Two men in overcoats were trying to gain my attention. By now, there were more than enough people to handle Jumbo so I turned to the newcomers. I saw Mr Fergusson give them a look as if recognizing not the men but the species.
‘Captain Cunningham?’
‘Mister Cunningham,’ I said for the hundred thousandth time. My army career ended when I fell desperately ill and I see no reason to continue calling myself ‘Captain’ and several good reasons why I should not. But my name must be associated with that rank in the innards of some badly advised computer and, however firmly I try to eradicate it, from time to time it emerges again like flame from a smouldering fire.
‘Mr Cunningham, then. And Mrs Cunningham?’
‘Yes,’ Beth said.
There was challenge in her tone. She had sensed something that I had missed. I came alert and looked at the speaker. He was a burly man, looking more so in a thick overcoat. His head was square. His face was highly coloured and being rather flat with a pair of obtrusive front teeth it had a babyish look. All the same, something in the expression suggested strength. His companion was less bulky and seemed altogether more self-effacing.
‘Inspector Burrard, Fife CID. And Sergeant McAndrew. We want a few words.’
The Inspector’s voice was deep and slightly hoarse, almost rasping. I could have given him more than a few of the words he wanted, beginning with an exhortation to go a long way away and stay there. But a sedated Jumbo was vanishing into the house, borne and accompanied by a procession of anxious helpers, and there were no other immediate calls on my attention. So, instead, ‘Do you have any identification?’ I asked.
The look which he shot at and through me was intended to convey that I was only a member of the faceless public and had a bloody nerve to ask such a question, but he undid the top button of his overcoat and produced identification, complete with his photograph. It looked genuine. Sergeant McAndrew was similarly equipped.
I was feeling a little bit peevish, one of my rare days out having been spoiled by yet another dog unable to keep out of trouble; and my recent experience of the police was mainly of zealous officers wanting to know more than they were strictly entitled to ask about such matters as firearms certificates and the 1968 Act. ‘What could we have done for you if we’d happened to feel like it?’ I asked sourly. ‘And whatever it was, let’s talk about it somewhere out of the cold. Shall we go inside?’
As I spoke, I glanced towards the house. Henry was watching anxiously from the sitting-room window but he sidestepped out of sight as the Inspector looked round.
‘Your house seems to be as peaceful as Waverly Station on a holiday weekend,’ Burrard said with sourness to match mine. He made it sound as though the house was full of terrorists, drug addicts or child molesters. His accent was faint but I thought that it was the near-Glasgow accent of Dundee. ‘We’ll be better off in the cars. Unless you’d rather come down to the station?’
We might have been more comfortable at the police station in the village, although knowing the old building I doubted it. In any case, something in Burrard’s manner made me feel that I would rather be where my friends could see me from the windows of the house.
‘The cars,’ I said. Beth agreed.
The two cars that had brought the police were parked side by side. Another man, I presumed a driver, opened a door of a Range Rover for the Inspector and myself and then took the front passenger’s seat, balancing a notebook on the dashboard. Beth and the Sergeant took the back seat of the humbler car. The Sergeant, it seemed, had to make his own notes.
Inspector Burrard produced a small tape recorder and started the reels turning. ‘You won’t mind us recording what’s said as well as taking it down. We like to be sure that the statement we ask you to sign is exactly what you’ve told us.’
No question had been asked so I made no comment. ‘What’s this about?’ I asked him.
‘You don’t have to say anything. But whatever you say will be taken down as well as being recorded and may be used in evidence.’
If he was tossing Statutory Warnings around, the matter was serious. But my conscience, on cursory inspection, was clear. ‘What’s it about?’ I asked again.
‘Would you care to make a guess?’
I could see that it was meant as a trap and a rather obvious one—unless the Inspector was especially subtle in which case the wrong answer would be to pretend not to see the obvious. I gave some thought to the question. ‘Some traffic cops came here late one evening,’ I said at last. ‘I think it was Thursday, the night before last. We were given to understand that somebody had been knocked down by a hit-and-run driver near here. From all the sudden activity in the road this morning, I assumed that he’d died. Some people are only important once they’re dead. Am I getting warm?’
