Death in the Coverts

by Roderic Jeffries

  The car passed the village signpost of Yarnley-without, on which was set the white horse of Kent. Yarnley-without. When he retired, he wanted to live in a village called by a name like that. It took one back to a world at which time was a plentiful commodity.

  He drove past the general store and the public house and reached the cross-roads. Although it was his right of way, a car came in from his left and crossed over. Just one of the perils of living in Yarnley-without. He parked in front of the large house next to the square steepled church, went up the garden path, and knocked on the front door. It was opened by a woman of about thirty who was wearing a silk dress that he guessed had cost a considerable amount of money. She said that Mr Abbotts was in the sitting-room. Obviously, she was the housekeeper: obviously spelt with a capital H.

  Abbotts was wearing a country suit in an over-large, bright green check which made him appear very corpulent. ‘Nice to see you,’ he boomed. ‘What’ll you drink?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a beer, thanks.’

  ‘How about something stronger. You name it, I’ve got it.’

  ‘I usually stick to beer, thanks.’

  ‘Good for the kidneys, eh? Keep ’em flushed and you keep young, as my doctor used to say.’

  Abbotts left the room. Doherty stared at the framed photographs of the naked young ladies. They were attractive and seductive, but unreal because who in life had the chance of meeting such charm? Abbotts returned and handed the D.I a silver tankard filled with a pint of beer. Abbotts sat down and lifted his glass of whisky.

  ‘Here’s cheers. First today and doubly welcome. Never drink until the sun’s over the yard-arm, unless it’s business. Then it’s a duty.’ He chuckled.

  Doherty drank slowly. Pawley had contemptuously referred to Abbotts as a windbag, which was an obvious but nevertheless accurate description of the man. In ten years’ time, his slack features and body would become gross.

  Abbotts waited for the detective to explain the purpose of the visit, but when he remained silent, Abbotts became uneasy. He twice began to speak, then finally said: ‘Did you want to ask me something?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a pause. ‘What?’ asked Abbotts.

  ‘I want to know what the truth is.’

  ‘Look here, I don’t know what you mean. I told the truth to the last bloke who came here asking questions.’

  ‘Did you explain why you thought it might not have been a straightforward shooting accident?’

  ‘But… but I never thought that.’

  Doherty ignored the denial. ‘Everything suggested it was an accident?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Yet you asked my detective constable whether it was one.’

  ‘Did I? I don’t think I did.’

  ‘The only possible reason for asking is that you know some reason why it mightn’t have been one.’

  Abbotts mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. He finished his drink and stood up, obviously to get himself another.

  ‘What is it?’

  Slowly, Abbotts sat down. ‘I don’t know anything.’

  ‘You’ve worked with Rafferty for some years?’

  ‘That doesn’t mean he told me everything that was going on.’

  ‘But he did in this case.’

  ‘I don’t know anything.’

  ‘Why do you think Rafferty was murdered?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What could the motive be?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What’s got you scared, Mr Abbotts?’

  ‘Scared? Me?’

  ‘You’re scared to tell me the truth.’

  ‘I don’t know anything.’

  Doherty looked at this man who, in so short a time, had had his emotions changed from self-satisfaction to fear. Fear of what?

  Doherty drank his beer. When the tankard was empty, Abbotts offered him the other half and became wildly insistent when he refused.

  Doherty stood up. ‘You won’t help us, then?’

  ‘There’s no way I can,’ mumbled Abbotts.

  Doherty left the room. When he reached the front door, the housekeeper came into

  the hall from the room on the left. ‘Good afternoon,’ she said, and there was a trace of mockery in her voice.

  *

  Doherty drove to Hurstley Place on Wednesday morning and after two false calls he found the headkeeper’s cottage. He spoke to Mrs Adams, who told him her husband was out repairing the draught-wall in Bourne Shaw where the wind cut through the shaw like a raging tornado.

