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

by Oliver Davies

  “Sir?” Mills piped up.

  “Quaid’s here,” I told him, hearing him hurry up from his desk as I strode over to the stairs, watching as Dr Quaid shuffled up them, his hands wrung together.

  “Just the man we wanted to see,” I called down as he reached the top steps. He looked up at me, his face flushed.

  “Inspector,” he panted. “Sergeant. I hope I’m not intruding.”

  “Certainly not,” I waved him over to an empty desk as Mills stepped away, muttering about water. “Is everything alright?” I asked him, taking in his frazzled appearance with some concern.

  “I’ve just had a rather interesting conversation,” he said, taking the water from Mills and guzzling it down. We sat down opposite him, waiting, somewhat patiently for him to elaborate. “An old colleague of mine,” he stated, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “Called me this morning for a catch-up. He mentioned that he received a new piece of research that they were all very excited about.”

  “They being?” I asked.

  “Kew Gardens, Inspector, down in London. He told me that he wanted my opinion on it before they made any commitments and sent through the basic hypothesis. And this,” he pulled a staple bunch of paper from his deep coat pocket and laid it out on the desk, “bears a striking resemblance to the work that Abbie and Sonia were working on.”

  Mills reached forward with a frown and took the pages, giving them a quick once over. “Same plants,” he muttered. “I thought they didn’t finish the work?” He asked.

  “They didn’t,” Quaid said. He leant forward as he spoke, his voice lowered like he was sharing some great secret. “Either someone had the exact same idea as they did or,”

  “Someone’s stolen their work,” I finished. “Perhaps the same person who stole the plant from Abbie and Sonia’s greenhouse,” I added to Mills, who nodded along.

  “Who submitted it?” He asked, looking for a name on the research.

  “No clue,” Dr Quaid said with a shrug. He’d taken his glasses off and was methodically cleaning them on the sleeve of his jumper. “As soon as I saw what it was, I brought it straight over. It’s not right,” he said vehemently.

  “Do you have the number for this colleague of yours, Dr Quaid?” I asked, pulling the phone on the desk closer to me.

  “Yes, yes,” he answered, closing his eyes to concentrate, rattling off the number. “His name is Dr Sam Moshiri.”

  I dialled the number, sitting back as Mills led Dr Quaid over to the kitchen, leaving the study with me. It rang for some time before it was answered.

  “Dr Moshiri,” a deep voice greeted me.

  “Dr Moshiri, this Detective Inspector Thatcher with the North Yorkshire Police. I’ve just been chatting to an old colleague of yours, Dr Sean Quaid.”

  “Sean? I spoke to him only earlier,” he replied in a rumbling London accent.

  “I’m aware. It’s about the study you sent him. It correlates with a homicide investigation we’re working on up here, regarding several of his employees.”

  “Yes, I heard,” he answered. “Brilliant researchers, according to Sean. How is the study related?” He asked.

  “It bears a very strong resemblance to the one that Abbie Whelan and Sonia Petrilli were working on before the attacks. We think that whoever sent it to you may be connected to this case.”

  “Christ,” he muttered. “I’m glad I sent it up there then.”

  “As are we,” I answered. “Do you have a name for who it was that submitted it to you?”

  “I do. Bear with me one moment, Inspector,” he said. There was a faint clunk as he set the phone down, and I could hear his fingers typing away at a keyboard. “Here it is,” he said. “The study was submitted this morning, at eleven fifteen by a Toomas Kask. Is that name familiar?” He asked.

  “It very much is. Thank you, Dr Moshiri,” I told him, hanging up the phone shortly after.

  “Sir?” Mills appeared back at my side, Quaid left in the kitchen, and the sergeant ran his eyes worriedly across my face.

  “The study came from Kask,” I told him, hopping up from the chair. “Let’s get over to the hotel,” I practically growled at him. Mills leapt into action, and we snatched everything we needed from our office, left Quaid with a constable and charged from the station, over the road and across the street to the small hotel that Kask had put himself up in.

