‘Thank you for that, Sergeant. I’m sure Kate is more than a match for any Harvey Weinsteins amongst us.’
Noakes grinned, unabashed by the rebuke.
‘Right, let’s leave the scene of crime boys to it.’
* * *
Outside the flat, the heat seemed to rise up in a shimmering wall.
Noakes wiped his heavily perspiring face. ‘Mebbe Mr J’s got summat cold in his fridge,’ he ventured hopefully.
Kate strode purposefully towards her Mini Metro as her colleagues walked slowly over to the caretaker’s little bungalow.
And behind them, in the airless, sterile little flat where Peter Elford had met his end, white-clad figures moved to and fro like pensive ghosts.
5. The Paths of Glory
‘Well that was a downer an’ no mistake, guv.’
Markham nodded wearily, then shrugged off his jacket and loosened his tie in an unusual break with his customary formality, though Noakes noted beadily that no soup-plate-sized sweat stains marred the DI’s crisp striped shirt. He remembered having a guilty peep at one of Muriel’s shlock horror books from the library (always discreetly hidden beneath the latest Booker Prize winners in case she chanced to encounter anyone from the Women’s Guild). It was all about the Yorkshire Ripper, and a detail that stuck in Noakes’s mind was the fact that one of his mates had said the Ripper didn’t sweat. Even in the height of summer when they were working as gravediggers, Peter Sutcliffe never took off his leather jacket and never seemed to sweat. The writer quoted some trick cyclist who said this was typical of a serial killer. And the guvnor was just the same. So how come, then?
The DI interrupted this bizarre reverie. ‘You did well, Noakesy. Those hysterics came out of nowhere . . .’
Noakes gulped. It was true. Peter Elford’s wife, a brittle hatchet-faced blonde, had appeared to take the news of her ex-husband’s demise (‘suspicious death’) calmly, but then abruptly lost control, screaming and raving like a madwoman. Almost as though she was furious that Elford had escaped having to face the consequences of his deficiencies as a husband and father. Suddenly, the blonde hair had been in her eyes, her thin lips drawn back in a snarl, and her face streaked with saliva and tears.
Apparently not disconcerted in the least by the woman’s transformation from placid Barbie doll to shrieking maenad, Noakes took her in his arms and held her in a bear hug. ‘It’s okay, lass. We know you loved him . . . you jus’ got in a muddle.’ Talking her down from the ledge. ‘Now you’ve gotta be strong for the kids.’
Elford’s boy and girl had arrived not long after, brought home from school by a family liaison officer.
‘They were nice youngsters,’ the DS said sadly. ‘Their dad . . . well . . .’ he pulled an expressive face, ‘he might’ve been an arsehole . . . but he did a good job with those two.’
‘The divorce was ugly alright. But as a family they never had a chance to mend fences.’ Markham’s face hardened. ‘The killer took that away from them.’
His subordinate knew that look. Knew too that it boded ill for someone.
The DI’s office felt stale. Noakes lurched across to the grimy window and tugged irritably, eventually managing to crack it open a few meagre inches. Then he flopped back in his chair.
‘So, what was Elford’s game then, guv? Blackmail?’ The DS’s jowly face creased with perplexity. ‘D’you think he knew who the murderer was yesterday morning when he showed us round the centre?’
Markham thought back to the administrator’s demeanour. ‘No,’ he said finally. ‘I think whatever he found out, he pieced it together later that day.’
‘Stupid bastard must’ve thought he could handle it,’ opined the DS. Having screwed his jacket into a ball on entering the office, he now sat in his shirtsleeves looking for all the world like a superannuated bookie rather than one of CID’s finest. He scratched his bristly chin ruminatively. ‘Thelma an’ Shirley didn’t like Shawcross . . .’
‘Sour grapes, Sergeant.’
‘Mebbe.’ Noakes shook his massive head. ‘God knows, women are hard to make out.’
Not Muriel Noakes, Markham thought wryly. There was no doubting where the balance of power lay in that household.
‘Leo Cartwright knew summat too,’ Noakes persisted. ‘He was dead shifty back there at the school . . . like he knew something . . . something ’bout “Bex”,’ the DS air-quoted sarcastically, ‘but couldn’t decide whether to tell us . . .’
‘Perhaps what’s happened to Mr Elford will help concentrate his mind,’ Markham replied heavily. ‘Secrets can kill.’ It sounded like a warning you’d read on a cigarette packet. The image of a skull and crossbones flashed across the DI’s mind. He was starting to feel light-headed in the stuffy office, a dull headache beginning behind his eyes.
‘Mebbe Elford tried it on wi’ Shawcross an’ she gave him the old heave-ho.’ Noakes spoke with lugubrious relish. ‘Can’t see him reacting well to that.’
‘Or perhaps there was some other kind of history between them.’ Markham’s long slender fingers beat an impatient tattoo on the desk. ‘A patient complaint . . . something that got him into hot water.’ He sighed. ‘We need Kate to check it out discreetly.’
‘Either way, if he was blackmailing the murderer, he decided not to dob them in.’ The DS blew out his cheeks. ‘Must’ve had a reason. Mebbe he hated Shawcross . . .’ inspiration struck him, ‘or had a thing for whoever topped her. Hey, guv — that could mean a woman . . . someone Elford had the hots for . . . someone—’
‘Hold it there, Sergeant.’ Markham raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘It could equally well have been a man.’
That brought a halt to Noakes’s gallop, his discomfiture almost
