Detective Inspector Skelgill Boxset 2

by Bruce Beckham

  Skelgill is clad in a marginally more respectable version of the Barbour jacket that he employs for angling. He sheds this and marches towards the inner, eight-foot fence. He calls over his shoulder.

  ‘Start your watch.’

  Matador-fashion he casts his coat onto the top of the fence, and tosses the hank of twine and the secateurs right over. Then he takes a couple of paces back and springs at the barrier, grabbing the rim through the dense waxed cotton to protect his fingers from the sharp cut ends that project like the jagged dorsal fin of a perch. With a grunt he swings his feet up, and his legs and body follow and he lands – far from perfectly, but the turf is forgiving. Ignoring the admiring sounds that emanate from his audience, on all fours he scrambles to gather his accessories. He fastens the secateurs to one end of the line, and then eyes the main security fence that now looms some thirty feet above him. The anti-climb cage curls inwards from the ridge, but Skelgill takes aim and, left-handed, slings the secateurs, blades open, high into the air. They come clattering down onto the top of the cage and immediately he begins to draw them back with the line. It only takes a second or two for the handles to jam in the wire lattice of the structure, and the line becomes taut. Now Skelgill takes a few seconds to separate out what is in fact a double strand – and suddenly it becomes clear what he is doing – he has made a rudimentary rope ladder. He hitches a foot into the first rung, tests that the twine bears his weight, and begins to ascend. However, when he reaches a height of about ten feet it becomes apparent that there are no more rungs.

  ‘Stop the clock!’

  ‘Righto, Guv – just over a minute.’

  Skelgill now concentrates on getting safely to the ground. He abandons the dangling line and levers himself roughly back over the inner fence. It takes him a couple of standing jumps to free his jacket, and then he strolls casually to join the watching pair. As he pulls on his coat he reaches out and lays a paternal hand upon the shoulder of the young security officer.

  ‘Better radio for your gaffer.’ He indicates with a jerk of his thumb towards the fence. ‘Get his mob down here pronto. And a tracker dog if they’ve got one.’

  The young man nods willingly and reaches for the two-way radio clipped into his belt. As he steps aside to make the call, Skelgill turns to DS Leyton.

  ‘Take, what – three minutes to get right over there?’ He runs the fingers of both hands through his hair to restore some semblance of order, and wipes perspiration from his face. ‘Even if you were seen on camera, fair bet you’d be away before the guards got here.’

  *

  ‘Can’t help thinking we tempted fate, Guv – talking about bad publicity and folk escaping.’ DS Leyton is generous in his use of the word we. ‘He could have been climbing over while we were leaning on that bridge, Guv. We might even have seen him – if we hadn’t been spotting fish.’

  ‘Who was spotting fish?’

  DS Leyton shifts his chair backwards an inch or two in the face of his superior’s rather aggressive rebuttal. He opts not to contest the point.

  ‘You hit the nail on the head with that rope business, Guv.’

  This admiring apportionment of credit seems to placate Skelgill. DS Leyton refers to the discovery by the search team of a rope ladder – fashioned from the same blue twine – concealed beneath a beached riverside log, close to Skelgill’s predicted point of egress. That it had been woven with more care and detail, Skelgill has speculated that the stolen rope was smuggled by Harry Krille to his room, perhaps wound around his waist. Now Skelgill bends over his beaker of hospital coffee, an unappetising facsimile of a cappuccino. He stabs at the froth with a teaspoon in an effort to locate liquid beneath.

  ‘Not sure it’s got us anywhere, Leyton.’

  DS Leyton furrows his brow, a little disappointed by this pessimistic analysis.

  ‘I reckon he went into the river, Guv – to cover his tracks.’

  ‘Leyton – if he knows what he’s doing – and quite likely he does,’ (Skelgill places a hand on the manila file provided by Briony Boss) ‘He’s laid a false trail – to get us thinking exactly like you.’

  DS Leyton looks like he is wondering if this is a slight, but Skelgill continues before he can frame a question to test his hypothesis.

