Snakes in the Grass (A DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thriller Book 5)

by Oliver Davies

  Stephen released a sigh at my side, and I turned to find him looking as frustrated as I felt.

  “This makes no sense,” he grumbled.

  “Not yet, but it will. This is a lead, I’m sure of it.”

  “The killer,” Stephen said, leaning closer to the screen, “this Abe Muldoon, he’s locked up near Exeter. Hell of a long trip if we want to go talk to him, we’d have to stay overnight.”

  “I think it’d be worth it.” I hummed, rubbing a hand over my tired eyes. “You just can’t get the same feeling for a person over video calls.”

  “Yeah, that’s true.”

  Apart from the long drive, I knew why Stephen wasn’t keen on going on a road trip down south. He didn’t want to have to leave his wife, Annie, on her own to look after their two younguns without any help. Me having no family responsibilities did make it easier to commit a hundred and ten per cent to the job, I knew that. I almost offered to go to Exeter alone, so he wouldn’t have to stay overnight, but it wasn’t practical. I’d need his help with the driving, and it was standard practice to interview people of interest in pairs. I wanted Stephen there, in case he picked up some small clue that I’d missed, or thought of a pertinent question that I hadn’t.

  “Sorry, mate,” I said instead.

  He gave a shrug. “It is what it is.”

  We went back to reading over the old case notes for the Snake Killer, both of us making notes on the key points, on aspects that stood out or related to our case.

  “One thing that doesn’t make sense to me-”

  “Just the one thing?” Stephen interrupted. “‘Cus there are multiple bits of this that don’t add up to me. Why wait ten years, for example? Why the change in victims? Or the location?” He saw me looking at him impatiently and waved his hand. “Sorry, you were saying?”

  I rolled my eyes. “What’s particularly strange is how meticulously careful this guy was, right? Gaskell and the other officers really struggled to pin him down or to find any evidence at all to follow up on. They had perhaps one lead, with this one witness who saw something, but that was it, for almost the whole case.” I shook my head. “And then, all of a sudden, he confesses.”

  “Maybe he wanted to be acknowledged?” Stephen offered. “After the case got media attention, he wanted to be known for what he’d done?”

  “Maybe,” I grimaced, “but it doesn’t follow for me. I’m no profiler, but these weren’t laid out bodies, displayed and meant for someone to find. They were heavily weighed down in the sea. They found the first one only because divers happened to explore the area.”

  “Which doesn’t line up with our case,” Stephen said. “The victim who washed up on the side of the Ouse wasn’t wrapped in anything or weighed down. Like the killer did want is to find him.”

  I sighed, rubbing my forehead. “Gaskell’s probably right,” I concluded. “We’re looking at a copycat who, for some reason, has changed some key aspects.”

  Stephen reached over to pat my shoulder. “Once we find out who the victim is, it’ll get easier. We can find out who had a grudge against him, or why he might’ve been targeted. It’s early stages yet.”

  “Aye, I know. Any news on an ID yet?”

  It’d been a while now since the artist’s copy of the victim’s face had been released to the press, but Stephen shook his head.

  “Nothing yet. A few tip-offs, but they didn’t lead to anything.”

  “And it might be some time till we get the toxicology report back,” I said, thinking aloud. “Our next steps on this would be best focused on this older case, I reckon. I’ll get in touch with HM prison Exeter where this Abe Muldoon is being held, and you try to contact the witness from the case files, okay?”

  Stephen looked back at his computer. “Georgina Prachett’s her name. She was out running at night and saw a bloke loading something onto his boat. Her statement was the only evidence that contradicted Muldoon’s confession.”

  “That’s the one. Presumably, she’s still down in Cornwall, so we can visit her when we go down to meet Muldoon.”

  Stephen still didn’t look overly pleased with this plan, but he gave a nod.

  “I’ll give her a ring. I don’t know what she’ll remember, though. It has been ten years.”

  “It’s worth a try, since we’ll be down that way,” I insisted.

