CATHERINE
MOLONEY

1

Runners and Riders

The morning of Sunday April 16 found DI Gilbert (‘Gil’) Markham sitting on his favourite bench in the old-fashioned, tranquil graveyard of St Chad’s Parish Church round the back of Bromgrove Police Station. With a view across to leafy Hollingrove Park and a gentle breeze caressing the back of his neck, it seemed to him that everything spoke of the miracle of new life even as he contemplated the moss-covered monuments and headstones slumbering in the dappled shade of yews and elms.

  His was a lean, high-cheekboned, almost gaunt face, topped with thick black hair just beginning to show silver at the temples. The aquiline features customarily wore an expression of thoughtful reserve – almost hauteur – leading to his station nickname of ‘Lord Snooty’. But away from CID, lost in contemplation, his keen dark gaze turned inwards as he recalled the discovery of Andrew Coxley’s corpse the previous day….

  ‘Quite the joker, this one,’ the pathologist Doug ‘Dimples’ Davidson said with a moue of distaste. The bluff, tweedy medic, who looked more like a country vet or farmer than a police surgeon, fastidiously removed the scissors protruding from Andrew Coxley’s neck before pronouncing, ‘No mystery about cause of death. Penetrating neck trauma which severed the carotid…. CNS shut down…. all over very quickly.’

  ‘Time of death?’ Markham pressed him.

  ‘Rigor’s fully established…. Judging from that and by the look of him, I’d say some time between nine and midnight but don’t quote me on that. I’ll know more once I’ve had a rummage.’

  Had a rummage! The medic’s bleak insouciance was distinctly reminiscent of Dr Max DeBryn from Inspector Morse. Actually, he wouldn’t have been surprised if Dimples wasn’t deliberately modelling himself on that old curmudgeon. 

  ‘Too early for runners and riders, I suppose?’ the other asked in another echo of TV’s most popular sawbones.

  ‘’Fraid so,’ the DI replied. ‘But I believe the salon’s quite a local institution.’

  ‘Yes, I believe my wife’s come in here for, er, whatever….’

  Markham suppressed a smile in the face of Davidson’s obvious mystification. But the other recovered his aplomb, resorting to poetry.

  ‘Th' inferior priestess, at her altar's side,

  Trembling, begins the sacred rites of pride,’ he quoted with sarcastic emphasis.

  ‘Ah, The Rape of the Lock, very apposite.’

  Dimples sighed. ‘I never can catch you out, Inspector. Well, I’ll get him moved now.’ With a note of anger, he added, ‘That get-up on his head…. downright nasty. See you catch this one, Markham.’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  But as the paramedics moved in, Markham felt a pang of self-doubt. What on earth was going on here? A hairdresser murdered in his own salon and posed in such a grotesque fashion….. what had the man done to inspire such malevolence?

  Now, as a burst of birdsong recalled him to the present, he said a swift prayer for Andrew Coxley’s soul and vowed to make good on his promise to Dimples.

  In addition to recalling the call-out, it was a ritual on such occasions for Markham to take stock and contemplate the merits of his team, reminding himself of the quirks and idiosyncrasies of that tight little unit known (with more than a hint of jealousy) as ‘Markham’s Gang’.*

  His fellow DI Kate Burton plus the two sergeants Doyle and Carruthers.

  Not forgetting his oldest friend and ally ex-DS George Noakes.

  Noakes.

  Markham’s naturally austere features softened as he thought of that perennial thorn in the flesh of DCI Sidney (‘Slimy Sid’ to the troops) and Bromgrove Station’s high command.

  These days, the powers that be seemed more or less resigned to Markham’s former bagman being a fixture around CID, even after collecting his carriage clock. Despite taking up the position of security manager at Rosemount Retirement Home, Noakes still ‘had his fingers in every pie’, as Doyle inelegantly but accurately put it.

