Murder at the Meet

by Bruce Beckham

‘I’ll duck into the Twa Tups – see if I can get a word with Megan Nicolson while it’s still quiet. Most folk stay over at the meet until the runners come back down. It’s mobbed silly after that.’

  ‘Righto, Guv – as it happens I’ve brought my deerstalker – birthday present from the nippers. I’ll tie down the flaps – that should do nicely to keep me incognito.’

  Skelgill finds himself grinning – whether it is at Mrs Leyton’s sense of humour, or her husband’s so often artless nature – though a more cruel interpretation would be his assessment that there is no amount of apparel that could disguise his sergeant’s provenance. He ends the call and gives the recalcitrant rock one final futile kick before slamming down the tailgate.

  The route to Balderthwaite sees him cross paths with a road-hogging peloton, a glistening giant Lycra-clad arthropod snaking down the dale, and it perhaps is just as well that he is driving in a reflective mode, for there is little time to adjust in the limited confines of the winding lane. He is reminded it was on the same bend that a dashing Mary Wilson in her little red Fiat almost took out a touring member of the same two-wheeled fraternity. If only she had clipped him she probably would never have made it to Cummacatta Wood.

  The near miss troubles him. Though he cannot get further than a general sense of discomfort – or even whether it is the antisocial behaviour of today’s riders or something more specifically to do with his recalling of Mary Wilson’s last hour. But nothing will come to him, and such is the short distance that before he knows it Balderthwaite is upon him. Now the bends become sharp and angular, between properties without pavements, and aimlessly dawdling visitors impede his progress. From an opening just ahead emerges a stout character in an ill-fitting mackintosh, shiny black wellingtons and a too-small deerstalker – he does not notice Skelgill as he lurches head down towards the nearest entrance of the shepherds’ meet. Skelgill lets out a strangled cry of amusement, but he swerves away to his left, into the same gap from which his partner has just emerged, for it is a shared thoroughfare that leads both to the parking paddock and the Twa Tups.

  There is limited availability in the pub car park, and a lad who looks like he is sagging school has been posted on the gate. Skelgill uses his warrant card to pull rank. Wide-eyed, the youth is only too pleased to let Skelgill pass – here is something to impress his pals as soon as he can get a charge on his phone.

  Skelgill pushes open the door from the passage into the snug bar. It is busier than he expected; perhaps the rain has chased in a few of the softer tourists. He hesitates for a moment; perhaps he is trying to conjure the image, twenty-two years back, at this time of day when the two judges and Megan Nicolson were the only inhabitants. He finds it hard to picture now – though there are two people on stools at the bar – the stools – and there is a barmaid – though not the barmaid. Not Megan Nicolson. Skelgill recognises her, however, as one of the women drafted in on the day of the funeral to serve in Debs’ farm café – and, while she is not an immediate local (from Keswick, he recalls) she seems to recognise him.

  He must reveal a trace of disappointment – for he is sure he detects in her countenance a corresponding flash of self-doubt, a reaction he would not wish to elicit; besides, she would hold her own in a beauty contest. But his intention to dig into the detailed timings on the day of Mary Wilson’s disappearance is thwarted, and his temper momentarily gets the better of him. Of course, she might have seen him dog walking, ignoring his fellow cynophilists – or he may once have arrested a relative – but she seems to bear no grudges, and asks what he would like to drink. As usual the Twa Tups offers an intriguing selection of cask ales. And, truth be told he could murder a couple of pints – but realistically a half is all he could risk, and about as useful as a candle in the wind.

  He decides to come to the point.

  ‘I was hoping to get a word with Megan – I assumed she’d be on.’

  ‘You just missed her – she got a text message. She said she needed to nip across the road for a few minutes.’

  ‘What – to the meet?’

  ‘Aye – I assumed that’s what she meant. I don’t think she’ll be long, love. Why don’t you have a drink and wait?’

  Skelgill is tempted to go after his quarry. But some competing instinct makes him yield. He forces himself to say the words “half pint” and orders a cask conditioned Nordic-style lager that threatens damage to the cranium.

