Shooting Season: A DCI Harry Grimm Novel

by David J Gatward

  Matt reached up to take the tray from Jim and handed Anna a mug of tea.

  ‘Need me to stay?’ Jim asked.

  ‘No, we’re good I think,’ Harry said. ‘Matt can take notes, but probably best you just hang around if you can.’

  ‘Will do, Boss,’ Jim said. ‘Away Fly, let’s leave them to it.’

  The dog flatly ignored Jim’s command.

  ‘Fly . . .’

  Harry saw the dog’s eyes open just enough to stare at its owner.

  ‘He can stay, I really don’t mind,’ Anna said. ‘He’s so lovely. Such a sweetie.’

  ‘He’s a little sod is what he is,’ Jim said. ‘Fly! Here!’

  At last, the dog slinked away from Anna and over to his master, then they were gone, the door shut behind them.

  ‘Hello again,’ Harry said. ‘Before we go any further, I would just like to say how sorry I am that my team had to tell you the news about Charlie Baker. I have no doubt it was an enormous shock.’

  ‘It was, yes,’ Anna replied. ‘I mean, it still is. I just can’t believe it.’

  Harry had decided that there was no point going into this heavy-handed. All he had at the moment was lots of things which didn’t connect, so there was no point jumping to conclusions and slamming into Charlie’s agent with hard questions and accusations.

  ‘And I’m sure DS Dinsdale here has already told you that other support is available to you all at this difficult time.’

  Anna gave a shallow nod. ‘Yes, he has. But we’re okay, I’m sure, for now anyway.’

  Harry reached for his huge mug with both hands and at the same time saw Matt pull out his notebook and pen, but in such a way as to not draw attention to it.

  ‘If we’re all ready, I’d like to crack on,’ Harry said, turning his eyes to Anna. ‘I’d like to ask you about Rose White, if I may.’

  ‘Rose White?’

  Anna had looked pale when he’d arrived, but now she had the look of cold, uncooked pastry.

  ‘The actor you hired for Charlie’s author event on Friday,’ Harry said.

  Anna reached for her mug, lifted it to her mouth, but gave up halfway and rested it back down again.

  ‘I spoke with her this afternoon,’ Harry explained. ‘However, I would like you to tell me, if you could, as much as you can about why you hired her, the event, everything.’

  ‘You don’t think what I did drove him to kill himself, do you?’ Anna said, her voice cracking and splitting on her words like thin ice under a heavy boot. Then her face went, if at all possible, even paler. ‘Oh, God, you think I did it to make him do something like this, don’t you? That’s what this is, isn’t it? You’re going to arrest me! But I didn’t know! I really didn’t!’

  Anna James broke down then and Harry noticed that either Matt or Jim had already provided a box of tissues and she reached for one now. She was certainly upset, Harry thought, and this was no act. Having spent the afternoon with Rose White, he felt he had an inkling now as to what this scene would be like in the hands of someone like her. It would be bigger, more dramatic, but this? No, it wasn’t that. To Harry, Anna genuinely sounded not just scared, but heartbroken.

  ‘Perhaps the best thing is to just start at the beginning,’ Harry said. ‘Now, I don’t know exactly where that is, but let’s see how you do.’ Harry then gave a nod at Matt. ‘DS Dinsdale here will be taking notes by the way. And you will be required at the end to read them through and sign off on them to ensure that they accurately represent what has been said. Is that okay?’

  ‘Yes, yes of course,’ Anna replied, sniffing as she spoke.

  ‘Right then,’ Harry said. ‘In your own time . . .’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  For a moment or two, Anna said nothing. Instead, she twisted another tissue between her fingers, staring at it, as though it would give her some kind of guidance or answer. It didn’t, and the quiet of the room seemed to grow deeper as Harry and Matt sat there, waiting for her to speak.

  ‘I never meant for any of this to happen,’ Anna began, glancing up at Harry. ‘I really didn’t. Please, you have to believe me. I . . .’

  Her voice broke then and Harry said, ‘It’s okay, just do the best that you can.’

  ‘I loved him,’ Anna said then, and she sat back in her chair, her shoulders sinking. She sighed deeply. ‘And I wanted him back.’

