The DI raised his eyebrows.
‘I didn’t know you were a Robin Williams fan, Sergeant,’ he said while Burton and Doyle boggled at this unlikeliest of film pundits.
‘Saw it with our Nat an’ the missus, didn’t I?’ came the defiant response, throwing down the gauntlet to anyone who dared challenge the cinematic preferences of Muriel Noakes. ‘An’ ’sides, this Mrs Headscarf looked dead convincing . . . dead posh . . . so we’d be barking up the wrong tree with them wrinklies.’
‘They’re not all “wrinklies”.’ Burton’s air quotes left no doubt that she disliked ageism as much as any of the other ‘isms’ against which she was habitually making a stand.
‘Well, can you honestly see any of ’em for that kind of caper . . . can you?’
Burton’s face offered eloquent testimony to the fact that, in her eyes too, it was undoubtedly a stretch.
‘Check out all the angles, Kate,’ the DI added quietly. ‘Dare to think the unthinkable.’
‘“Think the unthinkable” eh, guv?’ Noakes repeated once they were alone in Markham’s office. ‘You don’ want to be feeding Burton lines like that . . . She’ll only go all squirrelly on you . . .’
‘Talking of “squirrelly”, Noakes, the desk sergeant tells me Sidney’s pet psychic is downstairs wanting a word. Might as well fit her in en route to our interviews.’
‘Do we have to?’ Noakes’s underlip shot out in a pout that boded ill for whoever turned out to be waiting downstairs.
‘Better get it over with.’ Craftily, Markham added, ‘No point alienating the DCI unnecessarily . . . I get the feeling he’s just one step away from foisting Bretherton on us.’
The prospect of Blethering Bretherton was enough to ensure his DS’s ready compliance.
‘Right,’ he slouched towards the door, pudgy hands attempting, without success, to currycomb his hair and ill-fitting suit into a semblance of respectability as though he feared Superintendent Bretherton might materialize like an evil genie at any moment. ‘But if she starts any of that Ouija board crap, you c’n count me out.’
* * *
In the event, there was no dabbling with the spirits or any other of the more outré manifestations so deplored by Noakes.
‘Mystic Meg’ turned out to be Mrs Judith Shaw, a diminutive, plump lady clad in sensible twinset and pearls who looked the two men in the eye and greeted them with a firm handshake. Her surprisingly trendy silver crop and statement spectacles suggested a woman who was comfortable in her own skin — a far cry from the howling neurotic of popular caricature.
‘I know you’re under great pressure, gentlemen,’ she said in the gravelly voice of a smoker, ‘and I don’t want to keep you from far more important tasks.’
‘Not at all,’ Markham replied with grave courtesy, secretly amused at how they had been wrongfooted. ‘It’s good of you to have come in.’
Her eyes twinkled as though she suspected their discomfiture at the absence of any cabalistic accessories, but then she became serious. ‘I don’t claim to see ghosts every day or anything like that. Sometimes I have intuitions that mean I’ve been able to help people through difficult times, but I wouldn’t dream of intruding on the bereaved.’ She looked troubled.
‘There’s no need for you to justify yourself to us, Mrs Shaw. We’re pretty much up against it right now, so any information you have to offer would be welcome.’
‘I don’t know if the woman I’ve seen has any connection to your investigation—’
‘Woman?’ Noakes leaned forward intently.
‘Well, teenager . . . a schoolgirl really.’
‘How do you know she’s a schoolgirl, Mrs Shaw?’
‘The uniform she had on . . . Hope Academy. But it’s the old-style one they had up until about ten years ago . . . frightful sludge-brown skirt, yellow shirt and pullover. She’s wearing the school badge . . . I can tell it’s Hope because of the bird on the front.’
‘A phoenix,’ Noakes said complacently.
‘Yes, that’s right . . . sunburst with a phoenix.’
‘What does this girl look like, Mrs Shaw?’
‘Delicate-featured . . . long, fair hair . . . almost white. Slim and graceful . . . something elfin about her. Never comes close enough for me to see her expression, but I have the feeling she’s terribly unhappy.’
‘Does she ever speak?’
‘No, she just stands there . . .’ An involuntary shiver passed through the woman. ‘Each time, she’s holding a heart . . . like you see on Valentine’s cards . . . only it’s dripping blood.’
