Shooting Season: A DCI Harry Grimm Novel

by David J Gatward

‘What else?’ Harry asked.

  ‘It gets weirder,’ Sowerby said.

  ‘That’s not really what I want to hear.’

  Harry was pretty sure that what Sowerby was telling him was bringing on a headache.

  ‘It’s not my job to tell you what you want to hear!’ Sowerby snapped back.

  Ah, so there you are again, Harry thought, back to the pathologist I remember, having wondered at what point the conversation would move from congenial and back to confrontational.

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Sowerby said, her voice sharper now, if that was at all possible, ‘the body was shot when it was on the ground.’

  ‘He laid down and shot himself?’ Harry exclaimed. ‘How? That’s nonsense!’

  ‘It is not nonsense!’ Sowerby said. ‘It is a fact! I am only telling you the facts! Whether you believe them or not is up to you! But that’s what they are: facts!’

  Harry took a long, slow breath.

  ‘What I mean,’ he said, working to sound as well as remain calm, ‘is that it’s hard to believe he could have done that. How anyone could. A shotgun is pretty bloody heavy.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think he could have,’ Sowerby said. ‘The blood spatter, the crater in the ground from the shotgun blasts, it all suggests that this was done point blank and from above.’

  Harry tried to picture that for a moment, Charlie lying on the ground, then lifting a heavy shotgun up in front of his own head, then reaching out for the trigger to give it a squeeze.

  ‘You’re right,’ Harry said. ‘This just got weirder.’

  ‘I’ve not finished,’ Sowerby said, and Harry’s heart sank. Suicide was one thing, violent suicide another. But this? He really didn’t know what to think because right now it just didn’t make any sense.

  ‘So, what else did you find?’ Harry asked. ‘And I know I’m going to regret asking that.’

  ‘First, there’s the issue of the broken leg.’

  ‘You’ve already mentioned that,’ Harry said. ‘It was a rugby injury.’

  ‘No, this is the other leg,’ Sowerby said. ‘It was broken.’

  ‘What, another old wound?’ Harry asked.

  ‘No!’ Harry heard the exasperation in Sowerby’s voice. ‘This was new. A fresh break.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘As in within a few hours of the time of death, which, by the way, we think was some time Saturday morning. And no, I can’t give you an exact time, because this isn’t an Agatha Christie novel.’

  ‘That’s a relief,’ Harry said, very sure that he would make the worst Poirot in the world. ‘But a broken leg? How does that even make sense?’

  ‘There’s no way he would have been able to walk on it either,’ said Sowerby. ‘It was a serious fracture, not a hairline thing. He would have been in agony.’

  ‘And yet somehow able to get into his car, drive to a woodland, crash said car, walk a little further, then blow his head off.’

  ‘It’s an elaborate way to go, isn’t it?’ Sowerby said. ‘We found marks that suggest he was dragged from the car to where he finally ended up. It wasn’t far, but it would’ve been a struggle.’

  ‘There’s nothing else, is there?’ Harry asked.

  ‘I want to say no, but I can’t,’ Sowerby said.

  ‘Good God.’ Harry sighed. ‘What else have you got?’

  ‘Blood spatter that doesn’t match the shotgun blast,’ Sowerby said.

  ‘What?’ Harry was beginning to wish he’d stayed in bed. ‘Blood spatter? How? Where? Just what the hell is this?’

  ‘On the victim’s clothes,’ Sowerby explained. ‘Not much, I admit, but it’s there, and it’s fresh, by which I mean it’s not some washed-in stain. And it’s definitely not from the catastrophic impact of the blast from the shotgun. This is different.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Over the left pectoral muscle,’ Sowerby said. ‘Looks like drips from a head wound, though obviously under the current circumstances, I can’t exactly confirm that. Nothing is dripping anywhere after what happened there.’

  Harry allowed his head to slump back against the seat and stared up at the roof of the car. There was no answer there to this, in fact, he was pretty sure there was no answer to this anywhere, because what he had just learned, what Sowerby had told him, it was as though a number of crimes had decided to all get together and gang up on him. None of it made sense, none of it added up, and yet, there it was. And like Sowerby had said, she was only presenting him with the facts.

