The Body in the Beck Read online

  Francis said, ‘All right. You know the pool. I’ll carry on down and order tea.’ Odd, he thought, such interest when there’s nothing to be done but call the scavengers. ‘Inform the police . . . confirm the evidence . . .’ Poor kids, instead of religion they’re taught good citizenship . . . they’re taught to be little men safe in the arms of our father which art in Whitehall; their minds are like their rooms, bright and light and sterile, no dark places, no gleams of crimson and gold. Useful citizens . . . no more saints and no more sinners, no more God and no more Devil, no more twin nurses of the soul and no more Eng. Lit., thought Francis at the bridge. And young David, he thought; he’ll be a first-class climber, but he’ll never be a compleat mountaineer. The compleat mountaineer is — must be — a mystic and what young David cares for is the fresh air and the exercise. And the achievement, owned Francis, as David at a jog-trot caught up with him and they entered the yard of the inn together.

  ‘Look, Skipper, it may well have been an accident,’ said David. ‘There’s quite a drop down to the pool — I’d forgotten. Suppose there was a mist . . .’

  But Francis’s ears and eyes were for old Meade, who came shuffling out of the house in his bedroom slippers.

  ‘Well, did it go?’

  ‘It’s a very nice climb,’ Francis told him. ‘The buttress is a bit severe and the traverse out of the west gully is a bit tricky. It’s an interesting climb, or would be if that damned rock wasn’t always in shadow.’

  Old Meade said, ‘Good . . . good. I never thought you’d get round the buttress. In ’85 I was here with a Radley master — Barford, his name was — he’s dead now — and I remember we spoke about a traverse of the Angel then. As far as the slabs it seemed to us to be possible, but the buttress, no. Congratters, Worthington.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  David said, ‘Look, Skipper . . .’

  Old Meade roared, ‘Hardwick!’ and the innkeeper, tall and weatherbeaten with a moustache in the Edwardian fashion, came from the door of the tap-room.

  David said, ‘Look, Skipper . . .’

  Old Meade said, ‘We were wrong, Will. They’ve done it.’

  ‘Well now, that’s grand, sir,’ said Hardwick. ‘Ah’ve been oop and down the Angel time and time again, by the gullies and Morton’s chimney and the notch and cave route, and Ah’ve always reckoned she’d never be crossed on account of the buttress. Aye, that’s fine so long as you don’t go making her into a ruddy gymnasium like the Pillar.’

  ‘Or Dow Crags on Easter Monday,’ said Francis.

  David said, ‘Look, Skipper . . .’

  ‘Ah reckon that calls for a drink,’ said Hardwick.

  ‘We’ll celebrate tonight,’ said Francis. ‘What I need now is tea. Will, did you know you’d got a corpse in the beck? Above the ghyll in the pool under the first fall.’

  ‘Oh, blast it!’ said Hardwick. ‘Corpses — we ’ad enough of them at Christmas. Damn fools of hikers — they never think of the trouble they are to us. The whole of Christmas Day we spent looking for a chap from Maanchester. What’s this ’un — man or wumman?’

  David said, ‘It’s a male person — middle-aged, about average height, dressed more for the town than for hiking. Did you notice his shoes, Skipper?’

  ‘Been there long?’ asked Hardwick.

  ‘A week or so,’ said Francis, who had sat down on the bench under the dining-room windows and was unlacing his boots.

  Meade said, ‘Well, thank God our water supply comes from the High Beck.’

  ‘Amen,’ said Francis.

  Hardwick said, ‘Ah reckon Ah’d best ring up Fred. He won’t half be wild. They’ve got their hands full with this here sabotage business’ — he looked at David — ‘where you come from.’

  ‘Tea,’ said Francis and picked up his boots and stepped gingerly into the hall, where his bedroom slippers lay side by side under the Victorian hat-rack.

  Tea was set in the dining-room, a long room carpeted with highly polished linoleum and adorned by potted ferns and fading photographs of famous climbers, Lakeland huntsmen, Mr Ruskin and Wordsworth’s grave. No sooner had Francis sat down than Gloria came in bearing with ease an enormous tray, the surface of which was covered by plates of scones, bread-and-butter, egg sandwiches, a large fruit cake, small iced cakes, cream-filled pastry horns, a large brown teapot, a jug of milk and a jug of cream.

  ‘Touch the bell if you need anything,’ said Gloria.

