Detective Inspector Skelgill Boxset 2

by Bruce Beckham

  ‘It’s a couple of minutes down the Struggle – but it’s safer to park here.’

  ‘The Struggle, Guv?’

  Skelgill is already striding away, weaving between weathered picnic tables that have been optimistically dragged onto the broad verge opposite the hostelry. Deserted now, certainly if the weather holds fair this elevated spot will be thronged in a few days’ time, as curious holidaymakers venture forth from their lodgings. He stretches to point out a junction some fifty yards ahead, a narrow lane that dives down the fellside and winds away over the shoulder of Snarker Pike and draws the eye to a tantalising glimpse of Windermere, four miles hence.

  ‘It’s what they call the south side of the pass – the lane up from Ambleside – it’s one-in-four in places – must have been a killer in the horsedrawn days when it was an unmetalled track.’

  ‘For the poor horses, at least, Guv.’

  ‘Aye – though the likes of us would have been hauling our bags barefoot.’

  The Struggle is bordered on each side by dry stone walls and rocky verges, and admits passing vehicles only with difficulty. In what Wainwright rather ungenerously referred to as “the charabanc season” it can be a challenge to make the ascent from Ambleside to Kirkstone without sustaining damage to the undercarriage. But they encounter no such troubles; indeed they stride down the centre of the deserted lane. Skelgill is keeping a sharp eye out for a marker tied by the shepherd who yesterday evening reported the ovine casualty – a strand of blue baler twine wound unobtrusively around a post. After some four hundred or so yards, he spies his object.

  ‘Here we go – it’s beyond the opposite wall.’

  A line of decaying stakes, formerly strung with wire, fronts the wall to their left – but the instruction is that the sheep’s carcase lies hidden from sight over the right-hand wall. Skelgill’s attention, however, seems to be focused on the verge itself.

  ‘What is it, Guv?’

  ‘Tyre tracks – see?’

  The ground is well draining, and Skelgill’s discovery is not immediately obvious. He indicates with a tip of his boot an area of grass, cropped short by rabbits and perhaps enterprising sheep (which could, of course, account for the fatality, as road kill). There is just a faint impression, a pattern of knobbly indentations. He digs in his pocket and produces a pound coin, which he places carefully at the centre of the patch.

  ‘See if you can get a photo – you never know, it might be useful.’

  ‘Sure, Guv.’

  While DS Jones gets to work with her mobile phone, Skelgill approaches the wall and leans over. From his reaction – as he casts about – it is evident something is amiss.

  ‘It’s gone.’

  He scrambles atop and leaps well away from the wall, landing to stoop and examine the area of vegetation immediately adjacent to the stonework. There is a distinct flattening of the clumps of soft rush, and several tufts of blood-smeared fleece. DS Jones’s head and shoulders appear above him.

  ‘Who would move it, Guv?’

  ‘More to the point, Jones – who would know it was here?’

  DS Jones taps her handset against her lips, pensive as she watches Skelgill.

  ‘Would it be valuable as meat, Guv?’

  Skelgill is still staring at the undergrowth. He shakes his head.

  ‘You could be talking ten-year-old mutton – there’s no butcher would thank you for that.’

  ‘What would it weigh, Guv?’

  Now Skelgill glances up.

  ‘About the same as you lass.’ He grins in a rather macabre fashion. ‘Less with the head and innards missing.’

  DS Jones winces by way of response.

  ‘So one person could lift it?’

  ‘Happen as not.’

  ‘Do you think it was heaved over and driven off, Guv?’

  Skelgill has now risen, and cursorily examines the surrounding pasture. There is no obvious sign of disturbance, though the harsh mix of rush and grass makes for an unyielding substrate. He surveys the fellside that rises above them, forming the western wall of Kirkstone Pass, a four-mile-long barrier known as Red Screes. North of where they stand is the outcrop of Raven Crag (one of many so-called sites in Lakeland), and as he turns towards the south he scans the summit of Snarker Pike, the last of four peaks along the ridge. Then he seems to freeze, and raises a shading hand to his brow in a salute to the sun’s rays. He watches for perhaps two or three seconds, before he turns purposefully to DS Jones – who still awaits a reply to her question – and pulls out his car keys. To her surprise he tosses them in the air – but her reflexes are quick and though startled she makes the catch.

