‘Same pack drill as that other creepy picture upstairs, then. The one Helen Melville took such a shine too.’
‘Correct, Noakes. As for the other one, I believe Howard Pyle was an illustrator of mysteries and tales of derring-do. So your Sherlock Holmes guess isn’t far off the mark.’
The DI’s long slender fingers beat an impatient tattoo on the table.
‘These pictures held a particular significance for someone in the gallery,’ he said.
‘Whoever abducted Alex Carter, sir? The kidnapper?’
‘Quite possibly, Kate. But they aren’t pictures of children . . . so there must be something more.’
‘A connection with a house . . . where someone’s been locked up . . . maybe even killed . . . an adult . . .’
‘I think that’s right, Doyle. But,’ Markham groaned, ‘we’re no nearer knowing where it is.’
‘It’s got to be that house on the plan, sir. The one they dropped in the archives room.’
‘What if that drawing was just some imaginary draughtsmanship, Doyle?’ Markham decided to play devil’s advocate. ‘Some practice exercise or other that Donald Lestrange did just to amuse himself? Some “castle in the air”?’
The young DC looked crestfallen. ‘But taken together with the Alex Carter doodle, sir . . .’
‘Who’s to say it couldn’t be coincidence,’ Markham continued remorselessly. ‘Donald Lestrange suffered from mild dementia in his final years. Who can say what tricks his mind might have played on him.’
The DI stretched his arms above his head. Somehow he managed to make even that look elegant, thought Burton.
‘Look,’ he said finally, glancing at his watch. ‘Nearly four. Ned Chester should be along shortly with something for me.’ Bracingly, he added, ‘Who knows, maybe it’ll be a game changer.’
‘I can—’
‘No, Kate.’ The DI was firm. ‘I want the three of you to get off. While I wait for Ned, I’ll just potter about upstairs.’ He grinned at Noakes. ‘I’m rather partial to those overfed dames in the Pre-Raphaelites room.’
‘Well, some of ’em have a look of your Olivia,’ the DS admitted. ‘Like they’re from another world. But,’ he was not to be gainsaid, ‘that Proserpine or Persephone or whatever her name is . . . got a neck like a sumo wrestler.’
A case of pot calling the kettle black, thought Markham with the image of statuesque Muriel Noakes indelibly printed on his mind’s eye.
But his DS had suffered enough teasing for one day.
‘She’s certainly an extensive armful,’ he said mildly. ‘But there’s something compelling about her nonetheless.’
Noakes got to his feet.
‘Well, if you’re sure, boss . . .’
‘I am. Do some team bonding or whatever in The Grapes.’ He smothered a smile at the expression on Kate Burton’s face as she contemplated the prospect of an evening in the pub with the other two. ‘Or hunker down with a box set and a nice bottle of wine. Either way, I want you to take tonight off. You deserve it.’
* * *
Fifty highly enjoyable minutes later, Markham found himself in the room devoted to British art. He could see why Noakes, the down-to-earth Yorkshireman, was so taken with Lowry, though after the fluid grace of the Pre-Raphaelites he found the paintings somehow stiff and ugly, the figures too static. Text on the wall beneath the pictures pointed out that in Lowry’s paintings the sun never shone, the artist having concluded that were he to include the sun he would not have known where to put the shadows.
No shadows. Perhaps that’s why he couldn’t relate to the Matchstick Man, Markham concluded — because the darkness was a policeman’s element and not the light of day.
Or perhaps it was something about the way those industrial landscapes with their scurrying furtive figures made him think of how, when you lifted a stone, all sorts of creeping things emerged from their hiding place. Like the human vermin he hunted.
Giving himself a little shake, Markham decided he was growing morbid.
He glanced at his watch. Nearly five o’clock and no sign of Ned Chester.
It wasn’t like Ned to be late for an appointment. ‘Punctuality is the politeness of kings’ was ever the reporter’s motto.
He wandered across to the window and looked out, pressing his face to the glass, welcoming the icy chill against his forehead.
Rain was coming down hard, punching holes in the snow, as though bent on turning the crisp surface to an oozy sludge. The wind too was getting up, lashing a neighbouring hawthorn into a crazy skeleton dance like a thing possessed.
