A Shocking Affair

by Gerald Hammond

  Fellowes fell back so that Calder and I could walk side by side.

  ‘I wondered whether he’d remembered to make provision for that,’ Calder said, ‘but it might have seemed a bit premature to ask the question before the will’s been read. I’ll tell you about it. Let me think where to begin . . .

  ‘Peter was very much concerned about bias, politically and in the media, television especially. His view, with which I heartily concurred, was that politicians and journalists are adept at doing the expedient thing and telling people what they think people want to hear, rather than the truth. He believed that most of the papers and networks are owned by big businessmen, so that the editors and staff, who are predominantly left wing, are usually restrained from open class hatred, but they still view the shooting man as belonging to the idle rich and therefore fair game. Did you see that a protest by two hundred anti-vivisectionists made all the top slots while a peaceful march by twenty thousand shooters in central London, protesting against Draconian legislation against them, was hardly mentioned in any news bulletin except one in Australia?’

  ‘I saw that,’ I said.

  ‘Peter complained that anything – fiction or news item – seeming to portray the shooting man as a rich and bloodthirsty idiot got immediate coverage whereas anything factual showing him, or any other field-sportsman, as he really is – coming from no particular social or economic level, genuinely humane and concerned about wildlife and usually much better informed about it than the self-proclaimed “experts” – would be spiked and forgotten or edited until the opposite message was all that was left. That is what is now called “political correctness”, so help me Jesus! So Peter commissioned a script for a one-hour film from a writer who lives near here, Simon Parbitter.’

  It took me a second or two to associate the name with a successful novelist. ‘I’ve read some of his stuff,’ I said. ‘He’s good.’

  ‘I pull his leg mercilessly, but he is good. The funny thing is that he’s an Englishman and although he’s lived in Scotland for donkey’s ages, raised a family and merged into the background, he still doesn’t shoot or fish. But he isn’t above handling a dog to pick up on a shoot and he got so involved in the project that he wrote the script for nothing, with some equally unpaid help from Hamish and myself. And very good the shooting script turned out to be, too. You’ll find a copy of it somewhere among Peter’s things. Spiral bound with a blue cover.

  ‘The script sets out to be the usual sort of documentary, about the wildlife on a keepered estate, but along the way it brings out the care for wildlife generally shown by shooting interests and their keepers.’

  ‘I take it that you refer to a “wildlife manager” rather than a keeper?’ I suggested.

  ‘Once, in the introduction. After that, we decided not to resort to evasions. “Gamekeeper” became a dirty word in Victorian days, when game preservation was taken to ridiculous extremes. Times have changed and the whole aim of the script is to say so. It also brings out how the pheasants and ducks are released, gradually, to grow on under wild conditions and it compares their journey to the table with that of farmed chickens. And it shows the damage that foxes do to farmers as well as to shoots, with actual film of foxes killing lambs and doing all the things that our opponents swear they never do.

  ‘The film would have shown a fairly typical syndicate, consisting of a baronet, a doctor, three shopkeepers, a small builder and two junior civil servants, all turning out for working parties and, later, harvesting some of their released birds – but we’ve lost the baronet now. Like most of the others, Hamish was going to appear as himself, and very good he’d be.

  ‘At first offering, the script was turned down flat as “too controversial”, which wasn’t unexpected but it infuriated Peter. I think it’s the only time I’ve seen him genuinely angry. We could have got the project taken on by one of the smaller independent networks, but Peter wanted national coverage. He was just girding his loins for the fight when this happened. He had raised some money and was quite prepared to put a lot of his own into the kitty to provide “consultancy fees”.’

  ‘Bribes,’ I said.

  ‘Fighting fire with fire,’ Calder said firmly. ‘It’s amazing how some people’s scruples become modified at the sight of a nice, fat fee. And how they manage to rationalize the turnaround later.’

  The descent into the former railway cutting gave me a breathing space to digest the implications of the project. When we were walking three abreast along the permanent way I said, ‘The idea’s good. And long overdue. But I don’t envy whoever has to kick-start the project. He’ll find himself the rope in a huge tug-of-war, with the world and more especially his wife joining in on either side.’

  A faint sound of amusement from Inspector Fellowes should have warned me.

