Close to Home (A DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thriller Book 4)

by Oliver Davies

  “What?” I blinked.

  She looked up from her phone with a scathing expression. “Maddie’s surname,” she said slowly, like I was an idiot. “It’s Packham. I just dug up her Insta.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at her. “Thank you, that’s really helpful. Could we have her Instagram account name-?”

  Eloise started reeling it off before I’d even finished the question, but I managed to copy it down.

  “Do you have an address for her?” Eloise’s contemptuous scoff didn’t surprise me. “Can you tell us what she’s like?” I tried, instead. What I wanted to ask was about Eloise’s brother, but I also didn’t want to be so obvious about it.

  Eloise flipped her hand to check her watch again. “I really haven’t-”

  “We’ll be out of your hair right soon,” I said, a touch sharper than I perhaps meant to. “We’d like to know what your impression of Maddie was.”

  “Why? Is she in trouble?” Eloise sighed. She didn’t seem particularly interested in my answer, or at least she gave that impression.

  “You could say that,” I said evasively. I thought about pressing the point, but decided that keeping quiet and leaving the space open for Eloise to fill might work better.

  A silent few seconds ticked past with Eloise looking increasingly impatient. Stephen opened his mouth to say something, but I touched a hand to his knee to stop him.

  “She was dull,” Eloise said finally, looking and sounding irritated. “There was nothing interesting about the girl at all. Are you done now?”

  “How long had she been with your brother?” I risked asking, sensing that Eloise was really getting to the limit of what she was willing to answer.

  “God.” She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know. I’m not his damn secretary. They were casual, on and off for months.”

  “Were they living together?”

  Eloise scowled at me. “Look,” she snapped, getting to her feet, “I’ve answered what you wanted. You have a name. Go and bother her family for god’s sake. You’re going to make me late.”

  I sighed, standing up from her expensive, but rather uncomfortable, settee. “Thank you for your time, Ms Banks.” I pulled out one of my business cards and set it down on the nearby coffee table, since I didn’t think she’d take it if I tried to hand it to her. “If you have any more information regarding Maddie or your brother, please give us a call.”

  “You never gave me a straight answer about why you’re asking about Alec,” she said snippily as Stephen and I moved to go.

  I turned back towards her. “He may be relevant to our investigation, and we’d like to talk to him. Do you know where he is?”

  “No.” She glared at us both, and her tone made it clear that if she did know, she wasn’t telling us.

  I gave her a short nod and saw myself to the door which Stephen pulled shut behind us.

  “Jesus,” I muttered once we were back in the car, Stephen in the driver’s seat.

  “Yeah,” Stephen huffed. “At least she gave us a name.”

  “Aye, there’s that.” I glanced over at him as he started up the car. “Did I handle her, alright?” I asked, wanting to know his opinion. I’d taken the lead on the questioning as I tended to, but that didn’t mean I dismissed Stephen’s years of experience, nor that I didn’t highly value his input.

  He sent me a reassuring smile. “Mate, if you’d missed something, I would have said. She was a suspicious sort, and you handled her fine. I reckon she would have shut up straight away if we’d been more direct about Alec.”

  “That was my thought.” I relaxed slightly. “I don’t like being evasive with people like that, but we did need the information.”

  “Yeah, you did fine. Now we have a name, so we can hopefully contact the woman’s family. At least then she won’t wake up to strangers, right?”

  “Right,” I agreed. “That has to be a good thing.”

  We settled into companionable quiet for a while as Stephen drove and I looked down at my notebook, making notes as thoughts occurred to me.

  “With that CCTV,” I said aloud, “and the sister’s confirmation that this woman, Maddie, was Alec’s girlfriend, we should have enough to convince Gaskell to let us enter the flat.”

  “We’re not sure the CCTV is him,” Stephen cautioned.

  “No,” I agreed, “but it’s most likely to be him, considering who was in the flat when we went round. And the man on the video did look like Banks from the back, the same slim build and dark hair.”

