Fair Game

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘Raymond De Basily Grass,’ the minister murmured, ‘Is no longer with us, alas!’

  There was a protracted pause.

  ‘Dear Lord,’ he muttered at last, ‘the truth is as dear to you as to me. You alone might forgive me if I suggested that he was sometimes a pain in the . . . Aye, just so.’

  Putting aside such unworthy thoughts, Mr Foster set himself to prepare his next sermon. He chose Covetousness as his subject, and he brought thereto more sympathy and understanding than was his custom.

  *

  At the gate, Mr Enterkin looked around and called ‘Brutus!’

  Brutus came round the corner of the manse, looking guilty. Patiently, he endured a short scolding for wandering off when told to stay, and he followed at heel all the way to the Falcon Inn.

  Mr Enterkin was deep in thought.

  Brutus was also thinking, in the intuitive, sense-oriented manner of a dog. From the thousand scents around the manse he could, if gifted with speech, have given his master a great deal of information about the minister and his household. But his uppermost thought was that the manse dustbin had been very poor foraging.

  *

  The Falcon Inn came very close to Keith’s ideal of the perfect pub, being cool, calm and quiet. There was no juke-box to please one customer and annoy a dozen. The bedrooms might have been considered Spartan by Raymond Grass’s guests, but they were just what Keith was used to and there was not the least trace of damp. His bed, Keith noticed automatically, was silent. Not that he had any intentions which might cause springs to jangle in the night, but habit died hard.

  He unpacked his gear, admired the view from his window over the Solway Firth, pottered about in the bathroom and then made his way down to explore the inn. The public bar was crowded with strangers and housed a noisy darts match, but next door Keith found a private bar, empty but for a barmaid busily polishing glasses. Keith summed her up as cuddlesome, and left it at that.

  He carried his pint to a table. The beer was excellent, from a small, local brewery, but Keith was only vaguely aware of it. He stared, unseeing, at a ribald sporting print and thought about guns. How could a gun like the Churchill go off by being dropped? He must get hold of the gun and take a look at the works. Rust or grit in the mechanism could have held back the intercepting sear. Of course, even a rich man might leave his best gun at home and carry an inexpensive import, if he were going where it might be damaged. Near salt water, for instance, or agricultural chemicals.

  It might be illuminating to find out whether the police had studied the pellets of shot. Were they compatible with the expended cartridge-case? If so, did the marks of firing-pin and extractor match Mr Grass’s gun?

  The arrival of Brutus, greeting him as a long-lost friend, blew Keith’s train of thought to tatters. Mr Enterkin was standing at the bar. Keith fussed with the dog until the solicitor brought his sherry across and sat down.

  ‘Lunch,’ he said, ‘and then I think we’ll go and visit a general.’ The barmaid was called through to the other bar. ‘What a charming young woman that is, to be sure.’

  ‘Not so young,’ Keith said. ‘And she’s married.’ Keith noticed wedding rings.

  So also did Mr Enterkin. ‘Widowed,’ he said. ‘I asked. And from my standpoint she is a mere child. But a child with a magnificent figure.’

  ‘You’re turning into a dirty old man.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Mr Enterkin said, ‘but I don’t deserve it.’

  ‘You used to have a comfortable arrangement with a lady nearer home.’

  ‘It became somewhat less comfortable last year, and was terminated by mutual agreement. That young woman,’ Mr Enterkin said thoughtfully, ‘carries her bosom as if she were proud of it, which is a rare change these days. A thoroughly womanly woman,’ he added, ‘except that she doesn’t talk all the time. Just deals with the subject and then is content with silence.’

  ‘She probably couldn’t get a word in edgeways,’ Keith said. ‘Anyway, you should have put all that sort of thing behind you by now.’

  ‘The devil may sleep, my boy, but he never dies. Sometimes he sleeps very lightly.’ Mr Enterkin craned his neck to inspect himself in the mirror behind the bar.

  ‘I don’t recognise the accent. Where does she come from?’

  ‘West country.’

  Keith frowned. ‘We’re about as far west as you can get.’

  ‘Devon or Somerset, you ignorant youth.’ But Mr Enterkin’s mind was not behind the rebuke. He had spent part of the war near Taunton, and he was remembering with nostalgia a rich countryside, farmhouse teas and friendship easily given.