  ‘That,’ Calder said, ‘is you.’

  ‘Me?’ I said, or something equally profound.

  ‘Why do you think Peter made you his co-executor? Why did he make sure that we met at dinner? He wanted somebody who knew his way around the world of business but would be sympathetic to the aims of the project. Ralph Enterkin couldn’t do it in a thousand years. I said that you would be perfect.’

  ‘Well, thank you very much!’ I said indignantly.

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘You do realize that I’m about a hundred years old?’

  ‘You’re younger than Peter was,’ Calder pointed out, ‘and as fit as a flea. And you’ve been getting restive, vegetating in the countryside, according to Peter.’

  I thought of another objection. ‘If I start trying to offer bribes to television executives, I’m going to end in clink. Aren’t I?’ I added to Ian Fellowes, suddenly remembering that he was a middle-ranking policeman.

  ‘Not bribes,’ Fellowes said. I could tell that he was hiding his amusement with difficulty. ‘You certainly mustn’t offer bribes. Consultancy fees. There’s a world of difference. And you’ll have Ralph Enterkin to keep you a hair’s breadth on the right side of the law. That’s the sort of thing he’s good at.’

  ‘He’d have to be bloody good,’ I said.

  We walked on in silence, each busy with his own thoughts. A minute or two later we climbed the embankment, reached the road where I had met the ambulance and set off along the verge.

  ‘Peter intended to play himself,’ Calder said suddenly, ‘the concerned landowner doing a balancing act between the shoot and the farming, putting the brakes on insecticide spraying and insisting on flushing bars on the silage machinery and harvesters. You could read for the part.’

  We turned onto the farm road. My interest, already aroused, began to burn. I had always felt that I could have been an actor, even a good one, but had resigned myself to the fact that I had left it too late. But, I decided, it’s never too late for talent to reveal itself.

  The barns were looming ahead, but first we had to pass a house with a walled garden. From its style and setting one would have taken it for the farmhouse – which I realized, remembering Peter’s words, it had once been.

  ‘This is where that man lives, isn’t it?’ I asked.

  ‘What man?’

  Suddenly I found that my memory for names, usually reliable, had deserted me. It happens, as one grows older. Before I could stop myself I uttered the only name that came to mind, the name that Peter Hay had used. ‘Snot,’ I said. A furious face fringed with a sandy beard appeared above the wall. I felt cowardice rushing over me. ‘’Snot that house at all,’ I said quickly and hurried onward to the barn without looking back.

  Chapter Seven

  My improvisation would not have fooled a toddler and had probably made matters worse. I could also sense embarrassment from my two companions. To my relief, there came the sound of a vehicle and a small van arrived. There was a loud exchange of greetings with the electrician, who seemed surprised to receive such an effusive welcome, and I contrived to walk round the corner of the barn without looking back.

  The electrician f
orged ahead and was waiting for us by the big, open-fronted tractor shed as we arrived, a gaunt nervous man of middle age with an early stubble and a thin crop of limp hair. His blue van was crammed with drums of cable, boxes of assorted components and at least one washing machine. The name on the panels read ‘J. Flaherty, Electrical Engineer’, and I had gathered from the greetings that we were in the company of Mr Flaherty himself.

  The farm manager must have found himself a task from where he could keep an eye out for us, for he arrived on foot only seconds after the electrician. Mr Jennings (Geordie, Peter Hay had called him) was a round and cheery looking man, but for the moment displaying anxiety which I put down to the possibility that his employer had fallen victim to an electric fence under his control.

  Ian Fellowes took command before the farmer could get overexcited. ‘You’ve heard that Sir Peter Hay died yesterday?’ (The two men nodded, wide-eyed.) ‘You know me – Inspector Fellowes. And this is Mr Kitts, one of Sir Peter’s two executors. We don’t know how Sir Peter died yet. The autopsy will be today and we should know more after that. But, for the moment, I’m looking around before things get tidied up, moved, repaired, broken or tampered with, just in case some vital information should get lost. Fair enough?’

  ‘Aye,’ said the farm manager. ‘As far as it goes.’

