Blood Sport: A Yorkshire Murder Mystery (DCI Harry Grimm Crime Thrillers 7)

by David J Gatward

  ‘Jim,’ Harry said, staying as calm as he could, ‘I’m currently chasing down the person I think is responsible for the dog fight and for attacking Mr Black. We’ll talk about this when I get back, okay?’

  ‘It was there, up in the treehouse, this old biscuit tin we used to hide sweets in. I think that’s what they were after, what they were trying to find, whoever it was that broke into the house.’

  ‘They were after biscuits?’

  ‘No,’ Jim said, ‘the phone!’

  ‘What phone, Jim? What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘I found a phone in the tin,’ Jim said. ‘I think Neil must’ve hidden it up there to keep it safe. And I think what’s on there, that’s why the house was broken into, why he was killed. They wanted the phone, what was on it, and Neil had it, you see, as some kind of insurance maybe? A way of getting out of what he was involved in!’

  ‘Jim, you’re making massive leaps here,’ Harry said, passing the eerie silhouette of Temple Folly on his left.

  ‘There are photos on there,’ Jim said. ‘Loads of them. All kinds of stuff. And there’s someone in them that I recognised. I mean, I probably wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t met them this week, but then they’ve not been in the area for long, have they? And we usually deal with Andrew.’

  ‘Get to the bloody point, Jim!’ Harry roared, slowing down as he came round the left bend into Redmire, there for the second time that week, only this was going to be a considerably shorter visit.

  ‘Toby!’ Jim said. ‘Toby Halloway’s in the photos! That doesn’t make any sense, does it? He’s a vet! Here in the dales! But in these photos, he’s with all these other people with expensive cars and Neil’s there, too. I think some of the photos are in Darlington, but the others I don’t know, but it’s definitely him. So why would Neil have them, Harry? What’s going on?’

  Harry was flying through Wensley now, Leyburn just over a mile away.

  ‘Jim?’

  ‘Yes, boss?’

  ‘We need to get that phone to forensics. Give Sowerby a call.’

  ‘She won’t like that,’ Jim said.

  ‘I’ve already spoken to her. She’ll be fine. She’s staying over in Askrigg at her mum’s.’

  ‘Right, will do.’

  ‘I want Andrew Bell’s garage going over, and there’s a skip of stuff outside his house she’ll be cross-checking with what she found at the barn. And there’s the address you and Matt are off to, as well. Cordon that off.’

  ‘Who’s address is it?’ Jim asked. ‘And who is it you’re chasing after?’

  ‘It’s Toby’s,’ Harry said. ‘And right now, he’s somewhere between me and Darlington.’

  Phone call over, Harry sped on and soon found that he recognised a few buildings as Catterick came up to greet him, and with it came memories of his time training for the Paras. It was so long ago now and the place seemed to have hardly changed. But he had. The years, the experiences had carved him into something else. As to what that was exactly, he wasn’t really sure, not least, because the dales was having its own go at him as well, changing him further.

  Harry hit the A1 and headed north, the road was busy as he threaded his way through traffic, wondering if he’d managed to pull any closer to the one he was after. Then a call came through on the car radio and Harry answered only to hear the voice of Detective Superintendent Swift.

  ‘We’ve got him, Grimm.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Location being sent now.’

  ‘You made the arrest?’

  ‘Not yet. Firearms Unit has been called in.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s armed. Refusing to cooperate. Why was this information not passed on?’

  ‘What information?’ Harry said. ‘I had no idea he was armed! How would I?’

  ‘Well, he is,’ Swift said. ‘Fired at one of the cars when he realised he couldn’t escape! Where are you?’

  ‘About five minutes away,’ Harry said, and hung up.

  When Harry arrived at the scene, a lonely road somewhere on the outskirts of Darlington, the darkness was being cut through with flashing lights from the half-dozen or so police vehicles blocking the road in both directions. Any traffic heading into the area was already being directed away, but Harry got through and was soon at the scene. As he climbed out of his vehicle, Swift came over to meet him.

  ‘Any progress?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ Swift said. ‘Still waiting on the firearms unit.’

  Harry glanced over to where Toby was parked. And there it was, Reedy’s red Subaru Imprezza.

