Detective Markham Mysteries Box Set

by Catherine Moloney

  At that moment, a diminutive middle-aged man came down the stairs. Bald, except for a thin fringe of grey hair round the base of his skull, and rather vacant looking, with watery blue eyes, he blinked at the group as if wondering where they had sprung from. Wearing brown overalls like some sort of overgrown grocery boy, he cut a faintly comical figure.

  ‘This is Chris Burt, our caretaker,’ Peter Elford said in a tone that clearly implied: We all have our crosses to bear, and this is mine. ‘Chris is Thelma’s brother. One of our old-timers.’

  Well, whoever guzzled the pies in that family, it weren’t poor old Chris, Noakes thought as he contemplated the weedy specimen in front of them. He noticed a faint sheen of sweat on the man’s upper lip as well as the furtive look about him. Mind, they were hardly meeting under ideal circumstances. Bound to have been badly shaken up, especially if he was a bit simple, or what Noakes would once have called ‘special needs’ — before Kate was around to lecture him on more modern names for it. Or could it be a case of guilty conscience?

  Markham’s manner was the same with everyone. No distinction in tone, whether he was addressing the Duke of Wherever or the local dustman. Noakes had to admire the way he defused the underlying tension with some easy inconsequential chit-chat, reassuring the dazed-looking caretaker that he wasn’t about to be arrested and hauled away on the spot — though, judging from the expression on Elford’s face, that would have been a perfectly acceptable outcome.

  God help the poor sod, the DS reflected, as he watched Burt shuffle away towards reception. Between big sis and Elford, his working day likely wasn’t to be a barrel of laughs. How to examine your stools was probably as good as it got.

  The library and sixth-form study annexe were as quiet as the downstairs regions, police tape still partitioning off various sections where a few SOCOs toiled in their disposable white suits, pausing to acknowledge Markham and Noakes with nods and waves.

  The layout was open plan, with the two facilities situated on either side of a corridor. Clearly designated ‘break out zones’, featuring low tables, magazine racks and brightly coloured easy chairs, lent this floor a homely feel. Glass skylights and sliding doors made the space airier and altogether more congenial than the medical centre. There were lockers, a vending machine and pot plants in the sixth-form annexe, with what looked like two well-equipped seminar rooms opening off the main study area.

  ‘Shirley Bolton manages the library and study centre for us, Inspector.’

  The head librarian was a petite, rather dumpy woman of vaguely Mediterranean appearance. With her jet-black hair coiled in a neat chignon and vibrantly coloured tie-dye dress, she was more prepossessing than her counterpart in the medical centre. As introductions were made, the librarian’s expressive hand gestures and rather theatrical manner reinforced the impression of foreignness while her quick darting head movements put Noakes in mind of a blackbird.

  ‘I didn’t see Ms Shawcross up here yesterday,’ she told them after making the conventional, but apparently sincere, expressions of regret. ‘Library staff don’t have all that much to do with the teachers — beyond dealing with research enquiries and helping kids with coursework, of course. We did the usual induction sessions for the students when they started in the sixth form, but other than that . . .’ She shrugged expressively.

  Was that a flash of resentment in her eyes? A sense of being ‘lorded over’ by Hope’s academic staff? If so, it was gone so quickly that Markham couldn’t be sure he hadn’t imagined it.

  ‘I understand Ms Shawcross was very popular with the students,’ the DI said levelly.

  ‘Yes, she was. Very enthusiastic about her subject and always happy to go the extra mile.’

  ‘Easy on the eye too,’ Noakes put in with an amiable leer. ‘No hardship for the lads doing detention with her.’

  Watching Shirley Bolton flinch, Markham regretted the necessity of having Noakes do his dirty work. But there was no denying his unparalleled ability to flick suspects on the raw. And there was something there . . . something Noakes had said had gotten beneath the woman’s defences.

  What was it?

  ‘Ms Shawcross was excellent with both boys and girls, Sergeant.’ The scorching look she shot at Noakes would have shrivelled a lesser man, but the DS took it in his stride. The hide of a rhino, his boss thought smothering a grin.

  Shirley Bolton would definitely repay watching, Markham decided. Hopefully Matthew Sullivan, Olivia’s boss at Hope Academy, would be able to give him the low-down . . .