Markham had a sudden unwelcome image of the religious medals that had been such a feature of his Catholic upbringing. His mother’s favourite had depicted the Madonna thrusting a sanguineous heart towards the beholder. To the confused young boy, it had smacked more of the abattoir than any celestial region.
He forced himself to concentrate on the visitor. ‘Anything else, Mrs Shaw?’
The woman bit her lip.
‘Please don’t worry about looking foolish,’ he coaxed. ‘I can assure you, we’re very interested in what you have to say.’
‘Well, despite the heart and the blood I’ve always felt she was quite benign. But the time before last . . . she was wearing some kind of painted headdress . . . like something out of a Chinese opera.’
DI and DS looked at each other. The details of Brian Ledwidge’s grotesque apparel were known only to the team.
‘I can see this means something to you,’ she said diffidently. ‘I don’t wish to barge in . . . but it disturbed me . . . There was the sense of so much rage, unlike before. Her hands were clenched and she was sort of hissing.’
‘Could you make anything out?’
‘Just a name, over and over . . . I didn’t hear it distinctly, but I think it began with an S.’ Her tone regretful, she added, ‘It was over in seconds. I didn’t have time to take it in.’
‘Did you see anything else . . . Was this girl in a house or outside?’
‘That’s the strange thing . . .’
As if what she had already described wasn’t sufficiently bizarre.
‘The final time she appeared, it looked like she was in hospital.’
‘A hospital?’ Noakes echoed belligerently. ‘How’d you make that out then?’
‘Well, it seemed as though she was standing in some sort of operating theatre. There was a surgical table and those bright overhead lights . . . machinery and monitors round the walls, and metal instruments laid out on a counter . . .’ She flushed. ‘Look, I know it sounds bonkers . . . a schoolgirl popping up in Casualty or something equally unlikely . . . but I just felt I had to tell you.’ She drew herself up with dignity. ‘I’ve always had this gift, but never used it commercially . . . wouldn’t think of exploiting anyone’s grief. Sometimes it’s a real burden, I can tell you.’
‘Don’ suppose you c’n see into the future?’ Noakes said gruffly. ‘No offence, mind.’
Quite a turnaround from his previous view of her as being more or less on a par with those charlatans who worked seaside piers.
‘None taken, Sergeant. I only wish I could see that far ahead. I do have premonitions sometimes, but nothing in this case . . . just a terrible feeling of my own body being compressed, as if there’s a huge weight bearing down on me so I can’t breathe.’ She smiled at them sadly. ‘Though it’s easier now I’ve spoken to you . . . I’m lighter somehow . . .’
* * *
‘Glad she feels chuffing better,’ grumbled Noakes as they headed out of the station. ‘Nowt like shovelling the shit our way.’
‘Language, Sergeant.’ But the reproof was automatic.
‘Sorry, guv.’ The DS didn’t sound particularly repentant. ‘But all that about Valentine’s cards an’ elflings . . . I mean, what’s she on!’
‘Come on, Noakesy. She knew details we haven’t released to anyone outside the investigation.’
‘Yeah. S’pose.’
‘Remember that ph
oto album in Dan MacAlinden’s. The one with Dawn and her best friend . . . The girl whose name began with an S.’
‘Summat to do with schooldays, then?’
‘I think so.’ Markham concertinaed his tall form into the passenger seat of Noakes’s Fiesta. ‘I want to see that photograph album of Dan MacAlinden’s.’
‘The one he had out when we went round?’
‘Yes.’ Markham sounded preoccupied. ‘I want a closer look at Dawn’s best friend.’
‘The one she was “joined at the hip with”?’
‘Correct.’
‘You reckon it all comes back to Hope then, guv?’
‘Something tells me that’s where we’ll find the answer, Noakesy.’ He spoke with a renewed air of purpose. ‘Once we’ve spoken to Mr MacAlinden, I want another word with Mary Atkins.’
The air was thick with the DS’s dismay.
‘Look, I know she’s not your cup of tea.’ Massive understatement, he added mentally. ‘But I want to press her on the subject of Marian Bussell . . . Everything leads back to Hope.’
‘Righto, guv.’
And with that, the car picked up speed, white-clad streets and houses flashing past as if in a dream.
