Snakes in the Grass (A DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thriller Book 5)

by Oliver Davies

  Regardless, we had to get inside the house to check, and if I ended up having to put a brick through one of the windows, then I’d pay Gaskell for a new one once we’d found him.

  Nineteen

  After scouting around the back of the house and finding the back door securely locked, I located a likely looking brick I could use to get through one of the low windows if we needed to.

  “Mitch!” Stephen called for me from the front of the property.

  I couldn’t tell whether his raised voice had been in alarm or just to catch my attention, so I jogged around to the front and found him standing on the front path. He was talking to a petite, ginger-haired woman who looked about twenty-five and didn’t seem to be in any trouble, so I slowed to a walk and went to meet him.

  He heard my approach and turned to give me a nod.

  “This is my partner, DCI Mitchell,” he introduced me to the young woman, who was dressed in sensible jeans and a thick jumper. “Darren, this is Mel. She works for Gaskell as a cleaner.”

  “I see,” I said, my eyebrows lifting as I took in Mel with more interest. “When did you last see him? Has he been in contact with you?”

  “Uh, I haven’t seen him in weeks, to be honest,” she said, casting a look between the two of us.

  I realised that I was looming over her slightly and backed up a little way. Stephen and I were both tall blokes, and I sometimes forgot that we could seem intimidating.

  “I just come at half-eleven every Tuesday,” she continued. “He’s usually at work.”

  “Was he in touch with you today?” I asked, disappointed by her response.

  “Uh, no. It’s what I do every week, and he pays straight into my bank account.”

  I glanced over at Stephen, who looked as disappointed as I felt.

  “Alright, thanks for telling us. I assume you have a key to the house?”

  We hadn’t learned any more about Gaskell’s whereabouts, but we managed to get into his place without breaking any windows or getting cut up with glass. I asked Mel to stay outside until we called her in, on the off chance that there was anything unpleasant inside.

  But Gaskell’s house was tidy, bright and fresh smelling, and mine and Stephen’s search didn’t turn up anything. I went down to let the cleaner know that it was fine for her to come in out of the cold, though I asked her not to get started yet, in case there was some evidence lying around that we might need.

  “I’m on a schedule, you know,” she pointed out.

  “I’m sorry, but we’re concerned about your employer’s safety.”

  She grudgingly went to sit down in the living room to wait, and I heard the TV turn on a moment later. I headed through to the kitchen which was the one room I hadn’t looked in yet, though Stephen had swept through it already.

  “In the kitchen, did you notice the dog bowls?” I asked Stephen, who I’d found upstairs, looking through the bathroom.

  “No?” he said, looking up. He caught my point quickly and frowned. “Where’s the dog, then?”

  “Exactly.”

  Mel looked baffled when we asked her about it and got to her feet, clearly agitated.

  “You’re right. I don’t know why I didn’t realise,” she said quickly. “You two turning up distracted me, I suppose, but Della usually runs right up when you come in.”

  “Maybe he had his dog with him when he was taken?” Stephen offered.

  “I guess,” I said, frowning. “He came into work to speak to us and then went home to take his dog for a mid-morning walk? Seems odd.”

  “Maybe not,” Stephen said with a shrug. “He had to come in early to talk to us. That wouldn’t have left him with any time to walk the dog before work, would it? Dogs need two walks a day, usually.”

  “Della’s pretty hyperactive,” Mel put in. “She’d tear up the house as a pup, and Mr Gaskell always said I was welcome to play with her in the garden or whatever, to keep her occupied, if I wanted to.”

  I nodded slowly, wrapping my head around this new theory and deciding that it wasn’t too far-fetched.

  “If he went out with Della, her lead wouldn’t be here,” I reasoned. “D’you know where it was kept?”

  Even before I’d finished asking, Mel was turning to point at the nearby coat hooks.

  “Here,” she gestured to an empty one at the end, and I agreed that the idea was seeming more probable.

  “Do you know where he goes to walk the dog?” I asked her.

