Detective Inspector Skelgill Boxset 1, page 42
part #1 of Detective Inspector Skelgill Series
Skelgill nods.
‘Not common, but not unknown – first time this academic year. He said the most usual thing is for a new boy to get cold feet or be homesick in first term. Then they might do a bunk. Unless they’re Chinese, I suppose.’
‘Can’t be easy to keep tabs on everyone.’ Skelgill sounds a little more conciliatory.
‘They have a strict rule – up until sixth form they’re not allowed to leave the school boundaries. Except on official trips and accompanied walking and running events like this Skiddaw Challenge. But he did say kids sometimes go off the radar in the grounds, especially at weekends when they’ve got free time. Or they might be doing project work and forget to come back to assembly or chapel service and whatnot.’
Skelgill peers up at the fells to their left. The drizzle has thinned to the faintest of opaque hues and there’s a semblance of brightness in the cloud. He blinks slowly a few times as if he’s trying to accustom his eyes to the improving light. ‘Sounds a bit like an open prison, don’t you think, Leyton?’
DS Leyton ponders, tilting his head from side to side. ‘I reckon prison’s a softer option, Guv – no fell-running and no exams.’
‘Maybe there’s a lesson there, Leyton.’
‘I reckon a fair few of the kids at my school learned it pretty quick, Guv.’
Skelgill swallows the last of his tea and crushes the polystyrene cup, which he absently hands to DS Leyton rather like a child would to its parent.
‘So what’s Snyder’s view?’
‘He reckons the boy’s not on the site, Guv.’
‘Which matches Goodman’s opinion.’
‘Suppose they’ve discussed it, Guv.’
‘Goodman was more concerned with PR as usual.’
DS Leyton nods. ‘He looked a bit shocked when you mentioned that Marina place, Guv – where did you pull that one from?’
Skelgill winks. ‘Did you notice his Rolex?’
‘I did, Guv.’
‘I don’t recall him wearing it last week.’
‘Think it’s a fake he picked up in Singapore?’
‘I think it’s from Singapore.’
DS Leyton purses his lips and nods thoughtfully.
‘How was Snyder – did he seem concerned?’
‘I wouldn’t say concerned, Guv – but he’s obviously taking it seriously. I’d say he considers the ball’s now in our court.’
Skelgill drums a rat-a-tat-tat with his fingernails on the dashboard. ‘That would be fine if we knew Cholmondeley left the school like the other boys. At the moment it seems like the last sighting we’ve got is by Greig at Skiddaw High Man just before noon. You’d better speak to the teacher who was marshalling the lane – get his details from Greig.’
‘Sure, Guv.’
‘And make arrangements for a proper search – maybe later this afternoon if nothing comes in on the family and friends front. You’ll need plans of the school – loft access, roof ladders, outbuildings, old wells – they’ll have them for contractors and maintenance.’
‘Probably Snyder, Guv.’
‘And we’ll need to get top-line statements from all the staff – and any of the boys that might have seen him on the route – especially on the way down.’
‘Right, Guv – I’ll draft in a couple of DCs from the farm thefts case.’
Skelgill slaps his waterproof-clad thighs and unlatches the car door.
‘What are you going to do, Guv?’
‘Climb Skiddaw.’
DS Leyton shakes his head. ‘The Chief’s going to be frantic, Guv – thinking he’s been out on the hills for two days. Could he survive?’
Skelgill compresses his lips. ‘Depends. But no reason why not. It’s been mild. Cold wouldn’t be too much of a problem if you kept out of the wind. Drinking water might be an issue.’
‘Could he just be lost, Guv?’
Skelgill shakes his head. ‘You can’t really get lost in the Lakes – not in summer. Sooner or later in you come across a farm or a walker with a mobile. Someone missing is more likely to be injured and trapped out of sight.’
Skelgill boots open the door with his chunky Vibram soles and slides out of the seat. He turns and bends back into the car.
‘Better put the underwater search unit on alert.’
DS Leyton is silent for a moment. Then he puffs out his cheeks and says, ‘I meant to say, Guv – they don’t think he can swim.’
