Bones In the River

by Zoe Sharp

  Nick saw the moment when Dylan’s gaze changed, from looking at the pictures, to looking through them, as his mind whirled.

  “Where were you off to, Mr Elliot—driving in your vehicle—on the evening that Jordan was run down and killed?”

  The emphasis was not lost on him, and Nick watched the panic bloom in his face, quickly stifled.

  “You can’t be serious. You think I’d do something like that?”

  Nick shrugged. “Maybe it was an accident—to begin with, at least. Maybe you ran into Jordan in the dark? Unlit road, a beer or two in your system, perhaps? Who could blame you for not wanting to own up to something like that?”

  “No! Is that really the best you lot can do? The countryside’s swarming with Gypsies and you think I—?”

  “You lied to the police, Dylan,” Nick cut across him, his voice cool. “Why would you do that if you had nothing to hide?”

  Dylan opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again. He swallowed. “Look, yes, OK, so I went out that night. Not admittin’ it when you first asked was…unwise, probably. But I don’t always want ’Vonne to know my business. And, havin’ you lot turn up out of the blue, tellin’ us something like that, well, I wasn’t thinking straight. Shock, you know?”

  “Of course you were in shock, lad,” Pollock said. “Only natural. But you must see, in light of this new evidence, we have to check where you were and who you were with?”

  Dylan’s face twitched. It had begun to shine under the lights.

  “We’ll find out eventually, so why not save all of us some time and trouble, and just come clean?” Pollock coaxed. “I’d hazard a guess that, whatever you were up to, it wasn’t exactly above board, but what’s worse? Having your wrists slapped for some minor misdemeanour, or being accused of killing a child?”

  “It weren’t like that! I… I wasn’t doing nothin’ illegal, like.”

  But.

  Nick heard it loud and clear, and knew Pollock would have done, too.

  “Well then, where’s the harm in telling us?” Pollock, the picture of warmth and friendliness.

  Dylan’s eyes skimmed from one to the other and he scowled.

  Nick let his breath out, as if annoyed, gathered the print-outs and slapped them back into the folder. “We’re wasting our time here, sir,” he said to Pollock. “He’s lied to us, he won’t give us an alibi. I think we’ve enough to go to the CPS and charge him. The only decision left now is, do we go for manslaughter or murder?”

  “For God’s sake…” The anguish twisted Dylan’s voice into a squawk. “If it had been me—and I’m not admittin’ nothing, here—then I would have stopped, called an ambulance. I mean, come on! Why would I not try to save my own son?”

  “That’s just it, though, isn’t it, Dylan?” Nick said. “Jordan wasn’t your son, was he?”

  He watched the micro-expression of surprise on Dylan’s face. Not because of the information itself, Nick realised, but because they—the police—knew about it.

  “I brought him up,” he said at last, more quietly. “That makes him mine.”

  “Really? Are you sure you didn’t come across him, out on the road, and decide it was a good opportunity to rid yourself of a kid that wasn’t yours to start with?”

  “If I’d wanted rid of him, there have been plenty of better chances than that,” Dylan flashed at him, finally pushed into temper.

  “You might only recently have found out about his…parentage,” Nick suggested.

  Dylan slumped in his chair and gave a short harsh laugh. “Do me a favour! I’ve known for years he wasn’t mine.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “With that colouring? It was obvious he was a cuckoo in the nest from very early on, I can tell you.”

  “But you never said anything to your wife, or to Jordan himself?”

  “What would be the point in that?”

  “You wanted a son,” Pollock said quietly. “Three girls before him, another two after. You were desperate for a son, weren’t you?”

  Dylan said nothing, but his body language spoke for him.

  “Mr Elliot, if you are not prepared to provide an alibi for the night in question, you will leave us no choice but to charge you in connection with the death of your…of Jordan Elliot,” Nick said, keeping his tone expressionless. “And of dumping his body into the River Eden like a bag of unwanted trash—”

  “That’s enough!” Dylan jerked to his feet, sending the chair skittering back into the wall. He loomed over the table, jaw set, fists clenched so hard they quivered. “That’s enough,” he repeated, almost a whisper.

