Murder on the Edge (14 page)

Skelgill
clears his throat.

‘Were
you worried Leyton would make a joke of it?’

‘Something
like that, Guv.’

Her
reply implies it perhaps wasn’t only DS Leyton about whom she harboured a
concern.  After a moment’s consideration, Skelgill pontificates.

‘Truth
is – there’s nothing unusual about that, Jones.  Standard procedure
for the second week of wear.’

‘Guv!’

She
knows he’s ribbing her, and indeed now his features relax.

‘Then
turn ’em inside out – get a couple more weeks’ use, front and back.’

‘That’s
an awful thought.’

Skelgill
shrugs indifferently.

‘If
you were marooned on a desert island, why not?’

‘If
you were on a desert island, Guv, you’d be surrounded by water – you
could wash them.’

Skelgill
gives a couple of seconds’ consideration to this proposition.

‘Depends
who you were marooned with.’

DS Jones
shakes her head, smiling resignedly.

‘I
think you’re proving my point, Guv.’  She refers to her earlier reticence
in raising the matter whilst outnumbered by male company.

Skelgill
has a mischievous glint in his eye.

‘Don’t
be shy, Jones – come a few years and you’ll be lording it over the likes
of Leyton... and me.  You should have the Chief in your sights.’  He
drains the remainder of beer from his pint pot.  ‘Okay – so what’s
your real point?’

DS
Jones sips from her water and replaces the glass carefully upon the
table.  She rotates it and stares into the clear liquid as a
fortune-teller might interrogate her crystal ball.

‘What
if he were dressed
after
he was killed?’

Skelgill
places his elbows on the table and intertwines his long fisherman’s fingers
beneath his chin.  He blows softly at the candle, guttering the flame
without extinguishing it.

‘Continue.’

DS
Jones watches the candle recover its form, and then meets Skelgill’s gaze with a
hesitant glance.

‘Guv
– if it were a... sex game – gone wrong?’

Skelgill
stares at her for a few moments, holding his breath.  His eyes are steely
and his expression sceptical.  Then he sits back and exhales, forcing his
breath through closed lips.  The candle flickers in response.

‘We’re
looking for a male suspect, Jones.’

Gently
her eyebrows rise in a gesture that suggests, ‘It’s the twenty-first century.’ 
Skelgill is still frowning.

‘Jones
–
one
accidental fatality – I could buy that.  We’ve
had it before.  Curate’s wife comes home – finds the vicar wearing
her bra and knickers, strung up like a chicken on the back of the bedroom
door.  She can’t face the public humiliation – so she calls the
verger for help – they stage it like he got snagged by the rope in the
belfry.’

DS
Jones looks mildly intrigued by Skelgill’s imaginative narrative.

‘You
should write
whodunits
, Guv.’

But
now Skelgill is not willing to be drawn into banter.

‘T
wo
,
Jones – two identical, accidental deaths?’  He shakes his
head.  ‘Impossible.  And both bodies put on blatant public display.’

DS
Jones does not appear perturbed by Skelgill’s antipathy.  She presses her
palms together in an attitude of prayer.

‘But,
Guv – it would explain why the victims show no sign of a struggle. 
We know they weren’t chemically incapacitated.  It looks every inch like
they let it happen – at least, until it was too late.  And in a dark
room it would be easy to get the underwear the wrong way round.’

Skelgill
does not respond.  He watches her delicate hands as she rhythmically flexes
them, fingertips together, like a beating heart.

‘Guv,
I appreciate we have to explain why there were two murders – and why the
killer, or killers, put the bodies in the fells – but how else can we account
for the actual nature of the deaths?’

Skelgill
raises an index finger, as if he is about to respond with a counter point, but
then his phone, lying on the surface of the table, illuminates briefly to
indicate an incoming message.  He glances down and picks it up, but
instead of opening the text he drops the handset into the breast pocket of his
shirt.  He seems distracted and looks over his shoulder uneasily. 
Then he pushes back his chair and indicates with a jerk of the head that he intends
to pay a visit to the washroom.

‘Jones
– you read the reports more thoroughly than I did – well done for
that.’ (She nods once, obediently.)  ‘But remember they also say there
were no traces of sexual activity – neither Seddon nor Harris.’  He
rises, and as he turns away he quips, ‘If it’s any consolation, Leyton thinks
it's a lunatic farmer with a grudge against hillwalkers.’