  ‘Sir Peter collapsed beside the gate to Langstane Wood, over there,’ Fellowes said, pointing to where the wood stood up dark above the green of the fields, beyond the wide hollow. ‘The doctor isn’t sure of the cause, so the fiscal will probably order an inquiry. The autopsy may show something quite different, but we have to consider the possibility that he may have had a shock off the fence. He was an old man,’ Fellowes added quickly before the farmer could begin his protestations, ‘with a dicky heart and a pacemaker. It might not have taken much of a shock.’

  ‘There’s nocht ill wi’ that fence,’ Mr Jennings said. ‘And it’s perfectly legal.’

  ‘I know it’s legal,’ Fellowes said, ‘and I don’t suppose there’s anything wrong with it. But let’s just make sure, shall we? Mr Flaherty?’

  ‘I supplied Mr Jennings with this unit,’ said the electrician. ‘Right, Geordie? And there was nothing wrong with it then, nothing at all.’ In contrast to McAnderton the builder, he had an Irish name but a definitely Scottish accent.

  ‘There still isn’t,’ the farm manager said gruffly.

  Mr Flaherty led the way into the tractor shed and up to the bench, on which stood a white box, the size of a small attaché case. Insulated cables were attached and were led neatly along the walls at high level. The label on the box bore a picture of various farm animals with the legend ELECTRIC SHEPHERD – MAINS ELECTRIC FENCE UNIT and some smaller printing. ‘There you are,’ he said proudly, as though he had personally designed it or produced it out of a hat. ‘Only takes about five watts to run it. That’s an eighth of the power of a forty-watt bulb,’ he added, in case we were unable to do the sum for ourselves. ‘But it can put out more than five thousand volts.’

  I was already aware of the principle behind electric fences. Calder seemed equally unimpressed. But Fellowes’s jaw dropped. ‘Five thousand . . . but that’s more than enough to kill a man.’

  ‘Not at five watts,’ Mr Flaherty said. ‘That’s –’ his lips moved silently in calculation ‘– that’s a thousandth of an amp. Couldn’t harm a soul. But they feel it, right enough.’

  The farmer was regaining confidence. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘The idea is that if a beast noses the wire it gets a sharp jolt. It’ll not go near the fence again or it might find out that on a dry day most of them could push through the fence without feeling it. Dry hair’s a good insulator. But don’t tell them that.’

  ‘We won’t,’ said Fellowes. ‘I don’t spend a lot of time chatting with farm animals. Not that I wouldn’t get more sensible answers than from some I know. Now, that’s enough blether. Mr Flaherty, can you tell us what current it is actually producing?’

  ‘No problem.’ Flaherty fetched a meter from his van and stooped over the unit. After a minute he straightened up. ‘Sir Peter didn’t get a shock off this, the way it is now. There’s no current coming out of it at all.’

  Geordie Jennings jumped as though the absent current had been applied to himself. ‘Hey! Look again!’ he said.

  ‘You think I don’t know what I’m on about? I tell you there’s nothing coming out,’ said Flaherty. He took a grip of two of the terminals. ‘See?’

  ‘Fuse must’ve gone,’ said the farmer, turning away in a hurry.

  The electrician was still busy. ‘Power’s reaching here,’ he said. He lifted the casing off the unit and prodded it with the terminals of his meter. ‘Secondary winding’s burned out,’ he announced.

  ‘Can you fix it? Or get me a replacement?’

  Flaherty considered. ‘Two days,’ he said, in a tone that brooked no argument.

  Jennings held his head and walked round in a small circle. ‘I ken where I can borrow a battery unit,’ he said suddenly. He left the shed at the double.

  ‘Damned if I know what he’s getting in a tizzy about,’ Flaherty said. ‘Usually it takes at least a week before they realize the fence isn’t live any more.’ He picked up his meter and turned away.

  ‘Hold on a moment,’ snapped Fellowes. ‘You’re not finished yet. What could cause the secondary winding to burn out? That’s the side that’s at high voltage and low amperage, right? Would a short circuit cause it?’

  ‘Not unless the unit was faulty,’ the electrician said, pausing beside his van. ‘Otherwise, it can’t happen. It gets shorted every time the wind blows a wet twig against it. It’s supposed to just burn off any vegetation that touches it.’

  ‘Let me get at it another way,’ the policeman said. He scratched his neck in furious thought. ‘Somebody touching the fence wouldn’t cause the winding to burn out?’

