Twice Bitten

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘For use around the farm?’

  ‘Possibly. But my first guess would be kitchen knife,’ I said.

  Beth had possessed herself of the X-rays. ‘It’s not one of ours,’ she said. ‘And if he was stabbed in the back, like this—’

  Ewell jumped as though he had been stung. ‘How do you know he was stabbed in the back?’ he demanded.

  ‘Both my parents are doctors,’ Beth said. ‘X-rays are always being passed across the breakfast table. I think that that was what turned me off following in their footsteps. But at least I know what a human heart looks like and which way round it is. I was only going to say that some force must have been used to get between the ribs.’

  The Detective Inspector relaxed. ‘You had me going there for a moment, Mrs Cunningham.’ There were footsteps in the hall. Ewell recovered his transparency and put it away quickly.

  ‘But you’d agree?’ Beth asked.

  ‘Oh, yes. The pathologist’s opinion is that it jammed and was broken in an attempt to pull it out again.’

  Hannah came back. She offered three or four small photographs to the Inspector. ‘I’ve remembered something else,’ she said. ‘While I was waiting in Mr Cove’s house I was sitting at the window overlooking the yard. There was a small lamp on the table beside me. At about two in the morning a car came into the yard. I think the driver saw me at the window, because he turned in a circle and drove away again.’

  ‘You didn’t see him?’

  ‘Inspector,’ Hannah said, ‘I didn’t even look at the car. I was waiting for Dougal. I knew from the sound of the car before it appeared that it wasn’t his Lotus. It wasn’t even his style of driving. So I didn’t bother.’

  The Detective Inspector said nothing but from the look of exasperation on his face I knew exactly what he thought of a witness who ‘didn’t bother to look’. Then he firmed his jaw and persevered. ‘Miss Hopewell,’ he said, ‘if you could tell without looking that it wasn’t Mr Webb’s car or style of driving, then you must have some idea what sort of car and style of driving it was.’

  Hannah took a few seconds to think back, and when she spoke it was less certainly than before. ‘It wasn’t a sporty sort of car like the Lotus. Something heavier, but not a diesel, I think I’d have known one of those. And Dougal had to pay for his own petrol unless he was doing an errand for Mr Cove, so he used to keep his engine speed down.’

  ‘I noticed the same thing,’ I said. ‘He changed up as soon as he could and delayed changing down until he had to. Not the right technique for a sports car.’

  ‘That’s what I was getting at,’ Hannah said, relieved. ‘But whoever was driving, that night, came up the farm road in a fairly low gear, changed further down to slow the car and then braked quite hard. Dougal tried not to use his brakes much. He always said that brake linings were expensive.’

  *

  We discussed among ourselves the mysterious corpse, the missing farm manager and every conceivable connection between the two. That was inevitable. But the subject was best avoided whenever Hannah was within earshot and when, after a day or two, it was clear that she was too distraught to pull her weight and she was packed off to have her megrims in her father’s house, we were too busy and too short-handed to manage more than a snatched word or two between more pressing topics.

  To make matters worse, Isobel then went down with the ’flu. For her own sake and to prevent her from spreading it to the rest of us, we declined her offer to come in and carry on with the paperwork from a cosy fireside chair. She was banished to her bed a safe couple of miles away. The very idea of the whole complement of staff and partners being bedridden simultaneously was not to be contemplated.

  Ash had been entered for a novice stake in the Lothians that Saturday. With Isobel hors de combat, the sensible thing would have been to withdraw, but the season would be over all too soon and Ash needed a win if he was to go forward into open stakes and pursue what we hoped was his destiny as a Field Trial Champion with a lucrative and voluptuous career at stud to follow. A whole sackful of second places would count for nothing. Daffy did not yet have a tenth of the required experience. Handling our entrants in field trials had been my responsibility until one of my relapses had pitchforked Isobel into the job with unexpectedly happy results. Obviously I would have to take over again.

  Beth’s immediate reaction verged on panic. Rex had returned offshore. She and Daffy, assisted as ever by Sam, could cope with the kennel routine. But Henry would be too fully engaged with Isobel either to help with the dogs or to come as my companion and bodyguard. Beth could already visualize me having one of my blackouts among strangers who would then empty my pockets and leave me to expire, alone and unidentified. I was torn between irritation at the disruption of our plans and a warm glow that somebody loved me enough to worry about me.

