‘Dickie, surely a chap with your extensive vocabulary would have heard of a nephron – indeed would know what one does?’
Dickie Lampray looks mildly inebriated, and might well have made the challenge out of mischief. He glances about with glassy eyes and waves a dismissive hand.
‘I have heard of nephew, Nefertiti and of being nefarious – ha-ha – but never nephron.’
‘It’s connected with the kidney.’
This composed intervention comes from Lucy Hecate.
Dr Gerald Bond, who has taken to wearing a pair of half-moon reading glasses for the purposes of the game, regards her with what would appear to be undue scepticism, given that she is advancing his case. He frowns over the top of the spectacles, as though he is about to rebuke a patient who has had the temerity to suggest they know their ailment before the good doctor has pronounced. However, on this occasion he breaks into a rather macabre grin, and nods slowly several times.
‘Thank you, Lucy – I am glad there is at least one scientifically educated person amongst us, since we don’t have the benefit of the requisite dictionary.’
‘But Dr Bond – Lucy is on your side – surely we should have independent corroboration?’
Angela Cutting smirks as she says this; though the game is being taken seriously it does appear that she is merely winding up the pompous Yorkshireman.
‘That’s all very well, Ms Cutting –’
‘Angela, please.’
‘Angela, then – but what I’m saying is, when the only knowledgeable person is on your own team, it’s hardly fair to penalise for that.’
Now Dickie Lampray butts in.
‘Oh, Angela, darling – I think we ought to let them have it – clearly young Lucy is as honest as the day is long.’ He winks across at her. ‘Besides – it’s only eight points.’
Angela Cutting takes a long slow sip of her martini, and narrows her eyes in a serpentine manner. She has kicked off her heels and has her feet drawn up beneath her, their soles resting against Skelgill’s thigh.
‘Very well, Dickie – if you insist.’ She moves sinuously and slides her free hand over her calf and ankle, and then she drums her fingers over the fabric of Skelgill’s jeans. ‘All the sooner for our turn – it’s you to go for us... Inspector.’
Skelgill has evidently been waiting, and hoping for a space to remain clear, for he eagerly gathers up five of the tiles.
‘There’s no holding back the Inspector.’
Dickie Lampray makes this remark, but he – and several of the others suddenly fall silent, open mouthed, even. For Skelgill has put down the word bumfit.
Now, if this were only admissible, it would be a humdinger of a score, with forty-eight points to begin with (landing a double letter score for the ‘f’ and a triple word score for the word itself), plus another thirty-three points for converting ‘plum’ into ‘plumb’, with the ‘b’ landing on the triple word square. A grand total of eighty-one points. If it were only admissible.
However, for a terrible moment there is an awkward silence, with all eyes seemingly glued to the board. Who will take on the embarrassing task of querying this apparently new and rather rude-sounding addition to the English language? Skelgill, meanwhile, sits back, folds his arms and looks very pleased with himself.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Dr Gerald Bond – guided by Yorkshire plain speaking, and thus bound by fewer courtesies than others of the group (and perhaps encouraged by the malt he is drinking) – sallies forth with an objection.
‘Inspector – so what have we got here?’
Skelgill, tilting his own glass to his lips, raises a poker player’s eyebrow.
‘Fifteen.’
Bella Mandrake pitches forward; she manages to shoot out a hand to prevent herself from toppling onto the table, but not without revealing just how drunk she is.
‘It’s lots more than fifteen – it counts as two words and it’s on a triple word score!’
Skelgill throws her an appreciative glance.
‘No, love – it means fifteen. Bumfit.’
Several of the audience are looking at Skelgill as though – having referred earlier to Swallows and Amazons – he has now reverted to the use of some correspondingly strange childhood backslang, and is trying to inveigle it into the contest. He serves only to amplify this impression when he begins to recite a curious string of lyrics.
‘Yan. Tyan. Tethera. Methera. Pimp.’
