Slipping his phone into a pocket, Harry headed off towards the Hawes Community Office, only to see Matt racing towards him from the same direction.
‘I’ll explain on the way,’ Matt said, jangling the keys towards the police Land Rover in front of him, the vehicle parked outside the Bull’s Head Hotel, just a few yards away from where Harry was stood. ‘Come on.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘Farm accident,’ Matt said.
‘An accident?’ Harry said. ‘Then why the rush?’
Matt stopped. ‘Jim’s out there now.’
‘And?’
‘He doesn’t think it was an accident at all.’
Chapter Four
‘Bloody hell, Matt!’ Harry hissed, as the detective sergeant hurled the four-wheel drive along Beggarman’s Road, sending him up and out of his seat to slam his head into the roof above. ‘You always drive like this?’
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Matt said, and sped up. ‘That better?’
Harry was pretty sure that Land Rovers weren’t supposed to be driven the way Matt was doing so, and he found himself not only hanging on tight to the handle above the passenger door with his left hand, but bracing himself against what was laughingly called a dashboard with his right. And for good measure, he pushed his knees up against it as well, just in case, but all that did was cause some painful chafing.
Matt looked far too relaxed, Harry thought, as he stared at the detective constable, who was driving along with only his left hand on the steering wheel, his right arm leaning out of the driver’s door window, truck-driver style.
Just a few minutes ago Harry had been in Hawes marketplace worrying about his brother. Now he was more than a little concerned about surviving a journey out into the wilds of the dales. And wild it was, with Weatherfell looming down over them on their left, its roots stretching out to link with others that Harry didn’t yet know the names of.
The dales could be both beautiful and bleak in the same stolen moment, and Harry had seen how a quick weather change could turn a picture postcard view into a masterpiece of gothic horror, with howling winds churning up rain clouds to send them racing across the landscape to devour the sun.
Right now, the grey of the morning seemed undecided, and Harry wouldn’t put money on what kind of weather was on its way later on. Clouds were breaking far off, but over them now sat a plume of sallow white, heavy with the threat of worse to come. And to think it had been all sunshine and wasps just a couple of days ago, Harry mused.
Matt dropped a gear, heaved the vehicle onto another road, and headed off again at speed, all without removing his right hand from the window, Harry noticed, somewhat puzzled as to how the man had managed to change gears.
‘Nearly there,’ Matt said, nodding ahead.
Smooth, lush fields lay behind the walls which rose like ramparts on either side of the road.
Matt then pointed and chirped, ‘There it is!’
Harry saw a gap in the wall, assumed Matt was going to slow down, and too late realised that he wasn’t going to do anything of the sort.
‘You mad bastard!’ Harry yelled, as the Land Rover’s tyres squealed on the road, biting into it as Matt swung in left off the road, through the open gate, and up into the field beyond.
‘And here we are!’ Matt said, as though absolutely nothing was wrong with his driving. ‘Nice little drive that, isn’t it? Lovely scenery.’
Harry noticed a couple of barns in the corners of fields further up and wondered if they had stood as long as the walls which hemmed them in. He guessed so, once again amazed at history of the place, how wherever he looked the landscape stretched away from him not just in distance but time, centuries laying out before him, its ghosts restless.
Parked just a little way off in the field Harry saw Jim’s own vehicle, which was another Land Rover, only this one wore proudly its farming heritage, with muddy tyres, plenty of dents and scratches, and tufts of hay sticking out from various quarters. The police had a number of vehicles to use, including the Land Rover he and Matt had driven over in, but Harry had come to understand that they weren’t always best suited to the weather and the terrain, which was why getting Jim preferred his own vehicle. In fact, getting him to part with it in favour of a police vehicle was pretty much akin to prizing the lid from off a particularly well gummed up jar of Marmite.
‘Well would you look at that,’ Matt said, and let out a long whistle.
The sound drew Harry’s attention away from the vehicle and he saw just a way off in front of them, in the direction they were now walking, the front end of a tractor smashed through a drystone wall. He hadn’t noticed it at all from the road and only now, because they were in the field, was it visible.
As they drew closer, Matt at last having slowed down to allow the four-wheel drive to do its job and just pull them easily up through the fields, Harry saw that something else was alongside it. He couldn’t quite make it out yet, its lines hidden by bits of smashed wall, which stood up like broken teeth from the ground beneath, but it was pretty clear that it, too, was not in good shape.
Matt pulled the Land Rover to a stop, turned off the engine, and half shoved, half kicked his door open. ‘Best we go and have a gander then,’ he said.
Harry nodded in agreement, pleased with himself for knowing what Matt was actually talking about.
A figure emerged through a gate in