  I barged through the doors, startling the woman on the front desk as I stormed over, my id already in my hand and flashed her way as I made for the lift. Mills ran after me, hitting the floor button, and the soft jazz that filled the lift as we went up a few floors did little to soothe the energy that riled through me.

  “You think he staged the break-in?” Mills asked, though I knew he was only voicing his own theories aloud. “Did it to stop us from looking too closely at him?”

  “I’d say so. Explains why nothing was taken, no fingerprints, nothing. Staged the break-in and then ran out and hid in the lane to make it all the more believable.”

  It was clever, annoyingly. The lift stopped, the doors splitting apart with a ding, and we charged down the carpeted hallway to Kask’s room. There was no officer outside, and I hammered my fist on the door.

  “Kask? It’s Inspector Thatcher,” I called through the wood. Mills nudged me and handed me a master card that he must have got from the receptionist whilst I was busy storming around. I put the card in the slot, and once the light turned green, I shouldered the door open, looking around the room.

  He’d been here. That was clear. A suitcase was open on the desk with some clothes piled in haphazardly, but no sign of Kask himself.

  “Damn it,” I muttered, turning and walking back out into the hallway. We took the stairs back down, our feet clicking loudly in the echoed space, heading back over to the receptionist, who looked up at us nervously. I tried for a reassuring smile when I reached her.

  “Do you know when Toomas Kask left the hotel?” I asked.

  “He hasn’t checked out,” she told me. “He and the officer left this morning at around ten,” she answered. “Something about getting some work done at home?” She sounded a bit confused by the whole thing, and to be honest, I couldn’t blame her.

  “He said he’d need to go back to the gardens,” Mills reminded me over my shoulder, sliding the card back over to her. She took with a grateful, slightly scared smile, and I turned around.

  “Who’s the officer with Kask?”

  “Dunnes, sir.” I gave him a smart nod and pulled my phone out, praying that I had Dunnes in my contacts, and thankfully, there he was.

  He answered quickly, good man. “PC Dunnes speaking.”

  “Dunnes, it’s DCI Thatcher,” I told him as Mills and I strode from the hotel, back over to the station. “You’re with Kask?”

  “I am, sir,” he replied. “He wanted to return to the property to get some work done. He’s been in the greenhouse most of the day, sir.”

  “No sign of anything strange?” I asked.

  “No,” he also sounded confused.

  I breathed a sigh of relief and nodded towards the car park, Mills quickly pulling his keys from his pocket. “Sergeant Mills and I are one our way over. Keep Kask there but don’t tell him we’re coming.”

  “Is there trouble, sir?”

  “Potentially. Just stay put, act natural. We’ll be there as fast as we can.” I hung up, swinging myself into the passenger seat of Mills” car. He set off the second the door shut, and I struggled to click my seatbelt into place as he veered around a roundabout. Kask, I muttered to myself, should have guessed.

  “Course of action, sir?” Mills asked.

  “We get there, and we bring him in on suspicion of murder. We’ll need a DNA sample sent to forensics. If we can pin the blood from the scene of Abbie’s attack, we’ll have him.”

  Mills nodded and sped up the car, charging from the city in the open wild countryside. It was a good thing it was nearly August, I thought to myself, we’d have
the daylight on our side.

  Twenty-Six

  Thatcher

  Mills drove somewhat manically, and if the circumstances were anything but what they were, I’d be shouting at him until my voice went hoarse. He skirted around the country lanes in a way that would make the locals stop and stare, sending mud and stones flying in his wake. It was almost funny, really, watching smart, sensible, methodical Mills turn into a stark raving mad man behind the wheel. As I bashed into the window a few times, my hand gripping the safety bar above my head, I wondered if this was how he felt when I drove. Poor lad.

  I couldn’t blame him, though, not in this instance. Getting to Kask was essential, and I kicked myself over and over again for not following that niggling thought that something about the botanist just wasn’t quite right. Who else could it have been? He knew his way around the gardens, and around making drugs. Knew Abbie and Sonia, had a reason to want them out of the way. He fit the bill, and Grace’s description, I realised with a start. Pink skin and muddy hair. A Caucasian male, brunette. I pulled my phone up to my face, where I’d kept it open on Dunne’s number just in case and pulled up a picture of Kask that Sharp had sent through to everyone to keep an eye out for. I sent it to Paige, to show to Grace in the hopes that it was a clear enough picture for her to know if he was the man at her house. The court might not pin much on the memory of a little girl, but it was worth its weight in gold to me. And, I knew, to Sharp, and if she believed it, it wouldn’t take long for everyone else to follow suit.