  “Yeah, I hear you. Let’s see what Gaskell thinks. Being able to have a poke around the flat would be useful.”

  I nodded, already thinking about how I could present the evidence to Gaskell in the most persuasive way once we returned to the station. We picked up lunch on our way back, and Stephen was hungry enough to have finished most of his before we even got back to our desks.

  I ate mine more slowly, flicking through the CCTV recording idly as I chewed. I ran it backwards and rewatched it multiple times, as if, by watching it enough times, I could compel the fleeing man to turn his head towards the camera and show us his face. By now, I was half-way to being convinced that the guy was Alec, but Stephen was right. We needed to keep an open mind.

  I approached Gaskell after I finished with lunch, knocking on his office door and letting myself in when he called. Piece by piece, I laid out what we’d found, starting with the smaller hints and clues and finishing with the most convincing ones. Gaskell nodded slowly when I was done.

  “Alright. I hear what you’re arguing, Mitchell, but I don’t want you and Huxley acting alone on this, understood? You have a tendency to go haring off on your own, but we don’t know whether this guy will be in there and armed.”

  “Yes, sir,” I agreed hastily.

  “So you’ll take at least another pair of officers with you, preferably two if you can find ‘em. And be careful.”

  “We will be,” I assured him. “Thank you, sir.”

  He grunted, waving me out. “I hope this turns something up, Mitchell.”

  Me too, I thought as I headed out.

  “Well, what did he say?” Stephen asked as I returned to him. I grinned, and he matched it. “Good news, then?”

  “Aye, he gave the go-ahead,” I said as I sat back down at my desk. “He wants us to take at least a couple of other officers with us, though.”

  “Makes sense. When do you want to do this?”

  I checked my watch and found it to be mid-afternoon. “If we can gather the folks to do it today, that’d be ideal. This isn’t an operation needing a lot of planning. Speed is more important in this case.”

  “I’ll go and ask around, try to find a pair who’s available,” Stephen said, getting up from his chair.

  I nodded. “And I’ll put out an email to everyone, letting them know.” Stephen headed off, moving around the building to speak to those who were in the office while I put out a general email asking for anyone who was available to let us know.

  It wasn’t long before Stephen came back with a pleased expression and I was about to ask him who’d he found to accompany us when my desk phone started ringing.

  “DCI Mitchell speaking,” I said, shooting Stephen an apologetic look while he sat back down.

  “It’s DCI Sedgwick,” the gruff voice on the other end of the phone answered.

  Due to my surprise, a moment passed before I said, “What can I do for you?”

  He cleared his throat. “My partner, DI Greene, and I are available.”

  “Oh,” I said, my eyebrows rising. “Oh, right, thank you. That’d be greatly appreciated. We’re hoping to head off as soon as possible.”

  “We’ll be around,” he grunted before hanging up abruptly.

  I shook my head at the phone and set it down. “That was Sedgwick,” I told Stephen, who looked as surprised as I’d been. “Offering to help.”

  “Really?” Stephen coughed a laugh. “This is going to be interesting. I found a couple
of DCs who were willing and able to help us out too. Six of us is probably overkill,” he said with a shrug, “but better to be safe than sorry.”

  “Aye,” I nodded. “We’ll have to be careful not to contaminate any evidence in the apartment, though, if we can help it. There might be crucial-”

  “I know, I know, Mitchell, we’ll all be sure to watch where we put our boots.”

  I harrumphed. “Alright.”

  We got the group coordinated and met up outside not long later, the whole thing having taken less than half an hour to organise. I nodded in satisfaction as I watched the others getting into their cars. I didn’t want to have to wait another day, nor give Alec any more time to either flee or destroy any evidence that might be at the flat.

  The other two cars, holding Sedgwick, his partner, and the two DCs, would follow behind Stephen and me since we knew the way best.

  “Ready?” Stephen asked, coming up behind me and putting a hand on my shoulder.

  “Aye, let’s get going.”

