Detective Inspector Skelgill Boxset 2

by Bruce Beckham

  Skelgill rubs the stubble on his chin reflectively. ‘There’s a big enough harbour and fortifications.’

  ‘Ah – that was to defend us when we came under attack from the dastardly Americans, Daniel – a little later during the War of Independence – but in the early 1700s Whitehaven enjoyed its heyday. Great cargoes of rum and sugar and spices were landed. So we owe some of our local culinary tradition to that era – rum being the ideal way to preserve dairy products – and where would Cumberland sausage be without its pepper, mace and nutmeg?’

  Skelgill downs his tea and glances at the cooker, where a pot of soup or stew simmers. The professor grins and gets up for the teapot; he returns also with a plate of chocolate digestives, which he slides across to Skelgill.

  ‘So what, Jim – the O’Mores were importers?’

  The professor indicates that Skelgill should help himself.

  ‘Well, of course, that may be the sanitised version that they and their fellow merchants would wish to promulgate.’

  Skelgill, now munching, remains puzzled.

  ‘Hold on a second, will you, Daniel – let me show you something.’

  The older man rises and leaves the kitchen. Skelgill gets up, too. There is a bird feeder outside the window. What he thinks is a great tit and a nuthatch are doing battle, while a red squirrel hops about beneath, gathering any spoils. There is an identification chart pinned on the wall and Skelgill seems pleased as he confirms his supposition. The professor returns and spreads out a large old book on the table.

  ‘Now, look at this.’

  Skelgill leans over. The text is set in an antiquated typeface. Most of the double-page spread is given over to a series of precise hand-drawn diagrams. The subject appears to be a ship, its hold revealed in cross section from above, the starboard side, and the stern. Almost the entire surface area of each image is filled with hundreds of tiny elongated black shapes, arrayed in neat rows and fans, and from the side elevation stacked on what might be shelves. The professor waits patiently while Skelgill strives to understand the pattern before his eyes.

  ‘What is it, fish?’

  ‘Human beings, Daniel.’

  Skelgill stares in silence but for a hiss of breath between his parted lips.

  ‘Unbelievable.’

  He realises – this is a sales brochure for a slave ship – its ‘cargo’ arranged for maximum stowage. On closer inspection the tiny charcoal figures are meticulously drawn, and clearly human, packed so close as to be touching, their arms necessarily folded over their torsos. Skelgill’s teeth become bared as he reads that the space allocated to each man is 6 feet by 1 foot 4 inches (and less for women and children), and that this layout accommodates 470 people, but that 609 are actually carried by the slave merchants. Skelgill pulls himself upright, swallowing with distaste. But his eyes are compelled to return to the illustrations – what thoughts must have entered the mind of the draughtsman that spent his comfortable days at a desk devising such a despicable plan?

  The professor is watching Skelgill’s reaction closely – he seems to take a certain satisfaction in his shocked demeanour.

  ‘To prevent insurrection the men were kept in irons for the entire passage – it could take two months. There was negligible sanitation. Those that died were tossed overboard to the sharks. Some of the women were taken above decks for the pleasure of the crew.’

  Skelgill has a half-eaten biscuit in one hand and now he looks at it as though he has lost his appetite. But his instincts get the better of him and he dunks it in his tea and swallows it with difficulty, washing it down with another gulp, his features contorted in a bitter grimace. His expression is pained as he looks at the professor.

  ‘So how does this all fit together, Jim?’

  Tentatively the man pats the book with the flat of his palm, like a steelworker might check a plate for its heat,

  ‘In a sense, Daniel, the Triangular Trade grew up out of a freak of nature – the cycle of winds and currents in the North Atlantic during the age of sail. We were an advanced economy – the most advanced economy – our merchant fleet and navy was the greatest on the seas. We produced manufactured goods such as textiles and weapons that were bartered for slaves in West Africa. They were shipped to the New World, carried by the trade winds – and sold to the sugar planters and tobacco growers. The profits were used to buy sugar and tobacco, rum and spices, and the fully laden ships returned to Western Europe on the Gulf Stream. More profits were made, and the wheel of misery was turned again. The merchants never got their hands dirty – indeed it was a fashionable investment among much of higher society.’

