Fair Game

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘At eating them?’

  ‘At working them, as long as it’s watched. Unless it’s working, it’s on that chain. And Dad’s bought a new chain that’d hold a battleship in a gale.’

  ‘And he sent you to get me to change my mind?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I heard,’ Keith said slowly, ‘that it was off its chain the night Mr Grass’s dog died.’

  ‘That’s absolutely untrue.’ Yates’ eyes were so level and honest that Keith was sure that he was lying.

  ‘Who shot the dog?’

  ‘My father.’

  ‘You saw it happen?’

  Yates paused and then shook his head. ‘My father’s the tenant . . . on paper,’ he said. ‘But he’s an awkward old bugger to deal with.’

  ‘I never doubted it,’ Keith said. ‘He can take the dog with him when he goes.’

  Yates leaned forward and cleared his throat. Suddenly his smile was tainted by guile, and he reminded Keith irresistibly of the old man. ‘If you’re terminating the old tenancy, why don’t you make out a new one in my name? You’d find me much easier to deal with. You know fine the difference a co-operative farmer can make to the shooting.’

  ‘Have you enough capital to stock the place?’

  ‘I’d have my father’s stock. He’d need to let me have it, or we’d both be out on our ears.’

  ‘He might sell it and retire.’

  ‘When he dies –’

  ‘That’s something I’m not prepared to discuss before the event.’

  ‘If you wait for the event,’ Yates said, ‘you’ll be too late. We’ll be gone.’

  Keith thought it over. He found that his wrath had been cooling as fast as Brutus healed. ‘Against my better judgment,’ he said, ‘your father won’t get a notice to quit just now. But just let me hear of one more incident involving that bloody dog . . .’

  ‘You won’t,’ Yates said grimly. ‘It just might be that that dog’ll be the next to meet with an accident.’

  ‘Purely as a matter of interest, what sort of gun do you use?’

  ‘I share the old man’s gun. By the bye, he says that for a consideration of twenty-five quid he’ll will it to you. But it’s time I had one of my own. Could you put me in the way of picking up a good used gun?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Keith said. ‘What could you go to?’

  ‘I want something good,’ Yates said. ‘I’ve got some money that the old man doesn’t know about. But I’ll have to knock a nothing off the end when I tell him what I paid, so don’t you go and clype on me. Well, shall I tell him it’s a deal? Will you draw up the necessary agreement?’

  Keith paused again for thought. He visualised the perfect twist of those barrels, browned and polished. It would be a collector’s item. ‘I suppose so,’ he said.

  *

  Another visitor was a Mrs Ambrose. She made an appointment and arrived on time, a woman fighting a battle of compromise with the years. Her clothes were delicate and feminine without being too young for her, and she rustled as she walked. Her hair was beautifully done, tinted back to what Keith thought was probably the original colour and then intriguingly streaked with silver. Her eyes were still beautiful, made larger by clever making-up. When she shook hands, her hand in his felt naked through her glove. Keith, who had a certain expertise in such matters, put her down as a very dangerous lady.

  She accepted coffee and insisted on pouring for both of them. Her accent resembled Alice Wyper’s, but Keith judged that she had learned it later in life.

  ‘The solicitor wrote to me about the silver, but when I rang up I was told that you were the person to speak to.’

  ‘There was no need for you to come trailing away here, though,’ Keith said. He was just making conversation while he enjoyed her legs. She had enchanting legs, and she was not secretive about them. And Molly was remaining celibate. ‘I could have brought it to you and we could have discussed anything else at the same time.’

  She smiled sweetly. ‘It was no trouble. And I wanted to see the place once more, just as Ray knew it, before it’s all changed.’

  Keith looked down at Mr Enterkin’s notes. ‘Mr Grass left you all his silver cutlery and a number of items of antique silverware, to quite a substantial value. It’s all boxed now, but I have a list here.’

  She waved it away. ‘I’m sure it’ll be all right.’

  ‘So am I. But please check it carefully against the list when you unpack it. I’ll have Hayes bring the boxes to you. Does he know where to come?’