26. SKIDDAW
Skiddaw and its non-identical twin sentinel Blencathra squat ominously like a pair of great muscle-bound bouncers, guarding the northern gateway proper of the Lake District. The former is one of only four mountains in England that rise above three thousand feet, on a clear day it is visible from the Devil’s Beef Tub north of Moffat, a good seventy miles as the crow flies. However, from an aesthetic perspective Skiddaw would be low on most hill-baggers’ lists of favourite peaks. Though impressive for its sheer bulk, critical examination reveals it to be somewhat nondescript, an undistinguished massif marked in ascending bands of grass, bracken, heather and mudstone scree. Its redeeming feature is the view it commands of almost every other summit in Lakeland, and a good part of Scotland, to boot.
Had young Cholmondeley gone missing on neighbouring Blencathra, Skelgill might have harboured altogether different fears about his fate. Blencathra may not be in the ‘three thousand club’ (standing one hundred and fifty-three feet short), but from an adventurer’s viewpoint it is blessed with shattered escarpments and razor-like arêtes, such as the infamous Sharp Edge, site of many a scrambling mishap down the years, and deaths in double figures. While Blencathra is not a mountain to be taken lightly, to fall off Skiddaw takes a particular talent.
Skiddaw’s approachability extends to a car park at the end of Gale Road, just beneath the more modest Latrigg, where the ill-equipped tourist may alight at an altitude of one thousand feet. This means the summit can be gained in little more than a gentle amble along a wide and well-worn path over mildly ascending and undemanding terrain, which, as Wainwright noted, has been ‘derided as a route for grandmothers and babies’.
Despite Mike Greig’s account of Cholmondeley having made it through the checkpoint at the summit, Skelgill eschews the easy ascent, and instead opts to follow the course of the entire Skiddaw Challenge. He parks at the school and, leaving the grounds by a rather unconventional route of his own making, joins the footpath that forms the upward leg, striding out at a pace that would leave most schoolboy runners trailing in his wake.
From a seasoned walker’s angle the weather is steadily improving. The occlusion is giving way to the remnants of its cold front: the cloud is breaking and a stiff south-westerly breeze is picking up. The air might have a bite to it, but between abrupt showers of sleet the visibility is sharpening, bringing the wider surroundings into focus. By the time Skelgill reaches the triangulation pillar at Skiddaw High Man, the cloud base has lifted from the tops.
A raven knifes into the headwind, barking brok-brok to an unseen companion, while a plucky meadow pipit attempts an aerial display with limited success. A couple of distant bent walkers are poling slowly from the direction of Skiddaw Little Man, perhaps having heeded Wainwright’s advice about its viewpoint. In the immediate vicinity there is no human trace, no remnant of Saturday’s checkpoint – not that Skelgill would have expected anything. Nonetheless he carefully inspects the ground for any clue, before widening his search with a thorough 360-degree scan of the broad grey pebble-beach-like summit area.
After a minute he returns to the pillar and places both hands on the brass plate, closing his eyes as if he’s trying to divine some otherwise intangible vibe, to tap into the mountain’s memory of footsteps felt and voices heard two days earlier. His own contemporaneous hill experience, albeit at a kinder altitude, was of light but persistently driving rain, corroborating Mike Greig’s estimation that it was a time for putting one’s head down into the wind. The restricted visibility at three thousand feet – perhaps as little as ten yards – might have been irrelevant when the runners were simply following the path beneath their dripping noses.
This tactic would have served the boys fine provided they held to their course – and clearly most of them did just that. Greig had sent them off on the correct bearing – directly into the westerly – along a heavily worn pathway that quickly descends into a smooth-sided gully, before emerging on the obvious track that runs down to Little Knott. It is a route, as Skelgill already knows without re-tracing it, which is simple to follow, regardless of the visibility. In any event, well before Little Knott the mist would have thinned sufficiently to afford a wider view and enable the runners to keep their bearings. Moreover, as Skelgill noted and Greig confirmed, Mr Querrell had cleverly designed the challenge to make redundant the notion of taking short cuts. Quite simply, the best way home was to stick to the official course.
