Skelgill appears uninspired; instead it is a puzzled-looking DS Leyton that reacts to this suggestion.
‘Two questions. Well – two parts of the same question. If there was no trace of the woman, what DNA evidence did they find? And how did they know for sure the offender was male?’
DS Jones is nodding willingly.
‘It’s a good point. In the executive summary of the police report there is an explicit acknowledgement of these assumptions.’ She picks up her own copy and makes to flick through it – but it appears she knows its contents, for she replies without the need of a specific reference. ‘Mary Wilson ran a little cottage enterprise – a hobby that grew into a sideline – she knitted scarves and shawls, but she’d also started making small gift items, including a range of key fobs with distinctive sheep motifs. On the day she went missing she had a stall at the local fair – the Balderthwaite shepherds’ meet – and had taken a break around lunchtime, it was presumed to exercise her dog, which had been tethered beside her. A key fob – identified by her husband as the same pattern as had been on her car keys – was found at a place she regularly walked the dog, in woods about a mile north of the village. The car was nearby. That key fob was tested. The fabric contained traces of saliva from which a DNA profile was recovered – Y-chromosome. A male. The theory was that she struggled with her assailant – perhaps tried to fend him off with her keys, jabbing at his face – and the woollen fob tore away. The keys were never found.’ DS Jones regards DS Leyton with the hint of a crease forming between her finely curved brows. ‘You’re right to raise the question. The evidence neither proves that the DNA belonged to her assailant, nor, therefore, that the assailant was a male. They couldn’t even be a hundred per cent sure it was her personal key fob. But understandably it was the main tangible lead.’
DS Leyton is looking worried.
‘Speaking of leads – what happened to the dog?’
DS Jones smiles generously, despite that she senses Skelgill’s disapproval.
‘As it happens it forms part of the story. Mary Wilson and her husband Aidan Wilson were lodging with Mary’s mother, a Mrs Tyson – she helped look after their child – in the next village, Slatterthwaite. It’s under a mile south from Balderthwaite – maybe two miles from the Bowder Stone?’ She glances at Skelgill for confirmation; he obliges with a faint nod. ‘It seems she was in the habit of spoiling the dog, and in turn it was in the habit of turning up at the back door. When it did so that afternoon she didn’t think too much about it. Meanwhile other exhibitors noted that Mary Wilson hadn’t returned to her stall – but there was no real cause for concern until it became time to pack up. Mobile phones were rare back then – never mind that you still can’t always get a signal in Borrowdale.’ (Skelgill makes an ironic scoffing sound but does not otherwise interrupt.) ‘Someone was sent along to Slatterthwaite. Aidan Wilson was home from work. Mary Wilson also had a part-time job at the Balderthwaite village inn – the Twa Tups – and he suggested that because of the meet she’d been roped in to help behind the bar. But that wasn’t the case – and that was when the police were contacted – her husband made the call from the pub.’
DS Leyton is nodding slowly as he processes the unravelling tale.
‘What about sightings?’
DS Jones nods as if she expects this question.
‘There are several statements to the effect that she was at the Balderthwaite shepherds’ meet for the whole of the morning, running her woollens stall. She was seen to leave at about 1pm, taking the dog. The last definite sighting was probably immediately after – she peered into a window of the Twa Tups and was positively identified by the barmaid; and the two competition judges who were drinking there at the time also saw her. Mary Wilson used to park at the back of the inn, and the assumption is that she was on her way to collect her car, to exercise the dog near the Bowder Stone – a favourite walk of hers. There were no reported sightings of the car elsewhere – and it was a distinctive battered red Fiat 500, so it’s probable that she went straight there. The parking area isn’t visible from the road, and the car wasn’t found until just after 7pm – so the investigating officers defined a six-hour window in which something could have happened to her.’
Now DS Jones looks at Skelgill anxiously. It is plain she seeks his approval to speculate. He recognises her appeal and nods brusquely.
