Bloodlines (Three Oaks Book 8)

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘It could have been,’ Beth said, frowning. ‘Now that you mention it, I think it was.’

  ‘Were you questioned?’ I asked Hannah.

  Hannah nodded solemnly. She was turning into an attractive young woman with regular features enhanced by a humorous nose. She and Daffy had at one time been at daggers drawn but I was amused to see that the original antipathy had been overcome to the point that Daffy was now helping Hannah with her makeup. Hannah would never have thought of green tinselled eye-shadow on her own. ‘They asked me a lot of questions,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t answer most of them. I said I didn’t know whether you’d gone out on Thursday evening. Well, I didn’t know what you’d want me to say.’

  ‘Shall I phone the Inspector and set the record straight?’ Beth asked me.

  ‘No!’ Henry said sharply. I felt Beth jump. ‘It’s too late for changing stories now,’ he said more softly. ‘Time enough to mention that you’re unsure which day if they want a formal statement. Otherwise you’d only make him suspect collusion.’

  ‘He’ll suspect it anyway . . . in addition to whatever else he’s already suspecting. He seemed to know all about my dislike of Ben Garnet. You surely didn’t tell him about that?’ I asked Beth.

  Beth and Hannah shook their heads.

  Mr Fergusson chuckled drily. ‘Aabody kens you canna’ thole the man,’ he said. Again, now that he was no longer setting a good example for Guffy, he had let down his guard and relapsed into his native dialect. ‘You never speak to him if you can hold wide of him. Farivver he is, you’re as hyne-awa as you can get. And, what’s more, Garnet hissel’s been going around and telling folk that you’ll like him a damn sight less when he’s made you sign his form about the pups.’ He shook his head in lofty disapproval. ‘You’re no’ alone, mind. There’s hardly a soul for miles around will give him the time of day. It’s a wonder the mannie’s wife can abide him. A nice-like body she is.’

  ‘She’s loyal,’ Joe said. ‘If she hears him tell a lie, or somebody repeats it to her, she just says that it’s only Ben’s way.’

  ‘Before he went out on Thursday night, what had Mr Garnet told her?’ Beth asked Joe. ‘Did she say?’

  ‘Aye.’ Joe looked at me. ‘He telled her he was coming to see you. He said he was going to make you sign some paper about the pups. I’m sorry, Mr Cunningham, but that’s what he told his wife and it’s what she told the police.’

  ‘Well, it beats me,’ I said after some seconds of thought. ‘He didn’t tell her how he proposed to make me sign?’

  ‘If he did, she didn’t tell me,’ Joe said.

  The company looked solemn and sympathetic but I could guess what kind of stories would do the rounds.

  Mr Fergusson and the two beaters left soon after that but Beth and I felt too disturbed to go back with them to what was left of the shoot. As he went out of the door, Joe stopped for a moment. ‘I’ll not forget what you and Mrs Kitts have done for Jumbo,’ he said. ‘He’s a’most as near to family as I’ve got.’ With that for thanks he followed the others to the Land Rover.

  ‘I thought that he had a brother or something,’ I said ‘But I know what he means.’

  Beth went to recover Sam from his nursery in what had once been the spare bedroom while I returned the sitting room to collect glasses. The telephone cum answering machine was half hidden by one of Beth’s indoor plants, a lemon-scented geranium, but as I reached for a used whisky glass I saw that the little green light was flashing.

  ‘Have there been any incoming phone calls?’ I asked Isobel.

  She broke off her discussion with Henry. ‘Not for a day or two, to my knowledge,’ she said.

  So it was probably a genuine message and not just the result of a call which had been taken while the answering function was switched on. I pressed the Play button.

  An unnatural falsetto voice reached clearly to every corner of the room. ‘You’d better sign that form about the pups,’ it said, ‘or something terrible’s going happen. Just terrible.’

  There was a long silence on the line, except for an intermittent background buzz as though the caller had a bluebottle in the room with him.

  *

  Despite the shock, my mind was still working. The first thing that I did was to switch off the answering function—otherwise, now that the call had been played, the next incoming call would have overlaid the message.

