“They’ve got it well in hand. They’re pros at this sort of thing, right?” Stephen said, clearly trying to reassure me. He obviously hadn’t believed my assurance that I wasn’t concerned.
“Aye, you’re right,” I said.
Still, not being able to get involved or be of much use to them grated on me. I kept thinking of that dog and her puppies I’d seen in the barn right before a guy with a shotgun chased me off the property. I hated to think of how those dogs were faring, locked up in pens in the dark, but I knew that it wasn’t my fight right now. Stephen and I would have to do what we could from the sidelines and hope that it might help a little.
We arrived back at the station and, after fetching myself some more coffee, I settled into research. Stephen had offered to help, but he had an online training course that Rashford wanted him to do, so I waved him off. If he didn’t get it done within work hours, he’d have to do it at home, and I knew he’d much rather be with his wife and kids.
It was a pleasant change of rhythm to be able to lose myself to research, focusing on little more than information gathering. I tried a myriad of different search terms to make sure that I wrung every last bit of useful content from the system, working through reports from cases that’d been closed years ago. Anything to do with dogfighting was of interest, though I prioritised the incidents which had happened most recently and within York itself.
“All done,” Stephen declared a couple of hours later. He’d been fidgeting for a while, so I knew he’d been getting bored with the online learning, but he’d ploughed through.
“How did you do?” I asked, my attention still on the case report I was reading. The officer who’d written it had an odd style of writing, and it made my head hurt trying to decipher their meaning sometimes.
“Not too shabby. How’re you getting on? Have you reached the Dark Ages yet?”
“What?” I hadn’t really been paying attention, and he grinned cheekily, letting me know that he was taking the mickey.
“I was asking if your research dive had reached the Dark Ages yet, mate. I don’t know if our system goes back that far, but I reckon the heating here was installed around when the dinosaurs were around, so who knows?”
I laughed at that. “That’s a bit harsh. They definitely replaced the radiators around when the Normans invaded.”
“Of course they did. We can blame the ruddy French for the godawful heating system then, can we?”
“We have a history of blaming them for everything else,” I said with a slight smile.
“Seriously, though, how’re you getting on? Anything interesting catch your eye?”
My smile faded, and I became serious, looking back at my computer screen. I shifted between the multiple tabs I had up and turned the monitor towards Stephen, who leaned forwards.
“I did actually, look at this. A dogfighting ring was brought down in York five years ago before I came here. Did you hear about it?”
Stephen frowned at the screen, his eyes moving back and forth as he read the report. I chewed my lip, impatient to hear what he thought, but held my peace and let him process it.
“I did hear about it, yeah. I remember now you mention it. I wasn’t involved at all, and I don’t think the officers here were either-”
“No, it was handled between another York police station, LACS, and the RSPCA.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right. It was in the news for a short while. I’d completely forgotten.” He ran a hand over his short hair and shot me a look. “I’m sorry, I really should’ve remembered.”
“It’s alright. We see a lot of cases over the years, and this one didn’t involve Hewford. You’re forgiven.” I sent him a smile to show that I really didn’t mind.
“Anyway, if I’d told you, you wouldn’t have got to do your nerdy researching,” he teased, elbowing me in the side.
“Gee, thanks,” I laughed.
“So what’s the plan now?” he asked, shifting his chair back and raising his eyebrows at me.
“I haven’t totally finished with this, but a couple more of the people off Gumtree have responded. It’d be good if you could go out to speak to them while-”
“While you do more nerdy researching?” Stephen grinned.
“Yes, that.” I rolled my eyes.
Stephen chuckled, standing up to get his things together. He made me a fresh cup of coffee before he left.
“Don’t forget to take a break, okay?”
“Aye, thanks, mum,” I said, shooing him away.
I slipped back into the zone once he’d headed off, my frown deepening as I read further into the case that had taken place in York only a few years back. I’d drank half of my coffee and then forgotten about it, and it was barely tepid when I remembered it again. I took a sip regardless because my mouth had gone dry.