‘Well – of course, one lesser theory was that she drowned in the River Derwent and her body was swept into the lake – but it was a dry year and water levels were low. Another was that she had basically run away – with a lover – and there is some evidence that we can consider in that regard. Except now we know she didn’t run away; most likely she was murdered in the vicinity. The caveat being the PM.’ Her colleagues are nodding grimly – they none of them expect any other outcome from the detailed forensic examination that is in progress. ‘And think about it – never mind that she had a child, more pressing was her stall and all the stock, on which she depended for pin money – perhaps even to make ends meet. Surely she would have intended to be absent for at most an hour? That would suggest that whatever befell her had occurred by two o’clock. And as such it would make a significant difference to an investigation. The angle you would take with witnesses – it would be more focused – and, well, frankly more accusative.’
Skelgill is watching DS Jones intensely. He raises an eyebrow but it might be with approval as much as alarm. To treat witnesses as suspects might contradict protocol, but it is uncannily consistent with his gut feel. DS Leyton, however, seeks additional reassurance.
‘What makes you so convinced about that, girl?’
DS Jones taps with a toe the files at her feet.
‘The basis of this investigation was that Mary Wilson was a random victim of an outsider, that she’d been abducted by a stranger. We can rule out abduction. As for the stranger – yes, that remains perfectly possible. But if we were called fresh to a case like this – given the knowledge that she may have been attacked within minutes of reaching a secluded spot she was known to frequent – we wouldn’t give up so easily on the idea that she was killed, as most female murder victims are, by someone whom she knew. Maybe by someone she went to meet?’
3. THE BOWDER STONE
Monday, late morning
‘Reckon those nippers are safe up there, Guv? I’d be having kittens if they were my lot.’
Skelgill seems indifferent to the danger that faces the clambering children – he is wondering why they aren’t at school – until he hears a shout, “Maxime, Mathilde – faites attention!” and realises they must be the offspring of foreign visitors. Besides, he subscribes to the principle of fledglings being encouraged to spread their wings – despite that a test flight from the top of the towering rock would not be in the best interests of any of those present, including himself and his colleagues.
‘The Victorians used to charge folk to climb the ladder – they advertised it as the biggest rock fragment in the world. I expect the women were blowing off it all the time, those dresses they wore.’
DS Jones is reading an information board.
‘It says it weighs 1,253 metric tonnes.’
Skelgill frowns.
‘Call that two thousand in proper money.’ He squints at the giant boulder, tilting his head. ‘The weight of fifty thousand yowes, Arthur Hope used to reckon.’
DS Leyton puffs out his cheeks.
‘Cor blimey, Guv – imagine the wallop when that came crashing down. You wouldn’t have wanted your motor parked here.’
Skelgill looks at his subordinate with some dismay.
‘Leyton – it was during the Ice Age.’
DS Leyton grins sheepishly.
‘Chariot, then, Guv.’
Skelgill shakes his head despairingly. He turns and begins to move away. As he does so he checks his wristwatch.
‘Come on. Let’s time this walk.’
The Bowder Stone occupies a clearing – it has been compared to a
ship marooned on its keel – and Skelgill leads his colleagues astern in a northerly direction to a point where a footpath disappears into the surrounding vegetation. While September is considered to be an autumn month, and certainly berries are plentiful and some birches are beginning to turn, the ancient oaks of Borrowdale will resolutely cling onto their leaves well into November. Thus, under today’s leaden skies, beneath the dense green canopy there is a preternatural twilight. Accordingly, it seems, Skelgill proceeds cautiously – when he might be expected to stride out, requiring his companions to hop and skip to keep up. In fact his measured approach reflects that he wrestles with the notion that dog walkers have as many speeds as there are dogs. His practice is to set his own pace and emit the occasional whistle. But plenty of times he sees folk dawdling – patiently waiting, even, while their pet inspects every vertical target or plunges off-path to forage for pheasants.
‘What’s that there, Guv?’
