THE MYSTERIOUS SUITCASE
OF NORTHALLERTON RAILWAY STATION
Peter Shankland, a young Detective Sergeant, had arrived at Northallerton to be the new Northernshire Police Detective Sergeant and become Arthur Buchanan’s right-hand man. A year ago he had to solve the kidnap of his sister Belinda, which had finished in a tragedy because Belinda turned out to be the guilty of a murder happened six years before her kidnap, in London, and ended up to be arrested by her brother before closing the case.
For that epoch, Arthur Buchanan was investigating a serial murder of eight people in the county. For this reason, when his Detective Sergeant was murdered, Peter Shankland was sent to replace him. He had taken the first train to Northallerton, at eight o'clock, that winter morning and when he got off the carriage, his new boss was waiting for him on the platform. Peter said hello to him, while he saw a mysterious suitcase left, and they got out of the station to take a taxi towards the scene of the ninth crime.
The coroner had discovered inside the victim’s body some hemlock remnants and fight marks on its arms. She had established that he had been killed around midnight. Peter observed that had missed an object. He supposed that the murderer had stolen it. Probably either his suitcase, because he was a French guy who was spending his summer vacations in that hotel, or his purse, because he had no money. He opted for the first thought, so he asked the bellboy if he had perceived something strange when he had found the corpse. The bellboy confirmed his suspicion.
When Peter Shankland told the Chief Inspector Buchanan this, Arthur ordered him to look for it. He went out of that three-story old building, the typical British white walls detached country house, turned into hotel, surrounded, left, right and centre, by vineyards, and he moved toward the Northallerton railway station, where he had seen the mysterious luggage when he had arrived in the Northernshire county town. As the suitcase had vanished he had to ask the stationmaster where the valise was. He answered that a man had taken it to put it away in his locker. Then, they opened the locker but they only found a piece of paper with a postal address on it.
The Sergeant went out of the station again and he moved to that address. Arthur phoned him during the journey to tell him that the murdered Sergeant was looking into a case of money laundering where the French guy was one of the scapegoats who wished to report their commanders for that felony in order to their abuse on his mates and on him.
When he knew that, he supposed that the guy who had left the luggage in his locker was also involved. Before arriving at the address he was going to, he found the luggage abandoned in a ditch beside the road. Then, Peter opened it and he discovered, covered by money, another victim but that time the killer had decided to become into a butcher because the murderer had spent some time quartering the victim’s body before locking him up in the suitcase.
Because of his physical appearance they gathered that he was from Germany. They also discovered in the police database his name and his birthplace: he was born in Munich and his name was Achim Elsholtz. In his phone they also saw a suspicious contact whose name was Jean-Luc Mendy and who was from France. Jean-Luc was the same age as the murdered French guy, so they thought that Jean-Luc and he were the same person.
With those discoveries, the night falled and Arthur came back to his house. Wendy Dunbar was eating a sandwich whilst she was working in a case she was investigating. She said hello to her husband and they talked about the work day during the dinner. When Wendy Dunbar told him that her case was about money laundering and she uttered Achim Elsholtz and Jean-Luc Mendy’s names, Arthur wished to know who was her suspect. She answered they were looking for Kevin Smith, who they thought was the culprit.
“Thank you, Wendy!” said Arthur excitedly and he kissed his wife. “I think I have solved the case!” he added, and he looked for his German colleague’s phone number in his diary. His name was Adolf Sigmund Boxberg and he was the Detective First Chief Inspector in the Bavarian State Police Criminal Office.
Nevertheless, the following day, when Agatha Ainsworth’s butler discovered her corpse in the living room and he phoned Arthur, his fortune dissipated. Agatha Ainsworth was a County councillor and she also was Frank Upshaw’s wife. She brought forth Matthew Johnson’s cases of corruption, so the County Council’s chief executive reputation had decreased and he would probably lose the majority of the Conservative Party in the County Council in the next local elections.
For this reason, when Arthur knew that, he had to interrogate Matthew Johnson and Frank Upshaw in his office. Both suspects denied their tie in with the serial murders but they affirmed that Kevin Smith, Marcus Thatcher and Charles McDonald were involved in a case of money laundering.
Mr. Thatcher, a 45 years old man, was a Modern History professor in Northernshire University. Charles McDonald was a rich businessman established in London who had found some years ago a clothes enterprise which had opened recently some shops in other countries such as France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, etc. He was 55 years old and he had divorced his wife five years before.
