Authors: Michael Wood
Chapter 16
On the morning that Ben set out from his cottage to ask Sergeant Bill Unwin to help him dig deeper into the recent fatal incidents, a few miles away, in a small flat in the town of Cockermouth, on the northern fringe of the Lake District, Professor Manfred Metternich was studying a copy of Wainwright’s ‘Guide to the Far Eastern Fells’. He always consulted these unique, hand-written, sketch-filled guides, when planning the day’s walk.
Although in his 60s, he was still very strong, with massive thighs and a bull like neck. But English wife, Joan, was not so strong, and so he had to look for fells that were not too strenuous.
He turned a page and found Place Fell - 2154 feet.
They had done it a few times over the years - it was one of their favourites. Again he read Wainwright’s description of it, just for pleasure: ‘
It occupies an exceptionally good position in the curve of Ullswater, in the centre of a great bowl of hills; its summit commands a very beautiful and impressive panorama. No other viewpoint gives such an appreciation of the design of this lovely corner of Lakeland. Many discoveries await those who explore: in particular the abrupt western flank, richly clothed with juniper and bracken and heather, and plunging down to the lake in a rough tumble of crag and scree, boulders and birches
.’
The Professor knew that the way to the top from the north or south was not abrupt, thankfully, but a delightful, gradual, walk.
‘Do you fancy doing Place Fell again?’ he asked.
Joan was only three paces away, preparing their packed lunch in the small kitchen area of the open planned flat they had bought as a retirement present to each other.
‘Is that the Ullswater one?’ she queried, having done so many fells in 40-years of walking.
‘That’s the one.’
‘That’ll be fine.’
Although their home was a small town near Munich, only 25 miles from the Bavarian Alps,
and they had lived all over the world, because of Manfred’s work as a senior officer with the United Nations, they still only headed for one place when free time came round - the English Lake District. And now that they had nothing but free time, they had bought the flat so that they could spend as much time as they liked in their favourite place.
Shortly after their arrival at the flat, a next-door neighbour had asked them why they came to the Lake District, when they lived so close to the Alps. Manfred, who had taken a couple of drinks, and was not normally so verbose, had said: ‘When I retired, I calculated that I had worked in 48 countries. In all my travels, this is the most beautiful place I’ve seen on earth. It is wonderfully unique. So much variety of hills, lakes, streams, woods, contained in so compact an area.’
He continued: ‘You don’t have to travel vast distances as in other countries; there is beauty and variety at every turn. It is all so accessible. The mountains are friendly. The Alps are too high, frightening. But the mountains here can still provide a great challenge. A sudden weather change, and in an instant you are alone in the clouds. But it is a nice loneliness, a loneliness to relish - peaceful, not frightening. Nowhere else have I seen these short-lived weather changes. Next, the sun suddenly bursts through the clouds, and your peaceful loneliness turns to joy as you see again the beautiful valley below you.’
Manfred concluded: ‘it is like a religious experience. And it is so unchanging. I’ve seen bad development all over the world, but when I come here it is always the same. There is a wonderful continuity of nature and life style. I know that here, the best of nature will be preserved. This is a very precious and unique place. If you keep it unchanged; if you keep the spirit of the Lakes alive, then people will continue to come from all over the world, to relax, recharge their batteries, appreciate nature.........’
The neighbour, whose travels were limited to the local pub and betting shop, had made a sudden excuse, shuffled away, and vowed to himself never to ask the strange foreigner another question.
*
Manfred and Joan put their packed lunch, walking boots and waterproofs, into their Mercedes, and enjoyed the drive over to the eastern fells.
They also enjoyed the slow amble to the top of Place Fell, the incredible views, and the chat with the small man they met there.
But soon, they were not enjoying ‘Place Fell’s abrupt western flank, richly clothed with juniper and bracken and heather, and plunging down to the lake in a rough tumble of crag and scree, boulders and birches.’
They had told their neighbour where they were going for the day, so the mountain rescue team was called out that evening.
Joan was found first, cold dead, badly disfigured, with a shattered birch branch passing through her neck.
Manfred was higher up the slope, wedged behind a large boulder. He was still warm. The team used a defibrillator on him. On the third shock, Manfred shuddered, opened his eyes and said quite loudly: ‘Summer sniffs.’ He never spoke again.
Chapter 17
‘Problem solving is a savage pleasure and we are born to it.’
All the way, on the drive to the golf course, Ben had been unable to remember who wrote it. But he knew it to be true.
He now had the bit between his teeth and he wouldn’t let go until he had found some answers. Unfortunately, the answers probably lay somewhere within the files, records, autopsies, photographs, databases, held by the police on each fatal incident. Which is why he was going to have to be very friendly and persuasive with Bill Unwin after their round.
