Bones In the River

by Zoe Sharp

  Pollock lowered himself gingerly onto the opposite end of the sofa. “Come on, Yvonne. He must have meant…something to you, if he were the first person you turned to in a crisis. So, what was it, lass?”

  “Our eldest—Jess,” Yvonne said dully. “She was still at primary school then. She fell, in the playground, cut her forehead and knocked hersel’ out. Dylan were…away somewhere when they rang me—the school. They’d sent for an ambulance. I needed to go with her but…the other kids…the baby. There weren’t nobody else I could call at that notice.”

  Nick frowned. “But Owen lived up near Penrith. Surely it would have taken him too long to—”

  She shook her head. “He rented part of the workshop from our Dyl’ to do some stuff on that old Escort of his, and he’d been here already that day. Only been gone about ten minutes. Said he was goin’ to stop off in Kirkby on his way home. Knew he wouldn’t have got far.”

  “So, you texted him, and he texted back,” Pollock said, encouraging her on. “What then?”

  “I saw him comin’ up the drive and went out. I’d got me coat on, and the baby in me arms. I handed him over and got straight in me car.”

  “That was it? He didn’t say anything to you?”

  She was crying now, tears bubbling over her lower lids and sliding down her cheeks. “He smiled at me and said how I wasn’t to worry. He’d take good care of him… But, when I got back, Owen was gone…”

  She bent forward, curled over the baby, sobbing.

  Along the hallway came the sound of the front door opening. Nick heard Dylan’s whiny voice protesting, as one of the uniforms hustled him in. The man had a tight grip on Dylan’s arm.

  “Sir,” he said to Pollock, his eyes flicking uncertainly over the woman weeping on the sofa.

  “Well, lad, spit it out.”

  “The barn, sir. There’s something out there you might like to see.”

  91

  Grace started her methodical search in the hallway, drawing a blank. Once everyone had cleared the sitting room, she moved on to there, then finally into the kitchen.

  Yvonne Elliot, she decided quickly, was not the most house-proud of women. But, to be fair, if she had half-a-dozen kids to look after, Grace supposed she wouldn’t be too bothered about keeping the corners free of cobwebs or the work surfaces tidy, either.

  Grace’s brief from DI Pollock before they left Hunter Lane was a broad one.

  “If Liddell did meet his end inside the Elliot house, it could have been eight years ago, which means there won’t be a lot left for you to find,” he’d told her.

  “You’d be surprised what people leave behind,” was her reply.

  “Aye, lass. Well, just do your best.”

  “I always do.”

  Even in a room with as much gathered grease and dust as this kitchen, she didn’t expect to find Owen’s hair or skin cells, or any other cast-off DNA. Not after all this time. Even if she did, there were any number of reasons why it might legitimately be there—none of them sinister.

  But she was bearing in mind that Owen had died from blunt-force trauma to the back of his skull. It was likely to have bled—and bled heavily. That kind of bleed, Grace knew, was hard to clean up and harder still to eradicate entirely.

  So, her search was more in the way of a sweep. If that came up empty, she would start again at the beginning.

  “Anything I can do to help, Ms McColl?”

  She glanced up. One of the uniformed PCs stood in the doorway. A youngster, not long out of probation, a slim figure bulked up by her stab vest and equipment.

  “It’s Grace,” she said. “And yes, if you’d stay by the door and get ready to hit the lights. It’s Rhona, isn’t it?”

  “That’s it.” The young PC grinned. They were always so pleased when anyone remembered their name. “Are you doing a Luminol test?”

  “Ah, you’ve been studying your forensics,” Grace said.

  The girl laughed. “Well, I’ve been watching CSI, if that’s what you mean.”

  Grace knelt on the draining board to tape a blackout cloth over the single window, disturbing the cobwebs as she did so. The window was deep set and relatively small, not letting in much light, but for her purposes she needed even less.

  Noting the way the girl leaned closer as Grace opened her kit, she said, “Actually, I use a fluorescein spray rather than Luminol.”

  “What’s the difference? Er, that’s if you don’t mind me asking questions?”

