Swift’s complexion, Harry thought, was akin to that of a resident of a morgue, caught as it was in the insipid glow from the filament bulb lighting the room directly above his head. He had the look about him of a cadaverous letch, a thing refusing to die because there were so many other mean, hideous, and cruel things left to do. And one of those things was to get right up in Harry’s face about the last twenty-four hours.
‘I asked you a question.’
Harry realised that he’d drifted off from whatever it was Swift had been talking about and said, ‘I was trying to think of an answer.’ As he also tried to remember what the question was.
‘Trying?’ Swift said. ‘Trying? You mean you don’t have one?’
‘Oh, I have one,’ Harry growled quietly to himself, remembering the question, then said somewhat louder, ‘but I don’t think it’s one you’ll want to hear.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that.’
Harry pulled himself up in his chair, then drained his mug of the rest of the tea, before sitting it underneath his chair. ‘I think we need to wait for him to show himself,’ Harry said, remembering at the last minute that the DSup had been pushing for more to be done about bringing in the husband. ‘He won’t have gone far. He’s probably holed up in some hotel or Airbnb somewhere, hoping everything will die down soon.’
‘Really? That’s your answer?’
‘I did say that you wouldn’t want to hear it.’
‘So, you’re suggesting that we simply wait for the chief suspect to just show himself?’
Harry nodded.
‘And until then we just sit around, do we? Waiting?’
‘No, we’ve plenty to be getting on with,’ Harry said. ‘Forensics will be in tomorrow. We’ve photos to look through, lots of evidence to examine, I want to go and have a walk around the crime scene tomorrow—’
‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ interrupted Jadyn, his eyes flicking from Harry to Swift and back again. He made to continue speaking, but Harry shook his head. He could tell the lad felt awkward, having been pulled away by Swift from what Harry had asked him to do.
‘Don’t worry, you had other things to do.’
‘You don’t think this is a bit more urgent, then?’ Swift asked. ‘A murderer at large?’
Harry gave himself just a moment to his own thoughts, his head cocked just a little to one side, his eyes staring up and away from Swift. ‘If it was the husband,’ Harry began, ‘and I do mean if, then this all looks like it begins and ends with Kirsty up on the moors. Whether he planned to do it, whether it was heat-of-the-moment, it’s done. He’ll turn up, sooner or later, probably stinking a bit and sleep-deprived, trying to buy Red Bull and some dodgy sandwiches in a newsagent somewhere. So I just don’t think it’s a judicious use of anyone’s time, including yours, sir, to be out there looking for him.’
‘But his car was found,’ Swift responded. ‘He can’t be far away from it, can he, seeing as he’s on foot?’
‘If you want everyone here, and anyone else you want to bring in, walking the streets, knocking on doors, then that’s your prerogative,’ Harry said. ‘But with that, there’s every chance he’ll see or hear about what’s happening and we’ll only delay his turning himself in, because us looking for him will only panic him more.’
Swift’s lips went so thin they practically disappeared. Then he took a deep breath and held it for just a little too long, before letting it out through his nose.
Harry waited for the man to say something, then waited some more. Eventually, he just gave up and said, ‘My point though, sir, is that there’s also the very good chance that it wasn’t the husband. And if that’s the case then, well, would we not be better off focusing on finding out who the killer actually is?’
Swift unfolded his arms with the deliberate slowness of a tired swan loosening its wings, but with considerably less grace and natural beauty. It was the first time since arriving back at the community centre that Harry had realised that the DSup’s arms had been folded the whole time, like he was either protecting himself, or trying to stop his chest from exploding outwards.
‘So, how would you advise we progress the case, then, DCI Grimm?’ Swift asked.
Harry grimaced. Progress the case? What the hell did that actually mean? ‘I’d send everyone home now, sir,’ Harry said. ‘Get a good night’s sleep. Get back here tomorrow, get on with the job. It’s the weekend and everyone knows that pulling long, unsociable hours is part of the job, but everyone needs a break.’
