A Shocking Affair

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘I think not. I wouldn’t want Elizabeth to have to dine alone. After losing both a grandfather and . . . more,’ I said carefully, mindful of Joanna’s presence, ‘any kind of company would be preferable to that.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Clumsy of me.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d care to dine here?’ I suggested.

  He shuddered elaborately and shook his head. Joanna left the room. ‘Among my preferences for dining company,’ Ralph said, ‘a bereft teenager falls somewhere between a deaf mute and a convicted poisoner. Back to business.’

  ‘Yes. Is Joanna Sir Peter’s daughter on the wrong side of the blanket?’

  Enterkin jumped as though I had bitten him. ‘No she is not,’ he said firmly.

  ‘And you don’t know who her father is?’

  ‘As it happens, I do know. But that sort of information is on what they call a need-to-know basis and you definitely do not need to know.’

  ‘His legacy to her is surprisingly large,’ I reminded him. ‘If it should turn out that Sir Peter was helped on his way, that could furnish the mysterious father with a motive. The police should know.’

  ‘If that should be the outcome of this afternoon’s discussion,’ he said haughtily, ‘I will make sure that the police do know if they do not, as I would suppose, know it already. That would still not entitle you to know so . . .’ he paused, ‘so delicate a fact.’

  ‘I shall find out.’

  ‘Not from me. Our duty ends with paying over the legacy to the girl.’

  Between matters thrown up by the estate and my rather random scanning, I might almost say ‘surfing’, of the computer files, I had collected a file of material requiring consultation. An hour later, we had worked most of the way through it, deciding who would do what about which, when we were interrupted.

  Joanna arrived again at the study door. ‘Mr Synott’s here. He wants a word with you.’

  ‘With which one of us?’ I asked her.

  ‘He is hardly likely to aware of my presence,’ Ralph pointed out. ‘But never mind. We may as well see him together. Show him in.’

  If Mr Synott bore me any ill-will for having put my oar in during the altercation over the death of his cat, or for referring to him as Snot within his hearing, the only sign of it was a certain stiffness of manner which could equally have arisen from embarrassment. His skinny frame was dressed more formally than before in a charcoal suit and sober tie, his sandy beard had been trimmed and he accepted a chair in which he sat rigidly upright, as if to relax would be to concede something.

  ‘You never returned my call,’ he told me sadly.

  I nearly reminded him that the first rule of business is to assume that nobody ever calls you back. Instead, I said, ‘Not yet,’ and waited.

  ‘We have decided to move house,’ he said. ‘And the recent sad events were the last straw. As it happens, a house that we have always admired, within walking distance of my sister-in-law, has just come on the market.’

  ‘And, of course,’ Ralph said, ‘your lease obliges you to give the estate first refusal, at valuation.’

  ‘That’s why I’m here.’

  I said, ‘Mr Hastings, of Swinburn and Hastings, is coming to see me to discuss valuations for probate. I’ll ask him to put a value on your lease. If you don’t like his figure, you can engage a surveyor of your own. If there’s still a dispute, we’ll refer the two opinions to an adjudicator. That’s satisfactory?’

  ‘If that’s how it’s usually done. I hope that we can move quickly,’ he added. ‘We’re anxious to complete the other purchase before somebody else enters the bidding.’

  ‘Does that mean that you’re giving up your directorship of Agrotechnics?’ I asked him.

  If he was surprised at my omniscience, he hid it. ‘I would like to get my money out,’ he admitted. ‘And that, I suppose, would mean resigning my directorship. But there is still the question of the offer of a buyout.’

  ‘I’m afraid there isn’t,’ I told him. ‘I have been put forward for the directorship made vacant by Sir Peter’s death and, with the chairman’s casting vote, I have a majority behind me. And the buyout will not happen.’ I nearly said that it would happen over my dead body, but suddenly the implications of the phrase hit me and I bit the words back. ‘And, just as with your house, the Articles require you to offer your shares first to the other directors. I’m sure that we can find you a buyer at market price – which will show you a very good profit on your original investment.’

