Murder In School (20 page)

‘Sure, Guv.’

‘And make arrangements for a proper
search – maybe later this afternoon if nothing comes in on the family and
friends front.  You’ll need plans of the school – loft access, roof
ladders, outbuildings, old wells – they’ll have them for contractors and
maintenance.’

‘Probably Snyder, Guv.’

‘And we’ll need to get top-line
statements from all the staff – and any of the boys that might have seen
him on the route – especially on the way down.’

‘Right, Guv – I’ll draft in a
couple of DCs from the farm thefts case.’

 Skelgill slaps his waterproof-clad
thighs and unlatches the car door.

‘What are you going to do, Guv?’

‘Climb Skiddaw.’

DS Leyton shakes his head.  ‘The Chief’s
going to be frantic, Guv – thinking he’s been out on the hills for two
days.  Could he survive?’

Skelgill compresses his lips.  ‘Depends. 
But no reason why not.  It’s been mild.  Cold wouldn’t be too much of
a problem if you kept out of the wind.  Drinking water might be an issue.’

‘Could he just be lost, Guv?’

Skelgill shakes his head.  ‘You can’t
really get lost in the Lakes – not in summer.  Sooner or later in
you come across a farm or a walker with a mobile.  Someone missing is more
likely to be injured and trapped out of sight.’

Skelgill boots open the door with his chunky
Vibram
soles and slides out of the seat.  He turns and bends back
into the car.

‘Better put the underwater search unit on
alert.’

DS Leyton is silent for a moment. 
Then he puffs out his cheeks and says, ‘I meant to say, Guv – they don’t
think he can swim.’

Skiddaw and its non-identical twin
sentinel Blencathra squat ominously like a pair of great muscle-bound bouncers,
guarding the northern gateway proper of the Lake District.  The former is
one of only four mountains in England that rise above three thousand feet, on a
clear day it is visible from the Devil’s Beef Tub north of Moffat, a good
seventy miles as the crow flies.  However, from an aesthetic perspective Skiddaw
would be low on most hill-baggers’ lists of favourite peaks.  Though
impressive for its sheer bulk, critical examination reveals it to be somewhat
nondescript, an undistinguished massif marked in ascending bands of grass,
bracken, heather and mudstone scree.  Its redeeming feature is the view it
commands of almost every other summit in Lakeland, and a good part of Scotland,
to boot.

Had young Cholmondeley gone missing on
neighbouring Blencathra, Skelgill might have harboured altogether different fears
about his fate.  Blencathra may not be in the ‘three thousand club’ (standing
one hundred and fifty-three feet short), but from an adventurer’s viewpoint it
is blessed with shattered escarpments and razor-like arêtes, such as the
infamous Sharp Edge, site of many a scrambling mishap down the years, and
deaths in double figures.  While Blencathra is not a mountain to be taken
lightly, to fall off Skiddaw takes a particular talent.

Skiddaw’s approachability extends to a
car park at the end of Gale Road, just beneath the more modest Latrigg, where
the ill-equipped tourist may alight at an altitude of one thousand feet.  This
means the summit can be gained in little more than a gentle amble along a wide
and well-worn path over mildly ascending and undemanding terrain, which, as
Wainwright noted, has been ‘derided as a route for grandmothers and babies’.

Despite Mike Greig’s account of
Cholmondeley having made it through the checkpoint at the summit, Skelgill
eschews the easy ascent, and instead opts to follow the course of the entire
Skiddaw Challenge.  He parks at the school and, leaving the grounds by a
rather unconventional route of his own making, joins the footpath that forms
the upward leg, striding out at a pace that would leave most schoolboy runners
trailing in his wake.

From a seasoned walker’s angle the
weather is steadily improving.  The occlusion is giving way to the
remnants of its cold front: the cloud is breaking and a stiff south-westerly
breeze is picking up.  The air might have a bite to it, but between abrupt
showers of sleet the visibility is sharpening, bringing the wider surroundings
into focus.  By the time Skelgill reaches the triangulation pillar at
Skiddaw High Man, the cloud base has lifted from the tops.

A raven knifes into the headwind, barking
brok-brok
to an unseen companion, while a plucky meadow pipit attempts
an aerial display with limited success.  A couple of distant bent walkers
are poling slowly from the direction of Skiddaw Little Man, perhaps having
heeded Wainwright’s advice about its viewpoint.  In the immediate vicinity
there is no human trace, no remnant of Saturday’s checkpoint – not that
Skelgill would have expected anything.  Nonetheless he carefully inspects
the ground for any clue, before widening his search with a thorough 360-degree
scan of the broad grey pebble-beach-like summit area.

