The Body on Scafell Pike

Book 0: Lake District Murder Mysteries

by S J Brooke

Genres: General Fiction; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

OUT ON THE HILLS, A KILLER IS WAITING.

'I loved everything about this book! The atmosphere, the suspense, the storyline, the characters.' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ READER REVIEW
'I can't wait for the next' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ READER REVIEW
'This gripping thriller has everything you want in a great mystery.' ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ READER REVIEW

The riveting, darkly atmospheric new crime series based in the iconic Cumbrian Lake District.

A renowned mountaineer and self-described 'fell runner' is found dead in a deep gully on one side of Scafell Pike within hours of announcing his intention of breaking the world record for the quickest continuous summit of every peak in the Lake District.

Only a month into the job, DI Jess Chambers had been hoping that Cumbria would offer a slower pace of policing than her native Belfast, but this first case already sees her out of her depth. A local mountain guide, Margot Voyce, proves to be her biggest asset as she begins her investigation into the mysterious death of this world-famous athlete in unfamiliar terrain.

But as legions of his online following descend on the Lakes to pay their respects, it becomes clear that this was no accident. Jess and Margot must solve the case before more blood is spilled - but in a community such as this, sometimes the truth is more dangerous than a killer.

Release date: June 1, 2023

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 416

Sample

Margot Voyce was still familiarising herself with her old stamping ground. It looked and smelled pretty much exactly as she remembered, and it felt the same underfoot, yet it all seemed different somehow, disconcertingly so.

She’d been back for well over six months but she was yet to find the sense of belonging she’d anticipated would come sooner. She was getting bored with waiting for this to happen.

She’d grown up nearby, and as a child had loved the majestic sweep of the awe-inspiring mountains – much quieter then in terms of visitors, and with parking definitely easier to find – and the way the glassy surfaces of the lakes would reflect the peaks rising high above the national park. Never one for school, she had always itched to be outside, walking or climbing or swimming or horse riding.

And then she’d become desperate to leave these mountains and lakes, as the life she’d grown up with had come to feel not enough. She wanted – no, needed – bigger challenges and more exciting people.

It had taken some turbulent times since to convince Margot that there really wasn’t anywhere in the world like home. Suddenly she found herself craving what she knew. And, generally, coming back had worked out well. She’d got a job as a walking guide on the peaks as it seemed to offer both freedom and a general lack of stress. But it did mean brushing up on routes that previously she’d known like the back of her hand, and hence this outing, early enough that she wouldn’t be distracted by the walkers so that she could concentrate on memorising the titbits of information she planned to tell her clients.

Margot tried to imagine them, but this unnerved her. She had decided to be a mountaineer back in the day as she hadn’t wanted to talk to people. Of course the community she’d joined back then turned out to be one that functioned with people at every turn, and she’d never been able to get a moment to herself. Older now, she craved solitude once more. But she needed a livelihood, and escorted guiding was the best she could come up with, though she couldn’t say the idea filled her with enthusiasm.

But Margot was diligent, and so she had been clambering all over Scafell Pike and nearby fells each morning for weeks now, checking routes for novice, intermediate and experienced walkers, although she couldn’t seem to get back the fitness she’d once found so easy. Her long and lithe body might look the same, but that was as far as it went.

As she climbed, Margot savoured the chill but clear autumn weather.

Following the downpour of yesterday, this morning had broken calm and sunny, making the world before her look washed clean, and she loved the tones of earthy scent lifting from the ground still in the deep shadows where the sun was yet to hit.

The air felt sharp and almost spicy, very different to the tang of other mountains she had known. And as Margot stood on Scafell Pike and breathed in deeply, out of the blue she felt a sense of immense well-being. Perhaps guiding wouldn’t be so bad after all.

Still, she couldn’t deny that even though she had been in the gym a lot recently, with the rest of her time devoted to riding her horse Trojan, which she’d recently moved up from a livery stable in Hertfordshire, the extent to which she wheezed negotiating a not particularly steep incline was embarrassing.

A little later and unable to ignore any longer the burn in her legs, she tapped the stopwatch on her phone to halt it, and crouched down to catch her breath.

Not very good at doing nothing, after a short recovery Margot stood to shoot a 360-degree video around her. The sunshine was causing the odd shimmy of mist to rise from the warming damp ground, while the ice-blue cloudless sky contrasted dramatically with the deep hues of the peak rising above her.

