“Sure thing, sir.”
“We haven’t got much of anything out of Seton,” Gaskell continued. I flicked through the papers to an interview transcript and grimaced. Seton’s lawyer had shut down most enquiries, and Seton had kept mute. “He’s a right smug prick.” I raised an eyebrow and Gaskell got back on track. “We’ve left Melville to stew for a while, and you two can interview him later. It is your case, after all.”
“Abby was looked after, after I got picked up, sir?” I asked. I’d told the other officers that Abby was still at the club and needed to be looked after, but I hadn’t heard the follow-up.
“Yes. She came in to give her statement yesterday, while you were off. She’s gone back to her parents again, I think.”
“Good.”
“Melville and Seton’s houses are being searched today,” he added, glancing at his watch. “You might catch the team if you go now.”
Stephen and I shared a glance and nodded.
“Alright,” Gaskell said, and waved a hand at us. “You’ve got plenty to be going on with, off you go.”
Feeling a little like a schoolboy getting dismissed, I stood up and headed out, Stephen following.
“What’s first, then?” Stephen asked.
I rubbed my forehead and tried to get my thoughts in order. “We’ve got the fingerprint connection for Cal,” I said, thinking aloud. “But not much else. Nothing to link him to the murders, so I vote we go and see if forensics has picked up anything from Will’s place, then Cal’s.”
“Sounds good.”
But we were bound for disappointment. Will lived in a bedsit, and though forensics scoured the small space, they found nothing. Cal’s student room was much the same, no physical evidence from either. Once the team had approved it, I gathered up Cal’s laptop to take to the tech team alongside Will’s, in the hopes that we might find some cyber evidence to link either or both of them to the killings.
“That was a waste of time,” Stephen grumbled, as we ate a belated lunch. The pain in my head and hand was killing my appetite, but I chewed on a tasteless sandwich regardless, knowing that having some food in the tank would help me think even if I wasn’t hungry.
Stephen had been in a black mood all day, staying silent unless I asked him a question, and glowering at everyone and everything.
I turned to him with a long-suffering sigh. “If you’re worried about your kid, go home, Stephen. Gaskell will understand. Or if not, you’ve got some holiday left, haven’t you?”
He glared at me for a minute, before his shoulders slumped and he took another bite of his pasta salad. I let him stew in silence.
“I want to solve the case,” he said finally. “I need to be here. And my wife’s got it in hand, I know that. But I just… you didn’t see her the other night, Mitchell.” His voice grew tight, and I looked at him in concern. “There’s nothing worse than seeing your child in pain and not being able to do anything.”
I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.”
He just nodded, and we ate the rest of our lunch in silence. I couldn’t push this, I realised. He’d process it in his own time, and hopefully, it would get better once his daughter was back on her feet. The only problem was that I needed him to at top form when we spoke to Cal later today. We wouldn’t get around to talking to Will today, since visiting him would require a trip out to Full Sutton, but we did need to get to Cal before he had too much time to think and plan his responses.
Stephen seemed to guess what I was thinking and took a deep breath. “We’ll be fine, Mitchell. I got this.”
“I know you do.”
We made our way to the custody suite on the lower floor, where Cal was being held for the time being. He’d probably end up released on bail, because this was his first time committing an offence. I wondered whether I was uneasy about sitting opposite a man who had seemingly tried to suffocate me not two days ago, but I wasn’t sure whether I was apathetic or had just pushed my nerves away to better focus on the job. You couldn’t show someone you were interviewing that you were nervous, it was counterproductive, and usually ended badly.
Plus, even though I was wearing the results of Cal’s violence on my face, I looked through the two-way mirror and couldn’t summon up much fear. The student looked like a mess, and the shadows under his eyes, combined with the bright lights overhead, made him look practically gaunt.
I glanced over at Stephen, and he gave me a nod. “What’s our strategy?” he asked. “What do we want to focus on?”
I chewed my lip, frowning at Cal as I thought. “I think he’ll cave. He was mouthing off at me about it not being his fault when he was trying to,” I scowled, “choke me.”