  The argument had reached stalemate when a phone call threw a fresh weight into the scales. Earlier in the season, a sporting journalist had been much impressed by one of our bitches and had written glowingly of her performance, using her exclusion from the top honour to illustrate his contention that judges could sometimes be struck with blindness or insanity. A businessman in Bristol was in the market for a trained spaniel and had made up his mind that only one of our breeding would suit. When I told him that a son of that bitch was trained and ready to go, he was willing to do a deal over the phone. It happened that he would be in Edinburgh on the Friday but would have to be back in Bristol by Saturday afternoon to prepare for a major meeting on the Monday. Could I bring the dog to meet him in Edinburgh on Friday? As a clincher he decided, while still on the phone, to buy a puppy as a present for his son.

  Beth did not want to let me out of her protective custody, but there was serious money involved and she would have hated to pass up two good sales. Her resistance began to crumble. She phoned Joe Little, who was to judge on both days. She made him promise to keep an eye on me for as long as our programmes coincided and to call out the emergency services the moment that I failed to show up at an appointed time. And so I was ready, with a car full of three dogs, all the accompanying paraphernalia and my overnight bag, when Joe sounded his horn outside the gate early on the Friday morning. None of my fainting spells had ever occurred while I was sitting down but Beth had still insisted that we travel in convoy. We had a peaceful journey. A puppy may be forgiven for protesting shrilly when being transported away from home and siblings, but the presence of his uncle seemed to give him reassurance.

  Beth had furnished me with a list of shopping which she considered to be essential for her future well-being. I left the list with one of the largest stores while I did the rounds of my favourite gunshops. After a quick lunch in a pub, I collected Beth’s parcel and met my client in his hotel. He fell for the pup immediately and when I worked the other dog for him, in and out of the bushes at Hermitage Park, to indoctrinate him into the commands to which the dog had been trained, he expressed himself more than satisfied. I handed over the necessary papers and most of my cargo of dog-food, said a fond farewell to the two dogs and an even fonder hello to a very substantial cheque and drove out of the city through the falling darkness to the hotel where rooms had been booked.

  That day’s competition, a novice trial for retrievers, had gone well. Joe was already in the bar, buying his own drinks as was right and proper but lapping up the sycophancy of those who hoped to be remembered kindly next time around. When the crush began to melt away he joined me at a corner table.

  ‘Still living and breathing, I see,’ he said.

  ‘If you can call it living,’ I retorted. ‘Beth does fuss rather.’

  ‘Don’t knock it,’ he told me severely. ‘She’s quite right. I was with you the second or third time you flaked out, remember? Gave me the fright of my life. I had to lug you to the nearest quack.’

  ‘Letting me lie flat for a while would have been enough,’ I told him. ‘According to the doc, it’s much the same as a common faint.’

  �
�Except that people don’t always come round when it’s vagal inhibition.’

  ‘That’s how you tell the difference. All the same, I owe you for that. What a pity I’m not supposed to buy you a drink. There’s nothing to stop you buying me one,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Nice try,’ he said. ‘But if I bought a drink for one competitor I’d have to buy them for all the others or there’d be complaints about favouritism.’

  We ordered another round of drinks and meticulously paid for our own. ‘Are you ready for tomorrow?’ Joe asked me.

  ‘The dog’s ready,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure about me. I’m out of practice and I haven’t had time to get myself into the right state of mind. But I was working the dog not long ago. I think we’ll get by.’

  ‘I’m sure you will.’ But Joe’s mind was not really on my state of readiness. ‘It’s a bugger finding somewhere to train these days, isn’t it? I’ve never known such a bad year for rabbits. Are you dependent on picking-up?’

  ‘Mostly.’

  ‘I met Quentin Cove in the Drookit Dug the other day,’ Joe said. ‘He told me that I could come onto Ardrossie. I thought that that was one of your patches.’

  ‘It was,’ I said. ‘That’s odd! He told me that he’d let the rough shooting and I’d have to stay away.’

  ‘You must have put his back up somehow. You didn’t leave a gate open that should have been closed, or close one that he wanted left open?’