  “Impatient as usual,” Stephen chuckled, but he followed after me as I headed over to the car and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  I was on edge, more out of anticipation than fear. We didn’t have any reason to think we’d be met with serious confrontation, nor that Alec would be armed in any way. Though policing required us to always prepare for good plans to go to hell on a moment’s notice, I was tentatively hopeful that this one would go smoothly.

  It didn’t take long to drive over, though the late afternoon traffic was starting to build up. I was glad that I’d be running home later and not driving. It was a pleasant, warm day, which had brought out the tourists and locals alike, clogging up the centre of York with shoppers and families despite it being a weekday.

  We pulled up outside my apartment block, and I found myself looking up at it in a new light, that of the target for a raid and not my home. Making the shift in my head was a strange feeling, as the two mindsets were polar opposites. Being out on a raid was the most dangerous part of my job, and I couldn’t afford to relax or let my guard down lest I end up in hospital, whereas my home was supposed to be the one place I could feel safe, completely separate from the stress and danger of work. Having to move from one mental space to the other left me feeling somewhat off balance, but I forced myself to focus on getting the job done. There were people here relying on me, both my colleagues and Maddie in the hospital, who deserved justice for what had happened to her.

  Climbing out of the car, I moved around to the car’s boot to fetch the small battering ram we’d stowed there to breach the door with. Stephen held out his hands, and I handed the ram over, sticking with the plan we’d agreed upon.

  Leading the way towards the apartment door, I let us inside, glancing over my shoulder to make sure that everyone was ready. Sedgwick gave me a curt nod, as did the DCs. We moved as a team into the entrance hall and up the stairs, Stephen flanking me and Sedgwick alert and ready on the opposite side of the wall. The DCs brought up the rear as the least experienced officers, and they looked particularly young when I glanced back down the stairs at them. But I had to trust they’d handle themselves fine and pulled my attention back towards the door to Alec’s flat.

  We’d all stayed quiet as we climbed the stairs and it would be to our advantage to move quickly after Stephen breached the door, just in case Alec had returned to the flat and was waiting inside. Cornered, desperate people could act in unpredictable ways, and I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone under my command getting hurt.

  Stephen looked to me for instruction, and I gave him a firm nod, taking a step back. His brows narrowed as he turned to the door, hefting the black battering ram in hand. The muscles in his arms bunched as he pulled back, his broad shoulders tensed with strength, before he slammed it forwards.

  It took three sharp, hard blows for the door to snap and bounce open, revealing the inside of Alec’s flat. Stephen took a step back, giving me room to move forwards at the lead, as I’d wanted. If there was somebody hostile inside, I wanted to be the first to face them. I’d have liked to have Stephen directly at my back, but his hands were occupied with the battering ram until he could put it down and it was Sedgwick who followed me as we entered.

  I stepped carefully, tensely scanning the flat as we moved forwards. I’d already warned everybody to be careful where they stepped to minimise damage, which had led to Stephen giving me an eye roll and Sedgwick looking put out to be treated like a rookie. Still, better to have too many reminders than for someone to destroy something that could make or break the case.

  We spread out through the flat which was laid out very much like my own. There were ceramic shards scattered about the floor from a piece of broken crockery, and I had to focus as I picked my way through them. Each room was announced as empty, and I relaxed as the flat was confirmed as deserted, even as disappointment stirred in my stomach. I hadn’t truly expected Banks to still be here, it was true, but I’d hoped for it, regardless.

  “This place is a mess,” Stephen muttered, coming to stand at my side as we stood in the living room. “The kitchen looks like a bomb went off.”

  “Someone searched the flat?” I guessed as I moved into the kitchen.

  Stephen was right. The room made the mess in the living room look neat as a pin. The floor was strewn with bits of broken plates, the flimsy kitchen table had been kicked over, and several framed photographs had been torn off the wall and broken.

  To top it off, the place stank, and I pressed my nose into my elbow. The smell came from the pile of unwashed dishes standing in or by the sink, on which mould was growing.