  Henry and Isobel were staring. ‘How long has that been on there?’ I asked the world in general.

  ‘No idea,’ Isobel said. ‘The telephone’s been very quiet for a day or two, or maybe three. It’s like that at times. It rings twenty times a day for a week, and then nothing.’

  ‘And I’ve been busy,’ I said. ‘I listened to a message on Wednesday. I’ve been too busy to look at the thing since then.’

  ‘There’s not a lot of point paying rental for it if nobody listens to the messages,’ Isobel said loftily.

  ‘It cost peanuts more than the phone without the answering bit,’ I said. ‘But each of us expects the others to attend to it. We’ll have to set up a routine.’

  ‘Before you start one of your interminable board meetings,’ Henry said, ‘may I point out that the sooner you play the message to your friend the Inspector the less scope he’ll have for suggesting that you put it there yourself as a distraction.’

  He had a point. I called the headquarters at Kirkcaldy and they promised to contact the Inspector by radio. As it turned out, he and Sergeant McAndrew were still at the village police station where our local bobby was assisting the investigation by providing a room and cups of tea. By the time that Beth had returned, listened to the message and dispatched Sam to exercise the pups with Daffy—a chore which he always enjoyed—the two officers had returned, bringing the local man with them.

  We waited while they listened intently to the brief recording. This time, I remembered to hold down the save key so that the message would not be overlaid. ‘It’s not very clear.’ The Inspector glanced round our faces, seeking inspiration. ‘Is there always that buzzing in the background?’

  ‘I hadn’t noticed it before,’ I said.

  ‘When did this message arrive?’

  ‘We don’t know. Some time after Wednesday.’

  Henry cleared his throat. Henry is an elderly man with a modest manner but he was once a moderately big wheel in the City. I don’t know how he does it, but when he indicates that he intends to speak, silence falls. I have a similar knack but it only works with dogs.

  ‘I seem to remember that the little green light was flashing twice,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t that mean that there’s another call which hasn’t been listened to?’

  I played the threatening message again and left the machine running. After another long silence, the caller hung up, to be followed by a routine message from the owner of a poodle in the quarantine kennels, wanting to be assured that her darling was alive and well.

  ‘That doesn’t take us very far,’ Isobel said.

  ‘It does, you know,’ I retorted.

  The Inspector listened at one shoulder and Beth at the other while I called the lady, set her mind at rest and apologized for the delay in ringing her back. She told me that she had called on the afternoon of the previous day. She had no idea at what time. I thanked her and disconnected.

  ‘The only time the house was empty yesterday afternoon,’ Beth said, ‘was between about two and two-thirty.’

  ‘So there we are. The threatening call was made some time between Wednesday and those times yesterday afternoon,’ I said.

  The Inspector nodded without commenting. I could see that his mind was busy coming to terms with the challenge to his favourite theory. ‘You don’t recognize the voice in the recording?’ he asked.

  ‘Have a heart, Inspector!’ Isobel said. ‘It said very few words in an obviously disguised voice.

  ‘On top of which,’ Henry said, ‘the real culprit could very easily have had somebody unknown to us relay the message.’
/>   ‘Or even have had somebody put the words on tape and then played it over the phone,’ said Beth.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s so,’ the Inspector said. ‘I’ll have our technicians try to clarify the message and see what else they can tell us. They may even be able to make a useful voiceprint, though I wouldn’t count on it. I’m afraid I’ll have to take your phone away with me.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ I said quickly.

  He bridled, his suspicions revived. ‘Why do you object?’

  ‘You’re welcome to borrow the instrument provided that you give me a receipt,’ I said. ‘But as soon as it’s unplugged, you’ll lose the message. In fact, I’ll transfer it to tape now in case of a power cut.’

  The Inspector looked at his Sergeant, who nodded. ‘Do that,’ the Inspector said. ‘And I’ll have a technician come here with some rather more sophisticated equipment and transfer—’

  The interruption came with a slamming of doors and a patter of feet. Daffy burst into the room with Sam in her arms. She was a weird enough sight in her calf-length leather skirt over what looked like army boots, her synthetic leopardskin duffel coat and with the usual fluorescent stripe in her hair—silver that day, I remember. The wild look in her eye turned her into something from a horror movie. I saw the Inspector flinch.

