The Executor (Keith Calder Book 10)

by Gerald Hammond

  Keith considered telling her that he now had the bag which had been taken from Steven Clune’s bungalow, but it was against his instincts to give away information to somebody who was being far less than frank with him, or to play a card before he knew its exact value. He heard a vehicle in the drive and bade Mrs Winterton a curt farewell.

  ‘I understood you to say that you would be staying,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll be outside,’ Keith said.

  *

  Ronnie’s Land-Rover was grumbling up the drive. Keith met it at the corner of the house. Ronnie stopped and wound down his window.

  ‘Well,’ Keith said.

  ‘We followed as far as Newbridge,’ Ronnie said. ‘When they got on the M-eight they speeded up and we lost them. They’re going home, all right.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Keith said. ‘If so, their whole ploy was a diversion to keep me busy around here while Danny does something slippery. On the other hand, they may have been leading you away in order to double back.’

  ‘It didn’t seem as if they knew we was there,’ Ronnie said doubtfully.

  ‘They’d have to be pretty thick not to spot a Land-Rover in the mirror all this time,’ Keith said. ‘What do you think, Toots?’

  Deborah considered and then gave judgment. ‘Uncle Ronnie was clever,’ she said, ‘but I think they’d have known.’

  ‘So do I,’ Keith said. ‘Well, we’ve got to back one horse or the other. I’m staying here overnight, Ronnie. I’m ninety per cent sure there’s nothing in the house, but who could search these grounds? Leave Debbie with me; I’ll get her another lift home. You go to Dunbar and keep an eye on Michael Winterton. I think he lives over the surgery and a vet would have a lot of storage space. Keep in touch with Molly.’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ Ronnie said, ‘but am I getting paid for all this running around?’

  ‘If we’ve lost the guns,’ Keith said, ‘which is beginning to look more and more possible, I’ll pay your fuel and that’s your lot. But if we get them back. . . .’

  ‘Aye? What, then?’

  ‘Then I’ll see you all right out of my profit for handling the guns. What are you after?’

  ‘What I’d like,’ Ronnie said dreamily, ‘would be a really good rifle from one of the top makers, wi’ a’ the engraving gold-filled, just like that yin the Yank showed us last winter, an’ wi’ a real good telescopic sight and a night-sight to go wi’ it.’

  Keith shuddered. Ronnie was talking real money. On the other hand, Keith knew where he could pick up a suitably ornate rifle. If a top maker’s name were added, Ronnie would never spot the difference. ‘All right,’ he said.

  ‘You’re on.’

  Chapter Six

  The transmission-rumble, loose big-end and faulty exhaust of Ronnie’s Land-Rover were still fading into the distance and Deborah was hardly into her customary myriad questions when a shining minibus with a multiplicity of aerials came up the drive. Recognising Philip Stratton’s long face and silver hair behind the wheel, Keith waved it down.

  ‘This is a cut above your old banger,’ he commented.

  Philip grinned at him. ‘Like it? Office and sleeping-quarters when the news is breaking, ever since I turned freelance. Radio-telephone and the lot.’

  ‘Would that include any food?’

  ‘Some.’

  ‘Open up, we’re coming aboard. We’ve been forgetting to eat, lately.’

  Philip parked in the shade where the Granada had stood. The Calders climbed into the back while he opened some tins and packets. The minibus had been planned and equipped with care. The miniature galley was adjoined by a desk complete with screwed-down typewriter and the telephone. There was a small black-and-white television. Opposite, a well-upholstered seat doubled as a single bunk.

  ‘I don’t really feel called on to feed you two guzzlers. I wouldn’t bother,’ Philip said, lighting the gas, ‘except that I haven’t had much eating-time myself.’

  ‘I hoped that things were still slack.’

  ‘They are. Pop-stars seem to have suffered an amazing onrush of chastity. Civil servants have been refusing bribes and keeping secrets. Even our politicians have been behaving with almost average common sense. The unions, for once, are allowing their members to earn some money. Aeroplanes are staying up and trains are staying down on the rails. All terribly, terribly boring. The economy, as usual, is stuck in the doldrums. But it’s when there’s no news that the journalist, and especially the freelance, has to rush around like a flea on a griddle if he’s going to make ends meet. Here we are.’ He put out three plates of tinned stew, complete with instant mashed potato and tinned spinach, and put the kettle on for coffee. ‘One thing you learn, living this life, is to produce a meal at incredible speed. It’s the one advantage you can gain over the others.’

