Best Served Cold: A DCI Harry Grimm Novel

by David J Gatward

  ‘That’s a delightful phrase,’ Jenny said, then asked, ‘But why? I’ve met a few mad bastards in my time. We all have, right? Isn’t there a chance someone is just out doing this for the sheer hell of it?’

  Harry wasn’t convinced at all. ‘None of this looks random. It looks planned. And planning takes effort. It also implies that there’s more to it than just the sheer hellish joy of murder. And trust me, that’s been given as the reason for a killing or two more often than any of us would care to imagine.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Jenny asked, pen poised. ‘And I don’t mean just from the crime scenes.’

  ‘Yes, what about that Reedy bloke?’ Harry asked. ‘He’s clearly a local dealer. What if John was tied up in something and it came back to bite him? And there’s the text that Nick got, which reminds me, have we got any location data on that phone, yet?’

  Matt shook his head. ‘Reedy is Nick’s contact,’ he said, ‘Nick’s world. John wasn’t into anything like that. And Reedy’s all flash for sure, but that’s about all he is to be honest.’

  ‘And you’re sure John isn’t involved in whatever it is Reedy gets up to?’

  ‘You saw his house, how he lived,’ Matt said. ‘The bloke was sailing close to bankruptcy his whole life, like basically every farmer in the country. If he had extra money, he’d have spent it, for sure. Any cash he had that the tax man didn’t know about, well that went on drink, nowt else.’

  ‘And location data on the phone?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t over in Oughtershaw,’ Jim said. ‘Best they could give us was that it came from somewhere in or around Hawes.’

  Harry let his head fall back while he took that information in. It didn’t give them much except confirmation that this was all turning out to be worse by the hour. Harry raised his head and stared at the board beside Jenny. ‘One more thing,’ he said, ‘I want all of this keeping quiet. Now, I know that’s impossible, what with Nick being involved, and this being the Dales and the fact that every single one of you seems to know every sodding one else, but we don’t want anything leaking out, not without us being in control of it.’

  ‘Can’t help but think it’s already a bit late for that,’ Matt said.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Harry said. ‘As soon as the media find out that we’ve got what looks like two killings in just a few days of each other, and only a few miles apart, they’ll be all over it. And the only information that I want them getting is what we give to them, when we want to give it. Nothing else. At all. Because once this goes public, it doesn’t take too much imagination to see that folk will start to panic. And that’s never good.’

  ‘You mean you want a media blackout?’

  Harry went to speak but was interrupted by his phone buzzing in his pocket. ‘Yes?’ he snapped, slapping it against his ear.

  When he put the phone back down, the rest of the team stared at him, waiting for him to speak.

  ‘That was the pathologist,’ Harry said. ‘They’ve identified the second body.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Harry stood in the mortuary with Rebecca Sowerby, the pathologist. Jim was with him as well, having driven them both over in the police Land Rover after deciding that it was best to leave Matt and Jenny back in Hawes with Liz. They were both detective constables and so their rank would serve better should people come around asking questions. And if the press turned up, they had strict instructions on what to say and what to keep to themselves. Harry had put it as succinctly as he could: ‘Give them sod all. And if they ask for more, give them even less.’

  It was mid-afternoon and, having spoken to Sowerby briefly on the phone, Harry had insisted on heading over to have a look at the two bodies for himself.

  ‘But I’ve given you all the information you need.’

  ‘I’d still prefer to speak to you face to face and to see the bodies.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t need to give you a reason. It’s my job. And yours. I’ll be there in an hour.’

  ‘But I’m busy!’

  ‘Yes, I know you are: with me.’

  It wasn’t ghoulish fascination. Instead, it was because sometimes seeing things for real helped him to sort out his own thoughts. Also, Harry preferred to have a face rather than just a name. These were people who had suffered, usually terribly, and it was his job to find out who had done bad things to them and then put them away as quickly as possible and for as long as possible. In some ways, he almost felt like he owed it to the victims to introduce himself, to let them know that he was going to do everything within his power to give them the justice they deserved. Maybe it was a bit old fashioned, but what was wrong with that?

