Then he fumbled for his mobile.
1. Voice from the Grave
A MISTY MONDAY MORNING. Another bench. This time, the back of Bromgrove Police Station where DI Gilbert Markham sat enjoying a moment of tranquillity.
It was always like this at the start of a case. The need to fill himself with total stillness before the mayhem of the investigation took over.
Markham felt almost as though he wasn’t even breathing. Almost as though he’d become part of some municipal phantasmagoria rather than a city of bricks and mortar.
There in front of him was the blackened Victorian pile of the Town Hall. Behind that rose the ancient terraces of St Chad’s cemetery on one side and Hollingrove Park with its gentle contours on the other.
A view as familiar to him as his own face. A view he had contemplated thousands of times before.
And yet now, by some mysterious alchemy, subtly different.
The alchemy of murder.
In the stillness, Markham felt he was absorbing everything around him with clinical detachment, with no conscious thought at all. Observation, but no observer. A vibrant, alert hyper-awareness.
If he listened hard enough, he would hear voices pulsating through the landscape, pushing back the walls of time. The voices of those ‘dunged with rotten death’ who cried out to be avenged.
With one long, last look, the DI got up and made his way round to the main entrance and the lift which would whisk him to CID.
Early as it was, two familiar faces awaited him.
DS George Noakes was sprawled across his work station wolfing down what looked like a McDonald’s double sausage and egg McMuffin, watched by DS Kate Burton of whose appalled expression he was happily oblivious.
It was an amusing study in contrasts. The grizzled, frowsy veteran and the bright-as-a-button university graduate.
Despite the DCI’s best efforts, Markham had stubbornly resisted all attempts to prise George Noakes from his side. He couldn’t do his job without the other’s unvarnished honesty, common sense and bloody-minded disregard for social conventions. It was as simple as that. Rarely as they shared personal confidences, the DI knew that no man’s metal rang as true as Noakes’s, and that they somehow understood each other at a level beyond words. Wherever their investigations took them, whatever treacherous shoals and quicksands they had to navigate, he knew the DS had his back, ‘though hell should bar the way’. ‘The bizarrest bromance,’ Markham’s teacher girlfriend Olivia Mullen was wont to chuckle, but she had a soft spot for Noakes who reciprocated in kind, regarding his boss’s willowy red-haired partner with a reverential awe which was proof against any amount of disapproval from ‘the missus’ or ribbing by colleagues.
Queasily, with intimations of nausea circling round her digestive system, Kate Burton observed her fellow DS gobble down the last greasy morsel of his McMuffin. A contented postprandial belch indicated that it had lived up (or should that be down?) to expectations.
With a sardonic glance at Noakes, the DI headed for his glassed-in corner office with unrivalled views of the station car park. Snatching up her notebook, Burton was quick to follow while Noakes took one last slurp of his coffee and lobbed the plastic cup in the direction of his waste basket, not appearing unduly concerned when it missed.
Markham gave the radiator in his freezing office a halfhearted thump, as if by that means he could galvanize the temperamental heating system into action. Then he sat down behind his desk, waving his two subordinates to chairs opposite.
As ever, Noakes’s working ensemble seemed positively calculated to induce a migraine, the virulent mustard jacket and candy stripe shirt straining over baggy chinos the colour of shredded wheat. The dazzling effect of a Royal British Legion tie was significantly diminished by a large blob of ketchup smack in the middle, while the overall look was best described as dragged through a hedge backwards. Watching him chomping away at his coronary-in-a-carton, only breaking off for slugs of coffee, Markham had sent up a silent prayer of thanks that DCI Sidney’s quarters were two floors up so that he was unlikely ever to witness such Lucullan debauches. As it was, the DS’s continued presence in CID was a running sore to Sidney, or Slimy Sid as he was more popularly known. ‘He’ll drag you down, you mark my words,’ went the perennial refrain. ‘Looks like a slob, and as for interpersonal skills … the diversity people just throw up their hands in horror. The sooner we can put him out to grass, the better. I mean, Noakes, the face of modern policing! It’s a sick joke!’
