Murder at the Wake (Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates Book 7)

by Bruce Beckham

  The voice that interjects has an unmistakable grating drawl – it is none other than DI Smart himself.

  ‘And here’s me bringing you the latest news – in case you missed that, too, Skel?’

  That he is aware of Skelgill at the other end of the line suggests a certain amount of eavesdropping has occurred prior to his ingress. Skelgill can hear nothing from his sergeants, who are presumably cringing in silence. Now he is faced with the dilemma of blanking his rival – at risk of passing up some nugget – or the ignominy of swallowing his pride. In the end he responds with the best compromise he can muster, though Alec Smart will take pleasure in that he utters it through gritted teeth.

  ‘I’m losing the signal, Smart – if you want to tell me something.’

  ‘Seems to me like you’re losing more than your signal, Cock.’

  DI Smart sniggers, and Skelgill can hear the rattle of his heels on the tiled office floor, as if he is performing a little tap-dance of triumph.

  ‘That crowd you’re investigating –’ (DI Smart pronounces the word as if it is in parentheses, to mock their efforts) ‘ – were having a cosy little chat together at The Island this morning.’

  He refers to a large modern hotel that is situated close to the M6 motorway junction for Penrith, and a short distance from the mainline railway station. It would be the obvious choice for travellers to convene prior to going their separate ways. Skelgill curses silently under his breath – that he might have overlooked something so obvious in hindsight. But unlike DI Alec Smart, whose modus operandi depends upon an evanescent legion of mercenaries, spies, snouts and would-be supergrasses, Skelgill largely eschews the paid informant on grounds that treachery begets treachery.

  ‘Aye.’

  This is an unconvincing effort to suggest he might already be abreast of these facts – and again DI Smart cackles, sensing Skelgill’s discomfort.

  ‘Half an hour they were plotting, Skel – I can even tell you who ordered Americano and who drank a Manhattan.’ He gives a short hysterical laugh. ‘Then four of them took a cab to the station and the other pair left together by car – cosy – that lawyer chap and your pretty little writer.’

  Skelgill scowls fiercely – then abruptly he leans forwards and cuts off the call. He waits, his face like thunder. Broodingly he watches the clock on his dashboard. It is only two minutes later when his phone rings again.

  ‘That’s him slung his hook, Guv.’

  ‘Make sure he’s not outside, Leyton.’

  ‘Already have, Guv.’

  ‘What else did he say?’

  There is an awkward pause – long enough for Skelgill to picture his colleagues exchanging discomfited glances.

  ‘That was about it, Guv – he said he’s got a meeting with the Chief.’

  Skelgill makes a derisive scoffing sound.

  ‘It’s no big deal, Leyton – as for the family – we know they were due to discuss the will – they didn’t want us cramping their style. That’s why they cleared out of Crummock Hall.’

  ‘Fair point, Guv.’

  Now there is another bout of silence, which DS Leyton eventually breaks.

  ‘How’ve you been getting on, Guv?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I mean – with Perdita and the Mullarkey geezer – anything we should know?’

  Skelgill, unseen by his colleagues, glowers and folds his arms. It is a reasonable suggestion – that his team pool their knowledge – but he seems unprepared for the question (or maybe unwilling to provide the answer).

  ‘I’m working on it, Leyton.’

  The pregnant pauses are coming thick and fast – heralding a minor baby boom – but DS Leyton seems determined to put a positive spin on their predicament.

  ‘Still, Guv – darkest hour before dawn, eh?’

  ‘What?’

  Skelgill’s tone is irate, though DS Leyton seems not to notice.

  ‘It’s what they say, Guv – that it’s the darkest hour before dawn.’

  ‘No it’s not. It starts getting light in the hour before dawn. It’s called nautical twilight. The darkest hour’s in the middle of the night, Leyton.’

  ‘Oh, right, Guv.’

  Skelgill crunches his car into gear and sets off at a hair-raising rate along the snow-and-ice-covered track that leads to Crummock Hall. He loses the signal but does not appear concerned.

  *

  ‘Mrs Gilhooley? You must be frozen.’

