She made a noise of agreement. “Okay, yeah, I’ll do that.”
“Good, thank you.”
I hung up and handed Stephen back his phone. Michael came back and took us up to a computer suite upstairs, where a couple of students were working. The place had a slanted roof and not enough windows, making it dull. There were bean bags in the corner and a whiteboard with some questionable drawings on it. The students sitting at the computers looked like they’d pulled an all-nighter and one was clearly falling asleep, a cluster of Monster cans sitting beside his elbow.
Michael sat down at a space in the corner and sent his phone’s photos over to the computer, before pulling them up for us and moving back. Stephen and I sat down to look, angling the computer screen so that none of the students could see the disturbing pictures, and flicked through them in silence for a minute.
“Completely different,” Stephen concluded.
I nodded. “A different person, in fact, I’d guess.”
Stephen and I shared a look. “Yeah,” he agreed. “To go from neat and arranged to this… bloody mess would be a huge change.”
“It’s pigeons as well,” Michael put in, and we both turned to look up at him where he was standing to the side, leaning against the wall. He looked slightly surprised to have our attention focused on him. “Well, they’re easier to get than crows by half, aren’t they? If you’re quick, you can pick them right up in town when they’re in a big flock and used to people, you know? Crows and magpies aren’t like that, are they? Bit smarter.” He tapped the side of his head.
I rubbed a hand over my hair. “Very good point,” I concluded. “Not only is the display method different, but it’s a different breed of bird too.”
“And probably not killed in the same way either,” Stephen added quietly. “This was a knife, I reckon.”
I looked at the photos again and grimaced. “Definitely.”
“So, what now?” Stephen asked.
I sighed. “Talk to Abby again?”
Stephen nodded. We thanked Michael, who told us that he’d be in reception when we wanted to pick up the dead birds. I had no desire at all to have them in the back of the car, but we did need to take them to Sam in the labs. If she had time to have a look and confirmed our conclusions, then it’d be a big help. We were no closer to finding out who the author of either of the incidents was, but finding out whether they were enacted by two different people or not would be a start.
One of the flatmates we’d talked to last time answered the door.
“Dan,” I said with a nod. I looked the kid up and down, and he fidgeted. He was wearing pyjama bottoms with a band t-shirt, his skinny arms pale.
“Er,” he said, looking faintly alarmed. “Can I help you?”
I narrowed my eyes at him, getting a gut feeling that he was more worried than he’d been when he saw us last time.
“We’re here to talk to you,” I said, before Stephen could say that we were here to have a chat with Abby. “Let’s sit down in the kitchen, shall we?”
Dan’s eyes widened, and he looked even more worried, before he gathered himself and gestured limply towards the kitchen. “Sure, go ahead,” he said weakly.
Stephen sent me a ‘what are you doing?’ look as we followed Dan, but I didn’t exactly have the chance to answer before we were sitting down at the table opposite Dan, who looked pale.
“We’re looking into another incident that’s happened in the flat,” I said, my tone stern. Perhaps my instincts were wrong, and Dan was unnerved by the police in general, but I didn’t think so. He’d been almost cocky last time with how he’d badmouthed Abby, but seemed nervous now. “Do you know anything about that, Dan?”
Stephen, to his credit, didn’t undermine me in any way but went along with it, fixing Dan with the same firm look I was using, as if we both knew something.
Dan looked like a deer in the headlights. “No?” he said, his voice going up like he was asking a question. Stephen leaned forwards slightly, and I saw the moment when he reached the same conclusion I had; that Dan was acting shifty.
“You didn’t see anything?” Stephen asked coldly.
Dan shook his head silently. He had his hands below the table, but I had the sense that he’d be twisting them together nervously if they’d been in view.
“And if we were to look in your room-”
“Okay!” Dan said sharply, making both Stephen and I stiffen. Dan pushed his chair back with a harsh scrape and stood up. I tensed to follow if Dan tried to do a runner, but he didn’t. Instead, he just stood there with his hands clenched into fists and looked at the both of us with a mix of defiance and what looked to me to be guilt.
