Murder on the Edge (4 page)

‘Aye
– that’s Lee right enough.’

Skelgill
is watching closely the garage owner’s reaction as DS Leyton holds the mortuary
photograph at arm’s length before him.  He is small and wiry, and looks as
though he might be almost completely bald beneath a faded navy-blue engine driver’s
cap, though he sports several days’ grizzled stubble on his chin and throat.

‘What
happened to him?’

‘Looks
like a climbing accident, sir.’

The
man shakes his head.  He continues to stare at the photograph; his
expression is more one of curiosity than horror.

‘How
well did you know him, sir?’

Now
the man looks up at Skelgill and digs his hands deeper into the pockets of his
grease-smeared boiler suit.  He shrugs his shoulders somewhat
indifferently.

‘I’ve
got eight mechanics, part-timers.  They come and go.  Mostly in their
twenties and thirties, like Lee.  Didn’t know he wo’ a climber.’

The
man could be in his early sixties, and the suggestion of an arm’s-length
relationship with his younger and itinerant employees is not unreasonable.

‘How
long had he been with you?’

‘Eighteen
months, twenty maybe.’

‘We’ll
need to trace his wife, girlfriend, next of kin – that sort of thing.’

Skelgill
stares at the man as though this is an instruction, and indeed the latter drags
open the top drawer of a grey metal cabinet that dominates one corner of the
tiny office.  He lifts out a small card-index box and places it upon a
desk covered with oily thumb-printed invoices and curling triplicate
pads.  His stout craftsman’s fingers, ingrained with engine grime, work
with surprising dexterity to extract the sought-after record.  He hands it
to Skelgill.

‘That’s
your lot, cous.’

Printed
in uneven capitals in black biro is the name Lee Harris and, beneath, the
address of a flat in Kendal and a mobile phone number.  Skelgill turns the
card but its reverse is blank.  He appears for a moment as though he is
about to cast it disdainfully away, but then he squints at an out-dated certificate
of employer’s liability insurance pinned above the filing cabinet.  The
man seems to sense disapproval: that his approach to human resources management
leaves something to be desired.  He inclines his head in the direction of
the workshop, which can be glimpsed through a cluttered hatch in the wall.

‘Happen
some of yon lads might be able to fill you in – personal life, like.’

Skelgill
nods patiently.

‘I
understand you last saw him on Friday, sir?’

‘Aye
– then we got four smash repair jobs brought in over t’ weekend.’ 
The man is now trying harder, and his local accent becomes more
pronounced.  ‘Lee’s gey tidy wi’ Hondas.  I was
trying to raise him from first thing yesterday, and again this morning.’

‘You
rang this number?’  Skelgill flaps the card like a fan.

‘Aye.’

‘And?’

‘Woman’s
voice – a recording, like – kept saying t’ person were unavailable.’

‘Was
there anything in his behaviour lately that struck you as unusual?’

The
man’s beady eyes narrow, giving him a guarded ferrety appearance.  ‘I
thought it wo’ an accident he died of?’

Skelgill
remains impassive.  ‘Like I said, sir – it looks that way.’

There’s
the faintest hint of inflection placed upon the word
looks
, and the man
nods slowly, as though he is now wondering if the police are unofficially taking
him into their confidence.

He
shrugs once more.  ‘Any road, like I said – I divn’t have owt to do
wi’ lads.  Ars twice their age – more.  I just oversee t’ wuk
and pay ’em’s wages.’

‘Pay
cash, do you, sir?’

‘It’s
all above board.’  Now the man is back on the defensive.  ‘Payroll
clerk comes in Thursdays – that’s when they get their wage packets.’

‘So
was Mr Harris paid last week, sir?’

The
man nods, perhaps a little grudgingly, although it seems unlikely that his
erstwhile employee was remunerated in advance.  ‘Aye – he did more
or less a full week.  He weren’t short of ackers if that’s what tha’
wondering.’

Skelgill
does not reply directly.  Instead he slips the address card into his
jacket pocket and checks his wristwatch.

