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

and incomprehension. ‘Did that just happen? He’s killed her! What the hell is going on?’

The three remaining members of the group huddled together in the cramped reception area of the escape room. They had moved beyond words to a stunned silence. Louise was shivering with the shock and Elaine had given her a coat to put across her shoulders. She looked at her friends; their costumes now appeared forlorn and pathetic. The building was full of people in uniform, radios crackling, talking in ordinary voices. The artificially created sinister atmosphere of the rooms had been destroyed to be replaced by the brutal reality of actual horror.

Andrea’s body had been removed by the ambulance people who confirmed that she was dead. SOCOs had taken photographs and blue-and-white incident tape ringed the spot where she’d been stabbed. Uniformed police were mounting guard here and at the entrance while detectives were beginning the investigation.

A young DC from the Whitby station came over and spoke to them kindly. ‘I’m DC Hampton. I’m sorry about what’s happened to your friend. We’ll need you all to come to the station to make a statement, but can you just tell me the outline of what happened?’

The three friends looked at each other and Louise turned reluctantly to the officer. ‘The five of us came to do this escape room puzzle. Dominic and Andrea were arguing and it seemed to get more heated. We hadn’t been in the second room for very long when they started screaming at each other. Then Dominic lunged at her and stabbed her. He shouted something out like “Oh God!” and ran out of the emergency exit door. We all saw the knife in her chest and the blood on her dress. There was some blood already on her dress but that was fake; it was part of her costume.’ She paused for a moment, briefly overwhelmed by the horror of it. ‘I came back here to alert Elaine and she rang 999. Ben did his best to look after Andrea and Maggie followed Dominic out but he wasn’t there. Then we just waited until people came. We knew she was dead.’ Her voice broke a little. ‘That’s about it, isn’t it?’

The others nodded.

‘Have they been together for a while?’ DC Hampton asked.

‘Over a year now.’

‘And has he been violent towards her before?’

The group glanced at each other.

‘Not that any of us have seen, I think,’ said Ben, still looking at the other two for confirmation. ‘But they did argue a lot and it got very intense sometimes.’

‘I see. But never physical?’

‘No.’

‘Did you all witness the attack?’

‘Yes,’ said Maggie. ‘We were all in that room working on the clues. They started shouting at each other, and then he got the knife out and stabbed her. We all saw the knife in her chest; it was horrible.’ She put her hands up to cover her face.

‘And he went out of the emergency exit?’

‘Yes,’ continued Maggie. ‘As Louise said, I followed him. There’s a sort of storage room and another door onto the street, which was open. I had a look outside but there was no sign of him.’

‘Okay, that’s all for now. I don’t see any reason to keep you here. My superior, Inspector Granger, will be investigating the case. She will no doubt want to interview you early tomorrow so you need to provide an address and you mustn’t leave the town. We’ll go to the station so you can make official statements. It shouldn’t take long. I’m sorry to say that what happened seems to be fairly straightforward. I know it’s a terrible shock.’

‘Will you find him?’ asked Maggie.

‘We’ll do our best. He’s the clear murder suspect so we’ll be pulling out all the stops to track him down.’

Louise recoiled at the phrase ‘murder suspect’. It was appalling and unreal.

While Hampton was talking to the three remaining friends, Elaine Pesku, the supervisor, and Philip Owen, the Dracula actor, were talking in a little room behind reception. Owen seemed very jumpy. He was taking long drafts from an e-cigarette and the fragrant smoke was billowing out into the room.

‘Crap! I can’t believe this has happened! Everybody has fun here; we’ve had no trouble and then some nutter stabs his girlfriend in the middle of the game. Why did he do it here? What the hell are the police going to think?’

Elaine was sitting behind a small desk. She was calm.

‘What’s your problem?’ she asked in her East European accent. This was genuine and not faked for the game. ‘It’s got nothing to do with us. It’s not our fault.’ She coughed. ‘Can’t you stop using that in here?’

Owen said nothing but put the e-cigarette into his pocket. ‘I don’t like the police being around.’

‘Why?’

‘Never you mind, I’ve got my reasons.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose we’re going to have to shut for a bit now. I need the money from this job. I—’

At that moment Hampton came into the room. Owen frowned at the young DC.

‘Okay,’ said Hampton. ‘I just need your account of what happened, please.’

Elaine looked at him suspiciously. ‘Everything was going fine. I am watching on the monitor. I go to the toilet and when I get back there is screaming and shouting. I think someone has been taken ill or there is an accident. One of the group came running to the desk and said to call for an ambulance as someone is badly hurt, so I did and then I went through to see what had happened. But it was too late.’

‘Did you have any idea that anything like this was going to happen? Were there any rows or threatening behaviour?’

‘No, nothing.’

‘And how about you, sir?’

Owen swallowed and looked as if it was a struggle to speak. ‘I was doing my job, which is to follow them through the rooms and scare them a bit. Suddenly I heard the shouting and one of them, a woman, came running out of the