  Peter Elford was now looking distinctly uncomfortable. The DI couldn’t be sure, but he thought he detected a frisson of hostility between the administrator and the librarian. Now what was that all about? Was it professional or something else . . . something to do with Rebecca Shawcross?

  Whatever it was, it could wait.

  Doubtless the DCI would be delighted if he were to frogmarch Chris Burt off for questioning post-haste, but Markham was planning on doing nothing in a hurry. He wanted all the pieces in place.

  ‘Thank you, Ms Bolton,’ he said, ‘you’ve been most helpful.’

  Then, turning to Peter Elford, ‘We need to speak to other staff who were in the building yesterday.’

  ‘The trick cyclists, healthcare assistants an’ community midwife,’ Noakes prompted helpfully.

  ‘Naturally, gentlemen.’ Elford was unfazed.

  ‘Plus the GP from yesterday Doctor Trout . . . locum bloke . . . an’ the deputy doctor woman.’

  ‘That would be Doctor Troughton and the Advanced Nurse Practitioner Maureen Stanley.’

  ‘Right you are. Them an’ all.’ Elford’s fastidious italics were wasted on Noakes.

  ‘They’re assembled in the staffroom downstairs.’ The administrator’s forbearance was wondrous to behold. He turned to Markham. ‘Will you be conducting interviews today, Inspector?’

  ‘Tomorrow afternoon, Mr Elford.’ After a trip to Hope Academy to see what the school’s jungle drums yielded about Rebecca Shawcross. The DI wanted to ensure that his team was fully primed beforehand. And the vibes from Shirley Bolton certainly suggested a recce at Hope would pay dividends. ‘Of course, my officers will take preliminary statements, but essentially the aim today is to gain an overall sense of where everyone was in the hours surrounding Ms Shawcross’s murder.’

  The usual whiff-whaff. There was certainly no question of giving Elford or anyone else an inkling of the crucial time frame.

  ‘If you would care to follow me, Inspector.’

  With that, Elford led the way back downstairs.

  * * *

  The medical staffroom (also used by other staff in the building) turned out to be rather pokey and stuffy, one of a warren of consulting rooms and offices on the ground floor. The furniture was a drabber version of the amenities in the sixth-form study centre — shabbier, more scuffed and uncared for, though someone had attempted to brighten the place up with some potted African violets and ferns.

  ‘That’s Jenni, our horticultural expert,’ Elford murmured following Markham’s gaze. ‘She can coax plants to bloom in the unlikeliest of places.’

  ‘Jenni’ turned out to be Jennifer Harte, one of the centre’s two resident counsellors. She was gazelle-like in build and very pretty, with heart-shaped features. She wore her dark hair in a ponytail with a fringe, setting off her intelligent hazel eyes. Markham clocked the hippie accessories immediately but thought that, if anything, they enhanced rather than detracted from her professional persona.

  The other counsellor was Tariq Azhar. Tall and handsome, with a sensitive fine-boned face and a gentle manner, there was something protective in his attitude towards his fellow therapist. Markham didn’t conclude they were a couple, but there was obviously a strong mutual affection and respect between them.

  The third woman in the room — plump and motherly — could have come straight from central casting, thought Noakes, being a dead ringer for Sister Evangelina in Call the Midwife. She was introdu
ced as Loraine Thornley.

  ‘Are Doctor Troughton and Ms Stanley likely to be joining us?’ Peter Elford enquired fussily, looking at his watch.

  ‘They should be along in a minute, Mr Elford.’ Jenni Harte was calm and soft-voiced, just what you’d expect from a counsellor. ‘Thelma had a query that needed sorting out.’

  There was a knock at the door and a squat, athletically built girl with long dark hair and a bad case of acne appeared.

  ‘Jayne Pickering, our phlebotomist and trainee healthcare assistant,’ Elford intoned.

  The late arrival grinned unapologetically and perched on the arm of Loraine Thornley’s chair.

  ‘Jayne is Loraine’s niece,’ the administrator said, as though such informality required an explanation.

  ‘Very cosy.’ Noakes was deadpan.

  Blimey, he thought. Happy families all round what wi’ Thelma and Chris doing a double act in reception.

