“Look for a connection there, yeah,” Stephen said with a nod.
“Probably have to talk to Sedgwick.” I pulled a face.
“Oh, the horror.”
I elbowed Stephen in the ribs hard enough that he wheezed, though I was mostly sure that he played it up.
“You’re as bad as a footballer,” I said as he clutched his side and pretended to be mortally wounded. “Rolling on the grass over a poke.”
“A poke? You call that a poke? I’m gonna be black and blue tomorrow.”
I snorted. “Big baby.”
I got my comeuppance when he jabbed me back, with significantly more force than I’d done to him.
“Ow!” I glared at him. “That was unnecessary!” I had to get him back after that, and we mucked about as we came back from Sainsbury’s. Stephen managed to defend himself from my pokes even whilst eating his sandwich, his mouth stuffed with egg and cress, which was impressive.
“You do boxing at school or something?” I asked him as we sat back down at our desks.
“Nah, you’re just that bad.”
“Wow, Stephen.” Maybe I really should take some martial arts or boxing classes, though where exactly I’d fit them in, I had no idea. I could give up a couple of hours on the weekends, I supposed. I was fast and fit, but I wondered whether I would’ve been able to take down that guy who’d been following Taylor if I had caught him, or if he would have just left me injured?
“Aw, Mitchell, I’m teasing, don’t look so put out.”
“Too late, Huxley, I’ve taken your insults to heart already.”
We talked as we ate, but my head was on the case, turning it over in my head. As it happened, Sedgwick turned up just as I was finishing, and he was on his way to Gaskell’s office.
I hurriedly swallowed my mouthful. “Sedgwick!” Wiping my mouth, I stood up to head around my desk and over to him.
“What is it, Mitchell?” he said, his semi-permanent frown etched into his forehead.
“We’ve got a suspect,” I told him, before filling him in on Will Seton’s connection to both Taylor and Abby, and how he’d seemed to have gone underground, or was at least making himself difficult to track down.
Sedgwick at least listened to me with no interruptions. “I expect you’ll copy me in on the report?” he said, when I was done.
“Yeah, of course,” I agreed, “but I need the contact details for the two victims’ flatmates, so I can follow up-”
“I will handle that.”
Taken aback, I frowned at him. “What? No, Stephen and I will.”
He narrowed his eyes, leaning forwards slightly so that he was up in my space. “It’s my case. I’m the one who talked to the victims’ friends and families before, don’t let your ego get in the way of good police work, Mitchell.”
My ego? I pushed away my initial, angry response to his goading. He was acting like my superior when we were equals, but of course, he didn’t see it like that, what with him being a city officer longer than I had.
“I’ll expect a write-up,” I growled out after a second, “and I’m sure you won’t forget to include who gave you the lead.”
“Naturally.”
I turned away and returned to my desk, simmering with annoyance.
“Y’alright?” Stephen asked hesitantly.
“Aye, fine.”
I checked my watch and saw that Taylor would be turning up to give her statement soon. I took a steadying breath and wished, for the first time in a long while, for a cigarette to take the edge off my irritation.
“I’m getting a coffee,” I said, taking the second-best option. “You want anything?”
“Tea, please,” Stephen said. He was still working on contacting York’s pubs, since we now didn’t have anything else to follow up. Every time I thought about Sedgwick’s arrogance, it riled me up, so I pushed it away and consciously decided to ignore it.
Bringing Stephen back his tea, I spent the next half-hour helping him with searching through the pubs, but none of the ones we spoke to reported having employed a Will Seton. I considered whether Will might’ve lied about his name, so I did describe his physical appearance when I was asking, but I didn’t get any matches on that either. Plus, the way he’d brazenly introduced himself to Taylor and me while we were on our date made me think that he thought himself too untouchable to lie about his name, that or he’d perceived Taylor and me as no threat. He’d not known I was a cop, certainly.