  If Harry had put any thought into what he would have expected Anna to say, it certainly wouldn’t have been that. He had picked nothing up at all about them being in a relationship. But then such things often passed him by, not just the romances of others, but any which happened to drift by into view for himself.

  ‘So, you were together, like?’ Matt asked, writing notes as he spoke.

  ‘We were, yes,’ Anna replied. ‘But not for a long time. Just over a year, now. Thirteen months, not that I’m counting.’

  ‘The relationship came to an end, then,’ Harry said.

  ‘Charlie finished it,’ Anna replied. ‘Nigh on broke my heart, too, in the process. We’d been together for years.’

  ‘You lived together, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘Charlie moved out. He still had his own place, so it wasn’t as horrendously disruptive as it could have been. I stayed in the house we rented. Though I think I’ll move out now. Memories, you know?’

  Harry knew all about memories, particularly ones that could haunt, and briefly, his thoughts switched to the conversation he’d had with his father a few days ago, his promise of a call, and where that would lead. Years ago, he was pretty sure he knew where, his mind hell-bent on bringing the man down, but now, well, something had changed inside him, but he didn’t know what.

  Harry pulled himself out of his private darkness and back into the room.

  ‘That must have been hard,’ he said. ‘To have a long-term relationship end.’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ Anna replied.

  Harry was seeing another side of the woman. Before, she’d seemed harder, yet now she was vulnerable, her walls pulled down by what had happened.

  ‘I need to understand then why you did what you did,’ Harry said. ‘Why you paid Rose White to come to the author event.’

  Harry wasn’t about to accuse Anna of anything, not yet, anyway. He needed her story to just come out of her raw, and if there were any bits that didn’t quite fit, then it was up to him and Matt to pick at the threads.

  ‘I wanted him back,’ Anna explained. ‘I’d tried so many times, but he just wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t try.’

  ‘Why did he finish things?’ Matt asked.

  ‘He never really explained that,’ Anna said. ‘Which is why I always thought it was just another of his over-reactions, you know? He was like that. But it would usually blow over just as quickly. This didn’t though.’

  ‘I still don’t see how this links into what happened,’ Harry said.

  At this, Anna reached for her mug and took her first sip.

  ‘I’m not just Charlie’s agent,’ she said. ‘I have other authors. Obviously, Charlie is . . . was . . . my most successful client, but others do well, and I’m always looking for new talent.’

  ‘Well, that makes good business sense,’ Matt observed.

  ‘I get sent a lot of material, you see, lots of unsolicited manuscripts, people just sending stuff in, hoping I’ll notice. Most are terrible, by which I mean, even the letters don’t read well, or it’s a little story their friends told them was good, that kind of thing.’

  Harry wasn’t sure where this was all going but thought it best to just let Anna run with it.

  ‘I try and spend a day a month if I can just going through it all. Doesn’t always happen, but there you go. Anyway, I received a submission about three months ago and it was absolutely brilliant.’

  ‘Nice feeling,’ Harry said.

  ‘Yes and no,’ Anna replied. ‘Because it seemed familiar.’

  ‘Familiar?’ Matt asked. ‘How?’

  ‘Writers have a s
tyle,’ Anna said. ‘A voice. And I knew this voice very well indeed. It was Charlie’s.’

  ‘Well, that doesn’t make any sense, does it?’ said Matt. ‘Why would he send something to his own agent?’

  ‘He wouldn’t,’ Anna said. ‘Which is why I was suspicious.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About exactly what I had Rose accuse him of at the book signing,’ Anna replied. ‘That he was using a ghostwriter.’

  ‘So, who was it, then?’ Harry asked. ‘I’m assuming you contacted them.’

  ‘I also recognised the handwriting,’ Anna said. ‘The letter was signed, you see, but the name given wasn’t the one I would put with what I’d read.’

  ‘You knew who it was?’

  ‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘It was, is, Adam.’

  Harry was pretty sure that he heard something in his own head short-circuit.

  ‘Adam? Charlie’s editor? Are you sure? Aren’t they old friends?’

  ‘Yes, they are,’ Anna said. ‘And I’ve known him as long as I’ve known Charlie.’