  ‘Get the car – quick – another quarter of a mile down the lane there’s a track on the right that comes from a quarry – block the entrance.’

  And with this instruction Skelgill turns away and sets off at a run, making a beeline towards a scar of cliffs halfway up the hillside.

  ‘Guv... what...?’

  ‘Go!’

  He does not look back; DS Jones heeds his exhortation and turns to jog up the lane towards the inn. The going across the enclosure is uneven and steadily steepening, and the rough pasture marred by rush and bracken gradually gives way to rocky scree. Skelgill, of course, is no stranger to such terrain – though he would not ordinarily choose heavy walking boots when speed is of the essence. The escalating gradient eventually defeats his will to run, and he is forced to clamber, picking his footholds as best he can – though he dislodges many a loose boulder – and heaving himself by hand in places.

  It takes him a good three minutes to cover the five hundred feet of ascent – and a similar distance in yards – and when he gains his object, the flat rim of the quarry, he is panting heavily. Nonetheless he does not break stride, wiping his brow on his sleeve as he goes. Directly ahead is the manmade cliff where for the best part of a century green slate was hewn, and to his right a cluster of buildings in various states of dilapidation, their roofs orange with rust, windows bereft of glass, beams fallen across entrances. Of his personal ‘quarry’ there is no sign.

  He checks about, taking care where he treads so as to move without incurring the crack of a stone. He circles the abandoned buildings, peering into their dark interiors – pausing while his eyes become accustomed to the stale gloom. It takes just two minutes to satisfy himself that he is alone here, and his coiled demeanour relaxes, if reluctantly so. He begins to search more minutely, paying interest to the ground, inspecting behind doorways and forsaken piles of unworked slate. He is just leaning over the parapet of what appears to be a well shaft when the sudden urgent crunch of tyres jerks him around. But it is only his own long brown estate – distinctive for its improvised aerial, bent from a coat hanger into the outline of a fish – DS Jones behind the wheel, her features visibly anxious even through the competing reflection of the windscreen. She slews the vehicle around – raising an eyebrow from Skelgill – and leans out of the passenger window.

  ‘He went off-road, Guv!’

  ‘What?’

  Skelgill places his hands on his hips, gunslinger fashion.

  ‘I did what you said, Guv – I blocked the gateway – but he spotted me from a good distance and just drove across the fell – it was an old green Defender, Guv – short wheelbase.’

  ‘Did you get the plate number?’

  She compresses her lips and shakes her head.

  ‘Too far away, Guv – I couldn’t even swear it was a male driver. I drove up to the point where he went off the track – from there you can see back down the pass – the wall disintegrates – he must have got through.’

  ‘So he headed for Ambleside?’

  Now DS Jones nods.

  ‘I phoned for back-up, Guv – but the duty officer for the area has been called away on an emergency – I was hoping if he was around he’d be able at least to get the number – maybe intercept the vehicle.’

  ‘You could have tailed him.’

  DS Jones looks momentarily
crestfallen.

  ‘I don’t like the sound of what’s been happening to these sheep, Guv.’

  She refrains from elaborating further – perhaps a more direct expression of concern for his welfare. Skelgill for his part folds his arms and exhales through clenched teeth. He pulls open the driver’s door and reaches into the side pocket for his torch. Then he walks back over to the well. Just before he reaches the retaining wall he bends down and picks up an object from the stony ground. DS Jones has left her seat and now approaches him.

  ‘What is it, Guv?’

  He holds out a tuft of sheep’s wool. DS Jones indicates towards the well.

  ‘Think it’s down there, Guv?’

  Skelgill shrugs. He leans over and directs the flashlight into the depths of the shaft. Perhaps fifty feet down, a black circle of water reflects the beam.

  ‘If it is, it’s not going anywhere in a hurry.’ He raises his palm to his lips and blows the wool into the opening of the shaft. ‘But this could have come from any number of sheep – there’s nothing to stop them scavenging round here.’

