Bloodlines (Three Oaks Book 8)

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘I shall want a statement from you.’ I could tell that even to himself it sounded weak.

  I felt my temper beginning to slip. The stresses of the day were telling on me. ‘You’ll get it when I’m ready,’ I told him. ‘For the moment, we have been trying very hard to tell you everything that led up to the time when the poisoned dog was found,’ I pointed out with some force. ‘If you care to believe that we were pulling the wool, that’s your problem and not ours. From that moment on, you were present. Meanwhile, our lives have to go on. I’m not going more than a couple of hundred yards away. Come with us if you wish. Otherwise, take your own statement or go and bother somebody else for half an hour but leave us alone.’

  I waited.

  Burrard thought for a moment and then decided to give in gracefully rather than force a confrontation. ‘Very well,’ he said with dignity.

  ‘Come on, then, Charles.’

  We collected our coats. In passing the kitchen we somehow found ourselves each with a mug of soup in one hand and a hot dog in the other. When Beth makes up her mind that somebody should eat, there is no avoiding it.

  Charles paused outside the back door. ‘I wouldn’t push the Inspector too hard if I were you,’ he said.

  ‘You’re probably right. He puts my back up. You do still want a male dog?’ I asked, as we trod the paths through the frosted garden.

  ‘I’ve always preferred them. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s just that they don’t come into season just when you need them most.’

  ‘This was a litter of seven, of mixed colours.’ I racked my memory. ‘The dam and one paternal grandsire were champions. I think that’s right—Isobel can fill in the details. Four were sold as pups and I still have two of those here in training for the owners. The other three I’m bringing on to sell as trained or part-trained. One’s a bitch and one of the dogs is black and white, leaving you a choice of one.’

  ‘Which saves a whole lot of decision making,’ Charles said.

  ‘It’s just yes or no,’ I agreed. ‘He’s just such another forceful character as Accer. He’s been showing up well in early training and if you come back at a less fraught time I can let you see his dam working and put him through his paces. His full name’s Cedar of Three Oaks but we call him Sid for short.’

  ‘If I take him—and it’s a big if—I’d call him Hob. Short for Hobson. Hobson’s choice.’

  ‘He’s still young enough to accept a change of name,’ I said.

  At the kennels, Daffy and Sam were letting some of the younger pups exercise themselves on the grass. We gave her our empty mugs.

  ‘First,’ Charles said, ‘show me where Accer was kenneled.’ We walked to the far corner, not far from the wall and the road. From the signs, Isobel and the Sergeant had finished and Daffy had already cleaned up. ‘An easy throw,’ Charles remarked.

  ‘He needn’t have entered the property at all,’ I agreed.

  Charles nodded. ‘What’s in my mind is that he needn’t have been after Accer in particular or getting at me through him.’

  We turned back. Sam detached himself and ran to take both our hands.

  Charles seemed flattered but kept his mind on the business in hand. ‘That’s rather a relief,’ he said.

  I wondered why he should be expecting any such hostile action, but this was not a good time to ask. Sam was capable of taking in every word and repeating them. ‘I think you can take it that it was a blow struck at my partnership,’ I said.

  Charles would have asked more questions but I discouraged him with a headshake and a downward glance.

  Sid came to stand up against the wire of his run, his docked tail flicking like a windscreen wiper. When Charles entered the run, Sid took one look, sniffed one sniff, rolled onto his back and whined in ecstasy as Charles stooped to rub his stomach.

  Charles looked round at me. ‘You must have put him up to that,’ he said. ‘May I take him for a walk?’

  ‘I come too?’ Sam said quickly.

  ‘If that’s all right by your dad,’ Charles told him.

  I decided that Charles was both sensible and trustworthy. ‘Come back to the house for a lead,’ I said. ‘And a ball or a dummy. You can try him out with a simple retrieve or two. Stop if he gets bored.’ Then I wondered if I was not being rash. ‘You’ll be careful,’ I warned, ‘and don’t go beyond the field.’

  ‘I understand,’ he said. He was looking serious. I thought that the wound left by Accer’s death, which had hardly begun to heal, might be the best possible guarantee that he would be vigilant.

