Close to Home (A DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thriller Book 4) Page 17

  Alec’s lips twitched, not into a smile but a half-snarled grimace. “We argued,” he said, low and tight. “She ran out. I came out the door. She tripped down the stairs.”

  I made a noncommittal noise in my throat and gave a nod of acknowledgement as I wrote down what he was saying. “Did you try to grab her?” I asked, aware that I was pushing him.

  Predictably, he glared at me. “No,” he said finally, spitting the word out like an apple pip. “I didn’t react fast enough.” He twisted to look away, and I considered him with a slight frown. That bit had sounded far more genuine than the rest of what he’d said, and I wondered whether there was some truth in it.

  “And the other woman?” Stephen prompted, after Alec had been silent for a long moment. “There was someone else there, wasn’t there?”

  Alec sent Stephen a suspicious look. “No,” he said, almost sulkily. “I don’t know what you’re on about.”

  “That’s interesting,” I said neutrally, “since we know that there was. Was it your sister, Alec?”

  He didn’t speak, but I saw the twitch in his face that showed his derision at the idea.

  “Your wife, Isabel Davies,” I tried.

  At her name, Alec stiffened. It was only a minute movement, and if I hadn’t been staring at him, watching for any reaction, I might not have seen it. But I did.

  “I see,” I said, making a note.

  “You see what?” Alec snapped, losing his temper. “You don’t understand anything! You’ve got no damned clue.”

  I frowned at him. “Tell us, then. Go on. We’re listening.”

  Alec laughed, brittle and humourless. “You wouldn’t believe me,” he hissed. He twisted around to look at the guard. “We’re done here,” he said imperiously.

  The guard glanced over to Stephen and me, and I gave them a nod, closing my notebook. “Alright,” I said. “Thanks for your time, Mr Banks.”

  He sneered at me, and I looked back calmly, watching as the guard cuffed his hands and led him out of the door.

  Stephen swore quietly beside me, and I didn’t have to look over at him to know that he was feeling the same way I was: frustrated and more confused than when we came in.

  They showed us out not long after and headed across the puddle-pocked car park as it started to drizzle. It felt like a weight being lifted as I drove us away from the prison. I had nothing but respect for the prison guards who had to spend forty hours a week in the dreary, grey place.

  We stayed quiet for a good while after leaving, both of us caught up in our thoughts. The soft chat coming from the radio and the tapping of the falling rain on the roof was soothing, and I felt my shoulders begin to relax.

  Stephen broke the silence first. “What did you think, then?” he asked.

  I glanced over at him, finding him frowning absently out of the rain-speckled front windscreen.

  “Hell if I know,” I muttered, as I tried to come up with a more coherent reply. “The only thing I’m sure of is that he reacted to the name of his wife, ex-wife, whatever.”

  I hadn’t been sure whether Stephen had spotted Alec’s reaction too, but he nodded quickly.

  “Exactly,” he said. “I saw that too. Some kind of twitch. Does that mean that she was there that night, though?”

  I exhaled heavily. “I don’t know. If she’d only talk to us, we could find out where she’d been that night, but as it is, we’re in the dark.”

  Stephen made a noise of agreement, before he changed the topic, “Alec claimed Maddie tripped,” he said, derision in his tone.

  I paused. “Aye. I didn’t believe that either, but the bit about him trying to grab her-”

  “Yeah, that sounded more real to me, too,” Stephen agreed.

  “So where does that leave us?” I wondered aloud. Stephen was quiet, giving a helpless shake of his head when I looked over at him. “Alright,” I sighed, “so, one way or another, we need to find out more about Isabel Davies. She’s tied up in this some way or another, I’m sure of it. We just need to find out how.”

  Fifteen

  Monday came around again, making it three weeks since Maddie had been admitted to the hospital. If she was going to wake up and recover, it would have to be soon. I wasn’t a religious person, but I did find myself wishing hard for her recovery at least a few times every day.