She made a note on her phone of how long it had taken to get to where she was. And then she looked carefully at her video to see if a closer analysis suggested anything she’d not previously thought about that she could mention to clients.

She couldn’t see anything obvious but then, on the edge of a patch of shadow, Margot noticed something that looked peculiar, an unexpected clump of something darker. Her interest piqued, she shuffled closer to the edge of Piers Gill for a better view at what it was that her video had picked up.

She took some photos of the opposite rock face, and when she stretched them on her phone, she took a sharp breath. What had alerted her looked now for all the world like a body suspended high up on the rock face, the legs and one arm akimbo towards the sky, but with the head and the other arm hanging low. The deep blackberry colour of the face and livid fingers poking through a ripped glove told Margot, who had seen several gruesome outdoor accidents, that this was blood pooling through gravity over at least fifteen hours. And this level of lividity meant the person was definitely dead, and beyond her help.

She moved away, staring at her phone. It was a while until she had phone reception and she was able to dial Mountain Rescue.

‘My name is Margot Voyce, and I’ve just discovered what looks like a body hanging quite high up off an outcrop at Piers Gill.’ She then looked at her phone and added her map co-ordinates.

‘Stay where you are,’ came the reply. ‘We’re already on the mountain searching for a reported missing person. I’ll send them up and over to you. Near the Corridor Route?’

She retraced her steps. Standing well away from the lip at the top, Margot peered into Piers Gill and took a long look at the body. Then she turned her back to the distressing sight and walked a fair way away before perching on a large rock to await the rescue party.

Not too long afterwards they arrived, trailed a short while later by a pink-cheeked, breathless woman a little older than Margot who was woefully underdressed for a Cumbrian fell in November, especially one as brutal as Scafell Pike. The woman was accompanied by a face Margot remembered well from yesteryear, that of Councillor Robert Newman.

Dressed in old-fashioned gumboots and a calf-length waxed coat that looked like they’d done sterling work for decades, Bob Newman was a local bigwig who even when Margot was a child seemed to have a finger in many pies.

After a few words to the first team, who paused for a few seconds before they went over to Piers Gill, Margot stayed where she was as she knew Mountain Rescue would be otherwise engaged for a while as they came up with a way to retrieve the body. Unhelpfully this was snagged in such a manner on the igneous rock that there wasn’t an obvious way either to hoist it up or guide it down. Logistically this retrieval was going to be a challenge, she knew. They would talk to her properly when they were ready.

The woman and Councillor Newman looked across at the rock face where the man was – Margot was increasingly convinced the body was male, although she wasn’t quite sure why – and then the woman turned towards Margot and tilted her head on one side as she looked at her.

Margot was slightly surprised that the woman, who tried to make a call and then angrily jabbed the Reject button, although obviously irked over the lack of mobile reception, didn’t seem to be ruffled otherwise by what she’d seen. Normally unflappable, Margot was herself rattled, and so she couldn’t help but wonder at her seeming so calm.

The woman strode towards Margot, her steps verging on a cross stomp, a peevish look on her face. The councillor seemed stricken by what he was still looking at and remained where he was.

Margot sighed, her legs stiff now, and with a small groan she stood up.

‘I am Detective Inspector Jess Chambers,’ the woman announced in a gruff voice that wasn’t local. ‘You call this in?’

‘I did. I’m Margot Voyce. I came across the person about twenty minutes ago,’ said Margot as she studied the flimsiness of the inspector’s trousers and the inadequate footwear. If ever somebody had planned for a day that wasn’t going to be spent tramping around the peaks as the weather turned wintry, it had to be Jess Chambers.

Margot felt a twinge of sympathy as the detective had to be cold, and then she added, ‘But I wasn’t expecting Mountain Rescue to arrive quite so soon nor for the police to be here at all.’

DI Jess Chambers stared at Margot for another long second, and for no reason she could fathom, Margot felt self-conscious.

‘It’s coincidence I’m here, as what was a courtesy visit to the volunteers led to watching the team in action and a real-life rescue. Or what now seems a retrieval,’ the police officer said at last, after wondering about the experience of the woman before her, who seemed to know her way around a mountain rescue in a way that most people wouldn’t, a way Jess Chambers envied right now.

