I remembered why I didn’t like interviewing people who were in similar professions to Stephen and me. They were too difficult to get straight answers out of.
“We’re not at liberty to say right now,” Stephen cut in, his voice firmer than mine had been. He pointedly opened his notebook. “Now, what time did you interview Mr Walker on Tuesday?”
He looked expectantly at Robbie, who relented under Stephen’s stern look, and began answering our questions. We already knew what time he’d been to Walker’s house, of course, but it never hurt to ask interviewees a couple of questions we already knew the answer to, to see whether they’d tell the truth. After he’d responded, truthfully but shortly, to our initial inquiries, Robbie interrupted Stephen’s questioning.
“Look, I don’t know why you’re so interested in me meeting with him,” he said, spreading his hands. His shoulders had relaxed as we talked and there was less wariness in his face and in his speech. I wondered what that meant exactly. “I didn’t see or talk to him after Tuesday night. I have no idea how or why he ended up dead.”
I had been watching him closely as he spoke and wasn’t sure how to interpret what I saw there. Journalists could lie, of course, they could, and they were generally good at hiding their real feelings, too. But there was still a real possibility that Robbie did have nothing to do with any of this, and it was just a really unlucky coincidence that Robbie went to visit Walker two days before he wound up dead.
“We’re not saying that you do know anything about his death,” I said finally. “We’re building up a bigger picture, and you might know more details than you think. Did he seem nervous or on edge when you spoke to him?”
Robbie denied it and repeatedly told us that he didn’t know anything to help.
“Though I wish I could,” he said, spreading his hands again in an apparent gesture of helplessness. “He seemed like a decent guy.”
“He didn’t mention any arguments, any disputes between him and anyone else?”
Robbie wrinkled his nose. “He’s a celebrity- I mean, he was a celebrity chef. He was living it up, and he was easy-going too, none of Gordon Ramsey’s nonsense. Like I said, he seemed like a good guy.”
We continued to question Robbie about what he knew of Walker, but he continued to tell us only the very basics.
“You should talk to his family. They’ll know more.” There was a thin film of sweat on Robbie’s brow, and he caught me noticing it, dragging his shirt cuff over his forehead with a sheepish grin. “I reckon I turned the heating up too much.”
I tilted my head at him. “Your sister’s worried for you, you know.” I’d been trying to catch him even a little off guard and succeeded, his eyes widening. The man’s responses seemed almost rehearsed, but that was a journalist’s job, wasn’t it? To sound eloquent and collected. But he didn’t sound so composed when I mentioned Keira.
“What-? Did she send you here? What did she say to you?” For the first time, he seemed genuinely taken aback.
“No,” I told him. “She isn’t the reason we’re here. But I happen to know how concerned she is for you.” I didn’t want to get in between their sibling relationship, though no doubt my even mentioning Keira’s name would stir up trouble. I had badly wanted to see his reaction… and he did look alarmed.
“Well, look, she’s got nothing to do with anything, none of it,” he said hurriedly, which I thought was a rather strange thing to say. Before I could press further, he looked down at his flashy silver and stood up abruptly. “I’ve got a meeting to attend. If you need to contact me again, you can call.” He pulled a business card apparently from nowhere and thrust it at me. “Excuse me.”
He left the room in a number of quick strides, leaving Stephen and I alone in the meeting room, the electric lights humming overhead.
“Well…” I said, confused as to what exactly had just happened.
Stephen grunted. “Yeah, I’m with you, mate.”
“I have no idea whether he’s innocent or not.” I packed up my notebook, still frowning as I tried to make sense of what little Robbie had said. “He was erratic, but that was about all.”
Stephen hummed, before staying quiet as we made our way out into the hallway and into the lift. “I feel like he’s hiding something,” he said finally. “I don’t know what, or how serious it is, or whether it’s even vaguely related to the case. But there’s something there.” He’d summed up my feelings better than I could’ve managed, and I nodded firmly.
“Whatever it is, I hope for his sake that it’s nothing to do with Walker’s death.”
