“Evening, I’m looking for Matt Hartley. I’m Darren Mitchell.”
I had to catch myself at the last second so that I didn’t say ‘DCI Mitchell’. I introduced myself with my rank so many times a day at work that sometimes it came out when I was telling the barista my name at coffee shops, too. Now would’ve been the absolute worst time to slip up, though.
“He’s upstairs. You a friend of his?”
“Uh, an old one. He was a friend of my dad’s actually, back when I was a teenager.” I cleared my throat, trying to think of a good reason for me being there. “My dad’s passed away now, and I wanted to ask Matt a bit about him.” She didn’t look too convinced, so I added, “If now’s a bad time, I can come back tomorrow.”
I’d been eager to talk to Matt as soon as I’d seen his name on the police records, wanting to find out whether he was involved in dogfighting in York in the present, but perhaps it would’ve been better to call first. Showing up at his door unannounced may not have been the wisest decision if I wanted to get him to trust me enough that he’d confide in me.
The woman, whose relation to Matt I still wasn’t quite sure of, looked me over once more before taking a step back and yelling up the stairs.
“Mattie! It’s for you!” She looked back at me, bouncing the toddler on her hip when he started to kick up a fuss. “Come on in, then. What was your name again?”
“Darren.”
“Amy,” she said, holding out her free hand. I shook it. “This is Rory.”
“Hi, Rory,” I smiled at the toddler. “How old is he?”
“Getting on for two now.” She cracked the first smile I’d seen. “Troublesome twos are coming, right? You have kids?”
“No, afraid not.”
“Do you want ‘em?”
She’d led the way towards the kitchen, and I’d followed, but the personal question took me by surprise, and I stopped in the doorway, even though the space was plenty big enough that I could’ve gone in.
“I don’t know. I’m tied up with my work, really. I haven’t talked about it with my girlfriend, to be honest.”
“Best not to leave it too late, y’know? Mattie’s getting on, and we had a time with making this one.” She nodded towards Rory, and I found myself trying to hide a smile at her open talk. I remembered Matt as a fairly stoic, closed-off sort, and I wondered what he’d think of Amy telling me, a stranger to her, about their troubles conceiving.
“What were you yelling about?” a man said from behind me, and I turned around sharply. He seemed about as surprised to see me as I was him.
“Who’re you?” he said blankly.
“He says he’s an old friend or something?” Amy said from the kitchen.
“Darren Mitchell.” I stuck out my hand and hoped that Matt wasn’t going to throw me out for being in his house. “Aaron Mitchell’s son. You were tight with my dad back in the day, and-”
He gave a whistle and swore, looking at me in surprise.
“I didn’t recognise you at all, but I can see it now,” he said, his bushy eyebrows raised. He looked much the same to me as he had done in his twenties, with the same broad, bulky shoulders and innate confidence.
“Sorry to barge in on you. I heard about you being around and wanted to drop by, see how you were these days. I know we didn’t talk a lot, but you were close with my dad…”
“You were just a lad back then. I’m surprised you remember me, kid.” He gave a laugh, still looking surprised that I was standing there in his kitchen. “This wasn’t what I was expecting on a Tuesday night, I gotta admit!”
I went to apologise again, but Matt waved it off. He moved around me into the kitchen, giving Amy and Rory a kiss before he launched into a stream of small talk. He offered me a drink, and I asked for a coffee. Whilst he made it, I listened to him talk about everything, from how he and Amy had met to what he thought about climate change. I considered trying to guide the conversation, but Amy was still in the room, so I figured that it was much too early.
Rory started fussing before long, and Amy took him out into the small back garden, telling me that she swore by the fresh air making him sleep better. Matt moved through into the sitting room and flopped down on the couch with a beer in hand.
“What’re you doing these days?” Matt asked.
“Nothing very exciting. I’m an accountant, and it pays the bills.”