  Following her directions, he drove down the lane, took the first turning on the right, and parked at the point where the land went round to the left. He looked down at his shoes and cursed because he had forgotten to bring any wellingtons: he wondered what Peggy would say when he got back home with shoes caked in mud? Then, he climbed over the wooden gate and began to cross the stubble field. Half-way to the woods, a covey of partridges rose in front of him with a suddenness that startled him. Standing still, he watched them fly round to the right, skim the blackthorn hedge, and pitch down into a field of kale. When he resumed walking, he looked straight ahead and saw a man had stepped out from the trees and was watching him. Almost at once, he recognised Adams.

  ‘Reckoned I’d maybe caught a poacher,’ said Adams, when Doherty caught up to him.

  ‘I couldn’t hit ’em if they sat and looked at me.’

  ‘The real poachers never worry about guns: it’s raisins and fish hooks, or a bantam cockerel with steel spurs.’

  Doherty looked past the keeper and saw that just inside the trees there was a wall of straw bales, six feet high. Evidently, draughts were as inimical to pheasants as humans. ‘I’d like to have a look round the other beat if it’s possible?’

  ‘King’s Beat? We can go round there by the Land-Rover.’ Adams spoke thoughtfully. ‘They’re saying Mr Rafferty wasn’t such a bloody fool as to blow his own head off?’

  ‘Then they know more about it than I do.’

  ‘It’s like that, is it?’

  ‘In a way. But suppose you were told it wasn’t an accident, have you any ideas who might have pulled the trigger?’

  ‘I ain’t so much as a single thought.’

  ‘Rafferty didn’t get on well with the Deckers, did he?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  Doherty had expected no other answer. Even if Adams had seen one of the Deckers kill Rafferty, he might well refuse to say so.

  They climbed into the Land-Rover and Adams drove round the south end of the shaw and across two fields to a wooden gate in the comer of the woods. Beyond the gate, a ride went both south and north through the trees.

  Adams climbed down and slammed the door shut. ‘Are you looking for something particular?’

  ‘Just looking,’ replied Doherty. ‘Will you take me to each stand in turn?’

  After half an hour, Doherty was satisfied that any of the guns could have moved through the undergrowth and between the pollard trees without being seen: also, by coming down the ride and up the beaten track to the stand, Fawcett Decker could have reached Rafferty equally unseen.

  They were on their way back to the Land-Rover when they met Julian Decker, as he walked down the ride.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ demanded Julian.

  ‘Just checking up on a thing or two, sir,’ replied Doherty.

  Julian spoke to Adams. ‘I thought you were going to repair that draught-wall?’

  Adams, without a word, turned and walked up the ride.

  ‘Checking up on what?’ snapped Julian.

  ‘Whether someone could have pushed through all this undergrowth without being seen and whether a wheel-chair…’ He stopped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Whether a wheel-chair could have gone unseen from the ride to the stand.’

  ‘Get off this land.’

  ‘Very well, sir.’ Doherty turned and walked up the ride.

  Chapter
Eight

  Saturday, November the 20th, was a day of biting east winds and an overcast and dirty sky which promised rain or snow. Avonley, a market town which so far had escaped the Philistine hands of the planners and the new town builders, was normally fairly busy on a Saturday in winter, but on this depressing day the pedestrians were few. Shop-keepers faced empty shops, the policemen on patrol or point duty huddled inside their raincoats, and even Lord Kitchener, a stone figure astride a stone horse, looked miserable and cold.

  Avonley police station was old, ugly and had been scheduled for demolition for eight years. The new station would have been built if only the mayor and his corporation had not been quite so obsessed with the more obvious trappings of civic pride. Doherty’s room was at the back of the ground floor and as it projected beyond the line of the main block, it stood four square to most of the winds that blew. Most winds which blew seemed to reach inside the room and the electric fire did little to dispel the cold.

  Detective Superintendent Quincy stood as close to the fire as he could get. ‘It’s bloody cold enough to freeze the brass monkey as well.’

  Doherty leaned back in his chair. ‘One seems to get used to it after a while.’

  ‘I’ve no intention of trying. Sam, I spent the night down at Tenterden and I reckoned I’d better call in here on my way back to HQ. It seems like it’s a long time since I’ve had a progress report from you.’

