Detective Markham Mysteries Box Set

by Catherine Moloney

  ‘Oh no. She made a point of telling me that. Said she wasn’t going to tell a soul until she’d fitted all the pieces together.’ Her face suddenly anguished, the facilities manager turned to Markham, the muscles of her throat working convulsively. ‘D’you think she might have told me . . . if I hadn’t been so proud and angry?’

  ‘She prob’ly wanted to do a Miss Marple, luv,’ Noakes said sturdily. ‘Mebbe stringing you an’ this Randall bloke along was all part of the excitement.’

  Oddly enough, the DS’s gruff common sense seemed to bring Rebecca Summerson a measure of comfort.

  ‘Well, she was always the consummate tease.’ Her face fell. ‘But this time she got way out of her depth.’

  ‘Yes, Ms Summerson.’ The DI’s voice was sad. ‘I think your friend was playing a dangerous game.’

  One for which she might well have paid with her life.

  ‘So, Helen was clear that she hadn’t let on to anyone else?’

  ‘Yes, Inspector.’

  ‘But she seemed very caught up in this project on aediculae?’

  ‘That’s right.’ A thoughtful frown. ‘She and Charles always had their heads together in front of that second-rate Evelyn De Morgan painting.’

  ‘Life and Thought Emerging from the Tomb?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the one. Ghastly mawkish tat if you ask me. Not at all the kind of stuff Helen usually favoured . . . but I assumed there was some connection with Randall’s paper on funerary aesthetics . . . Ars moriendi . . .’

  A mutual fascination with the Cult of the Beautiful Death or something more sinister, Markham wondered.

  ‘Do you think there was some connection between that painting and whatever it was Helen had found in the archives?’ Rebecca Summerson’s voice was hoarse, as though some nightmare grappled her by the throat.

  ‘We’re not making any hasty assumptions at this stage, Ms Summerson, but it’s definitely a possibility.’

  The woman looked almost beside herself at the realization. Markham could have sworn her anguish was genuine but knew better than to rule her out as a suspect on that basis, his experience, professional and personal, having taught him that some words and wrongs went too deep to heal. The facilities manager had undoubtedly suffered intensely from her lover’s defection, and it was not inconceivable that this led to murder. Her present meltdown could as easily have derived from a mixture of remorse and thwarted passion as from the dawning awareness that Helen Melville had harboured dangerous secrets.

  ‘When did you last see your mate, then?’ Noakes was as imperious to atmosphere as a diver in his bell.

  Rebecca Summerson looked startled.

  ‘Yesterday afternoon, around two or three. She was having a coffee in the café.’

  ‘Was she on her own?’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant. I seem to remember she was looking at a notebook or exercise book . . . something like that . . . Then she got up quickly and headed for the stairs. I assumed she was going up to her office or the archives room.’

  ‘How did she look?’

  ‘Now I think of it, sort of happy . . . pleased with herself . . . Sorry, I know that sounds vague, but it was just a fleeting impression. I didn’t see her for the rest of the day, but that’s not unusual when people have something on . . . and she was very wrapped up in this project on aediculae.’

  ‘Were you busy as well?’

  At least Kate Burton was subtler than Noakes when it came to establishing a suspect’s movements.

  ‘Saturday and Sunday were pretty uneventful for once. My PA, Cathy, was helping out upstairs both days because a couple of staff had called in sick with the lurgy or some such.’ Wearily, she massaged her temples. ‘There was a send-off for someone or other on Sunday afternoon, but I didn’t show my face.’ She grimaced. ‘It would only have put a dampener on things if management swung by. Ben’s quite strict about that kind of thing — likes to run a tight ship — but I don’t see any harm in the occasional shindy provided they toe the line the rest of the time and don’t take advantage.’

  And know who’s the boss, Noakes added mentally.

  Until the PM results were in, they wouldn’t know cause and time of death. But it sounded as though Rebecca Summerson was potentially without an alibi. Clearly, from the way the colour came and went in her face, the thought had crossed her mind also.

  Markham decided they’d got enough for one day.

  ‘Can I arrange for one of my officers to take you home, Ms Summerson?’

  ‘No, it’s fine thanks. I’ll take my own car.’

