‘I’d like to pick your brains.’
She looks anxious – and glances at the plastic bags that he holds at his side, correctly assuming it is something to do with them.
‘Sure – yes – but would you like tea and a roll – I was just doing some – to take up to the office in case anyone was hungry?’
Skelgill senses DS Leyton is looking at him disapprovingly, along the lines that they do not have time for this.
‘Aye – why not – I’m parched – and I could eat a horse.’
‘Do you want to sit at the bench and I’ll bring them out?’
The detectives do as bidden. Skelgill makes a strange sign to his colleague, tapping his temple with a knuckle – as if this is sufficient to justify the diversion when they might be at a critical point in a murder hunt. DS Leyton grins resignedly; however, he secretly has to acknowledge that, working with Skelgill, one rarely goes underfed. They settle, and take in the surroundings – it is another pleasant day, with barely a breeze and just a drift of diffuse cloud here and there, but overwhelmingly powder blue sky. The afternoon sun packs a punch, its warmth amplified in the enclosed rear garden. There is the temptation to relax, to succumb; Skelgill especially is tired; he has not been sleeping soundly. Karen Williamson appears a minute later bearing a tray. There are half a dozen filled rolls and two mugs of tea with milk already added. She seems unsure of what to do, but when Skelgill does not speak she passes out the mugs and side plates and offers round the platter of rolls. Then she slides into the bench opposite the detectives. She still wears the apron and just a vest top – which makes it look like the apron is all she has on. Skelgill again notices the sculpted musculature of her arms, a condition that in a more delicate form seems to continue into her facial characteristics. Under his scrutiny she seems to feel obliged to comment. She looks pointedly at the two bags Skelgill has laid on the end of the picnic table.
‘You’ve found something important?’
For his part, it is for good reason that Skelgill has given her plenty of time. If she had recognised either of the items she might spontaneously have said so – or, perhaps, more importantly, reacted but tried to cover up such. But he has detected neither response.
He swallows, and takes a thirsty gulp of tea.
‘Aye.’ He holds up his bitten roll. ‘Thanks for these, by the way – spot on.’
DS Leyton, eating, makes a noise indicating similar thanks and approval.
‘You’re welcome – like I said.’
She smiles a little coyly – and again Skelgill senses DS Leyton is watching, more surreptitiously. He reaches and lifts the bag with the boot in it.
‘Do you recognise this?’
‘It’s the sort of boot I’ve seen the guys wear around the place – the estate workers – not exactly a walking boot – more of a trail shoe – a bit more practical and not so heavy.’
Her reaction is interesting – almost as if she is trying to avoid telling a lie.
‘Any idea who it might have belonged to? Obviously, I’m thinking of Stan.’
Karen Williamson hesitates.
‘It’s a popular make – I really couldn’t say, for sure. But – I suppose it’s possible.’
‘Did you clean for him – at the gatehouse – and what about at Keeper’s Cottage?’
She looks sharply at Skelgill, but only briefly, and then shakes her head.
‘No – the estate employees all clean for themselves. I’d only do a place if it were to be temporarily occupied by guests or clients.’
Skelgill looks a little disappointed.
‘The reason I ask –’ He stops mid-sentence and holds up the bag containing the boxer shorts – he is watching her reaction carefully – she seems to look at them with interest, but certainly not recognition. ‘I was thinking, you see – if you cleaned you’d probably have a good idea of folk’s possessions.’
She nods, understanding his point.
‘I do the laundry for the Bullingdons. But no one else.’
‘Any suggestions on these?’
She looks closer.
‘It’s an expensive brand.’
Skelgill again notes the nature of her reply. He lays the bag down.
‘Thirty-four inch waist – covers a lot of folks.’
‘Rules me out, obviously!’
Both Skelgill and Karen Williamson look at DS Leyton with surprise – and he suddenly colours, realising he has spoken out of turn – and perhaps that it seems he has not been tuned in to Skelgill’s casual but thoughtful questioning. However, Skelgill wrong-foots him with his rejoinder.