  ‘He’ll want to stay dry – they were wearing waterproofs for gardening, so he’s got decent kit. Make it look like you went one way – go the other. Along the shingle, in the shallows – head for the nearest road – there’s so few cars you can hear them coming and hop over a wall.’

  ‘I thought these survival enthusiasts were obsessed with hiding, Guv – right under your nose and you don’t even know it. Smother themselves in bear urine to put off the dogs.’

  Skelgill tuts scathingly.

  ‘Leyton – I know maths isn’t your strong suit,’ (DS Leyton looks both perplexed and offended – but Skelgill continues) ‘And mine neither,’ (this brings a little moderation to the offended aspect) ‘But let me tell you a little rule of thumb we use in mountain rescue. It’s why you want people who get lost to stay put – and not try to find their way home.’

  DS Leyton nods reluctantly.

  ‘Sure, Guv.’

  ‘Fifty – two hundred – four-fifty – eight hundred.’

  The sergeant remains baffled.

  ‘Come again, Guv?’

  ‘How fast does a person walk, Leyton?’

  DS Leyton looks rather panicked by this question, and he stares wildly at Skelgill while his mind wrestles with the conundrum.

  ‘Thinking of going down the shops with the missus, Guv – maybe two miles an hour? Less on the way back with all the bags.’

  Skelgill manufactures a wry grin.

  ‘Very good, Leyton. But someone who’s fit and wants to get a shift on could probably manage four miles an hour.’

  ‘Right, Guv.’

  Skelgill has several unopened packets of sugar beside his mug. He picks one up and carefully tears off a corner. Then he pours the sugar onto the table top, drawing it out into a little line.

  ‘So, you start walking – how far have you gone in an hour?’

  ‘Four miles, Guv.’ DS Leyton looks pleased with himself.

  Now Skelgill makes several more equivalent lines, all radiating from the same origin.

  ‘So how many square miles would we have to search if someone’s gone four miles and we don’t know the direction?’

  DS Leyton’s joy is short lived.

  ‘You’ve got me now, Guv. I dunno. Eight?’

  Skelgill looks at him suspiciously.

  ‘It’s the formula for the area of a circle, Leyton – it comes out at about fifty square miles.’

  ‘Cor blimey, Guv – that’s a lot of land.’

  Skelgill raises an eyebrow, as if to suggest his sergeant’s awe is premature. He opens another packet of sugar and extends the original line.

  ‘What do you think that fifty becomes after another hour?’

  ‘A ton, Guv – a hundred, obviously.’

  Now Skelgill has a self-satisfied smirk forming across his lips.

  ‘Two hundred, Leyton.’

  ‘Jeez, Guv!’

  Skelgill extends the line of sugar twice more.

  ‘Three hours – and it’s four hundred and fifty. Four hours – eight hundred square miles.’

  The diagram threatens to bleed off the edge of the table, but it appears Skelgill feels he has made his point. DS Leyton is nodding.

  ‘See what you mean, Guv – slip the net and keep going.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Mind you, Guv – me, I’d never manage four miles an hour.’

  Skelgill snorts at his sergeant’s candour.

  ‘True, Leyton – but Harry Krille might. And that’s why we need a sighting – or at least a sign.’

  ‘Or some intelligence, Guv.’

  ‘That’s ruled us out, then, Leyton.’

  DS Leyton grins.

  ‘Nah, Guv – what I mean is – if we had so
me information – say he’s got an old auntie we don’t know about – lives in the area – he’d maybe make for her gaff, cool his heels there.’

  Skelgill becomes silent, and his eyes fall upon Harry Krille’s file. He opens the cover and flicks cursorily through what must be a good hundred pages of dense type. He glances up at DS Leyton, who raises his heavy brows in a resigned show of solidarity. It is clear they are both thinking the same thing – roughly speaking: why did Skelgill send DS Jones packing to Manchester?

  However, providence may be about to come to their rescue – if only indirectly, and in the form of Briony Boss’s personal assistant. She approaches their table – frowning at the sight of the two detectives hunched over lines of scattered white powder.

  ‘Ah, er... Inspector – there is a telephone call for you – I can have it transferred to the duty room just over there.’ She indicates a glass-fronted office where several staff stare into monitors. ‘It is a Sergeant Jones – she says it is urgent.’

