“Morning, sir,” he replied cautiously, taking a sip of coffee before putting it into the cup holder and driving off. Yesterday’s rain was long gone, but the city was still slightly damp from it, a chill to the air that was rather pleasant, far better than the usual mugginess of this time of year.
“Good evening?” I asked him. He nodded, still looking taken aback by my chatty demeanour.
“Went round to Susanne’s. We had a good evening, relaxed,” he added, emphasising the word like it was exactly what he had needed to.
“Sounds like we both had the chilled night necessary,” I said. “Only I didn’t have the same company.”
Mills grinned. “When is Liene back, anyway?”
“Next week,” I told him. “Hopefully, we’ll have this all tied up by then, and I can take her on a proper date.”
“A proper date with Max Thatcher,” Mills whistled. “We’d better get a move on then. You still want to speak to Lin Shui again? See if she can point us in the right direction for this earlier study and whoever threatened the two of them?”
“I do. Let’s give her a call when we get in, see if she’s happy to meet her somewhere. I don’t think pulling her into the station will go over all that well.”
“With her or with Sharp?”
“Her, Sharp, the Press. Now that we know someone from the Post was lurking around, we need to tread carefully about who’s seen coming and in and out of that place with us.”
Mills nodded, happy with the sound of all of that, and pulled into the station’s car park, where the spaces were slowly filling as everybody ambled their way in.
“Weekend soon,” Mills muttered as we climbed from the car, coffee in hand and made our way to the front doors. “Lucky buggers.”
“Some of us are too important for weekends,” he told him, resting my elbow on his shoulder, steering him away from the stairs and over to Wasco’s office, where the whirring sounds of computers were already audible from the hallway. The door was propped open with a shoe, letting some colder air into the room, and Wasco himself moved about the maze of machinery and wires, switching things on and untangling stuff. I knocked on the doorframe, and he glanced over, black hair mussed all around his head, glasses sliding off of his long nose.
“Morning,” he greeted us, and we walked into the room, lingering by the desk as he finished getting all of his gear ready for the day.
“Morning, Wasco,” I answered. “How’re things?” He looked over at me with a frown on his face, eyes raking me from head to toe.
“What’s up with you?” He pointed at me and looked at Mills. “What’s up with him?”
Mills shrugged, sipping nonchalantly from his cup as I turned and looked at him, sliding into the hallway and pulling his phone from his pocket as he went.
“I’m fine,” I answered. “What’s the problem?”
“You’re chipper,” Wasco told me, making his way over to the desk. “You’re not normally so chipper. It’s off-putting. Makes me think I’ve gone down the rabbit hole or summit.”
“Very kind,” I clipped back, and his face brightened at my tone.
“There he is. Right,” he clapped his hands together and hauled a bag onto the desk. It was Sonia’s work bag that Dr Quaid had given to us, and we’d left it with Wasco in the hopes that he’d be able to get into the laptop, which was locked up far more securely than Abbie’s had been. Apparently, Sonia was more cautious about her information than her research partner and hadn’t opted for the name of her cat and daughter’s birthday.
“I cracked into yesterday whilst you two were out and about,” he told us. “Most of it is gibberish.”
“Gibberish?” I repeated.
Wasco waved a hand, “plant stuff. I did manage to access some old files,” he said, spinning the computer around. “But if we want to find older stuff, you’ll need to give me a bit more time.”
“How far back do these go?” I asked.
“About five years. You need something older?”
“If you can get them.”
Wasco nodded, pushing his glasses back up his nose, the lights of all the screens casting a strange glow on his brown skin. “I can get “em. Just bear with me while I do.”
“Take your time,” I assured him. “We’ve got protestors to track down in any case.”
“Have fun,” he called as I turned and walked from his office, meeting Mills at the bottom of the stairs.
“Lin Shui,” he told me, putting his phone away. “She’s happy to meet us, if we’re happy to go to her place of work in order to do so,” he added, walking alongside me up the stairs.
