She was the first to look away, and I saw by the look on her face as she gently pulled her hand out of mine that her mind had taken a turn.
“What is it?”
She shrugged elegantly and handed me a purple mug that looked like it’d been bought from an art fair. We sipped our coffees for a moment while she figured out what she wanted to say.
“After my marriage fell apart, I wasn’t— I haven’t been looking for anything long term. I haven’t got the spoons for a relationship alongside my course.”
“Spoons?” I said, confused.
She pulled an amused face. “Energy. It’s a term disabled people use.”
“Oh.” Of course, her lupus. I frowned.
She gave me a sidelong look. “Don’t pity me, Darren. I have a full, happy life. But if you’re looking for someone to settle down with, it won’t be me.” She gave me a small smile. “Even though you are very handsome.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that. “Even with this birds’ nest on my head?” I ruffled my curly hair, which was wilder than usual.
“Even with that mop on your head, yes.” She was smiling again, and that was all that mattered.
I took a step closer to her but stopped when she tensed up slightly. “That’s fine,” I reassured her. “I’m a workaholic. I don’t have the time for a relationship that doesn’t compose of me and my running shoes. You don’t have to worry about any pressure from me.”
She visibly relaxed. “Thank god,” she said. “So would you want to be friends or…?” she trailed off.
We didn’t end up talking about the case after that, or me getting shot at, or really anything much at all, which was entirely fine by me.
Eighteen
“We got a reliable tip about the picture,” were the first words I heard the next morning.
I groaned and tried to extract myself from the twisted bedsheets. I ached all over still from my ill-advised race down the tor, and I grumbled to myself as I fell out of bed.
“Darren?” Kay said on the other end of the phone. “You sound like an angry bear.”
“I just woke up. You woke me up,” I said accusingly.
“Eloquent as usual,” she said, far too chipper for this ridiculous time in the morning. “Go drink some coffee, grumpy.”
“We’re not even on the case anymore.”
She paused. “I know. But the DCI invited us along to the school since we’d already been and we’re local. We might as well.”
“The school?” I repeated groggily, trying to pull on my trousers one-handed. “Wait, never mind. You can tell me after I’ve had coffee.”
“Well hurry up, will you? Gaskell will go without us otherwise, and you’ve stolen the car to visit your girlfriend.”
I was awake enough to respond to that, but I stepped into the ensuite before doing so. “She’s not my girlfriend, Kay, and neither of us wants her to be.” I wasn’t sure that entirely made sense, but I wasn’t yet conscious enough to care.
“Alright, alright,” Kay sighed. “Leave your friend, then, and get your butt down here.”
She left me to wash up, fetch coffee, get briefly distracted by Alice, and then drive somewhat hurriedly over to the station.
DCI Gaskell was looking mildly impatient by the time I arrived, but Lexi was rubbing against his legs, distracting him. The fact that he happily bent down to give her belly rubs made me think he was an animal lover.
Kay led the way to the school in our patrol car, with the DCI and his partner following behind. Kay pointedly didn’t say anything about Alice but instead, put on the radio and told me about the tip-off.
“We received calls from several different people, all local,” she started, “claiming that the woman in the picture is someone called Maisy Collins.” She glanced over at me to see if I knew the name, but I shook my head. It wasn’t familiar. “The members of the public all said that she worked at the school--”
“School?”
“St. John’s,” she clarified. “Where we went looking.”
“Christ,” I said. “So she was probably there when— Oh!”
“What?” Kay said sharply.
“Collins!” I said. “There was a Miss Collins when we talked to the music teacher, remember?”
Kay squinted and then gave me an apologetic look. “Not really,” she said.
“There was,” I said, now certain. “And she did look like Samuel’s picture, I think, though I didn’t really notice her. I thought she was a TA.” Kay hummed in agreement. I slapped the dashboard irritably. “Why didn’t I realise that?” I muttered.
