Sting in the Tail (Three Oaks Book 6)

by Gerald Hammond

  Half a dozen of the most regular attenders were in the habit of lunching together, and a custom had grown up of inviting me to join them. The invitation was again issued, but in other respects change was in the air; almost twice the usual number wanted to join in the lunch and it was agreed that, since we would already be in our cars, we might as well abandon the local inn and sample the fare elsewhere.

  One man, a university lecturer who had been struggling to instil discipline into the biggest, friendliest, shaggiest and most unruly golden retriever I had ever encountered, was happy to restore himself in the general approval by using the mobile phone in his car. We fetched up in a modest hotel near Newport, with the small dining room to ourselves and promise of an adequate lunch. Under the Barbours and Goretexes the company proved to be quite respectably dressed.

  I had no intention of giving an address on the subject of Bodies I Have Found; but when the waiter, who was also the proprietor, had withdrawn and my immediate neighbours began to ask questions, I could hardly snub them altogether. As soon as I opened my mouth a hush fell over the whole table, so I avoided any mention of such curious features as spaniels’ tails and described the scene as blandly as I could manage. Perhaps my listeners were disappointed at the lack of gruesome detail but at least nobody’s lunch was spoiled.

  My thunder was immediately stolen by the university lecturer, a tall man with a straggly beard and intelligent eyes. Most of those present were driving and making do with a single beer or a share in a bottle of white wine which was serving half the table. The lecturer, who had a long drive before him, was drinking water and sparingly at that.

  He put down his glass. ‘I remember Jason Ricketts quite well,’ he said. ‘He used to be a university technician – not at my present fount of learning, I hasten to say. He had his degree in applied science but no ambition to teach. He was a clever devil, though, who could have made his mark as an industrial designer if he had been prepared to live through the lean, early years. He was quite capable of whipping up a device to answer in the short term almost any medical or scientific need, or to translate a theoretical into a practical gismo. And at least he could be trusted not to molest the female students. The men were quite capable of looking after themselves.’

  ‘He didn’t like girls?’ asked a woman whose Clumber spaniel had tried to start a fight. She sounded incredulous, although anyone looking at her overblown femininity could well understand how a sensitive male might be turned off female lures. ‘It didn’t say any of this in the papers.’

  ‘I couldn’t swear to it, not being that way inclined myself, but there was something in his manner and there were rumours. I don’t suppose the police could release any such details until the sheriff had confirmed his identity,’ said the lecturer smugly. He knew just what sort of bombshell he was about to drop. ‘Rehabilitation of Offenders Act and all that jazz. And the media haven’t made the connection yet. But they will.’

  ‘Done time as well, had he?’ enquired the owner of a seriously overweight Labrador.

  ‘Quite a lot of it,’ said the lecturer. ‘He started in a small way, using the university’s computer and a telephone line to plant a virus in the computer of an insurance company. As I recall, it was a near relative of the so-called “Italian” virus.’

  ‘All the display goes trickling down to the bottom of the VDU,’ said the man with the Labrador. ‘That one?’

  ‘That’s it. Quite funny, really, as long as it’s somebody else’s program that’s doing it. Then he wrote to the company, telling them where it was and how to eradicate it, but demanding a comparatively modest sum not to inject a much more virulent one. They paid up.’

  ‘They would,’ said somebody at the far end of the table.

  The lecturer nodded. ‘He repeated his coup several times in a small way, I’m told. Very little of this was ever made public, by the way, for fear of copycat crime. If he’d limited himself to modest returns he might have gone on for ever. Eventually, success went to his head and he made the usual mistake of trying for one big coup followed by a tactful retirement somewhere warm and sunny. He tried it on with the Inland Revenue, threatening to wipe clean the entire tax records for the year. The police were called in and they nailed him without much difficulty.

