Fair Game

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘Yes, I do. I can just picture a bunch of slightly hostile wildlifers in hot pursuit of the funds, running the estate for the shooting. They’ll be heavily dependent on the raising of wild broods, so they’ll soon find out that there’s more to conservation than controlling the human predator. I don’t see any of ’em killing over the heads of it, though. When can we pay a visit to the local fuzz?’

  ‘If by that you mean the respected local constabulary, how about tomorrow afternoon after we’ve seen the household?’

  ‘And the guns,’ Keith said. ‘All right.’

  ‘Good. And now, hopefully for the last time today, let’s put our best foot forward. A great hunger is coming over me. What’s more, the inn has a wine list obviously tailored for Mr Grass’s more demanding guests, and the prices are several years out of date. You couldn’t get such bargains in a supermarket.’

  Chapter Six

  As Mr Enterkin had suggested, the inn’s cellar presented excellent value for money. They dined well on roast duckling. Later, they retired to the private bar, for discussion and further sustenance.

  From behind the bar, the cuddlesome barmaid studied them unobtrusively. For most of his life the darkly handsome Keith had had and enjoyed, without ever being conscious of it, a sexual magnetism for women. He would have been piqued to know that the barmaid had dismissed him after a glance as being good-looking in a rather obvious way, probably a lady-killer and of no real interest. Mr Enterkin, she thought, was something else again. He dressed well, which she liked. He was older, but she herself was no longer a girl and she had come to prefer the mature male. His noticeable chubbiness made her feel alluringly slim by comparison. She liked a man who enjoyed good cooking, and from what she had glimpsed in the dining room no man ever enjoyed it more. His voice was educated, and his grandiloquent turn of phrase pleased and impressed her. He was a gentleman.

  Keith and Mr Enterkin, over their brandies, had drifted from the subject of estate management into more specialised topics. Mr Enterkin was trying hard to understand.

  ‘Take grouse and partridge,’ Keith said. ‘They’re very territorial birds. They respond to heavy shooting – you get a larger and more vigorous population the following season. The reason is that when they’re unshot the older males take over more and more territory and the younger and more vigorous birds don’t get a chance to breed. They’re like people, really. The older cocks are probably infertile anyway.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Here, I’d better phone Molly.’

  There was a public phone in the hall. Keith got through to Molly and reassured her that he was safe and adequately nourished. ‘Has Jack Waterhouse been yet?’ he asked.

  ‘He phoned,’ Molly said. ‘I think he’s going to pay your price for the Baker rifle. He’s coming over tomorrow.’

  ‘Right.’ Keith thought for a moment. ‘Never mind what I said. Don’t be too rude to him. I think, from what I hear, I’m going to need his help.’

  *

  Mr Enterkin had taken Keith’s remark personally, which had not been Keith’s intention. ‘I’m not infertile,’ he told the empty room. He bounced up and rapped on the bar. The barmaid came through the back-bar door from the other room.

  ‘Ask him yourself,’ she said over her shoulder. She supplied Mr Enterkin with another brandy-and-soda and took his money. ‘You’re the solicitor,’ she said.

  Mr Enterkin said that he was.

  ‘The lads through there are wondering if there’s anything in the will for any of them.’

  He shook his head. ‘Apart from some minor tenancy matters, anybody mentioned in the will has had a letter by now. Except for one person that we didn’t have an address for. A lady.’

  There was a concerted groan from the other room. She shut the door. ‘My name’s Laing,’ she said. ‘Mrs Helen Laing. They call me Penny, of course.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s nothing for you. Should there have been?’ He asked the question without any ulterior thoughts except to continue a conversation with a pretty woman and to listen to an accent which still delighted him. He was surprised and disconcerted to see her blush.

  ‘He didn’t owe me anything,’ she said seriously. ‘Not for want of asking, but with him that didn’t mean anything. He tried it on with every woman for miles around.’

  ‘Not always unsuccessfully?’

  She paused before speaking. Enterkin guessed that her habit was to attend silently behind the bar, taking in the gossip but never joining in. ‘You can’t believe talk,’ she said at last. ‘Not around here, there’s too much of it. But on looks alone, there must be three of his bastards in this village. There!’