  ‘Is there anyone with him?’ Harry asked.

  ‘No,’ Swift said. ‘Why?’

  ‘That car, it’s not his,’ Harry explained. ‘Belongs to a suspect we’ve been looking for. What’s he armed with, then?’

  ‘A pistol,’ Swift said. ‘Here, look for yourself. He’s had it on show from the moment we arrived and he took that pot shot at us. I think he’s trying to show off with it, you know? Scare us away.’

  Harry took the pair of binoculars handed to him by Swift. Once focused, he was able to see not only Toby sitting in the car, but the weapon he was holding. And Harry recognised it at once.

  ‘It’s the Humane Killer!’ he said.

  ‘That’s what he’s calling himself, is it?’ Swift said. ‘What is it with people and nicknames?’

  ‘No, not him, not Toby, I mean what’s he’s holding, the pistol!’ Harry said. ‘It’s called a Humane Killer.’

  ‘I don’t really care what it’s called,’ Swift said. ‘It’s a weapon and we’re not doing anything until the firearms unit is here. There’s no telling how many people he could injure or kill with that if he started shooting.’

  ‘Not many, actually,’ Harry said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a pistol specifically designed for use by vets to put animals down,’ Harry explained. ‘Horses, cows, sheep, big animals.’

  ‘Sounds deadly.’

  ‘Oh, it’s deadly,’ Harry said. ‘But it’s not exactly practical.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘It only has one round,’ Harry said.

  Swift, Harry could see, was confused.

  ‘I don’t understand. One round?’

  ‘One shot,’ said Harry explained. ‘Once fired, you have to reload it.’

  ‘I don’t see how that matters,’ Swift said.

  ‘You said he fired at you when you arrived, yes?’

  Swift nodded.

  ‘And that he’s had the pistol on-show ever since?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I said, didn’t I? Why are you asking?’

  Harry stared down the binoculars, saw Toby sitting in the car, the pistol in his hand, and then he was running.

  ‘Grimm? Grimm! What the hell are you doing? Grimm!’

  Harry ducked around to his right, out of sight of Toby, then legged it across the open ground between the police and Reedy’s car. He covered the space so quickly that he was almost on Toby before the man realised what was happening.

  As Harry rounded the back of the car, Toby tried to bring the pistol round to point it at him.

  ‘I’m armed!’ he shouted.

  ‘Like bollocks are you!’ Harry snarled and before the pistol was even pointing at him he slapped Toby’s hand with the binoculars hard enough to shatter bone.

  The pistol spun off through the air to clatter uselessly onto the road.

  Toby was screaming.

  ‘My hand! You’ve broken my hand!’

  Harry didn’t listen. Instead, he opened the driver’s door and hauled Toby out of his seat before spinning him around to pin him to the side of the car. Then he cuffed him and read him his rights. By the time he’d finished, two other officers, along with Swift, had joined him.

  ‘Grimm, you bloody idiot!’ Swift yelled as Toby was dragged away, still screaming about his possibly broken hand. ‘What were you thinking? Do you have any idea of how much trouble
you’re in? Do you?’

  ‘The pistol wasn’t loaded,’ Harry said. ‘One shot, remember? And you’d just told me he’d already fired it.’

  ‘But he could’ve reloaded!’

  ‘You said yourself he’d had the thing on-show ever since.’

  ‘What you did, it was reckless,’ Swift said. ‘You put lives in danger with your actions! And you hit him? What on earth was going through your brain?’

  Harry wasn’t listening. He was staring at Reedy’s car.

  ‘You smell that, Sir?’ he asked.

  ‘Smell what, Grimm?’ Swift said. ‘What are you talking about now?’

  ‘You smell it though, right?’

  Swift stopped raging and sniffed the air.

  ‘Dear God, what is that? Where’s it coming from?’

  Quiet now, Harry walked around to the back of the car.

  ‘I’d stand back if I were you,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t take orders from you, Grimm,’ Swift said.

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  Harry leaned forward and popped the boot.

  ‘Good God!’ Swift exclaimed, covering his nose and mouth with his sleeve. ‘That’s a body! Who is it, Grimm? And what the hell is it doing in there?’

