Murder at Dead Crags

by Bruce Beckham

  ‘This is left-handed writing, Guv.’

  Skelgill does not seem surprised, but DS Leyton – who has contrived to roll onto his stomach and is now heaving himself up – intervenes with a suitably voluble protest.

  ‘Hold on – hold on – hold your horses – what are you saying?’ He lumbers over beside Skelgill. DS Jones has now taken a seat, and is steadily examining successive pages.

  ‘This is all written by a left-handed person.’ She looks up into the faces of her colleagues: Skelgill keen-eyed, DS Leyton bemused. ‘We studied it on the forensics course I attended in October. It’s such a basic identifier – it’s called the sarcasm stroke. When you cross a ‘t’ you sweep the nib back towards your hand. Right-handers do it from right to left – left-handers the other way. It’s easy to spot – as the pen lifts off the line becomes finer.’

  DS Leyton is looking at his right hand – as though he wants to put this to the test; DS Jones watches Skelgill apprehensively. He is nodding grimly.

  ‘Thwaites was left-handed.’ And now both his subordinates look at him for confirmation. ‘He told me – when we were looking at Declan’s rod.’

  A short silence ensues; DS Leyton is still striving to catch up.

  ‘So what are we saying, Guv – that Thwaites wrote the bird book?’

  Skelgill backs away and paces around – he comes to a halt in front of the clock.

  ‘Why not, Leyton? He was here for donkey’s years – since well before the date of the earliest entry. Look – it’s a double desk – seats one person either side – get that chair.’

  DS Leyton does as he is bid, and rolls the rosewood harpist’s chair into position opposite DS Jones.

  ‘Thwaites sat here?’

  Skelgill nods.

  ‘Aye – Declan sat where Jones is – all his books to hand behind him – dictated the notes to Thwaites.’

  But now DS Jones looks uncomfortable.

  ‘Guv – the logbook was here, on this side.’ She indicates its position in front of her. ‘And the pen.’

  Skelgill is unmoved by this small inconvenience. He reaches for the journal – DS Jones still has it open at the most recent entry and slides it towards him. He reads Declan’s final account – perhaps with fresh eyes, in the knowledge that this is the hand of Harold Thwaites. Then he returns the book to his colleague and wanders across to the nearest window and gazes out. The frozen backdrop is unchanging, but out of sight of his subordinates, something seems to bother him – it is a pained expression, like when he has set out to fish – his inner alarm squawks that he has forgotten something – yet he can’t for the life of him think what it is – and knows he must depart and be disappointed later.

  DS Leyton, meanwhile, has pulled a file of statements from the pilot bag, and has settled upon one particular page. He carries them across to Skelgill.

  ‘Guv – these times you took, talking to Thwaites – and confirmed by me when I interviewed him later – we’ve got Thwaites saying he brought in Declan’s lunch at 12.15. Declan was out bird-watching. Then Thwaites came back at 2.15 to collect the tray and found Declan dead.’

  ‘Aye.’

  Skelgill does not appear to be listening properly – but DS Jones has registered the significance of her colleague’s observation – her eyes are wide. Skelgill continues to stare out of the window.

  ‘Guv – it don’t stack up.’

  Skelgill now swings around.

  ‘What?’

  DS Leyton looks over his shoulder for assistance from DS Jones.

  ‘What time does it say Declan got back?’

  She consults the page.

  ‘13.35 – twenty-five to two.’

  ‘See what I mean, Guv?’

  Skelgill is nodding slowly. Plainly, if Thwaites penned the log entry, he had to be in the study soon after Declan got back – and when he was still alive. Skelgill takes the papers from DS Leyton and glares at the column of timings. DS Leyton mirrors his superior and leans in with a suitably perplexed expression. But suddenly Skelgill jolts and points a finger across towards DS Jones.

  ‘The waxwings!’ His sergeants gaze at him in surprise – but he has remembered what he had ‘forgotten’. ‘The last entry doesn’t mention the waxwings. Check the day before.’

  DS Jones scans the journal with renewed purpose.

  ‘You’re right, Guv – here it is – Saturday: “Waxwing 12 – constellation feeding on guelder rose to south of property.” Plus some other sightings.’

