Untouchable (The Blake Harte Mysteries Book 1)

by Robert Innes

  “Friendly?” repeated Blake, picking himself off the ground and rubbing his knees. “I’d hate to see her when she doesn’t like someone.”

  “Hello Harrison,” Mattison said. “You alright? We’ve had a call saying there’s been a disturbance?”

  The young lad nodded. “Yeah, that would have been my Dad?”

  “And where’s your Dad?” Blake said, narrowing his eyes as he spotted a small red bruise on Harrison’s neck.

  “I’m here.” A man in his late fifties was striding across the yard towards them from the house.

  “And you’re the one that called?”

  “That’s right. I’ve got Daniel Donaldson locked up in that shed.”

  “Well done, Seth.” Grinned Gardiner. “What’s he done?”

  “Hang on a minute,” Blake cut in. “Locked up? Why have you locked him up?”

  Seth looked Blake up and down. “You’re the new man I suppose?”

  Blake looked at him, surprised. “I have just moved here, yes. Why?”

  “Because if you’d been here a while, you’d probably know that Daniel Donaldson is the type that needs locking up.” Replied Seth curtly. “Harrison, show them your bruises.”

  “I can see a bruise on your neck there, Harrison.” Blake said, ignoring Seth completely. “Has Daniel done that to you?”

  Harrison glanced at his father nervously and then nodded.

  “And the rest,” Seth snapped, pulling Harrison’s top up. Blake recoiled. Harrison’s lower body was covered in an array of bruises and marks.

  “This is what that boy has done to my son.” Growled Seth, loosening his grip on Harrison’s T-shirt. “Answer your question does it? Now, like I said, he’s in that shed. So if you can just-“

  Suddenly, the sound of a gun firing echoed around the yard. Blake quickly turned around, as everyone ducked down on the ground.

  “What the hell was that?” Gardiner exclaimed, who had thrown himself behind the police car.

  Blake’s eyes darted around the yard. “Who owns a gun in this area?”

  “I do.” Replied Seth, cautiously standing up. “It’s kept in that shed, where I’ve locked him up.”

  Blake looked over at the shed. Since the gunshot, everything had gone deathly quiet. Even the animals around the yard had fallen silent.

  “Then you better get it open, hadn’t you?” Blake murmured.

  They all walked across the yard towards the shed. Seth pulled the large key out of his pocket, then turned back to Blake.

  “He’s an aggressive little yob. I hope you know how to handle people like that.”

  “I’ve done pretty well so far.” Blake replied.

  Seth unlocked the shed door and opened it, stumbling backwards as he pulled the door open. They all stared in amazement as a body of a man fell out of the threshold and onto the ground.

  Blake quickly turned the body over and felt for a pulse.

  “Dan!” Harrison cried.

  Blake frowned as he tried to find some form of life around the man’s neck. No pulse. He looked up at Harrison.

  “This is your boyfriend?”

  Harrison nodded, eyes wide with horror.

  “Shall I call an ambulance, sir?” Mattison asked, pulling his radio towards his mouth.

  Blake sighed and nodded. He then stood up and pulled Mattison away from the others. “Though I don’t think an ambulance is going to do him much good to be honest.”

  Mattison stared at the body on the ground. “You mean he’s dead?” He whispered.

  Blake sighed again. “Yeah. I think he is.”

  Mattison took a deep breath. “Right.” He had gone quite pale and looked shaken. Blake recognised that look.

  “Is this your first one?”

  Mattison nodded.

  “OK. Well, pull it together, yeah?” Blake said, not unkindly.

  “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

  “Good lad. Right, so yes. Call an ambulance but I’d get forensics down here as well. I’m obviously not in a position where I can declare him dead. They’ll have to call it officially.”

  Mattison nodded again and walked away, talking into his radio. Blake was certain that there was nothing any paramedics could do at this point. Daniel had that glazed expression on his face that Blake had seen several times before.

  Harrison was stood staring down at Daniel clearly choking back tears and ran his hands through his hair. “He’s dead isn’t he?

