“Stephen Huxley, yeah. And I like the city. I miss the moors, though.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You’re a walker?”
I chuckled. “A runner, actually.”
To my surprise, she didn’t pull a rueful expression like Stephen had, but instead, she lit up. “You are?” she said. “Me too! Are you going to do the Leeds half marathon in May?”
I perked up, and we got into talking about running, which meant that, when I next checked my watch, I’d been there for almost two hours.
“Oh, oops,” Taylor said, checking her own watch, which was slender and silver. She smiled in an ‘aw shucks’ way, and I smiled back.
“I better get back to the station,” I said, a touch sheepishly. I’d not meant to do anything other than stop by, but I couldn’t say I was sorry. Taylor had a sharp, fast mind, and I’d hugely enjoyed trying to keep up with her as we covered all sorts of topics.
“You probably ought to,” she agreed. She smiled in that attractive way of hers. “I don’t suppose you got some of those cards printed?” she asked playfully. “With your number on?”
“As a matter of fact,” I said, unable to keep myself from smiling back, “I printed some out today.” I fished one out of my pocket and then pulled my pen free of my top pocket to write my personal number on the back.
She took it when I offered and looked down at it. “Thanks, DCI Mitchell.”
“Darren, please,” I said, fully aware that she’d been teasing.
“Would you like to get a drink with me sometime, Darren?”
My face warmed slightly. “I’d like that a lot.” I hesitated, and she saw something in my face that made her pause, studying me for a moment.
“What is it?” she asked in her gentle Yorkshire accent.
“Nothing else has happened since my partner, and I were here, have they?” I asked, serious again. “No more… things being left, nobody following you?”
Taylor shook her head. “My colleague’s been driving me to work when he can,” she said. “And I’ve been careful. I haven’t seen anything else.” She leaned forwards slightly, clearly on edge. “Is there a reason I should be concerned? More concerned?”
I shook my head, though I wasn’t sure I was being entirely truthful. I hadn’t told her that I suspected that the fox being left was a killer showing interest in her, but I couldn’t really do so, even if I wanted to. She was a civilian and involved in the case, and until there was concrete evidence, or I believed her to be in real danger, I couldn’t share information on an ongoing case.
“No, there’s not been any more dead animals,” I said, perhaps a little too bluntly because she grimaced slightly.
“Good,” she said, though she still looked uneasy.
Thinking of the time, and how much Stephen was going to take the mickey out of me for staying so long, I stood up, and Taylor mirrored me.
“Thanks for the tea, Taylor,” I said gruffly, my accent coming out a little.
She gave me a small smile but pulled her cardigan around her like she was cold, though the room was toasty.
I took a chance and stepped forwards to put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “It’ll be alright,” I said. “You’ll call Stephen or me right away if anything is off?”
She nodded, and I took my hand away, a little flustered by the close proximity.
“Well,” I said and cleared my throat. “I look forward to that drink sometime.”
“That’d be nice,” she said, seeming genuine, and I headed over to the door. Back at my car, I raised my hand to give her a wave as she watched me from the doorstep, and she shyly waved back. I was still smiling as I drove away.
Nine
Stephen had already headed off home by the time I returned to the station, so the first time I saw him after disappearing to see Taylor was the next morning.
“You left early yesterday,” I said, more of a question than a statement. Stephen liked to leave on time, but he wasn’t one to shirk work and ditch me before it was time.
He sent me a look that told me he knew I was deflecting from my own absence. “My daughter wasn’t very well,” he said, and I noticed that his face had descended into unhappiness. “She was sick at school and pretty miserable.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” I said sincerely. “Did she improve overnight?”
He sighed. “Not really. She didn’t sleep much, and she was sick this morning.”
I frowned. “Do you need to be home? I can talk to Gaskell-”
He shook his head. “My wife’s with her today. If she’s still sick tomorrow, I’ll need to be off then.”
I nodded. “Of course.” I reached over to squeeze his shoulder in silent solidarity, and he gave me a nod.