  The room was like every other mortuary Harry had ever been in, all stainless steel and the disturbingly confused scent of death and disinfectant. The vapour rub which he had dabbed under his nose before handing it to Jim to do the same was only so effective and the reek still pushed on through. It was a cloying sweet sourness and just when you thought it was gone, it would swing back and churn your stomach.

  Bright lights gave the room a washed-out glow. It was a place devoid of colour, a silvery grey palette as lifeless as the bodies hiding silently in the freezer drawers in the wall.

  Harry stared at the two body-shaped sheets in front of him. ‘You don’t have to be here for this,’ he said, glancing over at Jim. ‘You can just wait for me outside. This won’t take long, I’m sure.’

  ‘I want to be,’ Jim replied. ‘Well, I don’t mean that I want to be, because there’s plenty of other places I’d rather be, but I think I should be, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘I do,’ Harry said, once again impressed with Jim and his attitude to his job, then turned his attention to the piercing stare he was receiving from the pathologist.

  ‘Thanks for seeing us,’ he said, working hard at an attempt to keep things civil between them. ‘It’s been a busy couple of day, hasn’t it?’

  ‘It’s always busy,’ Sowerby said. ‘People die every day. Sometimes horribly. It’s what happens.’

  Harry stepped forward, bringing himself closer to the two bodies thankfully still hidden from sight. ‘So, which one’s which, then?’

  ‘The one nearest you is John Capstick,’ Sowerby said, with a quick point of a finger. ‘This one is Mr Hutchison.’

  ‘Hutchinson?’ Harry said.

  ‘No, Hutchison. Only one en. Don’t ask me why. Can well imagine he spent far too much time correcting people on that one.’

  Harry took a look at the as yet unrevealed body as it lay before them. Whoever this Mr Hutchison was, he was certainly tall. Not massive, just long, Harry thought. Probably six four. The kind of height that, if you have it, you exaggerate a bit further, and suddenly everyone thinks your six six.

  ‘What do we know about him, then?’ Jim asked. ‘I don’t recognise the name.’

  Sowerby grabbed a clipboard from behind her. ‘Hutchison, Barry,’ she said. ‘Born 1970. He’s from Richmond.’

  ‘Then what the hell is he doing in a slurry pit in Widdale on the other side of Hawes?’ Jim asked.

  ‘What about witness statements?’ Harry asked. ‘Anyone see anything?’

  ‘Not a thing,’ Sowerby said, shaking her head. She stepped forward and reached out to pull back the sheet, revealing the man’s face and torso. The body was grey and no longer covered in cow muck, which Harry was relieved about. However, with the removal of the sheet, he noticed the strangely sweet tang of dung in the air, the stench of it still clearly clinging to the body. It mixed appallingly with the underlying scent of delayed decay around them and Harry found himself having to really focus to not let it get to him and turn his stomach too much.

  ‘So, what do we know?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Same MO as yesterday,’ said Sowerby and pointed at the body’s neck. ‘See here? Bruising. Not strangulation, because he didn’t die like that. Just enough to knock him out. But there’s more of it, like it was done twice. Then there’s this
. . .’

  Harry looked to where the pathologist was pointing, which was at Hutchison’s wrists. ‘What exactly is it that you’re showing me?’

  All Harry could see was wrinkled flesh, like the skin on a joint of pork.

  ‘There’s bruising at the wrists,’ explained Sowerby. ‘So, I would suggest that he was tied up as well.’

  ‘What, he was chucked in with his hands lashed together?’

  Sowerby shook her head. ‘This is how we found him. There was nothing on the wrists.’

  Harry could feel his brain seizing up. ‘So someone incapacitated him, tied him up, presumably to transport him from wherever he was to the farm, then put a choke hold on him again, before untying him and throwing him in the slurry pit? Why do that?’

  Sowerby shrugged. ‘Why do any of it? And it looks that way, yes. Oh, and he was gagged as well, and that was removed before he was thrown in. Really went for it this time, whoever it was.’ She pointed at some marks on the dead man’s face.

