ARTHUR BUCHANAN MYSTERIES

2.- 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 Baudish and he was the Detective First Chief Inspector in the Bavarian State Police Criminal Office.