A Shocking Affair

by Gerald Hammond

  Frazier and Hastings were waiting at the corner of the house, but I knew that Ralph Enterkin would make my life a misery if I was unable to report every detail of what was coming. Also, I was curious. ‘Hold on for a few seconds,’ I told Ian. ‘I want to come with you. I may be able to contribute something.’

  Ian hesitated but then nodded.

  I called Spin to heel and went to join the surveyors. ‘We’ll be sending you a written valuation and a report on the drying shed,’ Hastings said. ‘But I thought that you should hear what Jim has to say.’

  I listened to a brief report on the drying shed roof, promised to send further instructions and hurried to catch up with the others, who had started to drift away along an earth path between neat vegetable beds towards a clump of overgrown rhododendrons. A small caravan stood nearby and I thought that, if Snot had been given more time, Spin might well have been tucked away there while the surveyors inspected the house. The trees – they were too large to be called shrubs – were hiding a small gate into the old railway cutting between two bridges. On our left the railway was tunnelled under the local road. Rough steps had been cut or worn in the banking and we made our way down, in my case with some care. We turned right and our footsteps rang as we walked beneath another bridge and passed under the farm road.

  The cutting curved gently but steadily to the right so that we could see ahead for only a couple of hundred yards or so. There was little wonder that, whether on purpose or fortuitously, Synott had made his way to and fro unobserved. Our view was limited to the blue sky, a few small white clouds and to the banking on either side which was clad with heather. Atop the right-hand bank ran the farm boundary, identified by the black rubber insulators in the electric cattle fence. We had no landmarks to tell us the distance we had covered until, above and on our left, the tops began to appear of a plantation of tall conifers which, as I had noticed when we passed the other side of it on the road, had been thinned once and then left to grow. Over the past few hours I had been presented with so many subjects for thought that much of my mind was taken up with wondering which to think about first, but I made a mental note to have Adrian Hastings value the standing timber on the estate.

  With that out of the way, my mind threw up the question which had been nagging me, on and off, all morning. I hurried to catch up with Ian – rather painfully, because my morning’s antics were beginning to catch up with me. ‘Hamish said that he heard an engine running. Did you ask him what sort of engine?’

  ‘He had the impression of a diesel-powered van or small truck on the road. The local coal merchant was as near as he could guess.’

  ‘You asked the coal merchant?’

  ‘His lorry’s being overhauled, not before time. Jennings says that nothing came to the farm. But, of course, the road goes on round to Bellafield.’

  Synott stopped dead and then walked on. ‘But that’s reminded me,’ he said. ‘I heard a motor running while I was walking in this direction. It wasn’t running along the road. It could have been a lorry ticking over, perhaps. I don’t remember hearing it while I was coming back, but I was pre-occupied with the dog.’ He glanced down at Spin, still walking faithfully at my heel and looked away quickly. ‘I think we’re getting near the place now.’

  ‘Come another fifty yards,’ Keith’s voice said from somewhere ahead of us among the trees. ‘This is the place.’ Ian looked wildly around. Neither of us had realized that Keith had climbed the bank and entered the wood.

  ‘How do you know?’ Ian called.

  ‘Marks of a vehicle.’

  We walked on. Keith’s head appeared at the top of the bank, above a clump of gorse in full yellow bloom. ‘This is the place, true enough,’ Synott said. ‘I tripped on the whatever-it-was and looked up. The gorse was just coming out.’

  Ian studied the bank. ‘I can’t imagine this heather holding any useful tracks,’ he said. ‘All right. Thank you Mr Synott. We needn’t keep you any longer.’

  Synott nodded. He stopped to give Spin a farewell pat but the spaniel’s attention was all on me. The man’s face dropped and I thought for a moment that he would break down. Suddenly, I was sorry for him, knowing too well how a dog can wrap itself around your heart. ‘You can always get another spaniel from the Rescue Centre,’ I suggested.

  ‘Another dog wouldn’t be the same. We’d always be making comparisons.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ I said, ‘a young dog fails in training – turns out to be incurably gun-shy or hard-mouthed, or something like that, and gets sold off cheaply. If you let me have your new address I’ll let you know, the first time that it happens to one of identical breeding.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I – we’d appreciate that.’ He paused, trying to think of some stronger expression of friendship or at least gratitude. ‘You can call me Snot,’ he finished bravely.

