Buried With Honours: A DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crime Thriller Page 11

  “Well,” I said, “there are the doors.”

  Mills chuckled and walked over to the glass doors, leaving me to check out the smaller one. I headed over, squatting down to examine the single stone step that came down into the garden, looking up at the door and around at the ivy. There was a boot scraper to the side, bits of dried mud scattered around and a rain barrel in the corner. But nothing else, nothing that caught my eye. I stood up, stretching my legs as I withheld letting out an annoyed grunt.

  “Sir?” Mills called. I looked over at him, and he waved me over to the doors.

  “Something?” I asked, jogging over to join him.

  He stood a little way back from the doors, on the stone path and pointed down to the ground. Two long marks, just under a metre, a foot or so apart, ran from the door in a patchy streak along the path. I bent down, examining them.

  “Mud?” I asked.

  “Or blood,” Mills muttered. I frowned and fished my phone out from my pocket, dialling Crowe.

  “If you’ve another body for me,” she said by way of greeting, “I’ll kill you myself.”

  “Not today, Lena, but I appreciate the sentiment. Question about the body you do have, though,” I said.

  “Fire away.”

  “Does he have any marks on his feet? Any cuts?”

  She went quiet for a moment, and I could hear her shuffling around. “On his heels,” she confirmed. “Grazes, they’re not very deep. Could have got them caught on a step. I’ve seen that before.”

  “Brilliant, you’re the best, Lena.”

  “Flatterer,” she said before hanging up. I pulled my gloves and an evidence bag from my pocket, scraping up some of what I hoped was blood. Mills bent down with me, holding the bag open.

  “What did she say?” he asked.

  “That he has grazes on his heels,” I muttered, carefully tipping the flakes into the bag. “And that she’s seen those marks when people catch their foot on steps.”

  Mills shuddered a little, “I’ve definitely done that before.”

  “So have I. But the marks aren’t on the steps, they’re on the path.” I secured the evidence back and stuck it in my pocket, looking up at the inn.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning his heels would have been on the ground. Meaning it’s likely that he was dragged.”

  Mills hummed, looking at the marks. “But was he dragged inside or out?”

  “That’s yet to be determined. If was out,” I said, walking along the path, “where was he taken?”

  Mills walked with me, heading towards the end of the path. It continued down to the end of the garden, but he stepped off, following the lawn to the left. It sloped down the hill, leading to a farm, not unlike Jim’s. I joined him, standing on the grass and looking down. It was a clear shot down to the farm, but it was what else was down there that caught my eye. The river curved around the hill, coming south from the larger hills in the distance; it swept around the farm before coming in through the village and out again.

  “River,” Mills pointed out.

  “I see it,” I murmured, looking back to the inn. He could have been dragged easily enough. Crowe had seen the marks on his wrists and ankles too. Someone had dragged him out from the inn and down to the river. No car needed, no coat, no shoes.

  “Are we supposed to believe that a man was killed and dragged from this point, down to the river and nobody in that building had any sign of him?”

  “I think so,” I said darkly. “I also think it’s time we took some alibis from everyone in there. Anyone who was working that night.”

  “Might be worth talking to whatever other guests were staying as well,” Mills added.

  I nodded, staring grimly up at the inn, thoughts and worries swarming around my head. Had he left on his own accord? Walked out into the cold garden for a cigarette and got smacked over the head for it. And the inn, how did that come into play? Just the site that was chosen for the killer, a remote place that they took advantage of, or did they know about it? Paid to not look out of the window.

  I stuck my hand in my pocket, feeling the evidence bag inside. This place would be swarming with police officers if this blood was a match for Riggs. My instincts told me that it was, though, and it was the biggest lead we’d had so far, so I wasn’t about to start second-guessing and meandering about.

  Before we could do anything, my phone rang, and I fished it out, answering when I saw Sharp’s contact on the screen.

  “Ma’am,” I answered.

  “Where are you?”

  “The inn, I think we’ve got something.”

  She went quiet. “Good. I’ve got an expert for you; said he can come in tomorrow to go over the code.”

  “Great,” I said with a sigh, relaying the message to Mills. “We might have a blood sample on us.”

  “I’ll let the team know, make it a priority. Drop it off as soon as you get in.”

  “Will do, ma’am. Shouldn’t be long now,” I added, checking my watch. “Just going to have another chat with the staff, collect a few alibis if they can give us them.”

  She hummed down the phone. “Stop wasting time talking to me then,” she chirped, hanging up. I frowned at my phone, turning it to silent and putting it back in my pocket.

  “Why does everyone always hang up on me?” I muttered, walking back over to Mills. “Do I not have a very nice phone persona?”

  “I’d say it’s about the same as your regular persona,” he answered.

  I studied him for a second, the smug smile on his face. “Let’s go,” I sighed, walking back around to the front door, a new theory in my head and a sample of blood in my pocket.

  Thirteen

  Thatcher

  Things always seemed to happen with more gusto whenever people weren’t expecting us. I strode into the building, Mills directly behind me, and approached the desk with a polite smile on my face. Helen was there again, and she looked up, surprised but not unwelcoming.

