He scrutinises the shepherds’ meet brochure once more. Sure enough – there is his event: Scawdale Fell Fell Race (by belligerent tradition a double ‘fell’); and his category: Senior Male: 1st D Skelgill (Buttermere, 39:59), 2nd B Underscar (Keswick, 42:43), 3rd J Ingshead (Grange, 43:18). He stares at the page – fighting hard it seems to contain his bewilderment. He might be thinking that he won by almost three minutes – an unprecedented margin of victory in the entire history of the race – and no wonder there was no one else in the photograph! But, actually, he is contemplating something else altogether. Where was Jake Dickson?
*
‘You’ll be getting sick of the sight of me, lad.’
Guided by a loud clanging Skelgill has arrived at a dank corner of Walter Dickson & Co’s premises to find mechanic Nick Wilson employing a lump hammer to shift the recalcitrant brake disc of a dung-spattered farm pick-up. It conjures a reference on his previous visit to his own primitive manual of motor maintenance. Indeed the young man starts as though caught red-handed using such an illicit method – but his fears prove to be grounded elsewhere. He remains on bended knee beside the vehicle, his eyes averted and his head bowed as though for an executioner.
‘Is it me – am I the suspect?’
Skelgill is both perplexed and disarmed by the meek rejoinder.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I heard it on the radio – it said the police have interviewed a suspect.’
Now it is Skelgill that looks dumbfounded. For a moment he flounders to find a response.
‘Nick, lad – how could you be a suspect?’
It takes the young man a few seconds to answer.
‘But you took me DNA last night. Then it was on the news this morning.’
Skelgill has to stem a torrent of questions that threatens to swamp his composure. The radio? The police? A suspect? He digs his hands into his trouser pockets and turns a circle on the spot.
‘Aye – and I explained that was nowt to do with you personally.’
He realises it would be accurate to say he did not go into convincing detail when he and Dr Herdwick’s assistant visited the caravan to take the cheek swab. However, the boy now nods dejectedly. Skelgill, meanwhile, cannot restrain his curiosity any longer.
‘So, what did you hear on the radio?’
The fresh-faced mechanic looks up, surprised that either the detective doesn’t know or – surely more likely – he is testing him out in some way.
‘It just said the police have found a suspect and the investigation is continuing.’
Skelgill now drops any pretence of omniscience.
‘Did it say where, or who – or what did it say?’
Nick Wilson shakes his head.
‘I reckon that was all.’
Skelgill looks dissatisfied, though he turns away to suggest his annoyance is directed elsewhere and not at the sensitive young man.
‘Was it on local radio – or national?’
‘Local. That’s what I listen to, any road.’
Skelgill nods, and again perambulates in a circle, wider this time, requiring him to step over discarded tools and car parts. How has the information got out? Has DI Smart held a press briefing? Has the Chief approved a media release? Or has there been a leak of some sort? Only a handful of people know about the Manchester suspect. A leak is a matter for concern – but nothing compared to a release authorised by the Chief, for she would not have done so unless she gives credence to Smart’s end of the investigation. But why has he not been informed? And why has DS Jones not contacted him?
But he must park these anxieties. There is little he can achieve without making inquiries, and he cannot do that here. Besides, there is his own lead to follow up, despite the body blow of this new development.
‘I’m here to see your gaffer.’ He sees the boy flinch. He reaches and pats him firmly on the shoulder. ‘And you’re in the clear, right?’
Nick Wilson forces a reluctant grin.
‘He went to Keswick to pick up some brake pads and stuff. He said he’d be back by nine. We’ve promised the job done by ten.’
Skelgill checks his watch. It is a few minutes to nine.
‘I’ll wait in my car – that way I can see him coming.’ He turns away, and mutters under his breath. ‘And I can listen to the radio and find out how the police are getting on.’
*
‘Morning, sir – have you got a minute?’