  ‘I hadn’t been there for weeks. Last time I was there he walked round with me, taking turnabout to work one of his own dogs. He expressed himself as suitably obliged to me.’

  ‘Then it beats me,’ Joe said. ‘Unless that chap Webb was the rough-shooting tenant. Did he shoot?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. As I spoke I remembered Webb’s desire for my Dickson but I kept my mouth shut. The subject was fraught with danger.

  ‘He certainly went beating,’ Joe mused. ‘Beaters usually shoot, though I suppose he could just have been beating to curry favour with Sir Ian and other landowners. But if Webb really had rented the shooting from his boss, now that Webb’s dead Cove might feel free to hand out permissions again.’

  It seemed to be the general assumption but all the same I pricked up my ears. ‘Dead? Have you heard something I haven’t?’

  Joe shrugged. ‘Shouldn’t think so. It’s just the word that’s going around. You probably know more than I do.’

  ‘Webb’s certainly gone missing,’ I said. ‘And there’s a body. But as far as I know there’s no proven connection yet.’

  ‘The police think there’s a connection,’ Joe said. ‘They took an interminable statement from me about the last time that I saw Webb. I may have been the last person to see him alive,’ he added with a certain pride. ‘Other than his murderer, of course.’

  ‘Murderer?’ I said.

  ‘Assuming that he’s dead and assuming that he fetched up in the bonfire, its not easy to think up any explanation other than what they call foul play. I was running short of feed for a nursing bitch so I drove over to Ardrossie that Sunday evening, around seven. Webb and his boss were talking in the big yard. They broke off as I pulled up. I didn’t hear what they were saying but they sounded a bit heated. Then Webb got into his Lotus and drove off with an uncharacteristic burst of wheelspin. He was usually too canny to waste tyre rubber. Damn silly car for a farmer,’ Joe added. ‘Or for a dog trainer. All the same, if it’s coming on the market . . .’

  A waiter came to tell us that our table was ready in the dining room. When the conversation found its way back to Quentin Cove, somewhere about the sweet course, it was by way of a long gossip about dogs in training. ‘Quentin turned up with his bitch Mimulus at an open stake last weekend,’ Joe said. ‘He was hoping to get a run if somebody dropped out, but he was out of luck.’

  ‘He must be getting keen,’ I said with my mouth full of crème caramel.

  ‘Get a good dog and neglect him, or else work him to death,’ Joe said. ‘That’s always been the amateur’s way.’

  Chapter Seven

  I left an early call and was the first guest to breakfast.

  The previous night, I had noted near the hotel a stretch of rough ground which had been left to gorse and weeds, the sort of ground beloved by environmentalists and dog trainers. After breakfast, I settled my bill and went out to the car. Ash came eagerly out into the cold air from his cosy bed in the back of the car, relieved himself in a cloud of steam against somebody else’s rear wheel and came reluctantly to heel. A spaniel, and especially one as high-spirited as Ash, must blow off steam and I was determined that any steam-blowing would be done before we came under the judges. I took him onto the waste ground and let him race around for a few minutes. When he began to show signs of wanting to hunt I brought him back under control, worked him to a pattern through the bushes and then gave him two retrieves with a canvas dummy. That, I hoped, would be enough and not too much.

  At the trial ground I felt again the almost forgotten surge of excitement as the once familiar scene took shape. Competitors, openly nervous or hiding their nerves. The two judges in a solemn huddle. The Guns, happy with their role but nervous of shooting badly before so many critical eyes. Officials fussing. And the pickers-up, who would linger to look for any birds on which the competing dogs had failed, secure in the knowledge that they in their turn could fail unseen but could play a game of one-upmanship by coming back with a bird. It was ‘not done’ for a picker-up to display the bird from a successful retrieve, but it had been known for one of them to allow a bird from that or even from a previous retrieve to be glimpsed as though by accident. The pickers-up liked to consider themselves the only true professionals present.

  The cumbersome line moved off across a field of stubble, with a tail of onlookers and competitors awaiting the call. Conditions were difficult. In the sharp air and rising breeze, some dogs were hot to handle and threw points to the wind. The sky was dark and the air very cold. I would have expected scenting to be adequate but it was very bad. And many birds seemed determined to sit tight instead of flushing. Dog after dog pegged a squatting bird and was eliminated.