  ‘I’m hoping that’s it,’ Harry said.

  ‘It is,’ Sowerby said. ‘You should have the photographs this morning as well.’

  ‘What about the car?’ Harry asked. ‘Anything from that yet? Or from the rest of the crime scene?’

  ‘As soon as I have something I’ll pass it on,’ Sowerby confirmed. ‘But I wanted to call you with this now.’

  I appreciate that,’ Harry said.

  ‘It changes things, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Just a bit.’

  Sowerby said her farewells and went to hang up, when something popped into Harry’s head, and he caught her with a question before she went.

  ‘One last thing,’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, what?’

  ‘Did you find a hat?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A hat,’ Harry asked. ‘Charlie was seen leaving the lodge he was staying at early Saturday morning. He was wearing a hat.’

  ‘What kind of hat?’ Sowerby asked.

  ‘One of those floppy hipster ones,’ Harry said, miming it to himself, even though there was no one there to see him.

  ‘No hat I’m afraid,’ Sowerby said.

  ‘So, no hat was found anywhere? Not in the woods, not in the car? No hat at all?’

  ‘Nothing that I’m aware of,’ said Sowerby. ‘Is it important?’

  ‘Not sure,’ Harry said. ‘Thanks for calling. Like I said, I appreciate it.’

  ‘Well, good luck with it. Can’t say I envy you.’

  ‘No, neither do I,’ Harry said and closed the call.

  Jadyn was back at the car.

  Harry kicked the engine into life.

  ‘What about your lunch?’ Jadyn asked.

  ‘More important things to worry about,’ Harry replied and turned to look at the constable.

  ‘Whatever that look means,’ Jadyn said, ‘I don’t like it. And I don’t just mean because of the, er, you know . . . the scars.’

  Harry caught sight of himself in the driver’s mirror and he saw a darkness in his own eyes.

  ‘Murder has that effect, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘I need to call Dinsdale. He’s going to have to break the news.’

  ‘Murder?’

  Harry tapped on Matt’s number on his phone and nodded.

  ‘And in about an hour’s time, it looks like we’re going to be paying a visit on our key suspect.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Matt put the phone down and looked up to see Jim staring back at him. They were both in the room at the Hawes Community Centre and had just been sifting through a few of the things that the team had on for the rest of the week, in addition to what had happened at the weekend, and divvying out jobs. These included another case of sheep rustling to follow up on, a report of rubbish being dumped somewhere up in Snaizeholme, which was pretty urgent to sort out due to it being a red squirrel reserve, and a break-in over in Hardraw. There had also been an incident up at the creamery, where the world-famous Wensleydale cheese was made, though the details of that amounted to little more than a note pushed through the door mentioning something about Wallace and Gromit, teenagers, and some discarded cans of lager. With Gordy gone, Liz had headed off to Snaizeholme, and Jenny went to see what was what with the sheep rustling.

  ‘That was the boss,’ Matt said. ‘He’s just got off the phone with the pathologist. Let’s just say he sounded happier down Crackpot.’

  ‘Has she ident
ified the body?’ Jim asked. He was standing at one end of the room with a finger held out in command, staring at Fly, who was struggling to stay on the spot at the other side of the room. The dog’s tail was thumping hard and his head was cocked to one side.

  ‘Well, it’s definitely the author,’ Matt said. ‘And with the boss heading over to York, we’ve got the job of telling his friends and family.’

  At this news, Jim’s commanding finger dipped a little. Fly, taking this as a relaxing of the rules, not that he had any idea what they actually were, bolted across the room and threw himself at his owner, all paws and teeth and relentless enthusiasm at the joy of just being alive and being a dog, like it really was the best thing ever.

  ‘Shit,’ Jim said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Matt replied. ‘There are few worse jobs, if I’m honest. Nowt comes close. Bloody awful.’

  Fly, having not received the clearly expected ruffle of the hair on his head, or a rub of his tummy, slouched off to slump down on the one bit of carpet bathed in a golden slab of warm sunshine from the windows. To make sure he was really making the most of it, he twisted over onto his back, belly up.

