A Shocking Affair

by Gerald Hammond

  I took my second cup of coffee through to the study and tackled the messages on the answering machine, at the same time making notes for Enterkin’s benefit. Most left a name and phone number for a return call, but several asked for sympathy to be passed to Elizabeth Hay. It was still too early for me to expect Keith Calder and Ian Fellowes, and far too early for any lawyer of my experience to be in his office or even out of bed.

  If I started the phone calls now, offices would be deserted and in the houses I would be fetching people away from their breakfasts. So I decided to take the Labs for another and longer walk and give Spin another chance to make contact.

  The sun was well up now, the grass looked dry and we seemed to be on course for another fine day. I took my stick and my mobile phone, which Ronnie had left for me, on charge, in the hall. I told Joanna the direction that I would be taking and that I could be called on my mobile whenever anybody came looking for me. The Labradors came to me readily, already recognizing me as the new dog walker.

  I was hardly out of the front door, however, when a large pick-up truck with a canvas cover over the body and a small trailer behind advanced along the drive and came to a halt beside me. A lean and swarthy man who I judged to be near if not actually in his sixties jumped fleetly down. ‘You’ll be Mr Kitts?’ he asked me. I said that I was. He wiped his hand on the rear of his cement-stained dungarees and offered it. ‘I’m Jock McAnderton,’ he said, ‘and that’s my nephew Sean.’ He glanced towards the cab of the truck where a boy in his late teens was slouched, listening to a Walkman and oblivious to all else. ‘Och, never mind him. I keep him on as my helper for my sister’s sake. Is it true that Sir Peter’s been killed?’

  Despite his name, I was sure that I could detect a trace of Irish accent in Jock McAnderton’s voice.

  ‘He died yesterday,’ I said. ‘Whether he was killed or not we’ll know after the post mortem.’

  ‘And that you’re in charge now?’

  ‘For the moment, Mr Enterkin and I, between us.’

  ‘Well then. It’s this way. I’ve been doing a few jobs for Sir Peter. Just now I’m rebuilding a stone wall that collapsed, at Cartley’s Farm.’

  ‘Where’s that?’ I asked. Cartley’s was not among the farms to be offered to the sitting tenants so I had not yet traced it on the map.

  ‘Out beyond the far side of the town. Look, you can see it from here.’ He pointed out the farm buildings just beyond where the mist lay in the valley and where the hills rose darkly into the sky. ‘It was just a word-of-mouth order. Do I get on with it?’

  I considered for a moment. In Scotland, an oral instruction and acceptance can form a binding contract. And putting a builder off the site can be more expensive than allowing him to continue. ‘Just carry on for now,’ I said. ‘I’ll come and take a look at it when I have time.’

  ‘And I’ll get paid for it?’ he asked keenly.

  ‘Whatever you’re due, you’ll get,’ I assured him.

  He pulled his forelock, a strangely old-fashioned gesture, and turned away. As I crossed the lawn I was aware of the sound of the pick-up fading away down the drive. I bent to wipe the cement dust off my hand on the grass.

  We went into the wood. So soon after the tragedy, I hesitated before facing the place where it had happened, but with a vague idea of taking a partial step towards overcoming my reluctance I headed in that general direction.

  The dogs hung back, as uneasy as I was. I told myself firmly that they could not know where their beloved master had died; they could only be sensing my unease. But when we were in the tunnel under the former railway line, the dogs suddenly perked up. Royston forged ahead and even Old Nick quickened his pace. I hoped that they had caught scent of Spin, but when I emerged into the dappled sunlight I found them fawning around Hamish, who was carrying what seemed to be a wardrobe door complete with full-size mirror.

  He seemed glad to put the heavy load down, leaning it carefully against a tree. He looked up at me from a position stooped over the dogs. ‘It’s only now sinking in,’ he said sadly. ‘God, but what a loss that man will be! My dad was his keeper and I took over when the old chap retired. I suppose I knew it wouldn’t last for ever, but to have him go so suddenly . . . and just when he was so pleased with the wee dog. I was out searching again at first light. Ronnie’s out looking for him still, but I had work that couldn’t be left.’

  ‘Doing some home improvements?’ I suggested.