Though taken unawares – carrying a stack of boxes and not seeing that Skelgill is actually seated in his car with the window wound down – Jake Dickson reacts coolly to Skelgill’s presence.
‘Alreet, laddo?’
Skelgill indicates with a jerk of his thumb the passenger side.
‘Do you want to jump in, sir?’
The man, both arms laden, gives a bow of the head.
‘Let me just give these pads and discs to the lad.’
Skelgill watches as Jake Dickson disappears into the gloom and emerges half a minute later; little time to have conferred, albeit Skelgill had relayed nothing of note to Nick Wilson. It is the first proper look he has had of him; previously he was in overalls, up to his chest in the inspection pit, shrouded in darkness. He has longish black hair, strong features and an almost unnaturally tanned complexion. He wears a leather bomber jacket over a t-shirt and tight-fitting Levi’s, and Chelsea boots. It is an ensemble that, to Skelgill’s eye, smacks of the faded rock star, a man who still fancies himself, blind to the crow’s feet and pot belly that betray the self-image. He swings himself casually into the passenger seat and eyeballs Skelgill.
‘What’s all this “sir”? You’re one of us, laddo. What’s wrong with good old Jake?’
Skelgill determines that he will not yield to this subtle coercion, despite that he suffers small pangs of guilt; there is respect for an elder, and a once formidable reputation.
‘How about we compromise on Mr Dickson for the time being.’
Skelgill frames his reply as a statement that is not up for negotiation.
Jake Dickson slaps his hands on his thighs and then upon the console in front of him.
‘You don’t see many of these around.’
‘You mean I’m easily recognised.’
‘You are plain-clothes, after all.’
Skelgill raises an eyebrow.
‘I shouldn’t like to creep about incognito. I’m here to help, not spy.’
The man makes a hissing sound, and looks sideways at Skelgill, a confident smirk across his full-lipped mouth.
‘And I’d help you – if only I could.’
His retort seems to preclude an involvement that has not yet been requested; it seems he still vies to control the situation.
‘Mr Dickson.’ It must be clear that he is not going to escape whatever Skelgill wants; and in his dark eyes there is a flicker of alarm as Skelgill produces the leaflet borrowed from his mother’s scrapbook. He hands it over. ‘I wanted to ask you about this.’
Jake Dickson again makes the hissing expiration; he is like a smoker shorn of his cigarette.
‘Ee, lad – this is going back some.’
‘The results are for the year Mary Wilson disappeared.’
Jake Dickson flips over the pamphlet as though he is familiar with its layout. He permits himself an ironic chuckle.
‘Have you come to rub it in at long last?’
Skelgill inwardly bridles at this remark – as if this were the most significant event in his later-to-be-curtailed fell running career; it might have been a milestone, but in hindsight parochial in the scale of things. But that is an argument for another day, if ever. Instead he speaks generously.
‘You were the next best in the field by a country mile.’
Jake Dickson moves as if to respond positively – but then he checks himself as though there is something double-edged about Skelgill’s praise. He stares almost fearfully at the leaflet. Then he remarks, somewhat half-heartedly.
�
�Brian Underscar were a decent runner.’
‘Two minutes behind your record. He wouldn’t live with you.’
Jake Dickson’s face has become taut, he is tight-lipped; the bravado has seeped away. He nods slowly; he appears to know what is coming. Skelgill intones calmly.
‘Mr Dickson, you didn’t run.’
Now the man reacts, unexpectedly as far as Skelgill is concerned, his features morphing into a mixture of the slightly obsequious and the slightly patronising. He rubs his oil-stained hands together as he must have done a thousand times with Swarfega at the end of a job. He dips his head and looks at Skelgill through narrowed eyes.
‘Truth be told, lad – your reputation preceded you. I decided I weren’t going to be shown up by a bairn.’