  Francis laughed. ‘I think we can just make do with this, Gloria.’

  ‘Well, you must be hungry after your climb. And finding a body too. Daft people! Our Christmas was quite spoiled by Dad and Johnny being out on the fells all day. That fellow hadn’t been missing long, so they had to go on searching.’

  ‘Was he alive when they found him?’

  ‘Oh yes, and grumbling because there weren’t no signposts. The silly chap thought he was in Ennerdale.’

  David came in.

  He said, ‘Hardwick’s telephoned the police and they’ll be up as soon as possible with an ambulance. I ought to be off by five, but I thought I might lend a hand getting the body out of the pool and bringing it down. Hardwick seems to think the police might give me a lift down the dale in time to catch the late train to Carismouth — if not, I’ll stay the night and phone the works first thing.’

  ‘Admirably organized,’ said Francis. ‘Have some tea?’

  Chapter Two – A Queer Lot

  ‘Pleased to meet you, sir,’ said Detective Inspector Price, placing a limp white hand in the large brown paw which the Superintendent held out to him.

  Armstrong said, ‘I hope you had a good journey. We’ve brought you a long way and travelling’s no treat nowadays.’

  Price said, ‘Nationalization has caused a marked improvement in the case of the railways. I had a clean and comfortable compartment to myself and an excellent lunch — a nice piece of steamed plaice, rissoles with two vegetables and a shape with custard.’

  The corners of the Superintendent’s hard mouth twitched. He said, ‘Well, well. I expect I’m spoilt by my wife’s cooking — that’s what’s wrong with me.’ He took a folder from his desk. ‘Now, Inspector, I think everything we’ve got for you is here. Except the body, of course, and you’ll want to see that — it’s downstairs in the morgue. The head injuries referred to in the medical report are fairly obvious — it was them, not drowning, that was the cause of death. We’ve also got an exhibit, a jagged piece of iron which might be the murder weapon — you may like to have that tested for prints and blood, but I’d say it had been in the water too long. The chap’s wallet’s here, but the papers in it are just a sodden mess — however, they may make something of them in the laboratories. We’ve taken his fingerprints and to save time we despatched them last night to Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Thank you, Superintendent. And with reference to your suggestion that the deceased was a Londoner — was that based on any specific clue?’

  ‘His suit is marked with the name of a London firm: Rexware of London. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m told that though this is a well-known firm, it has no branches in what London people are pleased to call the provinces.’

  Price agreed. ‘I believe you’re right, sir. But then many provincial people go to London for their clothes.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Armstrong. ‘I get mine in Kendal, where I know the wool comes off the back of a sheep. Of course, London tailoring is famous, but I can’t see that a chap wanting such cheap stuff as Rexware sell would go to the expense of travelling to London to get it.’

  ‘Not for that specific reason, perhaps, but the majority of individuals converge on the Metropolis for one reason or another at times. However, we’ll see. I won’t detain you, Superintendent. I know you’re hard pressed. I’ll inspect the body and then, if you’ll direct me, I’ll proceed to the scene of the crime. Is it far?’

  ‘Ten or eleven miles and a roughish road. Berrinsdale is in the heart of the fells, Inspector, bu
t there’s a car at your disposal and I’ve booked a room for you at the Berrinsdale Hotel. The road ends there and I’m afraid you’ll have to foot it to the actual scene of the crime. When you know Berrinsdale, I think you’ll agree with me that the whole set-up seems rather strange. A Londoner — or a townsman, anyway — most unsuitably dressed for the fells . . . what on earth was he doing up there? The bus trips to the dales don’t start till June . . . How could he get there? . . . who could have followed him?’

  Price said, ‘I am not yet acquainted with the locality, but from what you tell me I should incline strongly to the theory of a local crime. I imagine that the inhabitants of such places are little better than farm labourers and tend to settle their differences in a rough-and-ready fashion.’

  ‘You’re wrong there,’ said Armstrong. ‘They are the most law-abiding respectable and substantial people you could wish to know. In the whole length of Berrinsdale there are only two farms, the inn and Berrins Hall, where the Patten family have lived for centuries and Mrs Patten and her son live now. Of course, there is the Youth Hostel but no one has stopped there for a fortnight, and then there are the guests at the inn. They’re climbers — quite above suspicion. Mr Worthington, who found the body, is a member of the Alpine Club and a Fellow of an Oxford college.’

