Hogan put on plastic booties and went to see the scene carefully. Kay and I stayed on the doorstep, to keep the scene as pristine as it could be. She should’ve been off today, and her uniform was rumpled like she hadn’t had time to iron it.
“Sorry you got called out.”
She gave me a tired smile and flicked her short, brown hair out of her face. “Not your fault is it?” she said, in her softly Edinburgh accent. She raised her eyebrows at me pointedly, and I huffed out a laugh.
“No,” I said. “Not my fault.”
“Anna’ll be having fun.” She took another drag on her cigarette.
“Why’s that?” Anna was Kay’s wife and a spitfire of a woman who could bake well enough that it was a crime she’d never been on the Bake Off.
“Lexi, our staffie dog,” she clarified, “whines and kicks up a fuss something awful when I’m not around.”
“Separation anxiety.”
She nodded. “That’s it. Tears the place up.” She blew out smoke with a bemused smile. “Makes a right mess.”
I shook my head, and we fell into a comfortable silence. I appreciated her easy small talk distracting me from the crime scene in the house behind us.
“We’ll need your statement at the station,” Hogan said when she returned. Her mouth was set in a thin line, and she rubbed an agitated hand over her afro. Set in her heart-shaped face were sharp, dark eyes that missed nothing and she fixed them on me now, like she could see right into my head. “He was like this when you arrived?”
I nodded, staring down at the paved drive. “Already dead. It looked like he’d tried to stop the bleeding in the kitchen and then…” I trailed off. He hadn’t managed to stop the bleeding, nor call for help.
Kay lit up a cigarette beside me, and I breathed in the secondhand smoke. I’d given up years ago but the ache never really left completely.
“It’s unexplained as it stands, then,” Hogan said quietly. “I’ll have forensics called in.” I nodded again.
Now that I had a little distance from what had happened, I was turning theories over in my head and failing to find a solution to this problem that I liked. It just didn’t feel natural in the slightest, but I couldn’t think of why anyone would wish Graham ill strongly enough for… this. He was a likeable guy, affable and easy-going.
Kay finished her cigarette while Hogan called the forensics team. Kay had the strong build and broad shoulders of a farmer’s wife, and she bumped her shoulder into mine now, offering silent comfort.
Hogan came over to me. “Forensics are on their way, but they’ll be awhile, coming from York. Let’s get your statement taken. I don’t want you to forget anything.”
I followed her into the police car, leaving Kay to stand outside the crime scene and keep it uncontaminated. As Hogan drove us back to the station, I frowned out of the window, watching the scenery rush past.
“Has Sarah been called, ma’am?” I asked quietly. “His niece, Alice, and- her dad--”
“Lyle Stewart, Mr Stewart’s brother,” Hogan said, and I didn’t question how she knew their names. She had a brilliant memory for details. “I’ll call Mrs Stewart after I’ve dropped you off, then it’ll be a house call to Lyle Stewart’s.”
I made a noise of acknowledgement. I was selfishly relieved that giving my statement would excuse me from having to tell Graham’s relatives. There was little in the job that was worse.
Hogan parked up in the police station’s car park around the side of the building, and we got out and walked around, the autumn wind making me shiver. Inside the station itself, it was unusually quiet. Samuel was the only one at his desk and Maha, our constable, was hovering close to the interview room, watching the proceedings closely.
The station was small, and the wallpaper wilted in the corners of the room, but it was practically a second home to me, and I hardly noticed anymore. There was a desk for each of us, in varying degrees of disarray, with Samuel’s acting like a front desk and piled high with bits of paper.
“Alright, sir?” Samuel said awkwardly. Blue-eyed, blond and gangly, he was straight out of a university art degree. He’d got the temporary job as a favour to his parents, in that small-town way.
“Fine,” I said.
Maha watched me with dark, concerned eyes. Hogan patted me on the back.
“Get it over with,” she said gently.
