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

by Oliver Davies

  “There’s been new evidence,” I interrupted. “Come with us peaceably, and I won’t need the cuffs.”

  “Handcuffs?” she snapped. “I’m not a criminal, I’ve done nothing wrong!”

  “Ms Davies,” I said. “Do you really want to be taken through this gym in handcuffs? This place employs you. You can choose to walk with us or not, but you are coming to the station.”

  She glared at me. Her body wound up so tight that for a moment, I was genuinely unsure whether she was going to attack me. The fight didn’t exactly go out of her so much as she visibly tamped her anger down and got herself under control. I sensed that that fury was still pent up inside her like a compressed spring, primed to burst up at the right provocation.

  “Fine,” she said curtly. She turned stiffly away from us to finish rolling up her yoga mat and gathering her things. Then, her head held high, she followed Stephen out of the room, with the DC and I falling into step either side of her once we moved out of the narrow corridor. There were stares and murmurings in the main area of the gym as we walked Isabel out, but her face was fixed, and she didn’t so much as look at them, imperious as a queen.

  We took her out to the car, and I opened the door for her. She stepped inside primly, as if she’d ordered the patrol car herself and I was her chauffeur. Stephen took the seat in the back, beside Isabel, and the young DC sat in the passenger seat next to me. Isabel didn’t say much of anything as we drove her to the station, though I could see from brief glances in the rearview mirror that she was twisted up with fury, almost spitting with it. Her silence wasn’t anything like the quiet of resignation, it was a heavy, loaded thing that hung over the car like a weight.

  Pulling up outside the station, I got us parked up, and we escorted Isabel inside. Stephen touched her arm in passing, trying to steer her towards the back of the station, and she gave a violent, full-body jerk. Stephen flinched, expecting, like me, for her to hit him. She didn’t, but it seemed a close thing.

  We gladly passed her over to the folks who dealt with the custody suites and would get her checked in, take her fingerprints, and her possessions put somewhere safe. We’d be back later to interview her, but I knew that both of us were more than happy to have a break.

  “Crikey,” Stephen muttered, running a hand over his short, spiky hair in clear agitation. “She just sets you right on edge, doesn’t she?”

  I grimaced. “She really does.”

  We headed out to buy ourselves lunch and ate it at our desks. Stephen talked lightly about his kids and their most recent antics, and the tension slowly fell away from my shoulder.

  Of course, afterwards, we had to interview her, and I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to ward off the headache threatening to bed in there.

  Stephen patted me on the shoulder. “C’mon, mate.”

  I picked up my coffee mug and stood up. “Aye, I’m coming.”

  We made our way downstairs, and I took a small, brief pleasure in the fact that I could descend the stairs without the jabbing pain in my shins that had plagued me recently.

  We weren’t sitting waiting in the interview room for long before an officer brought Isabel in. She looked exactly as furious as when we’d last seen her, and both and I tensed.

  My thoughts around the woman were complicated. Alec had abused her, and for that, I wanted more than anything to be on Isabel’s side. I wanted to whole-heartedly condemn Alec and have him put away for harming Maddie. Isabel had expressed her anger that Alec had only been issued with a warning and a non-molestation order after what he did, and I agreed with her. And yet, Maddie, the victim in the hospital, had explicitly named Isabel as the one who hurt her. I wanted to believe and support both of them, but Maddie was dead set against Isabel, and we had a duty to investigate that.

  “Why am I here?” Isabel demanded, almost as soon as she’d been sat down and the recording machine turned on. “It was that snake, Alec, wasn’t it? He lied to you-”

  “Ms Davies,” I said firmly. “We’re more than willing to hear your side of this, but please try to tell us what happened clearly, without insults. We want to know how Maddie Packham was injured, and what your involvement is.”

  She looked at me hard. “Alec’s new fling?” she said contemptuously. “How would I know?”

  Stephen and I glanced at each other. “You’re saying you don’t know Maddie? That you’ve never met her?”