13. Revelation
‘So as things stand, none of ’em looks good for it an’ all we’ve got is Mrs Wotsit seeing this scrawny kid messing about with body parts like summat out of a transplant op — bugger! The council needs to do summat about these potholes . . . freaking lethal in this weather . . . We should’ve taken your car, guv . . . more powerful.’
Markham could have responded that he’d be fearing for his gears with Noakes at the wheel but preserved a discreet silence.
Happily, his DS’s thoughts soon turned once more to the investigation.
‘Mind, you have to hand it to the old bat . . . She did seem to have some kinda connection with — what do they call it? — the Other Side. She was bang on the money about what Ledwidge was wearing when we found him . . . spooky!’
‘Also, that “scrawny kid” she described sounded uncannily like the girl in those photographs Mr MacAlinden showed us—’
‘Oh yeah . . . the little blonde lass . . . He said she an’ Dawn were joined at the hip or summat like that.’ The DS frowned as he manoeuvred the Fiesta round some road works. ‘D’you think she’s the key to it all then, guv, this blonde bird?’
‘Something tells me she is, Noakes.’
‘She’d be middle-aged now . . . same age as Dawn. But there’s no one in the close fits that description . . . unless she’s the one creeping round disguised in a headscarf . . . on some kind of loony mission . . . Hey,’ he thumped the wheel, ‘mebbe she’s escaped from the Newman. Mebbe they all had a hand in getting her put in there an’ now she’s picking ’em off one by one.’
‘Sounds a bit And Then There Were None.’
‘Eh?’
‘Rather too Agatha Christie.’
‘Well, don’ forget last year, guv . . . I’m jus’ saying . . .’
‘Fair point . . . those stories about patient abuse that we unearthed at the Newman sounded like horror fiction to start with.’
And there was no denying that the prospect of pinning these murders on a mentally disturbed escapee would suit the DCI down to the ground.
Mollified, the DS grunted his approval of Markham’s verdict. Then he tried another tack.
‘P’raps this kid from the photo album had summat bad happen to her . . . an’ one of ’em in the close wants payback . . . cos they’re related to her or summat like that.’
‘Hmmm. That sounds more credible . . . But what’s the connection with our first two victims? I mean, we’ve got a retired teacher and a nurse who was this youngster’s schoolmate . . . how did they hurt or damage her so badly that someone decides to take revenge on them decades later?’ The DI shifted in his seat, fruitlessly trying for a more comfortable position. ‘And how does our killer’s modus operandi link back to whatever happened . . . this traumatic event or whatever it is? Then there’s the staging of the deaths of the two women and Kenneth Dowell . . . and that bizarre ritual with Brian Ledwidge’s body . . . where does that fit in? What does it all mean?’
Noakes just shook his head sadly at the degeneracy of human nature.
They drove on in silence for a time, then the DS said, ‘Them two women were decent sorts. Don’ see either of ’em setting out to hurt a kid.’
Markham sighed deeply. ‘Well, someone hated them enough to plan that sadistic murder . . . someone they knew.’
‘What if summat did go on with this teenager . . . are we saying it happened at Hope?’
‘I assume so . . . The way that badge was left with the bodies at number seven makes me think the school has a particular significance for the killer.’
‘D’you reckon Atkins knows owt about it?’ Merely mentioning the assistant head’s name brought a scowl to Noakes’s face.
‘I have a feeling she may have pieced something together,’ Markham said wearily. ‘Perhaps that hate mail she received gave her an inkling. But she’s in denial . . . desperately wants it to be some random crazy.’
‘Singing from Sidney’s hymn sheet, then.’
‘Which is why I’m going to front her up with the details of how we found Brian Ledwidge’s body.’
‘Shock tactics?’
‘Precisely.’
‘Good idea. Might work . . . She’s jus’ like Helen Kavanagh — d’you remember?’
Markham recalled the school’s former deputy head only too well. Her capacity for self-deception had caused the team no end of problems during the notorious Ashley Dean investigation.
‘If Ms Atkins imagines there’s a chance of ending up like Mr Ledwidge, then her survival instinct ought to kick in,’ he said trenchantly.
Noakes looked pleased at the prospect of giving The Caring One a good scare, double clutching with a gusto that made the DI wince.
