Murder at the Treasure Hunt

by David W Robinson

  A freckle-faced redhead, he was only a few years younger than Helen, but he had no interest in moving to another town or area, and was quite happy to remain as a detective sergeant.

  “I haven’t had the body moved yet. The doc’s done his work, and the pathology bods are only waiting for your permission to take her away.”

  “I’m on my way in.” Helen came away from the window and instructed the constable, “You can cancel the sentry duty here. As far as I can see, you’re no longer needed, so you can return to your normal duties.”

  “Yes, ma’am, thank you, ma’am.”

  Helen made her way back to the main entrance, stepped into the hotel, announced herself at reception and allowed a porter to escort her along the ground floor corridor to room 101. Once in the room, everyone stood back to let her examine Kim’s body.

  She walked round and round the desk, checking out the crime scene from every conceivable angle. She made a point of judging the gap between the back of the chair through which the knife had been thrust, and the windowsill, before shaking her head and muttering to herself that it was not possible.

  “Whoever killed her was in the room with her,” she said.

  Calvin, who had been mentally picking his nose, snapped to attention. “Ma’am?”

  “Open window, Calvin. It was hot last night, so she might have had it open, and I suppose there was an outside chance that someone passing by might have reached in and stabbed her. It might help account for the angle of the knife, but look at the gap.” She gestured at the space between the chair and the windowsill. It was at least 3 feet. “Too far. No, Sergeant, whoever killed her was in the room with her.” She cast a bleak smile at the forensic and pathology team. “Okay, you can have her.” Concentrating once more on Calvin, she said, “We’ll need somewhere we can use as an office.”

  “I had a word with Ronnie Ilkeston, ma’am. He has a spare office near reception that we can use.”

  “Lead the way.”

  They emerged onto the corridor, making their way back towards reception.

  “Joe Murray,” Helen said. “You might not have heard of him, but I have. He’s a pain in the butt, I don’t want him anywhere near this.”

  Calvin was not so certain. “He had one or two observations, ma’am, and I thought he was pretty well up to the mark.”

  “Observations?”

  “He said the same as you. The killer must have been in the room.”

  Helen clucked impatiently. “Was he the one who found her?”

  “No, ma’am. Member of staff name of Tracy Huckle. But she was on her own at six this morning, and called on Murray because she didn’t know what to do.”

  Again Helen tutted. “She didn’t know how to dial 999?”

  They arrived at reception where Helen introduced herself to Ilkeston, and he showed her to the vacant general manager’s office alongside the reception counter.

  “Before you disappear, Mr Ilkeston, I need to speak to Ms or Mrs Huckle, the lady who found the body, and I want to speak to Joe Murray. Murray first, for preference.”

  “Mr Murray will be having breakfast right now, Inspector. I’ll see if I can get him for you.” Ilkeston picked up the phone and spent a moment muttering into it before reporting back to Helen. “I’ve asked one of the dining room attendants to find him and ask him to come to reception. There is one other thing.” The duty manager paused until Helen invited him to carry on. “Hotel guests are all taking part in a charity treasure hunt this weekend. Will they be allowed to carry on?”

  “As far as I’m concerned, yes, but if I need to speak to any of the participants, they won’t be allowed to leave the hotel until I’ve seen them.”

  Ilkeston chewed his lip. “I’d better have a word with Mr Wrigglesworth, then. I mean, I don’t know how many people you need to speak to, but Mr Murray, for example, is one of the treasure hunters, and if he’s delayed it probably lessens his chances of winning.”

  Helen gave him a sickly sweet smile. “Not my problem. Now, if you could show me to this office.”

  Ilkeston raised the counter access, and ushered the inspector and her sergeant through, and into the small office in the rear corner of reception.

  On first entering the room, Helen judged it to be ideal for the purposes. It was small, windowless, compact, the walls lined with shelves which in turn were packed with box folders or marked and going back fifteen years. There was one seat behind the desk, two in front of it, and she had Calvin rearrange the furnishings so that when they interviewed anyone, they would be behind the desk, and the interviewee would be facing them. Years of experience had taught her that it was the best method of applying pressure.