“I bet it does,” he said before giving a nod. “You always were a smart one. I’m not surprised you ended up good, putting your nose to the grindstone, or whatever the phrase is.”
I gave a slightly awkward laugh, relieved that he didn’t ask anything more about accounting. I hadn’t a clue what I would’ve said.
“I did my best. What’s it you do? You’ve got a nice place here.”
I’d hoped that the question might lead somewhere useful, but Matt seemed a good deal more guarded than Phil had been. He told me that he worked in the stock market making investments. He kept to safe, easy topics and didn’t bring up my dad until a short while later, after Amy had brought Rory in from the garden and taken him up to bed.
“You don’t look much like him, y’know? You take more after your mum.”
Whilst I’d been expecting Matt to start talking about my father from almost the minute I’d walked in, I hadn’t expected him to mention my mum. It stung a little, and I took a sip of my cooling coffee before I answered.
“Aye, people were always saying that. My dad said it was up here that mattered.” I smiled tightly and tapped the side of my head.
“He was a decent bloke. Solid. Shame what happened.”
“It was.”
I couldn’t quite look at him. The over-brewed coffee was bitter, and I wasn’t sure it’d been a good idea to have it on such an empty stomach. It’d been a while since lunch, though I was too wound up with tension to be hungry right now.
Matt clearly noticed my discomfort and changed the subject.
“How d'you find me, then? I never would’ve guessed in a million years that you’d show up on my doorstep, lad. It’s been, what? A decade, no, more than that. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of you. I thought you were done with the lot of us.”
Us, I thought. That was the first time Matt had even slightly hinted at what had really been going on with the men who’d go in and out of my dad’s office when I was a teen. Doing business deals and talking about adult things, he’d told me, but I’d eavesdropped more than once and heard enough to know better.
“I guess I wanted to get away from everyone after he passed,” I said, which was the truth, if not all of it. “I bumped into Phil Berry the other day in Aldi. Can you believe? It got me thinking about it all again.”
He seemed to accept that at face value and nodded, hopefully assuming that I’d got his address off of Phil. I changed the subject to Amy and Rory, and Matt noticeably relaxed as he talked about his girlfriend and their child. I talked about Sam in turn, and we reminisced briefly about the street party they’d held on the street I’d grown up on once. For a short while, I almost forgot why I was there talking to him.
It was getting late, and I was on my third cup of coffee, this one decaf, when I heard the dog barking. I assumed it was the neighbour’s until Matt sighed and got to his feet.
“The boys are late getting their dinner. I best go feed them, or they’ll eat each other.” He grinned, suddenly looking slightly wolfish, and I blinked.
“You’ve got dogs?” I managed.
“Yeah, pair of Staffys. They’re good lads. I best go feed them.”
I wanted to see the dogs for myself, but Matt looked at me in a way that clearly prompted it was time for me to head home.
“Pleasure seeing you again,” I said, putting down my coffee mug and holding out a hand. He shook it firmly with a friendly grin.
“And you, mate. Drop by again sometime, though maybe call first next time, aye?”
I laughed like he wanted me to and promised that I would, going into
the hallway to pull my coat on. Amy came down the stairs to give me a wave and a nod, and then I saw myself out the door and into the dark evening.
I could still hear the dogs’ barking as I walked away slowly down the street, the wintry cold absolutely vicious at this time of night. I shuddered and walked a little faster, glancing back just once at Matt’s house. The lights were on in the windows, though the upstairs curtains had been pulled closed, and the door was closed. I’d felt like I could feel eyes on the back of my neck as I moved away, but it was surely just paranoia.
We’d not talked about anything even vaguely suspicious, and I’d certainly not tried to push the conversation towards it. Matt had seemed too sharp for that in a way Phil wasn’t and too closed off. Phil seemed to see me as the same old mate he’d known years back, whereas Matt openly said that it’d been years since he’d seen me, making it quite clear to me that he didn’t trust me much.