  ‘Any sensible judge would have turned him loose and told him to get on with it. But no. To avoid publicity, he was allowed to plead guilty to some slightly reduced charges and he was tucked away for less than he might have been. If he was as I think he was, he probably quite enjoyed prison. He certainly showed no great reluctance to return there. I’ve seen his name in the papers from time to time, being brought before one court or another for various high-tech offences.’

  ‘You don’t sound surprised that he was murdered,’ said a man who had brought a pair of promising young German shorthaired pointers to the class.

  ‘Bound to happen,’ said the lecturer. ‘Bound to happen. I’m only surprised that he lasted as long as he did. Homosexual or not, a high-tech and oddly behaved criminal of dubious sexuality in rural Scotland would be like a fish in outer space. In the inner city he might thrive. In some universities that I can think of,’ the lecturer added superciliously, ‘he would hardly have been noticed.’

  Chapter Eight

  The murder at Foleyburn was still exciting the attention of the media next day, but the finding of the body was not even the day before yesterday’s news any more and I was left in peace to resume my normal routine. The need for training on live game had been satisfied for the moment; it was more important for us to work several times through all the dogs in training, giving basic instruction in the garden or the barn to those that had not yet reached the stage for introduction to live quarry and putting the slightly more advanced dogs through their paces in the rabbit pen and with dummies on The Moss.

  One compensation for the publicity was that the shooting public were reminded of our name. The phone was busy with enquiries and I sold one dog to a visiting client. I grumbled at having to make an extra trip to The Moss in order to get the purchaser properly tuned to his acquisition, but he had come a distance and was going home the same night.

  I spent a little time with Hannah, who was doing the rounds of the younger puppies, playing with them and generally preparing them for the time when they would have to accept membership of a pack that composed mostly of humans.

  ‘Are you happy here?’ I asked her.

  She gave me her smile. ‘I love it,’ she said. ‘I wish I could make it my life. I wouldn’t mind working hard.’

  ‘Your dad would miss you.’

  She considered, while nursing a sleepy pup on her shoulder. ‘He’d miss me,’ she said at last, ‘and I’d miss him, but he’d be glad too. He’s done his best for me, but we don’t like the same things. He’d have been happier if I’d been a boy, I think. He doesn’t always know what to say to a girl and I don’t know what to say to him. That’s funny in a way, isn’t it? I don’t have any difficulty talking with you. I suppose Dad and I have years of habit between us.’

  ‘Authority and resentment?’

  ‘Exactly.’ She gave a sigh. She was sitting twisted, showing a lot of leg and apparently quite unaware of her own femininity. ‘Don’t you think that dogs are much easier than people?’

  ‘I’m sure of it,’ I said.

  ‘I think Dad might marry again if I wasn’t always in the way.’

  ‘Would you mind?’

  ‘I think it would be very good for him,’ she said. ‘He’ll be getting old one day.’ She left it there, perhaps feeling unable to verbalize her anxieties, but I could follow her train of thought.

  ‘Who do you think cut off Clarence’s tail?’ I asked her suddenly.

  She looked down at the pup. ‘How would I know? If I did . . . I could kill them! Poor Clarence!’ The pup woke up and nibbled her ear. I could understand the impulse.

  ‘Don’t get cold,’ I said gruffly, and went indoors. I wondered for a moment whether Hannah’s
words had been a subtle confession that she had in fact taken the cleaver to Mr Ricketts; but her emotion had been one of indignation rather than guilt.

  *

  I was glad to flop into my chair after the dogs were fed and rest my weary legs. Henry and Isobel had left early. Beth was always able to draw energy from some undiscoverable source and work on after everybody else had flagged. I was alone with Sam, who had fallen asleep in his playpen and whose snorts and gurgles were soporific.

  Hannah had planted a thought in my mind. Half asleep, I was wondering what I would do when I became too old for all the tramping around. Perhaps I should switch to retrievers. You can give a Labrador most of its basic training from your armchair and the rest without going more than five yards from the car; but a spaniel must be taught to hunt, with all the attendant pitfalls, and that means walking.