  A twitch of the whiskers and a crinkling of the exposed skin around his eyes suggested the possibility of a smile. He seated himself on a piece of wall forming part of the abutment of the tunnel. ‘You could say that. Not my home, though. It’s for the pheasants.’ For a mad moment I tried to visualize the poults admiring themselves or preening before the mirror, but failed. He saw that I was puzzled. ‘On the roofs of the shelters in the release pens. For the sparrowhawks and buzzards,’ he explained patiently. ‘Best thing. They start to come in for an easy meal, glimpse themselves in the mirror as another predator approaching from an impossible angle and get a hell of a fright. They don’t come back in a hurry. Sir Peter aye put the word around that he’d be glad of any big old mirrors left over after a roup. I’ve another six or seven of them in my store. It’s a good trick. It really works.’

  ‘Does it indeed?’ I said. ‘I must spread the word back home. We’re plagued by sparrowhawks. And foxes. They’ve got wise to the lamp.’

  His whiskers hid most of his expression, but in his eyes I could see the glow of the preacher pronouncing a doctrine, or the expert in his subject passing on the good word. So Moses’s eyes must have looked as he handed down the tablets of stone. ‘For foxes, try hanging a dead hen outside the pen at night. First pour in half a pint of antifreeze wi’ a funnel down its throat. In the morn, you’ll find a dead fox, like as not. Nothing else, just a fox. They like the taste of the antifreeze fine.’ He paused and looked at me thoughtfully. ‘What should I be doing next?’ he asked suddenly. ‘I’ve been happy here. But what does the future hold? Should I be looking for another job?’

  It seemed only fair to set his mind at rest. Peter Hay had left bequests to his personal staff, carefully graduated (with one remarkable exception) in accordance with length of service, but I saw no need to reveal the details until Mr Enterkin decided that the time was ripe. ‘There’s no harm telling you this much,’ I said. ‘It will be public soon enough. Sir Peter wanted the estate preserved pretty much as it is, because he still hoped for descendants who would love it as he did but also because he believed in what it stood for. And the shooting is an essential part of the overall management. The syndicate continues.’ (Hamish heaved an enormous sigh.) ‘Mr Calder takes over Sir Peter’s gun in return for running it. Two days a year will be let as before, to help balance the books. You have a job and a house for as long as you want them.’

  There was definitely a smile lurking there, somewhere behind the whiskers. ‘I’m gey pleased to hear it. This is the only job I know and I doubt I’d be happy anywhere else. Where do these fellows go?’ He was still fondling the dogs, to their continued pleasure, and the question clearly referred to them.

  I thought back to a section of the will over which I had skipped lightly. Some details came back to me. ‘You have first refusal of any dogs in Sir Peter’s ownership at the time of his death. If you don’t want them they go to Ronnie. Failing which, provision has been made for their retirement.’

  ‘They can come to me.’ His voice confirmed the existence of the smile. ‘I’ve aye had the use of them and kept them whenever Sir Peter was away, and we’ve had good times together. They’re tied up with my best memories. And so was Joshua, the Lab before Old Nick. I never needed dogs of my own.’

  ‘You’ll get them as soon as we have Confirmation,’ I told him. ‘Meantime, fetch them if ever you need them. You’ll get a letter soon, spelling it all out.’

  With the worst of his fears dispelled Hamish, who, I was to discover, was usually reserved to the po
int of being considered taciturn, was ready for a chat. It was pleasant in the wood with the sun flickering through the branches above and turning the fresh young leaves to emerald. I found that Hamish was a fund of useful and interesting information. We spoke of releases and habitats, predator deterrence and wildlife generally. Hamish bemoaned the difficulty of recruiting intelligent and obedient beaters. The subject came round again to Sir Peter’s death.

  ‘Was it his heart?’ Hamish asked. ‘It seemed that way.’

  ‘We don’t know yet,’ I told him. ‘There’s to be an autopsy today. There were no obvious signs and with nobody having seen him go down . . . Or did anybody pass your way?’

  He took my question at face value. ‘I heard you go by with Sir Peter. After that, nobody until you called me.’

  I was about to tear myself away when the dogs stirred, we heard the echo of voices in the tunnel and Calder appeared with his son-in-law. Time had slipped by while we talked.