  DS Jones is surveying the abandoned workings.

  ‘What made you come up, Guv – how did you know he was here?’

  Skelgill narrows his eyes.

  ‘He was watching us – I saw the sun glint off a pair of binoculars.’

  DS Jones nods.

  ‘Whoever it was, Guv – he didn’t want to meet us – that was fairly serious evasive action – even in a Defender.’

  Skelgill runs his fingers through his hair, still damp with perspiration.

  ‘Can you remember where he went off?’

  ‘I think so, Guv.’

  ‘As Leyton would say, let’s have a butcher’s hook.’

  DS Jones guides Skelgill to a sharp left-hand bend in the trail. There are skid marks in the aggregate where the Land Rover evidently drew to an abrupt halt – no doubt upon spotting the estate barring the exit – before escaping diagonally across the open fellside. They climb out and approach the verge. Parallel wheel-tracks bruise the vegetation, and they follow these until a patch of bare earth seems to provide the confirmation they are looking for: the same off-road tread pattern – indeed clearer now – as that beside the wall from where the sheep’s carcase has disappeared. DS Jones takes another photograph, and then falls in beside Skelgill as they make their way back to his car.

  ‘Guv – it’s odd enough behaviour – killing and mutilating sheep – but why try to cover it up a day or two later? You’d imagine the crank that’s doing it would want the shock effect of his handiwork being found.’

  Skelgill nods pensively. He is silent for a few moments, apparently preoccupied with picking a path through last year’s crackling bracken.

  ‘Arthur Hope’s rung around half a dozen farms – he reckons there are more strays than usual being reported this spring – maybe they’re not strays.’

  ‘You mean there could be more of these mutilations – that the shepherds don’t know about?’

  ‘Why stop at three?’

  ‘You’d think walkers would have come across them, though, Guv?’

  Skelgill shrugs.

  ‘Walkers stick to the paths – besides, most folk tend not to look too closely when they smell a dead sheep and hear the buzz of the flies.’

  DS Jones nods.

  ‘What do you make of the driver of the Defender, Guv?’

  ‘I know that innocent birdwatchers don’t normally take off like that.’

  ‘Do you think it was someone that recognised us, Guv?’

  Skelgill scowls dismissively.

  ‘Jones – we’re not exactly Mulder and Skully.’ (She chuckles at his suggestion.) ‘Like as not he thought we were the landowners.’

  They reach Skelgill’s car – as he pulls open the driver’s door his mobile phone, still in its hands-free cradle, begins to ring. He answers it on speaker.

  ‘Leyton.’

  ‘Struth, Guv – got you – at long last.’

  DS Leyton’s phrases are punctuated by wheezy gasps.

  ‘Steady on, Leyton – are you climbing?’

  ‘It ain’t that, Guv – what it is –’

  ‘Leyton – what’s the news of the girl?’

  Skelgill’s interjection seems to disorientate his sergeant.

  ‘What? Er – well – she wasn’t working when I got to the pub, Guv – so eventually I managed to get the landlord talking, about him managing on his Tod Sloan – and he said his barmaid had dropped him in it – just taken off and gone back to Poland – a family bereavement, but –’

  ‘And did you believe him?’

  DS Leyton finally circumvents the questions by leaping directly to his point.

  ‘Guv – you’d better get over here – they’ve just fished a body out of the lake.’

  7. LITTLE LANGDALE TARN

  ‘This is a tarn, Leyton.’

  DS Leyton stands alongside his taller superior officer, some twenty yards from the shoreline, as they watch a little knot of emergency services personnel go about their rather grisly business.

  ‘I’ve never got my head round it, Guv – water, mere, tarn, lake – they all look the same to me.’

  ‘There’s only one lake in the Lake District, Leyton.’ Skelgill turns inquiringly to his colleague. ‘You know that?’

  ‘I think you did mention it, Guv.’

  Nevertheless, Skelgill looks like he is winding up for his pet lecture (that Bassenthwaite Lake – or Bass Lake to him – is the only such natural feature to contain the actual word lake in its name, and that to say, for example, “Lake Windermere” is the tautological equivalent of “Lake Winderlake”). But DS Jones detaches herself from the group dealing with the gruesome job of recovery and hurries towards them. Her alarmed expression is sufficient to postpone Skelgill’s homily.

