Gardners, Ditchers, and Gravemakers (A DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crimes Book 4)

by Oliver Davies

  “Morning, Lena,” I greeted Crowe as we joined her, and she passed us both a pair of gloves.

  “Morning, boys.”

  “We’ve heard that no-one’s gone near her,” I said, pulling my gloves on.

  “Apparently not,” Lena remarked. “Let’s found out what’s amiss.” She snapped her own gloves on and heading down the path. Mills went with the constable to talk to whoever called it in, and I stayed put, looking around the surrounding gardens. I could see the house beyond, and even though we were surrounded by trees and towering plants, it was an open area, somebody must have seen here.

  “Holy—Thatcher!” Crowe shouted. My head snapped around, and I jogged over, falling to a squat beside her. Her fingers were on the woman’s neck, and she looked up at me with wide eyes. “I’ve got a pulse.”

  “What?”

  “It’s faint. Very faint, call an ambulance.”

  I didn’t hesitate, reaching for my phone and rattling off the information as quickly as I could with the words slurring and mixing. When they were on their way, I returned to Crowe, who had gently rolled the woman onto her back, and I winced at the sight of her.

  She was bruised almost from the top of her head to her toes. Marks around her neck and her face, her arms, her bare legs, a nasty cut that had scabbed on the side of her head. Crowe was bent down, studying her neck.

  “I’ve got a puncture wound,” she told me, letting me close enough to see the small hole in the woman’s neck.

  “Someone tried to hurt her,” I muttered.

  “I think someone tried to kill her, Maxie,” Lena corrected me. “I don’t know how she’s alive, but bugger me, she is. Just about.”

  “Ambulance is on the way. Who is she?” I asked.

  “Abbie Whelan,” Mills told me as he jogged over. “One of the lead horticulturists. Her boss, Dr Sean Quaid, called it in.”

  “Don’t touch anything,” Crowe snapped at us, eyes narrowed to the plants that grew around us.

  “She’s alive?” Mills asked, eyes wide.

  “Barely. Looks like attempted murder. What did her boss say?” I demanded.

  “Said he came out looking for her to go over some things. Saw her lying there, and when he got near, she was still, didn’t move when he touched her back, so he called it in straight away.”

  “She does look dead,” Crowe pointed out, her fingers still carefully placed on the woman’s neck. With her other hand, she reached into the woman’s pocket and pulled out a purse, tossing it over to me. I caught it, quickly opening it up as the wail of sirens came down the road.

  Mills and I stepped to the side as paramedics came charging in, and Crowe assisted them with Abbie Whelan, hopping in the ambulance beside her. SOCO moved in once they were gone, and we let them at it, though I doubted there would be much to find out here.

  “Abbie Whelan. Thirty-one years old,” I said as I read her driver’s licence. I moved the purse in my hands, and a few loose things fell out that Mills bent to pick up.

  “Sir,” he called me, his voice dark.

  “What?”

  He held up one of the pieces of paper that had fallen loose, a photograph. It was Abbie, looking much healthier and less bruised, a little girl in her arms.

  “Bloody hell,” I muttered. “Does she have any belongings?”

  “In the house,” he told me, leading me up from the rows of poisonous plants, through the warm glass orangery and into the house. What would have once been a beautiful old house was now a fully functional research space, with glass walls and sleek computers. Mills led me past the whirring machines, down a hall to a room that was as old as it ought to. Books lined the wall, a wooden desk buried beneath potted plants, gardening tools and an ancient computer that could probably kill someone if you dropped it on their head.

  A man stood at the window, watching the ambulance disappear, wringing his hands together. Mills cleared his throat, and he spun around, pushing his glasses back up his.

  “Dr Quaid, this is DCI Thatcher. Sir, this is Dr Sean Quaid, the lead researcher here.”

  I shook his slightly clammy hand, and he seemed to relax slightly, eyes turning to the window again.

  “She’s alive?”

  “Just about,” I answered. He cursed under his breath, looking around the room for something, checking his pockets until he pulled out a pipe.

