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

by Oliver Davies

  “How are we supposed to tell Keira this?” I muttered as Stephen took us around a tight corner, knocking my shoulder against the car door. “At best, her brother is tied up in something seriously shady, and at worse…”

  “Yeah,” Stephen said tightly. “I’ve no idea, mate. I guess we’ll have to tell her once we take Adams into the station. She’ll no doubt find out he’s in one of the custody suites and, well, better to hear it straight from us, right?”

  I chewed my lip. My stomach was still gurgling and empty, but I didn’t feel hungry.

  “Do you think it’s the best option to take him straight in?” I asked.

  “We have to, Mitch.” Stephen sped forwards, pressing me back in my seat. “What if he’s the killer? We can’t leave him walking around.”

  I rubbed my chin. “I know, I know. But if we don’t get something more solid on him, we’ll just have to release him again. The articles are compelling, but they aren’t concrete evidence, y’know?”

  Stephen glanced briefly over at me. We were almost at Robbie’s now.

  “We’ve got to have faith we’ll find something on him.”

  “Alright.” I still wasn’t sold on the idea, but Stephen was right. We had to try.

  We pulled up outside Robbie’s house. In the bright daylight, it looked like a perfectly normal terrace house, and I swallowed the sour taste in my mouth. That was the thing. Sometimes bad things happened in perfectly normal places, hidden in plain sight. My heart was hammering as I got out of the car, Stephen following at my heels, and strode quickly towards the house.

  I rapped briskly on the iron door knocker and waited. I contemplated a more aggressive approach, but I felt like being subtle would be more to our advantage here. We waited for a moment, but though I swore I heard floorboards creaking inside, no one came to the door.

  “Try the knocker again,” I told Stephen quietly, before moving around the terrace to look into the windows. There was a flash of movement, but it was in the depths of the house, and I couldn’t get a clear look.

  An archway led through the middle of the row of terraces to a yard beyond, blocked by a gate. It was hung with a chain, but the rusty padlock hadn’t been engaged properly, and I eased it free and let myself in, cringing at the squeaky creak of unoiled hinges. I could hear Stephen’s knocking on the door behind me and the wind whistling down the brick passageway.

  On high alert, I moved carefully towards the garden at the back, only to freeze. Robbie was standing there on the grass, looking frantically around as he tried to find an exit, but the fences surrounding his garden were high and solid, with a dense hedge at the back. He had nowhere to go. I braced myself for Robbie to shove past me, down the alleyway, but he sent me a wide-eyed, panicked look and instead bolted back towards the house.

  My boots skidded on the damp grass as I raced after him, yanking open the back door that he’d slammed shut behind him. I tore through the house and was almost hit the face by the living room door when Robbie shoved it closed behind him. It only delayed me for a second, but it gave Robbie enough time to throw open the front door and burst past Stephen, completely unprepared.

  “Get him!” I yelled at my partner, but too late.

  Robbie was racing off down the street, and I remembered, too late, that Keira had said he was a damn triathlete.

  “Darren!” Stephen shouted as I ran off after Robbie. “Don’t!”

  As angry as I knew Stephen would be at me chasing Robbie alone, I couldn’t let the guy go.

  “Call for back-up,” I yelled back, before putting my head down, pumping my arms as I tried to catch up.

  Robbie was fast, too fast. I was built for endurance and stamina, not sprinting, whereas Robbie was smaller and lithe, his legs pushing him faster. He pulled ahead, but I kept him in sight, my breath sawing in and out of my lungs. I was glad that I’d run this morning and loosened myself up so I wouldn’t get injured from pushing myself so hard now, though I could feel the tiredness already gathering in my legs. Robbie was younger than me, too, and I really had to force myself to keep my speed up.

  But the longer we ran for, darting through the twisting streets, the closer I got to catching up with him. I tried to keep track of the direction we were heading in, but I didn’t know this part of York well. Stephen would no doubt have recognised it, but I didn’t. Still, I took note of a road name and spared a couple of seconds to yank my radio from my belt and let Stephen know.

