To Honour the Dead (4 page)

J
ack Harris had always believed that if you carried hell around within you, and he had plenty of reason to hold the statement to be correct, the same must surely be true of heaven. Not usually a man given to such whimsy, the inspector did experience occasional moments of reflection when away from his police duties and so it was that he found himself pondering the idea next morning as he stood at the summit of the hill. Surveying the misty moorland vista stretching away before him, dogs sitting at his feet and panting after their exertions, Harris was wrapped in silent contemplation as he appreciated his day off.

Taking the time owed to him from a protracted aggravated burglary inquiry the previous month had been a spur-of-the-moment decision the previous evening. After returning to Levton Bridge following the ceremony in Chapel Hill, the inspector had been summoned by Curtis. The divisional commander had just come back from a meeting with the chief constable at headquarters in Roxham at which had been outlined the need to cut overtime due to the force’s financial difficulties. As the smallest force in England, money had always been a concern and all the senior officers realized that cutbacks were the preferable alternative to a merger with one of its larger neighbours. For that reason, Harris had offered only token resistance in the meeting with Curtis and returned to
the CID squad room to announce that he would be taking the following day off.

Such freedom was the reason why Jack Harris had, some years earlier, left his post as a detective inspector with Greater Manchester Police to head north to Levton Bridge. Colleagues in Manchester had struggled to understand the reasoning behind his departure; everyone knew that, having joined GMP after a decade-long military career, Harris had been on the promotional fast-track, his superiors having identified his single-minded approach as something worth nurturing as long as his fiery temper could be kept in check. The decision to give it all up for a rural backwater astonished many and he soon grew weary of trying to explain it.

For the inspector’s part, returning home had not been an easy decision either. He knew from his childhood that the valley was full of people like Esther Morritt with horizons narrowed by the hills that ringed their communities. Harris could understand why they felt like that; he had always cherished the isolating effect of the hills, eagerly grasping the opportunities they had afforded a young man out for adventure. As a teenager, he had spent many hours roaming the moors, always with a dog at his feet, scrabbling up scree slopes and traversing boggy land to pursue his passion for wildlife, spending hours watching the birds that survived in the unforgiving landscape, the ravens and the buzzards, the lapwings and the curlews. Eventually, reluctantly, the young Harris had acknowledged the need to explore beyond his own horizon and left the valley to travel the world with the Military. The hills had waited patiently for him, though, and when the time was right, had called him back. He always knew they would.

It was shortly before 9.30 and the inspector had been walking for the best part of two hours, having left home with the moors still shrouded in the final vestiges of night.
Home was a tumbledown cottage halfway up a nearby hill, largely obscured from the winding road below by a fold in the landscape. With light only just streaking the sky, he had ushered the dogs into the back of the Land Rover and edged the vehicle down the twisted path until it met the main road. After passing through Chapel Hill, not even casting a glance at the memorial, he had parked in a woodland clearing a mile from the village and set off to walk. Now, he stood and breathed in the sharp chill of the November morning.

Glancing to his left, he noticed the gable end of a large house poking through the treetops. He scowled. This was Laurel House and Harris did not wish his peace to be disturbed by thoughts of Rob Mackey, a man he had loathed like few others since an incident the previous year. As the force’s part-time wildlife liaison officer, the inspector had been called in to investigate the shooting of a buzzard on a moor close to where Mackey bred pheasants. Harris had convinced himself that Mackey was responsible. The men exchanged angry words several times during the inquiry and Mackey lodged a complaint with the district commander. Curtis, as ever irked by the inspector’s passion for wildlife at what the commander saw as the expense of more important investigations, demanded that his DCI call off the inquiry. The incident still rankled with Harris.

‘Come on, boys,’ said Harris with a click of the tongue to the dogs as he strode down the hill in the opposite direction to the house. ‘We don’t want him ruining our day out.’

As Jack Harris was turning his back on Laurel House, Rob Mackey was sitting in his kitchen, deep in thought as he nursed a cup of tea that had long since gone cold. His reverie was disturbed by the ringing of his mobile phone, which was lying on the table. For a few moments, Mackey watched the light on the screen but he did not reach out immediately.
Such exquisite torture, he thought, just like it had been with the letter. Wanting to know yet not wanting to know. And knowing anyway. After the phone had rung six times, he sighed and put the phone to his ear.

