“Local security company. They do a lot in similar places, a few other galleries and historic sites in the city. Even a place out in the moors. Just as Ms Goddard told us,” he continued. “Eliminates the need for an in-house security team. If the system detects an intruder, it locks down. Basically, turn the whole house into a little cell until a response comes.”
“An old place like that?” I wondered. “With all those old windows?”
“I’m not going into the full specifics on how it works, but it's enough to keep people from trying in any case. And with the cameras around the house and the girls always there to keep an eye, I doubt they really need much more.”
“They certainly trust each other to keep it secure. One of them locking up a valuable house like that each night. A close-knit team.”
Mills nodded. “I’ve been in touch. They’re working on the footage, should get it to us in a day or two.” He stood up, looking tired. “What was that about coffee?”
I chuckled and nodded to the door, following him from the room. I spotted Wasco across the way, his curly black hair tufted around like he’d been electrocuted and waved Mills on, joining him in the hallway.
“Wasco,” I greeted him.
“Thatcher. Got that phone for you.”
“Anything useful?” I asked as he handed it over. It was a Blackberry, several years old.
‘Not at first glance, but there’s barely anything on it,” he noted. “Definitely just one for taking and making calls that.”
“No social media?”
“Doesn’t look that way. Doesn’t even have her emails coming through.”
She must have a laptop then, I thought. Again, another reason to go to her house.
“Apparently, they’re pushing for suicide,” Wasco was saying. I shook myself from my tunnel of thoughts and looked back at him. “But you wouldn’t be here if it was so simple.”
“Maybe I got bored at home,” I told him. Wasco gave me a dry look.
“I’m sure you did. Suspect foul play?” he asked as we walked over to the kitchen where Mills hunched over the kettle, waiting for it to click.
“Seems likely. If she did it herself, I think someone must have been intimidated her into it. Doesn’t make sense otherwise.”
I opened her phone, letting Wasco and Mills chat, scrolling through her contacts. Recent calls were sparse, she didn’t seem much of a phone person. Her contacts were all named, and the only ones that were recently were to the house itself, to Goddard, short calls that all occurred in the morning, or to services. Her contact book itself was pretty empty. Not a lot of family, no calls to parents or friends. But the most recent of calls had been made almost a week ago, so this seemed a fairly worthless thing to spend much time over. We needed her laptop. I’d wager we’d find more there than anywhere else.
Mills handed me a mug and nodded at the phone. “Anything?”
“Nope. No calls to her parents, no texts, nothing.”
The sergeant frowned at that. “What about a partner? A boyfriend, girlfriend?”
“Nothing that I can see.”
“Not everyone like a phone,” Wasco put in. “All the crap that they store on you, all the data.” He patted his shirt pocket where his trusty dinosaur of a phone sat. “Safer.”
“For a man so knowledgeable about technology,” I commented. “You really don’t keep up to date with it.”
“It’s because I know so much about technology that I don’t keep up to date with it,” he countered. “Let me know when you find something more fun for me to break into.”
“A woman’s dead, Wasco,” I reminded him gently.
“To respectful break into.” He clinked his mug against mine and ambled off.
“So,” Mills looked at me, “Viviane Charles’s house?”
“Drink up, and let’s go.” And pray we actually find something of use for this poor girl.
Five
Thatcher
On our way out from the station, Smith caught up with us.
“I managed to get in touch with her parents,” she said, following us down the stairs to the front doors. I stopped, glaring out at the rain that still fell and turned to her instead.
“How did they sound?”
“Hard to tell,” she said with a shrug. “They’ll be in this afternoon to identify the body formally and answer some questions. Around three.”
“We’ll be back by then,” I assured her. “If not, offer them tea, make them comfortable until we get here.”
“Yes, sir.” She turned on her heel and vanished back up the stairs, unusually spry for a Sunday. Mills appeared in her place, buttoning his coat up with a grimace to the outside.
