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

‘No.’

‘So you didn’t supply him with a knife?’

‘No way!’ Owen denied the accusation vehemently.

‘How long have you worked at that escape room?’

‘Just this season. It’s just a summer job; it was going to shut at the end of this month anyway. There aren’t enough visitors in the winter.’

‘What do you do then?’

Owen shrugged again. ‘Bar work, anything I can find. It’s not easy in a place like this off season.’

‘Have you ever thought about moving to a bigger place like Leeds or Sheffield?’

‘Yeah, but where would I live? You have to earn enough to pay rent.’

And that’s why, like so many young people these days, you’re stuck with your parents, thought Granger.

‘How well did you know Mr Preston, your boss at the Dracula Experience?’

‘I only met him once. He owned a few escape rooms in different towns and moved about a lot.’

‘Your colleague, Elaine Pesku, told us he had an office in Sheffield. Did he tell you that?’

‘No.’

‘Did you know that sarcophagus in the spare room with the exit door was a trick and had two containers which could swivel round?’

‘What? That big thing on the wall?’

‘Yes.’

Owen shook his head. ‘No I didn’t; it sounds a bit freaky.’

‘How long have you known Elaine Pesku?’

‘Just since we started working there in May. I’d never seen her before that.’

‘And you didn’t know anyone in that group involved in the murder?’

‘No, never seen them before.’

Granger sighed. ‘Well, I think that’s all. A word of advice: don’t keep information from the police. It only gets you into deeper trouble.’

Owen nodded without replying and seemed to have reverted to sullenness. Granger left the house without any sense of achievement other than to have eliminated a possibility that had always been unlikely anyway.

Andy’s second call that day was to St Thomas’s, where he began his investigation into Dominic Holgate’s background. When he and Jenkins arrived at the 1960s glass-fronted building in Bloomsbury, they initially found resistance to discussing details concerning a former student, claiming that it would be a breach of confidentiality. The junior person from student records who was called to reception to speak to them eventually conceded that they would need to consult someone in a higher authority when they told her they were involved in a murder enquiry. She asked them to wait as she went upstairs to consult her boss.

‘Stuff confidentiality, Sarge! They’re afraid of something unsavoury about the university getting into the news,’ said Jenkins as they waited.

‘I know; universities and hospitals are getting like private companies, worried about their image.’

The young woman returned. ‘Please come with me,’ she said, and led them up to an office where they were met by a severe-looking man in middle age dressed in a sports jacket and tie. He offered them seats, but no smile. Jenkins was right, thought Andy, they were not welcome.

‘I’m Brian Timmins, Head of Student Records,’ he said without looking at them as he consulted something on his computer screen. ‘I understand you want information about one of our ex-students Dominic Holgate.’

‘That’s right. I don’t know whether you’re aware that he was involved in a murder last week in Whitby and then his body was found in the harbour there a few days later.’

Timmins shot Andy a look of alarm. ‘Good grief! No I wasn’t. I saw that incident reported on the news, but I didn’t make the connection. We have so many students, you understand.’

‘Yes.’

The news seriously disturbed Timmins’s composure. He looked at the screen and then down at the table before continuing. He seemed to be calculating his response and exactly what to say next. ‘That’s terrible, for him and his family, obviously, and not good news for us either,’ he said at last. Jenkins smiled. This was Timmins’s real concern: how it reflected on the university. ‘We’re always very reluctant to discuss former students as I’m sure Anne explained to you: for confidentiality reasons and also because it can lead to some very bad publicity if the press get hold of things and twist them as they often do. You know, things like drug taking, sexual misconduct, students getting drunk and involved in fights.’

‘Yes, I appreciate all that,’ said Andy, ‘but this is a murder enquiry, and we need to ask you about the fact that Holgate was involved in cheating: copying someone else’s work and passing it off as his own.’

‘Plagiarism,’ replied Timmins in a weak voice, and then he coughed. He’d turned pale. Just the kind of thing he doesn’t want all over the papers, thought Jenkins.

‘Yes, well, you’re right. He was involved in malpractice.’ He paused as he read from the screen. ‘Twice, in fact. It was several years ago now. The first was a minor offence: he failed to acknowledge a source and we accepted that that could have been an oversight. The second occasion was more serious. He presented a coursework assignment which was over eighty per cent similar to that presented by another student on the same course. We have software to calculate these things.’

‘That other student was Mark Garner,’ said Andy, consulting the brief he’d been given by Oldroyd.

This fact appeared to surprise Timmins again. ‘You already know that?’

‘Yes, because Garner is another member of the group of friends involved in the events at Whitby.’

‘I see.’ He looked paler still.

Jenkins smiled. This was even worse: two students from the university!

‘What was the outcome of this incident?’

Timmins consulted the screen again. ‘His assignment had to be re-submitted and he could only be awarded the lowest available pass mark. He was given a final warning: any further transgression would have meant expulsion from the course. He was lucky, especially after he tried to blame Garner. He claimed that Garner had copied from him.’

Andy looked up. ‘Really? When we spoke to Garner about this, he said that Holgate had admitted to what he’d done, even apologised.’ He checked what his boss had written in the brief.

‘Not according to these records. Garner had to prove by