Stephen responded with characteristic certainty. “If it is, we’ll figure it out.”
I hoped very much that he was right.
Thirteen
The day only went downhill from there.
We arrived back at the station, only for the officer on reception to shoot us an alarmed look.
“The Superintendent has been asking for you,” the officer said urgently. “You better go straight up, sir.”
I sent Stephen a look of bafflement, which he returned, and we obediently headed upstairs in the lift.
“Did Gaskell want me specifically?” I wondered aloud. “Or both of us?”
“That officer was looking more at you, really.”
“Probably just because I’m the DCI, right?” I sighed. “I bloody hope this isn’t about Sam again. I’m sick of it. He should stop meddling in our personal lives.”
Stephen made a noise of agreement and squeezed my shoulder reassuringly, his big hand landing like a bear’s paw.
“C’mon, let’s face the music, whatever it’s about.”
So we headed for Gaskell’s office, and he called us in almost before we’d even knocked. Gaskell looked like he’d swallowed a hedgehog with how tight and tense his expression was.
“Sir?”
He gestured impatiently for us to sit down. “Update me on your progress.”
Not about Sam, then, I thought. Between Stephen and I, we outlined what we’d been doing, which didn’t seem particularly impressive as I was telling it to Gaskell, whose expression was stone cold. Overall, we’d made progress in an oblique manner, working around the case and getting a good sense of the limits of it. We were working on all the leads we had, but we hadn’t hit any gold yet.
“I see,” Gaskell said, once we were done. “You need to work faster. I’ll give you a bigger team or whatever resources you need. And I’m expecting overtime, do you hear me?” He looked between us, clearly trying to impress on us the seriousness of this, as if we didn’t already know. He took a breath before saying, flat and heavy, “You’ve got another victim.”
I sat up sharply. “What?”
Walker had been found only yesterday. How could we have another one already? Was the killer stepping up their schedule?
“Another threat came,” Gaskell said flatly. “A bottle of blood. It’s in the labs now.
I swore quietly and sat back. It wasn’t exactly another body, but it was as good as one, if the pattern was the same as it’d been previously. We hadn’t had results back, but I was almost certain that the blood smear on the first threat would match Walker’s. This blood had been taken from the next victim, then, who was already in the murderer’s clutches.
“Fingerprints, sir?” I asked faintly. With how meticulously careful the killer had been previously, I doubted they would have sent a bottle with their own fingerprints on, but it was always worth looking.
“They’re being checked for.”
I jerked a nod. “Any message?”
“The same.” Gaskell clenched his jaw. “Written on the label.”
Everyone crawls in the end. I shook my head. Christ, what a nightmare.
“Dropped off in the post, sir?”
A sharp nod. “Cardboard box.” I rubbed my forehead tiredly. Gaskell put his hand down on the table. “I want results, Mitchell. No more chasing your tail. Get me the sick bastard who’s doing this, understand?”
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I clenched my jaw. What exactly did he want me to do? He’d dealt with this same killer a decade ago, I was sure even if he didn’t believe it yet, and he’d not managed to catch them. In fact, he’d arrested the wrong guy. I was almost certain of it.
But he was my superior and the superintendent, and I couldn’t accuse him of shoddy police work. Not least because while ranting at him might make me feel briefly better, it wouldn’t catch this killer. It wouldn’t save whichever poor soul had their blood in a bottle.
“Yes, sir,” I said flatly, after a too-long pause.
Gaskell frowned at me for a long moment, and I looked steadily back at him. He looked away first.
“Get on with it then.”
We left his office, me in a sour mood and Stephen not much better.
“He’s right that we don’t have much time-” Stephen started.
I whirled around. “What does he want from us? I can’t perform miracles, Steph! I’ve not been holding back here! He can’t demand-”
Stephen put his hands up, clearly telling me to calm it. “Don’t jump down my throat,” he said, chastising. “I’m on your side, remember? I don’t know what he expects us to do, either, okay? I was only saying that considering how little time we’ve had, less than two weeks, in fact, we’ve not done so badly with what we’ve had.” He pressed his lips together before lowering his voice. “Especially considering I don’t think he’s totally straight with us.”