  ‘The duty of the Board is to the shareholders,’ Synott said in a high, quick voice, looking at the ceiling. ‘And I’m a shareholder. The Board has no right to refuse an offer which would benefit the shareholders.’

  ‘The Board members are the shareholders,’ I pointed out. ‘And they have every right to take into account employment in this area, which is what the company was set up to safeguard in the first place.’ I waited until his eyes came down and met mine. ‘Were you under the impression that Sir Peter’s death would change that?’

  ‘I hoped that it might.’ Suddenly the implication of my words got home to him. ‘What the hell are you suggesting?’

  It was too early to start throwing accusations around. Before I could formulate a compromise answer, Ralph asked, ‘What do you know about Sir Peter’s death?’

  ‘Nothing. Well, almost nothing. Nothing in the sense . . . Nothing that isn’t known to everyone. The police have been asking questions. There was something not right about the death. The word going around is that he got a shock off the cattle fence and that it stopped his pacemaker.’

  ‘That is indeed one of the words going round,’ Ralph said. ‘You had words with Sir Peter not long beforehand. Where did you go after that?’

  ‘I went home and stayed there,’ Synott said coldly. ‘I was quite shaken by the death of my cat and the arguments that followed it. The police have already asked the question and my wife confirmed my answer.’

  ‘As wives are wont to do,’ the solicitor murmured.

  I jumped in quickly before Synott could take offence. There was already a danger that he might become an aggrieved board member, exploiting every opportunity to make a nuisance of himself. ‘We would like to have the question of the board membership settled quickly,’ I said, ‘just as you would the purchase of your lease. Perhaps we can hustle the two things along together. I suggest that you go home and write us a letter, offering your shares and also the lease of your house for sale. Then we can move rapidly on both.’

  ‘I’ll do that straight away,’ Synott said. He seemed relieved. From being defensive, he became curious. We managed to send him away, in the end, little wiser than when he had arrived.

  ‘The reaction of an innocent man, you think?’ Ralph asked me.

  ‘Or a very good actor. I’d like him to be the guilty party, if there is one,’ I admitted. ‘He certainly seems to have had both motive and mains electricity. And I had an impression that he was . . . not guilty of murder, perhaps, but in some way vulnerable. He was more nervous than he wanted us to believe and he made too much eye contact. But I really don’t see him as desperate enough to kill.’

  Ralph made his funny, thinking face. ‘I’m not so sure,’ he said. ‘The rest of his money was with the World Bank of Industry and Commerce, which went hugely bust last year. There was no secret about that – he went around telling anybody who would listen to his tale of woe. So a modest percentage added to the price of his shares might look like a lifeline to him. Well, at least you have some leverage if he makes a nuisance of himself to the board. Dawdle over the valuation and purchase of his lease and he’ll soon come to heel.’

  We managed a further half-hour of consultation before Ralph announced that it was time for him to ‘go back to his office and sign things’, as he put it. ‘You’ll have to manage without my advice and encouragement tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I have a meeting in Edinburgh.’

  I lingered to tidy some papers, make a few notes and shut down the com
puter before going out for a breath of fresh air and to give the two Labradors a walk. The earlier drizzle had passed, leaving a cool, fresh day with all the colours of spring washed clean.

  We went as usual into the wood. If I was still clinging to the last vestige of a hope that Spin would suddenly return, looking as if he wondered what all the fuss was about, I was doomed to disappointment. There was a pleasing absence of the midges which, later in the year, would have made such a moist day into a penance, but trout were jumping in the little loch. The light was already almost gone but I made up my mind to try my luck within the next day or two.

  When I turned away, I almost bumped into a tall man. A stranger. Yet his working clothes looked familiar and he seemed to know me.

  ‘Hamish?’ I said faintly.

  Hamish made a strangled sound. ‘Aye,’ he said at last. He seemed ready to flee at the first sound of laughter.

  With his beard removed and his hair trimmed, Hamish looked younger. I guessed his age as mid-thirties. If I had hoped, for Joanna’s sake, that he would be revealed as an Adonis, I was to be disappointed. True, he was almost good-looking, but at a second glance his nose was a little too large, his lips a little full, his cheekbones and eyebrow ridges a little too prominent. But it was a strong face and masculine. He would pass, in a crowd.