  Blake walked back towards them. “I don’t know. An ambulance is on the way.”

  “But how?” Harrison cried. “I don’t understand how this has happened!”

  Blake kneeled down and looked at Daniel closely. He had a small wound, probably from a bullet across the side of his neck, a second in his chest and another one lower down near his abdomen.

  “Seth, you’re saying that you locked him in here?”

  Seth nodded. “Yes! I threw him in, locked the door and then went to call you.” He looked in the shed, an expression of confusion across his face.

  “So, where is this gun, Seth?”

  “Think he shot himself? Couldn’t take the guilt anymore? It’s in a locked case in there.”

  “Is it loaded?”

  “Of course not. And yes, before you ask, I have a licence for it.”

  “Well, we’ll obviously be checking that.” Blake replied curtly. “And it’s always locked in here, separate from the bullets?”

  “Yes. Of course.” Seth snapped.

  Blake frowned. “You always lock this shed when you aren’t using it?”

  “Always.” Seth replied, looking very confused. “Every single time without fail. I’m the only one with the key! Nobody could have got in!”

  “Well if that’s the case,” Blake murmured, kneeling down beside Daniel’s body again. “Then nobody could have got out either. And when you locked Daniel inside this shed, there was nothing wrong with him? He was fine?”

  “Of course he was!” snapped Seth. “What do you take me for? I threw him in here, then locked it. He couldn’t have got out. And nobody could have got in.”

  “Then what the hell has happened to him?” Gardiner interjected from behind Harrison.

  “How long ago did you call the police?” Blake asked, ignoring Gardiner.

  “About twenty minutes ago or so.”

  “And there’s only you two here?”

  “Seth!”

  The sound of a woman’s voice rang across the yard. They all turned to see a woman in her late forties running towards them.

  “What’s going on?” She panted. She looked down at Daniel’s body and gasped. “Oh my…Seth! What’s happened?!”

  “Sorry, what’s your name?” Blake asked her.

  “This is my wife, Sandra.” Seth replied, putting his hand on the shoulder of the scared looking woman.

  “I heard a gunshot!” Sandra exclaimed. “What’s happened? Is Daniel alright?”

  Harrison was stood, staring at Daniel with a horrified expression on his face.

  “Sandra,” Blake said, taking Harrison by the arm. “Where were you when you heard the gun shot?”

  “She was feeding the animals.” Seth interrupted.

  Blake glared at him. “I’m sure your wife can talk for herself, Seth.” He then talked over Seth’s objectionable grunting. “Whereabouts were you?”

  “Erm, just round the corner there.” Sandra murmured, pointing to behind the house.

  “Right. Patil, I need you to take Sandra and Harrison inside.”

  “Come on Sandra. Nice cup of tea, that’s what we need I think.” Patil said soothingly.

  Harrison had started to cry. Sandra put an arm around him and walked him back into the house with Patil. Seth watched them leave, his lips thinning. Blake wondered if he was trying not to cry himself. As he watched Harrison go back into the kitchen, he spotted one of the security cameras, which was trained directly on the shed.

  “Seth.” Blake said. “Will you be able to show m
e what that camera has recorded over the past hour?”

  Seth seemed unable to speak for a moment. “Hm? Oh. Yes, certainly.”

  “Sir?” Mattison was walking back towards them from across the other side of the yard. “They’re on their way.”

  “OK, thanks.” Blake said. “Right. Mattison, with me. Gardiner?”

  Gardiner looked up from the body and up at his new boss with a slight twinge of annoyance, presumably at being addressed by his surname. “I need you to stay here with Daniel and the area needs securing.”

  “Me?” Gardiner looked furious at such a suggestion. “Why me?”

  Blake stood up straight and with authority. “Because this man has been shot in a room that nobody could have got in or out of. Right now, the only way that seems possible is if he did it himself and, judging by the way his wounds are positioned, I don’t think that’s what happened. I need someone to stay with him and wait for the ambulance. Is that alright or do you need me to explain myself further?”