  But with DCI Sidney’s own retirement now on the horizon and Superintendent Ebury-Clarke in the ascendant, it was by no means certain that Noakes’s gleeful “infiltration” of his old stamping ground would be allowed to continue. Ebury-Clarke, a virtuoso when it came to bearing grudges, had never forgotten Noakes’s heckling when the superintendent addressed Bromgrove’s Police Benevolent Fund, none so adroit as Markham’s former sergeant when it came to sabotaging the great moments in life:

  Ebury-Clarke: ‘I am conscious…’ (Could’ve fooled me!)

  Ebury-Clarke: ‘That I’ve been done…’ (Too right!)

  Ebury-Clarke: ‘A great honour.’ (Is that what you call it!)

  From there, it was all downhill, Ebury-Clarke becoming so unnerved by Noakes’s mischievous “noises off” that he crowned his peroration by saying ‘he prided himself on being a policeman who had the courage of his previous convictions’ (to the unmitigated delight of many in the junior ranks). This line (or was it a Freudian slip?) brought the house down, though not in the way that the superintendent had intended. Certainly, he had never forgiven Noakes. Nor was Mrs Ebury-Clarke, a decidedly rotund lady, likely to forget Noakes’s description of her as being ‘the only woman who could fill this hall’. ‘She’s committee mad,’ he had groused to Markham when the latter reproached him for his lack of tact. ‘Very big on local literacy initiatives, though,’ the DI pointed out. ‘Oh aye, the type who wants to publish a book called Teach Yourself Reading, the daft bint,’ came the blunt rejoinder.

  No, there was definitely no love lost on that front and Markham knew he was going to have to box clever to keep Noakes in his unique position as “civilian consultant”.

  His partner Olivia Mullen, teacher of English at Hope Academy (aka as ‘Hopeless’) and de facto member of ‘the Gang’, adored Noakes, being the only one, other than his wife, to call him ‘George’ and revelling in what, as an ardent ballet fan, she termed his ‘faux pas de deux’. On occasion, he had the capacity to extend this into an entire conversation, out-blarneying his opponent. The barbed verbal wit, or one-upmanship, delighted Olivia, since she shared the same subversive instincts, regularly getting on the wrong side of her school’s senior management team for her outspokenness. Never had the maxim “Opposites Attract” been more bewilderingly apparent than in the conspiratorial affinity between Markham’s former DS and his highly strung, quixotic other half. Never had he seen her more delighted than when regaling his friend with a recent sick note from one of her parents: ‘I kept Joe home as I am very tired because I have been under the doctor all this week.’ The two of them were regularly in hysterics over the utter ludicrousness of pronouncements by Ofsted and other discredited institutions, relishing anything that exposed pretentiousness and pomposity. When Noakes performed verbal atrocities and unleashed insults that made Markham’s eyes water, she only laughed the harder.

  His friend’s Yorkshire make-up was composed of a genial yet unshakeable view of races and characteristics which led him to regard everyone outside that county with a cheerful irreverence that in no way detracted from his essential humanity and that Markham found a refreshing antidote to the achingly PC strictures that poured out of the station’s HR department. It appeared to him that Noakes’s casual xenophobia was somehow far more honest and authentic than all the nicey-nicey carefully curated pronouncements of a police force which seemed increasingly out of step with the concerns of ordinary people. And if there was one thing that Noakes understood, it was what he called (with a nod to his Methodist Sunday School antecedents), ‘ornery sinners’. Still, the Noakesian philosophy was definitely an acquired taste, he thought ruefully, recalling Noakes’s infamous retirement speech – de rigueur, or ‘de rigueur mortis’ as DI Chris Carstairs wittily dubbed it – which had long since passed into legend as a valediction that managed to insult virtually every senior officer in the upper echelons. He suspected that it would be long, very long, before DCI O’Rourke forgot that jovial banter about the Irish Parliament being known as ‘the dole’ and their PM being called ‘tea shop’…. though in fairness, as Doyle was quick to point out, Noakes was cheerfully insulting about the Scots too, having caused mortal offence to DI McNabb with his denunciation of ‘bogpipes’ and sly allusions to folk sowing their wild porridge.

  Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Markham spotted Reverend Duthie’s wife slinking round the left-hand side of the church. It was obvious she had seen him but preferred to maintain “custody of the eyes” in case that appallingly uncouth ex-sergeant was with him. Markham grinned at the recollection of Noakes holding forth to the vicar’s wife about ‘the epistle to the fallopians’. He guessed Noakes just hadn’t been able to resist riling one of those he called ‘happy-clappy ecumaniacs’ or ‘holy harridans’ – a tribe who, in his books, were definitely fair game.

  Making sure Mrs Duthie was out of sight, Markham got up and wandered along the terraces, stopping now and again to read poignant inscriptions and testimonials to the late lamented.

  But his mind was still running on Noakes, his best friend and ally, the man whom he found he could not do without but who was utter anathema to his superiors.

  Returning to his bench, he looked across at St Chad’s cenotaph. In doing so, he mused that his friend’s unique patois to some degree derived from his background as an ex-serviceman, with gags, punchlines and a gung-ho indomitability that came straight from the parade ground. It was a unique culture that the likes of Doyle and Carruthers regarded with amused tolerance but did not remotely understand and an inheritance that the higher ranks regarded as embarrassing luggage to be discarded on their travels to the top of the greasy pole. Olivia’s marked partiality for Noakesy’s army jokes and anecdotes no doubt contributed to her reputation for “eccentricity”, a trait which DCI Sidney and Mrs Muriel Noakes invariably referred to in terms that suggested they considered Olivia (‘your lady friend’, as Sidney called her with leery emphasis) ripe for psychiatric intervention.

  He smiled as he recalled an army joke that had particularly tickled her fancy (his too). It concerned a weary group of army squaddies trudging around the square and saluting by numbers, when a doom-laden voice, with touching pathos, moaned: ‘O death, where is thy sting?’ The immediate response from the apoplectic drill-sergeant was, ‘Oo said that?’ An even wearier voice responded, ‘No idea, sarge, but I think it was Shelley.’ Next day, on Part-One orders came the announcement: ‘Private Shelley to Adjutant’s Office. On report. Insubordination. Twenty-one hundred hours.’  The more lugubrious Noakes’s recital, in a variety of mock-comic accents, the greater his partner’s enjoyment.

  Olivia and Noakes could not have been further removed from each other by all the normal social rules and expectations (Noakes liked to tease her that Socrates in his book meant ‘So crates of beer’), but Markham thought of them as his twin pillars. Let the disciples of Freud and Jung make of it what they would, but when his friend and lover were in alignment, all was right in his world, it was a simple as that…

  He sighed.

  Understandably, Mrs Muriel Noakes didn’t see things in quite the same light…

  Noakes’s snobbish, social-climbing wife whom he met, almost unbelievably, on the ballroom dancing circuit, had never taken to Olivia. Sitting there in the mild spring sunshine, Markham’s thoughts reverted to their sparring about it….

  ‘Muriel’s so caste-bound, Gil,’ Olivia had lamented. ‘And no, I don’t mean the sticking-your-pinkie-out-from-the-teacup kind of snobbery…. not Hyacinth Bucket…. just that godawful sliding scale based on class.. You know what I mean…. like when she has a fit of the vapours if George says “lounge” instead of “drawing room”, or pulls that sour face when he talks about seeing his pal Don down the Legion to swap army stories…. Whenever we’re with her, there’s that feeling of net-curtain twitchery…. And I just know she thinks of me as some kind of ex-hippie who snared you through Mata Hari practices.’

 Markham laughed at this. ‘You’re a respected English teacher, Liv,’ he remonstrated, ‘not some kind of degenerate flower child. And anyway, certain of Muriel’s tastes are decidedly, er, populist. Noakesy says she never misses Simon Cowell on Britain’s Got Talent.’

  His partner giggled. ‘God, she’d kill him for letting that out.’

