Dead game, p.6
Dead Game, page 6
part #1 of Keith Calder Series
Next, Keith started on the real objective of his visit – an inch-by-inch search of the area where McLure had died. First he took the charred circle in the clearing, and half an hour was spent in meticulous examination. But there was nothing to be learned. Any scrap of information not destroyed by the fire had been lifted by the police or trodden out of existence. He widened the search in an expanding spiral. Every scrap – wads, empty cartridges, even the carefully trodden-out cigarette-ends – had been lifted over the whole clearing and for some yards into the field and the wood.
The only fragments of human debris that Keith could find were some scraps of toilet-paper near the charred circle. Their revealing pink colour suggested that they had not gone unobserved but had been discounted as irrelevant. He was about to jump to the same conclusion when Hebe nosed one of the pieces, and her tail moved an inch either way. Keith lifted it and examined the staining.
‘Aye, girl,’ he said. ‘Trust you not to miss that.’
It was his habit to carry a supply of small polythene bags in a pocket of the light shooting-coat which was his unvarying outdoor garb, and he stowed the frail pink scraps away in one of them.
When he was sure that he had missed nothing else, Keith relaxed. Wood-pigeon were following the line of the wood between their favourite roosting trees above and the stubbles below. He wedged himself for concealment between two conifers and began to drop them in ones and twos, making every cartridge count.
Later, he called in at Corner Farm to leave a few pigeon with Derek Weatherby. The farmer had disappeared but Janet was still working on the hydraulics of the tractor, the manual open on the ground beside her. She was a pretty girl, allowing for the oil-stains, and showed promise of becoming a spectacular woman. Keith, whose voice took on an involuntary mellow charm in the presence of any woman who attracted him, fought to keep the signs of downright lechery out of it.
‘Is your dad in the house?’ he asked.
She shook her head, and her fair pony-tail swung. ‘He left me to it and went off in the car. He said that I seemed to know more about it than he did anyway,’ she added complacently.
‘You’ll make someone a wonderful wife.’
‘You for instance? I might consider it.’
‘Well, I mightn’t,’ he said, laughing.
‘Anyway, you’re already bespoke.’
‘No I am not! And this isn’t what I came back to talk about,’ he added. ‘If I leave these pigeon on this windowsill, will you take them in to your mum when you’ve finished?’
She pulled gently on the torque-wrench. ‘If the cat hasn’t got them first,’ she said.
‘You remember the day Mr McLure was shot?’
‘Of course.’
‘When we walked down Oak Wood, you and your dad were outside it on my right. Did either of you come into the wood?’
She put down the wrench and rubbed her face, giving herself a Mexican-bandit moustache. Even so, she still looked all girl. ‘I did once,’ she said. ‘Where that rocky hump is, in the middle of the wood, about a hundred yards or more before where he was burned.’
‘What happened, exactly?’
‘Well, you were slightly ahead, because I could see you, when somebody, it must’ve been Mr McNeill, put up a big cock-pheasant. It rocketed. Honestly, it seemed to go straight up, curving a bit over towards us. Whoever-it-was fired at it once and missed. I waited to see if he was going to use his other barrel, but he didn’t, so I shot it.’
‘Did you, by golly,’ said Keith.
‘Yes. And it came down thump, right on top of the rocky bit. Well, we didn’t have Dinky with us. Dad said she was still in season, though it was finished the week before to my mind. So Dad said to wait until everyone was safely clear and then to go in and get it, and to be sure to come out of the wood before coming on to catch up, just in case. He’s very sensible about safety things. So I waited and I went in and climbed the hump and got it.’
‘Could you see anybody?’
‘Yes. It’s funny how much more you can see when you get up a bit. I could see down into the open bits, and I could see people’s heads among the small fir-trees. You and Dad and Mr McLure were just a bit short of the place where it happened. Mr McNeill had just come out of a thick bit and seen that he was behind and he was hurrying to catch up and get back in line. And over the far side I could see Mr Payne a bit in front, and Hamish away out in the field chasing a runner with his dog.
‘That was all I saw before I came down and hurried to catch up with Dad.’