  Although they lunched separately, the men and the dog, they lunched similarly. The inn was unpretentious, with a small dining room in which the landlord, a barrel-shaped ex-boxer named Harvey Brown, served them with a steak pie which made Mr Enterkin croon with pleasure. In the yard behind the inn Mrs Brown, who among other duties acted as principal cook, served the steak pie to Brutus. She had examined the tins of dog-meat which Mr Enterkin had provided, and had set them aside for the next visiting tramp.

  Chapter Four

  The village comprised a number of houses and cottages, a few shops, the inn and two insignificant public houses, and a church. The buildings were of a variety of ages and styles, and they had grown, mingled haphazardly with unnumbered large trees, along and around a single street which was also the road from nowhere in particular to somewhere unimportant and so carried no traffic other than the purely local and mainly agricultural.

  At the far end of the village and up a short lane they found a large Victorian house surrounded by rhododendrons. With the sun shining on the old stone, the bushes in bloom and backed by the trees with which the area was so well endowed, it looked pleasant enough; but Keith thought that it might be a depressing sort of dump in mid-winter.

  General Springburn was a large man. Although well on in his sixties he still showed a bursting vitality that Keith found rather overpowering. He met them at the door and bade them enter, in a voice which made Brutus squat down. ‘Bring the dog in,’ he roared. ‘Dogs welcome in this house. Mine’re shut up in back. Come into gunroom.’

  The general had twinkling eyes yet a curiously expressionless face. Later, they were to appreciate that he had attained high rank early in life. Many years spent setting an example, keeping a stiff upper lip, showing the flag and standing no nonsense had set on him a stiff outer crust through which a schoolboyish sense of humour sometime managed to escape. This, Keith came to think, might have been the attraction between the general and Raymond Grass – two Peter Pans imprisoned in elderly and respectable gentlemen.

  The gunroom was a large room at the back of the house, looking onto a heavily overgrown garden. A long gunrack held several shotguns and a rifle, and on the wall above was hung a modest collection of flintlocks and early percussion guns. Keith started to look at them but something half-registered was calling his attention. Two oval patches on the walls showed signs of repair, one of them recent. Nearby, the woodwork of the window seemed to have suffered attack by beetles. Keith inferred that his years of service had failed to inculcate in the general a proper respect for firearms, or else that familiarity had bred contempt.

  Brutus lay down under the big table that filled the centre of the room. He was puzzled and therefore nervous. The general would be the wrong person to disobey. Yet, from their scents, the general’s dogs were fat and lazy.

  ‘Had a letter about you,’ the general boomed. He picked up the barrels of a twelve-bore. ‘Mind if I finish? You’re the legal eagle, right? Come to tell me about Grass’s will?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Enterkin said. ‘And Mr Calder is advising me about guns and shooting matters.’

  ‘Know him,’ said the general. He shook Keith’s hand, violently. ‘Heard you speak. Club meeting. Cartridges and patterns. Spoke well. Didn’t agree with it all. Long as it goes bang and bird comes down, don’t need all that science.’ He swung back to Enterkin.
‘Well?’

  The lawyer opened his case and took out a paper. He knew the terms of the will by heart, but a paper to scrutinise saved him from having to meet the eyes of the legatees. In this instance it also saved him from watching the barrels of the shotgun, which more often than not seemed to be pointing at himself.

  ‘You’re mentioned more than once in the will,’ he said. ‘You must have known him well.’

  ‘Very well. Liked him. Usually. Sense of humour. Liked that. Sometimes let it run away with him of course.’

  ‘Firstly, this house.’

  ‘Lease runs out soon.’

  ‘Quite so. The will provides that you can occupy it for your lifetime, for a peppercorn rent.’

  The general blew out his breath. ‘Thank God! Been worried. But . . . I understand . . . conditions?’

  ‘Not in this instance.’

  The general lit up. ‘Well, bless him and may he rest in peace! Best news you could have brought me. Like a drink?’

  ‘Not just now, thank you,’ Mr Enterkin said. Keith shook his head.

  ‘Sensible chaps. Well, anything else? You said . . .’

  ‘Yes.’ Enterkin rattled his papers. ‘You understand that the other bequests have conditions attached to them?’

