Murder at the Bridge (Detective Inspector Skelgill Investigates Book 20), page 8
PENRITH TO MANCHESTER BY ZOOM, 3.16 p.m.
‘How’s that, sir – can you hear me now?’
‘Spot on, officer – I think you were on mute.’
‘Cor blimey – if I ever get the hang of this, it’ll be gone out of date.’
‘I shouldn’t worry, officer – it’s my business and I can’t keep up with it.’
‘And I ain’t speaking to you with Mickey Mouse ears – anything like that?’
‘No, no – I have you clear as crystal – how about your end?’
DS Leyton grimaces into the computer screen. Not only is technology not his forte, but neither is an online interview his cup of tea. “I prefer to see the whites of their eyes, Guv” was his lament in discussing his schedule with Skelgill. But the latter’s insistence that they mop up all the pertinent DAA committee members before close of play has meant for him a virtual meeting with Jay Chaudry, who has returned to his IT business in Salford’s MediaCityUK. Now, he takes a moment to consider what he can determine. DC Watson’s pro-forma tells him the man is aged forty-two and single; but that his home address is given as Castle How Farm, Orthwaite – on Skelgill’s wall map the speck of a settlement near the small lake known as Over Water. He wears a striped shirt and a flamboyant jungle-pattern necktie; his regular features are cleanshaven and his black hair cut short in the modern style. But the image resolution is moderate, at best, and the man’s dark eyes appear as black pools (no whites to be seen). His accent is only slight, Midlands perhaps. His manner is entirely cooperative, and DS Leyton, having himself begun in self-deprecating terms, maintains his disarming tone.
‘If you don’t mind my saying so, sir – you don’t look like most of the farmers I meet.’
Jay Chaudry chuckles.
‘I’m still learning to wear that hat, officer. Skip a generation and believe it or not I hail from an agricultural background – but a very meagre one, and the only way I was ever going to get back there was by making some money first. And, as I don’t doubt you’ve heard, there’s no fortune in farming.’
DS Leyton has trailed at Skelgill’s heels long enough to appreciate there is some merit in this case, although agriculture, like many walks of life, is plainly not without its class system, the haves and the have-nots; but it is a debate for another day.
‘What brought you to this neck of the woods, sir?’
‘To be honest, it was by chance. I wanted a place within two hours’ drive – I have an apartment here in the Quays – and Orthwaite was right on the limit. But the land agent that was on the lookout for me heard that the neighbouring farmer was interested in a joint venture. That made it perfect – Castle How Farm came with a hefted flock of three hundred Herdwicks – the sort of commitment I could never have taken on – never mind not having the first clue about sheep.’
DS Leyton is nodding. He congratulates himself that he understands what the man is talking about – the hefted flock being one of Skelgill’s regular lectures. But there is a technical lag developing, and he is reminded he should get to the point before the screen freezes or the line drops out entirely. He approaches his object carefully, however.
‘And how about the fishing, sir – where does that come in?’
The man raises both hands in an apologetic manner.
‘Well, I’d be the first to admit I’m neither the most prolific nor skilled angler – but I had made a donation to an appeal to rebuild the bridge over Dash Beck that had been swept away by floods. I mean – don’t get me wrong – it wasn’t entirely altruistic – the lane was cut off to the south of the farm. I was asked along to a DAA committee meeting – I thought just to thank me – but they had a vacancy at the time and they seemed quite keen to co-opt me.’
‘How long ago was that, then, sir?’
‘It will be six years next January.’
‘So, Mr Betony – he joined well after you?’
The man draws breath self-reproachfully – as if to acknowledge there is a more portentous matter that he has rather glibly avoided.
‘Yes – he was the newest member – he came on board about a year ago, I should say.’
‘Did you get to know him, at all?’
Jay Chaudry shakes his head – an action he perhaps exaggerates for the purposes of the camera.
‘I can’t say I did.’
‘I thought he was the outgoing sort, sir?’
