationship, and I expect you’ve already heard about last night. That arrogant man; he was absolutely intolerable. But I didn’t kill him.’

  Sounds from people walking in the street below drifted in through the open window. It was quite relaxing, but Oldroyd saw all around him the evidence of a struggling business. Hard graft went on in this room.

  ‘Can you tell us more about this bad relationship?’ he began.

  Sinclair sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

  ‘I’ve known Damian a long time. We were at school together, down in Hertfordshire, a minor public school, bloody awful place, but we had a good time running a school mag when we were in the sixth form. We were always interested in books and writing. I enjoyed the organisation and printing; Damian was the writer, and that’s just how things carried on.

  ‘We lost touch for many years; it was all well before Facebook, but I watched the progress of his career as a crime writer with interest. I got into the publishing industry and worked for a number of companies in London. My family came from up here and it was always my ambition to return to Yorkshire and establish my own business. I think it’s wrong that the north has so few publishers.’

  ‘I agree, very laudable,’ said Oldroyd, pleased to hear this sentiment for the second time. He was keen to see northern writers being able to have their work published locally.

  ‘Anyway, around that time, I bumped into Damian at the London Book Fair and we re-established contact. It was all very pleasant for a while, reminiscing about the past.’ He shook his head. ‘I should have left it at that, but I told him about my plan to set up a business here. Damian didn’t like the north of England, he thought it was the back of beyond, but when I explained that there might be money to be made publishing local writers, he became interested. Despite his image as the urbane, literary type, he’s always been very keen to make money. I think that was the main motivation for becoming a crime writer: he thought he could make money out of it and I can’t deny he was right about that. However, he said he would help me set up here in Harrogate. I was desperate for some support and nearly bit his hand off. I ought to have trodden more warily, as it turned out.’