Keith followed the manager through to the office and picked up the telephone. The manager tiptoed out, as if from a church service.
Munro was on the line. ‘We’ll be finished at Briesland House shortly,’ he said, ‘but I’ll leave somebody on guard until you get home. If you’d like to come and see me now . . .’
Keith drew a shaking breath. He thought of the chief inspector’s cheerless office. ‘I hate that bloody room of yours,’ he said.
‘I’m not so fond of it myself,’ Munro said. He sounded surprised at his own discovery. ‘I’ll come over to you.’
‘If you must,’ Keith said.
‘I must. What would the latest word be about Mrs Calder?’
‘Still in the theatre half an hour ago,’ Keith said. ‘I can’t find out any more than that.’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Munro had only a few yards to come along the square. He found Sir Peter and Keith silent in the big lounge. He turned an armchair to face them and sat down. ‘I threw my weight around a bit on the phone,’ he said. ‘Mrs Calder is out of the theatre and holding her own.’
‘Thank you,’ Keith said quietly.
‘And thank God!’ Sir Peter added.
‘Seadh!’ Munro bowed his head for a moment, then leaned forward. ‘Mr Calder, we have had our differences in the past. I have deplored some of your actions, but I want you to know that I have always respected you as a man. And I have thought of Mrs Calder as a very charming young lady and . . . and just maiseach. I am praying for her.’
‘Thank you,’ Keith said again, hoarsely.
Chief Inspector Munro blew his long nose. ‘One more thing before we get down to business,’ he said. ‘I am quite sure you are capable of playing fast and loose with the rules. I might just believe that you would set fire to your own shop. But in my own mind I am certain sure that you would never protect anybody who had harmed your wife. And, believing that . . .’ Munro stopped short and began again. ‘This is a time to discuss facts, not fancies.’
‘Must we discuss the facts? Just now?’
‘It is urgent,’ Munro said almost pleadingly. ‘Come now, Mr Calder. You have other things on your mind, but you are not usually slow to draw an inference.’
‘There’s no sense,’ Keith said. ‘Most of your facts are still unconfirmed.’
‘Maybe. But just assume that they will be confirmed the morn, and see what emerges. There was a dead body, now a skeleton. It had been weighted down in the canal. In the skull is a hole that might well have been made by a bullet. Nearby was found a pistol which had passed through your hands. It was registered to a man who purchased it from you and disappeared, all at about the same time.’
Sir Peter stirred and leaned forward. He was deeply distressed to see Keith’s grey-faced, shattered state. He would have liked to whisk his younger friend away to urgent engagement in some quite different activity; but this was impossible, and in any case Keith would have refused to go. So, if Keith were to remain involved in the circumstances surrounding Molly’s injuries, it was Sir Peter’s view that Keith’s concentration should be turned away from his worry and towards logical enquiry into the background. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘what you’re outlining suggests a not impossible method of suicide. A man who wanted to kill himself and leave the least possible trouble behind him might well sit on the parapet of a bridge at dead of night, wrap some chain around himself, lean forward and shoot himself.’
‘Such things have been known, Sir Peter,’ Munro said doubtfully, ‘although Frazer was not the man to kill himself, nor to go out of his way to spare other folks trouble. But, more to the point, that supposition leaves us with no explanation for what follows.’
Sir Peter, watching out of the corner of his eye, had seen with relief Keith stir out of his despond as he focussed on the problem. ‘You’re assuming,’ Keith said, ‘that somebody shot Frazer and dumped him in the canal along with the pistol. All right, let’s go along with that assumption. He thinks that the evidence has gone for ever. The canal is an absolute permanency. It might be filled in, but never emptied. And then the unthinkable happens. The canal bank is breached, the water drains out with a rush that carries away much of the sediment. The skeleton and the pistol come to light. Is there any link between himself and the pistol? That’s what you’re thinking?’
‘That’s what I’m thinking he’s thinking,’ Munro said. ‘Yes.’
‘And you think that that link must have been in my records?’
‘I can think of no other reason why a man would wish to burn down your shop and your house.’
‘But they didn’t –’ began Sir Peter.