‘Oh, well – yes, he was that. But for some reason I didn’t personally click with him. He was perhaps a bit full of his own agenda – preoccupied, if you know what I mean? He never really stopped to find out what you were about. Whenever you met him he was straight in with his latest scheme.’ The man pauses, it seems as if to ponder what has been an instinctively drawn sketch. ‘When I think about it – Stephen Flood, for instance, is a bit of an introvert, and yet I feel I know him much better. And Anthony – Anthony Goodman – he’s a chatty sort – but he’s interested in other people for their own sake.’
DS Leyton is nodding along – in part wondering where this is going – but it provides enough of a bridge.
‘Well – as you can imagine, sir – we’re trying to understand whether there was anything that might explain what happened to Mr Betony. Can you recall when you last saw him?’
The man frowns, before responding more tentatively now.
‘Well – speaking of Anthony Goodman – we were seated beside one another for dinner. We went to get a coffee together from the lounge. Anthony had a look out in the corridor to see if the fireside chairs in the Snug were free – they were, so he bagged them and I followed him with the coffees.’
‘What time was that, about, sir?’
‘Maybe ten past … a quarter past ten.’
‘And was Mr Betony still at the table?’
There is a further hesitation.
‘I think he was – he would have been talking to Stephen Flood, who was next to him. Yes – I think they were both still at the table. Oh, wait – were they? You know, you’d better not quote me on that – I’m not a hundred percent sure now.’
‘And are you saying you didn’t see Mr Betony again?’
‘No, I can’t say I did. I sat the whole time in the Snug with Anthony. I left at just after eleven.’
‘You didn’t get up for any reason?’
‘No – I mean – we did have one for the road – a small Scotch – but Anthony fetched them from the bar. He seemed to think it was his round from the last committee meeting. Maybe he saw Kyle?’
DS Leyton does not indicate whether he already has such information.
‘Going back to the dinner, then, sir. Was there anything that came up – anything that Mr Betony said – that would give you cause for concern – with hindsight – in view of what happened to him?’
Now Jay Chaudry looks plainly conflicted.
‘Well – I’m sure he wasn’t drunk, if that’s what you’re asking.’ (DS Leyton scowls as though he has not heard properly, and waits until the man continues.) ‘And he was certainly his usual talkative self – but I don’t recall anything that made me think, wait a minute, this guy’s going to jump in the river.’
DS Leyton jerks back a little. The turn of phrase is suddenly rather stark – but of course the idea of suicide is a natural conclusion to reach. And, while not entirely palatable, it suits the police who wish to justify their interest when a more sinister explanation might underlie their inquiry. However, DS Leyton edges closer to this latter possibility.
‘There wasn’t any argument – anything along those lines that might have upset him?’
For the first time the man looks a little alarmed – his eyes widen and now there are discernible whites.
‘Oh, no – nothing like that, I’m sure. Besides – I’d say he was as thick-skinned as they come. He didn’t seem to take offence if you knocked him back.’
‘Can you recall what you discussed – as a group?’
He seems keen to answer – but gives the impression of grasping at the first thing that comes to mind.
‘Well – we talked about football. Stephen Flood was winding the rest of us up. I’d managed to get the Wi-Fi working on my phone – and England were playing Liechtenstein in a World Cup qualifier.’ (DS Leyton is nodding – he had bitten his nails through the dire performance.) ‘I mean – they won 1-0 with a last-minute penalty – but we should be putting double figures past a side like that – population, what, about a third of Carlisle? Of course – Stephen’s a Scot and he was loving it.’ He reflects for a moment. ‘That said – I don’t think Kyle was interested in football – he didn’t seem particularly engaged.’
‘Was there anything he did bring up – about the club maybe?’
Jay Chaudry lifts a finger, as if the prompt has helped him.
‘Well – I was seated at an angle to him – I wasn’t entirely tuned in. But now you mention it there was one thing that struck me – actually, I thought it wasn’t a bad idea.’ There seems to be an element of surprise, the revelation on reflection. ‘He said something like he’d being doing his research and there used to be an annual fishing match between us and the AAA. That’s the Allerdale Angling Association – our local rivals, you might say. He was suggesting that we resurrect the fixture – and that we should be looking to merge with them.’
