Fair Game

by Gerald Hammond

  He fell silent. Keith had a momentary mental picture of the solicitor sitting between meals in his dusty sanctum and poring through his books of law, bored and lonely. He brushed the vision aside. Mr Enterkin was the most gregarious of men.

  ‘You know why you’re coming along?’ Enterkin asked.

  ‘I’m along to make an offer for any good antique guns,’ Keith said.

  The solicitor sighed. ‘I might have remembered your propensity for picking nits where no nits exist. Did Sir Peter tell you why I wanted you along?’

  ‘Yes. Value the guns, do any necessary repairs, advise on the shooting and confirm that there was nothing wrong with the death. Right?’

  ‘You could put it like that. You’d not be very near the mark, but you could. Never mind. All will be revealed to you in the fullness of time. You met the late Mr Grass. What did you think of him?’

  ‘I liked him,’ Keith said, ‘I think because he radiated good humour. He seemed to enjoy life and laughter. If I’d realised that he was rolling in it I might have liked him even more.’

  ‘You like people for their money?’

  ‘I might have respected him for staying warm and human in spite of it,’ Keith said. ‘How comfortable was he?’

  ‘Comfortable?’ Enterkin gave a snort of laughter. ‘That’s a term you might use of a grocer’s widow. It doesn’t begin to apply. Grass was right in there with the Duke of Westminster and the oil-rig workers. Pop stars took off their Stetsons when he went by. His grandfather started the family fortune with property. His father stayed with property and enlarged it. Then Grass came along and built up a struggling firm that had been one of his father’s side-interests into a booming multinational group of companies that he still owned the lion’s share of. And he had a thousand other irons in the fire. He was an inspired organiser. He’d a genius for picking the right advisers, setting up the perfect modus operandi and then leaving the right men to get on with it. And he managed to keep a lot of his loot by applying the same principles to his accountancy.’

  Keith made a mental note of those words of wisdom. The late Mr Grass’s example was worth following. ‘No wonder he could afford to laugh.’

  The solicitor’s round but usually good-humoured face developed a petulant scowl. ‘He had a sense of humour, but it had failed to develop after about the fourth form at school. I’m told that he kept it under strict control in the course of his business dealings but . . . What, Keith, is your own attitude to death?’

  Keith blinked. ‘The question seems to be what you’d probably call a non sequitur,’ he said.

  Enterkin’s scowl deepened. ‘It isn’t and I wouldn’t and answer it anyway,’ he snapped.

  ‘If I can’t take it with me, I’m not going to go.’

  ‘There you are,’ Enterkin said. ‘There you are. If you can’t run away from it, laugh at it. And you can only run away just so far from death. When it came down to working on his will, Grass seemed to unleash a long-repressed streak of schoolboy humour. I managed to veto some of his wilder fantasies, and even so I think he’d have taken his business elsewhere if I hadn’t been doing a superlative job on the new trust,’ Mr Enterkin said modestly.

  Keith had no intention of letting the solicitor get launched on the subject of his own legal genius. ‘Peter seemed to think that there might have been something wrong with his death,’ he said. ‘Disbelieving an accident because the man was usually careful doesn’t give much to go on. Was there anything else?’

  Mr Enterkin, when in pensive mood, had a habit of protruding his lips like a child sucking on a straw, and he did it now. The grimace reminded Keith of an aggressive tropical fish. ‘I went through for the fatal accident enquiry. No evidence was brought out that indicated anything other than an accident. I got the feeling that the sheriff and the procurator fiscal and the chief constable had all made up their minds that it was an accident and that they wanted to conclude the matter without scandal or delay.’

  ‘Nobody was going to make waves?’

  ‘That’s what I said. One witness, a young officer who had been first on the scene and who appeared to know something about shotguns, began to draw attention to some discrepant factor, but he was instantly suppressed. What do you suppose it might have been?’

  Keith almost imitated Mr Enterkin’s grimace – it was a catching habit. ‘You don’t get much ballistic evidence with a shotgun,’ he said. ‘Even so, there might be pointers. I take it that he wasn’t carrying a hammer-gun?’

