‘That’s great, really,’ Harry replied. ‘But unless you’re calling to tell me that they’ve found our author hiding on a shelf behind a copy of Bravo Two Zero by Andy McNab, then perhaps we can chat later?’
‘I’ve got a number plate,’ Jenny said.
‘Whose?’
‘The fan, the one who accused Charlie of using a ghostwriter.’
At this, Harry sparked up.
‘Really?’
‘I’ll text it to you now,’ Jenny said. ‘Reckon it’s worth running through the system, don’t you? Assuming the car is registered to her, and not rented, we’ll be able to find her, right?’
‘Send it,’ Harry said.
Fifteen minutes later, and after a couple of quick phone calls, Harry had managed to convert the number plate Jenny had given him into an address, which was somewhere in York. So, not exactly local, he thought. Still, if they still hadn’t heard from Mr Baker by tomorrow, it gave him and the team something else to look into. It probably wouldn’t come to much, but it was all police work, and it was good to be thorough. So, with that, Harry slipped into his flat and five minutes later was fast asleep in front of the television.
Chapter Twelve
As far as Matt was concerned, he was the luckiest man alive. And if the only evidence of that was the collection of slightly rosy-cheeked faces in front of him, then that was more than enough, for sure.
‘You look happy!’
The statement was from the woman sitting next to him, the woman he’d married twenty years ago, and to whom he’d happily given his heart. And not a day went by where he wasn’t absolutely baffled as to why she’d thought it was worth keeping.
‘That’s because I am,’ Matt said, smiling at Joan. ‘How could I not be?’
Matt watched as Joan’s face broke into a smile which, he was pretty sure, could light up the darkest of days.
‘You’re a soft old bugger, you know that, right?’ she said.
‘I am not,’ Matt said. ‘I’m nails, me. Tough.’ He growled and the sound which came out was more kitten than lion.
Joan reached a hand up to Matt’s face and stroked his cheek just a little.
‘Is there something on my face?’ Matt asked. ‘What is it? Potato? Gravy? I bet it’s gravy.’
Joan took her hand away, shaking her head.
Matt topped up Joan’s wine glass. His own was filled with water. This night was for her and he was driving.
‘Any news on that missing person?’ Joan asked.
Matt shook his head. ‘You going to have a look at the dessert menu?’
‘Depends,’ Joan said.
‘On what?’
‘On whether you’re happy for me to fall straight to sleep when we get back home tonight.’
‘I think we’ll both be doing that.’ Matt smiled, then he winked. ‘Any slap and tickle can wait till the morning.’
With that, Matt was up on his feet and calling out, ‘Remember everyone, drinks are on me. So, just add them to the tab, okay?’
Everyone cheered, but Matt noticed that Harry, though joining in, seemed to have other things on his mind. Seeing that his boss was on his feet and strolling over to the bar of The Board Inn, he decided to join him.
‘Hey, Boss.’
‘Matt,’ Harry said. He ordered a drink with the simple words, ‘Same again, thanks,’ and handed over his glass.
‘Having fun?’
‘Absolutely,’ Harry said. ‘How’s Joan?’
‘Loving it,’ Matt said. ‘I know it’s a simple affair, all of this, but all you really need is good friends, good food, and good beer. Thanks for the gift, by the way. You shouldn’t have.’
‘Yeah, you’ll probably think exactly that when you see what it is.’ Harry laughed as his drink arrived and he took a sip.
‘Something on your mind?’ Matt asked. ‘And don’t say there isn’t. I can tell. I’m very perceptive.’
‘Are you now?’ Harry asked.
‘That I am,’ Matt replied. ‘Perceptive Matt they call me.’
‘Who’s they?’ queried Harry over the top of his glass.
‘People,’ Matt said. ‘Everyone. Some have even suggested that I have an uncanny ability to know things.’ He tapped the end of his nose. ‘It’s like I can just sniff things out.’
‘Is it,’ Harry said.
‘Yes, it is,’ said Matt. ‘So, come on then; what’s bothering you?’
Matt watched his boss take a deep breath. So he was right then, there was something on his mind.
