by J. R. Ellis
‘Yes, Tom.’
‘So what I’m saying, Jim, is I know you’re doing your best, but get your skates on for all our sakes.’
‘As you say, Tom, I’ll do my best.’
‘Do you need any more help?’
‘I don’t think so, thanks, but I’ll let you know if we do.’
‘Good; off you go then.’
The super rang off. Oldroyd sighed as he put down the receiver. Power structures were always the same: everyone gets kicked by the people above them and then kicks the person below, especially in an organisation like the police force where rank is all-important. He looked at Steph and Andy; he should now give them a blast, but he wasn’t going to destroy his relationship with those below by taking out on them his frustration with the people above. This was probably why he wouldn’t rise any higher in the force, not that he particularly wanted to; he wasn’t ruthless enough. Also, he sympathised with Tom Walker having to deal with the politicians and a repulsive specimen like Matthew Watkins. Why was it that professionals in the service ended up being told what to do by people who knew nothing about the job? It was the one thing he hated about his work: having to justify himself to people he didn’t respect. At least he was lucky with his – what was it called now? – his line manager. Tom Walker was an old pro and he was glad about that. He turned his attention back to the task in hand.
‘Right, where were we?’ He realised he’d got to his feet while talking to the super and had been striding round the room.
‘Sit down, sir; I’ll get you a cup of coffee.’ From experience, Steph knew how Oldroyd would be feeling after a tense conversation with his superior.
‘Thanks, Steph.’
So, fortified by coffee and the usual chocolate biscuits, the three detectives, impelled by a greater sense of urgency, grappled with the mystery again.
‘Let’s have another run through the main suspects,’ Oldroyd began. ‘I take it nothing’s emerged from all the screening we’ve done of the other people who knew Atkins?’
‘Our detectives have been working with Craven’s people and they’ve interviewed just about everyone in the Caving Club and in Burnthwaite who knew him. He was universally unpopular but nothing’s come up that gives us any better leads than the suspects we’ve got at the moment.’
‘Nobody else who had a motive?’
‘Not stronger than the people we’re pursuing.’
‘OK, let’s start with who we’ve got. Take me through them, you two, and treat me to your latest theories.’
In preparation for the meeting, Carter had drawn up a chart listing the chief suspects and the evidence for and against. He consulted the sheet.
‘I suppose top of the list now must be Bill Watson, as he disappeared on the day the body was discovered. He was probably the one who shouted out that Atkins was a bastard. Do you think he could have been the bloke tracking us near that limestone walkway?’
‘Pavement,’ corrected Oldroyd. ‘Quite possibly, we’ll know more about that when Craven’s people have done a bit of exploration. Do we have any further information on his possible whereabouts?’
Steph replied, ‘Not yet, sir; officers from the Ripon station have interviewed the sister but she claims not to have had any recent contact. She could be hiding him, of course.’
Oldroyd frowned. ‘His behaviour is clearly suspicious, but somehow it’s a bit too obvious.’
‘Why, sir?’ argued Carter. ‘It must have been a shock when the body was discovered because, as you say, it wasn’t meant to be found there.’
‘But would the person who planned this murder suddenly lose his nerve and bolt off in a panic?’
‘Or her nerve, sir,’ interposed Steph.
‘Absolutely,’ replied Oldroyd. ‘They could still have panicked in the circumstances, and if we’re talking about Bill Watson, we don’t know him and how he would have reacted.’
‘He certainly had one of the strongest motives,’ said Steph. ‘His wife confessed straight out to having an affair with Atkins. Also, sir, if he wasn’t the killer, why has he disappeared? His wife seemed genuinely concerned, as if she couldn’t explain it and maybe suspects he’s involved. I got a photograph of him, by the way, as he’s now officially reported as missing.’
‘Good. He may also have been involved with Atkins himself in some way, like so many other people. That man clearly had all kinds of things going on and his death will have stirred up the bottom of a murky pool. There’re bound to be more repercussions.’