  ‘So why didn’t he just talk to you, then?’ Matt asked. ‘Why the cloak and dagger?’

  ‘I asked him about that,’ Anna said. ‘It was because of Charlie.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Charlie was his employer. It was a good, secure job. He didn’t want to risk it.’

  ‘I don’t buy it,’ Harry said. ‘Surely Charlie would’ve been happy for him?’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Anna said. ‘Adam wasn’t always the ghostwriter. It kind of just evolved into that over time. The first book was Charlie’s, yes, and Adam helped him with it, structure and pacing, that kind of thing. And that’s how it worked, or at least that was how I always understood it, until that manuscript arrived, that is.’

  ‘So, you’re saying Adam became Charlie’s ghostwriter?’ Harry asked. ‘Why? Did Charlie ask him to be?’

  ‘No, absolutely not!’ Anna snorted. ‘Can you imagine? No, Charlie was still sure the books were his. He wrote, yes, but it became lazy. He used to bounce ideas off of Adam, but those ideas would come back much improved. Adam’s edits became more in-depth, more like a rewrite, until, or at least this is how Adam describes it, the book I eventually saw was nothing like what Charlie had put together. Yet, because of the way they worked, Charlie was never able to see it.’

  Harry scratched his chin, wondering how any of these people lived such lives.

  ‘Rose White was blackmail, then,’ he said. ‘You knew his secret. Was it money you wanted? What?’

  ‘I wanted him,’ Anna said. ‘He was threatening to get a new agent. I couldn’t allow that. I couldn’t! I wanted him to know that I knew his secret. I thought that if I did it in this way, it would be like a shock to the system, you know? It would wake him up.’

  ‘So, what about Adam in all this?’ Harry asked.

  ‘He just wanted to be recognised as a writer in his own right,’ Anna said. ‘And who could blame him? He didn’t want it to have anything to do with him working for a best-selling author. Pride, I suppose. It had to be on its own merit, which is why he’d submitted it under a false name.’

  ‘Did Adam know about Rose White?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Of course not!’ Anna replied. ‘We spoke, yes, and he admitted everything I’ve just told you. But this was between Charlie and me. I thought that if I could get him to stay with me as a client, then I would maybe be able to start things off again between us.’

  ‘You never mentioned any of this to us,’ Harry stated.

  ‘I was ashamed and upset,’ Anna replied. ‘And now he’s gone. But I still can’t believe he would kill himself. Why do that? He had so much!’

  Anna reached again for her mug and this time held it close.

  ‘Perhaps you can tell us what happened afterwards?’ Harry asked. ‘Friday night, back at the lodge.’

  ‘What’s there to tell?’ Anna said. ‘Charlie got drunk, which was to be expected. Then he drove off and that’s the last I saw of him.’

  ‘And that’s it? He got angry?’

  ‘At everyone at some point,’ Anna said. ‘He even went off after dear little Chris when she decided to go to bed at a sensible time.’

  ‘Did something happen between them?’

  ‘I was in my room and I heard him go in there and start shouting at her about how he was her employer and she had to go back down to join in. Then Eric turned up and sent him on his way. He’s quite something, old Eric, you know.’

  Harry thought about Chris but just couldn’t see how she could have anything to do with what had happened.

  ‘And that was it?’

  Anna nodded, didn’t say a word, and that unnerved Harry. This was a woman who liked to speak. For some reason, she’d suddenly clammed up.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Harry asked. ‘Because if there’s something else that you know, something else you heard, then you need to tell us.’

  Anna pursed her lips then shook her head in mock defeat. ‘It’s Chris,’ she said then, leaning forwards.

  ‘What is?’ Harry asked.

  ‘I found something out about her that night. She spoke to Eric about it after what happened with Charlie.’

  ‘You need to be a bit less mysterious,’ Matt said. ‘This isn’t a guessing game.’

  ‘Charlie didn’t know, no one did.’

  ‘Charlie didn’t know what?’ Harry said, growing frustrated with Anna’s urge to just keep them rolling.

  Anna paused, clearly for dramatic effect. ‘She’s his daughter.’

  Harry glanced at Matt, then said, ‘Charlie Baker is Chris’ father?’

