Murder on the Edge (15 page)

‘We
don’t believe so, madam.  As yet we’ve not been able to trace any
acquaintances other than the people in the motorcycle workshop in Kendal.’

‘’e always
were a bit of a loner.  Though ’e were a nat’rel wi’ engines – used
ter meck a packet fixin’ stuff fer folks roundabout.’

‘You
must have been proud of him – a young kid doing that.’

The
woman’s eyes flicker between the detectives before coming to rest again upon DS
Leyton.

‘It
were ’is mam as bought ’im to me.’  She uses the vernacular ‘bought’,
meaning
brought
.  ‘It weren’t official, yer know?’

‘You
mean he wasn’t officially fostered, madam?’

The
woman gives something between a shake and a nod of the head.

‘I
used ter work in the ’osiery wi’ ’er – it were a bad situation she were
in – ’er old man were a drunkard – used ter knock ’em about –
Lee were startin’ to get outer control – she were worried ’im and ’is
little sister’d be put in care – she used ter give us a few pounds ’ere
and there – but I mainly paid for ’im me sen.’

‘What
became of the family?’

‘They
moved away to Earl Shilton and I never ’eard no more of  ’em.’

‘How
far is that?’

‘Coupler
miles, I shouldn’t wonder.’

DS
Leyton looks momentarily nonplussed: that such a small distance of separation
could constitute permanence.

‘What
was the family name?’

‘Atkins. 
Lee’s mam were called Janet.’

Skelgill
has finished his cheese cob, and now he interjects.

‘Madam
– Linda – alright if we call you Linda?’ (Again the woman produces
the ambiguous head movement, which Skelgill takes as a yes.)  ‘Linda
– did Lee return to his original family?’

‘Far
as I know he din’t never ’ave owt to do wi’ ’em after.  Kept my surname.’

Skelgill
nods.  ‘What about with you, Linda – what kind of contact has there
been?’

‘Last
I saw of ’im were in the summer of ninety-four when ’e went to Skeggy.’

‘Skegness?’

‘Ar.’

‘Why
there?’

‘Reckoned
’e’d got a job fixing dodgems on the pleasure beach.’

‘So
this was when he was sixteen?’

‘Just
turned.’

‘And
after that?’  Skelgill opens his palms, and then widens the air-gap
between them to indicate whatever extended period she may wish to comment upon.

‘Sent
me a few postcards – but they dropped off after a while.’

‘Were
they all from Skegness?’

The
woman closes her eyes briefly, and looks as though she is nodding off to sleep.

‘Robin
’ood’s Bay, I remember – and Appleby.’  Her expression fleetingly
lights up.  ‘That’s where they ’ave the ’orses, in’t it?’

Skelgill
smiles and nods in agreement.  The annual Appleby Horse Fair takes place
only twenty miles from Penrith – although of course there is also the
matter of twenty
years
between Lee Harris’s flight from his home town
and his ignominious coming to rest beneath Sharp Edge.

‘Perhaps
he’d hooked up with a travelling fair.’

‘Lee
always loved the fair – they used ter ’ave it in Queen’s Park – ’e’d
’ang around fer ’ours watchin’ the rides.’

‘Did
he have any other interests?’

She
thinks for a moment.  ‘’e quite liked football – used ter ’ave posters
of that Gary Linklater on ’is bedroom wall.’

Skelgill
must recall that this Leicester City connection had been mentioned by one of
Lee Harris’s workmates.  However, it is merely a stepping stone to a
potentially more pertinent question.

‘Was
he interested in hillwalking or climbing, Linda?’

Now there
is a glint of amusement in her eyes.

‘’ave
yer seen it round ’ere?’

Skelgill
nods, perhaps a little reluctantly.  It hasn’t escaped his eye – accustomed
to the vertical nature of the Lake District – that this part of the
Midlands, with its sprawling fields of rape and wheat, is about as horizontal
as the proverbial pancake.  He changes tack.

‘What
about girlfriends, Linda – did he leave a sweetheart behind?’

‘Kern’t
say as ’e did.  ’e were too wrapped up in ’is old motorbike.  ’e’d spend
’ours teckin it apart through in the back kitchen.’

‘How
about his pals – you mentioned he was a bit of a loner?’

‘’e were
a shy lad – ’e got picked on at school – sagged off a lot. 
And it wun’t teck nowt ter start ’im blartin’ if I ever told ’im off.’ 
She sighs and shakes her head, a rueful expression troubling her pallid features.
 ‘At ’ome ’e’d ’ave got a good beltin’ yer see – an’ I reckon ’e
always expected that off’ve me at first.  Like a poor maltreated dog, he
were.’

