Harry thought for a moment, rubbing his head in an attempt to get his brain into gear.
‘And that’s it? Nothing else?’
‘That’s all that I could get,’ Liz said. ‘I reckon it’s just too long ago for anyone to really remember, which is fair enough, like, isn’t it? I mean, can you remember all that much about your time at school, a particular winter, anything that really happened?’
Harry shook his head. ‘A mate split his lip open, I remember that. Bounced his face off the back of someone else’s head running down a corridor. But yeah, I see your point.’
‘Why not give the school a buzz at eight, ask the head?’ Liz suggested. ‘She might know.’
‘That’s a bit weird though, isn’t it?’ Harry said. ‘Good idea, but what if that’s the only information the school has on it? And she wasn’t head back then, so there’s a good chance she won’t know anything more than we do.’
Liz yawned, rather too obviously. ‘Oh, sorry about that.’
‘No, it’s fine,’ Harry said. ‘You get off home. I’ll call you if I need you.’
‘I’ll head off in a minute,’ Liz said. ‘We could try the churches? Might have records or something. Local papers. Maybe the surgery?’
Harry remembered the doctor from the day they’d found John. ‘I was supposed to go and see the doctor anyway,’ he said. ‘I’ll try him first in a bit, see if there’s anything there. If it was an accident, then they’d have a note of it somewhere, wouldn’t they? Perhaps? That’s not something the churches would record. They’re only really interested in births, marriages and deaths.’ He then strode over to the files from the school, sat down, and pulled the first one towards him, flipping it open. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking for, but he knew it was in there somewhere.
Harry sensed Liz standing behind him but didn’t take his eyes from the files. ‘Something’s nagging at me, you know? Like I’ve an itch I need to scratch, but I just can’t find it.’
Liz sat down to Harry’s left. ‘They were in a gang, that’s for sure,’ she said. ‘John and that Barry bloke, and Nick. With three others.’
‘Yeah, I saw that,’ Harry said, scanning the pages of one logbook before closing it and quickly moving onto the next.
‘Right little buggers the lot of them,’ Liz said. ‘Can you imagine teaching kids like that? Always running off or causing trouble or whatever? And we think our job’s hard!’
Harry wasn’t listening. He’d found something. It was there, staring back at him, and a few dots were starting to join up. Not enough to take him all the way to the person responsible, but they had to be followed.
‘Liz,’ he said, ‘remember what Jaydn was saying about those re-enactors? Well, I think he might just have been onto something . . .’
Chapter Twenty-Five
Harry had the rest of the team in front of him and at his side on top of a table, a laptop. It had just gone nine in the morning but looked darker than nine at night. Outside, the day’s weather had eased off just enough to downgrade itself from apocalyptic to your everyday torrential downpour, guaranteed to chill you to your bones and make you feel that everything was, in actual fact, a bit rubbish. The thunder had rolled on to go and pester another area of the country, but the sky was still as grey as the sea. Clouds tumbled into each other as waves, tossing hapless birds around like shipwrecked sailors.
To make sure that everyone was absolutely up to speed with what was happening, the team had gone through the case file and read through witness statements, as well as any other additional evidence or information that had come in, such as the paint found at the house of the third victim. And now it was time to be getting on with the day ahead. The only one not there was Liz, but she’d promised to be back for midday once she’d had a chance to get her head down for a while. Harry had been on the phone to the head teacher as well, but she’d been able to offer nothing more on what Harry had found in the files, in the main because she had only been at the school herself for three years, but also because there were no other files. What Harry had in front of him, well, that was it.
‘Right, then,’ he said, clapping his hands together in an attempt to get their attention, ‘we’re going to watch a movie!’
‘What about popcorn?’ Matt asked. ‘I can go and get some if you want? Can’t have a movie without popcorn.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve already sorted that,’ Harry said, then gave a nod to Jim. ‘You mind handing it out?’
