‘We like him,’ Janet said. ‘He’s a good person.’
‘And a damn fine shot,’ Keith added. That, in his book, would have excused anything from a lack of personal freshness to sodomy.
‘And a good cash customer,’ said Wallace. It was his accolade.
‘I was friends with Nancy, his late wife,’ Molly said gently. ‘She was the nicest person I ever knew. When she knew that she was going to die, before she even told Jake, she asked me to see that he was all right. I haven’t been able to do much, he doesn’t need it. I’ve spring-cleaned his flat once or twice, because when he’s absorbed in something new he lets it go, and I’ve nagged him to buy new clothes and made sure that he doesn’t just eat out of tins. But I think Nancy rather hoped that I’d marry Jake.’
‘Why didn’t you?’ Keith asked curiously.
‘He never asked me.’
Keith thought that over. ‘Oh,’ he said at last.
Chapter Three
Keith used his own key to make off with the car. Two, he thought, could play that game. Sauce for the goose. He drove, over wet roads but under a clearing sky, home to Briesland House. He took Brutus the labrador for a short, bladder-emptying walk and then tried to settle down. He was too early for the telephone message – even Jake in his Lotus could hardly be past London yet. But Keith wanted to be available at the earliest possible moment. There were certain matters which he wanted to raise with Jake before Jake spoke with Mr Enterkin. These included a tactful enquiry as to whether Jake happened to want an alibi . . .
Molly phoned. She was looking after the shop while Janet helped Wallace with the stock-taking. Keith gathered that his name was a dirty word around the shop. Wallace, Molly said, was muttering some quotation about twenty-nine distinct damnations and hadn’t stammered once.
To soothe his impatience Keith settled to his favourite therapy. While Vivaldi from the four loudspeakers spread charm on part of his mind, he began the task of dismantling the latest addition to stock – a good but rusted fowling-piece by Rhoades with a lead ball firmly corroded into the breach. With a worm, patience, force and much bad language he managed the unloading. Then, with penetrating-oil and a hot screwdriver, he attacked screws which had not been loosened for a century.
But his attention was as restless as a butterfly. Whenever he looked up from his workbench it was caught and lured away, first by the rack after rack of antique guns with polished walnut and silver and plum-brown steel, and then by the window. The first floor of Briesland House commanded a view down the valley to Newton Lauder and beyond. The frost was returning and the sky had cleared as if there had never been a cloud. A single crow hung in the void, one speck in the enormousness of space. Keith was reminded that the pigeon would soon be flighting to a favourite roosting wood. The lunchtime talk had reminded him of the sweet balance of the Lancaster hammer-gun, and he longed to take it, with a beltful of black powder cartridges, and to go and stand in wait for the fleeting shapes to jink above the treetops. It was at such times, or walking with dog and gun, that his mind worked freely.
His hopes died with the daylight. When the phone rang at last and Mr Enterkin’s voice came on the line, the last strip of cold light was fading above the hills to the west.
‘The worst has befallen,’ Mr Enterkin said. ‘The police removed Paterson from the departure lounge.’
‘Under arrest?’
‘Not yet, so far as I know, although it may only be a matter of time. I gather that he is isolated in a VIP lounge, awaiting the arrival of officers who are already on the shuttle from Edinburgh to Heathrow, and that much may depend upon what story if any he tells when they arrive. He does not seem to have asked for a solicitor.’
‘I see,’ Keith said. ‘Any other news?’
‘They have found what they believe to be Muir’s gun, dismantled and thrown into the rhododendrons about a quarter-mile this side of where the Land Rover burned. I doubt if we shall hear more until the pathologists have finished with the – er – deceased.’
‘How long is it since you heard the news about Jake?’
‘About an hour.’
‘You could have phoned me earlier.’
‘I could,’ Mr Enterkin said with asperity, ‘except that I have spent virtually all of the intervening period on the telephone to Gatwick, at first trying to speak to my client and then endeavouring to find out whether he had received my message and, if not, whether it had been aborted by the police so that they could intercept him in the act of boarding a plane bound for foreign parts. Not one of my efforts met with the least success.’