  All of a sudden, Robbie turned a corner and went careering downhill. I followed him, struggling to keep my footing on the crumbling road, and came to a skidding stop when I saw what was ahead. We’d hit the floodwaters of the river, fast and gushing here as they passed through a narrower section of the waterway, the brown water rolling and churning over obstacles hidden beneath the water, twisting in currents below the frothy surface.

  Robbie had come to a halt just as I had, jerking around to send a frightened look back at me.

  I put up my hands. “Robbie, please, we can talk-”

  He was already pulling off his thick jumper. It took me a moment too long to realise why he did that, and it cost me dearly.

  “No!” I yelled, bursting forwards to catch him, but he was too close to the water and too fast. He waded into the fast-flowing water and was swept away, his head just above the surface, before I could even try to grab him.

  I swore, scared and furious at the same time. My legs locked beneath me, and I desperately tried to think of a way to fix this. I wouldn’t let Robbie die, guilty or not, but how the hell I was going to help him now?

  I had no idea.

  Fourteen

  With Robbie in the water and already swept out of sight, I glanced up and down the river, seeking any kind of solution. But there wasn’t an easy way to run along the river bank from here, and I didn’t dare follow Robbie into the water. He, at least, was a practised swimmer, but I wasn’t. It was the only hope I had that he’d survive the seething waters, though it was still a slim chance. Surviving a flooded river in spate was nothing like swimming in a pool, or even a lake. Robbie wasn’t in a wetsuit, and it was November. For God’s sake, the cold water shock could kill him even before the currents pulled him down, or an underwater obstacle knocked him out.

  I spat desperate instructions into my radio as I ran back the way I’d come. I was struggling to keep going now, my legs feeling burned out and weak, but I pressed on. This was Keira’s brother, and every second could count.

  I ran down the street, looking everywhere for a way back to the river, somewhere I could try to grab Robbie from, if he still had his head above water. What had he been thinking? He must have been desperate, beyond desperate, that he would rather risk drowning than let us take him in. That, or it was a sign of clear guilt, I thought grimly as I ran. Either way, it didn’t matter. I couldn’t stomach the thought of even indirectly causing someone’s death by pursuing them, whether they were guilty or not.

  I could hear Stephen’s frantic voice coming from the radio, but the blood was pumping too hard in my ears for me to hear, and I was absolutely focused on the task of trying to find Robbie again.

  Finally, I found a riverside path that ran directly alongside the flooded river and which was, when I tested it, only an inch or two underwater. The river ran slower here, or seemed to at least, as the distance between the banks widened. Panting, I hoped desperately that I wasn’t too late, and Robbie had already been pulled past, breathing or not.

  But no, I’d made it in time; I could see his paper-pale face and thrashing arms approaching fast. I’d never seen a worse expression on someone’s face, of such blind panic, and my stomach felt like it turned over inside me. I thought briefly of the risk I was taking, of how Sam and Stephen would react, before I was doing it anyway, wading deeper into the river and feeling the icy pull of it against my thighs. Even just being this deep was making my breath seize in my chest, and furious shivers made me shake. But I didn’t have the time to let myself adjust, and I pulle
d on, my boots sliding and struggling against the slick mud and loose grit under my feet, until the ground suddenly disappeared entirely, and I started to drift. I’d stepped off the bank.

  Fear briefly made me struggle against the flow, but glancing across the vast stretch of brown water and spotting Robbie’s head dipping up and down forced me to focus. I wasn’t going to let Keira’s brother die, and I refused to let the river take me either. We’d already had too many riverside deaths.

  I kicked out hard against the water, going sideways rather than against the flow, trying to get closer to where Robbie was trapped in the middle of the river. My limbs felt achingly heavy, and more so with every second I spent in the chilling water. I coughed and choked on the brackish, foul-tasting water that splashed into my mouth.

