‘Will the binoculars work – in the light of that lamp?’
‘Aye – they’ll be fine. Come on, we’ll just do a quick recce.’
He finds himself digging in his heels, despite that he shares her reservations. Somewhere nearer to Over Moor, or perhaps the big release pen in Bullmire Wood will be better prospects; these are the places he would hide a camera.
‘Just skip down – I’ll follow once you’re out of sight.’
DS Jones moves away briskly. He watches through the night-vision glasses until she disappears behind the parked car – but when he reaches the same point he finds her returning. She comes right up close so that he can see the look of urgency on her face – and she raises a finger to her lips. Her voice is lowered to a whisper.
‘Guv – come and see – and listen.’
He follows her around the side of the property and sees immediately that there is a pale glow in the roof skylights, one of which is open by several inches. From within, voices emanate. Speaking in turn are a male and a female – the latter, Skelgill is certain, is Karen Williamson – but though there is urgency in their tone they are evidently restraining themselves and keeping the volume down. The young boy, Kieran will be sleeping, of course.
Skelgill is reminded of what Karen Williamson said to him about guests – that sometimes she was obliged to provide B&B for estate visitors. It strikes him that on such occasions she and the boy would need somewhere else to sleep – which might explain the function of the loft. There must be a bedroom of sorts up there. And now, in this context, other aspects of his interactions with her begin to assume a heightened significance – not least that she has perhaps skilfully contrived to entertain him outside the property. Then there is her curious, brief visit that he surreptitiously observed to Keeper’s Cottage. And there is even the issue of the two mugs that she had at the ready in the walled garden – a secluded spot that can be reached from the dilapidated door in the wall that separates the latter from the cottage garden in which he and DS Jones stand.
‘Stan.’
‘Guv?’
DS Jones sounds disbelieving.
‘It’s Stan – I tell you. She’s been hiding him.’
‘Guv – how do you know?’
‘Never mind – what time did Leyton say he’d get here?’
‘Guv – we can manage.’
‘Jones – Stan’s an unknown quantity – the woman’s a black belt at karate.’
DS Jones stares belligerently at Skelgill; he sees she is not in the least bit fazed – but he adds force to his argument.
‘Leyton can stop a bus. If he’s ten minutes away he can block off the front door while we go in the back.’
DS Jones yields reluctantly. She is already reaching for her phone.
‘Tell him to drive in – and all the way round to the tunnel in the rhododendrons – he knows where that is. And tell him to radio for the nearest patrol to come, too.’
DS Jones is nodding. She speaks softly into the handset microphone, conveying the salient details to her colleague. She ends the call.
‘He’s just turning into the main driveway.’
‘Go and meet him at the top of the track. Then when you get back we’ll know he’s in place.’
DS Jones merges quietly into the deeper shadows beyond the corner of the cottage. Skelgill stands still, straining his ears. The muted conversation continues. Though the words cannot be discerned the tenor seems to be that the female is trying to convince the male of something but he is putting up objections. Skelgill finds his hands coming to rest on the binoculars slung around his neck. He is reminded of the original purpose of their visit – a stroke of luck that intuition brought him this way. But to pass a minute or two he wanders around the perimeter of the cottage garden, holding the binoculars out in front of him so that he can see the screen. But no invisible light is activated.
And now DS Jones returns and gives him the thumbs-up. Skelgill approaches the back door and tries the handle. He is not surprised to find it locked. He is about to hammer on the wood panelling when something stops him. DS Jones looks on in anticipation. Skelgill takes half a dozen backward paces and calls out sharply, but not over-loudly.
‘Karen!’
The voices in the loft fall silent.
‘Karen – it’s DI Skelgill – and colleagues. We have an officer at the front door and a support vehicle about to arrive. I don’t want to wake your bairn. Can you come to the back door please?’