  “I should have checked. I just– She was so still, Inspector, I couldn’t see her breathing.”

  “It’s alright, Doctor,” I assured him, indicating the seat. “It’s natural you would have panicked.”

  I sat down opposite him, carefully avoiding putting my arms in the soil on the desk as I leant on it.

  “Her name is Abbie Whelan?” I confirmed.

  “Yes, Abbie.”

  “How long has she worked here?” I asked.

  “Oh, going on eight or nine years. She joined us straight out of uni, brilliant girl. Plants love her,” he added with a feeble laugh. “She’s resurrected more than her share of goners here, I’ll tell you that, Inspector.”

  I smiled slightly and pulled the picture from the purse. “We found this, in her purse.”

  He looked at it, and his face fell. “Grace,” he told me. “Her daughter. She’s, well, she’s two in that, I think. But she’s four now.”

  “Her father?”

  Now the doctor scowled, face darkening like a storm cloud. “Not in the picture. Not at all,” he emphasised. “Abbie has full custody, and he’s never even met Grace.”

  “Where is Grace now?” I asked. School was out for the holiday, but if she was four, perhaps she was still at nursery.

  “What day is it, Tuesday? She’ll be at her little art club. There’s a girl, a babysitter who picks her up. She’d come here, actually, in about an hour,” he added sadly, looking at his watch. “Grace is always welcome here. She likes the worms.”

  “Is there anyone at home for her now?” I asked.

  Dr Quaid shook his head. “Just the two of them. Abbie has a sister, but she’s down in Lincoln right now.”

  I bit down on the torrent of curses in my head and turned to look at Mills. “Get family liaison on the phone. See if we can get Grace brought into the station until her aunt can come and get her. Do you have her sister’s name and contact?” I asked the doctor, who quickly nodded and rattled the old computer to life, quickly hitting a file open.

  “Paige,” he told me as he scanned the document. “Lovely girl. Here’s her number.” He showed me the screen, and I made a note.

  “What about Grace’s club? Any chance of you having that?”

  “As it happens…” He got up and walked to a small pin board hidden behind the leaves of a large fern. “Abbie keeps all of Grace’s numbers here just in case.”

  Mills took the card and Paige’s number, stepping out into the hall, worry written all over her face. I felt a bit bad, giving him all of that, but he could handle it. I turned my attention back to the skittish doctor.

  “What was Abbie working on out there?”

  “I didn’t think she was out there,” he admitted to me. “I looked for out in the greenhouses first. Can’t think what she’d been doing down in those beds. And when I saw her—” He broke off, swallowing a sob. “I saw her collapse and…”

  “You thought she’d killed herself?” I guessed. He nodded sadly, and I gave him a reassuring nod.

  “It could have been the case,” I told him.

  “But it isn’t?” he asked hopefully.

  “We’re still ascertaining exactly what happened, Dr Quaid. But no, it doesn’t quite look that way. Were you the only two here?”

  “We were. Abbie comes in early during the school holidays and is usually gone when the rest of the team comes in, around noon.” Loose hours, I thought, but convenient for a single mother.

  Mills stuck his head back into the room.

  “Grace’s babysitter will bring her to the station,” he told me. “Family liaison will meet her at the d
oor and stay until her aunt arrives.”

  “An ETA on that?” I asked.

  “Coming from Lincoln,” he mused. “It’ll be lunchtime, a bit later.”

  I nodded and rose to my feet. “We’ll be in touch when we know about what’s happened to Abbie,” I told the doctor. He stood up and shook my hand, less clammily this time, and nodded. He handed me a card as I gave him my own and said,

  “If I can help in any way.”

  “I’m sure we’ll have more questions for you at some point,” I told him. “Our priority right now is making sure that Abbie is live, and that her daughter is looked after. But we’d appreciate you not going too far.”

  He waved a hand. “I’m at your beck and call, officers. Thank you.”

  I gave him a tight smile and nodded to Mills, who dipped his chin to the doctor and followed me out of the house, back to the car.

  “I wonder what the hell happened here,” he muttered in tired disbelief as I started the engine.

