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

  Gardeners, Ditchers, and Gravemakers

  A DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crime Thriller

  Oliver Davies

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  2. Thatcher

  3. Thatcher

  4. Thatcher

  5. Thatcher

  6. Thatcher

  7. Thatcher

  8. Thatcher

  9. Thatcher

  10. Thatcher

  11. Mills

  12. Thatcher

  13. Thatcher

  14. Thatcher

  15. Thatcher

  16. Thatcher

  17. Mills

  18. Thatcher

  19. Thatcher

  20. Thatcher

  21. Thatcher

  22. Thatcher

  23. Mills

  24. Thatcher

  25. Thatcher

  26. Thatcher

  Chapter 27

  28. Thatcher

  Epilogue

  A Message from the Author

  Prologue

  The sky was still bright, despite the growing late hour of the day. One nice thing about this time of year, I thought, looking out of the window as I pulled a jumper on over my head. The neck hole was tight from accidentally being thrown in the tumble dryer, and my phone rang as I tried to pull my head through. I managed it, eventually, my ears a bit sore, and my hair scruffed up all over. Liene’s face lit up the screen, and I hastily answered it before it rang out,

  “Hello,” I said breathlessly, tugging at the neck of my jumper and scowling it at. It was one of my favourites, an old birthday present from Elsie. I hoped wearing it would stretch it back out again.

  “Hey, Max,” Liene’s voice jolted me back to the present, and I focused on her voice. “Look, I’m going to be a bit late. There are some last-minute things that need to be done here.”

  A small stab of disappointment rang through me, but I swallowed it down. I’d made a very similar phone call to people regularly over the years. “No problem. I’ll meet you at the pub?”

  “Sounds good. Give me another…” She trailed off for a moment, deliberating. “Three-quarters of an hour or so.”

  “No problem. Everything alright there?” I asked, sitting down in my chair, scratching the incoming stubble on my jaw.

  “We just have to make sure the new artefacts are properly stored.” She sounded annoyed about it, her voice echoing around the big empty rooms of the museum she worked in. “If something gets damaged on my watch, I’m screwed.”

  I smiled, though she couldn’t see it. “Take your time,” I assured her. “Are you sure you don’t just want to reschedule?”

  “No,” she answered firmly. “I do not. It’s Friday, and I want to go on a date with my sodding boyfriend.”

  I laughed. “I appreciate the homage.”

  “Anytime. I’ll give you a call if something else happens. Though it better not,” she added in a darker voice, and I could imagine her glaring at whatever poor co-worker was there with her.

  “I’ll see you later then,” I said simply, still smiling. “Bye, love.”

  “Bye,” she sang back before the dull beeping came, and she hung up. I dropped my phone to my lap with a slight sigh. Forty-five minutes was a weird amount of time. Not long enough to really start watching something on the telly and far too long for any of the other jobs I’d put off. Like folding my laundry, that could wait. Or maybe I could just start hanging everything up in the wardrobe from now on.

  I picked my phone up again, shooting a quick text to Mills. I’d left the station before him, leaving him with the task of updating Sharp. A moment later, he was ringing, and I answered quickly, fearing the worst.

  “Mills,” I greeted him. Please don’t say Sharp was unhappy. Please don’t say that someone was dead.

  “Sir. Shouldn’t you be on your date?” he asked, his voice cheery. He was outside, walking somewhere. I glanced at the clock, to his car most likely. I relaxed, pinching my eyes shut.

  “Slight delay,” I told him. “How’d it go over with Sharp?”

  “She’s happy,” he answered, his voice slightly tinny. There was a pause as a door shut and his voice became clearer. “Reports all good, court date set. Pas de problem, Thatcher. She told me to give myself a pat on the back. Not sure about you, though.”

  How unfair.

  “You sound very cheery,” I observed, now that my initial relief had sunk in.

  “It’s Friday,” he replied happily. “I’ve got the weekend with my nephews too.”

  I winced, the thought of such a weekend not high on my list of something enjoyable. “Christ. Good luck with that.”

  “Don’t need it, sir,” he laughed. “Some of us like children.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Thanks for the update, then. See you Monday.”

  “Have a good one, sir,” he answered, the grin on his face practically audible even as he turned his engine on. I hung up on him and jumped up to go and look in the mirror. My hair had grown back since that short cut I’d endured through the start of summer, where I’d been acutely aware of my ears. The long waves were back, askew from my war with the jumper, but at least now I had something against my head. I had fewer shadows under my grey eyes than usual, and I’d been smiling more often. To Sharp’s eternally smug pride, much of that was accredited to Liene’s presence in my life.

  I looked back at the clock and groaned, deciding to just head off now. If I was to be waiting, I might as well wait with a pint and some other people around to watch, rather than sitting here with a bottle of milk that goes off tomorrow and the cracking paint on the wall driving me slowly mad. I walked into the hall and pulled my coat on over my shoulders, sticking everything I needed into the pockets before sitting down and yanking my worn boots on. I left the entryway light on and locked up, waving to the old man across the road as he headed inside with his dog, before turning left and heading deeper into the city.