  Skelgill is shaking his head. His expression might replicate his face as a boy, under the professor’s tutelage, the first time he got a precious fly-rod into his hands, inspired by the strange weightless device: that of awe tinged with fear.

  ‘Jim – why did it have to be people?’

  The professor inhales over a sip of tea, and then sighs before he makes a reply.

  ‘Daniel – it has always been thus. Do you think Rome was built by paying the Living Wage? Do you know how many thousands of our own antecedents were snatched from our shores by Barbary pirates and sold into slavery in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire?’

  Skelgill remains pensive and does not reply. The professor continues.

  ‘The O’Mores were originally Dublin merchants. As they and their business expanded branches of the family tree took root in British trading ports.’

  ‘Whitehaven being one?’

  ‘As I said, Daniel – you might find it impossible to believe, but Whitehaven was once the third largest port in the United Kingdom – in the 1700s it was up there with Bristol and Liverpool and Glasgow. There was a time when it supplied 80% of Ireland’s coal.’

  Skelgill is nodding grimly. What he learns now corresponds to his dialogue with Fergal Mullarkey. And – of course – to some degree with what Perdita related about Declan’s warning. It is on this point that he speaks.

  ‘Among the celebrities – as you put it, Jim – there’s the youngest of the five children, Perdita.’

  ‘Rowena Devlin.’ There is something sheepish about the sidelong glance that the professor flashes at his guest. ‘I must confess to reading the occasional one of her novels. She writes well if simplistically. And her facts are thoroughly researched.’

  Skelgill smiles respectfully.

  ‘She didn’t sound all that clued up on this Triangular Trade business – least not as far as the O’More family is concerned. She reckoned her Great Uncle Declan had spun her some yarn about a curse put on them by an African witch doctor.’

  ‘Daniel, I suspect the mantle of disrepute is something the O’Mores have been trying to cast off since the abolition of slavery in 1833. That they might deny any such connection in family circles would not really be surprising. And of course this particular cohort is more detached than most – losing their parents so young – and growing up in the distant Home Counties. In any event, it is unreasonable to tar today’s generation with the bloody brush of their forebears.’

  Skelgill nods ruefully. As a descendent on his mother’s side of the notorious Border reivers, Clan Graham, he would almost certainly be taken into custody this very minute if historical misdemeanours were heritable. And the Skelgills – of Viking blood – were probably little better. Notwithstanding, his next remark reveals that some flicker of injustice still burns within him.

  ‘But they live well on the back of it.’

  The professor turns out his bottom lip.

  ‘Well – that is true, Daniel. But how many great estates – and even more modest family fortunes – were built on the shoulders of such iniquitous toil? Throughout our great cities and towns – not just our countryside – there are many people today who owe their fortunate lifestyles to the inhuman compliance of their forefathers. But who is going to set the record straight?’

  Skelgill folds his arms and rests his elbows on the table.


  ‘What you say about avoiding the family association might be right, Jim. First off – they’ve none of them got Irish Christian names like the older generation. I guess that started with their mother. Then Martius calls himself Martius Regulus. Cassandra goes by one of her married names, Goodchild. You’ve got Owain Jagger and Rowena Devlin. Only Edgar has kept O’More in his surname.’

  ‘You make a convincing case, Daniel – although it is curious that the young authoress has chosen the plantations as the setting for her successful series.’ The professor taps the tips of his fingers together several times, reflecting his cogitations, stopping when he reaches a conclusion. ‘Perhaps she assuages her feelings of guilt – for her plots usually see an immoral master receive his come-uppance – albeit that the slaves can rarely prevail, and at best receive their freedom.’

  Skelgill allows a small grin to crease his features. His host is plainly more of a fan of Rowena Devlin’s work than he would like to admit.

  ‘There doesn’t happen to be a story where the estate owner gets whacked on the back of the head by one of his slaves?’