‘Have you told this to anyone else?’
‘No. Dad gave them a short statement, and I was asked if that was how I remembered it, that was all. Why?’
‘A couple of bits of what you told me just might be dangerous for somebody. I think you should either keep it absolutely between ourselves or go to the police and make a full statement so that it’s all on record, and let it be known that you’ve done so.’
‘How exciting! Which bits?’
‘Never you mind just now. If you want to grow up to be a big girl just do as I say.’
She smiled wickedly and jumped to her feet. ‘You’re just trying to needle me,’ she said. ‘I’m a big girl now, aren’t I?’
Keith was surprised to realise that she was as tall as he was. ‘You’re getting bigger every day,’ he said.
She put her arms back so that her budding breasts pushed out against her tartan shirt, and she moved against him and rubbed noses. ‘I’ll pass the age of consent in a few months,’ she said.
Keith kept his hands firmly behind his back. After all, her mother might look out at any moment. ‘Bully for you!’ he said. ‘May you never pass anything more painful!’
She sniggered, backed away and sat down to her work again. ‘You’ve got quite a reputation as a ladies’ man,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you’re so much.’
‘You’re not a lady,’ he pointed out. And when she put her tongue out at him, he looked over her shoulder. ‘You’ve put it together all wrong,’ he said.
He chuckled all the way back to the car, and took the rest of his pigeons down to the Fiddlers’ cottage where he scrounged his lunch. Janet’s father, he thought in passing, would have to go on being ‘careful about safety things’.
*
Sir Peter, like the good laird that he was, had set an example by attending the kirk with his lady, but unlike her had defeated the calculated discomfort of the pews and dozed through much of the service. At that point his deference to the Sabbath ceased, and Keith found him behind the hall, panting away as he dug manure into what had once been a small lawn. He seemed glad to straighten his back and lay aside the spade, and he dusted his hand on the seat of his kilt before he held it out to Keith.
‘Don’t tell the minister or he’ll preach another sermon about me and I’ll have to pretend I don’t know who he’s talking about. I’m going to put some more vegetables in.’
Keith raised his eyebrows. ‘I thought you nobs had serfs and villeins to do that sort of thing for you.’
Sir Peter gave vent to his high-pitched laugh. ‘I wish I did. But if I paid somebody to put my vegetables in they’d cost me more than buying them in the shops.’
‘Don’t your farmers provide?’
‘Oh, I can get plenty of spuds and turnips, but my wife likes a little more variety than that. Truth to tell, she’s the one that insists on all these little economies, and if I let on that we don’t have to be quite so parsimonious I’d have to stop grumbling at her extravagances. Every time I spend a fiver she buys a new car or flies somewhere on a shopping spree. You know what wives are like.’
‘As a matter of fact, I don’t.’
‘Or only other men’s wives, I suppose,’ said Sir Peter, with the tolerance that comes easily to one with no daughters and whose own wife would never have betrayed him with anyone of less than royal blood. ‘Oh well, you’ll know soon enough. I’ve no doubt of it. And a good thing too. Why should you be happy when the rest of us are married? Eh? Anyway, what can I have the pleasure of refusing to do for you today?’
‘Ronnie Fiddler’s sister – please do me the favour of not looking at me like that – she’s asked me to look into the evidence and see if I can help.’
‘Ah.’ Sir Peter looked thoughtful. ‘Better come inside. I could do with a cup of tea or something anyway.’
From the outside, the Hall looked like a film set awaiting the arrival of Sherlock Holmes; but the interior was worse, a gloomy Victorian image of how they thought their Scottish Baronial ancestors might once have lived. When Sir Peter shouted for tea, echoes came back like the souls of returning dead. He led the way into a study that reminded Keith of the worst kind of public library.
Sir Peter could hardly be unaware of the impression that the place created. ‘I prayed this morning,’ he said, ‘that some day this dump would burn to the ground, preferably without too much loss of life, and that I could use the insurance-money to build my dream-house on the site.’
‘Why don’t you sell it, then?’