  It was a good fifteen-minute walk to the pub, closer to Liene’s side for things than my own, and the place looked a little better dressed than the usual haunt that Mills and I frequented after a long day. It was a pretty sandstone building, all neat and tidy, blending in perfectly with its neighbours and the flowers growing up the walls. The front windows were open slightly to let some warmth and faint music spill onto the street. I headed in, finding it small inside, with beams across the ceiling and flagstone floors. People sat around a mixture of tables, their voices mingling to a pleasant background volume, and I nodded to myself. A very decent place to sit and wait. Fetching myself a pint of beer, I chatted to the barman for a while until the place got busier before going and finding myself a seat.

  I tapped my phone against my leg, looking around the pub from my new viewpoint. I hadn’t been here before, Liene had suggested it, but it was a nice place. Cosy. A wood-burning fire warmed my legs, the low ceiling something of a hazard, but so long I stayed sitting in the woollen armchair, I’d be alright. In fact, the longer I sat there, the more inspiration I took for the old coaching inn. The wallpaper in the entryway, the Turkish style rug on the floor, the floor lamps with their mismatched light shades. It was very nice and very much of Liene’s taste, and I could tell why she came here often. The walls on either side of the fire were lined with books, a lot of them local history and walking routes. As it happened to my left, a couple sat with their knackered Labrador panting on the floor by their feet, nursing some hot chocolates in their big coats and wellies before hitting the lanes again. Not a bad place for a pit stop.


  I had drunk half of my beer whilst waiting, minding my own business, scrolling aimlessly through my phone and making polite conversation with the elderly couple that until a few minutes ago had sat at the table beside me until Liene arrived.

  It wasn’t long. The doors opened, and she bustled in, face and hair windswept, pulling her bag from her shoulder and dropping it on the floor as I stood up from my chair. She kissed me once, a little breathlessly, trying to shrug her coat off at the same time and getting tangled. I reached around, taking the shoulders and helped her out, draping it over the back of her chair. Liene let out a huffed breath and pushed her long dark hair back from her flushed face.

  “Sit down.” I smiled, my hand on her back, directing her to the chair. “I’ll get you a drink. Cider?”

  “Thanks, Max.” She slumped down, hands and feet already jumping nervously. She pulled her phone from her bag, looking at the empty screen and placed it down, screen side on the table. Then she flipped over, and then she flipped it back again.

  “Still no word?” I asked, hovering by the arm of her chair, watching her nervous little twitches with equal parts amusement and concern.

  “Not yet. The boss said it would be today, though, and it’s only just gone six,” she added, looking at her watch. I squeezed her arm as I walked over to the bar, leaning against the beaten and grooved wood. She was up for a research grant at the museum, and for the past few days, or weeks really, she’d been a wound-up bundle of nerves.

  I was surprised, really, that she hadn’t cancelled tonight, but Liene hated cancelling plans, and the last time I’d seen her properly had been a short hour when I could get out of the station and walk around the park with her for lunch. We’d got rained on, and a group of kids kicked their football into my shin, but otherwise, we’d had a nice time. I ordered her cider and a water, adding it to my tab, and walked back over to our small table where a waiter quickly tended the fire and slid the cold glasses over to her. She picked up the water, taking several huge gulps, her wide brown eyes looking at me over the rim. I grinned at her, and she put the glass down with a sigh.

  “Have you at least eaten recently?” I asked her, taking in her appearance.

  “Yes, thankfully. You don’t have to chew soup.” She took a sip of cider and leant back in her chair. “Sorry, Max.”

  “For what?”

  “This.” She waved a hand around her form. “Not exactly ideal date company.”

  “I disagree,” I told her, leaning forward to wipe a drop of cider from her lip. She narrowed her eyes at me. “Besides, it’s Friday,” I echoed her earlier words, “and I’d like to go on a date with my sodding girlfriend. Even if she is twitchy.”

  She smiled and closed her eyes briefly, tucking her hair behind her ears and leaning forward to me. “How was your day?” she asked, taking my large hand in hers.

  “Good, actually. That burglary got all squared up. Mills and I finished the report this morning. Spoke to him before I left, and Sharp’s happy with everything.”

  “Very well done, Inspector,” she clinked her glass against mine.

  “Thank you, doctor.” She smiled and then dropped her eyes to her phone, the screen blank. Her knees started bouncing again, and she started looking around the room, looking at every table and glass and person.

  “Liene,” I tightened my grip on her hand, “it’ll be fine. You’ll get the grant, you’re the best person for it.”

  “You’re biased,” she pointed out.

  I shrugged one shoulder lazily. “Maybe a little.”

  “What if I don’t get it?” she asked, her wide eyes looking fearful.

  “Then you keep doing what you’re doing,” I told her soothingly. “You love your work.”

  “I do,” she agreed.

  “And it would be less paperwork.”

  “It would.” She met my eyes again and smiled slightly. “I hate this,” she groaned. “Anxiety. I feel like I’m going to vomit.”

