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

I nodded slowly, wondering if someone like Michele Picard would want to make something happen.

“Thank you, Wen. And Lin,” I added.

“Do you think that all this is happening because of what happened back then?” Lin asked me quietly.

“It looks that way,” I told her, not wanting to beat around the bush after the number of times we’d pestered her for information. She nodded and pulled her sketchbook out, ripping out the page and handing it over.

“When you decide to come back for that tattoo,” she said, stuffing it into my hand. I smiled and thanked her, leaving the siblings to it and strolling back out into the street.

When I was away from the tattoo parlour, I looked down at the image she’d drawn. It was a bird, of some description, holding a flower in its claws. I couldn’t tell what the flower was, but it bore an uncanny resemblance to a lily. I folded it up and put it in my pocket, striding off back to the station to help Mills with the mountain of research we had to go through.

He was elbow deep when I arrived, and he poked his head out from behind his computer as I walked in, glasses gone from his face.

“Don’t tell me you’re doing that blind,” I muttered, hanging my coat up.

“Susanne brought my contacts in,” he told me.

“She’s a good one,” I answered, dragging my chair over to his desk and looking down at the research with a barely held-in sigh.

“How’d it go with Lin?”

“I met her brother. He said he remembered Michele from back in the protest days, but that she’s been quiet ever since. They didn’t know much about the study or why it was shut down, and from what I can tell, Michele Picard’s kept her word to her husband on that front.”

Mills blew out an annoyed breath. “There must be someone else then,” he muttered, looking down at the pages. “Someone else from back then with a grudge to pick. Oh,” he looked up at me. “Paige asked Grace some more about the man she saw with Abbie. Apparently, he had pink skin and muddy hair. Which I’ve translated to be a Caucasian male with brown hair.”

I chuckled, “Sounds that way to me. So that rules out the Picard’s,” I muttered, annoyed to have lost another good lead. “The only person left that I can think of with a stake in all of this is Dr Quaid. He was there, knew both women, knew Kask, knew about Jordan. Maybe he’s trying to keep the truth from rabbiting out and ruining his business.”

“Why now?” Mills asked.

“If it was Sonia who wrecked that office looking for something, then maybe that’s what she was doing. Her and Abbie. Maybe they wanted to fix it, bring it to light.”

“We don’t have the whole study because they took it as evidence,” Mills suggested thoughtfully.

“Someone wants that study for themselves,” I pointed out, “for whatever reason.”

But what about the study they’re doing now, a voice in the back of my head said. What about that missing plant from the greenhouse?

Twenty-Five

Thatcher

I’d only just gotten into one of the folders Mills passed me when someone knocked on the door, and Sharp stuck her head in. Her clever eyes grazed over the mess on Mills” desk and landed on our faces. She offered us a charitable smile before walking in and pushing the door to, taking a seat on the edge of Mills” desk.

“What’s new?” She asked simply.

“We met with Michele Picard earlier,” I told her, Mills bending his head back down to the work at hand. “Her son, Jordan Picard, was a volunteer in the study that got shut down eight years ago. About a month after he volunteered, he passed away in an ambulance. The hospital ruled it as heart complications, but his mother’s convinced that the research killed him. She started up the protests to demand justice for the death of her son.”

Sharp gave me a quick nod. “Any sign of her since then?”

“No,” I shook my head. “According to her, and to the protestor Lin Shui and her brother, Picard stopped the protesting a few years ago. People moved on, and frankly, I don’t think anyone else blamed the research centre for what happened to him. Picard’s angry, but I don’t think she’s behind all this.”

“So, they shut the study for what happened to Jordan Picard?” She asked.

“They did. We’re taking a look into some of Abbie and Sonia’s research, seeing if there’s anything there to help us. But I’m planning on talking to Dr Quaid, seeing if he can shed any more light on what exactly happened eight years ago.”

“What about the protestors themselves?” Sharp inquired.

“Not suspects,” I told her. “They didn’t know about Jordan, not really. Nobody did. The whole’s thing been brushed over, swept under the rug. Even I don’t remember hearing about it.”

“Nor me,” Sharp admitted a touch regrettably. “But I suppose it wasn’t the sort of thing to make the headlines was it?”

I paused for a moment at her words, wondering if just because it didn’t make the headlines, doesn’t mean it didn’t catch some journalist’s eye. It’s the sort of story a certain red-headed writer would have sunk her teeth into like a shark.

“You just got back,” Sharp went on, not noticing the thoughtful path I’d wandered down. I shook myself and nodded.

“We stopped by Sonia Petrilli’s, to take a look into some of her work at home. Her office was a wreck, but it didn’t look like a break-in. We think it was her, looking for something, maybe traces from the study back then.”

“Did she want to get rid of them?” Sharp asked.

“Or bring them to light,” Mills called over, taking a momentary break from his work.

“I spoke to Mrs Petrilli as well,” I went on. “Asked her if Sonia ever mentioned Jordan Picard or what happened back then.”

“Let me guess,” Sharp said dryly, “She didn’t know a thing?”

“Not a one. She knew that Sonia