  I hurried ahead of them, back to the house. Whatever Detective Inspector Burrard was being told, I wanted to know about.

  Henry, well wrapped against the chill of the day, was pacing about outside the front door, keeping an eye on Daffy and watched in his turn by Burrard’s driver. Henry caught my eye and raised his eyebrows in the manner of one who wants to confer.

  ‘Moment,’ I said.

  I fetched a lead and a canvas dummy for Charles. Beth was being interrogated by Detective Inspector Burrard in the kitchen. Each of them signalled to me to stay in the room. I ignored them for the moment. Burrard might have insisted but he was distracted by an incoming radio message which he seemed to find interesting and I slipped outside again.

  ‘Follow the footprints round the house right-handed,’ I told Charles, pointing the way. ‘You’ll come to the gate into the field.’ I decided to reinforce my message. ‘If you see anybody at all, come straight back in a hurry. We simply don’t know what’s going on.’

  Charles nodded. He had fetched a heavy stick from his car. ‘They’ll both be safe with me,’ he said.

  From the set of his jaw and the way he gripped his stick I was inclined to believe him. ‘And take your time,’ I said. ‘I don’t want somebody not a million miles from where we are at this moment to know more about all this than he has to.’

  ‘I understand.’

  As they moved off, Sam gave me a knowing look. I avoided his eye and joined Henry.

  ‘The reason I’m freezing my balls off out here,’ he snarled, ‘instead of toasting them in front of your fire, is that somebody should be keeping watch and I don’t see any other volunteers. Think about it. There was a threatening message on your phone. Shortly after it was put there, Ben Garnet was assaulted, perhaps murderously. And that happy but unsuccessful event was followed by the murder of one of your dogs.’

  ‘I’m aware of all this,’ I began.

  ‘But had it occurred to you that, as Beth has been pointing out over and over again to the Inspector, Ben Garnet looks very like you?’

  ‘No it hadn’t,’ I said indignantly. ‘It still hasn’t. He doesn’t.’

  ‘Don’t get on your high horse. There are some superficial differences,’ Henry admitted. ‘Only one of you looks intelligent. But the two of you are about the same height and the same skinny build. You favour the same sort of clothes. Even your voices are not dissimilar. Your outlines, in the dark . . .’

  I avoided rising to the bait about intelligence and instead gave my attention to the thought that Henry was expressing, which was new and a very long way from being welcome. My skin felt as though ants were walking up my back, through my hair and behind my ears. ‘You think he was swatted in mistake for me?’

  ‘And so does Beth. And if that Detective Inspector doesn’t soon agree, he’s wearing mental blinkers. Think of it that way round and the elements begin to make a little more sense.’

  ‘How has the Inspector been reacting to that idea?’ I asked.

  ‘Nobody knows. He doesn’t seem sure himself. To be fair, it’s not his job to react until all the facts are in. You could always ask him what he thinks.’

  My chances of getting a straight answer from the Inspector were slim. Perhaps there was a more direct method. Burrard’s driver, if that is what he was, was standing at the corner of the house and looking vacant.

  I approached him. He was an athletically built young man. In j
eans and a thin sweater he seemed impervious to the cold and something told me that it might not be wise to resist being arrested by him. For all his relaxed expression I sensed that he was alert. ‘Are you just waiting?’ I asked. ‘Or on watch? Or on guard?’

  He smiled. He still looked half asleep. ‘You could say all three,’ he replied.

  ‘You know what’s been going on?’

  He nodded. I waited. ‘A threat, an assault and a poisoning,’ he said at last. I glanced at his lapel. No radio. Without seeming to look at me he showed me the small radio in his left fist.

  ‘Help could take half an hour to respond,’ I said. ‘If anything happens, yell bloody murder. We’ll come running.’

  ‘That might not be the wisest course, even if you are ex-army.’

  ‘But my son—’ I began. I looked round and with a small spasm of fear realized that Sam was out of my sight.

  ‘—is in the field with the other gentleman,’ he finished for me without even glancing in that direction. ‘They’re hidden by the small conifer at the moment but they’re there. Quite safe.’

