Bruce Beckham
__________
Murder On The Run
A detective novel
LUCiUS
Text copyright 2019 Bruce Beckham
All rights reserved. Bruce Beckham asserts his right always to be identified as the author of this work. No part may be copied or transmitted without written permission from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events and locales is entirely coincidental.
Kindle edition first published by Lucius 2019
Paperback edition first published by Lucius 2019
For more details and Rights enquiries contact:
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Cover picture
© Bruce Beckham 2019
Dedication
Cymru am byth
Brian James – 1933-2018
EDITOR’S NOTE
Murder On The Run is a stand-alone crime mystery, the twelfth in the series ‘Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates’. It is set primarily in and around the English Lake District – a National Park of 885 square miles that lies in the rugged northern county of Cumbria – and the former industrial port of Workington.
Special acknowledgement to Quarto Group, publisher under the Frances Lincoln imprint of Alfred Wainwright’s indispensible series of Pictorial Guides To The Lakeland Fells.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Murder in Adland
Murder in School
Murder on the Edge
Murder on the Lake
Murder by Magic
Murder in the Mind
Murder at the Wake
Murder in the Woods
Murder at the Flood
Murder at Dead Crags
Murder Mystery Weekend
Murder on the Run
(Above: Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates)
Murder, Mystery Collection
The Dune
The Sexopaths
Table of Contents
Glossary
1. Haystacks
2. The Inn
3. Marty’s Motor Mart
4. Hempstead Avenue
5. Police HQ
6. Running With Jess
7. Two Wheels Good
8. Four Wheels Bad
9. Joyride
10. Leather Man
11. Running Mate
12. Killing Time
13. Elevenses
14. Shepherd’s Rake
15. Police HQ
16. Deceptive Appearances
17. Eve Of Battle
18. Rannerdale Alliance
19. The Run
20. Rewind
Next In The Series
Glossary
Some of the mainly Cumbrian, British dialect words, slang and local usage appearing in ‘Murder on the Run’ are as follows:
Agin – against
Ah – I
Arl – old
Bairn – child
Bait – packed lunch
Beck – mountain stream
Bewer – girlfriend
Bin – been
Bowk – vomit
Butcher’s – look (‘butcher’s hook’)
Caw canny – go carefully
Chippy – fish and chip shop
Deek – look/look at
Dibble – policeman
Divvent – don’t
Dog and bone – phone
Donnat – idiot
Foily – smelly
Gaff – property/home
Gaggin’ – thirsty
Gannings-on – mischievous behaviour
Garn – going
Geezer – man
Ginnel – alley
Griff – information
Happen – possibly, maybe, it seems
Hause – mountain pass
Half-inch – steal (‘pinch’)
Hogg – a lamb that has finished weaning
Hossing/Hoying – raining very heavily
Int’ – in the
Jip – discomfort
Kack – excrement
Kaylied – drunk
Ken – know; you know
Kezzick – Keswick
Kwacker – Kawasaki
Lass – girl, young woman
Marra – mate (friend)
Manc – a Mancunian (ie. from Manchester)
Mash – tea, making a pot of tea
Mesen – myself
Mither – bother
Nobbut – only
Nowt – nothing
Offcomer – outsider
Oor – our
Ower – over
Owt – anything
Pereth – Penrith
Reet – right
Scrats – scratches
Scrumping – children raiding fruit
Shreddies – underpants
Skid-lid – crash helmet
Sommat – something
Stotting – raining heavily
T’ – the
Tapped – mad, crazy
Tea leaf – thief
Tek – take
Thee/thew/thou – you
Tod – own/alone (‘Tod Sloan’)
Twa – two
Twatted – hit, struck
Tyke – Yorkshireman/dialect
Tup – ram (male sheep)
Us – me
Watter – water
While – until
Wukiton – Workington
Yan – one
Yon – that, those
Yourn – yours
Yowe – ewe
1. HAYSTACKS
Friday, morning
In the Cumbrian fells, the calendar is no guarantee of good weather. It might be mid June but Skelgill could be dressed for December. That said, observed a few minutes earlier – which he was, by a group of bemused walkers whom he overtook – he presented an equally incongruous sight – in walking boots, yes, but also suit trousers and a white formal shirt, unconventional hiking apparel, even for a man habitually prone to wardrobe malfunctions. Was he speeding up the fell for some kind of extreme ironing charity challenge? (Certainly the shirt could do with pressing; but there was no ironing board). And now these curiously formal garments are covered by his waterproofs – not because it is raining, but that a south-westerly rips up from Ennerdale, turning sweat into the beginnings of hypothermia.
The particular fell is Haystacks. Skelgill knows its topography intimately. At a semi-sheltered grassy spot beside the small summit tarn he has kicked, punched and cursed his way into the said leggings and cagoule. Now a traverse of the short ridge leads him to the precipitous outcrop known as Big Stack; to the climber that pauses to draw the comparison, it is like the head of a sphinx. A somewhat hair-raising scramble finds him upon a ledge in the lee proper, facing north-east, a lofty eyrie sixteen hundred feet above Warnscale Bottom.
