Whose Dog Are You? (Three Oaks Book 2)

by Gerald Hammond

  She squeezed my arm. ‘You can tell me in bed tonight,’ she said.

  ‘I was beginning to have something else in mind for then. The calm after the storm brings out the best in me.’

  ‘Mm. The best or the beast? You can tell me afterwards.’

  The hotel, as usual, was fairly full. It had been a coaching inn on what was once a main road; it now maintained a standard which brought custom from many miles around. But half the faces were local and we attracted some curious glances. The search of our premises seemed to be common knowledge; the fact that we had been exonerated was less well known.

  I had collected a gin and tonic and a pint of Guinness from the bar and we were heading for a quiet corner when I noticed a man, sitting alone at a table, who seemed to be avoiding my eye. There was something vaguely familiar about him but I was about to pass on when Beth said ‘Hello!’ in a pleased voice and the man looked up.

  It was Sergeant Ewell, looking strangely unfamiliar in flannels and a well-worn golf jacket. Without the assurance of his neat uniform he was just another amiable nonentity, lost in the crowd and rather shy. Beth stopped beside him and he got to his feet.

  ‘May we join you?’ Beth asked him. ‘There’s only one vacant table and it’s vacant because there’s a howling draught there even when it’s calm outside. We’ve sat there before.’

  ‘Please do.’ When we had sat down and Beth had rearranged the table to accept her bag, gloves and scarf, he said, ‘You musn’t think that I’m following you around. I just felt like a quiet pint.’

  ‘I thought you lived in Cupar,’ I said.

  ‘I do. But I don’t believe in drinking where I’m known. Other drinkers are either too friendly or not friendly at all. I’ve seen the outside of this place a dozen times in the last few weeks and my sister was coming over this way . . .’

  ‘The Chief Inspector’s wife?’ Beth asked.

  The Sergeant shook his head vigorously. ‘That’s my wife’s brother, not my sister’s husband. My wife was going to come along, but the sitter let us down.’

  ‘A family celebration,’ I suggested.

  ‘Not quite. I daren’t say anything to her yet, you understand,’ he said earnestly, ‘or she’ll be counting her chickens and telling the neighbours. I just felt like a drink, myself, with the relief of it.’ He glanced round and lowered his voice although nobody was paying any attention to us. ‘It’s all seeming conclusive at the moment. Mr McConnelly’s house has been visited. He lived alone – near Kirkcaldy, would you believe? – and commuted to Edinburgh to work. Some bits of Mr Falconer’s luggage were there and signs of a hurried departure plus a dog basket with bright orange hairs clinging to the blanket.’

  ‘And a disc sander?’ I asked. It seemed to me that the body would have been robbed of its fingerprints and other identifying marks before being committed to the water.

  ‘That’s gone for forensic examination. And I’ll tell you something else. He had a lady friend with a . . . a generous backside, just the way you said. They’ve been seen together. We’ve still no idea who she is, though, or where she’s got to now,’ the Sergeant finished regretfully.

  ‘It sounds enough to keep your bigwigs off our backs,’ Beth said.

  ‘More than enough. And there’s more.’ Sergeant Ewell looked from one to the other of us and then decided that we were tough enough to absorb some grisly tidings. ‘They found what seemed to be a grave in the garden.’

  ‘Not Mr McConnelly?’ Beth said.

  ‘No, not him,’ the Sergeant said with a trace of a triumphant smile. ‘His dog. Its skull had been smashed in. It had been there a couple of months but there was enough of it left to be sure that it answered your description. It even looked like the pups in yon photograph.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ Beth said. ‘How could a man do that to his own dog?’

  ‘There’s some could do it to their own mothers,’ the Sergeant said.

  ‘So you’re the golden boy, the toast of the Fife Constabulary?’ I said.

  ‘All but two of them,’ he said, producing a reluctant smile. ‘Aye, it may do the trick. You don’t mind that I’ve stolen all of the credit?’

  ‘Help yourself,’ I said.

  ‘And if you think of anything else . . .?’

  I laughed. He looked so modest but he had the nerve of the devil. ‘You’ll be the first to know,’ I assured him.