‘Swift came over,’ Harry began, then he told Matt what he’d learned about DCI Alderson. ‘He’s asked me to tell the team. I don’t know how close you all were with him, what he was like, but now doesn’t seem like the best time.’
‘It can wait,’ Matt said. ‘Another day isn’t going to change things, is it?’
Harry shook his head, took another drink.
‘So, we’ve got no DCI then,’ Matt said. ‘Officially I mean, as in permanent. That’s interesting . . .’
‘Is it?’
Matt wanted to say more, wanted to just tell Harry that he needed to forget Bristol and get posted permanently to Wensleydale, that it was what everyone wanted and that, deep down, he was pretty sure he did, too. But he didn’t. Instead, he smiled at his boss, then walked back over to where he was sitting with Joan and dropped down to the floor to pull something from the bag he’d brought with him.
‘What are you up to now?’ Joan asked.
Matt smiled, but instead of answering, turned his attention to everyone else.
‘Right then,’ he said. ‘Time for me to say a few words!’
A cheer rang out from his friends as they all turned to face him.
‘Just out of interest, how few?’ Jim asked.
Matt ignored him and pulled out a crumpled bit of paper from his back pocket. He unfolded it and went to start reading just as another figure pushed through the door.
‘Jadyn!’ Matt said. ‘You made it! Good lad!’
‘It’s not a busy night,’ Jadyn replied. ‘Have I missed much?’
‘If you’d stayed away just a few minutes longer you’d have missed Matt’s speech,’ Liz said. ‘You can do your ghost impressions later if you want.’
Jadyn smiled and made to leave, then turned back around and grabbed a chair, shoving himself in between Jen and Jim.
‘First of all, thank you all for coming,’ Matt began, his hands shaking as they held the sheet of paper in front of him.
‘You don’t need to do this,’ Joan whispered up at him, her face warm and concerned.
‘I do, Love,’ Matt replied. ‘Trust me.’ He turned back to his small audience. ‘As you know, Joan and I have been married for twenty years today. I don’t quite know where that time has gone, but it’s definitely buggered off somewhere, and if anyone’s seen it, could you let me know?’
Matt hadn’t expected to be this nervous. After all, these weren’t just friends, most of them were colleagues. But this was more than just a chat, more than just a meeting. This was him standing up to say something important about someone very special. He had to get it right.
‘This woman,’ Matt said, ‘as I’m sure you are all aware, is the best thing that ever happened to me.’
‘I was pretty sure that was me, actually,’ Gordy said. ‘I’m hurt.’
Matt ignored Gordy and kept talking.
‘She rescued me and a mate from a tin mine after we’d got lost, and then went on to rescue me from myself. And now here we are, years later, and I still love her to bits.’
‘You’re making me blush,’ Joan said.
‘Good,’ said Matt, before turning back to everyone else. ‘She is my rock, she is my everything. And she also bakes a mean steak and kidney pie, just so you know.’
‘Duly noted,’ Jim said. ‘Can we put an order in for next week?’
Matt lifted in front of his chest the thing he’d pulled from his bag a few moments ago.
‘I’m going to show you a little film now,’ he said, powering up his iPad and flicking through to a video file, then he turned to face Joan. ‘I know we can’t go caving together anymore, because if we could, I’d have done this in person. But this, I hope, is the next best thing.’
Matt turned the iPad around so that Joan and everyone else could see. Then he pressed play.
The recording was, to begin with, a little difficult to make out, all shadows and ‘Is it on, yet? Is it recording?’ Then the picture grew clear and there, on the screen, was Matt.
‘Hello, Love,’ he said. ‘Yes, I’m down Crackpot again! It’s not changed much, if I’m honest, which is a good thing really, I think. Don’t fancy the idea of coming down here and finding that the roof has collapsed!’
At this point, Harry’s voice interrupted from off-screen with, ‘What? You never said that could happen! The hell are we doing down here if it could collapse at any minute?’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Matt said, shaking his head, then looked back at the camera. ‘Do you remember it, the first time we came down here for our first date? I knew you were the one there and then, you know. I just did. I thought you were fantastic. But that first date isn’t the reason I’m here . . .’
