‘True. Look at it another way. Some Mr Big in the world of sweeteners may prefer that Mr Fiddler takes the blame, because if he – Fiddler – is exonerated there may be another and fuller investigation into McLure’s activities which might really set the cat among the pigeons.’

  ‘Could it be,’ Molly said slowly, ‘that Inspector Munro was told to find another – what do they call it? – another patsy in a hurry?’

  There was silence. The waiter was collecting soup plates and delivering the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, but there would have been a silence anyway.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Keith said when the waiter had gone. ‘It would explain his hostility to me and his absolute determination not to consider for a moment the possibility that anyone other than Ronnie might be guilty, but it’s asking a little too much of coincidence. There’s no reason that I can see why an inspector of police in a rural force should already be on the payroll of a city-based, building industry, bribery network. So that suggests that somebody approached the officer already in charge of a murder case, intending to offer him a bribe. That may not be as dangerous as approaching a bear and offering to scratch its tummy, but it must come a close second.’

  ‘If there were enough money in it,’ Enterkin said, ‘and in this case there would be, it would be safe enough given proper precautions.’

  ‘Like what?’ said Molly with her mouth full.

  ‘As, for instance, making preliminary contact by telephone after first checking up on how Munro was placed financially.’

  Molly swallowed urgently. ‘And how is he fixed for money?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, since he has three children and a wife recently stricken by polio, I think we may take it that he could use money.’

  ‘The poor man!’ Molly said, suddenly melted.

  ‘Poor sod,’ echoed Keith. ‘How do we investigate that aspect?’

  ‘We sleep on it.’

  ‘That superintendent from Strathclyde said that we’d probably never know it all.’

  ‘He was probably right,’ said Enterkin. ‘But I’ll look into his life-style, and, if nothing more, we may at least dig up some material that counsel can use in cross-examination.’

  Over the sweet course – a production-line crème caramel – Molly asked, ‘But who did kill Mr McLure?’

  ‘One of two,’ Keith said. ‘I’d like to make a case against the mannie Hook –’

  ‘Because of what you were told up at Invergordon by – what was his name? Tough?’

  ‘Hardy.’

  ‘Same thing,’ said Enterkin. ‘Yes, the motive’s all there. A chief executive or something with a local authority, possibilities of corruption with McLure over building contracts, worried to death before McLure’s death and suddenly relieved after it.’

  ‘But it won’t work,’ said Keith peevishly. ‘I’ve been over and over it in my mind. Physically, he just could not have been there to do it, and I can’t see any way that he could have helped in a conspiracy.’

  ‘Who –?’ Molly began again.

  ‘Payne or McNeill,’ Keith said. ‘It must be one of those two. They were walking each side of McLure. Then there was me, and I know I didn’t do it, and Derek Weatherby didn’t come past me. On the other side there was Hamish, but Janet saw him out in the field chasing a runner just before it happened, and anyway Andrew Payne would have had him in sight all the time. One of those two must have had cause to kill him. It could have been Payne, because of the arbitration thing.’

  ‘I thought,’ Molly said slowly, ‘that arbitration was to do with strikes and things.’

  ‘It can be,’ said Enterkin. ‘But if you think of it as being a law suit taking place outside the courts with the judge chosen by the parties or appointed by somebody chosen by them, with the full authority of the courts to enforce his judgement, then you’ll see its significance.’

  ‘But setting motive aside for the moment,’ Keith said, ‘either of those two would be capable of loading up a special cartridge.’

  Enterkin snapped his fingers and pulled from his pocket a piece of paper half-covered by writing in pencil by an unformed hand. ‘I brought along Fiddler’s list of people who bought carcasses from the estate. I meant to give it to you the last time that we met, but you were somewhat preoccupied. Both Payne and McNeill figure on the list.’

  ‘There you are. I’ve often found a relatively undamaged bullet when I’ve been cutting up a carcass, and it’s the kind of thing that a man sometimes puts up on a shelf as a keepsake. And then when he wants a bullet that can’t be traced back to him, it’s there.

