“What exactly do you want us to do?” I asked warily. “Have a word with him about it?”
“No, that would spook him.” She looked at me straight on. “Look, I’d do it myself, but he’d recognise my car,” she said, the note of vulnerability gone from her voice as she reverted to her usual, firm professionalism. “I want to call in my favour, Mitchell. Just sit outside his house for a few evenings, please. I only want to know if anyone’s threatened him, if he’s in danger.”
Keira had helped us out on several previous occasions, and I certainly owed her within the workplace, but I wasn’t sure that transferred over to spying on her brother, off the books.
“Have you got any proof he’s being threatened? Could you not submit a formal report?”
“No.” Keira sent me a frown. “I know him, and I know this isn’t him at all. He’s scared of something, someone. But I don’t have paper evidence, and you know how things can be here. Non-urgent cases get shoved to the bottom of the queue.”
This didn’t sit well with me, and I looked over at Stephen to see what his opinion was. Unhelpfully, he gave a noncommittal shrug.
“I don’t see the harm in keeping an eye outside his door,” he said.
I frowned, wishing that Keira hadn’t put us in this position. “It invades his privacy. Perhaps he’s simply writing an article on crime that you don’t know about-”
I broke off at Keira’s pinched look as she got abruptly to her feet.
“If the answer is a ‘no’, just say it.”
I rubbed a hand over my face. “It’s not a ‘no’,” I conceded reluctantly. “I just wanted to be sure you’d thought it through and considered that it might be something benign.”
“I have.”
“Alright. But only for a couple of evenings, and we won’t be interfering. We’ll be there in a purely observational capacity.”
“Of course,” Keira said. “Unless he looks to be in danger.”
I nodded at that. “We’d not stand by if someone was in harm’s way, you know that.”
She looked relieved by our agreement, however grudging it was, and her tense shoulders sank an inch.
“Thank you,” she said crisply. “I’ll email you the details.” She turned on her heel and strode away, and I sighed.
“There goes my evening plans.”
Stephen raised an eyebrow at me. “You had evening plans? Do tell.”
I snorted. “You’re nosy as hell, anyone ever tell you that?”
“I am a detective.” He looked smug.
“A police detective, Steph,” I protested. “If you want to stick your nose into people’s love lives, sign up to the Daily Mail or something.”
“You always ruin my fun.”
“Aye, and I take great joy in it,” I laughed.
The rest of the afternoon passed quickly enough. Stephen and I agreed that we’d sit outside the house of Keira’s brother, Robbie, tomorrow night. I had plans to see Sam tonight, and Stephen had a parents evening to go to. We’d promised Keira to do a couple of evenings, and I had no intention of doing any more than that, unless we saw something obviously amiss.
I got on with the paperwork I’d been neglecting while I’d been researching the victim and caught up on my report. Gaskell had emailed to talk about the possibility of a press conference, since we’d still not had anyone call in with information about our John Doe’s identity, and it was crucial we find out who he was.
Between many cups of coffee and hunching over my computer screen, the end of the day rushed up to meet us. Part of me was relieved, looking forward to seeing Sam again and leaving all this behind for a few hours. But the sense of time slipping away was daunting, and Gaskell’s words lingered in my head.
As a detective, you often had no idea how much time you had to solve a case. Sometimes, there would only be one incident and the only time pressure was the need to get the perpetrator to serve justice. Relatively often, in cases of manslaughter, second-degree murder, or an attack that was very specifically aimed at one person, the attacker wasn’t even a threat to the public, and had no intention of hurting anyone else.
Then there were the cases where every minute that the case remained open could mean the loss of another person’s life, another child trafficked. Where every second counted, and the words on every officer’s lips were ‘if only there was more time’ or ‘if we’d known this sooner.’
I didn’t know whether this case was going to be the latter or the former yet, but the threat always hovered in the back of my head, reminding me of the clock ticking in the background.