  ‘And he had absolutely no idea,’ Anna explained, the story now racing out of her. From what I heard, Chris’ mum was a one-night stand. Never knew who Charlie was. It was only when he became famous that she started to suspect. I think she recognised him.’

  ‘Why didn’t she do anything about it?’ Matt asked.

  ‘Pride, I think,’ Anna said. ‘You’ll have to ask Chris, though. Her mum was killed in a car accident when she was only a teenager, the poor dear, and she moved in with her grandmother.’

  ‘And her mum had told her this?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Anna said. ‘She got the job and kept her identity secret. I guess she just wanted to know what her dad was like before she told him who she was.’

  ‘And did she?’

  Anna shook her head. ‘Good God, no! Because if she had, everyone would have known about it! Everyone!’

  Harry sat back, trying to take it all in. While Chris being his daughter was certainly interesting, was it motive? It was possibly enough to send Charlie off on his middle-of-the-night drive, but he just couldn’t see it as a reason for Chris to follow and kill him, her own dad.

  ‘Back to Charlie,’ Harry said. ‘Why didn’t you tell him that night?’

  ‘About Chris? Are you mad? That was pure gold! I was going to use it to my advantage!’

  Well, at least she’s honest, Harry thought.

  ‘So what about what you’d done? If you’d told him that you were the one behind what had gone down at the bookshop, do you think that would have calmed things down?’

  ‘I didn’t want it calmed down!’ Anna said. ‘I wanted him worried! No, I wanted him scared. And I was never going to tell him anyway because he didn’t need to know. The important thing was that he knew someone suspected. I would then be there to protect him, better than anyone. That was it! That was my plan. And then I found out about Chris, as well, so I had even more than I could ever have imagined.’

  ‘You didn’t follow him, then,’ Harry asked. ‘Charlie, to the woods?’

  ‘What woods?’ Anna asked. ‘And of course, I didn’t!’

  ‘Can anyone confirm this?’

  ‘We were all at the lodge,’ Anna said. ‘I heard something and rushed to Charlie’s room and it was empty. I went to Eric’s room to tell him and he had already gone after the fool.’

  ‘What did you hear?
’

  ‘His door slam, footsteps,’ Anna said. ‘I went to check. We all thought he would come back. No one thought he would just drive off. He’d had so much to drink. We all had!’

  Harry reached into a pocket and pulled out the photographs Jim had given him. He shuffled through them until he came to the one he was after. He placed it in front of Anna.

  ‘Can you tell me about this at all?’

  Anna leaned forward and looked at the photograph.

  ‘It’s a gun,’ she said.

  ‘Do you know anything about it?’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘Do you recognise it?’

  ‘I’ve never seen it in my life,’ Anna said. ‘What has this got to do with anything?’

  Harry took back the photograph and tucked it in with the rest. He then looked over at Matt.

  ‘Any further questions, Detective Sergeant?’

  ‘None,’ Matt replied.

  Harry looked back at Anna James. ‘Can I just confirm, please, that you are around for the rest of the week?’

  ‘Do I need to be?’

  ‘The lodge is booked for the week, isn’t it?’ Harry asked.

  ‘It is,’ Anna said, ‘but we were all thinking of heading home. This has all been so terrible.’

  ‘I think it would be best if you were all stayed for the week,’ Harry said. ‘Would that be a problem?’

  ‘No,’ Anna replied. ‘But why?’

  ‘If we have any further questions, that’s all,’ Harry said, then added, ‘and with a case like this, a suicide, it can take a bit of time to get through the necessary bits and bobs. I’m sure you understand.’

  ‘Yes, yes of course,’ Anna said. ‘Does that mean I can go back?’

  ‘It does, yes,’ Harry said and stood up. ‘If you could let the others with you know that we would much prefer it if they were able to stay around, that would be hugely appreciated.’

  ‘I’ll do that, of course,’ Anna said and rose to her feet. ‘I never meant for this to happen. I truly didn’t.’

  ‘You have a safe journey,’ Harry replied. ‘Matt will show you out once you’ve read through the notes.’

  Then Harry left the room and, after a quick goodbye to Jim, he was back outside, hopeful that the fresh air would clear his head.