  ‘And that wasn’t found either?’ Harry asked. ‘The gag or whatever it was that was shoved in his mouth?’

  ‘No. Just the feather.’

  ‘So, how did he actually die, then?’ Jim asked.

  ‘He drowned,’ Sowerby said. ‘Lungs were full of cow shit.’

  ‘Jesus . . .’ Harry muttered.

  ‘He didn’t stand a chance,’ Sowerby explained. ‘At that end, the slurry is about ten feet deep. You can’t swim in it. Once you’re in, that’s it. The poor bastard.’

  ‘It’s why they’re usually covered,’ Jim said. ‘Slurry pits, I mean. They’re dangerous things.’

  ‘So why wasn’t it covered?’ Sowerby asked.

  ‘The farmer seemed to be asking the same question,’ Harry said, staring at the body. ‘He’s got kids so he said it was covered all the time and I got the impression that he was pretty hot on safety. The house, the whole place, it was immaculate. Can’t see him being lax about covering up a slurry pit. So, someone else uncovered it before throwing old Barry here into it and to his death.’

  There were terrible ways to die, Harry thought, but drowning in cow slurry, drinking the stuff down, sucking it into your lungs, well that was right up there with some of the worst he’d ever had to investigate.

  ‘What about the feather?’ Jim asked.

  ‘Oh, that,’ Sowerby said, checking her notes again. ‘Eagle feather. Like yesterday’s, the one found in that one there.’ She pointed with her pen at the other body.

  ‘Was it in his mouth?’ Harry asked.

  Sowerby gave a nod.

  ‘So how did he drown and not spit it out?’

  ‘Well, for a start, that’s a pretty good sign he was unconscious,’ Sowerby said. ‘And second, it was jammed in there, stuck between his teeth, so that it wouldn’t just float on out.’

  Harry suddenly felt as though something very heavy had been placed on his back.

  ‘You alright?’ Jim asked.

  Harry rubbed his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s just that, well, you know, these are linked now, aren’t they? I knew they were when another feather was found. But the fact that it’s the same kind of feather? Well, that’s it for certain. Confirmation. Barry and John here, they were killed by the same person. And we need to find out why and who sharpish.’

  ‘We also found this,’ Sowerby said, and hoisted into view a plastic bag inside which was a mobile phone.

  Harry immediately thought back to the text Nick had received. ‘Is that Capstick’s?’

  ‘His are the only fingerprints we found on it, so yes, it must be,’ she said. ‘Other than that, we can’t get anything from it. Lying in cow shit is clearly not very good for your average, everyday smart phone.’

  ‘And it was on this body?’

  ‘Stuffed in his pocket,’ Sowerby said, covering up Hutchison’s body, before moving onto the next. ‘Look, I know you’ve seen this one before,’ she began, ‘but it’s a real mess. That first one, well he still looks normal, because he’s intact. But this one? Not so much.’

  ‘Before you ask, I’m fine,’ Jim said. ‘I was the one who was at the scene first, remember?’

  Harry nodded to the pathologist to get on with it and she quickly pulled the sheet back. ‘Bloody hell . . .’ he hissed.

  Jim was silent, though Harry watched the colour drain from his face like sand in an egg timer.

  ‘It’s a bit of a mess isn’t it?’ Sowerby said. ‘But you can just make out the bruising on the neck. Other than that, there’s nothing else to add. You know about the feather, and we know how long he was out there in the open.’

  ‘And you found nothing else?’

  ‘No,’ Sowerby replied. ‘For crime scenes that are so messy, they’re both very clean.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Jim asked.

  ‘There’s nothing other than the feather that tells us much about the person who did this,’ Sowerby said. ‘We’ve got no hairs, no trace DNA, nothing. Not even footprints. Whoever did this was really bloody careful. You’d swear they’d shaved themselves all over then hosed themselves down in bleach.’

  ‘That’s not what I need to hear.’

  ‘It’s all that I can tell you.’

  Harry stepped back from Capstick’s body. ‘Thanks again,’ he said, looking over at the pathologist.

