The Revenge Game

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘For how much?’

  ‘I’ll lose on it, even if I put my own time in at tuppence an hour. If you weren’t Molly’s brother I’d tell you what to do with it. But I’m in a good mood today.’

  ‘Why would you ever be in a good mood?’ Ronnie asked. ‘Am I going to break a leg?’

  Keith just stopped himself from saying that he hoped so. ‘Molly knew me today,’ he said.

  Ronnie’s face lit up in a smile like sunshine on St Abb’s Head. ‘Man, that’s just great,’ he said. He fished under the table and brought up an unlabelled bottle. ‘The water got it, but it didn’t get inside. We’ll have a dram. And I’ll give you a straight swap, gun for gun.’

  Ronnie’s whisky was rougher than Jacinthe’s, but it went down well. ‘And you keep the fiver? Forget it. You can pay me my time for bodging up the gun. And keep it under your hat about Molly. She may still be in danger.’

  ‘Aye. Of course.’ Ronnie was scowling again, fearsomely. ‘I’ll hand over the fiver, and you give me a hundred cartridges.’

  ‘Done.’ Keith could take the cartridges out of written-off stock. They might be highly unstable after the fire; but then, they might be quite all right. ‘I don’t think I’ll be able to settle to anything today,’ Keith said. ‘I feel like a night on the tiles. Let’s go into Edinburgh.’

  Ronnie threw down his pen with relief. ‘Right. Let’s away.’

  ‘We need a sober driver. I’ll go up to the hospital and visit Molly. You collect Janet and pick me up there.’

  ‘Janet’s not above taking a wee drop herself.’

  ‘No,’ Keith said, ‘she’s not. But her licence is expendable. We need ours.’

  ‘Yon wally-draigle she’s going around with’ll want to come along.’

  ‘Let him. But make sure they both know not to let on that Molly’s on the mend.’

  ‘And you’re not walking up there alone,’ Ronnie said, suddenly remembering his responsibilities. ‘Some of that road’s gey lonely. I’ll run you up there in the Land Rover, go and collect Janet and be back for you in twenty minutes.’

  ‘You’ll not get Janet away in under an hour. She’ll want to change her clothes.’ Keith had no idea how true were his words. ‘And I want a while with Molly. Give me an hour at least. And phone to book a table somewhere.’

  ‘Half an hour,’ Ronnie said. The bright lights were beckoning.

  *

  The four dined in Edinburgh. Keith would have preferred the comparative opulence of Denzler’s or the Carlton, but Ronnie had chosen the exuberance of the Casa Española in Rose Street. They were a quiet party amid the noise and bustle. Janet and Wallace were stunned, at first, by the magnitude of the events that had overtaken them. Keith was busy with his own thoughts. Now that his mind was lightened of the constant burden of worry over Molly it kept returning, against his will, to the puzzle of George Frazer’s death. Little pieces that refused to fit the proper pattern kept jumping up in his thoughts, like targets at a range. Jacinthe had hinted that Frazer had been in a position to be generous; and she had reminded Keith, very pleasurably, of one of Ronnie’s pungent comments on Jessie Donald. And something that Keith himself had said about Ronnie’s gun kept putting him in mind of the guns out of the canal. Keith shook his head and tried to concentrate on an evening’s relaxation. Tomorrow would be another day. Ronnie, finding that nobody wanted to argue, had lapsed, Keith supposed, into his own favourite fantasies of greed and lust, but Keith coaxed him back into his usual aggressive forthrightness.

  Glowing with sangria, they moved on. They took in a late Festival jazz concert and then transferred to the Royal Chimes Club where Ronnie contrived to win more than two hundred pounds, doubling up on the even chances at roulette, while Keith dropped a hundred playing blackjack.

  Trouble flared up when, after coffee and brandies in the upstairs bar, they emerged into Royal Terrace. Ronnie wanted to reimburse Keith’s losses out of his own winnings. The gesture was so unnatural to Ronnie that Keith told him to stuff it, or to put his gains towards a new Land Rover. Ronnie wanted to know what was wrong with his Land Rover. Keith, succinctly, told him. They had their jackets off and were preparing to fight it out in the middle of London Road before Janet got into the Land Rover and drove slowly away. By the time they had caught up, persuaded Wallace to open the back door, and piled inside, the quarrel was forgotten.