“Where does she work?” I asked.
“She’s a tattoo artist. Place in the city centre. Apparently, they specialise in vegan formulas, cruelty-free, all that jazz.”
“Very fitting,” I answered. “When did she say?”
“Said they open at ten, and she’s got a client in at eleven,” Mills told me.
“Ten it is,” I decided, and then sighed heavily. “Let’s look into some of those plant supplies you mentioned. See if we can find any particularly large shipments of Nerium that someone might have an interest in.” The very sound of the work made me tired, but it was a place to start before we had any further pointers. Mills nodded, looking no less enthused about the idea than I was, and as we made our way through the desks, Sharp appeared in her doorway, still in her coat.
“Mills!” She called. “A word,” and ducked back into her office. Mills looked at her to me with a frown, then shrugged, and wandered over, leaving me to trudge into our office and begin the gruelling work myself.
I slumped down at my computer, turning it on and spinning idly in my chair as I waited. As I spun, my eyes caught on the photograph on my desk, and the bleak feeling started to crawl its way back in, crashing in over my head. The computer came to life, and I jumped on it, distracting myself by looking at wallpaper that could be used in the hallway in the coaching house. Green, she had always wanted something green. I let myself kill some time that way, making myself keep proactive about her memory and the old buildings, and also putting off the Nerium research.
Mills came in a few minutes later, wiping the worried look off his face as he pushed the door ajar.
“All good?” I asked. It wasn’t often that Sharp spoke to him alone.
“All good. Just wanted to check something for some holiday I have booked,” he answered quickly, looking down at his computer so as not to meet my eye. I raised a brow, but didn’t push, and closed the tabs I was on to begin the tedious work at hand.
We looked in wholesalers, the people who stocked garden centres and florists, making benign conversation with people on the phone about any large orders they might have had from private customers. It was dull and boring, and rather fruitless, but every now and then, they mentioned a large order of something that wasn’t Nerium, but they were surprised enough about it that I wrote some of the names down, no doubt mangling the Latin in the process. After another such conversation, I put my phone down and struck a line through the name of the company on my list, looking over to Mills.
“Any luck?”
“Not really,” he muttered, pushing back from his desk slightly and rubbing the back of his neck. “Perhaps it was a bit of a long shot.”
“You never know,” I answered him. “One of them might have gone, why yes, sir, we did just have a large order for Nerium seeds. Bulbs? However, people buy them.”
Mills managed a wry smile, glancing at his watch. “It’s quarter to ten,” he told me. “We could walk. I rather fancy some fresh air.”
I nodded in agreement, happily switching the computer off and standing from my chair with a groan, my knees creaking as I stretched. We pulled our coats on and headed out the door, trotting down the stairs and out into the city.
It was a nice enough day, all told. Still, a crispness from the rain kept the worst of the heat away, and the sun shone happily in the blue sky, only a few clouds dancin
g around. The streets, however, were busy. Tourists milled around like flies, stopping in the middle of roads to take pictures of buildings or each other, or each other outside of those buildings. They tried to navigate the snickelways with their little guidebooks in hand and sometimes stood stock still, trying to get their bearings before moving on.
Mills and I stuck to the side of the road, passing through the crowds of shoppers and sightseers, over to the little side street that Lin Shui’s tattoo shop was down. It was a nice little road, the shop itself open and light, with a juice place to one side, a vintage shop across the road and bicycles chained along the walls with plants growing from hanging baskets and window boxes.
I pushed the glass door to the tattoo parlour open, a bell ringing above me and looked around, impressed. It was a clean, open space. The walls white, the light warm, sofas pushed against the side with brightly coloured cushions and stacks of magazines. A few images hung on the walls, and it was hard to tell which were tattoo designs and which were just art.
“Hi,” Lin Shui emerged from behind a curtain by the reception desk. “Long time, no see,” she added with a grin.