Still, the fact that he’d known my dad had got my foot in the door, where I didn’t think he’d have given the time of day to a stranger. As friendly and open as he’d seemed, he hadn’t revealed anything below the surface, and it made me wonder about what he was wary of.
I pondered Amy, too, as I hurried back to the car. She’d looked a good few years younger than Matt. Not that I thought it mattered if a couple were in love and the pair had seemed to be. But did she know? Perhaps she really believed that Matt worked the stock market online like he’d said, or maybe she knew better like I did. Maybe he did some investing in his spare time, but I would’ve bet good money on him still having his fingers in a few pies, despite the fact that he was getting on a bit now. He had the same edge to him that I’d noticed as a teenager, and that had unnerved me enough to want to keep away from him. After a couple of decades in the police, I was more than used to it now, but he definitely still had it.
The question now was whether he was involved in the dogfighting that had led me to his door or whether I was going in entirely the wrong direction. Phil had wanted to see me again and, as little as I really wanted to, given a choice, I thought now that I ought to take him up on the offer. He was small fry, just as he’d always been, but if I was seen moving back in those circles again, maybe Matt would unbend enough to tell me something worthwhile.
I reached the car, my thoughts still churning away in my head, no doubt fuelled by all the coffee I’d drank at the Hartley’s. I needed to eat something to soak it up when I got back to my apartment, or I’d never get any sleep.
Turning the car’s heating up high, I gave Stephen a call to let him know that I was all in one piece and that there’d been nothing to worry about.
“Forgive me for caring,” he snarked, sounding pretty tired. “With your track record, someone has to keep an eye on you while Sam’s away.”
I huffed a slightly sad laugh. “You’ll be stuck with that job now, then.”
“Aw, I’m sorry, mate. Maybe she’ll come back, hey? You don’t know.”
“I don’t reckon so.” I sighed. “Look, it’s late. Talk to you tomorrow, okay?”
“Sure. Glad you’re safe.”
We ended the call, and I tossed my phone onto the passenger seat, getting the car started up so that I could get home and fall into bed.
My mind was still buzzing with thoughts about my conversation with Matt and the dogs I’d heard barking outside as I arrived back at the flat. I climbed the concrete steps with weary legs and could almost hear Stephen’s voice in my ear, telling me not to get in over my head with Matt and his lot. Not that he’d necessarily know that it would be dangerous, I corrected myself, because I’d still not fully confided in him or Sam about my past.
The idea made my earlier headache threaten to return, and I banished the thought, for now, focused only on filling my belly and getting to bed. Tomorrow I’d deal with processing everything that had happened today and sorting out what to do next.
Right now, I was standing at a crossroads with no idea which road led to the destination I wanted to arrive at. There was always the option to retreat, and I knew that Stephen would suggest it when he found out how this case had already begun to get tangled up with the personal for me. But I’d spent too much time walking away from everything that had happened with my dad, and I felt like this case would take me down that road, one way or another.
I just had to make sure I was ready to face it.
Ten
As I ran into work the next morning, carefully watching the pavement for icy spots, I was already dreading the questions Stephen was going to have for me. He arrived earlier than usual, too, so my hair was still damp from the shower when he plonked himself down in the desk chair next to me.
“Alright, spill. How’d it go?”
“Nothing too exciting. We just did small talk, really.”
“I guess it was too much to ask that he confess to being a hardened criminal within the first few minutes,” Stephen said dryly, and I managed a smile. “Do you think he is involved in all of this?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. He had a couple of dogs, Staffys, he said, but that doesn’t mean anything for sure. It seems like a hell of a coincidence that his name has come up, though. I think he’s worth looking into further.”
“You’re planning to meet up with him again, then?” Stephen said. He was clearly trying to keep a neutral tone, but his expression belied his dislike of that idea.
“Aye, probably, and with Phil too.”
“Who’s Phil?”
