The Royal Baths Murder

by J. R. Ellis

  ‘If you did anything, those photographs would be straight out.’

  ‘I’m sure they would,’ continued Steph calmly. ‘But it might be worth it to see you brought down and humiliated. I think it would be worse for you. Anyway, it’s up to you. Are you going to accept our arrangement or not?’

  Fenton’s face looked tortured, as if he was desperately trying to think of a way out. But he couldn’t. ‘OK,’ he said quietly after a long pause. ‘Now move out of the way.’ The women moved back and Fenton stormed out of the room. Cynthia sighed with relief.

  ‘It worked, thank goodness. Sharon, well done; you were brilliant!’ The others congratulated her too and she beamed.

  ‘Well, it worked up to a point,’ said Nicola, striking a more downbeat note. ‘The bastard’s still got away with it, though, hasn’t he? I know we had to protect you,’ she said, turning to Steph, ‘and well done for planning this, but it still sticks in the gullet to see him escape without any consequences.’

  ‘He won’t do anything again, though, will he?’ said Cynthia.

  ‘No,’ replied Steph, ‘and other things are going on that will have a big impact on him.’

  ‘What?’ said Nicola.

  ‘I can’t say, but trust me and watch this space. I think you’ll soon see it all come to a satisfying conclusion.’

  ‘That’s terrible, Jim. This is happening to you far too often. It’s one thing to have to investigate these terrible crimes but quite another to actually witness them when you were at the Murder Mystery Evening.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Oldroyd.

  ‘Well, it’s really grotesque.’ Oldroyd’s sister, Alison, shook her head, and drank some of her coffee. They were sitting in the large, rather faded kitchen in what Oldroyd called the ‘Jane Austen Vicarage’ at Kirkby Underside, the village in the countryside between Leeds and Harrogate where Alison was the vicar. Badly in need of a break after the traumas of Saturday evening, Oldroyd had driven out seeking some relief and sustenance from his sister.

  ‘It certainly was, but Deborah was wonderful. She refused to leave, and just sat there patiently waiting for me until backup came and I could leave them to get on with clearing things up.’

  ‘That’s great. I can’t tell you how pleased I am, Jim, that at last you’ve found someone.’

  ‘Well, it’s early days. I’ve known her for hardly a week. You’re like Louise. She was rushing things along too.’

  ‘She’s also pleased for you and she’s sharp; she can probably tell, like I can, that you sense something good is happening.’

  Oldroyd was grinning. ‘Yes, I can’t deny it. We enjoy each other’s company and share the same sense of humour. I’m not seeing her for a few days and I’m missing her already.’

  ‘Good Lord, the man’s in love!’ laughed Alison.

  ‘That might be stretching it a bit after a week. It sounds very teenage.’

  ‘Why should it? Why should romance be confined to the young? I married a couple in their eighties the other week and it was a very joyous occasion.’

  ‘Good for them. I’m not sure marriage would be for me second time around.’

  ‘No point in even thinking about that yet. Now who’s jumping the gun? Anyway, I’m fascinated by this case. All about writers, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. And rejected wives. There are plenty of people with motives. Two people have been killed, almost certainly because they knew too much. We still can’t make much sense of the first murder scene either, though I’ve got a few ideas.’

  ‘I see. Sounds about normal for you, then. You don’t make it easy for yourself, do you?’

  ‘I never have,’ laughed Oldroyd, reaching out for another of Alison’s homemade chocolate brownies and then pulling back as he remembered Deborah’s remarks about his figure. ‘Incidentally, Deborah agrees with you that plagiarism could definitely have been the motive, but I have to set that against some other deep personal grudges that people had against Penrose. We’ve also got an idea of the kind of person we’re looking for in terms of who carried out at least one of the murders – a small woman – but I can’t see how it all fits together. There’s definitely more than one person involved.’

  ‘Well, you’re as good as anyone in putting the pieces of these puzzles together and—’ Alison’s phone rang and she looked at the screen. ‘Oh, I’ll have to take this, Jim. Just excuse me for a minute.’ She went into the sitting room.

