Hunting the Silence: The Yorkshire Murders (DI Haskell & Quinn Crime Thriller Series Book 4)

by Bilinda P Sheehan

  Ambrose raised his eyebrows and rocked back on the heels of his boots. "To be honest, he seemed like a good lad. Shocked him to find the body like that, even if it was just a skeleton. I'd have been only too happy to pull something like that outta the ground when I was his age, but he was one of them quiet types."

  DC Nicoll nodded. "The geeky type," she said. "And a bit of a mummy's boy, who wasn't yet ready to grow up."

  "What makes you say that?" Melissa asked.

  "I don't know, just something about him felt very young. Maybe naïve, even. You know how most young blokes nowadays are always far smarter than their parents. They know everything, and can't wait to cut the apron strings, so they can get out there into the big wide world?"

  "Yeah," Drew said.

  "Well, I don't think Oliver was like that. I got the impression he would have been happier to stay at home watching telly, or playing video games rather than go out messing with others his age."

  Drew nodded. "So, running away isn't likely then is it?"

  Ambrose shook his head. "I'm going to agree with Nicoll on this. He didn't feel like the running away sort."

  "Shit," Drew said emphatically.

  "Well, he got hurt out in the woods once," Melissa said. "Maybe he went back there for something."

  Drew nodded. It was as good a lead as any they had, and considering they currently had nothing at all, he was willing to grab it with both hands. "Fine, get some of our uniforms together, and can you take them to the place where the body was found.” Drew directed his question to the DS and DC in front of him. “Have the SOCOs cleared that scene yet?"

  Nicoll nodded. “They finished yesterday. So there won't be anyone up there tonight. I can show the uniforms the spot.” As she spoke she tilted her head in the direction of DS Scofield as though to get his silent approval.

  Drew’s smile was grim. “Good, at least we don’t have that to contend with too. If I remember rightly, Dalby forest is a lot of ground to cover.” He turned to Melissa. “See if Gregson will sign-off on our use of the helicopter.”

  "What are you going to do?" Melissa asked.

  Sighing, Drew pushed his hand back through his hair. “I’m going to ask Mrs Poole why she didn't bother to tell me about her son and his accidentally stumbling onto a dead body in the woods.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The lights on the Christmas tree in the corner of the room blinked in random succession, making Harriet feel a little seasick. She had never been a fan of the out of control feeling it invoked in her because it reminded her too much of her mother. "You must be very proud of your son," Harriet said, gripping the photograph Mrs Poole handed to her.

  "He's such a good boy," the distressed mother said, dabbing at the corners of her eye with the shredded tissue she held in her hands. "He wouldn't stay away like this. He knows how much I worry about him."

  Harriet glanced down at the picture of the shy boy who smiled timidly up out of the photograph at her. "And it's not like him to lose track of time with his friends, or--"

  "No!" Mrs Poole said, shaking her head vehemently. "He knows the rules. And if he was going to be late, he'd have rung home by now."

  "Oliver has a mobile phone?"

  Mrs Poole sighed. "We didn't want him to have one, but everybody does nowadays. We thought by letting him have one he could use it to stay safe." She sighed. "But it's become an extension of him now. He doesn't go anywhere without it."

  Harriet smiled kindly at the woman beside her. "I can imagine. In today's world, everything is always so busy. We've all discovered an innate need to be connected to everything all the time."

  Mrs Poole nodded. "Exactly, and I just can't say no to him." She looked tenderly down at the photograph. "I think we spoil him a bit, but he deserves it."

  Harriet thought it was an odd thing to say, but kept her thoughts to herself. After all, spoiling a child wasn't an unusual thing for a parent to do, but it felt odd that Mrs Poole would describe it as she had.

  "Does he ever have any problems at school?"

  Mrs Poole shook her head absently stroking the edge of the photograph with her thumb. "No, at least not anymore. He's a smart boy. Oliver has always done well in his exams. Says he wants to be a doctor when he grows up." She looked up at Harriet then, and her eyes glistened with unshed tears. "He's coming home, isn't he?"

