Adverse report, p.8
Adverse Report, page 8
part #12 of Keith Calder Series
‘Agriculture had hardly changed in hundreds of years. But now,’ Mrs Grant said, ‘the farmer’s a businessman. He – or she – does the paperwork and has the final word when decisions are needed. Unless it’s a family business with everybody pulling their weight, it can be a mistake to pennypinch on before-tax labour. If the farmer tries to do a day’s work on the farm and save a man’s wages, he’s doing the paperwork at midnight.’
‘That’s about it,’ Wally said, nodding sagely. ‘There’s been times I’ve wished I had my own farm, but when I think of the forms to be filled, accounts to be checked and the quotas and allocations and . . . and a’ that-like, I ken I’m happy enough on my tractor.’
‘You’re wise,’ Mrs Grant said. ‘I like to get up on a tractor myself now and again, but what with grants and subsidies and the farm accounts . . . And there are harder times coming. The days when we could be sure of selling all we could grow have gone for ever. We’ve got to start looking for alternative land-uses, like sport. I’m replanting some of the trees and hedges I was given grants to take out.’
‘So Mr Hatton said.’ Wally paused. ‘It was strange, him being ended that way.’
‘Nothing strange about it,’ Mrs Grant said sharply. ‘We’d all warned him about shooting a gun which was out of proof. For myself, I made sure I was always two places away from him when he was shooting, and I noticed that Neil McDonald felt the same. I even bought him a set of hand-tools for loading, but he said he’d enough forms to fill in already without chivvying the police for a permit to buy black powder.’ She switched her frown to me. ‘What’s that man Calder saying about it now?’
‘Not a lot,’ I said. ‘He’s in hospital. Car smash.’ There was nothing to be made from her expression so I said, ‘Nobody could possibly have tampered with his cartridges that morning, could they?’
‘Nobody gave him any cartridges, if that’s what you mean,’ she said. ‘Not in my sight. And he wasn’t in the habit of leaving his cartridge-belt lying around. As far as I remember, he did as he always did, buckled his belt on before he got out of the car.’
‘He never had any loose ones in his pocket?’ I asked, remembering Keith.
‘No, never.’
‘And there couldn’t have been a substitution at the house?’ For the sake of peace I tried to make it a statement as much as a question.
Wally’s mouth was full of the roast beef but he washed it down with a gulp of beer. ‘No’ at the farmhouse,’ he said firmly. ‘Mr Hatton was careless wi’ locks – the most of us are, in the country – but yon Miss Nicholson’s another body a’together. And she’s seldom away from the place.’
‘That’s the ginger-headed woman at your cousin’s table,’ Mrs Grant said.
I stole a look and was reminded that no woman is ever quite fair to another. Alice Nicholson was only on the verge of transmuting from girl to woman (a change often quite unrelated to virginity or to real age) and had the fragile look which brings out the protector in men and the claws in other women. Her hair was not ginger but a dark copper.
Wally continued as if uninterrupted. ‘And, foreby, my wee house is just across from the farmhouse; the wife’s aye home if I’m not and my old collie barks his head off at the fall of a leaf.’
‘That’s true,’ Mrs Grant said. ‘I don’t know how you thole the beast.’
‘I like a dog wi’ a good loud bowf,’ Wally said placidly. ‘The burl of the tractors has done my hearing no good.’
I wanted to ask whether there had been any recent guests at the farmhouse but Mrs Grant might well have felt that the question was aimed at her. Wally saved me the embarrassment by slapping his knee.
‘Hover a blink now!’ he said. ‘I’ve minded the last time I saw him. Ten days back, that was. Just before he went off to his other house, I spoke wi’ him at his garage while Miss Nicholson and her friend were fetching out his special basket to him. I gied him the quote from Agrepair for sorting the big tractor and he took it wi’ him to think about.
‘The doos had fairly taken over the drying-shed for their nests and he wasn’t wanting them fouling the new grain. So we’d spent the morn, off and on, me chasing them out for him to shoot until his belt was empty. He dropped the empty belt into his hamper and took a few boxes of cartridges out of his cupboard and tossed them after it. New boxes they were. There now!’
