Murder at the Bridge (Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates Book 20), page 18
She takes it upon herself to address the issue.
‘There’s nothing at lunchtime Mondays. It’s body balance at six p.m. – and then, tomorrow, spin at seven a.m.’
DI Smart contrives a conspiratorial grin. He sidles to the open door.
‘I expect I’ll see you there – I like to be the fittest in my team.’
‘I don’t –’
But before DS Jones can express any dissent or cast doubt upon the suggestion, DI Smart is gone. Now they hear his rubber soles squeak on the tiled floor (when before they were surreptitiously silenced). Skelgill sits in total stillness until there comes the closing click of the catch of the sprung fire door.
Now he exhales audibly, attracting the attention of his colleagues.
DS Leyton, resuming his seat, is first to speak.
‘Funny – how you didn’t recognise him, Guv.’
Skelgill glares implacably.
‘Leyton – of course I recognised him.’
DS Leyton glances sideways at DS Jones to see that she is trying to suppress a laugh, pressing the side of her hand to her lips. But he thinks the better of prolonging the matter. Instead he raises the question that refers to the more rational aspect of Skelgill’s reaction to the eavesdropper.
‘Reckon he overheard us, Guv?’
Skelgill does not immediately answer – not least that he cannot know.
But DS Jones enters the conversation.
‘If he heard what I said about Toby Jubb – I don’t think it will help him. You see – there is no trace of the man. Nothing since shortly after the accident. It’s as if he disappeared – though I imagine emigrated is the probable explanation.’
Skelgill appears just a shade more relaxed.
‘What about the woman – this Jubb’s wife?’
DS Jones makes an open-handed gesture.
‘I’ve got DC Watson looking into it – she’s submitted a request for the release of the complete file. At the moment we don’t have the wife’s maiden name. Just Lynette Jubb.’
While Skelgill listens, he shows little reaction. It is DS Leyton who – with due politeness to his female colleague – puts to her the obvious devil’s advocacy.
‘Call me thick, Emma – but – other than a possible match with the name Jubb – what’s the significance here?’
DS Jones glances at Skelgill.
‘Should we close the door?’
But Skelgill shakes his head. He prefers to know what is going on out there – and he won’t be caught out the same way a second time.
DS Jones addresses her colleagues in somewhat hushed tones.
‘While the nature of the accident is unusual, it isn’t unprecedented. But it is odd that he has disappeared and left no records after the date of the police proceedings. It prompted me to look at the background case notes that were not filed with the final report to the CPS. The officer who investigated was checking for foul play. He queried whether a car would spontaneously catch fire under the circumstances – the accident occurred during torrential rain. So there was some doubt over that. Moreover – and I thought this was interesting – at the same time the next day they set up a traffic stop – to see if there were any witnesses to the crash – which was unlikely given the isolated location, and in fact there weren’t. But –’ And here she pauses, clearly conscious of the inquisitive eyes upon her. ‘A farmer from High Lorton remembered that a few days earlier he was towing a trailer of sheep and had to swerve around a stationary saloon – in the same stretch of road. He glimpsed in his rear-view mirror a man climbing back up the embankment – he assumed it was a case of the call of nature – but remarked that it was crazy to park on a steeply sloping bend with no verge. He didn’t get a good look at the male driver – but the car matched the description of Toby Jubb’s red Vauxhall Vectra.’
DS Jones looks up to see that Skelgill has shifted from slumped to ramrod erect. He seems to be staring past her out of the window – but his gaze is fixed and plainly unfocused.
‘Guv?’
Without warning Skelgill rises and pulls down his jacket from his row of blunted fish-hook pegs.
He turns and looks at DS Jones as if he is surprised to see her there.
‘Better get your coat.’
Then he turns to a somewhat bamboozled DS Leyton.
‘Hold the fort.’
He plunges into the darkened portal; to his subordinates it must seem that he has finally chosen a rabbit hole.