‘Barely tepid,’ said the Inspector.
‘I can’t say that I’m surprised. I didn’t see how a traffic accident could concern a detective inspector, but I couldn’t think of anything else. You’d better tell me.’
Once again he avoided a direct answer. ‘I think you know Mr Benjamin Garnet, of Highhirst Farmhouse?’
‘We’ve met,’ I said cautiously.
‘What kind of relationship did you have with him?’
This could be dangerous. On the other hand, my dislike of Ben Garnet was public knowledge. If something unpleasant had happened to Garnet, I might just as well reveal my true feelings by giving three cheers. I would not be alone. To try to hide my feelings would be more suspicious by far.
‘I make damn sure that I don’t have any relationship with him. If he’s not a crook,’ I said, ‘he comes very near it. I try not to meet him. But he’s never quite robbed me yet.’
‘You’ve no call to resent him at all?’
‘I wouldn’t say that. He got away, by sharp practice, with the sporting rights to a shoot that we depended on for dog training. We lost the facility, some income plus all the work we’d put into it.’
‘So you hated him?’
‘That would be putting it rather strong,’ I said. ‘I despised him as I despise anyone who can’t get by without ripping off his neighbour. He seems to pull a fast one, not just when he needs to but as a matter of principle even if he must know that in the long run it’s going to rebound against him. Is he dead?’
‘Why do you ask that?’ the Inspector demanded.
‘Because you suddenly used the past tense.’
Burrard looked both disappointed and surprised. ‘I believe I did. A slip of the tongue. Am I right in thinking that there was some friction between you over his spaniel bitch?’
‘Not on my side,’ I said. Burrard waited. I decided that I had nothing to lose by going on. ‘When his bitch was in high season, Ben Garnet put her in the way of my stud dog. It was a blatant, and successful, attempt to steal a valuable service. What he forgot is that it’s no use to him unless I certify that my dog is the sire of the pups, for registration purposes. And I’m damned if I’ll do it.
‘Why not?’
I outlined for the Detective Inspector the same reasons that I had given Ben Garnet. He only grunted. For all I could tell he might have been signifying that those reasons were hardly grounds for thwarting a neighbour or, alternatively, that they furnished ample motive for murder. He leaned forward and glanced at the other car. My eyes followed. When I had looked across a moment earlier, Beth and the Sergeant had seemed to be having no more than a pleasant chat, but now I saw that she was looking anxious. A small but definite signal passed between the Sergeant and his superior, but I was unable to interpret it.
The Inspector sat back, looking pleased with himself. ‘Tell me how you spent Thursday evening,’ he said. ‘The night before last.’
‘Tell me why you want the information,’ I said, although I could have made a perfectly good guess. The Detective Inspector’s manner seemed to expect the worst from me and made me want to give it.
‘Would that knowledge affect your answer?’ he aske
d.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Of course not.’
‘Then you don’t need to know just yet. First you satisfy my curiosity and then I’ll satisfy yours.’
Once again I felt that innocence was defence enough and that we might as well get the unhappy business over and done with. I wonder now how many innocents have talked their way into trouble, using the same reasoning. ‘Mrs Kitts, my other partner, left with her husband to go home at about six,’ I said. ‘We took our evening meal a little later. One of the kennel-maids, the one known as Daffy, had gone off early because her husband’s at home from his oil rig. The other kennel-maid, Hannah, ate with us and then went off to her room at the back to watch television.
‘Beth went to get Sam, our son, ready for bed while I washed up. Then we both saw him into bed and I read him a story. When he fell asleep, around seven-thirty, we came downstairs.
‘You’re sure of all this?’ he asked.
I watched a lone blackbird scavenging under the shrubs while I thought about it. ‘I don’t have a clear recollection of that particular evening,’ I said at last. ‘I’ve given you our usual routine which, as far as I remember, is how Thursday evening went. Any departure from it would have stuck in my memory.’
