Murder in Adland by Bruce Beckham Page A

go
by.  The breeze has dictated a westerly take-off, followed by a left turn
just before Glasgow – it seems only a stone’s throw from its east-coast
rival.  The pilot now tracks the M74 towards the English border, still
climbing into the early evening sunshine.  Skelgill stares intently as the
Solway creeps nearer, a vast glistening bay drawing the eye across the Irish
Sea, where the distant Isle of Man seems to float above the horizon.  With
growing excitement he begins to pick out the Lakeland fells, first the blunt
twin massifs of Blencathra and Skiddaw guarding the northern reaches, and soon
the jagged cluster that makes up the Langdale and Scafell Pikes.  The
lakes themselves are harder to discern – blending as they do into the
dusky landscape until suddenly illuminated by the sun’s direct line of
reflection.
    ‘Look at
Windermere!’
    Skelgill
turns to his companion – but DS Jones is fast asleep.  Indeed, as he
leans back into his seat her head lolls sideways and rests upon his shoulder.
    ‘Jones.’ 
His whisper is tentative.  ‘Jones.’
    But these
entreaties are to no avail.  Rather like a child whose batteries have suddenly
run flat, it seems the events of the last two days have finally taken their toll;
she is sound.  He cranes awkwardly to look at her, and slides into a more
comfortable position.  Then he sits very still, his hands folded on his
lap.  She sinks more heavily against him.  Skelgill closes his eyes,
and sighs.
    When DS
Jones wakes up Skelgill is just finishing the last of her airline sandwich.
    ‘Oh, Jones
– didn’t like to disturb you.  I got you a coffee.’
    ‘Thanks.’ 
She frowns at the dubious dark brown liquid.
    ‘What do
you want to do tonight – are you planning to see your boyfriend?’
    DS Jones
does not answer for a moment.  Then she shakes her head.
    ‘No, Guv
– he doesn’t even know I’ll be down.  I didn’t think I’d have any
spare time.  And he’s away over in Clapham.’
    ‘You’re not
obliged to be on duty round the clock, you know.  Feel free if you want to
shoot off.  I’ll be fine on me tod.’
    ‘If it’s
okay with you, Guv – I fancy a quiet Chinese, to be honest.  I mean
– we need to discuss tomorrow’s interviews, don’t we?’
    Skelgill regards
her reflectively.
    ‘What time
do you think well get to the hotel?’
    She
examines her wristwatch.
    ‘If we land
on schedule we should be on the tube by seven-thirty.  Piccadilly Line all
the way to Covent Garden – about an hour.  Then it’s only a couple
of minutes’ walk – the hotel’s just off Drury Lane.  We could be in
Gerrard Street by nine – plenty of cheap places to eat.’
    The
aircraft, now well into its descent, banks heavily to the right; it makes
disconcerting whirring and clunking noises.  Skelgill is a far-from-frequent
flyer, but he notices the stewardesses seem unconcerned, so he gazes down upon
the London rooftops; they stretch as far as the eye can see.  He might be
making a comparison: the great metropolis appears to cover as big an area as
the entire Lake District.  There he knows every square inch, every path,
every pike, and has trodden and climbed all of them.  Here, by his own
admission – and in his own idiom – he is a fish out of water. 
And, perhaps, still niggling in the depths of his mind, is the regret that he
had eschewed a posting to the city early in his career.  Even his parents
had said he should have done it – much as they would have missed
him.  Now it must seem he has forsaken the chance to spread his wings, to
launch himself into uncertainty and newness.  He had allowed a cautious
streak to override what he knew in his heart was right.  DS Jones –
a fellow Cumbrian – has clearly benefited from her three years studying
in London and subsequent travels beyond; though a decade his junior, in many
ways she is the more worldly of the pair.
    ‘Something
exciting, Guv?’
    Skelgill is
jerked from his