‘In that case you’d better not have a second roll – and we’d better make tracks.’
He downs the last of his tea and rises. He gestures to the remaining food and is seemingly about to thank Karen Williamson when she interjects.
‘Where were they – these things?’
Skelgill does not reply immediately, extricating his long legs from the picnic bench.
‘In the lake.’ He gives a toss of his head to indicate roughly behind him. ‘Troutmere. Hard to tell if they’d been flung in or fallen off.’
He does not wait for her reaction, but just gives a vague wave of thanks and turns away, leaving DS Leyton to gather up the polythene evidence bags. He catches up with his superior at the front of Garden Cottage. Skelgill is staring rather broodingly at the bumper sticker on the white Mini.
‘Couldn’t have been that one you saw, Guv?’
Skelgill responds tersely.
‘Leyton, it was yellow.’
Skelgill turns and moves off. He leads his colleague back to the junction with Long Shoot. They swing right and continue, mainly in silence as Bullmire Wood and subdued afternoon birdsong and columns of gnats rise up around them. In due course they reach the intersection. Now Skelgill takes the left-hand option and announces the name of the track, Crow Road. His sergeant responds, melodramatically hunching his broad shoulders and pulling in his head.
‘Sounds like something from Alfred Hitchcock, Guv.’
Skelgill does a little double take.
‘You’re the second person to mention him, today.’
‘It was on the telly the other night, Guv – The Birds. Too late for me – but the missus stayed up and watched it. She’s a bit of a night owl. I reckon I’d be having nightmares if I watched that sort of thing before I went to kip. Worse than cheese.’
Skelgill grins wryly. He regularly eats a cheese sandwich before he turns in; although it is a choice determined as much by availability as preference.
After a few minutes more they approach Keeper’s Cottage. The open front porch has police tape strung across its uprights. As Skelgill ducks underneath he speaks out.
‘Those boxers, Leyton – pound to a penny they belonged to Melling.’
‘What makes you so sure, Guv?’
Skelgill opens the front door and enters and calls over his shoulder.
‘Helen Back – she mentioned to me and Jones – Melling was going commando on the night he died.’
Following behind him, his sergeant emits a groan of sorts, but it might be the action of bending beneath the tape. Skelgill does not wait, and quickly finds the bedroom where he begins pulling open the drawers of a chest. At the third he stops and waits for his colleague.
‘There you go, Leyton.’
DS Leyton arrives at his shoulder and peers into the drawer.
‘Same make, Guv.’
Skelgill is nodding. There must be about a dozen pairs, several identical, and all new-looking and carrying various designer brand names. DS Leyton is prompted to comment further.
‘Fancy pants.’
Skelgill does not answer; he closes the drawer with a knee and turns to look around the bedroom. It is neat and tidy but has the feel of temporary occupation – like a room that would be found in a rented holiday cottage, neutral and ready for the visitor to deposit their valise on the bed. DS Leyton is still musing over the underwear.
‘So what’s a pair of boxers doing in the lake, Guv? Was he up to a spot of skinny dipping?’
Skelgill could formulate a theory – this is one aspect of his ill-gotten gains in the information department that he has not shared with his colleagues; but for the time being he remains ambiguous.
‘You might not be all that wide of the mark, Leyton.’
‘It takes two to skinny dip, Guv.’
Skelgill is staring at a reproduction painting on the wall at the foot of the double bed. It is a traditional hunting scene, men on foot with a pack of dogs in open fell country; more likely something from the time of Jack Carlops than Lawrence Melling.
‘There’s word among the keepers hereabouts that Melling was a bit of a playboy.’
‘That don’t surprise me, Guv – look how he behaved that first time with Lady Bullingdon.’
‘Jack Carlops – the old keeper he replaced here – reckons there’s some shadowy animal rights group called Rapture. They operate online and get compromising information on their targets.’
