Read Online Murder by Magic by Bruce Beckham - Free Book Online Page B

the sun glint off a pair of binoculars.’
    DS
Jones nods.
    ‘Whoever
it was, Guv – he didn’t want to meet us – that was fairly serious
evasive action – even in a Defender.’
    Skelgill
runs his fingers through his hair, still damp with perspiration.
    ‘Can
you remember where he went off?’
    ‘I
think so, Guv.’
    ‘As
Leyton would say, let’s have a butcher’s hook.’
    DS
Jones guides Skelgill to a sharp left-hand bend in the trail.  There are
skid marks in the aggregate where the Land Rover evidently drew to an abrupt
halt – no doubt upon spotting the estate barring the exit – before
escaping diagonally across the open fellside.  They climb out and approach
the verge.  Parallel wheel-tracks bruise the vegetation, and they follow
these until a patch of bare earth seems to provide the confirmation they are
looking for: the same off-road tread pattern – indeed clearer now –
as that beside the wall from where the sheep’s carcase has disappeared. 
DS Jones takes another photograph, and then falls in beside Skelgill as they
make their way back to his car.
    ‘Guv
– it’s odd enough behaviour – killing and mutilating sheep –
but why try to cover it up a day or two later?  You’d imagine the crank
that’s doing it would want the shock effect of his handiwork being found.’
    Skelgill
nods pensively.  He is silent for a few moments, apparently preoccupied
with picking a path through last year’s crackling bracken.
    ‘Arthur
Hope’s rung around half a dozen farms – he reckons there are more strays
than usual being reported this spring – maybe they’re not strays.’
    ‘You
mean there could be more of these mutilations – that the shepherds don’t
know about?’
    ‘Why
stop at three?’
    ‘You’d
think walkers would have come across them, though, Guv?’
    Skelgill
shrugs.
    ‘Walkers
stick to the paths – besides, most folk tend not to look too closely when
they smell a dead sheep and hear the buzz of the flies.’
    DS
Jones nods.
    ‘What do
you make of the driver of the Defender, Guv?’
    ‘I
know that innocent birdwatchers don’t normally take off like that.’
    ‘Do
you think it was someone that recognised us, Guv?’
    Skelgill
scowls dismissively.
    ‘Jones
– we’re not exactly Mulder and Skully. ’  (She chuckles at his
suggestion.)  ‘Like as not he thought we were the landowners.’
    The
reach Skelgill’s car – as he pulls open the driver’s door his mobile
phone, still in its hands-free cradle, begins to ring.  He answers it on
speaker.
    ‘Leyton.’
    ‘Struth,
Guv – got you – at long last.’
    DS
Leyton’s phrases are punctuated by wheezy gasps.
    ‘Steady
on, Leyton – are you climbing?’
    ‘It
ain’t that, Guv – what it is –’
    ‘Leyton
– what’s the news of the girl?’
    Skelgill’s
interjection seems to disorientate his sergeant.
    ‘What? 
Er – well – she wasn’t working when I got to the pub, Guv –
so eventually I managed to get the landlord talking, about him managing on his
Tod Sloan – and he said his barmaid had dropped him in it – just taken
off and gone back to Poland – a family bereavement, but –’
    ‘And
did you believe him?’
    DS
Leyton finally circumvents the questions by leaping directly to his point.
    ‘Guv
– you’d better get over here – they’ve just fished a body out of
the lake.’

7. LITTLE LANGDALE TARN
     
    ‘This
is a tarn , Leyton.’
    DS
Leyton stands alongside his taller superior officer, some twenty yards from the
shoreline, as they watch a little knot of emergency services personnel go about
their rather grisly business.
    ‘I’ve
never got my head round it, Guv – water, mere, tarn, lake – they all
look the same to me.’
    ‘There’s
only one lake in the Lake District, Leyton.’  Skelgill turns inquiringly
to his colleague.  ‘You know that?’
    ‘I
think you did mention it, Guv.’
    Nevertheless,
Skelgill looks like he is winding up for his pet lecture (that