DS Jones writes down “lasses” – and then with a flourish inks the letter “g” in front of it.
‘Glasses?’
DS Leyton looks crestfallen – as though her little exercise has been futile – he puts a supportive hand on her arm, as though to share some of the burden of her failure.
‘Specs – you Cockney oik.’
Despite Skelgill’s disparaging remark, DS Leyton’s face suddenly lights up.
‘Stone me – that kind of visual aids!’ He claps his hands together joyfully. ‘That’s brilliant, Emma – mind you I still don’t reckon I’d get anywhere near it on me Tod Sloan.’
Skelgill, having apparently returned to his siesta, has a contentedly smug grin spread upon his countenance, as though he considers himself solely responsible for solving the clue. DS Jones glances sympathetically at DS Leyton. She places the newspaper on the table and rests her pen on top of it.
‘Actually, I was on a training course in September. One of the sessions was really fascinating. They had this guy who works in advertising as a Creative Director. His job is to invent ideas for campaigns. He showed us how he uses cryptic crosswords as a kind of brain gym to practise what he called slow thinking.’
‘Sounds like that’s right up my street, Emma.’
DS Jones laughs.
‘Actually, he made solving an advertising brief seem just like solving a crime. You have all these pieces of information – first you have to decide which ones are important – and then discover how they fit together. He believes there’s always a perfect solution.’
DS Leyton grins disarmingly.
‘I would have been rubbish at advertising, as well.’
Skelgill, like some malevolent serpent, opens a reptilian eye – it appears he is tempted to bite, cruelly – perhaps that therein lies the explanation for stasis at the rank of sergeant; but DS Jones continues before he can intervene.
‘It’s not something you can force. It’s like the difference between an ordinary crossword and a cryptic crossword. In an ordinary crossword the clue might say ‘solid fuel’, four letters. And you just go, ‘coal’. It’s linear thinking. But in a cryptic crossword the clue has two or three parts, so you have to kind of half-solve them individually and then dump them into the mixer and let your mind churn out the connection in its own time. That’s why it’s called slow thinking. You can’t do it to order.’
DS Leyton scratches his head and grimaces ruefully.
‘Thing is, Emma – you see these detectives on the telly – like Sherlock Holmes and Poirot – and they’ve got brains the size of planets – and they get the solution, like that.’ He snaps his fingers. ‘So, when something gets lost round our house, ‘cause I’m a copper the missus expects me to be able to deduce where it is!’
DS Jones is amused and smiles attractively, her full lips parting to reveal her even white teeth. She touches the tip of her nose with a finger.
‘I’d say Inspector Morse is closer to the real thing – he’s always charging up blind alleys – thinking he’s got the right answer. It’s like that with cryptic clues – you convince yourself you’re there, but something still niggles. And then when you do get it right, the logic of the clue smacks you between the eyes.’
Skelgill adjusts his seat into the upright position and stretches his arms above his head. He rubs his eyes and yawns.
‘Half the crimes I’ve solved have only made sense afterwards.’
DS Leyton suddenly seems perturbed, as though some long-standing belief in a magic quality possessed by his superior has been dispelled; for a second he has the demeanour of a child recognising for the first time the fallibility of a parent.
DS Jones, on the other hand, looks engagingly to her boss.
‘I’ll send you the slides from the course, Guv – if you like? The idea was called The Eye of the Brainstorm – he describes how you retreat into this quiet place in your mind, metaphorically in the eye of the hurricane, where it’s absolutely still and silent,’ (she raises both hands and makes the shape of a cylinder in the air) ‘and you’re surrounded by these towering black walls of cloud, with all this storm debris spinning around – and from this position your subconscious can identify the pieces that are important, and what they make when you put them together.’
Skelgill’s reluctance ever to be told of a better way to do anything is perhaps tempered by some subliminal sense of recognition in what she says. Notwithstanding, he manufactures a rather cynical scowl.
‘I find it best when I don’t put my mind to it.’
But DS Jones is undeterred.
‘That’s exactly it, Guv – it’s when you’re not trying that the answer comes – so long as you’ve got all the information you need. The guy running the course said he solves crossword clues when he stops thinking and looks out of the window – and that he has his best advertising ideas when he’s doing his ironing.’
