Bones In the River

by Zoe Sharp

  She bit her lip, blinked a bit.

  Oh, don’t you try the tears routine. Not with me, Lisa…

  He sighed as he put down the toast, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stepped in, reaching for her waist. She felt tiny as he pulled her in toward him, her flesh firm without the squashy excess roll his ’Vonne had acquired over the years, between ribcage and hip.

  “Look, sweetheart, it wasn’t so long ago you and him wasn’t together anyway, was it?’ he said, more gently. “You said yourself that he was sniffin’ around that redheaded CSI woman. And what’s sauce for the goose, eh?”

  “Yeah, but…”

  Tired of convincing her with words, he slipped a hand beneath her chin and tipped her mouth to his. After only a moment, she kissed him back, like she couldn’t help herself. The want zipped down his spine. In heels, she was almost his height so they were hip to hip.

  He hauled her closer, needing the full contact, wanting to grind his pelvis hard into hers, but she wedged a hand against his chest.

  “Dylan, no, you’re all covered in tea. My dress—”

  He ignored her, more demanding now with hands and teeth and tongue. In the past, she’d liked him to go a bit rough, so it took him maybe longer than it should have done to realise she was still trying to push him away.

  Abruptly, he released her. She tottered back, leaned against the sink with her knees clamped together like some blushing virgin. When she wiped her mouth with one hand, he saw it was shaking. She looked close to tears again.

  “I’m s–sorry. I didn’t come here for… I just got carried away, that’s all.”

  “So, what did you come here for, then?”

  “I don’t know. A mistake, clearly, wasn’t it? It’s just…DI Pollock dragged me into Kendal nick for questioning, like I was some kind of criminal. I didn’t know what to do with myself.” She let out a long, shaky breath and shook her head, voice bitter now. “And when they were done, there was Nick waiting for me, all deadly calm, like he used to get when he was on Firearms. And I knew he’d been listening to the whole thing. You even told them how I had my bikini-line waxed, for God’s sake, just to prove it. Honest, I nearly died of embarrassment.”

  Dylan stilled, picked up what was left of his tepid tea just for something to do with his hands. “So, what did you say to him?”

  “What d’you mean, what did I say to him? What could I say to him?”

  Dylan hesitated, warring between the need for his alibi to hold, and not wanting to have some psycho copper after him—especially not one who might come tooled up and after his balls on a skewer.

  Then she sighed. “I told him it wasn’t serious, just a bit of fun.” Her voice was miserable.

  “And how did he take that, like?”

  “Honestly?” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

  He eyed her with a certain amount of cynicism. “What else did you come here for, Leese? Not just to tell me nothin’, was it?”

  She took a deep breath. “Those bags,” she said, looking furtive now. “The knock-off ones Karl got from you.”

  He moved further into the kitchen, plonked himself down at the table and sprawled in the chair. She wasn’t wearing a wire—not unless it was hidden somewhere very personal—but he knew better than to confirm it out loud. Instead, he just raised an eyebrow.

  “I brought them with me,” she said. “In the car. I–I need you to take them back.”

  He smiled. “If you wanted rid of ’em, sweetheart, you should’ve just dumped ’em in the first skip you came to.”

  “Nick knows about them,” she gritted out.

  He stilled. “What—where they came from, you mean?”

  “No, no, not that. I told him Karl had got hold of a few from some bloke he met in a pub. I think he can make it all go away, but you’ve got to take the rest back.”

  “Oh, I do, do I?”

  The lazy insolence in his voice made her redden, like she knew she was asking the impossible and was asking it anyway.

  Should have got on your knees rather than shovin’ me away, sweetheart, he thought acidly. A quick blow job might’ve made me feel a bit more generous, like.

  Unaware, she stumbled on. “I mean, you don’t have to give me the money right now, if you haven’t—”

  He did laugh then, a raucous burst that stopped her in her tracks. “Oh, that’s priceless! So, you not only want me to take the gear off your hands but you want a refund as well. What am I, Marks & Spencer? Kept the receipt, did you?”