  ‘How would you like a story which combines missing artifacts of enormous value, fraud, two murders and the machinations of a celebrated fence?’ Keith asked.

  ‘Very much. But what artifacts? I heard that the late Mr Winterton had a collection of guns, which sounds like your scene.’

  ‘You’ve got it,’ Keith said, with his mouth full.

  ‘Are they all that valuable?’ Philip sounded disappointed.

  ‘He had two original Scottish snaphaunce muskets,’ Keith said impressively.

  ‘So?’

  Keith heaved a sigh. He was inclined to forget how ignorant others could be outside his immediate circle. ‘You remember that pair of Scottish pistols which were auctioned a few years back?’ he asked. ‘They made the headlines.’

  Philip might not know much about guns, but he remembered news. ‘They made a hundred and sixty thousand, didn’t they? Something like that? You don’t mean that these will fetch that sort of price?’

  ‘More,’ Keith said. ‘Much more. Guns tend to be worth more than other antiques. The thing you rest your bum on or put your clothes in, that could last for ever, but guns got out-of-date, were converted, adapted, broken, misused and eventually lost. On top of that, the original Scottish pistol’s a great rarity. The English collected and destroyed every Scottish gun they could lay their hands on after the Bonnie Prince Charlie uprising. But, compared to pistols, the long gun’s almost non-existent. You see, pistols were more easily hidden. Long guns are something else. Not one has ever come on the open market in Britain – nor anywhere else, as far as I know.’

  Philip had abandoned his meal for a jotter and was scribbling hard. ‘Tell me more,’ he said. ‘Weren’t any more of them made later?’

  ‘By the time it would’ve been permitted, the peak of workmanship had passed, fashions had changed and the new French lock had come in. The result was a new and less peculiarly Scottish style. The old one was very distinctive – a snaphaunce lock with sliding flashpan-cover, stock not shaped like the traditional gun but a single curve with a semi-circular bite out of it for the thumb, ball trigger and profuse decoration. You could be forgiven for mistaking it for something Arab or oriental.’

  Philip resumed his meal. ‘All right, you’ve made your point. Tell me the tale,’ he said.

  ‘I’m going to,’ Keith said. ‘But, until we’ve settled a few details, I’m telling you in confidence. Under absolute embargo. Agreed?’

  Philip nodded uncertainly.

  ‘And I’ve got to squeeze my way between libel and slander,’ Keith went on, ‘so Deborah’s here to bear witness that I haven’t said a word. Nearly all of it’s verifiable from other sources.

  ‘On Monday night, Mrs Winterton called the police, who found that her husband had been battered to death by an intruder.

  ‘Old Robin Winterton had been a canny chap. Instead of taking out an endowment policy, he had put all of his savings into antiques, mostly antique guns, starting from a few guns which had come to him through his first wife. Those had included the two Scottish long guns. And so he left a will, naming me as his executor. His assets were to be sold and he left substantial sums to his son and daughter by hi
s first wife and the balance to his widow.

  ‘On Thursday I came back from a trip and heard about the murder for the first time. There was a discussion in the office of Mr Enterkin, the solicitor in Newton Lauder, in which the widow blandly remarked that we didn’t have to worry about the guns any more; she’d sold them to a dealer who’d knocked on the door the previous day, for two hundred quid. She hadn’t even got his name.’

  Philip was scribbling again. ‘That’s hard to believe,’ he said. He stopped and looked hard at Keith. ‘Did you believe it?’

  ‘Never mind my thoughts,’ Keith said. ‘I’m giving you checkable facts. I didn’t know what to think. First thing next morning – yesterday – I dashed into Edinburgh. From Mrs Winterton’s description, the man had sounded Edinburgh. Anyway, it was the obvious place to start.

