‘Second place wasn’t bad for Ash’s first time out,’ Isobel explained.
‘It was very good,’ Hannah said stoutly, distributing mugs of soup, ‘but it doesn’t count for anything.’
‘—and she was being very jolly,’ Daffy resumed, ‘so I only thought that that was why I was having a fit of the giggles. I certainly didn’t think there was anything wrong with me. And I honestly don’t think there was anything wrong with my driving either, but a few miles up the road we were pulled over and they made me blow into a little machine. You know the rest.’
I still felt the need to justify myself. ‘If I had to advise you again,’ I said, ‘I’d still say that Mim was incurable. It’s all very well being wise in hindsight—’
‘It’s all right,’ Daffy said kindly. ‘I’m not blaming you. I’m sure you thought you were right at the time.’
Beth spluttered with laughter. I was less amused. But the bacon sandwiches were served out just then and the company lost interest in my honour as a prophet, instead demanding every least detail of each flush and retrieve, which dog had run in, which had been put out for pegging game and who had wiped whose eye. I comforted myself with the thought that the first time Mim trod on a thorn just as a shot went off she would undoubtedly revert to her earlier state.
Chapter Three
Most of my picking-up engagements were for Saturdays, the prime shooting day of the week but the one day when we were most likely to be short-handed because of field trial commitments. For midweek shoots, enough keepers were usually free to pick up for each other and they usually preferred to keep the modest extra income within their own ranks. The keeper at Lincraigs, however, was not popular and always had difficulty raising a full squad of beaters, let alone skilled dog-handlers; but I was prepared to put up with abuse and mind-changing in order to get in the maximum of retrieving practice for as many dogs as possible.
On the Wednesday following Daffy’s brush with the law, I set off to Marksmuir with six dogs in the car – two aspiring champions, three that I was bringing on to sell as workers and one that I was training for another owner. The weather was fine and it was a perfect occasion for training the dogs, but beyond that point it was an event that I would cheerfully have missed. The Marksmuir shoots were sometimes for invited guests – distinguished company who could foster Sir Ian’s ambitions. This one, however, was primarily a commercial shoot intended to subsidize the other kind, although I was surprised to note the presence of ‘Sanctimonious’ Pratt in the group and guessed that he was an invitee to make up numbers. Timothy Pratt, who had managed so much to aggravate Rex without uttering a word, in common with his friend Sir Ian Bewlay was a parsimonious man, not given to spend money on frivolous pleasures unless status or useful friendships would follow on. Dougal Webb, I thought, was out of the same mould.
I have a dislike of commercial shoots, for which the visiting Guns pay so much per bird and have no interest in the land beyond its scenic value. Even so, most keepers take a pride in presenting the birds high and fast and then adjusting their difficulty so that the bag ends at or very close to the planned total at the end of a full day. But McNair, Sir Ian Bewlay’s keeper, placed the Guns and drove his birds so that if the Guns had been even moderately good shots they would have reached their target before lunch and then been forced to choose between an early finish or an extra cost. The presence of Timothy Pratt, who was a competent shot, could be explained. He was there to ensure that the guests shot, and so paid for, their intended bag.
There were only two other pickers-up – one of Sir Ian’s estate workers with a clumsy but efficient golden retriever and Joe Little, a fellow breeder and trainer who was similarly glad of the opportunity to train his dogs under real conditions. I was pleased at this paucity, because there would be more work for my dogs, but not impressed. The modest fee paid to a picker-up is amply recovered from the cost to the Guns of a single bird in the bag which might otherwise have been missed.
Joe was a distinguished trainer and a regular field trial judge. He bred Labradors, not spaniels, so we were not rivals and could afford to be good friends. At the break for lunch, usually taken by the Guns in what seemed once to have been the servants’ hall of the big house and by the keeper, beaters and pickers-up in a former wash-house, I made sure that the dogs were warm and dry and then headed to overtake Joe.