  We both got to work on that, and I ended up having to call multiple people to find out where Muldoon had been transferred to and when we could book a meeting with him. Stephen, meanwhile, was having a frustrating time trying to track down the witness, Pratchett, and couldn’t find her, anyway.

  I was almost reluctant to update Gaskell on what we were doing, but he definitely needed to know if we were planning a trip across the country, so I went to knock on his door.

  “Have you got some news?” he asked as soon as I put my head round the door.

  “Afraid not, sir.” I came further into the office, and Gaskell gestured for me to take a seat.

  “What is it, then?”

  I took a breath. “We intend to head down to Exeter and Cornwall. This case, with the Snake Killer, is the most solid lead we’ve got right now. It’ll be worth the travelling.”

  Gaskell looked at me for a long second. “It’s your call, if you think it won’t be a waste of time.” He looked away. “I doubt you’ll get much out of him, out of Muldoon. He didn’t say much to us except that he’d done it.”

  I still didn’t understand that. If Muldoon had confessed in order to gain attention from the press and explain his grand plan, why hadn’t he been desperate to talk about it? Why was there actually so little on record about his confession?

  I hadn’t yet read the transcript of the interview where he’d told the police he was the murderer, but I’d seen the overview report. There, it stated that apart from stating that he’d done it and giving a few facts about the murders that the public didn’t know, he’d barely talked. It didn’t fit with what I knew about serial killers at all. I hesitated to mention this, though, considering how it was clearly personal to Gaskell.

  “Is there… any chance, sir, that it wasn’t him?”

  Gaskell looked at me flatly, and I had to keep myself from looking away. I couldn’t tell if he was thinking over what I’d said or if he was angry at me and hiding it well.

  “No,” he said finally. “We locked up the right guy, Mitchell.”

  I gave a nod. “Alright.”

  “Go off to Lands End if you want to,” he flicked his fingers at me, looking tired again, “but I won’t be pleased if it turns out to be a wild goose chase, y’hear me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He looked at me sternly. “If these cases are connected, you can’t afford to hang about. We had five bodies, one after the other, and nowt to go on. This copycat could do the same. If your theory’s right, you haven’t got the luxury of time, understand me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He nodded, and I saw myself out. My heart rate sped up in my chest as sweat prickled under my arms. The look in Gaskell’s eyes when he warned me had been darkly serious, and I wondered whether it was one of those cases that haunted him.

  Every member of the police had them, a case that got under your skin like a splinter and never really left. Sometimes it was trafficking, or the death of children, or a killer with a fetish for torture. In my case, it had been a case where the victim had been my friend, and who’d died alone and in agony. I was sure there would be more such cases as my career went on, but I was determined that this wouldn’t be one of them.

  Four

  Gaskell’s words hung over me as we floundered, struggling to progress without knowing the identity of the John Doe. I scheduled us to go down to Exeter and then Cornwall on Monday, but that left little to do today but wade through research that didn’t seem to be getting us anywhere fast.

  The dog walker who’d found the body on Tuesday night was coming in to speak to us this afternoon. I’d intended to meet with her
earlier to discuss what she’d seen, but what with running back and forth to Leeds, we hadn’t managed it. I wasn’t expecting much to come from the interview, if I was honest, but it was something to cross off the list.

  In the meantime, I read and re-read the case reports on the Snake Killer from ten years ago. I dug up every newspaper article that had been written on it, whilst continuing to look for any reported missing person who could be the man we’d found on the river bank. But my searching turned up little, and I was relieved when it was time for us to meet with the dog walker, a woman called Shannon Nicholls. Stephen came down the stairs with me as we headed towards the interview room downstairs.

  “Do you think she’ll have brought her dog?” he said.

  I sent him a look. “No, I don’t think she’ll have brought her dog.”

  “Shame. I love dogs.”

  “Get one, then.” I rolled my eyes at his childish tone.

