‘Ah, it’s Mrs Harelock, isn’t it … one of the befrienders?’ Markham remembered the newcomer from the previous day’s trip to the hospital café. Middle-aged, with faded, pretty features and silver hair becomingly styled and waved, she had all the warmth that the managing director so conspicuously lacked.
‘That’s right, Inspector. I met you and the sergeant yesterday.’
‘Hayley said you’re the Newman’s longest serving volunteer.’
Linda Harelock looked pleased.
‘Well, after my husband died, I had a lot of time on my hands and wanted to give something back.’ Clearly, this wasn’t a woman who enjoyed the spotlight. In a quiet, self-effacing manner, she continued. ‘You want to know about Hayley, Inspector. She came into the café for a cup of tea at around 4.30 after her shift had finished.’
‘Was there anything out of the ordinary that you noticed?’
‘Nothing. We had a quick chat. She was planning a night in.’ A fond expression crossed her face. ‘With one of her box sets … some Scandinavian thriller or other.’
‘Was anyone else in the café?’
‘I think Moira – that’s one of the other receptionists – was in there as well …’
Markham turned to Claire Holder. ‘Can you get hold of Moira for us quickly, please?’
He smiled at Linda Harelock, but the smile couldn’t disguise the strain in his eyes.
‘What about boyfriends, Mrs Harelock? Was Hayley seeing someone?’
‘She told me she was “off men”, Inspector,’ Linda Harelock said. There was a rueful note in the woman’s voice. ‘I think her love life was what you’d call a car crash. There was some lad from the Gazette, but it didn’t work out. Before that, she was dating a paralegal at the Council.’ The volunteer sighed. ‘Hayley came from a broken home, so I think she was desperate for security.’
‘Was she involved with anyone here?’ Burton asked.
‘At the Newman?’ The woman was startled. ‘Not as far as I know.’
‘What about Doctor Warr, luv?’
Trust Noakes to detonate the H bomb.
Linda Harelock looked confused.
‘Doctor Warr? D’you mean a … romantic involvement?’
‘Well, glamorous older guy … a doctor … mebbe the white coat turned her on …’
Observing the pinched look on Burton’s face, Noakes added defiantly, ‘Happens all the time. Didn’t Princess Di say she had a thing for doctors…?’
This elicited a good-natured laugh from the volunteer.
‘Hayley would have regarded Doctor Warr as positively ancient, Sergeant. And in any event—’ She stopped short, as though fearful of saying too much. Markham was sure Claire Holder’s name had been on her lips, but she had remembered herself just in time.
The woman raised a nervous hand to her hair, smoothing out a non-existent tangle.
‘As I say, Hayley had given up on men. Her only sweetheart here was Ernie.’
‘Ernie?’ Markham’s expression cleared. ‘Oh yes, your head porter.’
Linda Harelock’s face fell. ‘God, he’ll be devastated if anything happens to her.’ Looking anxiously towards the door, she added, ‘I should go to him really – before he hears it from someone else. They’re great friends … she looks after his dog … pops round for a chat…. She’s got no real family to speak of, so Ernie’s like a father figure.’
Grandfather more like, thought Noakes, but kept his mouth shut.
‘Of course, Mrs Harelock, and thank you for your help.’
‘I’m not sure I was much help, Inspector.’
As the volunteer was leaving, she almost collided with Claire Holder and the mousy receptionist they had encountered earlier.
‘Here she is.,’ The managing director shot a minatory glare at the cowed-looking girl trailing behind her.
The girl’s appearance was even more downtrodden and dispirited than Markham remembered. She appeared fearful and kept peering at the corners of the room as though she half expected to see something creeping along the wall towards her. Definitely the nervy type.
‘There’s nothing to be frightened of, Moira.’ Markham spoke in his friendliest manner. ‘You’re not in any trouble.’ At this, the receptionist’s eyes wandered to Claire Holder, but she stopped biting her fingernails and gave the DI a watery smile.
‘Mrs Harelock was able to tell us Hayley was in the café yesterday around 4.30 at the end of her shift. She thinks you were there too. If that’s right, then you might be able to give us an idea how Hayley looked … if she was her usual self, or if there was something on her mind.’