Skelgill chortles.
‘That definitely rules you out, then, Leyton.’
Despite this blatant case of the pot calling the kettle black, DS Leyton phlegmatically hunches his shoulders, guilty as charged.
*
‘So where now?’
‘It’s two stops on the Northern Line, Guv – jump off at Tottenham Court Road, then Charlotte Street’s just around the corner.’
As DS Jones says this she glances back at DS Leyton, who lags a couple of paces behind herself and Skelgill. They have succeeded in riding the entire journey in first class, and so are among the most forward to alight upon the platform at London’s Euston station, walking with the slightly apprehensive gait of people who have dismounted from an escalator. However, the train has arrived almost an hour behind schedule, and hurrying hordes from second class begin to pour from their carriages, swarming past them with rumbling trolley cases and skyscraping rucksacks and protesting children who point out the fast-food outlet signs with plaintive cries of futile optimism. DS Leyton scurries to catch up, and calls out to make himself heard.
‘Or we could just walk, Guv?’
‘I thought you Cockneys went everywhere sitting down? Tube, taxi, bus.’
DS Leyton frowns rather defensively.
‘The underground might be chaos, Guv – what with the strike.’
Skelgill watches as part of the crowd veers off for the exits marked Northern and Victoria Lines.
‘Looks like it’s running – it’s always a novelty for me.’
DS Jones seems still to have half an eye on DS Leyton. Her brow creases and she turns to Skelgill with sudden vehemence.
‘Actually, it’s less than a mile, Guv – the fresh air will do us good after all that time sitting down.’
Skelgill shrugs and continues straight ahead. He casts a rather longing glance at the display counter of a snacks stall, and bumps heavily into an elderly gentleman, who immediately apologises.
‘Seems I’m outnumbered – though since when there was fresh air in London, I don’t know.’
His colleagues grin obediently. DS Leyton appears relieved. As they reach the street, DS Jones indicates with a hand that they should cross and then head west along Euston Road. It is after eight p.m. and the day’s workers are long gone, so once they have cleared the immediate vicinity of the station they find the broad pavements largely empty, and they are able to stroll three abreast. The traffic, however, offers little reflection of the time of day, and grumbles past them, honking and choking the six-lane urban highway, and filling the senses with diesel fumes and the distinctive squeal of taxi brakes at each set of lights. The Post Office tower stands sentinel over the area, providing vertigo-inducing glimpses as they proceed from block to block. Skelgill cranes his neck, but overhead the clouded sky is a nondescript haze of reflected neon and offers no clue as to tomorrow’s outlook. Right now the weather is substantially milder than that they have left behind in Cumbria and, though they walk into a light breeze, they have their overcoats draped on crooked arms. Presently DS Jones swings left at
Tottenham Court Road, and then right into Grafton Way, which elbows ninety degrees onto Fitzroy Street, whence their lodgings are some eight hundred yards ahead. Skelgill squints at the nameplate, which has a small ‘W1’ in one corner.
‘So this is the West End, is it?’
DS Jones looks a little puzzled – she knows the district well, her first-year university hall of residence standing only yards away – but then she nods.
‘I suppose so, Guv – but this is called Fitzrovia.’
Skelgill ponders for a moment.
‘Sounds made up – like a rogue state in a spy film.’
DS Leyton does a quickstep to get alongside them.
‘I believe it is made up, Guv – my old man was a cabbie – he always reckoned it never existed when he was a nipper.’
‘Gives them an excuse to charge more for the property, I suppose.’
‘They don’t need no excuse, Guv – wait till we pass an estate agent’s – you can’t pay as much for a house in Penrith as what you’d need for a bedsit here.’
Skelgill raises his eyebrows.
‘Don’t you wish you’d kept your place?’
DS Leyton shakes his head.
‘Wasn’t an option, Guv. To start off we lived at my old ma’s gaff – after that we were just renting – crippling it was – I don’t know how young ‘uns can afford it.’
DS Jones is nodding.
‘Most of my friends who got jobs in London have to live in the suburbs – though they still seem to spend all their wages on rent, and commute for three hours a day.’
Skelgill hunches his shoulders and glances about disparagingly.
