“What’s he like, Will?” Stephen asked. I wasn’t sure Aidan was going to answer with how long he stayed silent for.
“Trouble,” he said finally, before he gave a humourless laugh. “He was always difficult. Something we did wrong, I s’pose. Smart as a whip, but always in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
Aidan made a disgruntled noise in his throat, before he turned to look straight at us. “The kind that makes you regret becoming a father,” he said darkly.
I blinked, pulling back from the intensity in Aidan’s expression, before he turned back to the fire. Julie returned with the address I’d requested before I could pry more information from Aidan, and yet I was almost relieved. Aidan’s haunted eyes unnerved me, and this old, remote house up on the high moors was making me think of my last case, where my friend had been murdered up in his own secluded home.
“And places of work?” Stephen asked, when I stayed quiet, lost in my thoughts. The wind was bumping up against the windows, and I looked out them onto the moors.
Julie thought for a minute. “He worked in a bar while he was at university,” she said slowly. “I forget the name. Dear, do you remember?” she asked Aidan.
He grunted, which I took for the negative. I sighed.
“A phone number for Will?” I asked, a little desperately.
Julie still had her address book in her lap and flipped back to the right page. “We don’t use those smartphones,” she said, emphasising the word like it was unfamiliar in her mouth, “but this is his, or it was back then anyway.”
“Good, thank you,” I said, hesitantly hopeful. A mobile number, if registered to a contract, could be traced back to an owner.
“Do you remember anything about the bar he worked at?”
Julie hesitantly shook her head. “I’m sorry, Officer.” She paused. “It might have started with a ‘b’.”
I held back a grimace and just nodded. I glanced over at Stephen to make sure he was writing this down, which he was.
There wasn’t really any nice way to put my next question, so I just asked it. “Is there a possibility that your son might have engaged in… harmful behaviours towards others?” I said. There, that wasn’t quite as bad as asking ‘do you believe your son capable of murder?’.
Julie drank her tea, avoiding looking at us and Aidan kept his silence.
“He’s always been troubled,” Julie said finally, looking down at her teacup. Her thin hand was shaking. “He could be charming, and then cruel, all at once.”
Charming. That was the word Taylor had used too.
“Did he have a history of harming animals?” Stephen asked.
I saw from Julie’s wince the answer to that question even before she nodded wordlessly.
“Did he follow people? Harass them?” I asked.
But Julie shook her head at that. “No,” she said faintly. “He preferred to…” she broke off.
Aidan stood up abruptly, and both Stephen and I started, though Julie didn’t.
“You’re upsetting my wife,” he said. “It’s time you left. You have your information.”
I looked back at Julie, hoping she’d finish her sentence, but other than setting her teacup down on the little table by her side, she didn’t move to intercept her husband, nor to look at us again.
“Aye, we’ll go,” I said. I still had my coat and shoes on, and it was a matter of walking to the door. Aidan followed us out, like he didn’t trust us not to go poking our noses around.
Honestly, I would’ve loved to have asked if they still had Will’s childhood bedroom set up, but Aidan’s attitude made it clear that further intrusions wouldn’t be welcome. It would be better not to sour them completely, I thought, in case we needed to talk to them again.
Outside, the wind buffeted us with an unexpectedly strong gust, and Stephen momentarily lost his footing on the slick paving stones of the path. He only just caught himself by grabbing onto the rickety wall, thickly coated with a layer of verdant moss.
“You alright?” I asked, as he recovered his balance.
“Yep.” He shook off his wet hand, and we made our way carefully back to the car. I was paying attention to where I was putting my feet, of course, but I also had half an eye on the moors visible not so far away. I felt an ache to be up there that was almost as strong as my pull towards caffeine in the morning.
“Hey, Stephen?” I said as we got into the car.
“Yeah?”
“You know how you wanted to be my favourite partner?”
He frowned suspiciously at me. “What do you want?”
I cracked a smile. “I’m a fell runner at heart. And we’re up in the hills.”