The DI felt the first stirrings of unease, suddenly conscious of the building’s profound silence.
He retraced his footsteps down to the foyer, trying to ignore the hovering presences in their gilded frames which seemed more than ever like a phantom praetorian guard whose surveillance it was impossible to evade.
All was hushed and quiet. Everything just as it was when he made his way upstairs.
Uncertainly, he looked along the vista of the Sculpture Gallery and then back towards Craft and Design, with its Elizabethan suit of armour keeping watch as usual at the entrance.
But then Markham noticed something that made the blood congeal in his veins.
The casque was up.
He forced himself to move closer.
A livid face looked back at him, the eyes filmy and sightless.
Ned Chester had kept his appointment with Markham only to meet death instead.
10. Skeletons in the Closet
There was no denying that Noakes really came into his own at times like this, Kate Burton reflected much later on that seemingly interminable night as the team sat slumped, exhausted, in the gallery café. Like a guard dog with its hackles up, Noakes had shielded Markham, protecting him from everyone — SOCOs, paramedics, uniforms, press, bystanders, the lot. Buying him breathing space. ‘You get off, guv,’ he told him. ‘We c’n see to things here. You get off to Station Road.’ This being the address where Ned Chester lived with his partner and fellow journalist Carol Anne.
‘Chester and the guvnor go way back,’ Noakes told the other two. ‘Very different from scuzballs like Gavin Conors.’ He scowled at the thought of the Gazette’s lead gossip columnist with whom there had been some legendary run-ins over the years. ‘Chester was a gent. A class act. If you had a deal with him, he never welched. The boss knew he could give him the inside track an’ there was no danger of it getting out.’ In a voice rough with emotion, he added, ‘He was on the boss’s wavelength too with all the arty-farty stuff. But there was nothing phoney about him.’ Noakes’s features passed through some extraordinary contortions as if he was going to cry. Then the moment passed and he glared defiantly at his colleagues, almost daring them to comment on this show of emotion.
Burton and Doyle preserved a respectful silence.
‘Didn’t disappear up his own backside like your usual posho type.’ Noakes’s tone was affectionate. ‘Liked to take the piss too . . . there was this time at the Town Hall when a waiter asked if he wanted a drink . . . “That’s very kind, I’ll have a tomato soup,” he said. You should’ve seen the look on that fella’s face.’
The defiance was back, tinged with a touch of triumph. ‘He liked my Matchstick Man an’ all. Said he was a good northerner. When I told him I didn’t see the point of them women with too much hair lolling around in baths an’ things . . . the ones in the Victorian pictures . . . he jus’ laughed and said in the beginning it was a bit like porn . . . folk wanted an excuse to gawp at nudes.’
Burton suspected that Ned Chester had enjoyed winding Noakes up, but she was touched nonetheless.
‘Yeah, he had a way with him,’ the DS concluded with sorrowful regret. ‘Like the guvnor’s Olivia . . . Broke the mould when they made those two.’
An unmistakeable softness crept into Noakes’s voice as he said this, his trademark pugnaciousness momentarily erased.
Burton felt a needle-sharp stab of
pain beneath her ribs before furiously berating herself for being a selfish bitch. Noakes was right. Thank God the boss had Olivia to comfort him in this bleakest extremity. His girlfriend would find the right words.
Doyle cleared his throat.
‘What was Chester working on, sarge? I mean, he must’ve found something out.’
For a moment, Noakes appeared indignant at this interruption of his reminiscences before smiling wryly at his young colleague.
‘Aye you’re right, lad. Me drivelling on like this won’t butter no parsnips.’
He whipped out his dog-eared pocketbook.
‘There was a business card in his pocket. From The Anchorage.’
‘That’s the private psychotherapy centre in town, isn’t it, sarge? The one in Crofton Street?’ Doyle was suddenly energized.
‘Yeah . . . He’d scribbled Donald Lestrange’s name on the back, heavily circled . . .’
‘So, he was investigating Lestrange’s medical history,’ Burton murmured, mystified. ‘But why?’
