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

of the discovery of Preston’s body gets out. Once she hears about it she’ll probably disappear.’

Oldroyd’s phone went. It was Steph calling from the Harrogate HQ. ‘Morning, sir. I hope things are going well.’

‘Yes, things are livening up over here.’ He told her about the discovery of the body. ‘I’m pretty sure this means what we’ve been presented with is not the real story. We’re going to track down Pesku and see what she has to say.’

‘Right, sir. Is there anything I can do at this end?’

‘Just keep an eye on Louise.’

‘That’s why I rang, sir. I called in to see her yesterday and she seemed okay. She said she was going to look up some old friends in Leeds and meet up with them last night. And just to reassure you, I’m still absolutely sure that she was not involved in anything bad.’

‘Good. Well, keep in contact with her. She’s been through a lot and I’m still very concerned about her. She obviously likes you.’

‘Yes, we get on well, so don’t worry, sir. I’ll pop in again soon and she’s got my number if she wants to call me.’

‘Good. I assume you’re also keeping an eye on that partner of yours so he doesn’t shame us all by getting arrested for being drunk and disorderly.’

Steph laughed. ‘I am, sir, but the good news there is that he had a very sober time with his friend. They had a few cocktails, a pizza and then went home.’

‘Good lord! How sensible! You’ve obviously made a man out of him. You want to be careful, he seems to be really settling down. He’ll be wanting a family next.’

She laughed again. ‘Maybe, but all in good time for that one, sir.’

One of the reasons why Andy had called a comparatively early end to his evening with Jason was that he wanted to make an early visit to the apartment shared by Mark Garner and Maggie Hinton, before they left for work. He collected DC Jenkins and they arrived at the address in Dalston before 8.00 a.m.

Maggie opened the door and was startled by the sight of the two detectives. Andy made the introductions and they showed their identification.

‘Is this to do with the deaths in Whitby?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

Maggie’s face crumpled in despair. ‘Oh God, no! I thought we were done with that.’ She turned back into the hallway and shouted, ‘Mark! It’s the police.’

Mark emerged wearing suit trousers and a white shirt without a tie. He was drinking from a mug. He frowned at Andy and Jenkins.

‘If this is about Whitby, we’ve told you everything we know. Anyway, this is a bit early, isn’t it? We’ve got to be off soon,’ he said.

‘We won’t keep you long. It’s you we want to speak to but it would useful if Ms Hinton was here too.’

Maggie was alarmed. ‘Mark, what’s this about? Is there something you haven’t told me?’

‘Let’s go inside, shall we?’ continued Andy. The four of them walked silently into a long kitchen diner and sat down on sofas.

‘I’ll come straight to the point,’ said Andy, addressing Garner as he consulted his briefing. ‘When you told DCI Oldroyd about the incident at university concerning Dominic Holgate plagiarising your work, you said that the authorities sorted it out and you didn’t get involved. You also stated that Holgate apologised to you in the end.’ He looked at Garner, who was avoiding eye contact.

‘But we’ve spoken to Mr Timmins, the head of student records at St Thomas’s, and he says that the incident was in fact very acrimonious. Holgate actually accused you of copying from him.’

‘Mark! You didn’t tell me that. What’s going on?’ interjected Maggie.

‘So,’ continued Andy, ‘I think it’s time you gave a truer account of what happened and your feelings towards Holgate.’

Garner looked sheepishly at Maggie and took a deep breath. ‘I didn’t want to worry you. You’ve been in a very emotional state and I thought you might start worrying that I had a motive for wishing Dominic harm.’

‘Well, I bloody well do now, you absolute idiot!’

‘So tell us what happened?’ Andy interjected.

Garner frowned at the memory. ‘We submitted our essays and a few days later we were summoned by the head of department to his office. He presented the two essays to us and they were very similar. I was furious because I knew he’d copied from me. I’d leant him my work to have a look at, not to present huge chunks of it as his own. He’d been in one of his bloody plays and done no work that term.

‘I couldn’t believe it when he claimed that he’d written the essay and I must have copied from him. I think he was terrified they were going to expel him because he’d done something like it before.’

‘He had. So what happened?’

‘I had a real go at him in front of the head of department and, yes, I threatened him, said I would beat him to pulp and so on. It was all anger; I would never have done it.’

‘How was it resolved?’

‘I proved that I’d written the essay by presenting dated drafts. He gave in and admitted it. He had to resubmit for a basic mark, but I thought he was bloody lucky to still be on the course after trying to blame me. That was criminal. I should have threatened to go to the police. That’s what the authorities always dread: bad publicity. They made us sign a non-disclosure agreement. I felt it was almost making me part of something criminal when I was entirely innocent.’

Andy pressed on. ‘Did you ever threaten Holgate again?’

‘No. After we signed the agreement, he said he was sorry and I just left it at that. We’d never really been friends, just members of the same course. It soured the rest of my time at university a bit. I avoided him whenever he was around.’

‘And then he turned up a few years later?’

‘He did. It was a bit of a shock