Jim stood up and, from a bag at Harry’s feet, pulled out some bags of Spar’s own brand sweet and salted.
Harry was a little bit unsure as to why he’d gone to the trouble, as it wasn’t a behavioural trait most people who knew him at all would have immediately associated with him. But he was strangely pleased he had, as he watched everyone grab a bag and tuck in. He also hoped that if they were relaxed it would help them all think a little clearer.
‘First though,’ Harry said, ‘has everyone been introduced to our surprise new addition, PC Okri?’
Harry watched as Jaydn stood up, cast a rather large and imposing shadow over everyone, gave a small and embarrassed wave, then sat down again, clearly wishing that he’d just stayed in his chair in the first place.
‘From what I understand, he’s volunteered to come over from Catterick and join us over here. Not sure how long for, exactly, but I’m sure he’ll be very useful.’
‘At last,’ Jim said, ‘someone else to make the tea.’
‘And do the cake run,’ Matt added.
Gordy was first with the questions about what it was they were actually going to watch and asked, ‘So, what have we got, then? Dodgy home movies? Snuff?’
‘Well, no to the former,’ Harry said, ‘and it’s been pretty much proven that the latter is little more than an urban myth.’
‘Or so you say,’ Matt chipped in.
Harry folded his arms. ‘What we do have is something I had to find on the internet,’ he said. ‘And before any of you start whispering or rumour mongering, the reason I had to, is because that’s the only place I could find it. What we’re about to watch isn’t something you can buy anywhere. It’s simply not available. Also, I’m pretty surprised that I found it at all, because I wasn’t actually expecting to find it, seeing as I wasn’t looking for it. If you know what I mean.’
Jim raised a hand and received a nod from Harry, who was already pretty sure, from the looks on everyone’s faces, that no, they didn’t know what he meant, at all.
‘So how does this relate to the case?’ Jim asked.
‘Right, yes,’ Harry said. ‘I was looking through the files from the school and I came across a mention of a government information film.’
Harry could see only blank expressions facing him now, which was understandable, he thought, because he knew he wasn’t really making that much sense as yet.
‘It wasn’t the fact that it was a government information film that caught my attention,’ Harry said, ‘but its title.’ And that this, he looked over to Jaydn. ‘PC Okri, can you tell everyone your thoughts on the paint found at Hutchison’s house, please?’
Jaydn, clearly none too happy about being the centre of attention again, and so soon after the previous embarrassing experience, made to stand.
‘It’s alright,’ Harry said, raising a hand to stop Jaydn from standing up again, ‘you can just tell us from where you are. You don’t have to get up and deliver it like a speech. Well, not every time, anyway.’
Clearly relieved, Jaydn sat back down, and then quickly told everyone what he had said the day before to Harry, Liz and Gordy about the paint found by the pathologist at the house of the second victim, Hutchison.
‘So we’re watching Brave Heart then?’ Matt asked. ‘I’ve seen it, but I don’t mind seeing it again.’
‘No, we’re not watching Brave Heart,’ Harry said, wondering why that film seemed suddenly so popular. ‘So, about the paint, and what Jaydn just told us about his clearly very exciting
, life-changing school trip . . .’
Harry pressed play on the laptop.
For a moment, the screen was blank, and the only sound in the room was that of popcorn being munched. Then words appeared on the screen, explaining little more than the fact that what they were about to watch was a Central Office of Information Film for the Health and Safety Executive.
‘It’s not exactly the Star Wars intro, is it?’ Matt said, his words muffled by the amount of popcorn he was shovelling in.
On the screen the words faded to be replaced by a cloudy sky beneath which sat the black slab of a rough horizon, onto which then ran the silhouettes of six children. Then, above them, one word appeared in yellow: APACHE.
Harry paused the film.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘any thoughts so far?’
Silence. The kind of silence, Harry thought, that just sits there, staring at you, almost like it’s daring you to challenge it. Which he was more than happy to do.