  I’d asked Gaskell whether there was any news on her when he came into the station, but he’d not heard anything new.

  “No news is good news,” he told me, his expression sympathetic, before he disappeared into his office.

  Stephen turned up not long later, and I made him a cup of tea, bringing it over with my own cup of coffee.

  “Thanks, mate,” he said, gratefully taking it off me. Mine was too hot to drink, but I cupped it in my hands regardless, breathing in the heady, bitter smell that woke me up more surely than any alarm clock.

  “How was your weekend?”

  Stephen looked up and gave a shrug. “Oh, the usual. Ferried the kids around to all their activities, Annie had an afternoon tea party with her friends, and I had my rugby.”

  I glanced over at him. “No new injuries then?”

  He grinned. “Scrapes and bruises, nothing serious. Annie wouldn’t be best pleased if I got myself laid up.”

  “I wouldn’t be best pleased either,” I said.

  “And you, mate? Did you see your scientist lady friend over the weekend?”

  Stephen’s desk phone rang, saving me from Stephen’s incessant nosiness. He huffed in annoyance, but reached over to scoop it up.

  “DI Huxley speaking.”

  I went back to what I’d been doing before Stephen had shown up, which was checking my emails. There were several new ones, as usual, and I was pleased to see that the lad at the local shop had emailed over the CCTV footage. More than likely, there was nothing there to be seen. The idea had been a shot in the dark on my part, a wild hope that one of our suspects, or possible witnesses, might have walked down the street and past the shop before they arrived at the block of flats where I lived.

  There wasn’t time to look it over immediately, though, as Stephen set the phone and sent me an exasperated look.

  “What is it?” I asked, having tuned out from what he was saying.

  “That woman never learns,” he grumbled before clarifying, “Eloise Banks is back again, wanting to talk to us.”

  I frowned. I had been hoping that the phone call might’ve been something important and useful, but an interview with Eloise wasn’t that. “Did you refuse her?” I asked.

  “I tried to,” he said. “But apparently she swears she has something new to tell us. That she wants to make a statement.”

  My interest perked up at that, and I raised my eyebrows. “When are we seeing her?”

  Stephen laughed. “You assume I said ‘yes’ to meeting her, then?”

  I sent him a look. “With her claiming that? I know you did.”

  He grinned. “Yeah, you’re right. She’s due to come by this afternoon.”

  “Huh,” I said, “that’s different, too. The last couple of times, she just rolled up and demanded to see us.”

  “Maybe she really wasn’t sure we’d talk to her this time.” Stephen took a sip of tea and gave a contented sigh. “So, what do you want to do until then?”

  I wheeled my seat closer to my computer. “Actually, there’s some CCTV footage I wanted to look at. Wait, I’ll email it over.”

  There was no point in us both crowding around my screen when I could send Stephen a second copy which I did.

  “What am I looking at here?” Stephen asked.

  I got the video opened up and started flicking through what George had sent us as I explained, “I had an idea that the shop down my road might have caught someone related to our case on their cameras.”

  “Yeah?” Stephen said, his voice lifting in interest. “Did you find anyone on it?”

  “Not yet, but I only had a quick look while I was in the shop.”r />
  We fell quiet as we both started looking through the video. It wasn’t the best quality, and the camera was primarily focused on the area in front of the shop itself, so that the people walking by on the pavement entered and left the frame within a couple of seconds. To check it properly, I had to stop and start the video repeatedly, zooming in on the face of any passersby who looked like they might be of interest.

  Stephen and I worked mostly in silence, taking brief breaks for drinks and then, later, for lunch. I stretched out my sore back, rolling my shoulders back, before tucking into the pasta salad I’d bought.

  “Did you find anything?” Stephen asked as we were eating, though his expression suggested he knew the answer.

  I shook my head. “Not yet. I’d have said if I did.”

  “The quality’s useless,” Stephen grumbled, taking another bite of his pasty. “I feel like I’m going cross-eyed staring at it.”

  “How much more have you got left?”

