‘Right, Kate.’ The DS stiffened to attention. ‘I need you to visit Mrs Hart as soon as possible. Get everything she can tell you about the family. Everything.’
‘Do you think this is it, sir?’ Burton’s voice was hoarse.
‘Could well be. At any rate, all the threads lead back to Norfolk.’
Norfolk with its neglected graveyard redolent of secret funeral rites and unrevered remains. Markham felt almost as though he could see right through those makeshift brick vaults, to where tumbled bones waited to be lifted from their dark prison.
‘In the meantime, there’s the problem of Chief Superintendent Rees whom I happened to see searching Doctor Warr’s office just now.’
‘What! How’d he get in there?’
‘I’d rather like to know the answer to that question myself, Sergeant. One of the staff must have given him a swipe card. The question is, who?’
‘What’re you going to do, sir?’
‘Nothing. Rees doesn’t know that I saw him. I imagine he’ll have rejoined the rest of them in the café by now … I’d better get along and fish Noakes out of there before he spontaneously combusts. After all, there’re only so many pies a man can scoff.’
‘Well, he’d say he’s “keepin’ CID’s end oop”.’
The mischievous mimicry elicited one of Markham’s rare charming smiles. It was good to see Burton gradually becoming less po-faced and solemn in his company. On arrival in CID, she’d sounded like a priggish schoolgirl, candidate for Head Prefect no less. But now she felt able to relax and exhibit the puckish side of her personality, he found her quite endearing.
The DI was about to leave the incident room, when he hesitated.
‘Did anyone go past here before I came in, Kate?’
‘Not that I noticed, sir. On the other hand,’ she sounded mildly abashed, ‘I was nose deep in Doctor Warr’s creepy books.’
Markham frowned.
‘Why, boss? Is it important?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s just that…’ He swallowed what he had been about to say about a face at the window. No need to spook his colleagues with that tale.
‘Nothing. Ignore me,’ he said abruptly. ‘I’ll leave you to get that interview sorted. Keep Doyle ringing round agencies … maybe we can strike lucky with another family.’ He paused. ‘Where is Doyle, by the way?’
‘Last thing I knew, he was sorting the time and motion graphs – to show staff and patient movements. Then he said he had a thumping great headache and disappeared.’
Cause and effect, thought Markham wryly. All those coefficients plus Burton reciting chunks from treatises on race science – enough to send anyone reeling.
Noakes was certainly keeping CID’s end up, the DI noticed as he slipped back into the café. Muriel had vanished (presumably on smarm patrol elsewhere), which no doubt explained why the DS was now looking more unbuttoned, literally and figuratively. Clearly something of a hit with Linda Harelock and the befrienders, he reluctantly allowed Markham to draw him away.
‘Nice woman that,’ he said nodding approvingly. ‘No side. Told me she’s keeping some cake back for that old bugger of a porter cos he never comes to shindigs like this. Too shy.’
‘Hmmm. I’m surprised there’s anything left,’ Markham said, pointedly eying his sergeant’s straining waistband.
‘Oh yeah,’ Noakes said happily. ‘My missus bought two of Mrs Harelock’s coffee cakes an’ all. They won first prize at the Country Fair.’
‘Well, when you fail your fitness tests, we’ll know who to blame.’
‘Oh, I’ll get through those all right, Guv.’ He was the picture of complacency. ‘Piece of piss. Doyle’s promised to do some circuits an’ training hooja…. Though I told him straight, I’m not going to the gym or prancing round in lycra like a nancy boy … no way, Jose.’
‘Perish the thought,’ the DI said faintly. Then, ‘Any sign of the Chief Super?’
‘Nah. Jus’ showed his face an’ chatted up your psychologist mate.’ Noakes’s tone was sour. ‘Talk of the devil,’ he added as Anna Sladen came over to join them.
‘Not interrupting anything, am I?’ she said hesitantly.
Noakes drew himself up portentously. Before he could say ‘police business’ or anything equally fatuous, Markham interposed with ‘of course not’ accompanied by a welcoming smile. The DS lurched away, muttering something about checking on the team, though the gleam in his eye suggested he had spotted an unattended brownie.
