Murder on a yorkshire mo.., p.1
Murder on a Yorkshire Moor: Breezy English mystery fiction, page 1
MURDER ON A YORKSHIRE MOOR
Breezy English mystery fiction
Ric Brady
Published by
THE BOOK FOLKS
London, 2023
© Ric Brady
Polite note to the reader
This book is written in British English except where fidelity to other languages or accents is appropriate.
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We hope you enjoy the book.
MURDER ON A YORKSHIRE MOOR is the first standalone mystery in this series by Ric Brady. Look out for the second, BUTCHER ON THE MOOR, coming out soon.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Also in this series
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Chapter One
Henry walked off the footpath and headed up the hill towards the drystone wall that ran along its top. Its lumps of limestone were dry and cracked in places, with some moss growing in exposed spots. These stones had sat in the field for several hundred years, come rain or shine.
The field looked out over the large village of Addingham set in the valley next to the River Wharfe. On the opposite side of the dale was Beamsley Beacon, a hill big for the area, and on its top was the old light tower, which had been used to communicate danger to the neighbouring settlements in days of old.
Henry turned his back to the view and peered up at the drystone wall. It was windy out, and the farmers were muck-spreading on the fields nearby. The sun was out but made hazy by several thin layers of cloud.
His walking boots bounced on the green grass and fresh earth as he climbed the steep incline. The muscles in his old legs were burning as he walked up the mound.
He hadn’t moved this quickly in a while.
He kept his eyes on what was leaning against the wall. Was he really seeing what he thought he was seeing or was this some sort of prank? He looked about the field, just in case a film crew were nearby, but he was definitely alone.
Well, almost alone.
His dog, a small brown and white wire fox terrier, was sniffing around what they’d found. “Tessa!” he said, calling her to heel. She trotted back to him unwillingly. He didn’t want her to do anything silly.
The day would be a hot one for May, but it wasn’t hot yet, and it had rained heavily the previous night. The air was still cold and damp, and Henry was wearing several layers under his fleece.
He still wasn’t sure he was looking at what his eyes were telling him was there, so he called out, “Hello, lad. You alright?”
The young man leaning against the wall didn’t respond. His eyes were closed as if he were asleep. The side of his head rested on his shoulder, and his back was pressed against the stones.
He had dark hair, cut short, and he wore a bright blue rainproof jacket. It was the blue of his jacket that had first attracted Henry’s attention. There wasn’t much blue in these fields.
The young man’s legs were stretched out, and he was missing a shoe. His right one. His white sock had been stained brown with mud.
Henry didn’t recognise the lad from the village. He kept to himself these days and rarely bothered with the newer people who’d moved onto the housing estate. He kept in contact with his neighbours, mind. Mrs Whitehead next door knocked on every day, just after lunchtime. She needed to talk to people more than he did, and he knew she spoke to the other neighbours every day, too. She was passing on gossip about them all, but he pretended he wasn’t aware of this.
Henry searched his pocket for his mobile, an old iPhone he kept in a leather case, but knew he wouldn’t have any signal up here. There never was any. He’d have to walk back into the village, a three-mile walk, to get some. He looked at the young lad, lying against to the drystone wall, and said, “I’ll be right back with help.”
He felt terrible leaving the young man just after he’d found him. Looking around the field, he wondered how long he’d been there. People walked along the public footpaths to the south of the village near the river, but few ventured up here to the north, which lead onto the hills. That was why Henry went up there.
He hadn’t been up for three days as he’d been getting over a bad cough. He decided he was feeling better after having a nasty surprise on the weighing scales that morning.
He called Tessa to heel, as she was back sniffing the young man’s shoe, then Henry turned around and carefully walked down the hill. He didn’t want to slip and break a hip while trying to get help. Imagine the next poor sod who came through here if they found two dead bodies.
* * *
Henry left the footpath and walked through a gate with Tessa running beside his walking boots. He stepped onto the pavement that ran along the side of the road and lead into the village. Trees lined one side of the road, where, beyond them, the new housing estate was. On the other side were the allotments, where he’d once had his, but gave it up as he couldn’t be bothered with the upkeep. Plus, the pollen from the flowers aggravated his asthma.
A few cars passed him, going faster than the forty speed limit, as he held out his mobile in front of him. He was looking at the number of bars that showed the strength of the signal. They told him he still didn’t have any.
A double-decker bus rushed past him, blowing wind and a lungful of diesel fumes into his face. He coughed and spluttered as he breathed them in. The phone signal went from ‘no signal’ to one bar, and he called 999.