  “Oh, I don’t mind. Fluorescein doesn’t react with household bleach the way Luminol does, and it’s thicker so it tends to stick better on vertical surfaces.”

  Standing in the centre of the room, Grace sprayed the chemical outward around her, aiming for the lower cabinet doors under the sink. She worked her way along the doors, walls, the legs of the table and chairs, and finally round onto the face of the Aga. Then she nodded for the overhead strip light to go off, and passed over the areas she’d sprayed with a UV hand lamp.

  When she reached the Aga, the rail and part of the front doors lit up.

  “Wow,” the PC said. “That’s impressive.”

  Grace sprayed the Aga again, up onto the hotplate covers and down onto the floor in front of it as well, then scanned with the UV lamp. The result was the same, but more so.

  “You’re impressed,” Grace murmured. “I’m horrified…”

  With the light back on, she carefully inspected the grubby chequerboard of black and terracotta quarry tiles on the floor. They were probably original to the house, and several were no longer stuck down to the sub-surface. Grace managed to lever up one of the loose ones, sprayed the back of the tile and the area beneath it.

  “More blood,” the PC said quietly.

  In the leg pocket of her trousers, Grace’s mobile began to buzz. She had to delve awkwardly under her protective Tyvek suit to get to it. She answered with her mind still on the task in front of her.

  “CSI McColl.”

  It was only when the woman from the forensics lab introduced herself that Grace’s attention focused on the call. And the fact that the woman seemed to be apologising to her.

  “I’m sorry, what was that?”

  “It’s a cock-up,” the woman said. “Or a mis-communication, if you will. Normally, it’s something I would double-check at the time I passed on the results but, to be honest, your Mr Blenkinship was so abrupt that—”

  “So, what exactly has happened?”

  “The Owen Liddell results.” The woman sounded mortified. “Well, it appears we thought you were running them through the database.”

  “We managed to find a match via his dental records,” Grace recalled. She had assumed that Blenkinship would have run the dead man’s DNA anyway. But perhaps he had been too preoccupied by other concerns…

  “And also, the two results were uploaded more or less at the same time, so that might also explain it.”

  Grace took a breath. “Just so I’m clear, spell it out for me, would you?”

  “OK… The DNA from Owen Liddell is a familial match to your other victim—the boy, Jordan Elliot. They’re father and son.”

  Grace stilled, absorbing it. In a strange way, it made perfect sense. And, she realised, Yvonne knew. She must have known. Or why else would Owen be the one she called to look after the child in an emergency? Who else could she trust but the boy’s real father?

  Even the reason for the pink blanket wrapping the baby in the photograph suddenly became clear. Up to that point, Yvonne had given birth only to girls. They were not a well-off family. No surprise that the same baby blanket had been brought out and used again.

  “But still no indication of his mother?” she asked.

  “We widened out the search, as requested, and found a partial match to one Vano Smith. Uncle, possibly?” The woman paused. “Look, we’re embarrassed about the misunderstanding here. I’ve spoken to the lab manager at home and she’s prepared to take the cost of the fast-track off what’s owing—
”

  “It’s owing…”

  “Of course!” Grace said out loud. “Not owing but Owen… That’s what she said…”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “No, no, don’t be. That’s wonderful. Send those through to me, would you? And thank you. Thank you very much.”

  “Er…you’re welcome?” the woman said.

  As Grace ended the call, the PC said, “You look like you’ve just had a eureka moment.”

  “Yes, I rather think I have.” Grace speed-dialled the Kendal CSI office and, when the phone was answered, said, “Ah, Steve. I could do with a hand processing a scene up near Kirkby Stephen. Are either you or Tony free?”

  “You’ve just caught me on my way out the door to a stabbing. But Tony’s up at a farm robbery just past Grayrigg, so he’s halfway there already. I’ll let him know. Where are you and what’s up?”

  She gave him the address of the Elliots’ farmhouse. “Tell him the PC on the door, Rhona, will give him all the details when he arrives,” she said, receiving a big smile from the officer in question. “I’ve got to get over to Appleby before the Fair packs up and we miss our chance.”