‘I don’t think I’m exactly flavour of the month with your sergeant.’
‘Don’t take it personally, Ms Sladen. He’s having difficulty adjusting to the brave new world of mental hospitals and what he calls trick cyclists. Way out of his comfort zone.’
She gave a throaty laugh. It was disconcertingly seductive.
Again, standing near the psychologist, Markham felt the tug of attraction. That ‘bat’s squeak of sexuality’, he thought ruefully, inaudible to any but himself. Or Noakes, he thought with an inward sigh as he saw the DS glowering from the other side of the café. Luckily, a couple of befrienders bore down on him, momentarily eclipsing the beam of disapproval.
The DI and Anna Sladen chatted easily and, for the first time since the start of the investigation, Markham felt his frazzled nerves start to unsnarl.
It was something about the woman herself. Undeniably stunning, today she was wearing a simple red jersey dress which clung to every ripe contour but avoided any hint of tartiness. Her thick golden hair, coiled into a French pleat which set off the fine bone structure and sapphire blue eyes, seemed almost too heavy for the graceful neck. Altogether, it was a beautiful composition. As a lonely child, Markham had escaped from the trauma of his domestic circumstances by immersing himself in Camelot, and now it was as though Guinevere or another of his chivalric heroines had miraculously come to life before him. Unlike Olivia’s pale pre-Raphaelite allure, with its elusive undertow of something uncanny, there was a serenity about Anna Sladen, like a clear limpid pool which promised the exhausted traveller refreshment and renewal….
She was as caring as she was beautiful, the DI thought while she talked compassionately about Mikey Belcher. He felt a sensation of profound relief that the bereaved man was at last in safe hands.
Noakes suddenly barged into the conversation. ‘Sorry to break it up,’ he said in an officious tone which suggested he was not sorry at all. ‘Your Olivia looked in jus’ now.’ He waved a meaty paw in the direction of the exit. ‘Think she’s gone outside.’
‘Thank you, Sergeant,’ Markham replied coolly. He smiled warmly at the psychologist. ‘I’ve enjoyed our chat, Ms Sladen. Do keep me posted on Mikey. Hopefully I’ll be up to see him myself very shortly.’
As he and Noakes walked to the exit, the DI caught a rather unpleasant expression on Sister Appleton’s face. As if she knew something to his disadvantage. Doctor Lopez too had been watching closely, but acknowledged the policemen pleasantly enough. Claire Holder, on the other hand, looked as though she had been turned to stone. Markham suspected she had fortified herself liberally beforehand and wondered for the umpteenth time what the woman was so desperate to conceal.
‘Kindly stop behaving like a Victorian dowager, Noakes,’ Markham rapped when they were out of earshot. As his subordinate’s underlip shot out, he added, ‘You know exactly what I’m talking about.’ Uneasily, he wondered how long Olivia had stood unobserved watching him with Anna Sladen.
His girlfriend was sitting on a bench in the little courtyard adjacent to the café, gazing in some bemusement at one of the ubiquitous art installations.
‘What’s it meant to be, d’you think?’ she asked when he and Noakes appeared.
‘It’s a diving bell,’ the DS said proudly as they contemplated the cylindrical cement structure which had a copper lid and porthole on the side. ‘No kidding,’ he insisted in response to Markham’s quizzically raised eyebrows. ‘One of them befrienders told me. All the art s
tuff in this place has summat to do with travel an’ voyages, see. So the fruit loops get the idea they’re on a journey to recovery.’
‘Patients, not fruit loops, Noakes,’ the DI intoned with the air of one fighting a losing battle.
‘Don’t worry, George.’ Olivia winked at him. ‘I won’t tell on you.’
The DS went pink to the tips of his ears. Markham thanked heaven that Muriel Noakes wasn’t around to witness her husband’s knight-errantry, his weirdly mystical devotion to the DI’s girlfriend being something of a sore point. Whatever it was that Noakes saw in Olivia, it had never lost the power to enchant him. Now he was drinking her in with his eyes as though she’d slipped him a love philtre.
‘Hop it, Noakesy.’ But Markham’s voice was kind.
