Murder by Magic (6 page)

‘Can
you remember where he went off?’

‘I
think so, Guv.’

‘As
Leyton would say, let’s have a butcher’s hook.’

DS
Jones guides Skelgill to a sharp left-hand bend in the trail.  There are
skid marks in the aggregate where the Land Rover evidently drew to an abrupt
halt – no doubt upon spotting the estate barring the exit – before
escaping diagonally across the open fellside.  They climb out and approach
the verge.  Parallel wheel-tracks bruise the vegetation, and they follow
these until a patch of bare earth seems to provide the confirmation they are
looking for: the same off-road tread pattern – indeed clearer now –
as that beside the wall from where the sheep’s carcase has disappeared. 
DS Jones takes another photograph, and then falls in beside Skelgill as they
make their way back to his car.

‘Guv
– it’s odd enough behaviour – killing and mutilating sheep –
but why try to cover it up a day or two later?  You’d imagine the crank
that’s doing it would want the shock effect of his handiwork being found.’

Skelgill
nods pensively.  He is silent for a few moments, apparently preoccupied
with picking a path through last year’s crackling bracken.

‘Arthur
Hope’s rung around half a dozen farms – he reckons there are more strays
than usual being reported this spring – maybe they’re not strays.’

‘You
mean there could be more of these mutilations – that the shepherds don’t
know about?’

‘Why
stop at three?’

‘You’d
think walkers would have come across them, though, Guv?’

Skelgill
shrugs.

‘Walkers
stick to the paths – besides, most folk tend not to look too closely when
they smell a dead sheep and hear the buzz of the flies.’

DS
Jones nods.

‘What do
you make of the driver of the Defender, Guv?’

‘I
know that innocent birdwatchers don’t normally take off like that.’

‘Do
you think it was someone that recognised us, Guv?’

Skelgill
scowls dismissively.

‘Jones
– we’re not exactly
Mulder and Skully.
’  (She chuckles at his
suggestion.)  ‘Like as not he thought we were the landowners.’

The
reach Skelgill’s car – as he pulls open the driver’s door his mobile
phone, still in its hands-free cradle, begins to ring.  He answers it on
speaker.

‘Leyton.’

‘Struth,
Guv – got you – at long last.’

DS
Leyton’s phrases are punctuated by wheezy gasps.

‘Steady
on, Leyton – are you climbing?’

‘It
ain’t that, Guv – what it is –’

‘Leyton
– what’s the news of the girl?’

Skelgill’s
interjection seems to disorientate his sergeant.

‘What? 
Er – well – she wasn’t working when I got to the pub, Guv –
so eventually I managed to get the landlord talking, about him managing on his
Tod Sloan – and he said his barmaid had dropped him in it – just taken
off and gone back to Poland – a family bereavement, but –’

‘And
did you believe him?’

DS
Leyton finally circumvents the questions by leaping directly to his point.

‘Guv
– you’d better get over here – they’ve just fished a body out of
the lake.’

‘This
is a
tarn
, Leyton.’

DS
Leyton stands alongside his taller superior officer, some twenty yards from the
shoreline, as they watch a little knot of emergency services personnel go about
their rather grisly business.

‘I’ve
never got my head round it, Guv – water, mere, tarn, lake – they all
look the same to me.’

‘There’s
only one lake in the Lake District, Leyton.’  Skelgill turns inquiringly
to his colleague.  ‘You know that?’

‘I
think you did mention it, Guv.’

Nevertheless,
Skelgill looks like he is winding up for his pet lecture (that Bassenthwaite
Lake – or
Bass Lake
to him – is the only such natural
feature to contain the actual word
lake
in its name, and that to say,
for example, “Lake Windermere” is the tautological equivalent of “Lake
Winderlake”).  But DS Jones detaches herself from the group dealing with
the gruesome job of recovery and hurries towards them.  Her alarmed
expression is sufficient to postpone Skelgill’s homily.

‘Guv
– the constable’s originally from Great Langdale – he says he knows
who it is.’

‘Aye?’

‘William
Thymer – we read about him in the pub – he’s the old man from the
woods they called
Ticker
.’

DS
Leyton looks inquiringly at Skelgill.

‘You’ve
heard of him, Guv?’