‘Hah – sounds more like the Russians, Guv – kompromat, they call it, don’t they?’
Skelgill is nodding pensively.
‘Jones is looking into it. According to reports, Melling survived a court action for destroying a golden eagles’ nest in the Borders. But he didn’t leave his job until months after that. There’s a rumour that he made himself unpopular with the Duke of Hawickshire.’
‘What – like – to do with the Duchess of Hawickshire?’
‘Aye.’
‘So that explains your call, Guv?’
‘And the Duke clearly didn’t want to discuss it.’
DS Leyton places the evidence bags on the chest top and pulls open the drawer again, as though its contents might be a source of inspiration.
‘You reckon these cyber sabs were stalking Melling, Guv?’
‘If you’ve found someone’s weak spot – why not? And once you’ve hacked his devices he’s got nowhere he can hide.’
But DS Leyton’s face becomes creased with doubt. He closes the drawer and turns towards Skelgill.
‘Mind you, Guv – it’s one thing trolling someone – exposing or blackmailing them – but murdering them? And then there’s the practicality – the flamin’ trap an’ all that.’
Skelgill is nodding.
‘Aye, I know, Leyton. The death – the murder, if it were – has all the hallmarks of village justice.’
Skelgill steps past his colleague and leaves the room. He has half an inclination to look around the property – but it does not feel to be his most pressing need.
‘Come on – let’s go and see if we can find a match for that boot.’
For purposes of expediency, his colleague wearing unsuitable footwear and being unpractised in picking his way through tangled woodland, Skelgill leads them to the locked gate where Crow Road joins the lane to Overthwaite; thence they follow the estate boundary as it curves gently around to West Gate House.
Again there is a festooning of police tape to deter intruders, or accidental encroachment by estate workers; Skelgill heads around to the rear enclosed porch. There is no sign of forensic officers.
‘I take it you would have heard by now if the dog had found anything more.’
Skelgill’s remark is really a statement of the obvious.
‘Reckon so, Guv. They’ve probably finished for the time being. There’s an urgent job up in Carlisle waiting for them.’
Skelgill pushes open the outer door and immediately directs his colleague’s attention to the wellingtons.
‘I reckon they’ll be the same size, Leyton.’
DS Leyton picks up one boot and turns it over.
‘Size eight, Guv. Spot on.’
‘There’s no way Melling was an eight – he’d be a ten or eleven.’
DS Leyton nods. While this is not something he would have noticed, he accepts that Skelgill – with all his mad capers – is an authority when it comes to outdoor footwear. But he does notice the fishing rod.
‘Like you said before, Guv – it don’t look like Stan fell in while he was fishing.’
Skelgill murmurs agreement, though his features show some concern; but perhaps it is the inappropriately oversized and garish lure that again offends his angler’s sense of propriety. He moves on.
‘Show us that photo, Leyton – the one of the lass.’
DS Leyton understands and leads the way through into the bedroom. The space is cramped and it is with difficulty that he edges down one side of the bed and reaches to pull open the top drawer of a slim nightstand. From beneath some layers of clothing he extracts the framed photograph.
‘Stick it on the top.’
‘Come again, Guv?’
‘Set it up – like it would be on display.’
The frame has a fold-out fin and DS Leyton places the picture at an angle and reverses his movements to stand beside Skelgill.
‘He must have had it there, Leyton – else why’s it in the drawer?’
‘I suppose so, Guv.’ He sounds doubtful. ‘Although why would he tuck it away under his t-shirts?’
‘You tell me, Leyton.’
Skelgill’s rejoinder makes it sound like the answer is blindingly obvious; yet there is something in the nature of it that causes DS Leyton to realise his superior is looking for affirmation. He clears his throat in the manner of a ‘man of the world’.
‘Well – I suppose – if you had a different lady coming round – it’s not exactly going to thrill her to see that sitting there – pretty as the girl is.’ He clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. ‘In fact, that might make it worse.’
Skelgill is nodding.