‘We
shan’t detain you any longer, sir.  If you could supply us with contact
details for any of your staff that are not here – and if you’ll bear with
us my sergeant will just have a quick chat with each of those present. 
Then we’ll be out of your hair.’

*

Leaving
DS Leyton to interview sundry swarthy mechanics, Skelgill sets off on foot to seek
out Lee Harris’s apartment.  However, for the capricious police inspector,
the small Lakeland town of Kendal (population circa 28,500) holds several
imminent distractions.  Not least is its renown for the eponymous mint
cake – in fact a high-calorie peppermint-flavoured concoction of sugar
and glucose, enjoyed by mountaineers the world over, and reputedly eaten by
Hilary and Tensing atop Everest in 1953.  Skelgill professes to possess
both a savoury and a sweet tooth, and generally justifies a bar of Kendal mint
cake on the grounds that it is entirely fat free.  Indeed his propensity
to snack is driven on the one hand by his pastimes of fell-running and fishing
(the latter usually involving an energy-sapping row on his beloved
Bassenthwaite Lake), and on the other by his general disregard for normal hours
of work, which often finds him arriving home to a desolate fridge and the realisation
that all neighbourhood takeaways have long ago closed for the evening.  Right
now the hour is fast approaching three o’clock, and thus, as he makes his way
through the bustling town centre, he must run the gauntlet of spectacular window
displays of local confectionery, compounded by the drifting aroma of scones
baked to waylay tourists susceptible to the temptation of afternoon teas.

However,
there is a third enticement that exerts even greater magnetism as far as
Skelgill is concerned, and that is the River Kent.  Neatly bisecting
today’s enlarged urban area – it flows north to south, with much of the
old town on its west bank – it is the principal game fishing river in the
south of the county.  As Skelgill lingers upon the Nether Bridge his
antennae are clearly twitching, no doubt at the thought of the potential
double-figure sea trout that may be passing under his very nose, and perhaps
the added frustration that between here and Victoria Bridge is a one-mile
stretch of free angling.  The water level is arguably a little low,
following three or four days of dry weather, but nonetheless he scrutinises the
gently rippled surface for signs of aquatic life below.  A fine drake
goosander sails briefly downstream, its glossed green mane glinting as it
twists about and returns to fish the depths between the piers.  Skelgill watches
in admiration while it dives and then surfaces, a staring minnow secured in its
long red saw-bill; a magnificent bird, sleek predator of fast-flowing waters,
though little appreciated by human fishers.

Skelgill
has taken a significant detour to indulge his craving and, finally dragging himself
away from the allure of the Kent, he heads back into the old town, north along
Kirkland.  For a main street it is a narrow thoroughfare, lined by an
irregular miscellany of two-and-three-storey buildings, mainly stores and
public houses, in grey limestone or white-painted stucco.  He almost breaks
stride as he encounters a fishing tackle shop he has forgotten about, but the
road is busy with traffic, and deters him from crossing.  Indeed, this is
the A6, the old London-to-Carlisle coaching route (taking in Leicester and
Manchester), the one-time slow road to the Lakes – before the M6 motorway
laid a slick swathe of grand prix tarmac over Shap’s peaceful summit.  In
any event, shortly he ducks away from the noise and fumes, into a tight cobbled
ginnel (in Kendal referred to as a
yard
) innocuously squeezed between a cheque
casher’s and a financial advisor’s.

More
stealthily now he passes silently beneath the property above and out into the
open space beyond.  While many of these yards once ran down to the river,
and are of great antiquity, this one is truncated, blocked by unsightly and
angular modern additions of obscure function.  Indeed, unlike some of
town’s famous yards, which are picturesque and photogenic and visited for such
purposes by tourists, the air here is permeated by the stale smell of urine,
and an unsightly heap of black bin bags lies torn open by scavenging cats or
gulls.  The heat from the high June sun isn’t helping, and Skelgill
responds to the stifling atmosphere by inhaling through gritted teeth.