Everyone watched as on the screen Matt got down on one knee.
‘Bloody hell, that’s sore,’ he muttered.
‘Of course, it is!’ Harry said. ‘It’s a cave floor, covered in rocks and those stalagmite things or whatever they are, and you’re not in your twenties anymore!’
Laughter bounced around the room as everyone watched on.
‘Twenty-one years ago, I did exactly this, right here,’ Matt said to the camera, to Joan. ‘Got down on one knee and proposed. So, even though you can’t be here with me now—and God knows I’m pretty sure you’d have given it a go if I’d have told you what I was up to—I wanted to say a few words, if that’s okay?’
A hush fell on the room, a gentle blanket of quiet. And what followed were words that even Harry found himself touched by. Matt, it was clear, was still very much in love. And rightly so too, Harry thought.
When the little movie finished, Matt put the iPad away, then turned to his wife. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘It’s that simple. So, with that in mind . . .’ He lifted a hand to reveal a small box. ‘I made this myself,’ he said. ‘It’s nowt much, I know, because I’m no craftsman, and it’s only a bit of deer antler, like, that I found out on the hills, but anyway . . .’
‘Could you just get on with it?’ Joan smiled, sending her husband a wink.
‘Yes, yes, I’ll do that,’ Matt said, and opened the box. Inside was a ring, carved from a piece of antler. Matt coughed to clear his throat. ‘Joan, will you—?’
‘Yes, of course I will, you silly, soppy old sod!’ Joan said and leant forward to wrap her arms around him and kiss him.
Matt flung his arms around her, then eased the ring he’d made onto her finger. ‘It fits!’
‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ Joan said, looking at the ring. ‘It’s beautiful, Matt. Truly.’
Matt rose to his feet and raised his glass.
‘Well, now that that’s sorted,’ he said, ‘here’s to Joan, the best of both of us. And to you lot! The most wonderful bunch of buggers I could ever wish to have around me.’
Around the table, glasses were raised.
‘And one final thank you,’ Matt said, ‘to my enthusiastic and willing cameraman.’
Harry looked up and Matt stared across at him over the top of his glass.
‘Here’s hoping you stick around, Boss. We all do.’
This got a cheer, which pleased Matt no end. After what Harry had told him at the bar, he wanted the man to know that staying around wasn’t just an option, it was something they would all welcome with open arms.
When the meal eventually came to an end, and folk made their way home, Matt made sure to catch Harry before he disappeared into the dark.
‘Thanks again,’ he said. ‘For helping today, I mean. Couldn’t have done it on my own.’
‘Not a problem,’ Harry replied. ‘I enjoyed it, in a way.’
Matt laughed. ‘Hard to tell sometimes.’
‘All the time with this face,’ Harry said.
‘And what I said earlier, I meant it,’ Matt said. ‘About you sticking around?’
‘I know,’ Harry replied. ‘And it means a lot.’
Then he was gone, and Matt watched his gruff, stubborn, friendly Rottweiler of a boss head back up into Hawes.
‘He’ll stay,’ he thought to himself, heading back inside the pub to fetch Joan. ‘He bloody well has to.’
Chapter Thirteen
As Sunday mornings went, this one was a beauty, thought Arthur Black. It was bright and cold, with the distant echo of ice in the air promising the autumn to come, and he was about to head off down among the birds, whistling a song to the wind on the way. It was certainly making up for yesterday, that was for sure. Fancy cancelling on him at such short notice! He’d had everything sorted, packed up the Land Rover with all the guns and the clay trap, and then just as he’d been about to leave, that woman, with a voice that sounded a little like Joanna Lumley’s, had rung him and asked if they could do the clay shooting today instead. The cheek of it! Of course, he’d said yes, but that wasn’t the point. His time was as valuable as anyone’s, and he’d be telling her that later for sure. Though he probably wouldn’t, he thought, doubted it was worth the effort.