“No,” I agreed. “I’m pretty sure he agrees that this murderer is the original Snake Killer, but he can’t admit that, can he?”
Stephen’s lips twitched downwards, and he dragged an agitated hand over his short-cropped hair.
“A decent police officer would admit to making a mistake,” he said firmly, “no matter how senior they are, nor how long ago it was.”
“Aye.” I looked at him, giving an approving nod. “You’re not wrong.” Pinching the bridge of my nose to ward off a headache, I turned my computer back on and tried to bring my head back into what we needed to do next.
“This isn’t helping us catch this guy,” I said, more reminding myself than anything. “Let’s get to the bottom of this, okay? Then, if we need to have words with Gaskell,” I glanced over at his closed office door and kept my voice down, “we can do that afterwards, deal?”
“Deal.”
I took a breath. “Okay. I want you to head up to the lab and find out what they know so far. I’m gonna chase up Gregory’s PM and hope that’ll give us some answers.” I chewed the side of my nail. “I don’t think we can spare the trip to Leeds, though. We’ll have to trust them to give us a thorough report.”
Stephen accepted that with a nod. He picked up his notebook and headed over to the labs. I could’ve gone myself, but I wanted to stay focused on the case, and I knew that Stephen could handle it more than fine.
Calling up Leeds didn’t take long, and I got confirmation that the PM would happen this evening, which I’d apparently been sent an email about. I apologised automatically, but I always received a stupid number of emails, and I hadn’t had the time or mental energy to deal with them recently. I quickly ran over them once I was off the phone, just to check that there was nothing else important that I’d missed, but I couldn’t see anything significant.
Stephen wasn’t back yet, so I occupied myself with doing some further research into Robbie Adams. Most likely, Gaskell would’ve said that chasing up Keira’s brother was a pointless sidetrack and a waste of time, just like the trip to Cornwall had been, but I didn’t agree. Stephen had been right when he said that the lad was hiding something, and the fact that he’d interacted with Walker only two days before he turned up dead, bloodless, and mutilated, made it our business.
I’d already looked over Robbie’s social media sites before we went to see him, so I moved to look at the professional side of life. I had to pay a month’s subscription to get access to the newspaper’s website archives, but I wanted another look at the article he’d written on Linus and the newspaper I’d first seen it in had been thrown out. Stephen came back from the lab and looked over my shoulder at the computer screen.
“What’re you looking at?”
“Robbie Adams’ articles.” I turned to face him. “So? What did the lab say?”
Stephen grimaced. “There wasn’t just blood in the bottle. There was a plastic snake in there.” I stared at him.
“A what?”
“I guess they wanted to make it crystal clear that it was from the Snake Killer, or their copycat, or whatever.”
I grunted. “As if the little catchphrase wasn’t enough.”
Stephen’s expression became sombre again. “And the blood didn’t match anyone on the system.”
I dragged a hand through my hair, the knotted curls catching in my fingers.
“The next victim. Great. Just great. Gaskell’s gonna have my guts for garters.”
Stephen hesitated. “What now?”
“Honestly? I don’t know.” I shook my head. “The PM happening later might help, but who knows? This killer hides their tracks too well, and it’s driving me up the wall.”
“Sounds like you need some more coffee,” Stephen said, a touch of humour in his voice.
He stepped away over to the break room, and with my head resting in my hands, I took a breath and got myself together. Overthinking things wasn’t helping. Stephen came back with two steaming mugs, both the size of small soup bowls.
“Alright, I have a plan,” I announced.
“Already? Damn, even the idea of coffee is enough to get you going again.”
I shot him a quelling look but couldn’t stop the twitch of a smile at my mouth. “We haven’t gotten in touch with Walker’s family yet. They’ll need to be told before the press vultures close in, so get hold of their contact details, okay? I’m going to try calling Abe Muldoon again and see if he can give me anything over the phone. It’s a long shot, but,” I shrugged, “I haven’t got anything better right now.”
