Murder at the Flood Read online

  ‘Maeve, love – missing persons usually turn up – I can promise you that.’

  Though it is an unconvincing overture it seems to have some effect. She sits upright and wipes her eyes with the tips of her fingers, and then produces a folded tissue from her sleeve.

  ‘But you haven’t had any reports.’ She dabs at her nose. ‘What if he never turns up?’

  Skelgill is regarding her with a degree of alarm – another wave of inexplicable familiarity has washed over his subconscious – but still he cannot reel the connection to the surface. As for an answer to her question, he is beginning to wish he had brought DS Jones with him – or even DS Leyton, who can normally defuse an awkward moment with some apposite Cockney wit. Manufacturing a clumsy exit strategy he slaps his thighs and begins to rise from his chair.

  ‘Usually someone that’s missing doesn’t realise folk are worrying about them. Once we start looking, make an announcement – it’s as likely as not some member of the public will come up with a sighting. I need to put those wheels in motion.’

  4. TOWN CENTRE – Tuesday midday

  ‘Only a day late for lunch, Danny.’

  The voice – apparently disembodied, just as it seemed yesterday – and in a similar fashion rouses Skelgill from his reverie. He looks up, startled – and his expression remains so.

  ‘It’s only me – Rhiannon – remember? The one that got away.’

  Her tone is teasing – the admonishment meant in jest – and she slides into the seat opposite him and folds her bare arms on the table. Her outfit today is all black – it includes tight leather-look trousers, but most immediately noticeable to Skelgill must be the plunging neckline of her sleeveless lace-panelled body.

  ‘I was just wondering if you were still serving breakfast.’

  ‘You always were a morning person.’

  Her response is quick and she watches his eyes with a glint in her own. Skelgill shrugs languidly and then makes a little expansive gesture with his hands, indicating the café.

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  She smiles in a patient way.

  ‘I guess you don’t do social media?’ (Skelgill screws up his features – it is sufficient an answer.) ‘Almost two years – more or less since I came back.’

  ‘What brought you to Cockermouth?’

  ‘My kid sister lives here – she put up with me for a couple of months – ha-hah – then this place came on the market – I was running a café just like it in Freemantle – give or take a tiger prawn or two.’

  She turns to look out of the window and rubs away condensation with her left hand. Skelgill watches the circular motion; then he glances at her other hand, her forearm resting on the table.

  ‘Still married?’

  She shakes her head, causing a little rattle of the beads in her cornrows.

  ‘Still fishing?’

  ‘Aye – when I’m not at work.’

  She turns sharply to look at him – but she decides to take the byway that he obviously prefers.

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Police officer.’

  Now her eyes widen.

  ‘Detective?’

  ‘Aye.’

  She leans back and intertwines her fingers; she has impressive nails for one who toils in catering.

  ‘You always were easily bored – I suppose that’s not a problem in your line.’

  ‘It has its moments, believe me.’

  ‘But this isn’t one of them.’ She grins sassily and folds her arms, emphasising her cleavage. ‘So what was that all about – saving pensioners and their pets?’

  Skelgill’s gaze slides conspicuously from her eyes to her folded hands. He shrugs with a certain amount of affected modesty.

  ‘I’m in the mountain rescue – a volunteer. The boat – I was close by when the flood started.’

  ‘It’s all coming back to me – you and your many hats, Danny.’ Rhiannon Rees chuckles – a little salaciously; it must be said. ‘Which one are you wearing today?’

  Skelgill finds himself unable to resist a guileful rejoinder.

  ‘Happen it’s none of the above.’

  Her smile is one of approval – but there is a call for her presence from behind the serving counter – and she reaches across and pats his hand.

  ‘I’d better get your breakfast moving while it’s still lunchtime. Stay right there.’