Stephen nudged me with his elbow. “About time for you to meet your hot date, hm?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Grow up, Steph.” He just laughed. I paused as I was getting up, thinking about what we needed to ask Taylor in this interview, because I didn’t want to miss anything and have to put her through this twice, if we could avoid it.
“What is it?”
I looked at Stephen. “Do we ask her about Will?” I didn’t really want to have to drag all of that past up when it was so clearly painful for her, but he was becoming a significant part of the investigation, and she was the one who seemed to have known him the longest.
Stephen cocked his head. “Probably should, yeah. She ought to be aware, Darren,” he added seriously, “in case he turns up at her door or when she’s out and about.”
“I think she’s plenty wary of him already,” I said darkly. “But yeah, you’re right.”
I made my way downstairs, chatting idly to the officer at the front desk as I hovered in the lobby. It had begun to rain outside, first lightly spitting and then in heavy, drenching sheets.
A bobbing, red umbrella approaching through the deluge and I stepped forwards to get the door as Taylor hurried inside.
“God!” she said, when she saw me. “It’s absolutely tipping it down out there!” Her shoes and lower legs were soaked, but she looked as put together as she usually did, from the waist up, her hair only a little ruffled by the wind.
I hadn’t noticed,” I teased, nodding at the large windows we were still standing by.
She smiled a soft, crooked smile, before shaking out her umbrella and folding it down.
“Just check in there,” I said, gesturing to the desk, “and then I’ll take you through.”
“Sure thing, Officer,” she said.
I took her upstairs once she was booked in and opened the door of the interview room we’d booked for her. Stephen was already in there and he stood up with a friendly smile and an offered hand when Taylor walked in ahead of me.
Taylor shook his hand. “Hi,” she said. “DI Huxley, right?”
“The one and only.”
I rolled my eyes at Stephen, and he definitely saw it.
“Alright,” I said, getting down to business. “I’ll turn on the recording, we’ll introduce ourselves, and then we’ll ask you some questions,” I told her. Taylor looked a little nervous but nodded. “If you need a break at any point, let us know, okay?”
“Okay.”
I gave her a reassuring smile. “Good, let’s get this over with then.”
At my nod, Stephen turned the audio recorder on, which flashed up a red light. I announced who was in the room and then leaned forwards on the metal table.
“Ms Solomons,” I started, “can you tell us about the events of the evening of the 31st of October in as much detail as possible?”
Taylor took a breath and nodded. “I went to my four o’clock yoga class, as usual,” she started. Her hands were knotted together on top of the table, and she shifted in her seat as she crossed her legs.
I didn’t want to interrupt her, but I already had a question, so I fished out my notebook and made a note of it, nodding for Taylor to go on when I saw that she’d hesitated, watching me.
“It was getting a bit dark, you know how it is this time of year,” she continued, and I nodded. “But I thought I could walk home in time. It’s not far.” She audibly swallowed, clenching her hands together until her fingers turned white. I wished momentarily that I could take her hand and suppor
t her through remembering this, but it wasn’t my place.
“I- I’d only been walking for ten minutes or so when I heard something.” She tucked her hair behind her ear where it had slipped free. “I thought it was all the Halloween celebrations, but then it sounded like footsteps, and it was so quiet. I was getting scared,” she admitted softly, “and I kept looking back, hoping it was just my imagination, you know? But I saw a s-shadow, someone, following behind me. It could’ve been just anyone, right? But I got a bad feeling, and that was when I called you.” She nodded towards me and then seemed to remember that it was an audio recording. “Er, DCI Mitchell, I mean.”
“And after that?” I prompted.
“Then, then I was on the phone with you,” she said quietly. “And this- this person was openly following me now, and I was,” she gave a nervous laugh, “pretty freaked out. I tried to head towards the railway station, because I thought it might be busier, and be a good place to meet you, and then h-he started running.”