‘Well, was it him, Guv? The doc?’ Noakes asked.
Burton leaned forward, eager to hear the answer.
‘Yes, it was, Noakes. Doctor Jonathan Warr, consultant psychiatrist at the Newman Hospital. Missing for nearly a year. Until now, not a trace, nothing. The smart money was on him having experienced some kind of breakdown or amnesiac episode. And there had been rumours of marital strain and stress at work, not least because of an ongoing investigation by the General Medical Council and Care Quality Commission into allegations of patient abuse at the facility. All in all, more than enough to tip even a well-respected professional over the edge.’
‘But this breakdown business is only a theory, innit, Guv?’
‘Yes, only a theory. Another theory is that Doctor Warr disappeared to start a new life, though there were no leads to indicate whether he had tried to fake his own death or had experienced a protracted fugue state which led to him walking out. Anyway, whatever the truth of the matter, it’s definitely Doctor Warr,’ said Markham quietly. ‘Dental records confirm it. And there were some scraps of clothing.’
‘How come no-one found the body till now?’ Noakes was puzzled. ‘I mean, isn’t Bromley Woods where all the dog walkers and fitness freaks hang out?’
‘There would have been two feet or so of water when Doctor Warr was dumped there … probably around last March.’
Doctor Warr. For Markham, the dead were never anonymous, and he was notoriously intolerant of any approach to gallows humour. Junior officers had learned the hard way to avoid any off-colour remarks around the austere DI whose gaze could freeze a subordinate at ten paces.
‘A watercourse, sir?’ Burton tried to visualize the topography. ‘So, that would have made decomposition happen faster? Does this mean he died at the same time as he disappeared? What about—’
A snort from Noakes brought her up short. She blushed.
DS Burton’s nut-brown pageboy hairdo gleamed like an advertisement for L’Oréal, while alert brown eyes watched everything from under her neat fringe with the air of an intelligent beagle. A well-cut charcoal trouser suit, immaculate white shirt and highly polished black ankle boots all proclaimed that this was a young officer going places, while her work station, streamlined within an inch of its life, could not have presented a greater contrast with that of her dishevelled neighbour.
Although not exactly pretty, Kate Burton’s retroussé nose and neat features were not without a certain charm. Keenly intelligent and ambitious, there had been resistance from home when she joined the force so her police career had not been plain sailing, whatever Noakes said about fast-track graduates and silver spoons.
Having worked together on an earlier case which led to Burton’s permanent promotion to CID (via an MA in Gender Studies at Bromgrove University), an uneasy truce had formed between her and Noakes. In some strange way, their widely differing personalities complemented each other, though the old war horse’s un-PC pronouncements were still capable of raising her hackles. Most of the time, however, she refused to rise to the bait.
Deep inside, though unacknowledged by either of them, Burton knew she had another reason to be grateful to Noakes. Newly transferred to CID, she had nursed a hopeless infatuation for the DI. Hopeless, because he had eyes only for Olivia Mullen. She knew now that Noakes must have guessed the lie of the land but – for all he possessed the primitive cunning of a stone age pygmy – he had never held her up to ridicule; had even saved her from making a fool of herself
over Markham.
Well, she was older and wiser now. And engaged to a DS in Fraud, thank you very much.
But even now, the sight of the DI’s dark head and saturnine good looks, coupled with the melancholy sensitivity which made him somehow unlike any policeman she had ever met, still made her heart miss a beat, so that she became as tongue-tied as any schoolgirl.
She would have to watch herself, Burton thought grimly. Especially around Noakes.
‘Sorry, sir, I’m getting ahead of myself.’
‘That’s all right, Kate.’ Markham smiled at her go-getting enthusiasm. Then his face clouded. ‘It seems likely Doctor Warr died around the time that he disappeared. Animals and running water took away some of the bones, but most of the skeleton was intact.’
A gruesome abyss opened in Burton’s mind, then she veered back to theories.
‘D’you think it’s connected with the patient abuse scandal at the Newman, sir?’
Before the DI could answer, Noakes weighed in.