  Oldroyd sat in the quiet. He always found it soothing to come to this oasis of rural peace when he was feeling frazzled. Of course, he knew from experience that rural places were not always peaceful, and so it proved today when Alison returned.

  ‘Jim, I’m really sorry but I’m going to have to go out. That was a young woman in the parish. She lost a baby a couple of years ago – miscarriage. She’s pregnant again but having some problems. She’s feeling very bad today. I said I would go round.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Oh, I think it’s one of those cases when the umbilical cord is wrapped round the baby’s neck. That’s not usually a problem these days: they’ll be able to put it right but obviously she’s over-anxious after what happened before. I’ll have to go right away; she was in tears. Stay and finish your coffee; just put the latch down on the door when you leave. Bye for now.’ She gave him a quick hug and kiss and she was off. Moments later he heard the car scrunching down the long drive.

  Oldroyd sat there very thoughtful and guiltily excited. Alison often provided him with important clues, even when she didn’t intend to. Yes, that was how someone could have stayed in that place for long enough. That was a crucial piece of the jigsaw! He was nearly there. He needed to get back as soon as he could.

  Eight

  Theakston’s Brewery in Masham, North Yorkshire, dates from 1827. It produces a strong beer called Old Peculier, a reference to the time when the parish of Masham was a ‘peculier’, with its own ecclesiastical courts. Theakston’s sponsors a Crime Writing Festival that takes place each summer in Harrogate.

  Andy Carter was at HQ waiting eagerly for his boss to appear when Oldroyd suddenly burst into the office in a state of excitement.

  ‘Andy, I think I know how they did it! We need to go to the Royal Baths, now.’

  ‘Right, sir, but before we do, I’ve got some interesting news too. The techies have finally tracked where that call was received from Patricia Hughes on the night she was murdered and I’ve followed it up. This is who lives there.’ He showed Oldroyd a sheet of paper.

  The chief inspector raised his eyebrows. ‘Good, well done. That fits in with what I’ve suspected all along. Come on, let’s go. It’s finally all falling into place. We just need to be very careful, and this is what we’re going to do.’

  At the Royal Baths, Carol Ashworth was surprised to see the police back.

  ‘Oh! Chief Inspector, it’s you again,’ she said, turning a little pale. ‘I’m afraid I haven’t got over that awful business at The White Swan the other night. You’ve just reminded me all about it, but it’s a good job you were there. That poor woman! It absolutely ruined the evening for everyone. I hope your nice lady friend wasn’t too upset. Oh, and did you know the murder was like one in a book by—’

  Oldroyd didn’t have time for this. ‘Yes, we’ve made that connection, thank you, and my friend is fine. We need to go down to the scene of the murder again. Is there anyone down there?’

  Carol’s face fell. ‘Oh dear, we won’t have to close down again, will we? We’ve only just got on our feet again after that terrible day.’

  ‘No, that won’t be necessary.’

  ‘Oh, good. Well, it’s been fairly quiet this morning, but there are a couple of people in.’

  ‘Right, well, if you could go down and just make sure there’s no one in the pool and that everyone’s decent. Just tell them that the police need to look at something. We won’t be long and there’s nothing to be alarmed about.’

  ‘I see. Well, I’ll tell them to
wait in the changing rooms. Is that OK?’

  ‘Yes, that will be fine.’

  ‘I’d ask Steve to do it, but he’s not here at the moment.’

  The detectives followed Carol down the marble steps and waited while she alerted the customers.

  ‘You can go in now,’ she said, and went back up the stairs.

  ‘We won’t be long but don’t let anyone else come down while we’re here.’

  ‘I won’t, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘This is all very mysterious, sir,’ said Andy as he followed Oldroyd to the swimming pool, but his boss didn’t reply. The door to the boiler room opened and Sid Newman came out. When he saw the detectives, he took a step back with alarm.

  ‘Oh, it’s you again,’ he said. ‘I’m just doin’ a bit of maintenance work. I—’

  ‘That’s quite all right, Mr Newman, we won’t be here for long. You just carry on,’ said Oldroyd, who was looking intently at the pool and seemingly examining every part of it. Newman went back into the boiler room, looking relieved. Andy was puzzled.