  *

  I climbed painfully up the bank after Ian. The heather alternately dragged at my feet and gave me a good purchase for the next step, but the tough stems were undamaged. Ian was right, there would be no discernible tracks after the passage of the intervening days. At the top, I crawled through a fence of plain wire with a barbed top strand and dragged myself upright. The heather gave way to a surface formed by many years of fallen pine needles. At least it was easier walking than the uneven metalling of the former railway.

  Keith was drawing Ian’s attention to a hole beside the nearer fence. ‘He’d need a good earth,’ he said. ‘He seems to have hammered in an angle-iron, probably poured water onto the ground as well, but it’s dried by now.’

  I could see a faint impression of wheels, hardly discernible in the shade beneath the trees. Otherwise, I thought, the surface was about as impervious to tracks as the heather had been.

  ‘Don’t touch anything,’ Ian said sharply. ‘I’ll get the search team down here. Come away now.’ He hustled us away to what he regarded as a safe distance. He fumbled for his personal radio but put it away again. ‘Before I make an idiot of myself, let’s be sure we know what we’re talking about. The nearest overhead power cables are the other side of the road. Right?’

  ‘Perfectly true,’ Keith said patiently. ‘But we are not talking power cables. Why do you think anybody would bring a heavy vehicle into the wood?’

  I was beginning to catch up, but Ian was still floundering. ‘To stand on the roof? To reach overhead cables? Or to see over obstructions?’

  ‘Or to tow something,’ said Keith. ‘Put overhead cables out of your mind. And take note that you can see the gate from the edge of the trees without even standing on tiptoe. We’re talking generators.’

  Ian frowned. ‘I did think along those lines. Several people have portable generators around here – the Synotts among them, for when they go caravanning. But Mr Flaherty assured me that one of those could never push a lethal current along a stretch of fence wire.’

  ‘Jim Flaherty must have been dreaming,’ Keith said. ‘Or else he didn’t want to point the finger at a pal. I’m not suggesting one of those suitcase-sized two-strokes. They’re all right for powering a television set but not for running machinery. I’m talking about a substantial diesel-powered generator capable of putting out ample three-phase current.’

  ‘But who’d have a thing like that around here?’ Ian asked plaintively.

  ‘Jock McAnderton. The builder. That’s who. For Pete’s sake,’ Keith said impatiently, ‘what do you think he tows around everywhere behind that truck of his?’

  ‘I assumed that it was a compressor, for powering pneumatic tools.’

  ‘So did I,’ I admitted.

  ‘Well, it isn’t. Jock used to be in a bigger way of business and that generator could power and light a whole building site. But then came the recession and much stiffer competition and the big contracts weren’t there any more. He sold off most of his plant but kept the generator and a selection of tools. Now he makes do as a jobbing builder, usually a one man band plus what little help that nephew deigns to give him,
though he re-hires some of his former employees when he needs them. And,’ Keith added, ‘I don’t suppose for a moment that they sign off at the labour exchange each time.’

  Ian glanced around. He looked tired and I realized for the first time that he must have been on his feet since before I left my bed. There was a fallen tree nearby, mossy side down. Ian took a seat on the trunk and Keith and I settled on either side of him. It was very peaceful in the wood.

  ‘I don’t see an occasional fraud on the Benefit Office as being a motive for murder,’ Ian said. ‘Not even if Sir Peter stumbled on evidence of it. Who else might have obtained access to Mr McAnderton’s generator? And his truck, unless they have a towing vehicle of their own?’

  Looking past Ian, I saw Keith frown. ‘That will take a little thinking about,’ he said. ‘And probably quite a lot of legwork by your boys. It would have to be a very close friend. Jock’s very wary about lending or hiring out his plant. He said to me once that he might make a pound or two hiring it out but it could cost him his livelihood if it came back knackered.’

  ‘He’d know about electricity,’ I said, ‘but would he know about computer viruses?’

  ‘That nephew of his would,’ Keith said. ‘He was offered a place at the Technical College but his uncle had work for him and the lad has a lazy mind.’