  “No,” she said reflexively, before pausing. “Well, she often came back covered in mud. The laundry would get covered in it, and he’d pay me extra to sort it out.”

  “Could be by the river,” I wondered, thinking of the muddy banks there. “Or the fields by the uni.”

  We asked Mel several other questions, but I was quickly convinced that she didn’t know anything more, and we took our leave. I was reluctant to let her get on with cleaning the house, but, from our search, there was no reason to think that anything had happened here, and so I didn’t ask her not to.

  “I hope I won’t regret that,” I said as we climbed back into the car.

  “What?”

  “Letting her clean up. She might destroy some evidence.”

  “I don’t think anything’s there, mate, do you?” He started up the car. “C’mon, I know what you wanna do next, and we haven’t got time to waste.”

  “What do I want to do next?” I asked, amused despite myself.

  “Go back to the station and check the city cameras. Find out where Gaskell went walking.”

  “Aye, got it in one,” I admitted, before giving a sigh. “Damn, I hope he’s just out on a stupidly long walk, his phone and radio turned off.”

  Stephen glanced over at me and didn’t point out the obvious, which was that Gaskell hardly ever turned his phone or radio off. I’d heard around the station that he’d been called about a murder at four AM on Christmas day a couple of years ago, and he’d been up and at the scene within ten minutes.

  Gaskell’s house wasn’t far from Hewford station and, after grabbing a fresh coffee from the break room, Stephen and I focused on looking through the CCTV cameras closest to Gaskell’s place.

  I elbowed Stephen hard not five minutes later as I reached with my other hand for my phone to let Sedgwick know.

  “What is it?”

  I pointed at the screen which I’d paused on a snapshot of Gaskell, walking a yellow lab. The timestamp said eight-thirty this morning. I plugged Sedgwick’s number into my phone and rapidly filled him.

  “We’ve got him on camera,” I told him, giving him the location.

  “I’ll send officers over. You focus on tracking his progress via the CCTV.”

  “Aye, alright,” I agreed, ignoring him giving me an order since it was what I’d been planning to do, anyway.

  Following Gaskell’s trail proved difficult with the gaps in CCTV coverage through the back streets of York. However, we guessed at a route that went near to any muddy or natural areas nearby and managed to pick up his trail.

  I thought wryly that, back in the countryside town where I used to work, it would’ve been more of a clue if the dog hadn’t come back covered in mud. But here in the city, areas where a dog could get properly caked in dirt were infrequent enough to narrow it down somewhat.

  It was Stephen who found the last video of Gaskell or, more accurately, of his dog, and watching it made bile rise in my throat.

  On the grainy image, I could see the yellow lab wandering up the path Gaskell had been walking down, her leash trailing behind her. Somewhere between this footage and the last piece from several minutes earlier, Gaskell had been grabbed, or attacked.

  “We’ll go straight there,” I said, already on my feet. “I’ll drive, you update Sedgwick, okay?”

  Usually, it was Stephen that liked to drive like he was in a rally race, but right now, it was me flicking the sirens on and tearing across York. The weight of the other four deaths lay across my shoulders, pressi
ng down insufferably, and I couldn’t bear for Gaskell to join them.

  My mind summoned up images of the men’s cut feet, the ragged gashed behind the legs that must have been so excruciatingly painful, and my hands clenched around the steering wheel, made sticky by my clammy hands. I couldn’t forget Robbie’s pain-filled screams and finding out that someone had filled his IV with bleach turned my stomach to even think about. This wasn’t a killer who shied away from causing awful, awful pain to those they killed, and the thought pressed my foot down on the accelerator. If I didn’t save Gaskell, I knew that his death and suffering would haunt me for life.

  “Darren!” Stephen said sharply, and not for the first time, I guessed.

  “What?”

  “I’m getting a call from Keira. I’ll put it on speakerphone.” He held out his phone between us. “Keira, hi, Mitchell and I are-”

  “Robbie’s woken up,” she said in a rush. “He wants to talk to you. Right now. He says- He says he’ll confess, that he had to talk to you straight away.”

