Moving Target (A DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crimes Book 6)

by Oliver Davies

“Morning, it’s PC Tovar. We talked in the break room about the dogs, sir,” she added as if I might’ve forgotten.

  “I remember,” I assured her, surprised to get a call from her but not at all displeased. “Have you got news for me?”

  “Unfortunately, yes, I mean it’s bad news, sir. You asked to hear about any similar incidents?”

  “I did.” I pulled out my notepad and got a pen ready.

  “There was an anonymous complaint about animal cruelty over in Dringhouses. We checked it out, and there was some poor dog chained up in the basement.”

  “Crikey.”

  “Yeah. They reckon it was connected to dogfighting, with the training equipment there.” Tovar’s tone showed her disgust. “Anyway, thought I’d let you know, sir, since it was a Staffy dog and you were asking about that sort of thing.”

  Her voice turned slightly hesitant at the end as if she wasn’t quite sure she’d done the right thing by calling me. Admittedly, the incident wasn’t exactly the same as the one we talked about previously, but I was certainly glad she’d let me know about it, especially after what had happened over near Ellerton.

  “I appreciate you getting in touch, thanks, Tovar. You showed good initiative in thinking I’d be interested,” I added.

  “Glad to hear it,” she said warmly.

  I asked her to send me over the details and made a mental note to talk to whoever her supervisor was, too, just to let them know that she was passing information over to me. Neither of us would be in any trouble for it, I was sure, but it was always good to give people a heads up so that they were in the loop.

  It was a little while before Stephen turned up since I’d got into the office early, but he was as interested in Tovar’s call as I had been.

  “Rashford’s okay with this, isn’t she?” he checked after I’d told him what Tovar had said.

  “With what?”

  “You know, us poking our noses into all this when it isn’t technically our case and spending work time on it.”

  “Well, I’m due to give her an update, probably, but if this is linked to dogfighting, then it’ll be a major incident. And that makes it-”

  “Our problem, okay, I got it.” He nodded.

  “I want to head over and check this place out, but I can give Rashford an update first. Do you wanna come with?”

  “Nah, mate, I’ll make us some coffee to go.” He waved me off, and I rolled my eyes at him before heading over towards Rashford’s office.

  “So the planning report is entirely complete?” she asked after I’d told her what I intended. Her expression was questioning but not disapproving, I thought.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, then, I can’t see a reason why you can’t focus on this case.” She’d turned her attention to her computer as she spoke and clicked around on the screen. “PC Tovar and PC Bowen responded to the call, so you’ll have to update them.”

  “Tovar was the one to inform me of the incident, ma’am. I’ll be sure to keep her in the know.”

  “Good. You’d better go then,” she said with a faint smile.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  As I was moving towards the door to leave, she spoke again, stopping me.

  “Mitchell?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  She looked up from her computer screen and fixed me a dark-eyed, serious gaze.

  “Dogfighting is a dangerous business. It’s a darker world than you’re used to dealing with, and officers have died trying to bring it down. If this turns out to be serious, being reckless could cost you your life, am I clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, looking steadily at her even though my heart was racing.

  “Alright, enough doom and gloom from me. Most likely, things won’t escalate that far.”

  “I’ll be careful, ma’am,” I promised.

  She nodded to dismiss me, and I headed back to our desks, frowning slightly.

  “Did she tell us not to go?” Stephen asked.

  “What? Oh, no. She was just warning me.”

  “About what?”

  “Not being a reckless idiot,” I said, raising a slight smile. Stephen huffed and shook his head.

  “I hope she gets through to you where the rest of us failed.”

  “I listen to you,” I protested.

  “Sure, you listen. Doesn’t stop you charging into danger like- like you’re bloody Superman.”

  “I haven’t got the six-pack to be Superman.”

  Stephen gave me a long-suffering look like he wasn’t impressed with me dodging the subject. It’d been a bone of contention between the two of us for a while, but I couldn’t stop myself from chasing after criminals, and I wouldn’t change jumping in the river to save Keira’s brother even though I’d nearly drowned.

  “You have a saviour complex, mate, I’m telling you,” Stephen muttered, sounding genuinely frustrated now. “And you don’t half scare me sometimes.”

  I ran a hand over my face, struggling for how to respond. If our roles were reversed, I’d hate Stephen running into danger with a passion, so I couldn’t argue with his concern. And yet, we’d already gone over this subject, and I wasn’t sure I could change my behaviour to how he wanted, to be hesitant and careful in the heat of the moment.

  “Can we not talk about this now?” I said finally.

  “Yeah, sure. Nothing’ll change anyway,” he said flatly, gathering his things.

  While I’d been speaking to Rashford, he’d made us both drinks, and mine was steaming away on my desk. I felt guilty looking at it now, knowing I’d upset him.

  “That’s not true. I do try, Steph.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  We headed down the stairs and out to the car park in tense silence, and I already missed our usual easiness. I didn’t know how to bring it back, though, without making promises to Stephen that I wouldn’t be able to keep. I knew that I needed to try harder at not being so rash, not least because if this continued to be an issue between us, I was worried we’d lose the friendship. And Sam would be distraught if I ended up seriously hurt in hospital too.

