Murder in the Woods (Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates Book 8)

by Bruce Beckham

  ‘June – when your dog unearthed the bones – you thought that was Spencer.’

  His statement draws a sudden look of astonishment from June Collins – as if she is flabbergasted that he can read her mind. However she fights a little rearguard action.

  ‘Anyone would be shocked finding that. A human skull – even you would be, Inspector.’

  Skelgill makes a small concession to her argument with a tilt of his head.

  ‘But afterwards – when Lester Fox brought the clothes – you had your suspicions.’

  She lowers her eyes and gives a half-hearted shrug.

  ‘June – were you intimidated?’

  If she senses Skelgill is leading her, for her own benefit (else why is he now using her name?) she perhaps wisely does not show it. But she gladly takes the cue.

  ‘They were all a bit creepy – frightening – even Spencer could be at times.’

  Skelgill nods slowly. He is silent for a few moments.

  ‘You put the wild roses on the grave.’

  The supposition comes out of the blue – and indeed Skelgill’s intonation suggests he utters aloud his thoughts, as much as questions her. He slumps back in his seat and gazes contemplatively at the ceiling. Suddenly it seems so obvious.

  ‘It must have been a relief when we announced it was a female.’ He does not wait for a response to this assertion, but sits up in a manner that suggests he is ready to conclude the interview. ‘Madam – is there anything else you’d like to tell us – or ask?’

  ‘Will I be charged?’

  June Collins’ alacrity in responding catches him off guard. He glances at DS Jones before turning back to her.

  ‘It’s not for us to decide. Happen you’ve not done a lot wrong – if you’ve told us the truth, that is. We shan’t keep you here much longer today.’

  *

  DS Leyton is waiting for Skelgill and DS Jones in Skelgill’s office. He looks pale and drawn but nonetheless jumps to attention as they enter – he brandishes a sheaf of notes.

  ‘The wires are going crazy, Guv. It’s all coming together.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Skelgill indicates they should be seated – though for once he perches on the edge of his desk, ignoring the various reports and documents that crumple beneath his backside.

  ‘They’ve finished excavating the cairn – the skeleton is more or less complete – a tall male in his mid forties. Dr Herdwick reckons the cause of death is undoubtedly a massive blow to the head – the skull is completely smashed in. They’ve got a boulder they think was used as the weapon – it’s clearly bloodstained – it’s in for DNA testing – they’re hoping it may have the assailant’s DNA on it, too.’

  Skelgill is nodding. DS Leyton continues.

  ‘We’ve already got DNA results on the clothing from the suitcase – it matches the remains – now it’s being cross-referenced with samples from Liverpool. Teresa Dudley has identified the signet ring and a belt and some of the garments. But here’s the main thing – the clothing also has traces of DNA from Lester Fox – and Marvin Morgan.’

  Skelgill is grim faced.

  ‘Bring on the boulder.’

  ‘It shouldn’t be long, Guv – they’re pulling out all the stops. But it fits the story you got from Coot – that Morgan whacked him and Fox helped him to hide the body.’

  Skelgill holds up his palms in a quietening gesture.

  ‘That’s just my interpretation at this stage, Leyton. What Coot actually said was that Fox told him Morgan had found Derek Dudley – that he’d met with an accident – and they concealed the body for fear of becoming suspects. Otherwise Coot was kept in the dark.’

  DS Jones now draws a parallel with the first corpse.

  ‘It was odd that they went to the trouble of stripping the body – but left the ring.’

  Skelgill casts a brief glance at his own ringless fingers.

  ‘Aye – but it was probably done in the dark. It would be easy enough to miss a ring. Morgan ambushed him when he was on his way to collect. The path took him right past the cairn. Ideal spot – no transportation – ready made burial site – and hardly anyone ever goes there.’

  ‘You said collect, Guv?’

  DS Leyton is looking perplexed. He has not yet had the benefit of a full debrief of the blubbering confessions of Archibald Coot.

  ‘Derek Dudley was blackmailing them. Coot has admitted it. Dudley would take the dog for a walk – that was his cover, at least some of the time – and drop in on one of their cottages for his weekly wad of cash.’

