Bareback

by John Burke

  ‘It wasn’t just his wife he wanted to expose. He was carrying a load of dynamite for the rest of them.’

  ‘Those papers they’ve salvaged?’

  ‘Which Archie Ferguson had found. And told Brown about?’

  Rutherford favoured her with a matey grin. ‘So we’re agreed that Brown killed Ferguson?’

  ‘Unless . . .’

  ‘Come on, Les. You’re not still dabbling with the notion of Hannah Ferguson and that Craig yobbo putting on a big act to cover the way they disposed of her husband?’

  ‘No. It seemed ingenious, but I was never keen on the idea.’

  ‘Then who the hell else?’

  ‘A cabal?’ said Lesley diffidently.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Dr Hamilton gave us remarkably specific times for that meeting. The exact moment it started, when Brown arrived, how long they waited for Ferguson to show up, and exactly when it finished. But did he let them all into the secret of these papers that had shown up? They might just have got together to protect their hallowed traditions. If Archie Ferguson was in a really destructive mood, producing those documents to blow the whole thing apart . . .’

  Rutherford had pulled a pad towards him and was scribbling figures on it. ‘Look, we’ve been taking it for granted that Hamilton’s very exact timings are truthful. And that Brown was delivering insurance quotes at Black Knowe exactly when he said he was. But remember – Ferguson left his office very early. Miss Elliot says that Brown was in and out of the office shortly afterwards. Then most likely went to Ferguson’s home. We’ve got a couple of hours to play with, Les.’

  ‘Ferguson or Brown,’ she followed him, ‘could have got to Hamilton long before the meeting.’

  ‘Assuming that Ferguson was on his way to confront the lot of them with what he had found, only Brown got to him first, would Brown have been the one to put the frighteners on them? Or Hamilton for a start?’ Rutherford added another cigarette butt to the accumulation in the ashtray. ‘Look, this is your field, Les. You’d better explain to me in words of one syllable just what was in those papers.’

  She told him.

  When she had finished, he whistled slowly through his teeth. ‘You mean the whole shower of them could have collaborated on eliminating Ferguson? All in it together like a Mafia chapter? All loyalty and silence, for the sake of their bloody stupid Ridings? You really believe that?’

  Lesley thought for a long moment, then regretfully shook her head. ‘No, not really. You’d never get all those little men to collaborate in a killing and then hush the whole thing up. And can you imagine Professor Makepeace going along with it? If you’d seen his glee the other evening . . .’

  ‘Unless they left him out of it. But if they’d been the ones, they’d have taken good care to dispose of those precious papers.’ He paused. ‘Was Brown trying to burn things on their behalf?’

  ‘More likely on his own behalf. Not so much the Ridings giveaways as those other bits we got our hands on – papers about his insurance fiddles, his shoddy deals with Cameron. Taking his cut, getting office premises on the cheap, setting up a big insurance in Cameron’s name. And persuading him to keep mum about the Forster letter which he’d come across in his researches.’

  ‘Because it might come in handy later?’

  ‘Maybe he tried very recently to squeeze a price out of Hamilton for suppressing it.’

  ‘And which way would Hamilton jump? Outraged dignity, refusal to be associated with such dishonesty? Or letting himself be pressured to preserve the good name of the Ridings?’

  ‘Either way,’ Lesley puzzled, ‘why did Brown try to burn those useful documents as well as his own incriminating stuff?’

  ‘If Brown really was the one who started the fire. We’ve been assuming that he must have let himself into the shop with a bundle of papers which he planned to dispose of at the same time as preparing to cash in on the insurance, and –’

  ‘Just a minute. Just struck me. How did he get in?’

  ‘The same way anyone gets in. He lived over the shop, he and Cameron were mates, he’d have had a key.’

  ‘Not according to Miss Elliot. She was definite that until legal details about disposal of the stock and sale of the premises had been settled, Archie Ferguson had sole charge of the keys to the shop and the living quarters behind.’

  ‘But if Brown had given Archie a lift, and then bashed his head in, and found the keys in his pocket . . .’

  ‘You think the killing took place right there, below Black Knowe, on impulse?’