  ‘Has Joanna seen you yet?’ I asked.

  Wordlessly, he shook his head. I decided to provoke a confrontation before he lost his nerve altogether and fled the country, to grow another beard far from the haunts of those who knew him. ‘I want to discuss the shooting programme,’ I told him. ‘Come up to the house and see me in the morning.’

  Hamish nodded miserably.

  Back at the house, I felt that Elizabeth had had long enough to mope in decent privacy. It was time for a bracing, avuncular approach. I climbed the stairs and knocked on her door. There was no answer. Perhaps she had gone out. On the other hand, she had just been disappointed in love. She might have taken an overdose of something or other. I knocked again and then, daring, opened her door and looked inside. My great fear, that I would surprise her in a state of undress, was not realized. The room, which was plainly, almost severely furnished and not at all girlish, was otherwise empty.

  Joanna met me in the hall, to say that dinner would be served in about twenty minutes.

  ‘Where’s Miss Elizabeth?’ I asked.

  ‘She went out. I waited, just as you said, in case she wanted someone to talk to. But she came out suddenly and said that she didn’t want dinner but she’ll be home tonight, late.’

  I dined alone.

  Chapter Eleven

  If I had guessed at the stresses the next day was to bring, I would have eaten a heartier breakfast. There had been signs that a prolonged exposure to Mrs Fiddler’s catering would necessitate a letting-out of waistbands, so I had managed to persuade her that I was quite satisfied with a little cereal and one slice of toast and was no longer coaxed to take bacon and eggs, tomato, mushrooms and venison sausages.

  Elizabeth Hay arrived at the breakfast table in her old, surly mood, tempered with depression and the defensive touchiness of the recently humiliated. I decided that I had liked her better in tearful vein. ‘Did you put an e-mail message into the computer about Roland?’ she asked as soon as we were alone.

  ‘Definitely not,’ I said. ‘And nor did your grandfather. You’ll be able to find it duplicated in the autofile, and I don’t think you can fake that.’

  ‘Somebody could have sent it in for you. Roland swore that it was a fake.’

  ‘Well, what did you expect him to swear?’ I asked her.

  She shrugged. Her mouth was full at the time, which I took to be a good sign.

  ‘Do you believe him?’

  She shook her head. ‘I wanted to. But . . .’ She paused, wrestling with herself. ‘I could see that it was true,’ she said at last. ‘The report, I mean, not the denial.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Gooseberry,’ I said. ‘You’re bound to be sad that it turned out this way but be thankful that your grandfather had him figured out before you got deeper into the mire.’

  She sighed. ‘Maybe I’ll be able to look at it that way in a year or two,’ she said. She paused and then added, ‘You can call me Gooseberry as long as nobody else is there. And, listen, I know I said that I’d sort out the computer for you, but after the time I wasted yesterday I’ve got to put in some studying.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’m getting on better with it now. I think it’s getting to like me.’

  She snorted and left the room, only to return a minute later. I noticed that she was meeting my eye as though I had become a real person to her rather than a figment of her imagination. ‘If you like that computer, you can keep it when the work’s done.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Look, I have two other ones, both more powerful than that. If you don’t take it, somebody else will.’ And she disappeared again.

  The return of the fine weather was continuing and I would have liked to be out in it. I intended to do the rounds of the houses and farms shortly, reassuring his tenants about the effects of Sir Peter’s will, taking note of any repairs required and, out of sheer curiosity, keeping an eye open for the proximity to Geordie Jennings’s fence of mains electricity together with a viewpoint overlooking the metal gate. But I had told Hamish to come and see me, and I was expecting Mr Hastings a little later. So I gave the two Labradors a stroll along the edge of the wood and then settled in the study to fill in the time by continuing my reading of the material in the computer. I had now mastered the knack of flicking from file to file and of having several files open simultaneously. The fact that the computer would some day be mine, provided that Ralph Enterkin could see no ethical objection to my accepting it, added satisfaction to each small triumph.