  The river had seemed relatively flat from the bank, but it tossed me about roughly once I was in it, the current making me twist around like a cork in a whirlpool, and it was a struggle to keep track of where the nearest bank was, let alone where Robbie was too. As the cold really set in, my legs feeling numb and exhaustingly heavy, I was beginning to think I’d made a serious mistake.

  But I couldn’t give up now, and I continued to drag myself sideways through the water, fighting to reach Robbie. Except I couldn’t see him now, even as I trod water and tried to pull my head up as far out of the water as I could manage. If he’d gone under- if he’d drowned and this was all for nothing-

  His head came up, not ten yards ago, his hands clawing at the water, panicked and terrified. Newly determined, I fought the rushing water to reach him, grabbing onto the front of his t-shirt and wrapping the fabric tight around my stiff, freezing fingers so it wouldn’t slip free.

  He fought me at first, his legs kicking wildly and hitting me in the shin and the knee. I couldn’t get enough breath to shout at him, so I kept a tight hold of him and tried to remember what I’d heard about saving people who were drowning. Robbie was clearly in shock, or so deep into panic that it was the same result, as he coughed and flailed with no coordination, his eyes so wide with fear that I wasn’t even sure he’d registered that I was there.

  We couldn’t stay in the water any longer. It’d been a struggle to keep myself afloat, and now trying to hold Robbie’s head above the rolling water was becoming impossible as the cold bored itself into my arms and legs, making them numb and unresponsive.

  There! I thought desperately, spotting a tree half-submerged in river water, with trailing branches reaching across the river like a helping hand. I held Robbie’s head up with one arm and struck out with the other, swimming sideways. I made agonisingly slow progress, and I knew even before we were swept past that we weren’t going to make it. I was beginning to panic now, my breath coming in short, rasping gasps as I lost my fight against the cold.

  Another tree was approaching fast up ahead, this one not leaning out into the water as far, but it was the only option I could see, and I kicked and paddled with everything I had left. It felt like an eternity and a matter of seconds before the tree’s branches came rushing up, and I desperately grabbed for one.

  My hands were stiff and swollen with cold, and I almost didn’t manage to hold on with the dead weight of Robbie dragging me down. But I was damned if I was going to get this far and not make it, so I threw my arm over the branch and clung on, keeping a tight hold on Robbie’s shirt. I looked down at him and found that he wasn’t moving, his head drooping down and eyes closed. I hoped to god that he was unconscious and not dead, but I couldn’t check right now, with my strength fading fast.

  Inch by inch, I dragged Robbie and me along the spiny branch with my numb arm, until, finally, my boots hit ground. I almost released the branch too soon, the loose bank slipping away beneath my feet so that my stomach dropped out from under me for one, terrifying moment. But I got my hold on the branch back and pulled myself onto firmer ground. Wading the ten yards out of the water felt harder than any run I’d ever done, including my marathon, and I collapsed to my knees with a jolt. I would’ve stayed there, frozen and utterly exhausted, if it wasn’t for Robbie’s unmoving body next to me.

  My radio was completely useless to call for help, and I looked around frantically, feeling a surge of hope when I saw an elderly man walking a small dog across the grassy field I’d stumbled onto.

  “H-hey!” I tried to call, but couldn’t get enough air in and lurched into hacking coughs. I tried again. “Hey! H-help! Hey, o-over here!”

  I waved my arms, suddenly feeling the chill of the wind cutting through my sodden clothes and taking my breath away. Shivers started up, violent enough to make my teeth clack together painfully.

  But I didn’t have to call again. The dog walker had seen me and, after a brief hesitation, was heading towards me.

  “C-call an ambulance!” I called to him, over and over, until I saw him pulling a phone from his pocket.

  I trusted the man to do that and focused on Robbie’s inert form. My heart in my throat, I put my frozen fingers under his chin and felt for a pulse. For a long second, I thought that there was nothing there, that I’d been too late, and it’d all been for nothing. But there was a weak pulse there, jumping under my fingers, and I released a shaken breath.

  I turned him onto his side, putting him in the recovery position and checking his airways as we’d been taught in first aid classes at the station.

  “Is he- is he alive?”