Swift shook his head. ‘A break? We’re not soft southerners, you know?’
If the room had been quiet before, it was deathly silent now, Swift’s words working like a vacuum and sucking every ounce of sound and warmth from it in a beat.
Since arriving in the dales, it had been very clear to Harry that Swift not only didn’t like him, but didn’t think he should be there in the first place. Despite this, and regardless of the way the man’s manner towards him was always and without fail never anything less than pure disdain, Harry worked to be as professional as he could. It was one thing to not like your superior, to even disagree with them, but it was another thing entirely to express that in front of the rest of the team. So right now, with Swift’s words still hanging in the air like starved crows on a powerline, Harry was fighting with everything that he had to not respond in kind.
When Harry spoke, his words were measured to the point of being so flat and distant from each other that he sounded rather like someone in a trance. ‘I’m just saying that I think everyone will work better at sorting this out if they’ve had a rest.’
‘So that’s it, is it?’ Swift replied, clearly not getting the message or, if he was, refusing to hear and take heed of it. ‘Just send everyone home and hope it all comes together tomorrow?’
Harry decided it best to keep his mouth shut and just gave a nod.
‘Well fine, then.’ Swift sniffed like he’d just caught a whiff of something unpleasant in the room. ‘But I fully expect everyone to be back here first thing tomorrow. Is that understood?’
‘I don’t think there’s any question about it not being,’ Harry said, after which there was a rather awkward pause where no one moved or spoke, other than Swift, who quietly gathered up his things, namely a grey jacket, a hat that Harry was pretty sure belonged to a time when everything was costed out in farthings, shillings, and crowns, and an unnecessarily colourful scarf, before leaving without another word said.
‘Well, that was definitely a meeting we all had,’ Matt said, standing up and stretching. ‘Who’s for a brew?’
Harry checked his watch. ‘It’s nearly six,’ he said. ‘The lot of you, home, now. We’ll have to be in tomorrow first thing, like Swift said, and I’ll want you all sharp.’
Something wet touched Harry’s hand and he looked down to see Fly sitting at his feet staring up at him.
‘You know, I think he’d happily come home with you,’ Jim said, coming over and clipping a lead onto the dog’s collar.
Harry reached down and tickled the fur under the dog’s chin. ‘He’d soon get bored,’ he said, standing up. ‘I’ll be asleep as soon as I sit down and put the telly on.’
Later, when Harry was actually in front of his television, and munching his way through possibly the worst tea he’d ever prepared for himself—a feast of cold tinned mackerel on dry toast, washed down with a glass of lukewarm water thanks to him having poured it from the wrong tap and then been too tired and thus not arsed enough to get back up again and get a fresh one—he once again pulled out the bag containing the little white plastic balls found at the scene.
Staring at the bag, sipping on and grimacing at the glass of water, Harry considered everything they knew so far. Kirsty had left her husband. Whatever had happened, the evidence of the burned photos was more than enough to suggest it had been somewhat acrimonious. What they’d found on the fells above Gunnerside suggested that she’d gone away on her own, probably to celebrate her new-found fr
eedom, a solo celebration.
Then there was Daryl, who they knew had not only put a tracker on his wife’s car, had then followed her to the Lodge in Keld, left a less than friendly note on her car, and then gone looking for her in at least one local pub, according to what Matt and Jen had found out from Gary. Kirsty’s night had then ended in the worst possible way. Daryl had done a runner. And, when all was said and done, and even though they’d not yet gotten anything back from the SOC team or the pathologist, it was difficult to avoid the fact that the soon-to-be-ex-husband was the prime suspect.
But it was the white plastic balls that were bothering Harry. They were, as he’d explained to Jim, something that didn’t belong. Everything else at the crime scene made sense, from the tent to the burned photos to the blood. But those little plastic balls? What the hell were they and why were they there in the first place? Were they connected to what had happened? They were wrong and their very presence at the scene of the crime was working its way under Harry’s skin like grit in a graze.