  As Mills took us hurtling along a particularly hilly road, I turned to look at him. His teeth were clenched, his hands too, gripping the steering wheel like he was about to yank it off. He was angry, and I knew he was, as invested in the Whelan’s as I was. He as an uncle, myself as a motherless brat. It was commendable, but not exactly reassuring. I decided to distract him slightly, help to relax so that he didn’t steer us into a cow paddock before we could reach Kask.

  “Lin Shui drew me a tattoo,” I told him. He looked over at me, apparently startled by my sudden conversation, looking like he didn’t know whether to smile or not.

  “A tattoo?”

  “Of a bird,” I said with a nod. “I rather like it. Might take her up on her offer,” I remarked, looking out of the windscreen.

  “You’ll have to let me see it,” Mills replied, his face settling out of its clenched state. “But I hear vegan tattoos are getting popular these days.”

  “She’s a talented drawer,” I told him. “Maybe I’ll even let her fix my other one.”

  Now he smiled, glancing over to me with amusement sparking in his clear blue eyes. “What is it of?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Alright. When did you get it?”

  I reached up, scratching my jaw. “When I was about eighteen. Do you have any?”

  “Three,” he replied simply. I fully shifted in my seat, staring at him.

  “Three? All this picking on me for my tattoo, and you’ve had three the whole time?”

  He nodded, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Though to be fair, sir, I’m pretty fond of mine.”

  I slumped back in my seat, annoyed. “What are they?”

  “The one on my arm I share with my brother. We got them after Grandad died. He was a spitfire pilot, so we got the outline.”

  “That’s nice,” I told him.

  “The one on my leg I got right when I joined the force,” he informed me proudly.

  “Is it the likeness of Mrs Marple?” I asked, and he laughed loudly.

  “No. Maybe the next one. I get Marple, you get—”

  “Rosemary and Thyme,” I interrupted. “That was my gran’s favourite.”

  Mills chuckled again, quickly falling sombre as we reached the long road up to Kask’s house. I picked my phone up again and called Dunnes, listening to it ring and ring until it went to his voicemail. I frowned down at the screen, not happy about that.

  “Maybe he’s with Kask,” Mills suggested hopefully, “not the right place to answer?”

  I nodded gruffly, but something stirred unpleasantly, and as soon as Mills pulled up in front of Kask’s house, I was out the car door. Dunnes” car was still here, but when I looked over the garage, there was no sign of Kask’s, unless he put it inside.

  Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I set off towards the side of the house, thinking we’d be likely to find them out in the gardens, Mills hurrying after me, his feet crunching the gravel. Out here, the day was not as nice. The sky was grey, clouds shifting across the horizon, mingling with fog. I hope it didn’t worm its way down to the city as I was rather enjoying the sunshine. Shaking myself back into the moment at hand, I pushed open the wooden gate at the side of the house and walked towards the long garden.

  “Did you take your antihistamines?” I hissed back at Mills.

  “Thankfully, yes,” he whispered back, and I nodded happily at that. I straightened up as we walked into the gardens, scanning the beds and tall plants for a sign of Kask.

  Dunnes said he’d been working in the greenhouse most of the day, so I headed towards the pitched glass roof on the little brick patio. Plants grew up the sides, making it tricky to see what was inside. As we walked towards it, I glanced around, unable to see Dunnes, and that worried feeling in my guts grew larger and larger. I pulled my phone from my pocket, unlocked it, and handed it to Mills, in case we needed to make a quick call, and rapped on the glass door.

  It swung open under my light touch, not properly shut, and I poked my head in, looking around the warm room. No sign of Kask, I realised grimly, stepping in further. My stomach dropped.