DS
Jones watches Skelgill pick his way between occupied tables and duck beneath a
low oak beam into a narrow corridor marked for the toilets.  The hint of a
frown creases her normally smooth brow.  The absence of such forensic
evidence, of course, does not necessarily undermine her theory – a fact
that ought to be obvious to Skelgill, despite his devil’s advocacy.  When
he returns from the gents’ he remains standing, taciturn, and rests his hands
on the back of his chair.  DS Jones looks up expectantly.

‘The
waitress asked if we want a dessert, Guv – she recommended sticky toffee
pudding with rum butter and double Jersey ice cream.’

Skelgill
forces a smile.  It would not be like him to eschew this local delicacy,
but he appears already to have something else on his mind.

‘I
need to make tracks.’  He looks pointedly at his wristwatch – an
anachronism that must be for DS Jones’s benefit.  ‘I told the neighbour I
wouldn’t leave the dog too late.  And she’ll want to chat before I can
escape.’

DS
Jones’s gaze falls away, her long lashes signalling disappointment.

‘Sure,
Guv – it took us less than twenty minutes to get here.’

Skelgill
ignores what might be a plaintive invitation to linger.  Instead he pinches
out the candle’s flame, before making his way through to the bar.

*

Indeed
it is precisely twenty minutes later that DS Jones deposits her superior on the
grass verge outside his house, and slowly drives away.

And it
is only ten minutes after that when Skelgill’s long estate car slides out of
his drive, turns in the opposite direction, and roars off into the darkening
night.  His chosen route will pick up the A66 westbound, and pass possible
destinations such as Threlkeld, Braithwaite and Peel Wyke.

‘I got
you a Rosy Lea and a couple of bacon rolls, Guv – so we can get a shift
on.’

Skelgill
tosses his jacket onto the back seat of the pool car, slams the rear passenger
door, and slumps into position beside his sergeant.  Immediately, he
reaches for the brown paper bag on his side of the dashboard and critically inspects
its contents.  DS Leyton engages first gear and pulls away, ducking
towards the windscreen until he finds the wiper control.

‘Shame
about this rain, Guv – apparently it’s due to clear south of Manchester.’

‘There’s
a surprise.’

‘That’ll
be just over half way, I reckon, Guv – journey’s about two hundred
miles.’

‘Warwickshire.’

‘That’s
what I thought, Guv.’  DS Leyton has sensed Skelgill’s poor humour and is
being diplomatic.  ‘Turns out it’s Leicestershire.’  With his left
hand he indicates a couple of sheets of typed notes that are folded into the
central console between two takeaway tea cups.  ‘Have a butcher’s, Guv.’

Skelgill
yawns and settles back into his seat.  For once he doesn’t tuck directly
into the motorway services breakfast his sergeant has thoughtfully provided for
him.

‘Tell
me as we drive.  How long do you reckon?’

‘The satnav’s
showing three hours, Guv – nearly all on the M6.’

Skelgill,
dangling the bag between his knees, closes his eyes.  They have
rendezvoused at Tebay southbound, subsequent to a lead that developed yesterday
afternoon and was conveyed overnight to Cumbria.  Among the many responses
to the televised appeal for information concerning the deceased persons, one
seems especially promising.  An anonymous neighbour has identified a ‘Linda
Harris’ (resident of a Midlands town called Hinckley) as the estranged foster
mother of a ‘Lee Harris’ – the latter being of an age to match the
description of the reported victim of the same name.  Local police have investigated
and established that these facts do indeed stack up, and a preliminary
cross-check of dental records corroborates the identification.  DS Leyton
was alerted upon his early arrival this morning.  Skelgill proved harder
to track down, and it was about eight-thirty a.m. before he responded to his
sergeant’s umpteenth call.  In the background, there had been various
indeterminate noises, which could have been birdsong, human voices or perhaps a
radio programme.  The inspector himself had sounded tired, terse and
relatively disinterested.

‘I’ll take
over the driving at Knutsford services.’

Skelgill
is still resting his eyes.

‘Fine
by me, Guv.’

*

‘This
tea’s stone cold, Leyton.’

‘You’ve
been asleep, Guv.’

‘No I
haven’t.’

‘Guv
– we’re past Sandbach.’

‘Don’t
wind me up, Leyton – we’re still north of Lancaster.’

Skelgill
blinks and squints through the windscreen, as if somehow the unchanging
motorway stretching out before them will confirm his erroneous claim.

‘We’ve
been going two hours, Guv.’

About
a mile ahead there is a blue junction sign.  They are closing on it
rapidly and plainly this will settle the dispute.  Skelgill must know the
odds are against him.  He tries a different tack.