  "DI Haskell, and the rest of the team will do their utmost to get him back to you."

  "That's not really an answer though, is it?" Squeezing her eyes shut, Harriet watched as a tear slipped from beneath Mrs Poole's lashes, and snaked its way down her cheek. "If I tell you something, promise you won't think I'm an oddball?"

  Harriet patted the other woman's hands. "There's nothing you could tell me that would make me think that." It was the truth, when it came to confessions, Harriet was confident she'd heard nearly everything. And the depth of depravity of some things Harriet had heard during her time working in forensic psychology made it almost impossible for this reserved mother from North Yorkshire to shock her.

  "I'm afraid to say it out loud, because when I do I know it'll be true," she whispered. When Mrs Poole opened her eyes, mascara had smudged on the papery, almost translucent skin beneath her eyes. There was a frantic expression in her eyes that hadn't been there a moment before, and Harriet felt a sense of foreboding rise in her chest. "I think he's gone."

  "Why would you think that?" Harriet asked. She kept her voice level, and devoid of emotion.

  "A mother knows these things," she said, and her voice broke over the last word. "They tell you not to lose hope. That where there's life, there's always hope." There was a twisted bitterness to her voice now, and Harriet knew there was something the other woman wasn't telling her.

  With Mrs Poole's gaze pinned on the photographs in her lap, Harriet took a second cursory glance around the room. From her vantage point on the couch, she couldn't see anything that might indicate the other woman's point of view, but there was a niggling in the pit of Harriet's stomach that told her Oliver wasn't an only child after all.

  "You have another child?" Harriet asked, noting the way Mrs Poole's mouth tightened almost imperceptibly.

  “Amy would have been fourteen last weekend," Mrs Poole said quietly. "Leukemia. An aggressive form of it. She passed when she was nine."

  "I'm so sorry to hear that," Harriet said, but her words felt hollow. "Did Oliver remember much about his big sister?"

  Mrs Poole nodded. "He does, probably not as much as he says he does, but I know he remembers enough of her. They were very close, and when she got sick, even though he was so young, they seemed to grow closer. When she passed he got so quiet, so introverted. It made him very vulnerable..." She trailed off. Harriet noted the subtle stiffening in the woman's shoulders, and the dark blotchy colour that crept up the side of her neck.

  "You say it made him vulnerable," Harriet said. "What do you mean by that?" Alarm bells were chiming in her head, but she needed to hear it from the woman sitting next to her before she jumped to any kinds of conclusions of her own.

  "It was nothing, really."

  "I don't think that's entirely true," Harriet said, keeping her voice kind, but firm. "We need as much information as you can share with us, so we can bring your son home."

  Mrs Poole swallowed hard and glanced down at the pictures. "There was a caretaker at the school," she said hoarsely. "Oliver didn't tell us, because he couldn't, his grief it made him mute."

  Harriet nodded sympathetically. "I've heard it can happen in young children who undergo trauma."

  "And losing his sister. It was a trauma for Oliver. He didn't understand, I think he blamed us for her passing." She sighed.

  "What happened with the caretaker at Oliver's school?" Harriet pressed. As much as she hated to do it, she knew it was necessary for Drew to have all the facts.

  "The police at the time said he'd been grooming Oliver. He maintained it was nothing more than a friendship, but there were some pictures o
n his hard drive." A look of revulsion rolled over her face as she spoke. "Oliver refused to talk about it with us, and he wouldn't say anything to the counsellor so we never got the full story. We let him down, I should have known..."

  "This man," Harriet said. "Do you know where he is now?"

  "I don't actually know," she said. "He received a custodial sentence, and we were told he'd be placed on the sex offenders registry--" She cut off as a thud from the hall broke her concentration. "Oliver, is that you?"

  "Karen, it's me." The man who stepped into the living room was tall, his receding hairline made him appear older than Harriet supposed he truly was. There was something about his eyes that seemed familiar to her, and when she glanced down at the photograph of the shy Oliver, she realised where the resemblance had come from. "He's not home yet?"

  Mrs Poole shook her head and fell into the man's arms. "What if something has happened to him, Carl? What if something awful has happened to our boy?"