“Are you alright?”
I startled badly, almost spilling coffee all over my keyboard and myself, and looked up. It was Keira Adams, one of the tech team, standing nearby and looking somewhat concerned. My heart was hammering, and the shock must have shown on my face because Keira grimaced an apology.
“You looked like you were reading some bad news,” she said, her expression returning to its usual neutrality.
“Aye, no- I mean, it wasn’t bad news, not exactly.” I exhaled a heavy sigh and ran a hand over my unruly hair, which was in dire need of a trim.
“Hm.” She didn’t look convinced.
“Did you need something?” I asked after a moment too long.
I’d been so focused on what I was reading that being jerked so suddenly away had left me feeling almost groggy, like I’d been woken from a deep sleep.
“Nothing urgent. PC Tovar asked us to have a look at some online messages, and she thought you would be interested too.”
“Oh, you didn’t have to come over personally. What did you find?”
“I know I didn’t have to, but I wanted to stretch my legs,” she said evenly, putting paid to any notion I might’ve had about her giving me special treatment. It was just like her, and I hid a smile. She went on, “In answer to your question, there wasn’t anything of interest in the messages on Gumtree which Tovar asked me to look at, but I followed the thief’s VPN-”
“Thief?” I asked, just to clarify. I was pretty sure she meant the Scotsons, but perhaps she didn’t know that was why the dog, Lewie, had been taken.
“The people who took the dog, yes. As I was saying, the VPN leads to more correspondence on a Facebook group that looks, on the surface, to be about dog shows, however-”
“Dog fighters.”
She gave me an unimpressed look at being interrupted. “Yes. It’s primarily filled with boasting, memorials for dogs, and barely coded talks about fights, but I found mention in the private messages of a man called Matt Hartley. He-”
I swore quietly, accidentally interrupting her again. Hearing that name again made my chest tighten.
“What?” she said, lifting her eyebrows coolly with the clear expectation of an explanation. I released a breath, tapping my finger against my computer screen.
“The report I was reading mentions that name.”
Keira hesitated, as if she wasn’t sure whether she was interested enough to ask. But after a moment, she did.
“What report’s that?”
“One about a group that was infiltrated and brought down five years ago. He wasn’t given a long sentence, so I suppose with good behaviour, he could be out and free now.” I grimaced at the thought and passed a hand over my sore eyes. There was something else in the report, but I didn’t want to tell Keira or Stephen, for that matter. Not yet.
“From these messages, we can presume he’s still active in the… community,” Keira surmised.
“And these messages the Scotsons sent them, the people who took Lewie? Who were they talking to?”
“Someone called Levi Markey. Does that name mean anything to you?” she asked. I had the feeling she knew that I was holding bac
k about Matt Hartley. “Well, they didn’t say much to each other. It was mostly practicalities and talking about the dogs. I’ve sent you the transcripts and a summary of what we found.”
“You sent that to Tovar too?”
“Of course,” she said, giving me a flat look that told me not to cast doubt on her intelligence. I gave her a sheepish smile.
“I appreciate it, Adams. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, giving me a nod before walking away.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and willed the tension headache that had settled in between my brows to dissipate. Stephen was still out, and I wasn’t sure if I was glad of that right now or not. On the one hand, it would’ve been good to be able to talk through all this with him, but on the other, I knew that he’d have a lot of questions too. He’d want to know about my past and why I hadn’t told him sooner.
The thing was, Matt Hartley had been a close friend of my dad’s. I could picture his broad face with the grisly beard and the persistent smell of clove cigarettes that’d clung to him. When I was very small, I’d crouch on the stairs when he arrived and watch from between the bannisters as my dad took him through to the kitchen. He’d always spot me, even when I was hidden in the shadows and the landing light was off, and he’d give me a wave. Even though I’d never seen him so much as raise his voice when he was with my dad, I’d been wary of him even then. There had been something dangerous in the bulky confidence with which he moved and the unceasing sharpness of his small eyes.
