Murder In School (Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates Book 2), page 1
Bruce Beckham
__________
Murder in School
A detective novel
LUCiUS
Text copyright 2014 Bruce Beckham
All rights reserved. Bruce Beckham asserts his right always to be identified as the author of this work. No part may be copied or transmitted without written permission from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events and locales is entirely coincidental.
Kindle edition first published by Lucius 2014
For more details and Rights enquiries contact:
Lucius-ebooks@live.com
EDITOR’S NOTE
This novel, Murder in School, is a stand-alone whodunit, the second in the series ‘Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates.’
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Murder in Adland
Murder on the Edge
Murder on the Lake
(Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates)
Murder Mystery Collection
The Dune
The Sexopaths
CONTENTS
1. The Taj Mahal
2. Bassenthwaite Lake
3. DS Leyton
4. Oakthwaite School
5. James Goodman, OBE
6. The Burger Van
7. The Professor
8. The Groundsman
9. Dr Snyder
10. Dr Jacobson
11. The Gatehouse
12. The Pavilion
13. The Gatehouse
14. Sale Fell
15. The M6 Motorway
16. Flying Economy
17. Singapore
18. Changi
19. The Bothy
20. The Burger Van
21. Dr Snyder
22. Dr Jacobson
23. Bassenthwaite Lake
24. Oakthwaite School
25. The Burger Van
26. Skiddaw
27. Oakthwaite School
28. The Press Gang
29. The Derwen
30. Oakthwaite School
31. Cockermouth
32. Bassenthwaite Lake
33. Wasdale Head
1. THE TAJ MAHAL
‘Guv, how can you do that? Three naan breads in one sitting must be a Cumbrian record.’
Skelgill grins sheepishly. ‘I ate four after my last Bob Graham. And you did take a chunk.’
‘About two square inches, Guv.’
‘Got to keep your figure, I suppose.’
DS Jones approximates the area with right-angled fingers and thumbs, and then playfully raises the little rectangular window to her twinkling right eye. She frames Skelgill and says, ‘You might be on telly tomorrow morning, Guv.’
Skelgill rocks back in his chair. There’s a worrying creak and he jolts forward with a thump that draws anxious glances from fellow diners. In a lowered voice he hisses, ‘What? You must be joking. When the Chief can steal the show? I’ll be ordered to attention in the background – which I don’t need. Let’s just remind the local crooks what the plain-clothes cops look like. Smart can go instead and take the credit.’
‘But, Guv – it was your case. You cracked it. Why should DI Smart appear at the press conference?’
‘He’s good-looking, isn’t he? Photogenic...’
‘He’s a slimeball, Guv.’
Skelgill raises an eyebrow, perhaps betraying a hint of approval. DI Smart fancies himself around the station, and always casts a smooth line of patter in the path of DS Jones. Whether out of good nature or political expediency, she appears to bite on these little morsels, much to Skelgill’s chagrin.
‘You’re not jealous of Smart, Guv?’
There’s a bing from Skelgill’s mobile, which lies on the tablecloth between them. He opts for the distraction it provides.
‘Sorry – I’ll switch it off in a sec.’
Still he checks the message, a frown methodically carving its furrows across his brow as he reads.
‘What is it, Guv? Work?’
He reaches for his glass and drains the last few dregs of Indian lager, taking his time to swallow.
DS Jones inserts a prompt. ‘Good news or bad news?’
Skelgill can’t conceal a momentary flushing across his high cheekbones. After a pause he says, flatly, ‘Both, I guess.’
‘Well – what’s the good news?’
‘If you’d call it that. I’m excused from the press conference. The Chief wants me at Oakthwaite first thing.’
‘The school?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I remember when I was about fifteen some of the Oakthwaite sixth-formers used to drink in Penrith.’
Skelgill’s gaze rests thoughtfully on DS Jones. At twenty-six she’s not long out of teenage, at least from his late-thirties perspective; while his own memories of that era are a distant haze of pub-smoke and rock music.
‘There’s been a suicide.’
‘Wow. A boy?’
‘Nope. One of the masters.’
‘Ah.’ DS Jones ponders for a moment. ‘That’s almost as bad in the publicity stakes. Gruesome?’
‘She doesn’t say – except that he drowned.’ Skelgill sounds a touch exasperated. ‘Why the heck does she want me to follow up a suicide? Either it is or it isn’t.’
‘Her son’s a pupil there, you know?’
Skelgill sits upright, more circumspectly now. This piece of news might in part explain his summons. ‘I didn’t. How come you do?’
‘My Aunt Emily – she works there in the personnel department.’
Skelgill looks thoughtful. ‘Do they have them at schools – personnel departments, I mean?’
‘It’s private, Guv. They can have anything they like.’
He nods. ‘I suppose so. Not my strong suit. When I was a kid we played football, they played rugby. They didn’t mix with the local comp.’
‘They only compete against the other private boarding schools.’
‘You’re a mine of information, DS Jones.’
‘I could certainly get us an inside track, Guv. There’s no great love lost between the ancillary staff and the rest.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Upstairs, Downstairs kind of thing. The common room is ninety percent Oxbridge, and half the boys are minor royalty or the sons of international billionaires. They’ve got Mexicans, Russians, Chinese.’
