Reginald Hill - Fell of Dark

‘We’re going to see the sea,’ said Peter. ‘But first we’re going on a mysterious train journey.’

Ferguson laughed.

‘Oh, Lile Rattie,’ he said.

‘What?’ said Peter.

‘The miniature railway. It’s great fun if the weather’s fine. And it runs to time.’

Peter looked across at me and raised his eye-brows apologetically at having spoilt my surprise. I grinned back and looked suggestively at my watch. He nodded.

‘Well, Mr Ferguson, thank you for the use of your table. We must be off, however, while the day is young.’

We all stood up and shook hands.

‘Enjoy yourselves,’ said Ferguson.

‘You too.’

As we went out of the dining-room I looked at Peter curiously.

‘Why didn’t you answer Marco?’ I knew he spoke excellent Italian.

He shrugged.

‘He was just being rude.’

‘What did Ferguson say to him, then?’

Peter laughed.

‘He told him to bugger off or risk losing his unmentionables!’

Half an hour later we were striding down the road into the railway station. More than a station, it is a terminus and the incongruity of both setting and proportion have always endeared the place to me. Peter looked without comment at the narrow track and the low platform. There were not many people around at this time of the morning, I mean not many waiting to catch the train to Ravenglass, though when the train itself arrived it was quite full of trippers and hikers. They got out and dispersed. We put our knapsacks in one of the tiny open compartments and walked up the track to inspect the locomotive. Peter examined everything very closely, full of amused delight.

‘It’s marvellous, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘It’s not an intrusion into the place. Not like all those bloody motor-cars you find parked all over the place. You could run up Helvellyn in something like this and even Wordsworth wouldn’t object.’

The exhilaration of feeling the rush of air on your face, of being able literally to lean out and pick flowers as you pass is almost indescribable. Perhaps the sense of inhabiting in reality for a while the imaginative world of childhood has something to do with it. Certainly the (so it seemed) inevitable sun, the royal blue sky, the smell of things growing, to which the occasional whiff of steam or smoke seemed a natural addition, all these contributed to the enchantment of the moment. Peter looked like a child on a perfect birthday.

‘Thalatta, thalatta,’ he murmured softly to himself, eyes straining ahead to take everything in. ‘Soon we will see the sea.’

I nodded happily, acquiescingly. Soon we would see the sea.

Beckfoot came and went. Then Eskdale Green, Irton Road and the descent down the flank of a wooded fell to Muncaster. All too soon it seemed our journey was over and the sturdy little engine pulled us round an easy bend into the Ravenglass terminus.

I sat back for a few seconds, reluctant to move. But Peter was already on his feet.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I can smell it.’

‘All right.’ I took my knapsack and we walked slowly up to the small booking-kiosk and the exit.

There were two men standing by the gate. They were dressed in rather shabby grey suits cut in a style that was archaic by London standards and must have been a bit behind the times even for Ravenglass.

One was reading a newspaper. The other, a smaller, altogether less restful-looking man, registered our approach and touched his companion on the arm. I was reminded of the Fergusons when we came into dinner the previous night.

The larger man glanced up, folded his newspaper into a squat little packet and thrust it into his jacket pocket. The anxious little man was already heading towards us. The big man strolled in his wake.

‘Not more waiters, I hope,’ I said to Peter.

He laughed. ‘Not mine if they are.’

It was obvious that the men were heading for us. There hadn’t been many people on the train and most of those had already disappeared.

‘I think they are policemen,’ said Peter.

I felt a sudden panic. To intercept us on holiday like this meant something pretty urgent. Something at the office? Hardly. A fire at home? Something happened to Jan?

‘Mr Bentink? Mr Thorne? We are police officers, I am Detective-Constable Armstrong and this is Detective-Constable Lazonby.’

Peter and I nodded inanely. For a moment, overlaying worry, came the thought of how amusing it would be if we all shook hands and then went our separate ways. But only for a moment.

‘We wonder if you would mind helping us in some enquiries we are making.’

‘Certainly, if I can,’ said I, my relief that none of my personal fears seemed to be realized making me more enthusiastic than I normally am in my dealings with the police.

‘Thank you, sir,’ said little Armstrong. ‘Then if you’d come this way. We have a car.’

‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘Can’t we chat here just as easily as in a car?’

Armstrong stood on his toes in his anxiety.

‘I wasn’t thinking of talking in the car, Mr Bentink.’

‘No,’ said Lazonby in a much less conciliatory tone. ‘We’d like you to come to the station.’

I didn’t like the sound of that, but what followed I liked even less.

‘In Keswick,’ added Armstrong with reluctant honesty.

‘Keswick!’ Peter screeched.

‘Yes, sir,’ said Armstrong. I found to my surprise we were moving quite rapidly towards the car-park.

‘Detective-Superintendent Melton would like you to assist him with an enquiry he is in charge of.’

Superintendent. I knew enough to know this meant it wasn’t trivial.

‘Look here,’ I said. ‘Just what is this case, and how can we help?’

Armstrong looked at Lazonby with dog-like appeal.

‘Detective-Superintendent Melton is in charge of the investigation into the deaths of Miss Olga Lindstrom and Miss Sarah Herbert. He thinks you may be able to help him with his enquiries,’ recited Lazonby.

‘Which girls? Oh, not those girls – the Swedish pen friend and – but how did they die? An accident on the fells?’

‘Accident?’ said Lazonby. ‘If you can strangle somebody by accident, and rape them by accident, then it might be a bloody accident. Come on.’

Stunned, we followed. A few minutes later we were in a police car on the road to Keswick.

Some time later as the car began to labour up into the fells we thought we had turned our backs on, it began to rain.

We had been driving for more than half an hour before I summoned up courage to speak. I prefaced it with an offer of cigarettes. Lazonby accepted.

With an effort to sound casual (an effort all the harder because of my sense of how stupid it was that I should have to try at all) I asked, ‘What exactly happened to the girls?’

Lazonby took so long in replying that I thought he was just going to ignore the question. But finally he said, ‘Exactly, we don’t know. But we will know, eventually. At the moment all we know is that some time last night they were raped. Then strangled. Then thrown in a gully. Probably in that order. That’s all we know.’

He looked me full in the face.

‘But it’s enough to be going on with, don’t you think, Mr Bentink?’

I nodded foolishly and decided to try to turn the conversation yet again.

‘What kind of man is Mr Melton?’ I asked.

Lazonby thought a long time about this too.

‘He’s a good policeman. Oh yes. He’s a good policeman,’ was all that he said in the end.

But now we were fast approaching Keswick. The rain was still beating down on the windscreen almost too hard for the wipers to clean a space, but Armstrong kept his foot down on the accelerator. This seemed rather out of character for so nervous a man, but I caught him glancing at his watch, and guessed that some kind of deadline was involved. I was recovered sufficiently to be able to smile wryly at the thought of deadlines in a murder case.