Stephen’s brows pulled into a scowl. When he was his usual happy-go-lucky self, it was hard to imagine him being scary, despite his bulk and a face like a bruiser, but he looked fully intimidating right now.
“Sounds like a nice bloke.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “We know it was him that left the birds at Abby’s, so we can presume it was him who left them at Taylor’s and the others.” Stephen nodded. “But I still have this sense that Will’s involved,” I said. “The only link between the victims that we could find was Will, and it fitted together. And it was him that was lurking about the uni with that plastic bag-”
“And he’s certainly not shy of violence,” Stephen added. “He was the one who almost cracked your skull.”
I grimaced. “Yeah, thanks for the reminder.” I paused. “That’s the difference between them, too. Will hid in wait for me and bashed me over the head. He planned and acted and nearly took me out. Cal was all over the place, and he chose to run rather than attack until I was trying to grab him.”
“I hope you’re not getting sympathetic towards the little weasel.”
I huffed. “Hardly. I was pointing out their differences in style. The end result, me looking like I took on a gorilla, was the same.”
Stephen grunted, something flickering across his face. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, mate. I didn’t mean to leave-”
“Hey, hey,” I said quickly. “Don’t do that. It wasn’t your fault. Any parent would’ve done the same, and your kid needed you. I’m fine. So let’s focus on nailing the culprit, okay?”
He rolled his eyes at me but looked more fond than anything. “Yeah, alright.”
I nodded. “Okay. So I want to shake him up a bit, get him worried. He doesn’t know about the fingerprints yet, I don’t think, so we’ll spring that on him at a good point. I want him spilling his guts by the end of the hour.” I paused. “Metaphorically.”
Stephen chuckled, the first time I’d heard him laugh all day. “Metaphorically,” he agreed. “Literally would be hella messy.”
I cracked a grin. “Sure would.” Bless dark humour, I thought wryly. Sometimes, when you’re black and blue and about to face the criminal who did that and maybe much worse, a bit of gallows humour doesn’t hurt.
We shared a look and headed into the interview room where Cal had been left by the constable who was now on the door. Cal looked up when we came in, and his eyes widened as he saw me and, presumably, the big, nasty bruise around my eye and cheekbone. He winced and, when I met his eyes as we sat down, he looked away. That was a good start, I thought, if he felt even remotely ashamed of what he’d done.
“Quite the mess you’ve got yourself into,” I said, after the recording device had been set up and we’d introduced ourselves. “How about you start by telling us what you were doing outside the Nix nightclub?”
Cal hunched his shoulders. “Nothing.”
Stephen glared at him. “Really?” he growled. “So why the running? Why hit my partner in the face, before you tried-?” He was riling himself up, and I wasn’t sure it was entirely just an act to scare Cal, so I put out a hand to stop him.
Cal was frozen in place, looking very much like a rabbit that didn’t know whether to stay or bolt. “I didn’t mean to,” he mumbled after a long pause.
<
br /> “Didn’t mean to do what?”
He gestured with his hand, making his cuffs clink against the metal table. “Hurt you. Sorry.”
I gritted my teeth, determined not to let my emotions get the best of me, even if Cal’s half-arsed apology made me want to thump him one.
“What did you mean to do, then?” Stephen asked, perhaps sensing that I was getting my thoughts together.
Cal shifted in his chair. “Nothing.”
I decided this route was getting us exactly nowhere and tried a different tack. “Do you know the penalty for attempted murder? Attempted murder of a police officer, at that?”
Cal looked aghast. “It wasn’t- I didn’t mean- I didn’t want to kill you!”
I raised an unimpressed brow. “So when you cut off my breathing, you were trying to do what exactly?”
Cal held out his hands, pleading. “I’m sorry, okay? I panicked. I don’t want to go jail, please, you’ve got to understand.”
I leaned forwards. “Then stop lying to me and give me the truth, Melville. What were you doing outside the nightclub?”