“I’ll drive,” I told him, heading out into the downpour. We jogged to my car, the rainwater splashing up our legs and quickly clambered in. My hair was soaked, matted down on my head. The water ran along the strands, dripping down into my face. I raked it back irritably as I started the engine.
“I need a haircut,” I muttered, reversing from the space.
“You do have something of a greaser look going, sir.” Mills told me sheepishly. I glanced at myself in the mirror. He wasn’t wrong, throw on a leather jacket, and I’d be well away.
I drove us from the station, listening to the radio as we roamed the streets, the windscreen wipers furiously swishing across as the rain continued to fall down in a heavy sheet. At least it wasn’t humid. I couldn’t stand the humidity. Rain like this is better than a storm, I always think. We were quiet as we drove, the pressure of this case unusually high. We were on a short time limit, a delicate matter to solve. I hoped that Viviane’s parents should be able to offer us a little more insight into their daughter’s life, her wellbeing. Though, as I very well knew to my own cost, not all relationships with parents were open and plain sailing.
Not like Mills and his family, anyway. He was very quiet, studying the little notes he had made when we were at the house, occasionally looking up to give me a direction or to chuckle at something on the radio. I thought he had been right, calling me when he did, but the doubt seemed to be pooling around him more and more as we went. Sharp hadn’t helped, but he had good instincts, I’d always said it. Nothing about that crime scene felt right, nothing about the house or the people. I was glad he called me in, even if just to get me out of the house.
Viviane Charles had lived in a quiet corner of the city, not far from the busy centre, but not quite in the residential suburbs. It was a popular area for students, with plenty of coffee shops and vegan food places. The streets were usually home to art sprawled tastefully across the brick walls, and on a dry day, we’d be dodging cyclists, young parents with prams or random old men with paint in their beards. I pulled up to the kerb, peering out of the rain-spattered window to the buildings across the street. A row of shops and cafes, their brick facades painted in blues, greens and pinks. They were modern in contrast to the buildings themselves, the music that tumbled out of them sounding too youthful for me. Inside one of them, a girl with bright blue hair served tables, laughing happily with her customers. It was nice to see, not a bad place to live. We climbed from the car, and I pulled my coat up over my head as we made for the little alley that ran between two buildings, splashing through the puddles as we went. It ran into a little courtyard where a few sets of stairs ran up to the flats that lived above the businesses on the street.
‘Number four,’ Mills pointed to it, at the back of the courtyard. I fished Viviane’s keys from my pocket and headed for the stairs, quickly unlocking the door so that we could stand in the dry flat. Mills shut us in, and I looked around.
It was a good-sized place, the sort you’d be able to afford with a job such as hers. The hallway was painted pale yellow, the roof light above us letting in some of the dismal light outside. I stood beside a small table with takeaway menus left on it, a bowl with a few spare keys dropped inside and a tube of lipstick. A mirror hung above it, and besides that, three hooks where a few coats
and scarves still sat. We walked on, Mills ducking through an arch into the kitchen as I headed for the living room straight ahead. A big window looked out onto the park behind us, a few figures hidden beneath umbrellas moving about like ants, one man impatiently waiting for his dog to finish his business.
The walls were white, filled with framed art and posters, embroidery, hanging plants and a large clock. A sofa was pushed against one wall, a pair of slippers discarded by it, a rumpled blanket left tossed over the arm and an open magazine lying face down. An empty wine glass sat on the coffee table, alongside a tea-stained mug and a small box of chocolates. It didn’t look like she was planning to go anywhere, I thought. It looked like she’d only stepped out for a bit. A mustard-coloured armchair sat by the window, and on the far wall, shelves boasting an impressive selection of DVDs framed a bookshelf and a television. There were a few photographs on the bookshelf and went over, squatting down for a closer look. They were old, of whom I took to be Viviane as a little girl, standing hand in hand with a grey-haired man in what looked like a museum. He was in the next photo too, Viviane a little older now, the picture taken in a badly furnished university room. No other photographs, none of her parents or any friends. I straightened up and went back to the hall, sticking my head in the kitchen.