  I stared out at the scenery with narrowed eyes. “As do I, Mills.”

  Three

  Thatcher

  I drove quickly back to the station, anxious to be there in time for the family liaison officer and Grace to arrive. As we drove, my phone rang, and I fished it out from my coat pocket, handing it over to Mills.

  “It’s Lena,” he told me, answering the call and putting her on speaker as I navigated the winding country lines.

  “Lena,” I greeted her, talking loudly over the grumbling sound of tyres on the road. “What’s the news?”

  “She’s alive.” Her voice was tried and nearly failed to be louder than the road. “Hospital says she’s stable for now, but she is in a coma. She’s definitely been drugged with something, but they’re still working on isolating what exactly it was.”

  “And the bruising?” I asked.

  “Indicative of an attack, especially the bruising around the neck. I’m heading back to the station, but I left your number with them, so they’ll call when there’re any changes.”

  “Thanks, Lena. I appreciate that.”

  “No bother, Max. I’m just glad she’s alive.” She hung up shortly after that, and I glanced sideways at Mills as he dropped my phone into the cup holder by my knee.

  “If someone tried to kill her, we should get an officer stationed at the hospital, just in case. Don’t want them trying again at any point,” I muttered darkly, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel.

  Mills nodded and pulled out his own phone, typing vigorously. The answering ding came a few moments later.

  “Sharp’s cleared it with the hospital,” he told me, putting his phone back into his pocket, looking a bit relieved to do so, in fact. “Did you learn anything from the plant doctor whilst I was on the phone?”

  “He said he went out looking for Abbie, thought he’d find her working in one of the greenhouses, but when she wasn’t there, he looked around the gardens. He said he saw her standing where she was and watched her collapse,” I told him.

  “Collapsing, unmoving, and barely breathing surrounded by poisonous plants,” Mills said. “Not hard to jump to conclusions there.”

  “No,” I agreed. “But it also doesn’t fit the image of the mother so dutiful she keeps a list of all her daughter’s contact numbers at her place of work.”

  “True,” Mills said. “Don’t suppose there’s much we can do until the hospital gets back to us on what exactly she was drugged with.”

  “Not really. We can head back to the gardens once we’re squared away with the daughter, take a look at what exactly she was working on. See if our killer, or attempted one at least, left anything behind.”

  “A syringe would be useful,” Mills pointed out dryly, and I grinned.

  One day hopefully, we’d get a criminal careless enough to leave weapons and fingerprints lying all over the place. It would make life that little bit easier, really. Criminals were getting too good these days, but at least this one had failed. Abbie Whelan might be in a coma, lying in the hospital, but there was every chance she would wake up knowing full well who had attacked her. It was wishful thinking, the kind I hadn’t entertained since I was a young sergeant like Mills, but until I had an actual dead body before me, it didn’t really seem all that unreasonable.

  When we got back to the station, Sharp was waiting. I jogged up the stairs to where she stood, arms folded, foot tapping the ground.

  “Update?” she asked, following us as we walked across to our office.

  “Whelan’s alive, in a coma. The hospital is still working on isolating what exactly she’s been drugged with.”

  “If it’s an unfamiliar substance that could take a while,” Sharp pointed out.

  I nodded. “Once everything’s sorted with her daughter and we’ve spoken to the sitter, we’ll head back out to the gardens, take a proper look around, maybe speak to some of the staff members.”

  Sharp gave me an approving nod, relaxing her arms. “I’ve got officers on rotation working with the hospital security,” she told us, leaning against the doorframe as I slung my coat over the back of my chair, rolling my sleeves up to my elbow.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” She flashed us a tight-lipped smile, striding away back to her own office. Smith dodged past her, glancing in at us.

  “Family liaison’s here,” she called before hurrying off to wherever she was due. I looked at Mills, rolling my shoulders back.

  “Ready?”

  “Let’s go,” he answered, following me from our office. In the hallway on the few plastic chairs that lined the wall, a very familiar blonde-haired woman sat, her face breaking into a smile as we approached.

  “Susanne,” Mills stepped forward, taking her hand as she stood. “What are you doing here?”