There is no reply – nor any sudden sounds of panic or desperate moves that could indicate an escape attempt is imminent. And after about thirty seconds the kitchen light comes on. And then the door is unlocked. Karen Williamson stands facing them in a flimsy nightgown. Behind her, a couple of yards back, barefooted, in perhaps hastily thrown on black jeans and creased t-shirt, his expression defeated and – yes – clearly afraid, is the man Skelgill recognises from his passport photograph as Carol Valentin Stanislav – Stan.
*
‘Whatever you think – it weren’t Stan – I swear – on my son’s life!’
‘Okay – calm down, lass. I want to hear it.’
For the benefit of Karen Williamson’s sleeping son, Skelgill has retreated to the garden. Karen Williamson has pulled on a quilted gilet – rather incongruous with the satiny shift, but her mind is clearly distracted. Now he chaperones her across to the picnic table and encourages her to sit; she complies, though facing outwards, the light from the kitchen window illuminating her drawn features. He and DS Jones stand; perhaps they remain to be convinced she will not make some kind of dash to be reunited with Stan. He has gone quietly – meekly, seemingly resigned to the inevitable – with DS Leyton and a constable from the squad car that turned up soon afterwards. Right now, Skelgill is keen to obtain a succinct account – for he considers time to be against him. Karen Williamson’s emotions, however, still hold sway.
‘He’s terrified – his English isn’t brilliant and he’ll probably admit to something he’s not done. He’s a lovely guy – he wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
Skelgill can see that she is genuinely distressed. She might have harboured Stan entirely out of altruism, but it is not difficult to guess that there is more to the relationship. Though he reminds himself it is a murder investigation, instinct tells him not to play the bad cop. Besides, does he not have some goodwill of his own in the bank?
‘Listen, lass – we’re not the KGB. If Stan’s not done owt wrong then he’s got nowt to worry about.’
He reaches out and touches her bicep; it is an instinctive gesture, the human-to-human stress conductor in play. After a moment she nods reluctantly, but still does not say anything.
‘So you could maybe put us on the right track by explaining what it is you think he hasn’t done – and what he’s been doing here.’ He jerks back his head to indicate the cottage.
She inhales deeply a couple of times; perhaps it is a relaxation technique from her martial arts repertoire.
‘Lawrence Melling nearly killed him – he thought he had killed him – drowned him – Stan pretended – somehow managed to swim away under water. He came here – it was the middle of the night – Saturday night – what else could I do but take him in?’
Skelgill shrugs as though this is fine by him.
‘Why did Lawrence Melling try to kill him?’
Karen Williamson sighs tremulously. She looks confused.
‘I’m not too sure. Stan doesn’t want to talk about it – doesn’t want to get me involved. He just said he was monitoring Lawrence’s movements – something about the boathouse – that’s where it happened. Lawrence caught him – like I say – tried to drown him.’
Skelgill stares, unblinking – he is recalling his own close encounter with the enraged gamekeeper. He glances at DS Jones to see she too is observing the woman with great intensity.
‘Why didn’t you report it to the police?’
‘I wanted to – Stan wasn’t sure what to do – that
it would land him in trouble. But then before we could agree or decide – the jewellery was stolen and suddenly everyone’s trying to pin it on him. He wouldn’t have stood a chance.’
Skelgill exhales and folds his arms, as though he begs to differ. But Karen Williamson continues.
‘And then Lawrence Melling was killed –’ She looks fearfully from one detective to the other. ‘That’s what the word going round is. Stan’s the obvious fall guy for that as well – especially if he tried to explain the attack on him. And you’d just think he’d hidden the jewellery somewhere and was denying it. It was an impossible situation for him. Except I can promise he was here – with me – all night, every night.’
Skelgill seems entirely non-judgemental, when it is plain she expects reproach; indeed his expression is remarkably amenable. But what she cannot appreciate is that he has been wrestling blind with this impossible conundrum these last several days. To have his subliminal suspicions confirmed is like one distant Christmas morning when the postie-delivered package he had been assured was a roll of foil for the turkey turned up in his stocking as a six-piece travel rod in a tube case.
