Close to Home (A DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thriller Book 4) Page 13

  Eleven

  The next morning found Stephen and I standing inside my apartment block, looking at the emergency door.

  “You never noticed that this was here?” Stephen asked.

  I glanced over at him, wondering if he thought I was an idiot for never seeing it before, but it seemed to have been a genuine question. “I’ve never had reason to come down this way. I could’ve seen it when we went round talking to people, but I suppose I was a bit distracted then.”

  Stephen accepted that with a nod. “I can’t say I saw it either,” he said. “So who do you think would’ve noticed it?”

  “Of the residents? Those on the ground floor, most likely. Other than that, a caretaker, or someone with the building plans.”

  “Loathe as I am to say it,” Stephen said with a long-suffering sigh, “we ought to go and see if there’s anything outside, even though it’s pissing it down and I haven’t got a brolly.”

  I chuckled at that. “Where are we again, Steph?” I teased. When he looked at me blankly, I pointed upstairs, towards my flat. “I’ll fetch us both an umbrella, y’silly lump.”

  He grumbled at me for winding him up, but gratefully accepted one of my wobbly old umbrellas. They wouldn’t stand up to a proper moorland gale, but they’d manage a bit of city drizzle.

  Outside, we moved from the car park to the soggy grass, which sank under our feet like old foam. I kept my eyes peeled for anything out of the usual, but didn’t see anything until we moved around the back of the block.

  “Stephen!” I snapped, making him freeze mid-step. “Watch where you’re going. Look at the mud, there.”

  He’d been approaching the apartment, attention on the emergency door and not on where he was stepping. Round the back and out of sight of the car park, there was an area of scrubby mud, the grass too much in the shadow of the building and the high back hedges to thrive. Today’s rain had softened the mud, but there was still a visible mark there, exactly where Stephen had been about to step. Very carefully, he backed up onto the grass, and I came to join.

  “Sorry,” he said sheepishly.

  “Clumsy oaf,” I huffed, not genuinely annoyed with him. He’d not meant any harm and everyone made mistakes.

  “That’s me,” he said, before he turned back to the mud.

  It was definitely a footprint. It wasn’t clear, but smeared, and rain had loosened its edges further, but it was still definitely made by some kind of footwear. What’s more, the heel was closer to the block of flats, meaning that whoever had made it had been moving away from it and towards the grass.

  “I’ll take a picture,” Stephen offered, getting his phone out, and I nodded. I moved carefully around the area, finding another two prints nearer to the emergency door, both of them pointed so that they were leaving the building, not approaching it.

  “They’re all going in the same direction,” I muttered.

  Stephen looked up from where he was trying to get a good picture, standing back to look at the prints again. “You’re right. They have to have come through that door.”

  Stephen photographed the other footprints we’d found, along with the door for good measure, and I left him to it while I went back to the car. I brought back the kit we used to pick up fingerprints, and Stephen nodded approvingly.

  “Good idea,” he said, as I began brushing the ashy dust over the handle of the emergency door, careful not to apply any pressure, in case the door was alarmed.

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, I found nothing. “I’ll try inside,” I told Stephen, who just waved me away, focused on what he was doing.

  It seemed more likely that I’d get a print from the inside of the fire door, but brushing powder over the bar led to nothing at all.

  “Dammit,” I muttered, frowning at it. I tried the door’s door frame for good measure, but there was nothing there either. Disappointed, I wiped it down and headed back out to meet Stephen, who was waiting in the warmth of the heated car.

  “Nothing,” I said, frustrated, as I dropped inside. I cupped my cold hands around the car’s heater, rubbing them together.

  “Weird,” Stephen said. “I wonder how old those footprints are. Do you think Sam could figure that out too?”

