Best Served Cold: A DCI Harry Grimm Novel

that John was a man no one was going to mourn, a boy bullied by his dad, who became a bully at school with his own little gang, and since then, a life lived not that well or that happily. So just what the hell had happened? The man was dead and someone seemed to have gone a long way to ensuring that the death had happened in a very specific way. But it was the why that was really bothering Harry, gnawing at the back of his mind like a starved dog. Why would someone go to all that trouble? Just what the hell was it all about?

Tomorrow was a new day though, Harry thought. Perhaps then, some answers would come. Until then, he would sleep.

Chapter Seventeen

Harry woke to the sound of his mobile phone crashing through his skull with all the loving, affectionate tact of a pneumatic drill in the hands of a murderous dentist.

‘Yes, what?’ Harry answered, catching sight of the time, his voice broken by a cough brought on by the chill of the morning air. ‘And this had better be good seeing as it’s only just gone six!’

‘Harry, it’s Jim . . .’

Harry was suddenly very, very awake. ‘Jim? What’s up? What’s happened?’

Light was streaming in through a crack in his bedroom curtains to blind him and Harry had to shield his eyes with a hand.

‘We’ve, well, it’s just that . . .’

Jim’s voice was stumbling over whatever it was he was trying to say and that unnerved Harry.

‘Just that what, Jim? What’s up? What’s happened?’

There was a pause down the line and Harry felt himself being sucked into it, the ominous threat of the unknown something he was pretty damned sure was about to give him a mule kick in the shins.

‘We’ve had another call,’ Jim said. ‘A . . .Another one’s been found. Another body, I mean.’

Harry was now on his feet, using his one free hand to try and get dressed, the sun in his face again, sending his view of his bedroom hazy. ‘What? Where? What do you mean, a body’s been found? How? I mean, what the – ah, bollocks!’

Harry, with only one leg in his trousers, his eyes blinded by the sun, managed to get his other foot caught up in his belt, and mid-sentence to Jim tripped and fell, landing first on his bed, before rolling onto the floor, his phone skipping out of his hand.

‘Harry? You okay?’

‘I’m absolutely fine and bloody dandy!’ Harry shouted back as he scrabbled across the floor for his phone and pulled it to his ear. ‘A body? You’re sure? Where? How?’

‘Up Widdale,’ Jim said. ‘Gordy just rang to say she’s on her way. She’ll pick you up in fifteen and tell you what she knows.’

Harry didn’t know Gordy as well as the others quite yet. As the Detective Inspector for the area, she was based down dale, and usually busy with things that way. And if she was only fifteen minutes away then that meant she’d set off a while ago now. The towns of Leyburn, Richmond and Bedale had their own troubles, and with Catterick not too far away, which was a garrison town, her life was a busy one to say the least. There were other officers down that way, but they didn’t generally end up at the Hawes end of things.

‘Can’t you pick me up?’ Harry asked. ‘Actually, what am I on about? I can drive my own car, can’t I? Where’s the body?’

‘I’m already at the scene,’ Jim said. ‘I’ll see you when you get here.’

Jim hung up.

Harry finished getting dressed, nipped to the bathroom, then just as he was sorting out some toast, scraping off the burned bits because he’d left it in too long, there was a sharp knock at the door.

‘Just a minute,’ Harry called, stuffing the toast into his mouth, then racing to the door, grabbing his jacket on the way.

Gordy looked him up and down, shaking her head. ‘Aye, well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes? By which I mean, eyes so sore they never want to see anything ever again! And still no boots, then, I see? Were you born stubborn and stupid or have you developed those traits all by yourself?’

Harry shuffled his feet into his shoes. ‘I’ve just not got around to it yet,’ he said, pushing himself out of the door. ‘But I will. Now, what’s going on?’

‘Well, after today, you make sure you do, you hear?’

Harry liked Gordy because she had no filter. What was in her head came out of her mouth. That she had just made him feel a little like she’d given him a bollocking for not having appropriate footwear only added to her charm. At least he thought it did. Right then, he wasn’t so sure.

‘Why? Where are we going?’

‘Oh, you’ll see soon enough,’ Gordy said. ‘Come on.’

A few minutes later, they were speeding along in Gordy’s car, which was a plain looking blue Ford Focus, one of numerous others used by the police up and down the country.

‘So, what’s happened?’ Harry asked. ‘And where exactly are we going?’

‘Out past Widdale,’ Gordy explained. ‘You heard of the Ribblehead Viaduct? Big stone thing, lots of arches, looks good on postcards with a steam train going across it?’

Harry wasn’t so sure but nodded anyway.

‘Well, if you continue along here, that’s where you’ll end up. But we won’t be going that far. We’re stopping at a farm on the way. Like I said, boots would be a sensible choice. But you’re no’ so sensible, are you?’

They zipped past a derelict building on the left-hand side of the road, which stared out at them through two tall, arched windows. Whatever it was, whatever it had been, it looked lonely, Harry thought, and its state of decay almost made him feel sorry for it.

‘Another farm accident?’ Harry asked.

‘Apparently so, aye,’ Gordy said, dropping a gear and accelerating. ‘Not suspicious at all considering what turned up yesterday.’

Harry finished