  Skelgill watches DS Leyton while his sergeant absorbs the information.

  ‘They pulled some sort of scam, Leyton. Morgan’s firm was a supplier to Liverpool council – we already knew that. As his former bookkeeper helpfully pointed out – in the advertising game all you need is a bent client and a bent supplier. Morgan used to take Coot and Fox to June Collins’ little place – corporate entertainment.’ He gives a sarcastic laugh. ‘They get to know Derek Dudley – a regular customer – operating under his alias as Spencer Fazakerley. One day they’re sitting round in her sauna discussing their pipe dreams – retiring to the Lakes – and Dudley sees his chance. He offers to launder the cash through his business, help out with the building work. So Morgan generates inflated invoices, Coot processes them and Fox signs them off; Morgan pays Dudley who organises the cottage purchase. Morgan gets a smart little upgrade to his existing property. Dudley gets the work – and, when the penny drops – and maybe it did from the very start – a nice little earner. Call it a pension scheme. Then he charms June Collins into moving north – starts leading his double life good and proper. What more could a man want?’

  DS Leyton is nodding in mild wonderment.

  ‘What made Coot spill the beans, Guv?’

  ‘I put it to him, Leyton.’ Skelgill now pauses and stands up and digs his hands into his pockets. He gazes beyond DS Jones and out of the window. It is another fine summer’s day. His thoughts have backtracked and he resumes his explanation from an earlier point. ‘From the minute I met him I knew he was hiding something – both of them were. But I came round to thinking that was all about the barn conversion – which he’s also admitted to. They applied for a grant to upgrade a non-existent visitor centre for Friends of Harterhow – even had a sign made for the photograph in the application. They pretended the local magistrate Veronica Crampston MBE was their treasurer – to lend credibility. In fact she’d moved down south and knew nothing about it. They got away with it and used the money to fit out the barn as a sauna.’

  It is an audacious ploy – and plainly would not be expected of two ostensibly respectable elderly men; but DS Leyton is eager to understand Archibald Coot’s motivation to confess.

  ‘You said you put it to him, Guv? You mean like a plea bargain?’

  ‘Aye – in a manner of speaking.’ Skelgill affects a grin. ‘He didn’t take a lot of persuading – I reckon he’s been under the cosh from Fox – and the pair of them from Morgan – at least since they did away with Derek Dudley. Coot’s the weak link in the chain – he wasn’t involved in the murder or the disposal of the body, so he’s banking on saving his skin by grassing up Fox and Morgan. He knows he’ll go down on the fraud rap – but at least it doesn’t carry a life sentence.’

  ‘What made you sure they were all wrong ’uns, Guv? All we really had to go on was Morgan’s antics.’

  Skelgill rounds his desk to stare at his map, hands on hips. After a few moments he taps the location of Harterhow with a forefinger – then he turns and spreads his arms. His expression if it could be put into words would say, “Who cares – we’ve solved it!” – and his response reflects this sentiment.

  ‘It all makes sense now, Leyton.’

  ‘But something kept you going, Guv.’

  Skelgill makes a jerky movement with his left hand, dragging invisible factors towards his midriff. He labours under the burden of having to explain logically a process that do
es not lend itself to linear thinking; he does not know himself precisely what was the switch that tripped and suddenly lit up a complex circuit of uncertain connections.

  ‘In the last few days – I don’t know – maybe what we found out about Forrester kick-started it.’

  ‘Forrester, Guv?’

  ‘Aye – that he was living with no apparent income – and so it emerged was Derek Dudley. Remember – according to June Collins all her ‘Spencer’ did was loaf about. We know he was never a lorry driver. When I checked the invoices we took from his office, his last declared building project was over four years ago – so where was his cash coming from? He paid his bed and board to June Collins as regular as clockwork – and kept his real family afloat – until his disappearance.’

  DS Leyton is nodding.

  ‘Fox and Coot.’

  ‘Aye – and Morgan. Dudley threatened to expose the three of them. As far as he was concerned he was clean – he could claim he innocently handled a series of bona fide property and building transactions.’