*
Next morning, Keith’s agreement with the proprietor of the market garden required him to repeat his foray against the grey hordes. But the pigeon were shy and disbelieving and Keith’s mind was not wholly on his task. He returned home, plucked his modest bag, ate breakfast and was heading into Newton Lauder by nine o’clock. He was happy to offer Wallace his help, now that he could be reasonably sure that stock-taking was finished.
It was far too early to contact Mr Enterkin, so Keith was astonished to learn that that notoriously late riser was already in his office and had been trying to reach him.
Keith crossed the square, climbed a flight of stairs and reached Mr Enterkin’s office. The secretary was not yet on guard in the outer office, but he found the solicitor brooding in his inner sanctum, glowering at the tide of papers which always seemed about to engulf him. He looked up and took a second or two to focus.
‘Sit down, my boy. Sit down.’
Keith took the only uncluttered chair. ‘What news?’ he asked.
‘Little, and none of it good.’ Mr Enterkin held up a chubby hand, preparatory to counting on his fingers. ‘First of all, Paterson has been arrested and is being brought back today.’
‘Oh dear,’ Keith said mildly.
‘You sum the matter up in a nutshell, although a long, low groan might have been more to the point. The police action seems a little precipitate unless something more than we already know has occurred to harden their suspicions. There could, of course, be a thousand things which will emerge later to confound us, but what jumped unwelcomed to my mind was that the first question to be asked of Paterson would have concerned his whereabouts shortly after yesterday’s dawn. And I hope to God that he has not taken the dangerous step of proffering an alibi to the police before trying it out on his solicitor.’
‘I’d have thought,’ Keith said, ‘that an alibi would be the best thing going.’
‘The same thought may have occurred to Paterson,’ Mr Enterkin snorted. He changed fingers. ‘But alibis are notoriously difficult to prove and easy to break. And in the present case an alibi might well prove to be both a snare and a delusion. Consider for a moment. To whom would your friend and my client be likely to turn for an alibi at that unlikely hour?’
‘Oh,’ Keith said. ‘A lady, you think?’
‘A female person, at least. And just at the moment his name seems to be linked with that of only one person of the opposite gender. The dead man’s wife. You see the predicament?’
‘Clearly,’ Keith said.
Mr Enterkin was not one to be stopped by the knowledge that his listener was ahead of him. He changed fingers again and rolled on. ‘Either Paterson would do the gentlemanly thing and keep silent. Or he would place his liberty before both their honours and offer her name as his alibi, thereby immediately furnishing the police with a better motive, or one supplementary to the one already known to them. In turn, Mrs Muir would have to decide whether to support his alibi at the risk of suggesting to the police that they were in collusion, or denying it and thereby landing him even deeper in what I have heard you refer to as the clag, whatever clag may be.’
‘Just mud.’
‘I had hoped for something less savoury.’ Mr Enterkin looked at his hands and lowered them. ‘I’ve lost count,’ he complained. ‘Anyway, it occurred to me to telephone the proprietor of the fruit and vegetable shop near Mr Paterson
’s flat. His trade demands an unconscionably early start to the day. He informed me that yesterday morning, when he arrived to open his shop, he noticed in the close where Mr Paterson parks his car another vehicle, a hatchback of a particularly gaudy red – which description fits the only car in which I have ever seen Mrs Muir. She certainly refused, in my hearing, to set foot or any other portion of herself in her husband’s Land Rover. He further told me that the police had already obtained that information from him.’
‘She’ll have to alibi him, then,’ Keith said.
‘My boy, you are still not thinking the matter through. In passing, some slight corroboration, if it is needed, is furnished by something overheard by my good lady in the bar last night. It was suggested that, prior to her marriage, Mrs Muir had a reputation which was far from virtuous. ‘Man-mad’ was the expression used.
‘Finally, the police have sealed Mr Paterson’s flat and also that part of his shop’s back premises which he used as his personal workshop. It may be presumed that the thought has occurred to them, as it had to me, that Mr Paterson might have contrived to provide himself with an alibi while knowing full well that to cause an explosion and a fire some miles away would present no difficulty to one of his inventive talents in the field of radio.’