The last guy, Kevin Smith, was a young postman who was living in North Shields but working in Northallerton. He was in love with Agatha Ainsworth and he also was Charles McDonald’s best friend. He had some treatments with him and he had been arrested a lot of times because he was involved in drug trafficking and money laundering cases.
During their discoveries the pathologist phoned them to tell that Achim Elsholtz had been poisoned also with hemlock by the murderer. The crime scene investigators had found the murder weapon of the second murder. The fingerprints belonged to Kevin Smith so Arthur and Peter went to Kevin Smith’s house, in the North Shields northern outskirts.
As long as they went to North Shields, Wendy Dunbar decided to interview Marcus Thatcher. Arthur also had requested John Makgill for his help and this one went to ask some questions to Charles McDonald. Marcus had no alibi whereas Charles McDonald was in Paris, during the night of the first crime, with his lover.
They arrived and parked their patrol car in front of Kevin’s house under the shade of one of his garden trees. They got out of the car and Peter knocked on the door. As anyone didn't open, Arthur counted to three and Peter knocked down the doorway. They also yelled Kevin’s name but no one answered again to their call.
Armed with their handguns, being on alert to any suspicious noise, DS Shankland went up the stairs to the second floor and DCI Buchanan searched on the ground floor and the basement for any proof of Kevin Smith’s guilt. Although they didn’t find something to demonstrate his guilt, Arthur found a piece of paper with an address written on it.
DCI Buchanan decided to go there whilst DS Shankland came back to the police station for lunch. By his surprise, when Arthur arrived at that place, he discovered Kevin Smith’s corpse quartered and covered also by money. Moreover, the banknotes were counterfeit. In order to its appearance, it had been printed some days before.
The murder weapon had disappeared so they couldn’t do anything to get the murderer’s fingerprints. Their computer technician canvassed his phone and his computer and she found a phone number in his contacts list with Marcus Thatcher’s name. They also discovered that Marcus had been the last person who had phoned Kevin before his death.
Wendy arrested Marcus as the main suspect of their case and Arthur interrogated him with Peter Shankland’s help. Mr. Thatcher asked for a lawyer and during the wait they put Marcus under arrest. However, John Makgill phoned Arthur to tell him that the public prosecutor’s office was investigating Charles McDonald’s business due to tax evasion.
Then, Arthur contacted with his friend Adolf to know more about Achim Elsholtz business and this one told him that Achim was one of Charles McDonald’s right-hand men in Germany detained to be guilt of money laundering, tax evasion and drug trafficking, but due to lack of proof the judge released him and he moved to the UK leaving behind his charges.
He decided to free Marcus and travel to London to ask Mr. McDonald some questions. His assistant told the policemen that Charles had bought a passage for the London - Paris flight of that afternoon, so Arthur thought that Charles wanted to escape from the country and from justice. Scotland Yard Detective Superintendent John Makgill, with Charles McDonald’s arrest warrant in his hands, ordered all the British Transport Police officers to police all the international airports from the State, to arrest Sir Charles if they saw him taking a plane. In the end a policewoman in civilian clothes found him crossing a security control and handcuffed him.
“We have an amount of proof which demonstrate your guilt of these horrible serial murders. Why did you order Kevin to do it?” asked Peter in the interrogation room. “And why did you kill Kevin Smith also?”, he added while the face of the murderer turned pale thinking for a little bit that he would spend the rest of his life jailed.
“I… I don’t know why I did it!” he yelled. “My wife abandoned me five years ago. My valued business bankrupted, so I began to traffic drugs and to launder the money I made with that business. I met Achim and Jean-Luc in a disco and I decided to employ them as my right-hand men. Until one year ago, they helped me, but when Achim faced justice, they decided to leave the business and report me to the police.”, Charles continued.
When Charles knew that, he planned with his nephew Kevin Smith, Achim and Jean-Luc’s murders and, to hide it, they decided to do a serial killing. Kevin was agreed with Charles until the Detective Sergeant murder. When Charles ordered him to do it, Kevin rejected it so Charles took Kevin’s murder weapon and when he murdered Achim and his nephew, he decided to quarter their bodies with Kevin’s weapon after he had put himself his gloves before taking Kevin’s dagger.
After Charles McDonald’s statement Arthur closed him in a cell and he celebrated the victory with his comrades. Then he said John Makgill goodbye and with Peter and Wendy, came back to Northernshire where his son Cedric was waiting for him to know how the resolution of the case was.
