Murder in Adland (19 page)

‘Marie
– I think this belongs to you.’

She has a
twinkle in her eye.

‘Oops-a-daisy
– how on earth did I mislay that, now?’

The two
detectives retrieve their overnight bags from reception and – not being
the esteemed guardians of heavyweight TV budgets – make an unchaperoned exit
through the monogrammed swing doors of
WNKR
.  Skelgill gasps
– although it is hard to tell whether this is a reaction to the stifling
reality of the London heat, or relief at their escape from the quixotic world
of the advertising agency.  The midsummer sun has burned off the blanket
of cloud that greeted their arrival in the capital, and now just a hint of
smoggy haze blurs its bright outline.  Almost immediately he slips off his
jacket and pulls at his shirt at the small of his back.  DS Jones appears
to have made a unilateral decision, and has walked to the edge of the pavement
and is in the process of hailing a cab.

‘Good
thinking, Jones – this is evil.’

As a taxi
lurches dangerously close and stops within an inch of the kerb, Skelgill makes
to wrench open the nearside front door.

‘No, Guv
– we get in here.’  DS Jones turns her head away to hide her grin.

‘I was just
going to give him directions.’

Skelgill sounds
unconvincing as he clambers awkwardly into the back seat.  DS Jones smiles
reassuringly to the anxious-looking cabbie, lest he think this is some bungled
hijack.

‘Drury
Lane, please – Holburn end.’

The cabbie
nods and warily slides shut the interconnecting window.

Skelgill
wipes a bead of perspiration from his brow and looks about the dark interior.

‘Do these
things have AC?’

‘Not even
DC, Guv.’

Skelgill
shrugs and settles back in the seat.

‘It doesn’t
ever get this hot up north, Jones.’

DS Jones
nods wistfully.

‘We used to
sunbathe on the roof of our flat.  It was really quite private.’

Skelgill
now looks out of the window, craning to see upwards, as though he is picturing
a rooftop community, laying themselves bare for lucky helicopter pilots. 
If so, then perhaps this image brings him back to their conversation with Marie
O’Moore.

‘Krista
Morocco has no kids.  Miriam Tregilgis has no kids.’

DS Jones
nods.

‘It could
have been anybody, Guv – it could have been one of his pals telling him
he and his wife were expecting.’

Skelgill
sighs.

‘Or it
could be a skeleton in the closet.’

They both
become silent at this, for it is a figure of speech that has an uncomfortable corollary.

‘Guv
– we do know that Ivan Tregilgis was engaged to Miriam by then –
and by her own admission Krista Morocco had something going with him at roughly
the same time.’

Skelgill
frowns.

‘But no
bairn to show for it.’

DS Jones
compresses her lips.  If she has something to add, for the time being she
holds her peace.  Skelgill moves on to Gary Railston-Fukes.

‘What did
you reckon to the wide boy?’

‘Another
one that never reached maturity, Guv.’

Skelgill
makes a sharp intake of breath.

‘That’s
just blokes in general, isn’t it?’

‘I wouldn’t
say that, Guv.’

‘No?’

‘No, Guv.’

Skelgill
raises his eyebrows – if this is intended as a small compliment, he banks
it and moves on.

‘He’s a
prat – but he’s a straight talker.’

‘He seemed
to confirm what we know about Ivan Tregilgis and his romantic liaisons.’

‘Aye
– it was interesting what he said – about jealousy – not easy
for us to judge that, from the outside.’

‘It’s a big
step to kill someone, Guv.’

‘Maybe it’s
one small step.’

Skelgill
does not elaborate on this vaguely cryptic remark, and stares to his right as
they pass Cavendish Square Gardens, where hordes sit cheek by jowl upon the
lawns, as if this tiny green oasis is a refuelling stop for oxygen.

‘I could
murder a cuppa.’

DS Jones
nods.

‘Actually,
Guv – I was going to make a suggestion?’

‘Aye?’

‘Well
– we could go for tea around Covent Garden – and the sales are on
– you could get a real bargain on a trendy short-sleeved shirt –
it’s what you need for this weather.’