  ‘Indeed….. in the same way that she hides her true crime books under Joanna Trollope and the Aga sagas when she’s coming out of the library…. It’s all about appearances and maintaining standards… perhaps because she hasn’t always felt on top of her circumstances… I think,’ he observed compassionately, ‘her fixation with “commonness” must have something to do with what happened when she was a teenager.’ In Markham’s opinion, the youthful pregnancy that resulted in daughter Natalie, before Muriel married her husband, was the key to her obsession with gentility, though Olivia struggled with this charitable interpretation. ‘I suppose George was her safe harbour after things spun out of control,’ she conceded reluctantly. ‘I kind of get that,’ she added with a grimace, ‘even if she dies a thousand deaths whenever he says “toilet” instead of “loo”… or worse still, “the bog”.’

  Noakes’s discovery that Natalie wasn’t his biological daughter nearly derailed his career during the notorious Bluebell investigation, but he and Markham had somehow weathered the storm, which drew them even closer together. For his part, Noakes knew that Markham was the victim of an abusive stepfather whose malign influence resulted in the premature death of his brother Jonathan from drink and drugs, but very little on the subject had ever passed between them. It was as if they didn’t need an exchange of explicit personal confidences to shore up the unusual relationship that was a source of endless bafflement to all in CID.

  The fact that Noakes and Olivia had mysteriously and inexplicably “gelled” – Noakes regarding Markham’s willowy red-haired partner with the kind of awed reverence appropriate to a knight in Mallory’s Morte d’Arthur – irritated his wife no end (to say nothing of his beautician daughter, the perma-tanned, buxom Natalie, former doyenne of Bromgrove’s nightclubs), but both women for Noakes’s sake somehow connived at the pretence that they were the best of friends, which ensured that an uneasy truce prevailed…. though Olivia was always threatening to break it…..

  ‘Cooee!’

    Markham flinched at this interruption of his thoughts, freezing as two middle-aged ladies hallooed to each other before passing under the lychgate into the church. But they were oblivious of him, so he was able to relax, slowly exhaling as he lingered in the ancient churchyard with its reassuring atmosphere of time immemorial. The sun’s rays gilded the crumbling monuments and headstones, with clumps of spring flowers softening the overall prospect of granite and marble in a way that soothed his nerves and reminded him of nature’s glories. The Easter season was always guaranteed to put Noakes in a bad mood – ‘like it’s this great bring an’ buy sale in honour of the Easter Bunny or some pagan wotsit,’ he grumbled, only for DS Carruthers to interject sardonically that of course it was all about ‘the great god Thaw’, earning himself a portentous frown for the execrable climate change pun and a hasty change of subject by DI Kate Burton.

  Kate Burton….

  Markham’s fellow DI had faced a difficult path to success in her chosen profession. An earnest psychology graduate whose parents staunchly opposed her choice of career (‘No job for a woman,’ was her father’s verdict), Burton fought for every square inch of renown and was never at ease with CID canteen culture, she and Noakes initially circling each other like two prairie dogs before eventually bonding over their mutual unshakeable devotion to Markham and commitment to the job. The two also shared an indefatigable enthusiasm for true crime documentaries and a keen interest in forensic psychiatry, though Noakes affected profound scepticism whenever Burton had recourse to her beloved Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Despite massive differences of character and outlook – Burton being as earnest and mainstream as Noakes was slobbish and relentlessly un-PC – they both possessed an almost poetic sensitivity (well-hidden in Noakes’s case) that made them sympathetic to their cultured boss’s refined temperament. Noakes, in particular, was decidedly proud of having a boss infamous for using ‘Big Words’ and having esoteric interests in ‘mouldy old churches’, ruins and the like.

  Noakes, ever watchful on Olivia’s behalf, early intuited that Burton carried a torch for her guvnor. For his part, Markham felt a strange kind of tenderness for his colleague, having been increasingly drawn to the vulnerability and sensitivity that she only revealed gradually over time and finding that it possessed an unusual power to move him.