“Thanks, Mitchell.”
I fetched myself a coffee and sat down, only for Stephen to swivel his chair round to face me with a knowing grin.
“No,” I said, holding up a finger.
“C’mon, Darren,” he said, and hearing such a whiny, pleading tone from such a bulky, tough-looking guy, made me crack up. “You were gone ages!”
I rolled my eyes. “We only had a chat,” I said defensively, rubbing the back of my neck. I looked up with a smile. “Guess what she likes to do in her spare time?”
Stephen stared at me. “What?” he said eagerly.
“Running!”
Stephen groaned, dramatically putting his head in his hands, and I chuckled to myself.
He threw his hands up. “You’re both nuts!”
“Are you jealous, Stephen? We could be running partners, you know, I could get you into shape.”
Stephen pretended to be offended. “Are you saying I’m out of shape, Mitchell?”
“Wouldn’t dare.”
I was still smiling slightly when Sedgwick turned up, walking across the room towards Gaskell’s door, once there, he knocked before heading in.
“Gone a little green there, Darren?” Stephen said, and I shot him a confused look. “Jealousy?” he said, nodding towards Gaskell’s office.
I frowned. “I’m not jealous. I’m just… frustrated at not being privy to all the information.”
Stephen hummed. “Gaskell hasn’t actually forbidden you, has he? He even agreed with your theory about the cases being connected. Have you asked him to see the post-mortem examination report, and Sedgwick’s reports?”
I conceded the point with a nod. “No,” I admitted.
“Well, then. Once Sedgwick’s out, off you scamper.”
I rolled my eyes. “I do not scamper.”
Stephen wiggled his eyebrows. “I bet you would if Taylor asked,” he said cheekily.
I was sorely tempted to smack him over the head with the papers on my desk, but restrained myself and settled for a glare instead.
Sedgwick left Gaskell’s office before I could come up with a suitably cutting reply and I stalked over towards the door, ignoring Stephen’s grinning face.
I knocked on the door, and Gaskell called me in, looking a little surprised, either to see me or to see me without Stephen.
“Mitchell, have you found a new lead?” he said, sounding so hopeful that I winced inwardly to disappoint him.
“I’m afraid not, sir,” I said apologetically. “I was hoping I could be sent the post-mortem for Hannah Clements, and Sedgwick’s reports on his case, if possible, sir,” I added hesitantly, because Gaskell’s expression was stern, and I couldn’t quite read his reaction to my request.
But he nodded. “If you think it’ll help,” he said, before sighing. “This killer is slippery and the longer we leave it…” He trailed off.
I pulled a sympathetic face. “I know, sir. I want to drag whoever did this over the coals, too. And we will.”
He sent me a wry look that said he wasn’t entirely convinced. And why would he be? The police did their best, but what with human fallibility, budget cuts, and general unluckiness, a large percentage of cases went unsolved every year, both large and small ones. It was frus
trating and sad and disappointing, and I knew that Gaskell, being a good man, would be taking some of the blame onto his own shoulders.
“We’ll do our best,” he said with a firm nod, and I believed that. “I’ll get Sedgwick to send over what he’s got.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said gratefully and saw myself out, feeling a renewed determination after seeing Gaskell’s tiredness and being granted access to the files.
It took until after lunch for Sedgwick to send the reports over, but I expected that the murder case was keeping him busy. Sedgwick had been put in charge of a high priority murder investigation, upon the awful discovery of that poor student girl’s dead body and now led a large team of people, all of which he had to coordinate. Perhaps Stephen was a little right in saying that I was jealous of Sedgwick being able to direct the focus of the investigation and of the resources he had at his disposal, but I certainly wasn’t jealous of the stress and pressure that he and Gaskell would both be under.