  He grimaced. “Another few hours, at least.”

  I had the same amount left, or a bit longer. I was enjoying it as little as Stephen was, but I was hopeful that there would be something in the last hours of the footage that would make the work worthwhile. From our careful scrutiny, I reckoned we could rule out the possibility that anybody related to our case had been caught on the camera before Maddie had been hurt, but there was still the hope that they might have walked past, later on, moving away from the block of flats. So, despite our joint lack of enthusiasm, Stephen and I got back to work on the CCTV after lunch.

  “Eloise will be here soon,” Stephen said, a half-hour later. I glanced at the camera and saw that he was right. I’d wanted to get this finished before she turned up, but I still had a little while left to go.

  The time on the footage ticked towards nine o’clock as I looked through it, my chin resting on my hand. Stephen had gone off to the break room to fetch us more drinks before we’d have to meet Eloise downstairs.

  There were fewer passersby on the CCTV as the time on the footage wore on into the evening, so I didn’t have to stop the video so often. A woman in a skirt came abruptly into view, hurrying across the camera’s view quickly enough that I couldn’t pause it in time. I lifted my head from my hand with a frown and wound the CCTV back, playing it again at a reduced speed. When the camera had the best view of the dark-haired woman’s face, I stopped it and zoomed in close. I leaned forwards to the screen, cocking my head at the fuzzy image, and all but jumped out of my skin when someone appeared on my right side.

  “Jesus!” I snapped, turning around sharply. Stephen stood there with his two mugs in hand, looking startled.

  “You alright?” he asked hesitantly.

  I gave a tight laugh, pressing a hand to my chest. “Scared the life out of me, you did.” I waved a hand at him, gesturing him closer. “Put those down and look at this,” I said.

  He obligingly set the mugs down on the table, sat down in his desk chair and wheeled it close so that he could see my screen. He narrowed his eyes at the blurry, zoomed-in image of the woman on the screen.

  “Could that be…?” he said.

  “I think it is,” I said. I zoomed the footage back out, letting him see the whole of her, and he made a thoughtful noise in his throat.

  “Can you play it?”

  I showed him the CCTV of her hurrying across the screen, and he nodded.

  “You’re right, the way she moves…” he said, before breaking off to look at his watch and swearing quietly. “We’re late to see Eloise. C’mon.”

  I was reluctant to leave our new find, which was making me buzz from excitement, but perhaps Eloise could add further to the information we had. The day had gone from being a dull slug to one worth coming into work for.

  We took the lift down to the ground floor and met Eloise in the waiting room. I didn’t apologise for the slight delay in meeting her, but greeted her politely and took her through to an interview room.

  Once there, Stephen set up the recording machine, and I opened up my notebook. That done, he and I looked expectantly at Eloise, the message in our silence clear; she had promised us information, and if she wasted our time today, we wouldn’t be seeing her again.

  Eloise seemed fully aware of Stephen and I’s impatience and gave a little nod, as if in acknowledgement, or perhaps to encourage herself since, for the first time since I’d met her, she looked nervous.

  “I want to make a statement,” she said finally. “That’s what I’m here for.”

  I gave her a nod. “You’re on record,” I said, gesturing to the device that kept a record of all interviews and interactions that happened in this interview room.

  She took a breath, her delicate hands clasped together atop the table. She was dressed as impeccably as I’d come to expect from her, her fair hair done up in an arrangement of intricate braids today, and she was wearing a fitted, dark-red velvet jacket, or a material that looked very similar. When she spoke, the dangling, jewelled earrings at her ears trembled against her neck.

  “Alec confided something in me,” she told us. She held her head high, but it looked like more of an effort today compared to the jaunty arrogance she’d shown previously. “He made me swear to keep it to myself.” She swallowed and touched her lips. “May I have some water?”

  It took me a second to process her request, but I stood up once I had. “I’ll fetch it.”