  Henry had followed me. I led him to one side. Charles and Sam came into view. ‘It seems that the Inspector at least considers it a possibility,’ I said. ‘Let’s go in.’

  ‘Gladly,’ Henry said.

  The Detective Inspector was still with Beth in the kitchen. He seemed to have been subjecting her to formal questioning but I noticed crumbs round his mouth. Despite the crumbs he still had the remote air of one who expects to be told tarradiddles and so takes nothing on trust. I noticed that our local bobby, Constable Buchan, had been called into service as a note taker to supplement the Inspector’s little tape recorder. They were clustered round the central table.

  ‘Mrs Cunningham has given me some more of the background,’ the Inspector said, looking round at me. ‘As I understand it, your land around the house and kennels is crossed and recrossed frequently in the normal course of business but that there are times when nobody would see an intruder. An enemy would only have to be patient. Would you go along with that?’

  Henry and I had settled into the basket chairs by the range with fresh cups of tea. ‘That’s about the strength of it,’ I agreed. ‘The runs are all locked with combination padlocks, for what that’s worth. We rely more on the dogs themselves as being the best intruder alarm. We have microphones hidden among the kennels and linked to speakers in the house.’

  ‘The dogs don’t bark if the arrival is somebody they know?’

  ‘Not usually. They didn’t bark at you today because you were with us. But a lump of meat could be thrown over the wall. I never knew a dog yet that barked at a lump of meat. You must have noticed that Accer’s kennel was one of the few within easy throwing distance of the wall.’

  The Inspector’s face showed a trace of irritation. ‘In daylight? In full view from the village street?’

  Henry chipped in. ‘The village street is almost half a mile away,’ he said, ‘and only one or two staircase windows face this way. This weather doesn’t encourage people to be pottering in their gardens. Do you really think that anyone would notice the movement of a walker’s or a cyclist’s hand at that distance? Or a car stopping for a moment?’

  ‘You’re assuming that the poison was intended for no particular dog.’

  ‘We’re assuming rather more than that,’ Henry said. ‘We’re assuming that the poisoner wouldn’t have cared very much if the poisoned meat had fallen on the ground outside the runs.’

  The Inspector thought it over, his stern expression at odds with his strangely juvenile cast of features. ‘I don’t follow,’ he said at last.

  ‘Look at it in sequence,’ Henry said. ‘A message threatens unspecific disasters. Somebody who could easily be mistaken for Mr Cunningham gets coshed in the dark. It would matter little whether the next incident was the poisoning of a dog or the discovery of poisoned meat near the runs. It adds up to scare tactics, the result of which was to have been an intimidation of Mr Cunningham and his partners.’

  ‘But by whom?’ the Inspector asked with an air of triumph. ‘The only person with a motive for the message is still in hospital.’

  ‘And you, Inspector,’ Henry said, ‘are assuming that everyone behaves in a rational manner although you must have seen the contrary a thousand times in the course of business. Any one of the prospective purchasers of Mr Garnet’s puppies may well have set his heart on a pup of that particular breeding, properly registered to permit competition and breeding.’

  ‘And there’s nobody can get as fanatical as some of the dog-people,’ Beth added. ‘Nobody!’

  There was the embryo of a smile on the Detective Inspector’s face. ‘So I have been noticing. You make your theory sound very logical—’ he began.

  ‘Because it is logical,’ said Beth.

  ‘—and it might hold water. But we haven’t yet found the weapon Mr Garnet was struck with. When we do, it’s almost bound to show traces of its use—blood takes a lot more washing away than the public thinks and Mr Garnet bled quite freely. One would also expect fingerprints.’

  ‘But?’ I said.

  ‘But indeed.’ The Detective Inspector smiled grimly. ‘But the general public is becoming very wise about prints. Very probably the attacker wore gloves. Or gripped the weapon through a plastic bag. And we found a polythene bag at the roadside, Mr Cunningham, with your fingerprints all over it.’

