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

by Oliver Davies

  “Earth to Darren? Are you back with us now?”

  I cleared my throat, embarrassed, especially when I saw that a pair of DCs were standing in front of our desk, and I’d not even noticed them approach.

  “Yep, sorry. What were you saying?”

  They ran through the evidence they’d found, including several kilograms of drugs and various bits of equipment for weighing and portioning it out. There were numerous plastic baggies, too, and that plus the volume of illegal substances they’d found definitely qualified as intent to supply.

  I’d been looking the address up on my computer as they spoke, curious about where the house was located since I’d not seen the form Lucy had filled in. After what we’d found there, I was honestly surprised that she’d agreed to give it over to us, but perhaps she really wanted to convince us that she had nothing to do with it. However, Faith had told us that Lucy joined Jackson in dropping off packages at her house, so I couldn’t be sure.

  “Is this the right address?” I queried, frowning at the one I’d found.

  One of the DCs moved around to see my computer and gave a nod. “Yes, sir.”

  I blinked in surprise, the pieces clicking together in my head. Silently, I turned the screen towards Stephen so that he could see. He looked at it for a moment before shaking his head.

  “I don’t get it. What have you seen that I haven’t?”

  “This is the address of Jackson’s mum. His dead mum, Steph. The house we went to visit and knocked on the door?”

  Stephen swore quietly in surprise. “Seriously? Blimey.”

  “Jackson’s been living in his mum’s house, and he hadn’t even told his dad that she was dead.” I shook my head, rubbing a hand down my face. This was almost too much for my tired, end-of-the-week brain to handle.

  “That’s… bizarre.”

  “Unless it’s not-” I broke off, realising that the DCs were still hovering. It was nearly five o’clock, and no doubt they wanted to be off. “Sorry, guys, we got distracted. Was that everything you needed to tell us?”

  “That’s about all of it, sir.”

  “Good, okay. Get a write-up done on it on Monday, would you? I’ll check it through and make sure I didn’t forget anything. Good work.”

  “Thanks, sir.” They left us to it, and I turned back to Stephen, picking up our conversation where we’d left off.

  “Maybe it’s not bizarre,” I said. “Maybe the very reason he didn’t tell his dad was that he wanted the house.”

  “What d’you mean? Like, how could his dad have taken it from him? If it belonged to his mum, it’d go to him, wouldn’t it?”

  “Aye, unless it didn’t belong solely to his mum,” I noted. “It’s a theory, that’s all, but I wonder whether Jackson’s dad had some ownership of it and that he would’ve wanted to sell it if he knew Louisa was dead.”

  “Mm, yeah, definitely possible. We’d have to dig up the paperwork for the house and see.”

  “Aye, but that’s a job for Monday,” I said with a short laugh.

  “Thank god for that.” Stephen checked his watch. “Anything else urgent we need to do before we head out?”

  “We need to decide what’s happening with Lucy. We can’t keep her in custody over the whole weekend. She’s going to have to be charged, awaiting trial.”

  We talked through the technicalities, my chin resting on my hand as we hashed it out. The custody officers would handle most of it, but we needed to make sure it was all in order on our end. I really did feel for Lucy’s predicament, but she’d really got herself into trouble here. It would take a small miracle, or a very good lawyer, to get her off without any jail time. I only hoped that the mitigating circumstances and the fact that this was her first offence on record would mean she got off more lightly than some. She still wouldn’t be able to keep Eva, though, and I already knew that would be the hardest blow of them all.

  “I’ll head out, then. Let the custody officers know what we’re planning on the way out.”

  “Sounds good. I’m going to stay a few minutes longer, try to see whether Lucy and Eva have any relatives.”

  Stephen gave me a sympathetic look. “Don’t stay too long, mate. Eva will be looked after just fine over the weekend.”

  “I know.”

  He headed out, calling out a reminder for me to come and visit on Saturday night, and I smiled slightly as I waved him off. My smile faded as I refocused on my research. I knew I’d feel better if I could only track down an aunt or uncle, or any other relative, for Eva and Lucy. Lucy needed the support through all of this upheaval, and it would be far preferable for Eva to live with family. I’d considered that there was a reason that Lucy had been left adrift, all on her own, but I still had to try, for Eva’s sake at least.