  Dunnes was slumped against the back wall, legs askew, head buried in his chest. One hand gripped his radio, and the other hung by his belt where his handcuffs were still clipped. He looked like he had seen it coming, looked like he was about to jump into action or call for help.

  I ran over, skidding to a halt on my knees and took his face in my hands, fingers fumbling for his neck, trying to make out a pulse, swearing and muttering under my breath. My fingers found the right place, and I felt the steady, if faint, thrumming of Dunnes’s heartbeat. I let out a huge sigh of relief and turned to Mills, who was already on the phone, rattling off where we were. He put the phone down and joined me by Dunnes’s side.

  “Ambulance is on the way,” he told me. “Said if there’s any sign as to what in his system, we should find it.”

  I grunted in acknowledgement, and as Mills set about searching Kask’s workspace, I tilted Dunnes’s head to one side. No sign of a puncture wound, I noted. That must be a good thing. I looked at him closely, taking in his face, the red marks around his mouth, starting to bruise slightly on his cheek.

  “Look for a rag,” I told Mills, having seen similar marks on enough victims to know when somebody had had something held to their face. I thought about getting Dunnes out into the fresh air, but I didn’t want to move him until the paramedics came, and I also wanted to know where the hell Kask was.

  The ambulance soon arrived, and I was glad to hand Dunnes over to them, the sirens vanishing into the hills where Dr Olsen could find and help him. Mills was on the phone again, arranging for somebody to come and secure the scene so that we could begin our search for Kask. There was no sign of him in the gardens or the house. The doors into the building were all locked, lights all switched off. We went over to the garage, where I balanced on top of a wheelbarrow to peek through the window. No car in there, Kask had definitely gone somewhere else, and I had a pretty good suspicion as to where he might have gone.

  I reached for my phone so fast that I almost dropped it and rang the officer currently standing watch at the hospital, grateful for the speed with which he answered the phone.

  “It’s DCI Thatcher,” I told him. “We have reason to believe that our suspect will be coming to the hospital to attempt another attack on Abbie Whelan.” My voice was snappier than usual, leaving no room for interruption or argument. “This man is danger
ous,” I added. “PC Dunnes has been attacked, and we believe him to be carrying a means to incapacitate you.”

  “I’ll let the hospital security know,” he answered, “and make sure the photograph is circulated.”

  “Good man. Stay right where you are. Nobody comes in or out of that room until we get there.”

  “Yes, sir,” he answered concisely. Apart from her doctor, I thought about adding, but that was a given, and we knew the doctor well enough at this stage.

  “Has there been anything strange today?” I asked, walking back up the garden path, grateful to be leaving the heady scents of sweet, cloying flowers. It must be like this all the time for Mills. “Any faces you haven’t seen before? Anyone visitors trying to see her or wandering the hallway?” It was a long shot, that Kask would just dawdle around the corridors waiting for the chance to sneak in, but I wouldn’t put it past him, not after seeing what he did to Dunnes.

  “No, sir. But I’ll stay alert for anything out of the usual and notify you straight away.” There were some muffled voices behind him, and after a moment’s pause, he said. “Inspector Thatcher, I have Paige Whelan with me. She’s asking to speak to you.”

  “Put her on,” I demanded as Mills, and I strode up through the gate, back to his car.

  “Inspector?” Her voice came through a second later.

  “Paige. Everything alright?” It was a stupid question. Someone was trying to murder her sister. Nothing was alright.

  “I showed Grace the picture of the man you sent me,” she told me, her voice hurried. “Asked her if he was the man she saw with Abbie. She said yes.”

  “Is Grace there with you now?” I asked.

  “She is.”

  “I need you to leave the hospital, Paige. It might be safe for either of you right now.”

  I looked over to the driveway as a local team rolled in to stay on scene until Smith and the others got out here. Mills jogged over to them, and I waved from where I stood.

  “I can’t just leave Abbie here,” Paige protested.

  “I understand,” I assured her. “You want to stay and protect your sister, but for Grace’s sake, Paige, I need you to get somewhere safe, alright? Head to another ward, sit in the restaurant or the car. We’ve got some more officers en route, and Sergeant Mills and I will be there soon.”