‘Can’t wait to get this penguin suit off.’
‘Know what you mean, Guv – these flippin’ shoes are giving me corns.’
DS Jones cannot suppress a laugh – for if anyone should complain it is her, keeping pace with her male colleagues despite four-inch heels and a cocktail mini-dress that required her to be assisted for the purposes of modesty into and out of the taxi that has brought them from a Park Lane hotel, an awards banquet, to their present location.
‘The Chief didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get away, Guv.’
Skelgill makes scoffing sound.
‘I reckon the bigwigs have all got penthouse suites for the night, Leyton.’
DS Leyton utters what may be a grumble of agreement – but DS Jones knows otherwise.
‘Actually, Guv – I was standing with her at the drinks reception – she was telling the Commissioner that she’s staying with her sister in Twickenham – to keep costs down.’
Skelgill harrumphs.
‘She was making up for it in Bloody Marys.’
DS Leyton turns to his female colleague.
‘You still in touch with that feller of yours, girl? Could have saved yourself a night on the train with us.’
DS Jones looks suddenly rather bashful.
‘Oh, you know – it’s hard not to be in touch, with social media these days.’ She brightens. ‘But here I am.’
Any further discussion that may prolong the moment of awkwardness is now truncated – for they reach their designated platform and are intercepted by a man in rail uniform.
‘Tickets please, ladies.’
The guard is dour and unsmiling, and there is nothing about his demeanour to indicate that his words might be an attempt at humour, perhaps a reference to the way they are all dressed. Skelgill estimates him to be in his late fifties; balding, he is of a slightly shabby appearance, shoes scuffed and seams shiny, which is hardly the impression the rail company would wish to portray. Short and rather squat, he has a harsh Scots accent – which is perhaps to be expected, since the train terminates somewhere in the Highlands. DS Leyton, custodian of their travel documents, produces the necessary paperwork, a crumpled computer printout in lieu of the more standard credit-card-sized tickets. The official pores over the item; his eyes appear unmoving though his lips tremble as if he might be silently reciting some ode to procrastination, waiting for the momentum of the little group of passengers to dissipate; and indeed they do sink slowly back upon their heels, defeated by bureaucracy.
‘Who’s the lucky yin?’
‘What’s that, mate?’
Without raising his head the man regards them from beneath unkempt ginger eyebrows. He hands the document back to DS Leyton.
‘Three passengers, two cabins. Nine and ten – sleeping car, first door.’
Without waiting for a reaction he appears to lose interest in their presence – for another group of travellers approaches in haste, three men in smart business suits, and he shifts to intercept them. Skelgill and company realise they are at liberty to move on.
‘Tickets please, ladies.’
‘You are incorrigible, Ruairidh, my man – is Glenmorangie replenished?’
The question is loudly brayed with an English public school accent.
‘I’ve told you before, sir, it’s morangie.’ He pronounces the word to rhyme with ‘orangey’, with the stress on the first syllable.
‘A Scotch by any other name, my good chap.’
‘Ye drank us dry on yer last trip doon, sir.’
Skelgill, eavesdropping, notices the guard’s concession to status, calling the man ‘sir’ – and as he glances back he sees the foremost of the three men, the elder, a tall, well-built, tanned figure in his forties, slip a fold of banknotes into the railway employee’s hand.
The sleeping carriage is immediately adjacent to the guard’s van and Skelgill’s colleagues are already lifting their cases aboard. DS Leyton’s voice reaches him.
‘You take number ten, girl – at least you’ll only have us snoring on one side of you.’
As he passes her compartment and catches her eye Skelgill raises his eyebrows in a curious gesture, perhaps an advance apology along such lines.
‘Mine’s a Jennings if you beat us to the bar.’
DS Jones flashes him a smile as she heaves her bag onto the upper bunk. Skelgill proceeds to the next cabin to find DS Leyton scratching his dark tousled head.
‘Cor blimey, Guvnor – you can’t swing a cat in here. You want the top or the bottom?’
‘I’m not fussed, Leyton – I used to kip in a chest of drawers – worked me way up.’
‘Maybe I should have the bottom, Guv – seeing as you’re in the mountain rescue.’
Skelgill scowls as though he disapproves of his sergeant’s logic – but it would have been his choice, and he swings his rucksack onto the narrow berth. DS Leyton is examining the fixtures and fittings, and discovers a tiny washbasin concealed beneath a hinged shelf. He glances around pensively.
‘I suppose there’s a proper karsey somewhere.’
Skelgill is still frowning.
‘What do you mean proper karsey?’
DS Leyton looks surprised that his superior does not immediately go along with his reasoning.
‘Must be tempting – middle of the night, Guv – have a Jimmy in the sink instead of traipsing down the train trying to find it.’
For a man who spends much of his spare time inhabiting wild country lacking any form of ablution facilities, Skelgill seems unreasonably prim.
‘Don’t get any bright ideas, Leyton.’
But his sergeant continues musingly.
‘Not so easy for a lady, of course.’
‘Leyton! Can we talk about something else?’
DS Leyton is shocked by the severity of his superior’s retort.
