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

when Maggie’s friend Andrea turned up with her boyfriend and it was him. We had a word. He apologised again and we decided to leave it alone for the sake of the friendship group.’

‘Very mature and sensible,’ remarked Andy. ‘But how do you feel about him now?’

Garner paused and Maggie looked at him. ‘I was still really pissed off with him, to be honest. It wasn’t great going out in a group when he was there and hearing people praise him: “Oh, Dominic, this and that”, when I knew the truth about him; he was a cheat. Sometimes I felt like denouncing him in front of the group but I didn’t want to upset everything. In particular, I don’t know whether Andrea knew about it and I didn’t want to be the one who told her.’ He paused. ‘So that’s it.’ He turned to Maggie. ‘I’m sorry.’ She shook her head and looked away, seemingly not yet ready to forgive him.

Andy was not finished. ‘So did you see an opportunity to get revenge when you were all in Whitby?’

‘I wasn’t there when they were killed. I didn’t get there until the next day.’

‘How do we know you weren’t there? Did you plan things with someone else who had a grievance against Holgate?’

‘And what about Andrea?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe you can tell me?’

At last, Maggie came to Mark’s defence. ‘I think that’s ridiculous, Sergeant! We all saw what happened to Andrea, and Mark wasn’t there. What reason would Mark have to kill her? Are you saying he killed Dominic after Dominic had killed Andrea? Why can’t the police just accept what happened that day? All of us have had to come to terms with it.’

‘It’s not quite so straightforward,’ replied Andy, but he didn’t go into details. ‘Where were you on Wednesday, the day of the murder, and Thursday?’

‘Here at work. I didn’t have any time off. I was going to join them in Whitby for the weekend. They let me have the Friday off in the circumstances and I drove up there.’

‘Okay. Give the address of your workplace to DC Jenkins. We’ll need to check your alibi.’

‘Fine.’

When they left, Andy was pleased to have got to the truth about the plagiarism incident but he wasn’t convinced that there was much mileage in pursuing Garner any further. His story was convincing.

Andy felt dispirited and tired after his very early start. He still seemed to have found out very little for his boss to use and was wondering whether his work in London was at all worthwhile. However, it was at this point that he received a call from Oldroyd telling him about the discovery of Hugh Preston’s body and urging him to continue his investigations.

When DC Hampton returned with his boss, Inspector Granger, to the house where Elaine Pesku rented a room, he hoped that he would not encounter the ‘white goddess’ woman again. There was to be no such luck, as she again answered his knock on the shabby door. She looked exactly the same as he remembered, with her pale face and vacant eyes, peering at him as though the light was too strong. She looked as if she rarely made it out of some dark room, which he imagined to be heavy with the scent of joss sticks and full of outlandish furnishings and ornaments connected to spells and witchcraft.

‘Yes,’ she murmured, and didn’t seem to remember him, although it had only been two days since he was there before.

‘Whitby police. Can we speak to Elaine Pesku, please?’ he asked, presenting his ID.

‘I think she just went out.’

‘How long ago?’

‘Not long, I heard the door.’ She screwed up her eyes and looked closely at Hampton. Was she short-sighted? he wondered. ‘Weren’t you here the other day? I said you wouldn’t get anywhere alone, didn’t I? It’s nearly Halloween; the powers of darkness are strong. Only the white goddess can save you. If you—’

‘Did she say where she was going?’ interrupted Granger. The woman turned her dreamy eyes to Granger as if seeing her for the first time.

‘No, we don’t speak much, but I sense a troubled aura about her.’ Not surprising, thought Hampton as, at the very least, she’s lost her job and maybe she’s involved in something far worse. You didn’t need some kind of special powers to work that out.

‘Do you know anything about her? Where she was before she came here and what she did?’

The woman looked pained and screwed up her face as if remembering things was an effort. ‘She was a student in London. That’s all I know.’

‘Well, thank you, anyway,’ said Granger, and the detectives turned back up the narrow alleyway to the road at the top. As they reached the road, a car went past.

‘Hey, that’s her, ma’am, Pesku,’ called Hampton, pointing at the car. ‘In the passenger seat.’

‘Yes,’ replied Granger, ‘and I got a look at the driver. I think I know who it was. Come on.’

They quickly got into the police car and Granger drove off after the other car at speed. The chase took them back downhill towards the town centre. As they got closer, Granger put on the siren. There was the usual pause before a driver realises the police car is actually following them and wants them to stop. Granger flashed the lights and the car came to a halt just as they reached the harbour. Suddenly, a woman dressed in jeans and a jacket threw open the passenger door and leaped out of the car carrying a bag. She ran up a steep street called Flowergate. It was Elaine Pesku.

‘Quick! After her,’ said Granger, and Hampton got out of the car and started his second chase of the week. Unfortunately, this time the pursued person was already out of view around a sharp bend to the right, and when he turned the corner she was nowhere to be seen. He ran up the cobbled street past a butcher’s shop selling meaty