Skelgill looks away. He stares directly ahead into the cavernous mouth of the garage, his gaze unseeing, his mind’s eye recalling the day. It was hot for late September. The runners, so often gloved and hopping up and down on the start line of a Lakeland fell race, were subdued, taking on drinks, several even crowding in the shade of the great oak on one side of the field. He knew nothing about sports science or dehydration; he’d grown up thinking headaches were just something that happened when the sun was cracking the cobbles and you were outdoors too long, too much radiation on your head. And when the gun had fired, he’d sprinted for the gate. He was first there and never once looked over his shoulder. Had he wanted an easier race he could have relented and jogged with the chasing pack. As in life, he ploughed his own furrow. In consequence he saw little of the grown men who were his fellow competitors.
‘Mr Dickson, what did you do?’
The man regards him, slyly it seems – but he does not withhold an explanation.
‘I allus ran from the back.’ His inflection elicits a nod from Skelgill. ‘Starting gun went off – I nipped round the side of the Twa Tups.’
Skelgill is trying not to react – albeit he feels like he is experiencing the unravelling of one of several promising threads that dangle from the confused web in his mind.
‘Then what?’
‘Sneaked into t’ lounge. Had a couple of pints while t’ race were on.’
Skelgill senses he must be looking unnaturally unresponsive. He makes an effort to seem more casual.
‘Aye? Who served you?’
Jake Dickson strangles an exclamation, as if to say how would he be expected to remember something like that? But then he answers.
‘It would have been arl Jim, as used to keep the place. Retired to Whitehaven. They say he’s dead now.’
Skelgill nods, but he does not allow his thoughts to drift to the coastal town and the purportedly deceased witness.
‘How long did you stay there?’
‘Until after I reckoned the last runners were down.’
Skelgill is perplexed. Jake Dickson was generally expected to win; there would surely have been an inquest.
‘Didn’t they want to know where you were?’
The man shrugs.
‘Can’t say as folk were that bothered. I’d put my tracksuit on – I limped around a bit. I might have said to one or two that I’d pulled a hamstring. Once the fuss were over folk were paying attention to other things – announcement of t’ sheep classes – and all that. Soon enough they were getting kaylied int’ pub – it were all forgotten.’
Skelgill is pensive. He does not want his next question to sound portentous.
‘In the time you were in the Twa Tups, did you see Mary Wilson?’
‘I never saw her.’
There is something about his answer, not least that it comes almost imperceptibly too quickly, that sets a little alarm bell ringing for Skelgill. But to probe any further just now would show more of his hand than he is ready to reveal. He nods, in the manner of expressing disappointment.
‘What did you say at the time – about not running?’
‘Whatever I were asked, I answered. I can’t recall.’
Skelgill means what was the man asked by the police – and, interestingly, Jake Dickson seems to interpret the question as such. Though he is not sufficiently au fait with the files, Skelgill imagines that the fell runners would have been considered unlikely suspects. There is a vague memory of his own sentiments – knowing that suspicion hung like an autumn mist over Borrowdale, over everyone, including himself – but that it could not really be attributed to him because he was running when Mary Wilson left the meet and drove to a spot on the opposite side of the valley. The race went off at 12.30pm; the stragglers were back within the hour. But not so Jake Dickson. He never left the village. And yet, it seems, this fact was overlooked in the original investigation.
Skelgill also wonders why it had never registered with him that the multiple-times previous winner, record holder and pre-race favourite wasn’t in the frame – indeed hadn’t figured in the race. But then, not only had he been front-runner, having broken the tape he was chaperoned away by his supporters. Swamped by a concoction of exhaustion and euphoria, and bearing a youthful ignorance of the protocols of congratulating fellow competitors, he hadn’t paid much attention. And, at fifteen, none of his relatives would have had the notion of marching him over to the Twa Tups for a celebratory pint (despite that he and Jud Hope had been managing to buy halves of mild from the landlord in Buttermere for the best part of a year).