  The diminutive old lady glares suspiciously at Skelgill. Her eyes are uncannily pale, set close astride a hooked nose, there is lank grey hair straggling about a shrivelled countenance, and a moth-eaten blanket gripped at the throat by gnarled fingers that shake, perhaps with cold. She resolutely blocks the narrow doorway of the cottage, though in summoning a reply she appears torn – for this tall rangy stranger in a peculiar hat hauls a sack of coal over his shoulder.

  ‘Weez thon, woman?’ The hoarse cry of an angry male voice emanates from within.

  She ignores the demand of her spouse to identify the newcomer, and juts out a chin that is pointed and unfortunately hairy. Brutus’s childhood analogy from Brothers Grimm was perhaps prophetic.

  ‘Tha yan o’ Minnie Graham’s bairns?’

  ‘I heard you were short of fuel.’

  That Skelgill’s reply is patently oblique does not seem to concern her. Indeed, in its evasiveness it is perhaps music to her ears. Her eyes narrow shrewdly: bargaining mode.

  ‘What’ll tha tek fer it?’

  Skelgill shrugs – as much as a person can shrug with a half-hundredweight on their back.

  ‘I’d take a brew.’ He manufactures a friendly grin. ‘There’s two more in the boot, love. Call it community service. Ask no questions.’

  At this hint of chicanery, of the Robin Hood variety, the old woman cackles with approval.

  ‘Weez thon?’ The shout of who is it comes again. ‘Yer lettin’ in draught, woman!’

  She gives a curt toss of the head and steps back to admit Skelgill. He enters an unlit oblong room that has the makings of a kitchen to his right and a parlour to his left. Of what he can discern in the twilight, conditions are both spartan and shabby. Wizened and hunched and gripping a trembling walking stick between his knees, Old Man Gilhooley huddles in a threadbare wingback armchair, one of a pair angled towards a small hearth, where an inadequate log fire falters. The man does not look directly at him, but turns his head in birdlike fashion, disquietingly so, and Skelgill wonders if he might be blind.

  ‘Tis yan o’ they Grahams frae Buttermere. He’s brung us coal.’

  ‘Ne’er trust a Graham.’ The old man’s retort is sharp and venomous and he spits into the fire.

  Skelgill breaks into a broad grin – such vilification seems to delight him, as though it is a compliment of the highest order – and humps the sack down upon the hearth.

  ‘I’ll get a blaze going for you.’

  The old man stares vacantly and now Skelgill can see that his eyes are opaque with advanced cataracts. Again he rotates his head while Skelgill produces a lock-knife and slits open the sack and begins to face up the smouldering log-pile with large chunks of coal.

  ‘He’s staying fer a cuppa scordy.’

  The man reacts to his wife’s explanation with a rather unpleasant smacking of his lips, suggestive of distaste – or perhaps thirst on his own part. Now the woman addresses Skelgill.

  ‘Pipes is froze. T’only watter’s int’ well.’

  Skelgill lifts a sooty palm, though he declines to respond to the plaintive note of appeal in her voice. She loiters for a second, before pulling on another blanket and lifting up a pail from beside the apron front sink. She hobbles out, banging the door behind her.

  ‘Where’ve thee chaffed that frae, lad?’

  This is the first hint of an acknowledgement that Skelgill’s mission is benevolent. That the goods are stolen is taken as read.

  Skelgill chuckles.

  ‘Crummock Hall estate.’

&nbs
p; The man does not respond, but as Skelgill snatches a glance he sees that a grin of satisfaction has spread across the aged countenance – and yet it is suddenly jerked away, as if it is incompatible with deep-seated muscle memory.

  ‘They owes us a sight more than a sack o’coal.’

  ‘There’s another couple in the car.’

  Gilhooley snorts with indignation.

  ‘Three sacks – three ’undred sacks – all the coal as is still left in Haig colliery – wunt cover it.’

  Skelgill nods sympathetically (an act probably unappreciated) and continues with his work. His application is paying off, for hungry flames are licking between the coals. The old man can sense the burgeoning heat, and leans over his stick, his features stretching like a stroked cat.

  ‘They’d tek shirt off back o’ likes o’ us, lad.’

  The implied commonality between the Gilhooleys and the Grahams has the makings of a small olive branch, albeit Skelgill is unaware of any inter-clan antipathy (though he kens well enough the infamous reputation attached to his own matriarchal lineage).

