“Yeah? Does he like it?”
We talked for a while about Stephen’s family, and I watched his face light up as he described his wife and kids. He clearly adored them, and the sight made me smile a little sadly.
“What about you?” he asked.
“What about me?”
He rolled his eyes as he finished his sandwich and crushed the box. “Any romantic interests? Jilted lovers? Old flames?”
“Oh, shut up,” I grumbled, and he laughed. “No, I’m married to the job.”
His mouth tweaked downwards at that, like he felt sorry for me. “Well,” he said with almost forced cheer, “guess that’s why you’ve got to be DCI so fast.”
I snorted. “By not getting married? Nothing to do with my police work, then?”
“Absolutely not,” he teased. “Clearly, they only wanted someone who had spare time.”
“Gee, thanks. Just as I thought we were bonding, you wound me.” I squashed my baguette wrapper into a ball and tried to throw into the bin, but the wind took it, and it rolled away.
Stephen wagged a thick finger at me. “Don’t litter, DCI Mitchell. I might have to write you up and steal your job.”
“Wouldn’t want that,” I said, hiding a smile as I went to pick up my rubbish and dump it in the bin. The sky was clouding over steadily, and I shot it a frown as we walked back to the station.
“Oh no,” Stephen said.
“What?”
He shot me a wry look. “You’re daydreaming about running again.”
I gave a long-suffering sigh. We continued to bicker good-naturedly as we headed upstairs, before falling into a companionable silence back at our desks. There was paperwork to fill in, reports to update, which took a good chunk of time, and then I got stuck into trying to find a satisfyingly solid link between Abby, Taylor and the first-year, Hannah, who’d been killed. I looked into their university records, and delved through their social media again, but found very little. It was infuriating.
I sighed and sat back in my chair, stretching my arms behind my head. My back and shoulders clicked, and I grimaced as I rolled my stiff neck. I was going to end up with hunched shoulders like a turtle when I was old, from all this staring at a computer.
“What’re you looking at?” I asked Stephen.
He sighed, his good humour from lunch fading like mine had. “Not much, really.” He ran a hand over his cropped short hair. “You looked at links to the uni, so I was looking through the uni’s social media, but it’s all curated and sterilised. Not particularly useful.
“Aye,” I sighed. “And I can’t find any links. From what they post online, Hannah was a big football fan and played at the uni and her old school a lot, Abby goes out partying but not that often, and Taylor posts little online, occasional political posts, family pictures, and cute cats.”
Stephen laughed a little at that. “Not much similar there, then.”
“Nope. And they don’t look especially similar either,” I pointed out. “Taylor’s older than the students, obviously, and they don’t have a similar body type.”
“Like a stalker or killer usually goes for,” Stephen said solemnly. “So far, the only link is the arrangement of the…” he trailed off.
“The bodies, yeah,” I said grimly. “But there’s got to be a way the killer/stalker is picking them. I don’t believe it’s random.”
“Me either.”
I exhaled heavily, and we were silent for a moment. “You haven’t heard from Taylor, have you?” I asked, knowing that I was opening myself up to get the piss taken out of me.
Sure enough, Stephen shot me a smile and winked. “Maybe you should have given her your own number,” he said.
“Stephen.”
He held up his hands. “Nope, sir, I haven’t had any contact from the pretty teacher.” He did pull out his phone to double-check, but she hadn’t been in touch. Which was good, I thought. She would’ve called us if there’d been any more animals. But on the other hand, she lived alone, and if Stephen and I were right about the cases being connected, we suspected that a killer had shown interest in her.
I’d been chewing my lip as I thought, and Stephen sent me a knowing look.
“I have an idea,” he said.
“Don’t hold me in suspense.”
“How about… you go and check on Ms Solomons and see if she’s got anything to report, hm? Maybe take your own card over, if you’ve finally got round to having some printed?”
