Detective Inspector Skelgill Boxset 1, page 75
part #1 of Detective Inspector Skelgill Series
‘Next thing, Guv – Leicestershire police have traced Lee Harris’s biological mother – Janet Atkins.’
‘Aye?’
Skelgill’s inflection suggests this subject has struck more of a chord.
‘She’s not in a good way – drinking, that is. The report doesn’t say much – but I just spoke to the WPC who interviewed her. She said there was nothing concrete she could put in writing, but she felt the woman was holding out on her.’
‘In what way?’
‘The official line was that Lee Harris was fostered out because of the alcoholic father – but she got the impression that Lee himself was the problem.’
‘Linda Harris said Lee was starting to misbehave – that’s why they took the action.’
‘Sure, Guv – it’s just a point of subtle emphasis, I suppose. Apparently Janet Atkins kept repeating that he wasn’t a bad boy – in the way that mothers do when they know the opposite.’
Skelgill takes a sip of tea and gazes up at the fells to his left. The cyclonic spell is continuing – indeed the remnants of an Atlantic hurricane have been responsible for the overnight downfall. But now the warm front has passed and a clear, dry day is promised. Lakeland vegetation is reaching its summer peak, and the roadside verges hang heavy with the creamy blossom of meadowsweet. Skelgill lowers his window to admit whatever mixture of natural aromas will come his way.
‘Love and marriage.’
‘Sorry, Guv?’
DS Jones sounds nonplussed.
‘Love and marriage – it’s what they call meadowsweet. Nice scent, until you crush the flower.’
‘Right, Guv.’
Skelgill does not elaborate upon the train of thought – if indeed there is one – that has brought him to this cryptic destination. Meanwhile, DS Jones, who might be wondering whether he refers to Lee Harris’s family circumstances – or in fact if there is some hidden message for her – waits expectantly. She might at least reasonably anticipate a modicum of praise for her diligent work: another late finish and an early start to glean the latest developments for her capricious boss’s delectation. After a lengthy pause, Skelgill’s approbation – if it can be classified as such – is characteristically oblique when it comes.
‘Has Leyton done any work?’
DS Jones is suitably diplomatic in her reply.
‘He’s at his desk now, Guv – shall I transfer you?’
‘Aye – and keep me posted – I don’t know when I’ll be with you.’
‘Sure, Guv – I’ll put you through.’
The line is silent for a few moments – perhaps longer than it might take for a call to be transferred between two colleagues who sit within sight of one another – and thus sufficient for Skelgill to suspect there is some collusion before he is reconnected.
‘Morning, Guv – how’s it going?’
Skelgill does not reply directly, but instead gets directly down to business.
‘What’s the latest on the door-to-door inquiries?’
There is a silence, during which it can be imagined DS Leyton practises various facial expressions.
‘Just getting it up on my screen, Guv – here we go. We’ve moved onto the new estate, fanning out from that walkway – last night we got the last few missing ones in Ullswater Place.’
Skelgill sucks in air between his teeth, rather in the manner of a reformed smoker.
‘I take it I’d have heard if we’d identified an obvious strangler in the street.’
‘It’s all looking above board, Guv. Mostly elderly folks, scattering of young couples, a few girls sharing, three single mothers – like that Kelly we saw – but no single males – at least not under pension age. Then again, how old was Dr Crippen?’
‘Crippen didn’t climb mountains.’
‘Fair point, Guv.’
Skelgill is silent for a moment as he concentrates on an overtaking manoeuvre.
‘Leyton – get someone round all the bookmakers in Kendal – see if anyone recognises Lee Harris, and whether there’s a record of bets he’s placed.’
DS Leyton sounds a little unconvinced, but knows better than question his superior. Instead his voice takes on a more animated note.
‘By the way, Guv – turns out that bookie, the Scotchwoman, she lives in Ullswater Place with her old ma – suppose it’s not surprising seeing as she’s been there so long – handy for her work, like.’
‘Aye, suppose so.’