  I must have passed over the boundary between wakefulness and sleep, because the arrival of a car at the door woke me to the realization that a good dog trailer, with compartments for up to eight or ten dogs, could save me a lot of time and energy. I remembered seeing an American design for an aluminium trailer in one of the magazines. Perhaps Ewan Yates could put the body on a trailer chassis for me.

  The thought was so complete and satisfying that the arrival of a visitor only registered with me when the doorbell sounded. Beth put her head round the door. ‘Who could that be?’ she asked.

  ‘Unless you go and answer it,’ I said, ‘we’ll never know.’

  ‘You could answer it,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Too tired. Ignore it. They’ll probably go away.’ I wanted to think more about my trailer.

  Beth made a little sound of quite justified indignation and I heard her cross the hall. There were voices. Beth, removing her apron, returned with Sergeant Waller, offering him a chair before collecting Sam from his playpen and sitting herself down on the couch with him. The Sergeant was still in plain clothes and he had a document case clasped in his hand. Sleep receded and vanished. I sat up, rubbed my eyes and glanced at the clock. A remarkable amount of time seemed to have slipped away. Pleasant smells were emanating from the kitchen.

  ‘I’m sure the Sergeant could do with a drink,’ Beth said. ‘Or, even if he couldn’t, I could.’

  We were now definitely back in my area of responsibility. Obediently, I got up and looked at the Sergeant. ‘I think I’m here on duty,’ he said.

  I poured Beth a sherry and opened a can of Guinness for myself before looking at the Sergeant again. ‘You don’t sound very sure,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not. Well, perhaps a small dram.’

  A dram can vary in size, depending on whether you are using it in avoirdupois or as an apothecary’s measure. ‘We don’t seem to keep small drams in this house,’ I said. ‘Henry Kitts doesn’t approve of them.’ I poured him something between a small and a large whisky and he seemed to be satisfied. I added a couple of logs to the fire and sat down again.

  ‘Now,’ I said. ‘To what do we owe?’

  ‘I’ve come to ask for help – and I don’t mean in liquid form. When I ran you home the other evening, Mrs Cunningham made certain suggestions.’ Beth chuckled suddenly. The Sergeant looked shocked. ‘I’m referring, as I think you knew, to your suggestions concerning our investigation. They’ve got me into a bit of a pickle.’

  ‘They weren’t any good, then?’ Beth asked.

  ‘They were good. Much too good. Let me explain. I didn’t want to invite a lot of scorn and derision. Also, I couldn’t let on that they were your suggestions without admitting that I’d said much more to you both than I should. So I went by myself to search around the triangle of roads and I found tracks which led me to a small van, old but in sound condition. It was tucked away up a firebreak in the forestry, about three miles beyond Nearn House. So, of course, I rushed back to tell the glad tidings without considering for a moment any possible implications.

  ‘The van turns out to have been stolen around a year ago and its plates had been altered. There was a remarkable absence of fingerprint and similar evidence and the layers of dead conifer needles don’t hold tracks, so we don’t have high hopes of learning too much from the van itself; but there were some faint smears of blood and, down on the floor below the driver’s seat, we found one white hair which the lab thinks will match up with hairs from Clarence.’

  Beth saw me twitch. ‘Relax, John,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t mean that Clarence was ever in the van. Somebody – perhaps whoever cut off his tail – could easily have carried a hair on his or her clothes into the van.’

  ‘That’s perfectly true,’ said the Sergeant. ‘The other thing is that they had been preserving what was left of the table-top because there were some significant smears in the thick clotting of dried blood on the surface. When I suggested that the blood be dissolved away, they photographed the smears for the record and then set about it. Mrs Cunningham, how on earth did you know what they were going to find?’

  Beth seemed to be giving more attention to Sam than to the Sergeant. ‘I’m not sure that I did know,’ she said. ‘What did they find?’