I’d never known that he’d been involved with dogfighting, but I wasn’t surprised. Those types of people had gone quietly in and out of the house all while I was growing up, and I heaved a sigh to think about it. The tension headache behind my eyes had got worse, and I didn’t want to think about these things I’d tried to put behind me.
Phil showing up, asking me out for a drink, and trying to pull me back into the group had been bad enough, but now, my dad’s old friend seemed to be involved in this case, too. Or at least he was involved enough to get his name mentioned, and that was the closest thing to a lead I’d seen today. I genuinely didn’t know who Levi Markey was, and I hadn’t seen his name come up in any of my research, so that name wasn’t much help. I could run a search on the internet for him, of course, but I reckoned that Keira had already done that and had probably come up blank since she hadn’t mentioned it.
My gaze had drifted towards the station’s windows, which ran across the wall of the office and let in a good amount of light, though they were in desperate need of a clean. The light outside was fading, and I glanced at my watch, finding that it was getting near four. Stephen hadn’t got back yet, but he might end up going straight home if his house calls took too long. He’d not left anything here that he’d need to come back for.
I took a break to fetch myself a coffee, my mind churning over this new information even as flashes of the past kept interrupting, thrusting themselves up and demanding that I look after all these years of ignoring them. Perhaps the wisest thing to do would be to call Stephen back and fill him in on Matt Hartley, or even to talk to Rashford about it. She’d know all the details of my past from my file, no doubt, but I ought to let her know that this bloke I’d known as a child had now shown up in York and in relation to a case I was on.
He must be getting on for sixty now, I thought. He’d seemed as much an adult as my dad when he sauntered into our house, but he must have only been in his late twenties. I didn’t know what they’d talked about back then, whether it had been related to dogfighting or one of the other ‘business projects’ my dad had his fingers in during those years.
I read over the email Keira had sent me, with the transcripts for the messages attached. Staring at Matt Hartley’s name for several seconds, I finally made a decision. I’d tell Stephen and Rashford about the link once I knew that there was something to it.
But to find that out, first, I needed to speak to the guy.
Nine
I’d got Matt Hartley’s address off the police system and pulled up several streets away. I was wearing the spare set of plain clothes I kept in my work locker, and I was confident that there was absolutely nothing on me that could give away the fact that I was now working as a cop, and yet I was still nervous.
I planned to tell Matt that I’d got his address from one of my old friends, being as vague as possible unless he insisted, and then I’d tell him it was Phil. The two of them were friends on Facebook, so I had to hope that they were still in touch. They’d certainly known each other when I was a teenager and still living at my dad’s.
Stuffing my car keys in my pocket, I headed down the various crisscrossing streets towards Matt’s place. It was an end terrace and worth a fair bit, considering that it was a period property and in the centre of York, but nothing extravagant. There’d been no convictions on his recent record, so maybe he’d got himself on the straight and narrow after the dogfighting conviction he’d been nailed with, but I doubted it.
It was settling into dusk, and the roads were busy whilst the pavements were quiet, barring the odd evening shopper going down to the Co-op for last-minute dinner supplies. A light was on in the top window of Matt’s house, and I hesitated at the front gate, which was only about thigh-high. The neat, little front garden and the climbing plant, currently lacking any flowers, over the front door gave the place a softer feel than I might have expected, but perhaps Matt had a partner now. He could have kids even, and the thought was a strange one.
The address on the police system had been a year or so old, so it was possible that Matt had moved house, and this would be a dead-end. Still, I’d decided it was worth a shot, regardless. The memory of those dogs in the barn and poor Lewie’s fear stayed stubbornly in my mind, and I wanted answers.
