Detective Markham Mysteries Box Set

by Catherine Moloney

  Watching the young man closely, Markham could have sworn Noakes’s revelations came as news to him.

  ‘An unsolved crime,’ Randall murmured wonderingly at the conclusion of the DS’s recital.

  Uneasily, he cut his eyes at the door as though desirous of keeping something on the other side at bay.

  ‘Mr Randall.’ Markham’s voice was unusually earnest and emphatic. ‘If you know anything — anything at all, then I urge you to tell us.’

  ‘There isn’t anything, Inspector.’ His voice was flat. ‘Whatever Helen was up to, she didn’t share it with me.’

  ‘Slippery piece of work that one, you mark my words,’ Noakes grunted as the door shut behind the researcher.

  The DS showed himself more favourably disposed towards their next interviewee, Miss Crocker, exhibiting a degree of solicitude for her comfort which was uncommon for him.

  Privately, Markham found Esmée Crocker’s wispiness somewhat cultivated. Certainly there was a distinct note of asperity when she mentioned Helen Melville’s habit of interfering with the work of other departments. ‘She expected poor Mr Traherne to drop everything when she was in the grip of one of her . . . enthusiasms. It could be very tiresome.’ And there was a definite whiff of jealousy in an allusion to Gemma Clarke’s slavish devotion. ‘Helen enjoyed the hero worship,’ she observed, thin-lipped, and somehow it seemed to Markham that there was a world of meaning behind her words.

  Although the assistant textiles curator had no alibi for the time of death, having been ‘in and around the department’, this did not appear to bother her. On the other hand, she exhibited a surprising level of unease when they spoke of how Helen Melville met her end. Markham could only guess that the sight of the younger woman’s body had elicited a terrified guilt, as though the curator suddenly beheld her own secret vindictiveness — the hidden rites by which she soothed herself — embodied in those shrivelled remains.

  Noakes detected no such undercurrents. ‘Nice old bat,’ was his cheery verdict on her departure. Despite the affliction of ‘that toffee-nosed name’, he also warmed to Aubrey Carstone, the gentlemanly head of Conservation, who had clearly sustained a shock. After the ghastly discovery of the previous day, it looked as though nothing could restore Carstone’s complexion to its natural colour and the slight limp that Markham had observed at their previous meeting was more pronounced.

  He spoke of Helen Melville’s professional achievements with respect, though the DI suspected from his air of guarded restraint that he had not liked the acquisitions officer.

  ‘Helen raised our profile in the North West,’ he observed carefully, ‘though she didn’t always care whose toes she stepped on in the process.’

  Carstone could shed little light on Helen Melville’s recent activities, though he confirmed her interest in aediculae and haunted buildings, discussing the various projects with a lack of condescension which made Markham warm to him. Clearly this was a man who wore his learning lightly.

  ‘Had you noticed any change in her? Any alteration in her usual routine?’

  Carstone looked surprised.

  ‘Our paths didn’t cross all that often, Inspector.’ He paused. ‘Of course, I’m in the twilight of my career.’ A self-deprecating smile. ‘Not exactly one of the movers and shakers. So you see . . .’ The sentence was left unfinished.

  Once he had left the room, Noakes finished it for him.

  ‘What he meant ter say was Helen Melville wasn’t interested in an old has-been like him.’

  The DI laughed. ‘Yes, I think that’s probably about the size of it, Sergeant.’

  ‘He reminded me of that Sister Wendy from the telly. You know, the nun who lived in a caravan and only came out to do art programmes. Talked about pictures without being all lah-di-dah.’

  Markham contemplated his colleague with amusement.

  ‘As ever, you’re full of surprises. Olivia’s a fan of hers. You’ll have to compare notes.’

  Blushing furiously, the DS shuffled his feet. ‘Who d’you want next, guv?’

  ‘Let’s see what Carstone’s deputy Daniel Westbrook has to say.’

  * * *

  In the event, they learned precious little from the conservation assistant. Stocky with close shorn dark hair, shrewd dark eyes and a rather brutal mouth, Westbrook was, as Noakes declared in disgust, ‘tight as a clam.’