‘Aye, happen it would.’
They remain in silence for a few moments; DS Leyton senses that he should not offer up any theories on this matter – the chances are, whatever Skelgill is thinking, he will be wide of the mark. But he is reminded of a technical point that he knows to be accurate.
‘By the way, Guv – that picture was taken in Moldova.’
‘Aye?’
‘The DC who’s been dealing with Immigration and looking into Stan’s background – he sent a copy of the digital photo I took. Apparently it’s a park in the capital, Chisinau – it’s where Stan was from, of course.’
Skelgill seems to react to this – he looks fleetingly pained – indeed as though a jab of discomfort has struck above his brow. But it may be unconnected – perhaps the effects of the heat and the sunshine and that he is probably dehydrated by his normal standards. But he quickly shrugs off the reaction and he turns to leave the room.
‘Come on – let’s show these exhibits to the Bullingdons before Forensics get their knickers in a twist.’
‘In this case, their boxers, Guv.’
While DS Leyton might have expected his superior to join in the small joke, he emerges from the bedroom to find him standing facing the exit holding up a warning hand.
‘Leyton, did you leave the door open?’
Skelgill’s voice is lowered. DS Leyton steps alongside to see that the external door of the porch is ajar by about a foot.
‘I closed it, Guv – I noticed there’s a broken coat hook on the back of it.’
Skelgill moves off – but quickly rather than cautiously, as if he senses a pursuit is imminent, as opposed to a threat. His ears pricked he skirts around the back of the cottage and stops at the corner. Now he waves on DS Leyton like they are playing a game of cops and robbers, and he makes sudden dash towards the log store that formerly housed the quad bike.
As he rounds the property in his superior’s wake, DS Leyton sees Skelgill pull up short – and also that there is a figure standing within the open-sided structure, seemingly examining the underside of the corrugated iron roof. It is Julian Bullingdon.
Confronted, but not challenged verbally, he acts as if it is the most natural thing that the two detectives should materialise and be interested in whatever he is up
to.
‘Poplar hawk.’
For a moment they share a degree of puzzlement – is he showing them a bird? Skelgill out of curiosity ducks beneath the shelter and sees that he has a compact torch trained upon a sizeable grey-and-blood-red moth, resting in the eaves. Julian Bullingdon continues as though he was interrupted mid-lecture.
‘Probably our most widespread hawk moth. We have quite a few white poplars on the estate – especially in the new plantation alongside Troutmere – but there are mature specimens scattered throughout the woods. The adults are just hatching now. It is a particularly fascinating species in that it commonly produces halved gynandromorphs, although I have never yet found one myself.’
He looks at the detectives as if in expectation of a commensurate scientific contribution. But Skelgill responds with a more pragmatic question.
‘What made you look here?’
Skelgill backs out of the shed and the young man follows him.
‘The estate is generally very dark at night.’ He directs a hand towards the cottage. ‘So, the vicinity of light sources – the inhabited properties – are good places to hunt for Lepidoptera that have rested up for the day. I’m always hopeful of a new species.’
Skelgill is beginning to look impatient. Accordingly he dispenses with any further preliminaries and nods to DS Leyton.
‘Mr Bullingdon – can you tell us if you recognise these items?’
DS Leyton steps forward and holds the two bags up at head height for ease of inspection. The young man peers somewhat myopically at first one bag and then the other. And then, quite uninhibitedly, he makes a sweeping gesture with both hands, from his chest downwards, indicating his person.
‘They are hardly my kind of thing.’
He wears the same eccentric outfit as they have seen on previous occasions. The oversized bare feet in sandals preclude the size eight outdoor shoe; conversely, the boxer shorts would drop off his scrawny frame.
His argument needs no further elaboration, but Skelgill is interested that he has responded not as a witness but as if accused.
‘You don’t know who they might have belonged to, sir?’
He shakes his head; he regards Skelgill with some bemusement, as though he thinks the question is misdirected.
Murder on the Moor Page 27