Cal shrunk back into his chair, looking down at his lap. I wondered if I’d pushed too soon, but his face crumbled, his lip trembling.
“I was waiting for the girl,” he mumbled, quietly enough that I almost didn’t hear him.
I glanced over at the recording machine. I didn’t really want to break the tension by making him repeat it, but I wasn’t sure the tape would have picked his quiet admission up.
“I need you to repeat that.”
Cal shot me a wounded look, and it took him several seconds before he said, louder, “I was waiting for her, okay? There weren’t meant to be police.”
“Why were you waiting for her?” Stephen said. He’d dropped some of the intimidation, but his face wearing a frown was enough to make Cal look pale.
“Was told to.”
I shared a look with Stephen. “Who told you to?”
Cal swallowed. “I can’t- I’m not allowed to say.”
I exhaled heavily. “Right. If you tell us something useful, Melville, I might actually be able to help you, despite what you did to me. But if you want to clam up, we can’t work together, can we?”
Cal sat in stubborn silence, and I decided that some more scare tactics were needed.
I stood up with a loud scrape of my chair. Stephen glanced up in surprise, before catching on and getting to his feet. “We’ll see you in court, then,” I told Cal and moved as if to head out the door.
Cal swore. “No, wait, come on! Alright, alright.”
I sent him a look like I wasn’t convinced. “You going to say something useful or just string us along with more vague nonsense?”
Defeated, Cal spread his hands. “I’ll talk, okay? Yeah?”
I sighed and sat down, giving Cal a tired look, putting on the mask of an officer who was done with Cal and didn’t really think he had anything useful to offer us. Inside, I was anxiously hoping that he was going to lay it all out for us and fill in all the unexplained gaps that were bothering me so badly.
“And you’ll get me leniency?” Cal asked once we’d pulled our chairs back in. “If I help the- the investigation?”
Stephen gave him a hard look. “We’ll decide when and if you give us anything useful.”
Cal’s hand twitched upwards like he wanted to rub his face or push his long, messy hair out of his eyes, but the chain on the cuffs was short, and he let his hands drop back to the table.
“I never meant for any of it,” he said heavily. “I swear I didn’t.”
I made a noise in my throat. “So start from the beginning, Melville. Tell us your side.”
Cal exhaled heavily and was quiet for a long moment. “I really like birds, right?” he said. I blinked at the apparent non-sequitur but let him continue. “I like watching them and taking pictures of them. You saw my Instagram.” He hesitated. Stephen looked impatient, his eyes narrowed, like he thought this was another waste of our time. “But I wanted to study them up close, too.”
I gestured for him to go on when he dithered, and he continued slowly, “I never wanted to hurt anything- anyone.” He swallowed audibly. “It s-said on the website that it was roadkill.”
Stephen tensed beside me. “What was roadkill?”
“The birds,” Cal said. He twisted his hands together. “I bought the birds online and went to pick them up.”
“Where?”
Cal glanced up at me. “This industrial place, he left them in a bag.”
That was probably the same place we’d been to, before we’d headed off home too early to see who dropped off the bags.
“How does this connect to the other night?” Stephen said snappishly.
Cal cringed but nodded. “I’m getting to it,” he said. “I bought the birds a few times. And then, then, he was waiting for me at the industrial estate. He took a picture of me before I could react. H-he said the birds weren’t roadkill at all, and he’d been killing them. He said he’d go to the police and say t-that I’d been killing them, that I was some kind of psychopath.” Cal grimaced, looking disgusted.
“And then?” I asked. I desperately wanted to know who this ‘he’ was that Cal was talking about, but I wanted to hear the rest of his story first.
“So he blackmailed me,” Cal said, his forehead crumpled into an angry frown. “He wanted me to leave birds outside some people’s houses. I don’t really know why. So I did.” His gaze flickered up to meet mine, and his look was pleading. “I didn’t want to, I swear. But my parents would’ve disowned me if something like this got back to them, right? They’d always thought I was messed up.”
“Keep talking, Melville.”