Munro held up his hand. ‘We’ll come to that in its turn, Sir Peter. Yes, Mr Calder, our somebody wished to destroy evidence, probably in your records.
‘We can guess at his movements. Early this morning he approached the back door of your shop. I had a man there on duty, because I did not want you or anyone else touching those records before I did. Fortunately, I did not expect such a long discussion with yourselves, and told him that he could knock off when his shift ended at eight. At five past eight, petrol was squirted through your letter box and set on fire, and but for the prompt action of Mr James the whole building would have been reduced to cinders.
‘But he knew that records were also kept at Briesland House.’
‘We didn’t meet anyone on the way there,’ Keith said.
‘No, we did not.’
Keith began to revise his opinion of Munro. ‘Is that why you sent a car to the south of the town? You guessed that he might have gone by the main road, or might come back that way?’
Munro half smiled. ‘I am not always the fool you think me,’ he said with uncomfortable accuracy. ‘If we had met an oncoming car, I was quite prepared to force it into the ditch.’
‘There might have been two men,’ Sir Peter suggested. ‘One at the shop and the other out at the house.’
‘The timing does not suggest that, nor does the fact that we found a half-empty can of petrol at the house. But, whatever, a man walked up to Briesland House, prepared to burn it down. My sergeant was at the front of the house, but the man came to the back. And on the back doorstep he met your wife.’ Munro’s voice trailed away.
‘You can talk about it,’ Keith said gruffly.
‘Very well. Perhaps she saw his face. Or it may be that Mrs Calder is the one with the dangerous knowledge. He struck upwards with a knife, and he meant to kill. The doctors say that it was no less than a miracle that the knife missed her heart and the big blood-vessels, so that the only severe damage was to her left lung. But then in falling she came down with her face on the boot-scraper.
‘That must have been when your dog came out and went for him. A brave wee beast. How is the doggie, by the bye?’
‘I must phone the vet again,’ Keith said. ‘The last I heard, he’d set three of her ribs but couldn’t be sure about internal injuries.’
‘M’hm. It was the noise the dog made going for him, and again when she was kicked, that brought my sergeant round from the front. The noise he made, running on the gravel, scared the mannie off and Ritchie heard him blundering through the house. He was more concerned to radio for an ambulance for Mrs Calder, and then tend to her, than to go in pursuit, and I’d left him without a car. The sergeant heard a car start up, so our man drove up to the north junction and maybe away towards Edinburgh, or else round by the main road and back into the town.’
Keith’s mind was working again. ‘You said “Fortunately”. You think that if your man had stayed here until we arrived –’
‘Then our mannie would have gone first to Briesland House, and found Mrs Calder alone. And when we went haring back to deal with a murder and a fire, he would have returned to find the shop and flat empty. You may not think so now, Mr Calder, but you may come to believe that you’ve been very lucky. Things may be bad, but they could have been worse.’
‘And all this,’ Keith said,
‘because there’s some piece of evidence that he must destroy. You’re right, it seems the only possible explanation. But I’m damned if I can think what it could be.’
‘No more do I, as yet,’ Munro said. ‘We found the previous copy of your register in the house, and it confirms that you sold him the Hammerli pistol on August 24th. We found an early notebook, listing guns out on trial and returned or purchased, but it finished nearly three years ago. It is interesting, all the same, because although most of the entries refer to shotguns there is one in your wife’s writing showing that she let a drilling out on loan. That is a firearm under the Act, and not a shotgun . . . am I right?’
‘It’s a combination rifle and shotgun,’ Keith said. ‘But I can understand. . . .’ He broke off.
‘I’m not going to make a stramash over an infringement of three years past,’ Munro said.
‘Ah. Well,’ Keith said, ‘you can test a rifle or a pistol in the basement, although a rifle just about makes the customers jump out of their skins; but a shotgun, or a drilling used as a shotgun, has to be tried in the open air. Molly would know that.’
‘Likely. But there’s a book missing, and I’m in no doubt that that’ll be what we’re after.’
Sir Peter let loose with the Harrumph! that was his signal to an unruly board meeting to come to order, and the other two fell silent. ‘The sale of the pistol couldn’t have been through the post?’ he asked.
Keith shrugged. ‘If it was, I would have endorsed the entry in my register!’