  Mr Enterkin knew from the will that there were five, but could hardly say so. ‘And he had the reputation of being a careful man with a gun,’ he said.

  Penny laughed aloud, so that her figure jiggled deliciously. ‘He mayn’t have been too careful with some of the shots he fired,’ she said.

  ‘The local ladies would seem to have remained undeterred.’

  Penny went back to polishing glasses. It was her substitute for knitting. ‘No. But he was very generous. If you see a fur coat in the village, or a string of pearls, or a sports car . . . And the good Lord alone knows how many gifts may be hidden away and not shown in the street at all. And then the unmarried ones may have been hoping, and the married ones had little enough to lose. And, you know,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘he had a lot of charm. When he told a girl that she was beautiful, he could almost make her believe that he meant it.’

  Most of Penny’s argument in mitigation of female frailty passed Mr Enterkin by, but her last remark caught his attention. Between the influences of food and wine (not to mention spirits), a charming woman and his own verbosity, he was in a state close to euphoria. In common with the general and the late Mr Grass, he had his own personal imp of mischief which was usually in safe confinement somewhere between his frontal lobes. Now he felt his control slipping.

  To his own astonishment he picked up Penny’s hand and heard his own voice speaking. ‘If I were paying court to you,’ he said softly, ‘I wouldn’t waste words telling you what your own mirror must tell you every morning, or that you have the kind of figure that men have given up empires for . . .’ she was trying to pull her hand away, but not very hard, ‘. . . or that you have eyes,’ he added, noticing for the first time that she did indeed have eyes, and very blue and bright they were.

  Keith’s head came round the door – rather to Mr Enterkin’s relief, for he had found himself quite unable to think of anything to say about Penny’s eyes which had not already been said, and better, by the poets.

  ‘Sorry to drink and run,’ Keith said, ‘but I think I’ll walk the dog, and then I’m for my bed.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Mr Enterkin. ‘See you in the morning.’

  ‘Good night, then.’

  ‘Good night.’

  Penny had managed to keep busy without quite removing her hand from reach. Mr Enterkin gathered that the moment had not, after all, passed. ‘What were we talking about?’ she asked innocently.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Surely,’ Mr Enterkin said, ‘telling you what I wouldn’t say is talking about nothing.’

  ‘What – what would you say, then?’

  He recaptured her hand. ‘Nor could I promise you jewels or sports cars.’

  Her hand lost a little of its warmth. ‘What, then?’

  He spoke very softly, almost into her ear. Just what he promised must remain their secret. He whispered on and on, and this time there were no interruptions. Penny breathed more quickly and her knees felt rubbery.

  *

  Very early in the morning, Penny Laing stretched luxuriously. She slipped out of bed and started to dress, a process which Mr Enterkin watched with fresh pleasure. His comfortable arrangement, recently terminated, had been with an astringent divorcee of enormous libido but many inhibitions, and he had forgotten the thrill of burrowing i
n warm satin to find the delights beneath, and the converse but equally exquisite pleasure of watching a lady dress.

  ‘You may be good,’ Penny said teasingly, ‘but you’re not as good as you said you were.’

  He chuckled. ‘So never trust a lawyer.’

  ‘I don’t. Anyway, my dear, you’re better than Mr Grass was – from what I’ve heard. Girls talk, you know.’

  ‘I know they do. They talk to lawyers, mostly.’

  ‘And I thought that lawyers never did anything dangerous.’

  ‘Our motto is, if you do something dangerous do it safely.’

  She paused in that most feminine gesture, twisting to fasten a back suspender. Penny Laing had never taken to tights. ‘I hope so,’ she said. ‘There’s, enough of those in the village already. Well, at least you’re a proper gent in a bed. Mr Grass wasn’t always, or so I’m told.’

  ‘He still seemed to have his share of successes.’

  ‘He wasn’t above applying a little pressure. Money pressure. So I’m told.’

  ‘For all his methods,’ Mr Enterkin said, ‘it seems that I got something that he didn’t. Or so I’m told.’

