Close to Home (A DI Mitchell Yorkshire Crime Thriller Book 4) Read online

  He shook his head. “Can’t see much of anything, though I haven’t checked over there yet.” He nodded towards the back door which led out onto a boxy garden.

  I wasn’t sure for a minute why Stephen had drawn my attention to it, before I saw the shoe rack. “Ah,” I said and, giving in to my curiosity, I walked over.

  I picked up each shoe, having a look at the size listed on the shoe’s tongue and for any with mud on the bottom. But they were all pristine. We could see whether Isabel’s foot size looked similar to the footprints, of course, but that was about as convincing as evidence as Cinderella’s prince trying to find his bride through the glass slipper. The footprints had been smudged, too, so matching them to a specific tread pattern would be difficult if not impossible. What would have been most useful were the shoes themselves, if it had been Isabel who made the footprints, still caked with the mud from behind the apartment block.

  “She could’ve thrown them out,” Stephen said, coming to stand beside me. “These are all super clean.”

  “Or she cleaned them, and any one of these could be the ones she wore,” I grumbled. “Or the footprints were made by a different woman entirely.”

  “Okay, okay,” Stephen sighed. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, now.”

  “Y’know what?” I said, as a thought came to me.

  Stephen looked at me, unimpressed. “What?”

  “We should try Banks again, that’s what I think. If he was covering for Isabel, like Eloise claims, then surely he’ll give it up when he hears how she dobbed him right away.”

  Stephen hummed. “Worth a shot,” he concluded.

  We didn’t have a booked appointment at the prison, but Stephen called them as we drove over and they agreed to have Alec brought into a meeting room for us. As I was driving, I told Stephen about the earring I’d found on the stairs where Maddie had fallen, and the apparently matching earring in Isabel’s house.

  “Why didn’t you mention this before?”

  “I did, remember? I mentioned it after I went to see Maddie, to see if it was hers.” I shrugged. “After that, I thought a woman in the building had lost it. I never really thought it could’ve belonged to Isabel.”

  Stephen grunted in acceptance. “Alright, then. We’ll see whether the lab can say if they’re a pair, I guess.”

  “Aye. And hopefully, they’ll have the DNA tests back soon too.”

  Not long later, we pulled up at the prison and stepped inside to go through the process of being checked in and searched. Alec was already waiting in the room, which looked identical to the one we were taken to last time we were here, when we were shown in.

  He grimaced to see us and looked distinctly displeased by our visit. “Why’re you here again?” he said even before we’d sat down. At least he wasn’t giving us the silent treatment today, I thought. “I’m not talking to you.”

  “Alright,” I said evenly, as I took a seat and settled in. “You don’t have to talk to us, but listen to what we’re saying, alright?”

  Alec didn’t agree or disagree but looked sullenly between us, waiting. There were shadows under his eyes, and he looked paler and thinner than when we’d first met him, I thought. Compared to his glowing social media pictures, he looked like an entirely different person, but stress and prison time would do that. Looking at him, I wished I knew whether or not he deserved this. But we weren’t there just yet.

  “Following a new witness statement,” Stephen started, “we’ve brought Isabel Davies into questioning.”

  Alec visibly tensed at that. He tried to hide it, to relax into nonchalance again, but couldn’t manage it.

  I took a chance and added, “That’s your wife, who you never divorced.” Alec glared venomously at me. “She had a lot to say, Mr Banks.”

  Alec looked on the verge of lunging across the table. I left a long pause, touching Stephen’s arm to stop him from filling it. I wanted Alec to be the one to break the silence.

  “What?” Alec snapped, after a long, brittle quiet. “What are you getting at? Spit it out.”

  “She condemned you,” I said, keeping my voice placid and my expression calm. “She blamed you for all of it, for Maddie being hurt so badly.”

  Alec gritted his teeth. “You’re lying.”

  “We’re not,” Stephen said. “We came to give you the chance to respond.”

