Detective Inspector Skelgill Boxset 1, page 31
part #1 of Detective Inspector Skelgill Series
‘A bit different to where you hail from?’ ventures Skelgill.
‘Ja – you’re not joking. They warned me it was changeable in Britain – what I didn’t expect was that you have all four seasons every day.’
Skelgill nods. ‘The Lakes gets the highest rainfall in England.’
‘I suppose that’s why there are lakes, nee?’ Greig beams endearingly.
Skelgill grins in solidarity. ‘So what brings you to the North?’
‘Ja – I’m on a two-year exchange. Got a year to go. I coach cricket and rugby in a school in Joberg. On the Highveld. We’re connected to The Wanderers.’
‘The infamous Bullring.’
‘You know your game.’
Skelgill shrugs. ‘That sounds like a high standard you bring with you.’
‘Well, your English boys are not so far behind – just lack a bit of the killer instinct that we tend to breed back home.’
‘Is that why you’re here – to toughen them up?’
Greig smiles apologetically. ‘Don’t get me wrong – we play fair. We don’t generally walk, though.’
‘Nothing wrong with that, eh Leyton?’ Skelgill pops a whole quarter-sandwich into his mouth.
DS Leyton stutters, and then says, seemingly out of the blue, ‘What does Loong mean?’
Skelgill does a kind of double-take, and for a moment must be wondering if DS Leyton has lapsed into Afrikaans. But Greig is unfazed by the Sergeant’s seemingly peculiar question.
‘I get asked that a lot.’ Greig glances across to a point above the servery. There’s a large brass nameplate bearing the words The Loong Pavilion, and this year’s date. ‘One of the boys who went up to university last year, Singaporean – nice little leg-spinner – his father, Mr Loong, evidently paid for this place to be built.’
‘So you might call this the Loong Room?’ DS Leyton grins.
Skelgill rounds on him. ‘Very funny, Leyton – I thought you were a cricket ignoramus?’
DS Leyton shrugs, ‘I’ve been known to stand in front of the Lord’s Tavern with the lads of a Saturday afternoon.’
‘I’ve heard not a lot of cricket gets watched from there.’ Greig, too, knows his subject. ‘Are you in the Barmy Army?’
Skelgill laughs out loud. ‘He’s barmy alright, but that’s where it ends.’
Greig grins amicably. ‘Well, gentlemen, it’s been good speaking with you – but if you don’t mind I promised I’d relieve the scorer so he can get some chow. He missed the tea interval.’
Skelgill puts up a palm to indicate they shouldn’t detain him any longer.
‘Nice speaking with you, er...’ Greig realises he doesn’t know Skelgill’s name, but extends his hand all the same.
‘Dan.’
‘Yeah – nice speaking with you, Dan.’ He turns to DS Leyton. ‘And you too, Leighton – perhaps catch up after your boys have had a bat.’
DS Leyton, a little lost for words, shakes the offered hand and mumbles, ‘Yeah – cheers, mate.’
Greig strides purposefully out of the cafeteria and skips lightly down the pavilion steps. Skelgill, still grinning, carefully reaches out and with a crablike pincer movement extracts a strip of sandwiches. ‘Don’t want to waste these on the scorer. Come on, Leyton – fill your boots and we’ll head for your car.’
*
‘Not bad sarnies, these, Guv.’
Skelgill, chewing, nods in agreement. He swallows and holds up the last of his supply for inspection. ‘Takes a few to fill you up, though.’
‘Wonder what they do with all the crusts?’
‘They’d make decent ground-bait.’
‘Perhaps they feed ‘em to the ducks, Guv?’
‘Leyton, this isn’t Derwentwater – there’s no ducks on Bass Lake.’
‘Really? I thought all lakes had ducks.’
‘There’s wild ducks – but not the greedy fat tame lumps the tourists stuff with French fries.’
‘Oh.’ DS Leyton looks bewildered, as if these were the only kind of ducks. ‘Mind you, Guv – it’s good fun for the kids. Our little ’un still likes chasing ‘em.’
‘A bit like us, eh, Leyton?’
‘How do you mean, Guv?’
‘This.’ Skelgill gestures with both hands in the direction of the rear of Oakthwaite School. ‘The Chief’s wild goose chase.’