The girl blinked, looking round apprehensively at the four officers.
‘Likes a cuppa and a chinwag at the end of the day does she, luv?’ Noakes’s tone was conspiratorial. ‘Me too, though it’s not the same without a ciggie.’
The down-to-earth comment, and the wink that accompanied it, did the trick.
‘Oh, Hayley gave up a while ago. Her ex got her on to them e-cigs.’
Noakes turned even more confiding. ‘Oh aye. Cost a packet, they do, with all that fiddly gear. Bit girly, if you know what I mean.’
Burton made a restless movement, but Markham quelled her with a glance. Moira had lost her look of a rabbit caught in the headlights. That was Noakes’s gift. As though by some mysterious alchemy, there was something in his blessedly normal DNA which made the demons scuttle off into the woodwork.
‘How did Hayley take the split with her ex?’ Noakes continued, with his air of unthreatening friendly interest, as if he and Moira were chatting in a queue at the bus stop.
‘She was well rid, if you ask me. Real poser.’ The succinct verdict was delivered with some venom.
‘So, Hayley seemed okay when you saw her in the caff?’ Noakes drew closer to the last sighting of the missing receptionist. Treating Moira to his bluffest grin, he added, ‘Women pick up on signals – stuff that blokes don’t notice. That’s what my missus allus says.’
This appeal to her superior powers of observation emboldened Moira.
‘Well, she looked dead pleased with herself …’
‘Pleased with herself?’
‘Like she’d found something out …’ Moira pulled up short, looking embarrassed by her own candour, but Noakes just nodded encouragingly. ‘Like she knew something the rest of us didn’t an’ was one up.’
‘So, she didn’t give you any clues then?’ The DS was very casual. ‘D’you think it was personal … new fella on the scene? Or summat to do with work? Was she in line for a promotion?’ He grinned. ‘Pay rise?’
‘I don’t think it was a promotion or anything like that,’ Moira ventured tentatively.
Claire Holder’s unnecessarily vigorous head shake made her views on the matter all too plain.
There was a pause.
‘Did you see where Hayley went?’ Noakes asked. ‘D’you think she went straight home to slob in front of the telly? Or could she have been waiting for someone?’
Moira seemed to be thinking hard.
‘Now I think of it, she glanced at her watch a couple of times,’ the receptionist said finally. ‘Almost as if she was watching out for someone. Like she had an appointment an’ didn’t want to be late.’
‘But you didn’t see anyone else around?’
‘No. It was just me an’ her in there. Linda clocked off after she served us. Hayley just said hiya to me and drank her tea. She didn’t look like she was in the mood for a chat, so we sat for a bit. Then she waved and said see ya.’ Moira’s face crumpled. ‘That was it. I didn’t even look up when she went.’ Producing a none too clean wad of tissue, she proceeded to blow her nose loudly.
‘That was champion, luv.’ Noakes clapped her on the shoulder. ‘I know some of our lot,’ he bestowed a significant look on DC Doyle, ‘who couldn’t have told us half what you jus’ did. We could do with you in CID.’ The feeble witticism earned him a tremulous smile. At a nod from Markham, Claire Holder escort
ed the tearful receptionist from the room.
‘So, Hayley likely never left the hospital.’ Noakes was now all business.
‘Right.’ Markham’s face was sombre. ‘I think she knew something about Doctor Warr’s death … was planning to meet someone.’
‘Blackmail,’ Burton said flatly.
‘Looks very much like it.’ The DI’s eyes were speculative. ‘Pete Darlington, the ex, said she liked secrets and playing games.’
‘Proper out of her depth, then,’ DC Doyle said.
‘Yes, she wouldn’t have realized the danger till it was too late.’
Burton followed Markham’s gaze back to the plan. The chill struck her again.
Claire Holder reappeared.
‘I want to see the room marked Morgue,’ Markham said without preamble.
The managing director’s reaction took them all by surprise. A ripple passed across her features; her complexion flushed all over, then turned ashy pale once again. Drawing out a linen handkerchief, she passed it rapidly over her face where perspiration had gathered thickly at the hairline.
