The guard shakes his head.
‘No, they didnae.’
‘Who makes up the beds and puts in the welcome packs?’
‘There’s a housekeeping team that comes on board at Euston.’ The man scowls disparagingly, as if this is a task below his station. ‘Foreigners – dinnae speak a word of English.’
Skelgill raises an eyebrow at the unintended irony of this complaint.
‘What if someone wants more drinking water in the night?’
‘They just ask me – Ah’ve got supplies.’
‘As a matter of interest – did anyone request water – or whatever?’
Ruairidh McLeod again shakes his head – although perhaps there is a moment of hesitation.
‘Folk had only been in bed a couple of hours when we stopped. Usually if they want extra water it’s when they get their morning call.’
Skelgill considers this proposition by reference to his own archives.
‘Depends how much you’ve had to drink.’
He means alcohol – and it prompts a quip from DS Leyton.
‘They were certainly knocking back the old Glenmorangie.’
The sergeant in his Cockney brogue mispronounces the brand name to rhyme with ‘Angie’ – which clearly jars with the Scotsman. He scowls – but unlike the previous night does not correct the speaker.
‘Aye – there’s a couple of the regulars that like tae get intae the spirit.’
Former traumas cause Skelgill to wince inadvertently. There is nothing so brutal as a whisky hangover – especially if compounded by the regret of yielding to a beverage that tastes like a peat bog when there was still good cask ale on offer.
*
‘What do you reckon, Guv?’
Skelgill expels a lungful of air in a manner that verges upon the flabbergasted.
‘I know what I think, Leyton – I think he made a mistake. There was no Harris and he’s too pig-headed to admit it. Harris is flapping around like a red herring on platform nine-and-three-quarters.’
‘Some geezer must have locked that cabin next to Mikal Mital’s – you said it yourself, Guv.’
Skelgill glowers. The act, at least, must have been tangible – and DS Jones witnessed the situation. The natural state of affairs, had there been no Mr Harris, and no tampering, would have seen the door remain unlocked. So there is a small possibility – that supplements DS Jones’s observation about the water bottle – that someone failed to conceal their tracks. And, there is no denying that – while they do not know the cause of Mikal Mital’s death – the manuscript is gone. Skelgill growls.
‘It’s this pussy-footing around, Leyton – it’s no way to conduct an investigation – I don’t know if I can stand asking another nine folk pointless questions.’
DS Leyton regards his boss a little warily – perhaps wondering if this choice of words is code for the passing of the buck. But the sergeant’s altruism – and perhaps the gloomy prospect of twiddling his thumbs for the rest of the day – gets the better of him.
‘I can do it – if you want, Guv.’ He spreads his palms, large hands for a relatively short man. ‘Quick round of interviews – just ask ’em about Harris, get everyone’s personal details – you never know, someone shows their hand – you can give ’em the good old third degree.’
Skelgill rises and approaches the hearth. He takes up the black cast-iron poker and fences extravagantly with the logs, sending sparks flying up the chimney. He ponders for a few moments. While he has his own knack of appearing disinterested when questioning a suspect or witness, it is an affected manner and not always convincing, his unique blend of capriciousness and recalcitrance lurking never far below the surface, liable to be agitated by obduracy. DS Leyton, on the other hand, innately ingenuous, need not flatter to deceive; he is the friendly fireside Labrador to Skelgill’s fell-wise Border Collie. While the perspicacious would suspect at any moment that Skelgill might snap, from DS Leyton the worst would be a slobbery lick. Skelgill, if not exactly envisaging such a stark contrast, turns to his sergeant with a wry grin.
‘Aye, fair enough. Happen you’ll make a better job of it than us.’
DS Leyton is taken aback that his speculative offer has borne fruit; his eyes widen and he looks momentarily alarmed.
‘What’ll you do, Guv?’
Skelgill stretches out his arms and bares his teeth, as though it is with the effort of pushing at invisible pillars at his sides.
‘You know me, Leyton – unless I’ve got a fishing rod in my hand I have the devil’s own job to stay in one place.’