  Ian Fellowes waved aside my apology. ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘Joanna told us where you were and we were coming past here anyway. I’m afraid we’ve no word of the missing dog. I take it that he hasn’t found his way back here?’

  ‘There’s been no sign of him,’ I said. ‘If he hasn’t been stolen, he may be trying to find his way back to his old home. But with the Firth of Forth lying across his path, I wouldn’t give much for his chances.’

  ‘I’ll make sure that word gets to the officers in the Lothians. You’ll hear as soon as I know anything.’ Fellowes glanced at his watch. ‘And now, since we’ve come this far, shall we go on and inspect the place where it happened? I must get a move on. I’m meeting an electrician at the farm at ten-thirty. Come with us, Hamish?’

  Hamish looked surprised, but nodded.

  We started walking, in single file where the path narrowed. Keith Calder, who was in the lead, groped in the poacher’s pocket of his coat and produced a large envelope. ‘I have your prints,’ he told me. ‘Molly says there will be no charge, provided that you come and break bread with us this evening.’

  ‘That’s very kind,’ I said. ‘May I confirm a little later?’

  ‘Don’t leave it too late. For some reason, Molly gets uptight about not knowing whether guests are to be expected.’

  ‘Her daughter has the same strange foible,’ said Fellowes. ‘Perhaps it runs in the family.’

  I managed not to drag my feet as we neared the gate, but when the scene opened up it was just a small area of countryside, looking surprisingly bland. I left the dogs, sitting, some yards short of the gate. They seemed relieved not to come any closer to where their master had died and again I wondered whether our body language told them that the place had an unhappy connection. But perhaps they had been stung by the fence in the past. I put such thoughts aside and made up my mind to follow what was going on.

  Fellowes looked at the muddy ground, but I could see with half an eye that Hamish and I, followed by the ambulance paramedics and the doctor, had stirred up the mud far too much for any useful traces to remain. He touched the gate cautiously and then opened it. I had never had a shock from the fence but I was very careful to steer clear of the gateposts. Fellowes closed the gate behind us and held out his hand to Calder, who took a slightly smaller envelope out of the larger, handed it to me and gave the larger to his son-in-law.

  Fellowes glanced through his envelope. ‘I have here a set of the relevant ones,’ he told me, ‘and I’m hanging on to your negatives for the moment. Do you want a receipt?’

  ‘I’ll trust you,’ I said.

  Fellowes took out a set of large prints in colour – about ten inches by eight, I thought. I forced myself to look at them. I was pleased to note that they looked needle sharp. My camera was a good one and I had trained myself over the years to hold it perfectly still. The light had been bright so that I had been able to use a small stop and obtain a considerable depth of focus. Fellowes singled out a shot of the body with Hamish crouched beside but not obscuring it. ‘Was the body moved after you found it and before this shot was taken?’ he asked.

  I shook my head. ‘Not more than very slightly,’ I told him. ‘Sir Peter was lying on his back and he wasn’t touching the fence, so there was no need. We could try mouth-to-mouth and heart massage where he was.’

  Detective Inspector Ian Fellowes raised his sandy eyebrows. ‘Why did you say that he wasn’t touching the fence?’

  ‘Earlier, Sir Peter had mentioned getting a shock off the fence. And I remembered that once, years ago, when I was nearly electrocuted by a faulty electric lawnmower, somebody else got a bad shock while trying to pull me away from it.’

  Ian seemed to have been thinking along the same lines. He grunted without comment and looked down at the photograph. ‘So his feet were towards the gate.’ He looked vaguely from me to his father-in-law. ‘If you were to lie down in the same position . . .’

  Keith Calder showed no eagerness to lie down on the damp ground. ‘I want to see what goes on.’

  ‘And put in your twopenn’orth, no doubt,’ said Fellowes.

  Hamish stepped forward. ‘Shall I?’

  Fellowes regarded him doubtfully. ‘You’re taller than Sir Peter was. But try it. Lie down the way you remember the body lying.’

  Hamish lowered himself to the ground, adjusting his position as directed by Fellowes with Calder adding what I thought was quite a valuable twopenn’orth. When they were both satisfied, Fellowes looked to me. ‘Is that how you remember it?’ he asked.