  “Why would I?” she snapped. “I want nothing to do with Alec, or whatever idiotic new girl he’s shacking up with. She’ll see what kind of-”

  I held up a hand. “Alright. So you haven’t met Maddie. Have you seen Mr Banks within the last month?”

  She looked at me through narrowed eyes. “No,” she said finally. “Why would I? I loathe him.”

  I pressed my lips together. We knew that she was lying, because she’d been seen having an argument with Alec outside her house on the night that Maddie was hurt. I wished she would only be straight with us, because the more she lied, the harder I found it to believe that she wasn’t hiding something big.

  I sat back in my chair and studied her for a moment. She wasn’t a tall woman, but she had a fierceness that made her seem to take up more space than she did.

  “You had to have stitches put into your arm,” I said, changing tack. “How did you hurt yourself?”

  She gave a minute flinch at that, even as she answered smoothly. “I slipped while holding a knife, cut myself badly. Why? How is that relevant? You still haven’t told me why I’m here!”

  “Have you visited Mr Banks’s flat within the last month?” Stephen said, ignoring her question.

  She clenched her jaw. “No. I demand you tell me why I’m here. Alec’s said something about me, hasn’t he? He’s a liar, a damn filthy liar. How can you believe a man with his history? Whatever he’s said-”

  I sighed. “Ms Davies, we’re trying to understand what happened. You lying to us doesn’t help anyone.” She spluttered and made to break in, but I continued over her protests. “Mr Banks has said very little about the incident, in fact. It’s not due to him that we’re speaking to you today. Please be honest with us. We can’t do anything to help you unless you tell us the clear truth.”

  I glanced down at my notebook, even though I knew the date off by heart, and asked Isabel what she was doing on that night.

  “How can I know that?” she said icily. “That was weeks ago, I can’t remember. If Alec’s not been lying to you, then why am I here? You can’t honestly believe I had anything to do with any of this?”

  “Why were you at the hospital the other night, Ms Davies?” Stephen asked, before he gestured to me. “My colleague saw you there, but you never explained why you were there.”

  I looked at Isabel, wondering how she was going to answer this one.

  “Not that it’s any of your damn business,” she said, “I was getting a follow-up on my stitches in my arm.”

  “And that took you up to the floor Ms Pakcham was on?” I said, a touch sharply. “Isn’t that an entirely different block of the hospital?”

  “I was lost.”

  My temper flared briefly at that blatant lie. “Why were you heading towards Maddie’s room?” I said. “Did you want to see her? Wish her well? Harm her?”

  “I don’t know her!” Isabel snapped.

  “Then why did she accuse you of trying to kill her?” I demanded.

  Isabel reared back, her face pale. “What?”

  “Where were you really that night, Ms Davies?” I said. “I think you remember it quite well.”

  Isabel gathered herself, and I could all but see her recalculating in her head.

  “She must be brainwashed by Alec,” she said stolidly. “That man gets his hooks into you like nothing else. The poor girl probably thinks she’s protecting him. He’ll have convinced her that it was all an accident, that-”

  I rubbed a hand over my face. “Ms Packham is lying, then, that’s what you’re saying?”

 
“No, no, it’s all Alec’s influence. The girl wouldn’t even know what she was saying-”

  “Alright,” I said, shaking my head. I looked over at Stephen. “Have you got anything to ask?”

  He shook his head. “Reckon we’re done here,” he said flatly.

  “Wait, wait,” Isabel said. “What happens now? When do I get a lawyer? I’ve done nothing wrong, I’ve told you-”

  “We’ll make sure you get the legal advice you want,” I told her. “After that, we’ll have to see what the evidence shows.”

  “What evidence?” Isabel said, her voice high. “What evidence do you have?”

  I shook my head, unwilling to discuss that with her. From what I’d seen in the interview so far, she’d adjust and adapt her story to fit around whatever we told her. And she’d blame Alec solidly throughout. After what he’d done to her, I could hardly blame her for believing the absolute worst about him, as I was entirely inclined to do when we first found out about his history. But she was also lying right to our faces about things we knew weren’t true. I wished we could believe her, but she was making it impossible.