I had to be careful, though. I couldn’t afford to let Matt, or Phil for that matter, know that I was in the police, or I could end up beaten up or worse. I remembered my promise to Stephen and to Rashford to be less reckless, and winced. Here I was, rushing into things headlong again, and neither of them knew where I was. I was still reluctant to call Stephen and have to face his scrutiny into my past, but I could see how unfair it would be to keep him in the dark.
Reluctantly, I went back around the corner away from Matt and got my phone out to give him a call. He picked up quickly, not giving me enough time to think about what I’d say exactly.
“You alright?” he said.
“Aye, fine. I’m out of the office and wanted to let you know.”
“Yeah? I’m about done. I was going to head home. What’re you out doing?”
I hesitated, glancing over at Matt’s house. The light upstairs was still brightly lit, but one downstairs had just come on, too, catching my attention.
“Darren?”
“I’m here. I’m- Honestly, I was reading through the reports, and a name came up. A name I recognised.” I leaned my hip against a nearby garden wall and sighed. It was a chilly evening, and my breath misted in front of me, my fingers going cold around my phone.
“I see,” Stephen said slowly. “Where are you, mate?”
“I’m at the house where that person lives, according to our system anyway.”
He hissed through his teeth. “Jesus, Darren. Why didn’t you call me earlier? I could’ve come with you.”
“I know him from way back, or my dad knew him, anyway. I wanted to see him not as a cop but as an old mate, y’know, to try to get something out of him.”
“So you couldn’t take me along, you mean? What, I couldn’t have at least sat in the car and waited for you? Come on, man, we talked about this.”
“Aye, I’m calling you, aren’t I?”
“At the last ruddy second,” he huffed.
“Better late than never,” I joked weakly.
“And if I say you should go back to the car and get out of there because it’s not safe, will you listen to me?”
I hesitated for too long, and he exhaled a laugh. I coul
d imagine the exasperation on his face perfectly, and winced.
“Sorry, Steph, but I really think this’ll be fine. I was only calling to let you know, not because I thought it was actually dangerous.”
“He got done for dogfighting, he’s clearly a criminal, and you’re a cop going to see him alone in his house. You got seen by those blokes up the hills and already pissed them off enough that they shot at you. What could go wrong, right?”
“You’re being dramatic.” I switched my phone to my other hand, jamming my fingers in my pocket. “Look, it’s freezing out here, and I’m going to talk to him, okay? It’s not a big deal. He knew me when I was a kid.”
“Yeah, how did that come about exactly?”
This was the part I’d been dreading, and I tilted my head back, looking up at the cloudy sky. It wasn’t quite dark enough yet for stars, which were always a bit hit-and-miss with the light pollution round here, anyway.
“I’ll tell you later, okay?”
“Alright,” he sighed. “Call me the second you’re done, you hear me? I’ll be waiting up for it, even if it’s not until twelve or whatever.”
“Okay, thanks. You’re a good friend.”
“Damn right I am,” he said fiercely before chuckling. “Just stay safe. Be less of a reckless idiot than usual.”
“Message received loud and clear,” I said dryly. We said our goodbyes, and I hung up.
At least he hadn’t insisted on coming down here or tried to actually stop me from talking to Matt, I thought. I’d be in for a bit of stink eye tomorrow, no doubt, but if I’d done without telling him and it’d come out later, it would have been much worse. Plus, it was only that he cared, and I felt like something of a jerk that I’d considered not calling him. If our places were reversed, I’d be just as frustrated and worried as he was.
Turning back towards Matt’s house, I steeled my nerves and walked over like I had a right to be there. My memory of his face was fuzzy around the edges after so many years, but there’d been a picture of him on the police system, so I knew what to expect. I pressed the doorbell and took a step back as I waited for it to be answered. I was trying to figure out what I was going to say and how I’d explain my suddenly turning up when a blond woman opened the door with a toddler on her hip. She looked about my age and was only about as tall as my ribcage, a frown on her face as she looked me up and down.
Moving Target (A DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crimes Book 6) Page 10