  ‘If I find anything or learn anything else, I’ll let you know,’ she replied. ‘Now, if you don’t mind? I’ve got lots of other things to be getting on with and this has already taken up time that I didn’t have.’

  Harry gestured to Jim to follow him and they were soon back outside breathing air which, though perhaps not as fresh as the stuff blown from off the hills in the dales, was still a hell of a lot more pleasant than what they had just emerged from. ‘You okay?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Yes and no,’ Jim replied. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this.’

  ‘You and me both,’ Harry said. ‘So let’s just hope that the others have got something more to go on when we get back to the office.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Of all the things Harry wanted to find waiting for him when he got back to Hawes, the absolute very bottom of the list was journalists. In fact, they were so far down the list that they weren’t even on it. He never wanted to find journalists anywhere. He was pretty sure good ones, honest ones, existed, but as yet he hadn’t met any of them. And the ones who swooped in at the first sniff of a murder were, he believed, the very worst of the bunch. Vultures after meat on the bones of the dead, the stories behind the stories, relevant or not, interviews with relatives, little tasty bits of history from the victim’s lives so beloved by the tabloids, anything to feed the unthinking masses a news story that promised just enough darkness to have them wanting more.

  Harry knew it was a cliché, a cop hating the press, but that was just the way it was. One day, perhaps, he’d meet one he could trust, a journalist who wasn’t just in it for the blood money and the shock-horror headline, but until then he’d just stick with showing them the same amount of love as he would a cockroach.

  ‘Drive around again,’ Harry said to Jim, as they came up to the end of the cobbles on The Hill and saw the crowd milling around in the marketplace. ‘Need time to think.’

  Jim, without a word said, took a right and swung them back down The Holme and onto Penn Lane.

  ‘Pull over.’

  Jim did as instructed.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ Harry said, leaning his head back. ‘We need that lot clearing out otherwise we’re going to get nothing done at all. Call Swift.’

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure!’ Harry roared, then caught himself. ‘Sorry, Jim. Journalists. They bring out the worst in me, that’s all. But call Swift. We need to get him down here to deal with it. Right now, I’d probably only make it worse.’

  ‘He won’t be happy.’

  ‘That’s what I’m hoping,’ Harry said. ‘A grumpy DSI is
a very useful weapon against the press, trust me.’

  Jim made the call.

  ‘Sir? It’s PCSO James Dinsdale. Yes, that’s the one. I was wondering if –’

  Jim’s voice was cut short by whatever was being said at the other end. He then looked at Harry and handed him the phone.

  ‘He wants to talk to you.’

  Harry took the phone.

  ‘Sir, we need you over here in Hawes. Bit of a situation with the press.’

  ‘I’ve been on the phone with your DSI,’ Swift said, ignoring Harry completely. ‘She’s a delight, isn’t she?’

  That she is, Harry thought.

  ‘Have you now, sir? And what did she want?’

  ‘You misunderstand,’ Swift said. ‘I called her. About you.’

  ‘Go on . . .’

  ‘You see, I’m not really sure that you quite fit in up here, and I was just voicing my concerns.’

  ‘Were you now?’

  ‘It’s nothing personal,’ Swfit continued, ‘it’s just that I think perhaps that your ways are different to how things are done around here. And that kind of friction is something we can do without.’

  ‘Do you mean we or I?’ Harry asked. ‘Have you had any complaints from the team?’

  Harry eyeballed Jim at this point and received a very clear shake of the head.

  ‘Nothing overt, no,’ Swift said. ‘It’s a feeling, that’s all, Grimm. Born of years of experience. You can understand, yes?’

  ‘What did she say?’

  A pause in the conversation. The kind of silence behind which one can hear the sound of a mind thinking, chewing something over.

  ‘She thinks very highly of you,’ Swift said, and Harry could hear the pain in the man’s voice as he said the words, and the surprise which leaned towards disbelief. ‘She thinks you will settle in just fine.’

  Harry did his best to not let the smile on his face show in voice.

  ‘That years of experience you just mentioned, sir? I could do with its help right now, actually.’