Murder In School (Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates Book 2), page 23
‘Excellent, Inspector.’ Dr Jacobson grins in his forced clownish manner. ‘I had better not detain you from your business any longer. And please do let me know if I can be of any assistance. Even if it is only to offer you a decent cup of tea.’
‘Thank you, sir. Good luck with the dog’s bath.’
Dr Jacobson makes a gurning face and hobbles away, calling reprimandlingly after Cleopatra, who seems to have disappeared again.
Skelgill watches him for a few moments, before turning and striding out at a much brisker pace than before.
It takes him about ten minutes to reach the boathouse, and upon arrival he makes immediately for the landing stage. Ever the alert angler, he treads cautiously upon the weathered planks. However, if there are any fish stirring, their presence is concealed by a light but persistent ripple.
There is a small raft of duck out on the silvery water, but their colourless silhouettes at such a distance make them unidentifiable without binoculars. Then a large dark species he does know beats purposefully past, and he raises an angry fist like an irate farmer plagued by crows – it is a cormorant, pelagic scourge of inland fisheries.
Still watching the lake, he munches his way reflectively through a couple of biscuits, before he turns and retraces his steps to the boathouse, where Querrell’s tired craft lies chained. Then he makes what appears to be a cursory inspection of the shoreline and the short grass close to the dilapidated building.
Perhaps satisfied that the water level is indeed falling, he consults his wristwatch. Then he surveys the rising ground ahead of him: the pavilion and the school sit upon the same azimuth, though neither edifice is visible owing to successive barriers of shrub and tree. He selects an apparently random route into a patch of willows, but emerges in due course from the thicket correctly moving in parallel to the low ridge of ground that he had noted from Sale Fell. Passing through another brake of springy ash saplings he reaches the perimeter of the first eleven cricket oval, with the pavilion not far ahead.
As he pauses to take stock, he espies a short tracksuited figure push what looks like a large hosepipe-reel out from behind the building. It is Mike Greig, and the mechanical device is a boundary-rope wheel. Skelgill stares intently, although on this occasion it is probably not the luxury item of cricket equipment that makes his eyes widen, but the rifle that is slung over Greig’s shoulder.
Oakthwaite’s Director of Sport has his head down as he gets to grips with the contraption – two hundred and forty yards of one-inch diameter rope weighs in at about the same as a typical fourth-former – but at any moment he will look up and find Skelgill standing in his direct line of sight. Skelgill has just a second or two to make up his mind what to do – retreat, to hide and observe, or step out and reveal himself as a casual passer-by. In the event he chooses the latter course, and hops quickly onto the short-cropped outfield to assume a casual gait towards the approaching sports master. In due course Greig glances ahead and, while he seems surprised to see the oncoming detective, he betrays no sign of concern as regards being caught in possession of a firearm.
‘Howzit, Inspector?
‘Expecting trouble, Mike?’
Greig grins in his laid-back way. ‘Nah, Inspector, vermin – another one of my new duties – we’ve had jack rabbits sabotaging the square – their urine kills the grass – I’m on the warpath, ja?’
Skelgill tilts his head briefly to one side and puckers his lips, acknowledging the validity of this explanation. ‘What is it, a point-two-two?’
Greig lets go of the rope wheel and slings the gun around, keeping the barrel pointed at the ground. He hands it stock first to Skelgill. It is an ominous-looking weapon, with a telescopic sight and a long matt-black silencer. Skelgill gives it a once-over – he checks that the safety catch is engaged, and breaks the barrel to satisfy himself that it is indeed an airgun. Then he holds it up and weighs it, before sighting on a rook that rests in a treetop in the direction of the lake.
‘I could have done with this a few minutes ago.’
‘Inspector?’
‘A cormorant – one of my main competitors.’
Greig nods. ‘Let me tell you this, Inspector, these things are just pea-shooters compared to what I grew up with. I take it I’m legal, ja?’
Skelgill hands back the air rifle. ‘As long as you’re over eighteen you can walk into a gun shop and buy one. To use it, you need to be on private land, at least fifty feet from the centre of the public highway.’