I hadn’t and made a noncommittal grunt. “I’m getting coffee,” I told him, and didn’t offer to get him any. Stephen chuckled, going back to his internet searching while I went off, not towards the break room, but to go and get some business cards printed.
I returned to my desk with a pocketful of still-warm cards that one of the admin staff had kindly shown me how to print and a mugful of coffee.
“I think I’m going to go check on Ms Solomons,” I said casually. Stephen laughed, and I ignored him. “Might give her my business card.”
“Oh yeah?”
I shot him a grin, taking a card out of my pocket to wave at him. “Yep.”
“Took you long enough.”
Stephen ribbed me lightly while I finished my cup of coffee. Grabbing my coat, I left him to his dull research and made my way down to our car. The drive to Taylor’s was short, but there was enough traffic at this time in the afternoon that it took me a little while before I pulled up outside her pleasant-looking house. It looked fairly quiet, with no lights on in the windows, and I wondered whether she was lecturing down at the uni. It would have made sense, and I should have called ahead, really.
I was here now, though, and went up to the door to knock smartly. There was no answer for long enough that I sighed and began to turn around to head back the car. But then I saw a curtain twitch off to the right and peered around, things falling into place in my head. Of course, Taylor would be nervous about answering the door to someone who she wasn’t expecting at a time like this.
“Hi!” I called through the door, my cheeks flushing in faint embarrassment. “It’s Darren Mitchell, the DCI.”
The door opened almost immediately, Taylor blushing as much as I probably was.
“Sorry!” she said immediately. “I… I wasn’t sure who it was and-”
I lifted my hands, fending off her apologies. “Please, don’t apologise. I should have called first. I just wanted to see how you were getting on.”
“Oh,” Taylor said, and her flush deepened. She had pale skin that easily showed the blood in her cheeks, and her layered hair was curled into elegant waves today, making her look exceedingly pretty. “Please come in. I’ll get you some tea?”
“Oh, you don’t have to-” I tried to say. I didn’t want her to feel pressured to invite me in by me turning up uninvited.
But she gave me an almost coy look from under her dark lashes. “If you’ve got time, I’d like you to,” she said quietly.
I was flustered enough that I couldn’t immediately summon an answer to that and just nodded. She shot me a bright, genuine smile. Her front teeth stuck out slightly, giving her bunny-ish look that shouldn’t have been as sweet as it was.
“Tea, coffee?” she said, as she led the way into the sitting room, rather than the kitchen where we’d sat last time. It was a warm room, with dark couches and a gas fire merrily burning in the background. “I know it’s a bit early.” I turned, not quite sure what she meant, and she gestured to the fire. “I get cold easily.”
I accepted her offer of coffee and asked for it strong. She raised one eyebrow.
“How strong?” she said lightly. “Normal strong, or more-coffee-than-water strong?”
I laughed quietly. “The second one, if you’ve got enough coffee.”
She smiled and nodded and left me while she went to make drinks. I studied the room, standing up to admire the attractive landscape painting on the wall. It looked a little like a Scottish loch, with a dark pool of water and ragged hil
ls around it.
“You like it?” Taylor asked as she returned, startling me slightly.
I turned around and sent her a smile as I accepted the mug she offered me. She came over to my side, and we looked at the painting together.
“It’s well done,” I said. “Whoever did it was clearly talented. The light coming down here… it’s really nice.” Taylor made a slight noise beside me, and I turned to look at her. “What?”
She sent me a look I couldn’t interpret and then pointed to the bottom right corner.
“Oh,” I said, and chuckled. Her signature was artfully scribbled in the corner. “I stand by what I said.”
She grinned at me. “You’re a charmer.”
“Only by accident.” We shared a smile, sitting down on the settee with our drinks. Taylor had made my drink as strong as I liked it, and I sipped appreciatively.
We talked together for half an hour or more, and I learnt that she’d been teaching for a couple of years now, that she had a little niece she adored, and that she’d like another cat, but Wanda had got into fights with any cats Taylor had tried to introduce to the house.
