Gallows knot, p.1
Gallows Knot, page 1
GALLOWS KNOT
INSPECTOR YARROW
BOOK THREE
GILES EKINS
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Epilogue
Appendix
About the Author
Books by the Author
Copyright © 2024 by Giles Ekins
Layout design and Copyright © 2024 by Next Chapter
Published 2024 by Next Chapter
Cover art by Lordan June Pinote
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.
For Patricia, as always, with my love.
PROLOGUE
THE MOST FREQUENT CAUSE OF DEATH FOLLOWING SEVERE BURNS.
YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND. CIRCA MID-1950S.
DETECTIVE INSPECTOR CHRISTOPHER YARROW LAY DEEPLY anaesthetised as Professor Gordon Archer, senior consultant at the Burns Unit at the City General Hospital in Sheffield, continued to examine the burn damage to Yarrow’s face, head, and hands, particularly his left hand which had been the most extensively burned.
Yarrow had been doused in petrol and set alight by Sheila Anderson, a disturbed young woman with whom he had been talking on the roof of an asylum. “You killed my father,” she had said. “Frankie Starling, my dad, you had him hanged!”
His face, hands, and neck in flames, Yarrow had then fallen from the roof, injuring his shoulder, right knee, and lower back in the fall.
Sheila Anderson had then immolated herself, dying in the ambulance on the way to the same hospital. Tracked down and arrested by Yarrow, Frankie Starling had indeed died on the gallows, convicted of the murder of a wages clerk during a failed robbery.
Yarrow was hooked up to an IV with dextran, providing fluid resuscitation, minimising the effects of shock and had been given penicillin to prevent toxic shock syndrome caused by sepsis and infection, the most frequent cause of death following severe burns.
Archer was assessing the various degrees of burns, classifying them in his mind as either first degree: Erythema, which was heat, pain, and small blisters; second degree: skin inflammation with epidermal detachment; third degree: partial destruction of the papillary layer and subpapillary network of the corium; fourth degree: destruction of the skin down to the subcuticular level; and fifth degree: damage to all soft tissues down to the bone and crust formation over skin and muscle. He was also examining the depth as well as the degree of burn and quantifying the burn surface area.
It had been fortunate that Professor Archer was available that day. One of the leading experts in the treatment of burns, during the war he had worked alongside the famed Sir Archibald McIndoe at the Queen Victoria Hospital at East Grinstead. McIndoe was a pioneer of reconstructive plastic surgery, including facial reconstruction, treating and rehabilitating British and Allied aircrew severely burnt during the war and founding the Guinea Pig Club, an exclusive club for those airmen severely burnt in combat.
Archer consulted for two days a week at the hospital, and it had been fortuitous that the day Yarrow was brought in was one of those days.
Upon learning that his patient was a former Battle of Britain fighter pilot, he decided to cancel his other engagements and concentrate his skills on treating the severe fourth and fifth degree burns to Yarrow’s face and hands.
During Yarrow’s lengthy recovery period, Archer recommended Yarrow to the Guinea Pig Club President, and because of his wartime service and public duty as a policeman in which he was severely burnt, he was made an Honorary Member. An honour he would treasure for the remainder of his life.
A less savoury distinction, coined on the streets, was the nickname, the sobriquet, of ‘Crispy Bacon.’ It did not bother him in the slightest.
CHAPTER ONE
THAT SHE DIED FROM HER INJURIES
The Garside Gazette
SENIOR DETECTIVE BADLY INJURED DURING INCIDENT AT CARNWOOD HOUSE
Detective Inspector Christopher Yarrow burned and injured in fall from hospital roof
The Gazette understands that DI Yarrow was responding to a call from the hospital where a disturbed young woman, believed to be 17 years old, Sheila Anderson, had gained access to the roof. Apparently, she demanded to speak to DI Yarrow, and when he approached, there was a brief conversation before she threw petrol over him and set him ablaze. He subsequently fell from the roof and is believed to have been injured in the fall. He was then rushed to the Burns Unit at Sheffield City Hospital. No information regarding his condition has been released by either West Garside Police or the hospital. It is understood that Anderson then doused herself in petrol, setting herself alight. Unconfirmed reports indicated that she died from her injuries en route to hospital….