‘That seems to settle that,’ Mrs Grant said. ‘If there was any tampering done, it was at Tansy House.’ Her tone suggested that I could put that in my pipe and smoke it. She seemed quite unaware that she had changed sides in the argument.
‘You’re probably right,’ I said. ‘That seems to rule out Kirkton Mains Farm. Did my uncle’s carelessness about locks extend to car doors?’
‘Not a bit of it,’ Wally said. ‘He was usually careless the other way, locking the keys inside. It gets to be a habit, to click the latch as you get out. See, there was usually things in the car or the Land-Rover, like luggage or money or his guns, and you ken how folk are these days.’
We made noises of agreement.
Wally had finished his lunch. He got to his feet and made a stiff little bow to Mrs Grant. ‘I’ll just have a word wi’ the new Mr Hatton,’ he said, ‘and then I’m away.’ He nodded to me and left us.
‘Do we know whether my uncle had any visitors at Tansy House during his last stay there?’ I asked.
‘He had me,’ Mrs Grant said. ‘As a guest, I mean. I was always welcome to his spare room whenever he was there,’ she added, with delicate emphasis. ‘I kept some things there against emergencies.’
‘There’s a frock in the wardrobe,’ I said. ‘I’ll get it back to you.’
‘I’d be grateful; I paid a mint for that dress. Anyway, nobody came near us and if we went out he left his dog in charge of the place.’
‘Another good watchdog?’
‘Boss is only a labrador,’ she said. ‘They’re soft lumps. Even so, he has a strong sense of territory. I wouldn’t want to try to slip past him . . . if I were a stranger. Of course, he knows me well.’
‘There were no signs of a break-in?’
She was silent for so long that I thought she had taken my question for a statement, but she was pondering. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said at last. ‘I always made sure that he locked up, but those sash-and-case windows are easy meat for a burglar. There was one occasion when we’d been out and Boss was behaving as if he was confused or uncertain about something. But he’s a real glutton, like all labs, and I decided that he’d pinched something that you or I wouldn’t think of as food and he wasn’t sure whether to act guilty or not. That was on the Sunday afternoon, I remember.’
I wondered who had known that they would be out. ‘Where had you been?’ I asked.
‘Just into Newton Lauder for a drink at the hotel.’
‘On a Sunday afternoon?’ My recollections of Scotland were still of a place where they padlocked the children’s swings on the Sabbath.
She laughed. Her mellifluous voice produced an infectious laugh and I could see what Uncle George had seen in her. ‘You’re long out of date,’ she said. ‘We’re quite civilised now up here. They re-wrote the licensing laws years ago. The pubs can stay open all afternoon if they want to, and all day Sunday.’
My cousin came over to join us but Mrs Grant decided that it was time she went. Alec saw her to the door and came back. He was looking harassed.
‘Problems,’ he said. ‘Have another drink. I’ve got to rush off now. This is the time of year when farmers suddenly realise that the old harvester won’t do another season. I’ve just had a call to Kelso relayed from the office. The offer of a bed still stands if you want it.’
‘If I take another drink, I’ll have to accept the bed,’ I said.
‘No trouble. Have it anyway.’ He waved to the waiter. ‘But I’m in a hurry. I gave Alice Nicholson a lift here. Could you take her back?’
‘Of course.’
‘The other problem is Uncle George’s dog.’
‘Boss?’
‘Oh, you know. The thing is, he’d be welcome to a home at Kirkton Mains but I have three Jack Russells and they don’t get on with him.’
‘Who or what are Jack Russells?’ I asked.
‘Terriers. He’s a lovely dog but he’s unsettled and miserable and I can’t find a home for him. I think he’d be all right in a place that he knows. Unless you take him, he’ll have to be put down.’
‘I don’t know that I’m in a position to take on a dog,’ I said.
‘Well, will you at least meet him and think it over?’
‘That much I can do.’
‘Splendid. It’s not so much a question of whether you take to him as whether he takes to you; he’s been choosy since Uncle died. Now, I’ll just make you known to Miss Nicholson.’ He craned his neck to look around the room. ‘She’s vanished, damn it! Probably gone to the quine’s shunkie. The ladies’,’ he explained when I looked blank. ‘You wait outside and I’ll bring her to you.’