  I shut off the recording machine and Stephen and I got up. Isabel continued to protest, demanding that we tell her what we knew, demanding that we must see that it was Alec’s fault.

  We left the room without answering her, nodding to the officer outside the door who went in to collect Isabel and take her to one of the custody suites. Stephen followed unquestioningly when I led the way to the back of the station.

  There, I talked to the lad on the desk and asked for them to send the DNA samples they’d taken from Isabel up to the lab. I wanted to compare it to the blood that had been found in Alec’s kitchen. If it matched Isabel’s, it’d be concrete proof that she absolutely had visited Alec’s flat recently, and that something happened to her while she was there.

  “What’s next, then?” Stephen asked as we climbed the stairs. “Isabel, Alec, Eloise; they’ve all lied to us.”

  “Maddie’s the only one who hasn’t,” I said.

  “As far as we know,” Stephen said, uncharacteristically suspicious.

  “We need to know more about Isabel,” I decided. “And the best place to find that is her house. Hopefully, they’ll be something there to clear this up.”

  “And keep her in custody.”

  “If she is guilty,” I said pointedly.

  Stephen flopped down in his desk chair and sighed, laying his head back. “Yeah,” he agreed. “I still want it to be Banks, really. He seemed like such a smarmy piece of work.”

  “Aye. But we gotta go with what we know to be true, not what we want.”

  Stephen sent me a half-smile that was equal parts exasperated and amused. “I know that, you twit.”

  I smiled back. “And I know you know. I was just reminding the both of us.”

  Because, truth be told, I wanted it to be Alec, too. I didn’t want to find out that Isabel had hurt Maddie, that she’d moved from victim to persecutor. It didn’t sit well with me. But not being sure, absolutely sure, of the truth would sit even worse, so that’s what we’d do. We’d keep looking until we found something that confirmed who had harmed Maddie, some piece of firm, steady evidence that proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.

  Nineteen

  “She’s back again.”

  I looked up from the paperwork I was filling in. “Who is?”

  Stephen gave me a look as he put his phone down. “Banks’s sister.”

  “Just what we need,” I muttered, before pushing myself up to my feet. Stephen followed me up to standing. “Better get it over with. Did they give any indication of what she wanted?”

  Stephen grunted a negative. We headed downstairs to the entranceway where Eloise was waiting for us. She was wearing a puffy coat with an extravagantly large, faux-fur hood, and a dark purple skirt underneath. I couldn’t imagine how she wasn’t far too hot in a coat that looked like it was fit for the Arctic, but she looked cool and composed, if impatient.

  Once she saw us, she stalked over without waiting for us to approach. “I want an update,” she said. “They wouldn’t speak to me on the phone, claiming that-”

  I put up a hand. “We’ll talk in the interview room.”

  Once there, Stephen sat down next to me with a sigh, and we both looked at Eloise, who in turn waited expectantly for us to speak.

  “I want to know about my brother,” she said abruptly, when we didn’t immediately start telling her every detail she wanted to know. “What’s happening with that cow- the ex-wife of his?”

  “We can’t release details of the case,” I started.

  Eloise’s pretty face folded into a scowl. “I’m his family!” she protested.

  “Yes,” I said evenly. “And oftentimes, the family is involved. We appreciate what you told us last time, but unless you have something new for us-”

  “But what did you do with what I told you?” she demanded. “Did you arrest her?” She leaned forwards and put on an unconvincing expression of pitiable pleading. “Please, I’m scared for my safety. With what I told you, she could come to attack me.”

  Stephen glanced over at me, and I raised my eyebrows at him, asking him what he thought. He gave a shrug. It was up to me.

  I didn’t have the patience for this. “She won’t harm you, Ms Banks, you have my word on that,” I said firmly and made to get up. We had better things to be doing than this.

  “Wait, wait,” Eloise said, alarmed. “What do you mean? Was she arrested? Is she here in this very station?” Her eyes were wide, and I could see the satisfaction in them.

