‘So what are you saying, Leyton?’
‘On the q.t. – I spoke with my connections – the word is, he’s more than an interested spectator. He bets big – cash on the course. It’s not like online gambling. There’s no records kept, no questions asked – but given a couple of days I can probably find out if he’s on a streak. Winning – or losing, more like.’
Skelgill is silent for an inordinate period. Perhaps he is recalling what seemed at the time a throwaway remark during their interview with Cassandra: “Oh, I’m not the gambler in the family.” After a minute he responds.
‘Okay – follow it up. Look – I need to shift. Jones – just give me the summary.’
There is a squeal as she edges her chair closer to the telephone.
‘Sure, Guv. Firstly, Martius. I’ve also tried to follow any lines that might have commercial implications. Regarding the offshore investments linked to Edgar’s clients, I’ve still got a DC working on that – the Virgin Islands’ tax haven status means the normal channels of enquiry are almost impenetrable – so we’re working with Interpol’s money-laundering unit to see if they can shed any light on it. However, their initial view is that Regulus & Co merchant bank is unlikely to have lost out in the transaction. They merely received and transmitted the funds. More significant might be what happened in the financial crash – or after it, rather. I came across a report that Regulus & Co had – if not exactly failed – performed poorly in the IMF stress tests. Subsequently there was a press release from the bank itself – stating that Regulus & Co had significantly increased its liquidity from a number of private sources. Again it’s hard to scratch beneath the surface – but I realised there’s the public register of property ownership. I checked for Martius’s home in Surrey – it’s the ancestral Regulus family estate – there suddenly appeared at the same time a mortgage of five million pounds.’
In the background DS Leyton whistles.
‘Jeez, Guv – how the other half lives, eh?’
‘Make it half per cent, Leyton.’
There is a pause while they each consider this revelation.
‘That’s all for Martius at the moment, Guv.’ Skelgill neither comments nor commends her, so she continues. ‘As for Cassandra – wow – there was more than I expected. She’s romped through three high-profile marriages in ten years – and probably done pretty well for herself along the way. But this party-planning outfit of hers seems a bit odd. It’s a limited company – she’s registered as the sole director and shareholder – and her accounts haven’t been filed for the last two years. She stages spectacular events that attract pages of coverage – but I just wonder if she’s been making a loss to win business. I found an article where a competitor was complaining about unfair practices – they’d lost out on a big tender for a fashion awards after-party. Looking at her lifestyle, she’s obviously high maintenance – there’s a lot trips abroad – French Riviera, Milan, New York, the Caribbean – including the British Virgin Islands. And then about two months ago a gossip column reported that she’d given up the lease on her own flat in Knightsbridge and moved into a penthouse apartment overlooking Hyde Park – it belongs to a financier. The piece was pretty thick with innuendo – he’s a non-dom and only spends a month a year in the country – he’s twice her age, and the journalist used the expression sugar daddy more than once.’
Skelgill grimaces. He has remained silent during DS Jones’s exposition, and has in fact turned into the entrance to the long winding driveway of Crummock Hall, halting the car, knowing he will probably lose the signal if he presses on beneath the towering bulk of Grasmoor. Perhaps the manoeuvre has distracted him, or more profoundly that his subordinates’ words have provided genuine food for thought – however, he squints anxiously ahead, suggesting his first priority is to motor on. His sergeants can be heard exchanging muffled whispers, before DS Leyton comes back on the line a little wheezily, close to the microphone.
‘Can you hear us, Guv?’
‘No need to shout, Leyton.’
‘Sorry, Guv.’ DS Leyton’s voice wavers. ‘Couple of other things – just quickly?’
‘Aye.’
‘You asked me to check out that bookseller down Charing Cross Road?’ Skelgill does not reply in the affirmative, so DS Leyton keeps going. ‘Seems all above board – but I was just trying the name Vellum, doing an internet search together with Regulus-O’More – and this photo came up from an old school yearbook. Stone the crows – there’s Edgar with the Toby Vellum geezer that you met! Edgar’s a prefect – Toby Vellum’s what they call in those public schools his ‘fag’ – you know, Guv, his gopher, like?’