  ‘A constellation of waxwings.’ Skelgill nods with satisfaction. He holds out an explanatory palm, and now pontificates. ‘Rare winter visitors – come in flocks and find a supply of berries – and stay until it’s exhausted. There’s no way Declan would have overlooked them on Sunday – and I saw them myself on Monday.’

  DS Leyton looks puzzled.

  ‘Maybe they went off for the day, Guv – there’s no knowing what birds can get up to.’

  Skelgill runs a hand through his hair and gazes off into the distance beyond the windows, as though there might be some clue to the significance of this omission. Or is it just an irrelevant anomaly? They are all three silent, and it is only when DS Jones makes a strange birdlike squeal – appropriately enough – that her male colleagues stare at her with alarm.

  ‘Guv – listen to this.’

  She has leafed back through the logbook and has pinched together a sheaf of pages such that she can see two entries simultaneously, from different dates. She quotes aloud.

  ‘“Barnacle Goose c. 20 – small skein N from Buttermere. Raven 8 – unkindness W from Grasmoor End, high to Mellbreak. Fieldfare c. 30 – mutation taking haws at Lanthwaite Beck. Brambling 13 – charm amongst beech mast in copse below Cinderdale Crag.”’

  Skelgill frowns.

  ‘Aye, I’ve just read that.’

  ‘Except –’ And now she pauses – it would seem for dramatic effect, were not for the genuine light of discovery in her eyes. ‘Except, Guv – you haven’t. It’s an entry from December last year – the same date. It’s been copied verbatim.’

  DS Leyton strikes up.

  ‘Cor blimey, girl – what made you check that?’

  DS Jones shakes her head.

  ‘I don’t know – I suppose it was because there were no waxwings.’ She grins a little self-consciously at Skelgill.

  Skelgill looks from one to the other of his colleagues. Perhaps for each of them – he included – a penny is beginning to drop. Skelgill stalks back to the clock. The front is still open and now he pokes experimentally at the big hand with a forefinger. It is on a ratchet and moves only clockwise. He winds it twice round until it reads 2 o’clock. Then he does it ten times more, returning it to 12 o’clock. Now he stoops to retrieve the pendulum and hooks it into place. He gives it a gentle tap and it begins to swing – and then almost immediately the clock starts to chime. Quite likely they each count to twelve, and only when the last echoes have subsided does Skelgill turn to face his colleagues. His features are grim – anguished, even – like a fisherman who has waited patiently for many hours – only to reel in and find his bait has gone.

  ‘It’s back to the drawing board.’

  20. REFLECTIONS – Wednesday 9pm

  The metaphorical ‘drawing board’ for most investigating officers would comprise a lengthy session surrounded by all the evidence, poring over statements and reports, meticulous note-taking and the compiling of flow charts, lists and tables. Skelgill is sorting out his fishing tackle.

  He has swept unfinished DIY projects from his garage workbench, hauled in a stack of storage crates from the back of his car, and spread before him their contents. From the unruly assortment of tins and reels and bags and cases, he has selected three containers that the angler will recognise as fly boxes. The trout fishing season closed ten weeks ago, and there is an end-of-term task that is long overdue: the overhaul of his extensive collection of artificial flies.

  Deprived of the possibility actually to fish
– the unrelenting freeze precluding all methods available in the neighbourhood – it could be that he regards something akin to angling as the next best thing. That is, an activity that demands a certain degree of concentration, and yet which is also sufficiently methodical and repetitive in its nature to allow his mind – if it should wish – to drift. Assuming, of course, that he has some conscious intent for the latter to occur. It is equally probable that, simply ‘fed up’, frustrated with his job, and there being no decent fishing programmes on TV this evening (or lively company in the bar of his local hostelry), he has resorted to some other suitable distraction.

  Earlier in the day Skelgill was obliged to submit a report summarising the case to date. Compiled by DS Leyton, proof-checked by DS Jones – cursorily edited and signed off by Skelgill – it was no more than a one-page summary stating the salient details. Much to Skelgill’s chagrin this had then been circulated to other officers of his rank. While not an unprecedented procedure – positioned by the Chief as for the purposes of keeping her senior team informed – it was far from regular. Skelgill naturally interpreted the act as a personal slight – and a broadcasting of his failure thus far to make any substantive progress. This was compounded by the fact that among ‘officers of his rank’ is included DI Alec Smart. And the snide Mancunian had wasted no time in appearing gleefully at Skelgill’s door to tell him how it was.

