Bruce Beckham
__________
Murder on the Moor
A detective novel
LUCiUS
Text copyright 2020 Bruce Beckham
All rights reserved. Bruce Beckham asserts his right always to be identified as the author of this work. No part may be copied or transmitted without written permission from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events and locales is entirely coincidental.
Kindle edition first published by Lucius 2020
Paperback edition first published by Lucius 2020
For more details and Rights enquiries contact:
[email protected]
Cover design by Moira Kay Nicol
United States editor Janet Colter
EDITOR’S NOTE
Murder on the Moor is a stand-alone crime mystery, the fifteenth in the series ‘Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates’. It is set in the vicinity of Over Water, a peaceful corner of the English Lake District – a National Park of 885 square miles that lies in the rugged northern county of Cumbria.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Murder in Adland
Murder in School
Murder on the Edge
Murder on the Lake
Murder by Magic
Murder in the Mind
Murder at the Wake
Murder in the Woods
Murder at the Flood
Murder at Dead Crags
Murder Mystery Weekend
Murder on the Run
Murder at Shake Holes
Murder at the Meet
Murder on the Moor
(Above: Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates)
Murder, Mystery Collection
The Dune
The Sexopaths
Contents
Glossary
Preface
Prologue
1. Over Water
2. Conservation
3. Shuteham Hall
4. Missing
5. Recap
6. Evening Call
7. Over Moor
8. Cockermouth
9. The Bullingdons
10. More Ladies
11. The Belvedere
12. Scawthwaite Mire
13. Caldbeck
14. Last Gasp
15. Sky Dancing
Next in the series ...
Glossary
Some of the Cumbrian dialect words, British slang and local usage appearing in Murder on the Moor are as follows:
Alreet – all right (often a greeting)
Arl – old
Bait – packed lunch/sandwiches
Beck – mountain stream
Birl – spin (Scots)
Bob Graham (the) – a fell-running challenge
Butcher’s – look (‘butcher’s hook’ – Cockney)
Caw canny – take care, be wary (Scots)
Chin music – bouncers aimed at the batter’s head (cricket)
Crack – chat, gossip
Cuddy wifter – left-handed
Cushat – woodpigeon
Daein’ – doing (Scots)
Dander – temper
Deek – look/look at
Do one – go away (London)
Donnat – idiot
Early doors – early on
Gadgee – bloke
Gannin’ yam – going home
Grouse butt – stone shelter for game shooter
Guddle – fish with the hands in shallow water
Happen – maybe, looks like
Hissen – himself
Howay – come on
In-bye – walled pasture near the farmstead
Int’ – in the
Jam eater – nickname for urban resident of West Cumbria
Kaylied – inebriated
Ken – know
Kent – knew
Lug – ear
Marra – mate (friend)
Mash – brew tea
Mere – lake (Old English)
Midden – waste heap
Mither – bother
Mind – remember
Misper – missing person (police slang)
Napper – head
Nail – rattletrap of a car
Nowt – nothing
Off’ve – from
Ont’ – on the
Oor – our
Ower – over
Owt – anything
Pattie – deep-fried mashed potato mixed with, for example, fish or cheese
Pereth – Penrith
Policy woodland/policies – plantations around a stately home
Porch – small shelter around external door, sometimes open-sided
Reet – right
Reiver – rustler of livestock
RSPB – Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Scop – throw
Sledging – offensive taunts (cricket)
Sneck – lock fastener
Tarn – small mountain lake, usually in a corrie
T’ – the (often silent)
Tek – take
Thee/thou – you
Theesen – yourself
Twa birds wi’ oan stane – two birds with one stone
Twat – to hit
Us – me
Virga gloriam – shoot for glory (Latin)
Water – lake (Old Norse)
While – until
Wyke – inlet where a boat may be landed
Yon – that/those
Yonks – ages
PREFACE
A wing and a prayer
There can be few birds that have been the subject of a whodunit – a national hue and cry, no less – but Circus cyaneus, or hen harrier by its common name, hit the headlines in 2007 when a pair of these elegant raptors were blasted out of the Norfolk sky, watched in horror by a Natural England warden and other reliable observers. And there was a twist in the tale, for the nature reserve adjoined the royal estate of Sandringham. Shooting together that day were Prince Harry, a friend, and a gamekeeper.
The warden notified the police; there ensued an investigation. No feathered bodies were recovered. No witnesses came forward. Nobody knew anything.
The Guardian newspaper succinctly reported:
“Two hen harriers dead, one prince questioned, no charges.”
Why the hullaballoo? It is not as if Britain is unaccustomed to losing its wildlife: there are 44 million fewer birds since 1966, according to the RSPB. But certain endangered species are ‘red-listed’ – and the hen harrier is so classified. It clings by the tips of its talons to a precipice marked “extinction”. Under the watchful eyes of conservation organisations and their dedicated volunteers, only fifteen pairs breed in the whole of England.