  ‘I think so,’ she said. ‘But Ray usually walked over, and the name isn’t on the gate, so he may not. Tell him the house with the yellow paintwork.’

  Keith heard his spoon rattle in the saucer. So this was the lady from whose doorstep, according to Winter, the dog had strayed. The story seemed more believable, with this lady attached. He dragged his mind back to business. ‘As Mr Enterkin’s letter mentioned, there’s also a legacy of money.’

  ‘But with a condition, he said.’

  ‘Yes. Nothing very onerous. You are to attend the service –’

  ‘In some outrageous costume, or lack of it?’ She sounded mildly amused and nothing more.

  ‘I think you’ll feel adequately clad,’ Keith said. ‘You’re to come dressed as a black sheep – the costume will be provided – and to sing The Lord is my Shepherd. To Brother James’ Air. Unaccompanied.’

  For the first time, she seemed shaken. ‘I can’t sing,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t really believe that,’ Keith said. ‘You have a very musical voice.’

  ‘When I try to sing, I sound exactly like a sheep.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why you were chosen,’ Keith said. He fought to keep a straight face. ‘I’m sure that your best attempt will be acceptable.’

  ‘It’ll just have to do,’ she said sadly. ‘I’m afraid Ray was always inclined to let his sense of the ridiculous run away with him.’

  Mr Enterkin’s advice had been to mention the condition and then to get off the subject as quickly as possible. ‘Mr Grass must have had a high regard for you,’ Keith said. ‘His death will have come as a terrible shock.’

  ‘Quite terrible,’ she agreed. ‘I was expecting him for a drink that evening, you know, but he never arrived. I . . . preferred not to telephone. To be honest, I thought he’d probably met up with some little tramp. I’m afraid Ray was always a lad for the girls, and being a bachelor he’d no need to change his ways as the years went by. As a matter of fact, I think he was getting worse,’ she added dispassionately. ‘He exercised a sort of droit de seigneur over his tenantry, and he owned most of the houses for miles around. So when he didn’t turn up I just naturally assumed that one of the cottagers’ daughters had had her sixteenth birthday. I mean, whatever people said about him he did usually wait for the age of consent. And then, in the morning, there was the news that he’d been found dead, and some people were hinting that he’d been murdered, and others were saying that it wasn’t his body at all but that he’d done something silly and gone into hiding.’

  ‘What did you think, yourself?’ Keith asked. He shifted his position slightly and gained another inch.

  ‘I could believe that he’d been murdered. I could believe that easier then I could believe in an accident, because Ray was always very careful with his skin. But he’d never have gone off without letting me know. In fact, if he’d wanted to go into hiding I’d have hidden him. He knew that.’

  ‘But you’re not, are you?’

  She gave what was meant to be a musical laugh. It did sound rather like the bleating of a lamb. ‘If I were,’ she said, ‘I’d hardly tell you.’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘It’s difficult to believe that he’s dead, though,’ she said. Obligingly, she crossed her knees and turned slightly. ‘He was always so vital and alive. All my life he’s been here, and now he isn’t any more. My husband liked him too. Jim was very upset at the news.’

  �
�Jim’s your husband?’ Keith had assumed her to be a widow.

  ‘Yes. Which reminds me. Ray always said that he’d leave Jimmy his big telescope, the one on the tripod.’

  ‘It’s left to you. You’ll find it with the silver.’

  ‘Jimmy will be pleased. You see, he’s been in a wheelchair for years. That’s why he liked me to have other friends. And Ray never having married . . . You know, Mr Calder, if I hadn’t married Jimmy, Ray would probably have asked me to marry him.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why he stayed single,’ Keith suggested tactfully.

  ‘Do you think so?’ She seemed pleased. ‘Well, we’ll never know now. You must come up and see us one of these evenings, Mr Calder.’

  Keith rang the bell for Bessie to come and show Mrs Ambrose out. He himself could not have walked without embarrassment.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The day-to-day management of the estate, the need to plan for the future and tactical moves in preparation for the imminent first meeting of the new board necessitated daily contact between Keith and Colin Winter. A tacit competition arose between them as to which would visit the other on his home ground, because while Winter had come to appreciate the excellent coffee that was served at Whinkirk House, Keith had come to enjoy Mrs Winter’s scones.