‘Righto, Guv.’ However, he is not entirely subdued. ‘Bit of a queer thing – don’t you reckon – these shared cabins?’
‘In what way?’
‘Well – unless you pay for the whole caboodle – like Admin have done for DS Jones – you never know who you’re gonna bunk up with. You could get a right old weirdo. Pervert – strangler – anything.’
‘Leyton – how much have you had to drink?’
‘Only the same as you, Guv – but you know me, I’m not a big drinker. And I’m out of practice – the nippers are needing driven everywhere these days – all the flippin’ clubs they’re in, sleepovers and whatnot. Can’t even have a beer watching the footie.’
Skelgill is frowning, as if irked by the suggestion that he might be a ‘big drinker’ by his subordinate’s estimation. However, he relents.
‘Aye, well – it were flowing free tonight, hard to avoid – even if you’re no fan of wine.’
‘Reckon I could get used to it, Guv. Though, I must say, it all tastes the same to me. I wouldn’t know a Claret from a Bordeaux.’
Skelgill is about to respond – but a raised voice, female and shrill, reaches them from beyond their cabin – indeed it has an echoing quality that sounds like it emanates from outwith the carriage itself. Skelgill, who as yet has only removed his shoes, pads out onto the corridor to see that DS Jones – herself barefooted but still wearing her cocktail dress – has also had cause to investigate, and is standing at the open door, leaning out and looking onto the platform.
‘I repeat – I must travel on this train!’
‘Madam, Ah repeat – all cabins are taken.’
Ruairidh, the guard, is standing his ground, his feet planted apart. A woman confronts him. She looks in her early thirties. She is tall and strikingly dressed in an unfastened horizontally striped fur coat over a short leopard-pattern dress, crazily patterned stockings, and platform shoes that mirror the dress and cause her to tower above the man. Her hair is immaculate, a long straight blonde coiffure so perfect that it looks almost artificial. To Skelgill’s eye she is of foreign extraction, perhaps Slavic – a broad face with promi
nent cheekbones and pale eyes that narrow as they rise. Her make up, too, proclaims a fashion statement that seems from beyond these shores. Her accent, however, is perfectly British, and lacks any regional brogue. She appears determined to get her way.
‘I have an open first-class ticket – it is the most expensive fare. I expect to travel to Edinburgh.’
‘Then ye’ll have tae wait until the morning, Madam. The first train leaves at 6:12. Arrives 11:09. Ye’ll need tae go tae King’s Cross.’
The woman literally stamps her foot.
‘I need to go on this train.’ She flails an arm that has pale gold bangles jangling and sends a designer handbag flapping in the air – then she gestures first at leopard-skin luggage that matches her dress and then more generally in frustration around her. ‘What else do you expect me to do at this time of night, you halfwit?’
To Skelgill’s consternation DS Jones steps down onto the platform and approaches the pair. He moves up, observing from the open carriage door. Perhaps she senses that tempers might flare beyond control, and has decided to mediate. That said, the Scotsman grins with a certain masochistic satisfaction, as though the insult has merely served to bolster his contrariness. The woman inhales as if she intends to continue with her tirade, but the sight of DS Jones – Cinderella-like, barefoot in her evening gown and no less striking in her own way than the diva herself – serves to give her pause for thought. It is DS Jones who speaks.
‘I’m travelling with two male colleagues. My organisation had to book a cabin for sole occupancy for me – so there is a vacant berth. I’m leaving the train at Carlisle – if you’re going on to Edinburgh you’ll have it to yourself when you wake. I’ll just be sleeping in jeans and t-shirt so that I can grab my stuff and go – so you should hardly be disturbed.’
‘Ah dinnae ken aboot that –’
But the objection that Ruairidh wrestles to formulate does not come quickly enough, and the woman snatches the projecting handles of her matching wheeled suitcases – one enormous, the other tiny, like a Great Dane and a Chihuahua – and pushes past him. She aims directly at DS Jones, hands her control of the oversized valise, links their free arms and hustles her at pace towards the train.
‘Show me – before that tiresome jobsworth thinks of something else.’
Skelgill is obliged to step back – indeed he retreats like a hermit crab into his cabin – exchanging a brief glance (of alarm in his case) with DS Jones, who seems more amused than perturbed by the situation. He notices the woman has not thanked DS Jones – more that she has treated her as she might a personal assistant. However, as they enter the cabin he hears her voice, suddenly gracious in its tone.
‘That is a beautiful dress – it fits you so well – is it Versace?’
But now the door closes – and behind him DS Leyton speaks.
‘What’s all the palaver, Guv?’
Skelgill is about to mutter darkly about the upper classes pulling rank – but he curses instead as he hits his funny bone off a bulkhead in an attempt to remove his dinner jacket.
‘I just did that, Guv – if it’s any consolation.’
Skelgill grimaces and frantically polishes his afflicted elbow with his opposite hand. But he does not answer, for he has an ear cocked to the corridor – from beyond comes a successive slamming of doors. The night train to Scotland is about to depart.