‘Does that room hold some special significance for you?’ the DI asked quietly. ‘Were you perhaps in the habit of meeting someone there?’
‘Jon and I sometimes snatched a moment when we wanted to be private.’ She met his eyes almost defiantly.
And you got a kick out of it, you sick bitch, thought Noakes.
‘I’m not aware of it having ever been used for mortuary purposes in my time here.’ She seemed to force the words past an obstacle in her throat. ‘But it had a bit of a reputation. There were ghost stories and the like.’ A rictus grin accompanied this admission.
‘So, staff would’ve avoided the room?’ Burton’s eyes narrowed on the director’s face.
‘As far as I know, yes,’ came the stiff response.
‘Take me to it,’ was all Markham said.
In lockdown, the hospital struck Markham as having a sepulchral quality which was grimly appropriate given the half-life led by patients behind its walls. Again, there was that oxygen-less sensation which left him feeling light-headed.
They passed by doors, staircases and passages, a sense of foreboding floating around and over them so that it seemed part of the atmosphere. As the course of Markham’s thoughts drew him more and more completely from outward things, he wondered if the inmates of the forensic unit ever came out of those cells like the dead from their graves. And, once free of their fetters, what might they not do?
‘Here it is.’ Claire Holder’s voice broke upon his thoughts.
Nothing to see here, move along.
It was a white-painted, windowless room with a hospital trolley bed in the centre, a white sheet draped neatly across it. Medical cabinets lined the walls and a sluice unit occupied the left-hand corner.
Sterile, boring, unexceptional.
Markham was turning away when he heard ‘Wassat?’
Noakes pointed to a stainless-steel hatch to the right of the door by which they had entered.
‘Oh, that’s just a service lift.’ The managing director was dismissive. ‘You know, like a dumb waiter. Must’ve been used to send supplies up from the basement at some time. It’s underground garages down there now, but there were storerooms on the old site.’
The big untidy DS moved lightly as though afraid to wake a sleeper.
‘It’s not too small, boss. She’s jus’ a scrap of a thing …’
No bigger than a child.
‘Get it open, Noakes.’
As though looking down from above in an out-of-body experience, Markham watched his DS prise the sliding doors apart.
Hayley was inside, wedged upright in the foetal position, knees tucked beneath her chin. Her right profile, turned towards them, was serene as a madonna’s, the eyes closed.
The only signs of trauma were two livid bruises either side of her neck, visible through the strands of long blonde hair.
‘Sweet Jesus,’ breathed Claire Holder in horror.
Burton and Doyle stared as if transfixed.
Noakes’s eyes were full of tears as he looked at the body. ‘Poor little girl,’ he said gruffly, contemplating their erstwhile chatterbox guide, ‘poor stupid little girl.’ And then, as if to himself, ‘Why didn’t you come to us, luv? Why didn’t you tell us?’ Angrily, he wiped his sleeve across his eyes. Then he took a juddering breath.
Meanwhile, mobile in hand, Markham set the wheels of a second murder investigation in motion.
Sometime later, after the police pathologist had authorized removal of the body, Markham’s team reconvened in the late Doctor Warr’s office. Considerably less luxurious in its appointments than Claire Holder’s, it betrayed nothing of the man’s personality, being devoid of any personal touches save for a cactus sitting forlornly on the untidy desk. Every surface overflowed with manuals and journals, and an extensive medical library was displayed on floor to ceiling bookshelves. There was no window, but a domed skylight relieved the laboratory feel of the room.
In response to the DI’s interrogative glance, Burton was quick to assure him. ‘Nothing doing in here, sir. We went through the desk and filing cabinets. Nada.’
Markham walked slowly along the bookshelves, murmuring aloud.
Techniques for Brain Disorders. The History of Transorbital Leucotomy. Psychosurgery and The Limits of Medicine. Cutting of the Mind. Desperate Cures: The Lobotomy in Context.
‘Perhaps I can help shed some light, Inspector.’
Anna Sladen stood at the door, her queenly good looks more pronounced than ever against the dreary backdrop of Doctor Warr’s office. It was the kind of beauty which seemed to be thrown into relief by simplicity, a plain blue dress, swathed about her waist, enhancing its fluid curves. The golden hair, looped into a snood at the back of her head, gave her the look of an Arthurian heroine from one of Markham’s childhood treasuries.