  It was quite upsettingly close to how I remembered it. I fixed my eyes on Hamish’s beard for reassurance and said, ‘That’s about it.’

  ‘Right,’ Fellowes said. ‘Where was his gun when you found him?’

  ‘About here.’ I laid my stick by Hamish’s right hand. ‘I moved it over beside the fence because I didn’t want to tread on a good Churchill.’

  Calder snorted in amusement. ‘If it had been a Baikal . . .’ he began.

  ‘I’d have walked over it,’ I said.

  ‘Obviously a man with a proper sense of priorities.’

  ‘Save the double act for the dinner table tonight,’ Fellowes said patiently. ‘Either give me your attention or go away. Assuming from what we know so far that he was carrying his gun in his right hand or under that arm, he would have been reaching for the gate with his left. But that’s the hinge side of the gate.’

  ‘He could have walked straight up to the gate,’ Calder suggested, ‘and then turned slightly to reach for the latch with his left hand. Doing that, he might have touched the wire with his barrels.’

  ‘Doubtful,’ I said. ‘He told me that he got a shock through his gun once before. He warned me to stay well clear and he didn’t seem the sort of man to make the same mistake again.’

  ‘Let’s try it,’ said Fellowes. ‘Hamish, you can’t fall upwards, but try to get up without moving your feet from where they are now.’ Awkwardly, Hamish lurched to his feet. ‘Now,’ Fellowes said, handing him the stick, ‘if that was a gun over your right arm, could you touch the wires with the barrels while reaching for the latch of the gate with your other hand?’

  Hamish settled my stick under his right armpit and over his bent elbow in the usual manner for carrying a shotgun and made a few exploratory gestures. ‘I could,’ he said doubtfully, ‘if I tried very hard. There’s a whole lot of damned, unhandy things I could do if I was daft enough. But my feet’s just no’ in the right place, by a mile. Can I move them now?’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Calder. ‘Peter wasn’t expecting a shot. He could have had the gun under his left arm.’

  ‘Then we wouldn’t have found it beside his right hand,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I suppose not.’

  Fellowes studied the photographs while he thought about it. ‘He could have made a convulsive leap when he got the shock,’ he suggested at last. ‘Then the jolt brought on another heart attack, or caused his pacemaker to malfunction, and down he went.’

  ‘I
doubt that,’ Calder said. ‘I’ve seen electric shocks – had a few myself, for that matter. Alternating current might throw you back as you say. With direct current, you’re more likely to freeze, or go down where you stand. But there aren’t any hard and fast rules about it and the shock you get off a cattle fence is probably too quick to have time to alternate anyway. With electricity, the damnedest things can happen.’

  ‘He’d only have had to step back with one foot,’ Fellowes said wistfully. ‘Well, we’ll have to see what the electrician and the pathologist have to tell us.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘First, the electrician – and I asked the farmer to be available. Coming?’

  ‘Do you need me any more?’ Hamish asked. ‘If no’, I’ll awa’ and do something useful.’

  ‘You just did something useful,’ Ian said. ‘I’m grateful. But you can get back to your pheasants, if that’s what turns you on.’

  ‘It doesna’ turn me on quite,’ Hamish said seriously, ‘but I like fine to be busy about my work.’

  Until Mr Enterkin arrived, I decided, I might as well be learning what I could about the estate and about the demise of its owner. ‘Take the dogs with you,’ I told Hamish. ‘I’ll tag along with them.’ He nodded, handed me my stick and patted his leg as he walked back past the two Labs. They fell cheerfully into file behind him.

  We set off along the route that I had taken the day before, following the electric fence between the edge of the wood and a strip of kale that bordered the oilseed rape.

  ‘There’s one area of Sir Peter’s will that I don’t understand,’ I told Keith Calder as we walked along the edge of the wood. ‘Mostly, it’s a sensible and businesslike document, concerned with giving help where it’s needed or rewarding past service and then keeping the estate together. Nothing wild or fanciful. There are none of the eccentric legacies with funny conditions attached to them, which I’d be sorely tempted to include in my will if I were rich enough for anybody to pay any heed. But suddenly there’s mention of financing a film, with your name cropping up. That seems totally out of keeping. What’s it all about?’