DS Leyton’s antennae now twitch – not that here is a startling fact in the case – but rather it is surely a scoop that will interest Skelgill. Advance warning of a matter close to his heart. The interview has been rather unproductive, but at least he will be able to demonstrate his diligence in winkling out this intelligence.
While DS Leyton is pondering such serendipity, the man continues, now a little absently.
‘Come to think of it, the subject must have changed – maybe someone said it’s one for a committee meeting – or perhaps the dessert arrived and distracted us. But there’s merit in it. What’s the point of the DAA and the AAA bidding up the prices of the best beats when they could all be under one big umbrella? Put them together and you’d save money and be able to charge more for a better offering. If you brought in business consultants it’s probably the first thing they would say.’
DS Leyton is nodding – but having reminded himself that he has not got far with the inquiry (unless he counts the elimination of Jay Chaudry as a witness to Kyle Betony’s last movements) he racks his brains for some sort of killer question – when the Cumbria Police internet goes down.
APPLETHWAITE GUEST HOUSE, 4.11 p.m.
The next logical port of call for Skelgill and DS Jones, the hamlet of Applethwaite, despite its relative proximity to the Derwent, offers a very different picture to the river valley, the broad agricultural floodplain. Tucked away on the lower slopes of Skiddaw, and extensively wooded, there is an altogether different atmosphere. Such contrasts always give Skelgill pause for thought – a game he has often played with himself – what is his natural habitat, that for which he feels most affinity? Half an hour – three-quarters, maybe – could see him first paddle across the flat, almost Arctic expanse of Bassenthwaite Lake, insulated from any hint of civilisation; to beach the boat and clamber beside a rushing beck in dense oak woodland, with whining gnats and avian echoes and tropical undertones for company; thence out onto the open fells, striding through the heather with the sweet scent of bog myrtle in his nostrils, the wind in his hair and the skyline ever beckoning him. It is a conundrum which he knows he will never bottom; but one he can live with.
As they alight from the car, however, he is somewhat rueful of the change of plan. DS Jones would have been right in assigning a small ulterior motive to his intention to go on foot from Brash Hall to Kirkthwaite. For the riverside is another first among equals; an ecosystem easy on the eye and brimming with wildlife; plants that grow nowhere else; the ubiquitous alders that attract redpolls and siskins; spinning clouds of mayflies; and the magical quality of movement through the landscape, the unseen flow of fish, and flies and leaves on the surface; the flyway that is the exclusive province of kingfisher and dipper and goosander, an experience that can only vaguely be replicated by canoe.
‘Guv?’
DS Jones breaks into his reverie; albeit the sensation for Skelgill is less cerebral and more visceral. He gives a little start and turns his attention to the dwelling before them. Applethwaite House is an appealing slate-built edifice, perhaps originally the country residence of some rich Lancastrian merchant, raised on the foundations of the cotton trade, a reviled anachronism; a clue to its earliest purpose are the non-native sequoias and western hemlocks that number among the surrounding trees. Such properties lend themselves to conversion into guest houses, with their generous public rooms and servants’ quarters and ample sculleries. The present incumbents have gained something of a reputation for their cuisine, and have got themselves on the gourmet map of the Lakes, a notional publication entirely alien to Skelgill – indeed used by a class of visitors that together with their caprice are anathema to his way of seeing the world. Though no inverted snob, he does wonder how some people will pay a small fortune for so much bare white china. His benchmark for keeping his feet on the ground is the reaction to any such unwise boast in his local. “Thou paid ’ow much? Thou must be tapped, Skelly, lad!” (Expletives deleted.)
He follows a few paces behind his colleague as she approaches the freshly painted white door that sits between symmetrical projecting windows, beneath a slate-tiled porch that extends to form the roof of each of the bays.
It opens hardly a second after she presses the bell.
‘Hello – yes?’
‘Mrs Baker?’
‘Er – yes, I’m Jackie Baker.’