“Okay, what?” I said.
“Okay, I did it!” Dan said, his voice cracking. He folded his arms over his chest defensively. “I didn’t do the first ones, alright, but maybe I did the other ones. For Christ’s sake, she wouldn’t shut up about it. She loved the attention, totally milking it, it’d drive anyone to distraction, okay?” He waved his hands around as he talked and Stephen and I watched him, unimpressed.
I stood up, and Stephen followed. “You better come down to the station, Mr Johnson. You’re being arrested on suspicion of committing wildlife crime and intimidation. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not say something, when questioned, that you later rely on in court.”
It’d been a while since I’d arrested someone, but they drilled the words into you, and you didn’t forget them.
“Arrested?” Dan squeaked. “What? But I didn’t really do anything!”
“We can discuss that at the station.”
Dan didn’t resist as we took him out of the building and over to the car park, but he did talk his mouth off as we put him safely in the back of the vehicle. We both ignored him. I radioed in to let Gaskell and the others at the station know what was going on.
“I’ll go get the birds,” Stephen said, and I sent him a grateful look.
“Thanks.”
He was a better man than me to offer to carry the disgusting things.
Inside the car, Dan tried talking to me again. “I swear, I didn’t mean any real harm, it was just a joke-”
“Mr Johnson,” I said flatly, fed up with his whining. “We’ll talk about what you were thinking in the interview, until then, please be quiet and allow me to focus on driving, understood?”
“Yeah,” he said, sullen.
I rolled my eyes. The kid didn’t seem to think he’d done a damn thing wrong.
Stephen came back, looking faintly grossed out after he’d stuck the birds in the boot, and climbed into the car, holding his hands in the air like he didn’t want to touch anything without washing his hands first. Dan did stay mercifully quiet through the fairly short drive back to the station, which was honestly the most sensible thing he could’ve done.
We took Dan inside, Stephen carrying the bag and me walking a short way behind Dan in case he decided sprinting off would be a good idea. He didn’t.
We got him booked into one of the custody cells, a part of the station I’d seen on my initial tour round.
“Hey, wait!” he protested after Stephen and I had handed him off to a constable. “You’re just leaving me here? Seriously? When do I get to defend myself?”
I raised my eyebrows. “You’ll be questioned when we’re ready.”
He tried to ask more, but I left him in the capable hands of the custody officers and headed up to the lab where Stephen was more than happy to pass off the bag and scrub his hands clean in the big, ceramic sink.
“God, my hands got all sticky holding that.” He shuddered.
“Rather you than me, mate,” I agreed.
“You owe me one, Mitchell.”
I grinned good-naturedly. “And here was I thinking you were doing it out of the goodness of your heart.”
He snorted. “Hardly. I always have an ulterior motive.” He wiggled his eyebrows comically. “I wasn’t a chess c
hampion at my high school for nothing, you know.”
“A rugby player and a chess champion?” I said, impressed. “You covered your bases.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, my birthday parties were a good mix of people.”
While I’d been winding Stephen up, Sam had pulled on gloves and gotten the birds out on a sterilised counter. She started poking at the poor things, which looked like they’d been chewed up by a dog.
“This was in the same place as the first two?” Sam asked, sounding incredulous.
“Yeah, believe it or not,” I said.
Sam was silent for a second, staring at them. “I’d bet on a copy-cat, you know. These really-”
“-don’t look they were done by the same person,” I agreed.
“That’s what Dan was claiming, too,” Stephen pointed out. “Said he’d done these but not the first two.”
“I can believe it,” I muttered. These looked amateurish and intended to shock. I looked over to Sam. “But, to be sure, can you check to see if they were killed by strangling? Just in case.”
She nodded. “I’ve got a couple of other things to be getting on with, but yeah, I’ll double-check that for you by tomorrow.”
I smiled. “You’re wonderful. Thanks for your help.”
She blushed slightly, surprising me. “No problem.” She turned away, her cheeks still red and Stephen and I headed out.