“Good luck,” I said in return. She nodded tiredly and headed over to her office to call Sarah. I didn’t envy her in the slightest and thinking about the conversation she was about to have made me feel ill.
“Ready?” Maha said from the interview room doorway.
I shrugged and summoned a weak smile, following her inside the cramped, bland room. Maha switched on the tape recorder, shut the heavy door, and we both sat down. The walls in here were grey and bare, supposed to offer little distractions for when someone was giving a statement. It was odd to be on the other side of the table from her. It was Kay and me who usually did this, taking the statements of pub-goers about who threw the fight’s first punch and what was said when everyone was drunk and flush with a new paycheque. This was far more serious than a Saturday night pub brawl.
I sighed, and Maha started, stating her name, rank and the date before I confirmed mine. She asked if I wanted legal counsel, and I refused. I knew it didn’t look ideal that I’d been the last one to see him alive and the one to find him dead. But I’d done nothing wrong, and I was confident that the evidence would bear me out. And that wasn’t to mention that I’d been jogging through the village around the time when Graham died.
I described the morning with every detail I could remember, including how rough Graham had seemed before we’d gone running and especially once we’d started. I regretted that I hadn’t insisted on postponing the run, or at least on joining him at his house. I frowned as I spoke, trying to work out a theory for what could’ve happened, but it was a puzzle made up of blank pieces, and I couldn’t fit it together.
As I spoke, I looked down at my hands and noticed the blood clinging under two of my fingernails. Graham’s, from when I’d turned him over. I curled my fingers into my palms.
“What time was it when you arrived at Mr Stewart’s?” Maha asked, breaking into my troubled thoughts.
I tried to think back. We’d run for perhaps an hour before Graham split off and it’d been at least another hour before I was home again. My drive over there had taken perhaps twenty minutes after that. “It must have been around half eleven.” I guessed. “I left the house immediately after calling Sarah.” And then added, because it didn’t hurt, “I ran through Lockdale on my way back, I’m sure somebody saw me.”
Maha nodded in agreement and made a note of it.
“And then when you got to Mr Stewart’s?” she prompted gently, reaching up to tuck her hijab back. It was a habit she tended to do when she was concentrating. I couldn’t help but think that, though she was fresh now, she’d do very well if she wanted to climb the ranks.
I described my actions at Graham’s house, thinking about the bloody towels and how forensics were probably scouring the place now, looking for everything. They’d need my boot prints and fingerprints to rule out later.
I hesitated as I was describing coming into Graham’s kitchen and something occurred to me.
“I thought,” I paused, frowned. “I thought I saw something move, beyond the garden wall.”
“Something?”
I shrugged. “Something black. Could’ve been an animal but… I’m not sure.”
She nodded. “Okay. And then?”
I talked through finding Graham as thoroughly and emotionlessly as I could manage. The cracked phone, him lying on his front, how I’d turned him onto his side. I sighed when I’d finished.
When we were done, Maha made coffee for both of us, and I drank it gratefully. She’d made it strong, but not quite as strong as I’d have liked. The statement would have to be typed up and signed, but the worse part was over. It seem
ed like days since I’d had that cup of coffee this morning, with Graham stood there waiting for me.
Maha patted my shoulder, looking at me from under her neatly wrapped hijab. “We’ll figure out what happened. It’ll be alright.”
“I know,” I said. Still, this didn’t feel like an accident or anything remotely natural, even though I had little enough reason to say that it had been anything else. I just felt it in my gut. Graham had been in the prime of his life, the fittest he’d ever been. He’d been planning for a marathon next year, and we’d intended to do the Three Tops together in just a few weeks time. Now he never would. I groaned and rubbed my face, trying to shake off this uncharacteristic melancholy. It was no use to Graham or me.
Emotions would have to wait until I was off duty. Until then, I had a job to do.
Five
By the late afternoon, the station was filled with motion and busyness. The activity made the hushed quiet even worse. With Sarah and Alice sitting close together on the waiting room chairs, and Lyle in the interview room with Kay, it was a constant reminder of Graham’s passing. Sarah was distraught, and Alice looked blank, exhausted and shocked.