‘I’ve done an extra little bit of digging,’ Harry said, ‘and here’s two things I’ve found out.’ He raised his left hand, index finger standing tall. ‘One, Apaches wore eagle feathers in their head dress.’ He then raised his middle finger as well. ‘And two, the body paint they used was made up out of the ingredients our friendly pathologist found in the paint at Hutchison’s house.’
‘You think someone’s dressing up as an Apache to commit murder?’ Jim asked. ‘Really? But that’s crazy!’
‘Eagle feathers and war paint,’ Harry said. ‘I know, it seems far-fetched, but . . .’
‘It seems crackers,’ Matt said. ‘Who’d do that? And why?’
‘I’m not sure I can answer that,’ Harry said. ‘But I think this film is important. I promise you, it’ll become very clear as it plays out. At least I hope it will.’
Blank faces still stared back at him and Harry took a very, very deep breath, half convinced he should just explain everything, but he wanted the film to have the same impact on the team as it had had on himself just over an hour ago.
‘And,’ said Harry, ‘I want you to remember as you watch this that it was shown to primary school children in the late seventies and early eighties. Primary school children, would you believe? You’ll soon understand, I think, why it’s got a pretty notorious reputation. Ready?’
Everyone nodded, Matt somewhat more enthusiastic than the others.
Harry unclicked pause and allowed Apache to play on.
At first, the movie played out through scenes of a group of primary-school age children dressed up as Apache warriors and running around a farm. It was very much of its time, the clothes and the overall colour palette screaming ‘This Is The Seventies’ almost too loudly. There was a rough, ragged nature to the film, but it was clear that this was on purpose, and Harry wondered if it had been done to unsettle the viewer from the off. The children in the movie looked like they were having quite the time of it, running around, pretending to shoot at each other. But then, at just over five minutes in, the first death happened. Harry turned his eyes from the screen to the team to watch their reaction as, in the film, one of the children, a blonde girl, jumped up onto the trailer being towed by a tractor they were all chasing. Just as the girl cheered victory for slaying their foe, the trailer bounced over a bump and she tumbled forwards, sending her to fall head first under the wheels of the trailer, the camera hovering just long enough over her broken toy rifle covered in blood.
‘Dear god, no!’ Gordy gasped. ‘And they showed this to kids? What kind of messed up government thinks that’s a good idea?’
Harry saw just a flicker of shock ripple through the others.
The film continued. Coming up to eleven minutes in, the second death occurred, a boy drowning in a pit of slurry, his body disappearing into the filth as he screamed out for his dad.
Harry figured he could stop the film there, but it was important that it played out. They all needed to see it, to understand what it could mean, why he believed it was important.
The film eventually drew itself to a close twenty-six minutes later, a funeral party described to the viewers by the voice of one of the dead children wishing he was there with his family. Then, to add an extra touch of ghoulish awfulness, a roll call of child deaths on farms spooled down the righthand side of the screen, all of which happened in the year before the film itself was made.
Harry closed the laptop then turned to face his team, sitting himself down on the table.
‘They don’t make them like they used to, do they?’ Matt said.
‘And thank god for that,’ Gordy chipped in. ‘Who in their right mind thinks it’s okay to show that to children? Why would you? What the hell were they thinking? Parents must have been up in arms!’
Harry waited for the team to quieten before he spoke.
‘So far,’ he said, ‘we have two deaths. Capstick was crushed to death by a tractor and trailer. That’s child number one. Hutchison drowned in slurry. That’s child number two. Those are the first two deaths in the film. In total five children die, if you don’t count the quite frankly horrendous roll call of death at the end.’
Jenny said, ‘So you think someone is killing off John’s gang like the kids in the film?’
‘We’ve got six lads in John’s gang,’ Harry said. ‘Two are already dead, killed in the same fashion and order as the kids in Apache. That gives us four others to find before anyone else gets hurt. And if the film is anything to go by, with only one survivor, we can’t rule out that we also now have four suspects. Though to be honest, I think it’s three, as Nick’s movements don’t fit with any of it. But we can’t be completely certain, not yet.’