  “Gaskell’s missing, presumed taken,” I snapped into the phone, slowing down my driving slightly as I spoke. “We haven’t got the time, Keira.”

  “I think you have to hear this,” she said urgently. “He’s got key information.”

  We weren’t too far from the hospital, but if I went any further, we’d go right past the turning for it. Muttering curses, I pulled up onto the curb.

  “Steph, what d’you think?” I asked. He paused for only a second.

  “Sedgwick’s guys will be at the scene soon, and they can handle looking for evidence there. I reckon we see Robbie. He’s the only one we’ve got who might’ve actually interacted with the killer, spoke to them.”

  “Fine.”

  I turned the car around, taking the exit towards the hospital. I vaguely heard Stephen talking further to Keira, telling her to stay put and make sure that she didn’t go off anywhere alone. I just hoped that this detour would be worth it, and that Robbie wouldn’t spin up a useless fable made up of lies, like he tried to last time we spoke to him. But I trusted Keira when she said it was important, and Stephen had voted to go there too, so we were on our way.

  Robbie seemed barely conscious when we reached him, and Keira sat by his side. He was in a higher priority ward than where we’d last seen him, and I could see just from the awful paleness of his skin why that was.

  “Is he awake?” I asked as we reached them, probably too brusquely.

  “I think so.” Keira seemed to understand the urgency and didn’t chastise me for my bedside manner as I sat quickly down beside Robbie.

  “Robbie? It’s DCI Mitchell.”

  Robbie’s tired eyes opened, and he frowned at me, squinting in the bright light. “Took you long enough.”

  “Tell me what you know,” I said, ignoring his comment and getting my notepad out. I was ready to remind him how time-sensitive this whole business was, but he replied promptly, and I listened.

  “He singled me out. He wanted a journalist, someone who could access anywhere.” He coughed and reached for his cup of water, which Keira helped him drink.

  “What did he want you to do?” Stephen leaned forwards in his chair, his elbows on his knees.

  “Get information from people, mostly, through the interviews, y’know?” He closed his eyes briefly, looking exhausted, but persevered a moment later. “He wanted to know their habits, their homes… all of it.”

  “What’s his name? Did you speak to him in person?” I pressed, aware that Robbie didn’t have much energy to speak, and we didn’t have the time to ask him every question we wanted to.

  “I don’t know. We only talked on the phone.” He coughed again, his voice thin as he resumed. “He threatened Keira, our parents, my work colleagues… everyone. He sent pictures to my email. I should’ve reported it, but-”

  “You can’t change that now,” I said, sharply enough that Keira sent me a disapproving look. “How can we find him? Have you got a number for him?”

  “He called me on burner phones.”

  “Then what ‘key information’ did you have for us?” I said, fighting to keep my temper. “What can you tell us?”

  “I’ll tell you,” he said weakly. “He kept blackmail material on everyone he made help him, right? Phones, paperwork, USBs, all of that. And I reckon he stored it at his house.”

  “You reckon?”

  “He took my phone off me,” he said, his eyes closing briefly. “I didn’t think to track it down, or ask Keira. But I heard you tell Keira that they’ve got your boss, right?”

  “So?”

  “His phone will still be on, it’ll still be active. You can track it.”

  Stephen and I shared a look. After we’d been unable to get a response from Gaskell’s phone, I hadn’t thought to track it; I’d assumed that the killer would’ve tossed it in the river, or crushed it, like most kidnappers and murderers did. But if this killer kept his blackmail and the victim’s possessions like trophies, perhaps it was possible.

  “Most likely, the killer’s taken the battery straight out. Turned off the GPS,” I warned. “But we’ll try it. Anything else, Mr Adams?”

  Robbie weakly shook his head. I stood up, intending to head straight for the station to talk to the tech team, but Keira spoke up before I could move two steps away.