  The young woman is obliged to serve another queuing customer, and Skelgill has to step away from the small bar to make room. The tables are taken, save for squeezing in next to some stranger. But it offends his ingrained sense of masculinity to stand with his long fingers wrapped around such an inadequate vessel, so he carries his beer across to the fireplace and rests it on the mantelpiece. The wall above, and indeed most of the walls in the small shadowy room are crammed with pictures, mainly photographs. Taken as a whole, it is merely a form of decoration, it adds to the olde worlde charm – something that modern pub designers try to replicate knowing that today’s generation of patrons, obsessed with their selfies and their social media will never bend close to interrogate; they will never see through the thin veneer of authenticity. But in real village pubs like the Twa Tups such an ad-hoc decades-old accumulation would be a goldmine to the social historian wishing to understand the evolution of its community. There is probably a PhD on the wall facing Skelgill alone. Gnarled farmers wrestle fearsome tups; there is actual Cumberland wrestling; huntsmen hold up trophies that leave little to the imagination; there is a gasping fell-runner from the 1950s who reminds Skelgill of the famous image of an exhausted Sir David Bannister; the pub darts team in the days of the Kevin Keegan perm; a cricket match – grandiloquently titled “Borrowdale v The Rest of the World”; there is a shot he recognises as the premises of Walter Dickson & Co before the advent of the internal combustion engine – the cracked paintwork above the lintel seems to say “Cartwright” – it could be the then-proprietor, or maybe just the occupation; there are antique images of the Twa Tups – it doesn’t look so different, just the barefooted kids who have been ordered to line up – the Victorian poor always seemed to have bags under their knowing eyes, old before their time; and – right at one end of the mantelpiece – small and insignificant and offering no reason to catch Skelgill’s eye (other than it has – that his subconscious has already processed its content and noted it might be worth his while) is a photograph that is taken inside the pub. It is worth his while, for it provides another ‘mackerel moment’ for Skelgill.

  Significant, but not most extraordinary, is the hand-printed caption. It says, “After the Meet” – and the date it was taken, one year before Mary Wilson disappeared. The higher grade of extraordinary is reserved for the subject matter – actually banal, unless you are a detective in search of one vital clue that could turn a murder investigation. The composition of the faded polaroid is typically amateur. The two intended subjects in the foreground are cut off just around their midriffs and two-thirds of the image is the wall above them – the corner in fact, to Skelgill’s left, rising up to the ceiling. The duo are seated, and holding instruments. Skelgill waits for his head spin to clear. He pulls out his mobile phone and redials the last number.

  ‘Leyton, get over here.’

  ‘Where’s here, Guv?’

  ‘The pub, you donnat.’

  DS Leyton starts to ask questions, and in fact goes on to protest that things are just getting interesting, but all this goes unheard. When he enters the snug bar only a minute or so later Skelgill is standing proprietorially before the fireplace cradling a half-drunk pint of beer. In his free hand he holds a shepherds’ meet brochure, at which he is squinting at arm’s length.

  ‘Having a bevvy, Guv?’

  ‘You can drive, Leyton.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Never mind that. Look.’ Now Skelgill swings his left arm in a wide arc and indicates with his glass that DS Leyton should inspect the small photograph ab
ove the end of the mantelpiece. Puzzled, but knowing better than to ask why, he shuffles around the raised stone flags of the hearth and bends at the waist with a small grunt.

  ‘Struth – that’s Harry Nelson!’

  But now he makes an even more strangled exclamation, subsuming what would otherwise be an unprintable outburst beneath an indeterminate splutter.

  ‘And that’s – cor blimey, Guv! It’s –’

  ‘Leyton – I can do the ID – but what about the guitar?’

  DS Leyton makes an effort to compose himself. He tugs off his ridiculous looking deerstalker and mops a palm across his brow. Again he leans forward.

  ‘You can’t see it all, Guv – but it looks like a possible Maccaferri – whether it’s the same one – maybe if we enlarged the photo?’

  ‘And look at this.’

  DS Leyton turns to see his superior holding out the leaflet. He takes it.

  ‘What am I looking for, Guv?’