After a minute he returns to the pillar
and places both hands on the brass plate, closing his eyes as if he’s trying to
divine some otherwise intangible vibe, to tap into the mountain’s memory of
footsteps felt and voices heard two days earlier.  His own contemporaneous
hill experience, albeit at a kinder altitude, was of light but persistently
driving rain, corroborating Mike Greig’s estimation that it was a time for putting
one’s head down into the wind.  The restricted visibility at three
thousand feet – perhaps as little as ten yards – might have been
irrelevant when the runners were simply following the path beneath their
dripping noses.

This tactic would have served the boys
fine provided they held to their course – and clearly most of them did
just that.  Greig had sent them off on the correct bearing –
directly into the westerly – along a heavily worn pathway that quickly
descends into a smooth-sided gully, before emerging on the obvious track that
runs down to Little Knott.  It is a route, as Skelgill already knows
without re-tracing it, which is simple to follow, regardless of the visibility.
 In any event, well before Little Knott the mist would have thinned
sufficiently to afford a wider view and enable the runners to keep their
bearings.  Moreover, as Skelgill noted and Greig confirmed, Mr Querrell
had cleverly designed the challenge to make redundant the notion of taking
short cuts.  Quite simply, the best way home was to stick to the official course.

Naturally, had a boy had gone off in the
wrong direction on the summit plateau, there would be considerable scope to get
lost.  To the north and east of Skiddaw lies a great moorland wilderness, largely
disregarded by hillwalkers, a good fifty square miles of undulating territory strewn
with lesser-known peaks whose names seem to invite the hapless orienteer: Meal
Fell, Longlands Fell and Great Cockup.  As Skelgill is wont to put it
after a few pints, only ‘sniffing dogs or seeker helicopters’ could effectively
locate a missing person in these heathery wastes.

Having apparently satisfied himself that
there is no more to be learned at the summit, Skelgill begins to pick his way
down the return stretch, albeit at a more measured pace than he came up. 
He has extended his walking poles to their maximum limit, and – thus not
needing any longer to watch his step – continuously scans the landscape
on the downhill side of his course (presumably on the principle that people
rarely stray against the influence of gravity).  If he were descending
Grey Knotts over at Honister there would be plumbago adits to worry about
– horizontal shafts from which graphite was mined as far back as the
sixteenth century.  Nearby Blencathra bears similar scars, chiselled out
by zealous Victorians in search of lead and other precious ores.  Such mines
might tempt the curious schoolboy, unmindful of their perilous part-collapsed tunnels
and pitch-dark passageways that open into unguarded vertical pits. 
Elsewhere, many of the region’s popular prominences are marred by man’s
longstanding demand for its world-renowned slate.

But this is Skiddaw, one of the oldest
mountains in the Lakes, a great pile of Ordovician mudstone that flakes and
crumbles when exposed, and which is consequently of no commercial value.  While
much of Skelgill’s training – and indeed live action – in his
voluntary capacity as a member of the local mountain rescue team has seen him hauling
dummies from dank pits and dangling in water-filled shafts throughout the
district, Skiddaw has not featured in such endeavours.  Thus unblemished as
regards intrusive human excavations, and in combination with its relatively
benign topography, Skiddaw must be one of the safest mountains on which to get
lost.

As such, Skelgill spends precious little
time off the beaten track.  And, while the mountain rescue team remains a
resource upon which he could swiftly call – their familiarity with the
terrain giving them an advantage over a police unit mobilised for the same
purpose – for the present he has evidently decided to conduct the
preliminary assessment solo.  Perhaps he is not convinced that the boy is
missing on the hill, and is merely retracing his steps to satisfy himself that
this hunch is correct: a frustrating but necessary use of time, though
minimised through this strategy.

Indeed, on only three occasions does he
divert to inspect a passing feature – a small bluff, a rocky beck, a
boulder patch – where perhaps a person might lie concealed.  In
general the terrain offers little to suggest someone might have strayed from their
true course: no trace of stones dislodged, no path thrashed into the springy green
bracken.

And so, uneventfully, Skelgill reaches a
stile beyond which is the lane.  The thump of his boots upon the tarmac disturbs
a foraging woodpigeon; it departs with a battering of wings flashing white. 
He stands facing in the direction of the school, which lies out of sight about
a mile distant.  Then he surveys the immediate environs: dry-stone walls
border the narrow roadway, backed by gnarled hawthorns and the odd spindly ash. 
There is no place for a car to park, nor even a suitable sheltered spot for a
marshal to station himself – perhaps small wonder the teacher in question
was keen to call it a day at the earliest opportunity.