Naturally, had a boy gone off in the wrong direction on the summit plateau, there would be considerable scope to get lost. To the north and east of Skiddaw lies a great moorland wilderness, largely disregarded by hillwalkers, a good fifty square miles of undulating territory strewn with lesser-known peaks whose names seem to invite the hapless orienteer: Meal Fell, Longlands Fell and Great Cockup. As Skelgill is wont to put it after a few pints, only ‘sniffing dogs or seeker helicopters’ could effectively locate a missing person in these heathery wastes.
Having apparently satisfied himself that there is no more to be learned at the summit, Skelgill begins to pick his way down the return stretch, albeit at a more measured pace than he came up. He has extended his walking poles to their maximum limit, and – thus not needing any longer to watch his step – continuously scans the landscape on the downhill side of his course (presumably on the principle that people rarely stray against the influence of gravity). If he were descending Grey Knotts over at Honister there would be plumbago adits to worry about – horizontal shafts from which graphite was mined as far back as the sixteenth century. Nearby Blencathra bears similar scars, chiselled out by zealous Victorians in search of lead and other precious ores. Such mines might tempt the curious schoolboy, unmindful of their perilous part-collapsed tunnels and pitch-dark passageways that open into unguarded vertical pits. Elsewhere, many of the region’s popular prominences are marred by man’s longstanding demand for its world-renowned slate.
But this is Skiddaw, one of the oldest mountains in the Lakes, a great pile of Ordovician mudstone that flakes and crumbles when exposed, and which is consequently of no commercial value. While much of Skelgill’s training – and indeed live action – in his voluntary capacity as a member of the local mountain rescue team has seen him hauling dummies from dank pits and dangling in water-filled shafts throughout the district, Skiddaw has not featured in such endeavours. Thus unblemished as regards intrusive human excavations, and in combination with its relatively benign topography, Skiddaw must be one of the safest mountains on which to get lost.
As such, Skelgill spends precious little time off the beaten track. And, while the mountain rescue team remains a resource upon which he could swiftly call – their familiarity with the terrain giving them an advantage over a police unit mobilised for the same purpose – for the present he has evidently decided to conduct the preliminary assessment solo. Perhaps he is not convinced that the boy is missing on the hill, and is merely retracing his steps to satisfy himself that this hunch is correct: a frustrating but necessary use of time, though minimised through this strategy.
Indeed, on only three occasions does he divert to inspect a passing feature – a small bluff, a rocky beck, a boulder patch – where perhaps a person might lie concealed. In general the terrain offers little to suggest someone might have strayed from their true course: no trace of stones dislodged, no path thrashed into the springy green bracken.
And so, uneventfully, Skelgill reaches a stile beyond which is the lane. The thump of his boots upon the tarmac disturbs a foraging woodpigeon; it departs with a battering of wings flashing white. He stands facing in the direction of the school, which lies out of sight about a mile distant. Then he surveys the immediate environs: dry-stone walls border the narrow roadway, backed by gnarled hawthorns and the odd spindly ash. There is no place for a car to park, nor even a suitable sheltered spot for a marshal to station himself – perhaps small wonder the teacher in question was keen to call it a day at the earliest opportunity.
On the opposite side of the lane a new-looking gate with a galvanised hunting latch marks the entrance into what must be the grounds of Oakthwaite. A discreet private property sign with the school’s acorn logo confirms this supposition. Skelgill wanders across and gives the gate a shove: it is well balanced and recently oiled, and swings back easily into the closed position. Now he stares again down the lane, as if trying to decide which route he should take – or, perhaps, which option Cholmondeley would have chosen: the easy short cut to a warm shower and hot chocolate, or the looping jogging track that is twice the distance? He has not spoken to the boy himself, and has only DS Leyton’s account to go on – though he knows the Chief’s nature well enough. If the boy has inherited any of her grit (a quality Skelgill grudgingly admires), then – combined with the ethos no doubt drummed into him by the likes of Mr Querrell – he will surely have taken the ‘honourable’ route, despite his low ranking in the field. He will have completed the challenge in full.
After a few moments it seems Skelgill may have come to this conclusion. He takes a last look at the lane and then vaults the gate into the grounds of Oakthwaite.
