‘’Lo, Doggie. That’s an interesting outfit,’ Carstairs greeted him.
And indeed it was, Fagin’s doppelganger being swathed in some kind of voluminous kaftan patterned with cabbalistic emblems instead of his customary shabby dishabille.
Doggie beamed at his two ‘fav’rite coppers’.
‘I’m goin’ new age, gents.’
‘What’s brought this on, mate?’ Carstairs boggled at the spectacle.
A coy snaggle-toothed simper was the response.
‘Ah, I scent a lady in the case,’ Markham observed in a deep tone of comprehension.
‘’S right. Marlene from The Pavilion.’
‘Didn’t know you were a bingo player.’
‘Oh, I’m not, Mr Carstairs. It was . . . well . . . a blind date kind of thing.’
More boggling before Markham’s colleague betook himself to a shower cubicle with a cheery, ‘Attaboy, Dogs!’
‘A full makeover is it then, Doggie?’ Markham felt it only polite to show an interest. ‘You going vegan on us — yoga, tai chi and all that jazz?’
The other looked appalled. ‘Oh no, nuffink like that, Mr Markham. More like studying the stars and figuring out me chakras.’ A bashful pause. ‘Mar’s into astrology an’ tarot cards.’
With the amount of Jack Daniel’s Doggie sank of an evening, the idea of him getting high on signs of the Zodiac really didn’t bear thinking about.
‘What d’you know about self-strangulation, Doggie?’
The other’s rheumy eyes blinked but otherwise showed no indication of shock or surprise that Markham would be asking. ‘There was an MP that did it,’ he said finally. ‘Your lot found him in stockings and suspenders with a length of flex round his neck.’ An impressive pause then, ‘He had a bin liner over his head and an orange in his mouth.’ More cogitation. ‘Course he was a Tory . . . so no one was surprised.’
Markham maintained an impregnable composure.
‘Got something like that on the books then, ’ave you, Mr Markham?’ He was clearly pleased to have been consulted.
‘Kind of, Doggie. I don’t really know what to make of it, though.’
‘They thought the MP bloke might’ve been MI5 an’ then the Russkies finished ’im off.’
‘The KGB?’
‘Yeah, that mob.’ Doggie cudgelled his brows. ‘But it didn’t come to anything . . . I reckon the poor sod was just miserable an’ lonely.’ He bridled proudly. Not like me was the subtext.
* * *
Olivia shrieked with laughter later that evening when Markham described Doggie’s Zoroastrian makeover. ‘I’d pay good money to see that, Gil.’
‘Hmm. Well, I’m not too sure what the regulars made of it.’ He grinned. ‘Though I gather most of the local bad boys are familiar with Doggie’s bingo caller — a formidable lady by all accounts — so they’ll keep their opinions to themselves.’
‘Familiar in the biblical sense?’ Olivia was intrigued.
‘More than likely . . . I believe the phrase is “generous with her favours”.’
‘Poor old Doggie.’
‘Oh, he’s proud as punch, strutting about like a prize rooster.’ Markham chuckled. ‘When he’s not tripping over his Gandalf kaftan, that is.’
They were sitting on the tiny balcony of their apartment, enjoying a postprandial glass of Chablis. Markham was particularly fond of the apartment’s view over Bromgrove North Municipal Cemetery. It was a quirk that his girlfriend understood, sensing that he needed this memento mori as a reminder that the souls of the dead were never far away waiting for him to deliver the justice denied to them in life.
Comes the blind Fury with th’ abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.
The cemetery spoke to Olivia of something far more atavistic, something pagan and obdurately immutable as opposed to Christian consolation. But she knew that, for her lapsed Catholic lover, the neat rows of mossy graves, monuments and tombstones symbolized another world that would set this one right.
The June air was still, almost torpid. They sat in companionable silence, sipping their wine and savouring the peace.
Eventually Olivia spoke. ‘I suppose I needn’t ask how it went with Sidney?’
‘Par for the course,’ Markham replied listlessly. ‘He issued the usual fatwa against relying on hunches.’
Olivia muttered some decidedly unladylike expletives into her wine.
