Sauce For the Pigeon

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘Under no circumstances,’ Mr Enterkin said firmly.

  ‘Me neither,’ Keith said. ‘Watty can find out for us when he gets back.’

  *

  Mr Enterkin, who had conducted that particular interview, had reported that neither the farmer, Andrew Dumphy, nor his wife or family had heard shots on the morning of Neill Muir’s death. But Keith now had some questions of his own. He put in a concentrated burst of work to clear his workbench and drove out to the farm.

  It was some years since Keith had been to the farmhouse, and at that time it had been in other occupancy. His only contact with Dumphy had been to meet him in the fields. He jolted past the now familiar area where Muir’s decoys had been found, crested the slight hill and rolled down into a yard that fronted the farmhouse and was sheltered by the gable of a Dutch barn. And there he sat for a moment, glaring at a new structure which seemed to glare back at him. How in God’s name, he asked himself, could Mr Enterkin have not thought to mention the existence of a pigeon-loft?

  Andrew Dumphy’s sturdy figure came round the corner of the barn and lifted a hand in greeting. They met beside the pigeon-loft. The wind had a bite to it and by tacit agreement they moved back into the shelter of the barn. There, blessed by the sunshine and out of that cruel wind, one could almost believe that spring might some day return.

  ‘What kind of a year was it?’ Keith asked, and listened patiently to an account, told complacently and almost with pride, of disaster and tribulation. In Keith’s experience, no farmer would ever admit to a good year, but would lean against his Rolls while speaking of imminent bankruptcy.

  The courtesies observed, Keith could move to the subject in his mind. ‘How long have you been keeping racing pigeons?’ he asked.

  Dumphy broke into a cheerful grin. ‘Most of my life,’ he said.

  ‘Do any good at it?’

  ‘Aye. Had some good wins. I won more than a thousand quid on the Blue Riband race from Rennes last June.’

  Keith whistled. He had known that the little birds spelt money but had had no idea that so much could be involved. ‘Was that prize money?’ he asked. ‘Or backing your own bird? Or did you mean backing somebody else’s winner?’

  ‘None o’ those. There’s a pool system. My bird was placed, so I got a share of the pool.’

  ‘That’ll be a valuable bird,’ Keith said.

  ‘M’hm.’

  ‘May I see him?’

  That did it. ‘Nae, you bloody canna’,’ Dumphy burst out. ‘An’ why not? Because he was shot, that’s why! Sheer carelessness or ill-will it must’ve been. Even coming out o’ the sun, you can hardly mistake a homer for a cushie. At the end of a long race, maybe, a tired bird can fly like a woodie. But this was after the racing season was over. The moult had started.’ In his indignation, Dumphy had grasped Keith by the lapel and was shaking him gently to and fro. ‘Not even any distance training, just what they ca’ “open bowl” – just the birds being put out for a whilie each day, for exercise. An’ some daft bugger goes an’ takes him for feral an’ shoots him!’

  Keith leaned back as far as he could. Dumphy was spitting in excitement. ‘What did you do about it?’ Keith asked.

  ‘Like do what? I couldn’a prove ocht. My bird might ha’ been taken by a sparrowhawk or a cat. But I kenned damn fine. The bird was in the bugger’s pouch or down a rabbit hole, likely. Gone, an’ never came back – a blue chequer, pied, wi’ a deformed left foot. I made him gi’e me my note back, an’ telled the bugger never to come on my land again.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  Dumphy released his grip on Keith’s lapel and stepped back. ‘Nobody I’d seen before.’

  ‘Then how come he had your written permission, for you to get it back off him? It was Neill Muir, wasn’t it?’

  Beneath the fury on Dumphy’s face there was a hint of his earlier smile. ‘I must be going daft,’ he said. ‘No point denying it, his wife could tell you.’

  Keith felt a glow spreading through him. ‘And that was the day he was killed? Or the day before?’

  ‘No, lad, no,’ Dumphy said. ‘Maybe it’s you that’s dottled. This was last August.’

  ‘August? It can’t have been!’

  ‘Ask his wife. She’d been with him, though she went off in that red car of hers when I started to get on to him.’