  They were rattling out of Edinburgh by way of Clerk Street when Ronnie produced a bottle from some secret cache. He took a long pull and passed it to Keith. ‘Funny seeing the canal gang in a place like that,’ he said.

  Keith came out of a light doze. ‘Place like what?’

  ‘Yon club. All dressed up like dogs’ dinners, too, dinner jackets and tiaras and God knows what-all.’

  Janet was hunched over the wheel. She refused her turn of the bottle. ‘Shouldn’t wear a tiara and a dinner-jacket,’ she said. ‘Not at the same time.’

  ‘I didn’t see them,’ Keith said. ‘Who was there?’

  ‘I saw Smiler and his wife,’ said Ronnie, ‘and Jock McSween. There could’ve been others.’

  ‘Well, I hope they didn’t see me,’ Keith said. ‘I don’t want word getting around that I’ve got something to celebrate.’

  Wallace returned the bottle to Ronnie. ‘You could have been drowning your sorrows,’ he pointed out. ‘I laugh that I may not weep.’

  ‘Just you do that.’ Ronnie took another good swig. ‘Anyway, they probably only saw me. Soon as they did, they turned around and beat it as if they didn’t want to be seen.’

  ‘They probably decided that they didn’t want to belong to any club that would have you as a member,’ Janet said.

  Ronnie considered this seriously. ‘No. I don’t think it could have been that,’ he said at last. ‘Not just that.’

  When they were almost into Newton Lauder, Keith yawned and stretched. ‘Not far off dawn now,’ he said. ‘Hardly worth going to bed.’

  ‘You want to go round again?’ Ronnie asked.

  ‘We haven’t had a go at the partridges this season.’

  ‘Christ’s sake, it’s Sunday!’

  ‘So who’s going to see us at dawn? Have you got a gun in this heap?’

  ‘Only the wee double four-ten you lent me for the rats.’

  ‘Perfect,’ Keith said. ‘Just perfect. It’s quiet, and it folds in half to go under a coat. Got any cartridges?’

  ‘Two-inch number sixes. If you can shoot partridges with that, you can pin midges to a dart-board.’

  Janet could see other grounds for objection. ‘Keith,’ she said, ‘you’re in your best suit.’

  ‘I’ve a coat over it.’

  ‘And that’s the good coat Molly gave you. If you spoil it, she’ll skin you alive.’

  ‘That’s not as easy as it sounds,’ Keith said.

  Ronnie’s face twisted into a crafty leer. ‘Bet you a hundred quid,’ he said, ‘against that coat, you couldn’t get a left-and-right at partridges with that gun if I drive them over you.’

  ‘You’re on,’ Keith said shortly.

  ‘Keith,’ Janet almost wailed, ‘Molly’ll crucify you.’

  ‘I’ve not lost it yet. Take us up over the canal bridge and wait for us.’

  Chapter Ten

  A calm, leaden dawn was creeping in, the light growing as slowly as a tree, when Janet pulled the Land Rover onto a stubble-field half a mile above the town. Ronnie climbed down stiffly. Keith followed him out, folded the small gun and slid it under his coat, and dropped a handful of cartridges into his pocket.

  Janet dug Wallace with her elbow. ‘You’d better go with them,’ she said. ‘Try and keep them out of trouble. They’re as daft as a couple of loons when they’ve got this mood on them.’

  ‘Must I?’ Wallace asked. He had been hoping for a nap, curled up with Janet.

  ‘If you don’t, I’ll have to.’

  Always the gentleman, Wallace got out of the warm cab and shivered.

  As they crossed t
he first stubble, a covey of tame, early season partridges sprang almost from underfoot. They looked purple in the dull light. Keith let them go – the town’s windows were still too near. They tramped on, ankles rocking, in shoes where boots were needed. Beyond the second stubble-field the hill rose steeper, and Keith led them into the bottom of a gulley that twisted upward between dry-stone walls.

  ‘There’s kale planted that side, if I mind right,’ Ronnie said, pointing.

  Keith shook his head. ‘He put it in late. It’ll not be up enough to hold anything yet. I’m hoping for something in the turnips higher up. But without dogs you two are going to have to work. You’ll get your legs wet.’

  They moved quietly up the gulley, Wallace along the dry burn at the bottom, Keith and Ronnie each holding close to a wall and scanning the fields for a group of small, bobbing heads.

