Murder at the Bridge (Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates Book 20), page 24
DS Jones nods but does not dwell upon his misfortune.
‘That would have been when you got the job here?’
He seems a little perturbed that she moves on so peremptorily.
‘Well – yes – a small hiatus. You understand – it took a little time to recover from the body blow.’
But he grins – again, it is his politician’s smile, over-practised, hackneyed, unconvincing – and yet it is human instinct to react to such a stimulus within only a permitted range of responses.
DS Jones allows a few moments’ pause. Then she taps her pen against a point on the page, like a conductor regaining control of the orchestra.
‘You’re engaged to Dr Bedlington. Were you previously married?’
Now there is a more considered smile, an expression of smugness – that she might find hard to believe what he is about to tell her, such an attractive prospect as he.
‘I have hitherto managed to avoid Cupid’s arrow – but Lucy and I – we seem to be soulmates.’
DS Jones appears in two minds over whether to probe further. Then, with her pen poised over a blank box, she strikes a line through it. She looks up – and now speaks in a more conversational tone.
‘What made you come to Cumbria, sir?’
‘Needs must, Sergeant.’ He seems not to notice or care that the expression may cause offence – that he might as well have said, “Beggars can’t be choosers”. But he continues – and again casts about the large room – as though to emphasise that he has recovered his rightful status. ‘There are only so many jobs at my level of experience and competence.’
‘And that was five years ago?’
‘Correct, in August.’
DS Jones briefly refers to her notes.
‘And you joined the DAA – the Derwentdale Anglers’ Association – almost immediately.’
He seems to interpret the question as a small slight; he responds in a superior manner.
‘Well – one’s hobby is always a good way of meeting like-minded people – when you move to somewhere new, you know?’
‘What made you pick the DAA over the other local group – the AAA?’
Now he appears momentarily puzzled.
‘I felt – and I believe I have been proved right – that the DAA is a smaller, more friendly organisation.’
DS Jones turns to Skelgill – as if she is inviting him to step in with a question. But he looks not a picture of geniality. A small crease forms on her brow. She has made the opening and it seems he eschews it.
She addresses Anthony Goodman.
‘Which brings us full circle to Mr Betony. He joined the DAA quite recently – did you know him or have any contact with him before that?’
The man slowly shakes his head, and resumes the slow wringing of his hands, as though he might be revisiting the tragedy in his mind’s eye.
‘Actually, he appeared out of the blue. I don’t recall any procedure. We had a vacancy on the committee – and suddenly one evening he was there.’
‘And did you socialise with him – or fish with him – or anything like that?’
The condescending smile is rolled out once more.
‘You know, Sergeant – I don’t believe he was much of an angler. I suspect his involvement on the committee was more about self-advancement.’
*
‘Sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.’
DS Jones has waited until she and Skelgill have moved away from the building. Now he seems to be leading her in the opposite direction from the area marked for visitors’ parking. She has her hood up against the rain and has to hold one side of it to look at him. He seems unbothered by the conditions, his own hood down.
He stares intently, but shakes his head. He does not otherwise answer.
‘I thought –’ DS Jones hesitates, to rephrase her statement perhaps. ‘You seemed agitated. I wondered if you’d recognised him. He’s distinctive looking.’
Skelgill swings a left hook at the low-hanging branch of a sycamore – it has not yet cast its leaves and a sudden deluge of oversized droplets descends upon him.
His sole verbal rejoinder is a mild curse, which may or may not be a reaction to the ill-advised punch.
‘I mean – sufficiently distinctive that Kyle Betony might have seen the resemblance in the photograph.’
She has tried to mitigate what Skelgill might interpret as a criticism of his own powers of observation. And she goes further.
‘But, of course, if it’s not him – then there would be nothing to notice.’
Skelgill is striding on at a good lick, and she has to move quickly to keep up with him. They seem to be circumnavigating the building; now they are on spongy mown grass that forms part of the extensive grounds. She takes a different tack.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Staff car park.’
