It was mid-afternoon and, having spoken to Sowerby briefly on the phone, Harry had insisted on heading over to have a look at the two bodies for himself.
‘But I’ve given you all the information you need.’
‘I’d still prefer to speak to you face to face and to see the bodies.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t need to give you a reason. It’s my job. And yours. I’ll be there in an hour.’
‘But I’m busy!’
‘Yes, I know you are: with me.’
It wasn’t ghoulish fascination. Instead, it was because sometimes seeing things for real helped him to sort out his own thoughts. Also, Harry preferred to have a face rather than just a name. These were people who had suffered, usually terribly, and it was his job to find out who had done bad things to them and then put them away as quickly as possible and for as long as possible. In some ways, he almost felt like he owed it to the victims to introduce himself, to let them know that he was going to do everything within his power to give them the justice they deserved. Maybe it was a bit old fashioned, but what was wrong with that?
The room was like every other mortuary Harry had ever been in, all stainless steel and the disturbingly confused scent of death and disinfectant. The vapour rub which he had dabbed under his nose before handing it to Jim to do the same was only so effective and the reek still pushed on through. It was a cloying sweet sourness and just when you thought it was gone, it would swing back and churn your stomach.
Bright lights gave the room a washed-out glow. It was a place devoid of colour, a silvery grey palette as lifeless as the bodies hiding silently in the freezer drawers in the wall.
Harry stared at the two body-shaped sheets in front of him. ‘You don’t have to be here for this,’ he said, glancing over at Jim. ‘You can just wait for me outside. This won’t take long, I’m sure.’
‘I want to be,’ Jim replied. ‘Well, I don’t mean that I want to be, because there’s plenty of other places I’d rather be, but I think I should be, if you know what I mean.’
‘I do,’ Harry said, once again impressed with Jim and his attitude to his job, then turned his attention to the piercing stare he was receiving from the pathologist.
‘Thanks for seeing us,’ he said, working hard at an attempt to keep things civil between them. ‘It’s been a busy couple of day, hasn’t it?’
‘It’s always busy,’ Sowerby said. ‘People die every day. Sometimes horribly. It’s what happens.’
Harry stepped forward, bringing himself closer to the two bodies thankfully still hidden from sight. ‘So, which one’s which, then?’
‘The one nearest you is John Capstick,’ Sowerby said, with a quick point of a finger. ‘This one is Mr Hutchison.’
‘Hutchinson?’ Harry said.
‘No, Hutchison. Only one en. Don’t ask me why. Can well imagine he spent far too much time correcting people on that one.’
Harry took a look at the as yet unrevealed body as it lay before them. Whoever this Mr Hutchison was, he was certainly tall. Not massive, just long, Harry thought. Probably six four. The kind of height that, if you have it, you exaggerate a bit further, and suddenly everyone thinks your six six.
‘What do we know about him, then?’ Jim asked. ‘I don’t recognise the name.’
Sowerby grabbed a clipboard from behind her. ‘Hutchison, Barry,’ she said. ‘Born 1970. He’s from Richmond.’
‘Then what the hell is he doing in a slurry pit in Widdale on the other side of Hawes?’ Jim asked.
‘What about witness statements?’ Harry asked. ‘Anyone see anything?’
‘Not a thing,’ Sowerby said, shaking her head. She stepped forward and reached out to pull back the sheet, revealing the man’s face and torso. The body was grey and no longer covered in cow muck, which Harry was relieved about. However, with the removal of the sheet, he noticed the strangely sweet tang of dung in the air, the stench of it still clearly clinging to the body. It mixed appallingly with the underlying scent of delayed decay around them and Harry found himself having to really focus to not let it get to him and turn his stomach too much.
‘So, what do we know?’ Harry asked.
‘Same MO as yesterday,’ said Sowerby and pointed at the body’s neck. ‘See here? Bruising. Not strangulation, because he didn’t die like that. Just enough to knock him out. But there’s more of it, like it was done twice. Then there’s this . . .’
Harry looked to where the pathologist was pointing, which was at Hutchison’s wrists. ‘What exactly is it that you’re showing me?’
All Harry could see was wrinkled flesh, like the skin on a joint of pork.
‘There’s bruising at the wrists,’ explained Sowerby. ‘So, I would suggest that he was tied up as well.’
‘What, he was chucked in with his hands lashed together?’
Sowerby shook her head. ‘This is how we found him. There was nothing on the wrists.’
Harry could feel his brain seizing up. ‘So someone incapacitated him, tied him up, presumably to transport him from wherever he was to the farm, then put a choke hold on him again, before untying him and throwing him in the slurry pit? Why do that?’
Sowerby shrugged. ‘Why do any of it? And it looks that way, yes. Oh, and he was gagged as well, and that was removed before he was thrown in. Really went for it this time, whoever it was.’ She pointed at some marks on the dead man’s face.
‘And that wasn’t found either?’ Harry asked. ‘The gag or whatever it was that was shoved in his mouth?’
‘No. Just the feather.’
‘So, how did he actually die, then?’ Jim asked.
‘He drowned,’ Sowerby said. ‘Lungs were full of cow shit.’
‘Jesus . . .’ Harry muttered.
‘He didn’t stand a chance,’ Sowerby explained. ‘At that end, the slurry is about ten feet