COCKERMOUTH – 12.59 p.m.
‘What were we actually looking for, Guv?’
Skelgill has assumed a curious pose, hands gripping the steering wheel of his car, head forward almost pressing upon the windscreen; he looks to DS Jones like his own impression of a Sunday driver, who dawdles along in blissful ignorance of the line of traffic held up in his wake. Except they are parked outside the Cockermouth property that is now in the sole ownership of Jasmine Betony. Their brief visit is over, and Skelgill – having left empty handed – has come on what was obviously a pretext (supposedly to check some point in Kyle Betony’s DAA committee file) while she was tasked with keeping the young woman talking downstairs. It had been a rather awkward moment, and she sensed that Jasmine Betony had detected their disingenuity. She had hovered anxiously about the small kitchen, making unnecessary adjustments to a large glass vase of lilies that might have been sent in commiseration. Still, at least Skelgill had not had the temerity simply to knock and ask to use the bathroom.
Thus, however, his colleague’s probing question.
‘I figured if you didn’t know, it was one less person to give the game away.’
‘Fewer.’
‘What?’
But before DS Jones can reply there is a loud blast from behind. The section of narrow, sloping street, known as Castlegate has an alternate one-way system where individual motorists are left to work out whose turn is next. Skelgill curses and checks his mirror – but it is a legitimate complaint, given that stopping is prohibited, a supermarket lorry that has no prospect of squeezing by. Skelgill sticks a hand out of the window and moves off.
But he conducts them only a few hundred yards; they cross the humped bridge over the River Cocker and pull up towards the end of Main Street.
‘Plan B.’
Without further explanation he exits the car.
DS Jones gathers she is to stay put. She watches as he strides across the broad pavement, assuming right of way and causing an illegal electric scooterist to swerve and almost fall off. He disappears into what is an antiquated combined Post Office and newsagents; a legend over the door reads, “Proprietors: Mathilda & Elizabeth Counter.” The rather dark dingy dusty shop window displays wares that look like they are from a former era; a faded poster for Cadbury’s Aztec bar, old-fashioned stationery, and yellowed periodicals that are surely no longer in print.
Skelgill emerges in short order. There is perhaps just a spring in his step. He wields a folded copy of Angling Times.
But upon resuming his place he casts the fishing newspaper into the back seat, without a second glance.
‘Oh.’
DS Jones’s exclamation is not, however, in response to this act. For she sees that he had the fishing journal wrapped round a glossy magazine – and it is one she immediately recognises. True Crime Hunters Monthly. It is the edition about which they had remarked on their last visit to Cockermouth, with the Moors Murders splash on its cover.
‘Couple of months out of date. I thought they’d still have it.’ Skelgill hands it over. ‘Turn to page thirteen.’
DS Jones does as bidden.
For several minutes she reads intently, her expression one of growing alarm.
Eventually she looks up.
‘Tobias Jubb. He tried to murder his wife, Jolene – in the United States.’
Skelgill does not react; he is staring diagonally across the street, in vacant or in pensive mood, at the ancient ochre distempered walls of William Wordsworth’s childhood home.
‘Guv.’
Skelgill starts.
‘Aye?’
‘This is him, isn’t it? This is our T. Jubb of the fishing team. Toby Jubb of the accident that killed his wife – his former wife, Lynette.’ She taps the page. ‘It’s a carbon copy.’
Skelgill purses his lips.
‘Toby Chub.’
‘Pardon?’
‘I’ve just got the faintest memory – so faint, I could be making it up. A good name to take the mickey out of – in angling circles. A toby’s a kind of lure. Chub’s a coarse fish.’
‘That’s what they used to call him?’
But Skelgill compresses his features.
‘Like I say – I could be making it up. Happen I heard the arl fella say it.’
DS Jones closes the magazine and gazes serenely at the cover. However, like the proverbial swan, her feet are busy beneath the surface.