On the opposite side of the lane a new-looking
gate with a galvanised hunting latch marks the entrance into what must be the
grounds of Oakthwaite.  A discreet private property sign with the school’s
acorn logo confirms this supposition.  Skelgill wanders across and gives
the gate a shove: it is well balanced and recently oiled, and swings back
easily into the closed position.  Now he stares again down the lane, as if
trying to decide which route he should take – or, perhaps, which option
Cholmondeley would have chosen: the easy short cut to a warm shower and hot
chocolate, or the looping jogging track that is twice the distance?  He
has not spoken to the boy himself, and has only DS Leyton’s account to go on
– though he knows the Chief’s nature well enough.  If the boy has
inherited any of her grit (a quality Skelgill grudgingly admires), then –
combined with the ethos no doubt drummed into him by the likes of Mr Querrell
– he will surely have taken the ‘honourable’ route, despite his low
ranking in the field.  He will have completed the challenge in full.

After a few moments it seems Skelgill may
have come to this conclusion.  He takes a last look at the lane and then
vaults the gate into the grounds of Oakthwaite.

‘Ah – there you are, Guv.  I
thought I might find you coming back about now.’

Skelgill, standing one-legged and leaning
on his car for support, momentarily glances up from inspecting the boot that he
appears to be sniffing, an expression of distaste creasing his windswept
features.

‘Everything alright, Guv?’

Skelgill makes a scoffing sound and
flings the heavy item of footwear onto the gravel of the school car park. 
‘Careless dog owners, Leyton.  Got a carrier bag on you?’

DS Leyton digs into his pocket for his
keys, and pops open the trunk of his own vehicle.  From a bulging plastic bag
he extracts one of many others screwed up inside it.  He pulls it into
shape and expertly gloves the offending boot, inverting the bag and handing it
to Skelgill.

‘I’m doing this all the time with the
kids’ shoes, Guv – used to be nappies, now it’s shoes.’

‘Where are the dog wardens when you need
them.’  Skelgill says this as a statement rather than a question, and his
tone sounds flat and despondent.

DS Leyton inhales rather apprehensively,
before saying, ‘Nothing on the kid, Guv – not beyond Greig seeing him
during the race.’

Skelgill hops around to the back of his
car and fishes out his shoes from beneath the opened tailgate, then lowers
himself onto the protruding flatbed to complete the change of footwear.

‘He’s not on the hill, Leyton.’

DS Leyton frowns.  ‘But, Guv –
surely you can’t know that?  I’ve got a search team lined up to start
– once you give them the nod.’

Skelgill remains seated.  He licks
his lips and casts about over his shoulder as though he is looking for
something to drink.  ‘So tell me about nothing.’

DS Leyton looks a little
crestfallen.  ‘In a way, Guv – it’s as good as a positive sighting. 
I reckon there’s only a slim chance that he came back to the school buildings.’

‘Nobody saw him arrive, change, leave?’

DS Leyton shakes his head, but now he
becomes more animated.  He paces to and fro before his superior.  ‘It
would have meant the boy completing the last stretch with a gap of at least three
or four minutes between him and the runners either side of him.’  He chops
out the time intervals in mid-air with his chunky hands.  ‘Otherwise
someone would have seen him get changed.  It’s not impossible, but seems
unlikely.  They also think if he were planning to leave, he’d have gone
through the internal changing room door and along to his dorm to collect some
gear – even just a jacket or his wallet or watch.  He’d have to pass
the housemother’s day-room, and she says she was sitting there with the door
open while the boys were coming back.’

‘What about the teacher who was
marshalling the lane?’

‘As we thought, Guv.  He walked back
down to the school and drove straight home in his car.  Lives over at
Pooley Bridge.  Reckons he was there before twelve.  Then he went up
to Carlisle for the rest of the weekend to stay with the in-laws, with the
missus in tow.’

Skelgill nods.  ‘Make a note to
cross-check those timings with his wife.’

DS Leyton pulls his notebook from his
jacket.  As he begins to write, he says, ‘We’ve already spoken to several
of the boys who were towards the back of the race, Guv – they confirm
there was no marshal in the lane when they came through.’

