Corpse Road

by David J Gatward

  Harry picked it up then slipped it into an evidence bag pulled from his pocket. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he answered. ‘You?’

  The woman shook her head. ‘It caught my eye just away over in the bracken,’ she said, pointing away from the actual crime scene. ‘I’d picked it up before I’d even thought about what I was doing. I hope I’ve not done anything wrong.’

  Harry shook his head, staring at the thing in his palm. ‘You ever seen one before?’

  ‘Can’t say that I have,’ the woman said. ‘Like I said, it’s probably nothing. Looks like a bearing, but for what I wouldn’t have the faintest idea. And bearings are usually metal, right? That’s just a small, hard plastic ball.’

  Harry tucked the evidence bag back in his pocket. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘If you can just give your name and contact details to Detective Sergeant Dinsdale, that would be great.’

  ‘No bother at all,’ the woman replied, then turned on her heel and jogged back to join the rescue team.

  Harry watched on for a moment or two more, his head now a confused mix of determination and drive to get on with the case and get justice for the victim, and a deep sadness at what had happened to her only a few hours ago. And so, with the ruins of the old lead mines around him, and the beck skipping its way ever onwards in front, Harry turned away and walked back down towards Gunnerside, every step feeling as though he was heading further and further back in time.

  Chapter Ten

  Harry, with Matt strolling in close behind, strode into the office used by the team at the community centre in Hawes, to be met by a full-on assault to the senses. The first thing he noticed was the rich, salty smell of bacon, which immediately set his stomach to rumbling. Next was the aroma of coffee. Good coffee, too, he noted rather happily. The usual drink of choice for the team was tea it seemed, but coffee turned up occasionally, and for that, on a day like today, after a night like he’d had, he was very grateful.

  Harry saw that the briefing board was already in the process of being filled out on what had happened over on the moors in Swaledale, with a few notes from Jim giving brief descriptions of the scene, the victim, and the names of people already spoken to, such as Adam, and ones they hadn’t, such as Gary. Harry had some additional details of his own now, thanks to the chat with Sowerby, and some additional details handed to him as he was heading down the trail to Gunnerside, and he would be sharing those soon enough. There was a lot of chatter around the board as well, with Jen and Jadyn being updated by Jim on what had happened. Then finally there was Fly, who, on seeing Harry at the door, threw himself across the room like a furry missile, leaping up at him, only to be whistled and shouted at by Jim.

  ‘Fly! Down!’

  The dog, Harry could see, didn’t exactly give much heed to the command and simply continued to bounce up and down, the bounce eventually becoming so violent that it sent the dog onto his back, belly up. Now on the floor, the daft animal kept wagging his tail, which only served to have him slowly cartwheel around in a clockwise direction, his enthusiasm for Harry’s arrival not diminishing in the slightest.

  ‘Sorry, boss,’ Jim said, jogging over to grab the overly exuberant Fly and take him away. ‘I guess he just likes you.’

  ‘I guess he just likes everyone,’ Harry replied as Jen headed over and ruffled the fur on the dog’s head, the dog trying to lick her hand.

  ‘He’s such a cute little bugger, don’t you think?’ she asked. ‘You should get one for yourself, boss.’

  ‘Not bloody likely,’ Harry said. ‘I’ve managed to get to my age without having children, so why would I ruin that run of luck by getting myself a dog?’

  ‘Now don’t be like that,’ Jen said, and Harry saw the grin creasing the corners of her eyes as much as her mouth. ‘I can just see you with a little furry friend following you about.’

  ‘You lot do that enough as it is,’ Harry muttered. ‘So, if I can smell coffee and bacon, am I right to assume there’s some left for me? Or have you all wolfed the lot?’

  Jadyn strode over carrying a large, steaming takeaway cup, and a paper bag which was transparent in places from the greasy goodness inside. ‘Here you go,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t remember if you wanted ketchup or not, so it hasn’t got any.’

  Harry relieved the young officer of his offering and made his way over to a chair and sat down.

  ‘And what about me?’ Matt asked, now that Harry was no longer blocking his path.

  ‘What about you?’ Jim said.

  ‘You’re not being serious, surely,’ Matt replied. ‘Where’s mine?’