  Outside the rain fell heavily, drearily, with a soughing mournfulness.

  ‘If you’re sure,’ the DI said.

  ‘Quite sure.’ She hesitated. ‘How long will the gallery be closed?’

  It sounded callous, but Markham knew work was the best medicine for grief.

  ‘As short a time as possible, hopefully. Days at most. We’ll be starting interviews in the library first thing tomorrow. I’m also going to want you to walk me through the gallery.’ A spasm rippled across her face like the spirit of a sob. ‘I know it will be painful,’ the calm, cordial tones continued, ‘but I need to see things through Ms Melville’s eyes as well as get a feel for the place.’

  Slowly she nodded. Finally, ‘Would it have been quick?’ she whispered.

  Dark eyes met hers steadily. ‘It’s likely your friend lost consciousness, and once that happened she won’t have been aware of anything much.’

  But before that, blind terror and gut-wrenching panic. The brain darkening as Helen Melville froze into immobility, fossilized and mute. Then merciful oblivion.

  * * *

  Later that night, Olivia Mullen sat opposite from Markham over supper listening attentively to his account of the day.

  Their third floor flat in The Sweepstakes — a complex of upmarket apartments and townhouses at the end of Bromgrove Park — overlooked Bromgrove North Municipal Cemetery at the back where Markham had his study. Olivia suspected that it soothed her lover to have this memento mori close at hand, as though it served as a talisman — his mysterious compact with the souls of the murdered dead that he would secure justice for them. Their living room looked onto formally landscaped gardens which wrapped round the whole apartment block, though its heavy damask curtains were now tightly drawn against the gusting wind which made the tall poplars twist and writhe as though whipped up to madness.

  An English teacher some years older than her lover, Olivia bore a striking resemblance to the gallery’s Pre-Raphaelite heroines, a waterfall of Titian hair framing fine bone structure and luminous grey-green eyes, her pallor as witchily other-worldly as any Circe or Guinevere.

  ‘That poor woman. Was it quick?’ An echo of Rebecca Summerson’s earlier plea.

  ‘Dimples,’ this being ‘Dimples’ Davidson, the police pathologist, ‘said there were pressure marks on her neck. If there was a struggle, she may well have been unconscious when the killer put her in there.’

  ‘D’you think they originally meant it to look like an accident — make everyone think she’d got trapped in there by accident — only something went wrong and there was a struggle?’

  ‘It’s a strong possibility, Liv.’

  There was silence while the lovers contemplated the crackling wood burner, lost in their own thoughts.

  Finally, Olivia roused herself, determined to divert the conversation into more cheerful channels.

  ‘How did George weather his exposure to high art?’ she enquired roguishly.

  Noakes and Olivia were, somewhat surprisingly, the firmest of friends, the DS having fallen for her ethereal charms hook, line and sinker, much to the chagrin of Muriel Noakes who contented herself with acid reflections on the ‘obviousness’ of red-headed schemers.

  ‘Poor Gilbert Markham had no chance,’ she was wont to sigh with ostentatious commiseration to her cronies at the Women’s Guild whenever Olivia’s name came up, ‘no chance at all.’ Normally what ‘the missus’ said
was law to Noakes, but in this instance he showed an unaccustomed independence of spirit, refusing to hear a word against the woman he considered the guvnor’s soulmate — the one who had somehow broken through that impenetrable reserve and breached his psychological defences. ‘She’s good for him,’ he told Doyle during one of their confidential sessions in the pub. ‘Gets to the parts no one else can reach.’ Like Guinness, the younger man smiled to himself, but he knew what the DS meant. Since the advent of Olivia, there had been a gradual thaw, as if Markham’s girlfriend had dissolved an invisible carapace allowing glimpses of the inner man.

  Noakes’s devotion to Olivia both amused and touched his boss, showing his oafish sergeant in an entirely new light, as if this most unlikely candidate had transformed into a paladin worthy to rank with the truest knights of the great days of chivalry.

  At his girlfriend’s question, he broke into a smile which transformed his normally sombre features.

  ‘Let’s just say I didn’t dare risk him anywhere near the Sexuality, Gender and Identity exhibition. There was quite enough harrumphing, teeth-sucking and eye-rolling as it was.’

