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

by Oliver Davies

  Lin scoffed. “One of them? She’s their prize girl, the golden goose. Almost all the studies from that place she’s had her hands on in some way or another.”

  “You know of her then?” Mills asked. “Know of the type of work she does out there?”

  Lin scratched her head, pushing her hair back from her face, her fingers clinking with the numerous rings she wore. “I may have protested some of her studies before. Politely, of course,” she added hastily. “All within the parameters of the law and everything.”

  “And sent some threatening letters?” I asked, pulling out some of the printed images and passing them over. She barely spared them a glance, but she did blanch a bit at the sight of them.

  “They’re just letters,” she said, adjusting her weight. “Words. To scare them a bit, make them think about what they’re doing. We’d never actually hurt anyone. That’s kind of our whole point.” She pointed to the scene behind her, the bleeding animals and caged hunter. “Stopping the hurt. For people and animals.”

  “Well, Abbie Whelan got hurt,” I told her, my voice sterner, darker than usual. “Someone injected her with an unknown drug that almost killed her and landed her in the hospital.”

  “And you think I had something to do with it?” she asked incredulously. “Of course, blame the activist. You sound just like my dad,” she added bitterly.

  “We’re not blaming you for anything, Miss Shui. We’re trying to understand who would have wanted to hurt Miss Whelan, and yours is the only name we came across who might be able to explain the other side of things.”

  “How did you find my name?” she asked, momentarily side-tracked.

  “One of our constables remembered arresting you,” I told her. She smiled, a little proud of the fact and then drifted to the side so she could sit on a road bollard.

  “We’ve been protesting them for a while now,” she told us. “Most of their studies are locked up tight, and nobody really knows what they get up to in there. There was this guy who got in touch with us a few years ago. He said he used to be cleaner there, said that they had all sorts of things going on that the public was never allowed to know about. Animal testing, bone marrow, stem cells, all of that.”

  And here we thought they were humble gardeners.

  “I can see why you’d want to bring that to a close,” I told her, and the defensive look on her face faded slowly.

  “Abbie Whelan was one of the bigger fish we went after,” she went on. “Her name is tied to almost every project that comes out of that place.”

  “We were made to believe that she was in charge of plants,” Mills told her with a frown on his face.

  Lin looked at him, rather sorrily. “Well, she is the lead horticulturist, I suppose, but who told you that?”

  “Her research partner,” I said.

  Lin looked confused, her brows drawing together. “Research partner?”

  “Sonia Petrilli. You never targeted her? Never sent her a letter?”

  Lin shook her head, still frowning. “Barely remember the name, to be honest. It was always Whelan. Like I said before, the golden goose. I even heard,” she added, ‘that they’ve got plants out there that could kill you. Deadly nightshade and belladonna. Is that even legal in the UK?” Her passion grew by the word. “And what kind of botany garden needs a bloody metal fence and gate around it? It’s not a military base!”

  I tuned out most of the end of that ramble, focused on Lin’s absent memory of Sonia Petrilli. That was strange. I had believed them to be partners in equal standing, but if Abbie was receiving more of the limelight, more of the credit than Sonia, that was something I wanted to look into more. It seemed Mills did too, as he pulled his notebook out and scribbled down a few quick words, putting it back in his pocket a moment later.

  “When was the last time you protested them?” I asked her, and she leant back on the bollard, mouth screwed to one side as she thought.

  “Last year, I think. They were working on a new herbal drug or whatever, and they were using pigs. Nasty business, you know, pigs are much smarter than people think they are,” she told us.

  “Much cleaner too,” I added. “They’ve got a bad reputation, is all.” One of my neighbours growing up had pigs. I used to go and help to feed them sometimes when I wound my mother up too much. Lin smiled at me as Mills frowned, and I cleared my throat, focusing back on the current problem, rather than the sour guilty memory that wormed its way into my head.

  “What about the current work going on there? The research project that Abbie is currently doing?”

