Detective Inspector Skelgill Boxset 1, page 65
part #1 of Detective Inspector Skelgill Series
‘What about gambling debts, Guv? There’s a lot of unofficial stuff goes on – great wads of bangers-and-mash change hands over horses at Appleby.’
Skelgill grimaces and takes a swig of tea.
‘It doesn’t fit, Leyton. Where’s the climbing connection? Where’s the rope?’
DS Leyton suddenly starts and looks momentarily alarmed.
‘Cor blimey – that reminds me Guv.’ He fumbles for his mobile. ‘When I was paying I noticed an email come through from DS Jones – it’s about the rope, I think.’
Skelgill pats his pockets.
‘Left mine in the motor. Think it’s out of gas.’
‘Here we go.’ DS Leyton licks crumbs from an index finger and wipes it on his shirt. ‘Let me just get it bigger so as I can read it. Me old mince pies ain’t what they used to be. Comes to us all, eh, Guv?’
‘Speak for yourself.’
Skelgill looks at the palm of his hand, lifting it improbably close to his eyes, as if to demonstrate his point.
‘Right, Guv – they’ve got some of the tests back – both pieces definitely from the same original rope – consecutive – the cuts match exactly. The section used to strangle Harris was an end piece, and the one for Seddon a middle piece – you were spot on, Guv – there’s some missing.’
DS Leyton glances up, but Skelgill still seems to be checking his focal length.
‘They’ve traced it to an American manufacturer that was founded in 1992 – so that’s the maximum age it could be – there’s a sample on the way to them to see if they can be any more specific. American, Guv?’
Skelgill purses his lips doubtingly.
‘Could be a red herring, Leyton – most climbing ropes used in Britain are made abroad – that’s long been the case. Both of mine are Swiss. And they’re not cheap, so there’s a big second-hand market.’
‘Money for old rope, eh, Guv?’
‘Very funny, Leyton.’ Skelgill allows himself a smile. ‘Another thing – if it’s a rope that’s been passed around, think how much foreign DNA there’s going to be on it. I lose some of the skin off my hands every time I climb.’
DS Leyton nods. He scrolls through the message, his features assuming a mask of progressive concern.
‘Anything else?’
‘That’s about it, really, Guv.’ The sergeant swallows apprehensively before he continues. ‘DS Jones mentions the Chief’s been trying to get you for an update – says she’s expecting some good news for a Friday afternoon.’
Skelgill’s expression becomes one of severe irritation. While the long trip to the Midlands has not ostensibly been productive – like most of the leads they have followed thus far – there is something about his general offhand demeanour that suggests he at least feels they are making progress. As he is wont to point out, the knack is to know which pieces of jigsaw belong to the puzzle you are trying to solve – often they come to hand at an early stage, but are simply not recognisable as such. Skelgill’s approach to this recurring conundrum is a mystery even to himself – but what he does know is that the connections will snap into place: when either a critical mass has been reached, or some unforeseeable catalyst short-circuits the process. Either way, this is not a paradigm that may easily be forced – much to the frustration of his senior officers. The Chief wants results – which is understandable given a baying media pack and a panicking general public – but Skelgill is not a machine but a mere mortal. And, right now, matters of mortality are about to take a turn for the worse.
*
Walter Barley alights at the bus station in Penrith and heads north on foot through the town centre. He seems to know where he is going, and keeps up a steady pace. He does, however, take a small detour to a public telephone kiosk, where he extracts a slip of paper from his wallet and makes a brief call. Shortly after, he passes the supermarket on Scotland Road, and thus approaches the little arcade of retail businesses. He interrogates his watch, and draws to a halt. Rather self-consciously he wanders over to the first of the premises, a newsagent’s. For a minute or so he window shops, hands in pockets, but then he digs for change and pushes through the door, emerging a minute later tearing at a packet of chewing gum with his teeth whilst also clenching between his fingers a black comb in a clear plastic sleeve. He pops a pellet of gum into his mouth and then slides the comb from its case. Peering again into the shop window he uses his faint reflection to style his equally meagre hair. Once more he checks the time – but still it seems there are some minutes to kill, for now he takes his wallet from his pocket and flicks through its contents. Then he steps purposefully towards the entrance of the next emporium, the bookmaker’s.
