Cradle to Coffin (A DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crimes Book 10)

by Oliver Davies

  “You often know enough before the report gets done,” Mills commented. “Is it possible that Schmidt did too?”

  “And what?” Miriam asked. “He found something about the remains that he wasn’t supposed to?”

  “It’s possible,” Mills answered.

  Lena was looking thoughtful. “He rarely went home with his work,” she said slowly. “Anything he did have, and he would have had something by now, will be in his lab.”

  I nodded. I was already planning a trip to his lab. Perhaps Mills and I could squeeze it in this afternoon when we were done here.

  “It sounds like he was close to his parents,” Mills commented after a pause. Lena nodded.

  “Always has been. Lived with them for a while and helped out when his dad wanted to retire. I think those Friday dinners were a common date in the diary,” she added. Mills nodded.

  “Shabbat,” he said. “My mum never bothered,” he added. “Apparently, we cancelled one too many times.”

  “Your schedule is a little erratic,” I said.

  He turned and fixed me with a stare. “Hark who’s talking. He cancelled for this Friday,” he said, turning back to Lena, who was frowning now.

  “I’ve never known him to do that. Even when we were at university, he’d go home Friday night. Never missed it, even if there was a pub quiz.”

  Lena takes her pub quizzes very seriously.

  “Something made him cancel,” I muttered. “A work thing, most likely.”

  Lena nodded. “He wouldn’t schedule something for Friday, not if he could help it.”

  “It was sudden then,” Mills said. “But he knew about it a few days in advance.”

  “Wednesday, Mrs Schmidt said,” I recalled. The same day that Peter Wadham had been to see him. Perhaps the encouragement from the man paying his wages had made him work faster, found something out, or perhaps he even messed something up. This trip to the lab sounded more and more important.

  “If it was work,” Lena mused. “Maybe one of his colleagues might know.”

  “Was he close to them?” I asked.

  “Not particularly, but there was one or two he respected. He mentioned a Dr Walton a few times and said that she was always good company to have in the lab.” Lena smiled slightly. “Which probably meant she was good and being quiet and staying out of his way.”

  I made a mental note of the name Dr Walton just in case she cropped up at any other point in our investigation, perhaps a note of her on his laptop or phone that might be useful.

  The four of us sat quietly then for a bit, watching the other customers in the café, until Lena finished her tea and sagged against Miriam. Her wife put her empty mug down and stroked her hair.

  “Can I actually take you home now?” she asked quietly. Lena nodded and let Miriam pull her to her feet. They both drew their coats on and said goodbye.

  “You’ll tell me when you get something good, won’t you?” Lena said, looking back and pointing at me.

  “If I can, then yes,” I answered. “But we do still have to follow protocol, Lena, and you’re a friend of the victim, not our pathologist.”

  Lena’s face fell, but she nodded and looped her arm through Miriam’s, waving at Billie as they walked towards the door. Mills and I watched them leave, stepping out into the grey sky, then Mills moved onto the other sofa so that he was sitting opposite me.

  “I take it we’re going back to the lab?” he asked.

  “Certainly are,” I answered, sipping my coffee. “I’m hoping he had found something from those remains that might be of use to us.”

  “Do you think he kept it?” Mills asked after a pause, face wrought with worry. “I mean, if he stumbled on something he was supposed to, maybe he wanted to clear the evidence? Used Friday night, when most people who knew him thought he’d be out and did it then?”

  “Or,” I countered. “Someone knew he’d be out on Friday night decided to stop by his flat for something, but he was there.”

  Mills nodded eagerly, then frowned. “Stopped by for what? We didn’t find anything.”

  “Perhaps the killer took whatever they were there for,” I supplied. “Either way, I’m guessing the fact that he was usually out on Friday nights would be something our killer made a mental note of.” Or indeed, I thought a second later, the fact that for once he wasn’t out on a Friday night.

  “A colleague might know that,” Mills suggested. “Especially ones who worked with him for a while. If you knew he was out every Friday, you’d stop inviting him to the pub at some point.”

