‘The photos that we received were uploaded on the Gazette website yesterday morning. Are you aware of any visitors since then – or even of who might have entered this room?’
Miranda Bullingdon has picked up a gold chain from the drawer; she pours it absently from one hand to the other, apparently enjoying the sensation.
‘Almost anybody could have entered this room – but I am sure they would have been able to explain themselves.’
He realises she means an authorised person.
‘But you wouldn’t expect to find one of the gardeners in here – a stable hand – or the gamekeeper?’
Though he says it offhandedly he detects a flash of animation in her eyes – but it quickly turns to amusement as though she suspects he is provoking her.
‘As I understand it, most of our workers are what you might call Jacks of all trades.’ She cocks her head towards the bathroom. ‘One day a plumber, the next a pheasant plucker.’
She chuckles and Skelgill’s response is by comparison stilted.
‘We’ve interviewed most of the staff here. Nobody has knowledge of an intruder – by that I mean an outsider.’
‘Are there not poachers who skulk under the cover of darkness?’
Skelgill regards her quizzically.
‘Are there poachers – this time of year?’
There is a certain technical aspect to this question, it being the breeding season, with few full-grown birds to be found. Miranda Bullingdon is unperturbed, albeit her answer is a little oblique.
‘Lawrence likes to keep us on our toes.’
Her tone is decidedly sardonic.
‘Are you saying there aren’t poachers?’
She waves a hand beside her head – that she can’t be bothered.
‘Oh – probably there are. It gives him an excuse to prowl about at night, I suppose. Playing at soldiers.’
Skelgill wonders why she is saying this. She seems to be just loosening her colours from Lawrence Melling’s mast. But then maybe he would be misguided to think they were attached in the first place. Or should he suspect there is a feint at play? He tries not to show his doubting thoughts – and in doing so finds himself rushing to a point he might prefer to have reached with greater subtlety.
‘If you don’t mind my saying – madam – you don’t seem too upset.’
‘Where would that get me?’
Skelgill senses that to raise the financial aspect would be undiplomatic.
‘It sounds like these pieces have sentimental value.’
She looks down at the gold chain cupped in her palm and, weighing it abstractedly, closes her eyes momentarily.
‘I try to avoid having regrets. It is better to live.’
Without warning she starts towards him and begins simultaneously to feed the chain beneath her hair and around her neck.
‘Would you do this – it is too short for me to see.’
Notwithstanding the adjacent dressing table with its ample mirrors, before he can react she is toe to toe, turning up her chin, making her demand impossible for him to resist. He feels the silky skin of her fingers as she transfers the ends of the chain; his must be like sandpaper – but they are at least trained to deal with tiny fishhooks and near-invisible knots and thus, conscious of her gaze upon his, and holding his breath, he successfully fastens the clasp. He releases it and lets his arms fall to his sides; there is a moment when nothing happens – but the instant he meets her eyes she smiles sweetly.
‘Thank you.’
Beside them, close to the window, there is a Victorian mahogany chaise longue and without warning or explanation she half swoons upon it, in a manner that in most women would be seen as theatrical, yet she carries it off as though it is an entirely natural thing to do – like a movie star arriving for a session with her longstanding therapist. Skelgill hears himself forming a sentence that is only vaguely relevant.
‘Lord Bullingdon must be concerned for you.’
‘I gather Teddy is at the office – being interviewed concurrently. Divide and conquer, no, Inspector?’
Her eyes have many expressions; now it is one of insouciance – that she understands their modus operandi, but quite relishes the idea. Skelgill, however, feels the need to apologise.
‘It’s just so we can be time efficient, madam.’
She shakes her long black tresses, as if experimentally, just to see how they will fall after the fitting of the chain. She regards him with a look of surprise, that he has not pursued some obvious advantage.
‘I am at your mercy, Inspector.’