  I was due to be driving today as Stephen had done on the last trip, but I didn’t immediately start the car up.

  “You okay?” Stephen asked, a little gruffly but still with concern in his tone.

  “It was only me when I was younger, you know that?” I said quietly, fully aware that he didn’t know because I hadn’t told him much about my past. “As a twenty-something, I threw myself into things, and the only people who cared were other people on the force. I didn’t have parents fretting over me, or friends, really. I’ve always been responsible for myself.”

  In more recent years, I had work partners and on-and-off girlfriends who’d worried about me and wanted to know where I was and if I was okay. But it was still lodged in there somewhere deep that I only had myself to rely on, and that if I wanted something done, I didn’t ask for help doing it. I just got on with it. Alone.

  Stephen released a heavy exhale and was silent for a beat. I turned the key in the ignition and drove us out of the car park, heading off towards the address that Tovar had given us. It was okay if Stephen didn’t know what to say or didn’t want to say anything because I’d simply wanted to put it out there. I’d wanted him to know that it wasn’t that I didn’t care that he and Sam worried for me, but that I wasn’t used to it. When things got intense, I instinctively reverted to my old ways and simply focused on getting the job done, no matter the risk.

  “You’ve got us now,” he said quietly, a couple of minutes later. “Sam and I aren’t going anywhere. You’re stuck with us.”

  “Understood,” I said with a huffed laugh.

  “It’s okay not to be able to save everyone. That’s life, mate. If you’d got yourself shot by those men up in the hills the other day, you wouldn’t be here to help the dogs or anyone else,” Stephen said quietly. He’d made the point before, but it was a good one.

  “Aye,” I sighed
. It was true. I’d let my curiosity get away from me.

  “The fact that you’ve got away with scrapes and bumps so far is just luck, you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Okay, I’ll stop lecturing you.”

  I turned to give him a weak smile. “I know it’s because you care. I’ll try, Steph. Promise.”

  “You better. I’ve got too many grey hairs from the kids already. I don’t need ‘em from worrying about you too.”

  I chuckled at that. We were nearly at the address Tovar had given us in Dringhouses, and I was glad that the uneasy tension between us had mostly dissipated. It was worse for Stephen than it was for even Sam because he was right there with me when these things happened. He’d been the first one to see me after I’d run down from the hills the other day, my hand cut up, and he’d been there when I’d jumped into the river not so long ago and nearly drowned. Watching from the sidelines had to be worse than hearing about it, as Sam did, and yet it worried her too, I knew.

  I had to do better for them, but it was hard. I tried to imagine myself not charging after a criminal who was running off or not heading straight towards that fire at Rose Heath school to carry the unconscious kid away, and my thoughts shield away from the idea. It felt in many ways like I was being pulled in opposite directions by my job and the people who cared for me, but that wasn’t really true.

  The two sides relied on each other to work, with Sam and Stephen helping support me through the stress of being DCI and my job giving me a purpose and making me a better friend and partner. It wasn’t the two biggest parts of my life tugging me in different directions. It was me resisting both of them. I claimed to myself that I was being the best officer I could be by putting myself at risk, but as Stephen, Rashford and the previous Superintendent, Gaskell, had all told me, I was no use to the force and to future victims if I was dead.

  What I needed was balance. To know when to take the risk and when not to, and more importantly, when to accept help. I was afraid of Stephen getting hurt because of me or my orders, but me acting alone and running off ahead to face the danger without him was already hurting him. It hurt Sam too, the worry that she’d get a call in the night to say that I was at the hospital. I knew because she’d told me. She said that she’d tried to accept that the risk was part of dating me, but one of her worries in going to Kent had been that she’d be that much further away if I got injured. I’d taken the self-defence lessons on her urging to try to set her mind at rest, but the instructor had been the first to remind us that getting out of the dangerous situation was always the best course of action. The problem was that I had a tendency to run straight into these situations, not away from them, and that’s what had Stephen and Sam worried about me.

  It wasn’t fair on them and, as I climbed out of the car and Stephen joined my side, I resolved to do better by them.

  Six

  The terrace house looked entirely normal, with two neighbouring brick houses sandwiching it on either side and a front garden full of long, straggly grass. There was a low wall around the front, the cement falling out between the bricks and a rusting wood burner up against the overgrown hedge. It was an unremarkable place that I wouldn’t have looked even once at when walking past, never suspecting that a dog was being kept locked up there, trained, and tortured into becoming a vicious fighter.

  The neighbours had noticed something, though, and I was grateful that they’d paid attention and made a move to report it, too. I’d want to have a word with them if at all possible, though it would be better for them to come into the station. Us knocking on their door could mark them out as being the ones to dub their neighbours in, and that might have unseen consequences if the dog’s owners saw us and realised.

  The house was empty for now, with its inhabitants being kept at another York police station, though I doubted they’d be there for long. A conviction for dogfighting often led to a disgustingly short sentence, and that would only happen if there was enough evidence that the dog really had been intended for dogfighting. The owners, a married couple by the name of Scotson, would no doubt try to claim that the animal had just been intended to guard the house, and strong proof to the contrary would be needed to refute that.