‘I’ll jus’ …’ The DS gestured vaguely at the French windows and betook himself into the corridor, where he mooched back and forth while casting surreptitious peeps at the couple.
For the first time ever with Olivia, Markham felt oddly ill at ease, but he was determined not to show it. He sat down on the bench next to her and took her hands in his.
‘Why didn’t you come over to me in the café?’ he asked gently.
‘You seemed otherwise engaged,’ came the brittle reply. It did not bode well.
‘That was Anna Sladen, one of—’
‘I know who she is.’ A rush of colour streamed into the pale cheeks. She wrenched her hands away. ‘Seems like she doesn’t know you’re in a relationship.’
‘The subject never came up, Liv,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ve only seen her a couple of times. On an entirely professional footing.’
‘D’you think I’m blind, Gil?’ She was fighting back tears. ‘I saw the way you were looking at each other…. Another one for you to put on a pedestal….’
‘Liv, listen to me.’ Markham felt as though the ground was falling away beneath his feet. ‘You’ve got this all wrong.’
‘No, I haven’t. You need an ideal to worship, don’t you, Gil? Something pure and unspoiled … something to blot out … what happened to you as a child. Only I can’t stay on my pedestal any longer, Gil. It’s killing me.’
He looked at her in horror. Then he spoke with cold anger.
‘This isn’t you talking … this is some psychological clap-trap you’re trotting out.’
‘Don’t be so fucking arrogant.’ She flared up. ‘I’ve only just started the regression therapy, and that’s got nothing to do with it. This is about me wanting you to accept me as I am. Not your talisman to ward off evil, but the real me.’
‘I’ve never seen you in that way.’ Markham’s voice was flat, almost a whisper.
‘Yes, you have,’ she insisted wildly. ‘And it’s distorted our relationship … made it somehow, oh I don’t know, unreal … like a fairy tale…’
‘That’s because you haven’t been straight with me, Liv. Haven’t told me what’s wrong.’
‘You don’t want to hear it, Gil. You just want the mirage.’
Markham exhaled deeply, pale to the lips. On the other side of the French windows, he was aware of the consternation in Noakes’s face.
‘I haven’t got time for all this garbage about pedestals, talismans and … what was it … oh yes,’ he almost spat the words, ‘fairy tales. For your information, I’m in the middle of a triple homicide, so spare me.’ He gestured to his concerned colleague on the other side of the glass. ‘And spare him too.’
Her face softened. ‘Poor George.’
‘Yes. Sometimes I think he’s like the child we never had.’
At that, Olivia turned quite white. Stumbling to her feet, she choked, ‘I’m going home, Gil. I’ve had enough.’
A crimson streak came into Markham’s face. ‘Don’t go like this, Liv,’ he pleaded.
Shaking her head mutely, she sprang across to the French door and, before he could say another word, she was gone. Noakes stood looking after her, aghast, his face a picture of wretchedness.
‘Don’t say anything, Noakes,’ Markham said through clenched teeth as the other joined him in the courtyard. ‘Just don’t.’
And the DS didn’t. Instead, almost comically, he showered sympathy and concern out of every pore. Outside Olivia and Noakes, most people found Gilbert Markham diffident, monosyllabic, haughtily reserved (to devastatingly lethal effect in the opinion of Muriel Noakes and sundry other Bromgrove matrons). He did not spread around his affection. He confined it to a few and withdrew from the rest. He was so reclusive, indeed, that it was amazing how quickly he had unbent to George Noakes, a matter of some resentment to the thrusting millennials who hoped to ingratiate themselves with CID’s rising star. But, for all the difference in their personalities, Markham knew the big blundering sergeant somehow understood him like no-one else.
Now, the DS just clapped him clumsily on the shoulder. Work, he knew, was the best medicine for his boss.
‘Chin up, Guvnor,’ he said awkwardly. ‘I’ll get two cuppas an’ we can take ’em back to the incident room.’ He jerked a thumb towards the café. ‘Leave that lot to their jabbering.’
The DI squared his shoulders. ‘Right,’ he said, with a desperate attempt at joviality, though he looked stunned, ‘let’s up and at ’em.’
Silence fell over the little courtyard once more.