Now that she wasn’t dressed as a wounded animal covered in fake blood, it was easy to see what she actually looked like. She wore a long sleeveless black dress, letting the beautiful images on her arms free to be seen and a pair of old trainers that looked almost ready to fall off on her feet.
“Hello, again,” I answered. “Thank you for agreeing to talk to us again.”
“Thanks for coming here,” she waved us towards the sofas, and we all sat down. “I don’t think I’d want to come and see your police station.”
“Again,” Mills pointed out.
“Again,” she added with a funny, proud smile. “So, what can I do?”
“Do you remember we mentioned that Abbie Whelan had a research partner?” I asked her. “Sonia Petrilli?”
Lin nodded. “I do. Why?”
“She was murdered yesterday. We think the attacker is the same person.”
Lin’s face fell, and she leant back with a heavy breath. “Christ.”
“Sonia’s parents,” I pushed on quickly. “Mentioned that early on in their partnership, one of their first studies didn’t go well. They received some threats that Sonia was scared of, Abbie too, according to her sister. The study was shut down not long after.”
Lin had sat forwards again, a faint crease between her brows as she listened. “How long ago was this?”
“About eight years,” I told her. “We know that you wouldn’t have been there yourself, but I was wondering if you might have heard about it. Might know someone who was there.”
“No, no, I remember it. Vaguely. My big brother’s the one who got me into all of this,” she explained. “He told me about it. Eight years,” she slumped back, deep in thought. “He said it was a man. At the gardens, I remember it was that place. That’s why I kept an interest in it. But he said there was a man there.”
“Dr Quaid?” Mills asked. Lin shook her head.
“No. Hang on.” She held up a hand and pulled out her phone, clicking her tongue as she pressed a number and held it to her ear. “Wen? Hey, hi. I have a question. Do you remember that first protest you took me to? The one at the botanical place?” She listened for a moment and nodded. “Yeah, yeah, that one. What was the name of the guy? Kask.” She looked to Mills and me, and the sergeant quickly pulled out his notebook, scribbling down the name. “Toomas Kask. Cool. Because I’m looking into it, that’s why. No, I know. I will. Okay, bye.” She hung up and put her phone down on the sofa beside her. “Toomas Kask, that was him.”
“He was part of the study?” I asked. The name wasn’t familiar, not anyone we had met or heard about from the gardens.
“I think so,” she muttered. “I definitely don’t remember hearing about Abbie Whelan back then. It was a few years before I got wind of her.”
“Do you remember what exactly it was about the study that made you all protest?”
Lin chewed her lip and shook her head. “Not really. Probably just the usual stuff, though, you know.”
“That’s alright,” I told her. “Thank you for this, Miss Shui. You have been a tremendous help.”
“Happy to help change the reputation of my people,” she said happily. “And also, you know. Help bring about justice and all that.” I grinned and rose from the sofa, Mills beside me.
“See you around, Miss Shui.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a tattoo before you go?” She called as we made our way to the door. “I can give you mate’s rates!”
“Already got one!” I called back, ushering Mills through the door. He stood in the street then, staring at me with wide eyes. “Toomas Kask,” I murmured, “I suppose we should try to find him.”
Mills wasn’t listening. He just continued to stare at me as I turned and walked back up the street.
“You already have one?” He asked. “Where is it? What is it?”
I waved a hand at him to stop his badgering. “Toomas Kask first, and we can share regretful teenage tattoo stories some other time.”
Sixteen
Thatcher
Toomas Kask, it turned out, was in our records too. Several speeding fines over the years, one as recently as three weeks ago, meant it wasn’t hard for us to track him down. His current address was out in the moors, almost an hour’s drive from the city, in a remote little village not unlike the one I had grown up in. His fines had all been paid, and he’d even gone on a speed awareness course, but currently, his reckless attitude towards driving was in our favour, and with his address in hand, we were ready to go.
As I left the office, Mills having run to the bathroom before we left, Sharp intercepted me in the hallway.
“A new lead?”