And, even if Bill came good, there was still all the Scottish incidents to investigate. It all looked very daunting. Hopefully, he reasoned, the answers to the local incidents will also provide the key to answering the Scottish questions. ‘I have to start somewhere,’ he sighed to himself, as he pulled into the golf club car park.
A few hours later he was placing a pint of ale in front of Bill, on a polished wooden table in a corner of the club house lounge. His four-wood hadn’t worked its usual magic. His mind had been elsewhere.
‘Cheers Bill...well played. Top form today, eh! Well and truly thrashed.’
‘It’s no use buttering me up, Ben,’ Bill said firmly. Then he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper: ‘I just can’t help you. It’s more than my job’s worth.’
Ben had broached the subject on the way up the 18
th
fairway, given Bill his reasons for suspicion, asked Bill for as much information as possible on each of this year’s and last year’s 20 fall fatalities. He needed to know everything possible about the victims when alive and everything about their subsequent deaths.
‘I’d like to help if I could,’ Bill was still whispering. ‘But you haven’t given me enough to go on. Just statistics, speculation, theories based on personal knowledge of one person, and, god help us, your
feeling
that something isn’t right. Can you imagine me taking that lot to my boss and asking him to forward it to Penrith CID? They already have a backlog of current cases to deal with, without opening old ones without good cause, such as hard evidence.’
There was a hint of condescension in his voice as he finished. Its irritation, added to Ben’s rising feeling of frustration at having to deal with a large bureaucratic machine, made him take a long slug at his ale.
‘Could you not do this on a personal basis,’ Ben pleaded. ‘Without involving your boss or anyone else?’
‘Look,’ Bill said. ‘Even if I tried, I doubt if I could get my hands on all the information you’re after. I don’t have access to all the stuff you want. And if I did, and you uncovered something worthwhile, it would have to finish as police business wouldn’t it, and somebody upstairs would want to know where you got your initial information from. I can’t risk that. It could mean my job.’ He had stopped whispering now.
Ben understood Bill’s dilemma, but, after draining his glass, made one last plea. ‘You know I’m not asking for fun, Bill. There’s nothing in it for me, just hard slog’ …not quite true - Sophie’s money…‘but I genuinely believe that there is something bad happening here, and I ...we...should try to do something about it.’
Bill nodded his acknowledgement while draining his glass. But his silence said everything.
‘I’ll leave it with you,’ Ben went on, hesitantly. ‘If there is any snippet of info you can supply, without risk to yourself, I’d be very grateful.’
They rose from the table together, Ben hoping that he hadn’t smudged the polish on a good friendship. After all, what was more important than good friendship, a round of golf, and a pint of ale. You have to get your priorities right.
Ben felt a sense of relief as he drove away from the club house. Yes, he was frustrated. But the barriers that Bill had put in front of him were just too high to climb. He had no choice but to let go, to let the bit slide, to get back to routine.
*
His routine over the next two days consisted of some housework; it had been due for a clean when they dashed off on holiday; some boring gardening, a bit of journalism, and a start on a new oil painting based on a couple he had seen fishing from the jetty down at the lake.
He was busy diluting burnt umber with turpentine, to use on the outline sketch, when the phone rang.
‘Ben...its Bill Unwin. I’ve just heard that Patterdale Rescue Team recovered two bodies a couple of days ago. They’re in Penrith morgue at the moment. As you know, it’s outside my area, so I don’t have much detail. But I can tell you...you got me thinking the other day...and as soon as I heard about this one I rang around the other five MRT’s and they all reported an increase in fatalities last year and, proportionately, this year as well. There’s not a lot in it, just ones and twos. But, for what it’s worth, I pointed this out to my oppo at Penrith...I’m not bothering my boss yet...and told him about the big fatality increase in the Keswick area, and mentioned that a member of the public...I had to give them your name...felt that these statistics warranted an investigation...’ There was a pause, waiting for a reaction.
Ben was surprised. Not only by Bill’s efforts on his behalf, but also by his own stupidity at not checking the other five Lake District MRT’s himself.
‘Thanks Bill,’ he said. ‘I appreciate what you’ve done, and letting me know about the Patterdale incident. Do you know where the bodies were found? Were they badly injured?’
‘They were at the bottom of Place Fell...you know...overlooking Ullswater.’
‘Yeh!’
‘And the woman was severely injured, I understand. Why do you ask?’
‘Just a theory at the moment Bill...so I won’t bother you with it.’ He hadn’t intended to say the last bit; his subconscious must have spat it out to pay back Bill’s previous condescension. Hurriedly, he went on: ‘Do you think there will be an investigation?’
‘Who knows. My oppo said he would pass it on to CID. After that it’s anybody’s guess. They may take it up, or they may decide that they have covered most of the ground with that massive investigation they did into the government minister’s death, or they may have other priorities.’
‘How long does it take to decide these things,’ Ben asked.
‘A week, a month...who knows...sometimes it’s a case of who shouts loudest.’
