A Shocking Affair

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘That would suit me,’ I said. I paused. Here came the crunch. ‘Would you bring examples of the work you did for Sir Peter?’

  If he was a chancer, phoning in the hope of picking up some lucrative work in connection with a rich man’s estate, that would have cut the ground out from under his feet. But, ‘By all means,’ he said. He sounded amused. ‘I’ll see you on Tuesday morning, then. Perhaps around eleven, but that might depend on the traffic.’

  ‘I’ll expect you when I see you,’ I said.

  *

  There was little more to be done in Newton Lauder. If I set off soon I could take my time to Edinburgh. A little mental arithmetic suggested that I would by now be just on the right side of the breathalyser. My case was already packed, including such of my laundry as remained dirty. No doubt Mary Fiddler or Joanna would have dealt with it as a matter of course but it would have felt presumptuous to leave it for them. I had more than enough clothes at home to keep me going.

  Ronnie, dragging his feet, intercepted me on the way to the garage. ‘If Sir Peter was alive,’ he said, ‘he’d tell me to drive you to your home.’

  ‘Very likely,’ I said. ‘But I’m making a stop in Edinburgh and then I want my own car at home.’

  ‘Ah well! But if you want fetched back,’ he said hopefully, ‘because maybe your wife wants the use of the car, you’ve only to phone.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Sir Peter and I was always out and about,’ he explained. ‘Now he’s awa’, I’m just kicking my heels.’

  Ronnie had my sympathy. Enforced idleness could only worsen a sense of loss. ‘You’ve got his share of the gardening to get on with,’ I suggested. ‘And we’re still by no means sure what happened. You could pick up as much as you can of the local blether. Anything about anyone not liking Sir Peter, or owing him a debt. And anybody whose plans have changed suddenly since the death.’ Already, Ian Fellowes’s enquiries had set off more than enough rumours, so I was hardly adding fuel to the flames of gossip.

  ‘I’ll do that.’ He spoke stolidly but his eyes were brighter and there was a new spring in his step as he turned away.

  ‘One moment,’ I said on an impulse. I lowered my voice in case my next words should carry to the kitchen. ‘You should know most of the gossip around here. A small matter has arisen . . . Would you happen to know who was Joanna’s father?’

  His face drained of all expression. ‘I wouldna’ ken a’thing like yon,’ he said.

  ‘Would it have been Sir Peter?’

  Expression, startled and concerned, returned to his face in a hurry and he dispensed with the dialect that he had been using as a screen. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not that. Certainly not. I know that for a fact.’ He turned again and hurried away.

  I got on the road and, without unduly hurrying, I was parking in a multi-storey car park off Princes Street by lunchtime. The hotel where I was to meet my former acquaintance was a short walk away. The rain was holding off but a stiff breeze was whisking through the grey streets.

  The acquaintance himself, Gordon Bream, was waiting in the foyer. Speaking with him on the phone, I had had only a vague recollection of his appearance but now that I saw him again – tall, hollow-chested, with a thin, humorous face – although his hair had silvered he became as real to me as if we had never lost touch. He had been promoted to senior accountant on my strong recommendation after the two of us had been responsible for investigating a complex fraud on the bank and later for briefing advocates in preparation for several prosecutions and a whole string of lawsuits seeking to recover the money, most of which were ultimately successful. Gordon had shown an almost intuitive ability to put his finger on discrepancies, or on the flaw in a culprit’s story.

  We had a drink at the bar while each told the other mendaciously how little we had changed. He had left the bank eventually, I learned, and was now Managing Director of one of the companies in which Peter Hay had had an interest and a seat on the board.

  Over lunch, he explained.

  ‘Agrotechnics,’ he said, ‘grew out of Agromech, which was set up to make and market a new range of tractor attachments, aimed at letting the farmer do more and more tasks mechanically, with less and less time wasted on side issues. I think you know something about it.’

  ‘I helped Peter Hay to set up the original company,’ I said.