  ‘Right-hand side – last item on the programme of events – where it says entertainment.’

  DS Leyton tilts the pamphlet towards the pub window to enhance its legibility.

  ‘Wait a minute – this is what?’

  ‘It’s the brochure for the year after Mary Wilson disappeared. Me Ma kept it for the family album – it’s got the results of the previous year’s fell race.’

  DS Leyton is nodding as he stares intensely at the page.

  ‘Fingerpicking.’

  Skelgill does not reply, but he takes the leaflet back from his colleague and folds it into his jacket. He downs the remainder of his pint in one and places the glass on the mantelpiece beside his other empty. He wipes his mouth with a cuff, and rocks back on one heel like a high jumper about to commence his run-up.

  ‘What do you want to do, Guv?’

  Skelgill regards his colleague with alarm, as though he has missed some key point.

  ‘Find Jean Tyson.’

  ‘Ah – that’s what I was trying to say, Guv – about what was going on over at the meet.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well – like you said – keep an eye on Jean Tyson. She was there, right enough – with that there Lakeland terror on its lead. She seemed to be doing the rounds. I saw her talking with her grandson, Nick Wilson – he was helping Jake Dickson with some display of old farm equipment – a working steam engine. Then she had a chinwag with Sean Nicolson – he was just finishing off shearing a sheep – and by the way his missus appeared to speak to him an’ all. Thing that caught my eye was that Aidan Wilson was knocking about – if you ask me, he was trying to get a word with Jean Tyson – seemed to be biding his time. I reckon he was going to intercept her – but she went into the judges’ tent – and that was when you just rang me.’

  Skelgill is nodding, though his arms are folded and his gaze fixed on the door as a growing stream of patrons is beginning to enter what is fast becoming a crowded little bar.

  ‘Come on – we’ll go over.’

  They work against a small human tide, both inside the pub and out, for by the time they cross to the shepherds’ meet enclosure the men’s fell race has finished. Competitors are milling around, taking on fluids, and dousing themselves with buckets intended for sheep to drink from. But the general drift is now firmly in the direction of the Twa Tups.

  Skelgill marches directly to the judging tent. The door flap is zipped and a card hangs from the awning informing them that judging will resume after lunch. Skelgill checks inside, but there are just a table and two chairs and a stack of papers, and the trophies all crowded into a couple of wooden milk crates.

  Meanwhile DS Leyton is scanning around the field.

  ‘I don’t see anyone I saw earlier, Guv – that was only ten minutes ago.’

  Skelgill pulls up the zip of the tent.

  ‘Nick Wilson’s there.’

  They stalk across to the exhibit, a clanking smoking miniature steam traction engine. It appears to be operating on the principle that to keep it going is the best strategy, and thus Nick Wilson has drawn the short straw and has been left in charge. Like a Brobdingnagian he perches on the tiny trailer and tinkers with the valves.

  Skelgill hails him.

  ‘Have you seen your gran?’

  Nick Wilson cowers anxiously.

  ‘Aye – but she’s just took dog down t’ woods.’

  Skelgill spins on his heel – but then he turns back.

  ‘Does she drive?’

  The young man shakes his head – he seems surprised that Skelgill would think this.

  ‘She said she were getting a lift.’

  Skelgill stares at him for a second.

  ‘From?’

  He looks worried; that he ought to know and will be in trouble.

  ‘She didn’t say.’

  Now Skelgill gives a nod of finality and sets off towards the closest exit to the Twa Tups.

  ‘My motor’s nearest, Leyton.’

  He pulls out his keys and passes them to his colleague, who in his well-intentioned choice of wellington boots is finding the slippery ground hard going.

  Now they have to force their way out of the pub car park – cutting a swathe through the oncoming crowd in a manner that gives the boy on the gate more material for his social media feed. And likewise DS Leyton has to honk and hoot at stragglers who meander blithely in the lane as if it were a pedestrianised zone – visitors giving no thought to the fact that a tractor fitted with forks or a dozer bucket might at any moment swing around a building and make mincemeat out of them.

  Finally he can put his foot down.