  She smoothed down her dress and came and sat beside him on the bed. ‘You can believe this or not,’ she said, ‘just as you like, but you’re the first since my husband died. I don’t know what came over me tonight, really I don’t.’

  ‘I believe you. And I’m looking forward to our dinner.’

  ‘You don’t have to come,’ she said anxiously. ‘Not if you don’t really want to.’

  ‘I want to,’ he said.

  Chapter Seven

  Keith was not surprised when Mr Enterkin slept late the next morning, for the solicitor had strong views about early rising. He was against it.

  Brutus, on the other hand, had been up and about for hours and greeted Keith with enthusiasm. Eat up. Master’ll sleep for ages. Let’s go somewhere. Keith hurried his breakfast, and as they strolled round to the general’s house he sifted and sorted the facts and gossip surrounding the death of Raymond Grass. Just as a melody of haunting beauty might be flawed by two or three false notes, so the pattern surrounding the death was perfect but for the character of the man and the quality of his gun. Those discrepancies might not impress the police, but they chafed Keith’s mind like blisters on a heel.

  The general seemed to be waiting, but he waved aside Keith’s apologies for tardiness. ‘Didn’t expect you to be up and about early this morning,’ the general boomed, and he winked slyly. Keith wondered what he meant but was not sufficiently interested to ask.

  The gun was produced and Keith tried it to his shoulder while the general took out a supply of cartridges. The gun was clean and well-kept and the fit seemed good. Another matter was bothering Keith. ‘You know Joe Merson, General?’ he asked. ‘What did he look like?’

  The general pondered. ‘Scarecrow.’

  ‘Physical attributes?’ Keith found the general’s clipped speech infectious.

  ‘Ah.’ The general pondered again. ‘Medium height. Thickset. Gingery. Nose like Concorde. Otherwise unremarkable.’

  ‘Did he resemble Raymond Grass at all?’

  ‘Similar height and colour. Faces different.’

  ‘Did you see Joe Merson around at all after Mr Grass died?’

  The general looked at Keith in mild surprise. ‘Not that I remember. You don’t think –?’

  ‘I was just wondering. Nobody else suggested such a thing?’

  ‘Not that I heard.’

  Keith knew that the speed and accuracy of a village grapevine was conditioned by social undercurrents that the newcomer might take months to assess. ‘Is this a gossipy place?’ he asked.

  The general looked at him curiously. ‘You’ll find out,’ he said. ‘Well, can’t have you walking about like that. Look as if you were going to rob a bank. Here.’ He produced a gun-slip and an elderly game-bag.

  Keith made suitably grateful noises.

  ‘About due to go out myself,’ the general said wistfully. ‘Exercise dogs. Might have a little sport together?’ He brandished another gun. Keith ducked aside.

  Keith felt no inclination to go shooting with anyone as casual with guns as the general, but he had no wish to hurt the feelings of an old man. He excused himself on the grounds that his objective was the training of Brutus, which would not be possible in the presence of other dogs.

  ‘Quite right,’ said the general reluctantly. ‘Might have an outing or two later, if I can persuade Pru to walk my beasts?’

  ‘Possibly.’ Keith scoured his mind for a way out. ‘I doubt we’d get much if you’re in your white coat; except maybe shooting over ferrets.’

  The general closed his eyes for a second. ‘I have permission to shoot another farm, off the estate,’ he said.

  ‘I’m here to advise about the Whinkirk House Estate. I shouldn’t go stravaiging.’

  ‘Well,’ said the general as if the idea had only just struck him, ‘perhaps you could put in a word with Enterkin, eh? Liberal interpretation of the rules?’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Keith said.

  The general brightened slightly. But his interpretation of Keith’s words may not have tallied closely with their intent.

  Back at the inn, Keith found Mr Enterkin up at last and working his way through a substantial breakfast. The solicitor, who was usually at his worst at what he regarded as the very crack of dawn, surprised Keith by being in an unwontedly sunny and benevolent mood. He was, however, stern in his refusal to walk to Whinkirk House. ‘I have telephoned,’ he said. ‘The Rolls will call for me shortly.’

