‘Because of something she knew? Something she kept to herself?’
‘That’s what we need to find out.’
At that moment, Shelly came panting into the room, gaped at Thelma in dismay and herself burst into tears.
‘Loraine didn’t suffer did she, Inspector?’ The office manager was imploring. ‘She was such a kindly soul. The patients loved her.’
‘I think she didn’t have time to be afraid, Thelma.’ Markham hoped to God it was true. Though there must have been that heart-stopping moment when she realized this was the end . . .
‘Shelly,’ he said to the snuffling teenager. ‘I want you to look after Ms Macdonald. Make her a cup of tea, with plenty of sugar. Can you do that for me?’
The girl nodded, and he could tell she was proud of the commission in the midst of her pain. Placing an awkward arm round Thelma, she supported her into the corridor.
* * *
The DI placed a hand on the table to steady himself. It felt as though the incident room was spinning around him.
Eventually the world was the right way up once more.
Three murders. Three.
The words of Noakes’s parting benediction came back to him. ‘When shall we three meet again?’
‘In thunder, lightning, or in rain?’ he whispered hoarsely, completing the quotation as though it were some kind of incantation, as though the souls of those three victims hovered a little way above his head waiting for him to make his next move.
He took a deep breath.
Now he was ready.
9. Backs to the Wall
Later that Thursday afternoon, the team sat closeted in their incident room at the community centre. Noakes’s steak and kidney pie from Greggs sat on the table between them. Kate Burton could have sworn it was curling at the edges. For a wonder, Noakes’s appetite seemed to have vanished. At any rate, it appeared food was the furthest thing from his mind.
‘The look on ’er face.’ He shook his head. ‘Horrible.’
Dimples Davidson had closed Loraine Thornley’s eyes, but their expression had indeed been one of stark terror. As though whatever she saw had seared her eyeballs, as though an indelible image of evil had been imprinted on her retina, never to be erased.
‘Is the press conference still going ahead, sir?’
Markham’s lips were tightly compressed.
‘Yes, Doyle. The DCI wants us to pull out all the stops — PR to reassure the community, that kind of thing.’
‘Reassure the community! Jesus wept!’ Noakes kicked a leg of the conference table by way of venting his frustration. ‘What does he expect us to say? That there’s a serial running around wi’ a syringe!’
‘Look at it from his point of view, Sergeant. This one’s making ripples. And Sidney’ll have the chief constable on his back. Somehow we’ve got to reassure the public.’
‘How’re we supposed to do that, guv?’ Another kick at the table leg. ‘We don’ have the foggiest!’ He raised his hands in a gesture of despair. ‘Professor bleeding Plum in the library wi’ a candlestick!’
Interesting that Noakes too had that sense of a game waiting to be played out.
‘What did you get from Bromgrove General?’ Markham asked wearily.
Kate Burton smartly flipped open her notebook while Noakes and Doyle exchanged meaningful glances.
‘Unresolved personal conflict resulting from child protection disclosures, guv.’ She screwed up her eyes, looking more than ever like a myopic basset hound, thought Markham affectionately.
‘Basically, Shawcross got a fit of the glums after she ruined a nice young fella’s career,’ Noakes translated.
‘It wasn’t quite as simple as that, sir.’ Burton glared at her colleague.
‘Yes, it chuffing well was, guv.’ Noakes scowled back. Clearly the entente cordiale was fraying at the edges. ‘Doctor Smarmy dressed it up wi’ lots of bollocks . . . Electra complex this, an adolescent oppositional disorder that . . . But what it boiled down to is, she was an attention-seeking little bitch who screwed up someone else’s life an’ did a fruit-and-nut number afterwards . . . outa guilt.’
‘Anything helpful down at the council?’ The DI felt it advisable to shelve specific medical diagnoses for the time being.
‘Well, we learned that Phil Carmichael had several brothers and sisters as well as stepsiblings.’
‘Traceable?’
‘Three of them went into medicine, guv.’ Burton consulted her pocketbook. ‘Someone’s going to ring me back later from the General Register Office.’
‘Why’d Loraine Thornley have to die, then?’ Noakes smoothed the candy-striped summer shirt over his ample paunch. ‘Nice harmless woman . . . Never a bad word for anyone by all accounts . . . Even Thelma an’ Shirley had ter admit, she was salt of the earth.’
‘She must have noticed something . . . something which didn’t bother her initially but niggled later . . . something which pointed to the killer . . .’ Burton’s conker bob swung to and fro with the force of her earnestness.
‘Maybe she planned to tackle the killer privately,’ Doyle offered.
‘An’ was bumped off once they twigged she was on to them.’
Markham raked his hair distractedly. Burton felt a sudden mad urge to run her fingers through the dark locks and smooth out the lines which had furrowed deep grooves in the DI’s forehead.
She pulled herself together. Noakes was grinning at her like a mischievous gnome. If he made some sarky comment, she felt she might explode.
Noakes held his peace, though something about the corners of his mouth suggested she hadn’t heard the last of it.
‘Right, where are we at?’ the DI demanded bluntly.
‘Nympho teacher an’ writer on the side,’ Noakes proffered. ‘Got someone sacked when she was a student at Hope. Kept giving blokes the glad eye after that . . . might’ve been into sixth-formers an’ all.’
‘That’s pure speculation, sarge!’ Burton was outraged.
‘I reckon she could’ve been playing silly beggars with Peter Elford.’
Markham recalled