CHAPTER TWO
WALKED AWAY WITH HIM INTO THE NIGHT.
SIX MONTHS LATER.
THE LITTLE GIRL CLIMBED OUT OF HER BED, took the proffered hand of the man in the white coat, and walked away with him into the night.
CHAPTER THREE
‘I DON’T LIKE THE SOUND OF THIS AT ALL.’
THE JANGLING OF THE TELEPHONE on the bedside table scorched through his deep, dream-free sleep, jarring into his brain like a brilliant spear of sound, a shock wave surging through his chest, his heart suddenly pounding. Calls in the dead of night were never good news. Groggily, he reached for the telephone, answered, “Yarrow?” and switched on the bedside lamp, the sudden glare making him wince.
Wedging the phone into his shoulder, he picked up his watch from the nightstand, 4:15 a.m., what on earth could be so urgent as to call him at this time of night; even more surprising, it was Superintendent Bullock calling him.
Something had to be seriously wrong to get Bullock out of his bed at night.
“Chris, get yourself down to the hospital, the children’s ward, seems like a young lass has gone missing, looks like it might be an abduction.”
“Abduction?”
“Aye, four-year-old girl…Emily Black…was in her bed in the children’s ward when the night nurse did her rounds, next time she looked, the lass were gone. First off like, the nurse thought that mebbe the little lass had gone t’toilet, so she looked in there, no little lass. Then looked all around before calling in the duty doctor in case he had taken her for some reason although he should have notified the duty nurse if’n he had. Then another look around, called out the matron and other staff, did another quick search of the nearby wards and such before calling us in. One of the other girls in the ward, barely three, all she could say it were ‘a doctor man.’
“I don’t like the sound of this at all.”
“Me neither, they should’ve called us in sooner, the trail is already getting cold, so get on down there. I’ll get uniform set up for the search, we’ll do the hospital top to bottom, just in case she did wander off and got lost, you know what a labyrinth the old hospital is, then the grounds, then spread it out. Get the rest of your lads in.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“This has a nasty smell, Chris, a right nasty smell.”
CHAPTER FOUR
‘WAS THIS WINDOW OPEN LAST NIGHT?’
It was still dark as Yarrow pulled up into the hospital gr
DS Marcus Harding was waiting for Yarrow, looking dishevelled and darkly unshaven, a weary rim of sleep about his eyes. He held a white crash helmet in his hand; having ridden to the hospital on a 1933 overhead valve 249cc BSA R33-4 motorbike that had seen extensive service during the war, racking up tens of thousands of miles and was now on its last legs – following his promotion, he could have afforded a newer motorbike but he really loved the battered but reliable BSA and was reluctant to change it.
‘A missing girl, sir?’ he asked, yawning into his hand. ‘Taken from the ward?’
‘That’s what it seems like, four-year-old Emily Black. I hope to God we are wrong, but first indications point that way.’
‘How do we go about things then, sir?’
‘I want to look at the ward from where the girl has gone missing. We need to get that secured, transfer any other patients to another ward but keep them handy in case we have to talk to them.’
‘Most of them are only young, toddlers, babies even, so I gather, and most of them can’t even talk yet.’
‘Even so, we must try; we’ll need the parents present, of course, preferably the mother when or if we do talk to them.
‘Right!’
‘We’ll talk to the night nurse who raised the alarm; uniform will do a top to bottom search of the hospital, there are all sorts of nooks and crannies where she could be hiding.’
‘Or could have been hidden if she’s come to harm.’
‘Aye, there’s always that. Then we spread out, a fingertip search of the grounds. We’ll talk to the girl’s parents. I don’t think they would have come in at night and taken her home, but we’d look right stupid if we didn’t check and she was there all the time.’ said Yarrow, taking out his cigarettes and lighting up, offering them to Harding who declined with a shake of his head. It was too early in the morning, and although he had only recently taken up smoking, he was trying to give it up. He had a new girlfriend called Janet Beaseley; she did not like the smell or taste of tobacco on his breath when he tried to kiss her.
‘Do we search the family home as well?’ he asked.
‘Yes, we must; it’s standard procedure. I know it doesn’t help distraught parents to have police poking in the attic or nosing around the garden, but it has to be done.’