27. OAKTHWAITE SCHOOL
‘Ah – there you are, Guv. I thought I might find you coming back about now.’
Skelgill, standing one-legged and leaning on his car for support, momentarily glances up from inspecting the boot that he appears to be sniffing, an expression of distaste creasing his windswept features.
‘Everything alright, Guv?’
Skelgill makes a scoffing sound and flings the heavy item of footwear onto the gravel of the school car park. ‘Careless dog owners, Leyton. Got a carrier bag on you?’
DS Leyton digs into his pocket for his keys, and pops open the trunk of his own vehicle. From a bulging plastic bag he extracts one of many others screwed up inside it. He pulls it into shape and expertly gloves the offending boot, inverting the bag and handing it to Skelgill.
‘I’m doing this all the time with the kids’ shoes, Guv – used to be nappies, now it’s shoes.’
‘Where are the dog wardens when you need them.’ Skelgill says this as a statement rather than a question, and his tone sounds flat and despondent.
DS Leyton inhales rather apprehensively, before saying, ‘Nothing on the kid, Guv – not beyond Greig seeing him during the race.’
Skelgill hops around to the back of his car and fishes out his shoes from beneath the opened tailgate, then lowers himself onto the protruding flatbed to complete the change of footwear.
‘He’s not on the hill, Leyton.’
DS Leyton frowns. ‘But, Guv – surely you can’t know that? I’ve got a search team lined up to start – once you give them the nod.’
Skelgill remains seated. He licks his lips and casts about over his shoulder as though he is looking for something to drink. ‘So tell me about nothing.’
DS Leyton looks a little crestfallen. ‘In a way, Guv – it’s as good as a positive sighting. I reckon there’s only a slim chance that he came back to the school buildings.’
‘Nobody saw him arrive, change, leave?’
DS Leyton shakes his head, but now he becomes more animated. He paces to and fro before his superior. ‘It would have meant the boy completing the last stretch with a gap of at least three or four minutes between him and the runners either side of him.’ He chops out the time intervals in mid-air with his chunky hands. ‘Otherwise someone would have seen him get changed. It’s not impossible, but seems unlikely. They also think if he were planning to leave, he’d have gone through the internal changing room door and along to his dorm to collect some gear – even just a jacket or his wallet or watch. He’d have to pass the housemother’s day-room, and she says she was sitting there with the door open while the boys were coming back.’
‘What about the teacher who was marshalling the lane?’
‘As we thought, Guv. He walked back down to the school and drove straight home in his car. Lives over at Pooley Bridge. Reckons he was there before twelve. Then he went up to Carlisle for the rest of the weekend to stay with the in-laws, with the missus in tow.’
Skelgill nods. ‘Make a note to cross-check those timings with his wife.’
DS Leyton pulls his notebook from his jacket. As he begins to write, he says, ‘We’ve already spoken to several of the boys who were towards the back of the race, Guv – they confirm there was no marshal in the lane when they came through.’
Skelgill inclines his head in acknowledgement that his Sergeant has appreciated the potential significance of this point. ‘And none of the other boys who were picked up by their relatives saw anything of him?’
DS Leyton shakes his head. ‘We’re contacting all the parents. But I reckon we’d have heard about that straight away, Guv.’
‘I know, Leyton.’
‘It’s got to be somewhere round the course, Guv. Either he’s become lost or got injured along the way.’
‘Did you speak to Greig again?’
‘I asked if he could be mistaken, but he said definitely not – Cholmondeley being the only ginger-nut in first form. Swears blind he turned him round at the summit.’
‘He would say that, though, wouldn’t he?’
DS Leyton looks startled. ‘What do you mean, Guv?’
‘Wouldn’t look too clever for him if sixty-two boys set out and only sixty-one made it through his checkpoint – then he goes home as though nothing’s amiss. That would be a bit of a blot on his copybook.’
DS Leyton puffs out his cheeks. ‘Blimey – I hadn’t considered that, Guv. Now you mention it, I had a quiet word with Jacobson – I reckoned with him being Cholmondeley’s housemaster he might have known something about the boy’s state of mind – but he was all for having a dig at Greig.’