  He surged out of his chair, gratified by the way she flinched at the grate of its wooden feet along the tiles. He crowded her against the sink and, when she would have ducked out past him, closed his fingers around her exposed throat. Just hard enough to make the fear jump in her eyes.

  “Let me tell you how this is goin’ to work, sweetheart. See, I won’t be takin’ nothin’ back. And you won’t be saying nothin’ to nobody. You got me?”

  87

  A uniformed sergeant stopped Nick on his way into the station at Hunter Lane.

  “I don’t know what kind of aftershave you wear, DC Weston, but it certainly seems to be working,” she said grimly.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’ve another young lady waiting in Reception to talk to you.” she said with a sniff. “I wouldn’t be skipping your vitamin pills, if I were you.”

  Still mystified, Nick detoured to the front desk. Standing with her back to him, studying the Crime Prevention posters, was a slim girl with a mass of wild black curls. She wore a short leather jacket that enabled her to stick both hands in the back pockets of her skinny jeans.

  “Hi,” Nick said. “I was told you wanted to see me…”

  The girl turned, revealing a stunning North African face. He couldn’t help giving her a quick appraisal, realised she was doing the same right back.

  “So, you must be DC Weston,” she said. “I’m Alex.”

  “Alex…?”

  She flashed him a quick grin. “The bloke in Tech Support, remember?”

  Nick felt his face heat. “Ah, yeah. Look, I’m sorry about that—” he began but she waved away his apology.

  “No worries,” she said. “You wanted the text messages from Owen Liddell’s mobile. Got the last six months the phone was active, right here.” She patted the canvas messenger bag slung over her shoulder. “Thought I’d deliver them personally, take a look at you while I was at it.”

  “And?”

  “Not shy, are you? Glad I did, though, if you want to know.”

  Nick raised an eyebrow. “I meant, was there anything interesting in the texts?”

  “Oh yeah,” she said. “That, too…”

  88

  Grace had no sooner sat down behind her desk at Hunter Lane, than Nick stuck his head round the office door.

  “Ah, you’re back,” he said, then stilled. “Everything OK?”

  She forced a smile. “Er, yes, I think so. What’s up?”

  He regarded her a moment longer, took a breath. “I’ve just got back from speaking to the midwife who delivered Yvonne Elliot’s baby.”

  “But I thought you said Agnes Trelawney wasn’t capable of being questioned—”

  “Not Agnes—her daughter, Wynter. She’s the local midwife now, but back then she was in training and she delivered Yvonne’s real child, which was still-born, apparently. Wynter said her mother was dealing with a young Gypsy girl giving birth at the same time, and that was the baby given to Yvonne to pass off as her own.”

  “So who was the mother?”

  Nick shook his head. Leaning in the aperture, hands in the pockets of his suit trousers, he owned the doorway. “Wynter claims Agnes never told her, and we’ve no means of proving that either way.”

  “Rather convenient,” Grace observed.

  “Yes, it is, isn’t it?” He frowned. “Did you say that Owen Liddell’s DNA didn’t come up a match to the boy, because the story about a young Gypsy girl is very familiar. A
nd we know from the photographs that Liddell had a kid.”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Grace said. “We know he was photographed with a baby, but that doesn’t signify ownership. I’ve been photographed in front of the Taj Mahal, but I won’t be taking up residence anytime soon.”

  “Well, considering I understood it was built as some kind of tomb, I’m glad to hear it.”

  She smiled. “Can you leave this with me, Nick? Let me get the lab to run Jordan’s DNA through the database again.”

  “What will that do?”

  “I’ll ask them to widen out the search. Before, we were looking for close relatives only. But if we’ve any aunts, uncles or cousins on file, that might get us closer to either of his birth parents.”

  “Great,” Nick said. “Will you let me know the results as soon as you can? I’m just waiting for the DI and then we’re off to have another word with the Elliots.”

  She looked up. “About Jordan?”