The house was a rambling structure of local stone, its pleasing lines half hidden by ivy and Virginia creeper. Its condition was slightly rundown and the garden was definitely overgrown, further evidence of Sir Ian’s genius for the false economy. The place deserved a better owner.
As I crossed the cobbled yard, Sir Ian, who seemed to have been lying in wait, popped out of the back door. He was usually around on shooting days, keeping watch to see that everything was paid and accounted for.
‘Cunningham,’ he said.
I slowed to a halt, reluctantly. From a rough count of beaters’ heads I had already worked out that my chances of claiming one of the more comfortable chairs had gone and I was now more concerned whether there would be as much as a sausage roll left for me. The exercise and fresh air had sharpened my fallible appetite.
As already mentioned, Sir Ian was not one of my favourite people. He was large – not that I counted his height against him but his girth was unattractive. He was also red-faced, pop-eyed and with an exaggerated idea of his own importance. But he was a valuable source of dog-work, so I returned his greeting politely.
‘You were shooting on Lincraigs the other day.’ He paused. ‘Well?’
‘I was,’ I said.
‘You shot a pheasant on my land. Do you know how much each bird costs?’ Sir Ian was a self-made man who had been knighted for some unspecified services to industry. His accent was intended to convey an impression of old money and an ancient baronetcy but it did not quite manage it. He had picked up the Marksmuir estate at a bargain price many years earlier and if a visitor jumped to the conclusion that Sir Ian, and possibly his ancestors, had been born and raised there, the misapprehension was never corrected.
My aggravation at being spoken to as if I was an errant schoolboy was increased by the arrival a moment earlier of another man, Timothy Pratt. (Pratt and Sir Ian were often to be found together. Each had political ambitions, but whereas Pratt was only aiming, for the moment, at a seat on a nearby Regional Council Sir Ian had his sights set on Parliament. Each could help the other with his ambitions. Sir Ian could give Sanctimonious Pratt many useful introductions while Pratt could ensure that Sir Ian’s least good deed, be it a minuscule donation to charity or a kiss reluctantly bestowed on an even more reluctant baby, was faithfully recorded and found its way to the media. Pratt was a small man, younger than Sir Ian and about my own age, burdened with a thin face and very close-set eyes. He was very much inclined to sermonize any captive audience, and especially the readers of his column in a local paper, on any subject which he could claim as dear to his heart, though by a strange coincidence each could be expected to appeal to a wide public and alienate only a minority. Among these was the eternally thorny subject of Animal Rights. Timothy Pratt was, of course, thoroughly in favour of them without ever specifying just what rights an animal should have. But he was conspicuously against live exports, fox hunting and battery poultry-farming. He was a pillar of every animal protection society in Scotland. Yet there was one right of animals which seemed to disturb him deeply. He was eternally advocating legislation to penalize anyone daring to allow a dog to foul any public place. He had once taken to court a critic who suggested that, if Timothy Pratt could have his way, any owner of a dog so offending would be made to eat the offence. His endless preaching on these and kindred subjects had earned him the sobriquet of ‘Sanctimonious’ Pratt. He saw no contradiction between his fondness for shooting and his support of Animal Rights, and on that one subject I agreed with him.)
In point of fact, I probably had a better idea of the cost of rearing birds than Sir Ian did. It was gen
erally believed that his keeper was ripping him off. But I kept a firm grip on my temper. ‘I did not shoot a pheasant on your land,’ I told Sir Ian firmly and patiently, ‘and I do have a good idea what every bird costs. One of my dogs put up a pheasant on Lincraigs. It hit the overhead wires – still on the Lincraigs side of the march, as you know – and broke a wing.’ While I spoke, I was thinking that only one house stood high enough for the occurrence to have been seen from it. ‘I dare say that it would have looked like a shot bird at the distance, to someone at Gifford House. If he was behind double glazing he wouldn’t have heard the sound of a shot anyway. The bird landed on your side of the fence. I did not cross the boundary, with or without a gun. I picked up the dog and lifted him over the fence.’
‘Ha! You admit it!’