*
Strictly speaking Knott Halloo Farm is not Skelgill’s next stop, since he makes a short detour to collect a joyous Cleopatra from his dog walker, who has a vet’s appointment (or, at least, the lupine Sammy does). In due course, however, he motors up through Threlkeld and continues until he passes the late Walter Barley’s cottage. He halts beside one of the barns, alongside the navy-blue Defender belonging to the farmer, and where an open door suggests its owner might be found. Beyond, Lucinda’s Range Rover appears to be absent from the main house. Skelgill fastens Cleopatra onto her baler-twine leash before permitting her to leap from beneath his tailgate.
‘Ah, Inspector – it’s a fine morning.’
The farmer has been attracted by the sound of Skelgill’s approach, and emerges from the barn wiping his hands on an oily rag.
‘Sorry to disturb you, sir.’
‘Oh, it’s no trouble whatsoever – I’m just getting a couple of demonstration models tidied up for the Great Yorkshire, Inspector. Killing a bit of time, if truth be told.’
‘When does it kick off?’
‘Trade day tomorrow, then open to the public through until Sunday.’
‘You’ll be taking the wife, I imagine, sir?’
The man hesitates just long enough to suggest that Skelgill’s innocently aimed question has struck its target. A flicker of alarm darkens his usually bright countenance, and he reaches for the comfort blanket of his neatly trimmed beard.
‘Oh, no, Inspector – she’s not really keen on that kind of thing – all the standing around – and then we have our livestock here to take care of.’
The two men hold one another’s gaze – although it is not an equal contest. Where Skelgill’s is keen and penetrative, the other’s anticipates a second salvo.
Skelgill clicks his fingers in a self-reprimanding manner.
‘Of course, sir – I was forgetting that. Your rare breeds.’
There is palpable relief in the man’s demeanour.
‘So, er... how may I help you this morning, Inspector?’
Skelgill waves a hand vaguely towards the slopes of Blencathra.
‘I just wondered if I might have a bit of a poke around – stretch the legs – I’ve got the dog today, you see, sir.’
‘I do indeed, Inspector – an impressive creature she is, too.’ He bends on one knee to make her acquaintance. ‘Is she a police dog?’
Skelgill grins at this prospect.
‘Let’s say she’s on probation, sir.’
He perhaps thinks the better of explaining Cleopatra’s true provenance, given this man’s connection to her former home.
‘She’s a friendly girl – though you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her, I should venture.’
‘That goes for a few females I could name, sir.’
The man glances up, a wounded look about his countenance.
‘Tell me about it, Inspector.’
Skelgill squats down on his haunches and joins in the patting of the dog; it seems there is some comradely rapport between the two men.
‘What I had in mind, sir – if I could see the site of the climbing barn that burnt down – then I thought I might give her a bit of a run up the fell – if you could put me right as to where you’ve got stock loose.’
‘Certainly, Inspector – we’ll go now, shall we?’
They set off on foot, passing the farmhouse and following a continuation of the main track through a small copse, to the point where it stops at a wooden gate. There are sheep grazing in this enclosure – regulation Lakeland Herdwicks, their thick grey coats ready for shearing. The animals seem unperturbed as the two men and (more significantly) a dog amble through. The line of the track is just visible, and takes them to an exit gate onto unfenced rough pasture. For a minute or so the gradient steepens, but as they pass between small bluffs, the ground levels and widens into a flat area the size of a large gym hall, with an almost vertical wall of chiselled rock rising on the uphill side.
‘I think originally it must have been a quarry, Inspector.’
Skelgill’s gaze slowly scans in an arc from left to right – but, apart from the uncharacteristically even ground, there is little to suggest a substantial building once stood on the site; nature has long seen to that. He perhaps appears disappointed, for the man speaks again, apologetically.
‘I’m afraid there’s not a lot to see – and it’s not an area we ever use – just keep the odd bit of equipment up here from time to time.’
Skelgill nods, his features contemplative.
‘It’s a good distance from the nearest water supply – not the easiest place to put out a fire.’
‘I imagine not, Inspector – I really don’t know whether they would have tried to get the tenders up the track, or run hoses from the farm.’
Skelgill looks at him intently.
‘My sources indicate the barn was pretty far gone by the time the fire bridge arrived, sir.’
The man nods benignly. He has regained his normal easy-going manner.
‘I shouldn’t be surprised, Inspector.’