*
With snow still falling and the wind a remorseless roar that marauds amongst the treetops like a great winged wolf pack, what little afternoon twilight remains seems inconsequential as Skelgill picks his way up the wooded fellside, albeit he is in the bare deciduous fringe on its sheltered western flank, where Shake Holes Beck tumbles in a series of falls and small steep cataracts to its confluence with Ulpha Beck beside the old inn. The sub-zero temperatures have been too short-lived to freeze the ground water that percolates from the limestone escarpment, and the stream cuts a slick black sliver through the white terrain, winding beneath precipitous cornices and dividing to pass around boulders capped by domes of snow. Wafts of sulphur reach Skelgill’s dilated nostrils, and he is reminded that in Victorian times the inn served as a spa, where the great and good gravitated to take the pungent waters.
He pauses to gaze at a raft of saucer-sized ice plates that gently jostle one another in the slack water downstream from a plunge pool; the latter looks deep and must be tempting in summer, just the spot he sought out as a boy, creeping up, always hoping to disturb a fell sprite indulging in a secret moment of mischief. He expects to see no one now, spirit or human – or animal come to that – and yet he feels no trepidation about losing his bearings. The old map on the wall of the library is sharp in his mind’s eye – the lie of the land, the becks, the clusters of shake holes (albeit he cannot recall each one individually). And the patch of forest – mostly post-survey plantation – provides a finite border, and the relentless easterly gale the compass he needs to navigate. Besides, his purpose is not especially to find out anything – unless, that is, the distraction enables him to learn from his own subconscious what hitherto has not been revealed to him. In the absence of fishing, the present combination of mechanical activity and sensory overload might form the preconditions for such a revelation. But as he stares unseeing at the frozen platelets he experiences only a logjam; there is not yet the critical mass to break out and release a stream of cognisance.
Skelgill dislodges a drip from his nose with a sleeve and moves on. His commandeered railway-issue overalls were still damp with perspiration and melted snow, and he has raided the tack room for an alternative outfit – rather ironically he has settled upon a long waxed-cotton riding coat similar to that worn by the horsewoman, Lucinda Hobhouse, topped and tailed with a wide-brimmed hat of a similar material to the coat, and equestrian wellingtons that grip his calves just below the knees. It is far from his ideal outdoor garb, but his ambitions for mobility are modest – he is happy to trudge, and the outfit protects him without compromising his senses. It strikes him that he would not appear out of place astride a horse – although upon the stocky Fell pony he would look plain daft, if the headstrong beast would even stand for it. The thought prompts him to consider the whereabouts of DS Jones – a small doubt clouds his mind – but he tells himself that she is in a better place – a village post office with a working telephone – there is no great logic in her returning to Shake Holes Inn, by whatever means. But it would be good to know that their predicament has been communicated to the authorities.
Having followed the beck north, he takes a right angle and ducks into the wind, and begins to pick his way through the coniferous plantation. The snow is not so deep here, held up by the canopy, but underfoot the going is just as onerous, beneath the crust a decaying underbrush, a springy spiky matrix of fallen branches and twi
gs that has accumulated over the decades. Then there is the persistent obstacle of the annual rings of dead branches that climb each trunk like the spokes of successive cartwheels, inhibiting passage and always ready to poke out an eye. Skelgill has acquired a heavy club, a shillelagh-like branch, and uses it to smash off those twigs that impede his progress or threaten his face. He reaches a tiny circular clearing, and sees that it is a shake hole – and he is reminded of DS Jones’s query about these hollows being scattered through the woods.
Skelgill circles the snow-filled depression and slips back into the trees. It is suddenly darker, but he is confident that if he holds his bearing into the wind he will reach the bridleway – and, sure enough, ten minutes find him doing just that, and he emerges onto the now familiar track. Visibility beneath the premature dusk is barely fifty yards – but it is sufficient for him to recognise ahead a bend in the bridle path around which lies the shake hole of greater notoriety. He mutters to himself – was that only this morning – and today the same calendar day of the train crash? He approaches, stopping just short of the rim. Jenny’s Hole, he calls it under his breath. He determines to come back here in spring – to see just how deep it really is; the majority of these collapsed shafts are inconvenient rather than treacherous – but then again he never felt terra firma. Now it occurs to him that he did not ask Ruairidh McLeod where he was, or what he saw or heard, in the prelude to the incident – but such a blatant question is bound to set alarm bells ringing. Right now gut feel tells him that the idea of a deliberate assault on Jenny Hackett is a scenario best kept under wraps. Moreover, if someone did push her – what are they thinking? There have been no explicit repercussions – does the culprit suspect she is keeping mum because she has something to hide?