  ‘Sir, you surely don’t think the murderer was hiding in there underwater? We were down here for a long time. They would never have been able to hold their breath, and I did look in there in case anything had been thrown in. I certainly didn’t see anything or anybody.’

  ‘That was the whole idea, Andy. You weren’t able to see them but what I can’t—’ Suddenly he clapped his hand to his forehead. ‘Oh, but of course. It was staring me in the face. That’s how it was done.’ He knelt by the steps that led down into the pool and seemed to be looking for something. ‘Yes! Excellent.’ He laughed. ‘It’s ingenious and daring and it was hiding in plain sight, as they say. Deborah used that phrase at the Murder Mystery Evening, and it made me think then.’

  ‘About what, sir?’

  Oldroyd stood up and turned to Andy, looking very self-satisfied. ‘I once heard a tale about the Vietnam War, Andy. I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but according to the story the Americans were trying to disguise an air base from the Viet Cong, so they removed any sign of their presence and covered things with camouflage and so on. Then a few days later, despite all their efforts, the base was attacked. They couldn’t understand it but then someone realised that they’d left a big McDonald’s sign up, which completely gave the game away. It was so big and everyone was so used to it that no one in a sense noticed it. So with this. The murderer was hiding quite close to you and the method is obvious now I know, but we completely overlooked it, even though we were standing by it and touching it.’

  Andy grinned. ‘You’ve lost me, sir. What happened?’

  Oldroyd pointed to the changing rooms. ‘The murderer was already down here that morning when Penrose arrived; they’d probably been here all night and they’d made all their preparations. Penrose was caught completely off guard because he wasn’t expecting anyone to be here. The killer would have come up behind him and strangled him with some kind of strong cord, which they took away with them.’

  ‘Then what happened? How did they disappear?’

  ‘They didn’t; they were hiding.’ He pointed to the pool.

  ‘But how, sir? Did they have gills or something?’

  ‘No. Remember I spoke about camouflage? I started to think about it when I saw a chameleon on my screen saver at home and thought about how it changes its colours to blend in with its environment. Now, let’s look at this pool.’

  They stood on the edge by the steps and looked into the water. ‘First of all, the bottom and the sides are covered in blue tiles, so if you were wearing a completely blue, close-fitting diving suit with a blue cap and something blue on your feet, you would be camouflaged. Also, notice the edge of the pool; it’s an old-fashioned design and the rounded edge sticks out quite a way over the water, which means you can’t actually climb out. You have to go up the steps.’

  ‘So if you lay right up against the wall of the pool down there at the bottom in your camouflage, you would be difficult to spot.’

  ‘Yes, Andy. Now you’re getting it. You actually have to lean over to see where the tiled wall joins the tiled floor of the pool at the bottom. You wouldn’t do that if you were just having a quick glance. Now also notice that the water pump is conveniently pushing water out of a grille into the pool just below our feet next to these steps, so the water is moving and you don’t have a clear view. So even if you did peer over the edge, all you would see is a swirl of blue at the bottom, which is exactly what you’d expect. You wouldn’t be able to distinguish a camouflaged human form. Also, remember that the killer had turned up the steam and opened the steam room door so that everything down here was misty and indistinct.’

  ‘OK, but you still haven’t explained how the person would breathe.’

  ‘I couldn’t work it out myself for a long time. When I was walking with my sister in Wharfedale, I saw a memorial to a diver and I thought: you could stay underwater with an oxygen tank. But that would be so cumbersome; how would you disguise it? And how would you get rid of it afterwards? We didn’t find one. So I was back to square one with that problem. Then this morning I was at my sister’s, and she told me about a case of a baby with the umbilical cord round its neck. And the mention of that cord, which is the tube that connects the baby and its mother, gave me the answer. It could be done with some kind of blue plastic tube, a breathing tube.’

  ‘But how did it work?’

  ‘This is another really clever bit.’ He knelt down by the steps. ‘These curved rail supports you get hold of when you’re going up and down the steps are tubes of metal; they’re hollow. Now look at the back here. Someone’s drilled a hole where it’s connected to the floor and where you wouldn’t notice it. You can bet there’s another one where the support is connected to the wall at the bottom of the steps in the water.’

