Country Lines (A DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thriller Book 8)

by Oliver Davies

  Irritation turned to concern like the flip of a coin. True, she didn’t exactly like Jackson much these days, but she didn’t really want him hurt either. Plus. she needed him home tonight badly.

  “Where are you, Max?” she repeated, loud and firm. “Tell me where you are.”

  “I dunno… a road.”

  Lucy resisted the urge to yell at him, closing her eyes briefly and blowing out a breath through her teeth. Her hand was shaking on the phone, and she was about ready to strangle Jackson for putting her through this. But shouting at Max wouldn’t help. She had enough practice with people who were all sorts of not-sober to know that.

  “Okay, where? A road where?”

  It took several minutes too long, but she finally got a rough location out of him. He was somewhere near Clifford’s tower, that much she understood, and Jackson seemed to be with him.

  “Let me talk to Jackson,” she asked, moving to shove her feet into her shoes.

  She’d just have to go and get them and hope that she could get them all back home before the guy Jackson was due to meet turned up. He wasn’t the sort of person you ought to keep waiting.

  “Can’t,” Max mumbled. He sounded worse by the moment, and Lucy stilled.

  “Why not?”

  “He’s… I dunno, Luce.” There was a pause long enough to make Lucy worry that he’d hung up or passed out. When he spoke, it was in a small voice that reminded her painfully of Eva, when she knew she’d done something wrong. “He looks dead, Luce.”

  Lucy swore quietly. “Alright, Max, I’m gonna hang up. I’m gonna get you some help. Stay where you are, okay?”

  There was no clear response from the teenager, and Lucy had to force herself to hang up. She stabbed 999 into her phone, her breathing unsteady in her chest. She hurriedly relayed the little she knew to the person on the other end of the line, giving them Max’s rough location before she hung up.

  She tried to call Max back and then Jackson, but neither picked up. Her heart was racing in her chest, and she felt like screaming. Her mouth was painfully dry, and if she hadn’t needed to stay strong for Eva, she might’ve crawled up under the kitchen table and hoped it would all sort itself out without her.

  Instead, she collapsed onto the sofa and tried to call Jackson and Max again and again. She wished she had the numbers of Jackson’s friends so that she could try them too, but it was no use.

  Only a minute after she’d sat down, the doorbell rang loudly, stabbed by an impatient finger. She heard the pitter-patter of little feet running along the landing upstairs, and that got her moving.

  “Eva, no!” she said sharply when her little sister appeared at the top of the stairs. “Go back to your room.”

  “But it’s Jackson!” she jumped up and down on the spot, her face screwed up.

  “It’s not Jackson,” Lucy hissed.

  She wished it was him, but it wouldn’t be. Not right now. She pointed a finger firmly back upstairs, and Eva gave her a look of angry defiance before she sulked back up the stairs. Lucy had no doubt that she’d dawdle on the landing, trying to listen to what the adults were saying.

  The doorbell rang again harshly, and Lucy flinched. She swore a couple of times under her breath, at Jackson and at the man at the door and at herself too, but there was nothing for it. Jackson wasn’t here, and refusing to answer the door was only going to anger the bloke on the other side further. Glancing once more up the stairs to check that Eva was out of sight, she forced her feet to move and unlatched the door, letting in a rush of cold night air.

  “Lucy, what a surprise. Are you here all on your own?”

  He pushed by her without waiting for an answer, and Lucy sent a silent wish to anyone who was listening that this night wouldn’t get any worse than it already was. She didn’t have high hopes on that count, but as long as Eva stayed safe, that was all that mattered.

  Two

  “I’ll get the next round,” Sam offered. A cheer went up from our small table, and she grinned.

  Her voice was louder than usual thanks to the wine she’d already had, and she was more open in her affection for me, slinging an arm around my shoulder whenever she could. I couldn’t say I minded, especially when she was clearly enjoying herself.

  “What d’you want, baby?” she asked me, her face close to mine.

  “I better not. I’m driving us home,” I said, raising my voice slightly over the chitter-chatter of the bar.