  Harry stared down at the corpse. It had been in there for a couple of days, that much was obvious from the smell and the bloating, but it wasn’t long enough for it to become unrecognisable, even with the bullet wound it had suffered to the temple.

  ‘That,’ Harry said, ‘is Reedy.’ Then he looked down at Swift and added, ‘Looks like we’re going to be adding murder to the list of charges, doesn’t it?’

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Harry walked over to the grave and stood next to Jim. The PCSO had just driven down from the farm in an old David Brown tractor. Fly was with him, sitting at his side. The day was a bright one. April had fallen back to let May push through, which it had done with gusto, thanks to a thunderstorm that had lit up the dales a few nights ago.

  ‘He finally confessed, then,’ Jim said.

  ‘Confessed is a strong term,’ said Harry. ‘It’s a word that implies some willingness on the part of the confessor, doesn’t it? And I don’t think Toby was all that willing. Not really.’

  ‘What swung it for him, then?’

  ‘The evidence,’ Harry said. ‘It’s pretty hard to say you didn’t do something when everything says that you did. Namely, a certain pistol kept at the vets.’

  ‘They got a ballistics match, then.’

  ‘That they did,’ said Harry. ‘.32 calibre. And the forensics evidence for the bullet that killed Neil matches that for Reedy. He’d signed the weapon out on both the dates in question, clearly never once thinking he’d be caught.’

  ‘Wrong about that, wasn’t he?’

  Harry read Neil’s name on the gravestone at their feet, his too-short lifespan etched in stone. And beneath it, the simple words, ‘Miss you, Son.’

  ‘At least this gives some closure now,’ Harry said. ‘And that’s good for everyone. How are his parents?’

  ‘Helen and Alan?’ Jim said. ‘Oh, they’re doing okay. Alan’s finally given up on the idea of trying to persuade the government to give him one minute alone with Toby.’

  ‘He’s a bit of a firecracker, isn’t he?’

  ‘You could say that,’ Jim agreed.

  Harry reached down and stroked Fly’s head. The dog sniffed Harry’s hand, his tail thumping.

  Harry laughed.

  ‘I still can’t believe it was Toby, though,’ Jim said. ‘I mean, a vet, of all things, involved with dogfighting? What’s that about?’

  ‘Turns out there’s more to Toby than anyone thought,’ Harry said.

  ‘I feel for Andrew, though,’ Jim said. ‘He’s blaming himself for not seeing Toby for what he was. Says he feels like he’s betrayed the dales for hiring him in the first place.’

  ‘I doubt he had much choice in the matter,’ said Harry. ‘Toby was placed here by the gang or gangs he was involved with. We managed to speak to everyone else who applied for the job. Turns out they were persuaded to back out or just look for something else.’

  ‘Persuaded, how?’

  ‘Jobs came up,’ Harry said. ‘And a few threats. I mean, nothing you could really trace or whatever, but enough to have them think again.’

  Jim reached down and dusted some dirt from off the top of Neil’s gravestone.

  ‘Still though, a vet?’

  ‘On the outside, yes,’ Harry said. ‘It was a good cover story really, that’s all.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘There’s been a few things come to light about Toby’s past. Old school reports, that kind of thing, and what his parents had to say. They’re heartbroken, obviously, but still.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘He’s got a history of animal cruelty,’ Harry said. ‘Started when he was a kid, even before he was at school. Pulling the wings off flies, that kind of thing. They thought nothing of it, but then they later found out that he was trapping mice, birds, and doing things to them. Took him to doctors, psychologists, but they all said he’d grow out of it.’

  ‘Wrong then.’

  ‘Just a bit,’ said Harry. ‘He just got better at hiding it. Passed his veterinary exams with flying colours. Not top of the class, but close. And that just opened the door for him, I suppose, gave him access to all the animals he could ever want. You saw what they found at his house, right?’

  ‘Don’t think I’ll ever forget it,’ said Jim. ‘We’ve gone through and cross-checked everything we found with our own records, returned the animals we could. Some had to be put down, though. Others were already gone.’

  Harry and Rebecca Sowerby had been first on the scene over at Toby’s house, near Bainbridge. Harry had seen things there that he knew he would never forget, cages containing twisted things borne of a mind too sick to imagine.