* * *
Dan MacAlinden welcomed the two men with a degree of animation that spoke more clearly than any words of how hungry he was for company.
At least family liaison had played their part, so he already knew about Brian Ledwidge. Bizarrely, the fact that a clergyman was the latest victim seemed to bring him comfort. ‘Like he thinks his Dawn an’ the Rev are in heaven together, singing an’ chatting to God or whatever they do up there,’ as Noakes said afterwards. ‘You’d think it was some kind of Saga holiday he was talking about.’ Markham was simply grateful that MacAlinden was able to derive solace from whatever source, no matter how nebulous.
‘They won’t let me have her back for a while yet,’ the widower told them. ‘But she’s in safe hands with Mr Ledwidge.’ Gently, Markham dispatched Noakes to make tea and engaged the man in easy chat, leading him round by degrees towards the subject of Dawn’s schooldays.
On Noakes’s return, MacAlinden needed no prompting to produce the treasured album. ‘You didn’t know Dawn, so I guess this helps make her more real. I showed it to Mr Ledwidge when he called round that last time.’
Personally, the DI would have given anything to be able to transpose the image of the cheery schoolgirl with her Pippi Longstocking-style plaits onto the ghastly memory of that shrivelled mummy found at number seven. But the dead face lurked like some kind of diabolic photographic negative behind every picture and he knew he would never be able to banish it.
With his almost telepathic sensitivity towards the guvnor, Noakes stepped in to cover Markham’s silence. ‘Looks like she were happy at school, your lass,’ he said. Then, almost as an afterthought, ‘Her friend looks a bit down in the dumps, though . . . kind of mardy.’
‘I got to thinking about her after you were here last time . . . Dawn said she didn’t keep up with her after O levels.’ He pursed his lips reminiscently. ‘There was some kind of bust-up . . . she got too intense . . . clingy, was what Dawn said . . . I could see it made her uncomfortable talking about it.’
‘More’n likely they fe
ll out over some lad,’ Noakes suggested.
‘No.’ The other looked ruminative. ‘I don’t think it was that . . . Sounded like her friend got a bit . . . well, possessive . . . so Dawn broke it off.’
Something in their expressions must have alerted him.
‘D’you think this has got something to do with what happened . . . why Dawn and Marian were killed?’ The mild-mannered widower looked agitated. ‘Some playground spat?’
‘We’ve got no reason to think so, Mr MacAlinden,’ Markham said firmly. ‘But sometimes a victim’s past . . . their schooldays, childhood even, can give us a new angle . . . put the investigation on a fresh track.’
The two spots of colour that had appeared on Dan MacAlinden’s cheekbones gradually subsided as the DI, now well in command of his emotions, diverted the man’s attention to more pictures and other topics.
When all the time it was the girl with the changeling looks who claimed his thoughts.
* * *
‘Nice one, guv,’ Noakes said after they had left the flat. ‘Looked like he was gonna flip when he thought Dawn’s murder had summat to do with her bestie.’
They were back at the undercroft now.
‘What’s the betting it did though, Noakes?’
The DS made a sucking noise through his teeth, as though to express profound scepticism.
‘MacAlinden’s right though, ain’t he, guv? I mean, a teenage squabble . . . Don’ see how that could end up in murder.’
‘Think about what he said. This girl was too intense . . . too clingy and possessive, so Dawn had to break it off.’
The other stared at him. ‘You saying they were lezzies, guv?’
‘I’m saying we could be looking at a schoolgirl crush that got out of hand . . . on one side at least.’
Noakes whistled. ‘Mebbe if Dawn was gay, then she an’ Mrs B could’ve been . . . well . . . you know . . . at it after all.’
‘I doubt very much they were “at it”,’ Markham replied with heavy forbearance. ‘Nothing points to them being in a sexual relationship, and I’d say Dawn was happily married.’
‘Lemme get this right, guv.’ The DS screwed up his features, looking for all the world as though he fancied himself CID’s savviest agony uncle. ‘Dawn wasn’t up for any of that . . . but this other girl was and went doolally when she got the ole heave-ho.’ Markham flinched as he imagined the effect of such euphemisms on Kate Burton, before reflecting that these days her shoulders were broad enough to cope.
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