Carter turned to Steph. ‘The other problem you’re forgetting is the second murder. Unless Watson had an accomplice, he must have returned to Burnthwaite to kill John Baxter. He couldn’t have done that without tracking him, so he would have had to be well disguised and concealed if he didn’t want to be recognised.’
‘It’s all possible,’ said Oldroyd, ‘but unlikely. If he had the determination and the nerve to protect his skin by getting rid of John Baxter, then why draw attention to himself by running off in the first place?’
‘What about his wife, sir?’
‘Go on.’
‘She had an affair with Atkins, but he was a womaniser. We know he was talking about starting an affair with another woman when he disappeared so he may well have dumped her for someone else. She also doesn’t have a very good alibi for that evening, claims she was just at home.’
‘So she could have killed him out of jealous revenge?’ observed Carter.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, that’s a powerful motive; women certainly don’t like being dumped, do they?’ continued Carter. Steph flashed him a look of annoyance and her reply was a little sharp.
‘No, and neither do men, in my experience.’
Oldroyd interjected. ‘But you’re not suggesting she did this alone? She doesn’t sound like the type of woman who would know about potholes and be able to drag a body underground.’
‘No, but there are enough of Atkins’s enemies in Burnthwaite for her to form an alliance with someone. I think she could be pretty deadly if she felt cheated. She seemed to be sincerely upset at Atkins’s death and worried about her husband’s whereabouts, but that could have just been an act. It didn’t strike me as very consistent. She obviously didn’t think much about her husband as she cheated on him, but she seemed to be laying on the concern once she admitted she didn’t know where he was.’
Oldroyd frowned and gave a slight shrug of his shoulders.
‘OK, well, that makes both the Watsons suspects. Now, who else have we got?’
Carter took a chocolate biscuit and consulted his list.
‘Sam Cartwright, mechanic. We’ve already established motive and now we know he is a potholer so he would know the system. Craven also reported that Cartwright and Atkins had been potholing together with caving groups over in the Ingleton area.’ Carter looked up from his notes. ‘Where’s that?’ he asked.
‘Over in the western Dales.’
Oldroyd was thoughtful.
‘That’s strange; I wouldn’t have expected that. So it seems they were friendly at one point, despite Cartwright calling him all the names under the sun to us at the Red Horse. Atkins’s relationships seem more complex the more we find out about him.’
‘The big reservation I have,’ continued Carter, ‘is still the obvious one of his physique. He must have had an accomplice to get the body down there.’
Steph added, ‘From the way you describe him, he also doesn’t sound like the sort of bloke to plan a murder. He’d just lose his temper and smash his victim over the head.’
‘That’s what I thought; he’s got a real temper all right and it could have happened that way. Cartwright admitted being in the Red Horse and seeing Atkins about the time he disappeared. He could have ambushed him later, hit him over the head, hastily hidden the body and gone to his accomplice for help in disposing of it more permanently.’
‘In that case he or they were extremely lucky not to be discovered at any point. I tend to
agree with Steph; Atkins’s murder was carefully planned. And what about Baxter?’
Carter continued to develop his theory.
‘Maybe he saw something and Cartwright had to silence him.’
Oldroyd frowned again and shook his head. ‘It doesn’t really hang together. Baxter certainly knew something, but I’m sure it was more complicated than seeing Atkins battered over the head outside the Red Horse. Carry on with the list.’
Carter briefly consulted his notes again. ‘The Hardimans.’
‘Do we have any further leads on them?’
‘Not really, except it did occur to me when I was interviewing Cartwright. He mentioned seeing a woman outside the Red Horse that night. I wondered if it could have been Caroline Hardiman.’
Oldroyd raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s interesting; any particular reason why?’