‘Pimp?’
Dickie Lampray seems half hypnotised as he repeats the final word. But Skelgill continues.
‘Sethera. Lethera. Hovera. Dovera. Dick.’
‘Dick?’
Now Dickie Lampray is entirely bamboozled – reciting his own diminutive has him gazing at Skelgill in a cross-eyed fashion.
‘What is this, Inspector – pimp... dick... bumfit – some kind of code used by your Vice Squad?’
Now several of the group burst into laughter. Dickie Lampray remains bewildered, while Skelgill simply appears perplexed. But as the hilarity subsides, it is the quiet voice of Lucy Hecate that speaks first.
‘There’s an English opera called Yan Tan Tethera. We performed it at my school. It’s about shepherds and the devil.’
There follows another moment’s silence. Glances are exchanged. Mention of the devil seems to have Bella Mandrake all of a quiver. Then Skelgill elucidates.
‘Lucy’s right. It’s how shepherds count their sheep.’ He points a gunfinger at Dr Gerald Bond. ‘I’m surprised you don’t know it Dr Bond – given your interest in writing about the fells.’
Dr Gerald Bond looks a little – well – actually, sheepish, and shrinks into his seat. Skelgill’s chest seems to swell in inverse proportion.
‘It’s widespread across the northern uplands of England – speak to any shepherd. There are variations in most of the dales – I learned the Borrowdale version from a farmer called Arthur Hope when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. In Borrowdale two is tyan not tan. It’s Cumbric – a relic of the Celtic language – not so different from Welsh.’
Dickie Lampray takes a large gulp of his Benedictine and appears to wink at Skelgill.
‘Well, Inspector – you amaze us all – and you have independent corroboration,’ (he scowls at Dr Gerald Bond) ‘from an unimpeachable source and not just a scientist, it seems. Rather a fount of knowledge. I should not wish to go up against her on Mastermind.’
Lucy Hecate lowers her eyes modestly. Though she like the others has apparently been drinking steadily, her role has been as an undemonstrative member of the group. However, while she might be shy, and perhaps a little in awe of the brash worldliness that threatens at times to swamp her, she has surfaced confidently to present an opinion – or, rather, a fact – as the opportunity arises.
Dr Gerald Bond harrumphs – but he realises he can’t have his cake and eat it too; the rules are the rules. Dickie Lampray, on the other hand, despite being on the end of a good thrashing, seems jubilant.
‘Well, Inspector – it looks like you have your bumfit!’ He leers drunkenly across at Skelgill. ‘And if we hear you talking like that in depths of the night, we shall know you are merely counting sheep.’
Skelgill grins ruefully.
‘Not usually one of my problems, sir, getting off to sleep – just tend to be woken by the slightest sound.’
As if to illustrate his point, Skelgill is suddenly overcome by a great yawn. This clearly takes him by surprise, and for a moment he appears quite disoriented.
Dickie Lampray seems concerned.
‘Perhaps we are keeping you up, Inspector – after all, we have rather burdened you with our plight – and I don’t doubt you were out fishing with the lark, if you will excuse the mixed metaphor.’
Skelgill continues to yawn. He shakes his head in protest, but it is clear to all that he would willingly exchange his place on the sofa for a cosy bed: they ought to pack him off upstairs, especially since he is to engineer their rescue in the morning. Howeve
r, a closer examination of the semi-circle of concerned faces would perhaps reveal a less unanimous determination: among some present, there are hints of curiosity, disappointment, and perhaps even intrigue.
Burt Boston springs to his feet.
‘Why don’t I show the Inspector the spare room?’
He does not wait for assent, and strides purposefully around to the rear of the right-hand settee and pats Skelgill amiably on the shoulder.
‘At least come and see your billet before it gets too late – you can always wander back down and join us – you’ve killed us with your last two scores, anyway.’