‘You don’t seriously suspect the parents?’
‘No, but like I said, it must be done. Send Suzanne, Suzanne Fillmore, to sit with the mum and dad until we get there. She’s steady and sensible; they’ll need somebody calm and compassionate with them.’
A thin smear of dawn light edged its way over the brow of the encompassing hills, bleeding pale light into the morning. The birds began to wake and stir, hesitantly at first, as if not wanting to be the first ones to start singing, and then soon they were in the full throat of their dawn chorus. An ambulance pulled up alongside Yarrow and Harding, the tyres scrunching loudly on the gravel forecourt. The ambulance crew opened the back doors and helped an old lady down from inside. She was dazed and looked about her confusedly, a trickle of dried blood down her forehead.
‘The old dear fell and hit her head,’ one of the crew said, recognising the two men as police. ‘She’ll be right as rain, just needs a bit of rest and a good, strong, hot cup of tea.’
‘Could do with that myself,’ Harding yawned as Yarrow took a final drag at his cigarette, dropped it to the ground, and crushed it under his foot before walking off into the front entry of the hospital, Harding and the two uniforms trailing on behind.
Nurse Alison Worthywool was short, plump, and round, with a motherly air of comfort about her, although she was no more than 25 years old. She had a round, moon-shaped face; a face made for bright, beaming smiles, but not this day. Not this morning.
Thin runnels of tear tracks marked her cheeks, a shock of startlingly white-blonde hair had escaped out from under her cap, and she nervously kept trying to push it back in place. She looked worn, worried sick that a child had gone missing on her watch, obviously frightened that she would be held culpable, concerned for her job, but even more concerned for the whereabouts of the little girl in her charge.
The Albert Doakes Children’s Ward was housed in a new wing attached to the rear of the older Victorian hospital, stuck on with all the subtlety of an extra limb sewn onto someone’s shoulder. The yellow glazed brickwork of the extension was harshly at odds with the mellow gritstone of the main building. An apparently endless warren of corridors ran from the main entrance of the old building through to the new ward, the ever-present hospital smell of antiseptic and boiled cabbage permeating the yellow glazed tiles and light green painted plaster walls of the corridors.
Tearfully, Nurse Alison Worthywool led the two detectives and the two uniformed policemen through the maze, an equally harassed duty doctor trailing along behind them, his white coat flapping like washing on the line on a breezy day.
Nurses and orderlies, wheeling trolleys of medications or patients, flowed past in a steady stream. The disappearance of the young girl seemed not to affect the normal activities of the hospital; patients still had to be fed, cleaned, medicated, operated upon, assessed, admitted, and released; life – and death – continued apace.
Other long corridors branched off left and right at regular intervals, staircases appeared at random. Notice boards on the walls had plans of the sprawling hospital complex displayed, with arrows marking the positions of various wards and departments.
Yarrow stopped briefly to examine one, noticing that the children’s ward was at the far extremity of the hospital. ‘Nurse, we’ll need a copy of this plan, and of the other floors. Plans of the basement as well. The little girl could have wandered off down there and got lost. I know I would soon get lost here,’ Yarrow said, wondering how long it took for a new nurse or doctor to find their way around. He was told, somewhat later and tongue in cheek, ‘that new staff were given a map and compass, a packet of sandwiches, and told to find their way around.’
The nurse looked puzzled. ‘I’m sorry, sir, I’m not sure who’d have a plan. I’d have to ask for that.’
‘Probably the Engineering department, I should think.’ He turned to the following uniformed officers. ‘One of you go back and find out how we get these plans. We need them urgently. And more than one copy.’
‘Sir.’ A brief salute before turning on his heels and trotting off back down the corridor, the clatter of the steel cleats on his boots echoing around the walls.
Yarrow marched on to the ward from where four-year-old Emily Black had disappeared. He stood by the door of the ward, now empty, the children having been relocated to another ward which had been made free by either discharging some recovered patients earlier or transferring others to beds at the Cottage Hospital in Moorgate. Behind him, Harding, the other uniformed copper, Nurse Worthywool, and Dr Draper, the duty doctor, his white coat seeming still to flap about his legs even though he was stationary, hovered uncertainly, trying to peer around Yarrow as he stood immobile in the doorway.
