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

Everything here had settled down, which was a welcome change. We meandered our way slowly to Abbie’s room, where I tried to shake myself awake before knocking on the door. The nurse, who smiled politely and stepped aside to let us in, opened it.

“Abbie,” the nurse said, clearing her throat and walking us over. “This is Detective Inspector Thatcher and Detective Sergeant Mills.”

Abbie was sitting up in bed, looking pale and thin, but strong. Her eyes were clear and sharp, and she held herself up against a wall of pillows. The nurse quietly ducked from the room, closing the door with a click, and Abbie nodded to the chairs by the bed. As we sat down, she looked at us both.

“Hello,” she said in a raspy voice.

“Hello,” I answered with a smile. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Miss Whelan.”

“I don’t really know where to start,” she admitted.

“Grace told us that she saw Toomas Kask at your house a few weeks ago,” I began gently. Abbie nodded.

“He came to see me. I wouldn’t let him in.”

“Did he say what he wanted?” I asked.

Abbie breathed in deeply, adjusting herself on the bed and toyed with her blanket. “He said he had an idea for a project. He wanted Sonia and me too—” she broke off suddenly, her face filled with panic. “Sonia. The doctor said she didn’t make it?”

I shook my head, and Abbie sagged back, tears running silently down her cheeks. She cried for a moment, then girded herself up again. “He wanted Sonia and me to help him with it. But I said no. We had our own projects, and he couldn’t just show up at my house, anyway. He left, and I thought that was it.”

“But he came back?”

Abbie nodded. “I went into work that morning to make sure the plants were sorted for Sonia. Heard a noise that spooked me. When I turned around, it was Toomas. I thought he’d come to talk to Sean or something, and then,” she reached up to her neck, “he had something. He jabbed me in the neck with it. I don’t really remember what happened then. I think I fought him, and then I was outside. I heard someone shout right before it all went black. Next thing I know, I’m here. And he’s here, standing over me. Thank you,” she added, her voice breaking as she fixed her eyes on ours in turn. “Really, thank you.”

“You are more than welcome,” I told her. She laughed slightly, wiping the tears from her face.

“He killed Sonia?”

“From what we know,” Mills said, taking the reins. “He was working on some sort of experimental drug. It didn’t work on you properly, but he got it right, and yes, he killed Sonia.”

Abbie flinched. “Bastard.”

“He also took your study,” I said. “The one the two of you were working on. Tried to pass it off as his own. From what we saw in his work, he combined his study with yours, to try to achieve whatever he wanted to achieve.”

Abbie frowned and reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I didn’t think he was in the business anymore.”

“Because of Jordan Picard?” I asked.

Her head snapped over to mine, her eyes sharpening. “What do you know about Jordan?” She spoke his name with a familiarity and fondness that took me by surprise.

“We know he volunteered in a study eight years ago. And that about a month after, he died. His mother blamed you, sent you threats.”

Abbie sniffed and nodded along. “We blamed ourselves too, she said. “Me and Sonia, anyway. Said it wasn’t right to go on with the study after what happened. But Toomas didn’t care, said that we were getting somewhere with it, that we should carry on. It was him,” she said. “He played with the dosages, thought he got right. But we weren’t at that stage yet. Sonia and I were the ones who saw the study got shut down.”

I sat back, crossing one leg over another. “But people still blamed you?”

She shrugged. “Toomas left after that. He wasn’t there to take the blame for anything, and Sonia and I, well, it was our study after all. We shouldered what we could.”

Here she was, after all this time of so many different people with so many different descriptions of Abbie Whelan. Here she was. She cared about Jordan, about Sonia. Took responsibility for what happened eight years ago.

“The nurse told me, she said, that there was some trouble. With Grace’s father?” Abbie asked hesitantly.

“There was. But it’s handled.”

She nodded. “Thank you for looking out for them. Paige and Grace.”

“You’ve got a good family, Miss Whelan,” I told her, rising from my chair. “We’ll need to get a formal statement from you, on everything that happened. But only when you’re ready.”

“Can I send it in?” She asked.

“You can.”

“Better to do it whilst it’s fresh, I suppose,” she said with a shrug.

“My thoughts exactly.” I walked over, offering her my hand. She shook it, then Mills’s hand before she looked at the door with a heart-breaking expression.

“Can I see my baby now?” She asked, voice cracking.

“We’ll send her right in,” I assured her, giving her once last warm smile before walking from the room.

We stood in the hallway for a moment, letting it all sink in.

“Bugger me,” Mills muttered.

“Let’s get Paige and Grace in there, and then I say we hit the pub and call it a day. I’m knackered.”

Mills laughed through his nose, and we walked down the corridor to find where Paige and Grace were waiting. As we walked, Mills stopped, and nudged me with his elbow. Sitting in the crisp white hallway on one of the ugly plastic chairs, his orange hair a beacon, was Luke Campbell. He sat awkwardly in a smart shirt, fidgeting uncomfortably with his collar and sleeves.

“Wonder who told him,” I muttered. I spotted Paige along the way, walking out from some toilets with Grace, and