by Guy Kennaway
Buck, looking miserable on his leash, saw Sunshine approach and said, ‘Put it right in front of my human, he’s not that bright. And go and get the bag that was with it.’
The old Springer laid the box of cartridges by Powell’s polished black shoes, and turned back towards the greenhouse.
Powell glanced down, ‘What do we have here?’ he asked. ‘High Pheasant twenty-bore number six,’ he read from the box. ‘Rings a bell, but I can’t for the life of me remember why …’
‘Give me strength,’ said Banger through clenched beak.
‘Hold on …’ Powell said. He took his pencil and carefully hooked it under the lid of the box. ‘You know what, Buck,’ he said to his best friend, ‘I think these cartridges may have been used when old Banger died. Do you remember that? If they were, there should be four missing – one that went into the gun, and the other three that I found in Mr Peyton-Crumbe’s cartridge bag.’
He opened the earth-stained box carefully. Buck, Tosca and Banger craned over him as he looked inside.
‘Bingo!’ said Buck.
‘Four missing,’ said Tosca.
‘Well well well,’ said Powell.
Sunshine appeared with the plastic bag. ‘What have we here?’ said Powell, looking into it. ‘A cartridge crimper and a cube of high-powered explosive. That was how he did it.’
He reached for the phone on his belt, but found it in his pocket. He dialled a number. ‘Is that the control room? It’s ex-PC Powell here. Get a squad car up to Llanrisant Hall. It’s an emergency. I am about to apprehend a murder suspect, and I could do with some back-up.’
William strode out of the Hall and across the lawn. ‘I say,’ he addressed Powell, ‘I have just been on the phone to my lawyer and he said that you must return that letter to me.’
‘I am afraid I can’t do that, sir, as it may form evidence in a trial.’
‘No, no, no, I’m not going to press charges on the boy. He was only upset because his dog died. A criminal charge could ruin his life,’ explained William.
‘You misunderstand me,’ said Powell, ‘not in a trial of Tom Peyton-Crumbe. A trial of William Peyton-Crumbe. A murder trial.’
‘It’s not murder to kill a dog, you imbecile,’ William said.
‘No. But it is murder to kill a man,’ said Powell.
A sickly look curdled William’s milky features.
‘I’m sorry?’ he said.
‘These have just come to light,’ Powell held up the cartridge box and plastic bag. ‘William Peyton-Crumbe, you are under arrest for the murder of Basil Peyton-Crumbe on the third of January two thousand and nine. Anything you say may be used in evidence against you.’
Buck almost burst with pride to hear the words he had waited so long to hear. Finally, Powell had arrested a guilty man, and a murderer at that.
Tears streamed from Banger’s eyes. When he noticed Tosca staring at him, he shook his head and said, ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’
Victoria limped round the side of the house out of the shadow into the slanting evening sunshine.
‘He’s arrested William,’ Tom shouted. ‘For murder. Of Grandpa.’
‘What? What? But that was an accident,’ Victoria said.
‘We are not so sure of that any more, Miss Peyton-Crumbe,’ said Powell. ‘Evidence has come to light today that points firmly at foul play. He’s under arrest and will be held for questioning pending the results of forensic tests.’
A Police car roared up the drive and skidded sideways across the gravel. D.I. Dave Booth leapt out. He had heard the words ‘murder suspect’ over his radio while giving a lecture to the Rotary Club about invisibly marking your valuables, and had dashed to his panda car, flicked on the siren and tore through the town, narrowly missing every pedestrian he could. But his thumping heart had stilled when he saw the idiotic Powell, dressed in a Dog Warden’s uniform, waving to him from the lawn.
‘You!’ the D.I. shouted. ‘I thought I’d got rid of you, you half-witted plonker.’
Powell remained calm, and took D.I. Dave to one side while he explained the situation, showing him the box of cartridges and the contents of the plastic bag. Tom watched him pointing at William, and then the dog, and then fumble in his pocket for the will, which D.I. Dave glanced at, rapidly becoming excited again.
‘Get out of my way,’ he growled at Powell, advancing on William pointing his finger. ‘Right – you toerag, you’re nicked, you are,’ he shouted.
‘I will not tolerate being spoken to like tha—’ William said but his words were lost when D.I. Dave karate-chopped his neck and sent the big man sinking to his knees. As he dropped, D.I. Dave’s knee jerked up to catch the banker on his chin, sending him reeling back groaning onto the grass. Buck, Tosca and Sunshine looked on aghast.
‘Sometimes old policing methods are the most effective,’ Buck said, as D.I. Dave hauled William up, slammed him against the police car and kneed him in the groin. William flopped forward onto D.I. Dave.
‘Assaulting a police officer, are you?’ he screamed in William’s ear. ‘Right.’ He spun the man round like a top, yanked his arm hard up behind his back and thumped him face down on the bonnet. Then D.I. Dave turned and walked over to Powell, who was stroking Buck. Behind him William collapsed, leaving a smear of blood on the bonnet, and lay twitching on the grass.