  “I don’t know much about it,” she admitted honestly. “Why? Should we be interested?” She narrowed her eyes.

  “I hope not,” Mills stated blandly. The last thing we needed was a protest around a crime scene, drawing in attention from the press.

  “Look,” Lin hopped down from the bollard. “She’s a mum, isn’t she? Abbie Whelan.”

  “She is,” I confirmed slowly, suspicious as to how Lin was aware of such a fact.

  “I remember seeing her in the street once, and I was going to go over, and you know, advocate, but she was with a little girl, so I thought best not,” Lin explained. “However much I might disagree with her work, however much I might hate her for it, I could never do that to a little kid.” She said it all with much earnestness, and I believed her. To stand against a person or a place was one thing, to attack and harm was another entirely. And Lin Shui, with the leaves in her hair and the save the whale patch amidst the collage on her oversized jacket, did not seem the sort of person to put a woman in the hospital.

  “Thank you for your time, Miss Shui.” I handed her my business card. “If you think of anything that might be useful to our investigation, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.”

  “Well, it goes against most things I stand for to take this,” she informed me, “but alright.” She tucked it into her jacket pocket, patting it for good measure. “Here.” She pulled a pen from her boot and a scrap of paper from her pocket.

  “Email address,” she told me as she passed it over. “In case you’re interested in our cause. Or if there’s anything else.” She hesitated for a moment, her hands in her pockets, half-turned away from us. “The little girl, she alright?”

  “She’s safe.”

  Lin nodded and gave us a pained smile before flipping us off and darting back over to her friends.

  “What a nice girl,” Mills mused. I grinned and jerked my head to the street.

  “Helpful though.” I had to commend her for that. “Interesting that their focus was on Abbie more than anyone else. She barely knew who Sonia was,” I remarked as we walked back along the road.

  “I thought as much too,” Mills agreed. “Maybe we should have a look into that. See how evenly their credit is distributed.”

  “Definitely,” I said, steering us towards a pub across the road. “And we should get a better look at some of the lab’s past studies. Try to get through some of the red tape and see what exactly they’re doing out there. I’m guessing it’s not all garden parties and snails.”

  “Developing a natural treatment for cardiovascular diseases,” Mills muttered. “Absolutely not. Do you think Dr Quaid will tell us much?”

  “I think he’d tell us more than Sonia Petrilli would, considering how much is riding on this research for her. She’d want to keep it safe, after all.”

  “Do you remember Abbie’s car?” Mills asked suddenly, “She had a sticker in the boot window, the same symbol as one of Lin’s patches. I just placed it now,” he added, glancing back over his shoulder to where the rally still echoed along the city.

  “Really? Did you catch the name?”

  “No,” he said in an annoyed voice, “but I’ll look into it later. Could be that Abbie was forming her opinions about the work she was doing. If she shared certain ideas with people like Lin, it could be that she wanted to do things a little differently.”

  “Possibly,” I nodded, walking i
nto the pub and holding the door open for him. “But I think today’s gone on long enough, mate. Let’s have a pint and start swapping theories again tomorrow.”

  Mills laughed relievedly and relaxed, slumping over to the bar. I joined him, grateful to look outside and see the slowly changing sky as evening began to roll in. Today had been very long, in fact.

  Eight

  Thatcher

  The next morning, I met up with Mills in the café down the road from the station. It was a crisp, bright morning, and I squinted in the sunshine as I strolled towards the small café with its colourful awning, holding the door open for a woman who came through with a pram before ducking inside. It was warm and smelt heavenly, and I quickly clocked Mills standing by a potted plant almost as tall as him, smiling down at his phone as he stayed out of the way of the other customers that drifted to and from the counter.

  “Morning, Mills,” I greeted up, creeping up to his side. He jumped a little and put his phone back into his pocket with a grin.