‘I know what a fag is, Leyton.’
Skelgill sounds remarkably unfazed, given that his sergeant has unearthed a potentially intriguing connection. Yesterday in the drawing room – albeit for a short while – he witnessed Toby Vellum arriving in proximity with the Regulus-O’Mores, and there was no indication of any relationship, long lost or otherwise. It seems unlikely that Edgar, at least, would not have recognised him. And surely Toby Vellum would have had no qualms about identifying himself? Yet his introduction to the family by Fergal Mullarkey had been met with cursory nods and those present returning to their conversations.
‘What do you reckon, Guv – should I follow that one up?’
‘Aye – as you like, Leyton – what else was there?’
DS Leyton hesitates – perhaps a touch deflated his superior’s apathy.
‘Er – about Brutus, Guv – what DI Smart said about him being in the Lakes – when we thought he’d gone to London?’
‘Aye?’
‘Drawn a blank so far, Guv. I’ve talked to all our regular press and radio contacts – you’d think they’d have been tipped off if a celebrity were knocking about – but nothing – nor anything coming up on social media. I’ve tried all the main hotels and guest houses – I wonder if it was a case of mistaken identity – or someone pulling a fast one on DI Smart to make a few quid – oh –’
‘Not very likely, Cock.’
The voice that interjects has an unmistakable grating drawl – it is none other than DI Smart himself.
‘And here’s me bringing you the latest news – in case you missed that, too, Skel?’
That he is aware of Skelgill at the other end of the line suggests a certain amount of eavesdropping has occurred prior to his ingress. Skelgill can hear nothing from his sergeants, who are presumably cringing in silence. Now he is faced with the dilemma of blanking his rival – at risk of passing up some nugget – or the ignominy of swallowing his pride. In the end he responds with the best compromise he can muster, though Alec Smart will take pleasure in that he utters it through gritted teeth.
‘I’m losing the signal, Smart – if you want to tell me something.’
‘Seems to me like you’re losing more than your signal, Cock.’
DI Smart sniggers, and Skelgill can hear the rattle of his heels on the tiled office floor, as if he is performing a little tap-dance of triumph.
‘That crowd you’re investigating –’ (DI Smart pronounces the word as if it is in parentheses, to mock their efforts) ‘ – were having a cosy little chat together at The Island this morning.’
He refers to a large modern hotel that is situated close to the M6 motorway junction for Penrith, and a short distance from the mainline railway station. It would be the obvious choice for travellers to convene prior to going their separate ways. Skelgill curses silently under his breath – that he might have overlooked something so obvious in hindsight. But unlike DI Alec Smart, whose modus operandi depends upon an evanescent legion of mercenaries, spies, snouts and would-be supergrasses, Skelgill largely eschews the paid informant on grounds that treachery begets treachery.
‘Aye.’
This is an unconvincing effort to suggest he might already be abreast of these facts – and again DI Smart cackles, sensing Skelgill’s discomfort.
‘Half an hour they were plotting, S
kel – I can even tell you who ordered Americano and who drank a Manhattan.’ He gives a short hysterical laugh. ‘Then four of them took a cab to the station and the other pair left together by car – cosy – that lawyer chap and your pretty little writer.’
Skelgill scowls fiercely – then abruptly he leans forwards and cuts off the call. He waits, his face like thunder. Broodingly he watches the clock on his dashboard. It is only two minutes later when his phone rings again.
‘That’s him slung his hook, Guv.’
‘Make sure he’s not outside, Leyton.’
‘Already have, Guv.’
‘What else did he say?’
There is an awkward pause – long enough for Skelgill to picture his colleagues exchanging discomfited glances.
‘That was about it, Guv – he said he’s got a meeting with the Chief.’
Skelgill makes a derisive scoffing sound.