‘Sounds like I’m fine, then?’
Skelgill nods. ‘It is yours, Mike?’
Greig shakes his head. ‘I found it in Hodgson’s equipment store – tucked away behind a stack of marker poles. I’ve seen him creeping about with it in the past, so I had an idea it would still be there.’
Skelgill gestures towards the boundary-rope winder. ‘You’ve got a match today?’
‘Nah – all the external fixtures have been put on hold. I’m just running an inter-house twenty-twenty tournament this week to keep the boys occupied, ja?’
Skelgill glances across at the pavilion. ‘It appears we’ve commandeered your office.’
Greig shrugs. ‘You’re welcome, Inspector – anything I can do to help. Anyway – I wouldn’t like to get into an argument with your Sergeant.’
Skelgill grimaces apologetically. ‘I believe the office was originally Mr Querrell’s – before you came?’
Greig’s expression is blank. He rubs a palm absently over his short ginger hair. ‘Not that I know of, Inspector. He occasionally borrowed it after school hours – for his outward-bound briefings, ja?’
Skelgill seems satisfied with this reply, and in fact relatively disinterested. He casts about the cricket oval, as though he’s trying to spot the telltale signs of rabbit damage. His eyes settle instead upon a couple of fresh peaty molehills that might be at deep square leg. He shrugs, then he begins to move away.
‘Mike, I’d better let you get on with your work. If you’re serious about the rabbits, you need to come out at night with a spotlight – though I wouldn’t recommend it at the moment.’
‘You mean in case I’m mistaken for a kidnapper, ja?’
‘Something like that.’ Skelgill winks. ‘We’ve got marksmen on all the rooftops.’
Greig looks momentarily flummoxed by the British irony, but then he grins, before switching to a more serious tone to ask, ‘No news of the boy?’
‘Nothing concrete.’ Skelgill shakes his head slowly. ‘At the moment you’re still the last person to have set eyes upon him.’
Leaving Greig perhaps a little taken aback by this parting remark, Skelgill makes a beeline for the pavilion. However, when he arrives at the foot of the wide wooden steps, he seems to have a change of mind, and continues past the building, and on towards the main school.
Rather in the way that the general population never set foot inside one of HM’s prisons, nor have any real notion of how such an institution looks and sounds and smells, so they are insulated from Britain’s great public schools, which operate in oddly comparable bubbles of splendid isolation. As Skelgill approaches the grand neoclassical façade he must be struck by the incongruity that many a comprehensively educated pupil, past or present, would experience: that this imposing palace set amidst stately parklands could be where you actually went to school. But if he is accosted by this thought, he does not allow it to delay him, and when he crosses from the great lawn onto the expensive ornamental sandstone chippings of the curving driveway, he veers left and begins deliberately to make his way around the perimeter of the imposing construction.
The majority of its windows are too high to afford the opportunity to peer inside, but in any event this does not seem to be his object. Indeed, whether he has an object at all is uncertain, and perhaps he is just whiling away some time before rendezvousing with DS Leyton and dealing with the inevitable disappointment and frustration of the failure of the operation to produce any concrete leads. Clearly, it is apparent that Skelgill does not set great store by either of the main theories that propose to explain the disappearance of Cholmondeley junior: that he is lost in the fells, or has left the district, whether by his own volition or otherwise. However, the Inspector is unable to articulate either his doubts, or his certainties.
The conundrum with which he wrestles can perhaps best be compared to his method for angling, which ostensibly approximates to a process of divination. Setting out on any given day to fish Bassenthwaite Lake, many subtle factors impose themselves upon his senses. For instance, there are the water conditions – the level, flow, colour and temperature. There is the season and its concomitant effects – the breeding cycle and territorial or migrationary behaviour of his target species; the constantly changing food supply – a whole myriad of invertebrates that may be displaying, laying, hatching, moulting or emerging. There is the local weather – sunlight, cloud cover, precipitation, barometric pressure. The breeze alone creates eddies and wind lanes that gather and funnel food, enticing smaller fish which in turn attract bigger ones. There is the distressing presence of predators, like ospreys and otters, and disturbance from other less inconspicuous lake users than Skelgill.
