Harry really wanted to find Nick now, more than ever, and reached out for the front door. ‘Thanks for your time,’ he said, stepping out into the day once again.
‘No need to thank me,’ Bill said. ‘I went to school with Capstick. Never liked him then. Never liked him since. I’m not usually one to wish ill of the dead, but with him, I’ll make an exception. And I’m not the only one, you’ll find that out, soon enough.’
Harry stepped away from the house as Bill closed the door behind him. He then stared back up the road to where he could see the field where John Capstick had been found. A white tent had been erected over where the body lay, and little white-suited bodies moved around it like maggots crawling over a carcass.
Harry’s phone buzzed. ‘Grimm,’ he answered.
It was Matt.
‘We’ve found something, boss.’
‘What?’ Harry asked, moving off quickly now, back towards the field. ‘The phone?’
‘No,’ Matt said. ‘A feather. Stuffed in Capstick’s mouth.’
Chapter Eleven
Back at the field, Harry was met at the gate by a group of stern faces, two of which looked about as happy to see him as he would be a toenail in his breakfast cereal. The sky was darkening, and a wind was certainly getting up. So much for the nice weather then, Harry thought, smelling rain in the air.
‘Ah, Grimm,’ Detective Superintendent Graham Swift said, stepping in front of Harry as he made his way into the field. ‘So there you are. I was beginning to wonder if we had lost you for good.’
The way the man said it, Harry was pretty sure that he heard a little hint of hope in the words.
‘Sir,’ Harry said, offering no explanation as to where he had been, his attention drawn to the woman beside Swift.
‘DC Metcalfe tells me you’ve found something.’
‘Does he, indeed?’ said Rebecca Sowerby, the pathologist. ‘And what would that be?’
‘I was kind of hoping you would be able to tell me that,’ Harry said.
‘Well, it sounds like you already know, so . . .’
‘A feather,’ Harry said, cutting in before the pathologist could finish off what she was saying. ‘But what about a phone? Has one been found?’
Sowerby glowered for a moment at Matt, who was standing with Jim to one side, then was back on Harry.
‘No phone,’ the pathologist said. ‘And to be honest, I’m surprised you didn’t find the feather yourself!’ The woman’s eyes were narrow as a hawk’s. ‘Do you have any idea how much potential damage you did to the crime scene? Why didn’t you call it in immediately? From what I can see, you’ve walked up and down and around like you were all on a dance competition!’
Harry sucked in the deepest of breaths then let it out real slow through his nostrils. ‘It was called in as soon as we regarded it as being potentially Category One.’
‘And you couldn’t tell that just by looking at the body?’
‘The report we received was that there had been an accident. That’s how the scene was initially approached. It was only after investigating that–’
The pathologist pulled out a transparent plastic bag. Inside it, Harry could just about make out a scrunched up lump of something, which looked moist and black and revolting.
‘This was in his mouth,’ she said, holding it up in front of Harry’s face. ‘No idea what species right now because, as you can see, it’s a total mess. Like this crime scene.’
‘We think whatever happened here occurred around two days ago,’ Harry said. ‘So everything has been out in the open ever since. If you want to blame anyone or anything for the mess, how’s about you have a chat with some of the local wildlife? There’s a few foxes and buzzards I’m sure who could give you a little run through of just how tasty the victim is! Crows and pigeons, too, I’m sure, and they’ll eat just about anything.’
‘Enough, Grimm,’ DS Swift said. ‘Ms Sowerby is only trying to do her job.’
‘And I’m only trying to do mine,’ Grimm replied, his voice a guttural growl.
‘She has every right to question how things are done, especially when working with someone new.’
‘New?’ Harry laughed. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means,’ Swift said, ‘that an experienced detective wouldn’t have allowed someone who has nothing to do with a potential investigation to go wandering around a crime scene!’
‘You mean Doctor Smith? He was here when we arrived!’
Rebecca Sowerby stowed the bag containing the feather away, frustration clear in her every move. ‘The Scene of Crime officers will finish off and then I’ll have the body over to do the autopsy,’ she said, pushing past Harry to head towards the road.
‘Think you’ll find anything?’ Harry asked.
‘I always find something,’ she replied. ‘Always.’ And was gone.
For a while, no one said anything. Harry could sense that DS Swift was continuing his grumbles in his head, but he didn’t care. Jim and Matt were simply staring at him expectantly. Up in the field, things were starting to quieten down. Soon the body would be removed and would chase the pathologist back to Harrogate and into a sterile, stainless steel chilled freezer drawer in the mortuary. Then there would be a final sweep of the scene to see if anything else could be found, and that would be that. The place would be off limits to the public though for a good while, at least while the investigation was in its early stages. And that, Harry knew for certain, would be more than enough to bring the press sniffing around.
‘This is just the kind of thing I was worried about,’ DS Swift said, breaking the quietness.
‘How do you mean?’ Harry asked. ‘It’s not like I came here and murder followed me from Bristol like some stink on my shoes!’
‘I didn’t say that,’ Swift replied, ‘but if there’s something I’ve learnt in my years on the force, it’s that some people just attract the worst of it, if you know what I