And Skelgill’s sense of direction is proved right; they round a corner to emerge upon a second parking zone. There are about a dozen vehicles in two rows. Those facing the windowless rear wall of the modern administrative block have bays marked by small signs. Skelgill halts at the one that reads, “Director of Finance”.
‘Looks like his bank balance has recovered.’
A new top-of-the-range white Mercedes coupe fills the space.
DS Jones wants better to understand the purpose of their detour.
‘What are you thinking, Guv?’
Skelgill ponders for a moment, his lips compressed, his lashes blinking away raindrops.
‘I’m thinking we should have taken all the numbers outside The Partridge.’
‘On the Sunday morning?’
‘Aye.’
‘There’s the hotel register.’
‘That’s residents only.’
‘Ah, yes – and I suppose no obligation to complete it – the Smiths left that section blank.’
‘This car weren’t there when we saw Goodman and his woman on the Monday night. They must have arrived in hers.’
DS Jones is nodding. So that was what he was up to when he disappeared for a short while. She wonders what might be his logic (rarely a good idea, she admits). And there are too many possible permutations – though she understands that not everyone need have travelled home by the same means as they arrived; a vehicle could have been left overnight, blending in with residents’ cars, and collected next morning.
‘As soon as we’re out of the rain – I’ll send these details to DC Watson.’
She pats her shoulder bag; she means the information that will corroborate the identity of Anthony Goodman.
Skelgill nods grimly.
He casts about; there are large puddles forming on the tarmac, and across on the lawns water is collecting in small depressions, the heavens emptying too fast for the sodden ground to absorb.
‘Flood.’
RUBBYBANKS ROAD, COCKERMOUTH – 2.22 p.m.
When Skelgill said “Flood” it was a dual-purpose term – for Stephen Flood is their second appointment. They have received word that he has the afternoon off, and may be found at his home address.
‘Remind us what we know.’
They have parked outside a property in the older part of the town, quite close to the centre, where cramped terraces have Georgian and Victorian origins. This particular sector lies in the obtuse (rather than the acute) angle between the rivers Derwent and Cocker. The latter joins the former like a motorway on-slip, and provides the settlement with its toponym.
They have descended from the north on what Skelgill calls the “top road” – actually passing Spital Ing Lane – a craned glimpse yielding no sign of their colleague’s car; and they have not tried to contact him. Skelgill works as usual on the principle that, be there news, Leyton will call.
They have crossed Gote Bridge into a town on flood alert. Many householders and shopkeepers have already erected their door barriers (or piles of sandbags, where no such device has been fitted). Skelgill was conscious of historical nick marks and more formal flood-level plates on walls that would show his car to be entirely submerged as they navigated Main Street. The town has a beauty-and-the-beast quality; the rather magical confluence of the largely benign rivers – and the wrath that a prolonged storm in the fells can unleash upon its unsuspecting denizens. Though flooding is a little more anticipated these days. Once-in-a-century inundations have become once-in-a-decade events. A stoic population hunkers down, like the residents of many a border town in bygone times, as the whims of barons and kings saw marauding armies sweep north and south and back again.
Rubbybanks Road is no exception. Running parallel to the Cocker, and the river forming one side of the street over a low wall, it is a prime flooding spot. So much so that there has been an investment in self-raising flood barriers that rise up out of the wall itself. Skelgill stares at the arrangement – as yet, the innovative contraption does not appear to have activated, despite that the flint-blue water seems ominously high.
It is an interesting choice of address for a man in Stephen Flood’s line of work; not to mention his surname.
Skelgill speaks his thoughts.
‘Flood by name.’
DS Jones is still trying to locate DS Leyton’s interview report on her tablet. She speaks without looking up.
‘I was at uni with a girl from Glenrothes called Morna Flood. Think it’s a Scottish name?’