  She was busy clearing off the desk, giving herself room to work, when Ilkeston knocked on the door and showed Joe in.

  “Detective Inspector Dalkeith. North Yorkshire CID. We haven’t met, Mr Murray, but I recall your involvement in a nasty murder at the Headland Hotel a couple of years back.”

  Joe took the chair facing the two detectives. “I’m not sure I like the phrase ‘involvement in’. It was nothing to do with me. I simply pointed your people to the guilty party.”

  “Yes.” Helen smiled with all the venom of an angry cobra. “And here you are up to your neck in it again.” Before Joe could protest, she went on, “How come this Tracy Huckle came to you after finding the body?”

  “She was in a state,” Joe said. “She was the first of the day shift to arrive, there was no one else to help, and the night porter was a total waste of space. So she came to someone who she knew could look after himself in a crisis.”

  “And she knew that because she knew you of old?”

  “Nothing of the kind. She knew it because I had a couple of confrontations with Kim Ashton yesterday.” Joe rested his elbows on the desk. “And I wasn’t the only one. That woman would start a fight in a monastery… or should that be a nunnery?”

  Helen was not fazed. “In that case we’ll need to speak to all those who argued with her… including you.”

  “Fine. Whenever you’re ready. Can I finish my breakfast first?”

  “Of course. But we’ll need a DNA swab, so we might as well—”

  “No you don’t,” Joe interrupted. “My DNA is already on file, after one of your idiot colleagues accused me of murder a couple of years back.”

  Helen’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

  “Really.” Joe got to his feet, ready to leave. “He was wrong, and ended up grovelling on his knees, apologising to me. And if you’re thinking I had anything to do with Kim Ashton’s murder, you’ll wind up on your knees, too. If you want to know anything about me, speak to DCI Terry Cummins. I don’t know where he is these days, but he used to be based in York. He’s known me since we were both kids.” He delivered a final scowl at her. “I’ll be in the dining room when you’re ready to speak to me.”

  Chapter Six

  On his return to the dining room Joe did not make immediately for the table he and Maddy were sharing with Sheila and Brenda, but while the police took a statement from Maddy, he joined Lucas Wrigglesworth and brought him up to speed on the situation.

  “We’d heard the rumours, of course, and I imagine the police will want to speak to a lot of people, including Marlene and me.”

  “Surprise, surprise, I’m not thinking about the police or Kim Ashton, Joe said. “Fact is, the cops will be speaking to a fair number of the treasure hunters, a good proportion of them from my group. The Sanford 3rd Age Club mob. You have it arranged so that every team is timed out of here at half past nine, but some of those will be lucky to get moving by 11 o’clock. They’ll have no chance of winning the treasure hunt.”

  Wrigglesworth chewed his lip. “You’re right of course.” He pulled himself together. “Thanks for letting me know, Joe. I’ll have to work something out to ensure everyone gets a fair timing on today’s round of the treasure hunt. I’ll make an announcement in a few minutes.”

  Over the years of
travel with the 3rd Age Club, he had learned that hotels like the Westhead served excellent meals, none more so than a two-course breakfast, beginning with cereal followed with a full English of bacon, egg, two Cumberland sausages, baked beans (Joe’s preference to fried tomatoes) and a slice of fried bread. Having been interrupted while working his way through a bowl of cornflakes, after speaking with Wrigglesworth, he returned to his table and signalled a waiter to order the second course of his meal, which he then tackled with gusto. And while he ate, he brought his three companions up to speed, telling them of his head-to-head with Helen Dalkeith and his subsequent discussion with the treasure hunt organiser.

  “Well, surely they can’t think Brenda and I would have killed the woman,” Sheila protested.

  Joe chewed through a gristly piece of Cumberland sausage, swallowed it, and washed it down with a mouthful of tea. “You think not? Sheila, I was there yesterday when I heard you tell her that the last time we were in Whitby someone was murdered at the Headland Hotel. That could be misinterpreted as a threat.”