Stephen groaned dramatically, but a smile was twitching at his mouth. “You better not expect me to come up with you?” he said.
I held up my hands. “Wouldn’t dare. But Google says there’s a good pub near here…”
He snorted. “A pub where I can wait for you to get done with your love affair with the moors? And then sit in the car with you all sweaty all the way home.”
“I’d owe you?” I offered.
Stephen shook his head with a chuckle. “What’s the address of this pub then?”
I grinned at him. “Thanks, mate.”
We set the sat nav up to take us down to the pub, Stephen neatly navigating through the tight lanes.
“What did you think of Will’s parents?” I asked as Stephen drove.
He blew out a breath between his teeth. “I don’t know, really. I can’t imagine your kid doing something so bad you… regret having them,” he said slowly, his mouth pulled down at the corners.
“No,” I agreed quietly. “That’s pretty extreme.”
Stephen made a noise of agreement. “So either Will’s really that bad,” he said, “or he’s got bad parents. Or both.”
“Yeah,” I said. I was leaning towards the first one, if I was honest.
Stephen glanced over at me. “You met this bloke, right? What was he like then?”
“Will?” I said, though I knew who Stephen had meant, I was just thinking about my response. “He was- he’s even bigger than you, mate. He was charming in a way, but it was like a crocodile’s smile type thing, you know? Just a veneer. And Taylor, she was more shaken than she’d been when we saw her about that fox.”
“Jesus,” Stephen hissed. “Sounds like a nasty guy.”
I didn’t go into details of why Taylor had been so upset by Will’s appearance, since I felt like she’d told me that in confidence, and instead nodded silently.
“Do you think he’s the one we’re after?” Stephen asked after a heavy second, and his question hung in the air, because that was the question, wasn’t it? Did I think William was not just a stalker but a killer?
“I don’t think we have enough evidence,” I said, bitterness creeping in. “But to be blunt, my gut feeling is that he’s capable of it. Just from the feeling that I got from him and his parents. That’s not evidence, though.”
“No,” Stephen agreed, but he sounded sympathetic.
We pulled into the gravel car park of the pub called The Oak and sat in the car for a moment. Stephen looked like he was thinking, and I left him to it.
Eventually, he sighed. “I’ll go eat my body weight in chips, then,” he said, and sent me a weak smile. “Carbs always make me feel better.”
I gave him a look. “You can always come running?” I offered. “Always helps me burn off the bad feelings.”
Stephen grimaced, but he patted my shoulder. “Thanks, but no thanks.” He gestured down at his clothes. “Plus, I don’t have any kit. Have you even got your trainers?”
“I stuck my kit bag in the boot before we left,” I said.
Stephen smiled as he pushed his door open, letting in a rush of cold, wet air. “You’re such a boy scout.”
“Enjoy your chips,” I said, before he shut the door and headed into the pub with his shoulders hunched up against the cold.
Bracing the chill, I fetched my gear from the boot and clumsily got changed in the back of the car. The warm pub looked pretty tempting, and I considered just heading inside to grab lunch with Stephen. But, cold as it was, the lack of hills in York had left me desperate for some proper wilderness. It was that that drove me out of the car.
While I’d been looking for a pub for Stephen, I’d also looked up well-rated walking paths and found a track close by. This wasn’t like Lockdale, where I’d known enough of the area not to get completely lost, and I wanted a good path to stick to. It was still solidly daylight too, so though I did pull on my high-viz running jacket in case of the mist coming down, I had no plans to be running in the dark.
Being back up on the moors again, feeling the wet, wild air and the wind on my face, gave me an energy I’d been lacking recently. Running on concrete was all well and good, but there wasn’t the same thrill.
I returned to the pub to meet Stephen with my face hot with exertion, my stomach growling for lunch.
“You look better,” Stephen commented, as I was wolfing down a large plate of shepherd's pie.
“Aye, I feel better, too,” I agreed.