‘Just a hunch, sir. Atkins was bragging about getting another woman and you said you weren’t sure whether Caroline Hardiman was telling the truth about her relationship with Atkins. Maybe she changed her mind and was going to meet him that night. If the husband found out, he’d have been furious, because we know he’d already got rid of Atkins for pursuing his wife. Also, he’d certainly be capable of carrying out the murder and getting the body into the pothole. I assume from his job he must be pretty strong and fit.’
‘Yes, but I still think he would have needed an accomplice. Not even he could have done it alone.’
‘The problem is,’ observed Steph, ‘not only do we not know if it was her outside the pub, but we don’t have any corroboration of Cartwright’s story; he could have made it up to put suspicion elsewhere.’
‘That’s possible,’ said Oldroyd, ‘but I think that makes our friendly mechanic rather more sophisticated than he is.’
‘Of our main suspects that just leaves the Whitakers,’ said Carter, coming to the end of his notes.
‘Yes, any further thoughts on them?’
‘Not at the moment. One of Craven’s people interviewed the other caver who was with Whitaker leading that expedition when the body was discovered and he confirmed everything Whitaker said about the circumstances down there. We should be getting the report from the IT people shortly. I’m still convinced that he or his wife was involved in something with Atkins.’
‘There’s one more thing,’ said Oldroyd. ‘Craven has located Atkins’s wife over in Burnley and he’s going over to interview her as we speak; that might yield something.’
He did a little formal summing up. ‘Right, well, thank you both for your thoughts. We can’t eliminate any of our suspects yet and they’ll all have to be interviewed again to find out who’s got an alibi for last night. That might reduce the list a little, but the problem with alibis in a small place like Burnthwaite is that everything’s close together. Someone would have only had to nip out for a few minutes from wherever they were to go over and kill John Baxter. I’ll ask Craven to get his people to find out if anyone was seen near Baxter’s house, but I don’t think they’ll come up with anything. Whoever planned and executed these murders is pretty clever. It’s getting tough, but all we can do is press on and wait for the breakthrough. If necessary, we’ll have to go back and interview people again and again until we find the opening we’re looking for.’
Carter and Steph nodded.
‘I’m going on a televised news conference in about an hour so I’d better get a few things done before then.’
‘What kind of format do they take, sir?’ asked Carter.
‘Oh, the usual: ask for anyone with any knowledge to come forward; police are following some lines of enquiry and so on. Then the journalists ask me a lot of questions which they know I can’t answer and I don’t answer them.’
‘I see,’ said Carter with a smile.
‘It’s all a bit of a charade. The thing is presented as if it’s us asking everyone for help but the real reason is to satisfy media interest and to give them an opportunity to find some juicy detail for their headlines.’
Oldroyd sat back, stretched, then relaxed into his chair.
‘Anyway, the pressure’s mounting,’ he observed, but he didn’t look like a man under pressure as he lazily reached for a biscuit and then sipped his coffee. ‘We’d better get on with it. I might pay my sister a visit later. I usually go and see her when things get tough.’
‘Your sister, sir?’ asked Carter as they all got up to leave.
‘Yes, she’s a vicar in Kirkby Underside, a little village near here. I always find it comforting to talk to her. It puts a lot of things in perspective and she’s got a fine mind. I like to think of her as my Mycroft.’
‘Yes, sir, er, right.’ Carter didn’t understand Oldroyd’s reference but thought it better not to pursue it at this point.
Oldroyd walked on quickly to meet with the people organising the press conference, leaving Carter and Steph together.
‘What was he talking about?’ asked Carter.
‘Mycroft Holmes was Sherlock Holmes’s brother in the stories; supposed to be even cleverer than Sherlock, I think. I’ve heard him make the comparison before.’
‘Is his sister really a vicar?’
‘Yeah, in a village just south of here. Quite a character, by all accounts, and Sir dotes on her.’
Steph seemed rather subdued.
‘By the way, I’m sorry if my remarks about women being dumped seemed sexist, but do you really think a woman could have got that body down there?’