‘That’s not so good,’ Keith said.
‘Again, you understate. Knowingly or unknowingly, the lady provides herself with a perfect alibi without affording Mr Paterson any real protection whatever. Imagine it. The deed done the night before. The Land Rover bestowed in what I believe to be a secluded spot and the decoys distributed – all by starlight, which might well have caused those deviations from the norm which aroused your suspicions. A lady, who may be quite innocent, is welcomed to his flat and to his bed, already a widow had she but known it. Then, at a more credible hour, a hand under the bed or a trip ostensibly to the bathroom, the touch of a switch, and far away there occur an explosion and a fire which between them play havoc with the evidence.’
Keith thought it over, and the more he thought the less he liked Mr Enterkin’s hypothesis. ‘In that case, why would Jake’s cartridges be in the bag?’ he objected.
‘Hopefully because that is not what happened. But it may well be the police theory, and we must prepare to refute it. The one tiny crumb of comfort is that Paterson has at last announced that he is saying not another word outwith my presence. Too late, no doubt, but it is all the comfort we have for the moment.’
‘So what happens now?’
‘Well, now.’ Mr Enterkin laced his fingers over his round paunch. ‘Much will depend on the autopsy findings. Assuming for the moment that there are any findings of significance – which, in view of the body’s state, is far from certain – and that they are compatible with Mr Paterson’s guilt, he will be brought here and taken before the sheriff, who will commit him for trial before the High Court in Edinburgh.’
‘Must that happen?’ Keith asked. ‘Can’t you put on a defence in the sheriff court?’
‘You’ve been reading Perry Mason again,’ Mr Enterkin said severely. ‘The sheriff court proceedings are purely formal, being concerned with such matters as legal aid and representation, and then a pleading diet at which a date is set for the High Court. Arguments will only begin when he comes up for trial in Parliament House.’
Keith had had some experience of such matters. ‘That won’t be tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Or even next month.’
‘Dear me, no.’
‘How long, then?’
‘That depends on how long it takes to collect the necessary evidence, whether or not one side or the other is striving for delay, how many other cases precede his in the calendar and whether the accused in those cases decide to plead guilty. It can take a long time.’
‘During which poor Jake languishes in the nick while he may be perfectly innocent. It doesn’t seem very fair.’
‘The law is not concerned with fairness.’
‘Justice, then?’
‘Only marginally with justice.’
‘Then what is the law concerned with?’
‘A good question.’ Mr Enterkin repeated his moue of deep thought. He might have been sucking treacle through a straw. ‘And, although I have been its servant for more years than I will admit to, I don’t really know. To be frank, I think that the law is concerned only with itself.’
‘Aren’t we all?’
Keith would have pursued his questions further, because needling Mr Enterkin on the subject of the law’s deficiencies was one of the pleasures in his life; but they were interrupted by sounds from the outer office and Mr Enterkin seized on his chance to escape. ‘Miss Wilkes seems to have made a belated arrival,’ he said. ‘You’ll take a cup of coffee?’
‘I’d better be going. Is it all right if I go back and look over the ground?’
Mr Enterkin snapped his fingers. ‘I knew that there had to be a reason for me to see you,’ he said, ‘other than answering all your questions. I just couldn’t think what it was. Chief Inspector Munro advises me that the police expect to have completed their searches by mid-morning. If you think that there’s anything to be gained, do by all means take a look. Despite your outrageous charges for such services in the past, I have to admit that you have always produced value for them at the end of the day. And I dare say that Mr Paterson can and should afford them.’
‘I’ll speak to Wal,’ Keith said. ‘If he doesn’t mind holding the fort, I’ll give all the help I can. Are the fuzz doing a search at the decoying site?’
‘I think they’ve confined their intensive search to the area between the Land Rover and where they think that an attack may have occurred. At what you call the decoy site, I gather that only the most cursory search has been made. But they took copious photographs, at my insistence, before removing the decoys. They regard all that happened there to be irrelevant.’