  ‘So a breathing tube was fed through and they could stay underwater?’

  ‘Yes. It worked like an extended snorkel. They would have had a mouthpiece on the end and maybe a face mask, again all blue.’

  ‘Bloody hell! The clever sods. So the murderer was lying at the bottom of the pool underneath my feet the whole time?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. The small holes would have been drilled out well in advance, but no one noticed the one at the top because it’s hidden at the back of the support. The one at the bottom is in the water and effectively invisible. Part of the preparation during the night before the murder would have been to secure the tube at the top with some kind of waterproof glue so that it wouldn’t fall back down the metal tube. You can see bits of the glue around the hole. After the murder, the killer got into the water, put the pipe in their mouth, blew out any water and then sank to the bottom, waiting and breathing through the pipe. They would have lain face down to conceal the mask, and they would have kept very still. Partly to remain unseen, and also to conserve energy because a pipe that length would not have been very efficient. It would have been tricky, but with practice it’s possible.’

  ‘How did they know when to come out? We could have still been here.’

  ‘The murderer and the accomplice probably both had a kind of diver’s watch where you can send a signal: a buzzing noise or vibration from one to the other. That signal would mean the coast was clear.’

  ‘And the accomplice was Steve Monroe?’

  ‘Yes. Of course, the person who discovers the body in those kinds of circumstances always comes under suspicion, but at first sight, his story seemed genuine. No one had come up those stairs since Penrose went down and there was no other way in or out. There wasn’t time for him to have killed Penrose himself, and we couldn’t find anyone concealed. Another advantage for the murderer is that they didn’t need to stay under the water for as long. They didn’t need to hide in the pool until you arrived. Monroe told everyone here he’d searched the place but I imagine the murderer was hiding in the changing rooms at that point. Monroe may have used the diver’s watch to send a message that the police had arri
ved.’

  ‘And the murderer is a woman?’

  ‘Yes, a small but powerful and ruthless woman. The same woman who posed as a waitress and poisoned Susan Lawrence and who probably killed Pat Hughes too.’

  Andy was shaking his head. ‘So, sir, that’s all fine up to a point but then how did she get out of the building? She still had to get up those stairs without being seen.’

  ‘I’m afraid she was carried out.’

  ‘What? Not in that basket under our very noses. No way.’

  But Oldroyd was nodding ruefully. ‘Yes.’

  ‘But I checked it twice. It’s impossible.’

  ‘But think back to what actually happened, and how the rooms are configured. Before I arrived, you quite rightly checked the basket, got all the dirty towels out, and found nothing. Then you went back up to call me. You might have left a constable down here but that was in the hot room where Penrose’s body was. You can’t see the swimming pool from there. That was their opportunity. Monroe gave the signal from wherever he was; she quickly got out of the water and into the changing rooms, taking the breathing pipe with her, or she may have stuffed the whole length of it into the metal tube and Monroe removed it later. She didn’t need to pass the hot room, where the body was. She dried herself with one of the old towels from the basket and then got into the same basket with the pipe, the mask and any other bits and pieces, curling up and flattening herself as much as she could at the bottom. This is where her small size is crucial because they then placed some kind of false bottom over her, which they’d custom made. That false bottom would have already been in the basket lying over the real base. Then Monroe filled the basket with the towels again.

  ‘Enter us, the gormless coppers. Monroe comes down to remove the basket. While we’re preoccupied with other things, he probably wiped over where her footprints were with his squeegee. If we’d asked him, he could have said it was water streaming down the walls because of the steam. I see the basket, and you say you’ve checked it. I say check it again, so you have another cursory look, pull some towels out and feel about a bit. But there’s nothing there. Monroe carries the basket up the stairs and into that laundry room near the entrance. He locks the door. She gets out and hides in there and changes into her clothes. Shirley Adams, the cleaner, told us there was a door out of there into a side street, and you can be sure that Steve had acquired a key. She slips out and that’s it. There’s no CCTV at the side of the building.’