The cat in question had padded over as we were talking and rubbed herself up against my legs, looking the picture of innocence as she covered my trousers with cat hair.
In return, I told her about how I’d lived in Yorkshire all my life, but mostly out in the country, rather than in a city like York.
“How do you like the big city?” she said, smiling gently.
I shrugged with one shoulder, finding myself growing serious as I considered the question.
“It’s growing on me,” I said truthfully. “I miss my old station and the friends I had there, but my new partner is a good guy-”
“Huxley?” Taylor remembered, and I nodded.
“Stephen Huxley, yeah. And I like the city. I miss the moors, though.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You’re a walker?”
I chuckled. “A runner, actually.”
To my surprise, she didn’t pull a rueful expression like Stephen had, but instead, she lit up. “You are?” she said. “Me too! Are you going to do the Leeds half marathon in May?”
I perked up, and we got into talking about running, which meant that, when I next checked my watch, I’d been there for almost two hours.
“Oh, oops,” Taylor said, checking her own watch, which was slender and silver. She smiled in an ‘aw shucks’ way, and I smiled back.
“I better get back to the station,” I said, a touch sheepishly. I’d not meant to do anything other than stop by, but I couldn’t say I was sorry. Taylor had a sharp, fast mind, and I’d hugely enjoyed trying to keep up with her as we covered all sorts of topics.
“You probably ought to,” she agreed. She smiled in that attractive way of hers. “I don’t suppose you got some of those cards printed?” she asked playfully. “With your number on?”
“As a matter of fact,” I said, unable to keep myself from smiling back, “I printed some out today.” I fished one out of my pocket and then pulled my pen free of my top pocket to write my personal number on the back.
She took it when I offered and looked down at it. “Thanks, DCI Mitchell.”
“Darren, please,” I said, fully aware that she’d been teasing.
“Would you like to get a drink with me sometime, Darren?”
My face warmed slightly. “I’d like that a lot.” I hesitated, and she saw something in my face that made her pause, studying me for a moment.
“What is it?” she asked in her gentle Yorkshire accent.
“Nothing else has happened since my partner, and I were here, have they?” I asked, serious again. “No more… things being left, nobody following you?”
Taylor shook her head. “My colleague’s been driving me to work when he can,” she said. “And I’ve been careful. I haven’t seen anything else.” She leaned forwards slightly, clearly on edge. “Is there a reason I should be concerned? More concerned?”
I shook my head, though I wasn’t sure I was being entirely truthful. I hadn’t told her that I suspected that the fox being left was a killer showing interest in her, but I couldn’t really do so, even if I wanted to. She was a civilian and involved in the case, and until there was concrete evidence, or I believed her to be in real danger, I couldn’t share information on an ongoing case.
“No, there’s not been any more dead animals,” I said, perhaps a little too bluntly because she grimaced slightly.
“Good,” she said, though she still looked uneasy.
Thinking of the time, and how much Stephen was going to take the mickey out of me for staying so long, I stood up, and Taylor mirrored me.
“Thanks for the tea, Taylor,” I said gruffly, my accent coming out a little.
She gave me a small smile but pulled her cardigan around her like she was cold, though the room was toasty.
I took a chance and stepped forwards to put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “It’ll be alright,” I said. “You’ll call Stephen or me right away if anything is off?”
She nodded, and I took my hand away, a little flustered by the close proximity.
“Well,” I said and cleared my throat. “I look forward to that drink sometime.”
“That’d be nice,” she said, seeming genuine, and I headed over to the door. Back at my car, I raised my hand to give her a wave as she watched me from the doorstep, and she shyly waved back. I was still smiling as I drove away.
Nine
Stephen had already headed off home by the time I returned to the station, so the first time I saw him after disappearing to see Taylor was the next morning.