‘Did Walter Barley ever speak about the incident, sir?’
The man puts his hands into the pockets of his corduroys and taps at a loose rock with the toe of a brogue. He shakes his head.
‘I can’t recall that he did, Inspector – he was pretty cagey altogether, if truth be told – he wasn’t one to pass the time of day.’
‘How did you hear about his injury being connected to the fire, sir?’
The man rubs his chin-stubble with the knuckle of a forefinger.
‘I’m honestly not sure, Inspector – it’s going back quite a bit, of course, and when we took over here his tenancy was a fait accompli – Lucinda may have mentioned it to me in passing, but we just treated him as the reclusive neighbour down the road.’
Skelgill is about to respond, but Cleopatra suddenly decides there is something of interest in a nearby patch of bracken; she catches him off guard and to keep his balance he lurches in her desired direction. The attraction turns out to be a dead rabbit, desiccated and long picked over by crows, though its honeyed, musky odour must be a cornucopia of pleasure to a canine snout. When Skelgill turns he sees that the farmer has also moved away; he is down on one knee examining a patch of grass, perhaps three yards square, cropped short by extant herbivores. As Skelgill approaches he begins to pull at some protrusion in one corner.
‘Cliff?’
Skelgill steps nearer.
‘Cliff Edge?’
The man does not react. For a few seconds he continues tugging at whatever it is, but then he looks around in surprise.
‘I’m sorry, Inspector – I was distracted – you said something – about a cliff?’
A sudden look of alarm occupies Skelgill’s face, and his cheekbones redden, like a schoolboy who has blurted out a confession to a blissfully ignorant master when none was needed.
‘Oh, I... er...’ He indicates with a thumb over his shoulder to the rock face that borders the site. ‘I was thinking... they perhaps used that cliff edge as a natural climbing wall – as well as having an artificial one in the barn.’
The man gazes helpfully past Skelgill.
‘Oh, yes – I’m sure that’s quite likely – not that it’s anything I know much about, Inspector.’ Still on his haunches he wipes his hands, and then for illustration purposes pats the end of what appears to be a thick iron link sticking out of the turf. ‘My chain harrow, Inspector – I wondered where it had gone.’
Skelgill, recovering his composure, squints at the object.
‘What – it’s buried?’
The man struggles to his feet, looking a little sheepish.
‘Well – yes – it has become somewhat overgrown. I remember I towed it up here after the last time I used it.’
‘Must have been a while ago, sir?’
The man thumbs his beard.
‘Probably five years, now you mention it, Inspector. We have a field down towards the village that we used to sow with oats. I ought to give that another go next spring.’
‘Want a hand pulling it out? I reckon we could manage it.’
‘Oh, no, no – no need, Inspector – thanks all the same – I shall bring up the Defender some time and attach it to the winch. No point in putting out one’s back unnecessarily.’
Skelgill, perhaps subconsciously, stretches his spine; there is an old injury that wouldn’t be thanking him for his offer of assistance.
‘Well – I oughtn’t keep you if you’re off to Yorkshire later, sir – I’ll perhaps just give the dog a bit of a run, if you don’t object.’
‘Be my guest, Inspector – we don’t have any stock on this part of the fell – so she can roam freely.’
*
Though Cleopatra is off the leash, she seems content to stick close to Skelgill as he works his way up the hillside, picking a winding course that finds the easier going. Although there is no trodden path, a firm, dry route is indicated by patches of montane flora, dwarf species that thrive in the fast-draining loam: tormentil, heath bedstraw and wild thyme, miniature meadows of yellow, white and purple, a kaleidoscopic blur beneath the feet. Overhead, in contrast, an azure sky is unblemished by cloud or bird; the clouds will come this evening; the birds less predictably – mid-mornings on such summer days deserve a break, when foraging began six hours ago at dawn.
An abrupt roar has Skelgill turning on his heel to gaze out across the broad dale to the south: an RAF Tornado, silent ahead of its wave of noise, rends the vista, like an artist’s knife cutting an unsatisfactory landscape canvas. The eye at first is attracted to the apparent location of the sound, but the fast jet is always several degrees in advance, not easy to spot against the dun fells. He tips a wing at Blencathra, then banks westwards to seek the Irish Sea, beyond Skelgill’s horizon, yet only seconds away by supersonic means.