I finished my drink and went outside. I took a seat on a bench in the sun and nodded and smiled as half-known faces went past. The funeral party was breaking up.
‘Got a match?’ A man was standing over me, a well-built man but with a squashed-down head and cold eyes. I had Uncle George’s gas pipe-lighter in one pocket and I produced it, but he shook his head angrily. ‘Will Neil McDonald be long?’ he asked.
‘He was on his feet when I came out,’ I said.
He picked a match out of the gutter, sharpened it with a small penknife and picked at his teeth. ‘I’m a building worker to trade,’ he said suddenly. ‘Ian Yates. But Neil’s been using me as his driver lately.’
I nodded. ‘Since his tumble off the scaffolding,’ I said.
‘That’s right. Since his tumble off the scaffolding.’ He turned away.
Alec re-appeared with Miss Nicholson and I stood up. Her handshake was warm, dry and soothing.
‘And now,’ Alec said, ‘the other most important introduction. Sit down again so that he doesn’t feel threatened.’ He turned to a car which I had not realised was his and opened a door. A glossy black dog descended. I knew very little about dogs but even I could tell that this one was a looker, and he walked with the kind of grace which eighteenth-century artists sometimes managed to depict in horses. He lifted his lip at a pair of passing legs, then came straight to me and sniffed my hand. I patted his head. And, as if that were introduction enough, he tried to climb into my lap.
‘He likes you,’ Alec said. ‘Another problem bites the dust. You can take him back to the farm with you and home tomorrow.’
‘On my motorbike?’
Alec looked harassed again. ‘Oh, Christ! I didn’t realise . . . Miss Nicholson may not like . . .’
Miss Nicholson had been looking sad to suit the occasion but now she produced a faint smile. ‘I’ve nothing against motorbikes,’ she said. ‘I was brought up with them.’
‘That’s all right then. I’ll tell you what,’ Alec said. ‘Problems are for solving. I’ll take Boss along with me now and leave him with your friends, the Calders, for you to collect tomorrow. And a bag of kennel meal.’
He whisked the dog into his car and took off.
‘I never said I’d take the bloody dog,’ I protested.
‘I don’t think he’d have heard you if you’d told him you were going to eat Boss for your Christmas dinner,’ Miss Nicholson said. ‘He has a lot on his mind just now.’
*
Alice Nicholson had the gift of silence. She walked demurely at my side, up the hill back to the churchyard. My uncle’s grave had already been filled and the many flowers arranged over the bare earth. Cars still lined the roadside.
We stopped beside my Yamaha. ‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’ I asked. ‘The breathalyser might not agree, but I’m fit to drive.’
Again the uncertain smile. ‘I’m looking forward to it,’ she said. ‘As long as you don’t go too fast.’
In honour of her fragile looks I insisted on her wearing my crash helmet. She stuffed a smart beret into her pocket and complied. I rode with a wary eye out for police-cars but saw no sign of them.
She directed me from the pillion, holding tight to my waist. I was very much aware of a pair of generous breasts against my back and her thighs against my buttocks, and I thought that she was not unaware of those pressures. Her skirt was tight so that she had to show a lot of slender leg but she seemed unconcerned. A few miles over minor country roads brought us to a farmhouse, by no means small but dwarfed by the barns in the background.
We stowed the Yamaha in a double garage between a battered Land-Rover and a red Mini. The metal doors looked across a huge concrete yard to a smaller house which, from the noise of the barking dog, I took to be Wally Ritchie’s. She led me inside and showed me where to stow my small bag.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘you’ll not be wanting to eat again just yet. There’ll be a meal about seven if that suits. Meantime, while I get the place sorted, would you like to take the dogs a walk? The poor devils have been shut up since first thing.’
‘I’ll do that,’ I said. ‘And then I’d like to take some photographs. Inside and out, if that’s all right. For souvenirs.’
‘Go anywhere you want,’ she said.