  ‘With his work at the dog track, Toby ended up getting in with people he shouldn’t have,’ Harry said. ‘But then, like attracts like, doesn’t it?’

  ‘And that led on to the sheep theft?’

  ‘Not just that, but all kinds of stuff,’ Harry said. ‘Horse racing, dog racing, dog fighting, dog theft, puppy farms. They needed a vet who could keep the animals alive enough to make money from them. And Toby just needed a few playthings.’

  ‘He killed Neil because Neil knew who he was.’

  ‘Oh, there was more than just Toby in those photos,’ Harry said. ‘Neil’s phone is proving to be very useful indeed. A veritable who’s-who of Yorkshire’s worst.’

  ‘If only Neil had handed that phone in,’ said Jim. ‘Gone to the police.’

  ‘That was the worry, I think,’ Harry said. ‘And that was why Neil’s parents won that owl.’

  ‘Toby had it wired.’

  ‘He did indeed,’ Harry said. ‘To keep an eye on them. He’d have found another way, I’m sure, but when their ticket came up as a winner at the raffle, it was just too easy to put a little microphone inside it and listen in. He was just waiting for his moment.’

  ‘Which was the night they went out with Richard Adams,’ Jim said. ‘Their first since they lost Neil.’ He shook his head and added, ‘It’s hard to believe all of this happened in Hawes.’

  ‘Crime doesn’t really care about location,’ Harry said. ‘Anyway, Neil must’ve let on that he had the phone, for insurance, like you said, remember? And they dealt with him in the only way they saw fit, once he’d sorted out that little job for them at your farm.’

  ‘But if Toby killed Neil so easily, what happened with Arthur Black?’

  ‘Organised crime like this casts a wide net,’ said Harry. ‘Reedy was another contact. Not a major player, but he was a dealer, someone they could sell through. Not just skunk, but other stuff, too.’

  ‘And he got involved with the dog fight then?’

  ‘We’ve found out that there have been other fights, just not in the dales. Around the area though,
always moving locations. This is the first time it’s all been able to be tied together, thanks to what was found on Toby’s hard drive.’

  ‘The footage from the barn?’

  ‘Who would’ve thought a stuffed owl could be so useful?’ Harry said. ‘Anyway, Toby never attended the fights, but watched from afar, and the footage was sold on the Darknet. That night at Snaizeholme, he saw Reedy forget to clean up.’

  ‘He left the dog.’

  ‘Toby knew something had to be done, particularly with the police involved. With Arthur being aware of what had happened to his dog, he ordered Reedy to sort it out.’

  ‘And Reedy thought the best option was to try and kill Arthur.’

  ‘That I don’t know,’ said Harry. ‘He at least went in there with the intention of giving him the kind of beating that would warn him off from asking any more questions or cooperating with the police.’

  ‘But he didn’t account for Eric walking in, did he?’

  Harry shook his head.

  ‘Toby was with him, waiting in the car. We found his fingerprints on the stub of a betting ticket found at the barn by Sowerby’s team, and on the SD card I found after Liz was attacked. I think Toby went back to get the owl and dropped that card in the panic of getting out of there knowing that he’d just clobbered a police officer.’

  ‘Was Toby involved with the puppy farm as well?’

  ‘No, actually,’ said Harry. ‘That was just a bit of good luck for us and those poor dogs. Not so much for Mr Peacock, though.’

  ‘Who stole Arthur’s dog in the first place, then?’ Jim asked.

  ‘Toby,’ Harry said. ‘Phil had told me the vet was out to see his old Shire horse the same day that Jack was taken. Only he forgot to mention which vet.’

  ‘Not Andrew, then.’

  ‘No,’ Harry said. ‘And as for Reedy, he was just a loose end that needed tying up. When we caught him, Toby was bringing the car and the body over to a group of his pals to dispose of. The car in a chop shop, Reedy I’m guessing in a barrel of acid or something equally effective and no less horrifying.’

  When Harry stopped speaking, neither he nor Jim said much for the next few minutes. Instead, they both just stood there, in one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the world, lost to their own thoughts.