Closing his eyes, Arthur leaned a little on a stick clasped in his left hand, then heaved in a breath so deep that the tightness across his chest felt like he’d suddenly been wrapped in coils of the thickest twine. He held it in then, the fresh air in all its richness, tasting the very soul of the dales, imagining for a moment that the goodness in it was now coursing through him. Which, in a way, it was, the cold in his lungs a testament to the fact.
Breathing out, the coils slackened off, and Arthur kept his eyes closed just a little longer, his right hand playing with an old pocketknife he’d been given by his dad, back when he’d become an apprentice gamekeeper so many years ago, at the age of fourteen. A man of few words, who’d returned from the war, scarred as deeply beneath the surface as on it, his old man had done his best to show his only son the love he himself never had a chance to receive, born as he had been while his own father had been away to that other terrible war, a man lost to the mud and the madness, never to return home.
Summer was waving its fond farewell through shorter days and quieter fields, and if truth be told, Arthur—never one to relish the hotter days—didn’t really mind all that much. He could deal with the heat, yes, but nowadays there seemed to be so much more of it, and his yearning for autumn, that rich jewel in the crown of seasons worn by the countryside he’d lived in for his whole life, had only grown stronger with his advancing years.
Eyes open again, the memories of his father placed quietly to one side, Arthur arched his back as best he could, the crick and pop of his bones a percussive announcement to the world that he meant business.
Slipping his pocketknife back into his jacket, and leaning his stick up against a tree, Arthur bent over and hoisted the huge bag of feed onto his back that he’d just a minute ago lifted down out of the back of his old Land Rover. He’d parked at the end of the lane which led up into the woods containing the pens for the pheasants. He could have driven on, but that would’ve only meant having to reverse all the way back out. And there was that pig of a gate to open as well, which was locked, and he’d left the key for the padlock at home anyway. This was the first of a good dozen or so sites dotted around the dales that he would be checking over the next few days, and he did it for fun more than anything, seeing as he was now retired. Most of the work he now left to his daughter who, quite to his surprise, had followed him into the role.
As for retirement, it was a word he’d chosen to ignore for three years, because if there was one thing Arthur knew, it was birds and the land and the look
ing after of both, and if there was one thing that he didn’t know, well, that was how to sit still. So, he’d carried on, gradually winding down all his work for the larger shoots around and about, until he just had this one left. And this he managed alongside some smaller ones, those run by a few local farmers, folk he’d grown up with, friends who’d seen the grey hairs drift across their own scalps as much as his own, as life’s final season had welcomed them in. He’d had his fair share of mixing it with the rich and famous, folk happy to pay thousands for a gun and thousands more to spend a day shooting it, but it was the smaller shoots where he’d always felt most at home, so it was back to them that he had returned.
With the sack up on his shoulder, and the stick in his left hand to help give him a little extra balance, Arthur started to make his way down the track. As he did so, he noticed that there were fresh tyre tracks on it, but he didn’t give much thought to it, as it was probably just the farmer driving on through. That was until, a few metres on, he saw that the gate was in pieces and something large and black was sitting off the right side of the track and buried deep in a large patch of bramble. Walking through the ruined gate, Arthur could see that the large black shape was a car, a decent one, too, he noticed, spotting the Porsche Crest. Now, just what the hell was it doing out here?
Arthur dropped the bag of feed and went over for a closer look. The car looked new, and the interior was all leather and wood. Nice. His own vehicle, which he’d had for close on twenty-four years, was all scratched metal and vinyl seats patched up with Gaffer’s tape.
Arthur edged around to the driver’s side door. It was open. This made no sense at all, he thought. Why would it be here? Had it been stolen? And if so, why just dump it? Then, he saw the key still hanging from the ignition. Now that was just crazy, Arthur thought, leaving a car like this out here for anyone to come by and take. Not that anyone would actually be coming by at all, but still, it did seem strange.
Reaching in, Arthur grabbed the key and pulled it free then shut the door. He wasn’t exactly sure how to lock it, so he pocketed the key and decided that, once he got back to his old Land Rover, he’d call the police and let them deal with it. What was the world coming to? He sighed and once again hoisted the feed bag up on his shoulder and continued on his way.
Shooting Season: A DCI Harry Grimm Novel Page 11