The three terriers were in a small yard of their own with an attached kennel which still had Boss’s name over the door. They seemed glad enough to be taken a walk, even by a stranger. While they hunted rabbits unsuccessfully through hedgerows and patches of rough ground, I took photographs. I kept coming across corners which, when I scaled them up, stirred my childhood memory, but I had quite forgotten the sweep of view across fields in full cultivation and miles of shining water. A mile away, near the shore and more towards Edinburgh, I saw a large industrial complex which I was sure was new to me.
Back at the house, with the dogs kennelled, I kept out of Miss Nicholson’s way and concentrated on photographing every inch of the interior, as instructed. The zoom lens on the camera which Molly had lent me had too narrow an angle for interiors, so I took each room a section at a time. Molly had provided me with a dozen cassettes of film and I used nearly all of them.
This had been my uncle’s principal home and, as was only to be expected, it was in the better state. The decoration was light and fresh and much of the furniture was new and good. Older or outmoded furnishings had been disposed of or banished to Tansy House to serve another turn. I sighed wistfully over some of the better pieces.
There was a fair-sized office with an electronic typewriter and a row of filing cabinets, the papers all, as far as I could see, relating to the day-by-day management of the farm. If there was a desk diary, the police must have removed it.
In the garage, there was a bench with a better set of tools than at Tansy House, although I had seen a still more fully equipped farm workshop among the barns. The garage bench was heaped with materials for his stick-making and several sticks, finished or in train. The metal doors were sturdy. Miss Nicholson took the key of the metal cupboard from the dresser, with no more comment than a slightly raised eyebrow, but it contained only a few boxes of cartridges (two of them with the name of Keith’s shop on them), a spare cartridge-belt empty of cartridges and what I took to be the appropriate cleaning gear for a pair of twelve-bore shotguns. There were no signs that anything, doors or windows or the steel cupboard, had ever been forced open.
All this photography, and the changing of films in an unfamiliar camera, had taken time. I was vaguely aware that the light was fading because the light-meter was dictating ever-increasing apertures, but it took me by surprise when Miss Nicholson called to warn me that the meal would be on the table in ten minutes.
On my way to wash I looked into a small dining room. She had set a single place at the table. I put my head into the larger kitchen and saw another place set there. I told her that if she didn’t fancy the dining room I would be perfectly happy in the kitchen with her. She made a token protest, but when I came downstairs again both places were set in the kitchen. It was by far the cheeriest room in the house, well lit and gay with colours.
She opened an indifferent wine – ‘Mr Hatton’s orders’ – and accepted a glass. The dish was trout, exquisitely cooked with, I think, grated walnuts.
She had the features of one who could bubble with gaiety and the same personality came over from what she had made of a once gloomy kitchen. But although she was prepared to chat, there was a shadow over her which was not just bereavement or deference to the bereaved.
Into the conversation I worked the questions with which Keith had primed me. She was quite certain that the house could never have been entered – she was too fussy about keys for that. When I asked about my uncle’s shooting cronies she looked at me seriously, with eyes which I saw were green. And I noticed that she had the beautiful skin which so often goes with that combination of eyes and hair.
‘You’re looking into his death, aren’t you?’ I was developing an ear for the many shades of accent. Some of them grated on me but I found hers charming.
‘I wouldn’t say that I was looking into it,’ I said carefully. ‘I’d just like to satisfy myself that there was nothing wrong with the sheriff’s decision.’
‘You’ll not manage that,’ she said. ‘Yon mannie Calder had the right of it. I’ve not the least idea what happened myself but I grew up on a farm – near Kirkcaldy that was – and I’ve been around guns most of my life. I mind that one of my cousins – the daftest one of the bunch – used to use an old Damascus hammer-gun. It had never been as good a gun as Mr Hatton’s and it was in a far worse state, and nothing would satisfy him but to go after the geese with magnum cartridges he could only just cram into the barrels. We told him he was glaikit, but would he listen?’
‘I don’t suppose so,’ I said.
‘You’d be right. And, even so, it held together for him for years until one day he was coming back over the foreshore, hurrying to keep ahead of the tide and with two greylags over his shoulder and the gun loaded. Well, I told you he was daft. Sure enough, he slipped and his barrels were two feet into the mud before the gun went off, which are about the worst conditions you could think of.’