‘We need to meet before I go back,’ said the voice on the other end. ‘There’s something you need to know.’

Matty Gallagher stood in the middle of the green in Chapel Hill and stared bleakly at the defaced war memorial, the letters ‘DIS’ having been scrawled in bright red paint in front of the word ‘Honour’.

‘Harris will not like this,’ said the sergeant gloomily. ‘It’s the last thing we need ahead of Remembrance Sunday.’

‘I reckon you’re right,’ said Alison Butterfield, emerging from behind the memorial. ‘There’s nothing round the back, Sarge. Just the stuff on the front.’

‘That’s bad enough, isn’t it?’ The sergeant was about to comment further when a thought struck him and he gave her a sly look, vandalism temporarily forgotten. ‘Hey, is it true that you have a new man in your life?’

‘Can’t a girl have any privacy around here?’ The constable seemed genuinely irritated as she walked over to him. She lowered her voice even though they were alone on the green. ‘I knew it was a mistake to tell Des Lomax. Might as well have put it on Twitter.’

‘Didn’t get it from Des. Not sure he even knows what Twitter is. No, I got it from one of the girls in the canteen. And she reckons she got it from Edith.’

‘Jesus Christ, don’t tell me that even the cleaner knows?’

‘’Fraid so, girl.’ He gave her an impish look. ‘Want to know where she got it from?’

Butterfield gave him a scathing look but said nothing.

‘Going to tell me who this feller is, then?’ asked Gallagher. ‘Some rough-neck farmer? I hope he takes his wellies off before he sha—’

‘Not that it is any of your business, but he’s not a farmer, no. He’s actually quite a civilized man.’

‘So he does take his—’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Matty, can we just concentrate on the job in hand?’ snapped Butterfield.

‘As you wish.’ The sergeant held up his hand in mock surrender. It had been a welcome distraction from the vandalism but his expression clouded over as he looked again at the memorial. ‘What a mess.’

‘You going to ring him then?’

‘I have this awful feeling that I may have to,’ sighed the sergeant, glancing at his watch. ‘Ten a.m. He’s probably on top of a hill by now, making eyes at a lesser spotted something or other. Not sure he’ll be best pleased about us ruining his day off.’

‘Us?’ said the constable, patting him on the shoulder and walking back towards the war memorial. ‘You’re the sergeant, you’re the one ringing him.’

‘Yeah, thanks for that.’

Hearing the sound of an engine, the sergeant turned to see a Range Rover pull up alongside the green and a furious Rob Mackey emerge from the driver’s door and stride towards the memorial.

‘Something tells me that this is going to be one of those days,’ sighed Gallagher. ‘Correction, another one of those days.’

By 10.15, Jack Harris and the dogs had dropped down onto the moor where, after walking for a few minutes, the inspector sat down on a rock and rummaged in his haversack for his flask of coffee and biscuits. The dogs sat in front of him, their eyes never leaving the packet of digestives. Harris flicked two biscuits through the air and watched the animals gulp them down.

‘Greedy bastards,’ he chuckled. His mobile phone rang. ‘Jesus, can’t a man get any peace?’

Harris fished the phone out of his Barbour jacket pocket and glanced down at the name on the screen. Gallagher.

‘Matty, lad,’ he said, ‘this had better be important. And I mean really important because this is my day off and if you think …’

‘Someone has vandalized the new war memorial at Chapel Hill.’

‘Vandalized? How?’

‘Painted red letters over it so that it reads “Dishonour”. Rob Mackey has already gone off on one. If you look up, you might just see him. He must be in orbit by now.’

‘And there was me thinking it was a buzzard,’ said Harris, glancing up at the leaden skies. ‘Where are you now? In the village?’

‘Yeah. Butterfield is using her womanly charms to persuade Mackey not to kick down Esther Morritt’s door. I keep telling him it’s more likely to be kids but he won’t listen.’

‘It’s too specific for kids,’ said Harris, tossing another couple of biscuits to the dogs. ‘I mean, they didn’t just slap the paint on, did they? There’s a very pointed message in there, if you ask me. Got to be aimed at Mackey.’