  Price said with a toss of his head, ‘I’m afraid I’m no respecter of persons, Superintendent. I shall keep an open mind.’ He rose. ‘Now if I could see the body . . .’

  The body was that of a middle-aged man of a little over average height, poor muscular development, an inclination to stoutness and a balding head of close-cut faded hair. Although the hands and feet were bloated and wrinkled by a week’s immersion in water, the hands by their lack of callosity indicated a sedentary occupation, and the numerous corns on the toes, distorted almost into deformity, told Price, who himself suffered from corns, that the deceased, probably in youth as well as in later life, had suffered from cheap, ill-fitting shoes. Price had an unattractive body; his shoulders were narrow, his meagre chest disfigured by hairy moles; his thin white legs bulged with the livid green of varicose veins; and it was a sense of the inferiority of his own physique which caused him always to take brainlessness for granted in comelier men. ‘You can’t have it both ways, and I’ve got it here,’ he would say, tapping his forehead, if the subject of physique was raised. But if politics were in the air, he would blame his shortcomings on Tory governments whose machinations had deprived him of necessary vitamins, pinched his toes and even apparently sprinkled him with moles. Looking down on this other unattractive body, he thought: an underpaid clerk or shop assistant . . . poor devil . . . couldn’t grab as fast as some others . . . missed the best in life . . . now look at him. Price had seen many bodies, the young and beautiful, the sleek and prosperous, the old and outcast, but for none had he felt the sympathy which filled him as he looked upon this . . . well . . . he summed up, brainily, he felt, this Everyman. Inspecting the hideous wound which had cracked the skull, he wondered if, after all, a nasty fall on rocks might not have inflicted it; mountain-climbing was dangerous; in Price’s opinion, only fools and seekers of cheap notoriety undertook it; however, that question would no doubt be satisfactorily answered in the police-surgeon’s report, which would be included in the folder. It remained to scrutinize the apparel — a grey suit such as Price might have worn himself in spite of the Superintendent’s snobby remark about poor quality; nothing wrong with it that Price could see except that it wasn’t made to measure. Socks, shoes, shirt, tie and underwear were equally unilluminating, no laundry marks, just what Everyman wears and his wife washes, though she may, like his Valerie, be sufficiently well off to send the bed linen and the towels to the laundry. As Price left the cold and dismal chamber, he turned for a last look at the body and said in his heart: O.K., old man, we’ll get him . . .

  Half an hour later, seated at his ease beside a large, silent police constable in a small but powerful police car, he entered Berrinsdale. Now the hills, blue, intangible, an interesting novelty as he had approached them, closed menacingly about him; ferocious rocks overhung the narrow road, or the road itself overhung nasty drops into the whirlpools of the river. There was not a soul to be seen, no sign of life but small shaggy sheep nibbling on precipitous hillsides or lying in the bracken; more than once the driver was obliged to halt while one of the stupid animals, loose in the road, made up its mind which way to run for it. Price said, ‘The law against animals straying on the highway seems to be ignored in this vicinity, yet it appears to me that a serious accident might ensue, and I imagine that at certain times in the year the males are dangerous.’

  With reverence the constable told him, ‘Them’s Herdwicks, sir. Drivers of cars is requested to keep their eyes skinned for sheep — I dare say you missed t’notice.’

  Price said, ‘On the contrary, I saw what remains of it. But a faded notice, half-buried in ferns, does not exonerate the owners in the case of loss of life or damage to property. The brutes should be confined in their enclosures.’

  ‘That’s beyond t’power o’ man, sir. This is sheep country.’

  Price smiled and said nothing — no point in wasting his breath to argue with this silly fellow; he wouldn’t go far in the Force with his broad speech, his ham hands and his rustic obstinacy. And now the ravine — as Price thought of it — widened and there was a lake and among trees a house of considerable size and obvious antiquity. ‘Whose residence is that?’ he enquired of the constable.

  ‘That’s Berrins Hall. Pattens live there, allus ’as done. Over to your left, sir, that’s Dale Farm, used to be Pattens’ but now it belongs to Robertson from Ennerdale. The fell behind t’Hall, that’s Cat’s Howe. There’s Silver Screes east o’ t’water; High Hoister’s on your left now and in a minute you’ll see t’Pike and Stone Fell.’