  ‘If it did that, the beasts would all be out of the field moments after the first one nosed it.’

  ‘But it did burn out. And at that moment, would there be a surge of current enough to be dangerous to a man?’

  The electrician frowned. ‘Could be. It’s possible. I doubt it, but it is possible. There’s no telling what can happen, with electricity.’

  ‘I see.’ Fellowes was not giving up yet. ‘If you took the unit apart, could you tell why it failed?’

  ‘Not to be certain sure. You’d be better sending it back to the makers. Listen.’ Suddenly Mr Flaherty became helpful. ‘I’ll have to get them to send another unit, p.d.q. That means their van will be coming. Why don’t I take this one out now and send it back with the van? You can write a letter telling them what you want to know.’

  ‘That,’ said Fellowes, ‘is more like it. Thank you, Mr Flaherty, you’ve been helpful at last. Now, are we walking or shall we cadge a lift?’ He looked at the electrician.

  ‘The back of my van’s full,’ Flaherty said, stating the obvious. ‘I could take one of you.’

  ‘And have you seen the state Geordie Jennings lets his car get into?’ Calder enquired.

  ‘Leave it to me,’ I said. My legs were beginning to ache again. I took out my mobile and phoned the house. Mr Enterkin had just arrived, Joanna said, and was looking through the messages while he waited for me. And there was no word of Spin. Had Mr Fellowes found me? I said that he had and asked her to send somebody, anybody, to pick us up from the farm.

  As I finished the call, a recent but already battered estate car swung into sight, with Geordie Jennings at the wheel. He braked to a halt beside us and caught my eye, but his windows were closed and whatever he was mouthing at me was drowned by the noise from a faulty silencer. I walked round the car. He wound down his window and, hearing the din, stopped his engine. ‘I’ve just thocht. You’re the executor?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m half of him,’ I said. Looking into the car, I could see what Keith Calder had implied. It seemed that Jennings was not averse to carrying livestock in the back sea
t.

  The farmer’s round face remained bland but there was a gleam in his eye. ‘Sir Peter was promising me tarmac on the road here and a second bathroom in the farmhouse and a new roof to the drying shed and . . . and . . .’

  Behind the farmer’s back Flaherty was grinning and Calder, with his face screwed up, was shaking his head violently.

  ‘Bring me Sir Peter’s letter,’ I said, ‘and we’ll see what we can do.’

  Jennings looked shocked. ‘There was no need for letter-writing. Sir Peter was a man of his word.’ His tone was intended to imply that I was proving less scrupulous.

  ‘I’ll come and take a look when I have time,’ I said. ‘Then I’ll consult Miss Hay. You’ll be her employee after the will’s proved.’

  Jennings glared at me, started his engine and roared off in pursuit of a stopgap energizer for his electric fence.

  ‘He won’t be the last chancer to try it on,’ Calder said. ‘Not by a mile.’

  *

  I would have preferred to wait where we were, but I was outvoted and I did not want to be left out of any discussion. We started to walk, passing Snot’s house but without a further view of his agitated beard. I might just as well have seated myself and waited, because each of us was busy with his own thoughts. We had covered nearly half the distance to the house by road, as I discovered later, and were arriving at a corner of the pine wood which I had seen from the old railway line, when a car appeared at last in the distance. ‘It’s your fellow executor,’ Calder said sadly. ‘We’d have been as quick walking back the way we came.’

  ‘As quick,’ I said, ‘but more tired. It’s all very well for you teenagers . . .’

  ‘You’re getting to be as bad as Ralph,’ Calder said.

  ‘And that,’ Ian said, ‘is fighting talk if ever I heard it.’

  I was glad to take a front seat when Enterkin pulled up beside us and after a moment’s hesitation Calder and Fellowes entered the back of the car. Rather than turn in a narrow gateway, Enterkin insisted on driving to the farm road, so it seemed that we might as well have followed my wishes and taken seats in the shed to wait for him. When his passengers were covering that section of road for the fourth time that day, he said, ‘The autopsy is proceeding already. As requested, Professor Mannatoy is carrying it out himself. With the agreement of the procurator fiscal, he has promised to come to the house later and advise us.’