  They sat on the Thursday morning in what would always be known as Mr Grass’s study. Winter had been quicker off the mark, using the round of his traps as an excuse for being unavailable at home. The table was littered with maps and graphs and typescript.

  ‘Is more land really needed?’ Keith asked. ‘The estate’s a fine size the way it is. I know Mr Grass’s will made provision for buying in Wellhead Farm, but that doesn’t mean that we’ve got to take it over.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ Winter said, ‘and it’s needed. The present estate’s developed as far as it’ll go. If we’re to do what yon trust papers say, and to do teaching and research into the making of habitat, we’ve no spare land to do it on without spoiling what we’ve already got. But yon Wellhead’s no’ a bad wee parcel of land. You can see it from the window here.’

  ‘Where the ground rises beyond the loch? It’s got no cover on it.’

  ‘That’s my very point,’ Winter said. ‘We’d be free to demonstrate the planting of cover, and since it wouldnae be part of the real shoot we could tear it apart and do it again. And it could still be farmed to earn its keep.’

  ‘If you want me to support you when the board meets you’ll have to convince me first, and you’ll have a job. It’s a Mr Benton, isn’t it?’

  ‘Mrs Benton. Her man died four or five years back.’

  ‘Owner or tenant?’

  ‘Owner.’

  ‘I’d better go and take a look at it. Like to come with me?’

  ‘I’ll do that. But we’d better no’ carry guns. She’s let the shooting to a small syndicate.’

  ‘All right,’ Keith said. ‘No guns. Shall we go now?’

  They set off a few minutes later. Brutus came along, but he made it clear that he thought the men improperly dressed without their shotguns.

  They took their time along the way, looked at nests, counted coveys, searched for traces of stoats or weasels, swept the skies for crows. Climbing a gate in a hedge, they disturbed a large, ginger cat feeding on the remains of a pheasant poult. The cat fled with Brutus in full cry behind, leaving its prey on the grass. ‘Isn’t it just damnable,’ Winter said disgustedly, ‘the things you see when you’re no’ carrying a gun.’

  Keith grunted agreement. Bessie the maid had been giving him come-on signals.

  As they threaded their way past the loch, keeping outside its immediate cover, Winter said, ‘We winna’ ging near the bank.’ But even from a distance, Keith could see and admire. The loch was a natural feature but had been sculpted, with infinite labour, to provide a fretwork of bays and small islands, all carefully planted, giving dozens of nesting-sites and loafing-places. Brood after brood of Mallard ducklings were on show. Where a small creek served a boat-house they had a closer view of the water and Keith could make out a number of small waders. And then it was shut off by trees. They passed a strip of kale and began a climb through pasture to an unbroken fence beyond.

  ‘This is the boundary,’ Winter said.

  A long strip of Jerusalem artichokes lay beyond the fence. ‘She seems to go in for game crops too,’ Keith said.

  Winter snorted. ‘Dinnae you be fooled,’ he said. ‘It’s just at the march, to attract our birds so’s they can drive them on into her land. She feeds a couple of wee ponds too, and our duck flight to and fro. She just got the idea a year or two back. Now she steals a lot of our birds, and takes a few hundred for the shooting. The bugger,’ Winter added.

  ‘A bad neighbour policy.’

  ‘You’re right. Fair greedy.’

  Beyond the artichokes, the ground continued to rise. There were a few small fields of roots, but most of the land was given over to pasture. ‘All the same,’ Keith said, ‘she’s got some good beasts.’

  ‘They’re no’ hers. She just lets the grazing.’

  Keith looked around at the fences and up at the buildings. ‘It needs money spent,’ he said.

  ‘It’s costing us money. Those birds are a cash crop.’ A noisy tractor was approaching, following a track across the face of the hill. ‘This is herself,’ Winter said. ‘She was one of the Cunninghams from over the other side, the moneyed folk. But her and her brother were aye the black sheep. They cut her off when she married, and gave her the farm to get shot of her. It was smaller then, the Bentons have added more land. You’ll find her a tartar.’