  ‘Aye. Well.’ He looked past us and nodded. ‘There’s my sister waving at me. I’ll need to go. Can I buy you a drink?’

  ‘Wait until you get your promotion,’ Beth said.

  ‘And then I’ll bring Champagne,’ he said. ‘I won’t forget.’ He finished his pint and got up. He hesitated as though he wanted to say something else, but after a moment he just wished us a good evening and slipped away through the throng.

  Beth seemed to be looking in the direction in which he had disappeared. ‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ she said. ‘You sit here and finish your pint.’

  I did as I was told, thinking that those were not the words which she would have used to excuse herself for the toilet. When I looked round, she had not after all buttonholed the Sergeant again but was in earnest conversation with Flora, the buxom lady who was presiding behind the bar.

  Beth reappeared beside me several minutes later and dropped back into her chair. A worried look seemed out of place on her youthful features. ‘I thought it was all over,’ she said. ‘But it can’t be. You remember the girl who came to see you about buying a spaniel?’

  ‘Dozens of them,’ I said.

  She shook her head impatiently. ‘The special one with the big bum. Mr McConnelly’s friend. I saw her at the bar a minute ago but she’s vanished again.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive. She’s bleached her hair and done it differently, and she’s not wearing those awful slacks, but there’s no mistaking those hips. Flora says that she’s been staying here for the past week. But she spends most of the time in her room and then goes out after dark. And – listen – she’s got the end room, the one which gives a view towards Three Oaks. You can see the window from our upstairs and from the corner of the drive.’

  ‘You think that she’s watching us?’

  ‘Flora says that she keeps a huge pair of binoculars on the window-sill. Should we phone the Sergeant?’

  ‘If she’s been watching us for a week, it can’t be urgent,’ I said. My guardian angel must have been in control of my tongue. ‘Perhaps her boyfriend planted that story with Gus and she’s watching on his behalf to see whether the blame’s been shifted to us. Anyway, the Sergeant can’t be home yet and he won’t want to turn out again tonight, not if he only goes for a pint when he can get his sister to drive him. I’ll ring him in the morning.’

  *

  Darkness had fallen when we left the hotel. We walked back, arm in arm again, quietly content with each other and with the sounds and scents of the night. I had taken the precaution of bringing a powerful torch. I had no wish to be jumped on in the dark by a resentful Gus Brown. But we reached home without incident.

  Isobel was just preparing to leave. ‘Did you see anybody you know?’ she asked. Her question could have been taken to include the steatopygous lady but we were in no mood for endless speculation. We told her about the Sergeant and left it at that.

  Beth and I were in no hurry for bed. Our mood was too good to curtail; and, thanks to my illness, the event had often failed to live up to our expectations. We made a last round of the kennels. Our residents seemed to be settled and in good health.

  As we re-entered the house, Beth said, ‘Now do I get to hear all about your American trip?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said a sudden voice. ‘Me too.’

  *

  He had come out of the darkness behind us, a small man in a dark tracksuit.

  His hair was now silver and receding and he had a neat moustache, silver-bright against a dark tan. His cheeks seemed broader. It took us a few seconds but, clued by
some timbre in his voice, we got there together. ‘Mr McConnelly!’ Beth said.

  We were in the light of the hall and he was standing in the open front doorway. In his hand was a weapon which had once been a shotgun – sixteen-bore, I judged, and sawn off with a crudity unworthy of a precision instrument. My stomach felt loose when I thought of the terrible damage that it could do at such close range. The other hall doors were closed and the latches had knobs rather than handles; no chance, then, of getting through in a single rush. Beth was clinging too tightly to my arm and if I shook her off it would signal my intention to attack.

  I was impotent, the more so because impetuous action in Texas had almost thrown away my life and Jess’s.

  ‘All I want to know,’ he said, ‘is where the dog is now. The spaniel bitch. You know the one I mean.’

  If McConnelly had already managed to leave the country, taking with him half or all the proceeds from the fraud, he had no reason to be searching for Anon. I thought then that whoever found Anon would also find Jess Holbright. The pattern of events, so tidy in my mind, turned itself inside out and I realised that we were in the most terrible danger. After surviving my folly in Texas it would be cruel to lose everything now. The one remote avenue for escape would be to take his question at face value.