‘Good work, Powell,’ he said. ‘Just one or two details to get straight so our reports don’t cause any hassle in court. How did you find the box of cartridges?’
Powell’s face lit up. ‘Well, that’s the amazing thing, Inspector, that dog retrieved it, Sunshine’s her name …’
‘We’ll say it was found in a painstaking fingertip search of the grounds. Make sure you put that in your report. What about the will? Where did you get that?’
‘Well, that’s the other surprising thing. Another dog, that one, Tosca, apparently got it out of Mr Peyton-Crumbe’s old Land Rover.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ said D.I. Dave. ‘We found it on William.’
D.I. Dave, flushed with the joy of a decent arrest as well as collusion over police evidence, returned to give William a kicking.
Cary came out of the Hall, placating Locket in her arms. ‘Victoria,’ she said. ‘As William’s girlfriend I claim the Hall as my primary residence so I will be living here from now on.’
Tom squared his shoulders and walked menacingly towards Cary. ‘Get out of our house,’ he growled with a curled lip. ‘Do you understand? You’ve got an hour to get your stuff and push off, you grasping little snake.’
‘That’s my grandson,’ Banger said to Buck.
‘Same goes for you, Locket,’ said Tosca. ‘Pick up your stinking tail and vacate the premises.’
‘We never want to see your bumhole on this estate again,’ Jam shouted, as Victoria let him out of the kennel.
Banger stood squarely on the lawn, and watched his family and their animals or his family and their humans, which ever way round it was, go through the studded front door and close it behind them. A deep sigh of satisfaction eased from his feathery breast. Long beams of sunlight slanted through the beech boughs across the lawn. The early summer evening was coming to a satisfactory close.
39
The Hush, The Damp
THE FORENSIC TEAM at the North Wales Police laboratory confirmed that the cartridge that blew up the gun which killed Banger had originated in the buried box, and identified a print of William’s podgy forefinger on the cartridge crimper which connected him to the incriminating evidence. The case came before the Crown Court in Chester, and William was sentenced to twenty-four years in prison. Cary did not attend the trial, or visit William in jail, or send him anything, or write to him, or ever see him again.
She moved to London and made a living as a consultant in contemporary art by day and call girl by night. Locket had a higher ambition. At night she left Cary’s Bayswater basement for Hoxton, where she hung around outside Tracey Emin’s house in the hope of running into her
celebrity cat Docket. Locket’s plan was simple: seduce Docket, get pregnant, inveigle herself into the Emin household, bear four cute kittens and end up having art pieces made about her that hung in national collections. Things turned out differently: meowing outside Docket’s house night after night failed to draw Docket onto the street; Locket began to think the famous feline might actually be gay. One evening Locket saw him looking out of the window and swivelled round, raised her tail and gave him what she hoped was an irresistible view of her pencil sharpener. She walked provocatively forward, and as she stepped off the pavement glanced back to see if he was still watching. He was. In fact he was smiling, because he had seen what she had not: a sports BMW reversing into the parking space where Locket stood. It took three days for the rats and crows to pick her flattened pelt off the tarmac.
D.I. Dave Booth received a promotion and was seconded to the middle east where he is currently in charge of training the new Iraqi Police Force.
Tom devotedly dug a grave for Spot. Sunshine, Jam, Tosca, Buck, Banger, Dog Warden Powell and Victoria bowed their heads with him to remember the terrier’s short and exuberant existence. Tom had trouble making a deep hole in the hard, dry ground, and as soon as some rain fell and the earth softened, Jam dug Spot up again, so Spot had to be reinterred in an old claret box, with a second brief service, which Buck and Powell, with their fondness for funerals, also attended.
When the dogs, Victoria and Tom were first installed in the Hall, Banger spent most of his time stalking around the outside of the house or flying up to the battlements to look in through the windows. But over the early weeks of winter, when darkness fell early and quickly, and Victoria went through the house drawing the curtains, he found himself slowly losing interest in what was going on behind them.
Victoria was thrifty, and hoarded everything she could, unwittingly providing Banger with a daily newspaper in a shed behind the house, but he began to lose interest even in the Telegraph with its accounts of the human world, and found himself drawn back to his own woods. William’s pheasants were no longer shot at, but ended up instead being picked off one by one by the foxes, weasels and stoats that now roamed the forestry like bandits.
Tosca spent her days curled up on a tassled satin cushion in front of a crackling log fire with Sunshine and Jam on the rug in front of her.
The pheasant is a complex bird, the human being somewhat simpler by comparison. When Kestrel heard that Victoria and Tom had inherited the Hall, the many insurmountable problems he had identified in their relationship suddenly evaporated, and he started making visits. Banger stood on the lawn muttering angrily as he watched Kestrel, his dreadlocks in a ponytail, make Victoria laugh as they sat around the kitchen table drinking tea and eating cake Kestrel had bought in a box.