  Skelgill glances at DS Leyton and then nods to the woman. He rises and follows and she swipes him through the electronic door. She offers to clear out the staff, but Skelgill says it will not be necessary. She picks up a handset and locates the call.

  ‘Transferring you now, Sergeant.’

  She passes the handset to Skelgill and bows away.

  ‘Jones – where are you?’

  ‘Guv – er, at the hotel – just getting ready to go out – for a coffee.’ DS Jones sounds unprepared for Skelgill’s interrogation, when perhaps “Good morning” or “How are you?” might reasonably be expected – but this is Skelgill, and par for the course. Accordingly, she gets straight to the point. ‘I’ve been following the Haresfell case on the internal feed, Guv – in case you called me in. I just read about Harry Krille.’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘I don’t know if it’s been mentioned, Guv – even if anyone would make the connection?’

  She falls silent, as if all of a sudden she has lost confidence.

  ‘Spit it out, Jones.’

  After a moment she resumes; there is excitement in her tone and her delivery becomes stilted and breathless.

  ‘The first time I heard of Harry Krille, Guv – it wasn’t about the murders back in the eighties – it was a more of a gossip story in a magazine about three years ago – a nurse had been writing to him – you know the kind of thing – they call it hybristophilia – the Bonnie and Clyde Syndrome – apparently she was talking about wanting to marry him. I’ve just searched for the article online. I’ll forward the link.’

  Skelgill suppresses a yawn. He could be a casual stroller on a beach, supremely confident, unwilling to acknowledge that sunbathers are staring past him in horror of some impending event – when the great breaker of news crashes over him.

  ‘Guv, the nurse was Meredith Bale.’

  16. DIRECTOR’S OFFICE

  ‘Did Meredith Bale continue to write to Harry Krille after her arrest?’

  Skelgill poses this question to a somewhat anxious looking Dr Peter Pettigrew. Along with Briony Boss and DS Leyton, they are once again assembled around the coffee table.

  ‘Not to my knowledge, Inspector.’

  ‘What are the odds of them both ending up here?’ Skelgill’s tone carries some implied doubt about the conduct of the process.

  ‘It is not so unlikely, Inspector. Of the four similar institutions in Britain, along with Haresfell only Rampton accommodates women. Irrespective of the fact that Harry Krille’s transfer from Broadmoor was complete, the probability of any female offender being committed here was high. But they have been entirely segregated.’

  ‘Is that strictly true, Doctor?’ This sharp question comes, perhaps surprisingly, from the Director.

  Dr Peter Pettigrew shuffles his papers.

  ‘Harry Krille was promoted to Bassenthwaite Ward less than a year ago – his therapeutic regime has been carefully managed.’

  Briony Boss regards him with a steely gaze.

  ‘But he has never shown any propensity to be a danger to women – what about group therapies – has there not been some overlap in the time since?’

  The doctor appears uncharacteristically flustered.

  ‘I shall have to check in more detail – I do not have the information at my fingertips – this is all so sudden.’ He looks at the detectives a little pleadingly. ‘But certainly from a day-to-day living perspective, I can assure you they would not come into contact – each ward comprises a maximum of twelve patients, carefully chosen and monitored for compatibility.’

  ‘Did you even know about Meredith Bale having a fancy for Harry Krille?’

  All eyes suddenly alight upon DS Leyton – including those of a bemused Skelgill – who is apparently not expecting his sergeant to interpose this challenging question. Rather like the little boy in the tale of the Emperor’s Clothes, watching from the wings he has perceived a blatant flaw. Certainly Dr Peter Pettigrew wavers in his response.

  ‘Well, of course – we have detailed background reports on Meredith Bale –’

  ‘Doctor – you were Chair of the forensic panel that assessed her mental condition – you saw her committed to hospital instead of prison. You are considered the leading authority in the North West – if not the entire country – the psychiatric hospital in which she offended falls within your visiting ambit.’

  Whatever her motives, it is clear that Briony Boss is in no mood to make an alliance with her leading specialist. He is obliged to mount a defence by falling back upon firmer ground.

