‘Excellent idea, Kate. You can be responsible for reviewing whatever they shoot today.’ The DI’s glance fell on the Central Library. ‘But before that, I want you and Noakes to check out local records in their archives department . . . like you did in the Hope Academy investigation.’
Noakes’s resemblance to a dyspeptic bulldog was more than usually pronounced, but Markham affected not to notice.
‘Go back a few decades before the Carter abduction.’ Markham gulped down cold damp air as though it was medicinal. ‘Human interest stories . . . anything connected with the gallery . . . local colour, scandal, gossip about the staff . . . it’s got to be in there . . . Here’s the thing,’ he looked at them squarely, ‘Doyle and I will go over all the statements again with a fine toothcomb, but I don’t think we can nail the killer that way . . . they’ve been too careful.’
A creeping numbness was making its way up from his feet. Time to wrap this up.
Succinctly, he updated Burton and Doyle on the outcome of the visit to the Land Registry.
‘Jesus.’ The young DC’s face had a greenish tinge. ‘D’you think Alex Carter’s buried in this Greygarth place then, sir?’ He looked sick. ‘Shoved behind a wall like a pile of rubble.’
‘I’m keeping an open mind, Constable.’
Which is more than DCI bloody Sidney would be doing, he thought viciously. Any hint that Markham was circling civic institutions as opposed to student riff-raff would send his boss batshit, but looking at the ragtag assembly of dispirited undergraduates the DI was more than ever convinced the answer to the gallery murders lay elsewhere.
‘Hey up.’ Noakes’s voice broke into his thoughts. ‘Bandits at six o’clock.’
Rebecca Summerson came pitapatting across the snow towards them.
The facilities manager certainly looked a great deal healthier than of late, as though some haze had dissolved and her surroundings had at last swum into focus. The DI suspected her relationship with Helen Melville had involved a certain amount of emotional abuse, while the complicated triangle with Charles Randall only compounded her confusion.
Were those deaths rooted in an unhealthy sexual dynamic that had nothing to do with the mystery of Alex Carter’s disappearance, he wondered in a sudden spasm of self-mistrust.
Had he been so beguiled by all the talk of aediculae and secrets, that he had somehow blundered off the straight path into a succession of anterooms and passages which led nowhere?
No, he told himself. No. Whatever unwholesome currents eddied around the gallery, the long-ago disappearance of that little boy was somehow at the root of it all. Donald Lestrange. The Anchorage. Greygarth. Everything led to that diminutive figure at the heart of the maze . . .
‘Mr Westbrook called in sick this morning, Inspector, but otherwise there’s a full complement.’ The facilities manager frowned slightly. ‘And Bill Hignett seems to have gone walkabout—’
‘When was that?’ Markham’s voice was sharp, all his senses alert.
‘I’ll have to check with Cathy,’ was the vague reply. ‘It’s the sort of thing he does from time to time.’
But not in the middle of a serial murder investigation.
Markham gritted his teeth.
Easy, he told himself, easy.
He turned to Doyle, eyes flicking an urgent signal.
‘Constable, I’d like you to check with Bill’s mum right away please.’
The tall gangling figure moved smartly towards the gallery.
‘I’m sure you’re right, Ms Summerson, and there’s no cause for alarm,’ he said levelly. ‘But with Bill being a vulnerable adult, in the current circumstances I think it would be wise to have him accounted for.’
‘Of course, Inspector.’ She looked across at Noakes’s ‘barmy army’ and the television crew. ‘Are you expecting some sort of trouble?’ she asked uncertainly.
Markham forced a laugh.
‘Oh, I don’t think anyone needs to man the barricades just yet.’ A weaselly-looking member of the crew was growing visibly impatient. ‘Bromgrove News are just going to do a short feature on student concerns about cuts to the arts, and then they want to do some filming inside,’ he nodded significantly at Burton and Noakes. ‘Maybe get a few quotes from staff on funding and your plans for the future.’ Avuncularly, he added, ‘Nothing about recent events, naturally . . . Call it a vote of confidence in the gallery before you reopen next week.’