Kay looked unimpressed. “Probably because it was a less-than-five minute long conversation in the midst of a number of conversations we’ve had with strangers over the last few weeks and that was absolutely nothing remarkable about her. I couldn’t tell you what colour her hair was.”
“Brown, I think.”
“Exactly,” Kay said. “You’re not a machine, Mitchell, don’t beat yourself up. You’ve got people that want to do that enough already.”
“You, you mean?”
She sent me a withering look. “No, the creeps who tried to shoot you, idiot.”
“Ah, them.” I huffed and leaned my head back against the headrest, feeling worn out. “Forgotten for a minute that some people in this town want to kill me.”
“Business as usual, Darren, don’t stress. I’ll protect you.”
“Thanks, Kay.” I wasn’t even joking, and she smiled, reaching over to ruffle my hair like the annoying younger sister she was.
“You’re welcome.”
We got to the school and trooped to reception. Gaskell’s partner had stayed in the car to make sure that no-one bolted out the front and Kay had walked round the back to keep watch there.
I was doubtful that Maisy Collins was going to be here. Her face had been on the news for more than twelve hours, even if it was only the local news, and I thought she’d have to be even worse than me at keeping up with current events and gossip to have not heard that the police were looking for her.
Of course, if she actually had no connection at all to Graham’s death, or Freddie’s accident, and was in fact just a woman who’d had an angry conversation with Graham in front of The Teaspoon, then she’d have no reason to run.
I was half-hoping she wasn’t here, because if she was then that would lead to some dead-ends I didn’t want to have to consider.
Gaskell looked over at me after the receptionist had somewhat nervously told us that Maisy hadn’t been at work today.
“When was she last in?” Gaskell asked.
“I’m not sure, I’ll check.” She tapped on her computer for a while before gesturing for Gaskell to step around to the other side of the desk and look. I followed.
Maisy hadn’t come into work yesterday either, but she’d been in the day before.
“What’s her home address?” The receptionist brought it up on the screen, and Gaskell wrote it down. “Thank you. Have you got an up-to-date picture of her?” Gaskell asked next.
I guessed that now we knew her identity, a photograph would be better than a sketch since however talented Samuel might be, the picture was based on a several-months-old recollection.
The receptionist took us down the hall and pointed out a big, framed board that held tiny pictures of the two dozen or so staff that worked here at the school.
“There she is,” the receptionist said, poking the little picture with her fingernail. “I’ve probably got a larger version on record.”
She headed back to her computer, and Gaskell followed her. I paused, bending down to look at Maisy Collins’s picture, surprised by how accurate Samuel’s drawing had been. Liam’s memory must have been pretty good for him to have described such a close resemblance to the real thing.
The young woman had dark hair and dark eyes, her brows slightly furrowed like she was thinking, even as she was smiling pleasantly. She had white skin with slightly reddened cheeks, like someone who
’d spent a lot of time outdoors. Her jaw was prominent, giving her a headstrong look, and I frowned at the small picture until Gaskell called me away.
We headed out, Gaskell with a foreboding frown on his ruddy-cheeked face.
“Try the farm next,” he said succinctly.
I nodded. “Sounds sensible.” I paused. “We talked to the music teacher at this school,” I said, feeling faintly embarrassed even though Kay was right that we hadn’t actually made any mistakes to be embarrassed about. “This Maisy Collins was in the room. The music teacher,” I pulled out my notebook and flipped back, “he was talking about Graham doing tutoring. Said that Maisy had been one of the ones tutored by him.”
I radioed to tell Kay to come back to the car as Gaskell considered what I’d said.
“So they may have known each other, at least superficially.”
I nodded. “Yes. But evidence connecting her with his death and Freddie’s accident is still circumstantial at this point.”
His lips twisted in annoyance as he acknowledged my point. “Still,” he said gruffly. “Gives us somewhere to start, doesn’t it? Her running off hasn’t done her any favours.”
“Just what I thought.”