  92

  Dylan was fuming.

  Being handcuffed, stuffed in the back of a cop car, and dragged into the cells at Penrith once was bad enough. But to haul him in again—and for this? He reckoned he had the right to show a bit of temper. It’s what anyone would do, if they was innocent…

  He didn’t know what ’Vonne had told ’em this time, but she’d find out what he thought about that as soon as they came to their senses and let him go. Something they were in no hurry to do. They’d processed him and stuck him in a cell, kicking his heels until the drippy bird, Ms Chadwick, arrived again. Then it was back to the same interview room as last time, facing Pollock and Weston across the same scarred table.

  Whatever the reason for it, he was getting heartily sick of this. He was being victimised, that’s what it was. No way would they try this on if he was some ethnic minority—they wouldn’t dare.

  As Pollock ran through the preliminaries, Weston was eyeing Dylan across the table. Something about him made Dylan uncomfortable. He was a bit too focused, a bit too predatory. Pollock was old-school and Dylan knew where he stood. Pollock would nick him if he could, but he wasn’t going to make a life’s work out of it. Somehow, Dylan knew that if DC Weston ever really got his teeth into him, he’d have a job ever shaking the man off.

  Just for a second, he wondered if maybe it was Lisa who’d given him up—tit for tat, for not taking those hooky bags back. He took a quick sideways glance at Weston again. Either the man had ice running through his veins, or she hadn’t said anything. No way could anyone look so…detached if he’d found out the bloke his girlfriend was shagging had also supplied her with knock-off gear.

  “So, my officers found in your barn an old Ford Escort that’s registered in the name of Owen Liddell,” Pollock said. “Care to explain why you were hiding the car?”

  “Hidin’? Hang on, I was just storin’ it for him, like. How was I s’posed to know he were dead?”

  Weston raised an eyebrow, like he didn’t believe for a moment that Dylan hadn’t known. A trickle of sweat itched between his shoulder blades. He fought the urge to squirm it away.

  “He lived up near Penrith. Why would he store his car all the way down at Mallerstang?”

  “He was rent—er, borrowin’ the workshop, like. And I’d lend him a hand with it, if I were about. Did a bit of rallyin’ when I was younger, you know?”

  “So, you were mates, then, you and him?”

  Dylan hesitated, his mind skittering ahead, trying to ease his way past the traps without stepping into one. He snuck in a glance at Ms Chadwick, but got nothing. “Er, yeah, I s’pose…”

  Weston’s phone, which he’d put down on the table-top with his notes, buzzed once with an incoming text. Pollock scowled, not so much at the message but at the fact Weston picked the phone up and checked it. Dylan saw the DC’s eyebrows quirk, just once—his only reaction.

  “So, what ended it?” Pollock asked, dragging Dylan’s attention back into the room. “Had a falling out, did you?”

  “Well, no, not really. He just…stopped comin’ round. Did a bit of a runner, by all accounts.”

  “And why would that be?”

  He shrugged. “Dunno. Rumour was, he’d taken a bit of a fancy to some Gypsy girl and her people had it in for him…”

  “Who was she, this lass?”

  He shrugged. “Can’t recall a name—if I ever knew it in the first place—not after all this time. I do know she had a brother, though, and he were a nasty piece of work, that one. Came lookin’ for Owen a time or two.”

  “Can you remember his name?”

  “Smith? Jones? Summat like that. I only remember because it was so un-memorable, if you get me?”

  “What about you, yourself? You got on all right with Owen, did you?”

  “Me? Fine.”

  Weston put the next question like Pollock had just tagged him in a wrestling bout.

  “What about Mrs Elliot?”

  “What about her?”

  “How well did she know Owen? On equally friendly terms, were they?”

  Dylan fixed him with a sullen stare. He knew where this was going, all right.

  “Friendly enough, I s’pose.”

  Weston rode the pause. “Friendly enough that young Jordan, the boy you were raising as your own son, was actually Owen Liddell’s child?”

  Pollock’s head snapped round, like he’d rick his neck.

  “Message from CSI, sir,” Weston murmured, nodding to his phone. “The lab results came back.”

