Thin Air

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘Which reminds me – Wal, are you expecting Keith to phone?’

  ‘With Keith,’ Wallace said, ‘who knows?’

  ‘If you get a call from him, get him back here, soonest.’

  ‘He won’t come if he’s enjoying himself.’

  ‘And he’ll be enjoying himself,’ Ronnie said.

  ‘He’ll come,’ Ian said. For the first time since Old Murdo’s death he produced his familiar grin. ‘If he calls, tell him that a beautiful blonde is being falsely accused of murdering her faithless lover with an antique dagger.’ He paused, frowning. ‘No, not a dagger. Too commonplace. Make it a Doune pistol. That should fetch him back,’ he added with satisfaction. ‘If Deborah phones, I’ll get her to pass on the same message.’

  ‘It has all the elements,’ Alice said. She giggled suddenly. ‘If the car isn’t fast enough, he’ll get out and run.’

  ‘That is the general idea. And now I must run along and pay a call on Ken McKee. After that I suppose I’ll have to advise Edinburgh that an accident seems to have been very unlikely.’ He raised his hands and let them fall. ‘My first big solo case and every obvious solution is just as obviously fit to be laughed out of court. I don’t know whether I’ll be glad or sorry when somebody more senior takes over, but at least they’ll have the clout to get more back-up.

  ‘Ronnie, I want you to come back to the farm in the morning. It’s a slim chance after all the rain, but you may be able to spot some track that my men would miss. I’ve spoken to Sir Peter and he agrees.

  ‘Wal, look out the shop’s records, please. Antique or powerful air weapons; and I’d like a list of purchasers of two-two pellets, insofar as you and Janet can remember them.

  ‘Simon—’

  ‘I’ll finish the typing and bring it to you in the morning,’ I said.

  ‘I had hoped,’ Ian said, ‘that that went without saying. The WDC they sent me can cope from here on, but they could only spare her an old sit-up-and-beg typewriter. Could she have some time on your word processor, please?’

  ‘She can’t take it away,’ I said. ‘She’s welcome to come and use it here.’

  ‘That’ll do,’ Ian said. ‘And Alice—’

  ‘Yes?’ she said brightly. ‘You have a job for me?’

  Ian got to his feet and smiled. ‘Don’t tempt me while I’m desperately short of manpower. I was only going to thank you for the meal. And thank you all. You’ve been very helpful. And one more thing . . . Wal and Ronnie, you’ll neither of you be fit to drive by the time you’ve exhausted the Parbitters’ hospitality, so take a taxi or get Alice to run you home.’

  *

  With Ian’s steadying influence removed, a jolly party developed over the washing up and only one plate was broken. We settled in the sitting room with more coffee and drinks. Silence descended over us like a restive mother hen. We had been laughing as an antidote to emotional conflict.

  Talk, when it resumed, was at first about the day’s rabbiting, Alice’s dinner, almost anything except the death of Old Murdo. It had been too much in our minds and the fact that he had been inviting everybody’s enmity for years somehow made it worse, as if it was impossible to mention him at all without speaking ill of the dead. From time to time, somebody would feel the need to say something good of the dead man, in qualified remarks such as, ‘He was a good father to the boys – when he was younger’ and ‘He never neglected his beasts – when he remembered’. I thought that I would rather be totally forgotten than remembered without affection or respect.

  But, inevitably, our minds were teasing at the puzzle and it only took a word from Ronnie to set us going. ‘You had the right of it,’ he said suddenly, looking at me. ‘Old Murdo was shot. And if he was shot wi’ a two-two airgun pellet it most likely was the way you said.’

  ‘You could be right,’ Wallace said. ‘But why? Pass the bottle.’

  Ronnie passed the bottle and cogitated. I was coming to realize that he was quite capable of rational thought but was not used to verbalizing it. On the other hand, drink had loosened his tongue. ‘Take ’em yin at a time,’ he said at last. ‘Miss Mather could have used the humane killer, the wee captive bolt one – the thirty-two pistol’s for horses and cattle. She’s a jolly woman, mostly, but she was mad as a cat that’s lost its kittens over the damage to her car. It was only insured third-party and there was no need for the old devil to wreck it as he did. What’s more, she’s still on appro—’

  ‘In her probationary period, you mean,’ I put in.