  ‘Guv – the constable’s originally from Great Langdale – he says he knows who it is.’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘William Thymer – we read about him in the pub – he’s the old man from the woods they called Ticker.’

  DS Leyton looks inquiringly at Skelgill.

  ‘You’ve heard of him, Guv?’

  Skelgill shakes his head – although this action appears to be one of ruefulness rather than denial. He takes a step forward and silently surveys the scene. They stand at a point halfway between the shore and the nearest approach of the lane that leads on towards Wrynose and Hard Knott. In this respect, Little Langdale Tarn is relatively unusual, in that most tarns are found far from the highway, small pools suspended high in the fells, nestling in mountain combs. Moreover, it is perhaps large enough even to merit an upgrade in its nomenclature, being half the size of nearby Elter Water. That said, and despite its proximity to Little Langdale itself, the tarn lies in a conservation area and there is no public access. It is neither boated nor fished, neither swum nor paddled. A drowning in Little Langdale Tarn is therefore an extremely rare event indeed.

  ‘Aye, Leyton, I have.’

  DS Jones, still facing her colleagues, raises her right hand.

  ‘This was wrapped round his wrist – clenched in his palm.’

  Skelgill and DS Leyton lean closer. It appears to be an item of rudimentary jewellery, an ensemble of a leather thong about eighteen inches long, its loose ends untied or broken, and an opaque pale orange pebble, threaded through a drilled hole. DS Leyton reaches for it and weighs it in his own broad palm.

  ‘It’s light – what is it, plastic junk?’

  Skelgill takes hold of the strap between forefinger and thumb and raises the necklace into the air, holding it against the bright sky. It seems to glow as it captures the rays of the sun.

  ‘If it’s light it could be amber – that’s a natural plastic – makes for a good bass lure – floats in seawater.’ He swings it like a pendulum. ‘Pricey, though.’

  DS Jones produces a small plastic evidence bag from her back pocket, and holds open the mouth while Skelgill drops the trinket into pl
ace.

  ‘Anything suspicious?’

  ‘There’s a doctor on the way from Coniston, Guv – but the paramedics say there’s nothing on the face of it – they think the body was in the water a good twelve hours.’

  ‘Who found it?’

  ‘A park ranger, Guv – he’d stopped to watch a pair of grebes displaying on the tarn when he spotted it floating face down. It was the paramedics that waded out and pulled it to the shore.’

  ‘Any theories on what he was up to?’

  DS Jones shakes her head.

  ‘There’s nothing to indicate anything other than he got into trouble – perhaps in the dark – if he’d been drinking, Guv?’

  Skelgill nods.

  ‘See what the tests tell us.’

  DS Leyton waves an inexpert arm.

  ‘Could he have been fishing, Guv?’

  ‘There’s no fishing allowed here.’ Skelgill’s expression is slightly wistful, and perhaps also rebellious, as if such a prohibition would not particularly have deterred him under similar circumstances. ‘Water this size, not artificially stocked – it’s not going to be your first choice if it’s your tea you’re after.’

  DS Jones glances back towards the tarn; the paramedics are now preparing to move the body by means of a stretcher. Skelgill seems to reach a decision about their next course of action. He clears his throat.

  ‘Jones – you go with Leyton – but call in at the pub first – ask for contact details for the Polish girl – they must have something. Leyton, you follow that up along with anything new on Pavlenko from the Ukrainian authorities. Jones – see what you can get on Land Rovers registered in the area – there can’t be so many that fit the description – what we witnessed required local knowledge. Give Arthur Hope a call – explain I’m tied up over here – get a list of other farmers who might have had problems – see what you can piece together.’

  DS Leyton shifts rather uneasily from one leg to the other and glances apprehensively at his feet. While his discomfort might stem from the prolonged wearing of Skelgill’s oversized boots, his question suggests another concern.

  ‘Think we’ve got enough to keep the wolf from the door, Guv?’