PROLOGUE
The Lakes
“There’s only one lake in the Lake District.” That Skelgill relentlessly trots out this aphorism is a source of discomfort to his long-suffering colleagues, obliged to stand and simper until the punch line is delivered. A more fair-minded inflection would be that there is only one lake in the Lake District, since the solution to the conundrum is that, with a single exception, the main freshwater bodies, the glacial ribbon lakes that endow this rugged part of England with its unique character are called either ‘mere’ or ‘water’. Thus Windermere, for example – and here another opportunity for pedantry, when the innocent visitor refers to “Lake Windermere” and Skelgill hoots that this is akin to saying “Lake Winder Lake”.
The one and only lake is Bassenthwaite Lake, “Bass Lake” in Skelgill’s parlance, lying in the north of
the National Park and, though bordered by the busy A66 trunk road, largely inaccessible and accordingly his favoured haunt. To nose his rowing boat out from the secluded harbour of Peel Wyke offers an escape into solitude with which even the surrounding fells cannot compete. And there are big pike to be hunted.
But there is another pool that has long intrigued him, just three miles to the northeast, no larger than a mountain tarn and probably the least frequently visited of all those in the county. That is Over Water. Designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest, it is protected by law. It is not only a wildlife haven, but also an oasis in more than appearance, being entirely surrounded by the great sporting estate of Shuteham Hall.
Knowledge of the flora and fauna of Over Water is incomplete. Moreover, following the recent discovery in Bassenthwaite Lake of a rare species called the vendace – a kind of freshwater herring – the conservation authorities have become alert to the possibility of its presence in Over Water; that would be a further and powerful reason to justify the continued legal status of the site. But the vendace is a fish of peculiar habits, and foremost among them is its elusiveness. To winkle a specimen out of its water world of waving weed would require an angler of considerable prowess and exceptional local knowledge.
1. OVER WATER
Sunday 7am – early May
“Happen it’s a red herring.”
So went Skelgill’s disavowal upon being assailed by fellow officer (and angler), George Appleby, whom word of Skelgill’s quest had reached. The desk sergeant had shared his scepticism. The appearance of the vendace in Bassenthwaite Lake could be explained by migration via the River Derwent, from its last known surviving population in Derwentwater. But Over Water has no such tributary; an entirely separate watershed feeds it.
“Fish might fly,” had been George’s contribution, an equally apposite reworking of the well-known proverb.
Skelgill at this juncture had excused himself on the grounds that a silhouette resembling their superior officer had appeared at the far end of the corridor.
“Let us know what they taste like, lad!”
The departing Skelgill had raised a hand – and unseen his eyebrows, for such an experiment would not be something to which he could ever admit. Though, truth be told, it is intriguing, if not exactly mouth-watering; for so dedicated an angler, he eats precious little fish. Recalling this aspect of the conversation, he is reminded of the Cumberland sausages stowed with the cooking contraptions in the bow of his boat.
But it is too early yet. First he must pay more than lip service to his commission. There is his reputation to think about. Though this gilded invitation to fish Over Water is attributable in part to his connections, there is some obligation to deliver the goods. The holder of a string of local records, he is also one of a select coterie of anglers actually to have caught a vendace; apparently he knows what to do.
As befits his outwardly restless nature much of Skelgill’s fishing is of the active type: fly fishing for trout involves continual casting and movement around the lake in pursuit of the feeding shoal; plugging for pike entails long energy-sapping retrieves, jiggling and jerking the lure to imitate a wounded minnow. The vendace, however, is not fooled by such methods, and Skelgill has resorted to float fishing with maggots. Other than occasionally refreshing the bait, therefore, first warming up the wrigglers in his mouth, it is a sedentary occupation, his boat at anchor, his body relaxed, his gaze transfixed by the fluorescent orange quill that stands proud from the taut mercury-like meniscus of the still water.
It is a glorious May morning, the sky a crystal dome of cyan. As the rising sun breaches the ridge at his back, pouring its first rays down the brindled fell, the mist on the water glows golden, as if ignited prior to dispersal. Also illuminated is the fresh spring green foliage of Bullmire Wood, the extensive policy woodland that cloaks the western shore. Resonant in the charged air a dozen species of songsters combine in delicious harmony, their dawn chorus punctuated by the irregular kirruk of a moorhen, its jarring intervention a rebellious triangle to the greater orchestral manoeuvre.
A zephyr, conjured by the sudden warmth causes Skelgill’s boat gently to rotate. As yet he has needed neither hat nor sunglasses, and he is forced to squint as he is turned to face the east; it is a contrasting landscape, though its detail hard to discern through the slanting sunbeams, a palette of browns; the lake is fringed by reed bed, extending first into fen and then rising moorland, a great wild expanse of heather and bilberry, bleaberry in the local vernacular. The immediate fell is Great Cockup, an outrider of the immense Skiddaw massif; Cumbria’s last wilderness before the landscape sinks northwards as farmland and merges into the Solway marshes. In the foreground, half-hidden at the edge of the reeds is a wooden hide, of the sort frequented by birdwatchers, a basic shed with horizontal window-slits for all-round observation; unobtrusive, it is reached by a shielded pontoon.
