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

should have told you what I suspected: that he’d been to the flat and seen that picture and everything. I was going to keep his theft a secret.’ She put her hands up to her face. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. It was just wrong. You should arrest me.’

He laughed. ‘I don’t think that’s necessary. You were trying to correct things in, let’s say, a private manner. You thought you could persuade him to act in the right way. It’s not as if you said, “I know you’ve got that picture, how about giving me some of the spoils?”’

She smiled at this. ‘But why did I think that way? And why didn’t I suspect he was more involved than just stealing the picture?’

‘Because you had feelings for him. It’s well known, isn’t it, that those kinds of emotions can affect our judgment? What’s the old saying: “love is blind”?’

‘I didn’t love him though. I was only . . .’ She stopped and shook her head.

‘You were at the beginning of what could have been a romantic relationship, and at that point there’s often a bit of infatuation going on. You can’t see anything wrong with the person. Thank goodness you didn’t get in any deeper; it would be far worse now. But the feelings you had made you not really want to consider that he might have been responsible for murdering your friends. It was at a subconscious level.’

She sighed and dried her eyes on a tissue. ‘I never even considered it.’

‘No, you wouldn’t. And lots of other people would have been the same in your position so you’re not an idiot. Often it’s far worse when this tendency to overlook becomes downright self-deception. I’ve known people who wouldn’t admit that their partners were criminals, even terrible serial killers, despite the evidence in front of them. It gets to the point where they just ignore what they don’t want to see.’

She nodded. ‘Yeah, I can understand that. At the refuge we used to get women who blamed themselves and wanted to go back to their abuser despite the fact that he’d assaulted them. They made all sorts of excuses for them. It was often to do with their lack of self-worth, but some just didn’t want to believe that the man they cared about could do this to them.’

‘And don’t forget, it was you who made us think about the case again when we were all content to go with the facts as they appeared on the surface. You convinced me to continue to ask questions. We wouldn’t have got to the truth without you.’

‘I just couldn’t believe that Dom would kill her. Something about the whole thing felt strange. Do you remember me saying that?’

‘Yes, when you were very upset on the day it happened and we put it down to shock.’

‘It’s suddenly occurred to me what it was. Dom and Andrea were acting, weren’t they? And even though their performances were very convincing, there was something not quite real about it. It was as if we were watching a play, or a horror film, but without realising it, we were in it too, dressed in those hideous costumes.’ She put her hands to her face. ‘It makes me cringe. And it’s just kept getting worse. There’s been all sorts of weird stuff going through my mind. This Dracula, vampire thing. Ben was like a vampire, wasn’t he? Feeding off Andrea and Dom’s blood. And Andrea wasn’t dead when we thought she was. It was as if she was undead like a vampire herself, but she was about to die when Ben stabbed her in the heart. Then Dom blundered into the next room to get shot. It was as if Dom and Andrea were the stars of a horror film about their own deaths, wasn’t it? It’s terrible.’

‘Yes, but the film is over now and you’re safe. It’s not surprising that your imagination’s got so feverish but things will fade in time.’

Louise picked up her phone from the sofa beside her. ‘Look, I found this.’ She handed the phone to her father. On the screen was the picture of the group, which had been taken by Pesku before they started the game. ‘I keep finding stuff like this. Look at us pretending to be evil. Most of us thought we were having fun, but one person in that picture and the person taking it were evil and were planning murder.’ She shuddered. ‘It freaks me out. It’s going to take a long time to come to terms with it.’

Oldroyd handed the phone back. ‘It will, but you’ll do it. And it’ll take me some time to get over the shock of what nearly happened at that apartment. I’m glad I didn’t know what was going on until it was all over. I was in Whitby and completely powerless. My sergeant did a wonderful job.’

‘Steph? She’s brilliant; so clever and brave. She worked out what might be going on when I was taken in. I should have told her too.’ She shook her head again at her own folly.

‘I’ve trained her to follow her instincts as well as assess the evidence,’ continued Oldroyd. ‘She knew something wasn’t right and she planned accordingly. I’m proud of her.’

‘You should be.’

‘Mind you, I don’t think her partner Andy will be that pleased. I sent him off to London to investigate all your friends and he did a lot of donkey work down there for very little reward apart from finding the picture; then on top of that he missed all the action up here.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Louise faintly. She’d slowly sunk back into lying on the sofa and her eyes were closed.

Oldroyd paused and looked at her, feeling yet again the intense relief of seeing her alive and okay. ‘I won’t stay long, love. I can see you’re exhausted.’

‘I’m not sleeping at night. I get nightmares where he’s got that cord around my neck.’ She shuddered. ‘Thank God Steph was there.’

‘It’s the shock