Skelgill watches the modern marvel out of sight, then turns to approach a work of more rudimentary technology. As the gradient steepens, weathered rocks become prominent among the grass and heather, cracked and pitted and encrusted with ancient lichens and mosses, monochromic in their dotage. Blending naturally into this grizzled patchwork is a doorway into Blencathra. Hand-chipped three hundred years ago, the angular entrance to an adit appears black in the bright sun at Skelgill’s back. There is no approach path; it is as if the miners who hewed this rough portal kept going and never came out, swallowed by the mountain. Today not even sheep have seen fit to beat a track to its shelter.
He calls in the dog and loops the lead through her collar. Obediently, she walks to heel as he ducks into the mouth of the tunnel. Skelgill might wonder what bantam ancestors of his toiled here – if they worked unbowed they must have stood a good half-foot shorter than he. His discomfort is compounded by the lack of a torch – even his mobile phone is still clipped in place to the dashboard of his car. He faces velvet blackness until his pupils adjust from bright sunshine. As such, with his free hand, he fumbles blindly in the void before him, like a subterranean creature would use its antennae.
Though never a caver himself, he is no stranger to this underground world; boyhood dares concerned these places, and his mountain rescue team is summoned likewise on occasion, and trains for all eventualities. In such circumstances he would be fully equipped with helmet, harness, rope and head-torch. Abreast of the horror stories, therefore, his caution is to be expected. Cleopatra, however, knows no such trepidation, and moves ahead in investigative fashion. Of course, her rod-rich retinas endow her with six times the night-vision of her companion, and perhaps sensing this Skelgill lets out a few turns of the leash from his wrist. Where his forbears held forth a canary, he follows a four-legged friend.
In the classical manner, the adit bores horizontally into the hillside, a speculative shot uncannily aimed at pockets of rare metal ores, deposits that had lain undisturbed for millions of years, gathering interest. As Skelgill’s eyes begin to adjust to the lack of light, any gains are offset by the intensifying darkness as he explores further from the entrance. The roof and walls of the passage begin to crowd in, and he opts to run his free hand along the uneven ceiling, as a precaution to warn against a jutting rock.
But it is no such solid protrusion that he encounters – instead something altogether more unearthly – as clammy webbed fingers grasp his palm. What Gollum-like creature can this be? He jerks back with a cry of shock. There is a flutter in the air – and perhaps a tiny guttural breath. It is a bat. Minding its own business, it has found its beauty sleep rudely interrupted by Skelgill’s clumsy fumblings. It beats about for a couple of seconds, and then apparently heads deeper into the tunnel. Cleopatra, momentarily alarmed by Skelgill’s reflex squawk, switches quickly into hunting mode – unlike her master, she can hear the tiny winged mammal’s cries of indignation. She darts forward and – in succumbing to this instinct – takes a leap in the dark that is very nearly her last, for just ahead of them lies an invisible abyss. But one further feature of canine biology delays this undesirable outcome: where two legs would have seen her plummet to her doom, instead only her front paws initially slide over the edge of the shaft. In this hiatus, the length of baler twine attached to Skelgill’s wrist provides a temporary lifeline. Skelgill, after first recoiling from the bat, is now yanked forward in a manner that must seem like the take of a pike to break all records; a take of the kind that catches him blithely off guard, perhaps as he inattentively retrieves after the last cast of the day. As such, what can only be learned behaviour – but which for him has become as good as instinct – kicks in, and he, in a manner of speaking, strikes. This action holds the dog fast – so long as the baler twine will remain intact. Skelgill drops to his knees, and with an angler’s aplomb he winds in the line in short sharp jerks as he crawls towards her, all the time maintaining the tension. Then with one sudden lunge he slides his free hand down the line and grabs her collar. Cleopatra might weigh fifty pounds, and Skelgill might have a latent back injury, but adrenaline is a remarkable substance, and he hauls the dog one-handed over his shoulder and deposits her on the cave floor behind him. He unravels the leash from his wrist and casts down the free end. At this juncture no one can really blame poor Cleopatra for making a bolt for the light at the end of the tunnel.