‘Go on.’
‘I remember what came next. The sitting room was chilly. It hadn’t been occupied that day. We couldn’t be bothered lighting a fire to supplement the central heating. The television’s in there but there was nothing on the box that either of us wanted to see. So we settled down in the basket chairs in the kitchen, as we often do if we’re alone. Beth had a book and I was writing on my knee.’
‘Writing what?’ the Inspector asked keenly.
I sighed. ‘I can’t imagine what possible interest that can be to you, Inspector,’ I said. ‘But in fact I’m drafting a book about spaniel breeding, training, care and competition. It may never get published, but the existing books are beginning to date and I’ve already had a nibble from a publisher.’
The Inspector let me see that he found my literary ambitions supremely uninteresting. ‘What else?’ he said.
‘Very little. About nine-thirty we had a cup of tea. An hour later, we were thinking of going up to bed. We keep early hours, Inspector; dogs don’t lie in in the morning. Then—and this is how I come to remember Thursday evening—that’s when two constables arrived at the door, wanting to know whether we’d seen or heard anything unusual.’
‘And had you?’
‘Not a thing. I wasn’t even aware of any cars going past. We don’t hear them much through the double glazing or see the lights through our thick curtains.’
‘I see.’ The Inspector drummed his fingers on his knee. ‘And you and Mrs Cunningham were together all evening?’ he asked very casually.
‘As far as I can remember, yes. Either of us may have gone for a pee . . .’
‘But you didn’t go outside?’ he persisted.
I yawned. This was all very boring. ‘Not that I remember,’ I said. ‘Bear in mind that until the officers came to the door it was an evening like a thousand others. I wasn’t keeping notes or memorizing my movements.’
The Inspector raised his eyebrows. Then, leaning forward, he signalled to the Sergeant, who came to occupy the driver’s seat in the Range Rover, which I took to be the Inspector’s car. Beth, with several worried looks over her shoulder, went into the house.
‘Mr Cunningham says that he was with his wife all evening,’ said the Inspector.
Boredom was gone in an instant. ‘That is not what I said,’ I told him sharply, ‘and you know it. Play the tape back.’
‘No need for that just now,’ the Inspector said. ‘Plenty of time later. What did Mrs Cunningham say?’
The Sergeant looked almost apologetic. I gathered that he had no liking for a scene which had clearly been scripted. ‘According to Mrs Cunningham, her husband went outside before nine o’clock. He was absent for about half an hour.’
‘What have you got to say about that?’ the Inspector shot at me.
I felt the blood rush to my face. ‘I haven’t “got” to say anything,’ I retorted. ‘But if Beth told you that that’s what happened, she may well be right. I do sometimes go out for a last look at the dogs and there’s a limit to how much original writing one can do at a sitting. I just didn’t think that it had happened on the evening that the two cops from Traffic came in about the hit-and-run. I told you that I had no particular reason to remember.’
‘I see,’ the Inspector said. When I was a subaltern I had served under a company commander who had the same knack of putting disbelief into a tone of voice and the lift of an eyebrow. ‘And while you were out, did you see or hear anything?’
‘If I had, I’d have told your officers.’
‘Those officers must have arrived shortly after you came in from your walk.’
‘That’s one reason why I think that my wife’s mistaken about which evening I went outside.’
‘I see.’ The Inspector’s voice held so much doubt that I could feel my colour rising. ‘Mr Cunningham, would you have any objection to having your fingerprints taken?’
‘None,’ I said. There would have been no point in objecting. One way or another they would certainly obtain them. ‘And now, I think that that explanation is due.’
‘You’re sure that you can’t guess?’
I would have had to be as thick as a mattress not to have a fairly dependable idea by now, but I weighed my words carefully. ‘Obviously something happened on Thursday evening. The only event I know about was the supposed hit-and-run between here and the village. My guess is that you have reason to believe that it wasn’t accidental. And you asked about Ben Garnet. If he wasn’t the victim, then I can’t imagine where he comes into it.’