Where’d she pop up from? Burton was poised to intercept the intruder, but Markham held up a restraining hand.
‘It’s all right, Sergeant. Come in, Ms Sladen.’
‘I heard about Hayley,’ she said, the musical voice falling like balm on his ears. ‘And I know you’ll get whoever did that to her.’
Strange, thought the DI, how those few words of trust should mean so much to him.
‘Thank you.’
‘You were wondering about Jon’s library,’ she said.
‘Yes. Doctor Warr seemed to have somewhat specialized interests.’
‘He was a keen historian. Read everything he could get his hands on about surgical techniques for the mentally ill.’
‘Like lobotomies.’
‘You know something about such procedures, Inspector?’
‘I know they were in vogue in the forties and fifties. Drilling into the brain, wasn’t it?’
‘In essence, yes. Psychosurgery was pretty much the last chance saloon for the most acute cases – schizophrenics and manic depressives. Some of it was quite primitive, like the “ice pick operation” where they went in through the bone above the eye.’
Transorbital.
Warr had been stabbed through the eye. Mutilation post mortem.
Could there be a connection?
Noakes was interested.
‘Did it work then, this poking around in folks’ heads? Did it cure ’em?’
‘That was the tragedy.’ She grimaced. ‘It was highly experimental and results were very mixed. Sure, some patients were more docile and less prone to outbursts, but as people they were pretty much gone … zombies, if you like.’
‘But hospitals aren’t still doing that kind of operation, are they? I mean, not with all the drugs they’ve got now.’ As usual, Burton wanted to be clear about everything.
Anna Sladen looked uncomfortable.
‘Well, there were still variations on the lobotomy being carried out in the seventies and eighties,’ she said warily. ‘And psychosurgery is still used for conditions like OCD.’
‘
Think I’d rather jus’ be a hoarder,’ said Noakes. ‘Better’n some medico taking chunks out of me.’
‘It’d be open to abuse, wouldn’t it, that kind of procedure?’ Burton’s face was troubled.
‘True.’ Again, the look of unease. ‘Say you had a relative who looked likely to embarrass the family, then a lobotomy was one way of removing the problem. Erasing the record.’ She paused. ‘But afterwards, because the doctors kept cutting away, destroying larger and larger areas of brain, what was left would be hardly recognizable.’ Her sensitive face was sorrowful. ‘Like a painting that had been brutally slashed.’
Doyle looked as though he was going to be sick.
‘Of course, now there are strict rules governing consent,’ the psychologist said hastily, ‘but it wasn’t always the case, and there were some terrible stories along the way.’
Markham looked thoughtfully at the bookshelves.
Erasing the record. Terrible stories. Abuses.
Like a depth charge in his subconscious, the DI felt sure he had just learned something important….
‘Thank you,’ he said simply. ‘You’ve brought Doctor Warr out of the shadows. He feels less of an enigma now.’
Flushing a little, Anna Sladen turned away. A shy smile and she was gone.
‘She’s all right for a trick cyclist,’ Noakes said after the door had shut behind her. ‘All that stuff about brains being turned to jelly … d’you think that’s why Doctor Warr got chopped about, Guv?’
‘Well, you know how I feel about coincidences, Sergeant,’ came the grim reply.
‘Bit suspicious, though,’ Burton put in, ‘how she wanted to tell us Warr was a hack and slash merchant.’
‘Good point, Kate. We need to take a closer look at Doctor Warr’s research interests.’
She coloured up.
Daft bint. She’s still got it bad, thought Noakes beadily. Now she’d be boring them all rigid quoting from that pervs’ manual or whatever the hell it was….
‘Right.’ The DI’s voice interrupted his musings. ‘You’re with me, Noakes. DCI Sidney needs to be briefed.’
There was a very audible whimper.
‘I know, I know.’ Markham sighed. ‘The DCI’ll want to pin this on the nearest available psychopath PDQ.’ Wearily, he continued, ‘I think it’s a whole heap more complicated, not to say murkier, than that.’
Detective Markham Mysteries Box Set Page 65