  ‘When I took her to her new owner,’ I said, ‘the lady intended to disappear. But she sent me a photograph of the dog just the other day. The letter was postmarked San Francisco. That’s all I can tell you.’

  ‘San Francisco?’ he said slowly. ‘I’ll be damned if that doesn’t make sense. I never thought of him.’ The drawl was strengthening as his mind raced ahead.

  Beth began to speak. Her reasoning had followed the same path as mine, spurred by the accent. She had reached the truth a few seconds too late to see its implications. I squeezed her arm, trying to stop her, but it was too late. ‘It’s your wife you’re trying to find,’ she blurted out. ‘You’re not Mr McConnelly. You’re Mr Falconer.’

  There was a momentary silence so heavy that I thought I heard the floorboards creak.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said at last. The Texan accent was back at full strength. ‘She thought I was dead. I couldn’t risk a letter or a call. And I lost too much time, using Hugh’s ticket to Corfu and covering my tracks and coming back to make a play for the dog and all like that. By the time I’d made it home she was gone and I couldn’t stick around asking questions.’ He sighed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, with what seemed to be genuine regret. I turned slowly, as if to put myself between him and Beth. But I was also putting her between me and the stairs. If I pushed her hard I would at the same time be pushing myself towards the gun. With a little luck, she might be up the stairs before my corpse was out of his way. Given fantastic luck, he might not yet have put off the safety catch.

  Beth had got there at last. ‘You don’t have to . . . to do anything drastic,’ she said quickly, in a very high voice. ‘Lock us in the shop. It’s secure. You can get away.’

  ‘I could,’ he said. ‘But so long as they all think I’m dead, they’ll go on looking for the wrong guy. And that’s the way I want it. Too bad for you!’

  He lifted the gun. Beth had put her arms round me. She was almost squeezing the breath out of me and there was nothing that I could do but take her in my arms. It was all that I wanted to do. If I had to die, it was the way that I wanted to go.

  There came an awful noise. It was not as loud as a shot. It was hardly as loud as a sigh. It was followed by louder, stranger noises.

  I looked round.

  Instead of the man, the girl with the big hips was standing in the doorway. I knew her immediately, despite the blonde hair and the loose leather coat which half hid her figure. She had possessed herself of the sawn-off gun but seemed uncertain how to handle it, which made it almost as frightening as when it had been in the man’s hands.

  The man was down on his face at her feet. The handle of a knife protruded from his back. I knew enough anatomy to judge that if it had not found his heart it was very close to it. Even so, he twitched and made small noises for a few seconds before the absolute stillness of death took over. It reminded me, sickeningly, of Bubba.

  Beth had looked once and looked away. I could feel her getting the shivers. We could do without an attack of hysteria now. I could not bring myself to slap her but I took her by the elbows and gave her a small shake. She stilled and began to pull herself together, but she faced my chest, refusing to look at the woman or the dead man.

  The woman seemed to be in a daze, but neither of guilt nor of compunction. She was smiling, and this time she took no trouble to hide her crooked teeth. Her eyes were far away. She had some of the look of a woman after sex but there was something else, too many other things. Except for the smile, which was half a snarl, she might have said a passionate farewell to a lover. Or come to the end of a long road. Now, I thought, she was starting again from scratch and totally unsure how to begin.

  Her eyes found their focus. ‘Mr Cunningham,’ she said. ‘Do forgive my coming without an appointment.’ I thought for a moment that she was resorting to macabre humour. Then I realised that she was disoriented and that her uncertain mind was throwing back to her upbringing.

  ‘You’re very welcome,’ I said, shakily but with sincerity.

  Her smile became friendlier, but the snarl snapped back into place as soon as I moved. The gun jerked up. ‘Keep still,’ she said. We froze, all three of us.

  Beth, still looking away, had found a voice of sorts. And she said the damnedest thing. She said, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  It turned out to be the right question. The woman stirred. The gun was still pointing in our general direction but she seemed to be only half aware of it. ‘I’d just love a cup of tea,’ she said.