‘I’m sure my shout would be deafening if I had all the information I asked for,’ Ben said, impatiently. ‘Any chance you might change your mind, Bill. Get some of that info to me?’
‘Sorry mate...still no can do...got to go...see you on the course next week...leave that four-wood behind.’
Freshly frustrated, Ben didn’t slam the phone down. Instead he took his newly mixed paint and vigorously daubed ‘SOD IT!’ on the canvas.
*
An hour later he had calmed down, and sat with a cup of tea and one of Helen’s home made scones, having saved his canvas by wiping the daub
off with more turpentine.
Another double death had occurred. What if the police didn’t investigate? He was undecided whether to let the whole thing go again, or to drive over to Ullswater, to give Place Fell the once over. It was some years since he had persuaded Helen to walk up it on a bleak autumn day; that the rain would stop before they got to the top. It hadn’t, and all he remembered was being up to his oxters in mud, and a vague view of Ullswater somewhere below in the mist. However, he felt sure it wouldn’t feature as a regular accident spot in the MRT’s statistics.
As usual, his inquisitiveness won the day. He would have to go. If nothing else, it was a beautiful drive over there.
The phone rang.
‘Hello....’
‘Are you alone. Can you speak?’
Ben recognised the husky voice of Sophie Lund. ‘Here we go again, more cloak and dagger stuff,’
he thought, dejectedly.
‘Ben, don’t mention my name, and don’t hang up. I want to help with those questions you’ve been asking Bill Unwin.’
‘How the hell...’
‘Are you alone,’ she insisted.
‘Yes...my wife is at work.’
‘You’ve been very naughty, Ben. Finding things out, but not telling me. What about our agreement?
‘I haven’t got anything new to tell you,’ Ben retorted.
There was a pause, a suck and a blow, as a cigarette helped her consider her response. ‘You still don’t take me seriously, do you Ben? Maybe I should withdraw my offer.’
‘You can do what you like,’ Ben said, confidently. ‘Remember, you came to me for help. Before you go, just tell me how you know I’ve been asking Bill Unwin questions.’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’
‘You haven’t bugged my house?’ Ben’s slow fuse was starting to burn.
‘Christ, do I have to spell it out?
Computers, Ben, computers...you know those little boxes that sit on our desks. Didn’t you know they have become indispensable? All the little key tappers around the world are speaking to each other with them, keeping records on them, firing missiles at each other with....’
‘Okay…okay...I get the message. But I haven’t contacted Bill Unwin by computer?’
‘Maybe not, but your Sergeant Unwin recently E-mailed a Sergeant in Penrith
confirming their telephone conversation. They are so thorough, bless them! Apparently, you have been asking for all sorts of information, and for an investigation into other Lake District deaths, not just Jack Fraser’s. If there’s something going on, I want to know. What have you found...?’
The fuse was getting shorter. ‘Have you nothing better to do. Surely you are too busy with your book to bother about two small town policemen talking to each other. You realise I’m going to have to tell them you’ve listened in to their conversations.’
‘I wouldn’t do that, Ben. Not that they would ever be able to trace anything back to me. But I always take out insurance just in case. It’s the best there is. It’s based on human frailty, and guess what, it has never failed me yet. Put simply, you tell the police about me, and I tell your wife...Helen isn’t it...about our copulation at the Keswick Hotel.’
Ben sniggered. ‘But we didn’t.’
‘I would say we did.’
‘It would be your word against mine. Who is she going to believe? A woman with your reputation or her devoted husband?’
‘Ben...Ben,’ her voice became patronising. ‘You don’t understand women, do you? My reputation would
ensure
that she didn’t believe you. Anyway, I always make sure my insurance policies are foolproof. Listen.’
He heard a button being pressed, a slight hiss, and then Sophie’s voice: ‘...are you married, would you like to sleep with me.’
Then his own voice: ‘I’m extremely married. I would like to sleep with you.’
Then Sophie: ‘Now Ben, be a good man, get dressed, and come and have a drink with me.’ Again a button was pressed and the tape stopped.
‘Heard enough?’ Sophie’s voice was now flat and businesslike. ‘Now you know how I operate. You can’t deal with complete strangers without insurance can you.’
She was always one step ahead. She had even anticipated his reaction, and had the tape ready to play. Ben had to concede that she was operating in a different league, a league he didn’t want to join.
‘As for being too busy with my book,’ she went on. ‘You are quite right. I don’t have the time to listen to two small town policemen. But my computers do. Whenever Jack Fraser’s name or yours passes through the Keswick/Penrith system, my computers are alerted. Aren’t my hackers clever! I had to keep track of any contact you might have with the police, both for my own security and because I’m still desperate to know what happened to Jack Fraser.’
She had him. He couldn’t risk hurting Helen.
Okay,’ Ben conceded. ‘I’m not telling the police about you, so what...’