It was raining heavily now, the privet hedge just visible through the waiting-room window drooping dankly as though it shared his despondent mood. Welcome to the Great British Summer.
Around him the community centre was eerily quiet. It was a modern but not particularly inspiring cinder-block complex that housed the surgery, local library and a sixth-form study annexe for students of Hope Academy.
This was the dead time, he thought, yawning as he looked at his watch and wondered what the hell was keeping Doctor Neil Troughton. Quarter past five. Weren’t appointments meant to be bloody ten minutes these days? So, was the previous patient yakking on? Or was the good doctor catching up on his admin? Either way, Noakes was getting restless at the hold-up.
The little receptionist seemed to have disappeared. He shifted uncomfortably on the trendy modular seating, which was hopelessly unsuited to a man of his girth.
Time for another shufti at the in-house entertainment. Oh, chuffing hell. Now it was, You and your prostate.
He couldn’t face any more of the triple bill. Might as well get a coffee from that machine in the corridor. Bound to taste like gnat’s piss but it would pass the time . . .
Noakes got to his feet then froze.
What was that?
Sounded like a scream followed by pounding footsteps.
He waited.
‘Mr Noakes?’ The girl from the front desk was back. White-faced and barely able to speak, she looked as though she was in shock.
For a big man, Noakes could move surprisingly fast.
‘Here, luv. What’s up?’ He manoeuvred himself behind the counter and pressed her gently into a chair.
‘There’s a body in the refrigerator,’ she stammered eventually.
Refrigerator? ‘Where would that be then?’
‘The minor ops treatment room.’
‘Can you show me, luv?’
She nodded vigorously, lank blonde ponytail swinging with the force of her agitation.
They passed through double doors and along a corridor to the rear of the building where the receptionist halted in front of another door.
‘C’mon, luv. Don’t be afraid,’ Noakes urged gently.
The stainless-steel refrigerator stood at the far end of the room, its lid flipped open and yawning in front of him.
‘I can’t look again, Mr Noakes.’
‘That’s alright . . .’ Noakes squinted at her name badge, ‘Shelly.’ He patted her arm reassuringly. ‘You jus’ stand here an’ be look-out.’
* * *
The sleeping and the dead are but as pictures.
The boss’s words came to Noakes as he looked down at a woman’s slim body concertinaed into the narrow space, turned on its side, long dark hair obscuring the face.
Somehow, with an ineffable weight of sadness, the DS knew instinctively that she was beautiful.
Voices at the door.
Shelly’s voice. ‘It’s Doctor Troughton, Sergeant.’
Noakes waved him over.
Neil Troughton looked calmly at the recumbent figure.
‘Can you identify her, sir?’
‘Yes,’ the other replied impassively. ‘It’s one of our patients. Rebecca Shawcross.’
1. And So It Begins
Gilbert Markham sat on ‘his’ bench round the back of Bromgrove Police Station, savouring a few brief moments’ peace. It was shortly after 6 a.m. on Tuesday and he was soon to be plunged into the hurly-burly of a new investigation. A fine drizzle softened the outlines of St Chad’s cemetery and deepened the lush green hues of neighbouring Hollingrove Park, lending them a gentle beauty which charmed the eye and soothed the soul of the young DI.
His eyes wandering to the parish church’s ancient tombs, he recited a silent prayer for Rebecca Shawcross. As a lapsed Catholic, the dead woman’s final destiny remained veiled in mystery, but he knew for certain there would be no rest for him until her killer was brought to justice.
Reluctantly, he dragged his thoughts back to the impending murder enquiry. What did he know of Bromgrove Community Centre? Architecturally undistinguished. A sort of one-stop shop for various community services.
His mouth quirked as he recalled George Noakes’s ill-concealed relief at the cancellation of his annual check-up after the previous day’s dramatic discovery. The old devil had been sporting a startling tweed ensemble that — taken with his florid complexion and overflowing gut — had given him the look of a down-at-heel gamekeeper, so presumably Muriel had issued some sort of fatwa against his usual garb. Most of the time, she wisely averted her eyes, but a visit to the local GP meant family pride was at stake. Markham wasn’t sure that her intervention on this occasion had resulted in a significant improvement. Noakes’s appearance invariably raised DCI Sidney’s blood pressure (‘For God’s sake, Markham, the man’s a disgrace. Looks like Worzel Gummidge and offensive to boot’), but luckily Slimy Sid was on an away-day and hopefully wouldn’t clap eyes on the DS till much later.
Markham knew his insistence on keeping Noakes around as his number two had done him no favours with the top brass, but somehow he didn’t care. That the DS had no filter was part of his appeal. In a world of palm-greasing and PC virtue signalling, integrity ran through George Noakes like a stick of rock. He also had an unexpected gift for empathy and kindness, something in his unvarnished authenticity touching a chord with tongue-tied teenagers and truculent old-time criminals alike. Markham had long since detected Noakes’s susceptibility to the charms of his willowy teacher girlfriend Olivia, which manifested itself in a sort of chivalrous devotion that was as funny as it was touching. Mrs Noakes, needless to say, regarded these troubadour tendencies with a distinctly jaundiced eye, but Noakes proved unexpectedly stubborn in his allegiance to Olivia. ‘She’s good for the guvnor’ was his stolid response to any acid asides about ‘highly strung types’.
Olivia, in turn, had taken to Noakes in a big way. Neither she nor Markham had ever been able to fathom his fierce loyalty to the snobbish, bossy Muriel, but they knew the couple was rock solid for all
