Murder on the Edge by Bruce Beckham Page B

which Skelgill has no doubt already been wrestling
– dawns upon DS Leyton:
    ‘But,
Guv – if someone put him there after he was dead – how did they do
that?’
    ‘How,
Leyton?  And why?’
    The
detectives both sit in silence for a minute or so.  Then DS Leyton stands
up.
    ‘I’ll
get us some fresh teas, Guv.’
    Skelgill
nods distractedly.  If there is an irony intended in DS Leyton’s statement
– given Skelgill had arrived bearing only one cup – it is not
conveyed in his generous intonation.  When he returns shortly, Skelgill is
poring over an Ordnance Survey map covering the north-eastern quadrant of the
Lake District.
    ‘It’s
a mile from the nearest road, Leyton – and, more to the point, Scales
Tarn is the thick end of two thousand feet above sea level.’
    DS
Leyton places the steaming drinks on the window sill and then extracts the
autopsy report from beneath the edge of Skelgill’s map.  He scans its
contents.
    ‘Says
he weighed sixty-seven kilograms, Guv.’
    Like
most fisherman, obsessed by record weights, Skelgill’s brain is quick to
convert this statistic.
    ‘Ten
and a half stone.’
    DS
Leyton, who weighs in at a good fifty percent more than this figure, self-consciously
adjusts his jacket.
    ‘What
are you, Guv?’
    ‘About
twelve.’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘What
are you thinking?’
    ‘I
have enough of a job carrying one of my kids up to bed, Guv – if they've
fallen asleep watching the telly, like.  Eldest can’t be above five
stone.  How would you have got Harris all the way up that hill –
never mind without anyone noticing?’
    Skelgill
purses his lips.  He shrugs.
    ‘I
once did a bit of climbing in the Himalayas, Leyton – Annapurna.  I
remember following a Tamang porter – five foot two if he was an
inch – carrying a load of steel scaffolding poles strapped on a frame across
his back.  We overtook them – a gang of labourers – but they
caught us up at our camp by the end of the day.  Guess the weight.’
    ‘Dunno,
Guv – I suppose you’re going to tell me ten stone.’
    ‘Twenty.’
    ‘Blimey,
Guv – so what are you saying?’
    Skelgill
opens out his palms in a non-committal gesture.
    ‘All
I’m saying, Leyton, is I’ve seen a guy half your size wearing flip-flops lug
more than your weight up a five-thousand-foot mountain path.’
    ‘A
good bit above my weight, Guv.’
    ‘Whatever.’
    Though
for DS Leyton this is rather more than a matter of splitting hairs, he opts not
to pursue the distinction.
    ‘Surely
it would take at least two people to shift a corpse, though, Guv?’
    ‘Be
easier, sure.’
    ‘It’s
still a load of trouble to go to, Guv – and then not hide the
body.’
    ‘It
was left on display, Leyton.’
    DS
Leyton’s eyes widen at this suggestion.  ‘What – for us to
find?’
    Skelgill
shrugs.  ‘There’s got to be something symbolic here, Leyton.  Why
strangle him with a climbing rope and then take him to a popular scrambling
site?  Most bodies end up dumped in the nearest convenient ditch.’
    DS
Leyton nods, though his features remain puzzled.
    ‘What
I still don’t get, Guv, is – if he were murdered – how come it
looks like he died peacefully in his sleep?  He wasn’t drugged, he wasn’t
drunk – and, as you point out, suicide doesn’t fit the facts.’
    ‘Like
the old woman said, Leyton – maybe the witches did it.’
    DS
Leyton chuckles, but Skelgill has made the remark out of frustration rather
than an attempt at humour, and he does not join in with his sergeant’s
mirth.  Once more they sit in silence, like delayed passengers in a
waiting room, unsure of when the awaited train of inspiration might draw
haltingly into the station.
    After
a minute DS Leyton begins to fidget, and then he pipes up, ‘I wouldn’t mind
being abducted by a hen party, Guv – if you had to meet your maker, I can
think of worse ways to go.’
    Skelgill
glowers at him, but does not respond.
    ‘Thing
is, Guv – it’s all we’ve