  “Who knows? The lab stuff is mostly beyond me.” I frowned. “What I do know is the lack of fingerprints on the door really is strange, though. Someone left through that door recently enough that their footprints are still in the mud, but the door was completely clean. Fingerprints have been found years after they were left, especially in a protected environment like that.” I shook my head. “If someone left through that door and they weren’t doing anything suspicious, there would be fingerprints, I’m sure of it.”

  “They must have been wearing gloves,” Stephen concluded. “Or wiped it down after they passed by.”

  “I reckon the gloves are most likely. Those footprints, the way the foot dug into the mud-”

  “They were moving fast,” Stephen interrupted with a nod. “Yeah, I thought that too. That wasn’t walking, I reckon.”

  “Exactly. I doubt they had time to wipe the door.”

  We looked at each other for a second, both of us thinking about the repercussions of this.

  “Maybe it wasn’t Alec,” I said finally, something I knew we both thought.

  “Or he wasn’t alone,” Stephen added. “Another witness maybe, who saw it and ran off.”

  “Possible,” I agreed.

  There wasn’t anything more to say after that, and we drove back to the station in relative quiet. Once back at our desks and fortified with a hot dose of caffeine, I put a call through to Purcell Homes. When I’d phoned to request the CCTV, it’d taken me frustratingly long to get through to someone who could help me out, but this time I could call the number of the employee who’d helped me last time directly.

  I introduced myself and was mildly relieved when the employee remembered me.

  “I need to ask about the fire door this time, I’m afraid,” I said. They had to ask their supervisor before getting back to me, but we got our answer.

  “It’s not alarmed,” I told Stephen as I put the phone down, “and it’s not locked either.”

  Stephen scratched his cheek and hummed thoughtfully. “Well, then,” he said. “This wild idea is starting to look worryingly possible.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Aye, that’s about the sum of it.”

  “What next, then?” Stephen asked.

  It took me a minute to come up with something. “We could do with more information on whoever’s footprints those were,” I decided. “So send those pictures over to Sam, will you? See if she can judge anything from there, smeared though they are.”

  Stephen crooked an eyebrow. “Sure you don’t want to send them over yourself? Or print them off and deliver them personally?”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “Do your job, will you?” Only after he’d huffed and turned back to his computer did I add, nonchalantly, “Besides, I’ll be seeing Sam at lunch.”

  “What?” Stephen said, amusingly excited. “Really? Where’re you going? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” He looked me over and pressed his fingers to his lips in thought before reaching forwards to mess with my hair.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I grumbled, but still, let him do it regardless.

  “Fixing your bird’s nest hair.”

  “It’s curly, Steph,” I retorted. “It’s always going to look like a damn birds’ nest.”

  He sent me a look of exasperation. “Then you better hope it looks like a tidy birds’ nest, not one that’s barely survived a hurricane.”

  I groaned. “What would you know about hair? You have about an inch of it on your own head, max.”

  He feigned a stern look. “I’ll have you know that I can french braid the hair of a kid under five. That basically gives me a diploma in hair.”

  He poked and patted my hair down for a moment more before he was satisfied. I pulled out my phone and look
ed at my reflection in the black screen.

  “Looks no different to me,” I admitted with a shrug.

  Stephen sighed. “I give up. Nobody appreciates me around here.”

  I snorted. “You’re right,” I said, deadpan. “I don’t know how we’d do without you, really.”

  “You’d never ruddy leave, that’s what,” he declared. “They’d find you here every morning, cold coffee in your hand, snoring like a pig with a cold.”

  “I don’t snore!” I groaned in exasperation. “How did we get so far off-topic? Although, talking of coffee, I’m dying for one.”

  “Of course you are,” Stephen said, amused.

  I fetched myself a mug of the good stuff and sat back down with a sigh. I had a while before Sam and I would meet for lunch. I read over the reports I’d already written, rubbing my chin thoughtfully.