Skelgill is experiencing a kind of out-of-body dreamlike state, the sensation of floating above the scene and looking down at himself in the boudoir together with its alluring occupant. And also like in a dream he is able to have a little conversation with himself: a discourse in objectivity, and that this is a game of cat and mouse – and further, that now would be a good time for him to make a dash for the skirting board.
If he employed a notebook and pen their deliberate folding away would serve to mark that he considers the interview to be complete. But these are anathema to Skelgill – why write things down and make them all equal on the page, when hunches semi-digested do not lie in one’s gut with equal weight? (At least, it is a plausible excuse to his colleagues for his blatant aversion to the written word.) In lieu of such accessories Skelgill ostentatiously consults his wristwatch, and further signals his imminent departure by edging backwards towards the door to the landing.
‘I’ll bear that in mind, madam. Obviously it’s early stages – but as soon as there is any significant progress I’ll update you personally.’
The woman turns a pout of disappointment into an accepting smile. She curls her feet beneath her thighs and reaches for an old paperback novel from an occasional table beside the chaise longue. She settles back, and raises the book, displaying the cover. Skelgill sees it is entitled The Maltese Falcon. Now she smiles more winningly, as if in solidarity.
‘I prefer the classics. There’s nothing like a detective with a gun in his pocket.’
*
Making his way down the sequence of stairs and landings, his ears inexplicably burning, Skelgill finds himself arrested by a ghostly apparition: ahead is his own shadowy image captured by a full-length antique mirror; though its powers are waning and it is heavily desilvered. He checks overhead and around to ensure he is unobserved, and then addresses the glass, standing to attention. This is not a regular habit – the reflection he is most familiar with is his face half covered with shaving cream, and blood beginning to ooze – but now, scowling, he makes a more general appraisal. Immediately he seems to experience a flash of enlightenment and delves into his left-hand trouser pocket. With difficulty he pulls out a small polythene bag containing an assortment of coloured feathers so striking that they must surely be dyed. Indeed, these are the fly-tying materials he purchased during an abridged lunchtime visit to his favourite tackle shop in Penrith, prior to rendezvousing with his colleagues. He regards the packet as if he is surprised to see it in his possession. Then he replaces it, and scrutinises the mirror once more. At length, emitting a subdued growl, he seemingly dismisses the source of conjecture and moves purposefully off.
Without reflecting specifically upon the encounter with Miranda Bullingdon, he recognises that she did hit the nail on the head as far as the detectives’ modus operandi is concerned. There was more to it than time efficiency – if not exactly “divide and conquer” as she had suggested. Having previously met several of the household, his subordinates had speculated about who should conduct which interviews. While DS Jones had been surprisingly vehement in voicing her opinion, DS Leyton, treating the matter as academic, had suggested ‘rock paper scissors’. Skelgill at this point had become distracted by obduracy: how can paper ever beat rock? His objection must have something to do with the fellsman in him. By the time he had tuned back in, DS Jones was putting forward the proposal that he should interview Miranda Bul
lingdon and the housekeeper, Karen Williamson; that DS Leyton should interview Lord Bullingdon and Daphne Bullingdon; and that she should interview Julian Bullingdon and Lawrence Melling. She had been rather coy in her reasoning, other than to suggest that the interviewees would be most communicative when pitted accordingly against the respective strengths of the individual officers. Ordinarily this would be a subject upon which Skelgill would rule without consultation. But, having thrown it open to the floor he felt a certain obligation to go along with the outcome. Moreover, rather like at a formal dinner where places are dictated by place cards, he was pleased with the hand he was dealt, and not inclined to jeopardise his position. This despite a certain disquiet regarding the prospect of DS Jones being paired with Lawrence Melling. However, if truth be told, he was likely to get nowhere with the man; for there was already a smouldering antagonism between them. He had wondered if this lay at the root of DS Jones’s logic.
Members of the wider household – domestic and estate workers, contractors (some of the latter yet to be identified), along with other possible ‘visitors’ (postie, couriers, salespeople) – are to be tackled in due course, when more is understood about both the theft and the nature of the daily routine at Shuteham Hall.