  Sixteen

  Working in the police often wasn’t conducive to having a good work-life balance, nor getting an entire weekend to relax. To my relief, we did get a reprieve this particular weekend and spent the time taking Chance on a long walk up in the fells on Saturday before stuffing ourselves on my mum’s fantastic roast dinner on Sunday. Of course, on Monday morning, Stephen and I were thrown straight back into the thick of it.

  I was woken before five am by my phone buzzing incessantly and Sam shaking my shoulder.

  “Baby, get your phone,” she mumbled, still half-asleep herself. Chance yipped, and I waved my hand at him tiredly, hoping that he’d settle back down.

  “Sorry. Go back to sleep.”

  I slipped out of bed, grimacing at the cool air, and answered my phone as I stepped out of our bedroom and into the sitting room so that I wouldn’t disturb Sam anymore. Chance stayed with her, and I was glad I wouldn’t have the pup barking in the background of the call.

  “Mitchell speaking,” I croaked, clearing my throat. I hadn’t checked the caller ID and had no idea whether it was my mother or the Superintendent who was calling.

  “It’s me, Mitch,” Stephen’s gruff voice said. “Took you long enough to wake up, princess. We’ve got good news from the hospital.”

  “Aye?” I said, still waking up. “Like what?”

  “Rashford woke me up even earlier than you to tell me that Victor’s awake. She tried calling you first, but I guess you must have slept through it.”

  “Probably.” Sam and I had a late one last night, and I’d been deeply asleep when Sam had finally shaken me awake.

  “Well, get yourself up. We need to get our shit together before we go over to the hospital.”

  “Will they even let us in at this time?” I said slowly, yawning widely.

  “No idea. Visiting hours start at nine, but we can probably wrangle going in earlier.”

  “You mean you called me at this time, and it might not even have been necessary?”

  “Look, Rashford woke me up, and if I have to be up at the crack of dawn, so do you.”

  I snorted a laugh. “Gee, thanks. You’re a real mate.” I rubbed a hand over my stubbly jaw with a groan. “I’ll get over to Hewford in a half-hour, okay? I hope you have the caretaker on speed-dial because we won’t be able to get into the building otherwise.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll sort it. Get some coffee in you, grumpy guts.”

  He hung up, and I shook my head, smiling despite myself. I heard the floorboards creak behind me and startled, turning around to find Sam standing there, looking bleary-eyed and beautiful. Her hair was all over the place, and she had pillow lines pressed into her pink cheek, and the whole image made me smile.

  “What’re you doing up?” I asked quietly. At this time in the morning, it felt strange to be too loud even though the apartment had thick walls. We wouldn’t disturb anyone except Chance, who was already wide awake and getting under our feet.

  “I’m awake now.” She yawned and gave me a slight smile. “Or mostly, anyway. I can spend some time training Chance and then go to the gym or something.”

  “You’re worse than me, love,” I chuckled, shaking my head. “Mind getting
the kettle on while I shower?”

  “What if I want to join you in there?” she teased.

  I raised my eyebrows. I did a half-hour to spare before I’d promised to be at Hewford, I thought wryly.

  “I certainly wouldn’t protest,” I said, the cheeky look on her face making me smile.

  “Well then…” She smirked at me as she strode past, heading for the shower. I gave Chance his breakfast so that he wouldn’t follow me as I chased after her.

  After getting out of the bathroom, I swallowed down a too-hot mug of strong coffee and chewed on the bowl of muesli, smiling at Sam across the table. She was glowing from the heat of the shower and much more awake than she had been fifteen minutes ago. She checked her FitBit and raised her eyebrows at me.

  “You better head off soon, or you’ll be late.”

  I checked my watch and cringed at the time. “As usual, you’re right.” I got up to give her a peck on the lips and went to shove my feet into my boots.

  “You’re not going to finish your muesli?”