Skelgill’s musings are interrupted by DS Leyton’s inquiry. His sergeant’s voice a hint tremulous, he refers to a fenced off area to their right, with a latched gate on which is strung a warning sign, Dangerous Cliff.
‘It’s an abseiling anchor point – above an old quarry. The adventure companies use it for their outward-bound courses. We use it for training sometimes.’ Skelgill is referring to his role in the local mountain rescue team. ‘It’s only a hundred foot or so.’
‘Whoa! A hundred too many for me, Guv.’ DS Leyton is tentatively peering over the fence. ‘I ain’t got no head for heights. I’d rather paddle out on the lake on a homemade raft than go over that flippin’ edge. Cor – look at it – I’m getting vertigo just thinking about it!’
‘Mind the ground don’t give way, Leyton.’
DS Leyton almost jumps away from the fence, and quickly gets back into step with his colleagues. He resumes his monologue.
‘I remember seeing that film about that geezer who fell down a crevasse. Broke his leg. Got out and survived somehow. Touching the Cloth, it were called, I reckon.’
DS Jones emits an involuntary laugh, but Skelgill is more taciturn – but he seems to be suppressing a grin.
‘Aye, sommat like that, Leyton. I’ll pass it on to our operations manager – he’ll like that. Name our next big exercise after it.’
They might pursue the subject further, but Skelgill’s chosen ‘average’ pace now brings them – in six minutes – to the gate that marks the boundary of the Bowder Wood; beyond lies the more open heathland of Cummacatta.
‘So it were here, aye?’
He addresses his question to DS Jones. She nods.
‘According to the description, yes. Although reading between the lines “beside the stile” was an approximation. There were about a hundred searchers working over a period of several days. People drop things all the time – and when you think of how many walkers come here. Across the dale they picked up scores of objects – gloves, scarves, hats and suchlike. Each group of searchers had evidence bags and they marked them with a description of the location and the map reference if they knew how to record it.’
Skelgill is nodding broodingly; now he remembers this. His own party, under the stewardship of Arthur Hope collected a dozen miscellaneous items, in various states of decay. Jud Hope had found a wallet with £50 in it that months later came back to him unclaimed as the finder.
‘So you see, Guv – it was only later when they enlisted Aidan Wilson to look at a selection of the more promising finds that he identified the key fob. There was a delay before its significance was recognised; this spot wasn’t treated as a possible crime scene.’
Skelgill has a supplementary question.
‘What was their explanation for it being here?’
‘That she was accosted at this point – and forced against her will to a vehicle – either back at the Bowder Stone or on the north side of Cummacatta Wood where there’s another small parking area.’
‘What did she weigh?’
‘Forty-seven kilos – seven-and-a-half stones, if you prefer.’ DS Jones regards her superior with a flash of insouciance – that he should presume she has command of such detail – which of course she does. ‘That was based on her six-month post-natal medical – the birth of her child was actually a year previously.’
Skelgill does not react directly to this information; indeed he seems to digress.
‘There’s one or two popular dog-walking spots that I know. When folk find a glove they tend to stick it on the end of a twig. A scarf they’ll tie to a branch. Over a period of a few days things move about. Other folk look at them – maybe to see if there’s a name tag. Put them somewhere else more obvious – a stile or a gate – where’s there’s traffic. Then things get picked up and dropped again by the dogs and other animals. I was clearing salmonberry last year, in a copse beside Bass Lake – it’s an invasive shrub; you have to hack it up by the roots. I didn’t finish the job so rather than carry the mattock to and fro I buried it with my rigger gloves under the leaf litter. I came the next day – one of the gloves was gone. I found it a few weeks later near the shore, a quarter of a mile away.’
He glares at his colleagues. DS Leyton obliges with a suitable prompt.
‘So how did that happen, Guv – a cheeky little squirrel, digging for its nuts?’
‘Tod, like as not, Leyton – a fox.’
‘Ha – a foxglove, Guv!’
Skelgill gives a sarcastic laugh.