  Harriet stood awkwardly, watching the meeting unfold. Mr Poole's eyes fell on her, and there was a darkness that seemed to sweep up through him as he manoeuvred around his wife.

  "What are you lot doing hanging around here? Why aren't you out there searching for my boy?"

  "I can assure you, Mr Poole, we're doing everything we can."

  He snorted derisively and shook his head. "Doing everything would be you out there!" He jerked his thumb in the direction of the hall. "Not in here, hassling my wife, and upsetting her further."

  "The last thing we want to do is upset you, or your wife further, Mr Poole," Drew's voice cut through the tension in the room. And Harriet instantly felt more at ease. Having him at her back made it easier to ask the inevitably more difficult questions she needed to get answers to.

  "DI Haskell is correct," Harriet interjected. "Unfortunately, some questions we have to ask will make you feel upset, and uncomfortable." From the corner of her eye she caught Drew's interested glance, but Harriet kept her gaze firmly fixed on the couple in front of her. "We need to know the name of the man who groomed your son."

  The tension in the room skyrocketed. Clenching her hands into fists by her side, Harriet kept her expression impassive.

  "You told them about that?" Carl asked, incredulity lacing his voice.

  "What did you expect me to do? I couldn't very well ignore it, and anyway, it's not as though it isn't true."

  "Oliver said nothing happened." Carl sounded apoplectic as he pushed away from his wife and paced about in the small living room.

  "He wasn't ever the same after it," Karen said, a noticeable tremor in her voice. "He used to be so happy, and then..."

  "I'm sorry, can somebody catch me up here," Drew said, his usually calm tone seemed—to Harriet—a little more frayed than usual.

  "After we lost our daughter Amy, well, Oliver--"

  "We didn't lose her, Karen! She died," Carl interrupted angrily. "Amy wasn't some kind of sock lost in the wash. She was our daughter, and she died. Why can't you ever say that? Why can't you admit it?"

  “Mr Poole, I don't think this is going to help anyone," Drew said. "Least of all Oliver. We need you both to remain as calm as possible, so we can do our job.”

  Karen sank into the nearest chair, her face pale. “I--”

  "Perhaps it would be best if I took Mrs Poole into the kitchen, and we got a cup of tea," Harriet said, moving to the side of the distraught woman. Karen's lips were pale, and Harriet crouched down next to her. "Karen, can you make it onto your feet?"

  The sound of frenzied action from the doorway pulled everyone's attention in that direction. A uniformed officer popped his head in the door. "Sir, could we have a word with you outside?"

  "Have you found something?" Carl asked, pushing Drew out of the way before the other man could block his path effectively. "If you've found something, then I need to know."

  "They've found him, haven't they?" Karen's voice was little more than a whisper.

  "We don't know anything for certain yet," Harriet said, aiming for reassurance, but even to her it sounded weak. She couldn't imagine what the woman next to her was going through.

  "We need you to stay here, Mr Poole," Drew said firmly. "When I know more, you will be the first to know." Drew escaped, leaving Harriet in the room with the uniformed officer, and the Pooles.

  From the corner of her eye, Harriet was only vaguely aware of Mr Poole's behaviour as he paced back and forth inside the door like some kind of caged animal. Harriet chose instead to keep her attention fixed on the woman beside her.

  "I've wrapped all of his Christmas presents," Karen said. "He never asks for much, but this year we wanted to make things special for him. Try and give him back some of what he'd missed out on in previous years..." She glanced over toward the tree.

  "I'm sure he'll appreciate the effort you've gone to," Harriet said, touching her fingers to the other woman's. Karen's skin was cold, almost stony, and apprehension knotted itself in Harriet's stomach.

  "Fuck this," Carl said, making a second attempt on the door. The uniformed officer made a valiant effort to keep him contained, but he was no match for the father's determination. Ramming him out of the way, Carl escaped out into the hall, allowing the chilly evening air to slip into the room and curl around Harriet's legs like an overly friendly cat.

