Chapter 9
NINE
Come morning, and Harry had come to terms with both the fact that he was going on a stag do, and that he would be wearing fancy dress. This was mainly down to Grace being very persuasive once they’d got upstairs, and how quickly she’d removed said fancy dress.
The event itself wasn’t until the evening, with transport arriving late afternoon to take him to the Tan Hill Inn.
Grace was out for the day with her dad, and Harry was, quite to his own surprise, left to his own devices.
He had a whole day to himself, something he rarely, if ever, experienced.
Grace had asked what he was going to do with it, then right away suggested his speech.
‘What speech?’
‘The wedding speech, Harry.’
‘But won’t Ben be doing one?’
‘For him, yes, but not for you.’
‘It’ll be the same thing, though, won’t it? We’re brothers, so...’
At which point, Grace had planted a kiss on Harry’s cheek, grabbed her guns, and with Jess and Cheese at her feet, headed out the door, only to poke her head back into the house before she closed it, with the words, ‘You could even write a poem if you fancied.’
The door was already shut by the time the slipper Harry had grabbed off his foot had thumped into it.
She had a point, he thought, and he’d already been jotting down a few things anyway, such as who to thank, and, well, that was about it, really. He wasn’t one for speeches, but it would certainly give him something to work on during the day, once he’d got the other thing out of the way.
Harry stared at the digital voice recorder.
It was sat on the work surface in the kitchen.
He pressed play, listened to the message again, already had the phone number in his head.
He needed more tea, though, and a couple more slices of toast, so he sorted that out, first, before he did anything else.
Fifteen minutes later, tea and toast gone, Harry was now sitting by the fire, Smudge leaning against his leg, her jaw on his lap.
He’d not lit the fire, as he wasn’t planning on being in the house much.
A speech could be written anywhere, and a good walk with Smudge would be perfect for that.
First, though, he needed to make a call.
With one final listen to the message on the digital voice recorder, Harry tapped the number into his phone and waited. It was answered in four rings.
‘Hello, Harry. You got my message, then?’
The politeness of the voice was somewhat marred by the sliver of meanness shot through every word.
‘I did,’ Harry replied, deciding against saying anything about the crash or the explosion. The last thing he wanted to do was give the person on the other end of the call the impression he had the upper hand.
‘You agree, then, that we should meet.’
‘I do,’ Harry said. ‘See if we can’t put an end to this nonsense before you do something you’ll regret.’
A laugh.
‘Is that a threat, Harry?’
‘I don’t make threats.’
‘And there’s another, isn’t there? You’re a very interesting man, Harry, that’s why I like you.’
‘A feeling not mutually shared.’
A pause, and Harry wasn’t about to fill it.
‘Are you free today?’
The question caught Harry off guard. Was he free?
Was writing a speech enough of an excuse?
And there was the stag do, too, wasn’t there?
But he needed to get to the bottom of whatever this was.
He couldn’t be doing with wondering who else was going to get run off the road, or what might be next on his cousin’s list of things to blow up.
‘Are you?’ he countered.
‘For this? Of course. How would this morning sound?’
Awful, thought Harry, and said, ‘Fine.’
‘Just you and me, though, understand? This is simply a chat, after all, isn’t it? Don’t go trying to do anything brave and foolish.’
Harry didn’t fancy travelling too far, then having to race back, so decided to take control of the location. He ignored the comment about doing something brave and foolish.
‘There’s a village called Reeth,’ he said. ‘Easy to find. Nice village green, plenty of benches to sit on. I’ll meet you there. I’m not difficult to spot.’
Nice and public, too, he thought, so there won’t be much chance of anyone trying anything stupid.
‘What time?’
Harry considered the day in front of him, the speech, the evening at the Tan Hill.
‘Two hours from now,’ he said, and hung up.
Standing up, Harry stretched, washed up his mug and plate, then shoved his feet into his shoes. Smudge had followed him from the sofa to the kitchen and was now sitting in front of the door, staring at him expectantly.
‘Don’t worry,’ Harry said, ‘I’m not leaving you behind.’
As though she’d understood every word, Smudge thumped her tail on the flagstone floor.
He unhooked a jacket from the back of the door, grabbed a dog lead, and then they were outside.
He thought it was probably for the best to get over to Reeth sooner rather than later.
There was a good little walk out the back, across the fields and down to the bridge over the river.
He’d not have time to do the full circuit, all the way around to Grinton and back, but that wasn’t a problem.
The views were inspiring enough, wherever he ended up in Swaledale, and that was a fact no one would ever argue with.
He’d be able to give Smudge a good run, think about the speech, jot down a few notes or inspiring thoughts, assuming he had any, then get back to the green to wait and see.
The journey over from Hawes was, as ever, nothing short of glorious, regardless of the low cloud and threat of rain.
Taking the Buttertubs Pass, Harry weaved his vehicle along the narrow road and down into Swaledale.
The windows of the old Literary Institute and Public Hall in Muker stared at him as he rolled through the village, crossing over the river Swale to push on towards Reeth.
This was a road Harry loved, in a valley he was always at a loss for words to describe.
The beauty here seemed different somehow to the other dales he ventured into.
More often than not, it seemed to him that he’d driven through a portal and landed in a secret realm, a valley lost to the rest of the world, hidden.
By the time Harry arrived in Reeth, he was so entranced by the ancient vale that he’d forgotten why he was there in the first place.