‘Not common, but not unknown – first time this academic year. He said the most usual thing is for a new boy to get cold feet or be homesick in first term. Then they might do a bunk. Unless they’re Chinese, I suppose.’
‘Can’t be easy to keep tabs on everyone.’ Skelgill sounds a little more conciliatory.
‘They have a strict rule – up until sixth form they’re not allowed to leave the school boundaries. Except on official trips and accompanied walking and running events like this Skiddaw Challenge. But he did say kids sometimes go off the radar in the grounds, especially at weekends when they’ve got free time. Or they might be doing project work and forget to come back to assembly or chapel service and whatnot.’
Skelgill peers up at the fells to their left. The drizzle has thinned to the faintest of opaque hues and there’s a semblance of brightness in the cloud. He blinks slowly a few times as if he’s trying to accustom his eyes to the improving light. ‘Sounds a bit like an open prison, don’t you think, Leyton?’
DS Leyton ponders, tilting his head from side to side. ‘I reckon prison’s a softer option, Guv – no fell-running and no exams.’
‘Maybe there’s a lesson there, Leyton.’
‘I reckon a fair few of the kids at my school learned it pretty quick, Guv.’
Skelgill swallows the last of his tea and crushes the polystyrene cup, which he absently hands to DS Leyton rather like a child would to its parent.
‘So what’s Snyder’s view?’
‘He reckons the boy’s not on the site, Guv.’
‘Which matches Goodman’s opinion.’
‘Suppose they’ve discussed it, Guv.’
‘Goodman was more concerned with PR as usual.’
DS Leyton nods. ‘He looked a bit shocked when you mentioned that Marina place, Guv – where did you pull that one from?’
Skelgill winks. ‘Did you notice his Rolex?’
‘I did, Guv.’
‘I don’t recall him wearing it last week.’
‘Think it’s a fake he picked up in Singapore?’
‘I think it’s from Singapore.’
DS Leyton purses his lips and nods thoughtfully.
‘How was Snyder – did he seem concerned?’
‘I wouldn’t say concerned, Guv – but he’s obviously taking it seriously. I’d say he considers the ball’s now in our court.’
Skelgill drums a rat-a-tat-tat with his fingernails on the dashboard. ‘That would be fine if we knew Cholmondeley left the school like the other boys. At the moment it seems like the last sighting we’ve got is by Greig at Skiddaw High Man just before noon. You’d better speak to the teacher who was marshalling the lane – get his details from Greig.’
‘Sure, Guv.’
‘And make arrangements for a proper search – maybe later this afternoon if nothing comes in on the family and friends front. You’ll need plans of the school – loft access, roof ladders, outbuildings, old wells – they’ll have them for contractors and maintenance.’
‘Probably Snyder, Guv.’
‘And we’ll need to get top-line statements from all the staff – and any of the boys that might have seen him on the route – especially on the way down.’
‘Right, Guv – I’ll draft in a couple of DCs from the farm thefts case.’
Skelgill slaps his waterproof-clad thighs and unlatches the car door.
‘What are you going to do, Guv?’
‘Climb Skiddaw.’
DS Leyton shakes his head. ‘The Chief’s going to be frantic, Guv – thinking he’s been out on the hills for two days. Could he survive?’
Skelgill compresses his lips. ‘Depends. But no reason why not. It’s been mild. Cold wouldn’t be too much of a problem if you kept out of the wind. Drinking water might be an issue.’
‘Could he just be lost, Guv?’
Skelgill shakes his head. ‘You can’t really get lost in the Lakes – not in summer. Sooner or later in you come across a farm or a walker with a mobile. Someone missing is more likely to be injured and trapped out of sight.’
Skelgill boots open the door with his chunky Vibram soles and slides out of the seat. He turns and bends back into the car.
‘Better put the underwater search unit on alert.’
DS Leyton is silent for a moment. Then he puffs out his cheeks and says, ‘I meant to say, Guv – they don’t think he can swim.’