It took a while to explain his story to the operator, as he’d been walking so fast he was out of breath. Eventually, he got the message across and said he’d be back at the spot waiting for the police, as it was hard to find. They needed an ambulance, but he didn’t know how they’d get one up there. The ambulance crew would need to bring the stretcher with them, then carry the young man down. Unless they called in a helicopter, but he didn’t think the local hospital had one.
He said he wasn’t sure if the crime scene investigators were needed before they moved the deceased. Henry wasn’t sure what the protocol was these days.
The operator said, “You don’t need to stand near the deceased, sir, if you’re not feeling up to it.” Her voice conveyed concern for Henry, who’d coughed and wheezed throughout the call. She was probably worried about the ambulance crew having to deal with two bodies.
Henry fizzed with rage. “I can’t leave that poor lad up there, can I?” He wheezed again and cursed the high pollen count and the diesel fumes. “I’m retired police, anyway, love,” he said, feeling some strength coming to him. “I’ve seen many deceased in my time.”
He rang off, telling the operator to send the police as quickly as he could. He suspected they’d send two constables from Keighley, and they shouldn’t take too long to arrive. It was a dead body, after all.
He walked back to the gate and paused for a moment to get back his breath. Tessa barked next to him as if she were worried he was about to keel over. “Away with you,” he said.
He searched his fleece’s pockets and pulled out his blue inhaler and took two puffs. It quickly settled his chest. He was just overexcited, that was all. He’d be fine. He hoped.
Chapter Two
The young man’s blue rain jacket made it easy for him to be spotted against the well-watered green grass. The lad was still slumped against the wall, like he’d been out hiking and decided to have a rest. But Henry knew better.
He walked along the footpath while Tessa ran off ahead. His calves and thighs were burning, and his chest was sore, though his coughing and wheezing had calmed down.
He blamed his near-asthma attack on the excitement of finding a body. He knew this would lead to a police investigation, and he’d not been near one of those since he retired ten years back. A few old colleagues had contacted him now and then asking for titbits, but they hadn’t done so in five years. Most of his colleagues had now also retired or taken early redundancy.
He’d kept himself out of that world, telling himself he’d already given enough to it: a marriage, his relationship with his two children – whom he never saw – and his best years. Now he was happy to tinker around his house and see out the end of his twilight. He hadn’t expected to make it through the pandemic, what with his bad chest, but he had. The last time he got an appointment with her, his doctor had said he was doing alright, all considering.
He walked up the hill towards the young man. He’d not moved; not that Henry expected him to, as he was pretty sure he was dead. The telltale signs were there: he wasn’t breathing, and his face was a pale grey.
He wasn’t a bad looker, the young man. He must have had girlfriends. Henry looked around the fields again. How did he end up here? As far as Henry knew, there wasn’t anything around except for a few farms. He knew some families who owned them, but not well enough to tell if this young man belonged to them.
He unzipped his fleece to let some air in. The sun was bearing down on him now as it was nearly lunchtime, and his stomach rumbled. He’d not had much for breakfast, only two slices of brown toast with lemon curd. He could do with his tomato soup now. Plus he was missing PMQs – not that it was worth watching.
Tessa sniffed around the young man’s jeans pocket, and he called her to heel, but she ignored him. “Tessa!” he said, his anger rising. She didn’t move, so he stepped forward and pulled at her blue collar. “I’ll put the lead on you.”
She barked and let him lead her away, but then he looked at the pocket. Was there something in there? He wasn’t allowed to touch the body; it could be classed as interfering with a corpse. He glanced around the fields and saw no sign of the police. Tessa barked again. There was definitely something in there.
“Bloody hell,” he said, kneeling down next to the young man and pulling a pack of tissues from his fleece pocket. He took out a clean one and pulled it over his thumb and forefinger. Leaning close to the young man, he apologised, saying, “Excuse me.”
He stuck his thumb and forefinger into the jeans pocket and felt a small plastic bag inside. He pulled it out and saw that the plastic bag was several inches wide and was filled with white powder. He glanced around the fields to make sure no one was coming.
No one was.
He looked back at the young man, whose head was still lolling to the side. Some strings of saliva lined his cheek. “Right,” Henry said. “Is that it? Drugs?”
The young man couldn’t answer.
“Then again,” Henry said, “if it were drugs, the bag wouldn’t be full.”
The wind carried some chatter over from the next field. Eventually, two uniformed constables appeared at the foot of the hill. They’d taken off their hats and their eyes strained at the sun.
“They’re here,” Henry said, pushing the bag of drugs back inside the young man’s pocket.
* * *
Henry didn’t know the two constables. They seemed to be too young for him to. Maybe they’d joined the force within the past ten years. One was in his early forties, the other looked to be just out of training.
They both seemed unsettled by the walk from their car, which they’d parked on the main road near the gate. Their chubby faces were flush and their brows sweaty.