‘But I’ve got Chris Carstairs on side. He and Kate can run interference — feed Sidney the kind of psychobabble he likes — accompanied by spreadsheets, Powerpoints, graphs . . . geographical profiling . . . Predictably, he’s desperate to avoid any sort of scandal involving the medical community or our friends down at the council.’
‘You mean desperate to stop his OBE going down the Swanee.’ She took a great gulp of wine. ‘God, he’s one poisonous piece of work.’
‘I can think of worse,’ Markham observed wryly.
‘Welcome to the swamp of fear and loathing . . . and I thought schools were bad!’
‘By the by. That reminds me, I had a call from Kate earlier. Apparently Doyle turned up something while he was at Hope this afternoon.’
‘What kind of something?’
‘Well, according to Leo Cartwright, Rebecca was writing a novel — something to do with psychotherapy — The Amber Tells. Apparently that’s a reference to trigger signs when someone with a mental health issue is in danger of relapsing.’
‘Clever,’ Olivia said appreciatively. ‘We have a system called RAG rating where the kids rate themselves red, amber or green for learning outcomes . . . red if they haven’t grasped something, amber if they’re on the way to getting it but need some help, and green if they’ve cracked it. The kids have coloured cards they hold up at the end of the lesson to show which “traffic light” applies to them. The Amber Tells . . . That’s a neat title . . . interesting play on words.’
‘There’s no sign of the manuscript,’ Markham frowned, ‘but Mr Cartwright was positive it existed.’
‘She certainly played her cards close to her chest. I never heard her mention anything about any novel-writing.’ Olivia looked at him keenly. ‘So what did Doyle uncover?’
‘Staff have to sign out when they leave the school premises during the day, don’t they?’
‘That’s right. On a tracker — name, time and destination. All to do with health and safety apparently . . . in case a fire breaks out and they need to account for everyone.’ Another gulp of wine. ‘In reality, it’s so management can track our whereabouts. Licence to snoop.’
‘You poor, oppressed wage slaves.’ Then Markham was serious again. ‘It appears that on three occasions when Rebecca was signing out in the afternoon, she wrote the words “Research” and “Newman”.’
‘What, the Newman Hospital?’ Olivia was startled. ‘I don’t get it . . . why would she be going there? Was it some kind of project for the senior leadership team?’
‘Doyle says not. No one seems to know anything about it.’
‘Perhaps it was something to do with CAMHS.’ Shorthand for the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services.
‘Doyle drew a blank there too . . . I imagine she was counting on its being sufficiently vague that people would assume it was related to professional development or the pastoral side of her job.’
‘Curiouser and curiouser.’ Olivia drained the last of her wine. ‘Odd that she was so cloak and dagger about it . . . Maybe it was some sort of cover story because she was having treatment as an outpatient . . .’
‘Sidney’ll burst an artery if he thinks we’re sniffing round the Newman.’
‘Serve him bloody well right.’ Olivia was rarely uncharitable, but she was always happy to make an exception for Markham’s boss. ‘Anyway, you said he wants to pin this on a nutter. You’re spoiled for choice at the Newman.’
‘Would it were that simple.’
Olivia set her glass down on the glass-topped table, reached
across and squeezed his hand sympathetically.
‘Well, at least it’s a lead, Gil.’
‘True. And we’ve precious few of those right now.’
Deftly, Markham steered the conversation away from the Newman Hospital. ‘Doggie got me thinking about whether Peter Elford’s death may have political overtones.’ He told Olivia about the MP found dressed up like a prostitute with an orange in his mouth. ‘A casualty of the Cold War according to Doggie.’
Olivia giggled. ‘Sounds like he’s been overdosing on Spooks or Foyle.’ Then, ‘But hold on a minute . . . there was a case like that . . . Yes, that’s right. Stephen Milligan—’
‘Was he Tory by any chance?’
‘As it happens, he was.’
‘Ah, case closed then.’ He chuckled. ‘I’ll take Doggie’s insights more seriously next time round.’
Olivia fancied another glass of wine. What the hell, she told herself, the night is young, and padded off to open another bottle.
When she returned, she found her boyfriend in a brown study.
‘Penny for them?’ she said softly.
‘Oh, I was just running different scenarios through my mind but getting nowhere. No thanks, sweetheart, I won’t have another, but you go ahead. I know you had double English with 9F this afternoon.’