Standing stock-still Skelgill stares severely into the shake hole. He might almost be testing himself – to see if he succumbs to some urge to leap. But that is not the action he now takes. It is less predictable – and connected to his wide-brimmed hat (for, had he been beneath the hood of his railway overall he would not have heard the crump of snow compressed underfoot close behind him).
In one smooth action he swings his club two-handed to his left at shoulder height and makes a half-turn at the hips – the pose that of a baseball batter – and indeed he swings hard, only to pull the hit at the very last possible instant – inches before the club makes contact with the head of a person – who recoils and topples backwards, spluttering a protest.
‘Good heavens! It’s you, Inspector!’
‘Jeez – you donnat! I could have brained you! What are you doing, creeping up on us?’
The ‘donnat’ is Richard Bond – and if the colloquialism, like the club, goes over his head he can be left in no doubt by the expletives edited for the purposes of public decency that Skelgill has temporarily suspended the convivial relationship built up during their rescue. Richard Bond clambers gingerly to his feet and pats himself down to dislodge a liberal dusting of snow.
‘Sorry – sorry – I wasn’t creeping up on you – I mean to say – I didn’t think it was you, Inspector.’
‘Who did you think it was?’
‘Well – I don’t know.’ The man seems suitably chastised, avoiding eye contact and not at all offended that Skelgill almost scalped him. ‘I saw some gear was gone – and fresh tracks crossing the stable yard. It obviously wasn’t Joost Merlyn – no limp – and the prints too big for any of the ladies, I should say. I was pretty sure you were interviewing – I haven’t had my turn yet – so I didn’t realise you weren’t in the library. Since there’s this business of Mr Harris – well – I thought – maybe it’s him. May as well follow – see what he’s up to – thought you’d be chuffed if I solved your mystery for you.’
Skelgill opts to respond to this practical explanation rather than backtrack into an awkward exchange of apologies. Besides, Richard Bond, it seems, in good military tradition does not hold a grudge for a dressing down.
‘It could have been one of the other blokes.’
‘Well, you say that, Inspector – with the greatest respect – but it could not have been either of my team – absolutely no reason for them to wander off – in any event I’d left them in the bar. The American, Faulkner, he’s rather reserved and doesn’t strike me as the sort to venture out alone – and clearly not Sir Ewart.’ Richard Bond affects a diplomatic cough. ‘Frankly both he and the guard are badly out of condition. In due course – when I caught sight of somebody – it didn’t occur to me that it was you in that rather pukka riding outfit.’
Richard Bond grins, and so ingenuously that it can surely only be heartfelt embarrassment that underlies his efforts at mollification.
‘You nearly got a reet twatting there, marra.’
Richard Bond seems to detect a lightening of the tone, and he appears to get the gist of Skelgill’s descent into Cumbrian vernacular.
‘Oh – it wouldn’t have done any damage.’
‘Aye – that’s what I tell folk. Except in my case it’s true.’ The man does not attempt to gainsay him – and he rather suspects that Richard Bond’s big-boned skull is so dense that a blow from a knobkerrie would likely not floor him. ‘Still, can’t be too careful.’
When Skelgill does not elaborate upon this latter remark, Richard Bond makes what may be a tentative inquiry.
‘Your Sergeant Leyton explained earlier that you went back to search for clues to the disappearance of Mr Harris. I would have accompanied you – but, er – well –’
Richard Bond suddenly appears rather crestfallen, like a schoolboy who is reminded he has not made the First XV, and is still troubled by the shock of rejection. Skelgill feels a small pang of guilt – without his collaboration the evacuation to the inn would have been a considerably more challenging prospect. Only DS Jones among the others could match his athleticism – but she is probably half the weight of Richard Bond and at times it was his sheer brute strength that was the deciding factor.
