A Shocking Affair

by Gerald Hammond

  He looked at me pop-eyed. I thought that he was looking even older than usual. Then he laughed and stored his work onto the disc. ‘I do. And Hamish has been warned, so the sound of a shot or two won’t bring him down on us.’ He switched off the computer and almost leaped to his feet.

  But we suffered another delay. We were in the hall and gathering up our gear when Peter looked out through the glazed screen that fronted that part of the house and said, ‘Ten thousand damnations! The stars in their courses are fighting against me! I’ll have to ask you to hang on here for a minute. And if I come in to collect my gun before she’s gone, don’t let me have it.’

  He hurried outside. I saw that a woman was getting out of a shining car. She was too far away for me to make out any details or to hear any words of the exchange, but it was clear from the body language that an altercation was taking place. Peter’s posture was rigid. Once, the woman gestured towards the house and in his reply Peter several times pointed down the drive. After a few minutes of argument the woman acceded, got into the car and drove round the circle and away.

  Peter returned, breathing heavily through dilated nostrils. ‘Some people,’ he said, ‘can’t take no for an answer. And when I decide to give the handling of something over to my lawyer, I don’t expect to be badgered in person.’ With an effort, he relaxed and even smiled. ‘But never mind. If I imagine that harpy’s face on every rabbit, my marksmanship will improve beyond recognition.’

  I took up my bagged gun and my game-bag, but my attention was more on the camera in my pocket. If all went well, Peter might like a record of the day. The two Labradors were indignant at being left behind, but there were to be no distractions on this testing occasion. Ronnie let it be seen that he, too, was hurt at being left out. Three reproachful pairs of eyes followed us out of sight.

  We followed the same path as on the previous day. The sound of hammering from the direction of the release pen suggested that Hamish was preparing for the delivery of pheasant poults a little later in the year. Peter walked on until the sound was coming from rather behind us and then unsleeved his gun, a Churchill Premier. I left my W&C Scott in its sleeve slung on my shoulder and, instead, produced my Leica. ‘I’ll follow behind you,’ I said. ‘Before I join in the fun, I’ll record your first triumphs.’

  ‘Or tragedies,’ he retorted. He stooped to pick up a piece of paper, the wrapper from a chocolate bar, and slipped it into his pocket. ‘I don’t grudge the public access to the land, as long as they behave and don’t let their dogs run wild,’ he said, ‘but I do wish they’d take their rubbish home with them.’

  ‘You really love your land, don’t you?’ I said.

  He thought about it. ‘I suppose I do,’ he said. ‘I never stopped to consider it before. My life’s been bound up with it. It provides my daily bread and keeps me off the streets.’ He was smiling. The boyish expression was making a comeback.

  ‘And it provides you with your shooting,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Of course it does. But you don’t farm for the shooting, that’s a sure way to lose money. At least, it used to be before this age of set-aside and diversification. But when the work’s done and the harvest’s in . . .’ He blinked at me. ‘It’s just another form of harvesting. The fact that it’s a very companionable one is a bonus. But man found it necessary to co-operate and organize in order to hunt his meat, for ten times as long as he was ever a farmer. Even wild animals do the same. I suppose that’s why we still find it necessary to elect leaders even when we’d be a damn sight better off without them.’

  ‘And that’s why your dog has to know that you’re the pack leader,’ I reminded him.

  ‘Heavens yes!’ He looked at me vaguely. He raised his hand and Spin sat obediently. Peter’s mind was miles away for the moment. ‘What the women and the townies don’t understand,’ he said, ‘is that man has always had to be the defender and the hunter. I don’t suppose that he sought those roles, he just fell into them. So of course aggression and hunting both come naturally to him. Starve the hunting instinct and the other makes an appearance.’ He stirred. ‘Oh well. Let’s get on with it. We came out to enjoy ourselves, not to philosophize.’ He was smiling again – at himself, I thought.

  Peter cast Spin out. The cover was open and I watched the pair of them. I could see that already Peter was elated. I hoped that he was not in for a fall. In dog training, the safest thing to expect is disappointment.