  ‘On the shooting, sir?’

  ‘Now listen, man, it’s not some farthing pick-pocket job that’s giving me grey hairs.’

  Doherty took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. ‘Have a smoke, sir?’

  ‘If you press me this hard, yes.’

  They lit their cigarettes. ‘Well, Sam?’

  Doherty shrugged his shoulders. ‘You know as much about things as I do.’

  ‘That’s bloody nothing.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that.’

  ‘I know that. You’d wrap it up in a thick load of Irish bull to try to hide the truth. But I’m telling you, I know nothing, the A.C.C knows nothing, and now it’s clear that the investigating D.I knows less than nothing.’

  ‘I’ll swear it wasn’t a straightforward accident,’ said Doherty stubbornly.

  ‘You can swear this and you can swear that, but sweet F.A good that does anyone. Sam, I’ve nine divisions in this county, each with a D.I with problems. But put all their problems together and it’s kid’s play compared to your problem. There isn’t one of ’em doesn’t know whether or not he’s got crime in his division. There isn’t one of ’em trying to tie a murder charge round the necks of one of the oldest and wealthiest families in the county: so old and so wealthy they can blast you and me right out of our pensions any time they feel like it.’

  ‘It’s certainly a bastard.’

  ‘You’re not exaggerating.’

  ‘I’ll be perfectly frank, sir. We’ve reached the end of the line. I’ve tried every avenue and they’re all dead-ends. If it was murder, it was one of the good ones.’

  Quincy looked down at the electric fire and then tried to move even closer to it. Ash spilled from his cigarette on to the floor. He scuffed it into the worn-out carpet with the toe of his right shoe. ‘How d’you make out with the Deckers?’

  Doherty thought for a few seconds before answering. ‘The old girl’s a real character. She’s convinced herself that one of her husband’s ancestors refused to shoot my ancestors at the time of the uprisings following the potato famines and that’s why I’m alive today. She says she’s going to search everywhere until she finds the proof. Then it’ll show that life moves in circles.’

  ‘Potato famine? What potato famine?’

  ‘D’you mean to say you don’t know what went on in Ireland in the last century?’

  ‘Hell, Sam, there isn’t time in this world to worry about what you heathen Irish did in the days when you painted yourselves with woad and ate each other.’

  ‘It was the English who used woad and the Welsh who practised cannibalism.’

  Quincy looked at his wrist-watch. ‘It’s nine twenty-five and I’m due in Maidstone at five past ten for some goddamn’ conference and I don’t think I’ll ever make it. All right, Sam, so this case has got to have the shutters put up on it. Put ’em up. But don’t let the coroner’s court make anything of it, eh? We don’t want that bloke making trouble.’

  ‘I’ll do the best I can to keep him quiet.’

  Quincy stepped away from the fire. ‘I wonder how that bloke really died.’

  *

  The guns gathered at Hurstley Place.

  The vast American cars were parked to the right of the porch and the lone Morris 1000 was parked on the left.

  At 9.25, Fawcett guided his wheel-chair down the stone steps on to the drive. He muttered a ‘good morning’ in reply to Abbott’s fulsome greeting. Julian drove one Land-Rover round from the yard and Henry Decker drove the other. They climbed down on to the drive. Barbara came out of the house and crossed to speak to Julian. Wade also approached Julian, in company with another man.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Harmsworth, ’morning Decker,’ said Wade. ‘May I introduce Christopher Lenton, who’s coming out with us today.’

  Julian shook hands with a florid, portly man who was taking over Rafferty’s gun. After a few conversational words of greeting, Julian took a small, round silver case from his pocket and lifted off the lid. Inside were seven numbered silver spills. Each gun drew a spill which gave him the number of his first stand.

  ‘Where are we going today?’ asked Abbotts, as he replaced the spill he had drawn.

  ‘We start at Deer Leap. They’ve brought in two shaws and all the fields of kale so there should be a good showing of birds. Who’s number one?’

  ‘I am,’ said Lenton.