‘Not to worry, Richard – we were treating it as a police matter – it might look a bit awkward in the reports later if a civilian were involved – if sommat went wrong, like.’
‘Naturally, Inspector. This is your command.’ Richard Bond looks away, as if casually noting their surroundings. ‘And did your return visit shed any more light on the missing passenger?’
Skelgill beckons with his head that they should start walking – they move away from the shake hole and begin to march briskly in parallel, each taking one of the partially in-filled tyre tracks made by the trailer.
‘There’s no indication he was on the train.’ Skelgill glances sideways at his companion. ‘When I saw you hanging half-naked out of the door I thought for a second someone must have jumped for it.’
Richard Bond looks a little perturbed. His eyes narrow and his brow creases.
‘There were certainly no tracks – as I think you saw. I was merely getting the lie of the land. First principles – secure one’s retreat, you know?’
Skelgill treats the question as rhetorical.
‘I take it you didn’t see him at the station or on the train – I mean, another male who’s no longer in the party?’
‘I did not. Of course, one assumes there are always fellow passengers who keep themselves to themselves.’
Skelgill delays for a moment before he responds.
‘That’s a regular little drinking club you have in the bar, is it?’
Richard Bond’s tone regains something of the pompous stridency that first caught Skelgill’s ear on the platform at Euston station.
‘There’s a coterie of frequent travellers – company CEOs, politicians, PR types – we like to put the world to rights over a whisky or two. But Christmas has depleted the numbers. There was just myself and my boys and old Eck and his – er – female colleague. And we were joined by the journalist – and the attractive Russian model – what?’
The man’s inflexion seems to invite a locker-room comment about Wiktoria Adamska, bu
t Skelgill declines to be sidetracked.
‘So, what’s the Edinburgh connection?’
‘Well, of course, Eck’s Russian crowd have their studios there – gets them under Ofcom’s radar, so they think.’ He suddenly guffaws, in a way that suggests he assumes Skelgill will understand what he means. ‘Then we do a decent amount of business with the Charlotte Square mafia – Edinburgh still has a fair bit of financial clout – we have a corporate apartment in Thistle Street – you know it, Inspector?’
‘In the New Town, aye?’
‘The Rose and the Thistle, the King in the middle, the Queen and the Princes on either side.’
Richard Bond recites the ditty that locals use to remember the Georgian street plan.
‘You’re not a Scot yourself?’
‘Good Lord, no – I’m Namibian by birth. When things got a bit lively I was packed off to board at Eton – got a place at Imperial – landed a job in the City – worked out in HK for a few years before coming back to Blighty.’
‘Where did the army fit in?’
Richard Bond glances sharply at Skelgill.
‘I was a territorial.’
Skelgill makes a questioning sound in his throat.
‘I didn’t realise you could join the SAS as a territorial.’
‘Indeed – we are called the Reserve. The emphasis is upon surveillance and reconnaissance.’
Skelgill nods pensively. He notes the man’s allusion to continued membership of the regiment – a manner of speaking he has heard from other former military personnel. His silence seems to prompt a question from Richard Bond.
‘Are you thinking you should have given it a shot, Inspector?’
Skelgill has acquaintances who have served Queen and Country, including close relatives – but somehow it is a concept that has never engaged him – the prospect of killing people on foreign soil. If there is a sense of duty deeply rooted in his psyche it is to protect his native patch, and its hard-working inhabitants. He would be one of those grim pitchfork-wielding types braced gimlet-eyed that made invading soldiers wish they had never enlisted for war. And yet there is something that rankles – he might be more outdoor-savvy than most, a fellsman, a fisherman, in the mountain rescue and all – but not to have tested himself against the elite of his generation, perhaps leaves a tinge of regret. Then again there is the sheer impossibility of it all.
Detective Inspector Skelgill Boxset 4 Page 64