26. SKIDDAW
Skiddaw and its non-identical twin sentinel Blencathra squat ominously like a pair of great muscle-bound bouncers, guarding the northern gateway proper of the Lake District. The former is one of only four mountains in England that rise above three thousand feet, on a clear day it is visible from the Devil’s Beef Tub north of Moffat, a good seventy miles as the crow flies. However, from an aesthetic perspective Skiddaw would be low on most hill-baggers’ lists of favourite peaks. Though impressive for its sheer bulk, critical examination reveals it to be somewhat nondescript, an undistinguished massif marked in ascending bands of grass, bracken, heather and mudstone scree. Its redeeming feature is the view it commands of almost every other summit in Lakeland, and a good part of Scotland, to boot.
Had young Cholmondeley gone missing on neighbouring Blencathra, Skelgill might have harboured altogether different fears about his fate. Blencathra may not be in the ‘three thousand club’ (standing one hundred and fifty-three feet short), but from an adventurer’s viewpoint it is blessed with shattered escarpments and razor-like arêtes, such as the infamous Sharp Edge, site of many a scrambling mishap down the years, and deaths in double figures. While Blencathra is not a mountain to be taken lightly, to fall off Skiddaw takes a particular talent.
Skiddaw’s approachability extends to a car park at the end of Gale Road, just beneath the more modest Latrigg, where the ill-equipped tourist may alight at an altitude of one thousand feet. This means the summit can be gained in little more than a gentle amble along a wide and well-worn path over mildly ascending and undemanding terrain, which, as Wainwright noted, has been ‘derided as a route for grandmothers and babies’.
Despite Mike Greig’s account of Cholmondeley having made it through the checkpoint at the summit, Skelgill eschews the easy ascent, and instead opts to follow the course of the entire Skiddaw Challenge. He parks at the school and, leaving the grounds by a rather unconventional route of his own making, joins the footpath that forms the upward leg, striding out at a pace that would leave most schoolboy runners trailing in his wake.
From a seasoned walker’s angle the weather is steadily improving. The occlusion is giving way to the remnants of its cold front: the cloud is breaking and a stiff south-westerly breeze is picking up. The air might have a bite to it, but between abrupt showers of sleet the visibility is sharpening, bringing the wider surroundings into focus. By the time Skelgill reaches the triangulation pillar at Skiddaw High Man, the cloud base has lifted from the tops.
A raven knifes into the headwind, barking brok-brok to an unseen companion, while a plucky meadow pipit attempts an aerial display with limited success. A couple of distant bent walkers are poling slowly from the direction of Skiddaw Little Man, perhaps having heeded Wainwright’s advice about its viewpoint. In the immediate vicinity there is no human trace, no remnant of Saturday’s checkpoint – not that Skelgill would have expected anything. Nonetheless he carefully inspects the ground for any clue, before widening his search with a thorough 360-degree scan of the broad grey pebble-beach-like summit area.
After a minute he returns to the pillar and places both hands on the brass plate, closing his eyes as if he’s trying to divine some otherwise intangible vibe, to tap into the mountain’s memory of footsteps felt and voices heard two days earlier. His own contemporaneous hill experience, albeit at a kinder altitude, was of light but persistently driving rain, corroborating Mike Greig’s estimation that it was a time for putting one’s head down into the wind. The restricted visibility at three thousand feet – perhaps as little as ten yards – might have been irrelevant when the runners were simply following the path beneath their dripping noses.
This tactic would have served the boys fine provided they held to their course – and clearly most of them did just that. Greig had sent them off on the correct bearing – directly into the westerly – along a heavily worn pathway that quickly descends into a smooth-sided gully, before emerging on the obvious track that runs down to Little Knott. It is a route, as Skelgill already knows without re-tracing it, which is simple to follow, regardless of the visibility. In any event, well before Little Knott the mist would have thinned sufficiently to afford a wider view and enable the runners to keep their bearings. Moreover, as Skelgill noted and Greig confirmed, Mr Querrell had cleverly designed the challenge to make redundant the notion of taking short cuts. Quite simply, the best way home was to stick to the official course.