  I nodded and emptied the rest of my coffee. “All makes a lot of sense to me, Mills. Now we just need enough evidence to pull those strings together and hope it leads us to a killer.”

  Mills smiled. “I thought you didn’t put much stock in hope, sir, not in these cases anyway.”

  “Maybe I’m going soft in my old age,” I countered, standing up and pulling my coat on. “The lab is our best bet right now.” Though if we didn’t find anything there, we’d be more than a little scuppered. My next plan would be to go and hang around Wasco or Dr Cavell until one of them gave me something useful. Dr Cavell wasn’t as snappy as Crowe about being rushed, and I caught enough spiders for Wasco that he had nothing but patience for me when I went down and started rattling around his office for evidence.

  Mills pulled his, or rather my, coat on, still looking down in the mouth.

  “You alright?” I asked as we tidied up the mugs and plate left on the table.

  “Just worried about Lena,” he replied. “I think it’ll hit her properly once she’s home, and I can’t imagine going through that.”

  “Nor I,” I answered, staying put and looking at him properly. “There’s something more, isn’t there?” I asked.

  Mills sighed and lifted his hand to push his hair back from his face. “What if it’s not work? What if it’s religious?”

  I slowly sat back down on the sofa, and Mills sat too, his hands clasped together. Anti-Semitic attacks were rare, but not uncommon, but I’d never heard of anything more than the odd assault. A murder, this well planned and executed, wasn’t always the way these things went. But I doubted any of that would be of comfort to Mills.

  “I say we don’t rule it out,” I replied after a while, my voice mellow. “And I am sorry that I didn’t think of that possibility sooner.”

  Mills nodded, looking up and meeting my gaze. “Ever dealt with it before?” he asked.

  “I can’t say I have,” I replied. “And I’ve always been rather grateful for that.”

  Mills sat a bit longer, then said, “I suppose I’m thinking about Lena too. That one day, I’ll walk onto a crime scene and see someone I love lying there.”

  “That’s a fear we all share, Isaac,” I said. “But it’s also why we do what we do. Because they always are someone’s loved one. Though I will say, should such a thing ever happen to me, I’d be glad to know that you would be the man on the case.”

  Mills’s eyes brightened a bit. “Right back at you, sir.”

  I nodded. “You ready to go?”

  Mills breathed out deeply and nodded, pushing himself back up to his feet. “Quite the Saturday this is turning into, isn’t it, sir?” he said. “Here we thought we’d be out of court by midday to spend the afternoon in the pub or something.”

  I chuckled. “That’s on us for trying to make plans,” I said. “What’s that saying? About mice?”

  Mills looked confused. “Mice?”

  I nodded, trying to cast my mind back. It was something my grandad used to say, my mother too on occasion, echoing his words.

  “The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray,” I remembered. “Something to do with Robert Burns, I think.”

  Mills hummed, looking thoughtful, and I could keep the grin off my face.

  “What?” he asked as we walked away from the table.

  “I know something you don’t, a quote. It’s nice.”

  “Alright.”


  “Is this how you feel all the time? With your Shakespeare and whatnot?”

  Mills rolled his eyes and looked past me to the counter. “See you, Billie.”

  I turned and waved at her before going back to Mills.

  “Do you write them all down?” I asked. “Or do you have a special little compartment of your brain?”

  “What? Quotes to confound Thatcher?”

  “Do you?”

  “No, but I will now,” he retorted, climbing into the car. “And not just Shakespeare either. Poetry.” I grimaced. “All the sad, dreary ones, too, the ones you hate.”

  “I am sorry,” I backpedalled. “I love your Shakespeare quotes. I used one the other day, and it made me feel very smart. Course I used it in front of Elsie, and she didn’t buy it for one second, but the immediate effect was nice.”

  Mills laughed, the tension rising off him, and I was glad to see him lighten up a bit. I’d found that pestering him was often the best way to do it, perhaps something he and his brother used to share. Either way, it put him in a clearer mood, something that I would need as we set off to search Schmidt’s lab.