‘After we’d chatted – on Monday in the walled garden – why did you go to Keeper’s Cottage?’
She looks at him, wide-eyed. And then at DS Jones.
‘That boot you brought, with your other sergeant – it was Stan’s missing one – he might have needed it. He lost it beside the lake – in the fight.’ She smears the fingertips of both hands simultaneously from the bridge of her nose across her cheekbones, as though she imagines there are tear stains. ‘Obviously, you found it later – but we thought maybe Lawrence Melling had taken it away – so as not to leave any trace of Stan beside Troutmere.’
Now DS Jones intervenes.
‘Madam – just to get this clear. You’re saying that Mr Melling thought he’d drowned Mr Stanislav in Troutmere – and that he was expecting that the lake would conceal the body?’
Karen Williamson regards DS Jones forlornly.
‘That’s right – I mean – I know a body’s supposed to float eventually. But I expect he would have been checking regularly and would have had a plan to deal with it.’
Skelgill makes an exasperated growl and performs a pirouette on his heel.
‘Meanwhile we’re keeping watch on the ports for Stan and a suitcase full of diamonds.’
Skelgill says this as much to himself as anything, and he sees the look of alarm in DS Jones’s face. It is true, that to share this sentiment with Karen Williamson is inappropriate – as yet he cannot dismiss the possibility that she is an accessory of sorts, or may have to be charged with obstructing the police. Right now, he cannot fathom where all this will lead. There is much to do, and new questions are stacking up as fast as old ones are being resolved. There will be feedback from DS Leyton – is Stan innocent, or responsible for both of the crimes? There is the hoped-for recuperation of the Irish couple and their story – can they assist with the incident on the moor? And – most pressing of all (if no longer seeming most important) – there is the impending dawn, and their hunt for the cameras, and what they might reveal. Now he glances apprehensively at the sky in the northeast. He pats DS Jones purposefully on the shoulder – in case she might think he would want her to remain; and then contrives to smile to Karen Williamson, though he does so perhaps just a little manically.
‘We need to go; we turn to dust at sunup. We’ll leave you to mind the bairn. Don’t do anything daft, like fly off to Moldova.’
*
‘Guv – could Stan know something about Rapture?’
‘I’ll tell you one thing – he doesn’t know owt about fishing.’
‘Pardon, Guv?’
They are both a little breathless, having hurried along Skelgill’s short-cut across the estate – down the rhododendron tunnel; over the dam at the end of Troutmere; up through the poplar plantation; across the main driveway into ornamental woodland; eventually meeting the track that Lawrence Melling had taken by quad bike en route to his death.
‘To answer your question – aye, maybe. Happen he were ‘monitoring’ Melling, as Karen Williamson just said. And that’s my point. His cover – his disguise – was a daft little fishing rod with a lure big enough to catch a shark. Aye – you might get a pike on it in Over Water – if there’s any in there – but Troutmere, no chance – just some stockies, couple-of-pounders.’
‘I wonder what he’ll claim he was doing – that generated such an extreme reaction?’
Skelgill senses that DS Jones is fishing for details that he has been reticent to reveal. He answers somewhat obliquely.
‘Interesting thing is, Karen’s story stacks up – about Melling clearing up after himself.’
DS Jones hesitates – though it may be the familiar reference to the woman that sidetracks her thoughts.
‘He missed the boot, Guv. Although I suppose if it was dislodged in the lake he wouldn’t have known about it.’
‘It’s the fishing rod I’m talking about. I noticed on Monday it had a strand of fresh water crowfoot snagged round the treble hooks. I reckon Melling returned the tackle to make it look like Stan had gone back to his cottage – and disappeared from there.’
DS Jones now falls into line with the hypothesis.
‘Presumed by us to have committed the burglary and absconded with the jewellery.’
Skelgill glances at her as they move – they can neither see much of one another, but they seem to be in harmony on this point.
‘Looks like Melling had us thinking exactly what he wanted us to believe.’