While DS Jones completes their introduction Skelgill makes a casual assessment of their second female witness. The first thing that strikes him is that she does not look like a committee member of a traditional angling society. While Ruth Robinson was of rather indeterminate but probably stocky build, her form largely disguised by a long loose-fitting floral smock dress that had seemed apposite in the farmhouse kitchen, Jackie Baker’s figure is plain to see. Clad in smart skinny blue jeans and a close-fitting plain black t-shirt with a subtle AH logo embroidered in silver (Applethwaite House?) it is a youthful physique, indeed a schoolgirlish appearance enhanced by straight, shoulder-length fair hair and finely boned features. She is thin-lipped with small eyes a little close together that dart about as though they follow a hover fly. She is holding a yellow duster and an aerosol can of some proprietary household cleaner, and she has answered their knock so swiftly that she must surely have been polishing the brass on the inside of the door.
She seems anxious – as if she is expecting guests to arrive at any minute and still has much to do. But as DS Jones fills in the regulation gaps in their knowledge Skelgill begins to form the impression that she is just slightly manic. She cannot keep her eyes on DS Jones for more than a few seconds at a time; she sporadically checks her wristwatch, and she seems to keep noticing things around them in the driveway and the flower beds that trouble her. It is as though her action list is growing by the minute. She does nod urgently from time to time, but not exactly at the right places in DS Jones’s discourse. And she inserts inapt phrases, “for sure” and “absolutely” and even “it is what it is”.
It does not appear to occur to her to invite them inside, and when DS Jones reaches the point of her first question of substance (what time did she last see Kyle Betony?), Jackie Baker folds her bare arms across her narrow chest, the duster and spray can rendering the pose uncomfortable-looking.
‘It was about a minute before half-past ten.’ DS Jones takes a note; a very specific response. The woman gives another glance at her watch. ‘I’d promised Kirsten that I would be back at eleven – I had just checked my phone.’
Looking on, listening, Skelgill concludes that not only do Ruth Robinson and Jackie Baker differ in appearance, but also in provenance – the former speaks with a strong local accent; Jackie Baker has rolled the ‘r’ in “Kirsten” and is surely Scots. But they do have in common that neither has seemed resentful of the interrogation, nor made any great expressions of sympathy.
DS Jones is onto her next question.
‘How did Mr Betony seem?’
Jackie Baker appears a little baffled.
‘Just, er – normal – as much as I knew him.’
‘We understand he had a conversation with you and Mrs Robinson about a fishing permit scheme he was trying to get off the ground?’
‘Not exactly.’
The eyes dart about again, but now between the detectives, and her tone sounds more guarded.
‘What do you mean, madam?’
‘Well – he did briefly mention the permits idea – but it wasn’t us that he wanted to speak with.’
DS Jones is taking rapid notes – and her pen hesitates over her pad as she tries to make sense of this answer. Jackie Baker seems to appreciate that her response has a logical flaw.
‘It was after the meal. He was in the corridor – that is, he peered round the door into the residents’ lounge – as though he were looking for someone. He saw us having coffee. I was facing him. Then he turned his head and I assume saw someone else – and made as if to go after them. Then he changed his mind and came across to us. But he just said something along the lines of, we must talk later. Then he went away.’
‘Which way?’
‘Back out into the corridor.’
‘Definitely not into the restaurant?’
‘No – I presumed to catch up with whomever he had seen.’
‘He didn’t say who – or why?’
She gives a small quick shake of her head – and checks her watch once again.
‘No, he didn’t.’
‘Which way did he go – in relation to reception?’
‘Away from reception.’
‘Did you see him again?’
‘No. Ruth and I left shortly after – at a quarter to eleven.’
Skelgill is content to remain in the background. This woman might be more highly strung than her counterpart, but it seems in her nervous birdlike attention to her surroundings she makes a far better witness. But she perhaps makes less good company, lacking concentration upon the other’s conversation. That said, he feels a certain kindred spirit, in a way that he does not really understand, or can even begin to particularise.