  Did it mean that he was half in love with her? Certainly Olivia resented their closeness. As did Burton’s on-and-off fiancé Professor Nathan Finlayson of Bromgrove University’s Psychology department (nicknamed ‘Shippers’ by Noakes on account of his startling resemblance to the serial killer Harold Shipman) who Markham guessed was inclined to regard their affinity as an obstacle to Kate agreeing to marry him.

  Not that Olivia could really claim the moral high ground, given that she had recently been involved (to what degree Markham was never entirely sure) with a colleague from her school. On said colleague  - Mat Sullivan, the deputy head – deciding that his orientation was exclusively homosexual, she had come back to Markham. More recently, there had been another hiatus in their relationship due to her struggle to accept the prospect of childlessness (an earlier abortion having left her infertile). When Natalie Noakes became unexpectedly pregnant, Olivia had even nurtured mad schemes of adopting the child, before a stillbirth rendered all such speculation redundant. Nowadays, she was quietly resigned, rejecting both Markham’s proposal of marriage and suggestion that they should adopt. He found he couldn’t always read his partner, but sensed her suspicion of his fellow DI had by no means abated.

  Markham wondered uneasily whether Kate’s deferential attitude towards him (she was always punctilious about calling him ‘Sir’ even though they were now the same rank) played a part in his affection for her. No doubt he was as chauvinistic as the next man (possibly excepting Noakes!), but he knew that there was more to it than that, having become very close to his colleague during recent investigations in Oxford. Noakes would doubtless have dismissed the scenario as ‘bleeding Mills & Boon,’ but it was damnably complicated for all that….

  A flurry in the cemetery’s dense undergrowth startled Markham. Seeing, however, that it was just a couple of squirrels playing footsie in and out of some brambles to the far right of the cenotaph, he relaxed again as he thought about his two young sergeants.

  DS Doyle, proud possessor of a degree in criminology, had been briefly destabilised by the departure of Noakes, his mentor in everything from football (they were both passionate supporters of Bromgrove Rovers) to affairs of the heart. His romantic life had been something of a shambles until recently, when Kelly, a primary school teacher, had entered his life and restored some equilibrium. Markham liked the lanky, auburn-haired youngster (the ‘ginger ninja’) with his artless enthusiasm and ill-concealed ambition to get to the top. He had no doubt that Doyle would one day make inspector and do a fine job of it. The DS was his own man and had resisted pressure to disassociate himself from Noakes, which made Markham like him even more.

  He had initially felt no such liking for Noakes’s replacement DS Roger Carruthers (‘Roger the Dodger’, as Noakes had christened him) , not least as Carruthers was the nephew of Superintendent ‘Blithering’ Bretherton and rumoured to spy for the higher ups. But despite Carruthers’s unprepossessing exterior – albino pallor, savage short back and sides haircuts, horn-rimmed specs, Gestapo raincoats and an impression of overall geekiness – he had somehow won over both Burton (they had an interest in psychology and a formidable work ethic) and Doyle (via their mutual love of the Beautiful Game and penchant for wry humour). Most surprising of all was the way Carruthers took to Noakes, clearly respectful of the grizzled veteran’s experience and loyalty. Markham had initially wondered whether this was an act, before being compelled to conclude that Carruthers genuinely admired the old warhorse, even to the point of calling him ‘sarge’ like the rest. The DCI when he got to hear of this hadn’t liked it one bit.

  DCI Sidney. Markham’s line manager….