Noakes grasped the roots of his salt-and-pepper thatch as an aid to cogitation. It made him look like a startled porcupine. ‘We know Lestrange had dementia towards the end. But if there was other stuff wrong with him earlier . . . other mental problems . . . say a breakdown or summat like that, then mebbe the therapist or quack or whoever treated him holds the clue . . .’
‘A clue to the Carter case?’ Doyle’s tone was sceptical.
‘You got a better idea?’ his colleague demanded belligerently.
‘Could be something in that, sarge.’ Burton hastened to pour oil on troubled waters.
Doyle remained unconvinced. ‘But if Lestrange coughed to something criminal, wouldn’t they tell the police?’
‘Not if they didn’t realize the significance,’ Burton leaned forward earnestly. ‘Something must have made Ned decide to check out Lestrange’s medical history. Then he picked up information at The Anchorage which he thought was worth sharing with the boss.’
‘Can’t have been that important, though.’ Noakes was momentarily downcast. ‘Cos he was happy for it to wait till he got back from Birmingham.’
‘The killer didn’t know that,’ said Burton slowly, with a chill stealing over her. ‘Ned was on speakerphone when I talked to him, remember . . . said he had something for the boss about Donald Lestrange . . . something he didn’t want to say over the ’phone. It was in the incident room and I was in the middle of telling the staff about reopening next week . . . They were all talking amongst themselves when I took the call, so I didn’t think anyone noticed.’
But clearly someone had been paying close attention.
‘It was my fault,’ she whispered, her face ashen. ‘All my fault. The killer was listening.’
‘No, lass.’ Noakes’s voice was so kind that it made her want to burst into tears. ‘You weren’t to blame. Me an’ the boss were out in Calder Vale . . . mobiles off till we’d finished with Jim McLeod. So Chester took a chance an’ rang the main line here. Didn’t say owt about its being confidential or urgent, did he?’
‘No . . .’ Burton’s voice was tremulous. ‘But—’
‘But nothing.’ The curranty eyes held only sympathy. ‘That call took you on the hop. An’ with Chester being all casual, how were you to know he might be in danger?’
Christ, thought Doyle observing Burton’s teary expression, it’s like an episode of the frigging Three Musketeers. We’ll be chanting ‘All for one, and one for all’ in a minute.
Time to interrupt the unprecedented love-in.
‘Hold on a minute,’ he said. ‘Everything’s GDPR and data protection these days. The Anchorage won’t just have dished out Lestrange’s medical details to any Tom, Dick or Harry.’
Noakes tapped the side of his nose, a favourite gesture with him to denote deviousness far beyond the comprehension of an ordinary copper. ‘Ways an’ means, Doyle. Ways and means.’
‘You mean he went and bribed someone?’
‘Not necessarily . . .’ Noakes was now adrift.
‘Ned and Carol Anne had all kinds of contacts.’ Burton appeared to have recovered her sangfroid. ‘Probably nothing was spelled out as such.’
No names, no pack drill. Deniability all round.
‘But something clicked,’ she said with increasing conviction. ‘Something he thought might lead somewhere.’
‘And whatever it was, the killer couldn’t take the risk.’
‘Exactly, Doyle.’
Burton gripped her mug of stewed tea so tightly the knuckles gleamed white. ‘Was there anything else on the body, sarge?’
‘A bit of paper with contact details for Dr Rod Mengham at the Newman.’
‘What, the nuthouse?’ Doyle was startled.
Burton frowned but Noakes grinned. ‘Yeah, the nuthouse,’ he said with a degree of truculence that seemed almost expressly designed to counter any notion of him ‘going soft.’
Pick your battles, she told herself, pick your battles.
‘Was there a name written on the card, sarge?’
‘No, but it’s a safe bet Chester was checking out gallery staff.’
‘Bill Hignett?’
‘Could be,’ he conceded. ‘Or p’raps there was someone else treated in there.’
Doyle whistled, his freckled face wan and wraith-like in the gloom.
‘Health secrets,’ he said. ‘Legally that’s a real minefield, isn’t it? I mean in terms of getting them to hand over records.’
Burton glanced at Noakes’s louring expression which said as clearly as words, Let them try to stop me. She strongly suspected he would relish the opportunity to go in mob-handed having conceived an intense mistrust of medical authorities during their investigation at the special hospital eighteen months earlier.