DS Leyton, about to take a bite of his last remaining sandwich, looks rather forlornly at Skelgill. ‘Do you still not reckon we’ve got anything, Guv?’
‘Do you?’ Skelgill sounds scathing. He brushes crumbs peremptorily from his lap.
‘What about the computer, Guv? That’s definitely odd.’
Skelgill purses his lips and shakes his head. ‘Aye... but, we’re looking for what? Signs of a possible murder? At the very least, malicious persecution that drove Querrell to drown himself. So, his computer may have been wiped – he could have done it himself – maybe that was his routine after each time he used it. On its own it doesn’t mean a thing, Leyton.’
‘Well, that Snyder gives me the creeps. Imagine being a little nipper and having to go to him for the cane. Strike the fear of God into you.’
‘They don’t cane, Leyton – corporal punishment was outlawed years ago.’
‘Oh – I thought maybe the private schools still have it – Jacobson mentioned it, remember, Guv?’
‘I assumed he was harking back to the good old days.’
‘Not so old, Guv – I recall it well enough.’ DS Leyton affects a pained shudder.
Skelgill stares through the windscreen as if mesmerized by a memory. A regular array of black-tarred toilet outflows emerge from the roughly harled wall of the building at second-floor level. Diagonally, they join a horizontal that feeds into a downpipe. The corresponding washroom windows are frosted, while the smaller clear glass ones on the floor above look like they might be dormitories, sporting stickers, and the odd pile of books capped by a chewed soft toy. It’s a contrasting image of the school to that portrayed by the immaculate neoclassical frontage. After a moment he says, ‘You’re right about one thing, Leyton – Jacobson was off message, as the spin doctors put it.’
‘How do you mean, Guv?’
‘Since he wasn’t on our official list he hadn’t been briefed on the party line. Snyder looked none too pleased when he discovered we’d been in there. I doubt he or Goodman would want us hearing gossip about them putting the squeeze on old Querrell.’
‘I suppose Snyder being Querrell’s direct boss – must be a pain if you’ve got an uncooperative subordinate you can’t get of shot of.’
‘Tell me about it, Leyton.’
‘Ha-ha, Guv.’ DS Leyton grins obediently. ‘But, apart from the missing computer data, it’s just about the only line we’ve got.’
‘Hardly grounds for suspected murder.’ Skelgill’s tone is scornful.
DS Leyton shrugs resignedly. ‘Thing is, Guv, if you ask me all three of them were acting a bit queer – cagey, like.’
‘I wouldn’t have called Jacobson cagey.’
‘Well, no, Guv – but... he was like an old mother hen, clucking about in one corner of the yard so we didn’t notice the nest over in the other.’
A semblance of a grin creases the corners of Skelgill’s severely set mouth. ‘Thing is, Leyton – who doesn’t have a guilty secret? Coppers come poking around – you know how folks are? Think we’ve got x-ray specs and can read their mind. Might be nothing to do with why we’re there, but they behave suspiciously when they hear the skeleton start rattling in the closet.’
DS Leyton is beginning to look exasperated. He throws his hands up in frustration. ‘Well, I wish the Chief had given us more of a steer, Guv. How are we supposed to know why she’s got her knickers in such a bleedin’ twist over this one?’
Skelgill’s phone rings – it’s an unusual tone. As he reaches inside his jacket he smiles inanely at DS Leyton and says, ‘Shall I ask her now?’
DS Leyton feigns injury as Skelgill answers the call.
‘Yes, Ma’am?’
He casts an optimistic glance at DS Leyton.
‘Yes, Ma’am – we’re there now.’
There’s a long silence as he listens. The subtle change in his features suggests the tenor of his superior’s monologue is unfavourable.
‘Well, Ma’am – we... er...’
Evidently he is interrupted.
‘No, Ma’am it was...’
And again.
‘I, er... think we got the names mixed up.’
Now follows a further soliloquy. DS Leyton shrinks supportively in his seat, pulling down an invisible tin hat over his ears.
‘No, Ma’am – I mean yes, Ma’am – we’ll do our best.’
This remark brings a stinging rebuke, if Skelgill’s involuntary wince is anything to go by.
‘Yes Ma’am, I...’
But the Chief has rung off.