Munro shook his head.
‘Then I sold him that pistol on the 24th. So, whether anyone saw him in Newton Lauder or not, he was here to buy that pistol, and he didn’t have a hole in his head then or I’d have noticed. So whoever might have had the pistol on loan before that doesn’t matter.’
‘That is the way it looks,’ Munro said. ‘We are guessing in the dark until we have more facts. What does seem certain sure is that somebody believes that he has something to fear from papers in your house or your shop, or from information which for all he knows might be in your head or that of your wife.’
‘Well, on the basis of the dates, I don’t see it.’
‘Keith,’ Sir Peter said gently, ‘the chief inspector is trying to tell you that you and Molly and the house and the shop may all be in real danger.’
Munro nodded gratefully. The English language might be useful at times for its wealth of epithets, but it could not compare with the Gaelic for subtle persuasion. ‘That is it exactly,’ he said.
‘Oh.’ The idea that somebody might be stalking him, Keith found difficult to absorb. ‘I see what you mean,’ he said at last.
‘We cannot keep guard for ever on two buildings and two people,’ Munro said. ‘We have tried to minimise the danger to the buildings by removing every scrap of paper from each of them and making that fact widely known. Even so, we will keep an eye on them while we can and then visit them from time to time.’
‘What about Molly?’ Keith asked.
‘There will be an officer with her constantly until she wakes up and makes a statement. After that, the danger may be over.’
‘More to the immediate point,’ Sir Peter said, ‘what about Keith?’
‘I can look after myself.’
‘You may have to,’ Munro said grimly. ‘Even if I could spare the men, there would be little point setting a man with a truncheon to guard you against a man who may have a rifle, and you the man who sold most of the firearms around here and taught the folk to use them.’
‘I only give shotgun lessons,’ Keith said.
‘And it may be that he will come after you with a shotgun. But no doubt you will be telling me that bare hands can be just as lethal, or a poker.’
‘I know you’d like to see all guns taken away from private ownership,’ Keith said. ‘Do we have to go over it all again?’
Munro smiled a twisted smile. ‘Mr Calder,’ he said, ‘I would not for a minute trust you with a woman or a pheasant or a number of other things, but I believe I can trust you with a gun. So,’ Munro delved in a pocket of his uniform, ‘I have obtained for you a permit to carry a firearm. You have a nice Webley and Scott thirty-eight in your stock, and I suggest that you carry it. And try not to be alone. You might want a witness.’
This was Munro is a new guise. Keith studied the sheet of paper before slipping it into his pocket. He knew how much the exceptional action must have gone against Munro’s principles. ‘I’m very much obliged to you,’ he said.
Munro waved his hand as if brushing away a fly. ‘Before you thank me,’ he said, ‘listen to me carefully. Twice in the past, to my knowledge, you have killed a man. Once was self-defence and once it was on my direct orders, and I do not hold either of them against you. If the mhuc comes to make an attempt on your life, I shall not hold it against you if you kill again. But, Mr Calder, you must have no thoughts of revenge. Revenge is my business. And if you kill, or if you even shoot, when you need not have done so, then it will go hard with you.’
‘Point taken,’ Keith said. ‘You . . . you’re more of a help than I ever expected.’
‘My time for being helpful may be running out. We should have the pathologist’s report tonight or tomorrow morning. If he puts the hole in the skull down to a bullet, we have a murder and the case will likely be out of my hands.’ Munro stood up, a worried bean-pole of a man, struggling eternally to do his job between the confines that surrounded it, and in a language that never came easily off his tongue. ‘Remember, take care. If you learn of anything, or think of anything new, bring it to me. And when Mrs Calder wakes up, give her my best wishes.’ Munro nodded, wheeled about and strode out of the room.
‘I still think that man’s a dimwit,’ Sir Peter said, ‘but we’d best take his warning to heart. I can manage without your brother-in-law for a week or two. He’ll need time to get his cottage dried out, but keep him with you as much as you can.’
‘I’ll be needing help at the shop.’
‘Of course. And bring him over here for a bite to eat, about eightish?’
‘Right,’ Keith said. ‘Thanks. And can I borrow a couple of your Labradors?’
‘Of course. Which ones?’