  Nick did not react to the outburst, just eyed him impassively. “Sit down, Mr Elliot.”

  “Come on, lad. Why don’t you just sit down and tell us where you were, eh?”

  “All right,” Dylan muttered. He rubbed his hands over his face slowly, finally letting them drop away as he sank into his chair again, shoulders rounded. “All right, I’ll tell you.” He met Nick’s gaze, steadier now but hollowed out. “But you’re not gonna like it…”

  67

  Queenie would have preferred to wait for darkness but there wasn’t time enough for that.

  She would have preferred seclusion, also, but the opportunity did not present itself.

  So she had to make do with what she had, which was a small element of surprise and, hidden in the folds of her skirt, a dagger with a long slender blade that tapered to a needle-sharp point.

  Vano stayed long enough only to finger his man. A big feller, not quite fat, bulky in the shoulder and long in the arm. He was loitering in the crowds that lined the flashing lane, watching the horses with a brooding eye.

  “And the pair with him,” Vano muttered, then slunk away to the shelter of the other men he recognised as kith and kin.

  Bartley was still by her shoulder. She threw him a final haughty glance. “Leave me be.”

  He looked as if he might argue. She was torn which way she wanted him to fall. He fell on the side of his own skin, as she’d prayed he might. He, too, blended into the crowd.

  The pair Vano had indicated stood by the barrier—to the man’s right, but you couldn’t have everything. Queenie spent a moment longer watching the air between the three of them. They were together but apart, with no craic between them, no banter. Bound by some form of duty, rather than friendship.

  Hard to know, from that, how they would react to a threat that might be more subtle than they were accustomed to facing.

  Queenie closed her eyes for a moment, drew a breath deep into her lungs and let it out slowly. Then she moved forward, putting sway and swagger into the walk, a swing of the hips that still had the power to make men stare and trip over their tongues.

  Not that the man by the barrier was watching her, of course, but it gave her a jolt of courage when it was most needed.

  She squeezed in alongside, to his left, turning into him rather than away. His gaze jerked from the lane and was instantly lured down the front of her blouse. She’d left a button or two undone and knew without vanity that he’d find the view too enticing to resist.

  “Hello, Karl,” she murmured, her voice a throaty purr.

  He moved his arm before she could press in close and she thought for a moment she’d been rumbled. But all he did was grab for the back pocket of his jeans, where no doubt he had his wallet, mistaking her moves for fakery.

  Queenie pressed close, trapping the arm against his body with one hand wrapped in his sleeve. The other, still hidden from view, pressed the tip of the dagger low against his inner thigh. She smiled at him. A brilliant smile that furrowed his brow as she leaned up toward his ear.

  “I don’t believe I need to tell you to keep very still, friend, if you value living.”

  His response was to try to wrench free. Queenie tightened her grip and shifted the dagger a fraction. The tip slipped through the weave of the cloth with hardly a pause, and through the outer layer of his skin with even less hesitation.r />
  “That little prick you feel in your pants?” she asked. “Well, that little prick is a whisper from doing you some serious harm, friend. At present, it’s no more than a warning. Up to you if that’s how it remains.” She left a pause, felt him make a conscious effort to relax and drew back by maybe a millimetre. “There now. All I want to do is talk.”

  “Get that thing out of me,” he snarled through frozen lips. “Then we can talk all you want.”

  “Oh no, I think I like your attention just the way it is, for the moment,” she said. “But bear in mind you’re surrounded by my people here. One wrong twitch and you’ll be bleeding out on the ground before your pals know what’s happened, and nobody around you will have seen or heard a thing, I promise you that.”

  “All right! Have it your way. Say what you have to, girl.”

  He daren’t even twist his head to look at her, she realised. All the better for that.