‘I heard him,’ said Pratt excitedly. ‘I can bear witness.’ I noticed that his wrists still bore the scars of his old burns and reminded myself to make allowances. At least he had courage.
‘Why shouldn’t I admit it?’ I asked reasonably. ‘What I did was quite legal and normal practice. Would you rather that I’d left the bird to feed the foxes?’
Sir Ian drew himself up to his considerable height, thereby thrusting his belly at me. ‘There are no foxes on my land!’
That was a black lie. The prints had been clear in the snow, of foxes coming out of Marksmuir land and stalking rabbits on Lincraigs. What is more, he knew that it was a lie. So there was nothing to be gained by arguing about it. Sir Ian had made no comment on my reference to Gifford House, any more than I had mentioned that the bird’s wing-tag had shown it to have been released on Marksmuir.
‘I think you’ll find that I was behaving properly,’ I said. ‘I have a witness to exactly what happened. But if you really want the bird, it’s hanging in my garage. I’ll make you a present of it. I should warn you that it’s a cock with spurs an inch long. I wouldn’t expect it to be good for more than game soup or pâté. Shall I bring it to you or will you collect it?’
It seemed to dawn on him for the first time that if he insisted on taking possession of the pheasant the story would do the rounds, growing all the while. Sir Ian was known to be a wealthy man. He might have parliamentary ambitions but his growing reputation for petty meanness was making him locally into a laughing-stock. He glanced at his watch to suggest a more important appointment elsewhere. The watch, I noticed, was a Rolex and not the one that I had seen on his wrist the previous year. ‘Keep the damn bird,’ he said, turning away.
‘You should have taken the bird,’ I heard Pratt say. ‘You’re too soft with these people and it only encourages them to take greater liberties next time.’ Thankfully I was out of earshot before I heard enough to make me really blow my top.
I was in time to capture a sandwich and one sausage roll. I took them back to the car where I could sit comfortably in the tail, talk to the dogs as I ate and enjoy the winter sun while I waited for my temper to cool. Joe joined me after a few minutes, which was a help. We relaxed in the partial shelter, surrounded by contented dogs. I remarked that Sir Ian was an odd sort of character. ‘Penny wise and pound foolish,’ I amplified. ‘He worries himself sick over a tough old bird shot beyond his boundary, but he’s wearing a new Rolex.’ Then I remembered that Marksmuir had been burgled the year before and I added, ‘But, to be fair, perhaps it was an insurance replacement.’
‘I doubt it,’ Joe said. ‘He was away at the time of the burglary and his Rolex is never off his wrist. He put it about that he fancied treating himself to a new watch and so he sold the old one.’
‘I’d place a small bet that somebody got robbed.’
The beaters were crowding into their trailer. A few minutes later the first Guns appeared, among them ‘Sanctimonious’ Pratt accompanied by a cowed Labrador. ‘I was surprised to see him here,’ I said. ‘He’s another skinflint. I don’t believe for a moment that he coughed up the price of a driven day.’
‘Not in a million years,’ Joe agreed. ‘He and Sir Ian formed a mutual back-scratching association years ago. Pratt bought that dog from me. He haggled over the price and then, when he wanted me to train it, jibbed at the cost and decided to train it himself. He ballsed it up, of course—’
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘—and he came back to me, wanting me to cure the dog of running-in. But once again we fell out over the cost.’
‘He came to me after that,’ I told Joe. ‘He said that you were a bare-faced robber with delusions of grandeur. When I quoted my rates he said that I was worse than you were.’
‘That figures,’ Joe said. ‘He was probably right. The upshot was that he was saddled with a chronic runner-in. You weren’t here when it came to a head – I think you were abroad. I saw the whole thing and so did some of the beaters. A rabbit came past the guns. Pratt fired at it and missed and his dog took off after it.’
‘Oh dear!’ I said. I could see what was coming.