‘I’m beginning to wonder what’s the attraction.’
Though this is a statement rather than a question, DS Jones evidently feels obliged to supply an explanation.
‘I suppose it’s the buzz, Guv – music and media and fashion – and if you work in the creative industries – advertising, digital and so forth.’
DS Leyton chips in.
‘Seems like all the publishers and their cronies are down here, too, Guv.’
Skelgill ponders for a moment.
‘Sarah Redmond’s in Edinburgh, mind.’
They walk on for a while before DS Jones remarks upon this apparent idiosyncrasy.
‘I was reading how there’s a lot of crime fiction writers based in Scotland – a murder they call themselves – like a murder of crows.’
Skelgill tuts.
‘The raw material must be better up there.’
DS Leyton pretends to be offended.
‘I’d have thought my old manor would win the gold medal for that, Guv – the good old East End.’
DS Jones grins.
‘That’s true crime – it’s a different genre.’
And now Skelgill offers a wisecrack.
‘Aye – there and the City, eh?’
This raises a chuckle from the two sergeants, and Skelgill joins in, happy to amplify the response to his own joke. The atmosphere around them is picking up and they seem in good spirits, despite their long day. They are now passing hostelries and restaurants, and there are more people about, young couples and small groups, some in casual wear, others still business-suited, though not yet thinking about heading home. Skelgill and Leyton find their progress interrupted by the sound of a football match being shown inside a pub – the doors are open and a sudden cry of frustration goes up. The place is packed with a standing audience, mostly males and many of them wearing England shirts. DS Leyton takes a couple of steps closer and rises upon tiptoes. Apparently he is unsuccessful; he taps one of the smokers crowding the entrance on the shoulder and asks him a question. The answer is curt, and he nods and returns to his colleagues and they begin to move on.
‘Nil-nil, Guv – qualifier for the Euros – over at Wembley – I’d forgotten that was tonight.’
‘Who are we playing?’
‘It’s a real banana skin, Guv – Fitzrovia.’
‘Ha-ha, Leyton. Who is it really?’
DS Leyton grins. ‘Estonia, Guv.’ Then he gazes skywards rather philosophically. ‘Think England’ll ever win the World Cup again, Guv?’
Skelgill puffs out his cheeks, and pulls an anguished face, but before he can answer DS Jones draws them to a halt.
‘Guv – I was thinking we could eat here.’ She gestures to an inauspicious-looking Thai restaurant. ‘It’s been going for years – it’s good value and the portions of noodles are legendary.’
‘Music to my ears.’ Skelgill immediately makes for the entrance, though his colleagues hang back.
‘Shouldn’t we check in, Guv?’ DS Jones points with a finger of the hand that holds her overnight bag. ‘The hotel’s only five or six doors along.’
Skelgill frowns and beckons them with a toss of his head.
‘Come on – my hangover’s gone at last – the drinks are on me.’
Despite being well acquainted with the fallibility of this figure of speech, obediently they follow him inside – though they each would perhaps rather freshen up and divest themselves of their trappings. Skelgill, however, is on a mission, and orders three beers before they are even seated. They are shown to a round table at the centre of the dining area. The restaurant is small and, though basic in its decor, it has a cosy ambiance – and there is sufficient background chatter overlaid by piped luk thung for them to converse in effective privacy. DS Jones appears to have near-photographic recall of the menu, and her male colleagues are content to delegate to her the task of a communal order – Skelgill’s only request being that she should select starters that will come quickly; however, a large bowl of spicy rice crackers soon provides satisfaction in this regard. DS Leyton munches thoughtfully; his eyes wander amongst the clientele. Then he shakes his head and intones somewhat ruefully.
‘I get out for more meals with you guys than I do with the missus.’
Skelgill conjures an expression of masculine wisdom.
‘There’s some would say that’s no bad thing.’
DS Leyton is not convinced, and does not respond to Skelgill’s attempt at humour.
‘I ought to make the effort – but it’s difficult, what with the kids, and trying to find babysitters and whatnot.’
DS Jones looks at him sympathetically.
‘I could sit for you sometime – you should just ask me – if I’m not on a late shift it’s no problem.’