  “Plain as day, Cock. Your butler murdered his master and then topped himself – made it look like an accident.”

  DI Smart had only lingered a moment to savour Skelgill’s apparent humiliation in front of his team. He had shown them a clean pair of heels – no doubt to be the first to put this theory to their superior – a quick, neat solution; a feather in his cap and bragging rights over Skelgill. Skelgill had been obliged to quell the faint rumblings of a mutiny among his crew – for DS Leyton had the naïve temerity to ask, “What if he’s right, Guv?” – requiring a thunderous broadside from Skelgill, but one sorely lacking a logical counter argument.

  Reflecting now, Skelgill is forced to concede that an outsider looking at the case would quite likely conclude that there is one outstanding candidate for the murder of Declan Thomas O’More – his long-serving butler, Harold Thwaites, as DI Smart postulates. And this is based on the broad facts alone – for Skelgill’s expurgated report was free of such intriguing nuances as Declan’s ghost-written journal, interference with the clock, or the likely combusted shillelagh. Indeed, when this extra layer of detail is admitted – that Thwaites had seemingly concocted an entirely fictitious sequence of events in relation to Declan on the day of his death – the case against the old retainer becomes even more convincing. Why else would he do this, other than to create an alibi for himself?

  That Thwaites might suddenly have feared for his livelihood – with Declan inheriting charge of Crummock Hall for the foreseeable future – is a viable motive. Now that Sir Sean, Declan and Thwaites are all dead, there is no way of exploring what new dynamic Thwaites might have anticipated. Perhaps he was not only long-serving but also long-suffering, and some remark or threat from Declan – casually uttered whilst he was winding the clock, his weekly habit of a Sunday noon – prompted Thwaites to pick up the walking stick and unleash decades of pent-up frustration. The straw that broke the camel’s back. And then – and this is by no means implausible (indeed, probably less so than the faking of the log entry and the contriving of the alibi) – overcome by the gravity of what he had done – he took his own life – but in such a way as to make his death appear accidental, perhaps to minimise the shame he had brought upon the family. It fits the facts.

  All well and good. But it doesn’t fit the feelings.

  Since Skelgill has moved amongst the actors in this rather grotesque production – a peripatetic extra – his perspective is not that of the impartial investigator looking from the outside in. He is working from inside out. And he works not with facts, but with feelings. That is not to say he ignores the facts – certainly he absorbs them, blandly, neutrally, not knowing whether they are true facts, mistakes or lies, filing them somewhere, all equal in his estimation – but he judges them against how he feels about any possible conclusions. And the possible conclusion that Thwaites murdered Declan does not have resonance. In Thwaites he did not detect the soul of a murderer. (And there may be facts as yet unrecognised by his consciousness that will back this up.) Thwaites was badly affected by the death of his master, but not in a way that suggested guilt or remorse. Moreover, there is a tide of suspicion that laps about the other players – they are too little forthcoming, they have subtly closed ranks, there is too much at stake for him to feel at ease with DI Smart’s glib explanation.

  However, in his logical deliberations – and discussions with his two sergeants – the new facts have certainly undermined his feelings. The revelation that, after all, 12 o’clock and not 2 p.m. was the likely time of Declan’s murder – that Dr Herdwick’s obstinacy was likely vindicated – came as a “curved ball from left field” (as he put it to himself, doubling up on the metaphor with belt and braces). Indeed it has shaken the foundations of a tentative belief he has been building about the case – and reminded him of the dangerous temptation offered by ‘facts’. He has been rocked.

  *

  Skelgill likes to start the trout season with three fly boxes. The first is small enough to fit into a pocket of his jacket or gilet; it will be empty. The second, also pocket-sized, will typically contain about a tenth of his collection. The third, the largest by far, houses all the rest, and slides about in the stern of the boat.