  I leaned back slightly in my chair and considered how much information would be beneficial and what would be too much. “She lied to us, Mr Banks,” I decided to tell him. “We want the truth, all of it, not bits and pieces scattered between lies.” I leaned forwards again, putting my forearms on the table. “This is your last chance to tell it to us, exactly as it happened. If you were protecting Ms Davies for some reason, she’s not doing the same for you.”

  Alec was clenching his jaw hard enough that I could all but hear his teeth grinding. I waited quietly, as did Stephen.

  Alec’s temper snapped a moment later; he slammed his hand down on the table hard enough to rattle the recording device I’d set there and make us both jump. He spat out an expletive and sat there with his head bowed, still shaking with anger.

  “She swore it’d stay between us,” he said, his hand clenched around the edge of the plastic table. “She- She-” He swore again and shook his head. I tried to read his expression, but all I could see was anger. If there was hurt there, at Isabel’s apparent betrayal, it was buried deep, or well hidden.

  “What really happened?” I asked, when he stayed silent.

  Alec closed his eyes briefly, as if tired, but his gaze was twice as intense when he opened them again. “She wasn’t meant to be there,” he said roughly. “I’d told her- we weren’t meant to meet up then. But she came round anyway.”

  I was inwardly surprised that they’d been meeting up at all, but kept quiet and let Alec sort his thoughts out. He was struggling against his anger, his words coming out choppy and disjointed.

  “Maddie was angry too, angry at me,” he said, his lip twisted. “I don’t know what she thinks is going on between us, but I never swore a vow of chastity, did I?” He shook his head. “And Issie barges right into the middle of it. Just opens the door and comes in like she owns the frickin’ place.”

  I made notes as he spoke, taking in his expressions and his angry gesturing. He fell silent, glaring down at the table, and Stephen glanced over at me. I gave him a nod to go ahead.

  “What happened after Isabel came in?” he prompted.

  Alec sucked in a breath, rubbing a hand over his cheek. “She really blamed it all on me?”

  “Yes,” I said solemnly. “She pointed out your history and made it clear what she thought had happened. She said that she didn’t know Ms Packham, that she wasn’t there that night-”

  “Lies,” Alec said, furious all over again. “All lies. She knew all about Maddie, knew I was seeing her and all. ‘Course, she thought Maddie was just a fling, helping me to pay rent.” Alec blew out a puff of air and looked past me. “She was fuming when I cancelled on her to be with Mads instead.” He coughed out a harsh laugh.

  “And when she turned up?” I said. “What happened then?”

  Alec clenched his jaw again, picking at his fingers. “They were like cats, tearing at each other, you know? Pulling each other’s hair and shrieking. Disgusting. I tried to pull ‘em apart obviously,” He briefly met my gaze before looking away again, “but I might’ve pulled a bit hard. Issie cut her arm open on the drawer and made a huge damn mess.” Alec pulled a face. “Hate blood, I do. Makes me sick.”

  “And what did Maddie do?”

  “She tried to run off. First sensible thing she did the whole time,” Alec added in a mutter, before he pressed his lips into a thin line. I could see that he was thinking about what had happened next, and so was I. My memory of finding Maddie lying there was as vivid as if it’d been yesterday.

  “How did she get hurt, Alec?” Stephen said, after a few moments had passed.

  Alec sw
allowed. “Sh-she just fell, like.”

  “How did she fall?” I pressed.

  Alec looked at me and then away. “Isabel ran out after her,” he said, subdued now. His anger had burnt down like a flame down a wick. “And I followed, o’course. There was blood all over the place.” A long pause. “She tried to grab Maddie. They weren’t even screaming anymore, just fighting. Maddie looked scared as heck and Isabel was mental, absolutely feral, and I tried to grab her back.”

  He swallowed again and rubbed his eyes, dragging a hand through his shaggy hair.

  “I swear to god it was an accident. I didn’t mean it, like. I was just trying to pull them apart.”

  Stephen and I glanced at each other. “That’s how she fell?” I asked quietly. “While you were struggling?”

