Gardners, Ditchers, and Gravemakers (A DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crimes Book 4) by Oliver Davies (best black authors txt) 📗

The man at reception was right, and I wasn’t there long before the buzzing stopped, and the curtain got swept aside. Lin Shui clocked me in the corner and nodded, before walking with her client and their awkwardly angled arm over to the desk to pay. Once they’d gone, she stretched her hands out and came and sat by me.

“Inspector. Change your mind about that ink?”

“Not today, I’m afraid. Maybe when the case is over,” I answered with a smile.

Lin shrugged, “alright then. How can I help?”

“We were wondering if during your protesting,” I pulled the picture of Michele’s website from my pocket and handed it over, “you’d ever seen this site before?”

Lin took it and glanced down with a grimace. “What horrible font. I haven’t, but this is it, isn’t it? From back then?”

“Yes. The site belongs to Michele Picard.”

“Picard?” Her brows furrowed. “The name rings a bell. I think I’ve heard of her before, maybe from my brother.”

“Her son is the reason the study got shut down,” I told her, “and she was protesting them for a while. Slowed down a few years ago.”

“Her son? Was he on the research team?”

“He was a volunteer in the study,” I told her. “Passed away about a month after. Hospital said it was a heart problem, but his mother’s not so convinced.”

“Think they killed him?” she asked, passing the picture back. “Makes sense why my brother would have pitched up to it then. He’s not a big fan of these big, secret places just making all their mistakes vanishing. Letting other people suffer. But,” she added very quickly, “he’s not protested for a while. Like a long while, he’s got a fiancée now and a dog, so,” she trailed off with a shrug.

“I’m not about to go and arrest your brother, Lin. I was just wondering if either of you knew much about Michele Picard.”

“Her name’s definitely familiar,” Lin told me, leaning back on the sofa and swinging one leg over the other. “I might have been in the same protest as her before.”

Looking at Lin, with her brightly coloured boots, tattoos, fishnets and jewellery, and then thinking of Michele Picard, I couldn’t imagine that they did.

“Hang on,” she said, pulling her phone out and ringing someone. “Hey. You nearby? Sound. Can you come in? The police have got more questions, and you’ll know more than me.” She paused and made a face. “No, I am not in trouble. Am I?” She asked me. I shook my head. “No, see. Can you come? Thanks.” She hung up and looked at me. “He’ll be in five. Would you like a tea?”

“I’ve not long ago had one,” I answered, “but do you have a toilet I can use?”

“Through the curtain, on the right,” she answered, pointing towards it.

“Thank you,” I stood up, knees cracking, and wandered through, shutting myself into the cool, eucalyptus-scented room.

My business sorted, I headed back out to the reception, enjoying the smell of whatever hand cream they had in there and re-joined Lin on the sofa. She had a sketchbook on her knee and pencil smudged down one side of her hand as she bent over a drawing. I sat back, not wishing to pry.

“Lin,” a tall boy wandered into the reception, and she looked up at him, patting the space beside her and tossing her sketchbook onto the table.

“Wen, this is Inspector Thatcher. Inspector, my big brother Wen.” I stood up to shake his hand, and we settled around the sofas again.

“This is about those two women?” He asked. “The ones from the botanic research place. Lin told me,” he added sheepishly.

“It is,” I answered, looking at the two of them. There was a strong resemblance in their appearance, but it ended there. Wen had seemingly put his protesting day behind him, dressed in a casual looking suit, his haircut neat and trim. “I understand that eight years ago, you were part of the protest there?”

Wen nodded. “Something to do with a volunteer,” he recalled dimly. “I don’t remember much. My girlfriend at the time is the one who dragged me along. But I remember learning about the place, the researchers.”

“Have you ever heard of Michele Picard?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he answered simply. “She was the organiser. I think her son was the volunteer or something.”

“Jordan,” I told him. “Michele sent threats to several members of the research team,” I told him, “one is now in hospital and the other’s dead. Can you remember that far back?” I asked, leaning forward with my arms braced on my knees. “Remember what Mrs Picard was like?”

Wen breathed in slowly, and his face turned thoughtful. “She was angry,” he said. “And when the study got shut down, we all packed it in, more or less, and she wasn’t happy about that. Kept trying to organise new protests we could do. And then she stopped after a few years.”

“There’s been nothing from her since?” I asked.

“Not that I know about,” Wen answered. “I saw her husband not long ago though,” he added, and my interest piqued. “I didn’t speak to him,” he amended quickly. “Saw him, like literally saw him, through a window.”

“That’s weird,” his sister told him. “Who watches people through windows?”

“I was in a pub, and he walked past,” Wen argued. “That’s a very normal thing to happen. You’d know that if you ever went to pubs.”

Lin glared at him and scoffed. “That’s not helpful to the Inspector’s investigation.”

Wen rolled his eyes and turned to me. “Sorry about her.”

I grinned back, thinking of a similar interaction between myself and Sally. “Don’t worry about it,” I assured him, “I know the feeling.”

Wen chuckled and pushed his hair back. “I protested them a while back, with this one,” he nudged Lin with his elbow. “But for the most part, nothing happens. They’re too big and important really to care about us. We never really make anything