  Olivia chuckled.

  ‘That puritanical Podsnappery of his is never really far from the surface. I imagine he’d have been perfectly at home in the nineteenth century, covering up piano legs in case they “brought a blush into the cheek of the young person.”’

  ‘Oh, the Victorians are full of surprises. The Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood strike me as a pretty lecherous crew . . . nudity fine so long as there’s some mythological, moral or historical tie-in.’

  His girlfriend gurgled again.

  ‘I take it George wasn’t bowled over.’

  ‘It was obvious he thought the place was Perv Central, but mercifully he didn’t let rip. The facilities manager will be taking us round tomorrow morning, but hopefully he’ll keep it zipped.’

  ‘I bet Kate Burton was in clover.’

  ‘Oh, the seventh heaven.’ Markham’s expression was wry. ‘Couldn’t get enough of it, asking all the intelligent questions. At least it helped dispel any impression of the police as philistines.’

  ‘Perish the thought!’ she grinned.

  ‘Noakesy was cringing at first, but he got interested in the idea of there being coded messages in some of the paintings.’

  His girlfriend too was intrigued by the riddle of Life and Thought Emerging from the Tomb with its hovering angels and birds of paradise.

  ‘You think this secret, whatever it was, had some connection with the painting?’

  ‘Well, Helen Melville was taking an unusual interest in it, so there must have been something, though I’m blessed if I can see what.’ He sighed, ‘Or maybe I’m overcomplicating things. Maybe it was just part of this project she was working on with her boyfriend . . . you know, funerary art and aediculae.’

  ‘An odd coincidence nevertheless,’ his girlfriend said thoughtfully.

  Suddenly, she shivered.

  ‘There’s something creepy about that whole house-within-a-house thing. Something . . . Hansel and Gretel-ish . . .’ Embarrassed, she forced a clumsy laugh. ‘Don’t mind me, Gil. You know how I let my imagination run away with me sometimes.’

  Markham reached across the table for her hand.

  ‘No, I know what you mean. It’s that feeling of there being an optical illusion . . . sliding walls . . . hidden miniature universes.’

  She smiled at him gratefully.

  ‘That’s just it. I was never much of a one for dolls’ houses. They always seemed just like a prison . . . little gilded cages with no way out for the people inside.’

  Another shiver. ‘Like flies trapped in amber.’

  And a spider at the centre, thought Markham.

  After they had adjourned to the squashy chesterfield, he told her about the Carter case and the little boy who had vanished from the gallery without trace.

  ‘You don’t think . . .’ She left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘No.’ Markham held her close. ‘I don’t see how the child’s disappearance can have anything to do with Helen Melville’s murder. It’s more than thirty years ago. Just some tragic backstory.’

  ‘I suppose the gallery was very different back then.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be taking a look at the cold case files. They should have photographs showing the layout.’

  Markham described the reproduction in the facilities manager’s office. The one with the little blond cavalier. ‘The Carter child and that lad in the painting are somehow fused in my mind,’ he said ruefully.

  Olivia squeezed her lover’s hand.

  ‘How could he have been there one minute and gone the next? Did he pass through the walls or what?’

  ‘Easier in those days for a child to slip through the net. Now, of course, it’s different with the Child Rescue Alert protocols.’ Markham’s gaze held a faraway look. ‘But you’re right about it being like some kind of conjuring trick.’

  Or an optical illusion.

  Like the aediculae.

  Could he be wrong? Was there in fact some link between that decades-old crime and the murder of Helen Melville?

  Olivia sensed his tension.

  ‘You said there was some sort of demo going on outside?’ she observed lightly.

  ‘That’s right. What Noakes likes to call the rent-a-mob lot from the university taking aim at cultural imperialism.’

  An exasperated groan rose to his lover’s lips.

  ‘Not Leo Wofitt and his barmy army?’ she asked, referring to a student agitator who had crossed swords with Markham in a previous investigation.

  ‘God, I hope not.’ He grinned. ‘No, he’s probably raking it in as a merchant banker by now.’

  ‘That’s the thing about your youthful revolutionaries. They always evolve into pillars of society once they’ve got the idealistic fervour out of their systems. “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven.”’