‘It’s no big deal, Leyton – as for the family – we know they were due to discuss the will – they didn’t want us cramping their style. That’s why they cleared out of Crummock Hall.’
‘Fair point, Guv.’
Now there is another bout of silence, which DS Leyton eventually breaks.
‘How’ve you been getting on, Guv?’
‘Eh?’
‘I mean – with Perdita and the Mullarkey geezer – anything we should know?’
Skelgill, unseen by his colleagues, glowers and folds his arms. It is a reasonable suggestion – that his team pool their knowledge – but he seems unprepared for the question (or maybe unwilling to provide the answer).
‘I’m working on it, Leyton.’
The pregnant pauses are coming thick and fast – heralding a minor baby boom – but DS Leyton seems determined to put a positive spin on their predicament.
‘Still, Guv – darkest hour before dawn, eh?’
‘What?’
Skelgill’s tone is irate, though DS Leyton seems not to notice.
‘It’s what they say, Guv – that it’s the darkest hour before dawn.’
‘No it’s not. It starts getting light in the hour before dawn. It’s called nautical twilight. The darkest hour’s in the middle of the night, Leyton.’
‘Oh, right, Guv.’
Skelgill crunches his car into gear and sets off at a hair-raising rate along the snow-and-ice-covered track that leads to Crummock Hall. He loses the signal but does not appear concerned.
*
‘Mrs Gilhooley? You must be frozen.’
The diminutive old lady glares suspiciously at Skelgill. Her eyes are uncannily pale, set close astride a hooked nose, there is lank grey hair straggling about a shrivelled countenance, and a moth-eaten blanket gripped at the throat by gnarled fingers that shake, perhaps with cold. She resolutely blocks the narrow doorway of the cottage, though in summoning a reply she appears torn – for this tall rangy stranger in a peculiar hat hauls a sack of coal over his shoulder.
‘Weez thon, woman?’ The hoarse cry of an angry male voice emanates from within.
She ignores the demand of her spouse to identify the newcomer, and juts out a chin that is pointed and unfortunately hairy. Brutus’s childhood analogy from Brothers Grimm was perhaps prophetic.
‘Tha yan o’ Minnie Graham’s bairns?’
‘I heard you were short of fuel.’
That Skelgill’s reply is patently oblique does not seem to concern her. Indeed, in its evasiveness it is perhaps music to her ears. Her eyes narrow shrewdly: bargaining mode.
‘What’ll tha tek fer it?’
Skelgill shrugs – as much as a person can shrug with a half-hundredweight on their back.
‘I’d take a brew.’ He manufactures a friendly grin. ‘There’s two more in the boot, love. Call it community service. Ask no questions.’
At this hint of chicanery, of the Robin Hood variety, the old woman cackles with approval.
‘Weez thon?’ The shout of who is it comes again. ‘Yer lettin’ in draught, woman!’
She gives a curt toss of the head and steps back to admit Skelgill. He enters an unlit oblong room that has the makings of a kitchen to his right and a parlour to his left. Of what he can discern in the twilight, conditions are both spartan and shabby. Wizened and hunched and gripping a trembling walking stick between his knees, Old Man Gilhooley huddles in a threadbare wingback armchair, one of a pair angled towards a small hearth, where an inadequate log fire falters. The man does not look directly at him, but turns his head in birdlike fashion, disquietingly so, and Skelgill wonders if he might be blind.
‘Tis yan o’ they Grahams frae Buttermere. He’s brung us coal.’
‘Ne’er trust a Graham.’ The old man’s retort is sharp and venomous and he spits into the fire.
Skelgill breaks into a broad grin – such vilification seems to delight him, as though it is a compliment of the highest order – and humps the sack down upon the hearth.
‘I’ll get a blaze going for you.’
The old man stares vacantly and now Skelgill can see that his eyes are opaque with advanced cataracts. Again he rotates his head while Skelgill produces a lock-knife and slits open the sack and begins to face up the smouldering log-pile with large chunks of coal.
‘He’s staying fer a cuppa scordy.’