  “My eye,” Sheila responded tartly. “If you were paying attention, you would have also heard me tell her that if I was to murder anyone, it would be someone worth serving a life sentence for, and she did not fit the bill.”

  “Hear, hear,” Brenda said and gave her friend a small round of applause.

  Joe’s disapproval bubbled to the surface and burst out in a blaze of anger. “It doesn’t matter what a person has done, how evil they’ve been, they don’t deserve murder. No one does. Never. For crying out loud, Sheila, you’re the dyed-in-the-wool Christian, not me, doesn’t your religion preach forgiveness?”

  Sheila withered under his outburst. “Of course. You’re right, Joe. But obviously, what I said wasn’t meant to be taken literally. The woman simply annoyed me. That’s all.”

  Joe pushed his plate away, and helped himself to tea from the pot. “I know that, you know that, but these detectives don’t.” He dropped a little milk in, added two sugars and stirred vigorously. “Everything seems to be annoying you just lately. And I’ll bet it’s this business you have to attend to this weekend?”

  Sheila laid an evil eye on Joe. “Keep your nose out.”

  Brenda hastened to calm the atmosphere by changing the subject. “Forget Kim Ashton. Have you worked out your first treasure hunt clue yet?”

  Joe smirked. “Too easy. Or are you going to follow Maddy and me? Let us lead you to it?”

  Brenda chuckled by return. “Sheila cracked it for us in seconds.”

  Joe dug into the pocket of his gilet, retrieved the clue, spread it on the table and read through it.

  Look east towards the sea,

  Where the head chef can see the stay

  What’s that under his feet?

  A card that gets you away.

  “The only thing I had trouble with was the word ‘stay’, but Maddy explained it to me.”

  Sheila giggled. “I haven’t heard corsets described as stays since I was a little girl.”

  Brenda laughed too. “And how long is it since they were made of whalebone?” She laid a teasing eye on Joe. “Didn’t you find them a bit of a turn on, Joe, in the days when your mother’s catalogue was full of pictures of them?”

  “Pictures of women wearing them,” Joe corrected her, “and no, I didn’t find them arousing. The thought of what they were hiding was enough to put me off white meat for life.” With what he fondly imagined was a devastating putdown, Joe gulped down his tea, got to his feet and left the table.

  He found Maddy waiting in the lobby. “Are we ready for the treasure hunt, then?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. The police want more detailed statements from us, and we have to wait until they’re ready for us.” She scowled. “I’ve decided I don’t like that Inspector Dalkeith.”

  Joe sat alongside her on the large settee beneath the windows. “Some coppers are like that, Maddy. Protective of their turf, determined they’ll not have any member of the public shoving his nose in.” He grinned mischievously. “But you needn’t think that’s gonna stop me.”

  Maddy’s gloomy forecast was closer to developments than Joe’s upbeat promise of non-cooperation. Taking turns to step outside and enjoy the fresh, summer sun, they nevertheless waited an hour before Sergeant Calvin called them individually to take detailed statements.

  Of the pair, Joe was with Calvin longer. The sergeant was less concerned with Joe’s observations than the actions Joe had taken in room 101, and whatever forensic disturbance he may have created while wandering about the room.

  As always, Joe was unrepentant. “My niece is a detective inspector in Sanford, and I’m on first name terms with one of your bosses – Terry Cummins – so I know what I’m doing. I went into the room, checked that she was dead, and came out again. You’re welcome to take my prints, and despite what I said to your boss earlier, you’re welcome to take a mouth swab.”

  Calvin, less assertive than his superior, acquiesced, took the prints and the swab, and after setting out a detailed account of Joe’s movements the previous evening, finally let him go.

  From there, Joe and Maddy made their way into the lounge bar, where Lucas Wrigglesworth was busy checking treasure hunters’ time of departure out.

  When Joe got to the front of the short queue, Wrigglesworth checked his watch and wrote 10:47 at the top of Joe’s entry sheet. He initialled it before handing the sheet over. “When you get back, Joe, you need to get to me or Marlene as quick as you can, and we’ll time you back. Okay?”