  She clearly saw the lack of patience in my own face, because she pulled back, straightening herself up. “I understand you can’t tell me much,” she said, demure and polite again. “But please, if you’ve got Isabel here, when will Alec be let out? You know he’s innocent, don’t you? You must!”

  I hesitated, and Stephen stepped in.

  “We’re still reviewing the evidence,” he said firmly. “Nothing is clear or decided yet, Ms Banks. Now, you must excuse us.”

  I followed him up to standing more than happily. Eloise’s expression dissolved into frustrated outrage.

  “I’ll be talking to my solicitor about this,” she said sharply, picking herself up and sweeping out.

  I huffed out a tired laugh as she left, and Stephen shook his head. “That woman thinks she’s the queen of bloody Sheba.”

  “Damn right.” I checked my watch. “We’ve time aplenty to go and look at Isabel’s house now, if you fancy? The locksmith should be done by now, I reckon.”

  “Why not?”

  So we fetched our coats and headed out to the car. I drove us over to Isabel’s address, where the locksmith was packing up. He heard us arrive and turned around as we walked over.

  “All good?” I asked.

  “Complex lock,” he said with a shrug. “But it’s open now.”

  The door was open a crack, and I was curious to look inside. “Thanks.”

  He headed off and Stephen and I ventured forwards. Whilst we had to use quicker, more destructive methods when breaking into places that might contain someone or something dangerous, as with Alec’s flat, when we had the liberty of time, the police often employed a locksmith to open the house up for us.

  So, the door and lock intact, we stepped inside and pushed the door shut behind us. Inside, the house smelled pleasantly of a vanilla fragrance and, though not large, was elegantly decorated, neat, and meticulously clean. There wasn’t a great deal of natural light, due both to the relatively small windows and the dull sky outside, so we turned on the house lights as we went. The heating was set on a timer and had left the house at a comfortable temperature as we moved carefully around.

  “I’ll take the upstairs?” I offered, once we’d done a brief check of all the rooms, making sure that we were alone.

  Stephen agreed, and I made my way upstairs, the plastic booties on my feet crinkling as I walked. They didn’t give
the best grip on the soft carpet, so I had to be careful how I stepped, so I didn’t slip.

  I worked methodically from the bathroom to the first bedroom which had been turned into a small, busy office, and then the second. I could hear Stephen rustling around downstairs as he searched, and the occasional car passing by on the road outside, but other than that, it was quiet. I searched the second bedroom which was clearly the one Isabel slept in, diligently, moving from the wardrobe, to the drawers, to the bedside table.

  I didn’t find anything that jumped out at me, nothing that seemed out of place or unusual, until I reached the dressing table. It was an elegantly carved wooden piece, probably vintage, with a large mirror set above a small table for cosmetics and the like.

  Pulling open the little set of drawers set into the side, I found Isabel’s earrings, laid out in neat lines. I inhaled when I saw them, immediately remembering the singular earring I’d found on the stairs in the apartment building. It was currently lying in a matchbox in my apartment, and I wished I had it with me.

  Still, all the pairs of earrings in the first little drawer seemed complete, as did those in the second. But in the third, there was a silver, art deco stud lying in its place without its pair. As far as I could remember, the earring looked identical to the one I’d found in the stairwell, with its etched surface and irregular, sharp edges. I tried to temper my excitement, but the earring was such a distinctive shape, and I felt certain that I’d found its match.

  All the same, I took out my phone and took several photos of the earring lying in the drawer. When I was done taking pictures, I pulled on a pair of plastic gloves from my pocket and, pulling them snug so I wouldn’t fumble it, I carefully lifted the silver earring from the drawer. I slipped it inside a small evidence bag and holding it pinched in my fingers, I stowed it safely in my pocket.

  I completed my close search of the rest of the room but found nothing else that interested me. Heading back downstairs, I found Stephen still sifting through the kitchen and came over to help him look.

  “Anything?” I asked as I got started on the cupboards above the sink.