‘He’s back at the farmhouse, just down there near the village,’ Jim explained. ‘Liz is there to keep an eye on him, try and calm him down a bit, stop him jabbering on and on, which he likes to do at the best of times, so you can imagine what he’s like right now.’
‘I certainly can,’ Matt said.
Liz Coates was the other PCSO in the team covering the dales. She went everywhere on a motorbike, a huge off-road beast which, at a touch over five foot tall, she didn’t look big or heavy enough to ride. And yet she handled it with the skill of someone who had clearly grown up riding dirt trails and had somehow managed to not get injured.
‘Good plan,’ Matt said. ‘Though he’s probably already nicked most of the cutlery and any booze he could find.’
‘I’m getting the impression that you don’t like him,’ Harry said, glancing down towards Oughtershaw. ‘And we’ll need to go house-to-house, check if anyone saw or heard anything.’
‘Won’t take long,’ Jim said. ‘Aren’t that many houses.’
‘As for Nick, he’s easy to dislike,’ Matt said with a shrug. ‘But John is . . . was worse.’
Harry took a deep breath and looked up the field to where Jim had said the body was. ‘Come on then,’ he said. ‘Let’s go see what we’ve got.’
Halfway up the field, Harry saw blood. Not much, just a dried patch of it pushed into the grass, grown dark over time and under the sun, flies buzzing around, but nothing like the cloud of them further ahead. Walking on they passed another and another, leading off like some over-sized and grisly Morse Code stamped into the grass at their feet.
‘So, come on then, what do you think happened?’ Harry asked, as they made their way towards the body, the patches of blood leading the way, and growing darker as they drew closer.
Jim said nothing for a moment then stopped and turned to look at Harry and Matt. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I guess it could be just an accident. Probably nothing more than John being a victim of his own stupidity. I mean, he wasn’t exactly the best of farmers, was he?’
Harry shrugged. ‘Can’t say that I’d know either way.’
‘Well, he wasn’t,’ said Jim. ‘The farmhouse, the yard, it’s a mess. No pride in the place. Animals aren’t looked after properly. The walls are left to just crumble. He’s just carried on like his dad, hating farming and doing nowt to change it. Mad if you ask me. Actually, just ask anyone around here, and they’ll tell you the same, for sure.’
Jim, Harry knew, was talking from experience. He was born a farmer’s son, still lived at home, still worked out on the land with his dad, went to the auction mart in Hawes every week if he could. Farming was in his blood. It was also what made him such a good PCSO and, Harry had mused more than once, what would make him a superb police officer, assuming of course that he could get a posting in the area, or at least somewhere similar, once his training was up.
‘He was that popular, then?’ Harry asked.
Jim’s laugh was short and filled with as much warmth as a walk-in freezer. ‘There are folk around here who would give their right arm for a place like his, and all he’s done is ruin it. So, no, he wasn’t popular.’
Harry noticed that the patches of dried blood had turned into more of a smear. Then the smell hit him, as did the sound of the flies. The cloud was close now and he could see a mound beneath it.
‘So, what’s got you to thinking it’s something else, then?’ Harry asked, reaching into his pocket for a little something he always carried with him just in case. It was a pot of vapour rub, the smell of the camphor and eucalyptus oil going some way to disguise the rich, fetid smell of rotting flesh. He popped the lid and rubbed a little under his nostrils.
‘Just doesn’t smell right,’ Jim said, then put his hand over his nose and mouth and muttered, ‘in more ways than the obvious.’
‘Here,’ Harry said, handing the pot to Jim and Matt. ‘It’ll help.’
They both took some and then as Harry stuffed the pot back into his pocket, Jim led them on for the last few metres to the body.
When they arrived, and Harry finally laid eyes on what was before them, he had the horrible feeling that the vapour rub really wasn’t going to be any help at all.
Chapter Five
‘Jesus Christ,’ Matt said, a hand rising to his mouth. ‘That is rank.’
‘I doubt even he could do much about this,’ Harry offered. Then, looking at the rather grey colour Matt’s face had swiftly taken on, added, ‘And if you’re going to puke, best you do it away from the body, pal.’
Matt gulped air down, squeezed his eyes tight and rubbed them. ‘I’m fine,’ he said.
‘You don’t look fine,’ Jim said.
‘He’s right,’ Harry said. ‘You don’t look fine. The opposite of fine, if I’m honest. Sort of not fine, bordering on really bloody awful.’
‘I’m fine, really fine,’ Matt said. ‘I promise.’
Harry wasn’t convinced in the slightest. ‘It’s the smell,’ he said. ‘Always is. Dead bodies you can get used to, close your mind to it, but the smell, that’s something else. Has the ability to really crawl up your nose and set up shop.’
‘You’re not helping,’ Matt said.
Harry, with Matt and Jim beside him, hung back from the body for two reasons. One was because if this was a crime scene then he wanted to do as little as possible that could potentially damage any evidence. The other was simply because what lay before them was one of the worst things that Harry had ever seen in