  Now DS Jones enters the discussion.

  ‘Guv – do you think Derek Dudley also knew about Marvin Morgan’s peccadillos? That would have given him leverage, too.’

  Skelgill shrugs.

  ‘Maybe. Building that false wall – it could have been legit – to create a maintenance corridor for the plumbing in the guest room. I don’t doubt it was Morgan that converted it into the secret viewing gallery – but Dudley might have known something about Morgan from his visits to June Collins’s place in Liverpool – from her, even.’

  A rather brooding DS Leyton is thumbing his bottom lip.

  ‘Reckon she’s in on it, Guv?’

  Skelgill ponders for a moment and then begins slowly to shake his head.

  ‘If she is, Leyton – any half-decent lawyer ought to get her off lightly – they’d plead complete ignorance of the murder and that she wasn’t knowingly obstructing the inquiry. Personally, I think she’s fed us a few white lies – fearing for her own safety – but that’s about it.’

  ‘I suppose it’s not like she’s been running a massage parlour in Keswick, eh, Guv?’

  Skelgill’s eyes do a little double take.

  ‘You don’t seriously think that’s a B&B she’s got there?’

  Now DS Leyton finds himself rather tongue-tied. He glances apprehensively at DS Jones. She responds with an expression that suggests this is also news to her.

  ‘But –’

  ‘Leyton – have you ever seen the Vacancies sign on display? Or any guests, come to that.’

  DS Leyton puffs out his cheeks and gives a nervous laugh.

  ‘There’s a flippin’ surprise round every corner, Guv.’

  As far as Skelgill is concerned this cliché sums up life as a detective. He lowers himself into his seat.

  ‘I try to take folk at face value, Leyton – but when they’re blatantly dishonest you can’t help but wonder why.’ Now he looks at DS Jones. ‘Morgan – he’s acted nice as pie – and yet was lying from the very first time I saw him.’

  DS Jones nods to corroborate her superior’s assessment. Skelgill continues.

  ‘The day I went to his cottage – after the first news conference – he claimed he hadn’t heard about the body being found – Rose this is. He said he’d not heard any news – but he’d obviously just switched off the TV in his kitchen – it’s an old-fashioned set and the tube was still hot. And then he made some reference to that part of the hill – that he’d not been over there – before I’d even said where. I tell him we’ve found a corpse, and he starts talking to me about photographing a Sparrowhawk. And he claimed not to have a mobile – I’d barely been in the house a minute and I’d noticed a number was engraved on his dog’s collar. How stupid did he think I was?’

  He breaks off to hold out a hand to DS Jones. She understands she is to elaborate, and that it is probably not on the question of her superior’s intellect.

  ‘The phone – it was in the locked cabinet – we’re just interrogating all the numbers in the memory through the service provider. It appears he was in recent contact with Lester Fox – and previously took regular calls from Derek Dudley.’

  Skelgill is nodding.

  ‘Morgan must have tipped off Coot and Fox about the scene of crime team. No wonder they weren’t exactly surprised when I showed up. Fox and Morgan must have wondered what the bones were doing half a mile away – and then they learn it’s not even their body. They’d have been frantic about whether one of them had let something slip – and Fox was obviously paranoid about letting Coot speak to us on his own. If only I’d sussed him sooner.’ Skelgill makes a sharp gesture of frustration with both hands. ‘Meanwhile, we’re off investigating the wrong murder.’

  Both DS Jones and DS Leyton inhale as if to speak – but the paradox strikes home – and a silence descends as all three detectives reflect on this extraordinary aspect of the case. There grows a palpable sense of relief – that their little group has survived the self-inflicted tensions wrought by trying to employ clues to one crime to solve another, entirely unrelated, except by coincidence of time and location. Small wonder that the strange mind of Skelgill – that frequently enlists a sixth sense to do its work – has endured such turmoil. Only now does he see clearly – his mental picture like a figure-of-eight climbing knot – in one loop the murder of Miriam O’Donoghue, in the other that of Derek Dudley – and, standing at the intersection, a forlorn June Collins. (And not forgetting Morse, the irrepressible Lakeland Terrier that surely has a bright future in the police service.)

