An attractive young woman from the media office sashayed towards them, holding a stack of glossy press releases. Sidney’s eyes gleamed.
‘Right, Markham, you and Noakes,’ he inclined graciously in the DS’s direction, ‘can get off now.’ He stroked his pips before adding, in an ebullition of goodwill, ‘The gentlemen of the press must wait a bit longer for their exclusive.’ The entourage tittered dutifully as he swept out of the station foyer, bobbing in his wake like a flotilla.
‘Think we got off lightly there, Noakes.’ Markham sagged with relief.
The DS made a sound that was somewhere between a guffaw and a growl.
Markham hesitated, but Noakes got there first.
‘Of course I’m coming to the hospital with you, Guv. But perhaps we should have a wash and brush-up first.’ He gestured theatrically at their dishevelled appearance. ‘Don’t want your girlfriend keeling over again at the sight of us!’
The casual words held a world of understanding. No need for anything more. Without a backward look at the excited bustle around them, the two men headed for the locker room.
Epilogue
New Year’s Eve. The Sweepstakes.
Markham sprawled lazily in his favourite overstuffed armchair, savouring the comforting warmth of a log fire crackling in the hearth.
It doesn’t get much better than this, he thought, watching Olivia who sat cross-legged at his feet perusing a heavily blotted letter.
‘What news of your little scallywags?’ he enquired.
‘Having a wonderful time by all accounts.’ She grinned. ‘There’s a postscript from Julian – by way of corrective to Nat’s more colourful assertions!’
Markham gazed at the fire ruminatively. ‘Extraordinary that O’Keefe came up trumps like that.’
‘Well, those two desperately needed a happy family atmosphere and that’s what they’ll get on his sister’s farm. Lots of fresh air and fun … and four other rascals to play with over the holidays.’
‘O’Keefe was a suspect at one point, you know.’ Markham laughed at the expression on Olivia’s face. ‘Don’t look like that, sweetheart, virtually everyone was.’
‘Not Cynthia, though.’ Olivia’s voice was full of pain. Her naturally open and trusting disposition had taken a terrible blow when the full extent of Cynthia Gibson’s involvement finally became clear.
Markham ached to comfort her. ‘Cynthia was delusional, totally in thrall to Preston. That’s how it started.’
‘But she became an abuser, Gil. My old friend an abuser!’ It was a whisper.
‘Yes, dearest.’ There was no point sugar-coating it. ‘Female paedophiles are rare, but Cynthia was more than a spectator. As she said in her confession, “Wherever he has gone, I have gone.”’
‘D’you think she was planning to draw me into it, Gil? To turn me?’
Markham put his hands on her shoulders, kneading them in a soothing rhythm.
‘“When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” That might have been her plan, yes, but I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure. Maybe, at some subconscious level, she wanted to bring it to an end … needed your strength to help her break free.’
Olivia gave him a look of gratitude. ‘She didn’t know about you being a policeman, though. That was a real shock.’
‘Certainly the timing of your arrival couldn’t have been worse from Preston’s point of view,’ Markham observed.
‘At least she had no part in the killings. That’s some comfort.’
Gesturing at another letter lying on the hearth rug, Olivia added in more cheerful tones, ‘That was a lovely letter from your old mentor.’
‘Yes. I reckon Mike Bamber thought about those boys every day, and the terrible way they had to go. As he says, at least they’re free now and the parents have some sort of closure.’
‘What will happen to Jonny Warr’s dad?’ Olivia asked anxiously. ‘When Noakes said he’d done us all a favour, I couldn’t help agreeing.’
‘It’ll probably be manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility and a probation order. I can’t imagine any judge sending the poor man to prison.’
Suddenly, Olivia gave a convulsive shudder and seemed to shrink into herself.
‘What is it, my love?’ Markham asked gently.
His girlfriend had turned very pale.
‘I still can’t forget how he looked when he grabbed me in the corridor at St Mary’s,’ she said faintly.
No need to ask who he was.
‘One minute all normal and smiling…. The next, it was like a wolf’s face … the mouth all stretched … like he was going to bite me… The hatred…’
Markham took both Olivia’s hands in his.
‘Leave him to rot in his little room. He’ll never breathe free air again.’ Looking deep into his lover’s eyes, he added, ‘The conspirators marched hand in hand to hell, but we must hope for better things.’
The shadow cleared. ‘“This truth within thy mind rehearse, That in a boundless universe, Is boundless better, boundless worse,”’ Olivia quoted dreamily.
Markham chuckled. ‘Trust an English teacher to cap my eloquence with Tennyson!’
Nestling closer to him, Olivia looked up at the chiselled profile of this most unlikely policeman as he gazed thoughtfully into the flames.
‘I’ve felt Georgina Hamilton quite close to me in the last few days,’ he said eventually. ‘Her friend Joan – you remember, the cook from St Mary’s – said the same after the funeral. Like a cloud had lifted from her shoulders and she knew Georgina was at peace.’
‘Was Georgina murdered, then, Gil?’ Olivia asked softly.
‘Oh yes, not a doubt of it now. She had cancer, but I never believed the theory that she’d decided to end it all. Turns out Alex Sharpe had poured out his soul in a diary which must somehow have come into Woodcourt’s possession, because Nat came across him burning documents one night. I think Georgina stumbled across something incriminating – a scrap of paper with names – and was planning to get in touch with me when she was silenced by Woodcourt after he had followed her home… It struck me at the time that the way the body was positioned suggested some lingering regard for the victim.’
A tremor rippled across Markham’s face, but his voice was steady. ‘What exactly happened will likely never be known. Georgina was such a decent woman – that British sense of fair play. I think she let Woodcourt into the apartment hoping he could explain everything. By the time she realized the danger, it was too late.’