  “Rubbish!” she declared, planting a kiss on my mouth with no warning. “We’ll get a taxi. Drink and be merry, love. Let your hair down.”

  She’d already done that herself, releasing her long hair from its restrictive bun, so it fell in soft waves down her back. My curls were undoubtedly sticking up every which way from the wind outside, but I didn’t much mind.

  “Okay,” I laughed. Taxi it was, then. We’d both had a long week, and we were finally getting to celebrate Sam’s return to York, though she’d been back nearly three weeks now. Things at the station had been hectic, and we deserved a break. Chance, our fast-growing rescue dog, was staying with the neighbours for the night, and I knew we didn’t have to worry about getting home early for him.

  “Okay!” She grinned at me. “Shots time, baby.”

  “Oh god,” I complained, but I was smiling. Our table, mostly made up of Sam’s friends from school, picked up Sam’s call for shots, and I had to laugh. Anyone would think we were twenty, not all of us over thirty, but it didn’t matter. We were here to have a good time.

  I got chatting to a woman and her girlfriend, both of whom had gone to Sam’s high school, though they’d not been a couple at the time. Sam came back with a tray of drinks not long later, and I jumped up to help her since she was looking a little unsteady on her feet, and the drinks were looking to be in danger of sliding off.

  “Thanks, love,” she said a little breathlessly, hopping up into the bar chair next to me.

  “I’ve just got to run to the men’s, gimme a sec,” I told her once I’d set the tray down, nudging the empty glasses out of the way.

  “Be quick! We’ll wait for you!”

  I chuckled and headed off, leaving them to it. The noise of the bar was muffled in the corridor that led towards the loos, so when my phone went off in my pocket, I jumped at the noise.

  “Don’t be work, don’t be work,” I muttered as I leaned against the corridor wall and fished it out of my pocket. “Damn it.”

  The name of my superintendent, Arabella Rashford, was on the screen, and I groaned. Still, I couldn’t ignore it, no matter how much I wanted to. I was technically off-duty tonight, so I knew she wouldn’t be ringing me unless it was important. I had a pint of beer, but that was all, so it wasn’t like I was too drunk to go either. For a moment, I almost wished I was.

  “DCI Mitchell speaking, ma’am,” I said. The noise of the bar was clear in the background, and I would’ve been surprised if she couldn’t hear it.

  “Sorry to disturb your Friday night, Mitchell,” she said briskly.

  “What’s going on, ma’am?”

  “We’ve got a man dead and a teenager in hospital. I know you’re off duty, but we’re seriously low on officers, and I could do with you coming in right now.”

  I held back a sigh. “There’s no-one else, ma’am?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  “No.”

  “Alright. Tell me where to go,” I said reluctantly.

  At the end of the day, it wasn’t a great loss for me to miss out on a night of drunk hijinx, as much as I had wanted to be here, but it was Sam’s disappointment that made my stomach feel sour. This was her celebration for coming home, and I was meant to be here. I knew she’d understand, but that almost made it worse.

  I went back to the bar, and Sam was the first to catch sight of me as I headed towards the table. Her expression was full of happiness, but it faded in response to whatever was on my face. A second later, realisation dawned, and she looked at me with an expression that was sympathetic
, disappointed and wry all at the same time. A little tipsy, she may be, but she was still quick as a whip when it came to noticing things.

  “Work called, huh?” she said when I came to her side. I wrapped an arm around her waist, and she cuddled into me.

  “Aye, I’m sorry. Rashford needs me in.”

  “‘Course she does. You’re the best officer there,” she said, managing a small smile. I matched it, leaning down to kiss her on the head.

  “I’m sorry, love,” I said again.

  “Aw, stop. We’ll do this again. Go on, go be the hero I love.” She gave me a stern look. “But not too much of a hero, okay?”

  “Okay,” I agreed. “Is it okay if I take the car?”

  “Yeah, yeah, of course. I’m not going to be driving tonight,” she said, laughing. I gave her a warm smile, squeezing her arm gently before I stepped away to pick up my coat.