Skelgill grins ruefully. ‘Could get interesting on parents’ evening. The cartels meet the mafia meet the triads, eh?’
‘I don’t think it’s quite reached those proportions, Guv. The new head’s apparently a throwback to the days of the Empire – a stickler for all things pukka. Cold showers and stiff upper lip. You’d better wear a tie, Guv.’
Skelgill seems lost in momentary reverie. ‘Sorry?’
‘When we go down to the school in the morning – you ought to wear a tie. I take it we’re meeting the Head?’
A pained expression takes hold of Skelgill’s features, their creases made more sinister by the dim lights and shadowy deep crimson velvet backdrop of the restaurant.
‘That’s the bad news, Jones.’
‘You don’t have a tie?’ DS Jones sounds unsurprised.
Skelgill licks his lips as if his mouth has suddenly become dry. ‘No, it’s not that – I’m talking about the Chief’s email. DS Leyton’s back from leave. Appears he’s done the initial groundwork. I’m to meet him at Keswick and go on to the school. You’re to report at county HQ for your next assignment.’
2. BASSENTHWAITE LAKE
It is raining steadily as Skelgill rows with deceptive economy in a southerly direction, some thirty yards out from the leafy osiers lining the east bank of Bassenthwaite Lake. At just before six a.m. he’s the only soul on the water, though its protected conservation status and secluded character ensure a minimum of human interference at most times of day. The Lake District’s only ‘lake’ (as Skelgill is wont to point out to bemused visitors) lies in quiet contrast to the likes of Windermere and Derwentwater, which on Bank Holidays boil with the flailing oars and over-revved outboards of an unseaworthy fleet of day-trippers.
Skelgill, however, holds the requisite fishing and boat permits: those in authority are content to have him prowling on their behalf, albeit at the hidden price of the odd salmon or sea trout that finds its way into his freezer. Not that Skelgill is a game fisher. His obsession is the pike: a catch-and-return species. He holds the unofficial top weight for the water and is convinced a monster British record not only haunts its depths, but on three occasions has ‘snapped him up’; fishing parlance for one that gets away, tackle and all.
Today, however, pike are not the target. Instead a whippy twelve-foot perch rod trails prominently from the stern. This would tell the seasoned Skelgill-watcher that, while he’s clad for the occasion in a weather-beaten Barbour outfit, he’s not fishing seriously – at best he’s stalking bait. In fact, the rod is strictly for appearances, and his mission is one of reconnaissance.
His boat slides near-silently across the silvery mere. The faint swish and splash of his oars harmonises with the pervasive sibilance that is the hiss of millions of raindrops entering the water, pitting its surface with an ever-changing yet homogenous tessellation. He rests mid-stroke, pausing to shake off beads of sweat mingled with rain that drip from his eyebrows and nose. The heatwave might have ended, but the relative humidity must be close on a hundred. High above, to his left, Skiddaw’s vast grey-green bulk may no longer exist; even its little outrider, Dodd, is blanketed in mist, signalling to Skelgill that the cloud base is well below fifteen-hundred feet; a thousand, at best. Only the whitewashed Bishop of Barf, a pale smudge over on the afforested western flanks, is visible of the customary landmarks. Typical Lakeland summer weather has returned.
Skelgill espies the first neatly painted sign that proclaims, beneath a crest in the shape of an acorn, ‘Private Property – Keep Out’. There’s smaller lettering beyond the limits of his vision – no doubt it warns, ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted’. He stares intensely, as though he objects to the concept: they’ve effectively abolished private land up in Scotland, and such egalitarian rights of access appeal to his fierce sense of fairness. It’s the source of long-running beer-fuelled dispute with one of his gamekeeper pals, though in a more reflective moment Skelgill would be forced to concede there’s a flipside in the exclusion of the ignorant excesses that some townsfolk persist in bringing to England’s green and pleasant land.
Now he hauls in the oars, glancing shoreward as their hollow dunk against the hull threatens to announce his presence. But there’s no one abroad at this hour, never mind in this weather. He straightens out the creases in an ancient stained bush hat and improves his disguise substantially. Without bothering to bait the hook, he deftly flicks out the line from his perch rod, engages the bale arm, and assumes the position of an angler concentrating upon his float. The boat drifts slowly, parallel to the bank, its residual momentum conveniently assisted by the faintest of northerly breezes. The air movement is insufficient, however, to disperse the midges that have been trailing him, and which now move in for a feed. He rummages for repellent in a rusty tin of miscellaneous tackle, but to no avail; he must resign himself to an uncomfortable vigil.
What he can learn, however, is a matter for conjecture. Oakthwaite School stands on a blunt peninsula of gradually rising ground half a mile from Bassenthwaite Lake. Its watery margins are defended by a rocky shoreline bordered by marshy scrub, and are not a place to make landfall. The main edifice is invisible from the lake, being set in heavily wooded parkland; only the white tips of rugby posts and match-day hoorays give a clue to what goes on within.