  At that moment, Doctor Neil Troughton came bustling in, trailed by Advanced Nurse Practitioner Maureen Stanley. Sandy haired, slight and bespectacled, Troughton looked an unlikely focus of female lust, but then you never could tell.

  The ANP was a wispy, washed-out-looking woman with straggling mousy hair in an untidy bun and a nervous tic that pulled at the corner of her mouth. She looked self-conscious and ill at ease, though this was quite possibly how she appeared most of the time.

  It transpired that these were the members of staff who had been on the premises the day before. All were able to account for themselves. Jenni Harte and Tariq Azhar had conducted consultations in the morning and then worked on a research paper together in the afternoon. So, effectively they alibied each other. Of course, this left open the possibility of a joint enterprise.

  Maureen Stanley and Jayne Pickering likewise had appointments in the morning followed by Maureen giving the healthcare assistant a training session in new injection techniques.

  ‘Like vampires, eh?’ Noakes said jocularly, eliciting bewildered looks from the two women.

  Hastily, Markham moved on to Loraine Thornley and established that she had been out on her rounds in the morning and writing up notes in the afternoon. ‘I used the computer in here,’ she said, pointing at the rather dilapidated-looking PC in the corner of the room.

  ‘Anyone else in here with you, luv?’

  ‘No one, Sergeant. And to be honest, I was quite glad of the peace and quiet.’

  So, no alibi for the relevant time, thought Noakes exchanging glances with Markham.

  Doctor Troughton, too, had been alone in the afternoon, which he’d spent ‘catching up on paperwork’.

  Which is why he was so bloody late for my appointment, concluded Noakes sourly. Or maybe he was having a snog with that Stanley one, assuming the ANP did a sneaky bunk from the phlebotomy training. Love’s young dream . . . not!

  Which meant Doctor Troughton and Loraine Thornley were potentially unaccounted for, thought Markham, though they would need to drill down into staff movements in far more detail.

  ‘Thank you all for your time,’ the DI said warmly. ‘Sergeant Burton and Constable Doyle will be along shortly to take statements and contact details, so I would ask you to bear with us for a little longer. We want to minimize any upheaval to your work and anticipate the centre should be open for business as usual from tomorrow.’ He turned to the administrator. ‘Right, Mr Elford, if you would be kind enough to direct us to the incident room.’

  As the door shut behind them, there was a moment’s silence followed by an outbreak of anxious twittering.

  Good, thought, Markham. We’ve thrown a stone into the pond. Now let’s see what washes up.

  * * *

  Matthew Sullivan — lean, lanky and bespectacled — presented his usual owlish appearance over supper that evening. He’d come to Markham’s flat at The Sweepstakes, an upmarket apartment block whose chief attraction for the DI was the fact that it overlooked Bromgrove North Municipal Cemetery, and an array of lichen-covered gothic tombs and monuments that he never tired of contemplating.

  It had been an excellent meal — one of Olivia’s epic summer salads followed by strawberries and cream. And now the two men lounged lazily in their respective favourite armchairs, savouring the warmth of the wood burning stove (it being somewhat chilly for the time of year) while Markham’s girlfriend prepared coffee.

  By tacit consent, Markham’s current investigation had not been broached during their meal, but now the time had come to discuss Rebecca Shawcross.

  ‘She was a reliable member of the English department, Gil,’ Sullivan said. ‘A good team player.’

  ‘I got a strange vibe off a couple of women in the community centre.’

  ‘Oh yes? What kind of vibe?’ The pleasant baritone gave nothing away.

  ‘A suggestion — nothing explicit, mind you — that she might have made waves . . . that she might have gotten a little too cosy with some of the sixth-form boys . . .’

  Sullivan’s eyebrows shot up. ‘It’s always the same when there’s a decent-looking woman on the scene, mate. In her twenties, attractive . . . the tom-toms start up, and before you know it, she’s supposed to have seduced half the school.’

  Markham chuckled, knowing that Matthew Sullivan himself was immune to female charms. Indeed, like Olivia he had been badly affected by the previous murder investigation at Hope Academy, during which his hopeless infatuation with the male assistant head had been revealed.

  ‘How well did you know her, Mat?’

  ‘We weren’t close.’ Sullivan leaped up to take the tray of drinks from Olivia who then curled up on a footstool at her lover’s feet.