Buck and Dog Warden Powell also dropped by regularly, and one day Banger was most surprised when he looked into the kitchen to see Powell tenderly kissing Victoria on the lips. Later that same week he saw Kestrel bound into the Hall, and leave crestfallen five minutes later, never to return. By November, Dog Warden Powell and Buck had moved into The Hall, and the Dog Warden van spent its nights beside Victoria’s car, while inside, Powell and Victoria sat hand in hand on the sofa surrounded by their dogs, watching police dramas, which Powell and Buck gave expert commentary on.
But Banger’s interest in the life of humans was failing, and he felt the lure of the woods growing stronger, and found he preferred their hush, their damp, and their insect-infested gloom to the bright, hard lights of the house.
During Christmas week it snowed on and off for three days and froze hard up at Llanrisant. Snow foamed over the eaves and window ledges, and formed a bund around the house where it had slid off the roof and fallen three floors to the ground with a hollow whumpf. The leaves of the rhododendrons were gloved in an icy crust, and icicles in motionless drips hung from gates whose latches were frozen solid. Under the curved knife of a crescent moon, ice grew like coral around the waterfall. From time to time the sky greyed over and stormy squalls blew down from the moor, bringing horizontal, or even upwardly curving snow that blurred the footprints of anyone or anything that had been in the garden. In the cold snap Banger slept the nights in the greenhouse, in the warmth of the lights Tom had rigged up for his dope plants, but by day he wandered the copses and covers he knew and loved.
Victoria gave permission for people to sledge on Justin’s Hill. Banger heard the distant shrieks and watched the bundled-up black figures dragging their trays and sleighs, and consoled himself with the thought of a child careering into a barely concealed strand of barbed wire.
On Christmas Day Banger watched them opening their presents, and was pleased to see that Powell gave Tom an air rifle.
‘He doesn’t want a gun!’ puffed Victoria.
But from Tom’s smile, it was clear that he did. The boy turned it over slowly in his hands, his eyes fixed on it.
‘Not for wildlife, Mum,’ said Tom. ‘Target practice.’
‘And that is why Buck bought you these,’ said Powell, handing Tom a packet of paper targets.
A minute later the back door opened and Tom appeared with gun, pellets, targets and a hammer and nail. He nailed the target to the beech on the lawn. Tom walked back and took aim from near the house. Banger decided to wander up to the tree to see how well his grandson shot. He had a funny feeling that Tom may have inherited his skill.
‘Crack,’ went the first pellet, into the outer ring.
Not bad, thought Banger, as he proudly watched Tom breaking, cocking and reloading the gun. The boy took aim, looking handsome and alert. Tom glanced at Banger, and smiled. Banger thought how good it was to be acknowledged by his grandson, and puffed the feathers on his breast. Then Banger noticed something surprising. The barrel of the rifle moved off the target and onto him. And it all ended again for Basil ‘Banger’ Peyton-Crumbe, as it had started, in a pheasant-shooting incident.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THESE PEOPLE HELPED me write Bird Brain:
Dick and Kirsty Williams, at Ysgythre, who showed me how shooting should be done.
Billy, Bob and Juliet Best at Vivod for the finest driven pheasants in the land.
John the Bird, also sometimes known as John Lawton Roberts, of Llangollen.
Polly Morgan and her animals, alive and dead. Trotsky was a late inspiration.
Mat Collishaw, who always shows it like it is.
Tracey Emin and her relationship with Docket.
Jenny Moores, who brought Tosca and many other wonderful things and people into my life, and Ben White for introducing me to Spot.
Jay Jopling for his energy, love of life and sheer exuberance.
Sunshine, may she rest in peace, and to Buffy and Pink.
My sister Emma whose talent and determination is utterly inspiring.
Thanks also to Mark Henriques, a great shot and a great friend, and to Nicky Stratton who both trudged through early drafts and were still encouraging when we all knew they were no good.
My mother, Susie, who brought me into a world of ideas and laughter, and who bought me my first gun.
My late uncle, Dick Edmonds, whose single minded pursuit of game hangs over the whole book.
My agent Mark Stanton at JBA.
Dan Franklin and Beth Coates.
Candace Bahouth and Helen Knight, for early encouragement.
My son, James Kennaway, whose incredible warmth, easy laughter and abundant love have seen me through many dark days with the manuscript, and my daughter, Ella Kennaway, whose sharp mind and searing wit always inspire me to make her laugh.
Deep gratitude and love also must go to Daniela Soave who had to sit through far too many long afternoons with me boring her about progress, or lack of it, and who always helped with advice and support and nourishing friendship.
FREE ANDY COLLISHAW
Follow Guy on Twitter: @guyken
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Copyright © Guy Kennaway 2011
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