  Stephen pulled a face. “Annie pointed out that she’d be the one who ended up walking it and picking up its poop.”

  I laughed at that. “Yeah, you know what, I wouldn’t trust you with a dog, either.”

  Stephen pretended to be outraged, but we reached the bottom of the stairs before he could retaliate, and Ms Nicholls was there waiting for us. We both settled back into seriousness, and I went over to greet her. I reached out to shake her hand and found her grip dry and firm.

  “Ms Nicholls, thanks for coming to talk to us.”

  She was a pale-haired, curvy woman, about thirty years old, who was dressed in a fashion style that made me think of the fifties, though I wasn’t any kind of expert. She didn’t come up any higher than mine and Stephen’s chests, and after shaking her hand, I took a step back so as not to loom over her.

  “No problem.” She gave us a polite smile, her lips carefully painted a coral pink. “I don’t know that I’ve got much to tell you, but I’ll do my best.”

  I smiled. “We appreciate that.”

  We showed her through to the back interview room and offered her a drink before we got started. I’d brought my mug of lukewarm coffee from upstairs and took a sip to wet my mouth after I’d turned on the recording machine.

  Stephen and I introduced ourselves, as did Shannon Nicholls, and then I asked her about Tuesday night. She folded her hands on top of the table, her pale purple nails catching the overhead light.

  “I always walk Mickey, my dog, pretty late. And you know how dark it gets in the winter, so I take a torch.” She shifted in her seat, adjusting her dress over her knees. “I don’t usually go along the river path. I wouldn’t want to fall in because I can’t see where I’m putting my feet.” She gave a short, humourless laugh. “But, well, I was curious to see the flooding, and Mickey started pulling at the leash, barking his head off. He’s not like that, you know, he’s normally a quiet dog.”

  She paused, taking a sip from the cup of water we’d given her. “And then I all but fell over it- or him, I should say. The body.” She winced, looking pained and uncomfortable. “My attention was on Mickey, and I didn’t see the- the body, and I almost went right over into the river, but Mickey pulled back on the lead at the right time and well,” she gave another stiff laugh, “I didn’t fall in, at least.” She looked up, gesturing at us. “And I called you, the police, and tried not to look at it- him, sorry. To be honest, it was kind of awful.”

  “I’m sorry you had to see it,” I said genuinely. “It’s never comfortable, even for us. Thank you for telling us. Did you notice anything else, when you realised what you’d found?”

  “Notice anything else?”

  I hesitated, not wanting to ask a leading question, but she looked confused, so I clarified, “There wasn’t anyone hanging around, for example?”

  “Oh.” Her eyes widened. “No, I mean, not that I noticed. I’m not sure I looked, though. I was trying not to look at the body, trying to pull Mickey away. I didn’t notice anyone else around when I was walking down the path, no. But it’s so dark this time of year, you know? It would’ve been easy to miss someone.” Her neatly plucked brows pulled together as she spoke, and I felt for her. No doubt she would be thinking about what had happened, having dreams about it too, for some time yet.

  “Okay, that’s good to know. How was the body lying when you found it, do you remember? Did you move it?”

  “Oh, god, no,” she said quickly as she pulled back. “I didn’t touch it. Mickey might’ve nudged it a touch, but that was all.” She shuddered. “It, the body, was lying half in and half out the water. That’s why I didn’t see it, I suppose. It was the legs I almost fell over.”

  “How much of it was out of the water, would you say?” I asked curiously.

  We had crime scene pictures, of course, but I wondered whether the level of the floodwater had fluctuated between when the pictures had been taken and when Shannon first found it.

  She wrinkled her button nose. “I’d say, well, most of him was out of the river, really. Maybe three-quarters of him?”

  I could see that she didn’t like to picture it, but I needed to be clear.

  “And it was the head that was underwater, and, say, the chest and legs that were out?” I asked as gently as I could.

  “Yes.” She looked away, down at her lap, and squeezed her hands together where they rested atop the table. “That’s about right.”