  As was to be expected, much of the material was outdated and very dull, but it had to be scanned because of the occasional nuggets of live business to be found. One file, simply titled UFL, turned out to have been reserved for unfinished letters and I was soon scratching my head over the contents. These comprised two items – a list of half a dozen farm buildings, and a letter addressed to Ralph Enterkin.

  The letter read:

  Dear Mr Enterkin,

  I have been trying to reach you by telephone but your line was permanently engaged. In any case, this may be better dealt with by letter for the sake of a formal record, with discussion to follow.

  Unfortunately I have come across another instance of fraud, smaller and yet in its way just as serious. I think that I shall ask Swinburn and Hastings to carry out a preliminary investigation, but I feel that you should be kept informed from the beginning.

  The attached list

  The letter broke off at that point. It was undated but I had no difficulty in guessing that it had been started just before we set off on our last walk and was then put aside in favour of the much more interesting venture of putting Spin to work.

  A knock on the study door signalled the arrival of Hamish and put an end to my attempt to slot this new piece into the puzzle. I set the printer to work and gave my attention to him.

  It was much easier to read his expression now that the whiskers were removed. He was looking unhappy. He did not sound any happier. ‘Damn’t to hell!’ he said.

  ‘Did Joanna not prefer you shaven and shorn?’ I asked.

  ‘She laughed!’ Hamish said indignantly. ‘Laughed at me! Bloody women!’

  It was a reaction which I might have foreseen. ‘She shouldn’t have done that,’ I said. ‘But calm down and have patience. Many people laugh when they’re surprised. See how she reacts second time around.’

  He shook his head angrily. ‘She’ll not change. I might ha’ kenned it. I’ll be a laughing stock. Well, that’s that, then. What was it you were wanting to discuss?’

  I had asked him to come to the house so that Joanna would see the new and improved Hamish and I had nothing in particular to say to him. ‘We�
�ll leave it for now,’ I said. ‘You’re upset. But don’t go away. I have a surveyor coming in connection with the valuation of the estate for Confirmation of the will. You may as well show both of us your cottage and sheds.’

  ‘I’ll not be far away, then.’

  He nodded and left the room and my mind went back to the mystery surrounding Peter Hay’s death. There seemed to be more than a sufficiency of people with motives. Motive, I reminded myself, did not make a case and indeed was not necessary in law. But it seemed to me that a study of motives must give the investigators their best pointer towards those who should be checked for alibi, fingerprints (genetic and manual), contact traces and all the other means of scientific investigation. Ian Fellowes’s study of the geography would produce another list. Comparison of that list with the list of motives would prove enlightening.

  Or would it?

  A half-formed thought at the back of my mind refused to take shape and yet from somewhere in that subconscious reasoning a conscious thought surfaced. There was one question which Hamish, as far as I knew, had not been asked. I got up willingly from the chair. I had my excuse to go back into the sunshine.

  The two Labradors greeted me outside the front door, hoping that this was going to be the occasion for a proper walk instead of a token stroll, but they settled down again grumpily to rest their old bones when I shook my head and gave the stay-there signal. There was no sign of Hamish. I walked round the end of the house and into the yard behind. The garage doors were open and my car stood on the tarmac. A hose lay abandoned on the ground. The car was freshly washed and on the bonnet were a couple of cloths and an empty tin which had held wax. Either Hamish or Ronnie had been giving my paintwork an overdue polish and had gone in search of more wax.

  Well, I could wait. The sunlit side of the car was perfectly dry. I leaned against it and enjoyed the sunshine while resuming my cogitation, but the errant thought still refused to surface. There were, I thought, plenty of overhead power lines. One tended not to see them until finding that one’s best photographs were spoiled by the lines crossing the sky. But most of those lines were at very high voltage – the figure of 11,000 volts came to my mind, rightly or wrongly. One did not throw the end of a cable over them to purloin a little electricity – indeed, I recalled reading about a vagrant who had been electrocuted while attempting just that. But, in the country at least, between the transformer substation and the houses the supply lines were usually still overhead, and not even at mere 220 volts. Double that voltage could be obtained between two adjacent houses . . . I tried to recall the technicalities of three-phase supplies, but I had never found it easy to envisage what I could not see or feel.