  “Morning, sir. Good evening?” he asked. We’d stayed at the pub a little longer than we intended to, sitting out by the river watching the world go by. Eventually, we’d staggered home, slightly tipsy, and I collapsed on my bed with half my clothes still. I wasn’t feeling all that fresh this morning, but it was nothing a strong cup of coffee, or several of them, couldn’t help to fix.

  “Not bad,” I replied as we strode up to the counter, smiling at the curly haired lad with tattoo sleeves who greeted us. “Two Americanos, please. One white, one black. Any food, Mills?”

  “I’m alright, thanks.”

  “Just the coffees then, thanks,” I said to the youth. He smiled, sliding the card machine my way as he turned to the barista behind him, rattling off the simple order that it looked like she had already started. I found a few coins in my wallet, dropped them in the pig-shaped tip jar, and joined Mills at the end of the counter, where he leant against the hard edge.

  “I thought we should get in touch with the hospital again,” he said as I stood beside him. “See if there’s any progress, any changes.”

  “I’d leave it,” I told him, putting my wallet away. “They’ll call us when they’ve got something, and we don’t want to wind them up. They need to know what’s in her system just as much as we do, don’t forget.”

  Mills nodded and breathed in and out deeply. “What about Abbie’s home then? Paige and Grace should be settled now. We could give them a call, see if we can stop by.”

  That, I approved of. I wanted to have a proper talk with Paige as well, when she wasn’t still shell shocked and worried about her niece, and to take a peek around Abbie’s things would hardly be unhelpful.

  “Call when we get into the station and sort ourselves out,” I told him, glancing at my watch. “Might be a bit early yet.”

  Mills nodded, reaching behind us for the coffees that were slid our way, checking the contents before passing one to me and thanking the young woman.

  “Black coffee,” I muttered as he took a tentative sip. “Disgusting.”

  “Says the man whose Marmite consumption is probably what keeps them in business,” he retorted, swinging the door open and holding it there with his foot as I walked out, stepping into the street a moment behind me.

  “There’s nothing wrong with how much Marmite I eat,” I protested as he caught up to me. The wide streets were fairly quiet, and our shoes clicked on the stones as we walked up the slight slope to the station.

  “I’ve seen you eat it from the jar once,” Mills reminded me with a grimace on his face. “That’s not right by anyone’s standards.”

  “It’s good for you,” I told him. “Puts hair on your chest, my grandad used to say. Like mustard.”

  “Mustard’s alright.” Mills looked at me then with an unpleasant look on his face. “Please don’t tell me you eat that from the jar too.”

  “Once,” I answered. “First time I ever got drunk; Sally dared me to.”

  He laughed at that, the sound reverberating off the empty buildings. “I can believe that,” he said.

  They’d met, at last, about a month ago after I made my way back to the city from my little holiday. Sally and Tom were over for dinner when Mills stopped by to drop off some stuff for a case, and Sally had hoodwinked him into staying with the exact same method she had used to make me eat the mustard. I owed her a call, thinking about it. A month ago, now, time really was flying. It’d be August soon. The feeling sat at the bottom of my stomach like I just swallowed something hugely unpleasant, a lump sticking in my throat. Less than a week, in fact. The thought made me feel sick, and Mills became white noise in the background as he talked on. We reached the station, heading straight upstairs to see what we could make of all of this today. I returned the smiles and nods and morning greetings numbly, feeling rather as if I’d been knocked over the head.

  I reached the office and slumped down in my seat, cradling my head in my hands.

  “Sir?” Mills asked, pushing the door to and standing in front of my desk. “Are you alright?”

  “Fine,” I answered, not moving my head.

  Mills hesitated there, unsure, but went to his own desk after a while. I tilted my head to one side, to where the picture of my mother stared at me and quickly reached out, gently turning her around. In the corner of my eye, I saw Mills watching, nodding to himself as he seemed to understand. He didn’t, of course, but he’d stop asking questions, for which I was grateful.