  Companionably, the three enjoyed their coffee.

  ‘What about you, Liv?’ Mat enquired eventually. ‘Did Rebecca ever open up to you — girlie chats?’ Olivia pulled a face. ‘Confidences? That kind of thing.’

  ‘She was difficult to get to know. Bit of an ice maiden. Liked her privacy . . . Not that I blame her,’ Olivia added quickly. ‘Schools can be such snake pits.’

  ‘Her dad died in a car crash when she was quite young. Mum’s in a nursing home, advanced Alzheimer’s.’ Sullivan’s voice was sombre. ‘I believe she was very faithful about visits.’

  Markham thought back to the afternoon’s agonizing interview and Noakes’s tenderness with that wreck of a human being. He only wished the DS’s detractors could have witnessed his infinite patience and the way he coaxed a tearful smile from the bewildered woman whose daughter was forever frozen in time for her as a toddler. Afterwards, with hands clenched, Noakes had said, ‘That poor lass drew the short straw all right, guv. But we’ll see the bastard doesn’t get away wi’ it.’

  ‘Whoever killed her, we’ll get them Noakesy,’ Markham had replied.

  But now he felt at a loss. The dead woman felt like an enigma, unknowable.

  Suddenly, he experienced an unnerving flashback to the autopsy room and the moment he’d had to contemplate Rebecca Shawcross’s remote white beauty, before Dimples Davidson set to work with his Stryker. Afterwards, having skipped lunch, he sat queasily watching the pathologist and Noakes chomp their way through cheese baguettes while mulling the forensic implications.

  ‘It would have been over very quickly, Markham,’ Davidson said, observing the DI’s downcast expression. ‘Hardly enough time even to be afraid.’

  ‘That garrotte was pulled so tight she was nearly decapitated,’ put in Noakes ghoulishly.

  ‘She would’ve been unconscious within seconds,’ the doctor insisted, raising his voice to drown out Noakes. ‘Taken by surprise and then — finito. No defence wounds or signs of a struggle. She never saw it coming.’

  ‘Likely someone she knew then?’ the DS mumbled through a mouthful of cheese and pickle.

  ‘Man or woman?’ Noakes enquired.

  ‘Could’ve been either. With the girl being caught off guard, it wouldn’t have required a massive amount of strength.’

  Just overpowering hatred, Markham reflected
grimly. With an effort, he dragged himself back to the present.

  ‘Any ripples at school?’ he asked carefully, gently stroking Olivia’s long red hair. ‘Anything contentious . . . ?’

  ‘Rebecca was very popular with the sixth form,’ Olivia answered. ‘But then, she did a lot of work on school drama productions — Guys and Dolls last year, that kind of thing . . . really threw herself into it.’

  ‘True,’ Sullivan concurred. ‘The kids respected her for that.’

  ‘Any, er, liaisons with other staff?’

  ‘She was friendly with Leo Cartwright in drama, but I don’t know if it went further than that.’ Sullivan’s tone was guarded. ‘I mean, God knows at Hope, it’s such a goldfish bowl. Good luck to anyone who gets it on without the whole bloody place knowing.’

  Remembering the way the world had fallen down about Matthew Sullivan’s ears during the Hope Academy murder investigation, Markham couldn’t blame him for wishing to shield his colleagues from intrusive police enquiries.

  ‘I want to pay a visit, Mat,’ he said quietly. ‘Nothing too heavy, I promise. Just a quick word with this Leo Cartwright and an invitation to folk to let us know if they remember anything. Something they didn’t notice at the time, perhaps . . . something which only struck them as being odd in hindsight.’

  ‘Just like old times.’ But neither Sullivan nor Olivia looked thrilled at the prospect.

  Sullivan roused himself. ‘Don’t worry, Gil, I’ll square it with Doctor Abernathy and our “executive head”.’

  Markham grinned. He knew Sullivan had the unworldly Abernathy eating out of his hand. And he had every confidence in his friend’s ability to deal with the higher echelons.

  ‘Will Noakes be coming, too?’

  Olivia burst out laughing at the resigned expression on Sullivan’s face. ‘Better buckle on that Kevlar vest. George doesn’t have much time for “leftie liberals” like you!’