‘Right then,’ Harry said at last, the bacon butty demolished, and his pint mug of tea halfway to being gone, ‘best we get something up on that board.’
He stood up, grabbed a drywipe pen and pulled the cap off, then pointed at the whiteboard which had the name ‘John Capstick’ written on it, a few other scant notes, and nothing else. It didn’t exactly inspire confidence in him that this was going to be easy.
‘Should we not wait for Jenny?’ Jim asked.
‘Why?’
‘She was doing the board, wasn’t she?’
‘I’m pretty sure that the three of us can do it just as well,’ Harry said. ‘I’ve used a pen before and it may surprise you to hear, I know, but I’ve even been known to write on a board screwed to a wall. Multi-talented.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
Harry knew he was being sharp, but sometimes he just couldn’t be doing with people being precious about things, and more times than he cared to remember, he’d found the board to be one of those things. From the way some lay it out, to what colour pens others used, the whole area of The Board in many ways got right on his nerves. It was a useful thing, and he was a big fan of its simplicity, the fact that it wasn’t computer generated and all technical, but as far as Harry was concerned, no board in any investigation belonged to any one person.
The office door opened.
‘Hi Jenny,’ Jim said, then glanced at Harry who saw the smile on his face. ‘Look, it’s Liz and Jenny. Fancy that!’
Jenny strode in and caught sight of where Harry was standing. Liz sat down between Matt and Jim.
‘Seems I got here just in time,’ Jenny said and before Harry was even aware of what was happening, the Detective Constable had plucked the pen from out of his hand and was standing at the other side of the board. ‘So, what have we got, then?’
Harry caught Jim looking at him, laughter creasing the corners of his eyes, and he sat back down. ‘Before all that,’ he said, ‘what happened with you two, then?’
‘You missed a classic,’ Matt said. ‘Death by slurry!’
‘Yeah, I’m not really convinced we actually missed out at all,’ Liz said.
‘Well, come on then,’ Jim said. ‘Anything exciting, or not?’
Liz pulled a sandwich packet from her pocket, tore it open, and handed half to Jenny. ‘Two kids skiving off school,’ she said. ‘They’d been down at the tip, bin diving! Got caught, we were called in, and we had to sort it out.’
‘How’s that a domestic?’ Matt asked.
‘Oh, that’s easy,’ Jenny said. ‘Just throw in a husband in a white vest with a can of Special Brew in one hand, and a wife who had moved on from Special Brew to something stronger by the time we arrived, and you can let your imagination do the rest.’
‘A wee bit shouty, then,’ said Matt, in a pretty terrible Scottish accent. ‘As Gordy would say.’
‘A wee bit shouty indeed,’ Liz nodded.
‘Anyway,’ Harry said, bringing everyone back to why they were actually all there to begin with. ‘The board . . .’
‘The feather from yesterday,’ Jim offered first. ‘The one found in John’s mouth. It’s an eagle feather.’
Jenny jotted that down on the board, and as the conversation continued, started to join points up with lines if she thought it necessary. ‘Why do that, then?’ she asked. ‘Seems a bit weird.’
‘What, stuff something in his mouth?’ Matt asked.
‘No, not just that,’ Jenny said. ‘Why an eagle feather? Seems a bit specific.’
‘Yeah,’ Liz said, her mouth a little too full with sandwich, ‘why not just a pigeon feather, something easy to find? And just where the hell does anyone get an eagle feather from, anyway?’
‘Maybe it’s some kind of reference to being a predator,’ Matt offered. ‘Birds of prey, right? They’re pretty amazing predators and maybe that’s what our killer thinks he or she is.’
‘There was another today as well,’ Harry said. ‘Found in the second victim’s mouth. Don’t know if it’s an eagle feather, but I’d put money on it being the same.’
‘And we know that John was incapacitated before he was crushed,’ Matt said. ‘Someone used a sleeper hold on him, knocked him out, then drove him up into the field before finishing him off.’
‘Which to my mind rules out Nick,’ Jim said. ‘John’s a big bloke. Nick isn’t. Even if Nick managed to knock him out, there’s no way he could get him up to the field. Doubt he could drag him even a foot or two.’
‘Someone did though,’ said Harry. ‘Bill, that farmer I spoke to over in Oughtershaw, he saw them, Saturday morning. Two people in the tractor. He assumed it was Nick, but if it wasn’t him, then . . .’ Another thought bumped its way into Harry’s mind. ‘So where was John when he was attacked?’
Silence took a seat in the room.
‘Back at the house, I suppose,’ Jim said.
Harry’s stomach twisted just enough. ‘I need forensics to go over there ASAP,’ he said. ‘I know there’s probably nothing, particularly as we’ve all been in there, but it’s worth a look, just in case.’
Jim quickly made a call while everyone waited. ‘Sorted,’ he said.
‘Good,’ nodded Harry.
What about the fact that they’re both farm accidents?’ Matt asked.
‘Well, for a start,