  Who could those footprints belong to? A resident at the flats could’ve made them, but I’d not noticed any particular skittishness or nerves when we’d interviewed, though I might have missed something. It might have been an outside visitor, someone coming into the building who saw what had happened to Maddie and ran. Perhaps Alec had threatened them into not telling the police, I thought absently. Or perhaps they were also a victim of Alec, someone he’d hurt before and who were already afraid of him.

  I sat back in my chair sharply enough to make it creak. Stephen looked over at me. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Maybe it was the wife, Isabel,” I said, voicing my thoughts aloud. “She’d already have reason to fear him.”

  Stephen frowned. “But why would she have been there that night? And she took it to the police before, why wouldn’t she this time?”

  I exhaled heavily. “All good questions. I’ve no idea. But they did have that argument on the same night; maybe she saw something.”

  Stephen opened his mouth and closed it again. “It is a hell of a coincidence,” he conceded. “But still…”

  “Aye,” I agreed, “it’s a bit of a reach.”

  “We need to know whose blood was on the kitchen floor,” Stephen said. “That’d help hugely.”

  “We don’t have Isabel’s DNA,” I said, “so we couldn’t check it against that even if we wanted to.”

  Stephen checked his watch and gave it a tap. “You better get going soon, mate.”

  I glanced at the time and nodded. It was still a bit early, but better that than late, and I already knew that Sam liked to turn up early. I was due to meet her downstairs in the entrance hall, so we could walk into the centre of York together.

  I arrived first this time, but it was only a minute before she joined me, giving me a bright smile.

  “I’m absolutely starving,” she said, “so I hope you’re ready to be impressed by how much pasta I can eat.”

  I laughed, opening the front door and doing a silly bow for her. She passed through, and we stepped outside. I offered my arm to her and, a little shyly, she tucked her arm through mine and stayed close to my side as we headed off.

  “Normally, I’d challenge you to a pasta eating contest,” I teased as we walked. “But without all my running, I’d be embarrassingly defeated.”

  She sent me a smile that was a touch sad at the edges. “I’m sorry you’re having to rest up. You’re welcome to come to the boxing gym again, if you’d like.”

  “Aye?” I said. “That’d be lovely.”

  We talked easily as we made our way towards York Minster, and the little café that was almost exactly opposite it.

  Sam carried through on her promise to eat an impressive amount of pasta, managing two big bowls of the stuff. It did smell delicious, and I stole a few pieces from her bowl. I stuck to a lighter soup and salad, which was nevertheless tasty and filling.

  Sam and I shared a slice of chocolate cake after we’d finished our mains, the best part of which was when Sam tentatively offered to feed me a bite on her fork and her face went delightfully pink when I took it.

  “I had a really nice time,” Sam told me as we were strolling back towards the station. This was the longest lunch break I’d taken in a long time, but I couldn’t bring myself to bring it to a rushed end.

  “As did I,” I assured her, before sending her a cheeky smile. “The chocolate cake was especially good.”

  She laughed, batting me none too gently on the arm. “I take it all back-”

  But I didn’t get to hear what she was going to say because my phone rang. I frowned, pulling away from Sam slightly to pat my pockets. Hardly anyone ever called me, so I really couldn’t ignore it.

  “I’m sorry,” I said to Sam, who looked slightly disappointed, but understanding all the same.

  Stephen was calling me, I saw, and I hoped for a moment that he was just messing around, interrupting my date for a laugh. I accepted the call and put the phone to my ear.

  “Stephen, what-?” I started.

  “Where’re you, mate?” Stephen asked, an edge to his voice.

  “Just walking back,” I said, my frown deepening. “What’s going on?”

  “Maddie’s gotten suddenly worse,” he said grimly. My stomach twisted sharply, and I regretted all the nice food I’d just eaten. “I’m heading to the hospital, you coming?”

  “Of course,” I said, though I glanced at Sam as I said it. She was fiddling with her phone, giving me the illusion of privacy.

  “I’ll come and get you,” Stephen told me. “Send me your exact location ASAP, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay, thanks,” I said, not quite having processed all of what was happening yet.