  Jim handed Matt a coffee, which the detective sergeant took gratefully.

  ‘And the bacon butty?’

  ‘Yeah, about that,’ Jim said, then glanced over to Fly who was sitting in a small dog cage in the corner of the room.

  ‘You have got to be kidding me! That furry little sod ate my breakfast?’

  Fly stared over at Matt, tail wagging.

  ‘Don’t you go thinking the I’m really cute thing is going to allow you to get away with this,’ Matt said, staring at the hound. ‘Rude, that’s what it is. Unbelievable!’

  A beat later, Jadyn handed another paper bag over to Matt. ‘Here you go, I popped out and got you another,’ he said. ‘Seemed only fair.’

  Harry saw the look of abject disappointment on Matt’s face get swept away by a sudden wave of happiness.

  ‘You keep this up, you’ll go a long way in the force,’ Matt said, patting Jadyn on the shoulder then opening the bag to remove the butty.

  ‘You mean by bribing senior officers with food?’ Harry said.

  ‘Don’t give me that look, boss,’ Matt said. ‘You know as well as I do that bacon is the currency everyone understands, so my view is, the more you spend the better!’

  Matt bit into the butty then sat down by Harry. ‘So, what now, then?’

  ‘Simple,’ Harry said. ‘We catch the bastard.’

  Harry hadn’t meant his words to come out so aggressively, but he was tired, and sometimes, well, that was just what happened. And it was clear that their effect had been to have everyone suddenly fall quiet and stare at him expectantly. He turned to Matt.

  ‘Brief everyone on what happened,’ he instructed. ‘I know Jim will have covered it, but this is the first time we’ve all been together, so there’s nothing wrong with running through this properly.’

  Matt stood up, swallowed his last mouthful, then quickly ran through what they knew so far, from the reporting of the light on the hill through to what he was aware of from the SOC team, which he read from his personal notebook.

  ‘So, she’s not called Stacy?’ Jim said once Matt was done.

  ‘No,’ Harry said, ‘she’s not. So, let’s start getting this stuff written down, everything we know so far, and everything we’re about to do. I’m assuming we’ve got an Action Book to hand?’

  Jen went over to some drawers in one of the desks and pulled out a book, waving it in the air.

  ‘Good,’ Harry said, then he turned his attention to Matt. ‘You’re good on details, right, Detective Sergeant?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Matt replied. ‘Do my best to not miss anything. Eagle-eyed Matt they call me.’

  ‘No, they don’t,’ Harry said, ‘but regardless of that, I’m appointing you as office manager.’

  ‘But am I not more use out and about?’

  ‘Gordy’s not here,’ Harry said, ‘and until she is, I need you and your experience and skills to run things and to keep an eye on whatever we have to lock away in the temporary evidence storeroom here. You also know your way around HOLMES, so you’ll be able to keep it up to date.’

  ‘It’s not very sexy though, is it?’ Matt complained.

  ‘Well, if you were looking for sexy, perhaps joining the police in the first place wasn’t your best plan. This is hardly Chippendales, you know.’

  Harry noticed that everyone, bar Matt, was staring blankly at him. ‘Chippendales?’ he said. ‘Famous strip sh
ow? You know, buff lads, all pecks and penises, strutting around on stage in their leather budgie smugglers while knickers rain down on them from the audience?’

  Jim shrugged, shook his head. ‘Nope, no idea, boss.’

  ‘Good job, too, by the sound of it,’ Jadyn added.

  ‘Hey, I could give those lads a run for their money,’ Matt said. ‘I’ve got the moves!’

  ‘Yes, and we’ve all seen them,’ Jen said. ‘The bacon butty strut, the doughnut twist. God, the idea of you doing a striptease!’

  Matt turned a hurt eye towards Harry. ‘They’re bullying me, boss,’ he said. ‘You’re not going to just let it go, surely?’

  ‘Oh, I think I will,’ Harry said. ‘You’re a big boy. You can look after yourself. Now if we can get back to what we were talking about, I’m not expecting you to lock yourself away in here, Detective Sergeant. I just need you to take responsibility for it. And seeing as you’ve got that nice, new shiny detective qualification, I think we should be making full use of it, don’t you?’

  Matt took the Action Book from Jen.