‘But you read this – when we first interviewed Jasmine Betony.’
Skelgill gives a marginal nod.
‘Didn’t think owt of it. Until you started with your story of the crash, up in the Whinlatter. Thought I was having a déjà vu.’ He growls reflectively. ‘Didn’t help that Smart were nebbing round the door – I lost the thread.’
DS Jones is becoming more animated.
She wields the magazine and employs a phrase out of the lexicon of her absent counterpart.
‘This is dynamite.’
*
‘This is dynamite.’
DS Leyton’s jaw has literally dropped. He looks up from his perusal of the true crime magazine to see that DS Jones is grinning. He turns to address Skelgill.
‘Every time you pair go off – you don’t half bring home the bacon!’
Skelgill demurs.
‘If there were any bacon, Leyton – I’d eat it.’
But the self-deprecating joke reveals he is in good spirits. There is a green light in his eye.
DS Leyton continues his protest. He brandishes the periodical.
‘But this explains it, right? Kyle Betony read this before he went to the dinner and made the connection to the name in the press-clipping on the bar wall. Then he recognised Toby Jubb in the photograph – and confronted him. It wasn’t about the fishing match or the threat of a merger – or poisoning fish – or drugs in Manchester – or conning old folks. It was none of that. It was about unmasking a killer!’
He regards his colleagues imploringly. After a moment, it is DS Jones that plays a somewhat more cautious hand.
‘Or – at least – that was the threat that was perceived. But it could have been enough to prompt the murder of Kyle Betony.’
DS Leyton is nodding enthusiastically. He flicks to and fro through the pages of the magazine.
‘Half-decent photo – we’ll have Jubb bang to rights.’
But his expression becomes thwarted when he realises there is no such thing, in the article, at least. DS Jones responds again.
‘I’ve made preliminary contact with the FBI. They handed over all their files to Interpol. It could take a couple of days to get anything. Meanwhile Jolene Jubb is believed to have moved and remarried – they’re doing what they can to trace her. Finally – there’s the DAA archive.’
But Skelgill takes a swig of tea and pulls a face, as if the drink is stewed.
‘We need to work on the principle that we won’t get owt – at least, not in the timescale that matters.’
He looks as though he might elaborate – but when something causes him to hold back, DS Leyton takes the initiative.
‘How old would Jubb be, now?’
DS Jones has a ready reply.
‘If you recall, at the time of the Whinlatter crash he was twenty-four – which would make him forty-eight.’
She takes her electronic tablet from the corner of Skelgill’s desk. After a moment, she has the additional information she seeks.
‘Stephen Flood is forty-seven. Anthony Goodman – forty-five. Jay Chaudry – forty-two.’ She hesitates. ‘And – Sir Montague Brash – fifty-eight.’
There is a short silence; then it is Skelgill who declines to let this incongruity become an obstacle.
‘If Jubb’s changed his identity you can bet he’s changed his age with it. Most folk could pass for five years younger – if you didn’t know any better.’
He glances sharply at DS Jones – she smiles reassuringly.
‘That would rule out Sir Montague Brash, Guv.’
Skelgill regards her evenly.
‘There’s no way he could be Jubb. He’s lived all his adult life on the Brash estate. He’s wed to some Lady or other.’
For his part, DS Leyton has taken down the names and ages on his note pad, and now he peruses them at arm’s length.
Stephen Flood, 47
Anthony Goodman, 45
Jay Chaudry, 42
He seems almost to lick his lips.
‘So – we’re down to three?’
He looks up to see that Skelgill is wearing another from his repertoire of pessimistic expressions.
‘If only it were that simple, Leyton.’
DS Leyton looks to DS Jones – but it is plain she is equally perplexed.
They wait; Skelgill is evidently choosing his words carefully.
‘Why did Jasmine Betony dispose of the magazine?’
DS Leyton is unaware of this precise detail.
‘Did she, Guv?’
Skelgill looks at DS Jones – his intention to reel in her corroboration.