Stephen gave me a reassuring smile. “It’s a plan, boss.”
He settled into the task I’d given him, and I blew on my too-hot coffee, the steam rising off it making my stomach gurgle. I hadn’t eaten much today, my stomach too tight and sore with worry. I couldn’t perform my best when I hadn’t had anything to eat, though, so I’d have to choke something down later.
I was about to look up the number for calling Exeter prison when I remembered what I’d been doing before Stephen interrupted me, looking into Robbie. I read over the article he’d written on Walker but didn’t find anything strange there at all. It was all the standard spiel about how Walker’s recipe book would make you thinner, healthier, younger, and with more energy than you’d ever had before, with the bonus of being Yorkshire-inspired.
I scrolled past that article and idly checked out Robbie’s older work. As I read the title of one from two weeks ago, my stomach sank like I’d swallowed a sack of rocks.
“Stephen!” I said, harsh and too loud.
He jumped, instantly alert. “What?”
“Look.” I pointed to the screen.
Stephen pulled his chair closer, leaning in. He swore quietly.
“Once is chance, twice is coincidence-”
“And three times is a pattern,” I finished. I scrolled further down the list of Adams’ articles and leaned back in my chair, as if I could distance myself from what was written on the screen.
Robbie Adams had written that article on Linus Walker, we knew that. It must have been rushed through the press for it to have come out in the paper two days after Adams’ last interview with the bloke, but there were articles from earlier than that. An article on Peter Gregory. Another on Martin Johnson.
“He’s the killer,” Stephen said quietly. “Or, I mean, he knows, at the very least. This is… awful.”
“What kind of sick game is this?” I muttered. “The mutilations, the link to the Cornish murders, the threats, and now this? These articl
es.” I covered my mouth, feeling ill. I straightened up as a new, urgent thought occurred to me. “Whose his next article meant to be on?”
“What?”
I gestured impatiently. “The bottle of blood, Steph! The killer’s got another one. And if these articles predict the murders…”
Stephen swore again, harsh enough to make me startle. He was already in motion, fumbling for the phone. “I’ll call his boss.”
“Good, aye, do that.”
I waited anxiously while Stephen was on the phone, only able to catch one side of the conversation.
“We need to know where he is,” Stephen was saying sternly, the urgency clear in his voice. “No, I understand that- We already have his address. Fine. Thank you.”
Stephen shook his head at me, looking troubled. “He’s not at work,” he said before I could ask. He set the phone back in its cradle. “He’s taking a break, apparently, for ‘family reasons’.”
“So what?” I scowled. “No new article?”
“No new article,” Stephen confirmed.
“We need to get hold of him, regardless. We’ll try his house, c’mon.”
We stood up and headed out. Gaskell came out of his office as we were leaving, and I gave him a nod, my mouth set in a thin line. He watched us go. We jogged down the stairs and strode across the car park. Usually, Stephen’s walking speed was a much slower amble than mine, but right now, he was as keen to get where we were going as I was.
He took the wheel, and I let him. He was the one who was most used to city driving. Even after living here for so long, I was still more at home in narrow country lanes than on a busy city roundabout, chock-a-block with traffic. He was also the one who liked to keep the speedometer at exactly the speed limit, all the time, and I pulled my seatbelt snug as we set off.
It was luckily quiet this time of day, and we made good progress towards Robbie’s terrace house. I tried to think about what I’d say when we got there. This was grounds for arrest, but we’d need more compelling evidence if we were to keep him in custody long term, and I didn’t want to blow our chance by taking him in too early. But, based on our earlier interview with him, I very much doubted that he’d be willing to spill it all if we just asked him. I’d noticed how adept he was at dodging our questions, redirecting and deflecting in conversation, but I’d not really imagined that he would have this much to hide.
Snakes in the Grass (A DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thriller Book 5) Page 14