  ‘He could hardly have had time to calculate. Like you said about the theft of the quaich, Les, it was on impulse. No professional criminals working out a smart operation here. Impulse thieving – impulse killing. Do you think Brown would drive Ferguson all the way to the meeting having just learned that his whole way of life was about to be exposed and smashed?’

  ‘We seem to be getting back to Brown as Ferguson’s killer.’

  ‘He had a good motive. Didn’t want the whole thing blown up. Had done very well out of it. Insuring riders, virtually taking bets for or against rainy days, conning his way on to important committees. If it got round that he’d been the one encouraging Cameron to fool every decent person in the place . . .’

  Lesley said: ‘Do we know whether the door was locked?’

  ‘You still on about doors and keys?’

  ‘The shop door. You’d have thought that if he’d been planning a fire, he’d have made sure before starting it that he could make a quick getaway.’

  ‘Any reason to suppose he got himself locked in by accident?’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of an accident.’

  The phone nearest to Rutherford’s elbow rang. Before the WPC at the end of the incident room could take over, he lifted it.

  It was Sir Nicholas Torrance. Lesley watched Rutherford’s face as incredulity was followed by a predatory gleam. When he had replaced the receiver he said: ‘Well. Bloody hell.’

  She waited for some enlightenment, but for the larger part of a minute he was content to hug himself. At last he said: ‘Would you believe it? Maybe we’ve been looking for blood and hair in the wrong car.’

  ‘Cars,’ Lesley corrected.

  ‘All right. The Fergusons’ Metro, Brown’s Escort. Maybe it’s time we had a look at whatever Dr Hamilton drives.’ Rutherford shoved a crumpled page of notes in his pocket. ‘I can’t wait to see Brown in the morning. I think he’ll crack pretty easily.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Hannah Ferguson took a last approving look at herself in the hall mirror, tugged her jacket a fraction of an inch down over her hips, took her riding crop from the umbrella stand, and opened the front door. On the step, his hand raised towards the bell push, stood Sandy Craig.

  ‘You look terrific in that rig,’ he leered. ‘Always did. Even better out of it, though.’ He tried to push forward, but she stood her ground.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Thought I’d give things time to blow over. Couldn’t risk them thinking I’d had a hand in disposing of poor old Archie, could we?’

  ‘We? You took my car. You took that girl –’

  ‘A good job I had her along as an alibi for the appropriate time, wasn’t it? Hope your story was watertight, too?’

  ‘You’ve got a nerve, showing up here again.’

  ‘But it’s all worked out nice and sweetly. No obstacles now. Problem solved. When you’ve done your bit of pony trekking, I’ll see you back here and we can talk, right?’

  ‘Never could keep your hands to yourself, could you?’

  ‘Not when there’s you around, no.’ He reached out, but she backed away. ‘And you never used to complain.’

  ‘Always on the grope. For money, mainly.’

  ‘Oh, come on, now.’ With his right hand he held on to the open door, with his left stroked her throat. Hannah carefully but powerfully swung her right fist into his eye. As he gasped a protest, she said: ‘G
ot tired of you already, has she?’

  ‘Look, sweetie, you know she was only an excuse to –’

  She raised her riding crop and struck him across the cheek, leaving a red weal which grew brighter by the second. ‘I’ve heard enough excuses. And I’ve had enough of you.’ She raised her arm again. ‘They’re likely to prosecute me for theft. They may as well add GBH to it as well.’ One last jab in the stomach from the crop doubled him up. He slid off the doorstep, his pace quickening as he tottered backwards down the path, like a courtier bowing low as he quitted the royal presence.

  Hannah slammed the front door behind her and strode off towards Agatha Buchan’s stables, slapping her riding crop exultantly against her thigh.

  *

  Jamie Brown tried to open his one visible eye. The other was obscured by a wad of dressing, and the surrounding skin exuded a glistening yellow pus. It clearly hurt him to open his eye or his mouth; but Rutherford was determined that Brown’s mouth should open and stay open until it had given up all his secrets.

  ‘The bastard. The two-timing bastard.’ It was little more than a rasping whisper. ‘Tried to do me in. And now you’re telling me he’s trying to lumber me with Archie’s death?’

  ‘It is true, though, that you were the one who set fire to that place, isn’t it?’