I did my utmost to put work out of my mind as I ran across rain-splattered York towards Sam’s house. She owned a small but neat, two-up two-down terrace house in Tang Hall, and I came to a stop outside, catching my breath under the porch. The cover kept the spitting rain off me, which had just started up and seemed set to get heavier. I glanced down the road as I straightened up, automatically beginning to stretch out my legs, and saw a figure pass under the artificial orange glow of the streetlamp. The occasional car drove too fast down the suburban road, but other than that, it was about as quiet as it got on the outer edge of York.
I rang the doorbell, easing the tension out of my shoulders as I waited for her to answer. I expected I looked a state, damp with sweat, hair blown every which way by the gusty wind, but Sam broke into a smile when she saw me. She kissed me briefly, complained that my face was too cold and ushered me inside.
Since Sam had cooked pizza last time we managed to meet up, even if I hadn’t managed to eat it while it was hot, it was my turn to cook dinner for us. I didn’t usually bother with putting together anything more complicated than a stirfry on most work nights when I only had to feed myself, but I wanted to do better than that for Sam.
I’d decided on lasagna, and Sam looked gratifyingly impressed when she dug in.
“Darren,” she said, her eyes wide and mouth half-full, “this is amazing.”
I grinned at her. My run had given me an appetite, and I hungrily tucked in. “It’s not bad.”
She kicked me under the table, her fluffy slipper bumping my leg. “Don’t start with the false modesty, mister. Where did you get the recipe?”
I went briefly still, taking a sip of my glass of wine before I answered.
“It was my mum’s recipe.” I fell silent, focusing on my food, and Sam seemed to sense the change in atmosphere, even though we’d not talked much about our families yet. She didn’t say anything, but she leant across the small table and laid her cool hand on top of mine for a moment.
I gave her a grateful smile, and we ate in a gentle silence for a few minutes before we eased back into light talk about our day, about work and people we knew, and what was going on in the world.
“I’ll wash up later,” she told me when we’d finished, both of us scraping the dish clean.
“Are you sure? I can-”
She came forwards, putting her fingers over my mouth, a cheeky smile on her face. “I’d like to make the most of us being together and, more importantly, awake.”
I grinned at that, before playfully nibbling on the end of her finger. She squealed, and I laughed, wrapping my arms around her as she giggled.
I was moving to kiss her when my phone went off, and my stomach sank. I tried to ignore it for a second, determined that Sam and I would finally get an uninterrupted evening together. But the phone didn’t stop ringing, and Sam pulled back, gently pushing me away.
“Go answer it.”
“I should’ve turned the ruddy thing off,” I groaned, resting my head on her shoulder, but I stepped away to pull it out of my jacket pocket, which had been slung over the back of the living room armchair. It was the station calling, and I put the phone to my ear with a frown.
“Mitchell speaking.”
“Mitchell, it’s Gaskell.” I could already hear from the rough drag of his voice that it was bad news, but of course, it was. Why would Gaskell be calling me on an evening if it wasn’t b
ad news?
“What is it?” I asked reluctantly.
“Get yourself over here.” Gaskell sighed. “Another body’s turned up.”
Five
Stephen and I turned up at the scene at almost exactly the same time. He took in the look on my face and grimaced in sympathy.
“My wife wasn’t best pleased about me leaving in the middle of parents’ evening, I’ve gotta say.”
“I would like one evening, just one, where me and Sam don’t get interrupted.”
“Interrupted?” He quirked an eyebrow at me. “Interrupted like-”
I sent a glare at him. “I am so not in the mood, Huxley.”
We reached the edge of the crime scene, which was again at the edge of the river, though further up this time. It was brightly lit with white lights, the forensics team moving purposefully, and I loathed the feeling of deja vu it brought me. Only two days after the first death and we already had another.
I headed over towards Gaskell and waited for him to finish talking to a senior member of the forensics team, a tall ginger-haired man.
“-this morning, most likely,” he was saying. “The wet kept people in, I assume.”
Gaskell noticed I was there but turned back to the forensics bloke. “How long was he in the water for, can you tell?”
