‘Hey, I know my face is pretty bad,’ Harry said, ‘but I don’t think I’ve managed to kill anyone just by looking at them so far. I mean, I’ve tried to, yes, and I’ve wanted to be able to on a number of occasions, but it’s never actually happened. Yet.’
Harry could tell that the doctor just wasn’t convinced. And in Harry’s mind that at least showed that he was someone who took his job seriously and who cared about his patients.
‘It’ll be fine,’ Harry said. ‘There’s nothing to worry about, I promise.’
‘Fine,’ the doctor replied. ‘Follow me, then. It’s not far. I’ll go in, complete my visit, then let Jack know that you’re there, too, and invite you in. How’s that sound?’
‘Just peachy,’ Harry said.
With the doctor heading over to his car, Harry punched in a quick call to Matt.
‘Yes, Boss?’
‘I’ve found Jack Iveson,’ Harry said. ‘Anyone spoken to him yet?’
‘Let me just check . . . Yes, and he’s happy to speak to someone. Jenny was going to head out there in a minute or two.’
‘She doesn’t need to,’ Harry said. ‘I’m on my way there now. He’s a patient of the good doctor, but then I suppose everyone around here is, right?’
‘Jim going with you?’
‘No, he’s staying at the surgery, trying to dig a bit to see if he can find anything about that date. Any news on the others?’
‘Yes, actually,’ Matt said. ‘Gordy and Jaydn are heading out to bring them in for a chat.’
‘Even Nick?’
‘Amazingly, yes,’ Matt said. ‘Though he didn’t exactly sound too happy about it. We’ve commandeered a couple of extra rooms here so we should be fine to see folk without it getting too busy, you know, maintain privacy as well.’
‘Right, I’ll be in touch,’ Harry said, but Matt interrupted.
‘We’ve got a bit of a problem, though, Boss.’
‘What? What problem?’
Harry didn’t need more problems. Two murders was plenty enough to be getting on with.
‘We’ve had a few people knocking on the door, asking what’s going on. And by a few people I pretty much mean angry hordes.’
‘Well tell them to bugger off!’ Harry said. ‘By which I mean, inform them that the police are working hard, blah blah blah, okay?’
‘I’m not sure that’s going to work,’ Matt said. ‘Word spreads quickly round here. I don’t think Swift’s statement to the press yesterday did much good.’
‘What’s the problem?’ Harry asked. ‘Is it just a few concerned citizens or what?’
‘Or what,’ Matt said, and Harry heard the sigh in the man’s voice, a mix of annoyance and despair. ‘They want to know how we’re keeping them safe. Some are saying that they’re too scared to leave their own house. I’ve even had one or two tell me they’re going to sleep with their shotguns under the beds. Others are just a little bit too keen to get out there and see if they can find the person responsible themselves.’
‘Brilliant,’ Harry moaned, his mind suddenly filled with images of gangs of locals driving around the lanes in their four-wheel drives, all armed with shotguns. ‘That’s all we need. A nice bit of panic.’
‘What should I do?’
‘Right now, nothing,’ Harry instructed. ‘Just keep an eye on things. Calm people down. Reassure them. Smile. Actually, don’t smile. Won’t look good to have the police smiling in the middle of a murder investigation.’
‘Will do, boss,’ Matt agreed.
Harry then hung up, as just ahead of him, he watched the doctor pull out in his smart looking vehicle and head off out of the car park.
Harry rolled the Land Rover out onto the road and up behind the doctor, following him left out of the surgery and up out of Hawes, passing the auction mart on his right. A mile or so out of Hawes, the doctor turned right and Harry recognised where he was, as he followed on up a hill into the small village of Burtersett. The weather had eased, Harry was pleased to see, but the Land Rover still felt skittish on the slick wet roads, drifting just a little too much around corners, and forcing him to swear as they continued onwards, and to grip the steering wheel more than a little tightly.
Out of Burtersett, the doctor sped on. Harry followed him up onto the fells, across the junction with the old Roman road, then on and down towards Semerwater. Seeing the lake come into view, Harry was swept back a few weeks to his first investigation in the dale, which had started as a missing persons and then tragically turned into a murder, the body found on its shore. But the lake brought another memory, too, one of being the coldest he had ever been in his entire life, having for some mad reason persuaded himself to have a go at wild swimming, after talking to a couple of the witnesses, who had been in the lake at the time. Looking at it now, though, he wasn’t so sure he fancied going back in any time soon. The lake was a black hole under a brooding sky, and it didn’t exactly look welcoming. It was an unnerving thing to see from on high, Harry thought, as he followed the doctor down the road towards the lake, almost giving him vertigo, the odd feeling that at any point he could be sucked down into it and into oblivion.
Ahead, instead of going to the lake, the doctor turned right and onto Marsett Lane, which clung to the side of the hill, Semerwater visible down to Harry’s left. The road was narrow and in places puddles had worked together to turn into localised floods blocking the way ahead. Harry was pleased that he wasn’t in his own car as he was pretty sure it wouldn’t have made it through some of them. But for the doctor’s Discovery and Harry’s Police Land Rover, a bit of water wasn’t a problem.
A few minutes later, and with Semerwater now having disappeared behind them, Harry followed the doctor into the village of