Forensics had dug a swab under my fingernails to get a sample of the blood there, just to be sure. Then I’d been allowed to scrub them clean, but even after several minutes, there’d still been a tiny bit remaining, lodged in the nail bed. I picked at it.
“Darren?” Hogan called me over from the doorway of her office. She was in there with one of the forensics team. I headed over, my legs sore from the long run.
“DI Mitchell, this is Dr Sebastian Wong,” Hogan said.
She wasn’t an especially tall woman, but her heels and the way she held herself made her look so, and she looked sternly at me as she introduced me to the tall, dark-haired man in charge of forensics. She’d been the chief inspector in Lockdale ever since I’d first been stationed here as a DS and I held a great deal of respect for her steadiness and quick mind. I shook hands with the forensics doctor, and he gave me a nod.
“He’s been telling me the team’s preliminary ideas,” Hogan told me.
Dr Wong hummed. “None of this is set in stone,” he cautioned. “Other evidence may come up to contradict us.”
Hogan waved her hand. “That being said, you were saying?”
“The deceased’s symptoms suggest a possible suicide via the oral intake of drugs. We’re having the phone checked for calls, but it’s not unusual for someone to attempt suicide and then regret it, which may be why he tried to stop the bleeding.”
My jaw was clenched tight. “He didn’t commit suicide.”
Dr Wong looked at me steadily. “As I said, this is a theory, with the information we have so far. We’ve found no evidence of outside interference.”
“Yet,” I said pointedly. He nodded, conceding the point. I turned to Hogan, “He was showing symptoms when he was running with me. The nosebleed and the headache. He couldn’t have taken pills after I left him if he already had symptoms.”
She held up her hand. “We’re not ruling anything out. Mr Stewart’s cause of death remains undecided. He’s been moved to the pathology unit in York now for a post mortem, and Mrs Stewart made aware. We’ll know more then.”
I nodded reluctantly. That was the best I could hope for now.
There was a knock on the door and an officer from York I didn’t recognise stuck their head in. “We’ve checked the records for calls from Mr Stewart’s phone records, both the house phone and the mobile. He didn’t make any.”
I frowned. The way the phone had been off the hook looked like he’d tried to. Had he just realised too late how serious it was? I was unconvinced.
“Good, thank you.”
“We’ll send the mobile off to the tech team, check for anything deleted or odd.”
“Checked for fingerprints already?” Hogan said.
The officer nodded. “We’ll run them through as soon as possible.”
Hogan nodded, and he left. I rubbed my forehead and dragged a hand through my unkempt, sweat-sticky hair. My curls turned into unsightly clumps when I hadn’t had a chance to wash it.
Dr Wong was called away by his team, and I shut the door to Hogan’s office behind him.
“How’re the statements coming on, ma’am?” I asked.
“Mrs Stewart’s and Alice Stewart’s are done, Lyle Stewart is still in there.”
“And?”
She raised an unimpressed eyebrow at me. “Does it look like I’ve had the chance to look them over yet?”
“Right, sorry, ma’am.”
She huffed, looking me over critically. She was the picture of professionalism with her neat uniform and manicured nails. I reckoned I looked pretty scruffy in comparison, still dressed in my sweaty running wear.
“Better head home for a shower, Mitchell,” she said. “You need one.”
“Thanks a lot, ma’am.”
“Maha will double-check your account,” she said, her tone serious now though I knew she didn’t doubt my word. She would never make an exception for her officers, her professionalism wouldn’t allow for it, and it was one of the reasons I trusted her implicitly. If it meant I had to have my house looked over and my whereabouts confirmed, then that was just fine with me.
Humour returned when she added, “But you go ahead home and don’t come back ‘til tomorrow. We know where you live, after all.”
I snorted and turned to head out, almost walking into Maha. She had her hand raised to knock on the door and looked as startled by my sudden exit as I was by her.