Now Skelgill finds Karen Williamson precisely where he has been told she will be available. Not, as might reasonably be expected, innocently erasing fingerprints from antique furniture, but in a largely fallow walled garden that is located behind ivy-clad brickwork reached in a southwesterly direction across the topiary lawn. Standing in a raised bed of healthy looking lettuce plants, she has swapped her karate casuals for a loose-fitting navy boiler suit, though perhaps to give her face and neck some protection from the early afternoon sun she has let loose her dark hair, of which there is a surprising amount. Hoeing patiently, she reminds Skelgill of a worker in an oriental paddy field.
‘You could do with one of those conical hats.’
She looks up in surprise. Then she smiles broadly in recognition, revealing even white teeth. Skelgill is struck by the contrast: here is an expression that asks for nothing. She even seems pleased to see him.
‘You’re probably right – I believe you can dip them in water to help you cool off.’
Skelgill nods approvingly at the prospect. Inside the walled garden the air is stilled by its high red brick enclosure, and the sun has emerged above a magnificent white cumulus cloud and quickly makes known its proximity to these latitudes. Perhaps he licks his lips, because the woman responds with a welcome suggestion.
‘Fancy a mash?’
Skelgill frowns dubiously.
‘You know what they say about the bear and the woods. But, where?’
She gestures past him, roughly in the direction from which he has entered between tall wooden gates that were sufficiently ajar for him to slip through unannounced. Against the south-facing wall runs a succession of conjoined greenhouses, a glinting shanty of uneven lean-tos; there must be a thousand panes, and a good many of them fractured. The paintwork of the uprights is flaking almost beyond redemption, and cast iron gutters are askew and downpipes have tumbled away. Within, all Skelgill can make out through the hazy, algae-stained windows are swathes of trailing brown stems of what once perhaps were beds of tomatoes and cucumbers and squashes, trained upon wires, but now looking like a blighted crop, desiccated and preserved for posterity. He voices a further doubt.
‘Won’t it be too hot?’
She shakes her head and then has to part the strands of hair that cover her face; he sees she has caught the sun on her cheekbones and the bridge of her nose, the beginnings of war paint. He realises all traces of her former black eye have gone.
‘I have a secret shady spot – beneath a grapevine – and most of the glass is missing. This way.’
She spears the hoe into the tilled earth of the bed and hops nimbly over the three-course brickwork surround. Skelgill falls into step alongside her, just beyond arm’s reach. She leads him towards the opposite corner from that of the gates. Conscious of her masculine attire, he is reminded of Miranda Bullingdon’s remark about Jacks of all trades.
‘I thought you were the housekeeper, not the head gardener.’
She chuckles, perhaps a little ironically.
‘I can use all the overtime I can get – the price at the pumps these days.’
Skelgill is moved to question further this point – but he becomes distracted as she disappears into a little corner section of hothouse that is overwhelmed by a vine that is contorted like some captive prehistoric octopus, filling the interior with shoots, suckers and tendrils, vigorous growth that absconds through the many broken panes. He ducks into the cool green light of the interior, brushing aside the cascading vegetation, disturbing tiny flying insects that are illuminated by narrow shafts of sunlight. Against the whitewashed back wall is a dried out hardwood bench, on it a hessian bag from which a vacuum flask protrudes; an upturned orange crate serves as a handy table.
‘This is the sort of thing I do.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve been making camps since I were a bairn. Even now – bivvy spots – for night fishing, that sort of thing.’
The woman takes a seat at one end of the bench and he settles beside the opposite armrest.
‘Cosy I suppose.’
Skelgill appraises their surroundings.
‘Aye – but it’s more than that. It’s like your own little world – of wilderness, adventure, jeopardy – even if it’s in the back garden.’
‘Is that why you got into the police?’