  Eleven

  Thatcher

  Mills eased up as we drove the short distance across the city, staring out of the window as the world blurred past. My phone buzzed at one point, and I awkwardly freed it from my pocket and tossed it his way.

  “It’s from Miriam,” he said. “She’s got Lena home now.”

  I nodded, “that’s a relief. She needs the rest.”

  Mills nodded and put the phone in the cup holder. “I’m surprised that Sharp let her hang around as long as she did.”

  “You and me both,” I replied as we pulled up in front of the lab. Two visits in one, what was turning out to be a very long day. We climbed out of the car and ambled over to the front doors, pushing our way in.

  It was a good thing that we had made ourselves known to them here already, as the man at the reception desk recognised us the moment we walked in and sent straight for Dr Bayat. The lab was very quiet, and the lack of people milling around from room to room surprised me.

  “I suppose everyone’s hard at work,” I remarked to kill the silence. The receptionist looked up at me.

  “Dr Bayat gave people the day off if they wanted it, on account of Dr Schmidt.”

  “That’s very good of her,” Mills said.

  The man shrugged. “He wouldn’t have liked it,” he said with a faint smile. “Would have said that people need to stop being so emotional and crack on.”

  I grinned. “Did you know him well?”

  “He always stopped for a quick chat on his way in and out,” the man said. “Some of them just brush past me as if I’m not even here, but not Dr Schmidt. Even got me a card on my birthday.”

  “I haven’t the head for birthdays,” I admitted. “Mills here is always having to remind me.” Mills nodded sullenly. The man relaxed the more we spoke to him, making polite, easy conversation until one of the doors opened and Dr Bayat emerged, strolling over to us.

  “Inspector,” she nodded. “Sergeant. How can I help?”

  “We wondered if we might be able to get inside Dr Schmidt’s lab,” I said. “Take a little look at what he was doing. We promise not to touch anything that isn’t paper or pens.”

  Dr Bayat looked conflicted, possibly at the thought of letting two untrained men into an important lab to poke around. But she nodded, her eyes softening, and she indicated for us to follow her past the reception desk and down a long corridor.

  “There shouldn’t be any materials out,” she said as we walked. By materials, I assumed she meant bones. “But I do ask that you be very careful. The slightest taint to any of these studies could be a big mess for us.”

  “We shall be careful,” I said reassuringly. I wasn’t the sort of person who’d be all that interested in looking at some human remains in the first place; I saw enough of that as it was.

  Dr Bayat nodded and pulled a key card from her pocket, swiping it over a reader. The metal door buzzed, and she pushed it open, leading us into another, shabbier looking hallway and through another door.

  The lab was a long, thin room with a few windows high up on the veiling, letting in minimal sunlight. There were a few tables in the room, not unlike the one in Crowe’s lab and several long benches lined with bottles, microscopes, and beakers. A fake skeleton stood in one corner, a floppy hat over its head and images hung on the wall: anatomy drawings and safety hazard warnings.

  Dr Bayat led us to one of three desks in the room, this one at the far wall with much more space than the others, a filing cabinet to one side, a bookshelf to the other.

  “This is—was—Dr Schmidt’s desk,” she said, turning to face me. “Is there anything I can help with?”

  “This is it, thank you.”

  Dr Bayat nodded. “I’ll be in the room just across the hall,” she said, walking to the door. “When you’re ready to leave.”

  I nodded again, grateful as she slipped from the lab and left us to it. Then Mills and I turned our attention to Schmidt’s desk. It looked messy, a stark contrast to his meticulously tidy flat. Paper and pens were scattered over the surface, some with their lids off, ink staining the wood. There was a pinboard on the wall behind it, paper dangling off like someone had knocked it askew. A few pins had been pulled off altogether, and some ripped pages were barely hanging on. I frowned as I looked it all over, taking in the scrambled state of it, rather like the way his bag had been emptied out on his coffee table. Something was off here, but was it Schmidt’s doing or someone else’s?

  “Messy desk, the sign of genius?” Mills asked.