  I looked up to see the elderly dog walker leaning over us, looking very worried.

  “Is the ambulance c-coming?” I said, struggling to get the words out around my frozen face.

  “Yes, yes, they’re on the way. Hang in there, lad.” He started taking off his coat, and I had a dreadful moment of déjà vu, thinking of how Robbie had stripped off his jumper before he dived into the river. But the dog walker just gently wrapped it around my shaking shoulders, and I sent him a grateful look.

  Time drifted strangely, split between seconds where I was hyper-aware of how cold I was, how sleepy and exhausted, and gaps where I seemed to drift, unaware of anything. I’d open my eyes again, and the dog walker would have moved, his face showing his deep concern for the both of us.

  My head lifted when I heard the approaching sirens, an ambulance and a police car, I thought groggily, recognising the different sounds.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” the old man muttered, and I silently echoed the sentiment.

  I was shivering violently, but Robbie wasn’t, lying limp and still in a way that scared me. I checked his pulse repeatedly, compulsively, but it was always there, faint but present.

  The sirens came closer, and it wasn’t long before there were heavy footsteps running towards us.

  “Darren!” a familiar voice yelled, and I tiredly looked up, my head feeling like it weighed a hundred pounds. “You idiot!”

  Stephen dropped down beside me, taking in my sopping wet hair and shivering, his face scrunched up in a mix of fury and blind worry. He dragged me into a tight hug that squashed the air out of me, but the warmth of his bulk made up for it.

  “You scared the absolute hell out of me,” he continued as I pulled back. “Are you injured?” He turned around, looking for the paramedics, who were hot on his heels. “The medics are coming.”

  I nodded clumsily towards Robbie. “N-need to get R-Robbie warm.”

  Stephen twisted to look at Keira’s unconscious brother as if he’d only just noticed him.

  “He’s an even bigger idiot than you,” he muttered, but he pulled off his jacket and wrapped Robbie up in it, rubbing his chest and limbs to get the blood flowing. The paramedics stepped in a moment later, fitting an oxygen mask over Robbie’s sickly pale face and shifting him carefully onto a stretcher. They gave Stephen back his now-damp jacket and bundled both Robbie and me up in silver foil blankets.

  I shakily returned the coat the elderly dog walker had kindly given me before I let Stephen guide me towards the ambulance. It was difficult to get my frozen, complaining legs under me, but I hobbled
across the wet grass and dropped down into a seat in the ambulance. There wasn’t much space inside, and Stephen, once he’d checked that I was comfy and strapped in, hopped down.

  “I’ll follow behind, okay? I’ll see you at the hospital.”

  “I don’t think I really need the hospital,” I protested, my speech still slow but no longer stuttering with cold. “I just need a warm bath-”

  Stephen shot me a frustrated look and stepped back as the paramedics shut the ambulance doors and set off. I sighed. Gaskell wouldn’t be pleased to hear that I’d ended up in A&E again, but it was what it was. At least I’d have Robbie to offer him, with those damning articles. Hopefully, the man would give us some answers in interview once he woke up, which he would. He had to. Keira would be heartbroken otherwise. I’d done all I could, anyway. No-one could accuse me of not trying hard enough to save him, though no doubt my overactive brain would manage to chastise me for not swimming hard, or realising what Robbie was going to do before he threw himself into the river.

  The trip to the hospital felt achingly long, even though I could feel how fast we were travelling. The ambulance took turns that made my seatbelt press into my chest even more than when Stephen was driving. The sirens were on, too, loud and persistent, and the paramedics focused primarily on Robbie, trying to warm him and get his heart rate up to a healthy level. They glanced over at me several times, checking that I was still with them, and I gave them a nod each time. I was awake and with it, and I was sure I’d be fine, just as soon as the cold worked its way out of me. I still felt like my legs and arms were made of fifty per cent ice, and my feet remained completely numb inside my soaked boots.

  I hope I don’t get frostbite, I thought absently. Sam wouldn’t be best pleased if I turned up at hers with black toes.