*

Skelgill,
leaning once more over the parapet of Waterloo Bridge, is perhaps reflecting
that he should have listened more carefully to his colleague.  When she
slipped the word ‘trendy’ into her proposal, he might have guessed that it bore
greater import than he realised at the time.  Now he watches as the
lightening eastern sky, threatening dawn, reflects off the sebaceous Thames and
illuminates the pallid limestone dome of St Paul’s.  A steady, cool breeze
drifts up river, bringing with it the scent of the marshes.  At his side,
DS Jones shivers, and he – short-sleeved – does too.

‘We ought
to get some sleep.’

DS Jones
nods, and they turn, and link arms.  In similar fashion they have
promenaded for an hour or more, distancing themselves from drunkenness and its
devil-may-care deeds, discovering the dark corners of London’s deserted
streets.  From High Holborn to Kingsway and down to Aldwych, past
never-sleeping traffic lights and slumbering beggars in their doorways of
choice, they have gravitated to Waterloo Bridge, and all the time Skelgill
fighting the realisation that he is even lonelier than on his last visit.

*

Half a day
earlier they had checked into their familiar, seedy hotel, and set out in
search of a cuppa.  DS Jones had encouraged Skelgill to try a handy local
café, in Endell Street.  An elderly hippy couple ran it along Bohemian
lines: dimly lit and draped with eastern-style wall hangings.  It had
taken Skelgill some time to convince the waitress that he really did want just
plain English Breakfast – and yes, milk
and
sugar.  She had
less of a problem, however, with his request for “One of those large currant
buns, please love.”

Suitably
revived they had stumbled blinking into the bright afternoon sun, to wander the
fan of narrow streets that radiate from Seven Dials.  Skelgill had
marvelled at London’s ability to support shops that sold only cheese, or
brushes, or beads – and had been positively ecstatic when they stumbled
upon a ship’s chandler.  Eventually they moved on to peruse the designer-label
chain stores that have colonised Long Acre.  Here DS Jones had bagged
several modest bargains, although it appeared to Skelgill that the prices she
paid were hardly of the basement variety, deeply slashed though they claimed to
be.  Inside one Italian-sounding emporium Skelgill had called her
attention to a suit he’d casually examined.

‘Jones,
look – back home I could get a decent motor with twelve months’ tax and
MOT for less than this.’

‘It’s
gorgeous though, isn’t it?’ had been her response.  ‘Pure silk, I bet.’

Skelgill
had shaken his head incredulously.

‘If anyone
sold me this, I’d arrest them for daylight robbery.’

DS Jones
had grinned, and then led him by the cuff to view a shirt she had found, marked
down by 80% – to reach a just-about-palatable price in Skelgill’s
book.  In the event, he had bought two – claiming grounds of
convenience – but perhaps surreptitiously taking advantage of DS Jones’s
superior dress sense and knowledge of what was in vogue.  Like most
shoppers, he had of course suffered from that uncomfortable feeling of
post-purchase dissonance – the anticipation of which puts many people off
buying in the first place.  In Skelgill’s case it was probably when he
began to imagine scenarios in which he turned up in his new attire, in his
local pub.

‘Thee paid
‘ow much?’

‘They saw
thee comin, lad.’

‘Yer
turnin’ into a soft southern ponce, Skelgill.’

In the same
store DS Jones had bought herself a belt.  As they stood together at the
till Skelgill, feeling mildly euphoric, had clumsily tried to pay on her behalf
– in return for her good advice on the shirt front.  It was an offer
that she had graciously declined – with the somewhat less-than-convincing
excuse that it was a gift for a girlfriend – but not without a little
embarrassment for both parties.  Afterwards, they had padded reflectively
through the quiet cobbled lanes behind Long Acre, each wrapped in their own
thoughts.