  ‘Who says so? Him, I suppose?’

  ‘I do think you have some explaining of your own to do, Mr Brown. It would help enormously if you could start now.’

  ‘Look, I’ll no be carrying the can for all this business on my own. You believe him because he’s the big man hereabouts, eh? Big enough to try getting rid of me, and then getting away with it.’ A nurse put her head warningly round the door. Brown lay back for a couple of long minutes, waiting for his breathing to level out. ‘When I get well, and get out of here, I’ll tell you everything you want to know.’

  ‘Once you’re well enough and out of here,’ said Rutherford, pitilessly leaning on him, ‘we’ll be considering charges of forgery, arson, attempting to obtain money under false pretences . . .’

  ‘Look, I’m in no fit state to talk yet.’

  ‘Then we’ll have to rely on what Dr Hamilton has to say, won’t we?’

  ‘I’ve told you, I’ll not take the blame for what he got up to.’

  ‘You had a phone call from Ferguson that Friday afternoon?’ Rutherford cajoled. ‘The afternoon before his death. And then went round to see him. Isn’t that how it all started?’

  ‘Who says I went round to see him?’

  ‘Miss Elliot.’

  ‘Och, that crabbit little insect.’

  ‘But it’s true that you were in a hurry to see Ferguson?’

  ‘Och, aye. Now I remember. I did go round to see him, aye.’ A spurt of resentment welled up from somewhere in Brown’s tortured body. ‘It would ne’er ha’ happened if he’d let me hae a key to the shop. I was joint executor. I ought to have been just as entitled to go into the premises as he was.’

  ‘And remove anything incriminating?’

  ‘It need ne’er ha’ happened. We could ha’ come to some . . . arrangement. But he was too pig-headed. Finds a lot of stuff that was none of his concern, and rings me up and starts threatening.’

  Rutherford was less interested in past grudges than in what they had led to. He edged closer to the bed and kept his voice low and encouraging. ‘Mr Brown, I can tell it’s very painful for you to speak. Shall I do the summing-up, and you stop me where I go wrong?’ Without waiting for a nod or word of assent, he went on: ‘Ferguson had already left his office when you got there, so you went round to his house. He was in alone.’

  ‘Aye, and in a reet thrawn mood.’ Brown’s accent, usually a sort of faint Borders Cockney which he had acquired in his dealings with English clients, was thickening under stress, the language of his childhood snivelling through tearful catarrh. ‘Something to dae with his wife, and that quaich he’d found.’

  ‘So he was ready to lash out at everybody.’ Rutherford steered them back on to the main track. ‘Including you. Threatening you with exposure. And in a mood to expose all the whole Common Riding forgeries and illusions, right?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘You tried to reason with him. But he was determined to go ahead. He wasn’t going to let you buy him off.’

  ‘I wasnae suggesting anything illegal.’

  ‘Wasn’t going to let you . . . come to an arrangement,’ Rutherford amended. ‘And when he got to the meeting he was going to spill the beans about the forgeries. No deals, no arrangements. He’d been looked down on long enough. He was going to expose you and your swindles, and make the rest of them look fools. Did he try to stride off in some high-and-mighty mood, and then find his car was missing?’

  ‘Hustled me out,’ Brown croaked, ‘and slammed the door, and then found the garage was empty. Aye, that’s how it was.’

  ‘So then you offered him a lift to the meeting. Or . . .’ Rutherford wondered how far he could push this. ‘You had a row in the house, it got violent, you lost your temper and hit him –’

  ‘No! It wasnae like that.’

  ‘What was it like, then? You offered him a lift, and tried to talk him out of his notions. Only you were far too early for the meeting, so you both went to see Dr Hamilton first. And you and Hamilton decided Ferguson had to be got rid of.’

  Brown tried to shake his head, winced, and lay still. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘We went straight to the tower. Me and Archie. He was set on giving that quaich back to Torrance first thing.’