‘I
only wanted forty winks – you were supposed to wake me at Knutsford.’

‘Guv -
you were out for the count.  I thought it would be better to let you catch
up on your kip.’

Skelgill
is plainly irked that he has nodded off, and appears to be in denial about any
such sleep deficit.  His temper shows no indication of having improved,
despite his extended catnap, and he now resorts to a sustained bout of
swearing, peppered with words to the effect that DS Leyton should not take it
upon himself to decide if and when his superior might require a siesta. 
This irrational argument, doubly unreasonable in light of DS Leyton’s
considerate approach, rouses the normally phlegmatic sergeant to respond in
kind; he is certainly Skelgill’s equal in the creative use of Anglo-Saxon
terminology, and on this occasion justifiably gives as good as he gets.

Skelgill,
of course, is not one readily to admit he is wrong – but DS Leyton has
known him long enough to understand that behind his infallible exterior there
will lurk a painful shadow of contrition, wishing for a glint of daylight. 
Thus, while something of a truce breaks out in the form of strained silence
– Skelgill naturally having had the last (swear) word – DS Leyton
points out that he has placed the brown paper bag of bacon rolls in the cubby
box of the central console, to keep them from becoming stale.  Skelgill
grudgingly investigates, and then begins to work his way pensively through what
can only be an unsatisfactory meal, washing it down with the cold tea. 
Meanwhile, signs for Stoke-on-Trent come and go.

‘Decent
rolls these, Leyton.’

DS
Leyton grunts an acceptance of Skelgill’s oblique apology.

‘Forty
minutes to go, Guv – that’s us well into the Midlands.’

*

The
Midlands is very much an English as opposed to a British definition, for the actual
north-south midpoint of the island of Great Britain corresponds to Windermere
in the Lake District, just sixty miles short of the Scottish border. 
Indeed, Scotland has its own midlands, more generally referred to as the
Central Lowlands.  That said, the landlocked foxhunting county of Leicestershire
certainly has a claim to being the historical heart of
England
, not
least as it sits upon the once great Roman junction known as High Cross, where
the ancient trunk routes of the Fosse Way and the Watling Street intersect. 
These days they are known more prosaically as the A46 and the A5 respectively.

It is
just three miles north of High Cross that DS Leyton swings the car briefly from
the motorway onto the Watling Street, before immediately turning into the outer
suburbs of Hinckley.  A former hosiery town, it is known as
‘Tin-Hat’
to its locals, who themselves are distinctive for their disproportionately
northern-sounding brogue.  At a latitude where the Brummie twang might be
expected, the ubiquitous greeting for friend and stranger alike is ‘Ay up, me
duck?’ (‘How are you, my Duke?’), and the place name itself is pronounced
‘Inkleh’; indeed the initial letter ‘h’ is foreign to most townsfolk.  Apart
from its friendly, good-hearted yeoman stock, the town itself does not have
many claims to fame.  In 1834 the original Hansom safety cab was developed
here, while almost a century and a half later there was a brief frisson of
publicity when one John Hinckley Jnr shot US President Ronald Reagan. 
Given the unusual shared spelling, there was speculation that the would-be
assassin was in some way a descendent of the eponymous settlement.

Ten
minutes more finds Skelgill and DS Leyton parked near the older centre of the
town, in a long narrow sloping street of mainly red-brick terraced houses
dating from as early as 1900, which matches the satnav’s designation as Queen’s
Road.  Some of the properties are variously harled and painted; some have
low barriers of brick or block or timber enclosing improbably tiny front areas,
while others give directly onto the pavement; some have a bay window and others
a decorative canopy above the door.  Only the satellite dish is an
omnipresent constant, but insufficiently so to counteract the overall
impression of incongruity.  The detectives prise themselves stiffly from
the car, and for a moment stand stretching and yawning in the midday sunshine
as sparrows chirp unseen from a nearby rooftop.  Purposefully, a mongrel
dog trots past; while from the sidewalk opposite two small children interrupt a
fight to eye them suspiciously.

‘Cor
blimey, Guv – if this is Queen’s Road I shouldn’t like to see Pauper’s
Avenue.’

Skelgill
scowls as if to disagree.  ‘What did you expect, Leyton – the
Champs-Élysées?’

‘I
thought Leicestershire was supposed to be all quaint villages and
tally-ho
,
Guv.’

Skelgill
moves towards the door of the house.

‘Let’s
hope we’re on the right scent, then.’