  Olivia and Noakes were united in their loathing of Sidney, or Judas Iscariot as Olivia called him. ‘Such a creep,’ was Noakes’s uncompromising verdict. ‘I can’t even feel sorry about him an’ his missus splitting up.’ For it appeared that the DCI and Mrs Sidney (aka Brunhilde on account of her Valkyrie-like attributes) were experiencing marital difficulties. ‘Whass the betting he complains about her being small-minded an’ childish then whinges that she’s allus going an’ hiding his teddy…. jus’ like Hazza said about King Charles.’  Mrs Noakes, an ardent royalist, would strongly have disapproved of such a comparison, but Markham was only too familiar with Sidney’s jealous resentment of his Oxbridge credentials and patrician good looks (most particularly a full head of hair). Of late, however, he felt that Sidney had mellowed, and he was grateful to the DCI for backing him in a few tight corners despite his avowed repugnance for ‘Markham’s fey mystical streak’ and preference for ‘good solid (i.e. unflashy) legwork’. They would never be natural allies but, as with Muriel Noakes, he increasingly sensed some unacknowledged hinterland in Sidney – some personal insecurity about his background and antecedents – that meant the barriers were always up between them. Perhaps once Sidney retired and the competitive element was removed, there would be a chance to understand his boss fully. Olivia was convinced that Sidney was hellbent on a career in media punditry (like John Stalker), but Markham thought it more likely he would return to the force on a consultancy basis…. who knows, maybe ending up working cheek by jowl with his old nemesis George Noakes. Now that would be worth seeing!

  Suddenly, the grin was wiped off Markham’s face by the Reverend Simon Duthie’s appearance over at the lychgate. He kept very still, feeling he was not up to the forced, over hearty chat in which the clergyman (a late vocation to the priesthood after a career as a bank manager) felt obliged to engage seeing as the station was in his parish. Of course, if Noakes had been there, the DI could have been sure of Duthie giving him a wide berth since the two men had an almost allergic antipathy to each other. Most recently, the vicar had been mightily offended when, after a particularly turgid homily on Moses at St Chad’s Police Memorial Service, Noakes complained, ‘Preachers these days wanna beat about any bush jus’ so long as it ain’t burning.’ As a commentary on the fairly dire standard of ecclesiastical oratory, Markham was inclined to think his friend had a point, but Duthie had been in high dudgeon about it. Olivia was convulsed by this latest example of what she called Noakesypropisms, but relations with Duthie had been pretty much in the deep freeze ever since.

  Thank god, the vicar either hadn’t spied him or was doing an excellent job of pretending not to have seen him. With it being Sunday, no doubt he was thinking about higher matters, such as his sermon for the nine o’clock service.

  Time for Markham to head over to CID.

  Yet it was so peaceful in the little cemetery, and his heart rejoiced in the rising sap of spring with its signs of new life and the feeling of hope intrinsic to Eastertide.

  But there was a murder to investigate.

  Shades of the prison-house begin to close.

  He took one last look round the peaceful little cemetery whose ghostly residents seemed to urge him, ‘You are not dead yet. Get down to life!’ And in that moment, he imagined the dead hairdresser’s plaintive voice joined to theirs. ‘Get down to life!’

                                                  …………………………………………..

CID felt stuffy and stale after his interlude in the fresh air, but at least the team would be ready and waiting in his corner office with its unrivalled view of the car park. It being tacitly accepted that the trio would be scrambled at short notice when Markham was heading up a murder investigation, he could count on them being free to give their full attention to the salon homicide.  

  There were few others around the department, but one or two shot Markham appraising glances as he disappeared into his office. As usual, Bomgrove CID’s wunderkind was wearing his impeccable three-piece pinstripe and looked as unlike a policeman as it was possible to imagine. With his stellar record, promotion was no doubt his for the asking, but it was rumoured the handsome inspector had no desire to be a desk jockey.

  Unaware of this covert scrutiny, it cheered Markham to see that his colleagues looked alert and eager, in notable contrast to the drabness of their surroundings, the DI’s office being indistinguishable from CID’s other glassed-in cubicles with generic office chairs, metallic filing cabinets, rickety sash windows and generally faded décor.

  Kate Burton was a far cry from the dowdy, frumpy sergeant of yore addicted to dreary trouser suits and pudding bowl haircuts. Now she sported a chic geometric bob with a set of blonde highlights to rival Cameron Diaz and wore a softly tailored mint green midi dress. True, she still had schoolmarmish habits – ‘perching on chairs with her bum one half on and one half off, like she’s getting ready to take dictation’ (Carruthers) and ever ready to whip out scary specs that magnified the intelligent hazel eyes to the size of enormous brown lollipops . But altogether, she was transformed from the sexless neophyte whose main objective appeared to have been to pass unnoticed in the boisterous melting pot of CID. ‘Actually she’s pretty fit these days,’ was the irrepressible Doyle’s verdict.