He pulls out from his rucksack a flask, a tin mug, and a small parcel wrapped in creased brown paper and secured with fibrous jute twine of the sort used by gardeners. He finds niches in the rock for the mug and the parcel, and unscrews the flask. The tea is piping hot, just as he likes it, and wraiths of steam rise as he pours. That some token spirit seems to be present feels fitting, for Skelgill – and the tea – have come fresh from a wake; the tea from a great stainless steel urn that bubbled at one end of the modest buffet. The wake, going strong in the old inn at Buttermere village, has followed the funeral of a late great uncle, Ernie Graham, 94, at the tiny church of St James where, upon his pew beside ‘Wainwright’s Window’, Skelgill had been inspired to formulate his plan of escape.
The
Grahams are the maternal branch of his family tree, a somewhat disreputable and insidious tribe with roots that infiltrate much of Lakeland’s soil. While the Skelgills are a rarer subspecies, Graham cousins sprout like rogue shoots seemingly wherever he may go. Graham fecundity and its concomitant grapevine generally has its uses in his line; but on occasions such as today’s hindrances prevail. His standing in Cumbria CID is widely known and – on the whole – admired. He is probably the nearest to a representative of the professional classes that the clan has achieved. But, rather like a doctor or lawyer, at family gatherings he finds himself regaled with multifarious woes: impossible questions, spurious tip-offs and mischievous complaints. And those that do not engage thus he suspects of having something to hide – perhaps even trying in a roundabout fashion to glean what he knows of the skeletons in their closets. Within the hallowed walls and austere graveyard of St James’ he had the protection of protocol. But once the funeral party had decamped to the ‘private function’ in the lounge bar of the inn, and tongues were progressively loosened by ale and gin – it became open season.
Skelgill had dutifully suffered a certain amount of haranguing, and resigned disapproval when he declined drinks (his excuse being that he was due later on shift), and had diplomatically pretended to remember blurred faces in the photographs pressed upon him – it seemed a competitive trio of uncles had transferred their albums to their mobile phones; consequently small cackling gaggles formed about the crowded room, leathery necks were craned for a sight of sleeker former selves. Stepping back from one such distracted cluster (“Tek a deek at oor Nellie that time in Benidorm – she’s reet kaylied!”), Skelgill had seen the opportunity to commiserate with his great aunt Renie – oddly forsaken in a winged armchair beside the hearth – and in a way now forever alone, after a lifetime in his eyes as an indivisible unit, “Ernie-and-Renie”, living four doors along from his Ma’s.
From her perspective, “Oor Minnie’s Daniel” had long been a special favourite, though she was no blood relation. Perhaps it was that she and Ernie were childless. It had always been her custom to furnish him with some small indulgence – most commonly Welsh cakes (for she was Verena Nash by birth, of Barry Island in the county of Glamorgan) – and she had duly implored him to lift up from beside her seat her carpet bag that served as a handbag. Thus it was that Skelgill came into possession of the small paper-wrapped packet, tied up with string.
He is thinking that a melt-in-the-mouth Welsh cake or six will go down a treat with the hot tea – after all, he has just yomped it from Buttermere to Haystacks and that must be a thousand calories – but fingering the package he concludes it lacks the qualities of home baking, not least the smell – which, pressed to his nose, is musty, if not unpleasant. On reflection, his aunt Renie had passed the parcel with a certain amount of guile, and a sideways look that was decidedly conspiratorial. Long ago her spouse had been the village butcher down at Lorton – and in such a clandestine manner she must have palmed lamb chops to family members, until meat rationing ended in the 1950s. Skelgill scowls shrewishly, revealing his front teeth and inner doubt. No – the contents are not comestibles – too dense, too firm. It occurs to him, what if it is a stash from under the mattress, property of the Bank of England? There are relatives in greater need than he; though his defences admit a sudden guilty flash of the display of carbon fibre fishing rods at the tackle shop over at Penrith. But as he loosens the twine he discerns that there are two items, rectangles of slightly different dimensions, publications of some sort.
There is a ‘Wainwright’, book seven, The Western Fells; and a Bartholomew map, Cumberland for Tourists & Cyclists. Ostensibly these are prosaic gifts – nevertheless the thought of home baking is driven from his mind. Torn – which to look at first – he stares helplessly for a few moments before folding the map back into the brown paper and – far less casually now – returning it to the niche in the rock. His rough hands dexterous – if trembling slightly – he leafs to the copyright page of the book – as he has hardly dared to suspect, it is a first edition! A modest oath is uttered. But there is more – he feels his heart take a little leap in his chest. For penned in neat cursive longhand is the dedication, “To Ernie and Renie – with thanks for your kindness – I passed on to my wife your excellent recipe for Welsh cakes – though as yet yours have not been bettered!” And the familiar monogram, “AWainwright”.