  Keith was only half attending. He was trying to make sense of these new facts. ‘Have you lost any other birds since then?’

  ‘No, the Lord be thanked. The time you lose them’s during the racing season, mostly.’

  Keith dipped into his notebook. ‘I’ve been on the phone to the Scottish Homing Union in Bathgate,’ he said. ‘About ring numbers. SU’s Scottish Union. Then the year, which made it a three-year-old bird. Then SB, which is Scottish Borders. And four-two-eight-two, which is you, right?’

  ‘Right enough,’ Dumphy agreed. ‘But I’ve lost more than one bird of that year. Has somebody found a ring wi’ that on it?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that, just yet.’

  Dumphy pointed a stained finger at Keith and his grin came back at last. ‘Found among that bugger Muir’s things I’ll bet! Am I right?’

  It dawned on Keith that he had been incautious. He had not yet received his prints from the photographer, because Mrs Muir had remained stubbornly at home until that very morning. ‘Have patience,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you the whole story some time, but it’s early days yet. Did you ever see Neill Muir again after your quarrel?’

  Dumphy shook his head. ‘Never. And it was hardly a quarrel, I wasn’t sure enough. I just told him I misliked his behaviour and got my letter back off him.’ Dumphy leaned closer, confidentially, and lowered his voice. ‘You want a farmer who really quarrelled wi’ Muir, you go and see Bob Jack at Haizert.’

  ‘Tell me a bit more.’

  ‘That’s all you’ll get from me. And don’t you go saying I told you. Just mind that I didn’t see Muir again after August an’ didn’t care if I ever saw him again.’

  ‘How do you know Jack quarrelled with Muir?’ Keith asked.

  ‘Never you mind.’

  ‘Do you not like Bob Jack?’

  Dumphy lowered his voice further, until it was barely above a whisper. ‘I liked him fine,’ he said, ‘until I was fool enough to marry his sister. I should’ve stuck to pigeons, you can aye shut them up at night. You go and see Bob Jack. But don’t be thinking he killed Muir. He was here that morning about a couple of heifers. He’d been here half an hour when we walked up the hill to look at them and saw the smoke over the trees.’

  *

  Haizert Farm lay about five miles east of Newton Lauder. Keith had had occasional dealings with Bob Jack over the years, latterly on a ‘cash only’ footing. The farmer, whom Keith knew to be a man of uncertain temper, was also a noted non-payer of accounts rendered.

  The road climbed over higher ground. It was narrow and at one point Keith had to pull into a passing-place to let an oncoming Land Rover go by. He recognized the gaunt driver as Mrs Jack. Keith drove on with rising hopes.

  A new outline was beginning to firm up in his mind. A quarrel. The quarrel. Neill Muir lying dead. Jack deciding that the body must not be found on Haizert land. Loading Muir and all his gear into Muir’s own Land Rover. Then over the hill to visit his brother-in-law, keeping him out of the way while Mrs Jack brought Muir’s vehicle, set the scene amateurishly and fired the Land Rover. Picking her up on the way home.

  It could fit. It could be made to fit. Whether it had happened or not, it might suffice to deflect a jury from holding the case against Jake Paterson as proved.

  Where the road began to fall again, Keith pulled in. He got out with the more powerful of his two pairs of binoculars and stood with his elbows on the car’s roof while he studied the ground below him. Detail was sharp and clear in the frosty air. Only one field on Haizert looked as if it might attract pigeon, an isolated field of kale, wire-fenced, and even as he watched a small flock came over the boun
dary from the trees on what Keith knew to be the keepered estate immediately north of Bob Jack’s land and settled in the kale. About half the field, segregated by an electric fence, had been cropped by cattle and a tractor was hauling more dung from the midden preparatory to a late ploughing. The pigeon seemed quite unperturbed by the machine although Keith guessed that the approach of a man with a stick would put them on the wing at twice the distance.

  The car was well enough where it was. Keith stowed away his binoculars and whistled Brutus out of the back. He made sure that his gun was securely locked away before setting off across country. Twice he had to call Brutus away from the pop-eyed corpse of a rabbit, victim of myxomatosis. Keith counted the introduction of that disease among the world’s evil deeds.