‘But why wait till now?’ Jim asked. ‘What’s the point? And why do it like this?’
Harry looked to Matt. ‘Can you remember what Nick said about what it was like at school?’
‘Only that it was rough,’ Matt said. ‘And their little gang used to play games a lot.’
‘Any specific games?’
Matt thought for a moment. ‘Kick the Can? Oh, and Cowboys and Indians, a little politically incorrect now, really, isn’t it? And something kids these days wouldn’t even know about. I used to have a great little cowboy outfit myself.’
‘Now there’s an image we could’ve all done without,’ Jim laughed.
Matt said, ‘Nick also said that they were always the Indians because they were John’s favourite. Maybe that’s because of this film, seeing as they watched it, right?’
‘Right, so I’ve the start of a theory,’ Harry began. ‘Looking through the school files, we found a few things, mentions of John’s gang, bullying, that kind of thing. And there was something in there, an event, with John and his pals all mentioned, but then the incident, whatever it was, all crossed out.’
‘So what was it?’ Jim asked. ‘What happened?’
‘Liz tried to find out,’ Harry said. ‘It’s a long time ago, folk can’t remember much, or are just refusing to tell us, but we think there might have been an accident of some kind, but that’s a wild guess. Like I said, Liz asked some of the people from that class if they could remember anything but didn’t get any details.’
‘So what now?’ Jaydn asked.
‘What if John and his gang were influenced by the movie you all just watched?’ Harry asked. ‘What if they played Cowboys and Indians a lot because of it? They’re farming kids, right? So they’d have associated with the kids in the film. Maybe even saw themselves as the Apaches? And what if their games got a bit rough and someone from way back then ended up in a bad way and is now after some payback?’
‘There’s a hell of a lot of what-ifs in that,’ Gordy sighed. ‘And the idea that someone could resent a bit of bullying that much, and from all those years ago? I don’t know . . .’
‘Neither do I,’ Harry said, ‘but it’s all I can come up with when I put everything together.’
‘So it’s someone local, then,’ Jim said. ‘Someone from the school back then?’
<
br /> ‘I guess so,’ Harry said. ‘Possibly. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s just a theory. Whatever, we need to get on this, and now!’ He rose to his feet. ‘I want everyone from the class that John was in contacted again, properly this time. I’m not sure how many Liz managed to speak to. We need to know where they are, who they are, their movements, what they can remember from school. And I want Nicholas Ellis, Simon Swales, Jack Iveson, and Ian Smith found! Jim?’
Jim was on his feet in a beat.
‘You and me, we’re off to see what we can find out about this mysterious incident. Matt?’
Matt glanced up. ‘Boss?’
‘Keys!’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Outside, Harry raced over to the police Land Rover, Jim on his heels. He jumped into the vehicle and kicked the engine into life as Jim clambered up and in beside him.
‘Where are we going?’ Jim asked.
‘Open that file,’ Harry said. ‘Skip through until you find the section I mentioned, the one that’s all scribbled out.’
Harry slipped the gear lever into first then wheel spun out of the parking space and onto the road.
‘Didn’t think it could do that,’ Harry muttered to himself as the steering wheel spun in his hands and he accelerated down The Holme and onto Penn Lane.
‘Found it,’ Jim said. ‘Now what am I looking at?’
‘The date,’ Harry said, a few seconds later indicating left and pulling off the road into the car park for the local surgery. ‘Something happened on that day. No idea what it was and like I said, Liz has asked around a bit, but got nowhere.’
‘Can’t say I know anything about it either,’ Jim said. ‘And I’ve lived here all my life. Everyone talks about what winters were like way back, but that’s about it.’
Best Served Cold: A DCI Harry Grimm Novel Page 17