  ‘He was certainly no fan of Helen Melville,’ Markham said thoughtfully, recalling the gleam of antipathy which had flashed across Westbrook’s features. ‘But I had the feeling something was bothering him.’

  ‘Yeah, he started fiddling with that signet ring on his pinkie the minute you mentioned the archives.’

  Without giving any hint of the mysterious secret that Helen Melville claimed to have discovered, the DI had casually led Westbrook on to talk about the gallery’s records.

  ‘Weird him being related to that “conosewer,” the one whose papers went missing.’

  ‘Hmm. Donald Lestrange.’ Markham recalled the furtive, almost shifty, expression which had crossed Westbrook’s face. It came and went so swiftly that he almost wondered afterwards if he had imagined it.

  ‘Funny, Rebecca Summerson didn’t say owt about Westbrook being his nephew.’

  ‘It probably didn’t occur to her, Noakes. The art world’s a small one. Westbrook probably got his job on the strength of the Lestrange connection.’

  ‘It rattled him though, guv.’

  ‘Yes, for some reason he wanted to get off the subject of the archives.’

  Markham frowned. There had been something off-key with Daniel Westbrook . . . a false note somewhere. But for the life of him, he couldn’t pin it down. As with Carstone, there had been no especial consciousness when he touched on the Carter case, both men appearing to take Helen Melville’s fascination with the Princes in the Tower as the natural corollary of her research interests.

  So, what was it? What was Westbrook holding back?

  There was a knock at the door and a buxom woman entered wheeling a trolley.

  Noakes’s eyes brightened at the sight.

  ‘There’s tea and coffee,’ she told them briskly, gesturing at her cargo. ‘Sandwiches — cheese and pickle, roast beef and chicken salad — and biscuits. If you need topping up, just send someone along to Staff Catering downstairs.’

  ‘Righto, luv.’ With that, Noakes duly got stuck in. No point going under for want of sustenance.

  The DI was grateful for the coffee which was piping hot and excellent. For a time, he and Noakes talked desultorily of other things, though he could not dispel a deepening unease — a sense of some inexorable process which held them all in its toils, of something brooding across the way at the gallery.

  Oppressed by these fatalistic thoughts, Markham walked over to the window which looked out onto Binderton Place. The rain had stopped but, although only early afternoon, it was already growing dark outside. The lights of the surrounding buildings made him suddenly feel quite desolate, for with their help, night and darkness seemed to come on faster. It was always the same at this time of year, he reflected. Always the sense of everything being shrunken stiff, hard and dry . . . just like the corpse of that poor woman.

  Oblivious to his boss’s inner communing — or, more accurately, being used to it — the DS munched on happily. Eventually, he declared himself replete. ‘Good to see they’ve got their priorities straight round here.’

  There was a sharp rap at the door and a thickset jowly man appeared.

  Casting a disparaging look at the trolley as if to say, ‘Wasting taxpayers’ money as usual’, he spoke in a high-pitched whine which was strangely at odds with his rubicund appearance. ‘James Armitage, Trustee.’

  Markham did not bat an eyelid. ‘DI Markham, DS Noakes. What can we do for you, Mr Armitage?’

  ‘Ms Watson and I have been waiting more than an hour, Inspector.’

  A dumpy unprepossessing figure with glasses and greasy pageboy appeared at James Armitage�
��s elbow. Smoothing the lapels of her dreary sage-green trouser suit, she looked equally disapproving.

  ‘Murder knows no distinctions of rank, Mr Armitage. We’ll get to you in due course.’

  James Armitage opened his mouth then shut it.

  Noakes smirked. It never paid to cut up rough with the guvnor when he used that voice. Immoveable force meets immoveable object.

  The stand-off lasted a matter of seconds and then they were gone.

  ‘God that’s all we need,’ Markham said with quiet resignation. ‘What’s the betting he has the DCI on speed-dial?’

  Noakes’s mood of self-congratulation evaporated. There’d be hell to pay back at base with Sidney.

  Kate Burton peered round the door.

  ‘Afternoon, sir, sarge.’

  ‘How’s it going with the interviews, Kate?’

  Bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet, as was her wont when fired up by an investigation, she flipped open her notebook. ‘Nearly sorted, sir. I’m just on to Gemma Clarke. Then there’s Cathy and Bill Hignett and we’re more or less done.’

  ‘Okay. We’ll take Marcus Traherne and Rebecca Summerson. After that, let’s compare notes.’

  Burton nodded vigorously.

  ‘I take it you drew a blank at Helen Melville’s flat.’

  ‘Nothing significant, sir. No sign of those papers missing from the gallery. I’d say the lifestyle was high-maintenance.’ She looked as though she would like to have said more but subsided at the sight of Noakes’s jaundiced expression. Clearly the last thing he wanted was an inventory of Helen Melville’s art purchases. With a bob of the head, she reversed into the corridor.

  ‘Right, Noakes. Now for Traherne.’

  Half an hour later, the two detectives regarded each other wearily across the table.

  ‘Nothing to take us forward,’ Markham concluded.

  ‘Well, at least Traherne admitted he’d made a pass at Helen Melville, guv.’

  ‘She swatted him away like a fly, though. No hard feelings on either side.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Noakes agreed, ‘he’s the kind that’ll always try it on. All in a day’s work. Like Slick Willie in Vice.’

  ‘There was something else, though, wasn’t there? Something Traherne wasn’t telling us. He seemed almost relieved when we zeroed in on the sexual approach to Ms Melville.’

  ‘As if he was afraid we’d found out about summat else.’

  Markham brought his hand down on the desk with a thump.

  ‘They’re hiding secrets, the lot of them.’ His voice was hoarse. ‘And secrets kill.’

  ‘D’you think Summerson could’ve snapped, guv? Melville was messing with her head . . . an’ all this stuff about mysterious secrets could jus’ be a blind. I mean, we’ve only got her word for it that Melville said she’d discovered something in the archives.’

  ‘I’d say she was telling us the truth about that. She sounded genuinely disturbed by it. And it fits with Ms Melville’s sudden interest in child murder.’ Markham stood up and began to pace the room. ‘Which isn’t to say that Rebecca mightn’t have lost it. We can’t exclude the possibility of a crime passionnel coexisting with something else.’

  Something evil that had lain dormant for years.

  ‘Right,’ Noakes said glumly, ‘time to see where Burton’s up to with Mrs Mop and Quasi.’

  ‘Sergeant.’ It was a warning note.

  ‘Well, God knows we need a bit of light relief after that lot, guv,’ the other grumbled.

  * * *

  In the event, laughs were thin on the ground.

  Bill Hignett appeared a good-humoured and harmless man, somewhat gone to fat, with a lopsided grin and habit of chuckling at inopportune moments.

  His mother watched him like a warder, lips tightly folded, as though continually apprehensive of what he might say and do. But beyond a lumpish slowness, there seemed nothing to justify alarm. He admitted to wanting to please Helen Melville but said she’d ‘told him off for hanging around.’ After that, he’d kept out of her way.

  Markham made a mental note to check Bill’s social services records for any indication of sexual pathology, but detected no unusual self-consciousness or signs of evasion. He had no alibi for the time of death having been engaged unsupervised on some joinery in the gallery workshop adjacent to the main building before leaving with his mother.

  Mother and son didn’t socialize much with gallery staff, though it came as no surprise to learn that Aubrey Carstone had been instrumental in finding them jobs after Bill’s father had been killed in a work accident when he was a child. Other than that, it appeared nobody had much time for them except for Gemma Clarke. ‘That’s a nice girl,’ Cathy Hignett told them. ‘Always respectful to Bill, unlike some of them.’

  Markham’s eyes rested on her thoughtfully. How far would she go to protect her son, he wondered.

  ‘We need to do some digging into the background,’ he said after they had left.

  Burton snapped her notebook open. ‘On it, sir.’

  You’re welcome, luv, Noakes thought to himself. After their nightmarish experiences in the Newman Psychiatric Hospital on two previous investigations, he figured he’d had enough of ‘crazies’ to last him a lifetime.

  Then a sobering thought struck him. What if their killer was a sicko? What if Alex Carter’s killer had come back to his old stomping ground? There had to be some twisted agenda behind stuffing that poor cow in a freezer. The thought sent a surreptitious shudder down his spine.

