I smiled. “I’m good,” I assured him, rolling the car out of the car park and onto the main road.
“Back to where we started,” Stephen said as we headed towards the Wooding’s manor house out in the Dales.
“Aye, ‘tis a bit cyclical,” I agreed.
“Who do you think might have broken in?”
We’d had a call from Rebecca, the Wooding’s housekeeper, almost as soon as we’d arrived at the station to report that someone had broken into the house and taken some items that were worth nothing, but also a large quantity of cash from the safe.
“I have a few ideas,” I said, “but I want to hear more from Rebecca before I decide on anything for certain.”
“Give me a hint?”
I chuckled. “No, use your own brain, you big lump.”
“Dammit,” Stephen said and, though I focused on the driving, I could tell he was smiling.
The drive seemed to go more quickly than it had the first time we’d visited, perhaps because I was more familiar with the route now. I was almost sorry to arrive, since I’d been thoroughly enjoying the scenery on our way there.
“Did you bring your running shoes?” Stephen asked as we climbed out.
“Not this time. I figured we’ve got too much on, better to get back to the station.”
“Fair enough,” Stephen sighed. “I wouldn’t have minded a nice pub meal, though.”
I laughed quietly. “We’ll go out for one when this is over, okay?”
“You’re making me hungry.”
“You’re always hungry,” I fired back, and Stephen acknowledged that with a grin.
“True, true.”
We headed up the drive towards the stone steps. Stephen rapped firmly on the big door, and we waited for Rebecca to come and get the door.
She turned up a moment later, wearing flared red trousers and a white blouse and looking as impeccable as she had last time we’d seen her.
“DCI Mitchell, DI Huxley,” she greeted us formally. “Come in. I’ve put tea on for you both.”
“That’s very kind,” Stephen said. Despite his bulk and mean-looking face, he still managed to look like an excitable puppy at the prospect of tea and biscuits.
It wasn’t biscuits this time, but homemade scones with jam and cream, which Stephen all but inhaled and I found myself eating two of them in quick succession.
“It’s damson jam,” Rebecca said. The kitchen was spotless, like before, but also empty. Her husband was likely outside, tending to the grounds, I thought. “We make it here at the house.”
“It’s delicious,” Stephen praised warmly, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
Once I finished, I fished my notebook out of my pocket and put it down on the kitchen table. “What can you tell us about this break-in?” I asked her.
Rebecca sighed quietly. “It happened in the night. I’m not entirely sure when it was, but somewhere between half ten, when I went to sleep, and six, when my husband got up.”
“So it was Nicholas who discovered the burglary?” Stephen asked.
Rebecca inclined her head. “Yes. He found the back door left open and realised that something was wrong. He woke me and I went to check the rest of the house.”
“And what had been taken?”
“Come,” Rebecca said, standing up, “I’ll show you.”
She took us up the stairs and through the long, complicated hallways towards Mr and Mrs Woodings’ rooms. It was the latter that she entered first, leading the way inside with Stephen and I following after her.
Nothing looked immediately amiss, but it became clear that things were missing the more I looked.
Rebecca stepped forwards to open the chest of drawers, revealing an empty drawer. “Mrs Wooding’s clothes are gone, plus a number of items from the wardrobe,” she told us, gesturing to the other side of the room.
“And her toiletries from the dressing table,” I said, nodding to the dresser.
Rebecca made a noise of agreement in her throat. “There is also the safe,” she said, walking out of the room. Stephen and I shared a look and followed her. She crossed the corridor and moved into Mr Wooding’s room. I slowed as we entered, knowing what I knew now about his fate.
Inside, the room had an abandoned, empty feeling and nothing seemed disturbed other than a tapestry missing from the wall. Behind it, there was a safe, the door open.
“Have you touched the safe?” I asked Rebecca.
She raised an eyebrow. “No.”
“Alright, we’ll dust that over,” I said. “See if there are prints. How much money is missing?”
“I wasn’t privy to the safe combination,” Rebecca said stiffly. “That was between Mr and Mrs Wooding alone.”
“I see,” I said quietly. With one of those people dead, it seemed evident that the other had done, or sent her son to do it, perhaps, though that seemed unlikely.
“And downstairs?” Stephen asked. “Was a window broken? The door?”
“Oh no,” Rebecca said, looking almost affronted at the idea. “It had been opened with a key.”
I nodded silently. “We’ll do those prints,” I said, whilst privately thinking that the person who’d done this seemed clear. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have the fingerprints, if it did turn out to be who I thought it was.
“I’ll put some more tea on,” Rebecca said. She took us back to the ground floor, and from there, she headed towards the kitchen. Stephen and I returned to the car.
“God, those scones were divine.”
I sent Stephen an incredulous look as I was pulling the kit we needed from the car boot. “You’re seriously thinking about that?”
He gave me a wounded look. “I’m thinking about the case too. I can multitask, Mitchell.”
“Uh-huh.”
“So, Mrs Wooding, right?” he said, with a touch of defiance.
I nodded, making my way back into the house with the case of equipment bumping against my leg as I walked. “That’d be my best guess. It’s her things, her house. She had a key, and the safe combination. Seems unlikely it’d be anyone else.”