  With a dangerous wave of the truncated muzzles she gestured us into the kitchen.

  Seconds later, I found myself sitting in one of the deep fireside chairs. The woman half sat on the table, watching Beth as she busied herself with the kettle and teapot. I guessed that Isobel must have made herself a hot drink, because the kettle came to the boil immediately.

  ‘Please,’ I said. I spoke slowly and clearly as if to a child. ‘Do you mind not waving that gun around? Better take your finger outside the trigger-guard. We’re not going to jump you. We’re grateful. You’ve just saved our lives.’

  She looked down vaguely at the gun but she did as I had said, pointing it at the floor. ‘I won’t shoot you unless you make me,’ she said. ‘And I’m quite used to guns. Hugh . . .’ Her voice, which had been husky, broke for a moment. ‘I think that this was one of his. That animal out there kept it.’

  I let out a breath of relief and I heard Beth do the same.

  Beth poured tea. The woman stood back while Beth put a cup on the table and handed me a mug. She went back to the worktop for biscuits.

  The woman looked at her watch. ‘That’s good,’ she said more calmly. ‘Thank you so much. They’ll have stopped supper at the hotel and I’ve a long way to go.’

  Beth took her own cup and sat down opposite to me. ‘There’s something I don’t understand,’ she said gently. ‘I think I can work out the rest of it, but why were you watching this house? Did you know that he was going to come here?’

  ‘I thought that he might. I was guessing.’ The woman looked at her watch again. Instead of moving smoothly her eyes flicked. Her mouth still had a twitch and her face showed traces of both tears and sweat. To have killed the murderer of her lover was a profound enough emotional experience for any woman. It had brought her to some brink. I hoped that Beth would say nothing to push her over the edge.

  ‘Well, why not?’ she said at last. ‘I’ve time in hand and they’ll piece it together anyway. I was going to marry Hugh McConnelly but that . . . that garbage out in your hall killed him.’ The look which crossed her face made me shiver.

  ‘For his share of the money?’ I asked.

  ‘No. Hugh did the money thing and he
made sure of his share. I’ve been holding it ever since. But, you see, Hugh knew his real identity and Dave couldn’t take that.’ She paused in thought for a moment but when she went on again she was still rambling. ‘I’ll just go on calling him Dave, that’s how Hugh referred to him. I still don’t know his real name for sure, though I think it may have been Holbright. Hugh said that Dave was compulsively secretive. He didn’t trust anybody. I knew a little about him from Hugh. He didn’t know about me, which was lucky for me. But all that secrecy didn’t do him any good in the end, did it?’

  ‘Not a damn bit,’ I said.

  ‘Right,’ she said. The terse agreement sounded off-beat in her prissy voice. ‘Just sit there, please, and don’t move.’ She lifted her broad hips off the table and walked into the hall. I heard a grunt. She came back looking less thunderous. I was sure that she had kicked the dead man.

  ‘He’s bled on to your nice carpet,’ she said. ‘That’s a shame. When Hugh stopped turning up for our dates, I knew at once that he was dead and who’d killed him. I was sure of it before you’d even found the body. I went out to Hugh’s cottage but there was no sign of either of them.’

  ‘Nor of Hugh’s dog?’ I asked.

  She shook her head impatiently. ‘Hugh had put his dog into kennels, ready for his trip abroad. And what the newspapers said about the body didn’t fool me for a moment. They were much the same build, the two of them – Hugh often lent him clothes.

  ‘I couldn’t go to the police without admitting that I’d been an accessory. And I had no way of tracing the bastard – forgive the language,’ she added daintily, ‘but that’s what he was. Then I read in the paper that you’d been stabbed when there was an attempt to steal the spaniel. Dave had to be behind it, but I still can’t think why he wanted the dog so much. He was fond of the spaniel, so Hugh said, but that didn’t explain it. Dave wasn’t the sentimental sort.’

  ‘The spaniel bitch was carrying the pups of your boyfriend’s very distinctive dog,’ I said.