  After a minute their collective reverie subsides, and Skelgill determines this is an appropriate moment to reveal the contents of one of his carrier bags. He pulls it from beneath his desk and dumps it with a clunk on the surface; it sounds like a bottle and indeed the bag falls open to expose a magnum of fine champagne with the price ticket still affixed. He gets up a little ponderously as if he is about to make a formal announcement, and grins – rather self-consciously – at DS Jones.

  But at this juncture the telephone rings. Skelgill glares at the display, intending to ignore it – however something about the number prompts him to pick up. He responds with his ubiquitous “Aye?” and then listens for a moment; his gaze falls upon DS Leyton. He places a hand over the mouthpiece and addresses his sergeant.

  ‘That’s the hospital – they want to put your wife through to you.’ Now he hesitates. ‘Want to take it somewhere private?’

  DS Leyton is on his feet, trepidation in his eyes, his complexion suddenly pale. He glances at DS Jones, who is regarding him anxiously from her seat, and then he addresses Skelgill.

  ‘I’ll take it now, Guv.’

  He accepts the handset from Skelgill and introduces himself and waits for a moment. He stands hunched and despondent. Then he makes an involuntarily start as the call is connected.

  ‘Alright darlin’?’

  He listens for a good half minute, his expression one of growing disbelief. For a loquacious fellow he is uncharacteristically stymied, and swallows successively as if there is a persistent lump in his throat. When it becomes his turn to speak he glances uneasily at his colleagues – perhaps he should have opted for privacy after all. Then he pulls himself together to deliver a decisive response.

  ‘I’ll come and get you – right now – love you, girl.’

  Looking dazed he returns the handset to Skelgill – but he realises he must provide an explanation.

  ‘Stone the crows.’

  Hearing this expression Skelgill detects a hopeful straw in the wind and stretches across the desk to place a palm on his subordinate’s shoulder.

  ‘What is it, marra?’

  DS Leyton gazes abstractedly at his boss and then at DS Jones.

  ‘She’s only gone and got a flippin’ bun in the oven.’

  In a blur of movement DS Jones is out of her seat like a jack-in-the-box to embrace her colleague – joyful tears springing spontaneously mid-f
light; DS Leyton himself perhaps conceals a sob of relief in the minor melee that ensues; when they disentangle he finds Skelgill waiting to grasp his hand.

  ‘You old devil, Leyton – no wonder you’ve been so dozy lately.’

  DS Leyton shakes his head with disbelief.

  ‘Cor blimey – all this doctors-and-hospitals malarkey – just ’cause she used to have a bit of a thyroid problem – an’ all the time they’re barking up the wrong tree!’

  Skelgill gives DS Leyton a friendly punch on the shoulder.

  ‘That’s what trees are for, Leyton.’

  DS Leyton produces a paper tissue from his trouser pocket and blows his nose. He emerges from behind the handkerchief with a beaming smile, pure happiness that his wife is well and he is to be a father again. Skelgill decides he should take control of the situation; he motions that his two sergeants should be seated.

  ‘Leyton – I realise you need to shoot off – with my blessing – but bear with me for one minute.’ He ducks beneath his desk and brings out the second carrier bag. He places it on the surface, but first he refers to the bottle of champagne.

  ‘Now I did intend to make this award for an exceptional piece of detective work in bringing to book the killer of Miriam O’Donoghue.’

  He glances pointedly at DS Jones – and DS Leyton claps his hands – while DS Jones looks astonished. Whether this is because Skelgill has so openly recognised her achievement – or simply that he has splashed out on such an expensive bottle of bubbly – it is impossible to tell – but she quickly adjusts her shocked features to reflect the appropriate degree of propriety. However it suddenly dawns on DS Leyton that he has trumped her news – and that Skelgill is about to reverse his decision. He leans forward and reaches out a hand of protest.

  ‘No – no, Guv – she must have it – no argument.’

  But now it is Skelgill that holds up two silencing palms. Then he delves into the second bag and pulls out a shrink-wrapped box – it is a new compact camera. He clears his throat.