  Though Skelgill’s remark is facetious, the professor regards him quizzically.

  ‘I rather imagined you had in mind one of the family, Daniel?’

  Skelgill makes a face of resignation and dunks another biscuit in his tea. He leaves it almost too long and has to duck for it as it begins to collapse.

  ‘I wish I knew what I had got in mind, Jim.’

  ‘Presumably they are the main beneficiaries?’

  Skelgill scratches his head and then makes an attempt to comb some order into his hair, which has suffered beneath the trapper hat.

  ‘It’s not so straightforward. They can vote to sell or to keep the place running. They knew that before Declan’s murder. If they keep it on, no one gets any money. So there was no guarantee a killer would benefit.’

  ‘Unless he – or she – was confident of the outcome of the vote.’

  ‘If they’re being straight, it’s still up in the air. They’re meeting next weekend to discuss it.’

  The professor now folds his hands together and rests his chin upon the bridge he forms.

  ‘Far be it for me to tell you your job, Daniel – I assume you have no clear leads outwith the motive of inheritance?’

  Skelgill shrugs with frustration.

  ‘The staff stand to lose their jobs if Crummock Hall is sold. It’s hard to see why any of them would do it. They’re all long-servers – if it were a grudge, why wait until now?’

  ‘A fair point, Daniel.’

  ‘There’s no sign of a break-in or theft. We can’t rule that out, but it looks like Declan was struck from behind with his own walking stick while he was winding the clock in his study. You wouldn’t turn your back on someone you considered a threat.’

  ‘So where does that leave you, Daniel?’

  Skelgill makes a sarcastic scoffing exclamation.

  ‘I’m coming round to the O’More family curse.’

  The professor chuckles.

  ‘That sounds like we are back in Rowena Devlin territory.’

  Skelgill nods reluctantly.

  ‘Seems Declan called her in to see him – warned her she was stirring up trouble – as far as we know she was the last person to see him alive.’

  ‘So he did not approve of her subject matter.’

  ‘Aye, looks that way. He’s got this tidy collection of old books – not a lot of fiction, by the look of it.’

  The professor’s antennae twitch at this revelation.

  ‘Perhaps there is some clue hidden away there, Daniel.’ He hesitates and makes a tentative cough. ‘If at some point – you wanted me to cast an eye over them – I should be pleased to assist.’

  Skelgill nods willingly.

  ‘I might take you up on that, Jim. The lawyer they’ve got – Mullarkey – is talking about taking the collection over to Dublin – for safekeeping. Declan died without making a will and it’s just about his only asset. Mullarkey’s worried if it’s left to fester in the house it’ll get picked apart and lose its value.’

  ‘That seems a reasonable assumption. You know how one’s books once lent are invariably considered to be the property of the borrower.’

  At this statement Skelgill looks perplexed. As a man of not many books – a small but no less precious collection of field guides, manuals and maps – the idea of letting someone get their hands on, say, one of his precious Wainwrights is anathema.

  ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be.’

  The professor raises an amused eyebrow at the vehemence of Skelgill’s remark.

  ‘You know your Shakespeare, Daniel – Polonius, from Hamlet.’

  ‘I’d have said it was my old Ma.’

  The professor chuckles willingly.

  ‘Ah – always a wise lady – and how is she these days – not suffering from the weather?’

  Skelgill grimaces.

  ‘It’d take more than a drop of snow to knock her off her stride. Happen she’ll have the bike out this morning if they’ve ploughed the Honister.’

  Now the professor shakes his head of white hair in admiration.

  ‘As you have demonstrated in your intrepid arrival, Daniel – it takes a lot to stop a Skelgill.’

  Skelgill grins a little abashedly. He begins to rise.

  ‘Aye. Even though they don’t always know where they’re going. But I’d better make tracks or my sergeant’ll be putting a curse on me. Thanks for the tea, Jim – and I might just take you up on what you said about the books.’

  ‘You are most welcome, Daniel – it is a pleasure to see you any time – we must talk fishing when the conditions become more inclement.’