Naturally, had a boy gone off in the wrong direction on the summit plateau, there would be considerable scope to get lost. To the north and east of Skiddaw lies a great moorland wilderness, largely disregarded by hillwalkers, a good fifty square miles of undulating territory strewn with lesser-known peaks whose names seem to invite the hapless orienteer: Meal Fell, Longlands Fell and Great Cockup. As Skelgill is wont to put it after a few pints, only ‘sniffing dogs or seeker helicopters’ could effectively locate a missing person in these heathery wastes.
Having apparently satisfied himself that there is no more to be learned at the summit, Skelgill begins to pick his way down the return stretch, albeit at a more measured pace than he came up. He has extended his walking poles to their maximum limit, and – thus not needing any longer to watch his step – continuously scans the landscape on the downhill side of his course (presumably on the principle that people rarely stray against the influence of gravity). If he were descending Grey Knotts over at Honister there would be plumbago adits to worry about – horizontal shafts from which graphite was mined as far back as the sixteenth century. Nearby Blencathra bears similar scars, chiselled out by zealous Victorians in search of lead and other precious ores. Such mines might tempt the curious schoolboy, unmindful of their perilous part-collapsed tunnels and pitch-dark passageways that open into unguarded vertical pits. Elsewhere, many of the region’s popular prominences are marred by man’s longstanding demand for its world-renowned slate.
But this is Skiddaw, one of the oldest mountains in the Lakes, a great pile of Ordovician mudstone that flakes and crumbles when exposed, and which is consequently of no commercial value. While much of Skelgill’s training – and indeed live action – in his voluntary capacity as a member of the local mountain rescue team has seen him hauling dummies from dank pits and dangling in water-filled shafts throughout the district, Skiddaw has not featured in such endeavours. Thus unblemished as regards intrusive human excavations, and in combination with its relatively benign topography, Skiddaw must be one of the safest mountains on which to get lost.
As such, Skelgill spends precious little time off the beaten track. And, while the mountain rescue team remains a resource upon which he could swiftly call – their familiarity with the terrain giving them an advantage over a police unit mobilised for the same purpose – for the present he has evidently decided to conduct the preliminary assessment solo. Perhaps he is not convinced that the boy is missing on the hill, and is merely retracing his steps to satisfy himself that this hunch is correct: a frustrating but necessary use of time, though minimised through this strategy.
Indeed, on only three occasions does he divert to inspect a passing feature – a small bluff, a rocky beck, a boulder patch – where perhaps a person might lie concealed. In general the terrain offers little to suggest someone might have strayed from their true course: no trace of stones dislodged, no path thrashed into the springy green bracken.
And so, uneventfully, Skelgill reaches a stile beyond which is the lane. The thump of his boots upon the tarmac disturbs a foraging woodpigeon; it departs with a battering of wings flashing white. He stands facing in the direction of the school, which lies out of sight about a mile distant. Then he surveys the immediate environs: dry-stone walls border the narrow roadway, backed by gnarled hawthorns and the odd spindly ash. There is no place for a car to park, nor even a suitable sheltered spot for a marshal to station himself – perhaps small wonder the teacher in question was keen to call it a day at the earliest opportunity.
On the opposite side of the lane a new-looking gate with a galvanised hunting latch marks the entrance into what must be the grounds of Oakthwaite. A discreet private property sign with the school’s acorn logo confirms this supposition. Skelgill wanders across and gives the gate a shove: it is well balanced and recently oiled, and swings back easily into the closed position. Now he stares again down the lane, as if trying to decide which route he should take – or, perhaps, which option Cholmondeley would have chosen: the easy short cut to a warm shower and hot chocolate, or the looping jogging track that is twice the distance? He has not spoken to the boy himself, and has only DS Leyton’s account to go on – though he knows the Chief’s nature well enough. If the boy has inherited any of her grit (a quality Skelgill grudgingly admires), then – combined with the ethos no doubt drummed into him by the likes of Mr Querrell – he will surely have taken the ‘honourable’ route, despite his low ranking in the field. He will have completed the challenge in full.
After a few moments it seems Skelgill may have come to this conclusion. He takes a last look at the lane and then vaults the gate into the grounds of Oakthwaite.