  By way of an answer the Sergeant opened his document case, which seemed to contain mostly large prints of colour photographs. He fingered through them and withdrew two which he laid on the coffee table in front of Beth. I moved to a seat beside her on the couch so that we could study them together.

  The first print showed the table-top much as it had been when recovered from the remains of the bonfire. Part of it was burned away and more was badly scorched but perhaps a third was relatively undamaged. Blood had spurted and dribbled onto the surface and had been allowed to clot and dry while it lay in several small but deep puddles and there were, as the Sergeant had said, traces and smears which had been made, I thought, before the blood had done more than begin to congeal.

  The second photograph showed the table-top from the same angle, largely cleaned of blood although considerable staining was still evident. Where the deepest pool had been, there could now be seen a thin, rectangular card of grey plastic.

  ‘You know what that is?’ the Sergeant asked me.

  We all enjoy pretending omniscience now and again. I succumbed to temptation. ‘Judging from his previous record as a brilliant but unstable technician with a penchant for crime—’ I began.

  The Sergeant jumped in his chair as though he had sat on a wasp. ‘How did you come to know about that?’ he asked. ‘Surely I’m not so far gone in indiscretion—?’

  I explained about the chance that had brought the lecturer to my Masterclass. ‘Knowing that,’ I said, ‘it isn’t too difficult to guess what kind of card that might be.’

  The Sergeant nodded. ‘We’ll be obliged if you don’t pass that information on to the media just yet, although they’ll suss him out sooner or later.’ He looked from me to Beth and back again. ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘in for a penny, in for a pound. We’ve had some complaints about several banks from members of the public and one complaint from a bank itself. Money disappearing from accounts on what seem to be valid cash-card transactions which the account-holder swears were never made. That happens all the time, of course. Sometimes the customer is trying it on. And people can be careless, leaving the card lying around and writing down the PIN number in case they forget it. Then again, people can forget about a genuine withdrawal. Also, the machines aren’t infallible, although bank staff would have to be burned at the stake before they’d admit any such thing. But in one instance the card-holder was on holiday in Cornwall at the time and used his card in Truro, in the presence of about six witnesses, on the same day as a withdrawal in Aberdeen.

  ‘It was beginning to look as though somebody was beating the system. The fact that there had been comparatively few instances, and those not for very large amounts, suggested that those instances might merely be trial runs, intended only to confirm that whatever they were doing worked. Which could mean that they were biding their time.’

  ‘Ready for one quick bl
itz and then vamoose?’ I suggested, thinking of the lecturer’s story.

  ‘Exactly. With any repetitive crime, if they go on for too long we catch them. Fraud Squad say that the likeliest MO would be to stockpile until they’d cracked the code for dozens of accounts and then clean them all out overnight. By the time the shouting started they’d be long gone.

  ‘In a back room at Nearn House, we found a workshop. There was nothing directly connected with bank and credit-card frauds except some plastic material and magnetic strip, but it seems that his interests were catholic. We found listening devices, for example, and the makings of a gadget which seems to be aimed at being able to make calls from a public phone without payment. There are one or two other gadgets in an unfinished state and our technicians are having a great time trying to figure out what they were going to be if he’d finished them.

  ‘Now that you’ve led us to the card, we can guess the rest. If you look closely at the shot of the table-top before it was cleaned, you can see a clear patch and four little rings among the bloodstains. We take it that those were made by the rubber feet on a machine for copying the magnetic information from a bank card onto another card. In point of fact, you can buy such a machine if you know where to go, but it would be in line with his character to whip one up for himself. Our guess is that whoever killed him took the machine, probably wrapped in a polythene bag, ready to cleanse later, and took as many cards as he could lay hands on, but that he drew the line at dredging through the blood and getting himself more bloodstained than he already was.’

  The Sergeant or his superiors, I thought, might be jumping to conclusions. ‘Isn’t it possible that somebody came along, found him dead and pinched the makings of the forged cards?’ I suggested.