Skelgill
shakes his head – although this action appears to be one of ruefulness
rather than denial.  He takes a step forward and silently surveys the
scene.  They stand at a point halfway between the shore and the nearest
approach of the lane that leads on towards Wrynose and Hard Knott.  In
this respect, Little Langdale Tarn is relatively unusual, in that most tarns
are found far from the highway, small pools suspended high in the fells,
nestling in mountain combs.  Moreover, it is perhaps large enough even to
merit an upgrade in its nomenclature, being half the size of nearby Elter
Water.  That said, and despite its proximity to Little Langdale itself,
the tarn lies in a conservation area and there is no public access.  It is
neither boated nor fished, neither swum nor paddled.  A drowning in Little
Langdale Tarn is therefore an extremely rare event indeed.

‘Aye,
Leyton, I have.’

DS
Jones, still facing her colleagues, raises her right hand.

‘This
was wrapped round his wrist – clenched in his palm.’

Skelgill
and DS Leyton lean closer.  It appears to be an item of rudimentary
jewellery, an ensemble of a leather thong about eighteen inches long, its loose
ends untied or broken, and an opaque pale orange pebble, threaded through a
drilled hole.  DS Leyton reaches for it and weighs it in his own broad
palm.

‘It’s
light – what is it, plastic junk?’

Skelgill
takes hold of the strap between forefinger and thumb and raises the necklace
into the air, holding it against the bright sky.  It seems to glow as it captures
the rays of the sun.

‘If
it’s light it could be amber – that’s a natural plastic – makes for
a good bass lure – floats in seawater.’  He swings it like a
pendulum.  ‘Pricey, though.’

DS
Jones produces a small plastic evidence bag from her back pocket, and holds
open the mouth while Skelgill drops the trinket into place.

‘Anything
suspicious?’

‘There’s
a doctor on the way from Coniston, Guv – but the paramedics say there’s
nothing on the face of it – they think the body was in the water a good
twelve hours.’

‘Who
found it?’

‘A
park ranger, Guv – he’d stopped to watch a pair of grebes displaying on
the tarn when he spotted it floating face down.  It was the paramedics
that waded out and pulled it to the shore.’

‘Any
theories on what he was up to?’

DS
Jones shakes her head.

‘There’s
nothing to indicate anything other than he got into trouble – perhaps in
the dark – if he’d been drinking, Guv?’

Skelgill
nods.

‘See
what the tests tell us.’

DS
Leyton waves an inexpert arm.

‘Could
he have been fishing, Guv?’

‘There’s
no fishing allowed here.’  Skelgill’s expression is slightly wistful, and perhaps
also rebellious, as if such a prohibition would not particularly have deterred
him under similar circumstances.  ‘Water this size, not artificially
stocked – it’s not going to be your first choice if it’s your tea you’re
after.’

DS
Jones glances back towards the tarn; the paramedics are now preparing to move
the body by means of a stretcher.  Skelgill seems to reach a decision
about their next course of action.  He clears his throat.

‘Jones
– you go with Leyton – but call in at the pub first – ask for
contact details for the Polish girl – they must have something. 
Leyton, you follow that up along with anything new on Pavlenko from the
Ukrainian authorities.  Jones – see what you can get on Land Rovers
registered in the area – there can’t be so many that fit the description
– what we witnessed required local knowledge.  Give Arthur Hope a
call – explain I’m tied up over here – get a list of other farmers who
might have had problems – see what you can piece together.’

DS
Leyton shifts rather uneasily from one leg to the other and glances
apprehensively at his feet.  While his discomfort might stem from the
prolonged wearing of Skelgill’s oversized boots, his question suggests another
concern.

‘Think
we’ve got enough to keep the wolf from the door, Guv?’

Skelgill
grimaces.  He understands that DS Leyton refers to DI Smart and his hunger
for personnel – his team in particular.  Now, with one of his
sergeants investigating stray foreign nationals, and the other a spate of
attacks upon sheep, Skelgill’s position is hardly impregnable in the face of
the Chief’s likely assessment of priorities and risks.  However, he
appears unwilling to see it that way.

‘Leyton
– sheep farming’s the backbone of the National Park – without these
folks the Lakes would be an overgrown wilderness – it’s our duty to take seriously
any threat to their livelihood.’  He scans the horizon to the south, dominated
by the imposing bulk of Wetherlam, Swirl How and Great Carrs, outliers of the
Old Man of Coniston.  ‘As for Pavlenko – when someone’s gone
missing, potentially at one of the most dangerous sites in the district –
we need to clear that up for the sake of public confidence.  What’s a
couple of cash machines ripped out of their housings by comparison?’