‘A-ha,’ said Margot, who decided the lilt to the DI’s voice was probably Northern Irish. And then she explained what she was doing on the mountain, how she had come to discover the body, and how she had had to move away to find reception on her phone before she could report it, indicating where she had stood with a toss of her head.

After Jess had watched Margot’s video and inspected the photographs, Margot asked if they knew who it might be.

‘We’re expecting it to be James Garfield, Councillor Newman’s nephew.’ Jess didn’t see any point in withholding this information, seeing how upset Newman was and that he would definitely give his nephew’s name if Margot were to ask him.

‘Oh!’ said Margot, clearly taken aback, and then she couldn’t stop herself twitching slightly under another scrutinising look from the detective inspector, who had immediately looked at Margot with renewed interest at her exclamation.

‘You know him?’

‘Well, yes. Sort of. Once. A bit. A long time ago, but yes. If it is James. I didn’t recognise him though. In fact I wasn’t totally certain the person over there was even male, although I suspected so. I didn’t know James was related to the councillor.’ Margot knew she was rambling, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

‘Thoughts on what you’ve seen?’ interrupted Jess. ‘How would you interpret the body hanging there?’

But Margot Voyce didn’t seem to notice as she stared into the distance, before saying, ‘It doesn’t make any sense if it is James Garfield, as if ever somebody knew what they’re about on a peak or on a mountain, then it’s him. This terrain normally wouldn’t cause him any problems at all. I can’t believe it is him, but if so, something extreme and catastrophic must have occurred. A really horrible . . . um . . . accident.’

‘Go on.’ There was silence as Jess Chambers waited for Margot to elaborate, but she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

‘I’ll need to talk to you further, Ms Voyce,’ the detective told her with an emphasis on the ‘Ms’; Jess had noticed Margot’s blink rate rise and her eyes moisten. ‘Don’t go anywhere.’

And if Margot found the woman’s previous stare uncomfortable, it was nothing to the piercing look she was now subjected to, before abruptly the detective strode back to stand beside the Mountain Rescue team, who were still debating with one another the best way of handling things. Jess didn’t even glance at the councillor as she passed.

Margot sat back down on her rock, and then took off a glove to nibble a nail as she looked about her, the instruction to not go anywhere rankling slightly.

She watched the volunteers, who now appeared to have come to a decision about dealing with the retrieval. Margot recognised their experience as they went about their preparations, noticing the deft way they were going through their rucksacks, how confidently they withdrew what they needed, and the way each member of the team seemed to understand instinctively what everyone else was doing. She was pleased James would be handled by people who obviously knew what they were about.

And then Margot realised how they had acquired that sort of experience, and once she’d allowed that thought to settle, she felt even worse.

Her breathing, unbidden, began to quicken, and as she looked the other way, down the corridor, Margot realised the colours of the fell that not long before had seemed romantic and ethereal had now morphed to brash Technicolor, and suddenly she felt lightheaded and an almost overwhelming desire to lie on the ground. She’d experienced altitude sickness on several occasions, and the feeling was similar.

Damn it, thought Margot. This is a terrible thing to happen to James. But what feels as bad is that I hate myself for thinking that it’s tarnishing my upcoming guiding. I just couldn’t have had a worse springboard to a new way of life.

As the horizon in front of her began to tilt, Margot realised she was in the early stages of a panic attack, and that finding the body and then the discovery she knew the victim was sending her into shock. She had no doubt now the body belonged to James, and although things between them had soured, she wouldn’t have wished this upon him.

Margot had seen bodies being brought off mountains but she’d never known any of the dead personally, and by the time she’d seen them they’d been wrapped up and prone in a mountain stretcher, and so it had seemed something clean and sanitised. The way James has been suspended shouted the agony of his death, and Margot was deeply perturbed by what she’d seen. And she’d also let thoughts of her own position creep in – what did that say about her as a person? Not much that was good, she felt.

Margot dropped her head and studied her knees as she forced herself to breathe more slowly and deeply.

Slowly she began to feel, while not better as such, more in control of herself.

How on earth had James ended up like this?

He was incredibly experienced, and accustomed to much bigger and more dangerous mountains than Scafell Pike, Margot knew, and his mountaineering and fell-running know-how should have prevented such an outcome. She’d climbed with him, and so she knew precisely how thorough and safety conscious he was. What she’d seen seemed incredibly out of character. And very wrong.

Indeed, the more she thought about it, the less sense it made.