  I walked out of the room, leaving Stephen to watch Eloise, to fill a plastic cup with water from the tap in the nearest break room. Eloise’s promise of some sort of confession had me walking quickly back to the interview room, though I tried to temper my hopes, knowing how she’d failed to give us anything useful previously.

  Putting the cup down in front of her, I sat back down opposite. Stephen and I shared a glance while Eloise whetted her mouth and cleared her throat delicately.

  “Thank you,” she said, before giving a small sigh. Her gaze was on the cup of water, not us, as she spoke. “My brother phoned me on the evening when Maddie was injured. He was… panicked. Almost hysterical. I thought there had been some terrible accident, but I couldn’t get the details out of him.” She paused, her gaze distant. “He hung up before I could make him explain. I got hold of him the next day, and he promised to tell me what had happened.”

  She looked up, then, her eyes moving between Stephen and me. “I’m taking a profound risk in telling you this,” she said, almost sternly. “I hope you’ll consider me a friend for sharing this with you and breaking my brother’s trust.”

  I resisted the urge to lift an eyebrow at her audacity and just waited quietly for her to go on. After a minute, she took another sip of water and carried on.

  “He promised to tell me what had happened with Maddie, but only if I let him stay with me.”

  I felt Stephen stiffen slightly beside me at that revelation. So Alec had been sheltering with his sister when we’d first been searching for him. Depending on what she said next, we could charge her with obstruction of justice for that. Eloise pressed her lips together, looking briefly displeased, like she knew what Stephen and I were thinking.

  “He told me the truth,” she said firmly. “He didn’t harm Maddie. He argued with the girl, he told me, but he didn’t hurt her. But he knew how it looked, with his history, so he fled to stay with me instead.” She sniffed. “I told him it looked far worse for him to run, rather than face the music, but he wouldn’t listen to reason.”

  I did my best to keep my expression neutral as I listened to Eloise’s story. Like Alec’s tale, there were parts that seemed to me to ring with more veracity than others. She was smart enough, I was certain, to present herself carefully in a positive light, and I doubted she would have come to tell us this if she’d thought it would end badly for her. Most likely, she’d consulted with a legal representative before coming here, to anticipate how we might react.

  Still, if there were even crumbs of truth in her version of events, it could help, so I nod
ded encouragingly when she paused.

  “What you’ve got to understand,” Eloise said, “is that my brother is a very passionate person. He’s not always rational, it’s true, but he loves, and he hates with his whole heart.”

  I thought that was a politician’s way of putting that Alec had some serious anger management issues, but I kept my thoughts to myself.

  “He never fell out of love with Isabel,” she continued, which sharply caught my interest. “Despite the charges she brought against him, he wouldn’t see sense and divorce her.”

  “Why hasn’t she pushed for divorce?” I asked, curious despite myself.

  Eloise lifted her gaze to consider me. “I don’t know exactly,” she said, sounding somewhat put out that I’d asked a question she didn’t know the answer to, and interrupted her. “She wanted nothing to do with him, I suppose, not even to arrange a divorce.”

  Well, that did fit with what I’d understood of the woman from my brief encounters with her. I gestured for Eloise to go on and after a brief hesitation where she seemed to be gathering her thoughts, she did so.

  “I had hoped that when Alec got involved with Maddie, it was a sign that he was moving on, as dull as I find the girl.”

  I had to clench my jaw not to respond to Eloise’s snobby tone of voice, then, and Stephen shifted next to me, like he had to bite his tongue, too.

  Apparently oblivious, Eloise went on, “He did seem fond of her, doting on her and so forth. He brought her around to meet me several times, which he never did with his casual flings, of course. Nevertheless, I could see that he didn’t love her like he had Isabel.”

  I felt like Eloise was getting off-topic, deliberately drawing this out seemingly to satisfy her own sense of drama, but I was eager enough for the information that I didn’t hurry her. This talk of Isabel was what intrigued me most. She’d been so elusive but was, as it was gradually becoming clear, a key part in all this mess. Eloise gave a little sigh then, tapping her long nails against the table in seeming agitation.