It was only when he switched off the engine, and climbed out of the vehicle with Smudge, that he remembered.
Glancing at his watch, he still had well over an hour to himself, so pushing all thought of his cousin away, he clipped Smudge onto the lead, and made his way down the cobbles, along a narrow path, and finally to a track that led him on towards pastures green.
With no sheep or cattle in the fields, except those scattered on the fellside on the other side of the River Swale, Harry let Smudge off the lead.
The air was rich here, Harry noticed, a bright, damp smell bursting with the scents of the dales, of peat and grass and sheep, and behind it, the dark, smoky tang of burning coal.
Coming to the bridge over the river, Harry checked the time, and pushed on over to the other side. It seemed wrong to come to such a place, and not do the river the honour of seeing it from above, the cloudy sky reflected in its surface, as crows mobbed a buzzard, and somewhere a curlew mewed.
When the time came to return to Reeth, Harry realised he’d done little, if any, thinking about the speech, and certainly hadn’t jotted down any notes.
In many ways, he realised that the issue wasn’t so much what to say, as what not to say, because there was so much to be thankful for.
His life now was unrecognisable. There wasn’t one thing he could think of that hadn’t changed, that wasn’t different to how things had been before he’d driven north that pivotal day.
Wandering back into Reeth, Smudge at his heel, Harry made his way to a wooden bench and sat down.
He took in the view, the fells staring down into the village, the old buildings gathered round the green like wagons pulled into a circle to protect the locals.
He glanced over at the Black Bull, toyed with the idea of popping in for a pint once the meeting with his cousin was over, then looked up towards the Burgoyne, and smiled at the thought of Grace and her friends sweeping into the place in their fancy clothes.
‘Hello, Harry.’
The voice cut into Harry’s thoughts like a scythe. He lifted his eyes slowly, taking in a man in smart shoes, expensive denims, tan leather jacket, and with mean eyes set in a pale face.
‘Found it, then.’
‘Shall we walk?’
Harry shook his head.
‘Just done that, haven’t we, Smudge? Having me a sit down. You’re welcome to join me.’
‘Welcome?’
‘Slip of the tongue.’
The man sat down beside Harry. Smudge moved away from him, and around to Harry’s other side. Good judge of character, he thought.
‘You wanted to talk,’ he said. ‘Here I am. So, talk.’
‘I’m here to offer you a truce, Harry,’ the man said.
Harry was staring across the green, letting his eyes chase sheep up the hills he could see poking up above the roofs of houses.
‘And your way of proving that is to run my detective sergeant off the road, and nearly blow me and two other officers to smithereens, is it?’
‘That was merely to get your attention. I’m not sure a letter would have sufficed.’
‘So, this truce, then,’ said Harry. ‘What do you mean, exactly? It’s not like we’re at war, is it? I’m not personally involved in any investigations which may or may not be ongoing into whatever it is you’re involved with. Truce seems a very grand term, if you think about it.’
‘I am of the opinion that I will have to up my game somewhat to persuade you of a few things, and how I wish for you to be involved in them. Until that time, I am here to tell you that I promise no harm will come to you or yours. You have my word. You can get married, have your honeymoon, and I will leave you alone. Out of respect. And to get things in order.’
‘And there we are, aren’t we?’ Harry said, for the first time twisting round to face his cousin. ‘Probably don’t think I heard the threat in those last few words, but I did. Couldn’t really miss it. Get things in order? Almost like you think I should prepare myself for something.’
The man smiled.
‘You should,’ he said. ‘You will have some decisions to make, Harry. And soon. But until then?’ He stood up.
‘I will leave you to you and yours. You have a wedding to plan, a honeymoon to go on as well, I hope? You will not hear from me until after, but when you do? Let’s just say that an exploding SUV has nothing on what is waiting for you. ’
‘More threats?’ said Harry, then looking his cousin up and down, and he then gestured at him with a nonchalant wave of his hand.
‘You know, you’re actually rather good at this, the whole hardened gangster thing?
Suits you. If you keep this up, there’s a chance you might get exactly what you deserve. ’
‘And what’s that?’
Harry stood up, got in so quick and so close that his cousin stumbled backwards, only to find that Harry simply followed him, stepped on one of his feet, then grabbed his jacket at the neck.
‘Me,’ Harry said, ‘and I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.’
Harry let go, stepped away, and the man fell away from him, only just managing to stop himself ending up on his backside.
‘Have a good wedding, Harry,’ he said, as he turned to leave. ‘And I hope you’ve understood enough about what I’ve said? Or do I need to make myself more clear?’
‘Oh, I think I understand,’ Harry hissed through clenched teeth.
The man smiled.
‘Do you, though?’ he said. Then he scratched his chin and added, ‘We’ll have to see, won’t we?’
‘No, I won’t,’ said Harry.
The man smiled, then winked, and Harry had to squash the urge to punch that same eye out the back of his skull. Then he walked away, and was gone.
Harry turned his attention elsewhere, deciding that a pint at the Black Bull made a good deal of sense right then.
A bite to eat wouldn’t go amiss either, he thought, and was soon sitting inside the pub, Smudge curled up on his feet, a pint on the table in front of him, as he waited, mouth already salivating, for the arrival of a plate of what he guessed would be a very generous portion of sausage and mash. He wasn’t disappointed.