  ‘I thought I remembered something of the sort. That makes your presence all the more appropriate. The company’s grown a lot bigger since those days, of course. We’re into grain dryers and spray-bars now and we make a lot of the components for combine harvesters. We have three factories in the Borders. All good agricultural stuff for men with muddy boots and straw behind their ears. I don’t pretend to understand the technicalities, I leave all that to the boffins and concentrate on keeping management efficient and the finances on the straight and narrow. It seems to be a successful working arrangement.

  ‘Last month, we were approached by a much bigger concern with an offer of a takeover. It’s a friendly offer at a fair price, there’s no denying that, though it’s only a little more than the business is worth. But, although they won’t confirm or deny, there’s a strong suspicion that they want to close down those sections which are in competition with their own products. Which means that three-quarters of our production would go and about the same proportion of job loss.’

  ‘Peter Hay’s original intention in starting the business was to provide jobs in and around his territory,’ I said.

  ‘Quite so. He always made that clear.

  ‘The board had five members. Of those, three were shareholders – the only shareholders. Sir Peter was vehemently against having anything to do with the offer. The other two – one private individual and the representative of a pension fund – wanted to accept, quickly before the buyers changed their mind. Of the other two members, the chairman was appointed because he represents the local authority. The other is myself. We, naturally, sided with Sir Peter.’

  ‘Naturally?’ I said. ‘I would have expected any good accountant to vote for the best financial deal.’

  ‘But the best financial deal for which party? When he confirmed my appointment, Sir Peter was quite clear. My responsibility is divided between the shareholders and the workforce. It’s not an unusual division but it can introduce all the inherent dangers of divided loyalty. If the offer had shown a very high profit element, I might have had to take a different view, even if my job vanished in the process.’

  Thinking over what he had said, I discounted his modest disclaimer. He would never have been appointed to his present post if he was ignorant of the agricultural technicalities. ‘I seem to remember,’ I said, ‘that we made special provision for the death of a board member.’

  ‘You remember aright. All other decisions are taken on a straight majority, but in the event of the death of a board member, which would otherwise leave the board with an even number of members, the chairman has his personal vote as well as a casting vote in the election of a replacement.

  ‘So the chairman agreed that I sound you out. As an executor of Sir Peter’s will and one who was involved in the initial negotiations, you’re the obvious person. I take it that we could count on your support?’

  I thought about it while I finished an excellent steak. ‘My duty is to the wishes of the deceased,’ I said. ‘But as a trustee I also have to guard the interests of the residuary legatee, his granddaughter. Like yourself, I might fall for the kind of offer that can’t be refused. However, the heiress won’t be short of the appropriate bob or two and in the long term it will be in her interest to support employment in the area while allowing the investment to appreciate. You’d better let me have the figures and if the offer is, as you say, acceptable but nothing to get excited about, you can count on my support. I take it that there’s no likelihood of their upping the offer? We could always take the money and set up again in some other line. Sir Peter had several irons in the fire.’

  ‘I think it
unlikely.’

  For the next few minutes we were engaged in making selections from the sweet trolley. Those important decisions taken, I said, ‘Do you by any chance have any contacts in the upper echelons of television?’

  He looked startled at the sudden change of subject but, ‘As it happens,’ he said, ‘I do. I play golf most weekends with one of the top brass at the Beeb. We were colleagues at one time. He shares a flat near here with one of the top programmers at Scottish TV – they too used to be colleagues until one of them was headhunted. My pal works in London and comes up here at the weekends for the golf. The STV man works here but has a wife and family and all his interests in the Smoke. It’s an arrangement which suits both of them. They hardly ever even meet and yet the flat’s never empty for long enough to attract burglars. Their planes pass each other around Newcastle. I expect they wave to each other.’

  ‘The estate has an interest in financing a TV documentary,’ I told him. ‘Might either or both of them be interested in a fat consultancy fee?’

  ‘I’ll ask. I’ll be seeing my pal either tomorrow or in a week’s time. Off the cuff, my guess is that you’ll have both of them on your doorstep within a very few days, each determined to undercut the other.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I think you can almost certainly count on my support over the takeover.’