  ‘Greetings all. Hope you haven’t scoffed all the sarnies, sarge.’

  DC Doyle breezed in, and with him a blessed blast of normality.

  * * *

  An hour and a half later and Markham rose stiffly to his feet.

  ‘I’ve had enough of this place. Let’s get over to the gallery. I want to take another look at that Textiles room . . . see how easy it would have been for someone to lie in wait without anyone noticing.’

  At the top of the escalator, he paused as a thought struck him.

  ‘What about the gallery staff? Where are they now?’

  ‘We packed them all off, sir.’ Doyle sounded anxious. ‘Was that all right? Didn’t see any point in them hanging about seeing as they couldn’t go next door.’

  ‘The senior bods said something about working in the library for the day. They usually use the study carrels on the third floor,’ Burton put in.

  ‘That’s fine.’ Markham surveyed the peaceful space with its subdued hum of purposeful activity. ‘Liaise with the Head Librarian once we’ve checked the gallery, will you, Kate? We need to give this place a sweep, especially any areas where Helen Melville was known to work.’

  ‘Will do, sir.’

  Noakes exhaled stealthily, vastly relieved that the task of library liaison hadn’t fallen to his lot. He hadn’t much liked the look of the gimlet-eyed tartar who ran the place.

  ‘Right, time to make Cosmos out of Chaos.’

  The DS eyed his boss warily. The guvnor must be all right if he was cracking them weirdy jokes, but then with Markham you could never be sure.

  They headed for the library exit.

  * * *

  All was quiet as Burton unlocked the main door with her passkey, the trio having ducked under what seemed like acres of crime scene tape cordoning the pavement area from the entrance.

  The SOCOs were gone for the day, but protective equipment and other paraphernalia showed they weren’t yet ready to re-admit the general public.

  The entrance lobby felt more like a mausoleum than ever, waxy holy families, scriptural pictures and baroque masterpieces staring down at the visitors like figures in some dismal allegory.

  To the left of them lay Craft and Design, while to the right was the Sculpture Gallery.

  Burton noticed that Markham was standing unnaturally still, his gaze riveted to something at the far end of the right-hand corridor as though whatever he saw barred his way like a phantom.

  ‘What is it,
sir?’

  For a moment the DI remained motionless, then, instead of turning left towards Textiles, he led them past blind Roman busts and friezes with strange foreshortened figures.

  Noakes glowered at the marble guard of honour, as though he half expected the various emperors and antique deities to descend from their pedestals and issue a gladiatorial challenge.

  ‘Creepy as fuck,’ he muttered under his breath.

  Doyle looked as though he heartily agreed.

  Burton, meanwhile, gazed apprehensively about her as though oppressed by the sheer weight of human history.

  Then she saw it.

  The monument in front of which they had halted — replica first-century sarcophagus said its plaque — was covered by a tarpaulin or dust sheet under which the outline of a figure was visible.

  ‘Workmen . . . conservation . . . restorations,’ Burton muttered desperately, as though the words were an incantation to ward off evil.

  Markham stepped forward.

  With a single commanding gesture, he whipped off the makeshift counterpane.

  Charles Randall, glassy-eyed, stared up at them, beads of crimson embossing his neck like the delicate tracery of an imperial collar.

  His throat had been cut.

  5. Forebodings

  Early Tuesday morning found Markham tucked away in a corner of Waterstones with Ned Chester, the arts correspondent from the Gazette.

  The open-plan café, surrounded by books, was located on the first floor of the large store. Markham liked its homely laid-back atmosphere, friendly staff and the feeling that he was just like any other customer.

  Between sips of steaming chai latte his friend watched him with eyes that were at once shrewd and kind. Typical of Gilbert Markham to imagine he could just be another face in the crowd. With those dark good looks and sensitive ravaged features, he was already attracting admiring attention, the youthful waitresses taking surreptitious peeps at him as they bustled about their duties. All in all, the most unbecoming companion, the journalist mused wryly, suddenly acutely conscious of his own rumpled lankiness. He suppressed a sigh at the thought that in the charisma stakes, Markham would always lead him by several lengths.