  ‘Mrs Winterton’s description of the man and his van led me to Duncan Laurie’s store in Waterman’s Lane. I found him with his throat cut, apparently a suicide, but I’ve no doubt that by now the police are treating it as murder. They probably intend to issue a statement on Monday morning. Mrs Winterton had said that he stowed some of the guns in a dower chest, and there was just such a chest in his store.’

  ‘Why are you so sure that he was murdered?’ Philip asked.

  Even in confidence, Keith was not going to admit that he had risked disturbing a murder scene. The police were inclined to get uptight about such things, and his business depended on maintaining at least superficially good relations with the force. ‘I’m not prepared to give my reasons at the moment,’ he said. ‘They’re irrelevant. The police will have their own reasons by now.’

  ‘I can check.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Later,’ Philip said. ‘Finish the story.’

  ‘This morning, Mary Anguillas turned up on my doorstep. She used to be Mary Bruce. Danny Bruce’s daughter,’ Keith added when Philip still looked blank. ‘She had a couple of toughs with her in the car, a fawn Granada.’

  Philip sat up suddenly. ‘Danny Bruce of Glasgow? I remember now. You had a run-in with him, years ago. Your evidence sent him away. Under cover of a couple of genuine antique shops, he’d been operating as a fence in a very big way of business. The daughter kept the shops running until he came out.’

  ‘That’s Mary for you,’ Keith said. ‘All heart and very much her daddy’s girl. And I still don’t know whether Danny had got wind that the guns were adrift and sent her to find out or if the whole thing was a diversion, to keep me running around in circles here while Danny stowed the guns away or got them out of the country. Part of the time, she seemed to be fishing to find out how much I’d offer to get them back.

  ‘I passed my wife a note to phone her brother to follow them when they left. And again, I still don’t know whether they knew they were being followed and either didn’t care or wanted it that way.

  ‘I wanted to know a bit more about the family. Steven Clune, the widow’s son by her first marriage, was the only one I hadn’t met, so I drove there. And I damn near caught up with Mary Bruce again. She and her boys left, taking something away with them. And when I went inside, I found Steven Clune with his hands still tied, badly beaten up, terrified, very much upset but determined not to tell me anything.

  ‘When I phoned my wife, I got a message to say that my brother-in-law was still on their tail and that they seemed to be heading here. So I followed along, and here they were sure enough, closeted with the widow. One of them pulled this on me.’ With some relief, Keith pulled out the revolver, which had been both unbalancing and digging into him, and laid it on the desk.

  ‘Hey! I didn’t know about that,’ Deborah said. ‘Can I have it for my collection when this is over?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ Keith said. ‘The police will probably need it. Anyway, you wouldn’t want it. It’s only a cheap, Belgian copy. Nasty, dangerous thing.’

  Philip refused to be diverted. ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘That’s about it. I made it clear that I could stick around longer than they could and, after they left, my brother-in-law saw them well on the road to Glasgow. But, just in case they doubled back, I’ve sent him over to keep an eye on Michael Winterton’s place at Dunbar and I’m going to stick around here. While I was ministering to Steven Clune, Deborah got a good look through his place and we’re pretty sure that the guns aren’t there.

  ‘One other thing. I was careful to keep the visitors too angry to think of looking in their boot before they left. Because I’d got it open and lifted what they took from Steven Clune. I’ve got it buried not far from here, and that’s where it stays until I can deliver it to the cops. The only way I can see it is that Danny Bruce had got wind of something over one of his several grapevines and needed it in order to put pressure on the family. But, as far as I can make out through a polythene bag, it’s a perfectly ordinary woman’s handbag. And how that can be blackmail material I can’t for the moment think.’

  ‘Especially with Steven Clune being the way he is,’ Deborah put in mischievously.

  ‘Well, I can,’ Philip said. A stir of excitement took over from the professional detachment in the reporter’s voice. ‘This could be serious. Let’s take a look at it.’

  ‘Let’s not,’ Keith said. ‘I’m not doing any more tampering with evidence. I may leave it lying until I’m sure I’ve finished with it, but if I go on digging it up and putting it back I’m going to lead somebody else to it sooner or later. It’s your turn. Cough up.’