  They had climbed for half a mile and were nearing the head of the gulley where it lost itself in a forestry plantation, when Keith arrived at a wooden gate separating the gulley from the bottom corner of a well-grown turnip field. Keith peered cautiously through the lower bars, studying the field inch by inch. After several minutes he slid back from the gate, snapped his fingers to catch the others’ attention, and beckoned urgently for them to join him. They put their heads close together.

  ‘God, the fumes!’ Keith whispered. ‘Listen, there’s a cock pheasant just inside the neips. And further up the field I saw the tops moving. It could be a cat or a badger, but I think there’s a fox. Would you take a left-and-right, pheasant and fox?’

  Ronnie grinned. ‘Sure as hell! But it’s too early in the winter for a good pelt. Leave him be and we’ll set a snare for him next month when he’s good enough for Molly’s coat.’ For several winters they had been putting by their best fox-skins for a coat for Molly. The lesser skins were sold to finance the making of it.

  Keith made a negative gesture. ‘He’ll’ve eaten too many game-birds by then. And the hunt never comes this far over. We’ll try for him now. But I don’t want the pheasant moving away up the edge if he gets a whiff of the fox. Or of the whisky – we reek of the stuff. Wallace, you go twenty yards up the wall and lob a pebble over if I give you the nod.’

  ‘Right.’

  Keith and Ronnie exchanged a happy grin. It did Ronnie’s heart good, although he would never have admitted it, to see Keith blowing off steam again. The two men understood each other: Keith was marauding. In days gone by, his ancestors would have released pent-up emotion by raiding across the border for cattle and women. In tamer times, poaching was the only available substitute.

  They watched from the gateway. Keith put the back of his hand to his mouth and sucked against the skin, making a high, squealing sound that would pass for the squeak of an injured rabbit. For a second they saw a fox’s head show with ears pricked, and then an occasional stirring of the turnip-tops as it set off down a furrow. They caught a glimpse of the pheasant moving nervously, disturbed by the sound.

  The fox was coming slowly, but Keith did not want to squeak again. The bird might take off before the fox was in range. With only half an ounce of number six at his disposal, ten yards would be far enough for the fox and twenty more than enough for the bird.

  The fox was still a long stone-throw away when the bird began to stalk along, parallel to the wall. Keith waited a few seconds and then nodded to Wallace. At the rattle of the pebble among the leaves the bird paused and then moved uncertainly back towards the corner.

  Keith and Ronnie were flat on their faces on the dew-wet ground, peering under the bottom rail of the gate through stems of dead grass and nettles. Keith could see the pheasant staring out, alerted by an unfamiliar combination of sensations. He had lost track of the fox. He waited, looking up the dark tunnels between the drills and under the dark canopy of leaves. Then Ronnie nudged him and pulled gently at his sleeve. Very cautiously Keith moved his head sideways until another tunnel opened up for him, and there was the fox coming fast and low. Any nearer and the pelt would be badly damaged. As Keith lifted the gun, a fresh breeze brought the fox’s rank smell to them, and the bird rocketed up in a clatter of wings.

  Keith blinked and shook his head to force aside the veil of whisky fumes. The gun barked lightly, once, and Keith moved quickly. It took him a second to pull the barrels clear of the bars of the gate. The bird had gone back over his head, going hard with long tail streaming behind, and when Keith caught up it was almost thirty yards off – a long shot for a very small gun. He fired. For a moment he was sure that he had missed. Then the bird locked its wings and glided down the gulley. Its attitude suggested that it was winged.

  Without taking his eyes off the bird, Keith said, ‘Fetch it!’

  ‘You talking to me?’

  ‘Sorry. Forgot we didn’t have a dog with us. See if I got the fox, would you, while I go after the bird?’

  The cock was down but he was a runner. He had burrowed deep into a fastness of fallen branches and bramble and grass. It took Keith two minutes, by a process of elimination, to find him, and ten minutes to winkle him out. Still kneeling, he picked the struggling bird up by the head and with a quick flick of his wrist broke its neck. He sat back on his heels. He was sweating in his heavy coat and his eyes seemed filled with grit, but he felt purged.

  For a few seconds Keith closed his eyes and let himself doze, only to jerk awake when he began to fall. He put his hand down to catch his balance. He seemed to feel a thorn run into his flesh, but when he lifted his hand a brass cartridge-case was clinging to it. He detached it, painfully, and looked at it. His eyebrows went up.