I read the post-mortem examination report and Sedgwick’s own reports thoroughly once they arrived and took notes on the parts that stood out to me. The post-mortem examination report gave asphyxiation as the cause of death and, as there was no sign of trauma to the tissues of the neck or to the cartilaginous structures of the airways, this asphyxiation had not been achieved through the application of the kinds of external pressure present in cases of strangulation. Hannah had not been strangled, she had been smothered to death. The distinction interested me, and I wondered whether the animals had been smothered too, or strangled with brute force, as we had thought to be the case. Their fur or feathers would cover any marks that hadn’t bled.
Sedgwick’s reports talked about his interviews with Hannah’s friends, flatmates, classmates, and family. By all accounts, she’d been a nice woman, passionate about her football and capable academically, too.
I felt a pang of sadness reading her family’s emotional accounts and thought it must have been worse for Sedgwick, who’d had to ask the hard questions: did she have any ex-partners who might have harmed her? Had Hannah ever engaged in risky behaviour? Who did they think might have wanted to hurt her? Had she contacted them close to her death?
The answers weren’t all that helpful. She’d not dated recently, and no-one had noticed anyone in Hannah’s life that wanted to hurt her or would have any reason to. Sedgwick still had Hannah’s football friends to talk to, who did seem like the ones she had been closest to and, interestingly, had been the group she’d been with on the night she was grabbed by the killer. It’d been a football society night out, apparently, which they did every couple of weeks or so, according to their university Facebook page.
“Darren,” Stephen said sharply, breaking me from my thoughts.
I turned around. “Yeah?”
I’d been so focused on my work that I hadn’t heard his phone ring, and he had it pressed to his ear with a concerned look on his face. He switched to speakerphone, and I startled at the sound of crying.
“Who is that?” I mouthed to Stephen.
“Abby,” he said aloud, into the phone. “DCI Mitchell is here. Can you tell him what you told me?”
There was an inhale of breath and sniffling as Abby got herself back under control.
“T-there’s another one,” she said croakily.
“Outside your door? Are you in-?”
“No,” Abby interrupted softly. “It’s i-in the window. I c-came back, and it was t-there.” She hiccuped, sounding on the verge of tears again.
“Okay, thanks for telling me,” I said soothingly. “Are you downstairs now?”
“Yeah.”
“Alright, good. Is your door locked?”
“D-door to my room?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“No,” she said. “I just- just ran away.”
“Okay, don’t worry,” I said quickly. “Do you think you could go up and lock it for me, Abby? You don’t have to go inside. Actually, it’d be best if you don’t. Just lock the door, so that no-one messes with it.”
She made a soft noise. “Okay,” she said quietly.
“Thank you. We’ll be along as soon as we can.”
Stephen hung up, and we looked at each other for a second. “Well,” he said.
“Yeah.” I sighed, grabbing my coat. We had the kit we’d need for finding and collecting fingerprint evidence in the car, so I picked up my phone, and we headed out.
I sent a brief email to Gaskell from my phone to let him know that Abby had called, and then Stephen and I were leaving the station and getting into the car. Stephen drove, and I sat back, staring out the window as I thought about what Abby had said. We didn’t know the details yet, but this was clearly even more of an invasion of her space than leaving that first macabre offering outside her door had been. I rubbed my hand over my prickly jaw and thought about Taylor, hoping that she’d not received anymore “presents” left on her doorstep for her to discover. I had to trust that she’d call if that happened.
We parked up in Halifax and walked quickly over, with me carrying the case containing our fingerprint evidence kit. I was hoping that the fact that the intruder had actually been inside Abby’s room this time might mean they touched something, and may have left at least a partial fingerprint behind.
A slim sliver of hope, I thought. They would probably have worn gloves, if their pattern of liking things done neatly had not been disrupted.
The door was answered almost immediately after we knocked, as if Abby had been hovering nearby or watching for our arrival. Her eyes were puffy and red with distress, and her mascara had run.
“Hi, Abby,” I said gently. Another woman, one of Abby’s flatmates I knew from talking to them all after the first incident, came out of the kitchen and pulled Abby into a hug when her shoulders started shaking.