Skelgill shakes his head somewhat indifferently. He has met no other human Floods, and two Scots is a small sample.
Now DS Jones finds what she seeks.
‘We have his age as forty-seven. Widowed. He has been living in Cumbria for twenty-two years.’
She hesitates at this – perhaps because it is patently fewer years than the incident twenty-four years earlier; the now-controversial death of Lynette Jubb.
Skelgill seems to be thinking along similar lines; his expression is severe.
‘When’s he forty-eight?’
‘Ah – that’s October – the twenty-fifth.’
‘When’s Jubb’s birthday?’
‘I don’t recall the exact date – but it was June – he would already be forty-eight.’
Skelgill’s face is severe. These points could of course be academic if someone is concealing their true identity and age – it would seem too obvious for anyone with a modicum of basic cunning to overlook. Nevertheless, Stephen Flood of the three suspect males is ostensibly the closest in age to what Toby Jubb would be.
DS Jones understands what Skelgill is getting at.
‘He was one of the last to interact meaningfully with Kyle Betony.’ She begins to paraphrase from the report. ‘After the dinner, Betony joined Flood at his table in the bar. Flood was irritated by Betony’s persistence. Flood paid a visit to the gents’. When he returned Betony was gone. Flood finished his drink and left – and that was at around ten-thirty. If you recall from the other witness statements, it seems likely that this was the point when Betony spoke with Ruth Robinson and Jackie Baker in the residents’ lounge – and then returned along the corridor towards the toilets and the exit. That was when Anthony Goodman saw him pass. After that, we have nothing.’
Skelgill remains silent; he seems mesmerised by the flow of the river, his gaze flicking back and forth as he follows successive items of flotsam that sail the stretch in view.
DS Jones offers a prompt.
‘We only have Stephen Flood’s word that he didn’t see Kyle Betony again. He did admit he was riled by him. And they were sitting in the alcove – where the photograph was removed from the wall. When you piece it all together, it makes him sound like someone we ought to look at closely. Flood must have left at more or less the same time Kyle Betony disappeared.’
Skelgill is evidently paying more attention than his demeanour might suggest.
‘What time did that car pull up – the car that the pillow bloke noticed?’
‘Mr Brian Cotswold?’ She checks. ‘Well – yes – that was also at or shortly after ten-thirty.’
Skelgill folds his arms and turns his gaze away from the river. Ahead, the road narrows into a pedestrian tunnel where Victoria Bridge spans the Cocker, one of only two road-crossings in the town. The asymmetrical double stone arch calls to mind Ouse Bridge, though the latter is grander and somehow more elegant; perhaps it is the backdrop of Bass Lake and Skiddaw that influences him. His front teeth protrude, an expression of concentration when little concrete is forthcoming. Flood is a neat circumstantial fit. He wonders why he has not seen this so clearly hitherto. But he is aware that the clock is ticking to ill effect. Avoid temptation. To plump for Flood would be like Alec Smart has plumped for Jay Chaudry. Circumstantial evidence has its limitations. Wrong conclusions can be drawn. Twice in a fortnight he has returned home to find his dog had stolen and eaten butter from the worktop. Until – third time around – Skelgill approached stealthily from the rear of the house. Through the kitchen window he observed the cat making a meal of the latest replacement packet – devouring most of its contents and eventually pushing it off the raised surface. Thence Cleopatra licked the wrapper clean around the house, ending up near the front door. Were Skelgill to enter, he would find only the dog capable of looking guilty. The cat has no such capacity.
‘Let’s keep it in mind.’ Skelgill makes to move. This time he pulls up his hood. ‘Reet. Same form then lass. You did a good job with Goodman.’
DS Jones does a little double-take, the compliment coming unexpectedly; though there is perhaps a back-handed component, in that she must again put in the hard yards. They have not discussed in any detail their previous interview – agreeing that reflection is better kept for the wider context of having spoken to all three men, along with any information that DS Leyton will bring, or the team at headquarters might unearth.