‘Oh, c’mon. It’s a loony bin, right? Any one of the crazies could’ve done it. Remember when we went there on the St Mary’s investigation, Guv … real Silence of the Lambs that was.’
‘I remember it all too well, Sergeant.’ Markham’s tone was trenchant. ‘And while we’re at it, do you think you could remember that the appropriate designation is special hospital as opposed to “loony bin”, and that the inmates are patients rather than “crazies”?’
The DS grinned, not at all abashed by the reproof. ‘Righto, Guv.’
Hide of an elephant, thought Burton, wondering for the umpteenth time about the nature of the bond between her uncouth shambling colleague and Markham. Subconsciously, she was jealous of the unspoken understanding she sensed between Noakes and their legendarily chilly boss. Whatever it was, she knew the DS was one of Markham’s non-negotiables.
If she had been asked to describe her ideal man, Burton’s description would have answered point for point to Gilbert Markham, right down to the far-seeing grey eyes and chiselled refinement quite unlike that of anyone else on the force. Aloof from the petty practices, politics and palpable bids for favour which bedevilled CID, he was the ‘sea-green incorruptible’ of her ideals. And yet she knew he would never look in her direction. Not in that way …
Burton’s mind wandered to Colin, her solid, dependable fiancé. Cupid’s dart struck when they worked together on a conspiracy investigation, and before long they were an item. Her parents – particularly her father, who had always been against her joining the police on the grounds that it was ‘no job for a woman’– thoroughly approved. If she were totally honest with herself, that was the reason why she’d agreed when Colin suggested they get engaged. That and the thrill of being part of a couple. She need no longer despair of always being the person left behind, seeking a connection, seeking love. She would no longer have to wear the armour she had built round herself as a lonely only child. Finally, she could say ‘We’ not ‘I’.
Colin was kind and gentle, with wholesome boy-next-door good looks. He would never let her down. But neither would he ever make her heart skip a beat. Not like Markham with his mysterious air of brooding reserve. The DI was like an iceberg. You saw just so much, and underneath was the world….
Her feelings for Markham were just a crush, she reminded herself firmly. A schoolgirl crushette on a clever man in authority. Time to suppress her immature hankering and count her blessings. She and Colin made a good team. Love wasn’t all hearts and flowers when all was said and done. Noakes was leering as if he could read her thoughts. Burton gave herself a mental shake.
‘Hadn’t there been threats against Doctor Warr, sir?’ She screwed up her face in an effort to remember. ‘There was something in the Gazette about a woman stabbed to death in Medway Shopping Centre in front of her husband and children… Turned out the attacker was a schizophrenic but Doctor Warr had certified him suitable for care in the community… Didn’t the husband start a campaign about it?’
‘Oh yeah.’ Noakes was interested now. ‘I remember that. Name of Hewitt. The husband did a right hatchet job on the Newman. An’ not just the doc neither. He had plenty to say about social workers and the rest of the trick cyclists. A right can of worms.’
Burton might have known. Elephants never forget.
‘Some of the mud-slinging was unfair,’ she interposed. ‘I mean, the hospital’s got an international reputation for psychotherapy. The Guardian did a piece last year about its Freudian research specialists and—’
‘Huh … dirty old men, more like.’ Noakes scoffed.
‘Of course, it’s true that critics said Freud went down deeper, stayed down longer, and came up dirtier than any other psychologist before or since.’ Markham smiled thinly. ‘But I like to think attitudes have evolved since then.’
It was a brave man who persisted when the DI took that tone but, nothing daunted, Noakes persevered.
‘The Newman doesn’t have a good name, Guv.’ He was clearly rootling through some mental rolodex. ‘Scandals down the years an’ what not… There were a coupla warders … er, nurses, whatever you want to call them … sent down for brutality. An’ then there was stuff about hearings being dodgy an’ folk being sent there what shouldn’t have been.’ The DS shook his head ponderously. ‘My Muriel said she’d heard all sorts.’
Markham didn’t doubt it, Mrs Noakes’s capacity for ferreting out discreditable gossip being unmatched in his experience.