  ‘I don’t require the names of the mountains — it’s the inhabitants of the place who interest me.’

  ‘Well, sir, at the farm there’s Will Robertson and his sister, Miss Eleanor, and a foreigner for the farm work. Except for one maid, the wife of t’chap as works for Robertson, Mrs Patten and her son live by theirselves at t’Hall. Round the next corner you’ll see — ah, there’s t’Pike, sir. Some o’ t’best rock-climbing in t’district, oop there.’

  The sun had set behind the Pike. The dale was all in shadow. In the metallic water of the mere the black reeds shivered. The cliffs of the Pike rose stark and sheer above the bloomy dusk of the Highbeck Valley. The great green shoulder of Stone Fell was drained of colour and between the mountains, where the pale sky awaited the north star, far and forlorn lay the waste places of the pass. Wherever have I got to? thought Price, and remembered how Valerie as she packed for him had suggested, ‘You might find a place that would suit us for the summer holiday — I know we’ve had some smashing times at dear old Ilfracombe, but I rather fancy a change this year. But don’t get carried away, Ron, and book at some poky country pub just because there’s roses round the door or something — remember it rains sometimes and we want a nice roomy lounge to sit in. And be sure and see the bedrooms — I don’t know why, I’m sure, but I’m like that — a tastefully furnished bedroom puts me in the right mood for a holiday.’

  ‘Yonder’s t’hotel, sir,’ said the constable as the road topped a spur of the fell and there, in a saucer of little green fields checked with stone walls stood the simple white-washed building of the inn.

  ‘Why, it’s little more than a cottage; the accommodation must be very limited,’ said Price. ‘But no doubt the same is the case with the clientele,’ he added despisingly.

  ‘I dunno about that, sir. Allus full oop, summer and winter alike,’ said the constable, swinging the car smartly into the yard.

  The door of the inn stood open. In the narrow hall Price saw four pairs of enormous black boots, fantastically nailed. The smell of dubbin hung on the air.

  ‘You’ll be the Detective Inspector,’ said Hardwick, emerging from a door under th
e stairs.

  ‘Ma-a-a,’ said a voice behind him.

  ‘Motherless lamb in the kitchen,’ explained Hardwick. I’ll take your bag, sir, and show you to your room.’

  Price followed him up a precipitous staircase to a corridor which ran the modest length of the house. Opening a door, Hardwick apologized, ‘Could na’ give you a front room — full oop — but you’ll be all right here. It’s over the kitchen, but none the worse for it, and the bed’s comfortable. Time and again Mr Worthington’s slept in it.’

  ‘Worthington — that’s the man who found the body. A valued customer, it seems.’

  ‘Aye. A grand climber. The bathroom’s next door to you and dinner’s at seven.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Price and when the landlord had gone took a glance round the room which confirmed his first impression — clean was all that could be said for it. He thought of Valerie: a tastefully furnished bedroom . . . whatever would she think of this small, low-ceilinged chamber, the iron bedstead, the white honeycomb bedspread, the windsor chair, the great clumsy mahogany chest of drawers, the photograph of the Matterhorn, the knee-high window with its view of hens, ducks, geese, piglets and the rising fellside? Worthington must be a queer chap if he had been content to sleep here ‘time and again.’ He couldn’t amount to much, Oxford or no Oxford . . .

  Price unpacked his suitcase and went to the bathroom and washed in water that was curiously brown — rust in the pipes, he suspected. He donned a clean collar and then a kitchen bell rang, presumably for dinner. As he made his way awkwardly down the steep stairs he thought: hotel-keepers should realize that it’s the little things that matter . . . fancy, a kitchen bell when a nice tuneful gong, an ornament in itself, can be purchased quite inexpensively . . .

  The dining-room, when he entered it, seemed to him hopelessly old-fashioned. A long table, covered with an immense white damask cloth, stood in the centre, a few smaller tables, also white-covered, in the corners. Voluminous white table-napkins were provided in place of the dainty serviettes which Valerie had approved as being both pretty and practical in their favourite hotel in Ilfracombe. He felt relieved when the maid shepherded him to one of the small tables; he suspected that the long table was kept for country types, who would have bored him with talk of crops and livestock. He sat down, took a neatly folded newspaper from his pocket, unfolded it and propped it against the cruet. He had read it in the train, but would appear to be engrossed in it while he observed and listened . . .