The
dwelling he seeks – there appear to be four numbered properties in the
yard – is a basement flat, which he reaches by descending a flight of worn
stone steps, its diminutive
area
crowned by a rusting iron balustrade. 
If anything, the bad odour is worse in this dank stairwell and Skelgill, not
one to be bound by protocol, checks about for CCTV and promptly breaks in.

‘Hello
– police.’

This
precautionary introduction proves unnecessary.  The pile of mail and
newspapers behind the door tells Skelgill no one is home.  A dampness that
pervades the empty property deadens his voice.  He makes a quick tour to
satisfy himself there is no imminent threat – or, perhaps, indeed, no
corpse awaiting discovery.  From a tiny hall off which open a toilet and
separate shower cubicle, there are only two rooms to speak of, conjoined: a
kitchenette-diner and a bed-sitting room.  The ceilings are low –
maybe only seven feet – and the place has the air of a typical cheap
rental apartment: poorly fitted linoleum, worn nylon carpets, badly hung
curtains, and furniture randomly discarded and acquired.

Now
Skelgill begins a more thoughtful, if ostensibly haphazard perusal of the
contents.  Taking care not to disturb anything of potentially forensic
significance, he has the bemused manner of a visitor to a gallery of modern art
– one who is trying to work out whether the mundane household exhibits
displayed around him are actually of any merit.  His features seem to be
fighting disappointment as he casts his eyes over the fat-spattered electric
cooker hob and its accompanying chip pan.  A small refrigerator seems
relatively well stocked (certainly by Skelgill’s standards), and if truth were
told he might reflect that the general level of disarray is probably inferior
to that of his own domestic domain.

Several
bloated chocolate cereal rings float in the kitchen sink, and there is an open
packet of the same variety on the little dining table.  Alongside it is an
empty milk carton, but no suicide note propped against either.  The milk
has a best-before date of last Thursday but, as Skelgill knows from personal
experience, you can’t read a lot into that.

Broadly
speaking, there is little to indicate that the flat’s occupant departed with
anything other in mind than to return in the near future.  The wardrobe
and dresser are crammed with clothes, and a newish flat screen TV and a rather
dated games console in the bedroom are in standby mode.

Where
Lee Harris’s home differs from Skelgill’s is in that an inspection of the
latter would quickly reveal its occupant’s interests: various items of tackle
and gear, spilling from shelves and cupboards, and – out of sight of the
casual visitor (but not so hidden as to avoid detection by anyone so chosen)
– trophies and certificates and framed photographs testifying to outdoor
and sporting exploits.  Moreover, though not a reader as such –
fiction does not register on Skelgill’s radar – he has an extensive
collection of maps, manuals and climbing guides (his prized set of
Wainwrights
at the heart of this), and an assemblage to match covering all methods of
angling known to man.  Then there are years’ worth of specialist magazines
– climbing, fishing, fell walking – with useful articles marked by
bent corners or
Post-it
notes (indicating Skelgill’s as yet unfulfilled
intention to scalpel out and file these pages).

So it
would not require Sherlock Holmes to deduce what sort of person Skelgill is, to
which clubs and societies he might belong, where he could potentially be found
in his leisure time, and with whom he may associate.  Not so Lee
Harris.  Other than the computer games console beside which is stacked the
stereotypical array of bloodthirsty killing games (perhaps suggestive of an
immature personality, a lack of social engagement, and – in Skelgill’s
analysis – a totally incomprehensible wish to be indoors when you could
be outside) – apart from this – there is little flesh of
biographical detail upon the sparse bones of his existence.  In other
words, there is not a lot for the police to get their teeth into.

Skelgill
soon finds himself back in the hallway.  A washing machine is a
considerable obstacle.  He notices that a display light is blinking, and
with what must be considered a small flash of inspiration (given his limited
aptitude for matters domestic) he stoops down and jerks open the clear plastic
door.  Inside the drum is a sodden but apparently laundered navy serge
boiler suit.