Skelgill in a way is stunned by her question. How rare it is for someone to ask him about himself, about his motives. Rarer still to ask about his feelings – though she has not quite got that far. Is it his job – or is it just him? What is the provenance of a belligerence that folk can read a mile off, that warns of the recalcitrant riposte such an inquiry will elicit? Well into his second decade of serving the Crown, has the relentless pressure to perform, to see justice done presided over the imperceptible deposition, layer upon layer of a defensive shield? They would not know there are chinks all over – not know he would welcome such probing – not know he is imprisoned like a crab that has outgrown its exoskeleton and is desperate for the next instar, yet afraid to make the transition, should it leave him formless and floundering. He feels a curious sense of release, here in this little den, this leafy arbour with its dusty green light, an attractive woman at his side who shows no trace of purveying her own agenda, free of Machiavellian intent. Ach! What an extreme reaction to such an innocent question! It is what normal folk ask one another every day. He’ll probably ask her the same thing any minute. But his procrastination is such that she takes over.
‘A long story, eh?’
He gives a forced laugh, meant to rebut her solicitude; though of course she is right. She hands him a tin mug of tea, and he leans forward, resting his forearms on his thighs, dangling the cup between his knees. The hardened earth at his feet is criss-crossed with the crystalline patterns of glistening slug trails. He exhales resignedly. Much as he would like to sit here chatting all afternoon, even now he can’t escape the professional suspicion that this could just be yet another variation on a theme. The theme being – hotfoot from Miranda Bullingdon’s boudoir – that of how to manipulate a situation for one’s own benefit. Of course, he encounters it on an almost daily basis – often so blatantly as to be laughable; some suspects brought in for questioning should be despatched not to the cells but to stage school, such are the heights of their thespian talents. But Karen Williamson – she cannot possibly have pulled off a massive jewel heist.
Before he can fulfil his prediction and turn the question about vocation around upon her, she does it for him.
‘I’m a qualified physiotherapist.’
‘Do you do backs?’
It is a knee-jerk response that he instantly wishes he had not voiced. But though there is a slight pause the young woman takes no
offence, when some reasonably might.
‘Of course, why?’
Now it is awkward for Skelgill. But he sits upright and flexes his spine and groans contritely, as if to authenticate the sincerity of his remark.
‘For my sins I’m in the mountain rescue. I did my back in, years ago. I should have had it seen to. Now it flares up if I’m not careful – like if I lug my boat onto shingle without thinking about it.’
‘It sounds like a herniated disc.’
‘That sounds like something I’d rather not hear.’
For a moment there is a silence: she does not volunteer anything more; he is rather tongue- tied. Yet there is a sense that each willingly awaits the other. Eventually Skelgill finds an exit strategy.
‘Why aren’t you being a physio?’
She responds immediately.
‘Well – I am – for the district karate squad. But that’s just a voluntary role. It keeps my hand in, so to speak.’ She raises her eyebrows at the hackneyed pun. ‘When I had Kieran I went part time. But with the cuts to local authority services the part-time posts were the first to go. Then Kieran’s dad and I split up. That was when I saw this job advertised. It didn’t pay as well but it came with a cottage – that made all the difference.’
‘Where were you living?’
‘Workington – then for a few months with a friend in Cockermouth. I managed to get Kieran moved to the local primary. The school bus picks him up from the bottom of the drive.’
‘So where’s your cottage?’
‘Not far. You came down from the hall?’ (He nods.) ‘If you follow the track past the gates of the walled garden and round the corner, it’s less than a hundred yards. It was the gardener’s cottage at one time. They’ve got five properties on the estate. The only condition is that I sometimes have to do B&B for shooting guests, if there’s a big party – if there’s an overflow. Usually they fit them into one or more of the empty cottages – or close friends of Teddy’s they put up in the hall.
Skelgill is interested to hear this. He takes the opportunity to navigate back towards the course he ought to be following, though there is some way to go.
Murder on the Moor Page 7