  “Alright.” I sighed as I stepped back into the living room, away from the foul smell. Trying to find something useful amongst all this was going to be a job and a half. “Thank you all for your help. Stephen and I can handle it from here.”

  No need to have six pairs of boots trampling about the place if we didn’t need them, now that we had confirmed it as safe.

  Sedgwick grunted, gave me a nod, and headed out. His partner gave me a sheepish smile and a little wave before she followed Sedgwick out. The two youngsters also bid us an awkward goodbye before they, too, filed out.

  Stephen rubbed his hands against his trousers before reaching into his pocket for a pair of gloves and slipping them on.

  “Are we looking for anything specific?” Stephen asked as I pulled on my own gloves.

  “I’m not sure.” I shrugged. “Fingerprints won’t be much help, since Maddie was Alec’s girlfriend, and her prints will be all over the place.”

  Stephen accepted this with a nod and got to work looking over every inch of the living room. I headed into the kitchen first, but only to open the window. Hopefully, the room would be less noxious by the time I finished with the bedroom.

  Like my flat, the double bedroom was a good size and had a window that looked out onto the car park at the front of the building. At first appearances, the bedroom looked untouched by the chaos in the rest of the flat, but I looked it over carefully, regardless. I found plenty of evidence of a woman having been here, from the long hairs caught on the pillows to the small-size t-shirts and floral pyjamas in the chest of drawers, but that didn’t help us much.

  I was on my hands and knees looking under the bed when Stephen walked in.

  “Found anything?”

  I coughed on the thick dust under the bed and got back to my feet with a grimace at the ache in my knees. “Nothing useful.”

  “Me either,” Stephen said. “Kitchen next?”

  “Aye, better bite the bullet,” I agreed, and we headed through, stepping carefully around all the broken pieces on the floor. I paused in the kitchen doorway, looking over the room again.

  “You alright?”

  I stepped forward so that Stephen could join me inside.

  “I thought it might’ve been trashed by someone trying to find something,” I said. “But this looks more like a row, with all the plates smashed like th
is.”

  “Yeah, I reckon you’re right,” Stephen said, moving inside to start looking the room over. I grimaced at the lingering smell and resisted the urge to cover my face. Cool air stirred the thin curtain at the window, but the sickly sweet smell of decay clung to the place.

  I was studying the cluttered laminate counters when a small stain on the stone floor caught my eye. The floor was done up with the same large, grey stones as my own kitchen, the dark colour of which tended to hide the dirt. Half expecting to find that it was nothing more than some spilt jam, I crouched down on the floor and narrowed my eyes at the blot of reddish-brown liquid. A large shard of white ceramic partially hid it, and I carefully lifted that aside.

  “You got something?” Stephen asked. Tiny pieces of broken crockery that were impossible to avoid crunched under his boots like gravel.

  “Aye, maybe,” I said. “We’ll need to get a sample of it.” I stood up and moved out of the way so that Stephen could have a look. If it was blood, which I thought it was, it could illuminate a lot about what happened here and how Maddie had ended up at the bottom of the stairs.

  Stephen hummed as he tilted his head to look at it. “Worth taking to the lab. Do you think it could be the victim’s?”

  I turned the possibilities over in my head. As far as I could see it, there were three options, the first being that the blood belonged to Maddie and that she’d been hurt in this room before she fell or was pushed down the stairs. The second was that the blood belonged to her attacker, mostly likely Alec Banks, and that he’d lashed out either in anger or self-defence. The final possibility was that the blood belonged to neither of them. It could be an old stain, never cleaned up and belonging to anyone who’d ever visited the flat, or it might be fresh, indicating the presence of someone else in the flat on the night Maddie had been hurt.

  “It’s a possibility,” was what I finally said to Stephen. “The lab results will tell us.”

  Though we usually used a specialised forensics unit to sweep crime scenes, I didn’t think it worth calling them out for just one sample. I knew enough to collect it myself, and we had a suitable container in the back of the car, from the same pack that our plastic gloves, booties, and evidence bags came out of.