Cold Relations (Honey Laird Book 1)

by Gerald Hammond

  On the line was Andrew’s Jackie. (They didn’t know her surname at the time but it turned out to be Fulson.) Something supremely terrible had happened, but whenever she tried to explain it over the phone she choked on the words. Help and comfort were required immediately if not much, much sooner. Honey said that she would come along as soon as she had had some breakfast, which brought on another bout of weeping. From it, she gathered that there was no time for eating but that if such irrelevancies as food were really necessary at a time like this, Jackie would make her some bloody breakfast but do hurry!

  Honey explained all this to Sandy while hurling herself into some clothes but he seemed to have gone back to sleep. He awoke enough to say for God’s sake to go, quietly, and he would beg a lift home from somebody or, at a pinch, be very naughty and summon a Traffic car. He was asleep again before she left the bedroom. She gave Pippa a few seconds in the outdoors for reasons of comfort and hygiene before harrying her into the back of the Range Rover.

  The roads were clear at that hour of a Sunday morning and the weather was fine. She was able to drive fast while still wondering what the fuss was about. Andrew could not have died in the night, because she had heard his voice in the background. Pippa, robbed for the moment of her breakfast, moaned all the way. In less time than she would have admitted to, she was at the door of Thack an Raip – the name of their cottage and very old Scots language for ‘home comforts’. While still ten minutes off, Honey phoned to report her imminent arrival. Jackie, on the phone, sounded very slightly calmer. Honey was there in another five minutes but she was none too soon, because Jackie was on the point of frying a major mixed grill whereas all Honey ever took in the morning was cereal and toast. Jackie was, it seemed, trying to keep busy. She and Andrew were both grey and shaking with nerves and grief.

  While Honey breakfasted on her least favourite cereal, Jackie toasted what could only be called a doorstep of bread and Pippa enjoyed a breakfast borrowed from Spot and Honey, Jackie and Andrew blurted out their story. It emerged in no sort of order but when Honey had managed to make sense of it, it amounted to this. They had left Tinnisbeck Castle for home yesterday at about eight p.m. They had fed the pups and been in bed well before midnight, pleasantly tired from fresh air and exercise. They heard nothing during the night but when Jackie looked out of their bedroom window in the dawn she saw that the gate of the run was open. Her frantic dash up the garden (in the nude, Honey gathered) revealed that both pups were missing. The padlock had been removed forcibly.

  Pausing to put some clothes on, they had dashed around their favourite dog-walks, calling and whistling, but with no result. When Honey asked whether they had called the police they pointed out that, as far as they were concerned, she was the police. She called the local station (five miles away) and left a message on an answering machine. So much, she thought, for that. Probably her call had just missed the local constable, who had left to answer a call about the finding of stray spaniels – whether dead or alive she could only guess and hope.

  Andrew was building up a head of steam and could do little more than recite what he would do to the villains if he ever caught up with them. Jackie, however, now that the presence of help and support was having a calming effect, turned out to have a head on her shoulders. She pointed out to him that he might only be talking himself into trouble and it would be more to the point to expend his energy on getting the dogs back. Honey explained that, pending the hoped-for call from the local bobby or some helpful neighbour, they should start the process of a wider search. For this, they would need an email facility, preferably with a scanner.

  The household did not possess a computer. Jackie dashed off up to the farm in Andrew’s Land Rover to borrow equipment from her father. Andrew was set to bustling about, trying to find the best photographs that they had of the spaniels. Meanwhile Honey took a look at the scene of the crime. The padlock looked as though it had been removed with bolt-cutters. The only other clue was a tyre-print in what had been mud but was drying hard. Once she could be sure that it did not belong to her car or theirs, she demanded a packet of Polyfilla from Andrew and made a cast. It was almost certainly wasted effort but the fact that something was being done continued to exert a calming influence.

  Farming was becoming more and more high-tech and Mr Fulson was well equipped for it. Jackie came back with what turned out to be her father’s spare computer, a rather dated model but with adequate power and its own modem. She had also obtained a short-term loan of his scanner. Honey fed in her own address and password and they were ready to go. One of the handlers at the dog unit had a home phone number that was memorable by virtue of the repetition of digits. She called him and he was able to look out the email address of the Kennel Club.

  The slickest modus operandi usually requires two people, one on the phone finding out email addresses or phone numbers and the other at the computer. This may need two phone lines, but Thack an Raip was not so well provided; she gave Andrew her mobile, sat Jackie down at the computer and told her to email details and pictures to the Kennel Club, making sure to tell them that the pups were microchipped and spayed and wearing collars with identifying tags on them. At the same time, she was to ask the KC to notify all dog clubs in Scotland or to furnish email addresses. Then she was to email the governing body of the shooting clubs and syndicates, letting it be known that news of the sudden appearance of any year-old liver-and-white pups might result in a reward. After that, she could work through all the vets in the Yellow Pages.

  Those tasks, she thought, should at least keep the pair occupied and give them a feeling that they were doing something potentially useful. She had no great hope of a positive result. One stolen dog is very like any other and if the new handler had a credible story it would take a determined acquaintance to question it. But the distress of the young couple was so total that she had to try. She left them to it and hurried stumbling down the farm road.