Stephen smiled warmly. “Good,” he said. “Because I’m calling in my favour you can drive us home.”
I groaned, rolling my eyes, but didn’t really mind. The moors had left me feeling brighter and with a renewed determination to find the killer who’d cut short the lives of two young women.
Fifteen
We were most of the way back to the station when my phone started buzzing loudly in my pocket. I was focusing on going around a busy roundabout and didn’t have a spare hand to grab it.
“Stephen, can you…?” I said, watching the road.
“Sure, mate.”
He reached over and plucked the phone out of my pocket, pressing the button to pick up.
“‘Ello, it’s Stephen Huxley speaking.”
“Put it on speakerphone,” I said.
But Stephen seemed distracted by whatever was being said, and it took him a minute to do as I’d asked.
“Here, look, putting you on speakerphone, Taylor.”
“Darren?”
Whilst I’d perked up at the sound of her name, her worried voice made my chest go tight.
“What is it? What’s wrong? Was there another one?” I said, rushed.
“No, no,” she said, and then dropped her voice to a low hiss, “there’s someone following me, Darren.”
“What?” I snapped, alarmed. The traffic lights flashed up red ahead of me and I only just stopped the car in time. “Where are you? Are you with friends?” I knew she wasn’t though; she wouldn’t have called otherwise.
“I’m in town,” she said quietly. “There’s no-one around. I’m a while from my friend’s home.” Her voice was shaking. “I was j-just coming back from my yoga class.”
“Dammit,” I muttered. “Taylor, we’re still ten minutes out.” I turned to Stephen. “Call the station, send someone over to meet her.”
Stephen nodded solemnly and got on his radio.
“Where are you now?” I asked. “Keep talking to me.”
“Just walking down by the railway station,” she said, before her breath hitched audibly.
“Taylor?” There was a clatter, then silence. “Taylor!”
I stabbed the siren on and took off, snarling at the cars that wouldn’t get out the way. Night had closed in, and images of finding Taylor like those students made me feel sick.
“Stephen,” I said tightly. “Have they dispatched someone?”
“Yes, but we’re probably about as close as them, now,” he said, his large hand wrapped around the handle above the door as I swung us around a corner. We weren’t too far from the railway station, but the traffic was slowing us down as cars tried to manoeuvre out of our way.
“Come on, come on,” I hissed.
“Darren, pull over here,” Stephen said sharply. “We need to be in the streets, anyway. This is as close as you’ll get.”
I did as he said, pulling up with a painful bump on the curve by the war memorial, before launching myself out of the car. It was too early for clubbers to be out yet, and scant few people were out in the side streets, though I could hear noise and commotion from nearer to the city centre.
“Aw hell, it’s Halloween, isn’t it?” I cursed.
“Yeah,” Stephen said.
There would be crowds, the ghost tour, and lots of possible victims or witnesses, depending on which way things fell. But Taylor had said there were few people around where she’d been walking, and we needed to find her.
“Taylor!” I yelled, making Stephen jump.
“Christ, mate, I’m not sure you’re meant to announce our position like that!”
I set off at a jog, twisting my head to look down the streets. “She dropped her phone, or it was taken off her. How else are we going to find her exactly?” I snapped.
My legs ached from my run earlier as we ran around the twisting streets, with me calling for her every few minutes, but there was no sign of her. Were we going to stumble on her body, twisted into some unnatural position, like all those poor animals? I couldn’t bear it.
“Taylor!” I yelled. I heard something and skidded to a stop, Stephen cursing as he couldn’t get his bulk to come to such a sudden halt and skidded on the wet slabs of stones.
“Taylor?” I called again before listening intently.
A figure skidded around the corner up ahead at a run, and I was instantly on guard, braced to call for back-up and to defend myself. Then a light flickered through, catching the lines of Taylor’s terrified face, and my knees went soft.
“Taylor,” I said, so relieved it was like an ache.
“Darren!” She threw herself into my arms, and I pulled her close, so damn glad she was okay.