  ‘I’m sure I couldn’t say. They mentioned a maker’s name which reminded me, for some reason, of war-time. But not as the name of a gun.’

  ‘When I met him,’ Keith said, ‘he was carrying a Churchill Premier.’

  ‘That was it.’

  ‘A gun of that quality would have intercepting sears, sort of second line of defence to catch the internal hammers if the trigger-sears get jolted off. If they were still in working order, no way should a gun like that go off for a fall. I’d better take a look inside when we get our hands on it. Was there nothing else?’

  ‘Nothing. The whole thing was very quick and cursory, once they had at long last established his identity. Talk about one law for the rich and another for the poor!’ Mr Enterkin said disgustedly. ‘Quite apart from the infamous Legal Aid Scheme, which decrees that only a poor man should ever go to law. If the body had been that of a teenage, black, pregnant, Lesbian terrorist – which characteristics are not as incompatible as some might think – a dozen civil rights organisations would have been screaming for enquiry before a jury; but a rich man’s death can be swept under the carpet without a voice being raised. The rich, it seems, are fair game.’

  ‘Get me a look at the gun, and we’ll see if we can raise some voices,’ Keith said. ‘Did Grass have any enemies?’

  A gleam of satisfaction showed in Enterkin’s eyes. As Sir Peter had suggested, Keith had only to be started on the trail and his hunter’s instinct would take over. ‘No enemies that I know of, although a man with that kind of Puckish humour and the money to indulge it must have annoyed a few people in his time. And you don’t act as a money-magnet for thirty years without somebody hating you. He didn’t grind the faces of widows and orphans much. He could grind the faces of rival corporations, but I don’t see the directors of I.C.I. putting out a contract on him.’

  ‘Well then, who’s better off for his death? Apart from yourself, of course.’

  Enterkin accepted the slur without animus. ‘I’d have been the very last to wish him dead,’ he said. ‘A rich man who changed his personal bequests every few minutes was almost the perfect client. We should have bred from him while we had the chance. Now all I’ve got to look forward to is the fee for executing the damned will. And that, believe you me, is going to be hard work. I’ll tell you this much. He had no near kin. He made provision for his business interests to go fully public, which should both ensure their survival and inflate his pre-tax estate enormously. Most of the estate goes into a trust, and I can’t think of anybody who would have any motive to bump him off for that. The rest is dribbled away in personal bequests, and it’s to be admitted that some of those are fairly handsome.’

  They were silent, each busy with his own thoughts, until the big car was sliding through Peebles. The sight of the Peebles Hydro Hotel reminded Keith of something. ‘Are we staying at Whinkirk House?’

  ‘I’ve booked us into the Falcon Inn for the moment,’ Enterkin said. ‘As an executor, I’ve stayed in bereaved houses before. The staff goes to pot, and if there’s a bottle of decent wine in the cellar the relatives are scrambling for it.’

  ‘But if we stay at a nearby five-star hotel and charge it to the estate, that’s legitimate?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  ‘And is the Falcon Inn five-star?’

  ‘I doubt if it could survive the shock of being granted the tiniest meteorite. Its ancient walls would crumble. But it used to house the overflow of Grass’s guests, so the hospitality should mee
t even my lofty standards.’

  ‘I take it,’ Keith said, ‘that this car comes up to your standards?’

  ‘This,’ Mr Enterkin admitted, ‘is what I would call a gentlemanly way to travel.’ He leaned forward and touched a button in a console. Jazz in stereo pulsed softly around them. ‘Telephone, television, tape-recorder, you name it. He liked to use the car as his office extension, do his homework on his way to a meeting, action it on the way home and then be free to forget it.’ He stretched comfortably and looked out of the window. ‘We could do with more days like this. But if we will live almost exactly the same distance from the Equator as is Cape Horn we must accept what we get in the knowledge that we asked for it. It’s only the Gulf Stream that keeps this country habitable, and the Americans would put a meter on that if they could.’