Burton gave him a discreet thumbs up. Looked like he’d blagged his way out of it.
‘Right, officers . . . if you would,’ he said, gesturing to the small crowd which seemed to be waiting for something to happen. ‘Perhaps we should leave them to it, Ms Summerson, before frostbite sets in.’
* * *
As they walked towards the gallery, Markham thought he saw something shift at one of the upper windows. Something bat-like that for a moment seemed to blot out the winter sun.
Then it was gone and all he saw was the glassy reflection of clouds scudding across the cold, grey sky. Like dream shapes racing to some appointed end.
Dies irae, dies illa . . . . . .
13. Deadly Peril
The library’s local records section was adjacent to its impressive Round Reading Room.
Recalling, from the Hope Academy investigation, that this was one feature of the building which met with Noakes’s approval, Kate Burton lingered for some minutes, contemplating its ornate Edwardian grandeur.
‘S’like an aquarium,’ her colleague whispered as they surveyed the circular interior with its domed ceiling and wrought iron spiral staircases leading to rows and rows of old oak shelves. ‘All still and echoey . . . An underwater paradise.’ Smiling bashfully, he added, ‘You half expect dolphins an’ exotic fish are gonna come swimming past.’
Trying not to laugh at the analogy, Burton nodded agreement.
‘That’s how I used to feel whenever I came in here to work for my A levels, sarge,’ she said. ‘Like I was on the ocean floor . . . far away from everything, and nothing could disturb me.’
‘Yeah, dead peaceful.’
Noakes couldn’t help wondering how his daughter, Natalie, had somehow managed to escape the spell of the Reading Room despite apparently spending vast swathes of time immured in scholastic seclusion. All’s well that ends well, he told himself. A levels weren’t everything. Nat had a good steady job as an apprentice beauty therapist at Bromgrove’s Lifestyle Collective, and no need of further education. But looking around at the regiments of books lined up behind gilt balustrades and all the silent students hunched over leather-tooled tomes under a huge ormolu clock, he felt an obscure sense of loss.
Their own destination was a small office within an airless linoleum-floored modern complex which had about as much character as a Holiday Inn, he reflected crossly.
To makes matters worse, that hideous crone from last time was bearing down on them with a determined look in her eye.
‘Sarge, you remember Miss Todd who gave us so much help on the Hope Academy investigation.’
Don’t I just. His heart sank at the sight of the librarian in ‘good citizen’ mode.
Why’d they always look like frigging prison warders? he asked himself, taking in the severely cropped hair and dreary beige two-piece. God, he needed a double strength latte before he could face the old witch . . .
‘Tell you what, sarge,’ Burton said, registering the look of almost terminal gloom on her colleague’s face, ‘why don’t you pop downstairs to Costa and have a quick drink before getting started. In the meantime, I’ll explain what we need so Miss Todd can set us up on the microfilm readers.’ She flashed the older woman a propitiatory smile. ‘Sergeant Noakes noticed the Book Art Fair exhibition on the way up . . . he’s just looking for an excuse to check it out.’ Wickedly, she added, ‘He’s got a real interest in the Pre-Raphaelites.’
Noakes assumed what he fondly imagined was an intellectual air. Unfortunately, the resulting effect made him look cross-eyed.
‘Uh-huh,’ he muttered, desperately trying to recall the contents of the Victorian room in the gallery next door. ‘All them, er, myths an’ legends . . . amazing . . .’
‘The Arthurian connection,’ Burton interposed helpfully.
‘Exzackly.’ He swallowed gratefully. ‘Knights of the Round Table an’ that.’
Miss Todd was more frightening when she smiled, he decided, doing his best not to look at the vast expanse of gum.
‘Oh, in that case you’ll really enjoy the display on Rossetti’s illustrations for The Lady of Shalott, Sergeant.’
God. It meant he’d have to look at this cruddy woman, whoever she was. No doubt some droopy creature lying around half-dressed with everything hanging out so decent folk didn’t know where to look . . .