There
is no bell and he rattles the aluminium flap of the letterbox.  After a
few moments there is the scrabbling sound of a chain being released and the
door swings inwards to reveal the dressing-gown-clad figure of a woman in her late
fifties.

‘I’ve
bin expectin’ yer.’

Before
Skelgill can make introductions the woman turns slowly, beckoning with her head
for them to follow.  They see she has a stick with a rubber foot, and she leans
heavily to one side as she limps.  The front door opens directly into a
sitting room.  There is a staircase to their left and, on the far side of
the small parlour, what appears to be a kitchen.  Strains of a local radio
station and the smell of a stew cooking percolate from this vector.  She
indicates with the stick two chairs that back on to the net-curtained window. 
Skelgill picks the nearest, leaving DS Leyton – after carefully closing
the front door – to squeeze past him to the second.  Recognising Skelgill
as the senior officer, the woman fixes him with a somewhat lopsided stare.

‘Like
a mash, me duck?’

Skelgill
is about to reply – undoubtedly in the affirmative – but the woman
continues.

‘’ow
about some snap – I can put yerrup a cheese cob?’

‘Perfect,
thanks, madam.’

She
rotates at the hip, her weight pivoting on the stick, and shambles through into
the kitchen.  Skelgill looks perplexedly at DS Leyton, but the sergeant
spreads his palms and pulls a face to indicate he has no idea what the woman
said.  The sound of a kettle being filled and the clinking of cutlery
emanate from the kitchen.  The detectives occupy themselves with looking
about, though there is not a lot that would strike the professional
investigator as significant: the usual complement of television, coffee table
and gas fire; a pair of wooden candlesticks and a moulded brass
three-wise-monkeys
on the mantelpiece; knitting-in-progress and a copy of
The People’s Friend
protruding from a magazine rack; and, beside DS Leyton, a square leather pouffe
with a round fur stole or hat upon it.  DS Leyton absently reaches out to
touch the item, and then recoils with a small yelp as it turns out to be a
sleeping tabby cat, now awakened.  The cat flashes him a malevolent glare and
resumes its slumbers, tucking its head out of sight amidst its loins. 
After a minute more the woman returns bearing a tray.  She has abandoned
the stick and approaches awkwardly.  Skelgill rises to assist, and conveys
the tray onto the coffee table.  Meanwhile the woman gingerly lowers
herself into an upright chair.

‘
Branston
alright foryer?’

The
proprietary pickle had better be alright, since it is already generously
layered on top of thickly cut Red Leicester cheese inside the two large white
‘cobs’ (local parlance for bread rolls) that she has ‘put up’ for them.

‘My
favourite, madam.’  Diplomacy aside, Skelgill is difficult to disappoint
when it comes to snacking on the hoof.

‘There
yergo, me ducks.’

The
woman leans forward and turns the handles of two mugs of tea in the respective
directions of Skelgill and DS Leyton, and gives each side plate a small push
accordingly.  She lifts her own mug and eases herself back into the seat.

‘I
just ’ave it black – cozzer me MS – they say it’s best to avoid
dairy.’

‘I’m
sorry to hear that, madam.’

The
woman shrugs.  ‘Kern’t be ’elped.’

Both
detectives gaze at her, momentarily sharing a collective pained expression. 
The woman is fleshy without being overweight; her pale skin has a sickly pallor
that contrasts against a black mop of wiry shoulder-length hair.  Her pupils
are dilated, making her dark eyes appear deep-set between heavy brows and
half-moon shadows, and her facial muscles languid – perhaps a product of
her unfortunate affliction.  She has the look of one who lacks exercise
and sleep and exposure to daylight.

Skelgill
reaches for his roll across the hiatus.  He takes a substantial bite, catching
an explosion of crumbs with his free hand, and simultaneously turning to DS
Leyton with an inquiring look.  DS Leyton realises this is a cue to speak,
and tugs the briefing notes from his jacket pocket.

‘Thank
you for seeing us, madam – I appreciate it can’t be an easy time.’

The
woman does not appear distressed, and watches him calmly, if a little unsteadily. 
He takes this as approval to continue.  He taps the sheaf of papers with
the back of one hand.

‘We’ve
got the details passed on by your local police – that you fostered Lee in
1988 and that he left you in 1994 when he was sixteen.  What we’re trying
to find out is whether there’s anything in his background that might help us explain
what has happened to him.’

‘Din’t
’e ’ave a wife or nowt?’

The
woman speaks from one side of her mouth; her face is rather expressionless
– though her tone is noticeably forlorn.