‘Look, Mr McLeod – this can’t be the first time something like this has happened. What’s your theory?’
‘He could have been a jumper.’ The guard is quick with his response.
Skelgill narrows his eyes.
‘You mean a suicide?’
The man shrugs.
‘Aye. It’s the only possible explanation.’
Skelgill remains sceptical. The vast majority of rail suicides occur from platforms; to have boarded the train in the first instance seems a peculiarly intricate modus operandi. Moreover, his colleagues found no signs of such an exit having been attempted.
‘Putting that to one side – did we ever slow down such that a person could have safely leapt from the train?’
‘Ah wouldnae say so – maybe forty miles an hour. But ye wouldnae ken what ye’d hit – in the pitch dark.’
Skelgill tries not to show his frustration – and though he feels like he is trapped in a hopeless loop he finds himself returning to the beginning.
‘You’re absolutely certain a Mr Harris got on the train?’
‘Ah might not remember his face – but Ah wouldnae forget the name.’
‘Why not, sir?’
‘Ah come frae Harris.’
‘What – the Isle of Harris? Where they make the tweed?’
‘Aye.’ The man looks like he is expecting an objection – perhaps that his accent does not match this explanation, albeit that he has a Gaelic given name and indeed a common Western Isles surname. ‘When I were a bairn Ma gave birth tae triplets – we had tae move the weans for hospital care – I grew up in Gorgie.’
‘Edinburgh.’
As the man nods tersely Skelgill recalls his recommendation, of ales hailing from the Scottish capital, indeed the traditional brewery quarter that he has mentioned. While he is silent for a moment, DS Leyton chips in.
‘Mr McLeod – could someone have tricked you at Euston?’
‘What dae ye mean?’
‘Pretended to get on – got back off. Climbed out the other side.’
‘On tae the tracks?’ Ruairidh McLeod appears bewildered. ‘Why would anyone dae that?’
Skelgill is not keen that DS Leyton should involve the guard in a discussion of motives – not least because of his antipathy to the hypothetical, but also there is the risk of revealing what underlies their ostensibly innocent investigation into a missing passenger. However, DS Leyton responds before he can intervene.
‘To make it seem like they’d travelled to Edinburgh. There’s no ticket inspections once you’ve checked people on board, right?’
‘Aye.’
DS Leyton nods with satisfaction – but now he senses that Skelgill is glaring at him with barely contained irritation. He soldiers on, looking rather hamstrung.
‘Would the blind side of the train be covered by CCTV?’
The guard appears doubtful.
‘Ye’d need tae contact British Transport Polis. But the 05:31 Glasgow express was alongside us. It would have blocked the view.’
DS Leyton makes a humming sound, perhaps an acknowledgement – but he turns artlessly to Skelgill, as though to hand over these findings to his wiser superior. Skelgill is evidently displeased, and it takes him a few moments to muster a response. He regards Ruairidh McLeod in a somewhat strained manner.
‘We expect to be getting a message out to that effect shortly.’ He does not elaborate upon their method. ‘In the meantime, we’ll do what we can to establish whether or not there were any sightings of Mr Harris on the train. What about after we went to bed – myself and my two sergeants? That was about 1am. How long did the other passengers remain?’
The guard reverts to his defensive posture, hunching his shoulders.
‘Ah cannae mind. Ah dinnae keep a register, ken?’
Skelgill, still holding the manifest, flaps it with apparent frustration. He squints at the list.
‘There was Mr Mital, who was reading. Ms Hackett was talking to Mr Faulkner. The rest were sitting round together – Mr Cameron-Kinloch and his colleague Ms Karenina, and Mr Bond and his two male associates.’
He looks up interrogatively at the guard. But DS Leyton interjects.
‘And Ms Adamska, Guv.’
‘What?’
Skelgill looks accusingly at the document. Then he is reminded – she was not a scheduled passenger.
‘I was coming to her, Leyton.’ He addresses the guard. ‘You must be able to remember roughly when they turned in, sir?’
Ruairidh McLeod shifts charily in his seat.
‘Maybe half an hour after youse, I went tae the guard’s van. When I came back they’d all gone.’
‘Well, what time was that, sir?’
‘Two-fifteen, two-twenty.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Cleared away the empties. Tidied the galley and the washrooms. Went back tae my van. Stayed there until we came tae a halt.’
Skelgill inhales pensively.
‘So, you didn’t see anyone after 1.30am?’
‘Aye.’ But the man’s brow creases – it seems there is some recall. ‘Wait. Ah saw someone – when Ah went back tae clear up. Ah glimpsed a woman at the end of the sleeping car – she must have went intae the toilet.’
‘Which woman?’
‘Ah dinnae ken.’
Skelgill tilts his head back, a little disbelievingly.
‘Ms Adamska – she’s tall – blonde. Ms Karenina, medium height, black hair. Ms Hackett, smallish, fair hair. They’re all very distinctive.’
‘And DS Jones, Guv.’
Skelgill glares at his sergeant. But he transfers his disapproval to the guard – personal observation is not proving to be his strongpoint.
‘You’re sure it was a woman?’
Skelgill’s tone might almost be sarcastic, but the man has an immediate retort.
‘Aye – she had on a red dressing gown.’
It seems the issue of gender is settled by the colour of the garment, categorically so, going by the man’s intonation. Skelgill, who has subconsciously eliminated DS Jones, cannot imagine his colleague to be the person concerned – a red dressing gown? But she may have visited the washroom – indeed, during the wee small hours there were surely multiple comings and goings to this effect; and he had been disturbed himself. Moreover, there is something about the guard’s account that disquiets him. He feels strongly disinclined to take Ruairidh McLeod into their confidence (a bridge he has yet to cross with the driver) and has formed a low opinion of his reliability as a witness. But there are more questions he should ask.
‘Had any of the passengers locked their compartments – that required you to open them so they could turn in?’
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 twigs 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 a
gain 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.
Murder at Shake Holes Page 12