Stephen hummed his agreement. “Yeah. Why did she come back, though?”
I shrugged. “Ran out of money, I think. Plus, she wanted some of her own things.”
“She’s free to move around, then,” Stephen surmised. “She’s not under duress.”
I hesitated. “I would assume so,” I agreed tentatively. “Although someone could have something more powerful over her, and she came here to get the money for them.” I tilted my head, not entirely convinced by this theory, but it was a possibility.
“Was it a coincidence that Lawrence left the hospital so soon before this?”
I opened my mouth and closed it. “I don’t know. Might be, might not be.”
Stephen sighed. “And here I was hoping that you’d have all the answers.”
I smiled. “I know I’m amazing, but I’m not a mystic, Huxley.”
We’d walked back up to the Woodings’ rooms while we were talking, and we stepped into Mr Wooding’s to take the prints from the safe, if there were any. I got to work dusting the area while Stephen went across the corridor to have a poke around in Mrs Wooding’s room, looking for anything out of place. I could hear the click of his phone taking pictures even from across the hall.
“Anything?” he asked after a while, sticking his head around the door.
“Possibly.” I focused on carefully lifting the print from the safe’s door and squinted at it. “Yeah, that might work.”
“Nice job.”
I began to pack up, turning to look over my shoulder at Stephen.
“And you? Did you find anything?”
He pulled an apologetic face. “Nada, sorry.”
I shrugged. “Oh well.” I zipped the case of equipment and straightened up, my back clicking painfully. “I wonder whether Rebecca checked Lawrence’s room.”
Stephen hummed. “Good point. Let’s go ask her.”
&
nbsp; I chuckled. “You’re just hoping she has more scones.”
He smiled back. “Maybe so.”
We headed downstairs, making our way to the kitchen and taking a couple of wrong turns along the way.
“This place is enormous,” Stephen complained.
“You only just noticed?” I teased and got an elbow in the rib for my troubles.
At the kitchen door, I paused in the hallway outside as a thought occurred to me. Stephen looked back at me with a quizzical frown. “What is it?”
I shook my head. “I was thinking about why she might’ve come back here for cash. She’s got so much on her card, right?”
Stephen considered for only a moment. “Yeah, but there are cameras at ATMs, and tracking.”
“Exactly. So she’s deliberately staying under the radar.”
“Except, by coming here, she’s let us know she’s still in the area.”
“Aye, that too,” I agreed.
We walked into the kitchen after that, where Rebecca was waiting for us. Her husband, Nicholas, was also there and seated at the table with a mug of tea in front of him.
“Good to see you,” I said, giving him a nod.
“Likewise,” he said, taking a sip of his tea.
Rebecca supplied us with hot drinks as we sat down, plus another plate of scones, which Nicholas dug into as eagerly as Stephen and I. I caught Rebecca with a half-smile on her face as all three of us reached for her cooking, but she saw me looking and turned away to fetch the teapot.
After filling up a cup for herself, she took a seat at the table and looked over at us.
“Lawrence loves my scones, too,” she said quietly. Nicholas reached over to put a hand on his wife’s arm, and she gave him a nod.
“Have you been to see him?” I asked hesitantly. I was aware that Lawrence was no longer at the hospital and that neither Rebecca nor Nicholas likely knew of this yet.
Rebecca straightened her spine slightly. “It wouldn’t be our place.”
I suppressed my initial response to that, which was impolite. “You’re surely more familiar to him than his aunt and uncle, nice people that they are,” I said, instead.
“They are good people,” Rebecca agreed.
“Would you know where he might go, if not here?” I asked her slowly. “Early this morning, he left the hospital premises.”
Rebecca and Nicholas looked up sharply. “He- left?” Rebecca said sharply.
I sighed. “Yes. The cameras show him leaving voluntarily.”
“You should be out there looking for him!” Nicholas cut in abruptly, making me jump. “Not fannying around here talking to us!” It was Rebecca’s turn to pat her husband’s arm.
“He’s not a legal minor,” I said apologetically, “and since there was no indication of him leaving against his will, there’s not much we can do. We spent several hours looking for him, but it seems he’s found somewhere to hole up. Can you think of anywhere he might be?”
The couple looked at each other. “Only his friends’ houses,” Rebecca said after a moment. “We’ll check the grounds here, too, of course, but he’s not been in the house.”
“Did you notice anything missing from Lawrence’s room?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I did check there too,” she said, “but nothing had been disturbed.”
I briefly considered asking to see in there, too, but I reckoned that Rebecca knew better than I did what was usually in Lawrence’s room. If she said that nothing was missing, I was inclined to believe her.
I nodded, turning things over in my head but not wanting to say it aloud in front of the housekeeper and her husband, for fear of worrying them.
“Thank you for your help,” I said finally, glancing over at Stephen to see if he had any final queries, but he shook his head.
“You’ll keep looking for him?” Nicholas demanded.
I grimaced. “I know you’re concerned-”
Nicholas slapped the table with his palm. “He was kidnapped, dammit! He’s not fit to be out roaming the streets-”
“Nick, Nick,” Rebecca said gently, touching his shoulder. “The police are doing their best.”