Harry went to finish his glass of water, decided against it, leaned back in the sofa, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the world outside his window was ink-black, and the channel he’d been watching had moved on from early evening family entertainment to late-night horror movie. Evening gone, Harry stood up, walked through to his bedroom, and climbed into bed. Sleep took him then, and Harry was lost to a night of moorland dreams of darkness and blood.
Outside his flat, a car pulled in and parked up. The driver kept the engine running as the passenger climbed out, walked up to Harry’s door, and pushed something through the letterbox. Then he returned to the car, jumped back in, and they were gone.
Chapter Eighteen
Harry was first to arrive at the community centre, but not by much, which hadn’t been the plan. A restless night, and a breakfast which pretty much matched his meal the evening before when it came to being sad and depressingly unappetising, had sent him out into the morning before much of the world had woken up. He’d spotted an envelope on the carpet by the front door as he’d been leaving, but had been in no mood to check what it was, so had ignored it. Probably junk mail anyway, he’d thought, slamming the door behind himself.
A walk up the hill to Gayle, then back across the little age-worn flagstone path, which crossed dew-wet fields and followed the beck, had done nothing to clear his head. He’d done his best to drink deep of the beauty of the dales. Gazing off into the distance, his eyes had wandered up the fells, which swam deep in the colours which bathed them. The rich air, so much more alive early in the morning, crisp and bright with promise, filled his lungs. But it still hadn’t been enough. He’d hoped that a bit of time alone in the office before everyone else turned up, nursing a huge mug of strong tea, might help, but the other arrival had put an end to that with the slam of a car door and a terse call of his rank and name.
‘DCI Grimm.’
‘Sir,’ Harry nodded, as Detective Superintendent Swift stared at him from where he’d parked his car, then walked towards him with the cold, mean purpose of a vampire looking for a quick kill before having to turn in for the day. Harry checked his watch. ‘It’s not even eight, sir. Can’t say that I expected to see you quite yet.’
‘And just what are you suggesting by that?’
‘Nothing,’ Harry replied, searching for the office keys in a pocket. ‘You’ve a longer journey than most, that’s all.’
‘I have indeed,’ replied Swift. ‘But I wanted to get here good and early so that I could really get things moving along.’
Harry was fairly sure that a lot more was hidden behind those words than they actually communicated, but he ignored his suspicions, opened the door into the community centre, and walked through to the offices used by himself and the rest of the team. The soft footfalls of his temporary boss followed him through, all the way up to the kettle.
‘Tea, please, Grimm,’ Swift instructed.
‘Milk?’ Harry asked, barely able to disguise his irritation at being ordered about.
‘Yes, but no sugar. I bring my own sweetener.’
Doesn’t seem to be working, does it? Harry thought. ‘How did yesterday go?’ Harry asked. ‘With the parents?’ Didn’t get a chance to ask.’
‘As terrible as can be expected,’ Swift said. ‘With Haig away, I’ve sourced the relevant support for them, so that’s dealt with and we don’t need to worry about it.’
Harry was worried about it, though, because right now he was worried about everything to do with this case. As the tea brewed, he moved over to stand in front of the board Jen had done a good job of keeping up to date with everything that had gone on the day before. Swift joined him.
‘Hmmm,’ Swift said, rubbing his chin. ‘Is this all we have?’
‘Well, it’s not changed since you and I saw it yesterday,’ Harry replied. ‘So, yes. We can put a note on about the parents being told, and I’m assuming there was nothing suspicious there?’
Harry caught the glare from Swift at what he was suggesting.
‘Suspicious?’ Swift spat. ‘They were her bloody parents, Grimm! Her parents!’
Harry breathed deep then relaxed into his next sentence. ‘I know, sir, but we have to be sure. I’ve no doubt that we’ve both dealt with cases of filicide.’
‘And why would they kill her?’ Swift asked. ‘What reason? There isn’t one, is there, Grimm?’