‘What about the Diazepam? Weren’t there tablets next to her when you found her?’
Markham’s face was sombre. ‘All part of Woodcourt’s ‘killing kit’ according to Alex Sharpe. He always had a supply on him. Chloral hydrate too.’
‘How horrible! Masquerading as a holy man when all the time…’
There was a long silence. Markham recalled the great copper basin he and Noakes had found in the undercroft when Woodcourt was finally trapped, presumably designed to catch Julian’s blood as his throat was cut. He knew this was one detail he would never share with Olivia.
‘Well, we must leave him to a greater power!’ exclaimed Markham at last. ‘The avenging angel came for him in the end. Perhaps now Irene Hummles and all the other poor innocents can rest in peace.’
‘That cry we heard in the grottoes, Gil…’ Olivia said tentatively, ‘the child’s scream…We all heard it.’ Her face was pensive. ‘D’you think it was a ghost … one of the murdered children?’
Markham chose his words carefully. ‘It certainly felt like someone was there with us,’ he answered. ‘I think it must have been a benign presence trying to shine a light in the darkness. It stopped a killer in his tracks, so you could say love had the last word. If the souls of those poor waifs were wandering abroad, somehow they’ve come home now.’
Olivia shivered. ‘All the time I was at St Mary’s, it felt as though I was being watched and followed. As though the grounds wer
e haunted.’
Markham forbore to comment that the shadowy presences Olivia had sensed flitting about were not necessarily spectral. The work of dismantling the paedophile network had just begun, but the conspirators no doubt had eyes and ears everywhere. It was a sobering thought.
Olivia’s voice caught on a sob. ‘I can’t erase that image of Woodcourt digging in the little school cemetery. Reburying the victims. As if those poor children were being killed again. As if they would never stop being killed. In my mind, I’m there, shouting at him to stop, to let them go.’
‘We’ll lay flowers, my love,’ said Markham’s quiet voice, ‘and say goodbye properly.’
Olivia’s face brightened at the thought of a memorial, her thoughts diverted from darker channels.
‘Poetic justice that Sir Philip Soames met his end at Preston’s hands, wasn’t it?’ she said musingly.
‘It was indeed,’ replied Markham with grim satisfaction.
‘What about Alex Sharpe?’
Markham sighed. ‘He’ll be tried as an accessory, the snivelling wretch. The wife’s a basket case. She almost certainly suspected what had happened to Irene Hummles, but anaesthetized herself with drink and prescription medication.’
There was another silence. How damnably clever Preston had been, planting the idea that his deputy had seen the matron leave St Mary’s on the day she had vanished. Taking that witness statement at face value had cost lives. Privately, Markham cursed the incompetence and vital missed opportunities. At least lessons had been learned, so Operation Acacia stood some chance of excising the evil which had hidden deeply in the recesses of the school organism like a rogue synapse of cells that cried out to be cauterized.
‘Enough of this!’ Olivia jumped to her feet and disappeared into Markham’s galley kitchen, returning with a bottle and two glasses. ‘We’re going to banish all the horrors for tonight and look to the future,’ she said lovingly.
‘I’ll drink to that!’
The little fire sputtered and crackled in the hearth. Clinking glasses, the lovers looked into the flames and traced their castles in the air.
The shadows of the past receded and the pilot light of their love burned strong and steady. Whatever the next day brought, they would face it together.
THE END
The D.I. Gilbert Markham Series
Book 1: CRIME IN THE CHOIR
Book 2: CRIME IN THE SCHOOL
Book 3: CRIME IN THE CONVENT
Book 4: CRIME IN THE HOSPITAL
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Glossary of English Slang for US readers
A & E: Accident and emergency department in a hospital
Aggro: Violent behaviour, aggression
Air raid: an attack in which bombs are dropped from aircraft on ground targets
Allotment: a plot of land rented by an individual for growing fruit, vegetable or flowers
Anorak: nerd (it also means a waterproof jacket)
Artex: textured plaster finish for walls and ceilings
A Level: exams taken between 16 and 18
Auld Reekie: Edinburgh
Au pair: live-in childcare helper. Often a young woman.
Barm: bread roll
Barney: argument
Beaker: glass or cup for holding liquids
Beemer: BMW car or motorcycle
Benefits: social security
Bent: corrupt
&nb
sp; Bin: wastebasket (noun), or throw in rubbish (verb)
Biscuit: cookie
Blackpool Lights: gaudy illuminations in seaside town
Bloke: guy
Blow: cocaine
Blower: telephone
Blues and twos: emergency vehicles
Bob: money
Bobby: policeman
Broadsheet: quality newspaper (New York Times would be a US example)
Brown bread: rhyming slang for dead
Bun: small cake
Bunk: do a bunk means escape
Burger bar: hamburger fast-food restaurant
Buy-to-let: Buying a house/apartment to rent it out for profit
Charity Shop: thrift store
Carrier bag: plastic bag from supermarket
Care Home: an institution where old people are cared for
Car park: parking lot
CBeebies: kids TV
Chat-up: flirt, trying to pick up someone with witty banter or compliments
Chemist: pharmacy
Chinwag: conversation
Chippie: fast-food place selling chips and other fried food
Chips: French fries but thicker
CID: Criminal Investigation Department
Civvy Street: civilian life (as opposed to army)
Clock: punch
Cock-up: mess up, make a mistake
Cockney: a native of East London
Common: an area of park land/ or lower class
Comprehensive School (Comp.): High school
Cop hold of: grab
Copper: police officer
Coverall: coveralls, or boiler suit
CPS: Crown Prosecution Service, decide whether police cases go forward
Childminder: someone who looks after children for money
Council: local government
Dan Dare: hero from Eagle comic
DC: detective constable
Deck: one of the landings on a floor of a tower block
Crime in the Choir Page 22