“To be honest with you both,” I said, “we’ve got another child missing, a thirteen-year-old girl. We’re concerned about Lawrence, too, and we’ll put out the word about him, but we can’t divert resources to look for him as it stands. He’s an intelligent young man, and I’m sure he’ll return to you sooner rather than later.”
A muscle ticked in Nicholas’s jaw, but he gave a stiff nod after a moment.
“You’ll keep us updated,” he said, a statement rather than a question.
“Of course,” I said. “Although, you’d do better to keep in touch with Lawrence’s aunt and uncle. They were out looking for him the last time we spoke to them. They’ll be the first with any news on him.”
“Alright,” Rebecca said. “Thank you, officers.”
We excused ourselves soon after that, leaving Rebecca and Nicholas to search the house grounds in case Lawrence had somehow gotten himself all the way out here and was hiding in one of the outhouses. It seemed rather unlikely to me, but I understood the couple’s need to do something, anything, that might help.
“That was difficult,” Stephen said quietly, as we crossed the drive back to the car.
“Aye,” I agreed. “They care for him as much as his aunt and uncle, if not more, I’d say.”
Stephen nodded. He climbed into the driver’s seat, and I moved around to the other side of the car.
“What do you think of it all?” Stephen asked as he pulled out, heading through the gates and back towards the little road that led up to the grand house.
I chewed my lip. “I’m not sure. The fact that none of Lawrence’s things are missing, but his mother’s are, is troubling.”
“Right,” Stephen agreed. “Suggests that they’re not travelling together, doesn’t it?”
“Aye, unfortunately.”
“So maybe it wasn’t his mother who told him to leave the hospital, if they’re not travelling together.”
“Perhaps not,” I agreed. “The timing is odd, though.”
Stephen hummed in agreement. “All right, what next, boss?”
“Back to the station,” I sighed. “We’ve got paperwork and research, your favourites.”
Eighteen
I handed the possible prints I’d gathered from the safe in the Woodings’ house over to the lab once we returned to the station. They’d run it through the system, but I wasn’t confident that they were going to find anything. If it did belong to Mrs Wooding, as I thought it did, she had no criminal record and no reason for our system to have her prints on it. But my thinking was that they might prove useful, if we needed them in the future.
We wrapped up the day around five as Stephen headed home to his family.
“Say ‘hi’ to Annie for me,” I said as we parted ways, him to his car and me towards the changing rooms.
He gave me a cheery wave. “Will do.”
Running home relaxed me as thoroughly as a glass of good wine. I collapsed onto the sofa with a takeaway container full of noodles as a treat, with my legs feeling pleasantly exercised.
I’d left my phone on the side in the kitchen, and it was only when I wandered back in for a cup of tea an hour or so later, that I realised I had two missed calls on my phone.
Frowning, I picked it up. The number was an unknown one, and I wondered who would call me at this time in the evening as I called them back.
“Hello?” a woman’s voice said, when the phone was picked up.
“Who is this?” I asked.
There was a long pause. “My name is Ellie Wooding, I believe-”
“What?” I said before I could stop myself. My heart had sped up when she said her name and I dropped into one of the kitchen chairs. “Mrs Wooding? Where are you?”
There was another pause. “I’ll get to that,” she said finally. Her voice had an elegant
lilt to it, and she sounded just as upper class as I might’ve imagined. There was an undercurrent of urgency to her tone, though, and I was desperate to know why she was calling now of all times. “I hear that Lawrence ran off out of the hospital, is that true?”
How did she know that? I wondered.
“Yes, it’s true,” I said slowly. “Did you encourage him to do that?”
She scoffed, which took me by surprise. “No, of course not. He ought to be recovering. Why wasn’t he better guarded?” she demanded.
I bristled slightly at her imperious tone. “He was staying in a private hospital, and there was no indication that he’s in danger. Unless you have information that indicates otherwise?”
“I do have information,” she said, skirting around my question. “And I’ll share it with you, but only in person. It’s too sensitive to discuss over the phone.”
She was all business, and I frowned as I listened to her. Though she’d asked after her son, she didn’t seem especially concerned for his welfare or interested in what we were doing to find him, like his aunt and Rebecca had been.
“I see,” I said slowly. “What kind of information do you have?”
“I can’t tell you that,” she said flatly. “But it’s important, and pertinent to your investigation. You’ll want to know.”
“You can come into the station tomorrow,” I started, knowing even as I said it that she’d never go for it. She’d been far too secretive up until now to agree to meet at the station.
“No, no,” she said, predictably. “Somewhere less conspicuous, in case they’re following me.”
“Who?” I asked.
“I can’t say over the phone,” she snapped, sounding annoyed now. “Meet me alone, tonight, at the cafe on the right of the Minster. The outside is painted blue. It’ll be busy with a music night tonight. I’ll tell you there.”
She hung up abruptly, before I had the chance to ask her anything more and I stared down at my phone after she’d hung up.
“What on earth…?” I muttered to myself. The woman seemed to think she was in some kind of spy movie and I sighed, hoping that her evident paranoia wasn’t actually justified.
DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thrillers: Book 1-3 Page 65