16. GRASMERE
Saturday morning
‘It’s getting like a police state – that’s what it is.’
‘No worries, Guv – I’ve got my purse.’
Skelgill does not appear mollified by DS Jones’s generosity.
‘There’s no escape – you can even pay by credit card or mobile. Bloody disgrace.’
DS Jones beams encouragingly. ‘Come on, Guv – maybe one day these cameras will catch us a criminal.’
Skelgill harrumphs.
‘Pity the rope murderer didn’t have the bright idea to come here.’
‘Exactly, Guv – think these cameras operate at night, as well?’
Skelgill’s features are creased into a cynical scowl.
‘Pound to a penny – where there’s money involved.’ He shakes his head. ‘How to make your visitors feel welcome.’
He kills the engine and climbs from his car. He stands for a moment and glares at the number plate recognition cameras that guard the public car park. Gone are the days of the Lakeland stone honesty box. Then he rounds to lift the tailgate and release a relieved looking Cleopatra. The dog tumbles onto the uneven surface, performs a couple of her customary sideways dodges, and then picks up a scent and trots off into the nearby bushes. Skelgill busies himself with his gear, hauling out a jangling rucksack and a pair of walking boots.
‘Think we’ll need waterproofs, Guv?’
‘Is there water in the Lakes?’
Perplexed, DS Jones squints at the largely clear blue morning sky. Skelgill, pulling on extra socks, glances sideways at her – she appears reluctant to take his advice, and indeed she wanders casually away from the vehicle towards the parking payment machine. Skelgill is about to close up the car – then at the last second he reaches in and grabs her cagoule, and stuffs it into one of the side pockets of his rucksack. He swings the heavy bag onto his back and sets off, bisecting DS Jones and the dog, which has reappeared and is mooching about in some long wet grass.
‘Walk this way, ladies.’
Skelgill must, however, be in reasonable fettle; as for a brief moment he goose-steps to accompany his command. A grinning DS Jones hurries across to catch up with him, while the Bullboxer falls in a few yards behind.
‘It says we pay when we leave, Guv.’
‘They’ll be taxing fresh air next.’
The country path begins to weave between clumps of willows and alders, and shortly leads them across a footbridge over a wide though shallow stream into sessile oak woodland. From high in the canopy the energetic trill of a wood warbler, invisible to the eye, attracts Skelgill’s attention – though he does not remark as they stroll beneath.
‘Think Cleopatra will be okay off the lead, Guv?’
Skelgill stares reflectively in the direction of the dog, which has now gambolled ahead.
‘Aye – that’s why I chose here – no sheep to worry about.’
‘Where are we going exactly?’
‘There’s a decent walk – circuit, more or less – up Loughrigg and back beside Grasmere.’
‘Decent for you, Guv – that could be a marathon for me.’
‘No – three miles, at most.’ Skelgill glowers somewhat woodenly. ‘I’ve got to get back for an exercise up at Honister this afternoon.’
DS Jones seems momentarily dismayed by this news, and perhaps it prompts her to be forthcoming with a question she has put off twice already: first when he called her earlier, and subsequently when they rendezvoused in a hotel car park in Grasmere village.
‘So I was wondering, Guv – to what do I owe the honour of being asked along?’
Skelgill does not reply immediately, but stares unblinkingly ahead. Then he jabs at the rucksack with his left elbow, producing a response from its metallic contents.
‘I’ll explain when we stop for a brew.’