  Susanne frowned at him and readjusted the bag on her shoulder. “Working,” she said pointedly, tapping him on the arm with a folder that she carried. I grinned at the confused look on Mills’s face before everything clicked together, and he shook her hand.

  “Thank you for coming, Miss.”

  “Happy to help,” she answered, throwing me a little wave. “Inspector Thatcher.”

  “Susanne.”

  She looked around. “Girl not here yet?”

  “Not yet. Should be soon,” I told her. We walked her inside to the kitchen, where Mills flicked the kettle on and snatched three mugs. Susanne sighed and leant against the cupboards.

  “Poor thing. How’s her mum? If I’m allowed to know, that is.”

  “She’s in a coma, but she’s stable,” I told her as Mills set about fixing the tea.

  Susanne nodded, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Well, that’s a relief. And it’s her aunt who’s coming in to fetch her?”

  “Paige Whelan,” I confirmed.

  “I’m assuming you’ll have a few questions for her,” Susanne added.

  “Paige or Grace?” I asked, passing Mills the milk from the fridge I leant against.

  “Both,” Susanne said. “But I mean Grace.”

  “One or two. We’ll let you take the wheel on that, I think,” I told her, taking the mug that Mills handed me. “See what sort of state she’s in first.”

  Susanne took her mug and her nose crinkled in thought. “You’d be better waiting for her aunt if you want to ask her anything,” she pointed out. “In case she gets emotional, it’s better to have someone she knows there.”

  “You’re good with emotions,” Mills told her, his eyes fixed on her face as she blew on her tea, the steam rolling off and fogging her glasses.

  “I know,” she said proudly. “But four-year-olds aren’t.”

  “What’s welfare’s stance on this at the moment?” I asked as we walked over to an empty desk and sat around. Susanne dumped her bag on the floor, Mills kindly taking her coat, and she settled down, swamped in a chunky pink cardigan.

  “At the moment, with the aunt in the picture, there’s not much need for us. Abbie had full custody, and there’s no contact with
the father at all, so he shouldn’t be an issue.”

  “What about child support?” I asked.

  Susanne shook her head. “Nothing. Not a penny,” she added in a disapproving tone.

  “What happens if he does show up?” I asked her, unfamiliar with the complexities of family law.

  “Call us,” she answered quickly and firmly. “He has no custodial rights, but he is her father, and that can make things difficult. The sooner we get everything sorted with the aunt, make sure that Grace is somewhere safe and stable, we’ll be out of your hair.”

  “I guess we’ll have to wait and see what sort of aunt she is,” Mills mused.

  “What and see if she’s anything like yours?” Susanne asked him with a grin. I looked up; my eyebrows raised.

  “What’s this? Have you got an interesting aunt, Mills?” I asked, taking a long sip of tea.

  He glared at Susanne and reached up to scratch the back of his head. “She’s unique.”

  “Mad,” Susanne supplied.

  “Eccentric.”

  Susanne rolled her eyes and looked up at me. “She breeds ferrets and has a laugh like Barbara Windsor.”

  I chuckled at the thought of someone like that hanging around with Mills and his parents. Especially from all the tales I’d heard of his pants-ironing mother and historian father.

  “She’s great,” Mills said after a moment, his face brightening. “Makes the absolute lemon drizzle cake in the country and,” he held up a finger, “has never once lost money in a horse race.”

  “That is impressive,” I acknowledged.

  “Inspector,” a constable in uniform ran up the stairs from the front desk, and I looked over at him. “The little girl’s here, sir.”

  I nodded, putting my mug down and stood up. “How do I look? Imagine you’re a four-year-old.”

  “Roll your sleeves down,” Susanne told me, standing up too and fishing her id from her bag. I did as she told me, and we left Mills to get a few things ready for Grace, me leading Susanne back downstairs to the entrance.

  Three people stood at the desk, the constable who had come calling for me, a girl of about seventeen in a brightly coloured raincoat, clutching the hand of a four-year-old with short ginger curls, spotty yellow wellies and a coat with ears on the hood.