  Sam’s school friends made noises of regret as I told them I had to head off. I didn’t know them well, but they were all good people, and I was sorry to miss out on a night of fun with them and Sam.

  “See you soon,” I promised Sam, blowing her a kiss before I headed out of the crowded bar.

  We were heading into spring, but the night still had an edge to the air, and I pulled my coat on and zipped it up with a shiver as I left the warmth. It was only a short walk over to the car, and I hopped in. Rashford had given me the address for a back alley near Clifford’s tower, and I plugged it into the SatNav before starting off. She’d told me that she’d already given Stephen a call and that he’d be meeting me there. I wondered whether he’d been pulled away from anything fun on his night off or if he’d just been chilling on the couch. Not that it wasn’t a good way to spend a Friday night after a long week.

  I turned up at the spot and found a police car already there, the blue and red lights wheeling, casting their colours against the walls of the nearby buildings. I parked up as best as I could and climbed out, heading towards the bulky-looking bloke who was standing near the police tape. Stephen had been a frequent rugby player as a uni student, and he had the build for it, broad across the shoulders and stocky like a bulldog.

  “Hi, mate,” he said when he saw me approaching.

  “I’d say, ‘Good to see you,’ but…” I trailed off, giving him a teasing smile. He rolled his eyes at me.

  “Yeah, I didn’t want to see you ‘til Monday either, Mitchell.”

  “What’ve we got here then?”

  As far as I could see in the low light, the alley looked deserted. Rashford had told me on the phone that the teenager had been taken off to hospital with a suspected drug overdose whilst the adult man had died on the scene. I was surprised that they would’ve already moved him, but maybe it’d happened much earlier in the night, and I was only just now being called in. That didn’t seem right, though.

  “The deceased is up here,” Stephen said, fishing a pair of plastic booties out of his pocket for me.

  I put them on, and we slipped under the police tape. I hadn’t noticed the body at first because it was slumped against one of the alley walls, tucked into an alcove and covered with shadows. I frowned down at the unfortunate guy, who looked far too young, and glanced around for anything lying around.

  “Have forensics been in?”

  “They dropped by. Took photographs, but that was it. Not a big enough case for them,” Stephen said with a shake of the head.

  “Suspected overdose for this one, too?” I asked, and Stephen nodded.

  “He died just before the ambulance arrived.”

  “Christ,” I muttered.

  I’d been in the force long enough that I was usually able to separate work from home without too much difficulty, but tonight was harder. It felt like mental whiplash to have gone from that happy, bustling bar full of young, alive people to a cold alley populated only by a dead man. I swallowed down a pulse of nausea, wishing I hadn’t had the beer and chips earlier, but how was I to know I’d be working later?

  “We better get good overtime for this,” I muttered in a moment of bitterness.

  Stephen reached over to squeeze my shoulder. “You want me to handle this? I can deal with it if you need to be home.”

  “No, I’m alright,” I sighed.

  We got to work, carefully inspecting the dead body for anything that might give us a clue about him. His wallet was in his pocket, and I pulled it out carefully, wearing plastic gloves. There was no cash in it, probably all blown on his last crazy night out, but there was a driver’s license and a bunch of cards.

  “Jackson Lowe. Twenty-six years old,” I read out.

  “Any drugs in there?” Stephen asked. He was patting down the bloke’s jacket.

  “Nope.”

  “I haven’t found any either. We should-”

  “Hey, look,” I said.

  I’d been searching the damp, filthy concrete slabs around the dead man’s body and spotted the shimmer of a bit of plastic. It was a tiny plastic baggie and, when I picked it up, there was a smidgen of white powder left at the bottom.

  “That’s definitely evidence,” Stephen agreed when he saw what I was looking at.

  I bagged it up and kept searching while Stephen placed a call through about getting the body taken over to the morgue. The death didn’t look suspicious so far, but it was unnatural, so there’d be a post-mortem. That’d confirm for sure whether the drug overdose theory was correct or not and, if it was, what he’d taken.