DS Leyton slowly turns his head, his expression one of a person anticipating a cuff across the scalp. He knows better than to ask a dumb question at this particular juncture. Instead he just says, sympathetically, ‘Ouch, Guv.’
Skelgill slides the handset inside his jacket and leans back in the passenger seat, folding his arms. After a moment he says, ‘Goodman’s phoned and given her a flea in her ear. “Why are coppers talking to my staff without permission?” He knows about Jacobson – obviously Snyder will have told him – and about Hodgson. Probably knows how many sandwiches we ate as well.’
‘Does he know she put us up to it?’
Skelgill shakes his head slowly. ‘That’s the one small bit of credit we come out with, apparently.’
‘So, what else could we have done, Guv?’
‘Well, Leyton, we’re supposed miraculously to discover something as yet unknown to man, in the dark, with both hands tied behind our backs.’
DS Leyton nods understandingly.
‘Oh – and we’ve got until close of play tomorrow to do it, or else.’
DS Leyton’s demeanour takes on a hint of the hunted animal. ‘Or else what, Guv?’
‘An everlasting, Leyton.’
13. THE GATEHOUSE
‘Jones.’
‘Yes, Guv.’
‘Are you still on duty?’
‘Till late, Guv.’
‘Not the same stakeout, surely?’
‘Well, we’ve moved to another bar – then it’s a club tonight – we’re not past the reconnaissance stage.’
Skelgill audibly grinds his teeth, though the sound probably doesn’t transmit over the airwaves. But he evidently decides to concentrate upon police matters. ‘I need your help, Jones.’
‘Sure, Guv – whatever I can do.’
‘Firstly, see if your aunt can find out where the Head and his Deputy came from. Mr Goodman and Dr Snyder.’
‘Sounds like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Guv.’
‘In this case I’m pretty certain there’s two of them. Snyder mentioned he’d been at a school in Singapore. I didn’t dare ask the Head, he was bristling as it was.’
‘I’ll pass on the request, Guv. It’s going to be tomorrow, though, before we get an answer – she’ll have finished at five today.’
‘Just as early as possible – the Chief’s on the warpath.’
‘That didn’t take long.’
‘You know me, Jones.’
DS Jones inhales to reply, but then checks herself. After a second’s pause she says, ‘What else, Guv?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You said firstly – I assume there’s a secondly?’
‘Ah – Miss Marple. What time do you knock off?’
‘I think the club shuts at midnight weekdays.’
‘Fine – then pick me up at one a.m. on the dot. I’ll text you the directions. I may not be able to communicate with you until I see you, so keep your eyes peeled.’
‘But... Guv, what exactly...?’
‘Thanks, Jones. You know how the signal can be...’
Skelgill takes the handset down from his ear and ends the call.
*
Breathing heavily and dripping water from his hair, Skelgill gingerly wades barefoot through the rocky shallows on the osier-lined eastern shore of Bassenthwaite Lake. It’s a clear night and behind him a waxing gibbous moon sails high over Thornthwaite Forest, illuminating his approach to Oakthwaite’s landing stage and throwing inky shadows beneath its spindly form. He hauls himself with some care onto the splintering timbers and turns to sit in childlike fashion, legs dangling, the water droplets on his naked body glistening like beads of mercury. It might be a scene from a werewolf movie. He turns his head this way and that, and after a minute has satisfied himself that nobody is afoot. The distant engine-rumble of a late-night truck on the A66 reaches across the calm surface, easing up a gear as it leaves the s-bends after Peel Wyke, and fading Cockermouth way. He affects a shudder, perhaps as a reaction to the cold he must be feeling – even in late summer the water temperature rarely exceeds twenty degrees Celsius. He unclips what, apart from his wristwatch, is his only other item of apparel – a bloated waist pack – unzips it with trembling fingers and begins to extract the contents.
Now he curses under his breath – the rudimentary waterproofing system comprising three layers of dog-eared supermarket carrier bags has failed badly. A lightweight mountaineering vest and trousers emerge sodden, and a pair of well-worn slipper-like fell-running shoes are waterlogged to twice their normal density. Rain-soaked gear is an occupational hazard for a hardened amateur fellsman like Skelgill, though such discomfort when on duty (albeit unofficially) must be less familiar. So it’s not without several additional hissed expletives that he contrives to struggle his way into the uncooperative outfit.
