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

‘As well as can be expected as the saying goes. She’s traumatised, obviously, and confused about herself and how she behaved. It will take some time for her to recover.’

‘She will though, sir. I’m sure. She’s a strong character.’

‘Yes.’

‘Right, I’ll get back to work then, sir,’ said Steph and she got up to leave. Oldroyd got up too. He came around the desk, put his arms around her and gave her a big hug.

‘There, I just had to do that,’ he said. ‘I don’t care how unprofessional it is. This is one occasion when it’s called for.’ He was close to tears again.

‘That’s all right, sir,’ said Steph.

‘I’ve never been so emotional in a case before,’ continued Oldroyd. ‘It all started with DCS Walker telling me how much the force owed me and how grateful he was for all my work. Well, that filled me up, and now I’m saying the same to you: thank you again for what you did. I’ll never forget it.’

‘You’re welcome, sir,’ replied Steph, and she felt tears in her eyes too.

Oldroyd and Deborah sat in the dark early evening in the Harrogate flat, relaxing over a glass of wine. It was cosy in the warm glow of the lamps. As the clocks had gone back, the hours of daylight had reduced and winter was approaching.

‘It’ll be bonfire night soon,’ said Oldroyd. ‘I always enjoy that. Even though it’s recalling an attempted act of terrorism, it’s a happy, colourful celebration. I’ve had enough of vampires, Halloween and gothic spookiness for the time being.’

‘You like bonfire night because there’s always plenty to eat,’ laughed Deborah, who enjoyed teasing her partner. It was one of the things Oldroyd liked about her. ‘Anyway, I had a good time over in Whitby. It was very interesting and relaxing. It’s a pity you had all that work to do. It got in the way a bit for you, didn’t it?’ Her eyes sparkled at him mischievously. And this was another thing: his work had always been an issue for Julia, and she showed little interest in it, whereas Deborah seemed unperturbed about the disruption his duties sometimes caused to their social life. She also seemed to find what he did fascinating.

‘Well, as usual, I got some clues while we were doing things and enjoying ourselves in Whitby.’

‘You do surprise me. Debrief me then. I’m always interested in how you work out the puzzle.’

‘Remember when we were on the boat and I was talking about Dracula?’

‘You were reminding me how, in the book, Dracula arrives in a ship during a storm.’

‘And he leaps on shore in the form of a dog, which nobody realised was the terrible vampire.’

‘Yes?’

‘It just made me think about how things are not always what they seem to be. It was a trick Dracula performed using his supernatural powers and I began to wonder again if there was some kind of trick going on here. It had been at the back of my mind since I discovered that sarcophagus illusion and the more things appeared cut and dried, the more suspicious I became. It turned out the evil lay in the character who seemed the most harmless, who’d apparently done the most to help.

‘I remember you saying that you sometimes had to remind yourself that what was happening in a horror film was only people acting. That confirmed what I was already beginning to think about the whole business in the escape room. Then when I played that trick on you at the museum and you said what if it had gone wrong, it stirred something in my mind. That evening it was Halloween and I heard “Trick or Treat” being called out by kids. I couldn’t stop thinking about that phrase and it kept me awake. But the next morning I was pretty sure I knew what had happened. I remembered that the two dead people were actors and Andy Carter had reported that Holgate enjoyed practical jokes. I realised that they were performing in a trick that went wrong, at least for them. They weren’t aware that there was a second, deadly trick being played out, and that this one was on them.’

‘Hmm. It was an ingenious but evil scheme, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, worthy of a vampire, though there was nothing supernatural about it, just the dark side of human ingenuity.’

‘So, how’s Louise?’ asked Deborah.

‘She’s doing okay I think; still with her mother.’

‘Do you think she’ll come and stay with us for a bit? I’d love to see her.’

‘Maybe. I think she wants to get back to London as soon as she can and start up her life again.’

‘That’s understandable.’

‘Thanks for arranging for her to have those therapy sessions. She took a bit of persuading, but I think she’ll benefit from them.’

‘Good. It will be much better for her in the long run. She went through some very traumatic things and often people bury the pain caused by experiences like that. PTSD therapy can help a lot.’

‘I’m not sure the sense of betrayal she feels isn’t worse than the shock of being attacked.’

‘It probably is . . . and the two go together, don’t they? Someone she cared for tried to take her life after killing two of their mutual friends. She’s bereaved of those friends and, in another sense, of the man who tried to kill her. He was also her friend and maybe more. It’s much worse than being attacked by some random person in the street.’ She shook her head. ‘There’s a lot of difficult stuff to work through and I’m glad Denise is helping her. She’s a very experienced practitioner, but it will take time.’

Oldroyd took a sip of wine. ‘What do you make of Ben Morton and his motivation? Alice Granger told me he compared himself to Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. He needed the money so that his genius could flourish. It’s an extraordinary justification for what he did. Unlike Raskolnikov, he doesn’t appear to have felt any guilt.’

Deborah