  ‘You’ll be out in the field. Most of your birds will be swinging right and watch out for a fox, there’s usually one in this beat. It’ll try to break along the hedge.’

  ‘Do I take it we shoot foxes, Mr Decker?’

  ‘There’s a stiff fine for anyone who misses one! The hunt have to make do with what we leave and be damned thankful we leave any.’ Julian raised his voice. ‘O.K, let’s get moving. We’ve got four beats this morning and three this afternoon to get in.’

  Abbotts, Cranleigh, Wade, and Lenton went to the first Land-Rover. Julian crossed to the second Land-Rover and slid out of the back a patent ramp which enabled Fawcett in his wheel-chair to be pushed up into the back in the well between the seats. Fawcett secured his gun in the rack, behind the front seats, then did the same with Henry Decker’s and Julian’s guns. He put the cartridge bags on one of the rear seats. At a word of command from Barbara, Toby jumped up into the back and immediately nuzzled Fawcett’s hands. Fawcett, an unusually relaxed expression on his face, stroked the dog’s head. Henry Decker, Barbara, and Julian climbed into the front seats.

  ‘Let’s hope nothing mucks up today’s shoot,’ said Julian, as he pressed the self-starter and then checked that four-wheel drive was disengaged.

  *

  Adams consulted his pocket-watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. Were the guns ever going to be ready? Did they imagine birds could be held for hours without most of them scuttling out of the woods as fast as their legs would carry them? The beaters had begun work at 8.30, bringing the fields into the two shaws and the two shaws into Deer Leap. Jim had stood clear of the shaws to see how many birds were put across into the main woods and he claimed the number was as high as four hundred: but he tended always to see two birds where there was only one. The birds were now in Deer Leap Wood and eight stops were gently tapping trees, fences, or hedges, to keep them from using the known escape routes. But, Adams thought, were those stops doing their jobs? He listened, even though he knew he could not expect to hear them. When he heard nothing, he became convinced all eight were falling down on their jobs. Twenty-five bob and a bottle of beer still didn’t keep them tapping and they’d only to pau
se long enough to light a cigarette and twenty birds could have escaped. In his mind, birds began to pour out of the woods.

  He looked as far along the line of waiting beaters as he could see. There were less boys than last time, which was a good thing, but old Moore had recovered from the ’flu and was out, which was a bad thing. Old Moore could pick up a dead pheasant and hide it in one of the inside pockets of the dirty old coat he wore and there wouldn’t be the hint of a bulge. Old Moore knew the woods better than anyone bar the keepers and he could easily cache a dozen dead birds to be picked up that night. But refuse to have him out beating and he’d really set out to poach by way of retaliation and then God knows how many he’d wipe up.

  The Labrador went too far forward.

  Adams shouted, and it slunk back. He looked at his watch again. It was ten to ten. By now, the guns had had enough time to get to their stands twice over. In the old days, before Land-Rovers, guns reached their stands dead on time: Land-Rovers were both a boon and a curse, a curse because guns always thought that with them as transport there was plenty of time to spare before they need get moving.

  He heard a single shot.

  So the guns were at last ready! He wondered who’d be at numbers 2, 3 and 4, which was where the birds would go today. This shoot was designed to give high birds: the flushing fences were set well back and whenever possible the guns were stood in the shallow valleys. That was fine when the team of guns could handle high birds, but was so much wasted effort when there were men like Abbotts, who’d spent a fortune at shooting schools but never learnt to follow through with his swing.

  ‘O.K,’ Adams shouted. ‘Keep the line straight up to the ride and then swing.’ He began to tap with his stick, to move forward in a zig-zag, and to encourage his dog to push through the bracken and the brambles. This was one of the more difficult beats because in the middle of it they had to swing round on the left and if the right-hand got too far forward, or lagged behind, the birds escaped.

  If only he knew which gun Mr Julian was, he could work the beaters to put the birds over that stand so that at least some were shot.

  The line moved forward and despite all Adam’s fears, they kept fairly straight. When they swung, they did so almost perfectly.