  ‘Aye, just that. If Old Murdo had got her in shit with her boss, the partnership might never have been confirmed.’

  ‘Her boss knew Old Murdo’s charming ways,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen the pair of them in a slanging match before now.’

  ‘She mightn’t have known that he knew it,’ Ronnie pointed out. ‘Or then there’s Duggie wi’ his nail-gun. They make nails up to four inches for it, I’ve seen them used. He might’ve looked at the cheque and seen he’d been diddled. For a’ we ken, either of them could’ve had time to follow him up and stick in a pellet.’

  ‘Duggie’s getting stiff,’ Wallace said. ‘Too stiff to hurry up and down ladders. Simon, did you see him up on the beam?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘I was looking at what seemed to be two corpses laid out in the farmyard. I’d heard him using his nail-gun, though.’

  Wallace raised his eyebrows. ‘But was he using it on Old Murdo? Or did you hear Jean Mather using the humane killer on him?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Was the spray moving around?’ Wal persisted. ‘Or could it have come from a fixed hose?’

  ‘I think it was moving,’ I said. ‘But if the hose had been fixed a foot or two from the end it could waggle around.’

  Ronnie seized the initiative again. ‘But Bertha Heminson says she saw Old Murdo collapse and then she came running out. So if Duggie or Jean Mather did it, Bertha’d have to be covering up for them. And why would she do that? Do you think she wanted to be free to become Mrs Bracken?’ Ronnie paused and gave a little shudder at the thought of such a coupling.

  ‘Bertha could ha’ done it herself. But why would she? She’s the only one who cares that he’s gone. The two of them might have their differences, whiles, but at any kind of real trouble they’d close ranks. And – by God! – you daren’t say a word against Old Murdo where she could hear you.

  ‘If one of the boys had killed his father, she’d cover up for him a’ right. Old Murdo was right coarse to the both of them and he wouldn’t hear of it when Brett wanted to go to the Agricultural College. But why would they bother wi’ spikes and a bullet on a stick? Young Murdo was down our way and only an ordinary airgun wi’ him, but where was Brett? I’ll tell you,’ Ronnie added quickly rather than allow one of us to usurp the conversation while he was in a mood of rare garrulity. ‘He was round and about on the tractor. I asked him. He moved some sheep, patched some fences and did a dozen other wee tasks, and in between he fetched the dead ewe back o’er the brig. If he came back to the farmhouse, who’d notice – except maybe his mum? He could have taken the two-two rifle, put a pellet up the spout and a blank behind it and shot his father from the garden gate. At that short range, the pellet would hold straight enough. The rifle could’ve been cleaned and back in its place in time for Brett to arrive on the tractor when he did.’

  Ronnie fell silent while he gave his full attention to refilling his glass. We were well on the way through a second bottle by then.

  ‘You make a good case against Brett,’ Wallace said. ‘Maybe you’ve missed your vocation, Ronnie. You should have been an advocate.’

  ‘I’d ha’ looked fine in a wig and gown,’ Ronnie said.

  ‘But why would Brett use an airgun pellet? If it was to divert attention from himself it was hardly logical. There was another airgun in the house.’

  ‘The other one’s smaller calibre,’ I said. ‘A one-seven-seven. I’ve seen the boys out with them. And it’s quite possible that he c
ouldn’t get at the two-two rifle cartridges. Old Murdo reserved to himself the right to use the rifle. He said that it was because he couldn’t trust either of them to use it safely, but I think he was just being thrawn.’

  ‘But Brett wouldn’t try to divert suspicion onto his own brother,’ Alice said. She sounded scandalized.

  ‘Aye, he would,’ Ronnie said. ‘They’re close, those two, but they were aye driven to blaming each other when Old Murdo went on the rampage about some wee misdeed around the farm. Likely it got to be a habit.’

  The others were nodding, convincing themselves that Brett was a patricide.

  ‘Anyway, Brett wouldn’t have to do complicated things with airgun pellets,’ Alice said. ‘He could have had an accident with the tractor and nobody could ever have proved that it was done on purpose.’

