The Whitby Murders (A Yorkshire Murder Mystery) J. Ellis (distant reading TXT) 📖

the countryside of Esk Dale pass by. Then he would have to get back to London, try to forget what had happened in Whitby and focus on his affairs in the capital. There were some important things he needed to do. He’d been struggling to get by on his part-time teaching contract for some time. The pay rate was poor and his art sales had been disappointing recently. It was so competitive in London to get any gallery space and what you had to pay often cancelled out any earnings from sales. Now he had thought of a way to do things differently. His phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and frowned.

He answered the phone. ‘Hi . . . Is everything okay? Yes, don’t worry, it’s all fine . . . I’m on the train – I’ll call you when I get to Manchester . . . It’ll be several hours . . . Yes, okay – speak to you later.’

He ended the call, shook his head and returned to looking out at the countryside. After a while he nodded off and only woke when the train arrived in Middlesbrough.

It was late at the end of another long day when Oldroyd, Steph and Louise arrived back in Harrogate. Leaving Louise in the car where she was dozing, Oldroyd and Steph went into HQ and found Andy in the office.

‘Okay, Andy, make a cup of tea, will you? It’s been a long drive. Perhaps we might even be allowed a biscuit.’ He turned to Steph with a questioning look. Steph had the key to the cupboard where the biscuits were kept, and she doled them out sparingly.

‘Just one,’ she said with a smile.

‘How have things been over here?’ asked Oldroyd as Andy put on the electric kettle.

‘Fine, sir. Fairly quiet, luckily. I’ve checked in on DCS Walker a couple of times and he’s happy.’

‘Good.’ As they drank their tea, Oldroyd explained his plan to Andy. ‘Steph thinks the case is over,’ he said, nodding towards her. ‘Holgate’s dead, apparently suicide. All the evidence points to him being the murderer. But I’m not sure we have the full story about what happened and the people most likely to lead us to further insights are the other members of that group, including the ones who weren’t actually in the escape room that day. They’re not the only suspects, but they are the people who knew Holgate and Barnes and may have had motives to commit murder. I know it’s a long shot, but I want you to go down to London and investigate them. There have only been very cursory enquiries into them so far and I’m sure your old mates at the Met will give you a hand. Find out anything you can about their pasts and their lives in London going back to their student days and even before. We’ve all seen many times how often the answer to a mystery lies in the past. Sometimes the distant past.’

Andy had sat quietly listening. Now he looked at Steph and took in a deep breath. ‘Sir, I’m sorry to have to say this, but your daughter Louise is part of that group. Have you got good grounds for eliminating her from any suspicion?’

Steph flinched as she saw how this hit Oldroyd hard. It was very bold of Andy to ask the question. Oldroyd also took a deep breath before replying.

‘The honest answer is no. I haven’t got any information that completely exonerates her so she’s not eliminated. If there was some plot going on I’m unable to say for sure that she wasn’t part of it.’ He was speaking very slowly as if it was a real effort to get the words out. ‘On the other hand, I don’t regard her as a likely suspect, mainly because if she was involved, I don’t think she would have been keen for me to help to solve the case.’ He sounded as if he was carefully reassuring himself. There was silence for a moment and then he turned to Andy. ‘That was brave of you. Well done. It had to be said.’

‘Sorry if it came out a bit abrupt, sir. It wasn’t easy.’

‘Don’t apologise.’ He smiled. ‘That’s the way I’ve taught you: don’t defer to authority in matters like that. You’re actually doing me a favour in case anybody ever accuses me of protecting her. It’ll be on record that I’m not and she will be on the list of people who need to be looked into, though she’s staying in Leeds at the moment and won’t be in London. So I’ll be asking Steph to keep an eye on her.’

‘Okay, sir,’ Andy said.

Oldroyd sighed and looked relieved. ‘Where are those biscuits? I think I deserve another in the circumstances.’

‘Very well, sir,’ said Steph, laughing.

Oldroyd continued as he munched a ginger biscuit. ‘You’ve still got some work to do,’ he said to Steph. ‘Though be careful it doesn’t take up too much of your time. You’re back here now and working for this station, so any work on cases here must come first, but try to get to Leeds and investigate Withington’s past. What kind of a jeweller’s shop did he have? And find out what happened to make him scarper over to Whitby. Make sure you report your findings to Inspector Granger as well as to me. And the same goes for you, Andy.’

‘That’s fine, sir,’ said Steph. ‘If I get here early in the morning I can leave early and do some investigating on my way home.’

‘Good. Well, it might turn out to be a wild goose chase, but at least we’ll know we were thorough.’

Oldroyd had a final word with Steph before he left. ‘As I said, I also want you to watch over Louise. Check that she’s okay, and also ask her some more about her activities and relationships with the group.’ He paused. The next thing was hard to say. ‘If at any time you have any grounds for suspecting she may have been involved