  ‘Then,’ Keith went on, ‘he may have made overtures to get himself and McLure out on the same shoot –’

  ‘Yes,’ Molly broke in, ‘and he may have tried it before, for other shoots.’

  ‘Good girl. Of course, Sir Peter’s was the first of the season except for grouse and partridges, which are more open-country scenes and not so suitable.’

  ‘But he could have asked before about getting on another one later,’ she persisted.

  Keith thought for a moment. ‘True, and worth following up if we get the chance. Anyway, he succeeded in getting on this particular shoot along with McLure. Of course, if it was Payne he’s a syndicate member anyway, but Sir Peter thought that it was Hook who suggested McNeill.

  ‘All three had dogs and were in good physical condition, so they could be expected to be set to walk through the woods together. In fact, I think that each of them had walked alongside McLure once already before it happened. Either the opportunity didn’t arise or, just possibly, whoever-it-was was waiting for the other one to be on his other side.’

  ‘Why?’ Enterkin asked.

  ‘It’s a long shot, but suppose either that they were accomplices or that the murderer knew that the other one had a motive and wanted to leave himself an “out”.’

  ‘Lay grounds for “reasonable doubt”, you mean?’ said Enterkin. ‘You’re right, it is a long shot. And presupposes a very long-sighted murderer.’

  Molly had been sitting quiet, nibbling pensively on cheese straws. ‘Were you thinking,’ she asked suddenly, ‘that that particular bullet might have been used to deliberately implicate Ronnie?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Keith said. ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, it couldn’t have been. He couldn’t have known that you were going to panic and hide the rifle in the first place that you came to.’

  Keith choked on his coffee.

  ‘Now you’ve got it all over your clothes,’ Molly said reproachfully.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ Enterkin asked.

  ‘Oh, I figured that out some time ago. The police made their minds up that Ronnie had the rifle, so they didn’t think any more about it. But I knew Ronnie didn’t have it. If he was doing anything illegal, he always told me so that I wouldn’t put my foot in it without knowing. So who else would it have been but Keith? And I knew that he’d told you, Mr Enterkin, because why else would you be getting him to get another gunsmith to give the evidence? And if Keith had shot Mr McLure and left the gun in our wash-house to involve Ronnie he wouldn’t have told you. So I just had to decide who I’d rather have in prison, my brother or my husband. That was easy,’ she added.

  The two men looked at each other with their mouths hanging open.

  *

  Arriving back at the farm near Aberfeldy, Keith slept for twelve hours and Molly for ten. They spent the best part of a week with Elsie and her husband. At first, the telephone was in constant use as Keith tried to rebuild his shattered business. His insurance policies, by good luck and thanks to Elsie’s tireless prodding, were ample and fully paid; and the company promised early settlement, by which, Keith was given to understand, was meant not more than a few months provided that no loophole was found. So it was equally fortunate that Keith’s wallet, fat with his day-to-day working capital, had been in his pocket at the time of the disaster. His bank-balance, too, was less unhealthy than had on occasions been known.

  Their joint attempts to find another retired mobile bank, or a similar large vehicle suitable for conversion, were entirely unsuccessful. Whether or not this was because Keith left most of the telephoning to Molly we shall never know. There are points beyond which even a bride is not to be trusted.

  So when Sunday came around and they sat down to the traditional heavy farmhouse lunch, Keith talked of emigrating.

  ‘Now, Keith,’ Elsie said. ‘You’re just a bittie depressed.’

  ‘You’re probably right,’ Keith said. ‘The Scottish Sabbath always gets me down. Everything I enjoy doing is illegal on a Sunday.’

  ‘Most of them’s illegal the rest of the week,’ said his brother-in-law.

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘What you want,’ said Molly, ‘is another dog.’

  ‘And wait a year while I train a pup? Or pay a couple of hundred quid for a good trained dog?’

  That night as they lay in bed, warm and comfortable, Molly returned to the subject. ‘Do you really want to go abroad? We will, if you do.’