  Skelgill watches keenly as she disappears from sight. He leans an elbow on the arm of his chair and then his chin upon his knuckles. But now he becomes immersed in some preoccupying thought and indeterminate minutes have passed when he is literally jolted back to reality by the sudden crash of the door just behind him. The rude entrant is a man of around his own age and height, heavily built, with a mop of greasy black hair and clad in oil-smeared navy overalls and great clumping rigger boots. A tyre wrench and a panel-beating hammer dangle from his belt loops like a cowboy’s six-shooters. He lumbers to the counter and rests a proprietorial forearm on the glass display unit. Now, with a side view, Skelgill recognises the swarthy complexion and Neanderthal profile. It is a local man, Levi Armstrong – whom he last arrested four years ago on a charge of grievous bodily harm – a fight outside a pub over a female – although Armstrong pleaded guilty to some lesser indictment and escaped proper justice. His inauspicious record includes assault on a river bailiff, salmon poaching (multiple incidents), possession of an unlicensed shotgun, and innumerable motoring offences.

  While Skelgill cannot hear over the clink and chatter of the café, it is evident that he demands to speak with Rhiannon Rees, for she emerges from the kitchen. Skelgill sees that she smiles – the same engaging smile that she has plied him with – but there is something in her eyes that he finds disconcerting. She ducks beneath the counter and produces a paper carrier bag marked with the logo of The Lonely Cloud Café. She lifts it over – presumably a prepared lunch order of sandwiches or rolls. Armstrong however stands firm and there is a brief exchange of words. Skelgill notices that he hands over no money – but now Rhiannon Rees opens the till, and then gives him what looks like a £20 note. He stuffs it into a breast pocket and with some parting word from the side of his mouth strides back towards the exit.

  Skelgill is watching with practised disinterest – as Levi Armstrong passes close by he notices Skelgill’s attention – but if there is any recognition and rekindled antipathy his pre-set scowl could hardly be more ferocious. He departs with a second crash of the door, not bothering to check whether it is properly closed to the elements. Skelgill leans over and presses it to.

  He glances back to the counter. Rhiannon Rees is looking at him. It is hard to read her expression – but perhaps there is some residual discord – before she grins and flicks him a reassuring v-sign and mouths the words that his meal will be ready in two minutes.

  *

  If Skelgill was concerned about access to River Nation he need not have feared. The windows, of the lattice variety – too quaint really, for the type of outlet, better a twee gift shop – simply buckled under the weight of water – and admitted a tidal wave that wreaked havoc with the stock. As he clambers inside Skelgill is glad to be wearing walking boots, for a brown sludge of dubious origin coats everything in sight – it is a reminder of the horrors faced by householders; this is no ordinary burst pipe. He picks a path through the soggy debris, formerly sportswear; it is like an explosion of tripe in an abattoir, with an odour to match. He enters the back shop, similarly devastated its floor is a swamp of cardboard boxes that have floated off their racks and disintegrated into porridge. He notices a large old-fashioned safe – he tugs it open and foul-smelling slurry pours out, though there appear to be no other salient contents.

  Beyond the storeroom a security door gives on to a cramped hallway. Here there is an external door to a yard and a second internal door that opens on a flight of stairs. Skelgill realises that the latter could operate as a separate property, with the hallway a communal entrance. Certainly it w
ould be possible to come and go without needing to pass through the shop, which could be secured at night without restricting access to the apartment above.

  Three-quarters of the way up the stairs Skelgill passes the stain on the plaster that marks the high water mark of the flood. At the top a narrow landing has three rooms off, and more stairs. In the centre is a small bathroom, a kitchen at the rear appears well equipped, and at the front a comfortable lounge overlooks Main Street. The prominent feature is an L-shaped modern sofa arrangement that encloses a hearth, above which is a wall-mounted television set. Skelgill inspects the ashes; they are stone cold. Nothing else prompts him to linger and he returns to the landing and ascends the second flight of stairs. These are steeper and narrower than the first – more of a ladder – and the door at the top opens into a small room with exposed rafters that is the converted loft. Roof lights either side of the ridge admit natural light; rain is pattering on the glass, which could do with a clean, but probably isn’t easy to get at. There is just space for a bed – its headboard and right side pressed tight against the walls, with a small nightstand on the left. It is made up, though not with freshly ironed linen. The air is stale.