  ‘There’s another good suspect,’ I pointed out. ‘Ken McKee. I know he’s a good neighbour, but he was always at odds with Old Murdo, and since Young Murdo started courting the McKee girl they’ve been at each other’s throats. To cap it all, calling young Sheila a whore. Many men have been killed for less.’

  ‘But how?’ Wallace asked. ‘Ken McKee has a stiff leg. I can’t see him crawling through the rape.’

  ‘Very simply. His land abuts on Easter Coullie right round almost to where we started rabbiting this morning. Ken McKee decided to have it out with Old Murdo, so he crossed the boundary and walked down the main farm track. He wasn’t hiding himself, he didn’t have murder in his mind at the time. But we were down in the gully until I headed off round the other side of the farm buildings and Mrs Heminson was inside the house. Nobody need have seen him, except perhaps Brett if he wasn’t concentrating on his fences at the time.

  ‘Either he met Old Murdo and they had another blazing row, or else he just boiled over when he saw the old sinner. He was walking, with his air cane already loaded in case he got the chance of a crow, and he used it from about the corner of the barn. All he had to do after that was to duck in among the farm buildings. A minute or two later we were all concentrating on the body and he could have gone out by the pasture and rejoined the track over the bridge to his own land, hidden from us by the barn. You remember the mood he was in when you brought him back, Wal. He was wound up tight. Then he seemed to relax. That could have been when he realized that nobody’d seen him.’

  ‘Not at all bad,’ Wallace said. He looked at the clock. ‘One other suspect and then we’ll have to go. Some of us have to work in the morning. Well, perhaps one more dram if you twist my arm.’

  ‘Who’s your suspect?’ Ronnie asked.

  ‘Simon.’

  ‘Me?’ I said. ‘How do you make that out?’

  ‘Old Murdo tried to blame Boss last winter when some of his sheep were savaged. It rankled.’

  ‘Not particularly,’ I said. ‘He’d already described the culprit to the police as a collie, so everybody knew that it was only his spite coming out.’

  ‘It rankled,’ Wallace said firmly. ‘Today, you came across a flattened pellet, one of Young Murdo’s, while we were cleaning the rabbits and you slipped it into your pocket, either with evil intent or just as a keepsake.’

  I decided to play along. ‘Or just to reduce the amount of lead in the environment,’ I said.

  ‘You do slip things into your pockets all the time,’ Alice said, ‘whenever some small thing triggers an idea for a story. I usually put them on the corner of the desk when I empty your pockets.’ I looked at her sharply but she was laughing at me.

  ‘A wife can’t give evidence against her husband,’ I said comfortably. ‘That’s because fifty per cent of them would jump at any chance to get rid of the old man even if it entailed a little perjury.’

  ‘There you are,’ said Wallace. ‘Not long after that, the old boy fell down in a faint or a heart attack or something. His wife ran out to him, thought he was dead and fainted. You came round the corner and saw your opportunity. Don’t attempt to deny it.’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ I said.

  ‘Duggie was intent on his work. His cordless electric drill was within your reach. You grabbed it up, ran to the unconscious couple, drilled a hole through Old Murdo’s skull and used the drill to push the pellet in.’

  ‘Then what did I do with the drill?’ I asked him.

  ‘Scooted it along the ground into the barn.’

  Ronnie shook his head. ‘It was up on Duggie’s scaffolding. I saw it.’

  Wal waved away the objection as mere nit-picking. ‘Then you used his hammer and a nail. I noticed the hammer on the floor of the barn later and thought it must have fallen off Duggie’s plank. You pulled the nail out again and pushed it into the ground. Or, even better, into one of the rabbits so that you could carry it away. Ian searched everything else but he never searched the rabbits. Keep an eye on him, Alice, and make sure that he doesn’t recover a nail while he’s skinning them.’

  ‘Well, if that’s what I did,’ I said, ‘the pathologist should be able to prove it. A bullet hole’s quite different from a nail-hole. Isn’t it?’ I asked Ronnie.

  ‘Not to notice,’ Ronnie said. ‘I mind, away back, I worked a while in the slaughterhouse. The men didn’t think much of the humane killer. Cartridges cost money and they preferred the old ways. After, they’d knock a hole through the skull with a six-inch nail in case the inspector came to check.’