  PC Tovar and a couple of other officers had already looked the house and its basement over, but I’d wanted to see the scene, too, whilst the house was still empty. Tovar was due to join us in a minute since she was the one who’d been first on the case, if it could be called that. For now, it’d officially be considered an isolated incident, even as I wondered whether there was some link between this and the other dog-related crimes I’d heard about. But I knew that was only speculation, and I put the idea aside for the moment, keeping it to myself.

  Tovar had given us the key for the front door, and we scouted the downstairs out first. There was nothing out of the ordinary there, just the usual signs of a place that’d been lived in and not by the tidiest of people. The kitchen smelled bad, an open bottle of milk sitting on the counter having gone off. Stephen picked the lid up and screwed it on the milk, taking it out of the house and dumping it in the bin outside. It was a small thing, but not something I would’ve done. Let them return to a fridge full of mouldy food and sour milk, I thought bitterly. They deserved it for what they were doing to that dog.

  Tovar had sent over the pictures taken by LACS and the RSPCA along with the house’s address. Seeing the Staffy dog’s chain collar, its body language alternating between fear and aggression in the photographs, had reminded me of that awful barn up in the hills. I couldn’t imagine putting a living creature through such treatment, but the people who’d lived in this house and washed dishes in this kitchen had.

  “What’s wrong?” Stephen had returned and was looking at me. I realised that my face had been screwed into a tight frown, and I made myself relax.

  “Nothing. But you should have left the milk.”

  I walked off before he could reply, heading upstairs. We worked together with the ease of familiarity as we swept through the small number of rooms upstairs. The one bedroom was normal, while the other was a tip, filled with old junk and hoarded possessions. A plate of half-eaten toast had been left on the bedside table, the remains of a breakfast in bed or a late-night snack, and had gone mouldy. Stephen left it where it was.

  There was a cramped room next to the bathroom, which had likely once been a child’s nursery but which had been converted into an office space, though there was barely room for the small desk and a handful of shelves. Papers and folders were scattered around, and I looked it over, wondering whether this had been the work of police searching for evidence or if the homeowners had kept the room in such a mess.

  The only other thing of interest in the little room was the smashed up computer. It’d been snatched off the desk, wires still trailing, and bashed to pieces on the floor. The wooden, upright chair had probably been used to destroy it, I guessed, but it didn’t really matter. Tovar or another officer would already have had a techie look to see if the computer was recoverable and if it’d been left here, then it was clearly beyond use.

  Not having found anything else of significance, we finally tried the basement where the dog had been found. I paused on the stairs down when I heard the front door go, but it was just Tovar.

  “You got in alright, then?” she said, standing at the top of the basement stairs.

  “Aye. Key worked fine.”

  I continued down into the gloom, flicking on the light. I’d put on plastic gloves even though this wasn’t a big enough incident for forensics to have been involved, so my finger left no mark on the light switch. It was cold down in the basement, where the house’s automatic heating didn’t seem to reach. There was a metal crate in the corner, catching my attention first despite the cluttered state of the small space. I thought of that dog being chained up and left down here in the cold and shuddered. The air wasn’t fetid, but it smelled musky and animal. I wondered how often, and for how long, the animal had be
en kept in here.

  “What’ve you found here so far?” I asked Tovar when she’d come down the stairs. Stephen was silent beside me, taking in the room and all the things stacked up against the walls.

  “It’s been taken off for evidence, but there were known dog-training paraphernalia down here. O rings, bull snaps, and a Jenny.” She glanced at me. “You know what those are?”

  “I’ve read about them,” I said with a nod. Stephen hadn’t done the same research as I had, so I explained it for him. “O rings go round the dog’s neck to reduce the risk of injury when they’re training them. The bull snaps just attach the dog to a chain, and a Jenny is...” I faltered, my memory failing me for a moment.

  “It’s a chain and pulley contraption,” Tovar filled in, her tone grim. “It has a bait cage, used to wind up the dogs. It’s pretty horrible.”

  “Yeah, it sounds like it,” Stephen agreed, looking faintly horrified.

  “That’s enough to convict the Scotsons, right?” I asked, my jaw clenched at the thought of those things being used on a living, feeling creature. I’d seen pictures of them, and they all looked like torture devices to me.

  “Should be, though who knows what they’ll get for it.”

  “Right, from what I was reading, some of the sentences are appallingly short.”

  “Exactly,” she said with a nod.

  “Have you been involved with this sort of thing before?” Stephen asked her.

  “Dogfighting? I’ve worked with LACS and the RSPCA a little, but it’s usually been one-off incidents like this. I’ve picked up bits and pieces along the way, though.” She blushed after she finished speaking and looked away.

  “You certainly seem knowledgeable to me,” I assured her.

  “It’s nothing, really.” She shifted on her feet, seeming embarrassed for a moment as she looked down at the cracked concrete floor before lifting her head again. “Was there anything else you wanted to know?”

  “Oh, no, I don’t think so.” I glanced over at Stephen, and he shook his head. “We’ll have a bit more of a look round. We’ll lock the place up afterwards if you need to head off.”