  “So what?” Dylan said, making an effort not to fidget. “Already told you I knew he wasn’t mine, like, didn’t I? What difference did it make whose he was, after that?”

  “You already knew he was Owen’s,” Weston said. A statement rather than a question.

  Dylan cursed inside his head. Still Ms Chadwick had not lifted her nose out of the file in front of her. Come on, darlin’, give me a clue! Would it have been better to fake surprise? Pretend that he hadn’t known who was Jordan’s real father? Surely, that wouldn’t make any difference after all this time…

  “Yeah,” he admitted, cautiously. “Yeah, I knew.”

  “How?”

  “Saw ’em together, didn’t I? It was kinda obvious, when you saw him and Jordan, side by side. Had his look about him.”

  “When did you realise this?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Oh, it matters, lad,” Pollock growled. “Was it eight years ago, for instance, on the day your wife texted him to come and baby-sit, in a hurry? The day your eldest gave herself a nasty bump on the head at school and had to be carted off to hospital? Ring any bells, does it? The very same day,” he went on, “that Owen Liddell was last heard from alive?”

  “I—”

  “Is that what happened, Mr Elliot?” Weston chimed in, both in the ring now, scoring dirty punches when the ref’s back was turned. “Did Owen want his son back? After all, he had a better claim to him than either you or your wife, didn’t he?”

  “What does that mean?” Dylan was aware his voice was rising, couldn’t stop it. “He were ’Vonne’s kiddie, too. She had just as much right to him!”

  “Your wife didn’t tell you?” Weston’s voice sounded cruelly casual to Dylan’s ears. “Jordan wasn’t her child, either. Her baby was still-born, apparently. Agnes Trelawney somehow arranged a replacement.”

  Dylan hunched down in his chair, his thoughts fractured, spinning off in all directions. He hardly heard Ms Chadwick arguing for a suspension so she could consult with her client. Hardly heard Weston continuing to rain down his verbal blows.

  “Are you also aware, Mr Elliot, that Owen Liddell was killed by a single blow to the back of his skull? And that our CSI has also just confirmed the presence of a significant amount of blood in your kitchen?”

&nbs
p; That, finally, penetrated.

  “What?” Dylan yelped. He would have jumped to his feet but Ms Chadwick’s hand was suddenly on his arm in warning. “Never! Where? You show me where!”

  “Oh, attempts have been made to clean it up, but that’s the thing about blood. Just because you can’t see it anymore, doesn’t mean we can’t still prove it’s there.”

  93

  Ms Chadwick lost her cool then, ordered they suspend the interview and practically kicked them out of the room. Nick logged the time and paused the recording. He gathered his stuff and followed Pollock out into the corridor. The door slammed shut behind them.

  “Why the heck are we only just finding out about Liddell’s connection to Jordan now?” Pollock demanded as soon as they were alone.

  “I don’t know sir,” Nick said. Grace’s message had been detailed in some places but vague in others—deliberately vague, he felt. Which, he somehow knew meant it wasn’t her fault. If it had been, she would have said so, straight out. He could make an educated guess who’d slipped up, but it wasn’t his place to start apportioning blame.

  “Hm,” was all Pollock said, giving him a narrow-eyed glare that said he knew exactly what Nick was doing.

  “So, what do you reckon—did he know the whole story about Jordan, or is he just a better liar than we give him credit for?” Nick asked.

  “He’s good, but not that good,” Pollock said after a moment’s reflection. “I’ve known Dylan Elliot a long time, for one reason or another, and I’ve never seen him look quite so shattered as he did when you told him the little lad didn’t belong to him or his missus.”

  Nick raised an eyebrow. “I’d got the impression that the fact he knew Jordan wasn’t his made him…almost resent the boy.”

  “When he thought the lad was proof Yvonne had a bit on the side, aye,” Pollock said. “But now? Now he knows she’s been telling him the truth all along. And if he’s been taking it out on her—and the lad—all these years, well”—he shrugged—“if he’s got half an ounce of human decency left in him, he’s going to feel pretty badly about that, isn’t he?”