Multifarious influences such as these, perhaps twenty or fifty or even a hundred at any one time, cannot logically be computed. That is simply not an option for the rational part of Skelgill’s fishing brain – no matter how much he might later pontificate over a pint, celebrating his acumen or bemoaning his bad luck. Yet Skelgill consistently does succeed in tracking down big fish. If he were asked to explain this feat he might put it down to experience – although, a ‘sixth sense’ would be a more apt description. This is not some supernatural phenomenon, however, but simply the process of absorbing, consciously or otherwise, the many clues that pertain to that particular day’s conditions, and then allowing his subconscious to combine these with stored memories and, in due course, to make the necessary connections between those factors which are relevant: factors that will deliver his boat to that precise mark below which lies his quarry. Thus Skelgill will ‘find’ himself fishing in a certain manner, at a certain specific point on the great bayou, bolstered by a strong sense that he is in the right place.
Understanding this of Skelgill – the method that in equal measure baffles and infuriates his workmates – means it can be viewed as something more than random fortune when he produces a positive outcome. And being drawn as he is to the vicinity of Oakthwaite should tell his colleagues that he at least ‘feels’ something. It is just that the ‘feeling’ has yet to become a ‘knowing’. In the watery depths of his subconscious, a formidable hypothesis is still to coalesce as a red-herring-free shoal that can break the surface of conscious awareness. But it is hoped for the boy’s sake that this leaping revelation will come soon.
And perhaps herein lies the explanation for Skelgill’s curious wandering behaviour this morning. Could it be that he drifts, guided by intuition, anticipating such inspiration? As he saunters now around the building, he meets a high perpendicular wall of locally hewn stone. There is a low archway, of the kind that might once have been a cloistered window. Perhaps it is a relic of the more ancient edifice – the castle, even – that once existed upon the site. He ducks through, and finds himself in an extensive walled garden. It is well tended, although it seems for ornamental rather than culinary purposes. There are magnificent herbaceous borders on all sides, a kaleidoscopic delight of red crimson rose peonies, great armies of blue spiked delphiniums, and the waving heads of giant yellow scabious. He pauses to admire a collection of butterflies that feed upon an adjacent Buddleia, its white cascading racemes crowded with red admirals, peacocks and small tortoiseshells in roughly similar numbers. He is able to approach them literally within inches. Indeed, so determined are they to gorge upon the perfumed nectar drawn by the morning’s damp heat, that the papery rustle of their wings is audible in the windless oasis.
Except suddenly there is a voice, and the answering murmur of another. Glancing across the garden, Skelgill sees immediately that he is not alone. Upon a stone bench beneath an arbour of climbing roses, and partially concealed by box topiary set in unglazed planters, sit the figures of Mr Goodman and Dr Snyder. Seen together they make a somewhat incongruous pairing: the former short, stiff and tense, the latter decidedly lanky and languid – in fact they could almost be mistaken for pupil and master. Their eyes are cast down, as if they are scrutinising a pattern in the slabs at their feet, though it is likely to be something of a more abstract nature with which they wrestle.
They have evidently not noticed Skelgill’s sure-footed entry into the horticultural quadrangle and, as per his recent encounter with Greig, he is faced with a binary choice of actions. He could slip away, and perhaps even creep around to the far side and attempt to eavesdrop from behind the wall, or he could saunter in, and pretend that his exploration in some way pertains to the investigation. But at this juncture Mr Goodman lifts his head and his beady eyes uncannily fasten upon Skelgill, catching him in the act of observation. Now the detective has little option but to cross the manicured greensward that separates them. He must feel self-conscious as he approaches the silent and staring couple.
‘Can I help you, Inspector?’ Mr Goodman’s hostile facial expression contrasts with the literal content of his question.
‘Quite the secret garden you have here, sir.’