  “Not this time,” he said. “I’ve just had Owen Liddell’s last text messages delivered. And the last one he received and replied to, it was from Yvonne Elliot.”

  “Really? That’s…interesting. What did it say?”

  But the clatter of boots on the stairs had him glancing over his shoulder, as DI Pollock joined him in the doorway.

  “We may well need CSI down there, Grace. Have you seen Blenkinship anywhere?”

  Grace schooled her face into a bland expression. “Last I knew, he was in Carlisle.”

  “Hm, well he’s not there now and nobody seems to know where he’s disappeared to,” Pollock said. “So, unless you’re up to your neck in something urgent, grab your kit. You’re with us.”

  89

  Blenkinship drove into a street of squat terraced houses in Workington and slowed to a crawl.

  The houses were identical cramped boxes, two up, two down, with kitchen and bathroom extensions bumped out into the yard at the back. An attempt had been made to relieve the uniformity of their pebble-dashed fronts, by painting the door and window reveals a variety of bright colours. It only served, in his opinion, to make them look like a slightly mismatched set of old plates.

  The house he was looking for was next to the end of the row. A sludgy shade of mud brown had been chosen as its accent colour. Blenkinship parked and climbed out, hearing the harsh cackle of seagulls wheeling overhead. He could smell the sea, too, less than half a mile away to the west. He straightened his shoulders and rang the doorbell.

  It was only as he did so that he noticed the tiny camera lens drilled into the plastic surround of the door frame, at the top corner. He stared straight up into it and mouthed, “Let me in.”

  After a long pause, the door opened and Ty Frost stood in the gap. He wore what might have been tartan pyjama bottoms, with a stained T-shirt and socks but no shoes.

  “Hi boss,” he said, without enthusiasm. “What’re you doing here?”

  “I’ve just come to see how you are, like,” Blenkinship said, ignoring Frost’s sceptical expression. “Aren’t you going to ask us in?”

  Frost moved back with obvious reluctance and jerked his head. Blenkinship stepped through straight into the living room. The space was almost entirely taken up with a leather corner sofa. A large flat-screen TV hung on the wall opposite. There appeared to be no other furniture in the room. The walls were hung with classic movie posters—mainly sci-fi epics.

  “Make yourself at home,” Frost mumbled, clearing his laptop and a games controller off to one side.

  They sat in awkward silence for a moment while Blenkinship searched for the best way into his story.

  “Look, Ty, I just wanted you to know that I don’t believe for a second you planted that evidence, all right?”

  Ty looked up at him blankly. “But… I thought it was you who reported me?”

  “Well, obviously, yeah. As soon as I realised there was something amiss, I didn’t have a choice,” he said hastily. “But that doesn’t mean you were the one who put it there, eh?”

  “I suppose that would’ve been a bit dumb—me planting it and then finding it myself an’ all,” he agreed.

  “Aye.” Blenkinship hid a wince. “But I think I’ve an idea who might have done it.”

  That got his attention. “Who?”

  Blenkinship eyed him for a moment. He’d worked out all the angles on the drive over to the coast, but now he was actually here…

  “Weston,” he said.

  “No way,” Frost said faintly but there was no weight behind it. “You sure?”

  Blenkinship let his breath out slowly, only then aware he’d been holding it. “Well…let’s just say I have my suspicions, eh?”

  “Can you prove it, like?”

  He made a face of regret. “That’s the thing. I thought there might just be something on my dash-cam. It records if anybody interferes with the car, not just when you’re driving, doesn’t it?”

  “Well, yeah, but…”

  “The clothing from the post-mortem exam on the boy was in the boot when Weston ran into me in the car park. He could have accessed it then—while I was distracted, like.” Blenkinship had practised talking about this, saying the words out loud during the drive until they sounded natural to his own ears, almost convincing. And the best lies, he knew, were those which stuck closest to the truth. “I can’t prove it but…I could’ve sworn there was already some damage on the front corner of his vehicle.”

  “Oh,” Frost said. And, as the import struck home. “Oh.”