‘There you are,’ the Inspector said comfortably. ‘You didn’t need me to tell you after all. What would have brought Mr Garnet to this vicinity?’
‘Your guess would be as good as mine,’ I told him. ‘Perhaps he was going to have one more go at persuading me to sign his form.’
‘And could he have done so?’
I nearly listed a number of extraordinary events which would have had to take place before I could have been persuaded to sign the form. Instead, I said, ‘No.’
‘And you’ve nothing else to tell me?’
I said, ‘No,’ again.
The Sergeant had a portable fingerprint kit with him. When they had my prints safely recorded, they entered their separate cars and departed. It was a safe bet that we had not seen the last of them.
Chapter Four
I washed the ink off my fingers in the empty kitchen and joined the crowd in the sitting room where a fire was burning and a party seemed to be in progress.
Surgery had been completed and the patient, I gathered, was expected to make a full recovery. Mr Fergusson, with Joe and Joe’s crony, could have gone back to rejoin the shooting party. I thought perhaps that they were waiting for us to go with them, but it seemed that the visit of the police, flavoured by generous drinks from our sideboard, was of greater interest. Joe in particular had no interest in shooting without Jumbo being along for support while Mr Fergusson seemed glad of an excuse to take the weight off his feet. Even Hannah and Daffy, who should have been busy feeding or humanizing pups or cleaning runs, had joined the throng.
Every chair was occupied so I took a seat on an arm beside Beth. Her fingers, I noticed when she laced them with mine, still showed faint traces of ink. Henry, who had been doing the honours as he often did, poured me a glass of Guinness. We seemed to have the makings of a good ceilidh. The fire had been lit in honour of the occasion although, between the central heating and the number of bodies present, the room was becoming uncomfortably warm.
‘Well?’ Beth said. All eyes were on me.
‘The Inspector was remarkably unforthcoming,’ I said. ‘All I was able to gather was that Ben Garnet was the victim of the hit-and-run on Thursday night and that they think it was
deliberate. I suppose he’s dead.’
‘That he’s not,’ Joe said. ‘I’m working on Mr Hopgood’s house, see, just across the field that Mr Garnet calls his paddock. We’re making ready for the founds but we need a break in the weather before we dare pour the concrete. Mrs Garnet spoke to me as I was lowsing last night. She said they found Mr Garnet’s car in the pub car park here but the police weren’t letting her have it back yet. She asked me to give her a lift in my old van to go and see her man in the hospital.’ Joe was a large young man and very strong and with a heart as big as himself. ‘I waited and brought her back,’ he said. ‘Mr Garnet wasn’t dead. She’d’ve said,’ he explained carefully.
He might, I thought, have died later, just to please me. ‘What did she say, then?’ I asked.
‘She said he’d an awfu’ concussion. Just beginning to make sense, she said, and there’s gaps in his memory, but they think he’ll be a’ right in the end. Oh, and it wasna’ a hit-and-run. They thocht it was at first but there was no vehicle in’t at a’. He was hit with something. The doctors found a hell of a lump on his head and none of the other bruises and scrapes he’d’ve had if he’d been knocked down.’
Inspector Burrard had not told me any lies but it seemed that he had been far from frank. I wondered just how much damage might have been done. I have a faith, which sometimes seems to be misplaced, in the outcome of British justice and I had no fear of being convicted of an assault on Ben Garnet; but I knew that suspicion could lead to infinite time wasting, harassment and general nuisance, while if it went to the length of a prosecution there would be more of the same plus considerable legal costs.
Daffy stirred. ‘I’ll go and give the pups their second feed,’ she said reluctantly. She looked at Hannah, who avoided her eye. Daffy went out, closing the door ungently behind her.
I took the vacated chair. ‘You told the Sergeant I went out on Thursday evening?’ I asked Beth.
Beth looked stricken. ‘I thought you did. My God! Was I wrong?’
‘I thought it was Wednesday that I went for a late stroll to see that the dogs were settled.’
Bloodlines (Three Oaks Book 8) Page 5