  ‘Oh. Yes. Heard about those conditions.’ The general slammed the gun into the rack and took another out. ‘You’d better tell me the worst. No, hang on a minute. Hear my daughter.’ He threw open the door. ‘Pru? Come in here a minute. This is the lawyer chap and his pal. Says I can stay on in the house.’

  The general’s daughter was a pleasant-looking woman in her thirties, dressed in sensible but hot tweeds. ‘I’m glad for you, Dad. Although this house is too big for you. Do put that thing down. I brought the twins over. They’re playing outside.’ She nodded and smiled to Mr Enterkin and to Keith.

  ‘It isn’t loaded.’ The general mounted the gun in the direction of the window. ‘Want to stay here. Brought up in this house. Looked forward to settling down here. Hope to die here. Not just yet. Well, let’s get the rest of the news and then we can have our walk.’

  ‘You’re not bringing that thing on our walk, are you?’

  ‘Always ask that. Always am. Why ever not?’

  ‘I’m just thinking about the children,’ Pru said.

  ‘Tell them not to come fluttering out of the tree-tops. I’m after pigeon, dammit.’

  Mr Enterkin recaptured their attention with a determined flutter of papers. ‘In token of the shooting that you and he had together, the will asks you to fire a salute over the grave. In return, you are bequeathed one of his antique guns, and a choice of any two others.’

  The general’s eyes gleamed. He drew himself up and tucked the gun under his arm. His daughter pushed the muzzles away from her body. ‘It isn’t loaded. By George! Something, that is! Couldn’t’ve pleased me more. Better than anything I have here. Need a bit of restoration here or there, some of ’em, though.’

  ‘Dad loves his old guns and things,’ Pru said indulgently. ‘If he had a tail, he’d wag it.’

  ‘Am wagging, damn it. Which particular one did he leave me?’

  Enterkin looked at his papers. ‘It’s referred to as a “Roman Candle”. Could that be a typing error?’

  ‘No. Right enough,’ said the general. ‘Splendid! Fine piece. Bit of history.’ He resumed mounting his gun.

  ‘That’s the gun you’re to fire the salute with.’

  ‘What?’ The general fumbled and hit himself on the ear with the butt of his gun. ‘That . . . that contraption!’

  ‘But Dad, you just said . . .’

  ‘Nemmind what I just said. Facing angry mob, might be glad of it. Not in cold blood. Too easy lose some fingers.’

  ‘Well, you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,’ Pru pointed out.

  ‘Oh, suppose I’ll do it.’ The old soldier drew himself up. ‘For that gun, the Manton and the snaphaunce . . .’ He scratched the back of his neck with the muzzles of the shotgun. Not for the first time, Mr Enterkin was struck by the uncanny accuracy with which the late Mr Grass had predicted the inducement required for acceptance of his less acceptable conditions. ‘But, don’t know why he had to insist on that,’ the general went on plaintively. ‘Dammit, thought we were friends!’

  ‘You did shoot him once, Dad,’ Pru reminded him.

  ‘Didn’t exactly shoot him. Peppered him. Accidental.’ The general thumped the butt of his gun down on the floor. ‘Anyway, paid me back for that. By God he did!’

  ‘What happened?’ Keith asked, giving way to his curiosity.

  The general gave a snort which, in earlier days, would have stopped a batallion in its tracks, and gestured with his gun at the chest of drawers beside the gun-rack. ‘Load my own cartridges. Keep them loose in top two drawers. Next drawer for empties. Grass had some special cartridges loaded. Mixed them among mine. First time out, important shoot, wanted to make good impression. Damned embarrassing.’ Lost for words, he mounted his gun and swung. Keith ducked out of the way.

  Pru chuckled, not without a certain malicious pleasure. ‘There wasn’t any shot in them. Just a little balloon of soap or something. When Dad fired one, he filled the air with little coloured bubbles.’

  Mr Enterkin did not appreciate the true awfulness of the revenge, but Keith was hard put to it not to laugh. He blew his nose hurriedly.

  The general flushed. ‘Damned embarrassing,’ he repeated. ‘Just been confined to house, did a big reloading, two thousand or more. Mixed them right through the lot. Think I’ve got rid of the last of ’em now. Still finding them up to last month.’ He mounted the gun again and swung through a fly that was tracking across the ceiling.

  ‘Well, he hasn’t done badly by you,’ Pru said. ‘You can earn your toys, and stay on in this house. Although you know you’d be welcome to a home with us.’