Cal sighed. “Yeah. I left the birds like he wanted. A fox once. Squirrels.” He shuddered. “And then, the other night, he texted me saying that I had t-to grab this girl from Nix.”
I raised an eyebrow. That was quite a leap, from leaving dead creatures to snatching a woman from a crowd. I thought back to the figure we’d seen on the CCTV back early in the investigation, and they’d been too bulky to have been Cal.
“I couldn’t- I didn’t want to, I really didn’t!” he added quickly, gesturing with his hands. “But h-he told me that it’d be the last time he ever asked for anything. He said he just wanted to scare her.” Cal had his head down now, like he knew that what he was saying didn’t hold up. “He sent me a picture of her. S-so that’s why I was there.”
“Cal,” I said, once it was clear that he’d finished. “Have you heard about the killings on the news?”
He startled. “Yeah?”
“The two student women?”
It took him a moment, but his face went white as paper. “No.”
“Yes,” Stephen said, harsher than I’d been as he played the role of the bad cop. “Tell us who was orchestrating this, Melville, or you’ll be the one taking the rap for those two dead women.”
“I didn’t- I didn’t-” he started, looking panicked.
I held up a hand. “Prove it. Tell us who did do it.”
Cal clenched his eyes shut. “I don’t know his name,” he croaked out, small and defeated.
“But you saw his face?” I pressed.
Cal shook his head, and my heart fell. “He wore a mask, like a balaclava.”
“You heard his voice, though?”
Cal nodded. “Yeah, I’d probably recognise that.”
“What about his height and build?” I pressed.
“I don’t know,” he whined. “It was dark, and I think he was hunched over, and I was stressed, and…” Cal’s voice trailed off.
Stephen was looking furious, and I was feeling similarly robbed. We’d been counting on this to pull it together, and, in my case, to implicate Will, since I was so sure it all came back to him. The bulky guy on the CCTV. The missing record file. The women who’d wronged him.
“We need more,” I said coldly. “We’ve got a match on your fingerprints. If you don�
�t give us something better, it’s not going to go well for you.” I didn’t mention that the fingerprint match had been at Abby’s, not one of the dead women’s flats.
Cal looked like he might be sick. “You can see my phone!” he blurted. “He said to delete the texts, but I didn’t, my memory’s bad. And I’ll show you the website, okay?” He leaned forwards towards us, desperation making his eyes large and wet. “Please, please, I didn’t do it, okay? I didn’t kill anyone, I swear-”
“Alright,” Stephen said harshly and stood up. He looked at me. “I don’t think we’re gonna get anything more useful.”
I made a noise of agreement and rounded up the interview while Cal looked a second away from a panic attack.
“You think of anything else, you tell us straight away,” I told him, and he nodded hurriedly. I patted the table. “I’ll send in a member of the tech team, you show them this website and cooperate with whatever they ask, understood?” He nodded again.
Stephen and I stepped out, the low, background noise of the station starting up again. “That website we found-” he started.
I nodded. “Yeah. It was linked, then.”
Stephen grimaced and swore quietly. “If he’d just seen the guy’s face,” he muttered.
I shot him a sympathetic look, feeling the same frustration myself. “I know, Steph.”
We headed over to the tech team, and I told them what I needed from them. Then we went to fetch Cal’s phone from where it’d been kept with the other personal effects taken from him when he was booked in. We handed that over to the tech guys too, hoping they could find something useful in the texts Cal had referred to. If we could get the most recent texts, the ones telling Cal to grab Abby, and trace them back to Full Sutton, that would be a good first move towards pinning this on Will.
Back at our desks, Stephen rested his elbow on the table and put his cheek on his palm. “He’s not the killer,” he decided aloud. “He’s just too- all over the place.”
“Yeah, I believed his story too. It checked out with what we already knew.” I sighed. “My bet’s still on this Will guy, but we’ve got nothing solid, no fingerprints or camera footage or, dammit, witnesses either.”
DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thrillers: Book 1-3 Page 46