  “You’d a bare-knuckle fight arranged for tonight, had you not?”

  “’S’right.”

  “As you well know by now, Jackson went for an unexpected dip in the river, cracked open his skull and is still in his bed in the hospital.”

  “So what? Not my problem, eh? We found an alternative who’s prepared to step up.”

  “McMahon,” she said flatly.

  The man forgot his situation enough to start nodding, stopped again abruptly.

  “Bartley Smith will not be fighting your man McMahon,” Queenie said. “He retired from the ring.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since a couple of hours ago. Family pressure, you might say.”

  “You, you mean?”

  Queenie chose not to answer. After a moment, the man let his breath out, slow and careful. “I’m out of pocket. Can’t just let that go, however…persuasive you might be, eh?”

  She could almost admire the balls of the man, considering how close he was to losing them.

  “I don’t expect you to suffer financially for this…late cancellation,” she said. “But let me tell you now, ask for more than we’ve a hope of paying and you’d best be prepared to sleep with one eye open from now on.”

  He let out a grunt that seemed to signify as much respect as it did disgust. Another horse came by in the lane, pulling a lightweight racing sulky. It was pacing rather than trotting, both legs on each side moving forward and back at the same time, rather than in diagonal pairs. The driver struggled for control as they tore along, the horse fighting for its head all the way. Full of spit and spirit.

  They came within a hair’s breadth of the barrier, so that Queenie almost flinched away. She felt him relax slightly under her hands, as if the sign of her weakness gave him courage of his own. She tensed, as though he were about to start something.

  “I want that colt.”

  “That one?” she said blankly, thinking of the horse that had just flashed past. Speed but no stamina. “I think you’ll find that was a mare.”

  “Your colt,” the man said. “The one your father bred.”

  “No.” An automatic response while her mind scattered into turmoil.

  “Why not? Came here to sell it, didn’t you?”

  “Sell, yes. Give away, no.”

  “Think of it as barter,” the man said. “Your man’s life for the horse. A fair exchange, eh?”

  She forgot herself enough to ask, “What would you want with a horse like that?”

  “That’s my business. Got contacts, haven’t I? Know what he’s worth.”

  So did she.

  Everything.

  But not anything.

  Not that.

  Swallowing back the acid taste in her mouth, she gave a single, jerky nod. “All right. He’s yours. If,” she added quickly, “there’s been no trouble, no comebacks, by the end of the Fair, and nothing after. Come for him then.”

  He did look at her then, pushed his face in close to hers. “You best not try to wriggle out of this. A deal’s a deal, after all.” He let his eyes wander over her features, slow and insulting, but making sure he’d know her again anywhere. “You break your word, girl, and I’ll break you. You get me?”

  “If you break yours, I’ll do more than that,” she threw back at him, bitter. “I’ll curse you from the very grave.”

  Her only satisfaction was that she just had time to see the instinctive alarm flare in his eyes before he could mask it. She released him, disappearing the dagger up her sleeve as she slipped away into the crowd.

  68

  “Will you get in there, you awkward, little—”

  The sound of the workshop door swinging open chopped off Blenkinship’s muttered invective. Levering with a pry bar and one last shove, he managed to trap the torn piece of T-shirt between the coil spring and its housing. He risked a last quick check. The cloth was barely visible—just enough to be spotted. Not so far it would look planted.

  Even though it was.

  He took a couple of hasty steps forward, inspection lamp in hand, and hooked it back over part of the front suspension. Then he reached up and continued what would appear to an onlooker to be a fingertip search of the steering rack and engine mounts. All the while, he listened intently to the footsteps approaching across the concrete floor. A throat cleared.

  “Er, hi boss.” Ty Frost’s voice, hesitant, as usual.

  “Oh, hello, Ty. Didn’t hear you come in.”

  Blenkinship ducked out from under the side of the hydraulic lift, where he had Dylan Elliot’s old Ford hatchback up in the air.