  Mr Gloag was already at his door, looking as sour as ever. She supposed that an old man living alone might be expected to let order and hygiene slip a bit, but on approaching to within a few yards she was not inclined to come any closer. His face was much wrinkled by the passage of time and, to be fair, probably hard work as well; but she suspected that his morning wash had been a pass with a damp cloth, merely removing dirt from the ridges but passing over the furrows.

  He asked who she was and what she wanted. Neither question was couched in polite terms; nor did he seem interested in getting an answer. It was not her habit to throw her constabulary weight around, preferring to achieve her ends by guile, charm and, if necessary, a little sex appeal. But this seemed to be a case where sex appeal had ceased to be appropriate. Perhaps a little bullying was called for. She moved to be upwind of him in the slight morning breeze, held up her identification and introduced herself, laying stress on the Detective Inspector. In ominous tones she added, ‘It seems that you’ve been a bad boy.’ Not many people have consciences so clear as to resist that gambit.

  It produced a good but unexpected result. He blanched under the dirt. ‘It’s no ma blame if yon limmer gaes aroon in the scud,’ he said.

  That gave her just the clue she needed. A glance over her shoulder assured her that he could not have seen Jackie’s dash to the kennel and back from his own premises. She pointed out that as a Peeping Tom he could be prosecuted and placed on the Sex Offenders Register. She did not actually say that there had been complaints, but the implication may have been there. She warned him against any repetition of such behaviour and then said that the matter might go no further if he could help in regard to the loss of two young dogs from his neighbours.

  Her guess must have been a good one. He was tumbling over himself to be helpful. He invited her to search his cottage, but nothing would have tempted her over that threshold. She did peep through the cleaner parts of his windows and poke through his outbuildings without sight or sound of a dog. His help extended to answering a few questions, and here he
turned out to be more intelligent than she had given him credit for. He had been woken in the night by the sound of a vehicle passing by. It had been a diesel, he could tell by the sound and the smell that filtered through his window, and it might have been about the size of a Land Rover. It had not been an automatic – he recognised the sound of manual gear changing. It had gone past Andrew’s cottage and on towards the farm.

  There had been a slight frost and in the calm air the sounds had carried clearly. The vehicle had gone on, slightly uphill, to the farmyard, where it had turned. The engine had stopped and he had supposed that it had reached its destination. To his surprise, about five minutes later he heard what seemed to be the same engine re-start right outside his door and the vehicle had driven off towards Edinburgh. The explanation was obvious. Rather than rouse Andrew and Jackie by stopping at the door, the thief had driven up to the farmyard and freewheeled back to the kennel. He had cut off the padlock, transferred the spaniels to the vehicle and freewheeled again on the slight downslope to the road. Spaniels often bark at a passing fox or badger, so a little noise from Spot and Honey might not have awoken the humans. On the other hand, the fact that Jackie and Andrew had passed a peaceful night might suggest that the thief was somebody known to the dogs. It also seemed probable that the thief knew the layout of the farm roads.

  She was taking her leave of the unpleasant Mr Gloag with a final warning about voyeurism, when a smart little police car turned in off the road. She had not expected her answerphone message to be answered at all on a Sunday, let alone so promptly, and her satisfaction was increased when she recognised the neat, uniformed figure of the driver. PC Webber had been a newly fledged constable in Newton Lauder when she was first assigned there. He had made a serious mistake, allowing a murderous rapist to slip through his fingers, and the Big Bugs had wanted him for a scapegoat. The man had been recaptured only a few minutes later and the mistake had originated with somebody further up the hierarchy. Honey had put her career on the line, fought for him and saved his bacon and he knew it. His face lit up when he saw her. She got in beside him for the short run up to Chez Andrew.

  ‘What’s it all about, Inspector?’ he asked as he drew up. He was one of the few subordinates who she would have allowed to call her Honey, or even Honeypot, but he had respect.

  She brought him up to speed with the dognapping and what had so far been done about it. He took it down in laborious shorthand. They went inside and made introductions. PC Webber announced his approval of the steps so far taken. He could hardly do otherwise faced with a Detective Inspector on the same Force, even if he had not still been showing the signs of believing that the sun rose and set at her command. Andrew had produced a very lively photograph of the two dogs and Jackie had scanned it and included it in a carefully worded email. They were now working their way down the list of vets, but that could wait. Very few vets’ offices would be open on a Sunday.

  When she had them all seated around the kitchen/dining table, Honey said, ‘There are two main possibilities. One, somebody on yesterday’s shoot fell for the dogs or saw the chance of a quick profit and followed them home.’

  ‘That could be it.’ Jackie said. ‘I was driving, because Andy had wanted to be free to have a drink. And there seemed to be lights in my mirror, a long way back, all the way home. Of course, I couldn’t be sure that it was the same car all the time,’ she added.

  ‘Of course not. The other possibility is that somebody around here took them. Maybe to sell. It’s becoming a more common crime. It’s less likely that somebody around here wants to keep them. You’d have been bound to run across them at some time.’

  Jackie was looking at her intensely. ‘There’s something you don’t want to say. Isn’t there?’