‘There’s a few times I’ve had stuff disappear from the back door – if you’ve left claggy shoes on the step – owt that’s foily, they’ve got an instinct to scavenge. Work out later whether they can eat it. Cubs – they’ll take it just to worry at it.’
His graphic tale seems to have a moral – for his sergeants are nodding in synchrony: they should only set limited store by the particular locus. And yet, as if by design, there is the sudden clink of the latch of the gate at its centre. They swing around in unison.
‘Ahoy there! Are we on course for the Bowder Stone?’
It is a couple, middle-aged, clad in smart county attire, well groomed and noticeably suntanned. The woman, a honey blonde with a stiff-looking bonnet of hair, is surely fresh from the services of a cosmetologist. The detectives make way, stepping to one side of the woodland path. Skelgill assumes responsibility for mustering a reply.
‘Aye – just stick to this path – six minutes and you’ll be there.’
‘My good fellow – that is jolly precise.’
Skelgill sees the man examining them. While he rarely looks out of place in the countryside (if not so elsewhere), his colleagues are more conspicuous. DS Leyton is wearing a suit, and wellingtons are his only concession to the outdoors; DS Jones has the look of a student, in a college sweatshirt, jeans and trainers, albeit of the trail variety. But Skelgill is not about to explain their presence, nor the reason he knows the exact timing. He tilts his head to one side.
‘Happen it’s the correct answer.’
The man hesitates, as though his curiosity is piqued and he wants to know more. Then he seems to think the better of it.
‘Excellent – I shall wish you good morrow. Onward, Margery.’
He pushes off from a brass-topped cane, while the woman nods in a regal manner, as though she anticipates a bow and a curtsey and is rather premature with her acknowledgement. The detectives watch with a certain bemusement until the visitors disappear from sight, the man marching with a military bearing, his wife trailing a waft of expensive perfume in her glamorous wake. But now they turn to spy a slim young woman of medium height approaching the other side of the gate – in fact she is a teenager, attractive and sultry beyond her years, with long smooth dark hair, brown pools for eyes and crescent brows that are surely artificially enhanced. She appears suitably bored for one of her generation, but is taking a selfie nonetheless, and is plugged in to her mobile via white earphones. He notices that she clasps in her hand behind her phone a few sprigs of late-flowering enchanter’s nig
htshade. She does not make eye contact with either of the males, just DS Jones – whom she takes in with a sweeping glance, one of interest rather than condescension, and she smiles engagingly and DS Jones reciprocates. Again they watch – now just the slender figure, in no hurry, though perhaps on reflection maintaining a sanitary distance between herself and what must be her parents. Though it is unlikely she can hear him, DS Leyton mutters under his breath.
‘That don’t feel too clever to me, Guv.’
Skelgill is scowling. But he does not answer, so it is left to DS Jones to request clarification.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well – if it was right here that Mary Wilson was accosted, attacked – whatever. Makes you realise – a girl on her own – about that size – your size, Emma – bit of a sitting duck – lonely spot like this.’
DS Jones looks tempted to demonstrate a karate move, but restrains herself. There is a combative glint in her eyes. DS Leyton emits a growl of frustration and appeals directly to Skelgill.
‘It ain’t right, is it?’
‘That’s why we do the job, Leyton.’ Skelgill punches his left fist into the opposite palm. ‘Come on – we’ll walk up through Cummacatta – it’s the most obvious route to the cave from here.’
They pass in single file through the gate and Skelgill leads them out into a more open area, skirting clumps of trees and patches of deep bracken, finding ground underfoot where there is shorter grass by means of a succession of traverses, drawing the sting out of the gradient, while all the time broadly veering to his right as they ascend the steepening flank of Grange Fell. Eventually they swing back one final time towards the woodland fringe and their path becomes more level. Unlike before, Skelgill has not spared the gas, and DS Leyton is panting heavily. From a little behind, he calls out.
Murder at the Meet Page 3