Stephen elbowed me in the side and gave me the same look as an excited puppy, if a puppy had been nearly six-foot of bulk with a crooked nose.
“You’ve got an admirer!”
I pushed him lightly. “Shut up,” I said, but I was grinning too. I admitted, if only to myself, that Sam was smart and cute, and I was flattered by her flustered attention.
Stephen sobered as we got back to our desks and we both sat down with a sigh. “Better get this questioning done, then,” I said.
“And then all the paperwork.”
“If we survive Mr Johnson’s self-entitled whining.”
Stephen huffed a laugh. “Yeah, that’s a big ‘if’.”
It occurred to me that we were getting on far better now than when we’d first met, and I glanced at Stephen, wondering what had changed. He’d pretty quickly stopped talking down at me, and we were gelling fine as a team now, even working pretty effectively as we had today.
Stephen noticed my look and my sudden quiet and squinted at me. “What?” he said, almost suspiciously. “Have I got food in my teeth?”
I broke into a grin. “No, nothing so terrible.”
He gave me an expectant look. “What, then?”
I shrugged. “I thought that we seemed to be getting on better today.” Stephen pressed his lips together, and I wondered briefly if I’d just messed up all our progress. “I mean, I’m glad,” I added quickly. “I just-”
“-wanted to know why I was grumpy with you to start with?” Stephen said, flatly.
I winced slightly. “Well, yeah.”
He looked pained, rubbing his palms together in his lap as he avoided my eyes. “I didn’t really think you deserved to be a DCI, okay?” he said finally, sounding somewhat defensive. I kept quiet. “You’d come from who-knows-where, and Gaskell seemed to think a lot of you, and there’s little old me, hoping for the promotion that got handed to you.” Stephen glanced at me, looking apologetic.
“You were jealous,” I said tightly, not as sympathetic as I probably should’ve been. I couldn’t help but be slightly annoyed that he’d unprofessionally let his own hang-ups get in the way of our working together, even if he had changed his tune fairly quickly.
Stephen glared at me for a second before he sighed. “Yeah, I was jealous. I didn’t get why Gaskell was so hyped about you when he hadn’t even met you, but then I figured that you actually worked together or something, since he seemed to already know you the other day.”
I nodded. “He came in to help with a case in Lockdale.”
Stephen’s eyebrows rose. “Oh,” he said. “The poisoning one that everyone was saying was suicide-”
“-and it wasn’t, yeah.”
“Huh.” Stephen looked grudgingly impressed. “We heard about that.”
“So did I pass the test or...?” I said, knowing I was pushing it a bit, but I wanted to put this behind us.
Stephen looked sheepish. “Yeah, I’ll get over myself, no worries.”
“Okay,” I said and gently punched him on the shoulder. “Now, let’s go interview the kid.”
Stephen exhaled heavily. “Oh, joy.”
Dan looked up almost eagerly when we came in. “Look, you’ve got to hear me out, I didn’t-”
I held up a hand. “Steady tiger. You’ll get to say your piece.”
We sat down, Stephen shooting me a resigned look before we flicked on the recording device and got down to business.
“Alright, Mr Johnson, did you or did you not leave dead birds outside Abby Gibson’s room this morning?”
“I didn’t mean any real harm, I can’t get arrested, I-”
Oh, man, I thought. “Yes or no,” I said sharply, cutting in.
Dan sagged. “Yeah.”
“Did you kill the birds?” I asked. Dan’s head stayed down, but he nodded slightly. “I need that response to be verbal, Mr Johnson.”
“Yeah, okay, yeah. They’re pigeons though. They’re not some rare- rare eagle or something! What’s the big deal here, exactly, no-one got hurt did they?” He held out his hands plaintively as he looked between Stephen and me. If my partner was feeling anything like I was, I doubted there was an ounce of sympathy in either of our faces.
“Why did you leave the birds outside Miss Gibson’s room?” Stephen said coldly. The look on his face would’ve made me turn and walk quickly the other way if I saw it in a bar.
Dan seemed to wither under Stephen’s glare. “I only- I mean- It was a joke.”