  Winter’s prediction was accurate. She stopped the tractor abreast of them and looked down from its seat as if from horseback, or from the howdah of an elephant. She was a woman in her forties with a voice so piercing that she had no need to stop her engine, while Keith had to shout to make himself heard. She looked ill, Keith thought. A shotgun of good quality was clipped under the seat, and a fox and two rabbits swung behind. Throughout their discussion she ignored Winter as though he had been invisible.

  ‘You’re Calder, aren’t you? You’re helping the lawyer who’s handling Ray Grass’s estate. Not left me anything, has he?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Never thought that he would. I was never one of his women. He tried to add me to his collection, but I wasn’t having any.’

  She had been good-looking once, in a hard, classical mould, but was tired and faded now with lines of suffering eating into her face. If the late Mr Grass had ever turned his attention to her, Keith thought, it must have been some years before. She looked spent. Only her piercing voice still rang with the hauteur which she must have had in her youth. Keith tried, and failed, to find a suitable formula for reply, one which would acknowledge her virtue without denigrating her charms.

  ‘Well, what did you come here for? Going to make me an offer?’

  She was a little too eager. Keith, who had just decided to make a tentative start to negotiations, changed his mind. Let her worry for a while. ‘Mainly a social call,’ he shouted. ‘Neighbours. And to see whether my manly charms might not persuade you to stop feeding the boundary, or to do your share of the rearing.’

  ‘I’m within my rights,’ she snapped.

  ‘Legally, perhaps. But morally you know you’re wrong. Unethical. You plant an attractive crop just over the boundary from a neighbour who sweats blood to keep up a wild population and tops it up with releases. You sit here, doing no other work and not spending a ha’penny, and on shooting mornings you drive them inwards. Not neighbourly.’

  ‘It’s tough at the top,’ she said bitterly. She pointed towards Whinkirk House. ‘It was easy for him. With all that money, he could afford to waste land. But I don’t call that efficient farming.’

  Keith followed the direction of her eyes to the intensive cropping of the fields below, and contrasted it with the grazing above. He tried not to raise his eyebrows. ‘Man
isn’t the only animal on earth you know,’ he said. ‘We have to make some provision for the others.’

  ‘Just to shoot them?’

  ‘Taking a chance over the guns is the rent they pay. It seems a small enough price to me.’

  ‘Being shot?’ She glared at him, almost savagely. ‘That’s too high a price to pay for anything. I’d rather be dead.’

  Keith was to remember later that he had hidden a smile at the apparent contradiction in those last words. ‘You let your shooting,’ he said.

  ‘You may not know it, young man, but there’s such a thing as economic necessity. And if Ray Grass’s manly charms couldn’t persuade me, yours certainly won’t. You’d better save them for your barmaid.’

  Her words nearly started a train of thought at the back of Keith’s mind. But the effort of arguing at the top of his voice was telling on him and he could feel his temper beginning to slip. ‘Perhaps I will,’ he said. ‘Instead of persuasion, perhaps I should be looking for the big stick.’

  Keith’s words had been spoken at random while he searched for more cogent arguments, and he was surprised to see her flinch. It occurred to him for the first time that she might be vulnerable to economic or other pressure.

  When she spoke again her voice, although still lofty, was more reasonable. ‘I’ve been thinking of starting a stable and riding-school,’ she said. ‘I’d have no objection to selling the land and keeping the buildings. You wouldn’t find me hard to deal with.’ And after a pause, she went on again, grudgingly. ‘Sorry I spoke like that. I’m not very well.’

  ‘How much were you thinking of asking?’

  She named a figure which startled him. It was less than the maximum provided in Mr Grass’s will, but still a great deal of money.

  ‘How many acres?’

  ‘Nearly a thousand.’

  ‘Eight hundred and forty,’ Winter said, almost into Keith’s ear.

  Keith forced himself to smile. ‘That’s almost twice the market value,’ he shouted.

  ‘Come off it,’ she said. ‘What if it is? Ray provided at least that much in his will.’

  ‘And if he did, the estate isn’t obliged to spend that much.’