  “Just thought I’d come and see if I could give you a hand, like.”

  Blenkinship blinked in surprise, aware of the sudden increase in his heart rate. A primal response to flee and keep fleeing from any source of danger. But something made him hold back on his instinctive sharp “No!” And not because he thought Frost might wet himself if he were shouted at.

  Although that’s a distinct possibility, even so.

  “Well…” He frowned as if in consideration and didn’t have to fake the brightening of his expression. “You know what? That would actually be a big help. Thanks, Ty.”

  “Really? Oh, er, right. I’ll get suited up.”

  “Aye. Canny.”

  The young CSI trotted across to the office and disappeared inside. When he’d gone, Blenkinship wilted onto the toolbox in front of him, arms braced, and let his head drop.

  That was too close for comfort.

  By the time Frost returned, a minute or so later, he had regained something of his poise, making a show of documenting his examination so far and taking a couple more pictures.

  “Right, boss. Where would you like me to start?”

  Frost was almost pathetically eager to please. Blenkinship pursed his lips, looking at the car as if the choice wasn’t screaming at him.

  “Well, I suppose as I’ve made a start on the front end, if you wouldn’t mind doing the rear and working your way forward, we’ll meet somewhere in the middle, eh?”

  “Right you are.”

  Blenkinship let him work in silence for a minute or two before he couldn’t control the urge to add, “Make sure you have a good poke around in all the nooks and crannies, won’t you? You can never tell what you might find stuck in the crevices in a case like this.”

  “Er, funny you should say that, boss,” Frost said a moment later. There was excitement in his voice with no hint of suspicion. “I think I may have got something…”

  69

  Grace stood by the doorway leading to the main bedroom of the Elliots’ farmhouse, watching Yvonne weep into a soggy tissue on the unmade double bed. In one corner was the baby’s cot, squeezed-in between a cheap flat-pack wardrobe and an overstuffed chest of drawers.

  She had come galloping back from Orton after her hasty shower, hair still damp. Now, she realised that there’d been no need to hurry. Yvonne Elliot was unlikely to confide in her, however patiently she waited. Grace had never been one for crying, not even when her father died with all
the longed-for praise left unspoken. It put her at something of a loss to know how best to deal with women who wept long and easily at every situation.

  “I won’t p–press charges,” Yvonne managed now, on a hiccup. “If Mr Pollock had waited until I was more me’self, like, I could’a told him that.”

  “They still had the right to arrest Dylan, as he’d just assaulted you, regardless of whether or not charges are brought,” Grace pointed out. “Domestic abuse is taken very seriously these days, I’m glad to say.”

  Yvonne cast her a doubtful look through red-rimmed eyes. The lower part of her face on the right-hand side was swollen and had started to yellow. It pulled the corner of her mouth down into a lopsided frown. So far, she had refused to allow anyone to photograph the result of her husband’s handiwork. There wasn’t much Grace could do about that other than try gentle persuasion.

  “This has happened before, hasn’t it?”

  “It’s not his fault—I’m stupid, see? And he gets fed up with me goin’ on at him, sometimes. Can’t blame him for that, can I? Not really.”

  “That’s not a good enough reason to hit you. Or an excuse for having done so.”

  Yvonne lifted one bony shoulder in a half-hearted shrug.

  Grace let her eyes drift around the room, the small windows in the thick stone walls making it gloomy, even in daylight. A towering pile of ironing was stacked on the lone chair, a refugee from the kitchen by the look of it. On the far side of the bed, the side table held a messy stack of car magazines, their pages well thumbed and curling. On Yvonne’s side was a frame with cut-outs in the mount for half-a-dozen photographs. It had been filled with baby pictures of each of the Elliot children, mostly fuzzy snapshots, glaring with too much flash. She tried to work out which was which, couldn’t quite do it. There were no obvious clues to gender, so she couldn’t even pick out Jordan from his sisters, apart from one baby with a wisp of dark hair.