“You left early yesterday,” I said, more of a question than a statement. Stephen liked to leave on time, but he wasn’t one to shirk work and ditch me before it was time.
He sent me a look that told me he knew I was deflecting from my own absence. “My daughter wasn’t very well,” he said, and I noticed that his face had descended into unhappiness. “She was sick at school and pretty miserable.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” I said sincerely. “Did she improve overnight?”
He sighed. “Not really. She didn’t sleep much, and she was sick this morning.”
I frowned. “Do you need to be home? I can talk to Gaskell-”
He shook his head. “My wife’s with her today. If she’s still sick tomorrow, I’ll need to be off then.”
I nodded. “Of course.” I reached over to squeeze his shoulder in silent solidarity, and he gave me a nod.
“Thanks, Mitchell.”
I fetched myself a coffee and sat down, only for Stephen to swivel his chair round to face me with a knowing grin.
“No,” I said, holding up a finger.
“C’mon, Darren,” he said, and hearing such a whiny, pleading tone from such a bulky, tough-looking guy, made me crack up. “You were gone ages!”
I rolled my eyes. “We only had a chat,” I said defensively, rubbing the back of my neck. I looked up with a smile. “Guess what she likes to do in her spare time?”
Stephen stared at me. “What?” he said eagerly.
“Running!”
Stephen groaned, dramatically putting his head in his hands, and I chuckled to myself.
He threw his hands up. “You’re both nuts!”
“Are you jealous, Stephen? We could be running partners, you know, I could get you into shape.”
Stephen pretended to be offended. “Are you saying I’m out of shape, Mitchell?”
“Wouldn’t dare.”
I was still smiling slightly when Sedgwick turned up, walking across the room towards Gaskell’s door, once there, he knocked before heading in.
“Gone a little green there, Darren?” Stephen said, and I shot him a confused look. “Jealousy?” he said, nodding towards Gaskell’s office.
I frowned. “I’m not jealous. I’m just… frustrated at not being privy to all the information.”
Stephen hummed. “Gaskell hasn’
t actually forbidden you, has he? He even agreed with your theory about the cases being connected. Have you asked him to see the post-mortem examination report, and Sedgwick’s reports?”
I conceded the point with a nod. “No,” I admitted.
“Well, then. Once Sedgwick’s out, off you scamper.”
I rolled my eyes. “I do not scamper.”
Stephen wiggled his eyebrows. “I bet you would if Taylor asked,” he said cheekily.
I was sorely tempted to smack him over the head with the papers on my desk, but restrained myself and settled for a glare instead.
Sedgwick left Gaskell’s office before I could come up with a suitably cutting reply and I stalked over towards the door, ignoring Stephen’s grinning face.
I knocked on the door, and Gaskell called me in, looking a little surprised, either to see me or to see me without Stephen.
“Mitchell, have you found a new lead?” he said, sounding so hopeful that I winced inwardly to disappoint him.
“I’m afraid not, sir,” I said apologetically. “I was hoping I could be sent the post-mortem for Hannah Clements, and Sedgwick’s reports on his case, if possible, sir,” I added hesitantly, because Gaskell’s expression was stern, and I couldn’t quite read his reaction to my request.
But he nodded. “If you think it’ll help,” he said, before sighing. “This killer is slippery and the longer we leave it…” He trailed off.
I pulled a sympathetic face. “I know, sir. I want to drag whoever did this over the coals, too. And we will.”
He sent me a wry look that said he wasn’t entirely convinced. And why would he be? The police did their best, but what with human fallibility, budget cuts, and general unluckiness, a large percentage of cases went unsolved every year, both large and small ones. It was frustrating and sad and disappointing, and I knew that Gaskell, being a good man, would be taking some of the blame onto his own shoulders.
“We’ll do our best,” he said with a firm nod, and I believed that. “I’ll get Sedgwick to send over what he’s got.”
DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thrillers: Book 1-3 Page 33