  My heart was in my mouth at the thought that some disaster had overtaken Sam. But Daffy dumped him hastily in Beth’s arms and I could see that although he was upset he was unhurt.

  ‘Come quickly,’ Daffy said. ‘Something’s happened to Accer.’

  ‘What?’ Isobel asked forcefully.

  ‘Don’t know.’ She looked pointedly at Sam. Beth, as though by accident, covered Sam’s ears. ‘Looks like poison,’ Daffy said.

  Beth gave Sam to Henry and the rest of us followed Daffy outside. Sand, put down to save us from skidding in the icy conditions, gritted underfoot as we hurried along the path. The kennels were arranged in blocks of four and Accer’s was at the furthest corner. The spaniel was lying in the middle of the small run. Vomit stained his usually snowy muzzle and the ground around him. Hannah, caring nothing for the mess, was kneeling down and cradling his head. As we arrived I thought that he tried to move his tail. His eyes were open and they sought mine. A spaniel’s eyes can be the most expressive in the world. They can express love and trust. And fear . . .

  I forced myself to kneel and add my comfort to Hannah’s.

  Isobel, more practical, was looking around the run. ‘If he ate something,’ she said, ‘he ate all of it. Damnation! Get him into the surgery and I’ll do what I can, but not knowing what it was doesn’t help. From the blue colour of his sick it could be slug pellets. And he’s brought up what could have been a piece of steak. I’ll have to wash him out and assume slug pellets—that’s the easiest poison for anyone to get hold of without leaving a record behind them. Come on.’

  Accer was light, much lighter than Jumbo. I picked him up in my arms and ran to the house. Shudders shook his small frame as though he were trying to vomit again, but nothing came. Isobel was ahead of me, opening doors. In the surgery, which had been converted out of a former scullery, Jumbo, still snoring, had been moved to a basket in a corner. I put Accer on the steel table.

  ‘Now go,’ Isobel said. ‘All of you. Daffy can stay and help me.’

  Hannah and I cleaned the traces of Accer’s vomit off ourselves in the kitchen and then joined the others in the sitting room. The fire was dying. I put on a couple of dry logs and gave it a stir. Any scrap of comfort helps to counteract a worry or a sorrow. Henry had vanished with Sam—for a walk, we discovered later. Henry could always be counted on to do the right thing. The Sergeant, I noticed, was also absent but he came in a minute or two later and nodded to the Inspector.

  ‘Samples have been taken,’ Burrard said stiffly. ‘You will be informed of any result obtained.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Tell me, how could somebody from outside get at a dog in that way?’

  ‘Easily,’ said Beth. ‘We keep to a fairly regular routine and sometimes there are quite long periods when there’s nobody out at the front. Anyway, somebody in the road beyond the wall could lob a piece of meat as far as the runs.’

  ‘That assumes that he didn’t care which dog was poisoned.’

  ‘You heard the message,’ Beth said. ‘He probably didn’t give a damn.’ Her voice broke on the last word, turning it into a curse. She turned away and sniffed in her handkerchief. I wished that I could do the same. I had developed one of my fondnesses for Accer.

  ‘I don’t know who did it,’ Hannah said huskily, ‘but I’ll kill him if I can.’

  She left the room but turned back immediately as Isobel came through from the surgery, pulling off her latex gloves. ‘I lost him,’ Isobel said.

  There was the sound of a car outside. Looking out, I saw that Charles Hopgood had come to visit Accer. The late Accer.

  *

  Detective Inspector Burrard, no doubt, could see as well as we could that the poisoning had to be connected with the threatening message and that the message itself had some connection with the attack on Ben Garnet. He never made any open accusations but it seemed to me that he had convinced himself that a smokescreen was being put up by one or more of us. He would very much have liked to keep us separated and yet under supervision until each of us had been questioned and our statements recorded.

  He went outside but we could hear him clearly. Over his radio he requested and then demanded support which, it was soon clear, would not be forthcoming as long as Ben Garnet continued to make a recovery. The Inspector was sure that the case was one of attempted murder while his superiors preferred to regard it as one of common assault. Even in the police force it is only human to believe what one wants to believe.