Steph stopped and turned to look at him.
‘You’ve got some pretty old-fashioned views about women for a modern city guy. It’s all those urban girls in London. Couldn’t imagine them dragging a body along muddy tunnels, could you? What would they do with their designer handbags? There are lots of women strong enough to do something like that, or at least help. We’ve established that even a man couldn’t have done it alone.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’ Carter was forced on to the defensive but he didn’t mind. He liked a woman who was strong enough to put him down.
Oldroyd sat behind a table with a barrage of microphones in front of him. Andy and Steph were at either side. He surveyed the ranks of serious-faced reporters and composed himself before making a statement. At pressurised times like this he sought his inner calm by imagining himself at Barden Towers by the River Wharfe on a quiet morning in May. The shallow waters drifted over the rounded stones on the river bed and chaffinches in the trees sang notes that descended into a sweet blur of noise.
These images made the flashing cameras and jostling reporters seem insubstantial as he made his standard statement about the case: outline basic facts, several lines of enquiry, request for assistance from the public. Then he faced the questions. A loud-mouthed reporter from one of the tabloids was the first to speak. With his head shaved, and wearing an earring, he looked and behaved like a yob and personified the kind of bullying, cynical arrogance Oldroyd most detested in the media.
‘Is it true that the first body was stripped naked and had cuts on it?’
Here we go, thought Oldroyd.
‘No, the body was not naked, but it was dressed in ordinary light clothes: jeans and T-shirt and not in the special clothing and equipment required for caving. The main mark on the body was the head injury that was the cause of death. There were also some minor abrasions suggesting that the body had been dragged.’
The reporter bounced back.
‘But why the hell was it down there, Chief Inspector? Don’t you think it’s weird? We’ve heard rumours of some kind of satanic rituals going on in the village. Do you think he could have been a victim of that? You know, taken down there as some kind of sacrifice?’ This prompted some murmurings and quiet laughter.
Even Oldroyd was shocked by the outlandishness of this suggestion. My God, he thought, are there no limits to their desire for sensation? He moved in sharply and adopted a fiercer tone.
‘We have absolutely no reason to believe that anything of a sinister nature su
ch as you suggest has taken place in Burnthwaite, or that it had anything to do with the murder.’
There was something supremely authoritative about Oldroyd’s powerful Yorkshire voice when he spoke in this vein. The reporter was momentarily cowed and Oldroyd went on. ‘Why the body of Mr Atkins was discovered in the situation it was remains one of the mysteries of the case, but we are confident that we will solve it.’
‘So it’s “The Body in Jingling Pot”?’ another reporter retorted to some amusement around the room.
Oldroyd smiled. ‘Well, it sounds like the title of a good thriller, but if you people wish to call it that it’s fine with me. It’ll make a good headline, I’m sure; certainly better than “Human Sacrifice in Jingling Pot”.’
There was quite raucous laughter at this and the tabloid reporter looked sheepish.
Oldroyd took a drink of water and folded his arms on the table in front of him. He relished the control he had of the situation. He usually came out on top in these tussles, however difficult the case and no matter how embarrassingly slow the progress. The fact was that he was just too damned clever for them.
‘Are you sure the two deaths are connected?’ This sensible question was Oldroyd’s reward for slapping down the more sensational comments.
‘Absolutely,’ he replied. ‘In fact, I can tell you that Mr Baxter had contacted me before he died and offered information about the murder of Mr Atkins.’
Oldroyd had decided to go against Walker’s advice for a good reason, which the super would respect. It caused a minor sensation.
‘You mean he was silenced?’
Eager eyes were fixed on Oldroyd from all over the room. He paused to create maximum dramatic effect.
‘It appears so. I’m deeply sorry we couldn’t get there quickly enough to save him.’
‘Did he tell you anything?’
‘I cannot comment at this stage of the investigation but suffice it to say that the conversation we had was interesting.’