  The spaniel settled into his to-and-fro hunting pattern, moving at a speed disconcerting to Peter who was used to the more deliberate gait of the Labrador. He was slow with the ‘turn’ whistle and Spin, sensing hesitation, might well have started to take advantage. But I saw the nose go down as he met a trail and soon he was hunting a scent across our front. Something raced through the dead grass and low bilberry bushes. Peter mounted his gun and fired. Spin dropped and sat tight, waiting for the word. But Peter walked forward and looked down. Then he raised his voice. ‘Hamish!’

  His cry was acknowledged from a distance. Soon, the keeper appeared at a fast trot. He looked down at Peter’s quarry – a large, ginger tom-cat now lying dead. ‘M’hm,’ was all that Hamish said but there was a world of approval in the sound.

  Peter called Spin to him and gave him a pat and a charcoal biscuit. ‘Got the bugger at last,’ he said. ‘Just shows what a difference a good spaniel can make. We’ve been after this one for a year,’ he added to me. ‘Seemed to get in and out of a release pen as easy as going through a cat flap, electric wires and loose overhangs notwithstanding.’

  ‘Aye,’ Hamish said. ‘I’ll fetch a spade.’

  ‘Take him with you,’ Peter suggested. ‘Save coming back.’

  ‘Right.’

  Hamish bent and lifted the ginger corpse by the back legs. As he did so, a figure appeared round a clump of holly from the direction of the gate.

  ‘Oh God!’ Peter said softly. ‘Here’s trouble. Our local cat lover. Lives near the farm. Name’s Snot, or something very like it. Pray God this isn’t his.’

  ‘We should be so lucky,’ Hamish muttered. ‘And his name’s Synott.’

  The new arrival was a tall man, thin apart from a small pot belly, dressed in bright-green corduroys and a yellow shirt. He had a small, sand-coloured beard around a weak mouth and hair of similar colour was draped across his bald crown. My first thought was that he did not look like the sort of person whom I would welcome into my circle of friends. ‘Have you seen –’ he began. Then he paused and his eyes bulged. He seemed very close to apoplexy. He pointed a shaking finger at the dead cat, which Hamish was half-heartedly trying to hide behind his leg. ‘You’ve killed Xanadu!’ he cried in tones of disbelief.

  ‘Is . . . was this your cat?’ Peter enquired.

  ‘He certainly was. My favourite. Why would anybody do a thing like that?’ he asked the branches overhead. ‘How could you bring yourself . . .? The most gentle . . . loving . . .’ His wild eyes came back to Peter. ‘You must be evil. But you won’t get away with murder. I’m going to the police.’

  ‘We’ll go together,’ Peter said, his voice tight but controlled. ‘We’ve been after that bastard for a year or more, because of the damage he’s been doing.’

  ‘Xanadu would never have hurt a fly,’ Synott protested.

  Hamish uttered a snort of derision. ‘I’ve seen that orange bugger take pheasant chicks, aye, and songbirds. It was him took that firecrest you was in such a tizzy aboot.’ He turned the carcass over and looked at its mouth. ‘Aye. The bugger’s had another pheasant chick. Look at it, the wee feather.’

  ‘You’ve just put it there, to exonerate yourselves!’ In his fury, Synott’s voice had become a squeal.

  I decided to interfere, even if I had to embroider just a little. I had taken a strong dislike to Mr Synott. ‘I photographed the whole incident,’ I said, lifting the camera. ‘Nobody put anything near the cat’s mouth. We’ll see what the photographs show.’

  ‘I don’t believe any of it. I’ve
never known him stray far from home before.’

  Hamish laughed bitterly.

  ‘You were quick enough to come looking for him here,’ Peter pointed out. ‘I think you knew damn well where he was in the habit of hunting. Over the last couple of years he’s taken . . . how many birds would you say, Hamish? A hundred?’

  ‘Double that,’ Hamish said. ‘At the very least.’

  ‘Worth about twenty quid each in a bag at the end of a let day,’ Peter resumed. ‘Not to mention my keeper’s time and expenses trying to protect his birds against your pet. And then, of course, the extra mesh and electric wires . . .’

  ‘We had to bring in a fencing contractor,’ Hamish said, apparently to remind his employer. I could see that the pair of them were improvising wildly and enjoying it.