  ‘This has the makings of a long haul,’ Ian said, ‘with no certainty of a positive result at the end of it. My chiefs in Auld Reekie will not be happy.’

  I was not happy either. ‘Motive doesn’t make a case,’ I said. ‘We keep telling each other so. And lack of motive doesn’t damage it.’

  ‘That’s the theory,’ Ian said. ‘But it tells you where to look. And juries don’t see it your way.’

  I sighed and felt like a supergrass. ‘I can hand you a motive,’ I told him. ‘From what’s just been said, I take it that Mr McAnderton has financial problems?’

  ‘The recession caught him with a lot of plant bought but not paid for,’ Keith confirmed. ‘I know that he borrowed off Peter to settle his more pressing debts but I gathered that he’s been repaying the loan. Peter’s death wouldn’t do him any good. Or does the will cancel the debt?’

  ‘And, if so, did McAnderton know it?’ Ian put in.

  ‘There’s no mention of it in the will,’ I said. ‘But I’ve no record of the loan either, so far. I think it must have been a personal arrangement between the two of them, off the record and in cash. But even that isn’t the whole motive. When we met Jennings, the farm manager, at the tractor shed, he was complaining about the roof of the drying shed.’

  ‘He was trying it on,’ said Keith.

  ‘He tried it on about several things,’ I said. ‘The roof of the drying shed was the one genuine article. In Sir Peter’s files, I came across a receipt for re-roofing by Jock McAnderton about two years ago. The surveyor has just reported to me that the roof is leaking badly and seems to have been replaced reusing second-hand materials.’

  ‘About two years ago,’ Keith said slowly, ‘I remember Peter complaining that he was getting too old to hop around on ladders. I think that he trusted Weimms and Spigatt to do the inspecting, but the shit was about to hit their fan and I don’t suppose they were too fussy.’

  ‘Can you think,’ I asked, ‘of anything more certain to put Peter’s back up than to discover that the very money being used to pay back the debt to him had been gathered by frauds against himself? I think that the wall where McAnderton’s working now may have been the first of them to come to light – it collapsed and Peter told him to rebuild it properly at his own expense. And,’ I added indignantly, ‘the cheeky beggar came to me as soon as Peter was dead, asking me to confirm that he would be paid for the work. Peter had warned a firm of surveyors that he would have some work for them and on his computer I found the beginning of a draft letter to Ralph Enterkin, listing seven or eight farm buildings. The letter reads as though, when finished, it would have instructed the solicitor to bring proceedings. I’ll have to get the other buildings on the list inspected, but I’ve no doubt the result will be much the same. Is that motive enough for you?’

  ‘Ample,’ Ian said. ‘And it’s also enough grounds for holding him in custody while we look for evidence in connection with the murder. If you wait for a few minutes while I get the search started, I’ll come and get copies of the evidence from you.’

  As always at a time of breakthrough, new thoughts were coming thick and fast. ‘But why would he need to steal cable?’ I enquired. ‘He must have had miles of it.’

  ‘He did,’ said Keith. ‘He still does. But he got fed up with it being stolen and with his men tripping over it, so just before the recession began he had one of his men paint the whole lot white with chlorinated rubber paint left over from some job or other. If he’d had to abandon it, or if somebody had noticed it in place – as Synott did, you remember – the jig would have been up.’

  *

  The time for talking seemed to be over. Keith and his son-in-law set off back towards the farm, to collect Ian’s Range Rover and for Ian to transfer the searchers to the new venue. Ian offered to collect me from the nearby roadside, but could not commit himself as to when. I was not far from the house and I was anxious to get Spin home and settled. I continued along the former railway line and scrambled down the bank to the track through the wood. Spin knew where he was. As we got nearer, the spaniel began to dance.

  I met nobody along the way and there was nobody in sight, yet, by that inexplicable beating of the jungle drums which can happen in close-knit communities, Mary and Joanna emerged from the kitchen premises (which looked in the opposite direction), Ronnie and Hamish appeared out of nowhere and even the two Labradors joined the welcoming party.