“An old research partner of Abbie and Sonia,” I told her. “We think he would have been around during those earlier years, maybe knows something about the study that got shut down and the threats they received.”
Sharp folded her arms, looking me over with narrowed eyes. “Why not speak to Dr Quaid?”
“If a research project of his was receiving bad light, I doubt he’d be the one to dredge it up again. Especially with the clarity that we’d like.”
“Fair enough. You’re off there now?” She asked.
“Place out in the moors,” I told her, showing her the address. “We’ll be a few hours, if that’s fine.”
She nodded. “No problem.”
I folded the paper back over and looked at her. She still regarded me with a wary sort of expression, and I wondered if it had anything to do with her chat with Mills earlier.
“What is it?” I asked. “Do I have something in my teeth?” My question startled her from her quiet observations, and she shook her head with a smile.
“No, sorry. In my own little world. Let me know when you get back,” she added, nodding to Mills, who appeared around the corner.
“Will do, ma’am.” Sharp strode away then, her arms still folded together, and I watched her walk away with a frown on my face.
“Everything alright, sir?” Mills asked.
“It’s probably nothing,” I answered. “Let’s get on the road. I’d like to be back for lunch.”
As we headed down the stairs, out towards the car park, I couldn’t quite shake Sharp’s face from my mind, and then it hit me. It was eerily similar to the expression that Lena had worn the other day, asking me about how I was doing, asking me about August. I sighed, unlocking my car and hoisting myself into the driver’s seat. I should have seen it sooner, really. Every year, it was the two of them, like clockwork. I wasn’t surprised that Sharp would have mentioned something about it to Mills, though I was grateful he’d kept quiet. As I turned the engine on, I grit my teeth together. It would get worse before it got better. I’d have Elsie on the phone more often, Sally and Mike pitching up with bottles of wine and board games, all of them suddenly flocking around me like mother hens until
the week past. Shouldn’t complain, I told myself, pulling us out from the car park and onto the roads as Mills strapped himself in. I didn’t bother with the sat nav just yet, preferring to get out into the moors myself before we started messing with directions and the annoying tinned voice that gave them.
“I mentioned Toomas Kask to Wasco before we left,” Mills told me, turning down the radio. “So that he can keep an eye out for any mention of him as he works on Sonia’s computer.”
“Good thinking,” I told him approvingly. “I’d like to know as much about this study as possible.”
“Do you think he’ll tell us much?” Mills asked.
“I think he’ll share as much as he can without ruining his own career and reputation,” I answered dryly. “Whatever that amount is, we shall have to wait and see.”
Mills pulled a face and turned to the window, watching as we rolled out from the city and the surrounding suburbs, out into the countryside. I relaxed as we went deeper and deeper into the hills, the earth around growing wild and untamed.
“Have you ever thought about living out here?” Mills asked me, taking in my no longer tightly wound posture. “There’s probably a place that’s not too far from the city.” He added, his tone thoughtful. He’d been to the coaching house; he knew it wasn’t far. A good thirty- or forty-minute drive that wasn’t unspeakable for a daily commute.
“From time to time,” I answered. “But everyone I know is in the city, might get a bit lonely out here on my Larry.”
“Because you’re such a social person,” Mills said dryly. I chuckled.
“Alright, that’s fair. If I lived out here, we couldn’t go to the pub as often.” I pointed out.
“You could always crash on my settee,” Mills told me. I spared him a quick glance.
“You trying to get rid of me, Isaac?” I asked him in an accusatory tone.
“Trying to get you to relax more often, sir,” he answered in a more solemn voice than I had used. “You always seem more at ease out here, so,” he shrugged. “Just a thought.”
It wasn’t a bad thought, it was one I had even been contemplating myself, but I wasn’t going anywhere until the coaching house was fully repaired. Ready to live in or ready to sell on, I’d yet to decide fully what the fate of the old place would be. Though, I did have to admit to myself, the thought of some other family behind my grandfather’s bar or of someone chopping down our oak tree in the garden made me feel ever so slightly sick.
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