In answer to her question – what did Skelgill think? – driving away from Bothel, he had merely remarked that “Something didn’t smell right” – it had come across as a platitude, deflection – she had been tempted to joke that it was the strong smell of an expensive cologne that she had noticed, but she had decided not to mention it. Evidently, however, Skelgill was impressed sufficiently by her work.
She joins him on the pavement, and for a moment they both regard the building before them. In a street of mainly well-kept properties, freshly painted in pastels of blue, yellow and pale ochre, with window and door surrounds picked out in black or white, number thirty-seven makes an unsightly contrast, even to Skelgill’s less discerning eye. It is the end house of a short terrace of very narrow homes, each just a door and a window wide, but three storeys high. It seems to tower diffusely into the mist of the rain. The bare fascia is of stained harling badly in need of attention; it conveys a sense of dereliction of interest, of slatternliness. Within a low wall over which sprawls an unkempt privet hedge a small front garden has run to ruin. Rose bushes have long grown leggy, beyond the redemption of pruning. There are weeds in the path, and decaying fallen leaves gather unswept.
Is this the mantle of solitary living? Skelgill looks askance at DS Jones – as if he fears in some indirect way that the property projects upon him an undesirable quality. But she seems more perturbed by the unrelenting downpour – and he pushes open the unlatched gate so that they may swiftly gain the cover of an open-fronted porch beneath which four steps rise to the front door. A gutter drips from above, a steady splattering upon the algae-stained corrugated plastic roof.
‘Hark.’
DS Jones, poised to ring the doorbell, retracts her hand.
Skelgill leans in.
From within emanate raised voices. A guttural male and a sharp, staccato female. It is hard to judge who leads the argument – sometimes they shout at once. Exact words are indiscernible.
The detectives exchange concerned glances – the question is whether they should intervene.
Skelgill gives a terse nod.
DS Jones presses the button – they do not hear the chime – it must be deeper in the house.
But the voices are silenced.
Nobody comes.
The detectives wait.
DS Jones seems to know the optimum interval – she rings again just as Skelgill is about to nudge her.
Still nothing.
Skelgill, deceptively gently, moves her aside. He is just raising a clenched fist when, in the passage at the side of the house there is the slam of a door.
A moment later a man appears.
Short, stocky, wearing a long mackintosh and a tweed cap of the sort Skelgill would associate with a gamekeeper, he rounds the side of the porch and mounts the bottom step.
Hands in pockets, there is little to see of him – thickset, square-jawed, a generously bulbous nose and a contrastingly mean mouth; the expression belligerent – an impression boosted by a diagonal scar that cleaves his left cheek.
‘Mr Flood. We’re from Cumbria CID. I’m DS Jones and this is DI Skelgill.’
That DS Jones quickly adds their credentials is because she sees suspicion in his reaction – and it would not be the first time they have been mistaken for evangelists of some variety. She has her warrant card at the ready and the narrowed eyes briefly flick over it.
‘Aye.’
He seems to accept that they were due to arrive. He makes no move, nor reference to anything that has gone before – not even to the altercation, or to his irregular emergence.
‘We are at the correct house?’
‘Aye.’
There is a momentary standoff – but DS Jones seems determined to hold her ground.
‘Is this convenient, sir?’
She does not elaborate – although it must be obvious that the cramped circumstances of the inadequate shelter form at least part of her meaning.
‘Ah’m just going fae the evening paper. It’ll keep.’
Skelgill is wondering if the man’s standpoint is designed to hurry them off. They are uncomfortably close, two steps apart, looking down upon him. Skelgill edges away to the extent that he can – the man seems perturbed; the inference being that DS Jones will speak. She does.
‘Mr Flood – we’re having to reassess the investigation into the death of Mr Betony – you may have seen press reports of a possible drug connection?’