  ‘No family though, right?’ Jim said.

  ‘As far as we can tell,’ Matt said. ‘Small mercies. Best we get off now and get it done. No point putting it off.’

  Outside, they climbed into Matt’s car and headed off, slipping out of Hawes, and onwards towards Bainbridge. The road pulled them forward, green fields and lonely trees zipping past, the landscape dotted with the white fleeces of sheep grazing their way lazily through autumn.

  ‘What else did he say?’ Jim asked as they pulled up the hill out of Bainbridge, the remains of the old Roman fort rising on their left, where it had stood for millennia, silently watching. On the green, a set of old, weathered stocks stood as testimony to the way punishment used to be dealt out in the dales. ‘You’ve been quiet since we left, so I’m guessing there’s more.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ Matt said, reaching over to pat Fly on the head, the dog sitting in the passenger footwell, his head resting on Jim’s leg, eyes half-closed.

  ‘So, what did he say?’ Jim asked.

  Matt changed gear, accelerated, the river Ure chasing them along on their left, cutting its winding way through the valley. A heron glided along, following it silently, a flash of grey and white.

  ‘It doesn’t look like it was suicide,’ Matt said. ‘Whatever happened, and however it happened, it looks like he was murdered.’

  That one word was heavy enough to crush any enjoyment of the scenery flashing past. It sat in the air, daring them both to ignore it.

  ‘Murder?’ Jim repeated. ‘But how’s that even possible?’

  ‘Well, that’s what we’re going to have to find out, isn’t it?’ Matt said. ‘Or Harry is, at any rate.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The fan,’ Matt said. ‘The one Harry and Jadyn are off to find and interview? Right now, it looks like they’re the key suspect.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘If you think about what happened, it all seems to stem from that incident at the bookshop, doesn’t it? And it’s not like anything else is jumping up and down to be noticed.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Jim said. ‘Murder, though? Beginning to wish I’d gone off with Liz to look at squirrels.’

  ‘You and me both,’ Matt said.

  The rest of the journey faded into a silence heavy with the presence of deep thought. As Matt drove on, the journey seemed to just happen automatically, his brain able to deal with the twists and turns and ups and downs of the road, without the need to keep him up to date with it all. Up the hill to Aysgarth, and then on through to West Witton, his mind was doing its all to process what Harry had told him, which wasn’t really that much, but it was more than enough. And now all Matt could think about was what would drive someone to do what they’d done to Charlie Baker.

  Murder wasn’t easy, not for the average person living their normal life. Manslaughter was different, because that didn’t have proven intent. But to decide to take someone’s life, violently, and to fully go through with the act? Well, that was something else. It required a deeper, darker part of what it was to be human, Matt thought, a part few, if any, really ever examined in themselves. And why would they? What would drive someone to do it? And just what could possess someone enough to shoot someone in the face with a shotgun?

  What had happened to Charlie Baker was inexplicable. And the way Harry had run through it, it was hard to make any sense of it at all. The victim had been seen leaving the lodge, not once, but twice. He’d driven off in his car. And the next time he’d been seen was lying under trees without a head, it having been blasted into a myriad of bloody pieces.

  Matt drove them through Melmerby and on to Carlton, two beautiful villages, both utterly unaware of the horror that had occurred only a few miles away. Which was probably for the best, he thought, though the news would soon get around.

  Pulling off the main road and onto the lane leading up to the lodge, Matt asked, ‘What are they like, then, Charlie’s friends? Anything I need to be aware of?’

  ‘Not that I can think of,’ said Jim. ‘They’re a bit London, if you know what I mean, especially the literary agent.’

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘Can’t say I noticed anything strange about any of them,’ Jim said. ‘They were all worried about Charlie, though his editor seemed more pissed off about it than the others.’

  ‘In what way?’ Matt asked, latching onto this bit of information.

  ‘From what I could tell, this Charlie Baker was a bit of a handful,’ Jim said. ‘Full of himself, if you know what I mean? His PA seemed pretty upset.’