“You found him like this?” the older one asked. He had introduced himself as PC Brown.
“Aye,” Henry said. Tessa was on her lead, and she was sitting on her haunches next to him.
PC Brown looked about the field. “Know where we are?”
“Two miles north of Addingham,” Henry said. He pointed north into the hazy sky, as the sun had been covered up by fluffy white clouds. “Up there are the hills leading to Silsden.” He pointed south. “Down there’s the route back to Addingham.”
“Yeah, but are we on some farmland?” asked PC Brown.
“I think so,” said Henry. He pointed at the path leading down the hill. “There’s the public footpath, but I think this is farmland.”
PC Brown nodded and seemed to process the information. “Know him?” he asked.
Henry looked down at the young man. “No. Don’t recognise him.”
“Live in the village, do you?”
“Aye, most of my life.”
PC Brown took out a spiral notebook and biro from the pocket on his black tactical vest. He flicked to a fresh page and started scribbling. “What’s your name, sir?”
“Henry Ward.”
PC Brown scribbled his name down with no comment. He obviously didn’t know Henry. He probably was a new hire. “Alright,” PC Brown said. “Can I have your contact details?”
Henry gave them to him while he watched the younger constable standing at the bottom of the hill. He was struggling to get any signal on his radio and was stomping around the field, looking out for sheep’s droppings.
“You’ve not touched the body or searched his pockets or anything?” PC Brown asked.
Henry shook his head. “Left him as he was.”
PC Brown nodded as if he believed him then put his notebook away. He kneeled down next to the young man.
“He’s definitely dead if that’s what you’re thinking,” Henry said.
PC Brown turned to look at him, his expression suggesting he felt a little patronised. “Yes,” he said. “I suspected he was dead, as he hasn’t moved or talked since we’ve been here.”
“That, and he’s not breathing and he’s getting paler and paler.”
PC Brown narrowed his eyes an instant then stood back up. His knees cracked as he hefted his weight upwards. “Right, sir. You can get off.”
“Won’t the detectives want to speak to me?”
“Yes, but they won’t be here until the end of the day.”
“End of the day?” Henry looked at the dead young man. “But you’ve got a body here.”
PC Brown nodded. “There’s no sign of foul play, so it’s not a priority.”
“Not a…” Henry shook his head. There was a full bag of drugs in the lad’s pocket – which could have been planted – and he was left in a field where he was unlikely to be found. And this dolt couldn’t see any foul play? But Henry didn’t want to have to go into the fact he’d found the bag of drugs in the young man’s pocket, as then he’d have to admit to looking inside it. “What about the ambulance?”
PC Brown gestured towards the younger constable. “He’s on that.”
Henry wasn’t impressed with all this. In his day, he’d be on the scene within an hour or two once his division had got the call. A body was a body, no matter how it looked to have died. And from experience, uniformed officers weren’t the best at determining this. It should be left to a trained detective. “What about his shoe?” Henry asked.
PC Brown looked down at the young man’s feet. His right sock was covered with dried mud, which was starting to flake off. “Ah, yeah. I hadn’t spotted that. Have you seen it anywhere?”
“No, but I can go look for it?”
PC Brown shook his head. He probably thought Henry was an old codger looking for something to do, which was only half-true. “No, that’s okay, sir. You get back home and put your feet up.”
“Right, well.” He didn’t want to go, he felt some ownership over the body. He’d found this lad in this field by chance and wanted to see him off in an ambulance. If the boy was local, he’d attend the funeral. He’d introduce himself to the boy’s parents and tell them it was him who found their boy alone and dead in a field and waited with him until help came.
“Thank you for your time, Mr Ward,” said PC Brown, turning his back on him.
“It’s former Detective Chief Inspector Ward,” Henry blurted.
He regretted it immediately as PC Brown turned back around and asked, “What did you say?”
Chapter Three
Henry had to explain that he’d been a detective chief inspector at Bradford for ten years before he retired. He didn’t go into why he retired. He figured the two constables would learn about that when they got back to their station.
PC Brown nodded his head through it all, his eyes growing wider with each revelation, his cheeks getting redder. Henry had started his detective career working on the Ripper case and moved on to handle other big cases in the area, until the Bradford murders in 2010 by the self-styled ‘Crossbow Killer’, his last big case before he retired.
PC Brown’s attitude became more emollient. He smiled a bit more. Only because he was guessing Henry knew the higher-ups in the West Yorkshire Police and was well-positioned to cause a fuss. “Right, sir,” said PC Brown, his ‘sir’ now sounding like he was speaking to a senior officer rather than an annoying old codger. “I’ll go speak to my colleague and see what we can do about getting some detectives and an ambulance here sooner.”