Skelgill
drains the last dregs of tea from his mug and replaces it carefully upon the
tray.

‘Is it
possible he kept in touch with anyone in the area?  Maybe someone
connected with the motorbikes?’

‘I
wunter thought so – if ’e weren’t bothered about me – why would he
bother wi’ anyone else?’

The
woman stares for a few moments into her half-empty mug.  Then tears well
in her sad eyes and silently trickle down her sallow cheeks.

*

‘What
is it, Guv?’

Skelgill
indicates his reason for loitering with a slight inclination of his head. 
The house opposite to that belonging to Linda Harris is undergoing some
renovation.  A rudimentary scaffold frames its narrow frontage, and as
they watch a bronzed youth wearing only rigger’s boots and cargo shorts swings
down gibbon-fashion and drops to the pavement.  He flashes a gap-toothed
grin at the watching detectives and calls, ‘Yoright?’ before disappearing
through the open front door.

‘No
safety harness.  No helmet.  Probably no insurance.’

‘Small
wonder there’s so many accidents in the building trade, Guv.’

A
crooked signboard advertises the fact that the firm is local – the usual
father and sons trade name – though Skelgill seems more preoccupied by
the Heath Robinson structure itself, as if he is assessing whether he could
scale it bare-handed.

‘Think
it’s an omen, Guv?’

‘I
think it’s time to find that café, Leyton.  What did she say, again?’

‘Left
at the top of the road, cross over, and it’s down the first
jit
–
whatever that means.’

As the
detectives run the gauntlet of the Friday afternoon rush that converges upon
Birmingham’s infamous
Spaghetti Junction
, Skelgill retrospectively decrees
that they should have taken the M6 toll or indeed the A5 past Tamworth, Lichfield
and Cannock, as if this collective failure of foresight is entirely DS Leyton’s
doing.  Thus ensues a colourful argument over the cause of their current jammed
predicament.  Meanwhile, back in the calm of their traffic-free Cumbrian constituency,
sixty-four-year-old retired agricultural labourer Walter Barley is about to begin
a different kind of journey.

Presently,
however, he roams distractedly about his cottage.  A small border collie,
accustomed to various set routines, seems to sense this vacillation, and anxiously
trails his master’s every move.  In the narrow hallway the man spends some
moments uncharacteristically checking his appearance in a mirror.  He is
clean-shaven and dressed in a sports jacket and slacks that are normally
reserved for semi-formal occasions (rare though such may be), and which are
slightly too big for his wiry but still vigorous frame.  His receding hair,
mousy in hue, is combed over sideways in the style sometimes known as a
‘Bobby
Charlton’,
and he leans forward in a vain effort to inspect his thinning crown. 
Then, when he might normally be expected (at least, by the dog) to unfasten the
door-catch and depart, he returns instead to the sitting room, where a laptop
is open upon the surface of an oak dresser.  He extracts a pair of reading
glasses from his breast pocket, and touches the trackpad to waken the screen from
sleep mode.  A rather lurid image materialises: two scantily clad though masked
females titillate an equally anonymous pimply male slave.  He stares
hungrily at this for some time, his breathing becoming more frequent and
faintly wheezy.  Then he clicks through a sequence of related photographs,
pausing longer on some than others, before eventually exhaling heavily,
checking his wristwatch and closing the lid of the machine.  On this cue
the collie, which has been watching intently (the man, not the screen), excitedly
circles the room before trotting into the hall to wait expectantly at the front
door.  But the dog is disappointed.  Its owner, patting his jacket
pockets to confirm the presence of miscellaneous personal effects, takes an
opposite route via the kitchen and exits through and locks the back door. 
Against a downpipe leans an old boneshaker of a bicycle, and as its rider freewheels
away the forsaken hound is left to watch him out of sight, its snout pressed somewhat
forlornly against the smeared pane of the sitting room window.

Walter
Barley’s Victorian stone cottage squats at the periphery of a straggling
farmstead on the lower slopes of Blencathra.  A quarter of a mile further
uphill there is a main farmhouse, and an assortment of sheds, barns and
outbuildings of various sizes, ages and states of repair.  Not far beyond
these the fences and walls give on to the open fell, where ruined nineteenth
century mine-workings tell of a time when ores of barium, copper, iron, lead
and zinc were raised from beneath the great mountain.  All in all, the
quasi-industrial appearance of the whole enterprise is not one that complements
the spectacular wild backdrop.