‘What for, a lunatic asylum? The poor devils would only get worse in it. Anyway, I like living here. Wouldn’t live anywhere else. It’s just the house that I can’t stand. And the Dawnapool place is even worse. My grandfather had a lot to answer for, but I suppose he’s answering for it now.’ He rambled on in similar vein until tea was brought in – not, as Keith had half expected, by a liveried flunkey but by an elderly woman in a flowered apron.
When she was gone Sir Peter said, ‘Now, you know that I’m paying for the defence?’
‘I didn’t come to tap you for money.’
‘Never said you did. All the same, if you need anything for expenses or loss of earnings you’ve only got to say so. But I’ll assume that you have enough for present operating expenses and we’ll discuss it again. I’m determined that Fiddler shall have every possible chance. He’s a good man to me. What’s more, I’m sure he didn’t do it.’
‘I know damned fine he didn’t. Do you know if he knew McLure?’
‘I can’t think how he would. But – and this may come as a shock to you – the general theory is that he meant to shoot you. The police haven’t said so, but I think they’re prepared to use that if they’re challenged as to motive. You were similarly dressed, as I recall.’
‘That theory’s a load of balls,’ Keith said.
‘I’m sure. Fiddler just wouldn’t do that.’
‘I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,’ Keith objected. ‘In fact, I’m surprised he hasn’t tried it. And when he gets out, I’ll watch my back.’ (Sir Peter looked shocked.) ‘What I’m saying is that he didn’t do it yet. For one thing, the only place he could have done it from is about two hundred yards from the spot. He wouldn’t be using open sights at that distance, but through a telescopic sight –’
Sir Peter frowned. ‘Two dark men, dressed similarly? I know he was bigger than you are, but there wouldn’t be any standard of comparison in those circumstances.’
‘No. But McLure was keeping his dog very close to him that day, and there’s no way you could mistake a liver-and-white Springer for my black Labrador.’
‘Good point,’ Sir Peter said.
‘But not proof in itself. Would you be satisfied with a “not proven” verdict?’
‘No, I don’t think I would.’
‘No more would I. The best defence would be to find out what really happened. Impeachment.’
‘Or that no crime had been committed. I mean, that the whole thing was a total mischance.’
‘If it was true. But I’m afraid not. McLure was shot by somebody who set out to shoot McLure, and it wasn’t Ronnie Fiddler, and I’m beginning to get some ideas about it.’
‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ Sir Peter said. ‘Er – do you want to discuss those ideas of yours?’
‘Not yet, if you don’t mind, Sir Peter. I’m not ready.’
‘Very well. If you won’t let me be Dr Watson, then I shall await your pleasure in delighted mystification. And if I can help in any way –’
‘You can,’ Keith said. ‘First, can you give me a list of private individuals who’ve bought deer carcasses off you, for several years past?’
‘No, I’m afraid I can’t. Ronnie Fiddler sold most of them and just turned the money over to me. I gave him a commission, and I’d just enter it in the estate books as “private sale of deer carcass”. Sometimes he might mention that Joe Soap bought that one, but more often not, and I wouldn’t remember it anyway. You’ll have to ask Ronnie.’
‘Right. Who drew up the guest list for the shoot?’
‘What extraordinary questions you do ask,’ Sir Peter said. ‘You’re sure you’re not just piling on the mystery? Well, a fortnight before when we had our last grouse shoot, I asked the syndicate if anyone was interested in going after the pheasants on the First. Four of us were, and the others agreed to it. Then one dropped out, so that left Andrew Payne, Derek Weatherby and myself. With Derek’s daughter and my wife and Hamish Thomson, the keeper, that was still only six of us, which isn’t really enough. I knew that you’re your own boss, so I got onto your sister to pass the invitation along. I asked Payne and Weatherby who they’d suggest to make up numbers, and between them they suggested Captain Hodges, Oxter and Bill Hook, plus a couple of others who couldn’t accept. I think it was Hook, in turn, who mentioned McNeill’s name to me.’
‘And McLure?’