2. THE LOUNGE CAR
Thursday, 00.15am
By Skelgill’s estimation they are not the last to reach the lounge car – for, having counted ten cabins including their own, there could be as many as twenty passengers on board, and only eight are presently ensconced for drinks. There is a main group of six: it comprises a honey blonde woman in her forties, her features regular but just slightly craggy, and dominated by deep-set brown eyes beneath curved brows; a younger woman clad all in black, perhaps in her early thirties – she is strikingly dark, almost raven-haired, with pale skin, cold sapphire eyes and Alice Cooper mascara and (Skelgill decides) a Scandic physiognomy; and four men, the three sharp business suits of the original ‘Glenmorangie party’ and the fourth an older male, rotund and balding, perhaps in his early sixties, also besuited, but casually tieless – his doughy countenance and permanently surprised features strike Skelgill as familiar. This little coterie has occupied a u-shaped seating area around adjoining low tables – there is the suggestion that this is a regular haunt of theirs, and that they have moved swiftly to occupy the spot.
Seated separately – alone at tables of standard height – are two more men: one who might be about Skelgill’s own age, fairly nondescript, dressed in neat attire, unobtrusively checking his mobile and occasionally sipping from a bottle of mineral water; the second, aged around the seventy mark, is considerably more distinctive, sporting an untidy mane of white hair and a bushy grey moustache; he pores over some densely printed manuscript and has the look of the archetypal academic in his lived-in brown tweed suit. Indeed, as the two detectives take seats towards the bar – a little apart from their fellow travellers – DS Leyton is prompted to quip behind the back of his hand.
‘Albert Einstein, Guv – didn’t realise he was still alive.’
‘Leyton – keep your voice down.’ But if anything it is Skelgill’s hissed retort that is too loud – for the man raises an eyebrow that might be disapproving – or it might just be something he is reading.
They bow their heads over the table – as if conspiring – but actually out of slight embarrassment. Then Skelgill becomes conscious of a presence beside them. It is the guard – or, rather, he has now divested himself of his jacket and assumed the role of steward, in waistcoat and shirtsleeves; he has not, however, shed the dour expression. Skelgill quickly dismisses the idea of facetiously requesting a cask beer.
‘What ale would you recommend?’
‘Ah’d recommend McEwan’s Eighty.’ He pauses, as if to see how this goes down with Skelgill. However, before Skelgill can reply, he resumes. ‘But we dinnae stock McEwan’s. After that – Ah should say – Deuchars IPA – which we also dinnae keep.’
Skelgill flashes a glance at DS Leyton. Monty Python’s cheese shop sketch is coming to mind – and he wonders if he dare venture a brand name of his own. But instead he reconfigures his inquiry.
‘What ale have you got?’
‘London Pride.’ This announcement is devoid of enthusiasm.
‘Aye – that’s fine – I’ll take that.’ Skelgill does not wait to see if his choice will be gainsaid. ‘Same for you, Leyton?’
‘Nah – you know me, Guv – easily pleased – any old cooking lager.’
DS Leyton looks up at the steward as he says this, to convey his order. The man is tight lipped, and replies tersely.
‘Tennent’s. Plain cans only.’
That Ruairidh seems resentful about this latter fact goes over the heads of his clientele, who are too young to recall the bevy of beauties, scantily clad, that once ornamented the packaging of Scotland’s favourite ‘cooking lager’, as DS Leyton puts it. He turns away with a look of disdain – Skelgill wonders if the man is simply congenitally grumpy; or perhaps he considers them to be travelling above their station, out of place in First Class.
Nonetheless, their drinks arrive promptly, though without any ceremony; they are left to pour for themselves, from a brown bottle in Skelgill’s case, an unadorned tin in DS Leyton’s. Skelgill is glowering, but his colleague endeavours to put a positive spin on the matter.
‘That’s up your street, ain’t it, Guv – good old Fuller’s?’
‘Aye, it’s a decent brand – but it’s not real ale. You can’t get real ale in a bottle – it needs to come out of a cask, still live, at cellar temperature – this is fizzy pasteurised pop, served so cold you can’t taste it. Once it’s tapped, real ale only keeps a week – this stuff lasts years. It’s like the difference between a tomato and a tin of tomatoes.’
DS Leyton vacantly admires the yellow gassy lager that is filling his own glass half wit
h foam; the distinction is somewhat lost on him. However he nods amenably in the face of superior knowledge (albeit he is thinking he is rather partial to tinned tomatoes on toast).
‘Cheers, anyway, Guv.’
Skelgill raises his glass – but pauses before he sups.
‘Aye, cheers – and well done tonight, marra.’
DS Leyton suddenly looks rather sheepish – and even begins to colour. A rare event is his boss calling him ‘marra’, Cumbrian vernacular for ‘mate’ that he reserves almost exclusively for fellow locals; but doubly rare is that which does not come easily to Skelgill in any circumstances, the bestowing of congratulations. It is a scrapbook moment. However, in his typically self-deprecating manner, DS Leyton makes light of the compliment.
‘Truth be told, Guv, I feel a bit of a fraud – when there’s officers knowingly tackling suicide bombers and mopping up military-grade nerve agents. Being stupid ain’t being brave.’
Detective Inspector Skelgill Boxset 4 Page 53