“Not exactly, but I’d say not long. A day at most, I’d say.”
Gaskell thanked him, focusing his attention on me as the forensics man moved away. “You’re here, good. We’ve got another of the same.”
I’d assumed as much, but my stomach still sank. “The same cuts, sir?” I asked, to be sure.
“Exactly the same. It’s another man, about the same age.”
“How was he found?”
Gaskell gestured towards where a pair of lads who didn’t look older than eighteen were standing talking to a DI.
“A group of drunk idiots were messing around by the river and spotted the body. Forensics reckons it’s been there since this morning.”
Gaskell stepped away as someone came over to ask him a question, and I moved to join Stephen by the side of the dead man. He was lying on his back, and a quick glance at his bare feet showed the same deep cuts the first victim had been given.
I swore quietly, feeling faintly sick. Another victim, and we weren’t much closer to finding out who’d killed the first one. It had only been two days, dammit.
Stephen stood up, coming to my side. “Thoughts?”
“I’d like to stick my fist in the face of whoever did this.”
He glanced at me, unimpressed. “Any useful thoughts, Mitch.”
I rubbed my face. “Aye, I know. This guy is physically similar to the first one. Different colour hair, much blonder, but their age, shape, race is the same.”
“So the killer has a type?”
“Possible. Though it’s not the older women who were targeted in the Snake Killer case, is it?”
“No. This killer is clearly doing their own thing.”
“And then there’s the fact that this one took longer for us to find, we assume, but it’s still shown up within two days of the first, and it’s fresh. The body wasn’t in the water long.”
Stephen was silent for a long moment.
“You think the killer’s placing them here,” he said at last. “Laying them out by the water for us to find.”
“Aye,” I said quietly. Everyone was talking quietly, I realised, as if we’d disturb the subdued atmosphere of the nighttime. The loudest sound was the lapping and rushing water. “It seems likely. Bodies can stay in the water for weeks before washing up. One showing up fresh could be a fluke, but two seems strange.”
Stephen nodded. “And it makes sense in relation to what you were saying earlier, too, about the water not having gone down. They’ve not washed up at all. The killer just made it look like that.”
“Perhaps it’s meant to emulate the sea washing the bodies up.” I hummed. “They found the victims in Cornwall in the water, weren’t they? Perhaps this killer is trying to copy that, by putting them on the water’s edge.”
“Because they want the bodies found,” Stephen added grimly. “Not to hide them.”
“Aye, but why?” I turned to one of the forensics team nearby, a young man who looked to me like he was barely out of university. “I’m guessing there was no wallet or phone on the body?”
He seemed surprised that I was talking to him, and it took a moment before he responded.
“Uh, no. Nothing like that. He’s got a distinctive tattoo on his hand, though.”
“Yeah?”
I bent down to take a look, studying the back of the victim’s hand. It looked to be part of a full sleeve of tattoos continuing up his wrist and arm, but we’d find out the extent of them during the postmortem. I looked over the body again, taking in the scruffy jeans and dark-coloured, fleece jumper he was wearing. It was a completely different tone of outfit to the first guy we’d found, who’d decked himself out in smart business wear.
I stood up again, pulling a hand through my tangled hair to keep it out of my eyes as the wind tossed it around. The rain had blown over while Sam and I were eating, but the way the gusts were picking up, I reckoned we might be in for another downpour. Just what we, and the flooded city, didn’t need.
“This bloke looks like the killer took him outside of work hours,” I said to Stephen. “Is the killer grabbing these guys on the same day? Or kidnapping them and keeping them alive somewhere?”
Stephen tilted his head, the harsh white lights catching the ridges of his frown.
“The forensics team didn’t pick up anything much on the first victim’s clothes, did they?” he said after a minute’s thought. “If the killer was keeping ‘em somewhere, there’d be dust or fibres or something, wouldn’t there? Caught in the clothes. Blood, even, if they were knocked around.”