  ‘That’s three of them,’ Matt said. ‘What about the others?’

  Ahead, the house came into view, peeking out from the shadows of the trees which huddled around it protectively. Matt wasn’t really sure how to describe it. As houses went, it was impressive, but there was something about it that just didn’t seem quite right. He guessed it was because he was bringing the worst kind of news to its door, tainting it with his own mood. But also, it definitely had an air to it, he thought. Whatever it was, the place didn’t exactly look welcoming or happy, and as the drew closer, it was almost as though it shuffled back deeper into the trees, pulling shadows over it like a blanket.

  ‘I think two of them are just friends,’ Jim said. ‘The other was Charlie’s accountant. Nice bloke, older than the others. It was him who called it in on Saturday, the fact that Charlie was missing. Of them all, he seems the most level-headed.’

  Outside the house, Matt pulled the car to a stop and switched off the engine. Through the windscreen he saw the flash of a face at a window, then a moment later, the huge front door swung open. Standing in the gloom, which seemed to leak from the house and out onto the gravel parking area like thick soup, was a woman smoking a cigarette and hugging herself tightly against the breeze.

  ‘Ready?’ Matt said.

  ‘No,’ Jim answered.

  They both climbed out of the car.

  ‘Just out of interest,’ Jim asked, ‘how are you with being stared at?’

  At this, Matt paused.

  ‘People react in different ways,’ Matt replied. ‘To news like this, I mean. Why?’

  ‘No, I don’t mean by people,’ Jim explained. ‘Animals. Dead ones.’

  Matt waited for Jim to explain.

  ‘Stuffed animals,’ Jim said. ‘They’re everywhere. It feels a bit like a museum. And those weird little glass eyes they have. Bit strange if you ask me.’

  ‘Well, thanks for the head’s up,’ Matt said. ‘I’ll be sure to, er . . .’ He paused. ‘Nope, I’ve got nothing.’

  And with that, they continued on their way, leaving Fly behind to stare at them through the windscreen as they made their way over to deliver the news.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘So, what do we know?’

  Harry’s
question had Jadyn getting out his notebook and flipping through to what he’d written down over the past couple of days. Blue inky scrawl stared back at him, reminding him of the trouble he used to get in at school for always rushing his work.

  Harry leaned over. ‘In your own time.’

  ‘Here it is,’ Jadyn said.

  ‘You’re certainly thorough, I’ll give you that,’ Harry said.

  Jadyn quickly read over what he had down, which wasn’t much.

  ‘We have a name, Hilary Wallace, but we can’t say for sure that it’s not an alias, because the address, telephone number, and email we were given were all bogus.’

  ‘That’s a word you don’t hear much,’ Harry said. ‘Might have to use it myself.’

  ‘It means false,’ Jadyn said, immediately wishing he hadn’t. ‘I mean, I know you know that, it’s just, I thought, er . . .’

  ‘Carry on,’ Harry said, an eyebrow raising a little as he stared at Jadyn, his ruined face giving nothing away as to what he was actually thinking. And that was something Jadyn had, since first meeting Harry, found just a little disconcerting. The DCI was a difficult man to read. He was gruff, abrupt, swore a fair bit, and generally cast himself around the place like a grumpy sergeant, which, Jadyn guessed, was fair enough, seeing as he’d been in the Paras.

  But there was something else to him as well, though no one really talked about it, a strange sort of warmth to the man, hidden deep, yes, and very well disguised by the scars on his face and the growl in his throat, but it was definitely there. And, since joining the team, Jadyn had been very conscious, perhaps overly so, of his own need to try and prove himself to the man. And that meant that sometimes he came across as just a little bit too keen. Like now, he thought, with all his notes, and explaining what bogus meant. Idiot.

  ‘On Friday afternoon,’ Jadyn began, ‘a Hilary Wallace was observed to accuse Charlie Baker of being ghost-written.’

  Harry said, ‘You do know you’re not at college anymore, don’t you?’

  Jadyn gave a short nod.

  ‘Then stop speaking to me like I’m one of the staff there. No one talks like that, do they? No one says so-and-so was observed to accuse, do they?’