‘Yep. And let’s just say I’m not managing to sell them on the glories of Macbeth.’
‘Plenty of blood and gore to appeal to your average juvenile psychopath, I’d have thought.’
‘It’s poetry, innit?’ She had the disaffected whine off to a tee. ‘But enough of the Bard.’ Olivia scanned his troubled face. ‘This case is really getting to you. I mean, more so than usual.’
Markham could have replied that the association with Hope Academy was giving him an uneasy feeling of déjà vu, but he answered lightly, ‘It’s always the same at the start of an investigation.’ He hesitated. ‘But you’re right, there’s something peculiarly . . . well, malevolent at work here . . . And it chills me to think I’ve almost certainly met the murderer . . . down in that shiny, stainless-steel, nicey-nicey centre, someone’s festering with hatred and bile.’ Despite the warmth of the evening, he shivered convulsively.
She reached for his hand once more. ‘And you haven’t . . . got an instinct for any of the staff?’
‘Not a clue . . . but I know the answer lies in that centre, Liv, I just know it.’
‘Oh dear . . . looks like you’re succumbing to a hunch, Gil.’
‘God yes. Sidney’ll have me up on a charge of thoughtcrime in no time.’ He looked out pensively at the cemetery. ‘Rebecca Shawcross wasn’t universally liked, that’s for sure.’ He described the reaction of Mesdames Macdonald and Bolton to news of her death.
‘You make them sound like a couple of pantomime dames.’ She shrugged. ‘I haven’t had much to do with Shirley, but she’s always been perfectly civil . . . and, well, ordinary.’
‘Fair point, but that’s just it . . . sometimes evil is banal, Liv. So I can’t rule them out.’
‘And the rest?’
‘Nondescript, really.’ He stretched out his long legs with a sigh.
‘Could Rebecca have been involved with a student? Something to do with the study centre . . . a sixth-former?’ Olivia’s voice was small.
He wanted to be honest with her. ‘It’s possible, Liv. We’ll be talking with some of the pupils tomorrow. But I mean, at the moment anything’s possible.’ He paused. ‘I got the feeling Leo Cartwright was holding out on us about something. He might be more forthcoming away from that bossy-boots bulldozer of an assistant head.’
Olivia snorted. ‘Mary Atkins. Good luck with that!’
‘Noakes reckons she had to have slept her way to the top.’
‘Shrewd observer of human nature is our George. She’s had quite a career trajectory. From food technology to the dizzy heights of senior leadership by way of horizontal callisthenics!’
‘I won’t tell Noakesy. It’d only give him a swelled head, and he’s quite obnoxious enough already.’ Markham half smiled. ‘We were meant to go back to the centre this afternoon, but somehow Sidney knocked the stuffing out of us. After what you might call a council of war in the canteen, we went back to my office and continued going round in circles till we were sick of the sight of each other. At which point I told Noakes to get off home and did a bunk to Doggie’s.’
‘Aren’t George and Muriel meant to be tripping the light fantastic this weekend?’
‘Yes, they’ve got a competition in Brighton and I gather Noakesy’s glissades aren’t up to scratch. That meant extra practice tonight, so I sent him on his way.’
‘Via the chippy.’
‘No doubt.’
At that moment Markham’s mobile trilled, shattering the tranquillity of the evening. They looked at each other resignedly.
‘Go on,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind.’
He moved into the living room to take the call.
A moment later, he trudged back out onto the balcony and Olivia knew exactly what was coming.
‘There’s been a break-in at the centre. One of our patrol teams called it in.’
‘Off you go then.’
‘I’m sorry, sweetheart.’
‘It’s alright, Gil. With all this Chablis in my bloodstream, I’m feeling unusually benign tonight!’
A light kiss dropped on the top of her head and he was gone. Olivia remained on the balcony for a long time afterwards, gazing dreamily out at the cemetery as though invoking its quiet sleepers to find a way through the riddle.
* * *
The sullen weight of summer bore down on Markham as soon as he got out of the squad car. ‘DS Noakes will be joining me, Constable, and I see Dave Elson’s here already,’ he said to the fresh-faced driver. ‘No need for you to wait.’