‘I guess so but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s down to Esther, does it? Barry Gough was here yesterday, remember. Trying to waggle his placard about. According to Alison, he was really hacked off at the way he was kicked out of the village by Barnett.’

‘He’s a liability that man.’

‘He certainly riled Barry Gough. And Gough is just the type of crackerjack to do something this stupid.’

‘Not sure I would have said vandalism is his style,’ said Harris, taking a gulp of coffee. ‘Maybe you should have a quiet word with him, just to be sure, though. And Esther as well, for that matter. Be nice to think we could keep a lid on this.’

‘Which is why I rang you. Wondered if you fancied talking to her? Sensitive case and all that. There’ll be lots of media interest once word gets out and I’m hardly her favourite person at the moment so it might make more sense if …’

‘Good try, Matty lad,’ said Harris, standing up, scrunching up the biscuit packet and thrusting it into his bag, ‘but Esther Morritt is your problem. Call it a cultural exchange.’

‘Thought you’d say that,’ said the sergeant gloomily. ‘Think of me while you’re enjoying your hike then.’

‘How many times? I am walking, not hiking. People in stupid bobble hats, they hike.’

‘Yeah, whatever,’ said Gallagher and the phone went dead.

‘Bloody southerners,’ murmured Harris, reaching down to screw the lid back onto his flask.

Having finished his conversation with the inspector, Gallagher walked over to the memorial to join Butterfield, who was standing a few yards from the memorial, watching Rob Mackey as he stared with a thunderous expression at the paint.

‘You not calmed him down then?’ said the sergeant in a low voice.

‘Not sure he’ll listen to anyone, the mood he’s in. I just told him that you were in charge of the inquiry and that he should deal with you.’

‘Now where have I heard that before?’ murmured Gallagher.

The detectives’ attempts to keep the situation low-key were looking increasingly forlorn as a number of villagers started to gather round to watch the altercation.

‘I want that bloody woman arrested!’ said Mackey loudly, turning and striding towards them. ‘She’s a lunatic!’

‘That’s no way to talk about the constable,’ said Gallagher, hoping that the comment would ease the tension. It didn’t.

‘That woman is running a vendetta against me and all you can do is make jokes! You’ve done nothing to protect me from Esther Morritt’s rantings and ravings! And this … this …’ Mackey gestured angrily at the memorial. ‘This is an absolute disgrace.’

‘I agree with you,’ said Gallagher. ‘I just don’t think we should jump to conclusions.’

‘Yeah, come to think of it I did see that little tosspot Barry Gough trying to disrupt things yesterday,’ said Mackey, with a curl of the lip. ‘Should have lamped the little toerag when I had the chance.’

‘I heard you and he had a bust-up a couple of weeks ago. You do seem to have a remarkable gift for making friends, Mr Mackey.’

‘Well, what do you expect me to do? Him and his little mates were in the market place with those stupid placards. I told them what I thought of them and Gough, he gives me some backchat.’ Mackey looked at the memorial. ‘Mind, I still reckon this is down to Esther Morritt. I take it you are going to arrest her?’

‘We will have to …’

‘Because if you won’t, I will.’ Mackey gestured up to the street. ‘I’ll drag the crazy bitch down here by her hair.’

‘Will you please let us handle it?’ said Gallagher sternly, patience finally exhausted. ‘We will go and have a chat with—’

‘Chat … chat! It needs more than a chat!’ Mackey pointed at the memorial stone. ‘Five and a half thousand quid that thing cost me! Five and a half thousand quid!’

‘That’s what they mean by a high price being paid,’ murmured Gallagher, his voice so low that Mackey was unable to make out the words.

‘What? What did you say?’

‘Nothing.’ Gallagher motioned for Butterfield to follow him across the green. Once the detectives were out of Mackey’s
earshot, the sergeant added, ‘They’re off their rockers. All of them.’

‘That’s rough-necks for you.’

‘Yes, thank you, Constable,’ said Gallagher, shooting her a pained look. ‘Come on, let’s get this over with before Rob Mackey bursts a blood vessel.’

Half-way up the street, the sergeant glanced through the front-room window of one of the cottages and tensed.

‘Hello,’ he said quietly.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Butterfield. She watched him walked over and peer through the grimy glass. ‘What you seen?’