  ‘Why drive the long way round? It’s a grand day again, and only a mile or so to walk.’

  ‘A mile or so as the crow flies,’ Enterkin said, ‘but three at least if you follow the field boundaries. I’ve no great fancy to go striding about the farms. You walk, my dear chap, and I’ll see you there about eleven. Take Brutus with you if you like,’ he added generously.

  ‘You want to come with me, Brutus?’ Keith asked.

  Brutus hesitated for less than a second. His master might be good for titbits, but instinct told him that Keith was going in the direction of his own true destiny.

  They followed the route of the day before. As soon as the houses had tailed away and the farmland opened up, Keith loaded the general’s gun. He fell again into a walking reverie. Of course, it was quite possible for a careful man to slip into carelessness just once, and to die for it. Raymond Grass might have had cause to hurry. If he had seen a poacher, perhaps. Or hit a rabbit that was still struggling towards a hole – the ethic of the sport would oblige him to hurry and despatch it mercifully. It might depend on whether he had had a dog with him.

  They were following the flank of the first strip of woodland when a wood-pigeon came clattering out overhead. Keith’s reactions took over before he could bring his mind back from its wanderings. He mounted and swung, pulled the trigger as his barrels passed the bird, and the pigeon in mid-air turned into a bundle of meat and feathers. It landed thirty yards away.

  True to his training, Brutus sat firm; but the shot had no more meaning than that. The order to “Fetch” puzzled him. No familiar object had been thrown, no dummy had sailed from the gun. He quested obediently over the ground, but there was nothing of interest. Only a piece of feathered meat, too fresh to eat. He came back and presented himself for reassurance.

  Keith sighed, and they walked together to the dead bird which lay at the foot of a thick hedge. Brutus nosed it and then sat down for a scratch. Keith picked the bird, noticing as he did so that there was a snare set in the hedge. He was tempted to throw the pigeon for Brutus, but the loose-feathered bird would be a dangerous introduction to real game; in getting a firm grip, the young dog could become hard in the mouth. He stowed the bird in the net of the general’s bag and walked on, discouraged.

  There was really no reason why another man of similar build shouldn’t decide to absent himself after the
death of his patron.

  Winter was working in his front garden, but seemed not displeased to straighten his back. He nodded at the game-bag. ‘You’ve started then. How did the wee dog do?’

  ‘As a gun-dog he’d make a fine pair of book-ends if I had another one,’ Keith said. ‘He wouldn’t look at it. I don’t think he’s ever met the real thing. I was wondering about trying him on a cold rabbit. Or would your wife be able to give me an old stocking, or a foot off a pair of tights?’

  ‘Aye. That often helps.’

  Brutus knew that he was glad to be back, without understanding why. This was where it all happened, whatever it was. He disappeared around the corner, ignoring Winter’s half-bred spaniel, and lay down with his nose against the wire of the pen.

  Winter put his head in at the cottage door and then took a seat beside Keith, on a low wall warmed by the sun. He produced some papers from his hip pocket. ‘Just to be proper, I got each farmer to write you out a note.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Keith took the letters. ‘How did you manage it? Getting a farmer to write something down’s usually like trying to get a cat to take a bath.’

  Winter smiled faintly. ‘I’ve no doubt they’ll be wanting something in return, seeing as Mr Enterkin will be looking to you about the running of the estate. Mr Yates at North Farm said to tell you he’d be glad of a word shortly.’

  Mrs Winter brought out the desired tube of nylon, and with it a tray of tea, in large mugs, and biscuits. She smiled cosily without saying a word and went back indoors. The men drank their tea in companionable silence.

  ‘You’ve a lot of pheasant broods in the wild,’ Keith said at last.

  ‘That’s what it’s all about.’

  ‘Partridges, too.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘You believe in the Euston system?’

  Winter thawed at last. ‘Tried it,’ he said. ‘But there’s more work lifting eggs and incubating them and putting them back than there is in controlling the predators and keeping them on the move for a few weeks. If the cover’s just right for rearing a brood, they’ll rear in the wild.’