With an awkward little salute, the other took off. Markham was amused to note that he drove as sedately as a pensioner on a Tupperware outing, no doubt anxious to make a good impression on CID’s rising star.
No cooling breeze, no hint of refreshment in the air. Well, at least the combined effect of Doggie and the Chablis had taken the edge off. Thanks to them, he felt almost mellow.
There was a horrible grinding of gears and spraying of gravel, and Noakes arrived in his battered old jalopy (he was banned from using Muriel’s immaculate Honda Jazz).
‘How did your soft-shoe shuffle go then, Noakesy?’
‘The missus still ain’t happy.’ His DS looked decidedly disgruntled. ‘But then she wouldn’t be satisfied even if that Rudolf Neveroff was ’er partner.’
Markham’s lips quirked. ‘Good to see you’re on nodding terms with the virtuosos of ballet.’
‘It was that gig down at the Royal Court — the Baranov murder, guv. I could do bloody Mastermind on it now.’
The Baranov murder. Now there was a web of sexual intrigue and hatred. And, curiously enough, all roads led to the Newman Hospital. Again, Markham had that creeping sensation of déjà vu.
‘Hey, ain’t that the Bates Motel character — y’know, the caretaker fellow?’
The patrol officer Dave Elson was marching towards them with Chris Burt at his side, the latter almost with an air of having already been taken into custody.
‘Evening, sir. Noakes.’ Elson stood smartly to attention. ‘I was doing a drive-by every twenty minutes, sir.’ A sideways glance at the caretaker. ‘Fancied I saw something moving round the side of the building, so I went in for a closer look. Clocked a broken window and figured there’d been an intruder though the alarm hadn’t gone off.’
The DI looked interrogatively at Chris Burt. ‘Good evening, sir,’ he said with impenetrable courtesy. ‘Were you on the premises tonight?’
Typical Markham. Duchess or dustbin man, it made no odds. He treated everyone with the same gracious ease. Personally, Noakes favoured putting dodgy characters like Burt in a persuasive armlock prior to a friendly chat, but this cut no ice with his boss.
&
nbsp; ‘I live over the way.’
‘Mr Burt lives in a studio flat at the rear of the building, sir,’ Elson said heavily, looking as though he too would like to twist Burt’s arm up his back but was reluctantly playing it by the book. ‘He was standing in the car park when I arrived.’
‘I thought I heard something.’
Talk about a lame dick excuse. The bloke had ‘furtive’ and ‘shifty’ written all over him. More like he was up to something and got caught out.
‘Perhaps you would care to accompany PC Elson into the building, Mr Burt. Check things out . . . See what’s been disturbed.’
It was clear from the expression on Elson’s face that this didn’t exactly accord with his sense of the fitness of things, but one glance at the DI told him that to hear was to obey. Noakes did his best to convey sympathy with an eloquent shrug of the shoulders, and the ill-assorted couple disappeared.
‘Bit of a coincidence Norman Bates being here jus’ when there’s a break-in, guv.’
‘Noakes.’
‘Oh c’mon, boss. You’ve gotta admit there’s something up with that guy. He’s a mentalist for a start.’
‘The correct term is “someone with learning difficulties”, Sergeant.’ The DI looked at his subordinate levelly. ‘I was rather hoping you had evolved somewhat since our investigation at the Newman.’
Noakes had the grace to look abashed. ‘I don’ mean ter have a down on him jus’ cos he’s not all there, guv. But there’s summat . . .’ he shook his head, ‘summat off.’
‘I agree, we need to look at him carefully.’
The DS looked mollified. ‘Yeah, cos Elford obviously bossed him around something chronic,’ he stared intently at the building in front of them, ‘an’ he could’ve been . . . oh, I dunno . . . stalking Shawcross or being a sex pest an’ things got out of hand so he snapped . . .’
‘Mr Elford would have turned him in had he discovered anything incriminating, Sergeant.’
‘Not necessarily, guv.’ Noakes was not to be denied. ‘Not if Burt had summat on Elford.’
‘Whoever murdered Elford was calm and clinical about it — not to say forensically aware, Noakes. Do you honestly mean to tell me you can see Chris Burt putting that kind of scheme into operation?’
Detective Markham Mysteries Box Set Page 134