They had
been rescued from their reverie by their accidental coming upon the
Lamb and
Flag
, one of London’s most ancient and noble hostelries.  An oasis of
beery aromas and convivial laughter, it already played host to a sizeable
post-work crowd enjoying alfresco the warm air and tepid ale.  Empty
pint-glasses were stacked high on windowsills and against railings, and
animated groups of shirt-sleeved executives neighed and brayed, blithely
sloshing bitter and smudging cigarette ash upon one another’s clothes. 
Skelgill had been first to suggest a pit stop.

‘The
Milky
Bars
are on me.’

*

The next
thing Skelgill could properly remember had been an insistent voice calling, ‘Guv
– Guv – are you alright – Guv?’

He had
related this a little later to DS Jones – for it had been a dream.  He
had been out on the fells.  By order of the Chief his recent
solo-completion of the Bob Graham Round had been disqualified (an act entirely
outwith her jurisdiction, but nevertheless in dream-logic something Skelgill
had unquestioningly accepted).  So Skelgill had to do it again, all forty-two
peaks and seventy-two miles.  But unlike his real-life experience, this
time there was an added problem.  The landscape kept changing.  On a
clear day you could take a hooded Skelgill virtually anywhere in the Lakes, remove
the blindfold, and he’d not only be able to tell you exactly where he was, but
also name the surrounding hilltops and list their spot-heights.  In his
dream, however, he would toil his way to a summit, only to find an
unrecognisable panorama lying before him.  It
looked
like the
Lakes, but it wasn’t quite right.  Worse still, he relegated his doubts to
the back of his mind and went on with his run.  They’ve changed things
around, he said to himself, as though he had read in the papers about the
reorganised topography that now had him crossing directly (and bizarrely
– he knew) from Helvellyn to Hopegill Head.  The ‘New Lakes’, it was
to be called.  Atop Scafell Pike he paused at the enlarged cairn to take a
drink, but his water bottle contained strong beer.  He realised he was
looking
up
at Great Gable’s screes, and that the Ordnance Survey had
made a mistake about Scafell Pike being the highest mountain in England. 
He needed badly to urinate.  There was nobody about so he just did it
there and then in the open.  Suddenly something cold touched him, at the
back of one knee.  He turned – it was the wet nose of a vaguely
familiar chocolate Labrador, attracted no doubt by the tasty salt crystals on
his skin.  Just then, from behind the cairn appeared the shapely Midlands
woman he had met briefly on Haystacks.  She was straightening her white
t-shirt as though it had been pulled up.  He could see her hard nipples
protruding beneath the tightly stretched cotton (he omitted this part in his
explanation to DS Jones).  He felt self-conscious in his skimpy running
shorts and sleeveless vest.  In fact, he suspected he had no shorts on at
all, but dare not look directly.  He stooped as if to stroke the dog, in
an effort to cover up his modesty.  Then, as the dog persisted in trying
to lick him, in a voice of increasing urgency the woman began to repeat the
word: ‘Guv – Guv!’  He realised it must be the dog’s name.  Now
the woman’s accent was no longer Midlands – in fact her voice reminded
him of DS Jones.  Then he woke up.

In the
disoriented daze that follows an ill-timed catnap, things had then started to
come back to him.  After three pints of best bitter (and three bottled
concoctions in DS Jones’s case), they had retired to the hotel at about seven-thirty
to shower and change, aiming to meet at nine to go for something to eat. 
Skelgill, having showered, had made the fatal mistake of lying (naked) on the
bed and closing his eyes.  In the heat of the room and under the equally
soporific influence of the best bitter, he had fallen asleep.  Thus it was
DS Jones (herself half an hour late) – and not the buxom dog-owner
– who was summoning him back from the Land of Nod.

Their first
port of call had been a bustling pizza restaurant on Bow Street, where they
passed an undemanding hour or so.  During the course of two carafes of
house wine, they had discussed the case – though they both recognised the
futility of talking themselves into ever-decreasing circles. 
Conversation, therefore, tended to jump about, matters domestic, the police
force, Skelgill’s fishing – DS Jones’s London connections.  Skelgill
noted that on the couple of occasions he had tried subtly to draw her out on
the subject of her boyfriend, she quickly engaged reverse gear, and diverted to
some other vaguely related matter.