‘I don’t think anybody even suggested him. His name got mentioned, I forget how and why, as being a good shot; and since I’d met him at some do or other in Edinburgh and his firm had done work about the estate from time to time I thought I might as well give him a ring.’
‘You can’t remember who mentioned McLure’s name?’
‘Not at the moment, but it’ll come to me eventually if I don’t think about it.’
‘Forget it for the moment, then,’ Keith said. ‘Think about this instead. I know something which would help the defence. It would probably get Ronnie off the hook altogether, but not necessarily. And it would certainly get me into dire trouble, probably lose me my livelihood, so I’m not keen to produce it unless it’s absolutely necessary. I’m going to tell his solicitor about it in the morning, in absolute confidence unless it becomes necessary in order to prevent him being convicted. But I think I should also make a written statement, just in case I walk under a bus. Will you witness my signature and then hold onto it for me?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Sir Peter fidgeted for a minute. ‘A bit tough on Fiddler, though, isn’t it? I mean, you could get him out of the clink now, but he has to stay inside because of some peccadillo of yours.’
‘Believe me,’ Keith said, ‘I’m not taking this line without having given it a lot of thought. Yes, it’s hard on Ronnie and it’s hard on you. But in the long run I’ll get us both out of trouble or I’ll take my medicine. It’d be quixotic of me to give up now, and, anyway, even if I was believed it might not be enough, and then there’d be nobody on the outside investigating.’
Sir Peter sighed. ‘I may be a fool,’ he said, ‘but I trust you. All right, go ahead, we’ll do it your way. But I think you might tell me a little more.’
‘I’m sorry, Sir Peter.’
‘Oh, very well. But on condition that once this is all over –’
‘I’ll buy you a dinner and tell you the whole story, in Technicolor,’ Keith said.
‘You’re on.’
On his way out, Keith noticed an enormous paraffin heater supplementing the ancient and inadequate central heating and adding its smells to those of wax polish and mould. ‘Kick that over,’ he thought, ‘and the poor old stick can build his dream-house.’ But he walked on past.
Chapter Six
By nine-thirty the following morning Keith was in the solicitor’s cramped and crowded office in an old stone building off the square, quite prepared to wait but determined to be the first appointment. To his surprise, Mr Enterkin was already there and saw him immediately.
Enterkin was a portly man, bald as an egg. His was not the muscled stockiness of Derek Weatherby nor the flabby fat of Jonathan Oxter, Keith noticed, but a rounded bounciness as if he had been compounded from rubber balls of various sizes. It was his habit to blame his weight on his metabolism and to complain that he only had to get the smell of a chip-bag to put on a pound, but Keith was later to find that the solicitor was, in fact, a lover of good food and inclined to indulge an appetite that Keith considered frankly phenomenal. Apart from this little piece of self-deception, though, Keith found that he had a quick and enquiring mind. His manner was brisk and his eyes sharp.
‘I’ll be glad to have your help, Mr Calder,’ he said. ‘These criminal cases always pose a problem. When bail isn’t allowed, you find yourself with a client who isn’t available to go out and hunt up the necessary evidence. That, I suppose, is why defences are so often defensive, if you follow my meaning – relying on shooting holes in the prosecution’s case and disputing their proof, instead of proving by positive evidence that it couldn’t have happened. I like to attack the facts when I can. But the police aren’t too keen to help with facts that run counter to their own case. Private detectives are too expensive for most purses. And, of course, lawyers aren’t detectives, can’t spare the time, aren’t good at it and don’t get paid for it, but we sometimes have to do it all the same. However, Sir Peter seems to have a high opinion of you, so I’m hoping you’ll provide some good ammunition for counsel’s brief.’
‘It’s going to go that far, is it?’
‘No doubt of it, I’m afraid. I’ve been asked to go over at ten and be present when they charge him with murder.’
Keith slammed his hands down on his knees. ‘Damn, damn, damn,’ he said.
The sharp eyes twinkled. ‘In the circumstances, a very moderate outburst.’
‘Can you get me in to see him?’
‘Easily. But I gather that there’s some hostility between the two of you? In the circumstances, would it not be better if I were to act as an intermediary?’