‘Whichever bark loudest.’
*
Keith had to pause on the shop’s back doorstep for a minute, nerving himself to face the shambles within. The fine weather was an insult. The rowans in the garden blazed with berries in the late sun.
Indoors, he found a more orderly scene than he could have dared to hope for. Wallace James and Ronnie were working busily in the back shop, separating tools and stock into orderly piles and clearing up, as best they could, as they went along. The place was still a wreck, but it was not the travesty that it had been.
‘How is she?’ was Ronnie’s greeting.
‘Holding her own. The doctors –’
‘I meant the wee dug,’ said Ronnie. ‘I ken about Molly – I phoned from upstairs a minute back, the phone down here’s off.’
‘The vet says he’ll know about Tanya tomorrow.’ Keith looked around him. ‘You two . . . I don’t know what I’d have done . . .’
Ronnie shuffled his feet. ‘Och, well! Janet was here for an hour, too. Mostly we’ve just been sorting things for him through there.’ Ronnie nodded towards the front shop.
‘Who’s there?’
‘Mannie from the insurance. So he said.’
In the front shop Keith found a bald man with glasses and a clip-board fingering through his stock. ‘You’re quick off the mark,’ Keith said.
The man smirked. ‘We were through about the flood,’ he said. ‘Just to make sure that our policy-holders had claim forms and weren’t hosing down any bits of furniture they wanted to replace. So when the news broke about your fire Mr Gulliver sent me down to tackle this straight away.’ His tone suggested that the words just in case you were applying a blow-lamp to any stock you wanted to replace had been bitten off.
‘Andrew Gulliver
?’ Keith said with relief. ‘Is he here? Hear that, Ronnie? We’ll have to give him a morning at the ducks.’ Gulliver was an old friend and shooting companion. He was also chief investigator to the group of insurance companies.
Ronnie’s voice came mournfully. ‘We can’t. Bloody council have pulled the plug out. They cleared the culvert.’
‘He’s up at the canal, Mr Calder,’ said the man, ‘looking into the reason for the big spill. There may be the question of offsetting the losses.’ (Keith glanced round. Wallace James had busied himself in a far corner, but his ears were scarlet.) ‘Would you run through these guns with me and give me your opinion as to whether each is undamaged, repairable or a write-off? Any that we don’t agree about, we can get an independent opinion.’
‘Would tomorrow morning do?’
‘Certainly. And if you have such things as price lists it would help.’
‘Aren’t they here?’
‘The police took ilka damn piece of paper away,’ Ronnie said. ‘They made a muckle show of it, almost hired a speaker-van to say there wasn’t enough paper left here to wipe your arse. I can see why,’ he added.
‘I’ll get the price lists back tomorrow.’ Keith sighed and turned back into the workshop. ‘You two had better keep time-sheets; you’re entitled to remuneration, and I’ll claim it off the insurance. Ronnie, the boss invites us both to dinner at the hotel, and he says he can spare you to help me out for a while.’
‘Glad to. You’ll help with the deer cull after?’
‘Of course. And you’ll stay on at Briesland House for a bit?’ Keith turned and looked out of the open door, leaning against the jamb. He did not want the others to see his face. He kept his voice steady. ‘Wallace, would you like a job here for a few months? Until they get the canal back into service?’
‘Minding the shop?’ Wallace asked. He wondered if anyone but a callous bastard would buy himself leisure as soon as his wife was hospitalised.
Keith gave his eyes a surreptitious wipe and turned back into the room. ‘That and anything else you can relieve me of,’ he said. ‘Even before this happened I was looking for someone suitable. Molly’s been getting busier and busier with the house, and I’ve been trying to run the shop, work as a gunsmith and give lessons in between times. On top of all that I’ve got a second line going in antique firearms, and it’s demanding more attention that I can give it. And I was hoping to start writing a handbook on military flintlocks. Now, to cap it all, I’ve got to take over the paperwork, deal with the insurance company, rebuild my business and go hospital visiting. Well,’ Keith said despairingly, ‘I can’t do it all. Even with Ronnie, I couldn’t do it; there was a flood of mail came in this morning that I haven’t even opened yet.’
The Revenge Game Page 4