  It had to be said. ‘They could have been taken out of spite, by somebody who hates one or both of you.’

  ‘In which case,’ Jackie said slowly, ‘they’d probably kill them. That’s what you didn’t want to say, isn’t it?’ Honey nodded. (Andrew was making a sound indicating inner turmoil.) ‘But if it was spite, surely it would have been easier just to poison them where they were. And it would have hit us harder.’

  She had a point, but you never know how a vengeful mind will work. It might well have reasoned that uncertainty and imagination might have hurt more and for longer than mere death, but Honey decided not to mention that point.

  ‘But who could hate either of us that much?’ Jackie asked.

  On the spur of the moment it was difficult to imagine anyone hating Jackie. ‘No discarded boyfriends?’

  ‘Certainly not! Andrew was my first and only.’

  ‘What about the man whose jaw you broke?’ Honey asked Andrew.

  Andrew looked at her vaguely. ‘Don’t think so,’ he said. ‘We’ve had a pint together since then. He was friendly. Apologetic, we both were. I shouldn’t have lost my rag and I told him so.’

  ‘It would still be worth checking on his whereabouts last night,’ she suggested to Constable Webber.

  He nodded. ‘I can go and do that now. He’s only a few miles away.’ He hurried out and she heard the little car drive off.

  ‘Who else have you had a punchup with?’ she asked Andrew.

  ‘Nobody. I swear it.’

  ‘Not even a shouting match?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He never shouts,’ Jackie said.

  That had the ring of truth. Even in his wrath, Andrew was softly spoken. ‘Just in case it was somebody who was on yesterday’s shoot,’ Honey said, ‘we’d better know more about the guests.’ She took back her phone and called Tinnisbeck Castle.

  Hazel answered the phone. Sandy, she said, was at breakfast. Honey had already said all the proper things about their hospitality but she said them again as quickly as possible. When Hazel heard about the stolen dogs, she was horrified. She could imagine her own desolation if Suzy should go missing. She quite understood that the fullest information about the other guests might prove helpful. ‘We’re just in the middle of a very early lunch,’ she said. ‘More of a brunch, really. We’re planning to go to Edinburgh this afternoon. We’ll almost pass the door. Would it help if we called in around two o’clock?’

  Honey said that it would and she gave her directions. Hazel promised to give Sandy a lift home. Honey thanked her and disconnected. At least that solved the problem of getting Sandy safely back to Edinburgh. Cross off one problem.

  There was one other theory to be eliminated. ‘When you did your search this morning,’ she said, ‘was the frost still on the ground?’

  They both nodded. ‘We were studying it for useful traces,’ Jackie said.

  ‘You went all round the farm?’ she asked, as casually as she could manage.

  ‘First thing,’ Andrew said. ‘There was no sign that they’d been there. The frost was unmarked.’

  Jackie was, as they say, sharp enough to cut herself. She turned white. ‘You think that my father could have taken the dogs? Why would he? As a ruse? To drive a wedge between us?’

  ‘It’s a possibility.’

  Jackie had lost all her colour but she stayed calm. ‘No it is not,’ she said. ‘My father has no objection to Andrew, who helps him out whenever he’s short-handed, though Dad did say once that he’d prefer that we got properly married – which we plan to do in the spring, by the way. But we went right round the farm anyway, in case the dogs had wandered up there. There were no marks in the frost and no answer to our whistles except a bark from Dad’s dogs. They’re kennelled in a shed.’

  Honey, for once, was at a loss. She didn’t know whether to apologise or to say That’s good or What a pity! Instead, she dropped the subject and let them go back to their emails. She borrowed the whistle to which the spaniels had been accustomed. Her boots had been in the car throughout a frosty night and putting her warm feet into them was misery, but she gritted her teeth and suffered. She took Pippa for a walk around the immediate fields, calling and whistling. Once again, it was almost certain
ly wasted effort but it was better than sitting still in a house that reeked of desperation.

  Deep inside, she was as upset as the young owners were. A disaster, she thought wryly, can hurt a third party more than the victim because the stranger is more impotent; the sufferer may at least fight back. She tried to detach her mind and take comfort from the bright, crisp day and Pippa’s delight in being out in it. There were tree strips between the fields. The leaves were already down from the birches, but the other hardwoods were glowing with autumn colours. There were berries in the hedge bottoms and squirrels overhead.

  She turned her steps in the direction of the farmhouse – a substantial building and far too large for one man if, as she supposed, Jackie’s father was now alone. A man was crossing the farmyard with two dogs at heel. He paused and the dogs sat immediately. Pippa did the same after one disdainful glance. The man was in working clothes but from his bearing she guessed, correctly as it turned out, that he was Mr Fulson, Jackie’s father.

  ‘I’ve had a damn good look through the outbuildings,’ he said. ‘I’m just away to search further. There’s one or two places a dog could fall or get shut in. I’m not hopeful, mind. I could see one dog getting into that sort of trouble, but not two. Or they could have picked up something poisoned and be in need of the vet.’ He was a pleasant looking man, well spoken and, apart from a balding head, not showing much sign of the passing years.