Kay met us at our car and saw from my expression that Maisy hadn’t been at the school.
“Her house?” she asked.
I nodded. “A farm. Gaskell’s got the address, he’ll lead.”
The farm turned out to be a fair way up in the hills, and I noted that it must have been a long drive for Maisy to go from her home to the school twice every day.
I also noted, with a tight, apprehensive feeling in my stomach, that the most direct route to her farm took the lane right past Graham’s, the same lane where Freddie’s accident had happened.
Kay noticed as well, I was sure, as the car slowed very slightly as she drove past Graham’s house and she glanced out the window like she might be able to see Sarah. I was glad at least to see that there was still a police car parked outside Sarah’s house and we had to skirt carefully around it on the narrow road, the overgrown hedges encroaching onto the lane.
We worked our way further up, winding along the rutted, neglected lanes. The sky was dull, clouded over in a vast, white blanket, making the day feel later than it was. Rain was forecast later, but there wasn’t any sign of it yet.
“There, Darren!” Kay said sharply, and I put on the brakes. DCI Gaskell had missed the turning up to the farm, and I nearly had too. The farm’s sign might once have been white, it was now a dingy grey, and it was peeling so badly it was close to illegible.
I turned in, crunching over loose stones and putting my foot right down as the tyres struggled to climb the slight uphill with the mud under the tyres. If it did rain, this entrance would be slick with wet dirt.
I saw DCI Gaskell reversing before following our lead up the small slope. We drove slowly up the drive, which wasn’t long but so twisted between barns, old trees, and ramshackle sheds that we didn’t see the house until right near the top.
It hunkered down against the side of the moors, sparse shrubbery wrapping around the property and presumably keeping off the worst of the wind that whistled over the moors. The house itself was fairly large, but crawling with ivy up the right side, the window frames looking rotten and the roof sagging. The windows themselves were dark, and I couldn’t see a light on in any of them. I hoped that this hadn’t been a completely wasted trip and that there would be someone home in the house that we could talk to.
I knew how hard Sarah and Graham had had to work on maintaining their house, smaller than this one, with Graham spending hours on his projects. Here at a busy working farm, even further up into the wild moors where the weather battered relentlessly at any structures, people or animals, it was likely that there hadn’t been the time, nor perhaps the money, to keep the house up.
As I climbed out of the car, the wind almost knocked me back a step, throwing my hair in my eyes. Kay followed me out with a shiver and, after shutting up the car, we followed behind DCI Gaskell towards the old house.
There were sheep in a field off to the left and a chicken hut up by the house, though no chickens in sight. A dog barked from inside the house and Kay and I glanced at each other, wondering what was going to meet us when we knocked on the door.
Despite my best efforts, my nerves were jittery with tension and uncertainty. I wasn’t alone this time, and it wasn’t nighttime, but the same uneasy feeling of being watched and hunted pervaded. Though I logically couldn’t believe that whoever had fired at me would be so stupid as to attack all four of us, my gut wasn’t so certain, and I pressed my lips into a thin line.
Gaskell approached the door with his partner and knocked smartly. Kay and I hung back, not wanting to seem overbearing. The dog’s barking got progressively louder before the door was opened and the dog’s head poked out, though it was held back on a leash. It was a big German Shepherd, with a fluffy ruff of fur around its neck and I wondered whether it was really as aggressive as its barking made it sound or if it was just loud.
A man who looked about fifty looked out on me, his hand gripping the cracked wood of the door tightly. I wondered if this was Maisy Collins’s father and if so, whether he knew what his daughter had been doing.
“Yes?”
“Are you Mr Collins?”
“Yes?” the older man said over the dog’s barking, his voice rasping in the manner of a smoker. He was slightly hunched over, and he didn’t look at all well. Holding onto the straining dog seemed to be taking most of his strength.
Gaskell took out his badge, and so did his partner. He raised his voice over the dog’s racket. “I’m DCI Gaskell, and this is DI Golding. Is Maisy here?”