  “Wait, I’m coming. I need to help.”

  “Keira,” Robbie protested. Keira sent him an agonised look before turning back to us, her expression firm with resolution.

  “I need to help make it right. I’ll help you track Gaskell’s phone. There’s an officer at the door. Robbie’ll be alright.”

  “Don’t get yourself hurt,” Robbie begged, trying to reach out towards her even though he was clearly so weak that lifting a half-full glass of water was about his limit. He loved his sister, that was evident, so much so that he was willing to aid and abet murder for her.

  “I’ll be fine,” Keira said flatly, without turning to face him. She gave me a look that dared me to challenge her, but I had no desire to. Keira was the best of the tech team, and I’d be more than happy to have her expertise working on this.

  Robbie didn’t try to persuade her again, but I knew from the stiff set of Keira’s shoulders that she felt his pleading gaze on her back the whole way down the ward.

  The station seemed both emptier and busier than usual when we returned, with significantly fewer officers sitting at their desks and working, but those who were still in the station moved around with fierce urgency, and there was an electric tension in the atmosphere.

  I had no real idea how to track a phone so, once Keira had set herself up at a computer in the lab and gotten started, I went to the nearest break room to fetch her the milky coffee she’d asked for, and to make myself an extra-strong one. Stephen came in with me to fix himself a cup of tea, and we moved familiarly around one another. Someone had left a box of jam doughnuts on the table and, my stomach complaining about the lack of proper food today, I snagged a couple for myself and Keira while Stephen got his own.

  Walking back towards Keira and experiencing the first down period of this whole, awful day, my thoughts turned immediately towards Sam and how she was doing. The drugs must be wearing off now, I thought, and she’d have her cast fitted on. I hoped she wasn’t in too much pain and her friend was looking after her while I couldn’t.

  Keira accepted the coffee and doughnut when we reached her, carrying on working as she did so.

  “It’s not at the killer’s house,” she said, not twenty minutes later, as she cleaned sugar off her fingers.

  “No?” My stomach sank.

  “It’s at a storage facility.”

  “Where?”

  “Down near Asda,” she said, pointing out the location on the map. It was close to the gym Sam went to, and I was already calculating the quickest way to get there.

  “Keira, can you call the company?” I said as I straightened up. “Tell them that we’re on our
way, and we’ll want to see the CCTV.”

  She gave a firm nod, and Stephen and I moved away together, heading back out to the car. I felt like I’d not stopped rushing around today, but I’d been so distracted that I hardly felt the lingering ache in my legs. When they did twinge, it only served to remind me how dangerous this case was and how close we’d come to losing our key witness. I was sure that Stephen and I would have thought to try tracking Gaskell’s phone, but perhaps not until tomorrow or even later. And by then, it might have been too late.

  It might be too late already, but I couldn’t think like that with Gaskell’s life at risk, and I shoved the thought away as soon as it appeared, refusing to even consider it.

  In the car, Stephen swung us hard around a roundabout, the sirens squealing overhead, the sound dampened by the car’s metal body and by my own distracting thoughts.

  “We need an ID on this guy, badly,” I muttered, holding onto the handle above the window as Stephen took another tight turn that left me crushed up against the door.

  “We need anything we can get,” Stephen replied tightly. “A picture of his face, his license plate, his name. Anything.”

  I gave a single nod in reply, waiting impatiently for the short drive to be over and for Stephen to pull up outside the storage facility. The university students mostly used it over the holidays, to store their things as they moved accommodation, but it must be fairly empty this time of year, I thought.

  We headed straight inside, and the bloke on reception seemed to recognise us right away.

  “You want the CC-” was as far as he got before I interrupted.

  “Yes. Please show us.”

  He saw the intensity in my face and moved with haste to let us behind the desk and into the little office built in behind.

  “The woman on the phone said you wanted to see today’s recording?”

  “Aye, we’re looking for a bloke who just dropped off a mobile phone. He’d have been here earlier this morning.”