*
Skelgill’s allotted bedroom is in what might be described as the ‘Men’s Wing’. Grisholm Hall is arranged around three sides of a square courtyard. The original house – across the upper floor of which are laid out four suites – has a perpendicular wing appended on either side, and each of these holds three more bedroom suites (though of inferior grandeur), making ten bedrooms in total. In the ‘Women’s Wing’, on the left-hand side, entered from the main landing by a swing door, are quartered Bella Mandrake, Linda Gray and, at the far end next to a stair and fire exit, Lucy Hecate. Across the centre of the house, in the ‘VIP’ rooms, are the ‘professional’ members of the retreat: from left to right, Sarah Redmond, Angela Cutting, (the late) Rich Buckley, and Dickie Lampray. Through a corresponding swing door the right-hand wing houses Burton Boston and Dr Gerald Bond; Skelgill is to have the empty room at the end of this corridor, also – mirroring the left-hand wing – next to a stair and fire exit.
It has earlier been agreed – largely for practical purposes, but somewhat to the relief of Bella Mandrake – that Rich Buckley’s room should be locked, and that Skelgill should hold the key for safe keeping. The property has a rudimentary system of gas central heating, and Skelgill had both turned off the radiator in this room, and opened the main window, in an effort to keep the ambient temperature – and thus the body – as cool as possible.
Now he pads erratically about his own room wearing only his boxer shorts. It would be his custom to familiarise himself with escape routes, fire risks and power sources, along with the general amenities, but there is no doubt that he is flagging fast and he makes only a cursory inspection of his surroundings. He is in any event hampered by the fact that he has been left with a single candle, one that Burt Boston collected from a niche in the stairwell en route. And, though the said former SAS trooper was enthusiastic in volunteering to show Skelgill to his quarters, the invitation ended there, and it was with seemingly indecent haste that he sidled away to rejoin the party in the drawing room.
Skelgill gives the impression that he is about to do something, but then stops dead in the centre of the room, as if he has forgotten what it is. In the absence of inspiration, he climbs into bed. His room is cold and beneath the unwarmed sheets and blankets he shivers for a minute or so. At first his eyes are closed, and as the shivering subsides he appears to have fallen asleep. But suddenly his eyes jolt open, as though he is resistant to the act – perhaps while the party might still be going strong below. Then he gazes rather forlornly across the room – he, or rather Burt Boston, has left the lighted candle on an occasional table beside the door. He makes half a move as if to get up. But he seems to have neither the will nor energy to exchange the chill of the room for the growing comfort of his bed. His eyelids slide shut, and his head sinks into his pillow.
Some time later, Skelgill’s bedroom door – unlocked (perhaps unlike many of the others in the house) – silently opens by a few inches. No light is cast from the unlit corridor beyond, and in the flickering shadows a hand reaches in and, with a just audible hiss of momentarily boiled saliva, pinches out the candle flame. There is no further movement for almost a minute. The room is pitch dark. Then comes a faint squeak of an unoiled hinge as the door is pushed wider, and a click as it is shut, and finally the lightest footfall upon the carpet. These gentle pads approach Skelgill’s bed, and pause beside it. His breathing, regular and slow, is suggestive of a deep sleep, and – despite his boast of a little earlier – he has not yet been disturbed by the ‘slightest sound’.
And now there is the soft rustle of his bedclothes being lifted. And next the louder creak of weight pressed upon the mattress springs. And only now does Skelgill show any signs of wakefulness – a confused murmur that is almost instantly suppressed.
4. GRISHOLM – Monday 7:30 a.m.
‘Guv! Guv – wake up! Come on, Guv – rise and shine!’
‘What the – what’s going on?’
‘Guv – it’s me, Leyton.’