  Burrard’s tactics and attitude then perforce underwent a quick change and he asked us, quite politely by his standards, to remain segregated and incommunicado. But to no avail. We scattered and he was left to catch who he could for questioning and to hope in vain that the others were not discussing recent events. Isobel insisted on leaving the house in order to collect samples of Accer’s vomit for independent analysis; Daffy and Hannah had the best of reasons for resuming the ongoing work of the kennels; it was my sad duty to explain the disaster to Charles Hopgood; Beth was adamant that everybody who had missed lunch must be fed forthwith and she would not be deterred; Sam had made up his mind that he was not going to be parted from Daffy; and Henry was trying to mediate between the various parties and calm the rising hysteria. The Sergeant went off with Isobel to witness the taking of the unlovely samples and then to take her statement.

  I broke the news to Charles in the sitting room, still littered with the aftermath of the morning’s company but now deserted except for ourselves and the Detective Inspector. Burrard may have felt that in Charles he had a character in the drama who was unaware of the plot to date and who might therefore let slip whatever we might be concealing. If so, he was to be disappointed.

  On the whole, Charles gave a creditable impression of one who is taking the news well. I saw him close his eyes for a moment as if in pain or prayer. ‘But why would anybody do such a thing?’ he asked huskily.

  ‘We don’t know,’ I said. ‘We can only guess.’ I kept one eye on Burrard as I began to explain about the threatening message, but the Detective Inspector made no move to object.

  Charles decided to answer his own question. ‘Either a sick mind or an evil one,’ he said, ‘to be so desperate for one spaniel as to kill another one just to ram home a threat.’

  ‘That’s exactly what we were thinking. Of course, I’ll refund the purchase price,’ I told him.

  ‘No need for that,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’m sure that no blame attaches to you.’

  ‘I had him insured.’

  The approximation to a smile which Charles managed to produce could have been used to scare away witches. ‘So did I,’ he said.

  ‘Then we’ll let our insurers sort it out bet
ween them,’ I said. ‘It seems that neither of us should be out pocket. I can’t offer you another Accer—he was the last of his litter—but we have some rather younger dogs coming along. They’ll be ready by next season.’

  Emotions chased each other over his face. It lit up, then clouded. Finally he laughed at himself. ‘I’m not sure that I’m ready yet,’ he said. ‘It hasn’t sunk in. I not even sure that I quite believe it.’

  ‘Would you like . . .’ I nearly said to view the remains but checked myself in time, ‘. . . to see him?’ I finished.

  He shook his head emphatically. ‘I’m being foolish. When you suggested another dog, I started wondering if it wouldn’t be disloyal to Accer. Then it came to me that I’d only met him once and known him for about an hour.’ He sighed gustily. ‘It shows you how a dog can get under your skin in that short time. Kipling warned us against “giving your heart to a dog to tear”.’

  ‘He was right,’ I said. ‘But I do it all the time. Not to be recommended, in my job.’

  ‘All the same, perhaps it’s why you’re good at it,’ he said. ‘Common sense says that I should choose another dog, forget Accer and get on with my life. But if common sense ruled our emotions it would . . .’

  ‘Be a very different world?’

  ‘Exactly.’ He sighed again. ‘I don’t promise anything but, yes, show me another one if you like. Perhaps it’s akin to getting back on the horse that threw you.’ He paused and gave a small shiver. ‘Liver and white, if you can. I don’t think I could take to another black and white dog so soon after hanging my hopes on poor Accer.’

  ‘These are cousins of Accer,’ I said. ‘There’s a black and white dog not yet spoken for.’ Suddenly I couldn’t wait to get out of the house. ‘Come on then,’ I said. ‘It’ll take both our minds off it.’

  ‘Just a minute,’ the Inspector said sternly. He had been a silent spectator, probably wondering what on earth got into so many of us that we should value a dog so high. ‘I must ask you to remain here for the moment.’

  It seemed to me that Burrard was only trying to reimpose his dominance. But too much of my life had been spent obeying ill-considered orders. ‘Tell me why,’ I said.