  Spin was revelling in the attention, capering and offering himself for petting, but my joints were aching. Rather than stand around on the gravel I collected a pocketful of charcoal biscuits and then led the way into the sitting room, ignoring all questions and taking all the dogs with me, letting the staff follow on. I seated myself comfortably and made a small fuss of the Labradors, dispensing charcoal biscuits all round rather than risk allowing jealousies to develop.

  It was not for me to spread the tale. I parried a hundred questions. The true facts, or a reasonable approximation, would do the rounds soon enough; but what I did not realize was just how soon this would be. I had not seen Mary Fiddler leave the throng, but she came back in with an air of triumph. ‘That was the fish van,’ she told Joanna, and to me, ‘So it was yon Mr Synott who had the wee dog all this time.’

  ‘The bugger!’ said Hamish. Joanna frowned reprovingly.

  Mary’s two statements seemed to be something of a non sequitur. ‘Where did you get that idea?’ I asked her cautiously.

  ‘Duggie Scott, who drives the fish van, telled me. He was just pulling up at the Old Farmhouse when he saw you leaving with Mr Fellowes and Mr Calder and the wee chap. And when Mrs Synott came to the door, he could see that she was gey upset. He asked her did she want fish for the cat and that nearly set her off. And Duggie said another thing. He went on up to Bellafield and when he was coming back just now he says that it seemed like every policeman in Lothian and Borders was gathering at the fir wood between the Bellafield road and the old railway line.’

  There was a sudden outbreak of nodding and grunting. Any speculation about that latest development was likely to wander too close to the real facts and, if bruited about, might well damage Ian’s chances of an arrest. The garrulous fish-van driver might well put the same spoke in Ian’s wheel, but that would not be my fault. I broke up the party and sent the four about their various businesses, only asking Joanna for a cup of tea and suggesting that Hamish, as his future owner, should attend to the feeding of Spin.

  My mind was too full for humdrum estate business, but I set about advising the various bodies who had been contacted about Spin that the spaniel was now back in residence and cancelling any advertisements which had not yet appeared, afte
r which I leaned back for my post-prandial rest.

  After a day already filled with incident I had expected sleep to evade me, but I jerked awake to find Joanna stooped over me and peering anxiously into my face. It seemed that the staff had become aware of the mortality of the elderly. She jerked back when my eyes opened.

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Mr Enterkin was on the phone. He can’t come here this afternoon, but would you care to dine with him and Mrs Enterkin tonight, don’t dress, seven-thirty for eight? I said that you were tired and I wouldn’t wake you but that I thought you’d be glad of the invitation and I’d call him back when you woke up if you had some other arrangement,’ she finished all in one breath.

  ‘What about Miss Elizabeth?’ I asked her, conscious of my duties as an uncomfortable compromise between guest and guardian.

  ‘Don’t you worry about Miss Elizabeth. She’s been working away at her books all day,’ Joanna said approvingly, ‘but Mr Ilwand phoned, the laddie that works with Mr Paterson, and she’s going out to dinner with him tonight. She’s in the bath now,’ Joanna added as evidence that she had the facts straight.

  ‘In that case I’ll be delighted to go to the Enterkins,’ I said. ‘No doubt you’ve told Mrs Fiddler?’

  I had time in hand so I took all three dogs with me and managed a quick visit to the loch, where I landed a handsome brownie of nearly three pounds. Then back to the house to make myself tidy for dining out.

  A taxi arrived at the door before I could get my car out. It had been sent by Ralph Enterkin and the driver assured me that this was his habit when expecting guests from not too far away. I assumed at the time that this signified that Enterkin hospitality was to be as bibulous as that of the Calders, but Keith suggested later that Ralph’s real motivation was so that he would have control over any guest’s time of departure.

  *

  I was admitted to the Enterkins’ large flat, one floor up in a quiet street just behind the Square, by a plump lady who seemed familiar. Penny Enterkin had a neat little apron over a cocktail dress. I decided vaguely that I must have bumped into her during one of my few forays into the town. I was more interested in studying the Enterkins’ home. The flat was remarkably spacious and freshly decorated. In contrast with Peter Hay’s old-fashioned solidity and the Calders’ carefully matched antiques and reproductions, the Enterkins had opted for an unexpected modernity, Scandinavian pine mingled with glass and chromed tubes.