DS Jones shrugs phlegmatically. Then, just as she inhales as if to speak, from around a bend in the woodland path there suddenly appears the incongruous sight of a party of Japanese tourists. It is quite a crowd, and must represent the contents of an entire coach. There is no obvious group leader, and at the head is a smiling couple of student age – although the demographic spectrum stretches from the youthful to the positively venerable. Clutching mobiles, tablets and cameras, they are all smartly dressed, and – blinking and somewhat bewildered by their surroundings – they look more like they have lost their way in an airport concourse and have somehow ended up in the woods by mistakenly following a fire escape. As the human snake winds towards them, Skelgill and Jones step aside onto the raised bank. Skelgill bends down on one knee, and takes hold of the dog by her collar, to pre-empt any over-zealous lunges. Now it seems every last one of the Japanese wants to practise their English, and each goes to some lengths to enunciate a stilted greeting. Trapped as he is, Skelgill looks progressively troubled by this predicament – reciprocating twenty-five or thirty ‘good mornings’ severely tries his patience. DS Jones, on the other hand, is highly amused, and can’t help herself from giggling as each couple insists upon having their hello. But eventually the last one passes and they are able to resume their walk.
‘I think they would have liked to take our photo, Guv.’
Skelgill looks relieved that they did not. ‘How come?’
DS Jones hesitates. Perhaps she is searching for a diplomatic answer, when the true response might be that they would have liked to take his photograph. The combination of his threadbare country attire, rucksack, boots, windswept hair and weatherbeaten features – complemented by the fierce-looking hound – probably confers the appearance of exactly the kind of authentic ‘wild’ local that foreign visitors would hope to spot in these woods.
‘Well – I mean Cleopatra, really, Guv – she’s quite a novelty breed, isn’t she?’
Skelgill frowns, as though he is not entirely convinced by this explanation.
‘So long as they don’t dump any litter, they’re welcome to photograph whatever they like.’
‘They won’t leave litter, Guv – did you see the Japanese football supporters on the news the other night – they stayed behind after their match to clear up all the rubbish in the stadium.’
‘Good for them.’
‘Think England will ever win the World Cup again, Guv?’
This enquiry seems to fall on deaf ears, for Skelgill does not respond, and marches on in a rather gloomy silence. After a minute, however, he stops, and cranks out an arm to bar DS Jones’s path beside him.
‘What is it, Guv?’
‘Look.’
He points to the undergrowth on one side of the path. A butterfly rests in a splash of sunlight upon the filigree surface of a fresh green fern leaf. Slowly it opens and closes its wings to reveal an attractive chequered pattern of pale spots and false eyes upon a chocolate brown background.
‘Speckled wood.’
‘That’s beautiful, Guv – pity we can’t show our visitors.’
Skelgill shrugs.
‘They’d photograph it to death. That’s the trouble when you walk round with a camera – snap everything and see nothing.’
He sets off quickly and DS Jones has to scamper to catch up. The undulating ground begins to rise more sharply now, and for a few minutes they walk on without speaking. Soon the dappled shade of the oak wood comes to an end, and they pass through a gap in a dry-stone wall and out onto a steep fellside, blanketed in rampaging bracken, fern’s delinquent cousin. Skelgill sets a steady pace, and while he does not appear troubled by the exertion, DS Jones slips off her cardigan and ties it around her waist. Cleopatra, meanwhile, seems to know that she is in the kind of open country where it is expedient to stick close to her master, if she wants to stay off the leash. After a moderate pull the gradient eases and they begin a traverse of the airy bank known as Loughrigg Terrace. Skelgill pauses beside a bench where the view north over Grasmere is perhaps at its best, but instead of admiring this he cranes his neck to look skywards. An insistent shrieking birdcall has alerted him, and he raises an outstretched arm to indicate its source to his companion.
‘Peregrine.’
DS Jones shades her eyes anxiously, but in due course locates the majestic falcon, a soaring, circling, scything silhouette. Then without warning it drops into an arrowing stoop, homing in upon some unsuspecting prey, to disappear behind a shoulder of the fell.
‘Wow – that’s impressive.’
‘Fastest animal on the planet.’
Skelgill says this rather proprietorially.
‘How can you tell it’s a peregrine, Guv?’
He purses his lips. ‘It just is.’
‘You’re quite the naturalist – you could be a tour guide in your spare time, Guv.’
Skelgill looks askance – they both know he wouldn’t have the patience, though his reply is ostensibly at odds with this.
‘I’ve thought about fishing guiding more than once.’ But then he sets his features grimly and shakes his head. ‘Ruin it, though.’