  Both Doyle and Carruthers – today casually attired in chinos and sweaters – paid careful attention to appearance, unlike Noakes whose chunky physique and fondness for junk food meant that the pug-faced ex-sergeant with his pouchy prize-fighter’s features, dreadful dress sense (his cardigans being particularly awful) and wildly waving salt and pepper thatch was hardly a poster boy for modern policing, inducing shudders whenever the ‘gold braid mob’ clapped eyes on him. Luckily, the two young sergeants distracted bilious superiors from his friend’s sartorial deficiencies. Markham still winced whenever he recalled Sidney irritably enquiring of Noakes, ‘Why are you always scratching yourself, man?’ only to receive the scowling reply, ‘Cos nobody else knows where I itch.’

  One Noakesian tradition that the team had enthusiastically continued was the provision of eatables on such occasions. Sarcastic commentary from Sidney and others on their  exemplification of the maxim that ‘an army marches on its stomach’ was water off a duck’s back to Doyle and Carruthers. Faintly embarrassed by her colleagues’ preoccupation with what Noakes called ‘commissary’, Kate Burton nonetheless saw its value in terms of team bonding and was happy to provide chocolate muffins and cappuccinos from Costa when it was her turn while generally sticking to a granola bar and soy latte for herself. Today it was Carruthers doing the honours, proudly producing a lemon drizzle cake made by his girlfriend Kim. During the wedding boutique murder inquiry, Carruthers had shown himself in a more vulnerable light when he confided that Kim was plus-size and had suffered abuse for being a ‘fat girl’. His chivalrous protectiveness had made the others warm to him, with Kim and Doyle’s fiancée Kelly now vying to outdo each other in the baking stakes.

  Just like family, Markham thought in amusement watching them tuck in, even Burton being tempted by the deliciously moist offering (‘She uses fromage frais, that’s the secret,’ Carruthers told them proudly). The DI was pleased to note that Burton appeared more bright-eyed and cheerful than of late. Hopefully that meant her romantic prospects were looking up again. Nathan Finlayson was a decent man – to say nothing of patient – and there was every prospect of him making her happy if she would only give him a chance.

  Predictably, Burton was the first to finish her cake and get down to business, briskly stating the identity of their victim before rattling off the pool of suspects.

  ‘Mr Coxley was found by Becca Drew, one of the stylists. It was just her and two other stylists –  Ed Collins and Sandra Crowley – due in, along with Cassie Johnson who runs the nail bar…. The rest of the staff are away on holiday.’

  ‘Narrows it down,’ Doyle said with satisfaction.

  ‘Hmm.’ Burton frowned. ‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that…  There’s a rival hairdresser name of Des O’Grady and some bad blood,’ she bit her lip, ‘sorry – unfortunate choice of words – with Helen Mathews a stylist Coxley had sacked…. he thought she was poaching clients and bitching about him to the Gazette.’

  Typically, Burton had been swift in extracting background information from Becca Drew.

  ‘In terms of other people he had issues with…. there’s this woman called Carol Davidson from True Care Bromgrove who was apparently “always on the cadge” and a local writer…. Sarah Moorcroft…. she threw a hissy fit because Coxley couldn’t fit her in for an appointment when she had some kind of a launch or promo at Waterstone’s.’ Burton scanned her notes. ‘Things weren’t hunky dory with the nail bar woman because he’d jacked up her rent…. and reading between the lines, it sounded as though him and Ed Collins weren’t getting on too well. Also, there’s this girl Stella Casey who was a trainee at the salon and started hanging round the place after her apprenticeship was over, making a bit of a nuisance of herself.’

  ‘A stalker!’ Carruthers sat up. This sounded promising.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure if you could call her that,’ Burton demurred. ‘But apparently her father Philip seems to think Coxley had led her on…. encouraged her…. Becca also mentioned an ex-customer called Karen Bickerstaff who sued Coxley after a treatment went wrong and damaged her scalp. She lost the case and has been bad-mouthing him ever since.’