  Gordon had got the message. He was glad to return to the main item of business. In his satisfaction, his manner regained the flippancy which I remembered of old. ‘That’s hunky-dory,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a copy of the audited figures before we part, to pick holes in if you can. When you confirm willingness, I’ll call an emergency meeting of the board. Your election should be automatic. The man from the pension fund will take it phlegmatically – it’s an appreciating investment and there may be other offers in the fullness of time. But the other can be expected to throw a real, knicker-wetting tantrum.’

  ‘But surely,’ I suggested, ‘he could realize his investment, if he really wants to, for almost the same figure?’

  ‘He could, of course,’ Gordon agreed hastily, anxious not to sow any doubts in my mind. ‘But he seems determined to suck the last drop of milk out of the corporate tit. Yes, I can quite see Mr Synott doing his nut.’

  ‘Who?’ I said.

  ‘Synott. A neighbour of Sir Peter’s but a great disappointment to him. Sir Peter always referred to him as Snot, sometimes to his face.’

  *

  Over the last few miles, I detoured slightly from the shortest route in order to pass our house. It was still standing, roughcast, traditional, two bay windows and two dormers, neat and tidy, very ordinary and looking more so and smaller than before, but very definitely home. There had been no fire, no obvious break-in, and the garden was only slightly shaggy. I was relieved. I felt as though I had been away for months. There was no sign of Isobel but I could guess where I would find her. I had lingered in Edinburgh to go over the figures with Gordon Bream, so I was later than I had intended.

  At Three Oaks, doors were open and I could hear the sounds of movement and the occasional bark of a dog. Daffy, wheeling a trolley full of empty feeding dishes, came from the direction of the kennels. Although she now considered herself to be a respectable matron, reserving to herself only the right to dress eccentrically when so inclined, she sometimes suffered the recurrence of one symptom of her early rebellion against repressive parents and resumed paraphrasing scurrilously some of their old and favourite ballads. There was Northern Irish on both sides of her family tree but, being a hardened atheist, she supported neither side in the Troubles but disapproved strongly of both.

  ‘When Irish eyes are smiling,’ she sang, ‘you pass on the parcel quick. / In the lilt of Irish laughter you may hear a trigger click. / When Catholic hearts are happy, someone’s run out of luck / and when Proddy eyes are smiling, jump out of the car and duck.’ I shuddered at the image but nevertheless I felt comforted. Nothing had changed.

  Daffy paused beside me as I locked the car. ‘Welcome home,’ she said. ‘I was sorry to hear about your aristocratic friend. I rather liked what little I saw of him. Has Spin turned up yet?’

  ‘He hadn’t, up to the time I set off.’

  Her face lost its customary look of being eager to break into a happy grin. ‘I hate to think of a dog lost. They have such a capacity for being miserable. Emotional creatures! But they do usually turn up in the end. Are you here to do a useful job of work?’ she asked.

  ‘I doubt it very much,’ I said, laughing. ‘You can wash your own dishes. Where’s Isobel? In the surgery?’

  ‘She was doing accounts and VAT on the kitchen table,’ Daffy said, ‘but Mr Cunningham was heading for the sitting room and muttering something about needing a drink.’

  ‘So the vultures are gathering?’

  ‘I’m one of them,’ she said. ‘Excuse me. I’ll join you when I’ve put these in hot water.’

  From all of that, I gathered that I was in time for the customary round of drinks and discussion in the sitting room, taken when the main work of the day was done. I headed in that direction. At the front door I met young Sam.

  The Cunninghams’ son was very proud of his school uniform and, in contrast to most of his peers, had to be ordered into more suitable clothes for helping around the kennels at the weekend. In what was virtually the uniform of the business – washed-out jeans and a T-shirt – his resemblance to his father was stronger than ever although, despite being skinny by reason of growth and nervous energy, he was obviously bursting with health whereas John, in the interminable aftermath of serious illness, always looked underweight and usually tired.

  ‘Hullo, Henry,’ Sam said, grinning. ‘Dad was just asking when you were coming.’ He always called me by my first name despite his mother’s protests. Personally, I liked it, as Sam well knew.

  ‘Is Isobel in the sitting room?’ I asked him.

  ‘Probably.’ He took me by the hand and tugged me towards the sitting room door. As we entered, Beth, already seated, gave him a warning look. ‘Here’s Mr Kitts,’ he announced carefully.