  Alec hissed a sigh through his teeth. “I dragged Isabel back, I managed that. But she got hold of Maddie’s collar, and I was tryna keep them apart. I was pulling Issie back, but Maddie must’ve tripped. Must’ve gotten her foot caught on the stairs.” Alec shook his head, looking wan and drained. “And Issie let go of her collar. She was still holding it. She could’ve kept holding it. But she didn’t.”

  I blinked at that, startled. Stephen recovered quicker than I did and said, “And then?”

  Alec looked as if he was coming out of a daze. “I-I don’t know, really. I had to get away. I ran.”

  “And Isabel?”

  Alec shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I didn’t see her follow me or anything.”

  “So you went right past Maddie,” I couldn’t stop myself from saying, a thread of ice in my tone. “Your girlfriend, who was still alive-”

  “I didn’t know!” Alec snapped, but with a kind of frightened panic in his face, rather than the anger that twisted it before. “I never wanted her hurt! Why would I? But I thought she was dead! She wasn’t moving, was she?”

  Alec pressed a hand to his face then and gave a strangled sob.

  “Alright,” I said flatly. “Thank you for telling us.”

  Alec was clearly distressed. Perhaps I ought to have felt for him, but I couldn’t make myself be anything other than civil. If we believed his word, then what happened to Maddie was an accident on his part, but I could still see the anger in him. He was a dangerous man, I thought, and it didn’t surprise me that something like this had happened around him.

  But what we were here to find out was how Maddie had gotten hurt and, according to Alec, it’d been Isabel’s fault. As he’d told it, Isabel had deliberately and knowingly let go of Maddie and let her fall. Perhaps she’d not been able to hold on to Maddie’s collar anymore, and it had slipped. We had plenty to think about.

  One thing was still troubling me. “But, if you’re telling the truth, why would you protect Ms Davies?” I asked.

  Alec grimaced. “Who would believe me?” he said, before he looked away. “And I owed her, didn’t I? I was making it even.”

  “What do you mean, you owed her?” I asked, though I thought I could guess.

  Alec glared at me briefly. “You know why,” he said. “I screwed up her life.” He shifted in his chair and shrugged. “Anyway, I know how it seemed. Wasn’t any point in arguing, was there?”

  Stephen and I shared a look, and a brief silence settled between us. I had run out of questions for now, and Stephen didn’t seem to have anything to add, either.

  “Alright. We appreciate you talking to us,” Stephen told Alec, who looked exhausted.

  He looked up sharply as we prepared to leave. “How is she? Maddie?”

  I was surprised at the question, though I probably shouldn’t have been. “She’s awake,” I told him.

  “She’s okay, then?” he asked urgently.

  “We don’t yet,” I said. There looked like genuine worry on his face, so I relented slightly and told him, “She’s talking. She spoke to her family and us.”

  Alec blew out a breath. “Okay, okay. Thanks.”

  We headed out soon after, leaving Alec to the prison guard, and got into the car. Stephen drove us home, taking corners too fast and slamming the breaks on hard like he usually did, but I was lost in my thoughts and hardly noticed this time.

  “What did you think?”

  I looked over at Stephen, who was focused on the road. “Of Alec’s story?” I said. “It sounded to me like the most likely version we’ve heard so far.”

  Stephen was nodding. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  I frowned. “One thing doesn’t fit, though.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “Alec told it as if it had happened on the spur of the moment. Something unpredictable. Like, if Isabel did deliberately let go of Maddie, it was an impulsive decision.”

  “You don’t think it was?” Stephen said, sounding surprised.

  “She left out of the back door,” I said. “That doesn’t fit. She had to have checked whether the front of the building had cameras. She had to have known that there was a fire door round the back, and maybe that it wasn’t alarmed, too.”

  “She could’ve gotten lucky, thought on her feet-” Stephen suggested, playing devil’s advocate.

  But I was already shaking my head. “I didn’t notice that fire door even though I’d lived there for nearly a year. I can’t think that she just happened to know that it was there.”

  Stephen was silent for a long moment, turning over what I’d said. “So,” he said slowly, “what’re you saying here?”

  “I’m saying, if Alec is telling the truth, I think Isabel Davies planned it. She knew Maddie would be there, and she wanted there to be a big argument. She orchestrated it.”

