Restless Dead (Harry Grimm Book 5) by David Gatward (english reading book TXT) 📗

had been a cold night, and hiding out in the dark woods, waiting to sneak over to tap a window? In his time, Harry had done more than his fair share of sneaking around in the dark, and he knew just how miserable it could be.

Walking over to the house, Harry came up to the window and stared in, seeing Dan and Jadyn on the other side. The constable, on seeing Harry, smiled and waved. Ignoring him, Harry had a look around beneath the window for some sign that someone had been there the night before. But there were no footprints, no damaged plants, nothing. So just what had caused the tapping?

Harry sighed and strode back into the house, making sure to wipe his shoes clean of any dirt first.

‘Did you see anything?’ Dan asked as Harry entered the lounge.

Harry shook his head and went back to the windows once more. ‘And you’re sure it was from this window you heard the knocking?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Dan said. ‘But I’ve no idea what it was. It really spooked us all, that’s for sure.’

Harry shook his head, doing his best to try and dislodge anything in his mind which might be of help. But with nothing coming loose, he turned away from the window, except as he did so he caught sight of something. At first, he thought it was little more than the thin thread of a spider’s web, and he was about to ignore it, when something scratched at the back of his mind and he leaned in for a closer look.

‘You found something, Boss?’ Jadyn asked.

Harry didn’t answer as his face came to a stop just millimetres from the latch holding the windows closed. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t a spider’s thread, he realised, not unless spiders had grown particularly clever and taken to tying knots.

Harry dipped a hand into a pocket and pulled out an evidence bag.

‘Constable, would you mind just nipping through to the kitchen to fetch a pair of scissors for me, please? I’m sure there’s a pair in a drawer somewhere.’

‘What have you found?’ Dan asked as Jadyn jogged out of the room, but Harry ignored him and dropped his eyes, which was when something else caught his eye, sitting in the thick pile carpet beneath the window. He dropped to his knees and lowered his face to the floor.

‘Everything okay, Boss? I mean, I’m sure praying on the job is fine, but I’ll be honest, I’m surprised to find you doing it.’

Harry heard his detective sergeant’s voice. ‘You got a pair of tweezers or a penknife handy?’ he asked.

‘Always,’ Matt said and Harry heard the man walk over, then saw a hand appear beside his face, a Swiss Army knife clutched in its fingers.

Harry took the knife and removed the tweezers from the handle as Jadyn entered the room and came over with the scissors. The thing in the carpet Harry was able to tease free, clamping it in the tweezers and then slipping it into the evidence bag. Then he was on his feet and back at the window.

‘What do you think this is?’ he asked, handing the evidence bag to Matt, and taking the scissors from Constable Okri while pulling another evidence bag from his pocket and turning back to the window. He then snipped the thread, which was tied around the window latch and hanging down about six inches against the glass, and dropped it into the second bag. ‘And this,’ he said, handing it to Matt.

Matt stared at both bags and Jadyn leaned in for a closer look.

‘This one,’ Matt said, holding up the first bag, ‘is a fishing weight. And I know that because of a childhood spent trying to clip the fiddly little buggers to my line, fishing on various becks, and catching nowt. I’m not a very good fisherman, you see. I mean, I’m a patient man, like, but fishing? Drove me mad!’

‘And that’s fishing line,’ Jadyn said, looking at the other bag. ‘Dad’s a fisherman. A good one, too.’

‘Excuse me, Mr Hurst?’

‘Yes?’ Dan said, coming over to join Harry, Matt, and Jadyn.

‘Do you recognise either of these items?’

Dan leaned in. ‘No,’ he said. ‘What are they anyway?’

‘You didn’t see them last night?’

‘Should I have?’

Harry took the bags from Matt then scratched his head, turning around to hold the bags up to the light coming in through the window, only as he did so, they knocked against the glass.

‘What was that?’ Dan asked.

‘What was what?’ Harry asked.

‘That sound,’ Dan said. ‘Just then. That tap. It wasn’t just me that heard it, was it?’

Harry looked from Dan to the bags in his hand then swung them gently against the window. A tap sounded, dulled by the plastic bag a little. ‘You mean that sound?’

‘Yes, exactly that,’ Dan explained. ‘That tap. It’s the same as the one last night. The one we all heard at the séance.’

Harry stared at the bags in his hand, up at the window again, then thought about everything he’d heard that morning.

‘Matt?’

‘Yes, Boss?’

‘How do you fancy us both going to have a little chat with a spiritualist medium, then?’

Chapter Twenty-Five

It was now the afternoon and Matt had driven Harry out to the small market town of Sedbergh. He had the rest of the team set to various other tasks, to try and pick apart as much as they could about not only what had happened, but about the only possible suspects that they had, those being James’ daughters, Ruth and Patricia, and Patricia’s husband, Dan. And that would involve finding out more about their backgrounds, their work, anything that might be of help.

Harry had also sent a message to Rebecca Sowerby with the name of the tablets that Dan mentioned. As yet, he’d heard nothing back. And Jim was going to be having a chat with Ruth’s son, Anthony, once he returned from school. And of course, there was also the whole sheep rustling thing and to avoid it being lost in