  “Inspector Thatcher, hello again. How can I help?”

  “We would like to talk to all the members of staff that were working here on Saturday.”

  “All of them?” She repeated.

  “Please. One at a time would be preferable. Do you have somewhere private we can take them?”

  “I— Yes, of course. You can sit in the office. I’ll just round them all up, I suppose,” she said, picking up the phone from the counter.

  I thanked her and stepped away, joining Mills where he lingered by the staircase, staring down the hall. There was a window at the end, looking out into the garden.

  “I do think it’s strange that nobody saw anything,” he murmured. “They’d have to be the most unobservant people in the country, or they were purposefully not looking.”

  “My money is on the latter,” I muttered.

  Helen walked over to us, a small list in her hands. “They’re all on their way, and I have their names for you. If you want to sit in the office, I can send them in?”

  “Thank you, Helen,” I said, letting her lead us to the little office.

  The window in here was small and looked out into the carpark. The office itself was a small, cosy room, with a heater in the corner, a desk with a kettle, some mugs and pots of tea and coffee, a few books and magazines dotted around, and another desk with an old computer resting on top. Mills and I shrugged off our coats and dragged three chairs into the middle of the room, taking our seats beside each other. I looked down at the list of names. It wasn’t huge, there wouldn’t be a big team of staff in a place like this, especially at this time of year, but I was counting on at least one of them to have something to say.

  The first person Helen sent in was the cook, who was a little annoyed at being dragged from her kitchen, but given that there weren’t many guests staying here, I doubted that she was overwhelmed with work in any case.

  “Norma Burns?” I asked as she settled herself down on the spare chair, her forearms dusted with flour.

/>   “That’s right,” she nodded.

  “Thank you for taking the time to talk to us. We won’t take too long. We understand that you were working here on Saturday?”

  “I was,” she nodded.

  “We just wanted to ask a few questions about that day. Did you see Major Alexander Riggs during his stay at the inn?”

  She shook her head, dusting her apron. “Fraid not, Inspector. I spend most of my time in the kitchen, the garden, when the weather allows, or in here.”

  I nodded, watching from the corner of my eye as Mills made notes on all of this.

  “What hours did you work?”

  “I came in at half six to do the breakfasts,” she said. “Worked until twelve, got the lunch sorted. Then I went home for a few hours and came about at six to sort out dinner. I left when the dishes were down, and Jim down the farm came by. Ten or so it was by the time I went home.”

  “What did you do then?” I asked.

  “I went to bed, Inspector. It were a long day.”

  “And can anyone vouch for you? That you were home all evening?”

  “Do I need vouching for?” She asked, her beady eyes narrowed.

  “We just want to get an understanding of where everyone was and when, Mrs Burns.”

  She huffed, rolling her shoulders back. “My husband will tell you that I was home and stayed home.”

  “How did you get home?” Mills asked. “Did you walk?”

  “Aye. Just down the lane here, towards the church.”

  “And at any point that night did you see anyone else around the inn?”

  “The soldier?”

  “Ideally, but you might have seen somebody else?”

  She shook her head. “I saw nobody, Inspector. I walked with Wilbert,” she added, and I glanced down, spotting his name on my list. “Walked him to the village. We parted at the green.”

  I nodded. “Thank you, Mrs Burns.”

  She got up, shuffling from the room, and I looked over at Mills.

  “She left during our window,” I pointed out. Mills nodded, a grim look on his face, and Helen knocked on the door, waving in the next member of staff. The woman had worked in the morning and hadn’t come back to the inn when her shift finished at one, so we discarded her and moved on to the next name.

  Wilbert Wilson, an extraordinary name if ever I’d heard one, shuffled in with his skin flushed from the cold. He was an older man, a little unsteady on his feet, and according to Helen, he was their gardener. He sank down onto the chair, offering us a polite smile, his cap clenched in his hands.

  “Mr Wilson, thank you for this, we won’t be long. You were working here on Saturday?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I work here weekends, just keeping an eye on the place,” he told us in a thick local accent.

  “You worked until quite late. Mrs Burns said that the pair of you walked into the village that night?”

  “Around ten,” he nodded. “I stayed for some dinner and then to help her with Jim’s delivery. She walked me home and carried on herself.”

  “Whilst you were here,” Mills asked politely. “Did you see Major Riggs at any point?”

  “Saw him when Jim was delivering,” he said, scratching his chin. “He was leaving the car park as Jim came in. But that was it, I think he was out all day, so Daisy told me. I was working down the pond mostly. Frogs.”

  “I see. And what did you do when you got home?”

  “The wife and I watched a bit of telly with a cocoa, and then we turned in for the night. After watching the news.”

  “Thank you, Mr Wilson,” I said. “We’ll let you get back to it.”

  “Thank you,” he muttered, pushing himself up from the chair and lumbering from the room.

  “I know that gardeners tend to be strong,” Mills murmured, “but I can’t see him dragging Riggs down to the river, can you?”

  “No, I can’t say I can.” I looked down at the list. The last person we had to see was Daisy, given that Helen had told us about her own Saturday already.