Her breathing hitched, and I found it painful to watch her looking so upset. But she got herself together after a moment and picked up her narrative.
“He started running, and I panicked and took off, too,” she said, staring down at the table. “I dropped my phone, and he was chasing me, and god, I don’t know how long it was, it felt like ages, but then I heard you- I mean, DCI Mitchell- shouting for me.”
I made an affirmative noise. “Thanks for telling us,” I said gently, wishing I could give her some better comfort than that.
She nodded. There was a pause while she collected herself, and I thought about what I wanted to ask.
“When you looked back,” I started, “did you see any details of his face?”
I was certain the perp had been male, and too small to be Seton, but that was about it.
Taylor made an apologetic face. “No, not really, I’m sorry. I… didn’t think I recognised him? And I would guess that he was white, and young, but that’s about all.”
I repressed a sigh and just nodded. “No problem.”
Stephen and I ran through some more of the usual questions and asked her to try to pinpoint where she’d first realised that she was being followed, so that we could try to follow it up on CCTV.
Stephen went to find a tablet so that we could show her a map of the streets, so Taylor and I were left alone for a moment. I told the recording that we were taking a break and then turned it off.
“Are you doing alright, really?” I asked her. “Ian’s been supporting you?”
She exhaled heavily. “Yeah, he’s been a gem. It’s all a lot, isn’t it? I feel on edge all the time.”
“I know the feeling,” I said honestly. “I’m sorry, Taylor.”
She nodded, before reaching out across the table to squeeze my hand. “I know.”
Stephen returned with a tablet and flicked a glance between us, but he didn’t comment. Taylor took her hand back and sat up straighter as Stephen put the tablet down in front of her.
I set up the recorder again, and we returned to the questioning after Taylor had given her best guess for the route she’d taken through York’s streets.
Glancing at my notebook, I remembered my question from earlier. “This yoga class,” I said, and Taylor glanced up, giving me her attention, “was it run through the uni, or is it separate?”
“Oh,” Taylor said, looking surprised by the question, which probably didn’t seem related in the slightest from her perspective. “It’s linked to the university yoga soc. The campus classes stopped when the uni temporarily shut, but the yoga soc also rents a place in town.”
“I see,” I said, clenching my jaw in annoyance at the university’s negligence in letting this happen, not at Taylor. I made a note to make sure any further off-campus classes were stopped with immediate effect. I’d hoped that by stopping the university running sports society meetings, we’d keep people safe, but it seemed that the stalker or killer was willing to follow his targets off campus too.
“Is that a problem?” Taylor asked hesitantly, clearly having picked up on my heightened emotions.
“We asked the sports societies to close with the uni,” I said, as evenly as I could manage. “We’ll have a word with them about any others continuing off campus.”
I paused and glanced over at Stephen. Time to ask about Will, now, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.
“We’re currently looking into an ex-student of yours,” I told her, not sure quite where to start.
When I paused, Stephen stepped in. “His name is Will Seton,” he said, his voice gentle but serious. I saw the shock register on Taylor’s face and held back a wince.
“You think he did it-?” she stuttered, looking over at me, but it was Stephen who answered.
“We’re looking into him,” Stephen said. “Can you tell us about your experience of having him as a student?”
Taylor’s gaze flickered over me again, a frown between her eyebrows, and I wished that I had told her before the interview that I hadn’t broken her confidence about Will, just outlined what was necessary to the investigation.
But whatever she was thinking, she nodded and started to run through the same story she’d told me, though more sparsely and with her emotions much more tamped down.
“So you thought him capable of violence?” Stephen checked.
Taylor nodded. “There’s a look in his eyes.”
I agreed. “Have you seen him before- before recently?” I said, stumbling over my words as I couldn’t decide whether we wanted on record that Taylor and I had dated. It wasn’t exactly against protocol, but I’d be furious with myself if it ended up muddying the water in the future, during court proceedings.