  Keith sighed. ‘You don’t want to, you’d hate it. And tired as I am of this over-governed, tax-ridden, maternalistic country it’s the place where I’m happy. We’ll talk about it again when Ronnie’s free – when that happens I may really want to get out of the country. Meantime I have a score to settle with someone.’

  ‘He’s dead,’ Molly said sleepily.

  ‘He was working for somebody else who sent him to burn us alive. Or blow us up. Did you hear the bang when those tins of Nobel Eighty went up?’

  Molly was asleep.

  But in the morning a new day dawned, and with it hope. The loss of Keith’s van and contents had, for some reason, been missed by the daily papers but had featured in the Sundays. And the phone began to ring.

  There were offers of all kinds. Offers of sympathy, of fresh work, of a job. An offer to forget about a gun which had been lost in the fire. Offers to lend transport, offers of equipment for a new van, offers of machinery and tools at bargain prices and offers of a bed for the night at any time. There was even the offer of an overdraft.

  Keith was moved. ‘I never knew I had so many friends,’ he said.

  Elsie knew his circle of acquaintances at least as well as he did. ‘Some of them’s friends,’ she said. ‘The rest are just plain relieved.’

  ‘At my van getting burned?’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ said his sister. ‘Those are the ones that have daughters or sisters.’

  ‘Or aunts or cousins or grannies,’ said Molly, who had few illusions about Keith. ‘Now that you’re no longer in general circulation, they don’t mind knowing you again.’

  ‘Yon bank mannie now,’ Elsie persisted. ‘He’s got two daughters and he’ll not want them served until after they’re married.’ Elsie and her husband had always taken an agricultural view of Keith’s amours, treating them as they would the news of a bull that had got into the wrong field.

  Keith said that he wished they wouldn’t talk like that, but he tackled his problems with new heart.

  Pending the replacement of the big van, some form of transport was obviously essential. Among the many offers had been one from a Tayside acquaintance and occasional client, whom Keith had cured of a master-eye problem and coached into the prize-winning class. Keith begged a lift into Dundee to inspect the large estate car that was on offer at a very modest price, and bought it on the spot. On impulse, he drove straight into the city centre and treated himself to a high-quality radio-cassette-player and installed it in the car with a little help from a garage. He also bought a large carton of blank cassettes. One part of his life at least could be rebuilt.

  As soon as Keith was back at Aberfeldy and the car, its paintwork and the longevity of its M.O.T. certificate had been properly admired, Keith begged the use of his sister’s music-centre and set Molly to transcribing his own modest collection of records onto the cassettes while he dealt with a number of messages. These included word from Joe Quaich that his preliminary report was ready and in general agreement with Keith’s conclusions.

  Before settling down to work on the claim forms, Keith read with interest a note which had come by the same post from his friend the geologist. Omitting the friendly insults with which it started and the ribald enquiries after Keith’s married life with which it concluded, the body of the letter read:

  The grit which you sent me contained small amounts of unidentifiable earths and clays, but most of it was red (burnt) shale left over from the deceased Scottish shale-oil industry. It therefore originated in the general area between Bathgate and the Calders. I could have placed it more accurately, except that the sulphate and other solubles have been washed out of the sample. This suggests that the material may have come from the surface of a bing, but you must remember that burnt shale is used for road bottoming etc, and also for temporary car-parks and the like. The sample also contained a tiny fragment of pitch.

  ‘Not really a lot of help,’ said Molly. ‘There’s all sorts of farm roads and things made up with shale.’

  ‘I knew I’d seen whole hills of it,’ Keith said absently. ‘But pitch, now. Why does that remind me of something?’

  A telephone call from Sir Peter Hay broke off what might have been a revealing discussion. ‘How soon can you come and see me?’ he asked.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I’d rather tell you down here. I want to suggest something. Make it soon before the impulse leaves me.’

  Keith did one of his instant appraisals. ‘We’d have to be down there soon anyway. Ronnie’s coming up before the sheriff for trying to knock my block off in the police station.’

  ‘Don’t wait that long. I think I should speak to you before you commit yourself to something else.’