  ‘Fair enough, Pru, fair enough. But as long as I’m fit, and can pay the rates. And the heating,’ the general added gloomily.

  ‘There is one last bequest,’ Enterkin said. ‘It figures also in the new deed of trust for the Whinkirk Estate. You are given permission to shoot vermin, including rabbit and wood-pigeon, on the estate, and you may attend and host the first pheasant-shoot of each season. The upkeep of the shooting has been provided for.’

  ‘By George!’ the general said again. Had his daughter not been present he might have called on someone rather higher in the celestial hierarchy. ‘Now, that really is something!’

  ‘Hold on a minute, Dad,’ said Pru. ‘Wait and see what strings are tied to it before you start the singing and dancing bit. It’s all a bit too like one of those classical stories in which the gods give somebody his heart’s desire in such a way that it doesn’t do him a bit of good. Typical of that man Grass, of course. I can just imagine him pulling out the draft will on a dull evening and thinking to himself, “Who have I got it in for today, and what shall I make him do?”’

  ‘All right, girl, all right. Don’t go on like your mother used to.’ He looked at Enterkin. ‘Conditions?’

  Enterkin coughed and fidgeted with his papers. Even in his ignorance he could see that this condition was going to be unpopular. ‘The only condition is that you never shoot there – take game or vermin, it says – except wearing a white coat. “Or similar white outer clothing”. At least that allows you . . .’

  The general dropped his gun, stooped over the table and put his head in his hands. ‘The best bit of shooting in fifty miles and I have to stand out like a bloody snowman,’ he mourned. ‘Nothing that I’ve done deserves that.’

  ‘I suppose he wanted to make sure that everyone else could see you,’ Pru said bluntly.

  ‘Can’t think why,’ the general said through his fingers.

  ‘Because you’re so careless. Frankly, Dad, when you’re out with a gun I’ll be only too happy to know that I can see you coming.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about it.’

  ‘I know what everyone
says.’

  The general straightened up and squared his shoulders. He feared no man, but his daughter was something else. His shoulders drooped again. ‘Not true,’ he muttered. ‘One or two isolated incidents. The odd near-miss. Happen to anybody.’

  ‘But they didn’t happen to anybody. They happened to you. I’m only surprised that it wasn’t you who had the accident. Or killed somebody else. I suppose,’ Pru added reflectively, ‘that isn’t what happened.’

  ‘What?’ the general demanded.

  ‘That you shot him accidentally, and rigged it to look as if he’d had his own accident.’

  General Springburn glowered horribly, which seemed to bother his daughter not at all. ‘Good God!’ he burst out. ‘You’re as bad as your mother for thinking the worst. I never saw him that day until after he was dead. I spotted Winter bending over him and went to see if I could help. Signs were clear enough to see. Climbing fence, slipped, dropped gun, gun went off. Shouldn’t climb fence with loaded gun, but seen him do it before. Not often, but Homer can nod, eh?’

  ‘How was he lying?’ Keith asked.

  ‘On back. One foot hooked in fence. Gun down the slope, other side. There you have it. Nutshell.’

  Keith nodded. In a nutshell was exactly how he had it.

  ‘His head and hands got the worst of it,’ Pru said, ‘as if he’d seen it coming and was trying to protect his face. That’s why it took so long to obtain – what do they call it? – legal presumption of death or something. There was a lot of gossip in the village. There was a rumour that the police weren’t being open about the evidence. People began to wonder whether the body was really his. Elaborate hoaxes were just his scene, and money stopped mattering to him in the last few years.’

  Keith was slightly shocked. ‘Surely,’ he said, ‘he’d have drawn the line at messing about with a dead body?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ said the general. ‘Knew him all his life. Wild boy. High-spirited. Seemed to settle down. Seemed to be getting wilder again after he made his pile. Didn’t care. Owned small company making records, cassettes and things. Put out cassette, Music for the Motorway. Doctored. Superimposed noises. Big-end going. Overtaking police-car. Horns. Brakes. Voices. Garages did boom business. Verges littered with cars. Bloody dangerous. Gave money back and paid some damages, but couldn’t see broken-down car without bursting out laughing. Quite blind to consequences. Apart from that, brilliant businessman and damn good landowner. English squire rather than Scottish laird.’