  “We better head to the hospital,” I said a while later, as Jackson’s body was being loaded up to be taken away.

  “I hope the kid’s alright,” Stephen said.

  He looked tired, and I hoped that we could wrap this up fairly quickly. There was more work to do still, including all the damn paperwork, but I knew I needed my bed, and I was sure Stephen did too. We still needed to track down Jackson and the teenager’s parents or next of kin, though, and that might take hours if the hospital couldn’t ID him. It would be worth it if we could find someone who cared enough about the teenager to sit at his side in hospital, but it was still never easy.

  “Let’s go, mate,” Stephen said, patting me on the back.

  We headed over to my car, and he took the wheel as we made our way over to the local hospital and parked up outside. I went to pay for the parking whilst Stephen headed inside to get in the queue to speak to the receptionists. Even at this time of night, or maybe because it was this time of night, the hospital entranceway was busy.

  Stephen was at the front of the queue by the time I came in and for a moment, I sort of hated our routine for getting into hospitals quickly. We’d done it too many times, which was how we had it down to a fine art, and I wished that we hadn’t. But it was just the tiredness getting to me, and when Stephen sent me a quizzical look, I strode over to him and gestured for him to lead the way.

  “The teenager is up in the critical ward, and we can’t visit him, but we can talk to the doctor,” he filled me in as we walked along the echoing hospital corridor.

  “Did they know his name?”

  “Yeah, it’s Max Rider, apparently. I guess they found his wallet, too.”

  “That makes it easier,” I said. If the hospital knew his name, they might have been able to track down his medical records, along with his next of kin.

  We found the teenager’s room without too much difficulty, but tracking down a doctor to speak to was harder. A nurse helped us out in the end, finding us the doctor we needed. The woman looked to be a bit younger than I was and about as tired as I felt, smudges under her eyes.

  “You’re here about the teenager with the drug overdose?” she asked, her voice flat.

  “Aye. Max Rider, the receptionist said his name was. How’s he doing?”

  “Not well. He’s currently unconscious, and we’re monitoring him closely.”

  “Have you been able to identify who he is? His parents?”

  “That’s not my job, detective. You’ll have to talk to someone else
about that.” It was clear that she was busy and wanted to be off.

  “Do you know what drug he took?” I asked.

  “We suspected an opioid overdose, and he’s been given multiple doses of Naloxone. We’ll be watching his breathing and heart rate for at least another few hours.”

  “I see. Thank you for the information,” I said. She gave us a brisk nod and stepped away, heading off to deal with another of her many patients, no doubt.

  We spent the next hour at the hospital, trying to find out who had been responsible for identifying Max and then getting hold of his parents. It took multiple phone calls before they picked up, which wasn’t a surprise considering it was nearly three AM. Sam would probably be heading home by now if she wasn’t there already, and I wished I was there with her. Still, I was needed more here, as painful as it was.

  “Oh god,” his mother said when she arrived, her hand pressed to her mouth and her face sheet white.

  Max’s dad was there too, looking grim and drawn but not, I noticed, especially shocked. Neither of them asked why Max was here, only when they could see him.

  “You’ll have to speak to a nurse about that, but I’m sure they’ll let you in,” I said gently.

  Max’s dad, who’d introduced himself as Nigel, went off to find a nurse while his mum, Angela, stayed close to Max’s hospital room door like she couldn’t bear to be more than a few feet away from him.

  “Did you find him?” she asked me tremulously.

  “No, I’m afraid not. He’s being given the best treatment,” I tried to reassure her.

  I blamed my tired brain on the fact I hadn’t dwelt much on who had found Max and Jackson and called in the ambulance that had undoubtedly saved Max’s life. That would be another job for tomorrow.

  There goes our weekend plans, I thought. But, with Angela there beside me and looking like her world had collapsed, I couldn’t mind too much. If I could get some answers about what happened, even if it was nothing more than where exactly Max had got the opioid he overdosed on, then the time spent away from Sam would be worth it.