He could swear bloody Kate Burton was enjoying this. But at least she was playing along. Probably looking forward to some highbrow chit-chat with the old battle-axe. Well sod that for a game of soldiers. ‘Right then,’ he said heartily, engaging in some dumb show calculated to express eager enthusiasm for the building’s cultural — as opposed to comestible — goodies before sidling towards the exit.
His colleague grinned as she watched him depart. No doubt she would be required to ad-lib again when he reappeared. Though on reflection, it might be fun to watch him squirm under Miss Todd’s crossfire.
Unlike Noakes, she found the desiccated librarian a congenial reminder of carefree times as a student, so that for a moment she wished herself back in the safety of the academic bubble, far removed from the squalid reality of man’s inhumanity to man.
Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be, she told herself with a barely perceptible shrug, consigning thoughts of buoyant college days to the back-burner . . .
Once settled at the microfilm reader, her thoughts turned to the DI.
Ned Chester, she sensed, had been a member of what she privately termed Markham’s Magic Circle — the vanishingly small group of intimates her tall aloof boss allowed into the inner sanctum of his emotional world . . . a world to which she knew instinctively Noakes belonged but to which she herself as yet possessed no pass key.
No Admittance. No Admittance.
The soundtrack to her story with Markham.
To her horror she found her cheeks were wet, and angrily scrubbed them with the back of her sleeve. Mercifully Miss Todd, behind her desk on the other side of the room, was busy answering the telephone.
C’mon, she told herself fiercely, this is no time to be so fucking selfish. Ned going like that . . . it’s ripped the boss’s insides out . . .
By no means normally inclined to flights of the imagination, she found herself desperately hoping that the reporter with his languid smile and heartbreaker’s charm never saw the end coming — that he was somehow still there with them on the case. If she half closed her eyes, she could almost fancy she saw him leaning against the door urging her on . . .
The librarian had finished her telephone conversation and was looking at her curiously.
Time to get a grip. She mimed a vigorous thumbs up before turning her attention to the newspaper records.
Noakes had compared the Round Reading Room to an aquarium, she recalled. Well, she and the team formed a shoal of an entirely different kind . . . as if they were swimming around the souls of Helen Melville, Charles Randall and Ned Chester, trying to protect them from all the terrors of the deep . . . trying to avenge their slaughter by the dead-eyed shark masquerading as a member of the human race.
Resolutely, she squared her shoulders and set to work.
* * *
Forty minutes later, some instinct made her look up.
Noakes was hovering shiftily in the doorway.
‘It’s all right,’ she grinned. ‘Miss Todd got called away to Reprographics. And then she’s got a meeting in Rare Books.’
‘Thank Christ for that.’ Her colleague shambled over and sank into a chair. ‘I thought she’d be waiting to give me the third degree on that Lady of the Lake bollocks.’
‘The Lady of Shalott,’ Burton replied patiently. ‘There was a curse put on her and . . . never mind,’ she said watching Noakes’s eyes glaze over at the prospect of a mini-lecture.
‘Whatever,’ he sighed. ‘I jus’ knew it was bound to be some load of hocus pocus like that. Beats me why folk are so hung up on all them poxy fairy stories.’
‘I suppose because it offers an escape from everyday reality, sarge,’ she said mildly.
‘Yeah, well that’s half the trouble these days . . . people living in cloud cuckoo land instead of making do with what they’ve got.’
To her surprise, Burton experienced something close to affection listening to George Noakes’s prescription for happiness. There was something blessedly normal about his world view, which felt like an ever-fixed bulwark in the face of encroaching evil. Perhaps that was the secret of his seeming unshakeable bond with the DI.
‘Anyway,’ he said, shelving further philosophical nostrums for the time being. ‘Any joy with the local rags?’
Burton knuckled her eyes. Fortunately, since she favoured a make-up free look, there was no risk of mascara running. Her usually bouncy bob looked dry and tired.
‘Not as yet, sarge.’
‘No sexual shenanigans? Thought our mate Traherne might be good for summat in that line . . .’