  Gardiner looked like he wanted nothing more than to punch Blake on the nose. Blake glanced up to the end of the yard. A group of lads on bikes had spotted the police car and were trying to see what was going on with interest. “First thing you can do is get rid of them.” Blake said finally.

  Gardiner didn’t say another word. He just stormed off towards the group of lads.

  “Thanks!” Blake called after him with a tone of sarcastic cheeriness. He turned to a smirking Mattison who quickly wiped his expression clean. Blake gave him a brief grin then indicated that he should follow him.

  A few minutes later, Blake was sat in front of the monitor in the basement, trying to find the right camera for Seth to rewind.

  “Right then.” He muttered. “Take that one back about an hour…”

  Seth clicked the mouse so that the footage sped backwards. “Right, around there, would you say?”

  The film returned to normal speed and for a few seconds all they were looking at was still footage of the shed. The angle allowed them full sight of the door and the left hand side of the structure.

  “Can you speed it up a little bit?” Seth reached for the mouse, but Blake took it in his own hand and clicked it so that the footage went forward faster, ignoring the disapproving tut behind his head.

  A minute or so went by with nothing happening on the screen until Seth came into view. Blake clicked it so that it went back to real time and studied the screen.

  “This was about half an hour or so before it happened.” Seth said. “Look, I’m carrying the hose that I was using to wash out the pig sty. The gun is kept locked up behind where I keep the hose, and the case hadn’t been interfered with, I distinctly remember seeing it.”

  Blake kept watching, now without fast forwarding. He wanted to see everything that had been happening around the shed before Daniel was put into it. As it turned out, very little had happened.

  Suddenly, Seth and Daniel appeared on the screen, Seth had his hand on the back of Daniel’s neck and was frogmarching him towards the shed. There was no mistaking, Daniel was definitely alive when he was being pushed inside. They continued to watch as Seth unlocked the door and, as had been reported, threw him inside, slamming the door closed again and locking it.

  He then stormed back towards the house, but not before turning round and shouting something at the shed.

  “What did you say to him then?” Blake said, pointing towards the screen.

  Seth shrugged. “Something about him not being able to get away doing that to my son.”

  Mattison spoke up from behind Blake. “What exactly was he doing to Harrison when you walked into the kitchen?”

  Seth sighed. “He had my son pinned up against a wall by his throat. He was shouting, hurling abuse. Absolute lowlife. I picked him up and threw him against the kitchen table. Then, I took him towards the shed and put him in it, like you’ve just seen.”

  “And nothing else happened between you pulling him off Harrison and you walking him towards the shed?” Mattison asked.

  “No, nothing.”

  Blake rewound the footage a few seconds and watched again as Daniel was put into the shed and locked in. He then let it play on.

  A few moments later, Harrison came into view.

  “What’s Harrison doing?” Blake asked, to nobody in particular.

  They watched as Harrison walked towards the shed and stopped outside it. He then wandered around the right hand side and out of view of the camera.

  “Oh, he’d wandered up there, feeling all sorry for him.” Seth grumbled. “I shouted to him to leave it alone and he came straight back towards the kitchen.” Seth replied.

  “So what did he do whilst he was round here?” Blake murmured. He tapped the side of the shed on the screen where Harrison had gone out of view of the camera’s sights.

  “Well, very little I would imagine.” Seth said reproachfully. “I hope you’re not trying to accuse my son of anything?”

  “Sir?” Patil appeared at the basement doorway. “The ambulance is here.”

  “OK,” replied Blake. “Can you take Seth to talk to them please? We’ll be up shortly.”

  Seth didn’t look like he was very keen on the idea of leaving Blake and Mattison on their own with his cameras but Blake wasn’t really leaving him with a lot of choice. Reluctantly, he followed Patil up the stairs.

  “Oh, one more thing Seth?” Blake called. “Why does your wife have a black eye?”

  Seth stared at Blake levelly. “She walked into a door.”