  ‘Aye.’ Skelgill edges back a little as the fire grows. ‘What did they take from the Gilhooleys?’

  The old man makes a sudden sharp hawking noise. He raises a bony finger in the approximate direction of Crummock Hall.

  ‘Gilhooleys ought ter be livin’ ower yonder – not them thievin’ O’Mores.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  Gilhooley fixes his clouded eyes upon Skelgill – it is a look of rage.

  ‘Jipped us – of us inheritance.’

  He more or less shouts the latter word and it leaves him wheezing.

  ‘What is it?’

  The man’s ire is palpable – as if it ought to be obvious – indeed, that the whole of Lorton Vale, nay Cumbria, should know of this injustice.

  ‘Us inheritance! Arv telt yer already!’

  ‘Aye. So you did.’

  Skelgill is assessing how to bridge this semantic impasse, but now it is the old man who cocks his head in the direction of the door – again the birdlike movements, as if he is listening for clues that will signal the approach of his spouse. Skelgill has noted that the well is thirty yards away, down a difficult slope where the water table must be more reliable; they have time yet. Abruptly, Gilhooley begins to claw at his clothing – he wears a misshapen and horribly stained fisherman’s sweater from which his scrawny neck protrudes like a tortoise from its shell. He hooks scaly, yellowed fingernails into the collar and extracts some object fastened upon a cracked leather thong.

  ‘Tek a deek.’

  Skelgill widens his eyes in the gloom, ducking closer for a better look. He grimaces as the old man’s foul breath hisses in his face. Gilhooley can’t hold the object still – a concave metal oval about two inches across – quite possibly gold, though heavily tarnished – ringed by six or eight broken claws and what appear to be the remnants of feathers, quills threaded through tiny holes around the perimeter of the plate, plumes worn down; indeed what barely recognisable matter survives is blackened and thick with human grease and grime.

  Skelgill is about to speak when the latch rattles. With an alacrity that belies his apparent infirmity the old man conceals the battered amulet and resumes his hunched stance. The woman, lopsided under the weight of the pail, targets her spouse with an accusing stare.

  ‘What’s crackin’ on?’

  Gilhooley is either well used to repelling her cross-examination or – as DS Jones suggested – is just a touch mad.

  ‘Where’s us scordy, woman?’

  ‘How could I ’ave med yer brew – I’ve only just fetched watter?’

  The old man hawks again, and spits with renewed venom.

  ‘Away then, woman!’

  Skelgill is still crouched beside the armchair. He stands up and ostentatiously stretches his spine, and then addresses Mrs Gilhooley.

  ‘That’s your fire going, love – I’ll get your other sacks.’

  The old man completely ignores him. It seems their confederacy is to remain clandestine – unless it has already slipped his mind. Skelgill is obliged to shut the door against the cold, but he lingers on the step – however, the recalcitrant couple seem only to be trading vicious insults. He heaves the second, and then the third sack, propping them either side of the door. Then he trudges back to his shooting brake and drives away.

  The trackway that had defeated DS Jones’s efforts to reach the cottage by car is treacherous, but Skelgill has been more cavalier and now he retraces the undulating course, slipping and sliding and employing the basic principle of the rollercoaster, not to stop on an upslope. When he reaches the junction with the lane, he halts and checks his phone. There is a signal, and he consults his contacts and taps on “Jim H”. The answer comes almost immediately.

  ‘Daniel – how are our waxwings faring?’

  The professor’s voice is a little muted, as though he has Skelgill on loudspeaker.

  ‘They were at Buttermere until Tuesday, at least.’

  ‘Ah – they are sweeping southwards. The twitchers’ grapevine is full of new reports across the Midlands.’

  Skelgill pauses for a diplomatic second or two – but he is eager to get down to business.

  ‘Jim – this Crummock Hall affair – do you know of any connection with a family called Gilhooley?’

  ‘Gilhooley? And O’More?’ The professor can be imagined tapping together the tips of his fingers. ‘They sound as though they may share a common provenance.’

  ‘Aye – happen there was some ancient dispute over property.’

  ‘Then it might have its roots in Ireland, Daniel – I have an old friend, a history don at Trinity – I can drop him an email – how urgent is this?’