  “His flat was tidy,” I said. “Really tidy, everything neat and in its place.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t the same at home as he was at work,” Mills said. “Plenty of people keep their workplace tidy but their home messy. Schmidt could have been the reverse.”

  “Possibly, but I don’t think that’s it,” I said, looking into the small bin beside the desk. Empty. “I think someone was looking for something or hiding something.”

  “Schmidt himself? The results from the remains?”

  “Quite possibly. Let’s hope he left something behind here that will make sense to us.”

  Mills nodded and walked over to the bookshelf, running a finger along the spines. “Alphabetic order,” he commented, peering at the titles. “The Bone Woman: A Forensic Anthropologist’s Search for Truth in the Mass Graves of Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo.”

  “Blimey.”

  “Not a quick read, that one, by the sound of it,” he said, bending down to where some folders were stacked on the bottom shelf.

  I focused on the desk, pulling a pair of gloves on and pushing the chair out of the way, bending down. There were six drawers, three on either side, and I started on the left, pulling the bottom one open. Empty. I tried the middle one, empty bar a single stack of post-it notes. Frowning, I opened the top drawer. A few scraps of paper were inside, all blank.

  Maybe he didn’t keep much here. From the cluttered state of the well-stocked lab, I doubted that he really needed to have much on hand. But then, I thought, shuffling to the side, maybe he was just right-handed.

  I opened the third drawer on the right, and as I thought, it wasn’t as barren as its neighbours. A few envelopes were inside, some writing paper and stamps. In the middle drawer, a cable for a computer, some headphones, a phone charger and what looked like a very old cd drive. In the top drawer, I had more luck. A large notebook was inside, filled with Schmidt’s notes and scrawls from several months’ worth of work.

  I stood up, placed it on the desk, and flicked through the pages. There were a few drawings inside, crude sketches of bone fragments that must have been of interest to him, a few tables and charts, but mostly, it was his handwriting, scrawled across the page. As I got to the end of the notebook, I frowned. A large chunk of pages had been torn out, leaving a jagged edge behind. Badly ripped,
the torn edge was wonky, wider at the top than at the bottom, leaving behind a few words in another language.

  “Is this Hebrew?” I asked Mills, holding up the notebook. He left the folder he was flicking through with a frown on his face and wandered over.

  “Looks like it,” he muttered. “Torn off, though. Looks like it says, or should say, lie.”

  “Lie? As in down?”

  Mills smiled. “As in not true, falsehood.”

  “Ah, lie. Lie about what? Who was lying?”

  “No clue. But maybe whoever it was ripped these pages out so that we wouldn’t know. Is anything else in there Hebrew?”

  “Nothing that I saw. Mostly English.”

  Mills scratched his chin. “Must have been something he wanted to make sure other people wouldn’t understand then.”

  I nodded. “Any luck on the shelves?”

  “Nothing in any of the books, but the folders are interesting. His old studies,” Mills said, handing me the one he had been reading, grabbing a thin one from the end for himself.

  I glanced down at the pages, barely recognising any of the words on there, grimacing at the photographs of skeletons lying on the tables.

  “But nothing from his current work,” I muttered, walking over to the filing cabinet. “Where is it all?”

  The filing cabinet appeared to be in use by everyone else in the lab, each drawer belonging to a different person. Schmidt’s was at the bottom, alphabetically wise, so I knelt again and yanked it open, letting out an irritated groan when I found it half empty and left in a mess. Someone had been here; someone had gotten here before us.

  “You’re telling me,” I muttered, standing up and kicking the drawer shut. “That we don’t have a single scrap from his study on those bones? Not a damn page?”

  “Sir,” Mills said quietly, but I wasn’t done ranting.

  “Not a note that he made, not a scan from a computer if they even use computers! Hell, not even a picture of the bones or a mention of the dig?”

  “Sir.”

  “You’re telling me he was the best in the game, but we don’t have a single clue as to what he was actually doing? Someone took it,” I snapped, “tore those pages out, ransacked his desk and took off.”