  “Yeah. So, are you sure you threw away that SD card—the one from my dash-cam? Because, if not, I wondered if I could have it back—see if I can get anything off it.”

  “If it is corrupted, you’ll struggle,” Frost said.

  Blenkinship tried not to let his relief show. So, he hasn’t looked at it. The use of present-tense did not escape him, though. His eyes narrowed.

  “Does that mean you didn’t chuck it?”

  Frost lifted a shoulder. “Well…”

  “It’s OK, Ty. Just let me have it back and I can check it out, yeah?”

  “I might be better taking a look at it myself. No offence, boss, but I’m probably better on the tech side of things and—”

  “No!” Blenkinship said. He swallowed, lowered his voice. “No, if you do it, it looks like you’re trying to push the blame onto someone else, eh? But if I do it, as your boss, I’m simply carrying out a thorough internal investigation. All above board and proper. See what I mean?”

  There was another agonising pause, then Frost nodded. “Yeah.”

  “So…can I have it then, mate?”

  “Ah, well, that’s the problem,” Frost said awkwardly. “I don’t have it anymore…”

  90

  “Oh no, not you lot again.” Yvonne Elliot answered the front door jiggling the baby, bawling, on her hip. “What d’you want this time?”

  DI Pollock sighed. “Just give it a rest, Yvonne, and let us in, eh?”

  “I don’t s’pose you’ve got a warrant this time, neither?”

  “Funny you should say that, lass…”

  She seemed about to say more, Nick thought. But then she looked at the paperwork the detective inspector was holding out to her, past him to where Nick and the uniforms stood behind him, and to Grace, climbing out of her pick-up in the yard, with her crime-scene kit in hand. Yvonne stepped back without a further word, holding the door wide. Even the baby momentarily stopped crying.

  “Thanks,” Pollock murmured. “Dylan about, is he?”

  “In his workshop.”

  Pollock turned and nodded to the uniforms, who moved off toward one of the barns where the crackle of a welding rig could be heard.

  She led them through to the sitting room at the back of the house again. Two of the older girls were watching TV in there, lounging on one of the sofas. Yvonne picked up the remote and muted the sound.

  “Upstairs,” she said. “Now.”

  The girls scowled but too
k one look at the obvious police presence and hurried out. Yvonne blinked, as if she hadn’t quite expected to be obeyed. She plonked herself down in one of the vacated spaces and stared mutinously at Pollock. He picked up the discarded remote and shut the TV off completely. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the air fizzing out of the compressed seat cushion where she sat.

  “Tell me about Owen Liddell,” Pollock said quietly.

  Yvonne opened her mouth, then closed it again, eyes skating. “Who?”

  “Don’t, lass. We found his phone with the body and we’ve recovered his text messages—his final text messages.”

  Her hands tightened around the infant, who let out a protesting wail. Yvonne turned the baby’s face into her chest to lessen her cries, and busied herself rocking her until she quietened.

  “All right, I knew Owen, what of it?”

  “Friend of the family, was he?”

  “Sort of, yeah.”

  “Sort of,” Pollock echoed flatly. “You must have known him better than that, Yvonne. Why else would it be Owen you contacted in an emergency?”

  “I–I don’t know. Can’t remember.”

  “Must have been something memorable, like. Something important. What was that message again, DC Weston?”

  Nick made a show of consulting his notes, knowing it carried more weight if people saw something was in writing. “‘Emergency! Come quick!’”

  She effected a nonchalant shrug. “When am I s’posed to ’ave sent that?”

  “Why? Send out a lot of SOS messages, do you, lass?”

  Nick read out the date. Late September, eight years ago. “You must have known Owen quite well, Mrs Elliot,” he said. “Because he doesn’t query it at all. A couple of minutes later he sends back, ‘On my way!’ and, as far as we know, that’s the last communication anybody had from him. Ever.”

  The statement, delivered without inflection, hung in the air like dust, swirling in the sunlight that streamed through the windows.