“And had you done this ‘joke’ before?” I said, making it clear how uncomical I thought his actions to have been.
“No!” Dan said sharply. “No, I didn’t do the first ones, right, it wasn’t my idea! I was just- just messing around. I wasn’t doing anything that bad. I’ll pay for like, cleaning the carpet or whatever. Or- or if Abby wants therapy or something.” He looked reluctant even as he said it and my opinion of him went even lower. A kid who was used to paying his way out of stuff, or his parents did it for him. I wondered whether we’d find anything on Dan’s record from his school days when we had a look.
“Do know who did leave the first birds?” Stephen said.
Dan shook his head. “Look, I didn’t even see them. I heard Abby going on about it, you know. I don’t know who came up with the whole thing, I mean that’s a pretty weird idea, right? To do that?”
I hummed noncommittally. I thought it was pretty damn weird for someone to see their flatmate get upset and decide to upset them further by murdering a couple of pigeons.
“Where did you get the animals?” I asked.
He shifted uneasily. “There’s a bunch near the river close to town. I took some birdseed, you know, and…” He shrugged, trailing off.
“Can you elaborate?” I pressed.
He almost glared at me before catching himself. “I’m not some sadist, man, I didn’t enjoy it if that’s what you’re thinking, alright? I like, grabbed a couple, that was it.”
“And then?” I didn’t really want to know, but we needed all the details for the recording if Dan wasn’t going to get anything more than a rap on the wrist. The fact that he hadn’t asked for a lawyer yet spoke to either his arrogance in believing he didn’t do anything wrong, or his stupidity.
He made a stabbing motion with his hand, and Stephen twitched slightly at my side. “Used a barbeque skewer,” he muttered. “I did it fast. Didn’t really want to make them suffer or anything, I’m not evil.”
I grunted. “Didn’t leave it at that though, did you?”
He did glare at me then, long and intent. I raised my eyebrows at him cold
ly. Annoying me with his attitude was hardly going to help, and he seemed to realise after a minute.
“I wanted to scare her a bit,” he admitted. “So I made it a bit more… gory. I wanted to creep her out a bit. I was giving her something to talk about! She likes the attention really…”
He eventually fell silent, perhaps finally noticing my and Stephen’s stony faces. I’d wanted to cut him off a while back, but he was digging his own grave, and I was fine with letting him.
He pulled a worried face. “I’m sorry, I won’t do it again, right? I’ve never done anything like that before. It was a mistake. I was, like, annoyed at her. I’ll stay away from her and all.”
I looked over at Stephen, and he nodded at me. “I think we’re done here,” I said. Dan was cruel, arrogant and frankly irritating, but I didn’t think he’d had anything to do with whoever had so precisely left the first birds. And it was those that worried me more, with the deliberateness and carefulness of how they’d been killed. It spoke of practice and focus, and I didn’t like the picture that painted of the sort of person who would do that, and would want to.
“Come on, can’t you give me a break-”
We escorted Dan back down to the custody cells, ignoring his rambling protestations that he didn’t mean to do it, like he could’ve killed and mutilated two birds and then left them outside Abby’s door by accident.
“Glad that’s over with,” Stephen grumbled after we’d snagged a cup of coffee for me and a tea for him from the break room.
“For sure.”
He peered over at my coffee and pulled a judgemental expression that reminded me of the look on the face of my previous partner, Kay, when she’d first seen how I liked my coffee.
“You don’t have milk in that?”
I snorted a laugh. “And ruin it, no thanks.”
Stephen’s eyebrows rose higher. “Ruin what? I doubt you’d even taste the milk, to be honest. That looks like a- ten espressos in a cup.”
I took a sip. Yep, piping hot and pretty lethal. “Sounds about right.”
Stephen shook his head in disbelief. “I’ll stick to my builder's tea, then. Anyone ever tell you that’ll give you, like, a stomach ulcer or-”
“Or a heart attack, or stain my teeth, or make my hair fall out?”
DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thrillers: Book 1-3 Page 28
