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

to be wary and not to approach the person, who may be dangerous. So far there were no reports of any sightings. There were also officers watching the bus and train stations.

Hampton was coordinating the search and was in contact with the teams. He was with a small group combing the area around where Pesku had escaped from him and Granger.

‘Any luck?’ asked another DC as Hampton finished a radio call from the team doing street searches.

‘No, and I don’t think they’re going to find her out there in the residential areas. I think she’ll be down here somewhere in the old town. This is the area she knew best as she worked at the escape room and she wasn’t that familiar with Whitby as a whole. She could easily get lost if she strayed from here.’

‘Yeah, I think you’re right. We’ll just have to knock on doors and check possible hiding places until something turns up. Somebody must have seen her.’

At Whitby Police HQ, an animated Granger had news for Oldroyd. ‘I’ve got some revelations about Elaine Pesku. We contacted the Romanian authorities and they had nothing on anyone of that name, but when we sent her photograph through, which we found amongst her things in her room in that house, they recognised her immediately. Her real name is Irina Albesku and she is wanted big time in Bucharest. She was part of a drugs gang and is suspected of being involved in some pretty nasty murders. She fled the country over a year ago and disappeared. The fact that she could come here and successfully take on a new identity with a passport and probably other documents is testimony to the fact that she knew some high-level and clever people in the underworld.’

‘I see,’ said Oldroyd. ‘So she would be capable of using a gun?’

‘Absolutely. But what are you suggesting?’

‘I’m not certain, but surely it’s no accident that someone like that was working at the escape room.’

‘We don’t know for sure that she was involved, do we?’ replied Granger. ‘In fact this discovery could explain why she’s run off and disappeared again. It may be nothing to do with the murders and the escape room; she may have just thought that we’d found out who she was and had come to arrest and deport her.’

‘I suppose so. We’ll have to wait until we find her.’

‘I’ve got Hampton and some other DCs on the job. They’re all local and they’ll find her if anyone can. In the meantime, I’m going to track down where she was at college in London to see if we can find out some more about her time here in Britain. How about you?’

‘Oh, I think I’m going to visit the museum.’

‘This is one of the most unusual museums I know,’ said Oldroyd eagerly as he and Deborah walked across Pannett Park towards the museum building in the half light of the dim afternoon.

‘I’m looking forward to it,’ replied Deborah as she gazed over the still park with the wet grass covered in leaves. ‘It’ll be nice to get inside on a day like this. It’s certainly good weather for Halloween: suitably gloomy and spooky.’

‘The place is an amazing cornucopia of all kinds of things. Wait till you see the Hand of Glory.’

‘The what?’

Oldroyd laughed. ‘You’ll see.’

They reached the museum and art gallery, a simple but handsome neoclassical building erected in the 1920s, went in and bought their tickets from the friendly volunteer on duty. It was such a dark afternoon that the lights were on. Deborah smiled as she looked into the main room, which was packed with glass cases stuffed with exhibits. It was full of the atmosphere of an old museum with all kinds of things bundled together. She could see model ships and a dolls’ house; a shoe collection and fossils. There was a complicated and eccentric machine called the Tempest Prognosticator, invented by a nineteenth-century curator of the museum called George Merryweather. This supposedly detected oncoming storms by means of leeches in bottles of water linked to a bell.

‘Look at this,’ said Oldroyd, leading her to a glass case which contained a withered human hand.

‘Ugh, that’s revolting. Why is that here?’

‘It’s called the Hand of Glory. I think it says this one was found in the wall of a cottage somewhere.’ He read the information board. ‘Yes, that’s right, at Castleton up the river Esk. They used to cut off the hand of a felon who’d been hanged and then make a candle of fat from the same corpse. They believed that if you placed this candle in the hand and lit it, this would render people nearby motionless. Thieves could use this to burgle places and render all the inhabitants helpless while the intruders stole everything they wanted.’

‘What a bizarre and gruesome idea!’

‘Isn’t it? Fascinating though! Look, I’m just going over there to look at the model ships. Why don’t you have a look at the doll collection? I’ll meet you over there. It’s worth a look.’

‘Okay, sounds a bit gender-stereotypical, though,’ said Deborah, laughing as she made her way across the shiny wooden floor past glass cases full of clocks, coins, toys and weapons. She encountered a large totem pole and arrived at a large exhibit case full of dolls. Although she’d had dolls as a child she’d always found displays like this a little disturbing. Like ventriloquists’ dummies with their exaggerated features and loose jaws, there was always that uncomfortable feeling that they could somehow come to life. She looked at them individually and shivered. Some had quite evil-looking expressions with broken teeth and missing eyes. She noticed something at the back of the display case; surely that ugly face was moving! She let out a little cry and Oldroyd stepped out from behind the case, laughing. He’d covered himself in a white dust sheet he’d found in the corner of the room so only his head was visible.