‘First time we went – it were on top of the pile. We asked her not to touch his stuff. Today it were gone. All the rest were there – previous editions, his fishing magazines and whatnot.’
DS Jones shifts in her seat, as though she feels it is remiss of her to have overlooked this flaw in the logic – despite that her orders were to distract Jasmine Betony while Skelgill went upstairs alone. And then any such analysis was eclipsed by the astounding revelation that the killer of Kyle Betony might be the elusive Toby Jubb. Now she appreciates why Skelgill approached Jasmine Betony on a false pretence. Ironically, when she had first felt uneasy about the young Thai woman (a sentiment Skelgill had seemingly rejected) – in fact he had registered her intuition. And why would Jasmine Betony apparently conceal a piece of evidence that held the key to her husband’s death?
Rather remarkably – but perhaps not so unexpectedly, given his easy-going nature, and the years of surprises under his ample policeman’s belt – it is DS Leyton who breaks the impasse, with an elegant volte-face.
‘Guv – are you saying Betony could be Jubb?’
Skelgill does not answer, but nonetheless seems benignly interested. He waves a hand for his sergeant to justify the crazy notion.
‘He was about the right age. And he went off the radar at about the same time – after the death of Lynette Jubb in the Whinlatter crash – which we now consider suspicious.’
For once, it is DS Jones who has to sprint to keep up.
‘But why would one of the committee members kill him?’
‘Revenge.’
DS Leyton has responded before he knows it – and indeed seems taken aback by his own answer.
‘Revenge?’
DS Leyton sways about a little, from the waist upwards. It is like a game of charades – and he is charged with thinking on the hoof.
‘I’m only saying – here’s Jubb, come back incognito to his old stamping ground. Then someone connected to his first wife finds out who he is. Takes revenge.’
DS Jones seems exercised by the sharp tangent their line of discussion has taken. However, she offers what is a balanced perspective.
‘Jasmine Betony was born in the same year that Lynette Jubb died. As a Thai citizen she has no apparent ties to this area. If she played any part it could surely only have been to reveal or confirm her husband’s identity.’
DS Leyton continues in his role as improvisor-in-chief.
‘Sounds like she had something to gain – even as a bystander. Any joint assets – and you can bet he had a tidy life insurance policy – given that was his line of trade.’
DS Jones nods respectfully, but in her hazel eyes there are clouds of doubt.
While this exchange has been taking place, Skelgill has watched on inscrutably. He is like a keeper who has speculatively sent his dogs into an unpromising covert, and awaits whatever stringy game they might flush. That his gun is broken over his forearm is perhaps telling.
Now he presents a somewhat double-edged intervention.
‘Revenge – it’s a fancy theory.’ He flashes what might be a reproving glance at DS Leyton. ‘But the fact that you pair can debate it tells us there’s more to this than we know.’
Skelgill rises and moves sideways to the window, alongside DS Jones. Hands in pockets, he gazes out. Clouds are massing; it is a change in the weather that has been forecast – and it looks like the Met Office have done their homework. When his colleagues might guess he is thinking about fishing he proves them wrong, albeit in somewhat cryptic terms.
‘One thing’s for sure – we can’t take a chance on Jubb being dead.’
When he is met with silence he turns on his heel; his expression is ominous like the sky at his back.
‘We can reasonably suggest that Jubb’s killed two people and tried to murder a third. But that’s just what we know about. Snapshots from a twenty-odd-year career.’
DS Jones is plainly more comfortable with this, the original scenario.
‘You mean – why would he stop now? That he might have a plan in progress?’
Skelgill’s answer is terse.
‘Now might be the most dangerous time.’
DS Jones has duly regained her stride.
‘We also have to consider the possibility that he could suspect someone else of knowing his identity.’ She glances apprehensively at Skelgill. ‘I mean – isn’t that where the mysterious Mrs Smith could come into the picture?’