DS Leyton appears surprised, and holds up his palms as though he is backtracking. ‘It’s kind of you to offer – you might regret it though, couple of little terrors, they are.’ He frowns resignedly. ‘Last babysitter we had phoned us after twenty minutes ‘cause they’d locked themselves in the bathroom and overflowed the bath – there was water pouring through the ceiling and the electrics exploded. By the time we got back there was a fire engine outside and a crowd of spectators in the street.’ As his colleagues look increasingly amused, he shakes his head at the memory. ‘Funnily enough – that was a Thai meal we were supposed to have.’
Skelgill points at his sergeant with the neck of his beer bottle.
‘Sounds to me like you should stick to takeaways, Leyton.’
‘I reckon you’re right, Guv – though it’s her birthday coming up – I’ll have to think of something.’ However, he shrugs off the awkward prospect and reaches for one of the fast-disappearing crackers. ‘So this was a regular haunt of yours, Emma – back in the student days?’
‘Not so much when I was a student – we couldn’t often afford to eat out.’ She appears a little guarded, as though she is reluctant to elaborate. ‘After I graduated I used to come down to London – to visit...’
A plate of sticky chicken and ribs floats between them, its aromas punctuating DS Jones’s sentence and causing a momentarily distraction. Skelgill swoops as it lands, though DS Leyton offers the dish to his female colleague before he avails himself.
‘You still in touch with them, Emma?’
Skelgill is hunched ove
r, already preoccupied with a pork rib, his teeth bared – though he flashes a glance at DS Jones as she replies.
‘Not lately.’
She seems unsure of what to say next, and instead takes a hurried bite of chicken and has to lift up her napkin to wipe sauce from her chin. Ostentatiously, she raises her eyebrows at her clumsiness. DS Leyton, who looks like he was expecting a more comprehensive response, nods pensively. Then he re-starts the conversation from a slightly different angle.
‘I never came out West very often – I’m an outsider here in town as much as the next man.’ He points with a thumb over his shoulder, in what is in fact an easterly direction. ‘Course, we’ve got all our relatives – that still brings us down – though half of them have emigrated to Essex these days.’
Skelgill looks up from his plate and raises a stripped bone in a pontificating manner.
‘The way I see it, we’re better off up north – I mean, give me one good reason to live in this urban jungle.’
‘The aqueduct?’
‘What?’ Skelgill is taken aback by DS Leyton’s apparently nonsensical retort.
‘Sanitation, Guv?’ DS Leyton breaks into a grin. ‘The roads...’
Skelgill suddenly gets the joke.
‘Very funny, Leyton – but the roads are nothing to write home about, that’s for sure.’
DS Leyton nods.
‘Tell me about it, Guv – when we come down to visit the in-laws we spend more time on the M25 than we do with them.’ He lifts his beer and takes a sip. ‘Which has its compensations, mind.’
The others grin, and their conversation continues in this vein as the meal progresses. Though DS Leyton and DS Jones have their respective associations that bind them to Western Europe’s greatest metropolis, ultimately their colours are pinned beside Skelgill’s on his rural Cumbrian mast: DS Jones, like him, being a native, and DS Leyton now firmly embedded with a young family whose accents edge further north by the day. So there is little real argument over the issue and as Skelgill, in appeasing mode, points out: it’s all England, anyway – a perspective that is reinforced as a group of football fans passes the restaurant tunelessly singing ‘Keep St George in my Heart’, a drunken pursuit that is no doubt being repeated up and down the country, from London to the Lakes. Reacting to this cue, DS Leyton confesses that he ought to go and telephone his wife before it becomes too late. He offers to register them and obtain their room keys, and meet them for a nightcap in the hotel bar – a proposition that Skelgill accepts without protest. Thus DS Leyton departs, leaving Skelgill and DS Jones alone. It is ten p.m. and diners in the restaurant are thinning out – a Central London phenomenon, as last buses and tubes are sought, and unoccupied taxis become like hen’s teeth. The pair is silent for a while – Skelgill is looking tired again, while DS Jones seems to be waiting for him to make the running. However, after a minute or two, she leans forward, placing her elbows on the table and pressing her palms together in the manner of prayer. Her arched brows gather with concern.
Murder on the Lake (Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates Book 4) Page 8