3. DS LEYTON
‘Alright, Guv? Got one over on DI Smart, I hear.’
‘Leyton, your whining Cockney accent’s annoying me already.’
‘That’s great, that is. I come back from Majorca singing your praises and I don’t even get a ‘How’s your holiday?’ or ‘How’s the Missus?’ – never mind a ‘Morning Sergeant.’’
‘Yeah – okay, okay. I’ve had an early start. On top of a late night.’
‘I shan’t ask. If you tell, I shall keep shtoom.’
Skelgill pulls open the door of DS Leyton’s unmarked car and slides into the passenger seat. ‘Stick to the school business, eh?’
‘Your call, Guv. But first things first. I passed a new burger van in the layby just after the Crossthwaite roundabout. I reckon there’s time for a bacon roll if we get our skates on. What do you say?’
‘Leyton – I’d forgotten you had your uses.’
*
DS Leyton, having been delegated to queue in what has become light drizzle, delivers his purchases to Skelgill through the open window and scuttles as fast as his bulk will allow around to the driver’s side. The small car lurches mildly as he settles behind the wheel.
‘Blimey, Guv – they tell me I’ve missed a heatwave. But actually it’s decent British grub I miss.’ He takes a gulp from the plastic cup handed to him by Skelgill, then recoils. ‘Ah! And good old scalding Rosy Lea.’
Skelgill checks his watch and takes back the cup. ‘Leyton, you’d better drive, else we’re going to be late. Remember, Big Brother’s watching us. I’ll have your bacon roll if necessary.’
DS Leyton shakes his head ruefully, as if to say, ‘Same old Guvnor’. Nevertheless he turns the ignition key and checks his mirrors.
‘Anyway,’ Skelgill continues, more brightly, ‘You can’t eat and talk. I need to know the story, top-line.’
DS Leyton spins the car into a tight U-turn and guns its modest engine, to limited avail. Fumbling for his seat belt, he peers determinedly into a cloud of spray as he sets about tailgating the juggernaut ahead, despite the fact that in fewer than two hundred yards he will exit the main A66 trunk road to head through the lanes for Oakthwaite School. It is a constant source of disagreement between the colleagues: Skelgill insists that DS Leyton is a typical ‘London driver’ (more haste, less speed), while the latter’s counter argument goes that when they need to battle through traffic, he’s their man.
‘All I know, Guv, is limited to what I’ve gleaned from reading the statements. It was DI Smart who filed the reports. They’ve moved him onto some big drugs case and left this one to us mugginses.’
Skelgill is glowering, and now DS Leyton swings off at a roundabout, just as he attempts to take a mouthful of tea.
‘Oi! Where’s the fire?’
‘Guv – I thought we were in a hurry.’
‘Okay – well, from now on take it steady. We’re not the North Lakes Sweeney.’
‘Despite what they call us at the station?’
Skelgill shoots a questioning glance at DS Leyton, as if this is new information. After a moment he says, ‘Leyton, the suicide?’
‘Sure, Guv. The autopsy report says it’s categorically death by drowning. No signs of injury or struggle, no trace of drugs or even medication, nothing untoward in the stomach. No indication of illness or disease. He just drowned.’
‘In Bass Lake?’
‘Yeah. They’ve got a little wooden rowing boat. He went overboard. It was found anchored about thirty feet out.’
Skelgill frowns. Just a few hours earlier he had inspected the rickety landing stage and small, dilapidated row-in boathouse. The craft itself was in equally poor repair, possibly shipping water. Held fast by a rusty chain and padlock, it didn’t look like it was a facility of which the school made much use.
‘How come we’re so sure it was suicide? He could have fallen in.’
‘Velcro weights, Guv.’
‘Come again?’
‘You go to the health club don’t you, Guv?’
‘Leyton, I wouldn’t know the inside of a health club from the inside of your sweaty underpants. Why would I spend a packet to run about indoors when for free I’m surrounded by four hundred fells and the finest countryside in England?’
‘Oh – thought you did, Guv. I’m with you though – for the same cash you get far better value from a satellite subscription.’
Skelgill grins. For different reasons, DS Leyton, too, is almost certainly unfamiliar with the inside of a health club. ‘Velcro weights, then?’
‘Yeah, Guv. Apparently you strap ‘em on your wrists and ankles to make training more difficult.’
‘Or sinking more easy.’
‘You got it, Guv.’
‘Where did the weights come from?’
‘The school gym. They’re big on sports, by all accounts.’
Skelgill nods. ‘What do we know about the victim?’
‘Name of Querrell, Edmund Donald. Sixty-eight. Fit and healthy. Longest-serving member of staff. Mainly spent his time running their outward-bound trips, and that Duke of Edinburgh malarkey. Sports coach for one of the year-groups, but not an official PE master. No disciplinary issues, no criminal record.’
‘I take it there was no suicide note?’
‘Not a sausage, Guv. He lived in the converted gatehouse – it was all totally shipshape.’
‘Was he married?’
‘Bachelor. Apparently no next of kin.’
‘Will?’
Leyton shakes his head. ‘Don’t suppose he’d need one, Guv. Admin are still working on it.’