  ‘All right,’ Keith said. ‘We’ll be down tomorrow, but it may be late afternoon before we arrive. Could we ask you to get someone to go down to Molly’s cottage and light fires? There’s coal and sticks and everything there.’

  ‘No need for that. Come and spend a night or two with me, the pair of you. My wife’s away on a pre-Christmas shopping safari,’ he added as an extra inducement.

  ‘I think we’d both like that,’ Keith said. ‘Thank you. One other thing. You were going to find out who mentioned whose name in connection with your guest list for that shoot that McLure died on.’

  ‘I’ll get on with that, and let you know when I see you.’

  They disconnected, and Keith phoned Mrs McLure.

  *

  For the rest of the day, Molly patiently transcribed records while Keith loaded the estate car. For no better reason than that he was accustomed to have his tools and his stock with him and that the back of the car was an empty shell, Keith loaded the spare guns and tools, together with such clothes as they could muster between them.

  They left early on the following day and made good time on the long run south. After the Forth Bridge, Keith turned to enter Edinburgh.

  ‘I want to make a short visit,’ he said. ‘Do you want a few minutes – a very few minutes – at the shops?’

  Molly considered. ‘No, I’ll get what I want in Newton Lauder tomorrow.’

  ‘You’re not very smart for visiting the Hall.’

  ‘Lady H. won’t be there, and Sir Peter won’t notice. Anyway, there’s not a mark on this dress. I can’t think why Elsie gave it to me.’

  ‘I can. Elsie’s a red-head. That colour would look all right on a blonde, which you’re not. Elsie’s stouter than you are, and it was too loose on her. And she’s twenty years older than you are.’

  ‘It’ll do for tonight. I’ll wait in the car.’

  Keith parked outside McLure’s house and walked up to the door. By daylight, the perfection of the garden was even more obtrusive. He was shown into the immaculate front room where the chilly widow was browsing through the week’s supply of glossy magazines. She gestured with a copy of Scottish Field. ‘Is this your article on dog training?’ she asked.

  Keith said that it was.

  ‘You write well. Not enough to make me want to work on this bastard, but well.’

  ‘She’s still the same, is she?’

  ‘Never looks up. Except, oddly enough, when I shut my cigarette case. I don’t think she approves of women smoking. Old-fashioned bitch.’ She poked the springer spaniel with her toe.

  Keith had the clue that he wanted. ‘And I can have her?’

  ‘Take her away with my blessing. I was going to have her put down anyway.’

  Keith excused himself for a moment and went out to the estate car. He opened the back. Molly was playing a cassette. ‘Stravinsky?’ Keith said, surprised. ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘Among your records.’

  ‘I didn’t mean you to copy that stuff.’

  ‘You didn’t say so.’

  ‘No harm done. Shan’t be long,’ he added. ‘I only came out to get a gun.’

  ‘If it’s to shoot that blonde I could see you talking to in the front room, go ahead.’

  Back in the house, Keith watched through the crack of the door as he closed the gun with a snap. Instantly, the springer bitch was on her feet, eyes alight and undocked tail sweeping like a broom. As Keith came round the door she ran to him, stood up against his knee and barked.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ said the widow.

  ‘For a hundred generations she was bred to do certain work. Your husband represented the leader of the pack, but when he died she also lost the chance to go out and do the only things in which she felt truly fulfilled . . .’

  Mrs McLure looked at him through half-closed eyes. Keith thought that she was weighing the enhanced value of the dog against the risk of his spreading the story that she had welshed on a deal. In the end, she sighed. ‘I said you could have her and you can have her,’ she said.

  ‘Right. One last thing. Who knew that your husband intended to emigrate?’

  ‘Almost nobody,’ she said promptly. ‘It was supposed to be a deathly secret, but when he first mentioned it he didn’t say so. Then, the same day, while he was out, somebody phoned and wanted me to write something into his diary for some weeks ahead and I said that he might have left the country for keeps by then. I was just hanging up the phone when my husband walked in at the door. That’s when he said on no account to let anybody else know.’

 

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