  Skelgill pauses for thought. The suggestion by Maeve Alcock that the flat doubles as an office does not appear to hold water. Nowhere has he seen so much as a desk or a filing cabinet, or even a pc and a printer. In fact the property is fitted out much like a holiday rental, with none of the personal touches that would indicate occupation. At the expense of a chest of drawers or a wardrobe the choice of a king size bed is puzzling. After a moment he bends on one knee to check beneath it, but he discovers a box-spring base, flush to the floor. He edges around to the top of the bed and pulls back the corner of the duvet to expose the bottom sheet. It is creased, and has clearly been slept in, and more. He replaces the cover and ponders again. Then, seemingly out of an impulse, two-handed he grabs hold of the corner of the mattress and heaves it up with a grunt. Sandwiched between it and the top of the divan is a crushed packet of condoms, torn open at one end.

  *

  Skelgill emerges from the sportswear shop to be dazzled by a shaft of winter sun that pierces the clouds – improbable, with rain steadily falling. Instinctively he shies away, but realises it is in fact the Fresnel light of the TV news crew as they shoot a sequence. His inclination is to make himself scarce, and he begins to put this plan into action, but invisible elastic pulls him back – why are they filming with River Nation as a backdrop?

  A small crowd of spectators – seven or eight strong – has formed into a little crescent. It comprises local shopkeepers in muddy wellingtons, and council workers in their fluorescent vests – they have broken off from the depressing clear up to watch at a respectful distance. Nobody pays any attention to Skelgill when he joins the end of the line. The shoot is evidently not live, for the crew do repeated takes. Although he can’t hear the precise words, the sharp voice of the producer and the crestfallen (but defiant) expression after each cry of “Cut!” of Lucy Dubois makes Skelgill think she is getting a hard time. The hairy sound guy and the skinhead cameramen are looking rather like they wish they weren’t there – as if there is some private dispute being played out between producer and reporter.

  Skelgill finds himself unceremoniously shoved aside by a heavily muffled stout middle-aged woman he vaguely recognises as working in the Post Office. Evidently he is in her place, beside a colleague – something of a doppelganger, another woman of similar age and appearance, in fact the two are probably sisters, by the look of it possibly even twins, and he realises he wouldn’t really know one from the other. The incumbent speaks to the new arrival without taking her eyes off the crew.

  ‘They’re sayin’ that’s that Roger Alcock gone missing. Feared drowned.’

  Skelgill’s antennae prick up with alarm.

  ‘Ah’ve allus said no good would come o’ him – haven’t Ah said it, Betty?’

  ‘Aye, thoos bin sayin’ it, Hilda.’

  ‘Aye, Ah’ve allus said it. Him and his Fancy Ways.’

  The pair cluck like a couple of farmyard hens but their obscure utterances are no more informative. While the fair-minded eavesdropper would wonder how ‘Fancy Ways’ (whatever they may be) merit the fate that Roger Alcock has reportedly met, Skelgill’s thoughts are racing around an entirely different conundrum – how has the news crew found out that Roger Alcock is unaccounted for? He did not ask Maeve Alcock whether she had told anyone else, since he assumed she had not – for the same obscure reasons that caused her to delay her report. In turn, the police would first satisfy themselves there was indeed a genuine case of a missing person – there is a protocol to be observed, and a standard procedure for making any such announcement – not least to coordinate media coverage that might facilitate their inquiries. Now it appears the story has broken on a leak or a rumour. And so much for Lucy Dubois’ undertaking to focus upon the community-wide tragedy.

  It seems the piece is eventually in the can, for the technicians begin packing up their gear. With a reluctance that is almost palpable, the little crowd begins to disperse, reminded of the demoralising tasks to which they must return. Skelgill, however, loiters. He catches the eye of Lucy Dubois – does he detect a flicker of discomfiture before she pretends not to notice him? The producer is hovering over her. Pointedly she takes out her phone and turns, introspectively, to check her messages. Skelgill walks away – but has gone barely twenty yards when he receives a text alert.