  He timed his arrival at the kale field to coincide with the disappearance of the tractor round the corner of the byre. It had seemed from a distance that a lone ash-tree marked the only suitable site for a hide. He could now see that it stood beside a triangle of rough ground, unsuitable for ploughing, which had been used as a dumping ground for boulders and large stones. Some of these had been restacked as a rough dyke and a semi-permanent hide had been completed by lacing the fence with twigs and threading these with dried grass and weeds. There was even a four-gallon drum for a seat, with a scattering a Rottweil cartridges mingled with pigeon feathers on the ground.

  The ash tree, stark in winter nudity, was ideal for a lofter. Keith looked casually around as if admiring the view and then looked up into the tree. Some shooters placed their lofters by means of poles, but many used string or fishing-line and Keith knew how easily the line could get caught up. Sure enough, there was a tangle of monofilament fishing-line, with a stone for a weight on the end, caught up around a high branch. A long tail of line hung in the still air to where the owner had managed to cut it off. Keith drew the knife from the sheath taped across the back of his belt. Although himself of only average height he could cut six inches off the end without difficulty. So the owner had not been a tall man. Keith stowed away his sample and gathered up a couple of cartridges. A small loop of string caught his eye and he added it to the collection.

  The tractor was returning, snuffling along the track like a mechanical bloodhound, dragging its handler along behind. Keith walked to meet it. The farmer nodded to Keith and stopped the tractor, but he kept its engine running so that Keith had to shout to be heard. Bob Jack did not bother.

  ‘Morning,’ Keith said. ‘What kind of a year has it been?’

  Jack was less forthcoming than his brother-in-law. ‘Nae bad,’ he said. Keith had to strain to hear the words.

  ‘Are you bothered much with the pigeon?’

  ‘No’ a lot.’

  ‘Somebody’s been doing well at them, just back there,’ Keith said, persevering.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Anybody I’d know?’

  ‘Friend of mine.’

  So much for the oblique approach. ‘Did you see much of Neill Muir up here?’ he asked.

  The farmer shook his head vehemently. ‘No’ for a year or more,’ he said. Keith heard him without difficulty.

  ‘Was that when you fell out?’ Keith asked bluntly.

  ‘Who says that we fell out?’

  ‘I ken damn fine you fell out, I just couldn’t mind when.’

  ‘What’s it to you?’ Jack demanded.

  Keith was prepared to play the game of answering question with questions indefinitely. ‘Why are you so touchy about it?’ he asked. ‘It’s not exactly unknown . . .’

  ‘Aye, it happens. Why should I care who he carried his clypes to?’

  Keith felt that he was making progress without having the least idea in what direction. He decided to back-track. ‘Was Muir up here the morning he was killed?’

  Bob Jack was losing patience. ‘I’ve tellt you, he’d not been here for almost a year.’

  ‘He didn’t come back just lately and raise the matter again?’

  ‘At this time of year?’

  Keith had thought that he was keeping a poker-face but some shadow of his bafflement must have shown because Jack laughed suddenly. ‘You crafty bugger!’ he said. ‘You’ve nae idea what the hell I’m yattering on about. An’ you nearly had it out of me. Well, here’s what I think of you.’

  The tractor went forward with a jerk, the trailer passed them and then came back, spewing the steaming dung from its tailgate as the conveyor-bed turned on its rollers. Keith jumped clear, but Brutus vanished. As the tractor drove away Keith could hear a high-pitched cackling. Bob Jack was laughing his head off.

  The mound of mixed dung and straw heaved as Brutus worked his way out.

  Keith would dearly have loved to run after the tractor, to haul the old sinner out of his seat and to stuff him head-first into the dung. But he curbed his anger, filing it away for future reference. The law does not look kindly on men who assault their elders, whatever the provocation; and, worse, anything to do with dung is irresistible to the media.