  ‘Well done, Kate,’ Markham thanked her. ‘That’s all useful intel…. It certainly sounds as though Mr Coxley wasn’t universally popular.’

  ‘He was very charismatic according to Becca,’ Burton replied handing out a head and shoulders shot of the victim. ‘I’d say she and Sandra Croxley were fairly smitten.’

  ‘That clobber’s a bit dated,’ Doyle scoffed.

  ‘Yeah, like something out of The Sweeney,’ Carruthers agreed, ‘though he looks more of a pretty boy than some kind of macho man.’ His voice held a question.

  ‘Not homosexual according to Becca,’ Burton replied smartly, ‘though he liked to keep the customers guessing…. made him glamorous and mysterious.’

  ‘Ah yes, there’s the clientele to consider,’ Markham said thoughtfully.

  ‘His regulars were mostly elderly ladies by the sound of it,’ Burton said. ‘They’re really the salon’s bread and butter, though there’s some young ones come in as well. I’ve asked Becca to email me a list.’

  ‘What about next of kin?’ Markham asked. He was never one to foist condolence visits on subordinates and liked to pay his respects to the bereaved.

  ‘He was an only child,’ Burton replied. ‘Both parents dead. There’s an aunt and a couple of cousins. The FLOs are on it.’

  Markham nodded slowly. ‘Get them to give me the details, Kate.’ Even semi-detached relatives needed to know that Andrew Coxley was not just another statistic and mattered to the team.

  There was a brief pause, his colleagues aware of the guvnor’s intense respect for the dead. Unlike some hard-bitten SIOs, he never tolerated anything that approached an affront to their dignity. Indeed, those who had been on the receiving end of his icy disdain for displaying inappropriate gallows humour never made the same mistake again.

  Finally, Doyle broke the silence.

  ‘Who gets to inherit the business?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m checking with his solicitors tomorrow,’ Burton answered. ‘Hoskinson & Garrett in the town centre.’

  ‘What’s the plan then?’ Carruthers was clearly eager to get cracking.

    ‘Obviously the salon’s closed for the time being,’ Burton informed them. ‘But staff are being re-directed to Mr O’Grady’s premises…. The Cutting Edge.’

  ‘Kate and I will interview them there tomorrow morning while you two get the incident room set up and make a start with background checks,’ Markham instructed. ‘We also need as full a picture as possible of Mr Coxley’s clientele. Dimples is doing the PM at three tomorrow afternoon.’

  They looked at each other. ‘Why not attend together,’ the DI’s tone was wry, ‘for moral support,’ he added, being well aware of their squeamishness. ‘I doubt there will be any surprises, but I want a full report.’ He steepled elegant musician’s hands with long, thin, tapering fingers. ‘You also need to liaise with the SOCOs processing Mr Coxley’s flat and find out what his computer shows in terms of social media activity. Whoever killed him didn’t take his mobile, so the phone records also need following up.’

  ‘Any chance this could have been random, boss?’ Carruthers asked. ‘Some nut job?’

  ‘Apparently Mr Coxley always kept the salon locked when he was there by himself…. he was pretty paranoid about security after a burglary at the newsagent’s. Which means he most likely opened the door to his attacker –’

  ‘Because he knew them,’ Doyle finished.

  ‘Precisely.’ Markham let this sink in. ‘I believe he probably met his killer by appointment.’

  It was a sobering thought.

  ‘Is sarge coming in on this one?’ Doyle enquired disingenuously.

  ‘Is the Pope Catholic?’ Markham asked deadpan.

  His colleagues grinned.

  ‘I’ll swing by Rosemount tomorrow afternoon and see what Noakesy makes of it all. No doubt Natalie and Mrs Noakes will have something to contribute in due course.’ Plenty of highly-spiced gossip, no doubt.

  He smiled at them. ‘Right, get off and enjoy the rest of your day. Tomorrow we have to hit the ground running.’