“Er, sorry, sir,” she said. I stepped back and waved her in. She hovered. “Just wanted to say that I checked with,” she paused to flip through her notebook, “Andy Lovell at the mechanics, and Jane Andrews at The Teaspoon cafe, and both of them saw you run through.” I nodded.
“Good to hear it,” I said.
Maha smiled, showing the dimples in her cheeks. “Miss Andrews said you looked like you were trying for a PB, sir,” she teased. “She was very complimentary.”
I coughed. “Well,” I said. “The way I smell right now, I reckon she’d change her mind pretty fast if she got within ten feet of me.”
Maha shook her head with a smile. “I’ve got three brothers who do rugby. You smell like daisies to me.”
“I doubt that,” I said flatly, heading out as Hogan laughed behind me.
I weaved my way through the desks, passing members of the forensics team and officers from York who’d shown up to help, most of them a good deal younger than I was. The longer I was on the force, the younger the newbies seemed to look.
Heading to the door, I hesitated when I saw Sarah, still sitting beside her niece-in-law, Alice. Alice looked around the same age as I was, or perhaps a little older, maybe thirty-five. I knew her face, but we hadn’t talked before. She’d moved here recently, I’d heard around, though why exactly I didn’t know. With small-town gossip, I probably could have found out by asking any shopkeeper or by asking Graham, but I didn’t believe in prying.
I was glad she was here for Sarah, at least, who looked utterly devastated. She’d always been a woman forever on the move, with a certain determination about her, whether she was just walking to the shops, or going off to York for her work. Graham had always been the more relaxed one, though I’d understood from what little he’d said about his past, that he’d been as busy as Sarah when he was younger.
I couldn’t leave without saying anything to them, especially since Sarah had first heard about Graham being sick from me. I headed over, steeling myself for accusations and hurt over leaving Graham alone.
Alice looked up as I approached and, as upset as she clearly was, I couldn’t help but notice how strikingly blue her eyes were.
Sarah’s head stayed resting on Alice’s shoulder, her clouded gaze fixed on the station’s old floor. A small, round woman, she normally held herself up with the kind of pride and inner assurance that made people move out of her way on the paveme
nt, but right now, she was crumpled over with grief.
“Sarah?” I said. She looked up slowly, hazel eyes blinking a few times before she seemed to recognise me. “I’m so sorry.”
She swallowed audibly and sat up. Lyle came out of the interview room just then, shook hands with Kay, and then came over. We all watched him approach. He had broader shoulders than Graham and was more thickset in the face, but they still looked very much like brothers.
Sarah reached out and took my hand, startling me into turning my attention back to her. We’d never talked much, other than pleasantries in the village, but she looked at me with a desperation that was painful.
“You- you were the last to speak to him?”
I nodded. “As far as I know.”
Her shoulders slumped, and she let go of my hand. “God, if I’d just been home,” she said, her voice cracking as she covered her face with her hands.
I closed my eyes briefly and took a breath. “It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “We don’t know what happened yet, but we’ll find out. I’ll find out.”
She sniffled, and Alice turned sideways to dig a packet of tissues out of her bag. She was holding herself together remarkably well, and I was grateful to her for being here for her aunt.
“I know you will,” Sarah managed after a minute. Seeing her so discomposed was uncomfortable, and I looked away. “Darren?” she said, her voice firmer. I looked at her. “It wasn’t your fault either, you know that?”
I nodded silently and gave a thin smile. “I know,” I said, my voice sounding a touch unconvincing even to me. “But he was a friend. I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
There was trust in her eyes as she nodded and I swore to myself that I’d live up to that. Lyle patted me on the back, too.
“I wouldn’t want anyone else looking into it,” he said in his deep voice, still slightly altered by the precise enunciation of a southern accent, though he’d moved up here years ago. “I know Graham liked you a lot.”
I was deeply touched by their confidence in me. “Thank you both.”
DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thrillers: Book 1-3 Page 3