The Fell Walker

 
For some – a walk in paradise

For others – ………………

MICHAEL WOOD

Pen Press

© Michael Wood 2012

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

First published in Great Britain

ISBN13: 978-1-78003-500-0

Pen Press is an imprint of

Indepenpress Publishing Limited

25 Eastern Place

Brighton

BN2 1GJ

Cover design by Jacqueline Abromeit

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out ev’n to the edge of doom

W. Shakespeare

Prologue

His first cry took place in a small, dilapidated cottage on the shore of the Kyle of Tongue, on Scotland’s north coast. His 40-year-old, inadequate mother died soon after giving birth. His 53-year-old, alcoholic father was not pleased to see him.

When he was five-years-old his father died, leaving him in the care of Uncle Maurice, a mean, church-going bachelor in his late 40s. Maurice lived on a croft on Strathy Point headland, a few miles east of the Kyle. He supplemented his small croft income by working as a night security guard at the nearby Dounreay Nuclear Research Station.

Uncle Maurice did not like the look of his scrawny nephew, and would see that the boy got plenty of discipline so he wouldn’t turn out bad like his father.

He was enrolled in the village school at Strathy, three miles from the croft. His withdrawn attitude and skeletal looks soon made him unpopular with the boys. The girls were less cruel, but kept their distance.

Each night, after supper, he was locked in his room while his uncle went to his night shift at Dounreay. He often cried himself to sleep, and woke up with a wet bed. His uncle always beat him for that, and for sneaking out of the window to sleep with the collie in his kennel.

His only friends were the collie and the rabbits and the gulls. He gave them names and fantasised about living with them in the secret cave he had discovered on one of his many lonely wanderings around the desolate headland.

Shortly after his tenth birthday, he found an injured fox at the foot of the cliffs. He carried it to the cave and, over the next few days, attempted to nurse it better.

When it died, he cried a lot, and didn’t want to part with it. So he took a knife, and chopped it into pieces, and put it in plastic bags. He dropped the bags into a rock pool inside the cave. Now he had a permanent friend.

Chapter 1

The new state-of-the-art headquarters of Keswick Mountain Rescue Team stands close to the shores of Derwentwater lake. Like most buildings in the Lake District National Park it is made from weathered stone and slate, making it difficult to tell whether it is one or 100-years-old. Upstairs, above the drying and equipment rooms, lies a large meeting room and separate control room. Inside the control room one man sits surrounded by an array of phones, screens and monitors. Today, he has no need to use the three pre-programmed phones that simultaneously activate the pagers of the 38-team members. They are out there already, continuing yesterday’s systematic grid reference search of the Skiddaw massif, using their satellite-controlled global positioning systems. The room is full of voices when Ben Foxley walks in.

‘Keswick Mobile to Keswick Echo - over.’

‘Keswick Echo - go ahead Keswick Mobile.’

‘Have the Cockermouth team turned up yet, and have they brought any dogs? If so, please ensure a thorough search of the gullies below Lonscale Fell as discussed - over.’

‘Hello Keswick Mobile Leader. We have 12, repeat 12, arrived from Cockermouth team. We are allocating areas to them. They have brought two dogs. Confirm they will be sent to Lonscale Fell gullies - over.’

‘Patterdale Leader to Keswick Leader - over.’

‘Keswick Leader - go ahead Patterdale.’

‘Reporting Longside now complete. Moving on to Barkbethdale - over.’

‘Understood Patterdale. Keswick Leader out.’

‘Keswick Control. This is Search 131.’ The background sound of whirling helicopter blades is unmistakable.

The man in the control room acknowledges: ‘Go ahead Search 131.’

‘Reporting three, repeat three, more 131’s are approaching. Confirm we will all be using channel 73 direct to Keswick Control - over.’

‘Understood Search 131. Please let me know their call signs - over.’

Ben had always admired the Controller’s calm, methodical, manner. He listened to the exchanges for a few more minutes, then walked, quietly, to the kitchen. He returned carrying two cups of coffee, and placed one on the desk beside the Controller. There was a lull in the radio chatter.

 
‘Busy morning, Ian,’ Ben observed.

‘Aye...a bit,’ the Controller said, picking up his coffee, while continuing to make notes on the papers in front of him.

Ben knew better than to interrupt or to ask too many questions.

Officially, journalists were not allowed inside the building during an incident, but in the past year they had come to trust Ben, now known as the new local man; a term Ben enjoyed as he approached his 50th birthday. In that time, he had grown to respect their tremendous effort, dedication and professionalism, and he tried to reflect this with succinct, factual reporting in the Tribune.

So far so good, but he knew he was still there on sufferance. He was not supposed to question team members, and they had strict instructions not to talk to the press; only the Team Leader did that.

These unfortunate battle lines had been drawn up due to bad experiences with the national tabloids, particularly when youngsters on school adventure trips went missing, or worse. They hated giving interviews to podgy city journalists who usually sensationalised the incidents, then went on to demand the head of some poor teacher or adventure leader, who had been trying to bring excitement and adventure to equally podgy youngsters.

Apart from the laid down rules, Ben knew, anyway, that he wouldn’t get much out of the taciturn Controller who, conscientiously, got on with his job of link man, record keeper and general administrator. Long after an incident was over, he could still be found filling in paperwork, making entries on the computer spread sheets, filing, and finally, taking Leader reports and photographs of the incident to the police station.