The final object in the waist pack is at least impermeable – a small black tubular torch. He presses the lens against his right palm and briefly depresses the on-off switch: a glowing blood-red ring confirms it has survived as advertised. Keeping the torch to hand he sets off, turning almost immediately southwards to follow the running track – little more than a narrow unmade footpath – which passes close by the boathouse as it traces the perimeter of the extensive school grounds. Initially it winds amongst willows and scattered alders – species that can tolerate the vagaries of fluctuating water levels – but as the boundary veers and rises eastwards from the lakeside, the woodland belt thickens with oak and beech and sycamore, robbing Skelgill of most of what little light there is by which to navigate.
Still he walks at a brisk pace, trusting to practised intuition the course of the path, silent upon the damp earth, compressed over decades by the thousands of pad-pad-pad footsteps of reluctant schoolboys, their ghosts perhaps still running. But, while the current crop of would-be harriers are safely tucked up in their dorms, more ancient forest inhabitants are abroad. In a glade, Skelgill pauses to watch a pair of Natterer’s bats hawking acrobatically for moths, while the insistent wick-wick-wick of a tawny owl ahead tells him all is clear. He moves on, re-entering the musty, velvety void beneath the trees, for a moment more vivid until his senses readjust and he detects a low shape moving his way. A warning flash of his torch reveals two-tone headgear, and simultaneously sends its wearer scuttling noisily into the undergrowth.
Skelgill covers the mile and a half to the gatehouse inside fifteen minutes, though in the darkness time and direction can lose their linear quality. When it appears on his right, the shadow of the high wall that marks Oakthwaite’s boundary with the winding lane he drove with DS Leyton must be a reassuring sight. He halts some twenty yards short of the unlit property and waits, breathing through his nose, listening intently. But the only sound is the lightest patter of leaves in the canopy, as irregular air currents disturb its minutely tiled surface. He checks his watch – it’s already after twelve-thirty – perhaps he misjudged the swim; his rendezvous with DS Jones is impending.
The footpath passes the rear of the cottage and invisibly crosses the main driveway, reappearing as a vague smudge that divides the undergrowth beyond. Skelgill stalks towards the back door, but makes a right turn and skirts the building, taking care to tread on the soakaway gravel that expediently accepts no tracks. Rounding the corner that incorporates the jutting toilet extension, he stops and, facing the wall, pulls his sleeves over his hands as makeshift mittens, then reaches up and opens the small window he had unlatched on his unscheduled visit earlier. A hop-cum-heave sees him sliding snakelike over the sill and into the bijou cubicle.
Once within he pulls back his cuffs – his fingerprints are already in all the expected places, his presence thoroughly witnessed only hours earlier. Cautiously entering the main living space, he makes for the stair-ladder – it creaks alarmingly as he ascends – and raises his head into the attic space. A quick sweep of his torch confirms he’s alone. A forsaken sleeping bag is cast roughly upon a single mattress that rests in turn on the bare boards and, beyond, cramped beneath the low eaves, a chest of drawers and wardrobe, of knotted wood, stand slightly askew on the uneven surface. Skelgill kills the torch beam; the aspect of the room changing as filtered moonlight diffuses in from the rear-facing of the two dormer windows that nestle within opposite sides of the roof.
He descends, bending at the knee with each step to cushion his weight. Regaining the unyielding stone floor he makes a beeline for the old typewriter. It sits in the gloom, a Dickensian presence; what forlorn beats have its keys tapped out, what expectations of hope and despair? Now Skelgill turns on the torch again and grips it between his teeth. He reaches out with both hands and experimentally fiddles with the knobs and levers on either side of the antique machine until he finds the combination to release the sprocket that restrains the ribbon. Carefully he winds it back a few inches, then takes the torch in hand and stoops to examine the exposed strip. For a moment he stiffens, as if disbelieving of what he sees: the tape is blank. Now he repeats the process, grimacing as he bites on the torch. He unwinds a few more inches – and again checks it minutely. He shakes his head, and then rewinds the ribbon in the forward direction. After a final inspection he switches off the torch and stands upright, staring out into the darkness of the school driveway.