  ‘Whoa – she shifts, don’t she, Guv? Deceptive for an old jam jar.’

  ‘Cheers, Leyton.’

  After a couple of minutes they approach a layby and Skelgill orders his deputy to pull in. As he bales out he instructs his sergeant to drive on to the Cummacatta Wood parking area and work his way back along the public path. His own point of ingress – although not apparent to the uninitiated – is close to the Bowder Stone, the latter hidden by the trees and the landform. He crashes into the undergrowth to emerge only a minute or so later close to the great rock, on the opposite side to where he had chatted a little earlier to the bouldering crew.

  They have packed up and gone for lunch. All that remains are smudges of chalk on the overhangs, where their poor guinea pigs were dangling for dear life. He notices that someone has left an extendable bouldering brush; a bit of a Heath Robinson affair, it would not look amiss amongst his fishing gear.

  At the parking area there is only one vehicle; it is a somewhat dilapidated Volvo that he does not recognise. It is locked. Peering in – the windows need a good clean, and the interior, by the look of it – there is nothing to provide an indication of to whom it belongs. He pulls out his phone – a vehicle registration check can take as little as thirty seconds – but he has no signal.

  He thinks about calling out, but as quickly dismisses the idea; despite that his voice could warn off a predator some deeper instinct preaches stealth. And now he takes the same path along which just nine days ago he led his colleagues; that felt more like a sightseeing expedition; today his heart is racing. He is acutely aware of sounds and movements – and yet simultaneously oblivious to the myriad small sensory pleasures of his previous visits – the delightful damp musty smell of the woods, the cool rain on his face, the elegant understated poise of enchanter’s nightshade at his feet.

  He has built up to a steady jog when he rounds a bend in the path and stops dead in his tracks.

  Coming towards him, not twenty feet away is Jean Tyson. Archie, the Lakeland Terrier – or terror as his colleague has inadvertently renamed it – is straining at a leash that Skelgill recognises to be the same green twine that ties up the fading runner beans in the Slatterthwaite cottage garden.

  The woman does not seem fazed by his presence. But to his surprise she drops her gaze and continues purposefully as if to pass him.

  Skelgill steps sideways to block
her path.

  ‘Jean – are you alright?’

  She looks up – there is the most curious expression in her small grey gimlet eyes – if he could put it into words it would be some incompatible amalgam of disbelief and jubilation. Her narrow-lipped mouth does not respond, perhaps other than a slight twitch at its corners.

  ‘Where is he?’

  She stares at him unblinking, and only after a few moments does she give the slightest disdainful jerk of her head. He reads this to mean behind her.

  He hesitates for a second. But he knows there to be no threat from where he has come – indeed that it might be her car she is returning to.

  Skelgill runs off.

  Barely two more minutes pass before he finds himself skidding to a halt for a second time. Now there is genuine alarm in his reaction.

  ‘Leyton! Are you tapped?’

  His bellowed warning is delivered as he reaches at a canter the little offshoot of the path that leads to the abseiling point above Devil’s Lowp. All that is visible is the broad beam of his sergeant who, down on his knees near the edge of the cliff, is apparently bracing himself to obtain the slightest peep over the edge.

  Despite Skelgill’s fiery if well intended outburst DS Leyton for a few seconds neither moves nor speaks.

  ‘You’d better see this, Guv.’

  ‘You mean you’re not praying?’

  DS Leyton inhales as though to reply, but evidently thinks the better of it.

  Skelgill, exhibiting none of his sergeant’s tendencies towards vertigo, strides up to stand beside his prone colleague and peer down into the abyss.

  Now he refrains from speaking.

  Many thoughts cross his mind; it is like a stone has been cast into a small tarn, and the ripples, upon reaching the banks, try to return to the centre, interfering with one another, creating a pattern of confusion. But eventually they cancel out, and all is calm.

  ‘Looks like he went over backwards.’

  *

  ‘This place gives me the willies, Guv.’

  ‘Aye, you said, Leyton.’

  ‘I keep expecting to see him come lumbering out from behind a wall like some whacking great zombie.’