  The door pushed open, and Daisy walked in, huddled in a large cardigan over her work clothes. Helen was behind her, ready to interpret, but I was a step ahead. I pulled over the whiteboard from behind the desk and gave Daisy a smile as I wrote.

  “Are you happy to talk to us alone?”

  She read as I wrote and nodded, signing something to Helen, who looked unsure but ducked from the room and shut the door. I wiped the board clean.

  “Sorry, neither of us can sign for you.” I spoke aloud as I wrote, out of habit, I supposed, and she switched between reading my lips and reading the board.

  Daisy picked up the other pen, leaning forward to write her reply.

  “That’s okay. This is fine.” She had nice handwriting, clear and looping. Mine looked awful in comparison. Daisy sat down on the chair, as did I, the whiteboard positioned between us. She looked to Mills, who smiled pleasantly, then looked expectantly at me.

  We took turns writing, and she looked at me as I spoke before reading, making small sounds of her own.

  “You were working on Saturday?” I asked to begin with. She just nodded at that, so I carried on. “Can you tell us when you left?”

  She paused for a moment in thought, turning the pen in her hands.

  “In the evening,” she wrote. “I stayed to help Jim, but Norma sent me home. After nine.”

  It would have been a crowded kitchen if they’d all stayed to help with Jim’s delivery.

  “Did you go straight home?” I asked.

  She nodded. “A friend invited me to the pub, but I wasn’t in the mood. Tired.”

  “Can anybody vouch for you?” I asked.

  “My dad,” she wrote back. “He stayed up till I got home, and I went to bed when he watched the news.”

  I nodded, then had a thought. “Were there other guests staying here this weekend?”

  Daisy nodded, then pointed to a ledger on the desk by Mills’s elbow. He grabbed it and handed it to her. She flipped it open, holding the whiteboard pen between her teeth and found this weekend, holding it open to us.

  There were five guests altogether. Major Riggs, Mr and Mrs Mitchell in one room and their daughter Ellie in another and one other room was booked, but there was no name down for it. I pointed to it, asking Daisy.

  “Did someone cancel?”

  She watched my mouth as I asked and shook her head, leaning back to the board. “We keep that room for Miss Graham. She stayed on Saturday night.”

  Mills sat up. “Sara Graham stayed here on Saturday? She failed to mention that.”

  “She surely did.” I picked up my pen, reaching for the board. “Was she here all night?”

  Daisy nodded. “She gets bored up in the big house,” she wrote. “So, she stays here sometimes. Keeps to herself. Only saw her at mealtimes.”

  “I think we’re due another visit up at the house,” Mills remarked.

  “So we are,” I muttered, taking a picture of the page before closing the ledger and handing it back to him to put away. “The other guests too.” I picked up the pen again.

  “Are the Mitchells still here?” I asked Daisy.

  She shook her head. “They checked out Sunday afternoon. Were here for the one night.”

  I wondered if the Mitchells could have any connection to Riggs at all.

  “Do you have their contact information?” I asked.

  “Front desk,” she wrote back. “I’ll get it for you.”

  “Thank you, Daisy,” I replied. “You’ve been a real help.”

  She looked down, avoiding my gaze as she stuck the lid back on the pen and rose to her feet, slipping from the room without looking back.

  “I think you embarrassed her,” Mills said with a smirk, flipping his notebook closed. I rolled my eyes, standing up to wipe the board clean.

  “They’ve all got alibis,” I said. “The only one in the inn directly during our window was Helen, and she said she was in here.” I peered out of the
window to the view of cars and tarmac. “She wouldn’t have seen anything from here.”

  “Do you think it’s weird that the marks were over by the glass doors?” Mills asked.

  “Not really. Double doors open wider. Easier to lug someone through.” I grabbed my coat. “Let’s check out that room,” I said, swinging the door open. We walked through the inn, back towards the front desk where Daisy now was, signing with a frowning Helen. They gave us a nod as we walked past, heading through the sitting area to the room at the back.

  It was dressed a little like a library, with shelves of books on two of the walls, an arch through to the rest of the building and the double doors outside. A large rug spread across the ground, faded and worn. As we walked over, I moved one of the chairs, seeing the indent left behind. It was shallow, not as dug in as I expected it to be.

  “I think this rug is new,” I commented, walking over towards the doors. The rug spread to the walls, too heavy to be easily moved aside, but I managed to peel it back a bit, looking at the floor underneath. No marks in here, unless they’d been cleaned up. I stood up, looking at the curtains that hung around the glass.

  “We draw them at night,” Helen told us, joining us with a piece of paper in her hand. “A guest got startled by a fox one night, so we close them when it starts to get dark.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at the thought of a fox standing there, grinning in. Mills reached out, running a finger down the curtains as I walked towards Helen, taking the paper she held.

  “Contact information for the Mitchells,” she said.

  “Were they good guests?”

  “Oh, yes, the Mitchell’s have stayed here a few times. Their son goes to university in the city, so they come out here every now and then to see him. They’ve never given us any bother.”

  “Ideal guests,” I said, pocketing the information.