  Stephen hung up, and I pinched the bridge of my nose in brief frustration, before I did as Stephen asked and sent him a text with my location so that he could come and get me. Once I’d done that, I sighed heavily and turned to Sam.

  “I’m sorry,” I started, before she lifted a hand to ward off my apologies and gave me a gentle smile.

  “Something’s come up, hasn’t it?” she guessed. “Don’t worry, Darren. I know what your job involves. Do we need to get a taxi back to the station?”

  Her lack of annoyance at our truncated date touched me, and I impulsively leaned forwards to kiss her lightly.

  “Thank you,” I said gently, my hand on her shoulder, before I stepped back again. “Stephen’s coming to get me. The victim of our case is in hospital, and she…” I trailed off. “She’s not doing well,” I finished after a moment.

  Sam nodded in understanding. “Where’s Stephen picking you up from?”

  “Here, or as close to here as possible,” I said, looking around as I said so.

  “I’ll- Will I get to see you again this week?” she asked.

  I turned back to her. “Of course.” I gave her a smile, though it was a little weak around the edges. “I mean, if you want to.”

  She returned my smile. “Text me.” She gave me a short, sweet kiss and drew me into a gentle hug before she walked away, giving me a little wave.

  I watched her go, feeling that bittersweet feeling of a good time coming to an end too soon. Sam’s generous understanding had meant a lot, though, and I was touched by her kindness.

  Stephen rolled up not long later, tapping the car’s horn even though I’d seen him and was already jogging towards him. I hopped in the side, and Stephen set off. We couldn’t put the sirens on for this, but there was the strong sense that we both wanted to.

  “We probably won’t be allowed to see her,” Stephen said quietly, glancing over at me. He seemed to want to warn me.

  “I know,” I assured him. “We just need to be there.”

  Stephen nodded firmly. “That’s what I thought.”

  “Did you tell Gaskell?”

  “He knows where we are, yeah,” Stephen said.

  “Do you know any more about what happened?”

  Stephen took a tight corner before replying. “No,” he said. “The hospital didn’t say anything more than that she’d deteriorated sharply.”

  “I hope her family are with her,�
�� I said softly.

  “I’m sure they will be.”

  We pulled up in the hospital car park and headed over to the entrance at a fast walk. Running police officers tended to alarm people, and we didn’t want that.

  Stephen waited in the queue at the front desk while I stood off to the side. It seemed to take a painfully long time before he got to talk to the receptionist, and I stood up straighter as he came over to me.

  “Come on,” was all he said, and I followed his lead in silence. We caught the rickety lift up to a higher floor, and Stephen strode off with me at his side.

  We reached Maddie’s room and came to a halt outside. Stephen’s breathing was accelerated from his fast walking, and my shins were slightly sore, though I wasn’t sure if it was psychosomatic pain rather than the shin splints themselves, which had been feeling better.

  “What now?” Stephen said. Maddie’s door was closed, and I swallowed down my feelings of nausea, my imagination too easily conjuring up the picture of an empty bed, the sheets folded down.

  I was about to open the door when it sprang open by itself, startling both Stephen and me, as well as the nurse on the other side.

  She froze, blinking at us for a second before she refocused. “Excuse me,” she said firmly, and I quickly stepped aside so she could get past.

  The door was slightly ajar, and I saw that there were a doctor and nurse inside, hovering over Maddie, and that her parents were there too, huddled together. The machines around Maddie were beeping, not loud but incessant and urgent, and I caught a glimpse of her pale, pale face before the doctor moved in front of her again.

  I stepped back, pulling the door closed and releasing a breath. The doctor had still been working, moving around Maddie and taking readings, so we couldn’t lose hope yet.

  “What did you see?” Stephen asked as we sat down in the nearest set of chairs, a little way down the corridor.

  I sighed. “Her parents were there, a doctor and a nurse. She- They were trying to help her,” is what I settled on.