That DS Leyton has to state (or, rather, shout) his name is indicative of the torpor in which he finds his superior officer – a first attempt at rousing him some ten minutes ago having failed, beyond him rolling over and beginning to snore. At last, now, Skelgill struggles urgently into a semi-upright position, pale-faced and blinking and swallowing and clearly alarmed by the presence of one of his detective sergeants in his bedchamber. He casts about, but it takes some moments before his surroundings appear to make sense. In a minor panic he makes to throw off the covers – but a sudden knocking from the corridor causes him to hesitate.
‘Leyton – chuck us those boxers, will you?’
DS Leyton regards the crumpled shorts with suspicion, but nonetheless picks them from the carpet and hands them over at arm’s length. Skelgill wriggles into them beneath the topsheet and, modesty preserved, stands up – then promptly sits down. His fingertips fly to his temples.
‘Jesus, Leyton – get me some paracetamol.’
DS Leyton regards his superior with limited sympathy.
‘I expect DS Jones’ll have some, Guv – I’ll go and ask her.’
‘Jones?’
‘Guv?’
‘What’s she doing here?’
‘She’s in with the doc, Guv – with the dead woman.’
Skelgill glances up, though he winces into the brightness of the window at DS Leyton’s back.
‘Man.’
‘Come again, Guv?’
‘Dead man.’
DS Leyton shakes his head.
‘It’s definitely a woman, Guv. Bella Mandrake they told us she’s called.’
*
‘Okay, so let me get this straight – Harry Cobble found my boat drifting near Portinscale at six this morning and he dialled 999?’
‘That’s right, Guv – having kittens, I was, when I got the call – thought you were a gonner in that hurricane.’
DS Leyton glances sideways at DS Jones – the pair sit opposite Skelgill at the unvarnished oak kitchen table of Grisholm Hall. The detectives have commandeered the room – with its burnished log-fired Aga by some degree the warmest in the draught-ridden house – for a rather unconventional exchange of information. But at this moment it is an expression of relief that is fleetingly traded between Skelgill’s subordinates.
‘Leyton – that wasn’t a hurricane – it wasn’t even above force eight hereabouts.’
DS Leyton shrugs, as though the distinction is academic.
‘All the same, Guv – what with the boat having all your gear on board.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I phoned your mountain rescue team – to get their boat out as soon as. By luck the chap that answered was your pal Woody who you were supposed to meet in the pub last night.’
Skelgill, who has been furnished – to follow up several rounds of toast and honey – with a bacon sandwich and a second mug of tea, chews and slurps and nods and indicates that DS Leyton should continue.
‘He knew you’d be fishing down this end of the lake – he reckoned if you had fallen overboard and survived then you’d be stranded on an island – because if you’d swum to the shore you’d have got help from a farm or hotel.’
‘So you came straight here?’
‘More or less.’ DS Leyton grins sheepishly. ‘You know me, Guv – any longer on one of those boats they had out looking for you
and I’d have been proper tom and dick. Ground bait, I believe you fishermen call it.’
Skelgill’s countenance is beginning to suggest a degree of disapproval. At the best of times, expressing gratitude to his subordinates is not one of his strong suits. Evidently, now, the notion that he – one of Lakeland’s most experienced anglers and boatmen – might have got into trouble does not sit comfortably with him. And perhaps the knowledge of what actually did occur gives him an unreasonably biased perspective. Notwithstanding, on the basis of limited information, his deputies could be excused for thinking they had seen him alive for the last time.
‘It was just precautionary, Guv.’ DS Jones intervenes soothingly. ‘We guessed you’d be fine – but the Chief was down on us like a ton of bricks wanting to know what action plan we’d implemented.’
Skelgill scowls rather ungratefully.
‘Why’s she getting her knickers in a twist?’
DS Jones patiently brushes a strand of hair from her face.
‘I think she mentioned something about a valuable senior officer, Guv.’
‘Miracles never cease.’
Now DS Leyton clears his throat.
‘But since you’re safe she wants a report by ten, Guv – before any of this leaks out and awkward questions start being asked.’
Murder on the Lake (Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates Book 4) Page 5