Murder on the Run by Bruce Beckham

Author:Bruce Beckham [Beckham, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Lucius
Published: 2019-01-12T05:00:00+00:00

*

‘Don’t fret, lass – Kelly’s going to be alright. That vet leaves Doctor Dolittle standing – she’s probably chatting away to him as we speak.’

Jess nods – but his joke does not penetrate so deeply as to raise a smile. She has maintained a strained silence since they departed from Castlerigg Brow. Skelgill continues encouragingly.

‘Chances are he’s just had a shock to his system – he’ll be champing at the bit in a day or two.’

‘I’ll pray that he is.’

Skelgill glances at the girl beside him.

‘You comfortable sat like that?’

Again she nods, her features impassive. He thinks she can’t really be comfortable, for she has his own lump of a dog on her lap, her arms draped around it. Cleopatra is not accustomed to such attention, and if anything can be gleaned from the present nuance of her generally pugnacious expression, it is that she is feeling a little embarrassed, but seems to understand she should go along with it. For his part, Skelgill is saddened that Jess is taking the bad news with a practised resignation. Is it an ingrained sense of defeat brought about by an upbringing infested with disappointments and deprivations? A life in which hugs are like hen’s teeth? Or is he reading too much into what little he knows of her background? It might be that her mother’s descent into ruin is a relatively recent phenomenon.

He switches on the car radio and tunes it to the local music station – it bursts mid-song into the big hit of the summer, a rollercoaster ditty of love found and lost and found again, a female vocalist that sounds like every other female vocalist these days. He guesses for Jess it is probably too mainstream – but she seems to lighten a little and he notices her fingers tapping lightly on Cleopatra’s piebald flank. He takes a moment to assess where they are – just a couple of minutes now from Low Lorton – unusually for him he has paid scant attention to their journey – manoeuvring through the Whinlatter Pass on autopilot, his radar switched off, his antennae withdrawn – unaware of externalities, silently focused upon his young cousin. Bearing a share of her pain has proved an unaccustomed vicarious experience for him. Now that she has relaxed he becomes alert to their circumstances. They approach the junction with the Cockermouth-Buttermere road. He begins to decelerate. In his mirror he sees a large saloon – an old Mercedes, something of a jalopy by the look of it – some distance off. It has distinctive if innocuous vanilla paintwork that seems vaguely familiar and he wonders if it has been behind them since Braithwaite – whence there are few substantive turn-offs. Given that he has trundled somewhat aimlessly he is a little surprised it has not caught up and tailgated him, as folk are prone to do along these impassable lanes.

Now ahead he realises their progress is impeded by a more tangible presence than his disturbed sentiments. A lively flock of Swaledales is being driven past the junction in the Cockermouth direction.

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