  “I’m going to be late!” I called back. I heard her huff and smiled to myself as I grabbed my coat and patted my pockets, checking that I had everything.

  I spotted Stephen’s car in the car park when I arrived at Hewford and strode quickly up the stairs to the office upstairs.

  “There you are!” Stephen raised his eyebrows.

  “Yep, didn’t even finish my breakfast.” I flopped down into my office chair.

  “Well, don’t get too comfortable there because we’re heading out to the hospital in a minute.”

  “God, alright. We’ve waited days for Roberts. I think he can wait a few minutes for us.”

  Stephen gave me a look like he was trying to seem unimpressed whilst actually hiding a smile. “He’s been in a coma.”

  “I know. Let me have another coffee, and then I’ll be tip-top.”

  He shooed me off impatiently, and I fixed myself a potent coffee in my travel mug. We headed out of Hewford with Stephen at the wheel only minutes later, and I rubbed a tired hand over my gritty eyes. I needed to be on my best form for talking to Victor because the information we could gain from him might be invaluable if only we could get him talking.

  Stephen picked up a couple of cereal bars from the hospital shop whilst I checked us in at reception. They didn’t seem too happy to see us, but Stephen had called ahead from Hewford, and they’d agreed to let us see Victor early since there could be lives at stake here.

  I chewed on the cereal bar, grimacing at the sugar, even as it was probably doing more to wake me up than the coffees had. Victor was on a ward on the third floor, and we took the lift since Stephen was adamant that six am was far too early to be doing any sort of exercise. He’d let me get another coffee before we headed out, so I just smiled to myself and let him have it.

  The nurse on the ward was startled to see us. We had to explain again why we were there and that we were authorised to talk to Roberts.

  “I better show you through, then,” she said. Her hair was up in a tidy bun, and she looked neat as a pin, entirely different to how scruffy I felt, having rolled out of bed not long ago.

  “Thanks.” I gave her a nod as she showed us to Victor’s room. She gave a light tap on the door before opening it for us and leading the way inside.

  “Mr Roberts, there are two police officers here to see you,” she said quietly.

  Victor was lying on the bed and looking worse for wear, his face pallid and dark circles hanging under his eyes. He looked at us intently, and I couldn’t tell whether suspicion fueled his intensity or something else.

  The nurse helped get him propped up, adjusting the pillows and raising the bed. He drank a sip of water and waved away the nurse, all without saying a word. She left the room, giving us a sympathetic look that I guessed meant she didn’t think we’d get much out of the taciturn patient.

  “Mr Roberts, I’m-”

  “Call me Vic. Mr Roberts was my dear old dad,” he grunted.

  “Okay, Vic. I’m DCI Darren Mitchell, and this is my partner, DI Stephen Huxley. We’d like to have a talk with you.”

  “About what?” He scratched his cheek and looked at us shrewdly, reminding me of a bookie at the races, weighing up how much we were worth.

  “About your overdose.”

  He grunted, settling back on his pillows and taking another drink of water.

  “I’d kill for a cigarette right now,” he complained before giving us a wry look. “Guess I shouldn’t talk about that with the cops, though, huh?”

  I couldn’t stop myself from smiling slightly. “Maybe not.”

  “Can you tell us what happened on Tuesday?” Stephen asked, bringing us back to the point.

  “Tuesday, was it? What’s it today?”

  “It’s Monday.”

  “Bloody hell.” He blinked.

  “Do you remember what you took on Tuesday afternoon?” I prompted.

  “Yeah, I remember.” He frowned, fixing me with a direct look. “I know what happened, too. Know why I’m stuck in here rather than at my own place, getting on with my life.”

  “Aye? Why’s that then?”

  “That woman,” he sneered, twisting the word like he wanted to say something much more derogatory. “She gave me the stuff, and I never should’ve trusted it. She’s a right snake, that one. All sweet and nice until she bites you on the arse.”

  “What woman?” I said, though I was already beginning to have an idea.

  “The little one, Jackson’s flavour of the month.”

  Lucy. Why would she have been going to Victor’s house alone?