  And maybe spill the beans while he was at it, thought Rutherford. The situation was getting too hairy for Brown to cope with. He must have argued desperately with Ferguson all the way. And now, once started, he was mumbling self-justification as he painfully squeezed out his story. Hoping to humour Ferguson, he admitted he had driven them up below Black Knowe, but had stopped short by the cairn, still arguing. Ferguson was not to be shaken. Everything was as orderly as ever in his tidy mind. Return the quaich to Sir Nicholas and tell him of Hannah’s responsibility, continue to the meeting, confront the lot of them with the unpalatable truth that they were all wasting their time, and had been doing so for years; and finally hand over the documents concerning Jamie Brown to the police.

  ‘And he thought you’d let him get away with it?’ marvelled Rutherford. ‘He must have been a very courageous little man. Or very stupid.’

  ‘Stupid, aye,’ crackled Brown. ‘Deid stupid.’

  ‘Stupid. And dead.’

  ‘That was none o’ my doing. I didnae –’

  ‘None of your doing? Dr Hamilton reported you arriving late at that meeting. And he now says he had his doubts when the news of Ferguson’s death –’

  ‘Had his doubts, did he? Look, man, I’ll nae be held responsible for him . . . for what he did. I went to get help. I swear that’s what I did. I wasnae to know what he . . . what that man . . .’

  ‘Let’s take it slowly, shall we?’

  Rutherford said this to calm things down, but hardly meant it. He wanted things taken quickly rather than slowly. Each movement in the corridor outside made him flinch. At any minute some officious nurse or doctor could come in and tell him the patient had had enough for one day. But Rutherford hadn’t had enough: he wanted the lot, and wanted it today.

  Brown, his head sunk into his pillow, stared at the ceiling as if watching a video of his memories. He began to add a sound-track.

  By the time they were climbing the gentle gradient towards the tower, the rain was getting worse. And so, Rutherford guessed, was Brown’s temper. Ferguson had put those two bundles of papers on the back seat, but insisted on clutching the quaich to him the whole way. And insisted he would go through with his revelations.

  Brown slewed off the lane beside the cairn. He had got nowhere with his arguments. So, ‘I’m not driving right up to the tower,’ he said. ‘I’ll no be a party to you telling Torrance a pack of malicious lies.’

  ‘They’re not li
es. And I’ll walk.’

  With the quaich still under one arm, Ferguson had wrenched at the passenger door handle. He stumbled out into the soaking rain, slid in the mud, and saved himself from falling only by gripping the wing mirror.

  Brown got out and clawed his way round the car, making a grab at Ferguson’s arm.

  ‘And’ – Rutherford was unable to restrain himself – ‘you lost control and killed him. In the heat of the moment. He wouldn’t make a deal, so you bashed his head in.’

  ‘No. All I wanted to do was stop him making a fool of himself. And the rest of us.’

  Rutherford still had a picture of Brown swearing at Ferguson in a wild panic, and lashing out at him.

  Either way, Ferguson was knocked – ‘fell,’ said Brown – back and smacked his head against the lintel of the cairn. Slowly he sagged, half into the doorway, his legs exposed to the rain.

  ‘I didnae ken what to do,’ said Brown. ‘He was very still. I just twisted his legs round under cover, and then I went for help.’

  ‘To Black Knowe?’

  ‘Och, no. I went for the doctor.’

  ‘But you could have phoned from the tower. Sir Nicholas –’

  ‘Sir Nicholas would soon have found out more than was good for him.’

  ‘More than was good for you, you mean.’

  ‘I drove off right away to fetch Dr Hamilton. At the time it seemed the sensible thing to do.’

  ‘And told him everything Ferguson had in mind.’

  ‘I went for the doctor,’ Brown whined. ‘He was the one who’d know what to do if Archie had just knocked himself out.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rutherford. ‘Just what to do.’

  ‘I thought he could maybe give Archie an injection of painkiller. Keep him quiet until after the meeting. I ken he’s retired, but he must surely still have some of the stuff around.’ Then Brown twitched, and tried to shake his head again. ‘No,’ he fumbled blearily, ‘what I’m meaning is that he could see if Archie was concussed, and if he could bring him round then a painkiller –’

  ‘I think what you’re really talking about is a fatal injection. Only Hamilton knew better, didn’t he? Something like that would have shown up at the autopsy. Which it didn’t.’ Rutherford waited as footsteps passed the door. ‘Tell me one thing. Was Ferguson alive or dead when Dr Hamilton reached him?’