  Keith had been musing while Mr Enterkin rambled on. ‘It must be one hell of a temptation,’ he said. ‘I mean, if you’ve got all the money in the world and nobody to leave it to. I suppose you could leave a packet to the minister’s favourite charity, provided that he preached a sermon while wearing horns and a forked tail?’

  ‘You could,’ Mr Enterkin said, ‘if your sense of humour was as puerile as that of my late client. I had to dissuade him from several pranks of that nature, and about one or two he remained adamant.’

  ‘Is that what you fell out about?’

  ‘Not exactly, no.’ Enterkin sighed. ‘He wanted to specify the epitaph to be carved on his gravestone.’

  ‘Can somebody do that?’ Keith asked. The chance to commemorate some of his own achievements seemed almost irresistible.

  ‘Within reason, yes. If your proudest moment were the bedding of some great lady – which may indeed be the case – that would never be acceptable. But if you wished to have recorded your prowess at dominoes, or the fact that you once killed an elephant with your bare hands, your executor would no doubt carry out your wishes. Mr Grass, however, explained to me with the utmost seriousness that he took more pride in his own culinary ability than in all his business achievements. In particular, he said, he was proud of his game soup – which I must admit I had sampled and found excellent. And,’ Mr Enterkin said indignantly, ‘I damned nearly fell for it.’

  ‘Fell for what? A talent for cookery seems harmless enough.’

  ‘That’s what I thought at the time. The penny only dropped when I heard a chef using the same words about a certain cut of venison. But for that I should have found myself bound, and by a will of my own drafting, to have had the words carved on his tombstone. The appalling implications had quite passed me by, largely because he was still, at the time, extant. I mean such a phrase may be used of last night’s hostess without offence. Applied to a deceased, the words acquire quite a different connotation.’

  ‘What words?’

  ‘The words, “He made excellent soup”. And don’t laugh like that,’ Mr Enterkin said irritably.

  They fell silent. Keith was wondering which gun from his personal collection would be a sufficient legacy to induce his brother-in-law to attend his, Keith’s, funeral wearing a pair of suitably apologetic sandwich-boards. He would have been astonished to learn that Mr Enterkin was enjoying a vision of his own obsequies, attended by Keith in the role and costume of a harem eunuch.

  Chapter Three

  Although the big car seemed to be drifting along at little more than walking-speed, they reached the village of Whinkirk with an hour to spare before lunch. So, while Keith went on to the inn, Mr Enterkin dropped off at the manse.

  The Reverend Alec Foster was a silver-haired, silver-tongued widower of around sixty, with a face so calm and mild that Enterkin thought him beyond all passion.

  Mr Enterkin found himself mistaken.

  ‘I’ll be damned if I do it,’ said the minister. ‘Literally, I mean.’

  ‘Not according to the presbytery clerk,’ Enterkin said. ‘It was checked with him when the will was written.’

  The minister almost snarled. ‘Sometimes it seems to me that that man is so with-it that you’d think he invented it. Whatever it is. But don’t quote me. Anyway, Enterkin, I won’t do it.’

  ‘If you don’t, then bang goes your fifty thousand quid for the restoration fund,’ Enterkin pointed out. ‘Not literally bang. It goes to the local hunt, not towards shooting. And knowing your aversion . . .’

  ‘Preposterous!’ the older man broke in. He was too gentle to shout and thump the table, but his voice was quivering with the effort required to restrain himself. ‘Apparently I’m expected to officiate at a – a sort of fancy-dress burial service scripted by the deceased himself.’

  ‘Of course, it can only be a memorial service,’ Enterkin said. ‘He was buried some weeks ago. But in view of the difficulty over identification, and the adjournment of the fiscal’s enquiry, the courts have only just allowed the will to be proved.’

  ‘Can’t the conditions be upset? Not the bequests but the conditions? The man was a notorious lunatic.’

  ‘I’m afraid not. It was very carefully worded in accordance with his own instructions. If anyone seeks to challenge the will, the alternative bequests prevail; and each is calculated to be as undesirable as possible to the original legatee.’