‘Yes indeed. I’ve known men try to cure running-in with a cartridge loaded with rock salt. It stings like hell but does no permanent damage. I’ve also known idiots who let the dog get about seventy yards out, to where the pellets have lost much of their energy, and then let the dog have a dose of Number Six. But either Pratt has a poor judgement of distance or else he was in a rage. He shot the dog up the arse from thirty yards. He was sorry afterwards – or so he said, and it was probably true because it cost him money. The dog was in even worse agony, of course.’
‘It’s a wonder he didn’t kill it.’
‘I believe it was touch and go. As it was, the dog had to be castrated. And it’s still a chronic runner-in,’ Joe added.
The rest of the Guns emerged and we prepared to follow them to the next drive.
*
I was home, and with the dogs fed and kennelled, in time for the drinks in the sitting room with which we usually mark the end of the working day. Henry and Isobel were away so that it was a more intimate gathering than usual. It was a time for relaxing in front of a flickering fire, toasting the toes and sipping a drink, but it was also the time for discussion. When I had reported on the performance of each of the dogs I went on to recount my exchange with Sir Ian Bewlay.
Daffy confirmed that my version of the event was the true one. Beth was justly indignant. ‘That man is getting himself despised,’ she said, ‘and not least by me. With the game dealer paying about one-fifty a brace – for good birds, not ones that have been strutting around since the Gulf War – he was off his rocker to make a song and dance about it. Why alienate yet another voter?’
‘He wasn’t exactly thumping his chest,’ I said mildly, ‘and if I had gone onto his ground to shoot he’d have been within his rights to create hell. A bird costs enough to rear, never mind how little the dealer pays for it after it’s shot. What really annoyed me was that “Sanctimonious” Pratt was egging him on. I noticed that Bewlay didn’t deny that somebody at Gifford House had been telling tales.’
‘That could only be Mrs Macevoy,’ Daffy said. ‘I met her at a party given by some newcomers who didn’t know about her. She has an awful reputation. A plump and middle-aged, dyed redhead whose hair looks as if it’s been set in fibreglass. She hardly ever goes out locally – nobody can stand her. I suppose that she and Sir Ian might be drawn together because they’ve both more or less run out of other friends. She goes on a cruise for about a month each winter and I suppose she gets all her socializing over in one burst, in the company of people who can’t escape without jumping overboard.’
‘You said that she had an awful reputation. What does she have such an awful reputation for?’ Hannah asked.
‘The usual things plus plus,’ Daffy said. By some process beyond my comprehension, Daffy seems to know the history and personal foibles of anyone you care to mention. ‘There was a big scandal at one time, but it was before you came here. I wasn’t really old enough to be told about it but I sneaked looks at the newspapers when my parents weren’t looking and I had friends who seem
ed to know everything.
‘Her husband got himself into real trouble. They were both promiscuous, but he was worse than she was. Even so, it seems to have been a real shock when he was accused of rape. It happened a long way from here, but from the word that went round it wasn’t very much of a rape – the lady’s reputation wasn’t any better than his and people were saying that she’d only brought the case because his cheque bounced or he refused to take his weight on his elbows or something.’ Now that she was a married woman, Daffy felt free to make that sort of remark but I could see Hannah blushing.
‘Then,’ Daffy continued, ‘there was another scandal. It came out that somebody had been embezzling from the firm he worked for – he was financial manager in a solicitor’s office – but they never found any trace of the money and that prosecution was dropped for lack of evidence.
‘The next thing was that when the rape case came on, Mrs Macevoy gave evidence against her husband. I thought,’ she said, ‘that a wife couldn’t do that.’
‘A wife can’t be compelled to give evidence against her husband,’ I explained, ‘but there’s nothing to stop her doing so if she wants to.’
‘Can I really?’ Beth said delightedly. ‘You’d better behave, or you’ll be amazed to hear what you’ve done.’
‘Now I understand,’ said Daffy. ‘Somebody told me that he’d have got off but for her evidence. Anyway, she really dropped him in it – swore that she heard the other woman weeping and begging for mercy and so on and so forth. She made it sound like a Victorian melodrama. He got sent down for about ten years.
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