  Stephen was frowning. “But why?”

  I looked away, out of the window. “I don’t know yet,” I admitted, “but I can make a guess. Revenge. Like Alec said, he messed up her life, didn’t he? He hurt her. So she wanted to hurt him back, just as badly.”

  My theory wasn’t certain, and it all depended on Alec’s story being the right one. In my gut, I thought it was, but we needed something stronger than that: evidence.

  Twenty

  I’d been taking it slow and careful, of course, but I’d been picking up my running again. Sam and I had plans to meet up again at the gym on an evening, but the mornings were again reserved for running to work. I had to force myself to take it steady, fighting the sheer thrill of running again that made me want to burst forwards and really hammer the pavements. I wasn’t nearly as fit as I’d been before my injury, but I wasn’t in pain anymore, and I knew that the shin splints would’ve only gotten worse if I’d tried to forge on, regardless.

  I arrived early at the station that morning, the day after we’d heard Alec’s side of the story. I’d struggled to sleep the night before for all the thoughts going about in my head, but I’d come to a rough plan of action. The run had left me buzzing and energised, and both the end of the case and the day of my marathon felt within touching distance.

  Stephen cracked a smile when he arrived and saw me at my desk. “You’ve been running,” he observed almost immediately. “How’d it go?”

  I couldn’t help but smile back. “Good. Slow, but good.”

  He dumped his things at his desk and headed off to get a cup of tea, and a fresh coffee for me while he was at it.

  He leaned over to hand it to me when he came back. “What’s the plan for today?”

  I gratefully accepted the coffee and leaned back in my seat. Stephen settled into his chair beside me and cocked an eyebrow at me.

  “We need to talk to Maddie again,” I said decisively. “She was the one who told us that it was Isabel who’d hurt her, but we didn’t get to hear what exactly happened. If her and Alec’s stories match, it’d be much more convincing.”

  “Yeah, they’ve not had time to confer on a story or anything,” Stephen agreed.

  “Aye, so we’ll head over there, soon as visiting hours are open.”

  “Is she still in the hospital?” Stephen asked. “She hasn’t been mo
ved home or anything?”

  “I checked. She’s been moved to a lower-priority room, but they’re still monitoring her. A head injury like hers is serious, I’d guess.”

  “And she’s probably got other injuries,” Stephen said. “Falling down hard stairs is bound to leave you banged up.”

  We’d never had the chance to ask the permission of Maddie’s parents to see Maddie’s medical records. If they denied us, no doubt we could push it through if it was needed for the case, but I didn’t want it to get to that. Better to ask nicely and have their positive involvement.

  “It might be that there’s evidence of injuries other than falling down the stairs, too,” I thought aloud. “Scratches or bruises, from Maddie and Isabel fighting.”

  Stephen nodded thoughtfully. “It’d be something to ask.”

  We had an hour or so to kill before we could head over to the hospital, so Stephen got started on filing the paperwork we’d accumulated while I updated our reports on the new version of events from Alec, plus my own suspicions.

  “We could do with having the lab results back,” I muttered, as I was reading back over what I’d written.

  Yesterday afternoon, I’d dropped off the earring I’d found in Isabel’s house at the lab, along with the one I’d found on the stairs of my block of flats. When holding them side by side, I could see no difference in the material used or in their unusual shape, but I’d leave it to the experts to have a look under a microscope.

  Stephen sent me an amused look. “You could go up and ask.”

  I pressed my lips together and couldn’t help but glance around to see if anyone was listening. “Sam and I… we’re not meant to be involved,” I told him. “You know what Gaskell said.”

  Stephen’s smile faded, and he turned serious. “Yeah, but he never said you couldn’t talk to her. In fact, he wanted you guys to not fall out, that was his whole argument, wasn’t it?”

  I grimaced. “It’s not as easy as all that. I really like her. I’m sure anyone who looked at us would know that straight away.” I frowned down at the table. “And I don’t want to treat her coldly, Steph. That feels cruel.”