  Somebody was coming up the gulley. Keith could hear the brush of footsteps and a rustle of clothing in the Sabbath quiet. Quickly, he pushed the telltale pheasant back into the undergrowth and arranged himself in an attitude of innocent repose. Looking down the gulley, his view was cut off by a steepening of the slope, but he was surprised to see how close the back of the hospital was. Behind one of those windows, Molly lay.

  Whoever was approaching had left the gulley. Keith heard the rattle of stones as he climbed the wall. Briefly, a man’s figure showed on the skyline. Keith retrieved his pheasant.

  *

  Ronnie passed his bottle round again. He had made a start to skinning the fox. Its hind feet were tied to the gate and when Keith arrived Wallace, a look of revulsion on his face, was leaning back and pulling against the pelt while Ronnie shaved away at the adhering tissue.

  Keith brandished the pheasant.

  Ronnie stopped work to pass the bottle. ‘A pheasant,’ he said, ‘out of season and on a Sunday, and where we’ve no permission to be. You’ve just about done it all in the one day. Add a bit of rape and defraud an insurance company, and they’ll have you in the Guinness Book of Records yet.’

  Keith yawned and rubbed his eyes. ‘Rape was yesterday,’ he said. ‘The other’ll be . . . oh, some time next week. That looks like a good pelt.’

  ‘M’hm. He’ll do for Molly’s coat. Must’ve come down off the high ground to have his winter coat so early. Come along, Wally. Pull, man, pull.’

  Keith drew the knife from the back of his belt and joined in the task of separating the skin from the tissue. ‘Skinning a rabbit may be like pulling a jumper off a baby,’ he told Wallace, ‘but foxes are different. Skinning a fox is like getting your wife out of a fur coat after she’s tried it on in the shop. You’ll find out. Same brute force and a hard heart called for. Only the perfume’s different. Carefully past the jugular, Ronnie. It’ll still be full of blood, and we don’t want it on the fur.’

  ‘You hold the egg this way, Granny.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Keith said. ‘You know, somebody’s been doing some poaching up and down here.’ He showed them the cartridge-case.

  ‘Good place,’ Ronnie said. ‘The roedeer use it as a short-cut between the crops and the forestry. Not my patch, though, so good luck to whoever-it-is.’

  ‘It may be a legacy of the late Mr Frazer,’ Keith said. ‘Just out of
interest, as we go back down take a look in every likely waiting place and pick up any cartridge cases.’

  Despite the drink they made a good job of the skinning. Keith rolled up the soft fur with care. ‘You got poacher’s pockets in that coat?’ he asked Ronnie.

  ‘Aye. If we just kill the bottle, they’ll be spare.’

  Keith shuddered. The bottle was still a third full. ‘Take the bottle one side and the pheasant the other,’ he said. ‘I’ll carry the gun and the fur. I think foxes are legal on a Sunday.’

  ‘What’ll I do with this?’ Wallace asked, pointing to the naked corpse.

  ‘Chuck it into the neips,’ Ronnie said. ‘The crows’ll pick it clean.’

  ‘Bring it along,’ Keith said. ‘We’ll have no pollution here. And I’ve still got a use for it.’

  ‘Yuck!’ said Wallace. ‘It looks like a reproachful whippet.’

  They collected a dozen cartridge cases on the way down.

  *

  In the Land Rover, Janet was curled up fast asleep. Wallace was ready to collapse with exhaustion, but Keith led the way past the vehicle and over the stubbles towards the canal buildings. ‘I just want to take a look,’ he said. ‘Then we’ll go home. You two don’t have to come if you don’t want to.’

  ‘We don’t?’

  ‘No. Just give me that fox.’

  Ronnie and Wallace exchanged a look and then fell into step with Keith. Whatever he was up to, he was better not left alone. They climbed the back of the knoll that hid the canal buildings and settled down in a sheltered hollow among scrubby gorse bushes. The town was beginning to waken, but immediately below them the inhabitants of Canal Cottages slumbered on.

  ‘There’s plenty rabbit-holes up here,’ Ronnie said. ‘Maybe we should bring a ferret up here some time.’

  ‘Somebody else comes here,’ Keith said. ‘You can see the holes where he’s put in pegs for his purse-nets. Would that be Hamish, do you think, or John Sparrow?’

  ‘How the hell would I know?’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ Wallace said, ‘how much more you see from a height. From down at the canal, this hill’s no more than a pimple; but looking down from up here, it’s almost like looking down at a map. What are we waiting for?’