  Harriet caught the eye of the officer Carl had knocked down, and she shook her head subtly as he made a move for the door. “Could you stay here with Mrs Poole and maybe fix her a cup of tea? I'll check on Mr Poole.”

  The PC looked Harriet up and down before he shrugged and stepped aside. "Be my guest. I've had enough of being out there for one night."

  Harriet headed for the door and found Drew arguing with Mr Poole out in the street. "What's going on?" She caught the attention of the nearest police officer.

  "They found what they believe is Oliver Poole's coat."

  "But no sign of Oliver?" The officer shook his head, and Harriet shivered despite the coat she wore. The temperature had taken a dramatic downturn, and she wouldn't have been surprised to see snow begin to fall from the sky. This wasn't the kind of weather for a child to be out in, especially one who was no longer in possession of a coat. "Have they found anything else?"

  The officer shrugged. "I don't know. The DI is keeping it all pretty close to her vest." Harriet glanced over in DI Appleton's direction and was surprised to find herself the object of Appleton's attention, despite the almost physical altercation brewing between Drew and Mr Poole.

  Making her way through the group, Harriet approached DI Appleton. There was an almost imperceptible narrowing of the other woman's eyes, which Harriet found more than a little interesting. As far as she was aware, she had done nothing to upset, or offend the Detective Inspector, so it didn't make sense that that there would be any kind of animosity between them.

  "Is there something you want, Dr Quinn?" There was an unmistakable frostiness to Melissa's voice that did nothing to make Harriet feel at ease.

  "I heard you found a coat you think belongs to Oliver?"

  "Those little birdies don't know when to keep their mouths shut, do they?" Sarcasm dripped from Melissa's words, and she shook her head.

  "So that's a yes?"

  "We found a coat."

  "Anything else?"

  Melissa shrugged. "I'm not sure it would be helpful right now for me to go blabbing to just anyone about the inner workings of this particular MISPERS." Before Harriet could reply, Melissa nodded her head toward Drew and the aggrieved father. “I need to sort this out before the two of them are brawling in the road. Wouldn’t the press have an absolute field day with that?”

  Harriet scanned the crowd and found Maz coordinating with a group of uniformed officers. He glanced up as she approached, his smile fleeting. "I didn't know you were here, Dr Quinn," he said, making a note in the pad he held.

  "I heard you found a coat."

  His expression turned grim, as he directed the officers to join the othe
rs who were conducting a grid search down on the path that entered the woods. "We did," he said. "DI Appleton directed us to begin the search down on the path where Oliver was last seen."

  "And that's where the coat was?"

  "It was nearby, dumped in some undergrowth a couple of feet into the woods."

  Harriet sucked in a sharp breath and fought to ignore the shiver of apprehension that tracked down her spine. "Oliver wouldn't have just left his coat there like that."

  "How do you know?" Maz asked. “I mean, when I was a kid, I did all sorts of crazy shit with my clothes. The number of times my mum gave me an earful for losing my coat, or my jumpers.” He shook his head, a wry smile curling his lips. "I once even managed to lose a pair of brand-new trainers. I thought she was going to kill me." Maz's smile had lost some of its lustre, and Harriet wondered just how truthful he was being with himself regarding his memories.

  Harriet returned his smile. It wasn't her place to question him. But his explanation regarding young boys and their ability to lose items of clothing didn't explain Oliver's coat being found in the undergrowth. "When you say dumped in the undergrowth, could it have been blown in there, or was it hidden from view?"

  Maz's expression turned thoughtful. "I didn't find it personally..." He turned his attention toward the uniformed officers who milled around. "Oi, Barry, get your arse over here for a second." Maz's voice carried across the small cul-de-sac, drawing the attention of several of the other officers from nearby.

  The officer Harriet assumed was Barry jogged over to them. "What's up?"

  "When you found the coat, was it hidden from view, or dumped in plain sight?" Maz folded his arms over his chest.

  "It was under some downed branches near the entrance to the woods."

  "Did that seem odd to you?" Harriet jumped in before Maz could dismiss the man standing opposite them. She pushed down the irritation that surfaced in her when he glanced at Maz for what Harriet perceived to be permission.