‘I’ll get moving,’ Keith said. ‘It could snow again, and if that happens what few signs are left will be lost.’
‘Would you mind if I came with you?’
‘You?’ Keith said with some surprise.
‘Who else? You may well appear astonished, but duty calls. There would seem to be nothing useful that I can do here until my client arrives and is allowed to see me. On the other hand I shall be responsible, in due course, for taking precognitions and for briefing counsel, and it would be desirable, although in breach of precedent, if I were to have some idea as to what we’re talking about.’
‘Well, all right then,’ Keith said doubtfully. ‘I’ll go over and square my absence with Wal. You go home and put on lots of warm clothing and some comfortable boots. I’ll either be in the shop or at my car. You do appreciate that we may have to walk some distance in the course of searching?’
‘I do,’ Mr Enterkin said. ‘I am resigned to it. But perhaps if you were to lend me a shooting stick I could take a seat while you make circles about me?’
‘If you come,’ Keith said, ‘you help me search.’
‘So be it,’ Mr Enterkin said with a sigh.
Chapter Four
To Keith’s surprise Wallace, although still plaintive, took a liberal view. ‘For God’s sake do all you can for Jake,’ he said. ‘A fee would be useful, but as far as I’m concerned it’s not essential. The main thing is to get Jake off. If Molly helps out when she can, Janet and I can look after the shop. You just cope with the more urgent overhauls and the antiques side of things, and the rest of your time is Jake’s.’
‘Thanks,’ Keith said. ‘I hope you’d do as much for me.’
‘I’d do as much for anybody who helped with the stock-taking,’ Wallace said. From which, Keith gathered that he would be unwise to count on any such indulgence.
They filled a few minutes with business details.
Keith went out to his car when he saw Mr Enterkin arrive. The solicitor was wearing leather boots and a woollen hat. In between, his sheepskin coat had been dragged over layer upon layer of sweaters. He bulged even beyond
his norm, to the point where Keith was doubtful about his ability to enter the car. The feat was achieved with much grunting and adjusting of seats, and was accompanied by a rapturous greeting from Brutus, who had once been Mr Enterkin’s and remembered him as an indulgent owner. Keith always embarked the dog if there was prospect of much walking.
‘That’s the first time I’ve seen you in a sensible pair of boots,’ Keith said as he drove off. ‘I never thought I’d see the day.’
‘Blame my wife. A farmer’s widow before we married, you may recall. She much enjoys striding about the countryside.’
‘And she drags you along with her?’
‘She is not so cruel. The boots are hers. I have very small feet, so we can exchange footgear on occasions. Not,’ Mr Enterkin explained earnestly, ‘that I am in the habit of donning her shoes, but she does usurp my slippers from time to time on colder evenings.’
‘I warned you before you married that nothing would be sacred,’ Keith said.
They drove north out of the town, climbing slightly up the valley bottom through farmland stark with the baldness of winter. Above them to their left, traffic crawled along the new trunk road which by-passed Newton Lauder. They had the former main road to themselves. They passed Briesland House and took to the minor road which continued north until it lost itself among the hills.
A panda car and a blue van stood, unattended, near where the Land Rover had burned. Keith drove on for a mile and parked at the mouth of the farm road.
They emerged into the cold air, the solicitor puffing and straining, and Brutus with a leap and a dance. ‘We’re not shooting,’ Keith said. Brutus lowered his tail, but raised it tentatively when, after dressing as if for the shooting field, Keith slung a game-bag over his shoulder.
‘For clues?’ Mr Enterkin asked.
‘You’ll see.’
The woodland where the Land Rover had ended its useful life continued as a narrowing strip of trees along the roadside, and turned back alongside the farm road for a few hundred yards. Occasional hardwoods rose above the conifers. Keith regretted the loss of summer’s foliage, but he had to admire the tracery of branches against the sharp blue of the sky. The farm road, which was narrow, had been tarred at some time in the distant past, but it was now a victim of weeds and potholes.
Sauce For the Pigeon Page 5