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

there’s an ambulance on its way. You just hang on, okay? Don’t you go doing something stupid like dying!’

A sound from the other bedroom, the one he hadn’t yet checked, caught Harry’s attention. He quickly put Ruth into the recovery position on the bed and was on his feet and out of the door just in time to see the shadow of a figure sweeping down the stairs. Harry reached over the bannister from the landing but caught only a snick of cloth.

‘Pat! Stop!’ he shouted, hauling himself around and down the stairs after the figure. ‘Just bloody well stop, will you? Stop!’

At the bottom of the stairs Harry saw that the front door was swinging open and he charged through it, out into the rain once again. Only it was worse now, thick and heavy, and a wind had come along and was twisting it into tumbling waves, which crashed into Harry, making it difficult to see.

Harry looked across the lawn, saw nothing, then a raw yell hacked its way through the storm and he snapped his head left, to the darkness between the two buildings, to the sunken courtyard. The rain stabbed at his face, stinging his eyes as he raced towards what he had heard, a sound of stark, violent fear. Then the sunken courtyard was in front of him and there, lying in its embrace, was the body of Patricia Fletcher, her face staring up at him, a thick pool of red spreading out from the back of her head, the rain already washing it away.

Harry dropped down into the courtyard, fell at Patricia’s side, knew that there was no life in those eyes, but still checked, just to make sure, because that’s what you did. But there was no pulse and Patricia was gone, and Harry slumped back against the wall of the courtyard, cold and wet to the skin, as Patricia’s blood made its slow way towards him, steaming a little in the cold.

Chapter Thirty-One

Harry was sitting in the public bar of The Fountain Hotel in Hawes. The first time he’d been there had been with Liz and Matt a few weeks ago to discuss a case, play darts, and drink beer. This time, darts was definitely not on the menu, of that he was certain.

‘You didn’t need to drive all this way just to speak to me,’ Harry said, staring across the table over the top of his pint. ‘A phone call would’ve been fine, I’m sure.’

‘I disagree,’ said Detective Superintendent Alice Firbank, taking a sip from her gin and tonic. ‘And I needed an excuse to get away for the weekend, so here I am!’

‘But I’m fine,’ Harry said.

‘Yes, but are you, though?’ Firbank said. ‘You’ve had rather a lot on of late, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘I would, yes,’ Harry said, ‘but that’s just life, isn’t it? I’m not saying I don’t appreciate the visit, I do, it’s just that I’m not one for fuss, as I’m sure you know.’

‘I do,’ Firbank said, ‘but this isn’t a fuss, it’s a professional courtesy that I’ve taken full advantage of.’

Harry knew there was no arguing with Firbank so he took a deep gulp of his beer, a pint of Butter Tubs, the same as the last time he’d been there, and said, ‘Well, thank you, Ma’am. It’s appreciated.’

‘Good,’ Firbank said. ‘It’s never easy when an investigation ends up as messy as the one you and your team have just had to deal with.’

‘No, you’re not wrong,’ Harry agreed.

‘And there’s nothing you could have done. You know that, don’t you?’

‘I do,’ Harry said.

‘You don’t sound very convincing.’

Harry slumped back a little on his stool. ‘If I’d checked that other room first, then Patricia, she would be alive, wouldn’t she? That’s a tough one to swallow, that’s all.’

‘You don’t know that,’ Firbank said. ‘Patricia made her own choices.’

‘And I made mine and now she’s dead,’ Harry said.

‘But her sister isn’t,’ Firbank pointed out. ‘If you’d gone into that other room first, for all you know Ruth might not have made it.’

Harry’s response was a low, rumbling grumble.

‘How is she, by the way? And the rest of the family?’

‘She’s back home,’ Harry said, ‘with Anthony.’

‘And Patricia’s husband?’

‘He’s staying around for a while, I think,’ Harry said. ‘The poor bloke, having to deal with all of that.’

‘And he had no idea at all?’

‘Apparently not,’ Harry said. ‘They didn’t really share anything it seems, you know, like a normal couple. He had no idea just how badly her last business had gone south. And it had taken a load of her investments with it.’

‘Desperate times, desperate measures,’ Firbank said.

‘I don’t think she was close to her dad,’ Harry said. ‘And I’m guessing she couldn’t see another way out. She knew they were heading out on his birthday, Dan was away, so she drove up and waited for them to head home.’

‘Inheritance does funny things to people,’ sighed Firbank. ‘And she was on the phone to her dad when the crash happened?’

Harry gave a shallow nod. ‘That was the one thing I couldn’t work out, how she’d know exactly where they’d be and when. Amazing what you can find when you check someone’s phone records, isn’t it? And she didn’t mention it when we interviewed her, which is hardly a surprise, is it?’

‘Not really, no,’ Firbank said.

‘I’m not even sure that she was actually trying to kill them,’ Harry said. ‘Maybe she was just trying to cause an accident, force their hand into selling up and sharing out the money. But that torch really did a number on her mum and instead of a small crash, well, the worst happened, didn’t it?’

‘Then, it sounds like it just became a case of in for a penny, in for a pound,’ said Firbank.

‘She saw an opportunity and took it, I guess,’ Harry said. ‘Drugged her husband with the same stuff she’d used on her dad, Dan’s own sleeping tablets, so that she could sneak out, I’m assuming to ply her dad with