‘Bit unusual having three search teams and four helicopters,’ Ben said conversationally.

‘Bloody government minister and his wife,’ Ian snapped, handing Ben the Incident sheet. ‘There’s a full RAF ground team coming as well. Wouldn’t happen for you and me.’

Ben glanced at the sheet. ‘I wonder what a gov-ernment minister is doing staying at a caravan site?’

‘Who cares,’ Ian growled.

Ben had never seen him so animated, but before he could continue the conversation, the voices started again:

‘Keswick Dog Mick to Keswick Leader - over.’

‘Keswick Leader - go ahead Mick.’

‘Stand by. I think we have contact. I have a barking dog. I am approaching the Little Man gully from the south. Stand by. Out.’

Ben envisaged the scene. The dog must have found somebody and returned to its handler, Mick. Here it would bark to announce its find, then return to the find, bark at it, then return to Mick. It would continue doing this until Mick and the find were brought together.

There was a long silence. All radio voices stopped. Instinctively, Ben walked to the window and craned his head to the right. From here, he could just see Skiddaw and the Little Man search area. He imagined the rest, while absent-mindedly sipping his coffee. He barely reg-istered that it had gone cold.

A sudden intrusion into the silence: ‘Keswick Dog Mick to Keswick Leader - over.’

‘Keswick Leader - go ahead Mick.’

‘I have contact. I have contact. I am with two casualties in Little Man gully. Both are Condition Zero. I repeat - both are Condition Zero.’

Chapter 2

The town of Keswick is used to invasion. Ever since the Victorians built the railway, millions have flocked to see it, nestling, idyllically, in a lake blessed vale of unutterable beauty. Its core population of five thousand might agree with Ruskin’s claim that it is ‘a town almost too beautiful to live in’ as they are regularly overwhelmed by walkers, climbers, campers, boaters, fishermen, yachters, caravanners, and ubiquitous tourists sauntering down the narrow streets, carrying their ice creams, like slow motion relay teams. But it has never seen an invasion like this.

Two days after the discovery of the bodies of Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Jack Fraser, and his wife Elaine, at the foot of Little Man, the world’s media have taken over the town. Throughout the market square, down the narrow streets, outside the police station, television, radio, and newspaper journalists are speaking to camera, interviewing locals; pressing for information at the police station. The town’s hotels are full.

Before the invasion, Ben Foxley had interviewed the local police. The small police station had become one of his weekly calls, picking up the crime news. Most of the crime involved thefts from tourists’ cars, parked in remote places, while the occupants were out walking the fells, the occasional burglary, and a bit of teenage bad behaviour in the town’s beautiful parks.

Ben had established a friendly relationship with the small staff at the station, and, eventually, had been invited by station sergeant Bill Unwin to join him in a game of golf. This had become one of Ben’s weekly highlights, combining, as it did, a course in a spectacular setting, with occasional insights into a world with which he was not familiar.

From the brief police statements he had been given he wrote a factual few hundred words, which would appear in the weekly Keswick Tribune in three days time. Then he sat back to watch as the big boys moved in to do their thing.

Within hours, the tabloids were running incredible stories of possible ministerial adultery, murder then suicide by the minister, rifts in the marriage, suicide pacts. One tabloid discovered that Jack Fraser’s research assistant was glamorous, and carried large photographs of her, with reputedly her quotes: ‘Jack Never Made A Pass At Me.’

The serious papers came up with interminable articles about Jack Fraser’s life; how he had risen from shipyard worker to minister.
‘From Back Yard to Front Bench,’
and
‘From Metal Bashing to Tory Bashing’
were typical headlines.

These papers were also theorising about possible causes of death, since the police were treating them as suspicious, even though they looked like an accidental fall. One suggested murder by a disgruntled Sellafield worker anticipating that the minister was about to preside over the closure of the local nuclear plant. Inevitably, terrorist organisations were also touted as possible suspects.

Ben admired the speed with which all this information was compiled for public consumption, but was surprised that no reporter mentioned the minister’s wife. It was as if she did not exist. Clearly, they had decided she was not as newsworthy as her VIP husband.

A hard faced professional lot, Ben concluded, while beginning to feel like a very small fish in an appropriated pond. He was glad that his late entry into the word industry probably still qualified him as a softhearted amateur. He knew that his piece for the Tribune paled in comparison to most of the big boy’s offerings, but he consoled himself with the fact that he did not have a host of staff and researchers to back him up.

Normally, his natural reticence would have made him stay at home until the media shoals had gone. But he sensed that this was too big to be missed; that something unexpected lay behind these tragic deaths. He knew Little Man intimately. It was not inherently dangerous. It was not a likely place for walkers to fall.

That is why, on the third day of the invasion, as the sun lapsed below the western fells, casting shadows across the recumbent lakes, he was driving to Keswick’s
largest hotel, where many of the journalists were staying.

The imposing Keswick Hotel had been built by the Victorians right at the station exit, so that the rich gentry didn’t have far to walk after their ‘arduous’ train journey from London, Birmingham or Manchester. Here, Ben planned to spend the evening, rubbing shoulders with his professional peers, hoping they might have some important information to share.