  Blake nodded curtly, then indicated that Seth could leave. Once he had gone, Blake continued watching the footage. Once Harrison had apparently been called by his father to come away from the shed and had walked back towards the house, there was very little else going on aside from the odd chicken foraging for food around the shed.

  “Right then Mattison.” He said quietly once Seth had left the room. “Actually, what do you prefer to be called?”

  “My friend’s call me Matti.” The young officer replied, looking pleased that he was already on such familiar terms with his new officer in charge.

  “Alright then Matti…What do you think?”

  Mattison looked flattered that his opinion had been asked for.

  “Well,” He shrugged. “I think it’s impossible for a man to be locked in a shed alive and then to be dead when the door is opened again. But that sounds stupid, I know. Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologise,” Blake said reassuringly, not taking his eyes off the lack of action on the screen. “You’re right. It isn’t possible. So that means that something else happened to Daniel Donaldson to result in his death.”

  A few minutes more passed by as they both watched the footage in silence. Nothing else happened until Blake saw himself come onto the screen as they all walked towards the shed. The door was opened and Daniel’s body landed on the ground in front of them.

  “Did you say he couldn’t have done it himself?” Mattison asked as Blake paused the footage.

  “I don’t think so.” He replied, shaking his head. “He had one wound across his neck, one here,” He pointed to his chest, “and then another one down here.” He gestured towards his own stomach area. “I’ve seen people’s bodies after they’ve committed suicide from shooting themselves. One bullet, that’s all it takes because that’s all you can get out of a gun yourself once you’ve pulled the trigger. You don’t shoot yourself more than once just to make sure.”

  “And you think he’s definitely dead?”

  Blake nodded grimly. “I was sure from the moment he fell out of the shed to be honest. I just didn’t want to say in front of Harrison.”

  He leant back in the chair, thoughtfully. “There’s one more thing that doesn’t make any sense here and I think you can work out what it was. Aside from someone apparently managing to be invisible and walk through a solid wooden wall of a shed and back out again. Think back to when we heard the gunshot.”

  Mattison frowned. After a
moment, he raised his eyebrows in surprise. “We only heard it once.”

  Blake grinned at him. “Exactly. One gunshot doesn’t equal three separate wounds on a body.”

  “So that means the gunshot we heard had absolutely nothing to do with it?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But I think we were certainly meant to think it was Donaldson being shot. Come on.” He stood up from the chair and walked back upstairs. “Time to talk to the boyfriend without his father standing over him I think.

  Blake and Mattison walked back upstairs to the kitchen, where they found Harrison sat with his mother, his head in his hands, Patil sat opposite them.

  Sandra looked up at the two of them as they entered the room, looking concerned that they were going to upset him further.

  “Harrison?” Blake ventured gently.

  “He’s still very shaken.” Sandra said quietly.

  “I can understand that. But I’m going to need to talk to you so I can find out as much as I can about Daniel.” Blake knelt down to Harrison’s level and put a supportive hand on his shoulder.

  Harrison looked up at Blake, his eyes red and puffy.

  “I didn’t…” he uttered, shakily. “I didn’t want anything like this to happen.”

  “Of course you didn’t. I know that.” Harrison looked up at Sandra. “Could you give us some space?”

  “Oh, but he’s in no fit state to -”

  “I still need to talk to him now. Whilst it’s fresh in his brain. Sooner I’ve done this, the sooner it’s over. That alright, Harrison?”

  Harrison took a deep breath to calm himself and nodded. “It’s fine Mum.” He said, wiping his eyes. “I’ll be alright.”

  “Thanks Sandra.” Blake said, turning to Mattison and Patil. “Can you two take Sandra outside, I don’t want anyone else coming in.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Mattison put up a gentle arm to lead Sandra out of the kitchen. She reluctantly allowed herself to be taken outside and Mattison shut the kitchen door, leaving Blake and Harrison alone together at the kitchen table. Blake saw one of the paramedics standing outside. “I’ll just be a second Harrison.” He said.

  The paramedic looked up as Blake greeted him by the door.