  ‘That’s so,’ Peter said gravely. ‘Now that I can prove whose cat was doing the damage, by his own admission in front of three witnesses, I must consider whether I go to law about it. If you want to live in the country, you must accept the responsibilities that go with it. Certainly, if you stir up any trouble you’ll force my hand.’

  Synott’s face, already pasty had turned very white. He shook his head and began to back away.

  ‘Here,’ Hamish said. He held out the remains. ‘Take your cat. No doubt you’ll be wanting to hold a burial. Or have it stuffed and mounted.’

  To the unaccustomed, anything dead but not yet turned into parcels of packaged meat can be a frightening reminder of mortality. Synott uttered a squawk of horror. He turned and fled.

  ‘You conned the poor man,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t have a hope in hell of recovering damages at law.’

  Both men grinned. ‘By the time he finds that out,’ Peter said, ‘he’ll be too late to cause trouble. And you know damn well your photographs wouldn’t have proved a thing. Come on. Despite a shaky beginning this could be turning into a very satisfactory morning.’

  After all the disturbance, any rabbits in the neighbourhood would have fled or be safely underground. Peter called Spin to heel and we walked on down to the metal gate.

  We came to a halt. ‘You see the farm buildings,’ Peter said, pointing.

  I said that I did.

  ‘You see the small house just to the right of them?’

  The farm buildings were near the skyline opposite us, two fields away. Beyond and to the left there were more houses in the distance, but after a moment I picked out a roof, almost lost among trees, near the farm buildings.

  ‘That’s where Snot lives,’ Peter said.

  ‘Synott,’ I reminded him.

  ‘I keep forgetting his real name. Freudian, I suppose. At my age, the memory for names gets unreliable – especially for names one would rather never hear again. That was the original farmhouse, but the farm manager before Geordie had an enormous brood so I built him a larger house, a quarter of a mile the other side, and let Snot have the smaller house – on a long lease, unfortunately, but that was before I discovered what a pain in the backside he could be. He illustrates children’s books, quite prettily, and rashly I assumed that anyone whose work had so much charm couldn’t be all bad. I was wrong,’ he added. ‘I was looking for a favour in return at the time, so perhaps I was predisposed to be taken in. Well, let’s get on.’

  We passed through the gate. Spin walked at Peter’s heel though he still showed an occasional tendency to switch to mine. Peter led us away to the left. We passed the wood where we had ambushed the woodpigeons and took to a track which curved round the shoulder of a low hill. We climbed a stile over the electric fence which Peter said marked the boundary between two farms. The far slope was of grass, patchy with gorse and the scrapes of many rabbits. As we came over the crest I saw the flicker of many white tails bobbing for cover. There was no doubt that the rabbit population was too high. Left to nature, the balance might be redressed by myxomatosis or predation but I agreed with the view that the shotgun was more humane.

  It was obvious that Peter had shot the ground many times. He knew exactly which clumps of gorse contained rabbit holes and which were over rock. I was still not shooting but my presence was enough to turn a bolting rabbit just the same. Peter placed me near the holes and himself where he could best intercept rabbits running for cover. Then he set Spin to work.

  All went well. A bolting rabbit is a temptation for a dog to chase which is almost irresistible. Almost, but not quite. A perfectly trained dog will seldom if ever commit the dangerous and disruptive sin of ‘running-in’, though the time of transfer of ownership, while the dog is testing the mettle of its new handler, is a time of danger. But Spin was well trained and, although I was sure that Peter was usually an indulgent owner, under my stern eye he gave a credible imitation of one who would stand no nonsense. Spin hunted the bushes, sat whenever the rabbits bolted and fetched the slain when directed. He was in his seventh heaven – there is no dog so happy and fulfilled as one that is doing what it was bred and trained for. When I had all the photographs that Peter was likely to want, I put the camera away and joined in the work.

  By mid-morning we had a satisfactory row of rabbits, neatly paunched and laid out in the shade of a clump of hawthorns. We two old gentlemen had walked further than we would have dreamed of walking in ordinary circumstances, but it is amazing how a gun under the arm pulls you along. We took a rest on a low wall while we wiped our hands on the grass and then on paper tissues. Spin lapped from a cattle trough and then sprawled at our feet.