She gave me a perceptive look, before her eyes drifted away as she thought back. “I… saw him around campus once,” she said slowly. “It was a few months ago, but it shook me up a bit.”
“Which month, do you think?” Stephen asked.
She shrugged. “Maybe June? I don’t think he saw me. It was dusk. I’d stayed late, working.”
I tried to fit an incident in June into our timeline, but couldn’t immediately think of how that would fit in. Had he been casing the university, looking for students to target? Just refamiliarising himself with the campus, or had it been close to when dead animals had been left outside the two murder victims’ doors?
“Okay.” I glanced over at Stephen, but I didn’t think we had too many more questions. “I think we’re about done, unless there are any other details that might be helpful?”
Taylor shook her head, the dark waves of her hair moving around her face. So we wrapped things up, closing down the interview and leaving the room.
“Do you fancy a drink before you go?” Stephen offered her. “We can get you one if your throat’s a bit dry.”
Taylor gave him an appreciative look. “No, I’m okay. I’ll have something at home- at Ian’s, I mean.”
I saw her down to the lobby where she checked out again and fetched her brolly from where she’d left it, dripping, at the door.
“Thanks for coming, Taylor.” I wasn’t quite sure what to say, and my words came out oddly formal.
She gave me a nod. “No problem. I… I hope it helps.” She wrinkled her nose, as if she wasn’t sure she’d added much new information.
“It all helps,” I assured her. I looked up to glance out of the windows. “I think there’s a break in the rain.”
“Thank goodness for that,” Taylor said, her smile wan. We both lingered for a moment, and perhaps she was as unsure as I was about where we stood. This was my place of work, and she’d been through a lot of frightening experiences recently. It had carved a distance between us.
But when I thought that she might leave, she stepped forwards to give me an awkward but heartfelt hug. I returned it, holding her warmly. I had the sense that we might not get a moment like this again, like I could feel the threads that had initially pulled us together fraying and loosening.
&
nbsp; “See you later,” she said with a small wave after she’d eased away. She popped up her umbrella and headed out into the light drizzle while I watched her go, feeling heavy.
I wasn’t left thinking about it for long, at least, because Sedgwick came striding over the minute I sat back down at my desk. I quirked an eyebrow at him, still faintly annoyed with him and his attitude.
“Mitchell,” he said gruffly.
“Yes?”
He exhaled heavily. “Your hunch was correct,” he grumbled. “I talked to the flatmates and friends, and both of the victims had dealt with this ‘Will’ bloke.”
“Yeah?” I said, perking up.
“Yeah,” he said, looking like it physically pained him to admit it. “Took a bit of digging, but Emma poured a drink over him at a party, after he’d acted inappropriately.” Good for her, I thought, before my stomach sickened. She’d paid dearly for her courage in standing up to him.
“And the other one?”
“Hannah apparently spoke out against him online, turning a lot of the year against him. Called him out for being a- well, a jerk.”
I hummed. “Good to know,” I said.
Sedgwick jerked a nod. “I’ll send the report when I have it,” he said, already walking away.
Stephen and I watched him stride off. “Wow, I think he pulled a muscle admitting you were right.”
“I know,” I said, unable to hold back a grin. “Almost makes it worth it that he stole the lead.”
Stephen snorted. “He did follow it up thoroughly,” he pointed out.
“I wouldn’t have allowed anything less.”
My mind had been turning as we talked, thinking about Emma and Hannah and how Will, if he was indeed the killer, had targeted them for their acts against his awful behaviour.
“There will be others,” I muttered.
Stephen shot me a confused look. “Back up, Mitchell. What?”
“Other people, students and teachers, who spoke out against him. They could be in danger too.”
Stephen blinked. “Yeah, especially the teachers who got him expelled,” he said grimly.
“And we know he managed to get his hands on his own file,” I realised with a wince. “So he might’ve been able to find the uni’s records on that too.”
DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thrillers: Book 1-3 Page 42