‘I wasn’t suggesting there was,’ Harry countered. ‘I was simply checking that you were happy with what you found. And clearly you are, so we can move on.’
‘Happy?’ Swift repeated. ‘No, I am not happy, as you well know. But, moving on is exactly what we are going to do! So, what about forensics?’
‘First thing this morning, I should think,’ Harry said, knowing that Pathologist Rebecca Sowerby was not the kind of person to be late with anything. ‘And we’ll be getting the evidence over from the crime scene as well, so we’ll be able to have a look through that, see if it sparks any new lines of inquiry.’
Harry was happy with the way that sentence had ended. Using the phrase new lines of inquiry was one he had used on numerous occasions to hush up another officer asking too many bloody questions. And that was something Swift did, though he was never one for coming forward with a helping hand to find the answers.
‘Well, hopefully, none of it will be necessary,’ Swift said, moving away from the board, almost as though he had already dismissed the case as done and dusted. ‘If the husband shows himself, or does the sensible thing and hands himself in, then we should be able to wrap this up nice and quickly.’
‘Not if it wasn’t him, though,’ Harry said.
Swift twisted round to face Harry, who stepped back just enough to prevent the man from invading his personal space. Then Swift took another step forward, clearly intent on continuing with the invasion.
‘You still think that, then, do you?’ Swift asked.
‘I’m just not jumping to any conclusions, that’s all,’ Harry said. ‘Something isn’t right here, I’m sure of it. Yes, he’s buggered off, and yes what we’ve found so far—the burned photos, the tracking device—points to him, but even so, I don’t think we should just assume this was a case of love gone sour.’
‘The only thing not right here is you, Grimm,’ Swift said. ‘You seem to think that wherever you are, that the crime rate, the people you’re dealing with, it’s just the same as down south in the city. It’s not, you know. Not by a long shot!’
Swift performed air quotes with his fingers around the word ‘city’. Harry had absolutely no idea why and it made him want to reach out and snap them off at the knuckles.
‘All I’m saying,’ Harry explained, amazed that he was staying so calm, ‘is that we need to wait to hear from the SOC team, the pathologist, and see what’s what.’
Swift sucked in a thick breath through his small nose and the sound of it was that of an aggressive vacuum cleaner with something jammed in its pipe. ‘So, whe
n are you heading home, then?’ he asked, changing the subject so quickly that Harry was surprised the man didn’t get whiplash.
‘Not sure,’ Harry shrugged. ‘I’m in no rush to get back. There’s plenty to do here. The team is great as well. Why do you ask? Has Firbank been in touch?’
Detective Superintendent Alice Firbank was Harry’s boss back down in Bristol. It had been a few months now since she’d sent him away, somewhat indefinitely, after an operation hadn’t exactly gone according to plan. The last time Harry had spoken to her had been nearly three months ago, and there had been no mention at the time of an end game to whatever it was Harry was doing up north. That conversation had focused on his brother who, despite being in prison, had been threatened by their criminal father, who neither of them had seen in decades, not since Harry had arrived home from a tour with the Paras to find Ben beaten and their mother dead.
The fleeting reminder of his father had Harry suddenly remembering the unexpected and wholly strange phone call he’d had with the man two nights ago. The memory twisted his gut with the ravaging violence of a bayonet thrust. How could that voice and its sentiment have anything to do with the man he hated?
‘I’m sure it must be difficult for you though, yes?’ Swift said, hooking Harry out of his thoughts. ‘Being away from home. Then there’s your brother, too. How is he by the way?’
‘He’s fine,’ Harry said, not really listening. ‘As far as I know.’
‘Put away for dealing drugs, wasn’t it?’ Swift pressed.
‘He’s due for parole next month,’ Harry said, ignoring the DSup’s needling little questions.
‘You really will want to be home then,’ Swift said, and Harry heard the smile in each and every word, as though Harry leaving would make him the happiest man alive.
‘To be honest, sir, I think living up here would do him a world of good, like it's done me.’
‘What?’
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