  Joe grunted, and at last, he and Maddy left the hotel and made their way quickly to the corner of West Cliff, and stood at the rear of the Captain James Cook monument.

  “It always seems to me as if he’s looking at the Abbey,” Maddy said. “Do you think he’s actually looking in the direction of Australia?”

  “The state this country’s in, it’s time he stopped looking and cleared off to Australia. I have a brother there and if I wasn’t so old, that’s where I’d be headed.”

  Joe took out the entry sheet with the first clue printed on it and read again the line: Where the head chef can see the stay. The statue and its plinth blocked their view of the whalebone arch.

  “We can’t see the arch from here. It must be on the other side.”

  Maddy was ahead of him, at the front of the statue, bending to photograph a small, white card attached to the bronze plinth upon which the statue stood. Joe crouched alongside her and read the card.

  They sound easy to lift

  But which one would you figure?

  The smaller might be tempting

  But the smart go for the bigger.

  Joe stood upright, his brow knitted in concentration, while Maddy examine the photograph she had taken, and happy with its clarity, she switched off her phone and dropped it in her pocket.

  Joe strummed his lips with three fingers. “They sound easy to lift. Something that’s heavy sounds like it might be light?”

  Maddy’s features split into a broad smile. She turned from the Cook monument, and looked down towards the twin jetties of the harbour, reaching out into the sea like pincers. And at the end of each jetty was a lighthouse, the taller one closer to them, the shorter on the East Pier.

  “Lighthouse, Joe. Do you get it? Light… House. Easy to lift. Light?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Simple when you think about it, isn’t it. According to the clue, we need to go for the bigger, by which I assume they mean the taller.”

  “Good job, too,” Maddy said as she led the way towards the whalebone arch. “There’s about fifty metres of water between the two piers, and the only way to it is to get to the other side of the river, over the swing bridge, and then make your way through the side streets to the far bank.”

  Joe said nothing. He was concentrating on the steep flight of stone steps which led from the arch, down to the broad road known as Khyber Pass, which in turn led them down onto Pier Road. To the right was the thriving retail area o
f the harbour side, and to their left, the track out along the West Pier, and the taller lighthouse at its far point.

  The sun beat down from a cloudless sky, they mingled contentedly with the crowds of daytrippers and holidaymakers, and they were in no hurry to reach their next waypoint. Joe paused, and leaned on the railings, looking a direction he insisted was North, but which Maddy insisted was more West. The broad spread of Whitby beach lay before him, and drifted away to another headland a mile or two distant.

  “Sandsend,” Maddy explained. “It’s the old coast road which runs north to Staithes then onto Saltburn, Redcar, and Teesside. When I first moved here, Joe, into this area, it was a tossup between Sandsend and Cragshaven.”

  “And Cragshaven won.”

  “It was down to the property in the end. My bungalow is exactly what I was looking for, and I couldn’t find one in Sandsend.”

  They turned for the lighthouse again, and as they neared it, Joe realise what an impressive structure it was. No longer operational, its task taken over by a beacon on the far end of the pier, the tower was built of local sandstone, and stood 73 feet in height. It had been there since the mid-19th century, a testimony to Victorian construction and engineering.

  “You can go in and up the top of the tower,” Maddy said. “I think the admission fee is a pound.”

  “Pass.” Joe smiled unconvincingly. “Vertigo.”

  “My eye. Yorkshire tightwad, you mean.”

  “No, seriously. I get dizzy spells whenever someone asks me to open my wallet.”

  With a wry chuckle, Maddy circled the stone tower, and on the far side, overlooking the sea, she found the card with the next clue. Once again it was enclosed in a cellophane bag (insurance against the danger of rain washing away the typescript) and once again, she levelled her camera to take a close-up photograph of it while Joe read the clue, and scribbled it out in his notebook.

  Aunt could arc

  Bite worse than bark

  Look in the lower window

  And learn where you should go