  Skelgill has extracted his road atlas from the pocket behind the passenger seat, and is presently tracing a route that takes his index finger into North Wales.

  ‘Just whenever you’ve got a minute, Jim.’

  ‘I am online at this moment, Daniel.’

  ‘Aye, well – if it’s no bother – in fact, you couldn’t just look up something for me?’

  ‘Certainly – what is it?’

  ‘Crossing times – for the fast ferry from Holyhead to Dublin.’

  17. DUBLIN BY NIGHT – Saturday 8.30pm

  Skelgill circles the Edward VII post box in the manner of one who suspects his eyes may be deceiving him – a trick of the streetlight neon, perhaps, that makes the familiar red appear – well, green. He glances about warily – as though he might be looking for the candid camera concealed to capture yet another gullible English tourist. When he turns back a leprechaun will be perched on the top.

  ‘It really is green, Inspector.’

  Now he swings about – a grinning Fergal Mullarkey has a hand upon his shoulder.

  ‘We Irish might hold high political ideals – but we’re a pragmatic bunch. No point in throwing out the baby with the bathwater.’

  Skelgill is nodding rather vacantly.

  ‘First time in Dublin, Inspector?’

  That Skelgill has barely set foot outside his lodgings before being accosted in this fashion – in a city of well over a million inhabitants – seems to be an illusion that comfortably eclipses the emerald pillar box. However, a few seconds’ reflection enables him to qualify the ostensibly unlikely odds. After all, he has chosen his accommodation – a modest hotel on St Stephen’s Green – for their close proximity to the addresses in his notebook. Perhaps Fergal Mullarkey, upon his return to the country, has made a visit to his offices – or maybe he lives nearby?

  And yet there is something curious in the tenor of his greeting, which lacks the note of surprise that the ‘coincidence’ might merit. It is more like he has come across Skelgill in a corridor of Crummock Hall engrossed by a stuffed otter. And Skelgill falls in with this mode of inappropriate familiarity. The entire cameo is suggestive of a certain amount of mutual suspicion, of cards being kept close to one’s chest.

  ‘Ju
st as well I saw that before I’ve been to the pub.’

  ‘Ah – you’re heading for Temple Bar, Inspector?’

  Skelgill manufactures a wry smile.

  ‘I figured there was a decent clue in the name.’

  Fergal Mullarkey chuckles.

  ‘Perhaps I may chaperone you?’ He checks his wristwatch. ‘I have a – an appointment – at The Morrison at 9 p.m. – it’s literally the other side of the Liffey from Temple Bar. I can steer you away from the rather less salubrious quarter – unless of course you are looking for a lively night?’

  ‘Just a quiet pint.’

  ‘In that case it would be a pleasure – walk this way, now.’

  The lawyer sets a brisk pace – no problem to Skelgill – and seems content to point out various landmarks along the way, largely connected with the Easter Rising, and precluding the need for any more searching conversation. Five minutes have passed when Skelgill falls momentarily behind – they have entered a secluded backstreet square, and a parked Triumph motorcycle draws his attention. When he looks up he sees that Fergal Mullarkey is unaware that he lags, and is already on the next side of the square. Skelgill begins to cross diagonally, passing close by a young woman who waits on the corner of the central island, beneath the orange glow of a streetlamp. She wears a close-fitting corset top and a tight short skirt, and sheer nylons and high heels – she looks dressed for clubbing and must be freezing. She engages him with penetrating blue eyes, heavily mascaraed, and he breaks stride as he inhales her musky fragrance. But Fergal Mullarkey halts – and the abrupt ceasing of his footsteps alerts Skelgill. The girl allows a hint of a smile to play at the corners of her scarlet lips. He nods a little self-consciously and hustles on to where the lawyer awaits.

  ‘Queer place to stand for a taxi – you’d think the main road would be a better bet.’

  Fergal Mullarkey glances sharply at Skelgill, as if suspecting him of being disingenuous.

  ‘I don’t believe it’s a taxi she’s looking for, Inspector.’

  Skelgill is about to reply – then it must strike him that he has been slow on the uptake. As they walk on he glances briefly over his shoulder – the girl, a shadow now, might be watching as she lights up a cigarette. He opts for silence.