Skelgill inclines his head in
acknowledgement that his Sergeant has appreciated the potential significance of
this point.  ‘And none of the other boys who were picked up by their
relatives saw anything of him?’

DS Leyton shakes his head.  ‘We’re
contacting all the parents.  But I reckon we’d have heard about that
straight away, Guv.’

‘I know, Leyton.’

‘It’s got to be somewhere round the
course, Guv.  Either he’s become lost or got injured along the way.’

‘Did you speak to Greig again?’

‘I asked if he could be mistaken, but he
said definitely not – Cholmondeley being the only ginger-nut in first form. 
Swears blind he turned him round at the summit.’

‘He would say that, though, wouldn’t he?’

DS Leyton looks startled.  ‘What do
you mean, Guv?’

‘Wouldn’t look too clever for him if
sixty-two boys set out and only sixty-one made it through his checkpoint
– then he goes home as though nothing’s amiss.  That would be a bit
of a blot on his copybook.’

DS Leyton puffs out his cheeks.  ‘Blimey
– I hadn’t considered that, Guv.  Now you mention it, I had a quiet word
with Jacobson – I reckoned with him being Cholmondeley’s housemaster he
might have known something about the boy’s state of mind – but he was all
for having a dig at Greig.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well, you know, Guv – I thought he
was just being an old gossip, stirring it  – but he did say
something about watching your back where Greig’s concerned.  Apparently
there was friction between him and Querrell.’

Skelgill shrugs.  ‘Greig more or
less admitted that to me.’

‘Jacobson reckons they weren’t on
speaking terms.  Evidently when Greig reported for duty at the school he
kicked up a fuss about the office they’d given him – being Director of
Sport and all that – and so they had to boot Querrell out of the room
he’d been using in the new pavilion.’

Skelgill raises his eyebrows.  ‘That
probably explains the maps.  I didn’t get the impression that a love of
the fells was Greig’s bag.’

‘Jacobson says the Skiddaw Challenge was
a shambles, Guv – badly organised, like.  He reckons Greig just wants
two years at Oakthwaite on his CV and doesn’t give a toss about the
school.  I think he’s hoping we’ll give Greig a hard time if he turns out
to be the last person who saw Cholmondeley.  He says no way would anyone
have been allowed to go missing if Querrell had still been around.  Claims
Querrell never lost a boy in the hills in over forty years – overnight
camping, trekking and whatnot.  He blames Greig for a failure of
supervision.’

Skelgill sighs.  ‘At the end of the
day, Greig got himself to the top of Skiddaw and stood there for an hour or
more in foul weather.  I should remind Jacobson he’d declined to be a
marshal.’

DS Leyton screws up his face to indicate
he is accustomed to operating on only partial information as far as working
with Skelgill is concerned.  ‘That might have shut him up, Guv.’

Skelgill does not react.  He says, ‘And
does he have any theory about Cholmondeley?’

DS Leyton shakes his head.  ‘Nothing
we haven’t considered, Guv.  He said the usual procedure if you wanted to
find out who’d been picked up from school was to ring Querrell, because he
watched all the parents’ cars from his window at the gatehouse.’

‘We shan’t be doing that.’

‘No, Guv.  Be handy to know who came
in and out on Saturday, though.  I was thinking it’s a pity they’ve not
got CCTV.’

‘Evidently the Singapore dollars haven't
stretched that far yet.  On which note, when did Goodman get back from his
junket?’

‘He says just after three p.m. on
Saturday afternoon, Guv.  Apparently he’s got a flat in London –
from when he used to work down there.  Says he came up on an open return
and got a taxi from the railway station.’

Skelgill chews his lower lip for a
moment.  ‘See if you can get confirmation of that.’

‘Should be easy enough to check out, Guv.’

‘If he paid cash it’s a fair bet the taxi
ride wasn’t metered.  You know what goes on, Leyton.’

DS Leyton shrugs.  ‘Put it like
that, Guv – if he wanted to fake a journey he could nip down to Kendal
and catch the train there.’

‘True enough.  What else did he have
to say?’

‘He just kept banging on about bad
publicity – threatening to call the Chief.  He’s like a record that’s
stuck.  He insists the boy’s done a bunk and it’s not the school’s
responsibility.’

‘And Snyder?’

‘He’s well narked, Guv.  Looked like
thunder when I told him we’d be combing the place.  He said the Head would
explode if he heard his house was going to be searched.’

Skelgill pulls a face to show he’s not
bothered.

‘Snyder seems to think the police ought
to take his word for it – that the boy isn’t somewhere in the school. 
Says it’s not any old state comprehensive that we can come swanning into.’