  Philip shrugged. ‘There’s one handbag the police have been looking for for months.’ He glanced sideways at Deborah and then back to Keith. ‘You remember the Jean Watson case in Granton?’

  ‘No,’ Keith said. His attention to the news was highly selective. He rarely watched television and only skimmed the papers, occasionally catching up with the news via his car radio.

  ‘Well, I do,’ Deborah said. ‘Rape and murder,’ she added with relish.

  ‘That’s right,’ Philip said. ‘But if you won’t dig it up, we can only guess.’

  ‘Then we’re guessing,’ Keith said. ‘For the moment, exactly what it is doesn’t matter. The fact that Danny Bruce wanted a hold over the family suggests that the guns are still around here.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Philip said. ‘If Danny Bruce organised the whole thing, he may only have wanted to squeeze a – what do you call it? – a provenance out of the family, the documentation which would make it easier for him to sell the collection.’

  ‘I wish you hadn’t said that,’ Keith said after a pause. ‘It complicates things still further. Yet it’s just another argument for what I was going to do anyway. And this is where you come in.’

  ‘I thought it might be,’ Philip said. ‘Can I have this, exclusive?’

  ‘No, you can’t,’ Keith snapped. ‘I called on you for help, not to make you a gift of it. Mostly, do you write up the whole story yourself and sell it as a package?’

  ‘Usually.’

  ‘Do you ever tip off all the papers to a story?’

  ‘If it’s impossible for me to handle alone,’ Philip said. ‘Then, I’ll tip off the papers and they give me a fee for the tip.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Keith said. ‘What I want most just now is for a whole army to start watching this place and Michael Winterton’s home and Danny Bruce and anybody and everything relevant. I want them poking everywhere so that, wherever the guns are, nobody can move them. Then I can do some more chasing for myself. Otherwise, I’m stuck here, just in case. And where else can I find an army of nosy beggars at a weekend except reporters?’

  Philip Stratton scratched his head and took a long drink of coffee. ‘You could be right,’ he said. ‘But you’re sure you want me to tell them the value of the guns? They might find them. And they’re not all as far beyond temptation as I am.’

  ‘They couldn’t sell them. I could, Danny Bruce probably could, they certainly couldn’t. Not without being caught,’ Keith said. ‘I know ev
ery dealer and major collector in the Western Hemisphere. I know which ones could be approached with a dodgy deal without word leaking out. Anybody outside the trade trying to hock anything so rare would find himself the centre of a glare of publicity, with the police and myself on his back, within half a day. Make sure they understand that.’

  Philip put his mug down with a bang. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘If the police confirm that Duncan Laurie was murdered, I’ll go ahead. But you’ll have to promise a press conference and a statement in the not too distant future.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Keith said. ‘Let’s make it Monday afternoon.’

  ‘Tomorrow evening,’ Philip said firmly. ‘They won’t wait any longer. And I get your personal story, exclusive, when it’s over.’

  *

  The police are in the business of gathering information rather than divulging it, and Saturday evening is not the best time for tracking down the man who knows the answer and is both prepared and empowered to release it, but in the end Philip obtained confirmation that the death of Duncan Laurie was being treated as murder.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said to Keith. ‘Give me time to make a few calls and there’ll be a dozen reporters and photographers on the job by morning – provided that nothing else breaks in the meantime. If the Russians make angry noises or the wrong person lands pregnant, you’ll be lucky to see one copy-boy being given his chance as a cub reporter. That’s the way it goes. I can keep you company overnight if you want.’

  ‘Better not,’ Keith said. ‘I’d rather you ran the lassie back to her mother. Any messages will be coming to my home, and Molly’s got no way to get them to me. You can bring me the word in the morning.’

  ‘You’re not pulling any kind of a fast one on me?’

  ‘Just holding the fort. If anything happens during the night, you’ll hear all about it.’

  ‘See that I do.’

  The minibus cruised gently away down the drive. Philip, no doubt, would be questioning Deborah all the way to Newton Lauder, but as far as Keith could remember she knew nothing which he would prefer to keep from the press.