The wind genie was transient, but Skelgill’s craft has sufficient momentum to bring him full circle. The sun again at his back, his eye is drawn by the glint of a buzzard that lifts off from Bullmire Wood, picking up the day’s first thermal, an effortless spiral; an invisible staircase to heaven. The bird begins to mew, a plaintive entreaty; there is a reply, but perhaps its mate is on duty on a nest somewhere in the canopy. Skelgill might be hypnotised, for all the movement he makes.
Then a gunshot rings out. A twelve-bore, from within the wood. Still Skelgill does not flinch. There is nothing unusual about that; the sound of a shotgun on a Sunday morning is as familiar as the peal of church bells. True, it is not the game season but this is probably a keeper, licensed to shoot crows that predate pheasant chicks, and woodpigeons that scavenge the grain put down for them. Though foliage muffled the report, its origin was close; the reverberation was almost instantaneous.
Meanwhile the buzzard has entered into a slow descent, rather disjointedly – Skelgill waits for it to organise itself, to tuck in its wings and plummet like a peregrine upon some unsuspecting prey, or perhaps just to impress its partner. But it does not. The wings trail loosely above the body. The bird has shed its natural buoyancy. It falls in a series of untidy curves, like an autumn leaf, or a butterfly stunned by a passing car. Silently, it sinks into the canopy.
Transitioning from musing to consciousness, Skelgill’s mind conflates the sight with the sound of a few seconds earlier. The bird has been shot.
He stares grimly at the empty sky. The buzzard is a protected species. Before his very eyes, a wildlife crime has just been committed.
And now, Sod’s law kicks in; his float begins to twitch. It is his first bite since he began fishing an hour and a half ago.
Peremptorily, he lifts his rod and reels in. Glaring in the direction from which the gunshot emanated, hand over hand he hauls the anchor. Then he snatches up his oars, backs down, and pulls hard for the woodland shore.
It takes him under a minute, but that is the easy part. There is no gently shelving bottom on this side of the lake, only a vertical bank guarded by alders, their roots spilling out where erosion has depleted the soil. Skelgill ties the painter in a double half hitch and swings himself ashore by means of an overhanging branch. The ground is marshy, the vegetation a mixture of sedge and rush and stitchwort, and he curses as his left boot is topped by black peaty sludge. He could do with a staff to speed his progress; he casts about but nothing suitable comes to hand. He throws caution to the wind and ploughs on, driven by his anger and determination to right the injustice. The terrain begins to rise gently, becoming less boggy but affording thicker growth of the shrub layer. He comes up against impenetrable stands of blackthorn, and bristling coppiced hazel that oblige him to zigzag and even backtrack, and it is not long before he is losing the bearing that had imprinted itself upon his mental map. Only the occasional flicker of sunlight over his shoulder helps him to stay roughly on course.
Overhead, the mainly oak canopy is dense, almost entire; there are only occasional glimpses of blue. He doub
ts that anyone could have shot at a moving target unless they were standing in a glade. As he pushes on a magnificent coppery cock pheasant explodes from almost under his feet, shocking him with its violent hiccup and simultaneous whirr of wings. As if he needed reminding: the wood is a factory farm for pheasants, and somewhere nearby will be an enclosure, and possibly the clearing he seeks. He decides to trust that the bird’s instinct is one of homing, and follows its line of flight.
Sure enough, before long the undergrowth abruptly thins out. Bushes have been systematically cleared, leaving only the trees, several of which have been felled. Skelgill sees a high fence of green mesh – it is a section of the perimeter of an open-top release pen. Fox wires run around at shin-height, and at intervals there are one-way pop holes inspired by the lobster fisherman’s creel to allow stray birds to return to safety. Inside, much of the undergrowth is worn away and bare ground exposed. Pheasant poults will be transferred here in July or August, in time to acclimatise themselves for the start of the shooting season on 1st October.
Skelgill has moved as covertly as comes naturally – but against that was his desire for speed; complete silence has been impossible. He is breathing heavily, having taken no respite since rowing. Now he becomes conscious of the need for greater stealth. He is in the vicinity of somebody with a shotgun – and they won’t know who or what is approaching.
It is ten minutes since the shot was fired.
But now comes a banging of another sort, a hammering, an ascending scale of notes about two seconds apart. He rounds a curve in the fence to see a man of about his own age – or maybe early thirties – about six feet, a strong frame, swinging a sledgehammer, shirtsleeves rolled up to reveal muscular forearms. Skelgill can see that he is building a simple frame designed to suspend a quill drinker – he is knocking in a round post – lying ready is a second and a cross member, and the triangular feeder itself. The man is unaware of his approach, but a black cocker spaniel has got wind of him, and trots up to the wire; it seems eager to get at him, but there is no immediate way through. For his part, Skelgill realises that he does not have a plan to deal with the opening of this encounter. Any second now, the interest of the dog will betray his presence. Before he knows it, he hails the man.
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