Before Noakes could get his second wind, the DI said, ‘Actually, Sergeant, the hospital’s chequered past represents one line of enquiry.’
The DS looked triumphantly at Burton. The message was clear. Local knowledge trumps namby-pamby sociology bollocks any day of the week.
‘Equally,’ Markham added, ‘we must keep an open mind and follow all lines of enquiry, whether they originate in the community or the hospital’s clinical practice.’
Burton kept her face studiously neutral, though inwardly she allowed herself a smirk.
Then she noticed the DI’s expression. Something withheld. Her spine prickled. There’s more to this than meets the eye, she thought. Noakes clearly felt it too, the big shaggy head cocked to one side as though scenting a change in the wind.
‘What I’m about to say doesn’t leave this room.’ It was the voice of absolute command.
They nodded.
‘I was recently tasked with setting up a missing persons investigation.’
Her palms clammy, Burton began to see where this was leading.
‘Patients at the Newman seem to have fallen through the cracks.’ The DI’s gaze held theirs. ‘Individuals who may have been wrongly sectioned or ended up there through systemic failings … and then disappeared from sight.’
Noakes beat Burton to the punch for once.
‘You mean the families might’ve been in on it with the doctors, Guv … to get their hands on money or summat?’
Or to get rid of troublesome relatives.
He whistled. ‘A conspiracy, like.’
Burton waited, her eyes intent on Markham.
There was something else.
The DI’s face was grim.
Suddenly, Burton knew why.
The walls of the office seemed to fall away.
‘One of our own,’ she whispered.
‘Eh?’ Noakes was the picture of bewilderment. Then the mist cleared. ‘A copper?’ he asked incredulously. ‘You mean someone from this nick?’ His jaw dropped. ‘Chuffing Nora.’
‘Quite.’ Markham’s voice was quiet, controlled.
‘Why … I mean, how…?’ Burton couldn’t take it in.
‘There was an anonymous tip-off some time ago to the offices of the Gazette claiming that we should check out patients who apparently ended up in the Newman never to be heard of again.’
It sounded like something out of a Hitchcock horror movie.
Markham swiftly got up and closed the door to the outer office before walking across to t
he window. For a moment, he stood with his back to them, looking sightlessly at the car park.
Then he resumed his seat.
‘We know the NHS has its black holes,’ he said heavily. ‘And some of these cases go back years, to a time when attitudes to mental illness and institutionalized care were very different.’
‘But people can’t just vanish into thin air.’ Burton was incredulous. ‘What about paperwork and procedures?’
Noakes looked at her pityingly.
‘Easy to circumvent if you know how,’ Markham pointed out.
‘Where does a bent copper fit in?’ Noakes demanded bluntly.
‘Confidential minutes from the patients’ council.’ Markham’s brows contracted. ‘They took an unaccountably long time to surface, but eventually came to light as part of the Health Trust’s inquiry into mental health tribunals.’
Noakes was struggling to join the dots. ‘What’s the patients’ council, then?’
‘It’s a totally private forum for patients to air their concerns. No managers allowed. Minutes of meetings strictly confidential. Had it not been for the Trust investigation, it’s unlikely anything would’ve come to light.’
‘So, some of ’em in this council thingy said summat about a copper being involved in folk going missing?’ Noakes looked sceptical. ‘Bit of a long shot, ain’t it, Guv?’ He received support from an unexpected quarter.
‘Could they have been paranoid or fantasizing, sir?’ Burton asked before adding carefully, ‘I mean, it’d be natural for patients to have a resentment of authority.’
Her colleague had a burst of inspiration. ‘An’ what about the meds?’ he demanded. ‘They’re probably stuffed full with so many tablets that they’re on Planet Zog most of the time.’
‘They call it a liquid straitjacket these days,’ Burton murmured.
‘Yes, that’s all perfectly true,’ Markham acknowledged levelly. ‘Which is why any information from such a source has to be treated with great caution.’
‘Did anyone give a name?’ Noakes asked shrewdly.
‘No.’ The DI frowned. ‘But they might have been afraid.’
Detective Markham Mysteries Box Set Page 60