  I distracted myself by sifting through my emails, sipping at my coffee as I worked my way through the rather full, unorganised inbox. A lot of them were very old now, and I clicked away, deleting and moving them about until my inbox looked more like Mills. Nothing for the case in there, though, but I’d asked Smith to take another look into Lin Shui, just in case.

  As I debated whether or not to refill my now empty cup, the phone on my desk rang, the sudden noise in the quiet room making both myself and Mills jump.

  With a muttered curse under my breath, heart still pounding, I answered.

  “Thatcher,” I called into it.

  “Detective Inspector Thatcher?” a tinny voice asked.

  “The very one. How can I help?” I asked.

  “This is Dr Bates. I’m calling you from the hospital in regard to Abigail Whelan.”

  I sat up straighter, more alert. “Is there any change?” I asked.

  “Not in Miss Whelan, but we believe we have isolated the drug in her system. Dr Olsen wonders if you might spare her some time in the hospital to go over her findings.”

  “We’ll be there in about twenty minutes,” I answered.

  “Wonderful. Thank you, Inspector.”

  I hung up and swivelled my chair around to an expectant looking Mills.

  “The hospital,” I told him, standing up and hauling my coat on. “They’ve got news on the drug in Abbie’s system and have invited us down to take a look.”

  Mills” face brightened, and he hopped up. “Brilliant. Doesn’t take twenty minutes to get there, though,” he added with some confusion.

  “No. But we need to let Sharp know, and I need to use the bog, so let’s get moving.”

  Mills shook his head, smiling, but quickly pulled his coat on and walked with me to Sharp’s office. Her door was open, and she sat on the end of her desk, chatting to a constable when I knocked on the doorframe.

  “Come in,” she called, nodding to the constable as she departed. “Morning, boys. You both look chipper today.”

  “Hospital called. Toxicologist wants to see us. Apparently, they’ve got something on the drug in Abbie’s system.”

  Sharp raised her eyebrows and smiled. “A good morning indeed, then. Off your trot, I’ll make sure everything’s cleared for you.” She walked around her desk to pick up her phone.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I answered.

  “Let me know straight away,” she added darkly. “If there’s some horrible new drug going around the city, I’d like to know.�
�

  “I imagine this is an isolated case, ma’am, but of course,” I told her. She nodded and waved her hand, dismissing us from the room.

  “Bog then?” Mills asked, and I nodded, crossing the growingly busy floor to the corridor the toilets lay down.

  We were out the door soon after that, climbing into Mills’s car and moving off from the station.

  The hospital was a busy one, and after struggling to find a place to park for a while that made me very happy, I told the hospital twenty minutes, we headed through to reception, where we showed them our warrant cards and were directed through the labyrinth of disinfectant smelling hallways to the lifts. We went down a few floors, far away from where any of the patients really were and were met on the other side by a woman in a lab coat. Her frizzy salt and pepper hair was tied up in a bun that it rapidly tried to escape from, a pair of glasses balanced on her nose, and she blinked us from behind the thick glass, a steaming mug of tea in her hand and a clipboard in the other.

  “Detective Inspector Thatcher?” she asked me as we stepped out of the lift.

  “Yes. And this is Detective Sergeant Mills,” I said with a wave in his direction. She shook both of our hands.

  “Dr Olson, toxicologist. You have Dr Lena Crowe as your pathologist, I believe?” she asked, walking off down the hallway.

  “We do,” I confirmed.

  “We were med students together,” she told me over her shoulder. “She’s brilliant, Lena.”

  “She is,” I replied with a smile at the back of her head. I could see that they would get one well. Dr Olsen led us to a large room of white and steel surfaces, shelf upon shelf of glass bottles lining the far wall. The desk and the wall it sat against were covered in paper, notes, charts, newspaper clippings, the whole lot. She walked over to a long table, pushing an assortment of beakers and test tubes down to one side, slamming her clipboard down with enough force to make Mills jump. He stood almost to attention as the doctor took a long swig of tea and looked up at us.