“Possibly,” I conceded. “But they don’t have to have been kept in a barn or a dusty shed. It could’ve been somewhere that was right clean, that left little mark. Maybe the killer dressed them in fresh clothes after they killed them, or the victims were drugged the whole time. That would make for no need for restraints, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah, that’s true enough. And we’ll need the tox report back to see if they were drugged.”
“Hopefully, we can turn up an identity for this bloke faster than the first one.”
We stood looking down at the dead man for a minute or so, as others moved busily around us, before I shook my head and looked up. Rain was beginning to spit down, and I told myself that I didn’t want to be here any longer than necessary.
“I’ll talk to them lot.” I jerked my thumb towards the young lads who’d been unlucky enough to find the body. “You go and quiz Gaskell and forensics, see if they know anything yet?”
Stephen agreed, and we split up, working efficiently while the rain came down and forensics got the body picked up and moved away. They took it off for postmortem, and I sighed at the thought of another trip to Leeds. Perhaps we could take the train and save on the driving.
It wasn’t too long before everyone was packing, keen to get out of the wet, windy evening, and Stephen and I were more than happy to join them.
At my car, he patted my shoulder and shot me a grin. “Hope you can salvage your evening, eh?”
I groaned, getting into the car without responding, though I could hear him laughing as he walked away. I gave Sam a call, hoping that Stephen was right, and it wasn’t too late for me to come round to hers and rescue the tail-end of the evening. She answered on the second ring and called me an idiot for even asking. She promised to have cups of cocoa, ready to warm me up when I arrived, and I drove over with a slight smile on my lips. Tomorrow would bring more of the frustrations and difficulties that today had, no doubt, but I vowed to put it out of my mind while I was with Sam. She deserved my full attention, and I was more than happy to give it to her.
I woke on Friday morning to fingers poking at my ribs an
d Sam’s quiet, adorable giggling.
“You’re not ticklish,” she complained when all I did was open my eyes and raise my eyebrows at her.
I grinned sleepily. “Nope, never have been.” My grin spread. “I bet you are, though.”
Which led to a play fighting match that left me ten minutes late for work, and my cheeks sore from laughing so much. I was still smiling as I ran along the puddle-pitted pavements towards work, avoiding the school children walking along in noisy gaggles or holding onto their parents’ hands.
Sam’s place was slightly further away from the station than my flat, so I ended up arriving fifteen minutes after I usually did, even though I’d pushed myself to run hard. Stephen was there when I headed up to my desk. I ignored the knowing look he sent me and instead went to make myself a gallon of industrial-strength coffee.
“I’m not saying a word,” he said, grinning, when I settled at my desk.
“Oh, shut up.” I took a sip of coffee and burnt my tongue. “Any news yet? Do we know when the PM is happening?”
Stephen shook his head. “I’ve not had an email on it yet.”
I grunted. “Shame. We could do with that.”
I heard quick footsteps approaching us and looked up. A younger officer, a DC, came hurrying over.
“Sir, we’ve had a call about an ID.”
“ID?” I repeated. “On last night’s body?”
He was already shaking his head. “No, the one from Tuesday.” He held out a post-it note, on which was scrawled a phone number and a name; Allen Frank.
“Allen Frank? Is that our victim, or-”
“That’s the victim’s colleague, sir. He’s the one who called in.”
“Alright, thanks.”
The DC gave me a nervous smile and headed off again. I keyed the phone number into my work phone and put it to my ear, waiting impatiently for someone to answer the phone.
It seemed strange to me how we’d had no word from the man’s friends or family. And now, when someone did recognise him, it was nothing more personal than a colleague. I wondered why our victim seemed to have been so isolated that no-one remembered him, or whether it was something more than that. He could have been involved with something illegal, I considered as I waited for the colleague to pick up, which would explain why no-one who knew him would call the police. Or perhaps he’d only very recently moved to York, and all of his friends and family were in a different part of the country entirely.
Snakes in the Grass (A DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thriller Book 5) Page 5