From
this locus first a rough track and then a narrow metalled lane leads down to
Threlkeld.  The topography is such that Walter Barley has no need to pedal
as he sails under the influence of gravity towards the village.  Threlkeld
once lay directly upon the main east-west Penrith to Workington coaching route,
and had its own railway station, but today it is bypassed, and the trains, with
their regular ebb and flow of passengers, are long gone.  Nowadays a quiet
backwater, this Friday mid-afternoon sees Walter Barley ride sedately and
apparently unnoticed into the midst of the becalmed settlement.

With a
squealing protest from his brakes, he grinds to a halt near one of the
village’s public houses, dismounts and wheels the machine around into the deserted
patrons’ car park.  There is a thick beech hedge running at right angles
to the perimeter wall, and he jams the bicycle into the junction where stones
meet foliage, largely concealing it from the eye of the casual observer. 
He returns to the public highway, and the nearby bus stop.  He consults
his wristwatch, and – although it has now ceased to rain – he
chooses to wait inside the rather dilapidated wooden shelter provided for
passengers and courting couples.

The
weather is indeed clearing from the south-west, as it has been doing
progressively during the day across the whole of England and Wales.  Shafts
of sun are beginning to strike the immense angular bulk of the Blencathra massif,
bringing life with light and shadow to its spectacular buttresses.  Of
these, Gategill Fell towers above the village like an immense russet pyramid
shorn of its apex, while a pair of ravens circles above the silhouetted rocky
outcrop known as Knott Halloo.  Many a walker down the years has alighted
at the bus stop and immediately reached for their camera to capture this
striking scene, but for Walter Barley it must seem like old wallpaper – for,
as his transport arrives, he does not trouble to cast a glance upon the hills
that have watched his life come and go.

The
bus draws away towards the east, heading for its scheduled stops at Troutbeck,
Penruddock, Stainton and Rheged en route to the terminus at Penrith.  First
it disappears from sight.  Then the rumble of its engine fades.  And,
finally, the breeze disperses the sulphurous reek of diesel fumes.  As if
he has been waiting for confirmation from his senses of the all-clear, a small
boy – perhaps aged about twelve – drops elf-like from the leafy
lower branches of a sycamore, crunching the gravel of the car park beneath his new-looking
trainers.  He casts about – but no soul stirs.  Hands in
pockets, he saunters casually up to the spot where the rear wheel of Walter
Barley’s bicycle protrudes from its beech cover.  He reaches in and
carefully pulls the machine out by its seat.  It is large for his
pre-pubescent frame, but he confidently mounts and propels the bike in one smooth
motion.  Now he takes a few turns about the car park, building up speed
with each successive lap.  On the fourth of these, instead of passing the
gateway, he stands in the pedals and rides out onto the road.  Then he,
too, disappears from sight, albeit in a westerly direction.

*

Having
eventually emerged from the choked West Midlands bottleneck, Skelgill and DS
Leyton have enjoyed a short spell of relatively open road.  However, just
when they might breathe easily, brake lights have begun to signal trouble
ahead, and it is not long before the motorway is once again at a crawl. 
On Friday afternoons this Cheshire stretch of the M6 is troublesome at the best
of times – as residents of the sprawling Manchester metropolis commute
home – but in summer the rush is compounded by an exodus of weekend
tourists bound for the contrasting charms of Blackpool and the Lake
District.  When these forces combine, caravans and all, the great
north-south artery becomes inexorably clogged, and radio traffic news
presenters resort to the catch-all expression ‘sheer weight’ by way of scant consolation
for their captive audience.

Thus a
unilateral decision is taken to bide a while at Sandbach services.  Once
inside the cafeteria, Skelgill quickly darts away on the pretence of ‘saving a window
table’ (though there are plenty to be had) leaving his subordinate to queue at the
counter and obtain the requisite refreshments.  DS Leyton’s protests that
he needs to get home for his own tea have been waved away by his boss, on the
grounds that teatime would be spent in a line of traffic.  Skelgill argues
that they may as well sit out the jam, and resume their journey once it has
cleared.  As usual, he treats regular mealtimes as an entirely moveable
feast, so to speak.  In the way of the lone wolf, he scavenges
opportunistically rather than when hunger calls.

‘The
missus’ll go crackers if she delays tea and I don’t eat it, Guv.’

Skelgill
frowns at the two crowded plates of cakes that DS Leyton slides onto the table
between them.

‘Well,
I’ll have yours if it’s going to be a problem, Leyton.’