27. OAKTHWAITE SCHOOL
‘Ah – there you are, Guv. I thought I might find you coming back about now.’
Skelgill, standing one-legged and leaning on his car for support, momentarily glances up from inspecting the boot that he appears to be sniffing, an expression of distaste creasing his windswept features.
‘Everything alright, Guv?’
Skelgill makes a scoffing sound and flings the heavy item of footwear onto the gravel of the school car park. ‘Careless dog owners, Leyton. Got a carrier bag on you?’
DS Leyton digs into his pocket for his keys, and pops open the trunk of his own vehicle. From a bulging plastic bag he extracts one of many others screwed up inside it. He pulls it into shape and expertly gloves the offending boot, inverting the bag and handing it to Skelgill.
‘I’m doing this all the time with the kids’ shoes, Guv – used to be nappies, now it’s shoes.’
‘Where are the dog wardens when you need them.’ Skelgill says this as a statement rather than a question, and his tone sounds flat and despondent.
DS Leyton inhales rather apprehensively, before saying, ‘Nothing on the kid, Guv – not beyond Greig seeing him during the race.’
Skelgill hops around to the back of his car and fishes out his shoes from beneath the opened tailgate, then lowers himself onto the protruding flatbed to complete the change of footwear.
‘He’s not on the hill, Leyton.’
DS Leyton frowns. ‘But, Guv – surely you can’t know that? I’ve got a search team lined up to start – once you give them the nod.’
Skelgill remains seated. He licks his lips and casts about over his shoulder as though he is looking for something to drink. ‘So tell me about nothing.’
DS Leyton looks a little crestfallen. ‘In a way, Guv – it’s as good as a positive sighting. I reckon there’s only a slim chance that he came back to the school buildings.’
‘Nobody saw him arrive, change, leave?’
DS Leyton shakes his head, but now he becomes more animated. He paces to and fro before his superior. ‘It would have meant the boy completing the last stretch with a gap of at least three or four minutes between him and the runners either side of him.’ He chops out the time intervals in mid-air with his chunky hands. ‘Otherwise someone would have seen him get changed. It’s not impossible, but seems unlikely. They also think if he were planning to leave, he’d have gone through the internal changing room door and along to his dorm to collect some gear – even just a jacket or his wallet or watch. He’d have to pass the housemother’s day-room, and she says she was sitting there with the door open while the boys were coming back.’
‘What about the teacher who was marshalling the lane?’
‘As we thought, Guv. He walked back down to the school and drove straight home in his car. Lives over at Pooley Bridge. Reckons he was there before twelve. Then he went up to Carlisle for the rest of the weekend to stay with the in-laws, with the missus in tow.’
Skelgill nods. ‘Make a note to cross-check those timings with his wife.’
DS Leyton pulls his notebook from his jacket. As he begins to write, he says, ‘We’ve already spoken to several of the boys who were towards the back of the race, Guv – they confirm there was no marshal in the lane when they came through.’
Skelgill inclines his head in acknowledgement that his Sergeant has appreciated the potential significance of this point. ‘And none of the other boys who were picked up by their relatives saw anything of him?’
DS Leyton shakes his head. ‘We’re contacting all the parents. But I reckon we’d have heard about that straight away, Guv.’
‘I know, Leyton.’
‘It’s got to be somewhere round the course, Guv. Either he’s become lost or got injured along the way.’
‘Did you speak to Greig again?’
‘I asked if he could be mistaken, but he said definitely not – Cholmondeley being the only ginger-nut in first form. Swears blind he turned him round at the summit.’
‘He would say that, though, wouldn’t he?’
DS Leyton looks startled. ‘What do you mean, Guv?’
‘Wouldn’t look too clever for him if sixty-two boys set out and only sixty-one made it through his checkpoint – then he goes home as though nothing’s amiss. That would be a bit of a blot on his copybook.’
DS Leyton puffs out his cheeks. ‘Blimey – I hadn’t considered that, Guv. Now you mention it, I had a quiet word with Jacobson – I reckoned with him being Cholmondeley’s housemaster he might have known something about the boy’s state of mind – but he was all for having a dig at Greig.’