  Brutus was unperturbed. He rather liked his new perfume. Every animal, including the human, likes to cover its personal scent from its enemies. Keith had no great objection to the familiar and healthy smell, but he knew that Molly would be more fussy. Because Brutus was in the habit of rolling in whatever he found by the wayside, some of it much less acceptable than mere dung, there was always a bottle of dog shampoo in the car. Keith bathed the reluctant dog in a burn and dried him with newspapers before allowing him into the car.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘This precognition of yours,’ Mr Enterkin said unhappily, poking his copy of that document with his finger and sighing. ‘I have been over it with counsel. It may take us far enough or it may not. You draw attention to certain signs and portents which, according to yourself, indicate that Mr Muir did not behave as demanded by the prosecution’s theory; and then you resort to a wealth of abstruse technical detail about shooting, and pigeon-shooting in particular, to back up your arguments. Well, a jury might accept it as showing reasonable doubt, but it might not.’

  Keith felt just as entitled to sigh, and did so. ‘What do you want?’ he asked. ‘A miracle?’

  ‘Ah. Now you’re being more helpful,’ Mr Enterkin said. ‘Yes, a miracle would fill the bill nicely. Or, failing that, a viable alternative theory.’

  ‘I’m doing all I can,’ Keith said. ‘And for all the help I get from you when I ask it, I might just as well stay at home and scratch my bum. Better, in fact.’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ the solicitor protested. ‘In fact, it’s grossly unfair. I’m quite prepared to give of any help which is legal and practicable. But you arrived this morning with a request which was far from practicable, and I pointed out that I did not see the least hope of inducing a court of law to force a farmer, ten miles from the putative scene of the crime and who claims not to have seen the deceased for a year, to divulge the name or names of those presently permitted to shoot pigeon on his land. You’ll have to give me more ammunition before I shoot at that particular target.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ Keith snorted. ‘I’ll hit the mark some other way. And, if I can, I’ll produce a rival theory. With luck, I may even turn up the real culprit. But you tell counsel to put me in the box and ask me my opinion of each element in the prosecution’s version. I’ll tear it to shreds.’

  ‘Well, all right. But you realize that on your evidence will be staked, if not Mr Paterson’s life, at least more than a decade thereof.’

  ‘Don’t remind me,’ Keith said. He stamped out of the solicitor’s dusty office and across the square to the shop.

  *

  That evening Keith threw a party. It was a very select party. The Calders were joined only by Janet and Wallace and by Ronnie. It was, Keith felt, an unnecessary lavishing of hospitality. But it was the only way that he could think of to bring together his selection of local knowledge at a time when they could hold a discussion not to be chaired by the now bedded Deborah.

  They gathered in
the dining-room at Briesland House, around the table well stocked with bottles. When Molly escaped from her maternal duties and joined them, Keith brought them up to date on his progress on Jake’s case. ‘Ralph Enterkin wants more,’ he said. ‘I think he’d like a defence by impeachment, but we don’t all get what we want. Well, even if old Bob Jack had damn-all to do with Neill Muir’s death, we might at least be able to use him in what Ralph calls a ‘viable alternative theory’.

  ‘So I want to know what Jack and Muir fought about. Muir can’t tell me and Jack won’t, Ralph can’t get the law to make him tell us, and if the merry widow knows the answer she’s only talking to the other side.

  ‘I’m pinning my hopes on whoever’s been shooting woodies up there. I’d guess that he’s been going for some time, because he’d made his hide very comfortable, and some of the cartridges I found were almost rusted through at the base. He may know what the tiff was about. Or he may be able to give me some other bits and bobs to support whatever story I can dream up. For starters, then, does anybody know who it is that goes there? Or can you suggest anyone who might know?’

  Ronnie roused himself from contemplation of an almost empty glass. ‘We could ask around,’ he suggested.

  ‘I’d rather not,’ Keith said. ‘Word might get back. So take a look at these.’ He passed round sheets of paper and pencils. ‘Those are copies of a list I’ve been making of local pigeon-shooters. We’ve got to assume that he’s local. If he comes up from Northumberland, we’re on a loser. There’s fourteen names and two descriptions.’

  ‘The descriptions are easy,’ Ronnie said. ‘No bother. “Small man with droopy moustache”, that’ll be Willy Thyne. And “Sandy hair, thick spectacles and bad teeth”, that’s Joe Murchester.’

  ‘So far so good,’ Keith said. As a gesture of thanks he refilled Ronnie’s glass. ‘Any names to add?’

  Between them, they added four names and a description – ‘Tall, big ears, red nose’.