Mills crouched on the floor, looking in the small under the cupboard fridge. He glanced up as I came in.
“She’s got a well-stocked kitchen. Looks like she went to the shops a few days ago,” he said, standing up and closing the door. “Anything in the living room?”
“Looks like she just stepped out. Things where she left them, almost already to come back to.”
Mills frowned and stepped out from the kitchen. “Two more rooms,” he pointed out, nodding to the doors in the hallway. “Bathroom too.”
I turned and opened the door closest to us, wandering into Viviane’s bedroom. The bed was made, a little stuffed bear guarding the pillows until she came back. A few clothes were draped around, shoes left on the floor. Mills tentatively opened the top drawer of her chest of drawers as I wandered to the bed. A phone charger rested on her bedside table, an oil diffuser beside it. I opened the wardrobe, finding it more organised than anything else in the flat had appeared to be. The clothes were bright, cheerful, boldly patterned and coloured, and yet professional.
“Anything?” I asked Mills over my shoulder.
“Not in here, sir,” he replied, shutting the drawer.
“Next room then,” I shut the wardrobe and aimed for the door. It was likely a spare bedroom, if anything, but I felt hopeful as I opened the door. The room was much smaller, taken up by littered bookshelves and a desk.
“Blimey,” Mills said softly over my shoulder.
“Blimey is right,” I answered, stepping into the room. The books Viviane had in her were almost all textbooks. Books on ruins and excavations, on ancient history and anthropology. A map of the world hung above the desk, the surface covered with paper and photocopied pages from books. I picked one up, looking at the images. They were artefacts, old findings from an excavation in Egypt.
“She certainly liked her conservation,” I muttered.
“Really did,” Mills agreed, his tone slightly shocked. I turned around and found that he had opened a cupboard in the shelves, the glass doors protecting a small collection. There was a stone carving, shaped like a woman, a dark wooden animal, a clay teapot and its cups, some sort of bronze Celtic disc and what looked to be just a lump of rock.
“She was a collector,” I muttered, peering closer at the items. A degree in heritage studied was framed on the shelf beside them.
Mills opened the next cabinet and swore lightly. I imagined it had once been a carefully arranged collection like the other, but the items were all displaced, toppled over, shoved aside. Little shards of glass even sparkled on the wood from something. Mills reached in carefully and withdrew the broken item, a necklace, it appeared to be.
“Sir,” Mills pointed into the cabinet, to an empty stand. “One’s missing.”
I pulled back, feeling energy jolt through me. Now we were onto something. A ransacked cupboard of collections with one of them missing. It would enough, at least, for Sharp to give us the go-ahead on a murder investigation. It had to be. Or, if nothing else, evidence of foul play.
“Let’s hope she kept records,” I muttered, turning to the desk, sitting in the chair and opening the drawers.
There were only two, both deep and almost stuffed to the brim. I passed one to Mills, who sat on the floor, and shrugged his coat off, rolling his sleeves to his elbows and digging in. I heaved the drawer up to the desk, picking up the first thing. It was a list of book titles, several of them crossed off, no doubt as she added them to her collection. The next thing I picked up was another picture, again of the white-haired man. He stood in front of a wall of shelves, proudly grinning at the camera. He was older now, leaning on a walking stick, his cardigan hanging a little loose around his middle. I looked closer at the picture and realised that many of the objects in Viviane’s collections were featured with him there. I flipped it over and found a small scrawl in her handwriting.
Grandad showing off his collection. 2013.
“Records!” came Mills’s triumphant voice. I spun in the chair, keeping a hold of the photograph and bent down. He’d pulled out a leather-bound folder and opened it up, finding a page with the teapot on.
“All her items,” he said as he flicked through. “Where they came from, their history. Licenses of ownership. Ah.” He stopped on a page and looked back up to the cabinet. “This must be the one that’s missing.” He turned the folder around, letting me look.