  I nodded and made a note of that. What Shannon described suggested that the water level had been much the same as when the forensics team arrived and started taking pictures. As I was writing, Stephen stepped in.

  “Did you notice anything else that seemed strange to you?”

  Shannon gave a sharp little laugh, and I looked up.

  “Sorry, sorry,” she said hurriedly, her cheeks flushing pink. “I mean, it was strange enough to find a body.” She sobered and frowned. “I saw that he wasn’t wearing shoes, which seemed odd, but other than that? No, not really. It was- well, a dead body.” She looked between us. “Do you know how he died?”

  I gave her an apologetic look. “We’re not at liberty to release that information to the public just yet.”

  “Of course, I’m sorry.” She blushed again as she paused. “I’ve seen his picture on the news. I hope you find out who he is.”

  I didn’t think that Hannah knew anything more than would be of use to us and rounded up the interview.

  “Thanks for coming in, Ms Nicholls,” I said as I handed her one of my cards, with my name and work phone number. “If you remember anything else, don’t hesitate to get in touch.”

  She gave us a tight smile. “Of course. I’m sorry I couldn’t help more.”

  We saw her out, and I turned over what she’d said as we headed back upstairs, though she hadn’t given us a great deal more information. I looked back over the crime scene photographs when we were back at our desks, my head rested on my hand.

  “Look at this.” I turned the screen towards Stephen, and he leaned over, before giving me a puzzled look.

  “What about it?”

  It was a fairly wide-angled picture of the body, showing how they had first found victim. By the time I’d arrived, the forensics team had carefully lifted the body out of the water to get a better look at him.

  “There’s not much of him in the water, is there?”

  Stephen waited for me to elaborate, but when I didn’t, he said, “So?”

  “So,” I said slowly, drawing the word out, “does it really make sense that the river washed him up?” I held up a hand, warding off any protestations Stephen might have. “Look, it’s just a theory. Most likely, he did get dumped there by the floodwaters. There was certainly enough of a current to carry him. But we’ve had so much rain, it doesn’t make sense that he’d get left so far out of the water, surely? The water level hasn’t been receding at all, as far as I’m aware.”

  “That’s a fair point.” Stephen looked at the picture for a long moment. “He’s almost entirely out of the water.”

  We were sil
ent for several seconds. I was about to continue further with the idea, somewhat tenuous as it was, when Keira walked over. It surprised me to see her. Usually, it was us that approached her for help with a case, and we’d not asked her to look into anything yet.

  “Afternoon,” I said, when she reached our desks. Stephen was looking at her with the same curiosity I was feeling. She gave us a nod.

  “Have you got a minute?”

  “Uh, sure.” I raised my eyebrows.

  She pulled up a chair from a nearby vacant desk, and both Stephen and I focused our attention on her. She seemed ill at ease and not at all her usual, confident self. She looked at me, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

  “I’ve got a favour to ask.” She glanced around, but there was no-one in earshot. “It would be off the books.”

  I instinctively pulled back. “I don’t think-”

  “Please hear me out.” She held up a hand. “I wouldn’t ask unless it was important.”

  Stephen gave a nod when I didn’t say anything. “Go on.”

  “It’s about my brother, Robbie.” She kept her chin up and didn’t avoid meeting my eyes as she explained, keeping her voice down. “I’m worried he’s being threatened, or that he’s gotten himself mixed up in something.” She tucked her hair behind one ear. “He’s been acting strangely, scared and paranoid. He…” She paused, trailing off for a moment. “He’s been asking about my work, but particularly about recent police cases.”

  “Has he done that before?” I blinked, surprised.

  She shook her head firmly. “He’s a journalist, but he doesn’t write about crime. And he knows I’d never break confidentiality.” She frowned. “Which is why it makes no sense. He won’t talk to me at all, unless he’s calling me out of the blue, begging me to tell him about anything I know.” She swallowed and looked down at her lap for the first time.