  ‘And I think that that’s quite enough nonsense for one night,’ Alice said briskly. ‘You can leave the jeep where it is. I’ll get the car out and run the two of you home, while you, Simon, go off to bed. Stay awake until I get back.’

  With the house to myself (and the two sleeping babes) I sat down at the word processor. But the keys danced about in front of my eyes and the screen brightened and darkened until I felt faintly nauseous. I let Boss out into the garden for a minute and then went to bed. Luckily, the children slept on and the house did not catch fire, because I was sound asleep before Alice returned.

  Chapter Five

  In the morning, apart from a slight tendency to fall over if I stooped suddenly, I felt better than I had any right to expect. Alice was very understanding. Many wives would have objected to a husband who spent the evening at home boozing and bandying gruesome theories with his friends, but she regards the ability to take an occasional skinful of barley brew, especially of the malt variety, as being the mark of a true Scot and thus helping to merge me, the expatriate Sassenach, among those whom she considers to be real, proper people.

  In a fit of conscience, I sat down to complete my typing for Ian. I expected him to arrive at any moment in search of his statements, but I was left in peace and, despite the dancing of the keys which only abated very slowly, I made good progress. I even added a synopsis, carefully phrased to avoid the danger of a libel suit if it should ever fall into the wrong hands, of our discussion after Ian’s departure. After no little thought, I included Wal’s theory about my own opportunity.

  My printer was making zipping noises while I picked at a light lunch in the kitchen when the first message of impatience arrived, borne by the attractive WDC White. She was also carrying a shorthand book. She boggled slightly at the state of my workroom – my approach to time and motion study begins with the sensible notion that if something falls on the floor it is better left there until needed or it may only fall down again. As long as I know where everything is, that’s tidy enough.

  It took no more than a few minutes to discover and explain any differences between my word processor and the one she was used to. When the printer had done its stuff I gathered up my papers, allocated her a floppy disk and left her to it. As an afterthought, I returned to warn her that if she succumbed to a female urge to tidy anything I would make a complaint of harassment against her.

  Boss had been short-changed in the matter of morning walks, so I took him along with me. The jeep had gone from the road, which suggested that either Ronnie or Wallace was up and about and, rightly or wrongly, felt fit to drive. The day was perfect.
The rain had driven away the heavy heat, leaving cool sunshine to bless the landscape and dry the crops ready for harvesting. But for the shadow of death and the aftermath of the night before, it would have been a day for running barefoot through the grass or reading poetry aloud.

  I descended the steps with care because my sense of balance was still less than perfect. When I looked up I saw that two young cyclists had stopped on the grass verge under a rowan tree and were engaged in earnest discussion. Blinking away the brightness of the sun, I recognized Sheila McKee and Young Murdo.

  This was no surprise. The place was midway between their respective farm roads and I had sometimes noticed a very young couple trysting there without troubling myself over their identities. This time, however, instead of the tentative flirtations of youth, the touching of hands and even the stealing of an occasional kiss, they were a yard apart and their figures were stiff, their movements jerky. I guessed that there was an argument in progress. As I turned towards them, the girl jumped onto her bike and came pedalling past me. I saw that her face was twisted as if in distress and she was blinking hard.

  Young Murdo let his bicycle fall. He stood looking after her. He seemed quite unaware of my approach. As I came level with him, I saw that tears were running down his cheeks. Boys on the verge of manhood hate to be seen crying. I would have passed by, pretending not to have noticed anything untoward, but Boss, who had always been his friend, recognized his distress, broke away from heel and licked the boy’s hand.

  Young Murdo came out of his trance, looked at me in horror and turned his back, feeling in vain for a handkerchief and then wiping his eyes with his shirt sleeve.

  I felt almost as saddened. First love is beautiful to the beholder. The agony when it fails can be hard for the victim to bear. It was difficult to decide what to say, but I had to offer him some kind of comfort. ‘Cheer up,’ I said fatuously. ‘She’ll come round.’

  He shook his head violently. ‘Never,’ he said throatily. ‘It’s done.’