It takes Skelgill a good minute to gather his thoughts – the idea that the legendary Lakes biographer endorsed the very copy in his hands has his head spinning in a way that the vertiginous third-of-a-mile drop beneath his feet might disorient a novice hillwalker. But, gradually, the detective in him asserts itself. Wainwright was known to pick the brains of country folk on his surveying expeditions, meticulous in logging details of routes and local names of topographical features. He must have stopped off at their cottage. Maybe when the furore of the day has died down Skelgill can quiz his great aunt. After all, she appeared to appreciate the magnitude of old Ernie’s bequest – indeed she may even have taken it upon herself to see that the items found their way to him.
He reverts to the book. Of course, he knows its contents almost as well as the mountain upon which he perches. He has a copy – the complete set, naturally – but none so prized as this. Each volume is a little fact-packed bible, liberally sprinkled with sardonic wit and endearing pathos. There is a unique chiselled conflation of imagery and text that for him breathes life into the words. And such level-headed logic: the hills are listed in alphabetical order! Accordingly he thumbs to Haystacks – and begins to reprise the little debate that Wainwright had with himself about its spelling, “Haystacks” or “Hay Stacks” – and that he opted for the former, despite his admission that the Old Norse translation is surely “High Rocks” (definitely two words).
Now Skelgill’s eye falls upon a more poignant passage. It is a beautifully descriptive eulogy of the fell – of its charms, of its mysteries, of its dangers – and there is the epitaph, “There are fierce crags and rough screes and outcrops that will be grittier still when the author’s ashes are scattered here.”
Skelgill’s eyes close for a moment – perhaps of reverence – and he folds shut the little tome and slips it blind into the pocket over his heart. When he opens his eyes his gaze seems automatically to have found the tiny church of St James, two-and-a-half miles across the valley, the living map that spreads before him. Ah, yes – the map. He retrieves it from the crevice and considers its cover. “Price Three Shillings Net.” Like an Edwardian postage stamp, in faded Prussian blue and orange, undoubtedly it pre-dates the book. He unfolds it. At once fragile and robust, mounted upon cloth it is a masterpiece in browns and greens, and powder blue for its ribbon meres. It might be designated, ‘Cumberland’ – but he can see that it covers most of Westmorland, too. Small, practically so – under two feet by three fully opened – if a picture is worth ten thousand words this must be worth ten million – it tells a tale that is infinitely more intricate and far-reaching than any painting – of geological time interwoven with humankind’s tireless toil – of lakes formed, of stone hewn – of lives lived, of lives lost. He ponders this sentiment – and locates the date code (for he has maps like this, though none quite so ancient) – it states “A20” – meaning it was printed in the first half of 1920 – a year when every square mile on this map would still be mourning a son.
The youngest of four brothers, uneasy with such thoughts, he forces himself to concentrate upon the landscape. His eyes flick to and fro, from the past to the present, map to reality. Though little has changed here in a hundred years. How many parts of the British Isles can make such a boast? He squints to read the necessarily tiny type – not helped by the overcast sky; it is at the limit of his creeping long-sightedness – though he is loath to acknowledge it. He homes in on Buttermere, and with a finger traces the fells that flank the lake and shadow its eponymous settlement. He takes a familiar route – up Sour Milk Gill (yes, it’s th
ere all right), past Bleaberry Tarn to Red Pike, then the rollercoaster, High Stile, High Crag, Scarth Gap ... what? He affects a double take, jerking back his head. Scarth Gap ... Grey Knotts. Now he blinks hard several times, but to little avail. He grunts as he reaches to unclip the compass from his rucksack. It has a built-in magnifier – he holds it over the map and bends closer. Sure enough – Scarth Gap ... Grey Knotts. Between them two tiny tarns are etched in blue – he even recognises their shapes – the oxymoronic Innominate Tarn and Blackbeck Tarn. He sits up and rather belligerently juts out his jaw. There is no doubt about it. There is no Haystacks! Only a rocky escarpment is marked, like barbed wire along the contour line – but no summit symbol, and certainly no name.
Puzzled, he folds away the map, and wraps it together with the Wainwright, loosely reties the parcel and then double-wraps it in a polythene carrier bag rescued from his rucksack. Spits of rain are in the air and he is taking no chances with such a precious cargo. He places it inside the main compartment of his bag – and in doing so brings out his field glasses. Though he scans the dale, his gaze is drawn inexorably to the hamlet, Buttermere. While it is midsummer, smoke drifts from several chimneys – the inn, of course, where a fire has been lit out of a kind of respect – but also his mother’s cottage, and at the other end of the row Ernie and Renie’s. No – Renie’s. It’s just Renie’s now, remember – who will eat her Welsh cakes? Then the thought strikes him that – if Wainwright visited, which he surely did – what if he were supplied not only with sustenance but also with information? What if Ernie, in his thick Cumbrian brogue, pointed out “High stacks”? It would have sounded like “Haystacks” – and sure enough it looks like a row of haystacks. But if Ernie had meant haystacks, he would have used the vernacular ‘haycocks’. Was that the moment the fell was unofficially and confusedly Christened – in due course to become one of the most famous summits in England? And now it has fallen to the unlikely figure of Skelgill to play antiquary!
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