  ‘Right then,’ Harry said, ‘back to where we were.’

  ‘Which was where, exactly?’ Matt asked, pen poised. ‘I mean, I remember, but I’m just keeping you all on your toes.’

  It was clear to Harry that no one believed Detective Sergeant Dinsdale at all.

  ‘Stacy,’ Jim said, ‘and the fact that it’s not the victim’s name. So what has it got to do with what happened?’

  Jen was up at the board again. ‘Could be a friend. Maybe Stacy is the killer’s name and it’s a betrayal thing?’

  ‘Be a bloody fool to tag the scene with their own name,’ Harry said. ‘But it obviously means something and is key to the whole thing, so we need to find out everything we can about Kirsty. Pathologist thought it might be something to do with roleplay?’

  ‘Could be,’ Jen agreed. ‘Everyone likes to add a bit of spice to their love life.’

  ‘Do they, now?’ Matt asked, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘Well, perhaps not everybody,’ Jen explained further. ‘But maybe Kirsty and her husband were into it? You know, pet names for each other, scenarios and whatnot. Some people pretend they’re Han Solo and Princess Leia.

  ‘Stacy, though?’ Jim said. ‘I can understand the Star Wars thing, but what kind of roleplay would involve being called Stacy?’

  Jen shrugged. ‘Each to their own, right?’

  Moving the conversation along, Harry said, ‘And we’ve got a few things to go on from the SOC team.’ He looked over to Jen to check that she was ready. Then he pulled out the evidence bags from the pathologist and the set of keys.

  ‘So what’ve we got?’ Jim asked.

  Harry went through the bags, one by one. ‘Purse,’ he explained, ‘containing driving license, photos, access card for where she works, gym membership card, receipts. Next, we’ve got burned photographs found at the scene in a pan, looks like they were set fire to by Kirsty. They didn’t burn completely and the person in the photographs corresponds to one of the photos in her purse, namely her husband. There are the keys, obviously, and also this bag of weird little plastic balls.’

  Jen picked up the bag of burned photographs. ‘So, a bonfire of the ex, then,’ she said.

  ‘Exactly that,’ Harry agreed.

  ‘Motive, right there, then,’ Jadyn added.

  ‘Indeed,’ Harry nodded. ‘No escaping that. But we can’t just roll on over to wherever he is and arrest him. There’s no evidence that we know of yet linking him to what happened.’

  ‘And those keys could be house keys, right?’

  Harry gave a nod. ‘Which means we have a pretty solid lead, that being the husband. And I, for one, hope that it is him, because if it isn’t then who knows what the hell we’re dealing with.’

  ‘It has to be,’ Matt said. ‘We just need to find him, ask him where he was last night, and have him confess.’

  ‘If only it were so easy.’ Harry sighed.

  ‘What else?’ Jen asked, jotting notes on the board.

  ‘The gym’s worth checking out,’ offered Jadyn again. Doing his best to impress, Harry thought. ‘They’ll have an emergency contact number so that could give us the husband’s number, parents maybe. I can give them a call.’

  ‘The receipts are from an outdoor shop,’ Harry said and read out the name of the shop. ‘And there’s a discount card.’

  ‘Someone might remember her,’ Jim said. ‘Worth a look.’

  ‘What about Gary?’ Matt asked. ‘Still want me to head over for a chat?’

  ‘Has he replied to your message?’

  Matt shook his head.

  ‘Then yes, get over there when we’re done here.’

  ‘I’ll head over to Keld,’ Jen said. ‘The Corpse Road starts there, and there’s a hotel there, so I’m guessing that’s where she left her car. And I reckon a Porsche is going to be pretty easy to find.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Harry said. ‘Why don’t you both just head over together then?’

  ‘So long as I get to drive, that’s fine,’ Jen said.

  Matt laughed.

  ‘Jadyn,’ Harry said, turning to the young officer, ‘how are you with HOLMES, seeing as Matt is going to be out now?’

  The computerised system used by the Home Office to record information gathered in investigations across the country was something which Harry could accept as a vital and very clever resource, but it was something he generally left for other people to fathom. But then he was still having trouble with the remote control for his television back at the flat. Computers just weren’t his forte.