  ‘Trust an English teacher to start spouting Wordsworth at me!’

  ‘Actually,’ his girlfriend riposted smugly, ‘he was quoting Edmund Burke on the French Revolution.’

  ‘That’s all I need. Sans-culottes rioting in the town centre. Sidney’d just love that!’

  Olivia snorted. ‘Talking of your revered boss, have you briefed him yet?’

  ‘I’ve been putting off the evil hour.’ Markham felt his guts constrict at the thought of the DCI. ‘No doubt he plays golf with half of the trustees and won’t want a breath of scandal to touch the gallery . . . or the university, for that matter. You know what he’s like . . . gagging to pin it on our old friend the “bushy haired stranger.”’

  ‘I know Sidney’s a direct descendant of Judas Iscariot,’ she said tartly, mindful of Sidney’s deviousness and jealousy of the rising star whose glory risked eclipsing his own. ‘He’s a treacherous fink, Gil, and the worst of it is you always let him claim the credit when you close an investigation, so he’s out there schmoozing the press and bigwigs while you and the team slope off into the background.’

  ‘So long as we get our man . . . or woman.’

  ‘That’s typical,’ she said with mock irritation. ‘Letting Sidney waltz off with the plaudits when all he ever does is obstruct you at every turn.’

  ‘Well, you have to admit it takes skill to play both sides against the middle the way Sidney does,’ Markham pulled a comical face. ‘Wasn’t it Churchill who said anyone can rat but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat?’

  Olivia burst out laughing. ‘All I know is that you’ll be down to Doggie’s the moment you’re done with Sidney tomorrow.’

  It was a palpable hit, since she knew it was Markham’s invariable habit whenever he went ten rounds with the DCI to resort afterwards to the insalubrious gym in Marsh Lane operated by one ‘Doggie’ Dickerson where Bromgrove Police Boxing Club had its unofficial headquarters as a favourite haunt of CID and the local criminal fraternity alike. Knocking the proverbial seven bells out of an
opponent in the ring never failed as a panacea to the DI’s encounters with the higher echelons of the police service.

  ‘You read me like a book, dearest,’ was all he said.

  Then, as though by mutual consent, they abandoned the subject of the gallery and all its works and snuggled down together to talk of other things.

  Outside, the poplars continued their tormented writhing. Eventually the wind dropped and all was finally still.

  3. Demon’s Lair

  Monday morning dawned wild and wet, the wind moaning in hollow murmurs that seemed to Markham like the lament of lost souls.

  He had slept badly, chasing phantoms down endless winding passages lined with niches and alcoves, heading deeper and deeper into a subterranean maze.

  It was all the talk about those blasted aediculae, he thought, idly googling details about the mysterious stone house of Loreto on the computer in his study as he waited for his coffee to cool.

  It certainly looked as though researchers would be spoiled for choice when it came to this most famous aedicula, there being innumerable true-to-scale copies of the Holy House scattered across Europe, and around two thousand in all throughout the world . . .

  Despite himself, he was fascinated by all the maps, plans and 3D models slotting inside each other as perfectly as an egg in an egg cup or those nesting dolls Noakes had mentioned.

  Olivia looked over his shoulder.

  ‘What’s with the archaeology?’ she enquired, gazing at a complicated line drawing.

  ‘Oh, that’s the shrine Rebecca Summerson was telling us about.’

  ‘The one in Italy?’

  ‘The very same. Apparently, this diagram shows how it fits perfectly between the walls of some Jewish-Christian grotto in Palestine that they’ve pinpointed as the site of the Virgin Mary’s house, going to prove that it must, at some stage, have been miraculously transported to Europe.’

  ‘By angels?’

  ‘Well,’ Markham brought up some text, ‘according to legend, it visited a few places but kept being moved when local inhabitants “proved unworthy of the gift from God.”’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘Eventually it came to rest in Loreto.’ Markham took a scalding gulp of coffee while running his eyes down the screen. ‘But it probably wasn’t carried by angels. Some researcher or other dug around in the Vatican Secret Archives and discovered from secret documents that it was the members of a Byzantine noble family, the Angeloi, who rescued the remains of the Holy House of Nazareth and brought them to Italy.’