DS Jones is silent for a moment.
‘The implication being that he took the jewellery.’
It takes Skelgill a while to respond.
‘Aye.’
‘But, how?’
Skelgill wonders for a moment if his colleague is being just a little bit disingenuous; that she knows he knows more than he is comfortable to reveal. But, little by little, it is beginning not to matter.
‘I reckon I can explain that, as well.’ And now he almost goes the whole hog. ‘And the boxers.’
‘Hey!’ She is not expecting him to be so forthcoming. ‘Are we talking Miranda Bullingdon?’
However, perhaps Skelgill has reached his limit for the present. He becomes more circumspect.
‘I think we’ll find – when we speak with her – that she’s got a little saying, along the lines of never admit anything that can’t be proved.’
DS Jones makes another couple of unsuccessful attempts to winkle more detail from her superior, but he will not be moved. Instead, rather like a lizard that forfeits its writhing tail to distract a predator, he tempts her with the greater controversy.
‘Who killed Cock Robin?’
DS Jones inhales – but then exhales rather than answer immediately. She needs a few more seconds to compose her reply.
‘Well – we could keep our longlist, as previously discussed – or we could create a radical new shortlist – now we know Stan had a powerful motive.’
It is a salutary answer – a reminder that it is easy to overthink a situation – a trap that it is normally Skelgill’s role to be warning against falling into. However, he instinctively plays devil’s advocate.
‘Except – you know you meet some people – and they’re just – honest?’ (He prefaces the word ‘honest’ with a rather colourful adjective to emphasise its gravity.)
‘You mean Karen Williamson?’
Actually Skelgill is thinking of Stan – based on what he has heard about him, and even the little comic cameo they witnessed when he fell off the ladder, and his manner just now, compliant and respectful before being carted off rather unceremoniously by DS Leyton. But – yes – in his mind an equivalent sentiment applies to the housekeeper.
‘Aye, well – I reckon so far she’s just about managed to avoid telling white lies.’ He looks at his colleague with a grin. ‘Whereas I tell them all day long.’
�
�Grey ones, even – when it’s the Chief, Guv.’
Skelgill nudges her playfully.
‘Aye, well – we’ve got this mutually beneficial arrangement. I say what she wants to hear and she pretends to believe me.’
Their moment of levity, however, comes to an end, for they round the final bend in the track, and ahead of them in the gloom is the just-discernible wall and, beyond it, the shadowy expanse of Over Moor.
‘I’ll go ahead, Guv.’
DS Jones skips away and Skelgill raises the night-vision glasses. He has got the hang of the device now – holding it out before him, at chest height, so that he has the additional benefit of his own albeit imperfect eyesight.
Just as DS Jones closes in on the stile the hidden camera is triggered.
‘There! Six foot to the right of the bottom step – just above the ground – near where that tape’s dangling.’
As Skelgill comes up DS Jones exclaims in triumph – she has located the device in a niche in the dry stone wall, with rocks loosely replaced around it. It would be next to invisible to the unsuspecting eye – especially as anyone approaching would be most likely sizing up the stile and planning their route over it.
She bags the camera securely as before – and Skelgill is ready with his rucksack. This time she calls the score.
‘Two down, one to go.’
Skelgill tightens the drawstring and slings the pack over his shoulder.
‘Here – take these.’ He hands her the binoculars.
‘But – why?’
‘Just in case there is a giant mousetrap.’
Before she can protest he grabs the torch and vaults over the stile.
‘Come on – we’ve got half an hour before the light beats us.’
He raises a hand to guide her down – as if there are no limits to his chivalry! She is probably considerably more agile than he, if not quite possessed of his ingrained schooling in scrambling and clambering and general indestructibility. She comments on their latest finding.
‘Guv – if anyone carried the trap from Shuteham Hall they must have come this way – this camera will have recorded them. If Lawrence Melling brought it, we’ll find out. Or – if it was Stan.’
Murder on the Moor Page 30