  ‘He’s better at it than any of us,’ Matt said. ‘I mean, I know how to use it, but Jadyn’s all over it like a rash. Not only does he bring food, but he also understands technology! Reckon we should definitely keep him.’

  ‘As a replacement for you, you mean?’ Jim said with a laugh.

  ‘What about photographs, report from the scene of crime team, the pathologist?’ Matt asked wisely changing the subject. ‘Any idea when we’ll hear something on all that?’

  ‘Later today I hope,’ Harry said, then tapped a finger on the bag containing the plastic balls. ‘But while we’re waiting, we’ve enough to be getting on with, including whatever the hell these little buggers are.’

  Jim picked up the bag and peered closely at its contents.

  ‘Turns out, there were a lot of these at the crime scene,’ Harry said. ‘Sowerby found a fair few in the tent, and some outside of it, too. And one of the rescue team found another one further away, although I’m not exactly sure where.’

  ‘That was Helen,’ Matt said. ‘Told me she’d had a word with you about something.’

  ‘I can give them a call, if you want?’ Jadyn offered.

  ‘You do that,’ Harry said. ‘Matt will give you their numbers. Then I want you to head back out to Swaledale. Do a wider search of the crime scene. See if you can find anything to suggest that someone else was out there.’

  ‘Like what?’ Jadyn asked.

  ‘More of these might be a start,’ Harry said, shaking the bag in his hand. ‘This wasn’t a random event. This was planned. You don’t just take a walk up onto the moors in the hope that you’ll find someone in a tent who you can murder. No. Whoever did this, whether it was the husband or someone else, they either made their way up there to kill Kirsty or were waiting for her. Both of those possibilities take planning. And there might be some signs of that.’

  ‘The rest of you know what you’re on with?’

  Harry saw nods all around.

  ‘What about me?’ Jim asked.

  ‘You’re with me,’ Harry said. ‘Otherwise, I’ll get bored on the journey.’

  ‘Journey? To where? And what about Fly?’

  ‘Fly can come,’ Harry said. ‘We’re heading over to Kirsty’s house, see what we can find. By which I mean, her husband.’

  ‘And if he is, we arrest him?’ Jim asked.

  Harry
shook his head. ‘Like I said, there’s nowt here, other than some burned photos, that even comes close to suggesting that he was responsible. All we’ve done is put two and two together and come up with five. So, right now, all we can do is tell him about Kirsty and ask him some questions. We need a hell of a lot more than what we have right now to justify bringing him in.’

  Harry stared at the team around him once again, a lighthouse casting a blinding light of warning. He wasn’t going to suggest that if the house was empty then he’d be using the keys to enter without permission, but it was an option, albeit not one exactly by the book. ‘If you find anything, any of you, you call me, understood? No bollocks about thinking it’s not important or whatever. We need to all be on this, sharing data, and finding the bastard. We clear?’

  More nods, during which Jim reached over for the evidence bag containing the white balls and took it from Harry.

  ‘You think you know what that is?’ Harry asked.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Jim said. ‘It’s just that it looks like . . .’ He paused for a moment, then handed the bag back to Harry. ‘No, it can’t be. Ignore me.’

  Harry didn’t ignore anything when it came to investigating a murder. ‘What is it, Jim? What do you think it is?’

  ‘I don’t know what it is,’ Jim said. ‘It just looks like the kind of thing I used to shoot out of toy guns as a kid.’

  ‘You’re right, it does,’ Jadyn added. ‘I had one, but the little balls just sort of fell out of the barrel when you fired it. I had one with disks as well, which was way better. Went for miles!’

  ‘Can’t see why anyone would be out on the moors with a toy gun,’ Harry said, shaking his head.

  Outside, with the rest of the team cracking on with their tasks, and with Matt making sure not only that his rank counted for something, Harry made his way back down through the marketplace to his new vehicle, Jim and Fly trotting along behind. He was glad Jim was coming along, and that he had the stupid puppy with him, because not only was it a long journey ahead, there was every chance that the end of it was going to be deeply unpleasant.

  As they approached the car, Jim called over to Harry and said, ‘You also need to watch yourself a bit, by the way. You’re starting to turn, if you know what I mean. You stay here much longer, you’ll go fully native.’