The man reacts to his wife’s explanation with a rather unpleasant smacking of his lips, suggestive of distaste – or perhaps thirst on his own part. Now the woman addresses Skelgill.
‘Pipes is froze. T’only watter’s int’ well.’
Skelgill lifts a sooty palm, though he declines to respond to the plaintive note of appeal in her voice. She loiters for a second, before pulling on another blanket and lifting up a pail from beside the apron front sink. She hobbles out, banging the door behind her.
‘Where’ve thee chaffed that frae, lad?’
This is the first hint of an acknowledgement that Skelgill’s mission is benevolent. That the goods are stolen is taken as read.
Skelgill chuckles.
‘Crummock Hall estate.’
The man does not respond, but as Skelgill snatches a glance he sees that a grin of satisfaction has spread across the aged countenance – and yet it is suddenly jerked away, as if it is incompatible with deep-seated muscle memory.
‘They owes us a sight more than a sack o’coal.’
‘There’s another couple in the car.’
Gilhooley snorts with indignation.
‘Three sacks – three ’undred sacks – all the coal as is still left in Haig colliery – wunt cover it.’
Skelgill nods sympathetically (an act probably unappreciated) and continues with his work. His application is paying off, for hungry flames are licking between the coals. The old man can sense the burgeoning heat, and leans over his stick, his features stretching like a stroked cat.
‘They’d tek shirt off back o’ likes o’ us, lad.’
The implied commonality between the Gilhooleys and the Grahams has the makings of a small olive branch, albeit Skelgill is unaware of any inter-clan antipathy (though he kens well enough the infamous reputation attached to his own matriarchal lineage).
‘Aye.’ Skelgill edges back a little as the fire grows. ‘What did they take from the Gilhooleys?’
The old man makes a sudden sharp hawking noise. He raises a bony finger in the approximate direction of Crummock Hall.
‘Gilhooleys ought ter be livin’ ower yonder – not them thievin’ O’Mores.’
‘How’s that?’
Gilhooley fixes his clouded eyes upon Skelgill – it is a look of rage.
‘Jipped us – of us inheritance.’
He more or less shouts the latter word and it leaves him wheezing.
‘What is it?’
The man’s ire is palpable – as if it ought to be obvious – indeed, that the whole of Lorton Vale, nay Cumbria, should know of this injustice.
‘Us inheritance! Arv telt yer already!’
‘Aye. So you did.’
Skel
gill is assessing how to bridge this semantic impasse, but now it is the old man who cocks his head in the direction of the door – again the birdlike movements, as if he is listening for clues that will signal the approach of his spouse. Skelgill has noted that the well is thirty yards away, down a difficult slope where the water table must be more reliable; they have time yet. Abruptly, Gilhooley begins to claw at his clothing – he wears a misshapen and horribly stained fisherman’s sweater from which his scrawny neck protrudes like a tortoise from its shell. He hooks scaly, yellowed fingernails into the collar and extracts some object fastened upon a cracked leather thong.
‘Tek a deek.’
Skelgill widens his eyes in the gloom, ducking closer for a better look. He grimaces as the old man’s foul breath hisses in his face. Gilhooley can’t hold the object still – a concave metal oval about two inches across – quite possibly gold, though heavily tarnished – ringed by six or eight broken claws and what appear to be the remnants of feathers, quills threaded through tiny holes around the perimeter of the plate, plumes worn down; indeed what barely recognisable matter survives is blackened and thick with human grease and grime.
Skelgill is about to speak when the latch rattles. With an alacrity that belies his apparent infirmity the old man conceals the battered amulet and resumes his hunched stance. The woman, lopsided under the weight of the pail, targets her spouse with an accusing stare.
‘What’s crackin’ on?’
Gilhooley is either well used to repelling her cross-examination or – as DS Jones suggested – is just a touch mad.
‘Where’s us scordy, woman?’
‘How could I ’ave med yer brew – I’ve only just fetched watter?’
Detective Inspector Skelgill Boxset 2 Page 71