He
glares at his colleagues, seeking their approval.  They are perhaps not
entirely convinced, but they nod obediently, accepting his logic as a metaphorical
girding of the loins that will equip them in the event of an unexpected thrust
from the enemy.  DS Leyton rather resignedly digs his hands into his
trouser pockets.

‘What
are you going to do, Guv?’

Skelgill
holds out a hand to DS Jones, and flicks his fingers, indicating that she should
pass him the bag containing the necklace.  She complies, and he feeds it
distractedly into a pocket of his jacket while the paramedics pass them bearing
the stretcher, a blanket discreetly covering its human cargo.

‘I’ll
just have a nose about here – while I’m in this neck of the woods, may as
well get all the griff on this drowning – might save a trek back over later
in the week.’

*

‘Sorry
I couldn’t help you with the Land Rover, sir.’

Skelgill
shrugs.  He stands at the water’s edge with the uniformed constable on
whose extended rural beat both of the day’s events have occurred.

‘Don’t
worry about it, lad – you can’t be in two places at once – despite
what my boss keeps telling me.’

‘I’ll
keep an ear to the ground, sir – it’s a nasty business with these sheep
being slaughtered.’

Skelgill
nods grimly.

‘Most
flocks are in-bye now – let’s hope that’s enough to deter whoever’s doing
it.’

The
fine weather has encouraged a hatch of insect life – indeed Skelgill is
staring at what appears to be a little cloud of St Mark’s flies – and the
eyes of both men flick about as small wild trout sporadically sip unlucky emergers
from just beneath the surface film of the tarn.

‘Do
you fish, sir?’

Skelgill
turns his head to regard his young colleague.  He is a short man, though
stocky, with cropped ginger hair, lively blue eyes and a naturally eager countenance
liberally scattered with freckles.

‘Aye
– never tried here though – looks too shallow for my kind of
fishing.’

The
constable nods.

‘You
could probably wade out thirty yards before it was above your waist, sir.’

Skelgill
turns back to survey the water, his eyes narrowed.

‘Not
easy to drown.’

The
constable shakes his head.

‘I was
thinking that, sir – unless you’d taken a lot of trouble to get out of
your depth – you’d have a job to drown by accident.’

Skelgill
nods pensively.

‘No
pile of beer cans by the shore?’

‘No,
sir – what I’ve heard of him, he was teetotal – you’d occasionally
see him skulking round Coniston, but he wasn’t the sort of tramp you’d find on
a bench with a bottle of strong cider for company.’

Skelgill
loosely casts a hand in a small arc before them.

‘DS
Jones tells me you’re from round here.’

‘Grew
up in Great Langdale, sir – we had the Post Office – but we moved
to Coniston when I was twelve.’

‘So
you knew of Ticker?’

‘That’s
right, sir.’  The constable blinks a little self-consciously.  ‘Me
and a pal – we used to go up into Blackbeck Wood – birds’ nesting
and the like – secretly we were always hoping to find what we called
Ticker’s
Nest
.’

‘And
did you?’

The
constable shakes his head, though the hint of a smile teases the corners of his
mouth as he revisits the memory.

‘I
reckon we might have got close once or twice – he chased us out of there
a few times – that was part of the fun – pretending he was a
cannibal, living off his wits and stray nippers like us.’

Skelgill
tips his head to one side in a gesture of approval; this is exactly the kind of
adventure that formed part of his own childhood.

‘I
heard folk would leave food for him – in hiding places?’

The
constable appears unsure about this possibility, though he frowns in a way that
suggests it strikes some chord.  He shakes his head uncertainly.

‘I
don’t know about that – I can ask around – but there is a spot I’ve
seen him more than once – when I’ve been driving through to Santon Bridge.’

‘Aye?’

‘Sir
– you know the stone they call
Meg’s Hat
– at the foot of
Blackbeck Wood?’

Skelgill
purses his lips – for once he appears stumped as regards his Lakeland heritage.

‘I’ve
heard of
Long Meg
– by the stone circle over at Little Salkeld
– named after the witch from Meldon.’

‘That’s
her, sir – well this one’s shaped like a pointed hat – it’s easy to
miss though – it’s over the wall from the road, just where a little beck passes
through a culvert – about halfway between the track to Blackbeck Castle
and the Little Langdale village sign.’  (Skelgill nods as though he can
picture the location.)  ‘The story goes that Long Meg was travelling over
to Boot and had stopped to drink – she’d knelt down and taken off her hat
– but she was almost ambushed by a gang of witchfinders and had to flee into
the forest.  They say she cast a spell and turned her hat to stone so they
couldn’t carry it away as evidence.’