The incident room was quiet. No sign of Burton or Doyle. Markham felt almost weak with relief.
As they drank their well-sugared tea (for shock), the DI updated Noakes on Philip Rees’s activities.
‘Rees’ll weasel his way out of it, boss. Say he had permission or summat.’ Noakes smacked his lips appreciatively. ‘That Mrs Harelock makes a great cuppa.’ Then he resumed his previous train of thought. ‘The managing director doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going, Guv, so Rees is on a winner there. She’ll agree to whatever he says.’
Markham sprawled dejectedly in his chair.
‘What do you think he was looking for?’
‘Incriminating letters … anything that’s got his name on it an’ links him to dodgy business with Doctor Jekyll.’
‘You reckon he was in on it, then?’
‘Oh aye,’ came the laconic response, ‘up to his bleeding neck.’ Noakes took a gigantic slurp as though to lubricate the thinking process. ‘Look, Guv, whatever Warr got up to in the eighties and nineties with Kennedy and Molloy, by the noughties someone needed to smooth the way, an’ who better than Mr Holier-than-thou.’
‘You really don’t like Rees.’
‘Never could stand ’un. Jumps on every band wagon going, but he’s not a decent thief taker.’
Podgy fingers drummed on the desk. ‘An’ ’sides, his eyes are too close together.’ Clearly that clinched it.
Markham smiled. Noakes wasn’t sure why but felt a glow of pleasure that he had managed to dispel, however briefly, the dreadful lost look in the guvnor’s eyes.
The DI felt some of his energy returning. Making a supreme effort to banish thoughts of Olivia, he told Noakes about the potential lead Burton had unearthed.
‘The lass done well.’ The DS was disposed to be magnanimous.
‘I just hope I’ve not sent her off on some wild goose chase.’
The DS was thoughtful. ‘No, it’s worth a shot, boss. That Rose’s case was worser’n anything else we turned up.’
‘A long time to wait for revenge, though, don’t you think?’ Markham’s voice held doubt.
‘Mebbe the killer got off on following Warr around … watching an’ waiting,’ the DS speculated. ‘Or mebbe … mebbe they didn’t have the courage to do owt about Warr, then summat happened to set ’em off.’
The DI thought back to Slimy Sid talking about folie à deux.
‘Something or someone.’
For a while, they sat companionably drinking their tea. Glancing through the window, the DI saw that the January light was already failing, the sun just a dirty yellow blot.
Everywhere was very quiet, as though they were termites a
t the heart of a great burrow where myrmidons toiled in secret chambers beneath ground. There was a sense of unreality about it all, Markham thought, suddenly light-headed from the strain of his encounter with Olivia.
Later, he couldn’t recall how long they had been sitting there when DC Doyle burst into the room as though the hounds of hell were on his tail.
Immediately, the other two were alert, their torpor banished.
‘What is it? What’s happened?’
The DC looked at Markham, struggling to frame a sentence. Finally, ‘Come and see,’ he said.
Minutes later they found themselves back in the courtyard next to the café.
‘What’re you playing at, laddie?’ Noakes was brusque. ‘There’s nowt to see ’ere.’
Then he followed the DI’s gaze, which was riveted to the cement diving bell.
Something was pressed up against the porthole.
A dead face.
13. Countdown
MARKHAM STOOD IN OLIVIA’S walk-in wardrobe at The Sweepstakes with his face pressed into one of the jackets his girlfriend had left behind, inhaling the delicate scent of her perfume. The curt note informing him that she had temporarily moved out still hadn’t sunk in. At the other end of the apartment he could hear Noakes making a horrible racket as he crashed around making tea and rooting for biscuits, but just for that moment the DI was able to cut off, locked into a secret world which did not connect with his public persona.
The remainder of Saturday had assumed a nightmarish complexion after the discovery of Chief Superintendent Rees’s body in the diving bell.
There were no marks of violence on the body, and early indications pointed to Rees having suffered a heart attack. Slimy Sid had swooped on this diagnosis with indecent haste, informing Markham that a press conference would be convened for Monday when the death would be presented as a ‘tragic accident unconnected with another ongoing investigation’.
Detective Markham Mysteries Box Set Page 74