  First time ‘up’, I knew that things were going my way. Ash, having already worked off his excess energy, was nicely in hand and working a perfect pattern but he retained enough of his innate manners to disdain pegging sitting game. He flushed several birds and pulled off a good retrieve. We went through to the next round.

  By mid-afternoon, Ash was among the four dogs called for a run-off. One of the first brace, I thought, performed indifferently but each managed a flush and a retrieve. Then we were called. I reminded myself, for the umpteenth time, to stay calm and, if in doubt, trust the dog – always good advice but not so easy to follow in the heat of the moment.

  The line was struggling through a field of turnips, thinned by winter. Despite a frosted surface over which dogs could run, the mud beneath took hold of a boot and made walking a penance. No bird with a grain of sense, I thought, would be out of the woods on such a day and looking among the roots for insects which must have died out weeks before. But Ash homed in on a small cock pheasant and kicked it into the air. The nearest Gun fumbled his shot and the bird spiralled down, a strong runner, beyond the boundary hedge and ditch.

  The judge, Joe’s colleague, nodded to me.

  Ash had been unsighted. I pushed him, with hand signals, through the hedge and out to the fall and he picked up a scent. I wondered whether to curse or bless my luck. A difficult runner may lead to failure, or to a successful retrieve and impressed judges. I had lost sight of the bird. Ash followed his nose, plunged into the hedge and vanished. I kept my hand away from the whistle and reminded myself over and over again, The dog knows more than you do. When movement drew my eye to Ash again he had crossed a narrow field, hurdled another fence and was entering an area of broken ground where rocky outcrops alternated with broom and dead bracken. Surely he must have overrun his bird and picked up the scent of another? On the ot
her hand, it was just the sort of cover for which a strong runner would head. Anyway, if I called him off now we would have failed. I waited.

  Time went by. There was some chatting among the onlookers. The judge began to fidget. He was going to tell me to call my dog.

  I saw movement at the edge of the cover. Ash returned over the first fence. His chin was up. He was holding a kicking pheasant clear of the ground. He cleared the nearer ditch and struggled through the hedge. There was a spontaneous round of applause as he delivered the bird into my hand, sitting. The judge, properly cautious, took the bird and parted the feathers until he found the marks of pellets.

  The light was fading and snowflakes were beginning to fall as we assembled in a Dutch barn. We waited while the two judges debated. Joe glanced in my direction while listening to the other judge who was being vehement. My hopes rose. Joe, I guessed, was hesitant, just because I was a friend, and wanted to be persuaded.

  Then he nodded and they gave their verdict. Ash was placed first.

  I shook hands all round and remembered to thank the host and his keeper. I was glad to get back to the car and gladder still when the engine’s heat began to warm the interior. I went back to the hotel for my overnight bag and to call home from the payphone in the hall. As well as confirming my continued health and imminent return after a hot snack, I wanted to spread the glad tidings. But when Beth recognized my voice she said, ‘Can’t talk now. Tell me when you come,’ and hung up.

  If she could not even take time to ask how I was or even how we had got on, something had to be seriously wrong, but what? If the house had burned down, there would have been no phone for Beth to answer. I found more money and dialled again but the ringing tone went unanswered. Without waiting for a word with Joe, or even to give Ash his well-deserved dinner, I dived back into the car and set off for home.

  The early dark of midwinter was aggravated by heavy clouds and before I reached the Forth Road Bridge the snow was coming down in earnest. Home-going traffic was slowed almost to a crawl but I carved my way through it with a display of downright bad manners which I hope never to have to repeat. Twice my lights seemed to be failing and I pulled off to wipe the packed snow off the glass. I saw several cars that had slid off into the countryside, one of them still surrounded by vehicles with flashing lights. My car was determined to go the same way, but I held it more or less straight by grit and willpower and turned in at the front gates of Three Oaks after a journey time which I would have considered dangerously brief on a summer Sunday afternoon. There were no emergency vehicles to be seen, the house was still standing, there was no sign of a fire and I could see movement behind the lit curtains. My worst imaginings abated.