  ‘The man was mad!’

  ‘I’d like to be able to agree with you, Mr Foster. But in point of fact and to be strictly fair, he was no more than a man with money and no relatives, and who liked a good . . . well, I believe belly-laugh is the contemporary expression. I think that he wanted to make it the kind of occasion that he himself would have enjoyed. And, believe me, it could have been much worse. I dissuaded him from incorporating a group into the service.’

  ‘Group?’

  ‘A pop group. Pretty Faeces, I believe they call themselves. Some would tell you that they are the new culture.’

  ‘The clerk to the presbytery is one of them. But, while I must bow to his edicts, something inside me cries out that the whole thing is verging on heresy.’

  Enterkin sighed and began picking up his papers. It seemed to him that he was doomed to have variants of the same conversation with half a hundred other legatees. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we all have our cross to bear, if I may borrow the metaphor. To me falls the task of explaining to each beneficiary in turn the conditions of his or her inheritance.’

  The minister, who was plainly preoccupied with his own problems, seemed unimpressed. ‘A small professional service, and doubtless more than adequately remunerated.’

  ‘I wish I thought so. I have a suspicion that my fee will be hard-earned. I myself gave up a legacy and spared you further agony thereby.’

  The minister was not a malicious man, but misery loves company. ‘Tell me,’ he said.

  ‘Mr Grass wanted to leave his Rolls Royce to the composer of the best graveside eulogy. It was to be in the form of a Limerick, and in return for being sole judge of merit I was also to figure among the lesser legatees.’

  The minister sat up straight. Fine motor-cars were the only worldly goods to which he gave even passing respect, and his Vauxhall was unlikely to pass its next M.O.T. test. ‘Rolls Royce?’ he said. ‘The Camargue?’

  ‘I – er – I think so. I persuaded him to abandon the idea.’

  The minister stopped himself from saying, ‘What did you do that for?’ Instead, he sighed. He could surely have afforded the petrol to take him the hundred yards or so between the manse and the church a few times each week. ‘I suppose that I’ll just have to do it,’ he said. ‘Duty compels me to sink my own feelings and put a new roof on the kirk. If the present roof were less dilapidated or the building less beautiful . . . But you can take it that I’ll meet the condition.’

  Enterkin coughed. ‘We’ll have another discussion after I’ve seen the other legatees. You see, some of the conditions attaching to the other legacies also bear upon the – er – service.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Enterkin failed to meet the minister’s eye. ‘Oh, just that some of the l
egacies have conditions concerning attendance at the service. Behaviour, or – er – dress and so on. If they’re all accepted . . . Of course, I can’t discuss details with you yet.’

  ‘Of course not,’ said the minister, without quite understanding why.

  ‘After all, I’m sure you wouldn’t turn away a hippy from your doors, just because of the garb,’ Enterkin said nervously. ‘Well, I must be going.’

  ‘I’ll see you out.’

  At the front door, they paused and shook hands. ‘I suppose the body really was your client’s,’ the minister said suddenly.

  ‘The police, the sheriff and the Court of Session have all pronounced themselves satisfied.’

  ‘I suppose so. With anyone else, I would accept their judgement. But it would be so much in keeping with his character to arrange his own funeral with a mind to being present himself, perhaps to make a dramatic appearance at the end of it.’

  Enterkin gave the matter serious consideration. ‘I think you can forget that idea,’ he said. ‘Mr Grass was a shrewd man. He would have known that by the time that he leaped from the coffin, or whatever else you think that he had in mind, most of his business interests would have passed irrecoverably into other hands. I don’t think he’d have risked that.’

  The Reverend Mr Foster returned to his study. He looked out at his sunlit garden. It was the perfect time of year and the colours seemed to dance in the bright light, but for once it brought him no comfort. He would dearly have loved a chance to own the great car, even for a few months before selling it to aid his beloved church.

  His lips moved, and the casual observer might have believed the minister to be deep in prayer. The less casual observer, using his ears, might have discovered otherwise.