As Jess turned to frown at her again, Margot had the sensation that James’s spirit was calling to her.

Walking to where Margot had indicated she would likely get a signal, Jess Chambers made some calls to her police station, then returned to stand by Councillor Newman for a minute before edging closer once more to the lip above the gully to take in all she could. This wasn’t how her morning should have gone and she felt thoroughly out of sorts.

Hungry and cold, without a hat or gloves, with her suit trousers offering next to no protection against gusts of biting wind, and her wool Crombie overcoat not doing much better, the final straw was her boots blistering her heels. It all combined to pretty much sum up her increasingly dismal time in Cumbria so far. At first she’d enjoyed the Instagram-ready vistas of high peaks and tranquil lakes, bordered by quaint old houses and pretty gardens, as well as the endless tones of grey in the stone walls and the wry Cumbrian humour in the shops and eateries. And the array of lively characters who ended up at the police station had made her smile on several occasions.

But Jess had struggled to make much headway into the community. People seemed suspicious of her, and she felt forced to spectate rather than participate.

While nobody had been unpleasant to her face, she couldn’t say she’d had a warm welcome at the station in the month she had been there. No one else seemed knocked out by her arrival either, other than Bob Newman of course, and she thought that was driven more by calculation than him being genuinely pleased to meet her.

Controversial staffing rota adjustments and internal policy changes were already afoot when she was seconded in to take the place of a popular detective inspector signed off long-term sick, and although none of this was anything to do with her, Jess had detected a distinct whiff of rancour from her colleagues that suggested they’d expected an internal promotion to fill the spot she had taken.

Jess felt like telling them she was just as unsettled about the situation as they were. A stint in the Lake District hadn’t been at the top of her agenda, and she’d agreed to it on a whim. In part to allow her colleagues to get used to the idea of having a new boss, at least until everyone felt a bit more settled about the situation, so far Jess had spent quite a lot of time away from her desk. This was also because she needed to orientate herself to a different sort of policing than she was used to.

Right from her first few days, the difficulties of covering a rural area largely in the midst of a national park revealed themselves as polar opposites to the urban policing Jess had experienced previously.

While there wasn’t the thrum of potential havoc she’d experienced when she’d been based in Belfast, instead she’d discovered the trials of narrow roads and inadequate parking, and low-wage communities plagued by extortionate housing costs caused by second homes belonging to affluent townies and the plethora of Airbnbs, which resulted in many people being forced to live far from where they worked, with no option of public transport. While these issues were less obviously incendiary than Jess was used to, it didn’t take long for her to realise they could be just as fraught.

Organised thefts from farms and animal rustling were rife, as were drugs coming in via the coast, burglary rings plundering second homes and badly behaved visitors. Regular drownings in the lakes and deaths out on the peaks were, sadly, merely another facet of the job, she’d been told.

The area was breath-takingly beautiful of course. But wonderful vistas didn’t put food on the table or keep people out of hospital. The contrast was disconcerting, to say the least.

Early on Bob Newman had taken her under his wing.

Jess found him – from the moment she clocked his self-satisfied expression, round belly and the drinker’s nose that shouted he was quite the bon viveur from two generations before hers – irritatingly patronising, but she had made a conscious choice not to challenge his attitudes. An old dog wasn’t going to change his tricks, and Jess could just tell that Bob had decided long ago how the world functioned, especially when it came to women. But although it grated on Jess’s nerves when Bob said ‘my lady wife’ when talking about his spouse, and he liked to drop into the conversation a bit too often that his local golf club had a prize he sponsored, Jess made sure to keep the same bland expression.

She had a more important reason for not challenging Bob Newman. Jess had always found it a useful tactic to allow people to underestimate her. And Bob wasn’t without his uses. He was happy to share his deep knowledge of local affairs, having been prominent on the local council for years. And everyone seemed to know him. As they drove around, Jess felt she was getting a crash course in living in the Lake District, and who its movers and shakers were.

Still, a little of Bob went quite a long way, and already Jess had decided their time together was enough. The visit to Mountain Rescue was going to be the last day she’d be spending in his company, although Jess hadn’t said as much yet.

And then in an instant it had all changed earlier that morning, as within moments of arriving at the rescue centre, its volunteers and a search dog were preparing to set out on a mission in the early light, to hunt for someone reported missing.

I. . .