  ‘The emphasis at the time was focused upon her criminal behaviour – the terrible series of murders, and those many associated deaths that were suspected but could not be verified – and Meredith Bale’s outright denial that she had any involvement, despite the overwhelming statistical evidence.’ He grips his left wrist with his right hand, and makes a jerking movement that seems to shoot through his whole body, as if he is suppressing the emotions of such an affront to his professionalism. ‘Those were the parameters within which the panel was charged to make a judgement – our work was based upon extensive psychiatric assessments – not the hyperbole of the gutter press, acting upon the unsubstantiated claims of an anonymous whistleblower.’

  This is about as hot under the collar that the detectives have witnessed the normally affable Dr Peter Pettigrew become. Plainly he is unhappy that any responsibility for the current predicament – however tenuous the connection – should be attached to him. Indeed, along precisely these lines, he lays down something of a challenge.

  ‘In any event,’ he looks directly at Skelgill, ‘I do not see the relevance of Meredith Bale to the matter at hand – the absconding of Harry Krille.’

  Skelgill shifts in his seat, as if he is stiff from sitting too long in one position. He makes a face that may reflect this discomfort – or it might be a poorly disguised sentiment, that he does not expect mere civilians to understand the ways of the police.

  ‘We have to consider all possible lines of inquiry, sir. If we can understand what prompted Harry Krille to escape – why he’s done it, what he thinks he can achieve – it gives us a far better chance of apprehending him before he does any damage.’

  Skelgill’s choice of words appears to strike a chord with Briony Boss, for she fixes him with a look of alarm. He elaborates – and highlights a concern that cannot be far from her thoughts.

  ‘And if we’re talking about media hype – I understand the gardening therapy and all that – but the press will have a field day if they get hold of the wrong end of the stick – a multiple killer who’s been handed the means to escape.’

  A grim silence settles upon the group; DS Leyton, however, seems resolved to capitalise upon his earlier mischief.

  ‘Think he’s got an improvised bomb, Guv? The missing fuel and fertilizer? What if he’s made a detonator in electronics class?’

  For a second time the sergeant wins the attention of the audience. Were it not for Skelgill’s
extravagant expression of dismay, an onlooker might suspect some choreography is at play. Is this innocently controversial remark a ploy to prise out an unguarded reaction? Certainly Skelgill is watching the hospital professionals with a good degree of concentration. However, he moves to defuse the growing discord. He throws out his hands in a rather Gallic gesture of unconcern.

  ‘Look – in practice he couldn’t have taken all that much with him. Say he had a bag of gear hidden – it had to be small enough to carry on his back, over the fence. It’s just as likely he took nothing at all.’

  Briony Boss, nonetheless, is agitated. Though she maintains a composed demeanour, she bites her fleshy lower lip and smears lipstick onto her teeth. Since their earlier meeting she has restored her make up to its usual complement – perhaps in anticipation of the press conference scheduled in an hour’s time, at one p.m. Clearly, it is with this event in mind that she frames her response.

  ‘We should be very careful not to speculate upon unknowns, Inspector – we do not need to alarm the public unnecessarily.’

  At this, Skelgill and DS Leyton exchange brief glances – to the effect that what more disturbing news can there be than Harry Krille is at large? However, Skelgill seems inclined to ease her concern – perhaps the plaintive note in her voice wins his sympathy – and, having raised the spectre of adverse publicity in the first place, he continues in a reassuring tone.

  ‘Just give them the facts. I suggest Dr Pettigrew explains that Harry Krille has undergone successful therapy – that the escape is probably just a moment of opportunism – that he’ll realise it serves him no purpose in being on the run – and he’ll probably seek a way to turn himself in.’ He looks directly at Briony Boss. ‘Don’t make a big deal of the actual break-out – this is a police matter now – the public will only care about Harry Krille being caught. And you’ll have the Chief riding shotgun – that’s usually enough to send most hacks scuttling for cover.’

  But Briony Boss still sounds uneasy.

  ‘Are you not attending, Inspector?’

  ‘You must be joking – I’ve a got a killer to catch.’