  ‘We could start back soon,’ Peter said. ‘Don’t want to exhaust the little beast.’

  ‘He could keep up that pace all day,’ I told him.

  ‘Well, I couldn’t.’ He beamed. ‘All this hard work has made a happy man feel very old. We’ll leave the rabbits here. Ronnie can bring transport round later and collect them. We keep some for our own use and give the rest away to anyone who wants them. A lot of them get fed to dogs, but at least they’re not wasted. I can’t abide waste of good meat.’ He bent down and gave Spin a pat and a tug of the ears. The spaniel’s short tail rustled in the grass. ‘We’re going to get along like a house on fire,’ Peter told him, ‘as long as I don’t spoil you the way I’ve spoiled those other daft beggars. I’m too soft, that’s my trouble.’ The tail thumped again. Spin, without understanding the words, knew that he was being spoken to kindly.

  After a few minutes’ rest, we were ready to move. Peter whistled cheerfully as he walked. But as we passed Langstane Wood, where we had shot the pigeons, he said suddenly, ‘But, my dear chap, I’ve been very selfish. You’ve hardly had a shot.’

  ‘I’ve enjoyed myself,’ I said truthfully. I steadied the camera on a fence post and took a shot of the scenery.

  ‘So have I. But that’s not the point.’ We arrived at the tip of the long finger of woodland. Peter placed me carefully. ‘You stand here,’ he said, ‘and for the Lord’s sake don’t touch that fence. I’ll take the little fellow round to the gate and we’ll push back down towards you through the trees. You’ll find that they come out there or there.’ He pointed out the rabbits’ favourite exits and the routes which they habitually followed.

  He set off, pausing to wave to a distant figure. He and the spaniel turned the corner of the wood and were out of my sight. I loaded my gun and waited. Patience was no hardship in that gentle sunshine. The countryside was looking its best. Even the cattle looked as if they had been shampooed.

  I had noticed a pair of blackbirds nesting near where Peter had shot the cat. I listened for their shrill alarm call but it never came. After what seemed an eternity I decided that something must be wrong, or else Peter had been delayed. I walked round the corner of the trees.

  As soon as the gate came into view I saw a shape on the ground beside it. I broke into a run, or as close to a run as I could manage, carrying my gun and the weight of the years.

  Sir Peter Hay was lying beside the gate, showing no signs of life.

  *

  By the time I had reached him and lowered myself to my
knees – not a process to be hurried any more – I had my priorities roughly ordered in my mind. I thought that I could hear a vehicle somewhere but there was nearer help than that. In the hope that Hamish was within earshot I let out a bellow that made my head swim. A check for pulse and respiration gave me no reassurance. Peter might have gone down ten seconds or ten minutes earlier, I had no way of knowing. I gave him the kiss of life for a full half-minute, ignoring as best I could the unnatural feel of slight stubble between us, and then tried the procedure for heart massage, one-handed, while I fished out my mobile phone and keyed the Emergency Services.

  I resumed the kiss of life, but the emergency operator answered almost immediately and in a few more seconds I was connected with the ambulance service. The voice was helpful but we were almost immediately at a standstill because I had only the vaguest idea of where we were and no idea at all of how an ambulance would get to us. But a hand came over my shoulder and took the phone, and there was Hamish like an answer to a prayer, giving concise instructions as to where an ambulance should park and what route the paramedics would have to take on foot. I resumed my attempt at resuscitation, but after a minute Hamish pulled me gently to my feet, handed me my phone and took over the alternating kiss of life and heart massage. His ministration seemed more competent, or at least more confident, than mine.

  Left with no contribution to make to Peter’s survival but anxious not to stand around like an idiot, one idea occurred to me. It seemed probable that Peter’s heart had let him down at last. On the other hand, when he was moved, a bullet might be found in him, fired by some careless hunter a mile away. I had been present at scenes of sudden death in the past and my clearest recollection was of being asked many questions to which I had only the vaguest idea of the answers. Memory, mine at least, tends to record with remarkable distortions at times of emergency. So I took out my camera and recorded the scene from a variety of angles until my film ran out.