  A log fire was adding a cheerful flicker to the room. Isobel and Hannah were in possession of the sofa. John was already pouring drinks. While the usual babble of greetings flowed over our heads, he nodded to the vacant chair, raising his eyebrows and a can of beer. But I still felt full after my heavy lunch and Peter Hay’s hospitality had reminded me how well a whisky could go down at the right moment. I shook my head. John lifted his eyebrows and the whisky bottle. I nodded. A whole conversation was embraced in five gestures. The knack of silent communication was, I supposed, one of the legacies from the days of man the hunter-gatherer.

  John handed me a generous whisky and took a seat on the arm of Beth’s chair. Sam sat on the floor and leaned back against her knee. Daffy came in and pulled up a small, tapestry chair. ‘Mr Kitts says that there’s still no sign of Spin,’ she said.

  ‘Stolen, you think?’ John asked.

  ‘It seems likely. Perhaps he ran off when Sir Peter collapsed and some opportunist decided to latch onto him. After all,’ I said, ‘if he’d just run off and lost his way, we’d have heard something by now. The local DI has an interest and he’s been in touch with all the appropriate bodies. The farmers have all been notified. I’ve put advertisements in all the local papers for miles around, offering a reward, and sent notices to all the dog and field sports magazines.’

  ‘Make sure that all the dog clubs know over at least the same area,’ John said. ‘The dog-walking brigade know each other’s dogs and they’d soon notice if somebody had suddenly acquired an adult springer.’

  ‘Can I come and help look for him?’ Sam asked.

  His mother gave him the same pat on the head that she would have given a friendly spaniel. ‘It’s a long way away,’ she said. ‘We’ll just have to hope for the best.’

  ‘It would have broken Peter’s heart to lose him,’ I said. ‘They’d only just learned to live with each other but
they were getting on like the proverbial house on fire. But it could have been worse. Spin goes to the ’keeper, along with the two elderly Labs, and Hamish – the ’keeper – hadn’t had time to form a relationship with him. And he has some money coming under the will, so he can afford a replacement. I’ll see if I can point him in this direction,’ I added quickly as the three partners began to speak in unison.

  ‘You do that,’ Isobel said, ‘although I’m sure we all hope it won’t come to it. Spin will turn up. Has the question of Sir Peter’s death been settled yet?’

  In my regular phone calls, I had given Isobel a brief account of the enquiries into Peter Hay’s death, as much for lack of anything else to sustain a conversation than any other reason. I had a feeling that more detailed discussion of the subject should be held without Sam’s ever-open ears absorbing such nightmarish talk. I glanced down at him and made a face. Unfortunately he looked up and caught me at it. ‘If you’re going to talk nasties,’ he said with dignity, ‘I’m going to go and see the dogs. Aren’t I not?’ His grammar had improved by leaps and bounds since he started school but he still sometimes clung to the double negative.

  Beth looked unhappy. It was dusk now and the unwritten rules required that Sam be accompanied, but Beth had no wish to undertake escort duty and miss whatever revelations might still be to come.

  Hannah understood immediately. ‘I want to see that they’re settled,’ she told Sam. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  When the heavy doors had closed behind them and John had moved into the vacated place on the couch, I said, ‘It’s still very much up in the air, or it was when last I heard. The pathologist – a professor of clinical pathology, no less! – was certain that Peter Hay had had a powerful electric shock, and fairly sure that he’d died of it although he hedged his bets slightly.’

  ‘They’re good at that, pathologists,’ John said.

  ‘Yes. And the unit feeding electricity into the cattle fence had developed a serious fault. We don’t know yet whether, in doing so, it could have passed enough mains voltage to cause a death. The unit’s been sent back to the makers for a report. Anyone with a few yards of electric cable and a little electrical knowledge could have led mains current to the cables supplying the fence. The makings were all there in the tractor shed. And there are overhead cables wandering around the place. But so far, the only physical evidence pointing towards anything other than a tragic accident is that there was a piece of aluminium foil stuck to the gatepost and forming a connection between the fence wires and the metal gate. I don’t remember feeling any wind, but one can get localized gusts. It could have blown there, I suppose.’