  Skelgill is nodding, but as he turns a blue tit alights on the windowsill and catches his eye.

  ‘Jim – you’re a bit of a twitcher, aren’t you?’

  Now the professor makes a face of mock disapproval.

  ‘Daniel – I prefer the term ornithologist, or bird-watcher. Birder at a push. The twitchers are another genus altogether. The storm troopers of the fraternity.’

  Skelgill grins.

  ‘Aye – well I reckon I saw some waxwings this morning, at Crummock Hall – little flock of them feeding on a border of guelder rose. Is that likely? Pretty rare, aren’t they?’

  The professor raises his hands in the air, the gesture perhaps a throwback to his lecturing days.

  ‘Ah – they are indeed – and what a fascinating coincidence.’ He nods in the direction of his garden. ‘I had a flock here until Friday. Twelve birds. They spent three days stripping my ornamental rowans. Bombycilla garrulus, the Bohemian waxwing. They sweep across Britain from Russia and Scandinavia when the berry crop fails. The twitchers like them, because once they find a food source, they remain on site until it is exhausted – typically several days. There’s a good chance that the party you found was mine. Well done on the identification!’

  Skelgill looks pleased with himself – but then a thought must strike him.

  ‘Aye – if only there were an Observer’s book of crooks, Jim.’

  10. KESWICK

  Monday 3.45pm

  Skelgill lurks behind a rack of the latest hi-tech lightweight cagoules. The crackling gossamer shells are advertised as “100% waterproof” – which is perhaps just as well, for his face looks like thunder. Certainly it is an expression that deters any shop assistant from approaching – they would conclude that the hefty price tags have offended his sensibilities. In fact he is eavesdropping.

  Nearby, DS Leyton confers with DS Jones. Upon completing his work at Crummock Hall and passing this way, feeling sympathy for her lonely vigil he has taken it upon himself to provide some company – knowing he can brief Skelgill upon his eventual arrival. In fact his findings have been rather mundane, and the present conversation revolves around the more titillating aspect of the case.

  ‘The missus saw me on the box. She reckoned I looked a bit like Columbo.’ DS Leyton
is tickled by his minor taste of fame. ‘Until I got an earful and had to turf the news crew out.’

  DS Jones chuckles.

  ‘They’ll be back – it’s not often we have A-listers around here.’

  DS Leyton looks rather browbeaten.

  ‘Next thing – she was giving me grief about getting a selfie – wants to show off Owain Jagger to all her pals on Facebook.’

  DS Jones leans towards her colleague conspiratorially.

  ‘You’re welcome to this one.’ She spins her mobile phone on the table surface.

  DS Leyton grunts as he bends forwards. His eyes widen.

  ‘Cor blimey – looks like you’re well in there, girl!’

  DS Jones smiles coyly.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting him to plant a kiss.’

  This proves to be the final straw for Skelgill, who breaks cover and storms across the carpeted shop floor. However there is a small flight of wooden steps leading up to the raised café area, and his boots clump a warning. They see him coming, and DS Jones slides her handset from sight – though she cannot hide the telltale blush of her cheeks. His sergeants both rise but Skelgill ignores them and slumps down into one of two vacant chairs, his features grim. DS Leyton, correctly assessing the scale if not the source of his boss’s discontent, reverts to a tried-and-trusted tactic.

  ‘There you go, Guv – just got you these. Still nice and hot.’

  Two-handed he pushes across the table a chocolate-sprinkled cappuccino and an appetising-looking toasted sandwich. Skelgill glares suspiciously at the offering.

  ‘Where’s yours?’

  DS Leyton consults his wristwatch.

  ‘If I eat now, Guv – I’ll never manage my tea – then the missus’ll have a right old Darby and Joan.’

  Skelgill stares at his subordinate for a couple of seconds – as though he doesn’t believe his explanation. (Or his doubt might just be that such a minor snack could possibly ruin one’s appetite.) Then decisively he tucks into the sandwich.

  ‘News.’

  His question comes as a surly demand.