It looked like, well, to be honest, I had no idea what it was. It was some sort of gilded cube, but it was beautiful, whatever it was.
“Anything on it?” I asked.
Mills flipped forward and back a few pages around the image, the crease between his brows deepening. “No. Just the image.”
“Interesting. Give it here.” I stretched out my hand. “We can take to an expert. See if they know what it's worth.”
“Looks like a robbery?” Mills asked, standing and looking at the defiled cabinet. There were no other signs of a break-in, no busted locks or broken windows.
“Looks that way. But getting from here to a hanging,” I shook my head, “will be a difficult leap.”
“Maybe she was that heartbroken about it being gone?”
“But not to report it?” I questioned.
“There’s nothing in there about it,” he reminded me, pointing to the folder. “Maybe she wasn’t exactly on the right side of things in owning it in the first place.”
“Maybe,” I allowed, “but that doesn’t mean she’d kill herself, especially at work. Look around.” I waved an arm around the flat. “This place looks like she’d be back any second.”
“She lives alone,” Mills muttered. “If she killed herself here, nobody would have known.” His voice had fallen, dejected. He was second-guessing himself, second-guessing the whole thing.
“None of this would be out of place in a murder investigation,” I reminded him. “If anything, it’s the right lead we need.”
“What if we’re wrong?”
“Do you think we are?” I asked him. He looked up, eyes searching the room, lingering on the desk, the cabinet, the photo of her grandfather I still held.
“No,” he said at long last.
“Neither do I.” Mills smiled up at me from the ground, and his expression altered suddenly. He leant forward, reaching under the desk and pulled out a satchel, flipping it open.
“Laptop,” he said, reaching in and pulling out the device.
“Good, let’s get it back to Wasco, see if he can get into it. Maybe Viviane kept more about her collection on there,” I added, offering Mills a hand up.
Mills nodded, rolling his sleeves down and took another look around the room. “She clearly had a passion,” he said. “Why work in the house, r
ather than following this?”
I shrugged, unable to offer any insight there. “Maybe she liked having it as a hobby.”
“Quite the hobby to die for,” he replied. “And lots of people have died for this sort of thing before. You think the neighbours might know anything?”
“We can try,” I said. “Check downstairs.”
The coffee shop was beneath us, and we gave the flat another once over before locking it safely up and heading downstairs. The rain had thinned out, no longer pelting us with large, hard drops of water. But we still made quick work at getting down the stairs and into the coffee shop. A few people looked at us as we came in, shaking the water from our heads. I headed to the counter, where the blue-haired girl was bent over a book.
“Excuse me.”
Her head shot up, and she closed her book with an easy smile.
“Afternoon, gents. What can I get for you?” She spoke with an accent, eastern European, though I couldn’t place where it was from exactly.
“Nothing just yet.” I fished out my warrant card. “I’m Detective Inspector Thatcher, North Yorkshire Police. I was wondering if you knew the young lady who lives above you?” I asked, putting my card away once she scanned it with wide eyes.
“Viviane? Course. Comes in every weekday morning, dirty chai to go,” she answered happily enough. “Nice girl, always tips.”
“Anyone ever with her? Boyfriend, girlfriend?”
The girl, Mandy, her name tag read, shook her head. “She used to bring a girl with her, but she hasn’t been here for ages.”
“And have you seen anyone else nearby recently? Going near her flat?”
Mandy shook her head. “But we do close at five, so. Is she in trouble?”
“I’m afraid Viviane is dead,” I told her softly, trying to keep my voice too low to travel around the cafe. Her face fell slightly, and she muttered something in a language I didn’t know, eyes cast towards the ceiling.
“How had she been recently?” I asked.
“The same,” Mandy shrugged. “She was excited about something. She wasn’t in yesterday,” she recalled suddenly. “I think she left for work early.”
DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crime Thrillers: Books 1-3 Page 55