  “What did she give you?” Stephen asked, a frown set deep into his forehead.

  “A couple of baggies. Little gift from the-the boss, whatever. I thought it was suspect.” He narrowed his eyes and stared at the wall with animosity. “Normally, I’d tell you lot to piss off to hell, and you’d get nothing outta me, but she tried to kill me, I swear to God. She’s got to pay for that, even if I have to get banged up for a bit.” He gave a decisive nod, and I realised that he’d been thinking about this and planning what he was going to tell us even before we got here.

  “Why would she want to harm you?”

  “Haven’t a goddamn clue, mate, but that stuff was crazy, I’m telling you. I’ve taken enough in my life to know when something’s wrong, and I only had a tiny bit. She wants me dead.”

  “Do you know her name?” I asked, out of curiosity.

  He grimaced. “I dunno. Jackson’s told me it before, but I never really cared.”

  “So you and Jackson have interacted a fair bit in the past.”

  “Sure, we- what’s the saying… we moved in the same circles, yeah.”

  “And this boss you mentioned, who’s that?”

  “No idea.” He gave a shrug that told me that even if he did know, he wasn’t sharing.

  “Why’d L- this woman say that the boss was giving you gifts, anyway?” I wondered aloud. “What were they rewarding you for?”

  Victor stilled at the question and shifted in his bed. Considering he was something of a career criminal, I didn’t think he was a very talented liar.

  “Doing a good job, I guess,” he grunted.

  “You guess? You’re not sure?”

  “I wasn’t gonna turn it down, was I?”

  “Had you been dealing more than usual? Is that why they were rewarding you?” Stephen pressed.

  “Yeah, sure, that was it.” Victor jumped on the explanation too quickly, and I didn’t believe it.

  “Vic, listen to me,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “You want this woman to face the consequences, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I already said that,” he snapped, but he looked uncomfortable.

  “So quit lying to us. What’s the real reason you were getting gifts from the boss? If you think telling us is going to land you more time behind bars, then I can assure you that you’re already looking at a sentence for dealing. Any
cooperation you show us now is only going to be in your favour.”

  He looked at me with blatant dislike. “Jeez, fine. Look, it wasn’t a reward as such, not really. More of like… a bribe, I guess.” His frown lifted as he seemed to figure something out in his head. He swore colourfully enough to rival a sailor, and I raised my eyebrows silently. Victor hit his hand down on the bed. “Damn, that’s it! It wasn’t a goddamn bribe. It was to get rid of me, for good.”

  “I don’t follow. We already know that the drugs you took were toxically strong. Why did they want to get rid of you?”

  “I thought it was a goodwill bribe, y’know, to keep me from opening my big gob. But no, the boss didn’t trust me to do that. He wanted me gone for good, and he got that b- woman to do his dirty work.”

  “Keep quiet about what?” I said, trying to keep the interest out of my voice. I didn’t think I was entirely successful because Victor looked smugly between us.

  “I knew what Jackson was doing, that’s what.” He paused for long enough that I was about to prompt him, but he finally went on. “That boy wasn’t just into the drugs. He was selling other shit online.”

  “Like what?” Stephen demanded tightly, clearly getting impatient.

  “Sexual stuff,” Victor said as he pulled a face of seemingly genuine disgust.

  “Pornography?” I said. I couldn’t say I was exactly surprised considering what I knew of country lines operations, but this was still valuable information.

  “Yeah, of kids and that. Turns my stomach, man. I draw the line at that, and I told the boss that to his face.” He winced. “Probably a mistake in hindsight.”

  Stephen and I shared a look at this new revelation before we got back to questioning Victor. We tried to get out of him everything he knew about where the material was being sold and how Victor found out about it, and whilst he knew some things, there was a lot he didn’t. A nurse came to interrupt us not long later, and I closed my notebook, guessing what she was going to say.

  “That’s enough for today, detectives,” she said. “If Mr Roberts is up to it, you can come back tomorrow. He’s still recovering.”

  “Understood,” I said, giving her a slight smile. I turned back to Victor. “We really appreciate you talking to us, Vic.”