  “Shall I ask them for one of those wine cooler buckets just in case?” I asked her teasingly. “Ice bucket, that’s the one.”

  She swatted my hand. “Don’t be mean. I won’t think about it,” she decided, putting her phone in her bag and then kicking her bag under her chair. “The email will come when it’ll some. I’m here with you.” She squeezed my fingers. “Come, on. Talk to me, tell me about your case.”

  “The burglary?” I grimaced. “It was pretty open and shut, Liene. One of my more boring stories, that’s for sure.” Sally had nearly dropped off actually when I told her about it over coffee yesterday, the lazy cow.

  “Tell me another then,” Liene requested. “A good one. Lots of twists and turns.”

  “I’m not an audiobook subscription,” I protested gently.

  Liene rolled her eyes. “Please. I know you’ve got some stories in that handsome head of yours, Max. Take my mind off it, come on.” She patted my arm and pulled away from me, pulling her feet up underneath her on the chair. She fixed her eyes on me, excited, and I shook my head with a laugh. I supposed that stories were as much a part of her job as they were mine. We both dealt with things that were usually found in odd circumstances and, give or take several hundred years, dead people and their belongings.

  “Fine,” I said. “Only because you said you might vomit, and I do not do vomit.” I shuddered slightly at the thought. It was up there on the list of why, unlike Mills, I did not spend much time with children. At least he could handle vomit. That had come in handy more than once before.

  “Nobody does,” she pointed out quickly.

  “Parents do,” I retorted. She waved a hand in the air.

  “Parents don’t count. They’re superhumans.”

  “You babysit for Mara all the time!” I recalled, leaning back in my chair with a grin.

  “Mara’s son is eight,” she reminded me. “We do Lego until his mum comes home. Sometimes she joins in.” She laughed, and I laughed back, trying and failing to imagine my Chief Superintendent sat on the floor, building a Lego rocket.

  “Please,” Liene dropped her voice, looking pleadingly at me. “Just one story.”

  “If it means you stop twitching like a rabbit,” I added with a smug grin, ‘then very well, Dr Dorland.”

  She didn’t argue with that, just continued to look at me, her face pale and her feet still jumping.

  “Alright,” I sighed. “This one happened not long after we met. Remember the homicide I was working on when you were away at that archaeology thing?”

  She nodded. “Vaguely.” We had only been on two dates, not quite yet the point in a relationship where I started unveiling all the unsavoury things I’d seen at work. “You said it wasn’t pretty,” she added softly.

  It wasn’t. In fact, it had taken a lot out of me, and I’d even gone to spend a few days with Elsie after the whole thing. But it was the only one that came to mind, the only one with details clear enough right now that I could actually make a story out of.

  “It was the start of the summer,” I began. “Schools were out for the holiday, and Mills and I were called out to some gardens just outside the city.”

  One

  “Grace, shoes!” Abbie Whelan called up the stairs, balancing a half-empty mug of tea in her hands as the four-year-old upstairs came sliding down, socked feet sticking in the air. Abbie handed her the wellies, and Grace stuck her feet inside, clambering up and holding her arms out for her mother to slide her coat on.

  “Where are you going?” Grace asked, playing with the tie on Abbie’s dress as her mother fixed the hood stuck down by her neck.

  “I have to go to work for a few hours, poppet, so you’re going to arts and crafts.” Abbie drained her mug and got down on her knees to do up her daughter’s zip. “Holly will get you after and bring you to me, okay?”

  “Okay,” Grace nodded, looking up at Abbie’s face, the same pair of bright brown eyes shining up at her.

  “What are you going to do at art club?” Abb
ie asked her, brushing Grace’s hair back from her face.

  “Paint!”

  “Paint? How exciting, I wish I could come and paint.”

  “A picture,” Grace went on, “for you.”

  “For me? Why, thank you, Gracie. You remember to bring it home so I can see it, then?” Abbie stood up and pulled her own coat on as Grace nodded, bouncy curls of hair flopping all over the place.

  Abbie grinned and glanced outside, debating whether or not to run upstairs and throw some tights on, but the clock in the hall chimed, and she groaned, time running too short for her to care. She shoved Grace’s things in her bag and placed her empty mug in the kitchen, quickly threw everything back where it belonged, made sure that the cat was still inside and raced outside to the car, locking the door behind her. Abbie opened the car door and helped Grace up into her seat, buckling her in and fixing the hair clip that was fighting her curls.

  “Ready to go?” She slid into the driver’s seat and turned around to her daughter.

  “Ready!” Grace clapped, and Abbie smiled, turning around and switching the engine on. As she drove away from the house, she felt guilty for dropping Grace off at school during the holidays, but she had to check on the new plants before she didn’t go back to work for a few weeks. And anyway, she’d have plenty of time to build pillow forts and watch too many Disney films before wanting school to start up again. And it would be school, she thought, sparing a glance in the mirror. Proper school with uniforms and shiny shoes, homework and everything. They’d earned a few mindless weeks of doing nothing together. Maybe they’d go to the beach and drag Auntie Paige along too.