‘Ned Chester was bashed over the head,’ he said fiercely. ‘The psycho who did it meant to kill him or leave him a cabbage. Either way he stood no chance.’
Subdural haematoma caused by blunt force trauma. Burton shuddered.
‘No poncey medico’s gonna spout legal jargon in my face.’
Burton believed him.
‘Had to have been someone strong enough to wedge him upright in that suit of armour.’ Doyle’s gaze flickered involuntarily to the entrance of Craft and Design, even though the body and its grotesque disguise had long since been removed.
‘Or maybe two people,’ he continued uneasily.
Burton’s nerve ends tingled.
Two killers.
Noakes knuckled his bleary eyes. They looked like a couple of piss-holes in the snow, thought Doyle watching the older man.
‘We can’t do any more tonight,’ the DS said finally.
‘What’s the plan for tomorrow?’ Burton had her own immaculate notebook to hand.
‘I’ll collect the guvnor in the morning. First stop The Anchorage. See if we can get a handle on Donald Lestrange’s mental problems.’
Doyle’s mind was busy with ramifications. ‘Won’t you need a warrant, sarge?’
‘Not if we don’t freak ’em out.’ Noakes never had much truck with formalities. ‘We’ll keep it nice an’ casual . . . make it sound like we’re trying to get an angle on Lestrange’s missing papers . . . tell ’em we’re following up a burglary at the gallery, that kind of thing. You c’n bet Chester won’t have gone in shouting the odds, so we play it low-key too.’
‘Sensitive background enquiries . . . police not wanting to upset anyone, what with Lestrange being a kind of benefactor and his nephew working at the gallery.’ Doyle caught on quickly.
‘Exzackly.’ Noakes bestowed an approving smile on the DC.
‘It’s a good cover story,’ Burton agreed. ‘Provided the media blackout holds and they don’t make a connection with Ned’s murder.’
‘That fuckwit Barry Lynch’ll have me to answer to if anything leaks before the evening news tomorrow,’ Noakes growled menacingly.
‘What d’you want us to do, sarge?’ Burton’s pen w
as poised.
‘Get over to the Newman. They’ll be terrified of another fiasco after the missing patients scandal.’ Noakes’s face darkened as he recalled the murky goings on at Bromgrove’s special hospital which had uncovered medical corruption on an epic scale. ‘I reckon Dr Mengham’ll be a good little boy scout . . . anything to keep us sweet.’
It sounded reasonable enough, thought Burton, and should hopefully fill in gaps from the point of view of psychological profiles.
‘And after that?’ she prompted.
‘Interviews with all the staff,’ came the decree. ‘We need to know everyone’s movements after the wake . . . from two o’clock onwards.’ Noakes swallowed an enormous yawn. ‘Especially Westbrook, Summerson and Traherne. Them three were all sounding off an’ picking fights as my missus tells it.’
Doyle and Burton exchanged surreptitious looks at the mention of her ladyship. Glumly, Burton concluded that someone would have to take a statement from Muriel Noakes and the task would doubtless fall to her.
‘What about the DCI?’
Noakes looked more dyspeptic than ever.
‘Me an’ the guvnor’ll brief him in the morning,’ he grunted with a marked lack of enthusiasm.
‘He’s not going to buy the line about it being some wacko student, is he, sarge? I mean not after all this . . .’ Doyle gestured helplessly towards the taped off area at the entrance to Craft and Design.
‘Let me an’ the boss worry about Sidney.’ Noakes looked shattered, spider veins and broken capillaries standing out starkly on the florid cheeks as though tracing a route march for endless disappointment and frustration. Burton felt an unwonted twinge of compassion.
‘You can play up the psychological profiling stuff, sarge,’ she said softly. ‘Liaison with mental health professionals and counsellors . . . It’s true enough after all, with any luck the DCI’ll assume we’re still focused on the university.’
Doyle too had noticed his colleague’s dejected posture.
‘I’ll swing by Student Health again,’ he said. ‘Get some more data.’
Noakes dredged up a smile.
‘You’re good kids,’ was all he said. But it was enough.
Detective Markham Mysteries Box Set Page 116