into his mouth: while the bag and knife owe their origins
to angling, the comestible hails from the Langdale Arms – it is in fact a
slice of pie.
The
‘burglar’ is DI Daniel Skelgill.
Munching
pensively he considers the scene, for the time being seemingly at ease.
Behind him the wall curves away north and south, disappearing behind trunks and
dark gatherings of shrubs. If Dr Wolfstein’s five-kilometre assessment of
the perimeter is accurate – a circuit of just over three miles in
Skelgill’s money – then it encloses private grounds of some five hundred
acres, and Blackbeck Castle itself stands about half a mile from his position.
Although
his previous inspection – accompanied by DS Jones – revealed no footway
outside the gate, this is not the case within. A distinct shadow ahead of
him stripes the rough vegetation, wider than a badger-path, though as
purposefully straight. It leads due west from the forest entrance,
presumably towards the castle. He sets out along its course. His customary
pace is brisk – a good five miles per hour – and a few minutes’
walking should bring him close to the rear of the property.
And
now he allows an insight into what might appear more madness than method as
regards the pie (or in fact pies – for he has sacrificed four of
his bulk buy of six). Thirty paces from the gate he delves into the
bass-bag and takes out a second morsel. Rather than eat it, however, he
drops it onto the path. For a man whose stomach rattles with a mere five
chocolate digestives (and nothing else since a hurried bowl of dry cereal first
thing), such self-restraint is remarkable – and would certainly confound
his colleague DS Leyton, who at this instant ought to be dozing replete at his
fireside before the ten o’clock news. And Skelgill’s ascetic determination
to eke out his supply solely for his mysterious purpose seems to hold, for at
regular intervals he marks his progress with successive deposits.
A gentle
north-easterly is cool across his shoulder, its murmur punctuated by the
occasional too-woo of a Tawny Owl (and the unsynchronised too-wit of a mate in reply). Long-eared bats fresh from hibernation are on the
wing, and more than once Skelgill’s sharp ears pick up their shrill cries as
they hawk skilfully about the canopy. Above all – above breeze and
bird and bat – a waxing gibbous moon casts solid black shadows beneath towering
ornamental conifers, ideal for emergency concealment.
But
Skelgill continues to shun such reassuring cover; he travels unswervingly upon
the path. The habitat is neither woodland nor parkland, but somewhere in
between. The ground cover is short and mainly grassy, with new growth
pushing through last autumn’s crumbling leaf litter. Facing the moon,
bare trunks and branches and their twin shadows beneath his feet are uniform in
their blackness, sharper than their daytime counterparts – but, when he
turns about, a different scene confronts him, dreamlike, a greenish monochrome,
an indistinct water world of waving boughs and waiting claws, where distance
and space cannot easily be judged, where pale boles of oak and beech take on a
ghostly luminescence and glisten with the slick trails of slugs and snails; a
world where the whispering sough of the wind might be the distant wash of
waves, irregular and patchy in their breaking, sensed through the opaque depths
that immerse him.
But
now he halts, for the arboretum suddenly gives way to a croquet lawn, hoary
with dew, perhaps twice the size of a typical village bowling green. To
progress further will expose him floodlit to onlookers – the dazzling
moon eclipses all but the brightest constellations, Ursa Major, Pleiades,
Cassiopeia, Orion, and planet Jupiter of course.
Beyond
the sward, the castle looms black and grey, like some great crouching spider,
its many darkened windows watchful eyes, its central door an unforgiving mouth.
Imposing towers bookend the main
to angling, the comestible hails from the Langdale Arms – it is in fact a
slice of pie.
The
‘burglar’ is DI Daniel Skelgill.
Munching
pensively he considers the scene, for the time being seemingly at ease.
Behind him the wall curves away north and south, disappearing behind trunks and
dark gatherings of shrubs. If Dr Wolfstein’s five-kilometre assessment of
the perimeter is accurate – a circuit of just over three miles in
Skelgill’s money – then it encloses private grounds of some five hundred
acres, and Blackbeck Castle itself stands about half a mile from his position.
Although
his previous inspection – accompanied by DS Jones – revealed no footway
outside the gate, this is not the case within. A distinct shadow ahead of
him stripes the rough vegetation, wider than a badger-path, though as
purposefully straight. It leads due west from the forest entrance,
presumably towards the castle. He sets out along its course. His customary
pace is brisk – a good five miles per hour – and a few minutes’
walking should bring him close to the rear of the property.
And
now he allows an insight into what might appear more madness than method as
regards the pie (or in fact pies – for he has sacrificed four of
his bulk buy of six). Thirty paces from the gate he delves into the
bass-bag and takes out a second morsel. Rather than eat it, however, he
drops it onto the path. For a man whose stomach rattles with a mere five
chocolate digestives (and nothing else since a hurried bowl of dry cereal first
thing), such self-restraint is remarkable – and would certainly confound
his colleague DS Leyton, who at this instant ought to be dozing replete at his
fireside before the ten o’clock news. And Skelgill’s ascetic determination
to eke out his supply solely for his mysterious purpose seems to hold, for at
regular intervals he marks his progress with successive deposits.
A gentle
north-easterly is cool across his shoulder, its murmur punctuated by the
occasional too-woo of a Tawny Owl (and the unsynchronised too-wit of a mate in reply). Long-eared bats fresh from hibernation are on the
wing, and more than once Skelgill’s sharp ears pick up their shrill cries as
they hawk skilfully about the canopy. Above all – above breeze and
bird and bat – a waxing gibbous moon casts solid black shadows beneath towering
ornamental conifers, ideal for emergency concealment.
But
Skelgill continues to shun such reassuring cover; he travels unswervingly upon
the path. The habitat is neither woodland nor parkland, but somewhere in
between. The ground cover is short and mainly grassy, with new growth
pushing through last autumn’s crumbling leaf litter. Facing the moon,
bare trunks and branches and their twin shadows beneath his feet are uniform in
their blackness, sharper than their daytime counterparts – but, when he
turns about, a different scene confronts him, dreamlike, a greenish monochrome,
an indistinct water world of waving boughs and waiting claws, where distance
and space cannot easily be judged, where pale boles of oak and beech take on a
ghostly luminescence and glisten with the slick trails of slugs and snails; a
world where the whispering sough of the wind might be the distant wash of
waves, irregular and patchy in their breaking, sensed through the opaque depths
that immerse him.
But
now he halts, for the arboretum suddenly gives way to a croquet lawn, hoary
with dew, perhaps twice the size of a typical village bowling green. To
progress further will expose him floodlit to onlookers – the dazzling
moon eclipses all but the brightest constellations, Ursa Major, Pleiades,
Cassiopeia, Orion, and planet Jupiter of course.
Beyond
the sward, the castle looms black and grey, like some great crouching spider,
its many darkened windows watchful eyes, its central door an unforgiving mouth.
Imposing towers bookend the main
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