I ran a hand down my face and leaned back in my chair. I’d needed to talk to Stephen about all of this, but it didn’t make it much easier.
“Phil’s an old mate of mine, from when I was a teenager. I ran into him in Aldi the other day, and we had a drink at the pub.”
“Yeah?” Stephen said with a faint frown. He was no doubt wondering how this tied in with the rest of it.
“He was always muddled up with the wrong people, Steph. And he was fairly open with me about still being involved in all that. I told him I was an accountant, and he seemed interested in that. He runs a garage or something, but it’s almost certainly a front.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this at the time?”
“I don’t know. It’s complicated, mate.”
“Complicated how?”
“I don’t- Look, let me get a coffee, then I’ll tell you.”
I came back a couple of minutes later feeling a touch calmer, handing him a cup of tea before I sat down. I released a breath and slowly spelt out my somewhat murky past for him, including my dad’s late-night business deals and the sort of friends I’d gone around with.
“I never did anything worse than a bit of petty theft and joyriding, but I might’ve done, y’know, if my dad hadn’t died.”
“That’s when you left?” Stephen’s frown had softened as he listened to me talk, and I hoped to God it didn’t mean he was pitying me. Pity would’ve been admittedly a better response than mistrust, but only barely.
“Aye. Phil sorted a bunch of things out for my dad’s funeral and dealing with his stuff. Selling his house, too. I owe him for that.”
“You feel indebted to him?” Stephen said, his frown deepening again. “Mitch, if you’re going to go and see him again, you can’t go in there feeling like you owe him. He’s a criminal, and you’ve-”
“Okay, okay, I know,” I said quickly. “I wouldn’t let it affect my judgement or anything. I’m just saying that he’s got some, like, expectation that I’ll help him because of what happened when I was younger.”
“Alright, I got it.”
I glanced at him, trying to gauge how he was taking this. His tea was mostly untouched, and he frowned down at the desk, obviously deep in thought. From what he’d told me of his past, he’d grown up without a whole lot of money, but he’d never gone off the straight and narrow. Maybe he’d suspected that my reluctance to speak about personal things meant that my past wasn’t squeaky clean, or maybe this had come as a shock to him, I couldn’t quite te
ll.
“Penny for your thoughts?” I tried a little weakly.
“You’d need at least a quid to get all of this,” he chuckled, waving a hand at his head. He turned and whatever was on my face made him pause. “Don’t worry, though, okay? We’re good. I’m just thinking it all over. It’s kind of a surprise.”
“I bet,” I said, relieved to hear that he didn’t seem upset or annoyed.
“What’re our next steps then? You said you want to talk to this Phil bloke again. Have you contacted him?”
“Not yet. I was umming and arring over talking to Rashford about it all first.”
“Not a bad idea to give her a heads up. Although, we haven’t got much to report right now. Just a couple of weird coincidences and a lot of ‘what ifs.’”
“That’s unfortunately true. So we’ll hold off on telling her until we’ve got something concrete?”
“Yeah, I reckon so. Unless we need back-up or extra tech, then we’ll have to let her know.”
“She knows we’re looking into the dogfighting case anyway, so it’s only the personal angle she’s not aware of,” I said, rubbing my hand over the stubble on my cheek. I’d been so keen to get out on a run to burn off some of my agitation this morning that I hadn’t stopped to shave.
“She’ll need to know, eventually.”
I agreed with that, and we were silent for a pause, me taking a sip of coffee and Stephen staring into space. I pulled out my phone a moment later and flicked through the contacts for the number Phil had given me. I fired off a brief text saying that it’d been good to see him, and I wouldn’t mind meeting up again if he wanted to.
“I texted Phil.”
“Do you think he’ll be keen to see you again?”
“Aye, probably. He was hinting that he wanted me to fiddle with some of the garage’s financial accounts.”
“Because he thinks you’re an accountant,” Stephen said, looking amused but trying not to be.
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