Now Skelgill scowls to signal his disapproval. 
‘What did you say?’

‘I asked him to account for his movements
over the weekend.  I think he got the message, Guv.’

‘And what were they?

‘He reckons he never left the building. 
Spent the time between his office and his quarters.  Had a meeting with
the Head on Saturday evening.  There was a chapel service on Sunday
morning.  Says he did his usual inspection rounds on both nights at
nine-thirty.  But they leave it up to the housemasters and prefects to
make sure everyone’s accounted for and that they get to bed on time.’

‘What about the other staff – anything
there?’

‘Not really, Guv.  The masters in
charge of cricket teams left early on Saturday morning.  Those off duty
who don’t live in went home on Friday evening.  A couple of the resident teachers
drove into Keswick on Saturday morning – before Cholmondeley was last
seen.  It seems like pretty much everyone at the school stayed indoors because
of the rain.  Jacobson was complaining that even the naughty lads took detentions
instead of walking his dog.’

Skelgill grimaces.  He stands up and
strides a few yards from his car.  Hands in pockets, he gazes out across
the gently falling school grounds, a manicured parkland of cricket pitches and
spreading sweet chestnuts.  Flashing black and white, a magpie drops down
from the boughs of one such
Castanea
, to relieve a foraging blackbird of
its hard-won worm.  The index and middle fingers on Skelgill’s left hand
momentarily twitch as the mugging takes place and the masked robber returns to
a cackling accomplice hidden amongst the foliage.

DS Leyton looks on anxiously.  Perhaps
trying to guess Skelgill’s thoughts, he asks, ‘What about the search team, Guv? 
They need your guidance for where to start.  We hadn’t better leave it too
long.  The Chief’s been onto me three times since lunchtime – she
said your mobile was off.’

Skelgill shakes his head a little
forlornly.  ‘I didn’t need the distraction, Leyton.  I know what
we’re looking for.’

‘She’s arranged a media conference for eight
p.m. – she wants you to front it, Guv.’

Skelgill spins around, grinding gravel beneath
his feet.  ‘Well that’s a great use of my time.’

DS Leyton winces, as though this is his
fault.  ‘She doesn’t want it coming out that it’s her son, Guv.  Think
of the press – they’ll have a field day – misuse of limited
resources and all that.  It could distract from saving the kid.’

Skelgill walks across to DS Leyton and
pats him on the shoulder.  He perhaps appreciates that his Sergeant, as
the father of a boy of similar age to Cholmondeley, is likely to experience an
occasional unprovoked assault from his sensibilities.  ‘Let’s think about
this, Leyton.  Statistically, you’re right, he’s most likely to have got
lost or had an accident.  I doubt it – but if he has, we’ll find him
– it’s safe up there.  If he’s done a bunk – he’ll turn up
– but he was probably wearing wet sports kit.  I don’t think he’s
done a bunk.’

DS Leyton is listening carefully.  ‘But
that only leaves abduction, Guv.  Or worse.’

Skelgill shrugs, resignedly.  He
turns away, perhaps to conceal his grim expression from his colleague.

‘Thing is, Guv... it would take a
vehicle.  And it’s not like he’s a nipper – a twelve-year-old takes
some shifting.’  DS Leyton seems to be striving to strike an optimistic
note.

Skelgill remains phlegmatic.  ‘Leyton,
there’s nowhere to park where the route crosses the road.  If you waited
there you’d block the traffic.  And, as you’ve confirmed from the boys
that were interviewed, there was nobody about.’

‘What if Cholmondeley were walking back
down the lane and accepted a lift from someone he knew, Guv?’

‘It’s possible.  Obviously that
could explain a lot.’

But now the sombre note returns to DS
Leyton’s voice.  ‘Guv, there must be locals that use the lane – and plenty
of tourists out in their cars, given the rain.  He might have just been
picked off by a random nutcase.’

‘The odds of that are so low, Leyton. 
Think of the location.  Predators hunt where they know they’ll find prey. 
The only living thing you’re likely to meet on one of these lanes has four legs
and goes
baa
.’

DS Leyton ponders for a moment, then
says, ‘Guv – what if it were a hit and run?  Shouldn’t we be checking
the undergrowth, and the road surface for signs of an accident?’

Skelgill doesn’t appear convinced.  ‘It’s
too narrow and winding to drive fast.  And if you’d knocked someone down
you’d have to heave them over a six-foot wall.’