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

same blood in her mouth, which she crushed with her teeth. She got the blood from a joke shop for use on her Dracula’s bride costume but she also poured some into these capsules which she’d emptied of stomach medicine. The blood seemed to flow out of her mouth. You rushed across to help her while Dominic ran out of the room. While the attention was on him you stabbed her in the chest with a real knife and hid the false one. Both knives looked very similar.’

Morton laughed. ‘She said “Has he gone out?” I didn’t reply. While Maggie was in the other room I covered Andrea’s mouth hard with my hand and sunk the knife in. Then I pulled the empty capsules out of her mouth and wiped away all the fake blood. The only blood left on her mouth was hers. I pulled out the empty bag from inside her dress. It didn’t matter that there was fake blood mixed with her own on the costume because that was meant to look bloody. She really had been stabbed to death. It was so neatly done. I’d checked where all the CCTV cameras were positioned, and I knew the real stabbing would not be captured on film.’ His eyes sparkled at the memory.

Oldroyd was appalled at the pride and relish with which Morton was describing his calculated murder of Andrea Barnes.

Ben continued. ‘The plan was for Dominic to briefly hide inside the sarcophagus. Then he would burst out when Andrea came back to life to general relief and then to applause and hilarity. The perfect gothic trick: an extension of the escape room game we were playing. Elaine’s role was to assist with this trick. She had rushed round from reception into the storage room which contained the sarcophagus. She was waiting behind the door and her job was to block it with a packing case when Dominic had come through. This would give them time for the next stage. Elaine was to help him into the sarcophagus, shut the lid and then get back quickly to reception.’

‘But she didn’t do that, did she?’ asked Oldroyd.

‘No, she blocked the door and got him into the sarcophagus all right, but then she shot him in the side of the head with the silenced pistol, closed the lid and turned the sarcophagus round. Dominic had no idea that the thing rotated, and he never found out. It was a marvellous trick within a trick and it worked perfectly. There was too much commotion in the room where we were for anybody to hear the thud of the silencer. She did it all very efficiently; she was no victim. She had already got Andrea’s phone out of her bag while we were still in the first room and deleted any texts between us that might be incriminating.’

Oldroyd saw where this was going and intervened. ‘So when Maggie finally pushed through the door, Dominic was nowhere to be seen. And you were nearly home and dry.’

Morton suddenly turned angry. ‘The plan would have worked if you hadn’t come over. You and that bloody daughter of yours. I tried to arrange the escape room for a time before she got to Whitby. I knew she would be trouble and there was the added threat that you might get involved: Daddy, the great detective. But she turned up in time to take part. Bloody bitch!’

Red-faced, Oldroyd got up from his chair and had to be restrained by Granger. After a moment he sat down again, struggling to control his feelings. Granger carried on the interrogation.

‘So you played the part of the caring friend who tried to save the victim’s life while administering the death blow, at the same time as your accomplice murdered the poor woman’s partner. Are you proud of that?’

Morton shrugged again. He’d returned to a sullen silence.

‘You must have been pleased that part one of the scheme had worked so well. Part two involved creating the fiction that Holgate was still alive, but in a deranged state. Was that what all that stuff with the text messages and meeting in the churchyard was about?’

Again Morton warmed to the opportunity to talk about his plans. ‘I’d already planted the gun holster in Dominic’s room. We returned to the escape room in the night and removed his body from the sarcophagus. There was tape across the door into the side street, but we carefully removed it and then replaced it when we left. We left the body in the back of the car. Elaine had taken Dominic’s phone so we were able to send the texts to his friends. Elaine impersonated him at the church yard. She’s tall, it was dark and she kept her distance. I shouted out when we arrived to warn her we were there. She left Dominic’s watch to prove it was him and all that garlic stuff was meant to confuse everybody and suggest that Dominic was mad.’

‘So what happened when you staged the suicide?’ asked Oldroyd, who had recovered some composure. He was relieved that Morton was not only putting up no defence, but seemed eager to tell them all about what he’d done.

‘It was easy. Elaine dressed as Dominic again and conducted that scene at the pub, firing the gun and causing mayhem. It created the impression that he’d lost his sanity. She ran down the alley into darkness by the harbour where I was waiting with a change of clothes. She fired the gun again and we hid behind one of the buildings. She took off the mask, cape, hood and black trousers and put on a skirt and coat. Then we carefully made our way back to Church Street and mingled with the crowd. I even walked back to the pub to see what people were saying about what had happened.’

‘And you dumped Holgate’s body into the harbour?’

‘Yes, we’d already got his body out of the escape room and into the boot of my