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

We get on really well. She told me she’s interested in Ben, the one who tried to save Andrea the victim after she’d been stabbed. She’s been worried about him, so that will have added to the stress. By the way, don’t mention any of that to the boss. She hasn’t said anything to him and the relationship hasn’t really got going yet.’

‘I won’t. Anyway, Jason’s coming back and we’ll be off. Have a good evening. Love you.’

‘Love you, too.’

While Andy and Jason were enjoying their rather sedate evening out, Louise was meeting up with some of her old sixth-form college friends in Leeds. Cynthia, Aisha and Claudia had all come back to the Leeds area after university. They were in one of their favourite haunts from the old days: The Fox and Goose pub near the university and their old sixth-form college.

Although they were glad to be meeting up again, it was a somewhat sombre occasion due to what had happened to their friend Andrea.

‘I still can’t believe she’s gone,’ said Claudia. ‘And you were there when it happened. My God, Louise, it must have been terrible.’

‘It was,’ replied Louise. ‘It’s still difficult to get the images out of my mind.’

‘Ugh!’ Cynthia turned her head away at the idea. ‘How are you coping?’

‘Okay up to a point. I’m staying with my mum, and Dad has arranged for this lovely police sergeant to check on me. She’s really friendly and understanding.’

‘That’s nice.’

‘She was always such a lively person,’ said Aisha, getting back to Andrea. ‘Do you remember she was in all the plays? She was so good – no wonder she got into drama school. It’s so tragic. She could have had a future in acting. Who knows? She could have been famous. What was she up to down there, did you see much of her?’

‘Yes, now and again,’ replied Louise. ‘She was in this little women’s theatre group. They performed in small venues all over the place. She loved it, though it didn’t pay much. We had this group of friends, I don’t know whether it will survive all this, and she and Dominic were part of it. He was keen on acting too.’ A sudden spasm of grief went through her. ‘I still don’t believe he could have killed her. They seemed made for each other.’ Her eyes filled with tears and Aisha passed her a tissue.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Claudia. ‘It must be awful. It was bad enough seeing her die, but her boyfriend stabbing her? I can’t imagine what it must have been like.’

‘It seems unreal, doesn’t it?’ added Cynthia.

Louise looked up. She thought for a moment with a furrowed brow.

‘And she’d just inherited that gorgeous flat from her aunt. That would have helped her financially,’ continued Cynthia.

‘Oh, I wanted to ask you about that,’ said Louise, coming out of her reverie. ‘There’s a bit of a mystery about a picture that’s missing from the hall. It’s probably not important . . . but did any of you ever visit her in that flat?’

They all shook their heads except Aisha. ‘I went round a few times but I couldn’t tell you anything about the paintings except there were a lot of them. It was a brilliant collection, like going round a gallery. One time I bumped into her in the market and she asked me to the flat. She said she was just on a flying visit. It was a lovely flat; her aunt had wonderful taste. There was someone just leaving the flat as I arrived. There wasn’t time for her to introduce me but when we got inside she said it was a friend of hers from London and they’d admired the paintings too. I wondered if that person was an art dealer and she was going to sell some of them. I know she needed the money.’

‘You see, one of those paintings is missing,’ said Louise. ‘My dad noticed there was a space on the wall. I’ve been to the flat plenty of times, but there’s no way I could remember that particular painting.’

‘Well, maybe she did sell one?’

‘I don’t know. She was very attached to all her aunt’s stuff. I don’t think she would. Her cleaner, who’s also my mum’s cleaner, noticed this picture was missing too, but she seemed to think it only disappeared after Andrea had . . . died.’ The last word was a struggle to get out.

‘Look,’ said Claudia, ‘forget it, it’s not important. This is what happens when you have a shock or a lot of stress – some trivial thing gets blown out of proportion and you can’t deal with it or get it out of your mind. You need to leave it to your dad and the other detectives to sort everything out. It’s their job.’

Louise smiled. ‘You’re right. Let’s change the subject, shall we? Who wants another drink? It’s my round.’ She went to the bar feeling much better for the support of her friends. However, things had been said that had set her thinking again.

Early next morning in Whitby a group of kids on their way to school were playing on a stretch of waste ground near a builder’s yard on the edge of an industrial park. There was a large, old, rusty skip full of various kinds of rubbish ready to be taken to the landfill site. Their parents had told these children to keep away from things like this as they could be dangerous. That made it more exciting. Their favourite game was climbing up the step overhanging the sides of the skip and walking over the rubbish.

A boy and a girl had made it onto the top and another boy was climbing up when there was a screech of metal tearing and the side of the old skip where he was ascending gave way. The boy fell to the ground, followed by lots of the rubbish from the skip. His friends heard him cry out.

‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah.’

The others laughed.