Read Murder by Magic for Free Online

that, Guv.’
    ‘He
probably knows enough to know he’s covered – so long as we don’t catch
him with a hawk in one of the traps.’
    ‘How
do they work, Guv?’
    Skelgill
contracts his lips in an expression of distaste.
    ‘You
bait one half with a live magpie.  Stick the trap in a clearing in another
bird’s territory – ten minutes later and it’ll come to investigate
– when it lands it falls into the other section through a trapdoor. 
Then you put your twelve bore through it – unless you want the new magpie
as bait for a second trap.’
    DS
Jones appears appalled at the prospect.
    ‘He
had a ruthless look in his eyes, Guv – I shouldn’t like to be caught
accidentally trespassing by him.’
    Skelgill
frowns as though he begs to differ, and would happily prompt such a situation.
    ‘He
wasn’t about to go out of his way to help us, that’s for sure.’
    ‘No,
Guv.’
    They stride
downhill, the gradient still quite steep; the track has now entered the
forest.  The mid-afternoon birdsong is subdued, although a buzzard mews
persistently above, lording over its realm.  At one point they glimpse the
flashing white rear of a roebuck as it bounds into the undergrowth, and at
intervals clumps of primroses rejoice in the spring sunshine.  In due
course they encounter the locked gate that restricts vehicular access to
Blackbeck mines.  A notice similar to that at the quarry warns visitors of
the perils that lie ahead.  By turning left onto the ‘trunk’ road (a
narrow lane that accommodates two cars only with extreme care), another mile
will return them to their parking spot.  About halfway, however, an
unmarked track cuts back into the woodland: it is the inconspicuous driveway of
Blackbeck Castle.
    ‘Must
be fun being the postie around here, Guv.’
    ‘Aye
– you’d want a Land Rover and plenty of emergency supplies in
winter.’  For a moment Skelgill becomes contemplative.  ‘I’d quite
fancy that – having to camp out for a couple of nights in the snow
– maybe trek to the nearest inn – log fire and unlimited real ale.’
    ‘So
long as they’d got their delivery, Guv.’
    ‘I’d
make do with bottled, at a push.’
    DS
Jones grins and shakes her head.  But if she is forming a reply she adapts
it to accommodate the sight that greets them as they round a bend in the track.
    ‘Wow,
Guv – this place looks about as scary as the mines.’
    While Blackbeck
Castle might disappoint the visitor hoping for an authentic medieval fortress,
it would almost certainly find favour among Hammer Horror aficionados.  Not that it is open to the public as an attraction. 
Indeed, the towering wall yields only to wooden gates of an equivalent height, leaving
visible solely the upper storeys of the castle – with its towers, turrets
and battlements.  Built in the early Victorian era for an heiress whose
dubious fortune was built upon the ‘sanitised’ leg of a despicable triangular
trade that shipped rum from the West Indies to Whitehaven, its mock Gothic
Revivalist architecture would equally dismay today’s architect or archaeologist. 
As it is, surrounded by dense forest, supplemented with a preponderance of large
ornamental conifers in its immediate grounds, the unsightly edifice generally goes
unseen by tourists and hillwalkers alike.
    The large
gates appear well maintained and are painted in the same shade of grey as the
portal they came across earlier.  Indeed, to their right is a similar
door, with an electronic panel cemented into the wall at head height. 
Skelgill presses a button marked “Call.”  Immediately there is a sound
– but it emanates not from the loudspeaker in the control panel, but from
the smaller gate itself.  The noise sounds like the lifting of a bar, and
then the door swings open – inwards – and the tall figure of a man
steps out.  He has on leads a pair of large German Shepherds.  The
door appears to be sprung, and closes behind him.  The man, whose