“Nicola, is it?” I asked, and the flatmate nodded. “Can you look after Abby for a few minutes? We’ll need to look in her room, but then we’ll have to ask her questions, I’m afraid.”
“Sure,” Nicola said quietly, rubbing her friend’s back.
“Abby?” I said. “Have you got the keys to your room?”
She pulled away from Nicola with a small nod and pulled a set of keys out of the pocket of her jeans, handing it to me with shaking hands. Nicola led her away into the kitchen, and I sighed.
Stephen patted me on the back. “Come on, mate.”
“Aye.” I hated seeing Abby so upset.
We headed up the flights of stairs to Abby’s room on the third floor. I had to jiggle the key in the lock to get it to turn and swing the door open. Abby’s room was as tidy as it’d been last time, but it was still a relatively small space. The dead bird hung from the skylight, almost directly in the centre of the room.
“Disgusting,” I muttered.
The bird looked like some sort of corvid, a large crow or a small raven, and was hanging from the top of the skylight by a string around its neck. String had also been run through each of its wings, lifting them up as if it was in flight. It looked like a sick imitation of a baby mobile, with the bird twisting very slightly in a draft.
“That’s… different to last time,” Stephen said.
I hummed in agreement. “Still neat, though. No blood. And it’s been arranged again.”
I looked around the room, looking for anywhere someone might have touched. The skylight obviously had no windowsill, but it did have the bar across the top that was used to open it. But it was also quite high up, high enough that I reckoned that whilst I, being six foot four, could reach it fairly easily, it would be out of reach for Abby without a chair to stand on.
How tall had the person who strung this poor bird up been?
“Don’t touch anything,” I warned Stephen, as I unpacked the equipment I needed to search for fingerprints: powder and brush, clear tape, paper, and sample slides.
Stephen pulled an offended face. “I know, Darren.” His hands were in his pockets, as if to ward off any possibil
ity of putting his hands down on some surface.
“Right, sorry,” I said absently.
I spent the next forty minutes or so dusting and checking every possible contact point I could think of: the skylight, the back of the chair, the desk. We’d have to take Abby’s fingerprints to rule them out, as well as anyone else who’d been in her room recently, but I was hopeful that one of the fingerprints I’d found might belong to the killer.
“As smart as they seem to be, I’d be surprised if they didn’t wear gloves,” Stephen pointed out glumly.
“I know,” I conceded, before holding up a finger which was mucky with the powder we used to check for fingerprints. “I was thinking the same thing, but seeing that bird hanging there like that raised my hopes.” He gave me a questioning look. “How difficult do you think it’d be to tie those knots with gloves on?” I pointed to the small, tight knots holding the bird up to the skylight.
“Very difficult, fair point,” Stephen said, nodding.
“Right, I think I’m done.” I cast a final look around the room. “I’ll cut the poor bird down, while you clean off the mess I’ve left all over Abby’s room?” Checking for fingerprints left ashy dust behind, and I didn’t want anything left in Abby’s room to remind her that we, this bird, or any stranger had been in here. She was going to have a difficult enough job trying to sleep in here as it was.
“Sounds good,” Stephen said, pulling a clean, folded handkerchief from his pocket and wetting it at the sink.
“You carry hankies?” I said, amused.
“Yes.” He sent me a look that dared me to mock him.
I snorted, shook my head and got back to what I was doing. Before I cut the bird down, I took several pictures from different angles. My mobile was hardly the quality of the pictures the forensics team took, but they’d have to do. Once I was satisfied with those, I used a pair of small, sharp nail scissors I’d spotted near Abby’s sink, to cut through the strong string, holding the bird up carefully with my other hand while I did.
Stephen was ready with a bag when I’d finished with the third string. I lowered the bird gently into it, strings still attached. Then I opened the window wide before washing my hands and the borrowed scissors and turned to nod to Stephen, who was ready to go too.
Campus Killings Page 10