She shook her head.
‘One of the catering staff brought a race discrimination claim against the trustees in 2005 . . . that’s the only negative story I’ve come across . . . And even then, the employee lost at tribunal, so the gallery came out of it smelling of roses . . .’
‘Fingers in the till . . . financial scandals?’ Noakes enquired hopefully.
‘Not a dicky bird.’ Her voice was dispirited. ‘And we never got anything from the gallery accounts, so if there was anything of that sort, they covered their tracks well.’
‘Nothing new on the weirdy paintings that went missing . . . the ones CID never traced, ’bout folk being locked up?’
Another disconsolate shake of the head.
‘Nowt about any of the gallery staff?’ Stubbornly, he persisted. ‘Shagging on the job . . . Managers banging the help . . . Bullying . . . Bust-ups with visitors . . . ?’
‘If there was anything, sarge, then it didn’t find its way into the papers.’
‘How far back have you reached?’ After two latte macchiatos and a danish, Noakes was disposed to be magnanimous.
‘2000.’
‘An’ the boss wants us to go back as far as the 1970s . . . let’s say the 1960s to be on the safe side.’ His face fell. ‘That’s a tall order all right.’
Burton fished around in her capacious bag and came up with a pair of horn-rimmed glasses that she jammed firmly on her nose, as though digging in for the long haul. They made her eyes look enormous.
Noakes recoiled slightly as though encountering Miss Todd’s twin.
‘What’s with the spooky specs?’ he asked faintly.
‘I only have to wear them occasionally.’ Her voice was defensive. ‘If I’m at the screen for a long time.’
‘Well, looks like you’ll be needing them today, then.’
‘Any news of Bill Hignett, sarge?’
‘The guvnor’s really antsy, but they’re still checking out Hignett’s usual hidey-holes. Mum’s not the sharpest tool in the box, so it’s like pulling teeth.’ Mixed metaphors with Noakes were a sure sign of frustration. ‘Missing Persons is on it.’ The DS’s tone didn’t suggest he held this department in overly high esteem. And given what they had learned during the Newman Hospital investigation about huge gaping cracks in the care system, Burton couldn’t find it in her heart to blame him.
‘Right.’ He tugged off the horribly discordant tweed jacket and tie and rolled up his sleeves. ‘I’m on this one, am I?’ He gestured at the microfilm reader next to Burton’s. ‘You’re sure the Todd creature ain’t coming back any time soon?’ he enquired with a shudder.
&
nbsp; ‘Relax, sarge. I reckon you’re safe for the day.’ A chuckle escaped Burton. ‘Though I’m sure she’ll want to catch up with you about those engravings.’
Noakes’s scowl suggested he regarded a lingering death in boiling oil as being infinitely preferable to any such prospect.
‘Jus’ show me the hang of it an’ I’ll get cracking.’
‘That one’s got the Sentinel and the Recorder. So if you’ll check what’s on there while I go on with the others . . .’
‘Righto.’
‘We can do printouts of anything that looks promising.’ Burton was soon in her element demonstrating the wonders of modern technology. Her demonstration concluded, there was no sound for some time afterwards but the subdued hum of machinery, the rhythmic click of reels turning over and an occasional spluttered curse from Noakes as he inadvertently skipped several pages at once.
* * *
After two hours of fruitless endeavour, by mutual consent the two detectives decided to take a break, Burton happily acquiescing to the suggestion that they should adjourn to Costa on the ground floor while inwardly lamenting the fact that vegan smoothies were unlikely to feature on the menu. Miss Todd having entrusted her with a laminated key fob, they were able to lock the office behind them, leaving everything as it was.
Burton could see Noakes enjoyed riding the escalators, gazing about in childlike wonder at the acres of gleaming chrome, pine and tinted glass, no doubt a far cry from the fusty library interiors of his youth. She noted with amusement that he averted his eyes hastily from the Book Art Fair banners as though half expecting his nemesis Miss Todd might jump out from behind them.
Detective Markham Mysteries Box Set Page 121