DS Jones nods sympathetically, her expression sharing his pain. She turns back to face across the valley.
‘Amazing view, Guv.’
Skelgill is pensive. Certainly the vista is idyllic, a chocolate-box Lakeland scene, dappled by shadows of wandering clouds; the diminutive Grasmere set like a sapphire jewel amidst green velvet folds of rippling fells. Though twice the size of neighbouring Rydal Water, it is still one of the smallest lakes – a mere fraction of nearby Windermere, whose waters both of these minnows share through the sometimes rushing River Rothay.
‘Seen enough?’
Skelgill does not wait for a reply, and sets off once again. Soon he leads them back into woodland, this time more mature and with less undergrowth than down in the valley. A mix of deciduous and conifers, it has that cathedral-like sense of calm, where dust motes float in shafts of light that penetrate stained glass – though in this green-hued arbour it is flies that hover like tiny angels, pinned in space by sunbeams. To pause is to allow midges to pounce, but the heady pine-scented ambiance subdues their urgency, and they amble to the accompaniment of an avian choir: the liquid warbling falsetto of a blackcap, a faltering, chuntering chiffchaff and, high above in a larch, the faintest cork-on-glass soprano of a diminutive goldcrest.
They reach a gate and with a metallic clang the spell is broken. Skelgill digs in his pocket for the baler twine that is now Cleopatra’s regular leash. It is tied at each end and he slides it beneath her collar and feeds one loop through the other, forming a slip-knot. The free loop then goes over the wrist.
‘Like to take her?’
He holds out the lead to DS Jones, who turns from fastening the gate.
‘Sure.’
Their route now runs along a narrow tarmac lane, bordered on the downhill side by a well-maintained stone wall. Periodically they pass a residence – sometimes close to the road, while others are tucked away more or less out of sight – these are a mixture of holiday cottages for rent, and full-time homes for those fortunate enough to lead a life that enables desirability to prevail over practicality in the battle of location. They walk on in silence for maybe half a mile – though DS Jones seems happily occupied engineering whatever glimpses she can of the properties. Soon the view on their right opens out, with meadows beyond the wall running down to Grasmere. Just as they approach a woodland brake that will interrupt this prospect, Skelgill draws to a halt.
‘We have to improvise here.’
He inclines his head towards the wall.
‘Climb over, Guv?’
‘Aye.’
‘What about the dog?’
‘Pass the parcel. Want to go first, or stay this side?’
DS Jones sizes up the wall. It is about shoulder height to her. Then she eyes Cleopatra. The dog, though medium-sized, is nothing if not stocky, and probably weighs in at fifty pounds.
‘I don’t know if I could lift her, Guv – especially if she makes a fuss.’
Skelgill grins. He crouches down beside the wall and forms a stirrup by interlocking his fingers.
‘Up you go then, lass.’
DS Jones duly gets a leg up, and scales the wall without too much difficulty, despite her tight jeans. However, balanced precariously on the line of coping stones, she hesitates.
‘It’s further down this side, Guv.’
‘That’s the slope. Just stay there a mo.’
Without prior warning, Skelgill stoops and grips the startled canine with his long fingers spread on either side of her broad thorax, and with a grunt he heaves her up onto the ridge of the wall. She scrabbles anxiously for a foothold.
‘Hold her there – grab her collar.’
Cleopatra is clearly not happy and begins to whine, but DS Jones gets a sufficient grip while Skelgill swarms over the wall – almost as though there is no obstacle. He drops down easily into the pasture. Rising, he swivels and reaches out to cradle the dog, but this invitation proves too much, and she leaps prematurely, striking him full in the chest and pulling a wide-eyed DS Jones with her. As Skelgill begins to topple backwards – drawn by the weight of his backpack – Cleopatra springs over his shoulder and flies a short distance before coming to rest on all fours. But DS Jones’s momentum is irreversible and she can only scream and crash onto Skelgill, and the pair of them go down in a flailing, slightly comic, embrace, a landing thankfully cushioned by the long dewy grass.