After a second, I gently pushed her back. “Are you hurt? Do you know where they went?” I flicked on the torch on my phone and looked her over, but she seemed to be all in one piece.
She put her hand on my phone to angle the light away. “I’m okay. I’m okay, thank God.” She was panting and shaking, her face blanched white despite the cold night and the running. “I think it was a man,” she gasped out. “He had a hood, he-”
I looked behind her, scanning the streets, and swore I saw movement at the corner that Taylor had skidded around.
“Stephen, look after her,” I barked, before jamming my phone in my pocket and ducking around Taylor to take off at a sprint.
The stone was slippery, and I almost fell over as I turned the corner at speed, but I was rewarded by the sight of a bobbing figure running away, towards the city centre.
Finally! Something solid that I could chase after, without dozens of frustrating dead-ends and wrong turns.
I shoved off the wall and pelted after them, my breath sawing in my chest as I drove my legs hard. I wasn’t as fit as I’d been once, but I was still a long-distance fell runner. I refused to let this killer, if that’s what he was, slip away.
We twisted through the streets, with him always just ahead, even as I gained on him. He was fast, fast and agile, and his shoes seemed to grip better than my trainers, the treads too worn down.
I rounded a corner too fast, and my foot went out from under me, leaving me to land painfully on my hip with my leg twisting as I landed. I swore, scrambling up with a wince and shoved myself off, running with a lopsided limp until I’d worked through the discomfort and my leg didn’t seem at risk of folding under me.
“Stop! Police!” I yelled. My fall had slowed me down, but I’d made up for that quickly. I was still catching up with the guy.
We were getting closer to the city where the Halloween crowds had built up, and I swore, loudly enough to startle a couple walking by me. I chased after the hooded figure, but he was shoving his way through the clusters of people, dodging in and out, and I could just feel him slipping through my fingers as it got harder to keep track of his head amo
ngst the people.
“Move!” I shouted, breathless with running. “Police! Move!”
But people were too slow to realise what was happening, and by the time they’d cottoned on, my quarry had slid out of sight. I tried to go after him, but I couldn’t see a match for the hooded guy I’d been following, and I had nothing else to go on. No idea of hair or face shape or age, just general height and build.
I hissed a curse and folded over my knees as I caught my breath. I glanced around to find a street name and radioed in my position, but I knew it’d be too late. The guy would ditch his hoodie, and then we’d have no useful description at all to track him down by.
Furious, tired, and defeated, I called Stephen to find out where he was, and then went to meet back up with him and Taylor. I was relieved to see that her cheeks looked a more normal colour, and she didn’t look as wild with terror as she had when she’d slammed into me.
“Did you-?” she started hopefully when she saw me approach, before her face fell and she broke off, clearly seeing the frustrated expression on my face.
“He got away in the crowds,” I muttered. Stephen was scanning the ground with his torch, and I walked over to him. My skin was buzzing with the exercise, hot and almost stinging with the sudden blood flow and adrenaline. “What’re you looking for?” I asked him.
“Taylor’s phone.”
“Ah.” With a sigh, I got out my own phone and started looking, but it was Taylor who found it in the end, the screen cracked but still working.
I straightened up with a groan from where I’d been bent over, looking, and Taylor shot me a sympathetic look.
“Thanks for trying, Darren,” she said gently.
“Failed to catch the guy, failed to find the damn phone,” I grumbled, already dipping into a foul mood. All the high I’d gotten from the moors had worn off.
Stephen sent me a harsh look, nodding his head pointedly towards Taylor. It took me a minute, but I got his meaning. Taylor was okay, and it was she who’d feared for her life this evening. I needed to get myself together for her, at least.
“Come on,” I said with a sigh, going over to her. “Let’s get you home.” I wasn’t sure whether she’d want to be touched or not, but she answered that for me by reaching out hesitantly to take my hand. I squeezed it lightly and mustered a weak smile that she probably couldn’t even see in the dark.
DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thrillers: Book 1-3 Page 40