  Box number two contains all those flies on which he caught fish in the previous year. As the season progresses, ‘successful’ flies gradually migrate to box one – mainly from box two, but also some from box three, as they are speculatively tried, and prove their worth as ‘catchers’.

  One clever aspect of this system is that as box one gradually fills, it becomes a chronological record, a kind of three dimensional logbook of successful patterns as the months roll by. Some are predictable. Typically there will be a hawthorn in late April (mimicking the hairy black St Mark’s fly so voraciously gobbled by trout), mayflies in – yes – May, and a daddy longlegs in June. Such a sequence provides Skelgill with a handy reminder of what he might next dangle as the calendar advances.

  A non-fisher might ask, so what is the job to be done? Surely this year’s box two is ready to go as soon as the season is over? It is simply last year’s box one, last season’s ‘catchers’. But not so. Unlike Skelgill’s home-made pike lures, wrought from indestructible household objects such as paintbrush handles and pool cues, and fitted with terrifying treble hooks, an artificial fly is a delicate thing, almost as ephemeral as the creature it mimics. Fashioned from fur and feathers, intricately wound and tied, delicately glued and varnished, it is rare for a successful fly to emerge unscathed from the fishy jaws of victory.

  Thus Skelgill’s task in preparing for the new season is to replace battle-scarred flies – for he has reinforcements aplenty. When he ties flies he makes a dozen at a time, and these are mostly confined to their barracks, box three, until called upon. But frugal by nature – de rigueur for a man bred in these parts – where possible he resuscitates those chewed and slime-encrusted flies that respond to a little soaking in soapy water, draining on a sheet of newspaper, and a blast of the hairdryer while gripped in pliers – a kind of field hospital for wounded fishing tackle.

  It is a fiddly task, though Skelgill’s calloused palms and rough-skinned fingers are deceptively dexterous – and seated at his bench he works assiduously, content despite the chill (he has an old and somewhat ineffectual paraffin heater going, and wears two moth-eaten fleecy tops, and there is the homely hiss of a gas lamp that hangs above him). And it must be a contemplative experience; a little trip down the memory lane of last year’s success stories on lake or river, of endlessly sunny days (a funny thing, the memory), of tricky fights with unexpectedly big fish, and the
outwitting of these canny wild creatures with a tiny assembly of natural materials – formed and presented by his hand alone.

  And there is another, intrinsic, pleasure in fly fishing tackle. For this is a sport that has occupied the best hunting brains down the ages – witness Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler, published in 1653. Much blood and sweat and tears have been spilled in the perfecting of the traditional patterns that have proved their worth, to be passed through generations, from father to son, angler to angler. Each fly boasts its own social history, and a flavour of this often captured in its name – the whole body of work a wonderfully evocative nomenclature that fires the imagination and fills the novice fisher with the confidence that they stand on the shoulders of giants.

  As Skelgill journeys mindfully through his season past, the flies that served him well likewise captivate him. Thus far he has admired Royal Coachman (invented by John Haily, New York City, 1878), Lunn’s Particular (developed by River Test keeper William Lunn, Hampshire, England, 1917) and Peter Ross (no hiding of his light under a bushel for the eponymous 19th century Perthshire shopkeeper).

  And of course there is Greenwell’s Glory. That Skelgill now ponders unduly long over this rather innocuous dry fly might cause the onlooker to wonder why. Perhaps he had some particular success – it mimics the Pond Olive, a common variety of mayfly, a staple of trout therefore – or maybe he is debating whether to replace his slightly ragged catchers with new stock. But there is something more profound in his expression. Though he pores over the fly, his eyes unmoving, unblinking, his focus does not fall on the bench before him. It drills back in time – though not so far back as Canon William Greenwell in 1854 – but to a generation ago, when the Reverend’s brainchild featured in another narrative. This fly was witness to ‘The Accident.’ Aye – the rod that was rigged ready to go early that morning – that fateful morning – when the foolhardy Edward Regulus rowed his beautiful young wife Shauna O’More across Crummock Water – was tied with Greenwell’s Glory. It was Declan’s fly of choice. And where the old split cane cork-handled rod survived, the boat and its occupants did not. And Declan should have been in that boat.