As has
been witnessed, this is a familiar scenario.  Customarily, Skelgill is
responsible for placing them in a predicament whence overindulgence might
ensue; and, typically, DS Leyton remonstrates about such an outcome. 
Skelgill then rails against any suggestion that it is somehow his fault, and
threatens to consume DS Leyton’s portion; at this point the latter generally
yields.  Unfortunately, his metabolism (and, it must be said, his inactive
lifestyle) means that excess consumption tends to head for the waistline, while
Skelgill seems ever unaffected.

‘I’ll
try the blueberry muffin, Guv – and see how I get on.’

The
hint of a grin creases the corners of Skelgill’s mouth.  He flaps a hand
at the lines of northbound traffic that crawl beneath their vantage point.

‘Beats
being stuck in that lot – imagine having to put up with this every
Friday.’

DS
Leyton nods agreeably as he bites into his muffin.

‘You
should see it round the M25, Guv – when we go visiting the mother-in-law,
there’s always gridlock – the kids are bouncing off the roof – total
nightmare.’

Skelgill
slurps at his tea.  ‘You ought to get her to come up on the train.’ 
Then he notices the alarmed expression upon DS Leyton’s face.  ‘Maybe not,
then.’

‘Jams
it is, Guv – least it gives us an excuse to get away early on the
Sunday.’

Skelgill
raises an eyebrow sympathetically.  They eat in silence for a minute or
two, each drifting with their own thoughts, their heads turned to watch the noiseless
vehicles below.  It is DS Leyton who speaks in due course.

‘What
did you make of Linda Harris – don’t think we got much really, Guv?’

Skelgill
shrugs noncommittally and takes a bite of a scone in lieu of replying.  DS
Leyton is left to develop the conversation.

‘Reckon
she was being straight about not hearing from him?’

‘I reckon
she was being pretty straight altogether, Leyton – she’s not in a good
way – why would she withhold anything?’

DS
Leyton is silent for a moment.

‘Think
we should track down the birth family, Guv?’

‘Aye
– on Monday, see if we can get the local plod onto it – if nothing
else we can get a DNA sample to confirm the ID.’

‘Makes
you wonder if they’ll even remember him, Guv – no great surprise that he
turned out to be a loner as an adult.’

‘Could
fix bikes, though, eh?  Spoke his own language.’

‘He
must have been under age, Guv – if he were riding one himself.’

Skelgill
shrugs.

‘Stick
on a helmet – so long as you look big enough, nobody knows.’

What
Skelgill does not add, is that he talks here from experience, having
clandestinely ‘borrowed’ an elder brother’s motorbike on numerous occasions as
a young teenager.

‘Looks
like he bolted at the first opportunity, Guv – I suppose when you ain’t
got no proper home, it’s easy to take to the road.’

Skelgill
nods pensively.

‘His
problems started early, didn’t they?’

DS
Leyton looks momentarily agitated.  He sits upright and folds his arms determinedly.

‘Think
someone came after him, Guv – someone from his past?’

‘What
kind of someone?’

‘Well
– I don’t want to cast aspersions – but there’s geezers among that
travelling crowd you wouldn’t want to cross – I mean, look at the
bare-knuckle fighting, badger-baiting, pit bulls and all that.  And we’ve
not long had the Horse Fair, Guv.’

Skelgill
is staring penetratingly at DS Leyton.

‘Aye
– that’s all very well, Leyton – but where does Seddon come
in?  To the best of our knowledge he’s been putting up scaffolding all his
working life.  Why would they be after him?’

DS
Leyton looks a little crestfallen.  Certainly there is no obvious link in
this regard.

‘Maybe
he owed money, Guv?’

Skelgill
looks doubtful.

‘In
his line of work, he’d be the one that was
due
money – he was a
one-man band, remember.’

‘What
about gambling debts, Guv?  There’s a lot of unofficial stuff goes on
– great wads of bangers-and-mash change hands over horses at Appleby.’

Skelgill
grimaces and takes a swig of tea.

‘It
doesn’t fit, Leyton.  Where’s the climbing connection?  Where’s the
rope?’

DS
Leyton suddenly starts and looks momentarily alarmed.

‘Cor
blimey – that reminds me Guv.’  He fumbles for his mobile. 
‘When I was paying I noticed an email come through from DS Jones – it’s
about the rope, I think.’

Skelgill
pats his pockets.

‘Left
mine in the motor.  Think it’s out of gas.’

‘Here
we go.’  DS Leyton licks crumbs from an index finger and wipes it on his
shirt.  ‘Let me just get it bigger so as I can read it.  Me old mince
pies ain’t what they used to be.  Comes to us all, eh, Guv?’