Skelgill is nodding somewhat blandly in response to Jake Dickson’s last answer. Beneath the surface, his instincts are telling him to get out of here – not so easy, since they are in his car. But he needs some time and space to digest what he has absorbed. He finds himself asking what must sound like an ill-informed question.
‘You knew Mary Wilson, aye?’
The man regards him a little warily.
‘Course I knew her – we were all in the same crowd growing up.’
At this juncture Skelgill might pose one of several highly pertinent questions – concerning Mary Wilson’s boyfriends, affairs, relationships – but he has a strong sense that Jake Dickson has not provided the whole truth thus far, and he does not want his impressions clouded by further evasion and fabrication. And why spook him any more than is necessary? In this respect, his next question perhaps wrong-foots the man.
‘How come her lad works for you?’
Jake Dickson leans back in the passenger seat and folds his arms. He makes a face that is rather condescending, perhaps as he thinks befits his position in charge.
‘He used to hang around – come down on his bike from his nan’s place – Slatterthwaite.’ Skelgill nods to show he understands the social geography. ‘He never said much, but I could tell he liked to watch. I started giving him little jobs – like washing cars, sweeping up. Then one day I got called away in the middle of replacing the headlamp bulbs on a Defender. When I got back he’d done it.’ Jake Dickson shrugs, as if to rest his case. ‘I started him with a Saturday job – then when he left school I took him on full time.’ He grins sardonically. ‘He’s not one for looking at the Haynes manual, but he’s got a good knack. Works things out for himself.’
Skelgill is listening reflectively. A ‘kinaesthetic learner’ – a rare plus point that he scored in an aptitude test; some police training course, back in the mists of time. When he does not respond, or ask something else, Jake Dickson takes it upon himself to make the running.
‘He reckons you gave him a DNA test last night – what’s that all about?’
Skelgill sets aside his reminiscences; his demeanour stiffens.
‘There’s a few gaps in the original investigation – we’re just trying to fill them in.’ He screws up his face, momentarily revealing his front teeth. ‘Something and nothing.’
He notices Jake Dickson is now, if not wringing his hands, then again going through the motions of applying the invisible cleaning gel.
‘Nick reckons he’s heard on the radio you’ve got a suspect. He can’t be a local man – that were ruled out at the time.’
This statement is clea
rly couched to winkle some answer from Skelgill.
‘That’d be about right, Mr Dickson.’
The man makes a humming sound, which might be a sign of satisfaction, possibly even relief, though it is quickly truncated, and now he begins to shift rather impatiently in his seat. Skelgill obliges him.
‘Mr Dickson – I’d better not keep you from your work – I believe you’ve got a rush job on.’
‘Aye.’ The man reaches for the catch and begins to open the door. ‘Should be done in time.’
Skelgill’s tone becomes more conversational.
‘How long have you been proprietor here?’
Jake Dickson seems happy to answer.
‘Me uncle Walter died five years back – but it’s been above ten since I’ve been running it myself. He were crippled with rheumatism. That were another reason young Nick came in handy.’
Skelgill is looking at the sign above the lintel. It strikes him that it states ‘Walter Dickson & Co’ rather than the more usual ‘& Son’.
‘Are you married?’
The man grins, and his boyish good looks momentarily flicker beneath the seasoned veneer.
‘Not me – footloose and fancy free, as they say.’
He clicks his tongue and slides out of the car, closing the door perhaps more firmly than is necessary. Skelgill watches, he has a jaunty walk, and he sweeps his hair back over his ears with both hands as he disappears into the workshop.
Skelgill engages the ignition, reverses and turns the vehicle, and accelerates past the sign for Balderthwaite farm café. His stomach protests, but his mind is preoccupied. Jake Dickson seems satisfied with his morning’s work. Yet it is a curious statement, his failure to run – an admission of cowardice, of a sort – and surely quite out of character. Therefore is this the lesser of two evils?
Murder at the Meet Page 16