The innuendo in Skelgill’s casually spoken statement suggests he is not about to be intimidated. He closes to within a yard, obliging his antagonists to squint upwards into the sun that beams over his shoulder.
Mr Goodman scowls. ‘We use it for private garden parties – after speech days, and to welcome dignitaries.’
There is a clear implication in his choice of words that Skelgill is neither invited nor welcome, and is trespassing well above his station.
After a lengthy pause, Skelgill says, ‘It was Dr Snyder I wanted to speak with, sir.’
Dr Snyder, who has been leaning forwards in an uneasy pose, resting his elbows on his thighs, with his large hands flapping loosely over his knees, now sits upright and straightens his jacket – although he does not speak. Of the two, it is he that exudes an impression of being concerned – perhaps that they were overheard.
‘I’d just like to confirm, sir, who else had keys for Mr Querrell’s property?’
Dr Snyder coughs, and then spreads his palms in a gesture of explanation. ‘As I believe I mentioned previously, Inspector, Mr Querrell was the sole key-holder.’
Skelgill considers the reply for a moment. ‘Isn’t that a little odd, sir?’
‘Inspector, when it comes to Querrell, nothing can be considered odd.’
This terse interjection emanates from Mr Goodman. Skelgill ignores him, and continues to stare at Dr Snyder. After a few moments Dr Snyder relents under this scrutiny, to the evident annoyance of his boss.
‘Inspector, during my first term, when I was assessing the overall security of the school premises, I did ask Mr Querrell if he would like me to keep a spare key in case his ever became misplaced. He informed me that there was no such requirement, since he very rarely secured the property.’
Skelgill nods as though he accepts this statement, but then he says, ‘Yet it was locked after his death and Mr Hodgson subsequently managed to gain access.’
Again the Head interjects, his tone becoming increasingly impatient. ‘Perhaps he climbed through a window, Inspector. Given what we have learned about him since, I don’t imagine a spot of housebreaking was beyond his scruples.’
It ought to be apparent to the two schoolmasters that it is only by happenstance that Skelgill has stumbled upon their tête-à-tête, and that he is thus operating on the hoof. Indeed, Mr Goodman seems to detect this probability, and moves to press home his advantage.
‘Shouldn’t you be deploying your resources elsewhere, Inspector? The school has the air of a prison camp, with a sentry on the gate and guards patrolling around the building. My information is that the boy has been sighted in Cheshire. Just what is the problem?’
Skelgill, quite possibly wishing for an exit strategy, stares blankly at the Headmaster. ‘The problem, sir? My information is that the problem is much closer to home.’
If this were a playground spat of old, Skelgill might have appended his retort with ‘So put that in your pipe and smoke it.’ Instead he allows the gravity of his assertion to sink in, before turning and stalking back whence he came. There is no utterance from behind him, as if the putative conspirators await his complete disappearance before resuming their conversation. As he clambers through the aperture in the wall, his mobile ringtone tells him DS Jones is calling.
‘Guv – I might have something.’
‘Morning, Jones.’
‘Er, yeah – sorry, Guv – morning... afternoon, even. I’ve only got a minute – DI Smart’s just about to pick me up – I’ve been with my uncle – my great uncle.’
‘Come again?’
‘My aunt who works at the school – it’s her old dad – he used to be a gardener there – in the sixties and seventies.’
‘That’s going back some.’
‘I know, Guv – and it’s just a tenuous connection – he remembers there was an incident on the lake in the early seventies.’
‘Bass Lake?’
‘Aha. There was a drowning, and it involved a boy being expelled.’
‘That’s probably why they don’t do swimming or boating activities.’
‘The thing is, Guv – he couldn’t remember any of the names. So I’ve crosschecked the list you gave me. And I got the current roll of students and staff, from my aunt.’
‘And?’
‘Well – there are some names that appear back then and now. That’s maybe no surprise, given the generations thing, but you never know. And there are oddities – like three or four names from the early seventies that are in brackets – I’m not sure what that means.’