  “Can we meet? Lonely Cloud? 10 mins xxx.”

  Skelgill changes the venue. “Black Swan. Smoke Room.”

  *

  ‘On the waggon, Inspector?’

  Skelgill cuts short his scrutiny of a wall-mounted cabinet; it displays a stuffed sea trout that has seen better days. The claimed weight, at 14lbs 12oz, has him turning with a raised eyebrow; now he casts a wry grin at Lucy Dubois, whose stealthy approach has brought her almost to his side. When he might be expected to comment upon the fact that his cover, albeit unintended, has evidently been blown – she knows he is a policeman – instead he responds to her reference to teetotalism.

  ‘You looked like you needed one more than me, lass.’

  The drinks are set out on either side of an oblong table – for her a tall glass with ice and lemon and a measure of clear spirit, with a bottle of tonic water beside it. Her observation refers to his choice of tea, which has arrived in a pot with accessories, including the dreaded cup and saucer. He waits for Lucy Dubois to take her chair, and then resumes his own seat on a reclaimed church pew – always paradoxical, he thinks, for such pub-friendly furniture to have absorbed decades of sermons advancing the virtues of temperance. Truth be told, he faced something of a battle of wills to order tea at a bar where a polished rank of award-winning real ales stands proudly to attention, their Tolkeinesque badges promising special effects: Headbanger, Nutcracker and Deadleg – although a simple pint of Jennings best bitter would have been his no-nonsense selection.

  The young woman makes a little expiration of breath.

  ‘Rupert can be very trying – I don’t understand why he gets so annoyed with me.’

  Skelgill assumes she means the producer – neither of the crew has the look of a Rupert. He watches as she shrugs off her jacket – of the fashionable quilted variety – to reveal a flimsy charcoal top with a wide neck that exposes the fine black straps of a satin slip beneath. He can think of a reason for the producer’s behaviour.

  She gives a resigned shake of her glossy lip-length bob and then pours about half of the tonic into her glass. She raises it to Skelgill; rather sheepishly he lifts his empty teacup, but does not attempt to clink.

  ‘Sorry I can’t keep you company.’

  She frowns, and swallows quickly. Skelgill notices she drinks left-handed and wears an engagement ring.

  ‘I was just joking – in your job, obviously.’ She flutters her long eyelashes. ‘I realise it is only the macho detectives in paperback fiction that
must drink like fishes.’

  Skelgill looks like he is torn – that he would gainsay her contention in order to assert his own credentials – but he evidently thinks the better of it, and makes a deliberate survey of their surroundings. However, apart from two elderly men in the far corner, locked in a deadly game of cribbage, they are the only patrons of the smoke room. It is pollution free now, of course, its nicotine-stained plasterwork a vestige of devil-may-care times when heads bobbed giddily in a high tide of tobacco smoke. The polite young Polish barmaid seems to have disappeared; perhaps she is serving in the marginally more salubrious lounge. Skelgill lifts the hinged lid of the stainless steel teapot and pours in some milk and then adds half a dozen heaped spoons of sugar before stirring vigorously. When he glances up Lucy Dubois is watching him with an amused expression.

  ‘That’s how I like mine. Nepali style.’

  ‘Really?’ He thinks she is humouring him.

  She chuckles. ‘Well – maybe I go a bit easier on the sugar.’

  Skelgill shrugs. He’d better come to the point.

  ‘Lucy –’ He meets her gaze to check she is happy with first names. ‘You called the meeting – if not the venue.’

  Now she nods purposefully.

  ‘I thought I should explain.’ She pauses, to gauge his reaction – but Skelgill remains implacable – other than to make a tiny nod that she should continue. ‘That piece we were just doing about the missing shop owner – I realise we jumped the gun.’

  And now Skelgill does not beat about the bush.

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘I don’t know – we don’t know – not even Rupert.’ She takes a small sip of her drink, which makes it seem a little like she is stalling. ‘It came through from head office in London – they won’t reveal a source unless we’re actually to interview them.’