“Maisy?” Mr Collins looked confused. He shook his head before tugging the dog back. “You better come in,” he said. “C’mon, Stella.” He pulled the dog down the dim hall, leaving the door open behind him.
The DCI turned to us and held up a hand, indicating for us to stay where we were. Kay groaned aloud, and I felt the same, though I understood why Gaskell didn’t want to crowd Mr Collins and I gave him a nod of acknowledgement. Gaskell pulled the rickety door shut behind him and left Kay and me out in the cold wind.
I shoved my already frozen hands into my pockets with a sigh, before looking over at Kay.
“What d’you think?”
She looked over, her hands tucked under her armpits as she shivered. “I think I should’ve worn an extra jumper.”
I barely stopped myself from rolling my eyes. “Of him,” I said, gesturing towards the house. “Mr Collins. Think he knows about her?”
“About Maisy?” She paused before shaking her head. “Probably not, but who knows, really? Folk up here are fiercely private, not like them down in the town, talking off about everything to everyone.”
I hummed, nodding, idly kicking a stone by my feet. I could take a guess at what Gaskell would be asking, and I wished it was Kay and me in there too.
“We could go sit in the car?” Kay said hopefully.
I glanced over and considered it before the farm buildings scattered around caught my attention. “Could do,” I said. “Or we could go for a walk.”
“A walk?” Kay looked at me like I was losing my marbles.
I nodded over to the barns and sheds spaced out a little way down the drive.
“Oh, a walk.” Kay gave me a conspiratorial look, and I did roll my eyes at her this time.
We headed down the track at a brisk pace, both of us trying to warm up. The wind had a way of wheedling its way in through the gaps in my clothing and sliding its cold fingers down my neck.
The first shed was locked up, and Kay wandered off to look in the larger barn nearby whilst I walked around the locked shed. There were only two windows, and they were both high up and closed. We hadn’t got a warrant, and I didn’t want to break anything. Moving down towards Kay, I ambled into the barn and was met with the warm, damp smell of animals in an enclosed space
and found Kay leaning up against a fence, rubbing the head of a cow.
“What’re you doing?” I said, trying not to laugh.
She looked back at me with a sheepish grin. “Befriending the locals.”
“I can see that.”
There wasn’t much else in the barn except for buckets of what looked like nutrient supplements and a scattering of farm tools and rubbish piled up haphazardly. We reluctantly left the warmth of the barn and were about to check out the buildings further down when DCI Gaskell waved at us from the top of the track.
Kay and I glanced at each other and then jogged up, not sensing any particular urgency in Gaskell’s call.
He looked unimpressed that we’d wandered off. “Where did you two go?” His expression showed that he knew we’d been poking around.
“On a walk, to warm up, sir.” Kay’s face was completely innocent, and Gaskell shook his head in part disbelief and part amusement before he got down to business.
“Mr Collins doesn’t know where his daughter is, nor his two sons apparently,” he told us as we walked back to the cars. “His wife’s at a Townswomen’s Guild meeting, apparently, and his sons are somewhere up on the farm with the sheep. He thought his daughter was at work.”
I dragged a hand through my knotted hair. “Not especially helpful.”
“No,” Gaskell agreed. “Didn’t seem to know anything about Graham or Freddie.” He paused. “He’s got some sort of breathing difficulty, I think. He seemed wheezy and breathless after talking to us.”
“So he’s not taking care of the farm himself, then. More likely, his sons and Maisy are.” I paused. “These two brothers of Maisy,” I said slowly, thinking aloud, “did you see any pictures of them, sir?”
Gaskell shrugged. “There was one of the three of them on the mantelpiece, yeah. Why?”
“Were they tall?”
Gaskell looked at me oddly before making a noncommittal shrug. “Good bit taller than their sister, certainly, but she’s been short, we’ve been told.”
DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thrillers: Book 1-3 Page 16