  I was struck dumb for a moment by the notion that my fingerprints on a carrier bag should be regarded as somehow incriminating. Before I could reply we were interrupted by a commotion and a shout from the officer outside. The Detective Inspector and Constable Buchan were quick off the mark but, despite the other officer’s warning, I was ahead of them. Beth trailed the field and Henry followed in his own time.

  To my relief, the uproar had, after all, nothing to do with Charles Hopgood and Sam. There was some thrashing around in the shrubbery and two figures shot out of the gateway. A third emerged from the bushes, struggling in the grip of the other policeman.

  We all came to a halt in a ragged group. ‘Well, well!’ I said. ‘Tom Shotto! Inspector, have you met our local glue-sniffer?’

  Burrard examined the youngster without any sign of pleasure. ‘Apparently not,’ he said. ‘Not this one. What were they up to, Gribble?’

  The officer—Gribble as he was now identified—stood his captive in front of the Detective Inspector and gave him a small shake, just to remind him who was in charge. ‘There were three of them,’ he said. ‘They were hiding behind the bushes, but it’s a transparent sort of cover at this time of year and they didn’t even have the sense to keep still. I couldn’t see what they were up to, but I’d have bet my pension that it was nothing their mothers would approve of. They may only have been planning a little solvent abuse, but from the way they were watching the house they were up to no good.’

  ‘We weren’t watching the house, you bugger, we was watching you,’ Shotto whined. He was a gangling and underweight school-leaver. His unkempt hair was pale and, perhaps by intent, stuck up in spikes. His appearance was not improved by watery eyes, nor by the fact that he was prevented from shaving his vestigial beard by a nasty case of teenage acne.

  ‘Well? Why were you watching my officer?’ Burrard demanded. ‘What were you up to?’

  ‘Naethin’,’ Shotto said defiantly.

  It seemed to me that I was in the market for a useful red herring. If I could turn the Inspector’s mind in other directions than mine, I might have peace to get on with earning a living. ‘They may have been settling down for a jolly session with the glue,’ I said. ‘On the other hand, I’ve turfed them off this property in the past and been threatened for it. I wouldn’t put it past any of them to poison a dog or to try to knock me on the head, out of sheer spite.’

  Young Shotto squawked indignantly and embarked on a spirited denial but, because this was only a protestation of innocence repeated over and over in slightly differing words, it ca
rried very little conviction along with it.

  We had rushed outside without waiting to put on coats. Apart from Gribble, who seemed frostproof, only Tom Shotto in his grubby but quilted anorak was adequately dressed and I for one was beginning to feel my body heat being sucked away. Henry had already retreated into the warm and Beth was calling to me from the front door. I turned back towards the house.

  ‘You might compare his fingerprints with those on the carrier bag,’ I threw over my shoulder.

  It dawned on the Detective Inspector that he too was becoming frozen. ‘Bring him inside,’ he said.

  Beth moved aside to let me in and then resumed her position in the doorway. She had a point to make. ‘You are not bringing that scruff into my house,’ she said firmly. ‘God knows what he’d leave behind.’ She backed away from the doorway, rubbing some warmth into her upper arms.

  Burrard hesitated, but evidently he could see some force in her argument. ‘Very well,’ he said. I could hear him clearly through the open door. ‘Buchan, you interview the boy in one of the cars. If you can get any sense out of him, take a statement. Find out where he was at the time of both incidents. Then check.’

  ‘And in between, sir,’ Buchan said. ‘Do I let him go?’

  ‘Depends how well he accounts for himself. Use your judgement.’

  The exchange was innocuous but I was amused to note how much attitude could be conveyed by tones of voice. It was clear that Burrard had no great faith in Constable Buchan’s judgement while the Constable, as well as disliking his superior, was not taken with the idea of being cooped up in a small car with young Shotto. All three sentiments had my sympathy.

  The Inspector followed us hastily inside and the door was closed.

  I chose the kitchen again as being the warmest room and joined Henry, who was thawing himself out in one of the basket chairs. Beth settled again at the table.

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ said Burrard. He towered over us, mostly, I think, to get close to the source of warmth. ‘First of all, explain how your prints came to be on the carrier bag.’