The Whitby Murders (A Yorkshire Murder Mystery), J. Ellis [free ebook novel TXT] 📗

the neck.’ She shuddered. ‘It wasn’t nice somehow. I don’t know where Miss Barnes, that’s Andrea’s aunt, got it from.’

‘And you don’t know what happened to it?’

‘I don’t. And how are you, love? Andrea was a good friend of yours, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes she was. It’s . . . difficult.’ She gave Mrs Adams a wan smile, and the cleaner continued with her good-hearted chatter. Louise, however, found it hard to concentrate on what she was saying, because a disturbing idea had begun to form in her mind.

Back in Whitby, Oldroyd and Granger met to report back to each other. Oldroyd began. Despite the lack of real progress, he was feeling upbeat after his sea trip the previous day and a pleasant breakfast at his hotel. Deborah was doing a video session on Zoom with a client who found it difficult to leave the house due to social anxiety.

‘We need to pursue this Withington character. I think his niece Andrea Barnes was involved in some underhand dealings with him. Sergeant Johnson reported that Barnes visited Withington’s shop in Leeds. Also, Withington’s son was involved. The Leeds police seem to think he was the one who travelled round and procured stuff. Sergeant Johnson thinks that the son could be the person Barnes was seen with in London.’

‘Her cousin?’

‘Yes. If they had some long-established arrangement and Barnes wanted to pull out, Withington may not have liked it. Perhaps she knew too much about his operation.’

‘Okay, we’ll speak to Withington again and the son.’ Granger frowned at Oldroyd. ‘Withington may have had a motive, sir, but are you saying that he got her own boyfriend to kill her and then himself?’

‘I admit it sounds ridiculous, but we have to pursue all the possibilities. We don’t know what other connections there were between these characters yet. I think we’re going to find more and this is where Sergeant Carter comes in. He’s discovered that Ryerson’s reason for arriving late in Whitby and missing the escape room was bogus. Apparently he was with a woman, but the story will have to be checked out. Andy thinks we shouldn’t discount Ryerson yet because of his past relationship with Barnes. He will be investigating more of them today and we’ll see what he comes up with.’

‘Our interviews with Elaine Pesku and Philip Owen didn’t yield much. DC Hampton said Pesku was very cagey. She claimed not to know anything about the whereabouts of Hugh Preston, the owner of the escape room, or about the trick sarcophagus. Hampton felt she was keeping things back.

‘I spoke to Philip Owen, the escape-room actor, and his account of himself and his conviction for assault was plausible. It was a teenage gang thing when he was only seventeen. There’s no motive with him so I don’t feel there’s much point in pursuing him further.’ Granger paused and shook her head. ‘So it’s all pretty thin, isn’t it? Unless something crops up soon, we may have to accept the obvious solution, although I agree there are some odd things about it.’

‘We’re in what I call the grind stage,’ replied Oldroyd. ‘We need to carry on until the breakthrough comes.’

At that moment, Granger’s phone rang. She listened intently, asking a few brief questions before putting the phone down. ‘Well, talking of breakthroughs, there’s some worrying news but it might prove significant. Hull police have been in touch. Hugh Preston’s wife contacted them to say her husband has gone missing. He’s not answering his phone and she’s tried everywhere she can think of where he might be. Apparently he travels a lot to places where he has these escape rooms and he’s not good at keeping in touch, but it’s unlike him to go so long without letting her know where he is.’

Oldroyd whistled. ‘He knew about the sarcophagus trick and we don’t know who else he told about it. He could be in great danger and we may be too late.’

‘I suppose it’s possible that he heard about what happened in the escape room here and then ran off because he thought he might be blamed in some way.’

‘Unlikely,’ replied Oldroyd. ‘So Pesku’s story about him having an office in Sheffield was false?’

‘Yes, but it may have been a genuine mistake. He lived in Driffield, you know, just north of Hull. He had an office there, so it’s possible she misunderstood what he said, particularly because English is not her first language.’

‘Hmm, well, maybe, or is that what we’re meant to think? It caused us to waste our efforts contacting Sheffield police.’

‘Buying time for what?’

Oldroyd shrugged. ‘To complete whatever the plan is, and we don’t know what that is yet. But Preston’s disappearance suggests to me again that we don’t yet understand what’s really going on in this case.’

‘What do you think our next move should be then, sir?’

‘Help Hull police to find Hugh Preston. Other than that, I’m not sure there’s much more we can do at this end. We need to see what Andy will come up with in the next few days.’

Five

From Whinny-muir whence thou may’st pass,

Every nighte and alle,

To Brig o’ Dread thou com’st at last,

And Christe receive thy saule.

From the Lyke Wake Dirge

On the same Wednesday morning, Maggie Hinton looked out of the window of Café Nico onto the autumnal London street where large orange and yellow leaves were falling from the plane trees onto the pavement. The café was busy and she was glad to be back in London and at work. She was beginning to feel some sense of normality returning, but it was still on the surface. If she thought about the events in Whitby, she immediately felt anxiety welling up inside her, but at least they’d done what they could. She was glad she and Mark were out of it. The worst was now over.

The whole affair had given her the chance to reassess her life. She could think about this while she performed the tasks in the