The Revenge Game

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘Perhaps so. It had your name stamped on it, Mr Calder.’

  ‘Anybody could stamp anybody’s name on a silencer,’ Keith said. ‘I’ve made very few silencers in my time and I know where most of them are. I’ve made two for myself and I’ve still got them. A gamekeeper took one to Canada with him. And there was one about three years ago. Some land owned by the canal, up Longforest way, was infested by foxes. A neighbouring landowner got a sheriff court order to enforce control because he was losing lambs. So one of the canal workers, Robin Wyatt, got a certificate for a silenced rifle, and he was shooting them by night with an infra-red lamp. He did damned well out of the skins, too. But the maker’s silencer was too heavy and he said that it unbalanced the rifle, so I made him a lighter one. He used it for a while, but he didn’t like it any better. He said that his aim improved but the shot wasn’t so quiet, so he went back to the other one. I don’t know what became of the one I made. It was threaded for the rifle barrel, but any competent mechanic could have bushed it to fit the Luger.’

  ‘Derek’s a good farmer,’ Ronnie said, ‘but he’s no mechanic.’

  ‘His daughter is, though,’ said Munro. ‘I wonder, could we get the testimony of this Robin Wyatt?’

  ‘He’s dead now, I think,’ Keith said.

  ‘Aye,’ said Ronnie. ‘Killed driving the canal’s J.C.B.’

  ‘What would that be?’ Munro asked.

  Ronnie sighed for the ignorance of the modern policeman. ‘Digging machine. Bucket on one end and a spade on the other. They were clearing a rockfall where the canal goes through the cut, and the face came down on him. The J.C.B. was a write-off too. Early summer of last year it was.’

  ‘It’s not important how Derek got hold of the silencer,’ Keith said. ‘Not unless Blackhouse wants to make an issue of it. The point is, Derek had a Luger and a silencer; but that’s a hell of a long way from showing that he killed George Frazer.’

  ‘It is,’ said Munro. ‘But it comes closer. Mister Blackhouse is being very secretive, but some of my boys and girls seconded to him are still loyal to me, and I have had some whispers about the evidence that he has. Not all of it, but some.’ Munro paused. ‘He has a sworn statement. My officer was expressly forbidden to mention it, and would not say who made the statement, but I gather that it was from a source that might be considered, by someone with local knowledge, to be questionable. Blackhouse believes it implicitly. It is that Mr Weatherby’s voice was heard coming from Frazer’s house on August 24th, in the evening. He was shouting, “First my wife and now my daughter”, or words to that effect. His very distinctive car, the Opel, is said to have been seen nearby.’

  Consternation was audible. ‘I don’t believe it,’ Keith said.

  ‘No more do I,’ said Munro. ‘I have known the Weatherbys for years and they were very good to me while my late wife was ill. Mrs Weatherby may have a head full of fluff and novelettes, like all women, but she is a fine person for all that. And Mr Weatherby is a good Christian, although he does not attend the kirk. What is more, the whole case is tenuous and circumstantial, but for that statement. And statements can be made for reasons other than the truth.’

  ‘Could you find out who made it?’ Keith asked.

  ‘I could and I will. These lads may be loaned to Blackhouse, but in the long run their promotion prospects depend on me.’

  ‘Is there any more bad news?’ Wallace asked.

  ‘Mrs Weatherby made a statement on Saturday, admitting to having given Frazer a lift from Edinburgh that afternoon. And she was seen to be wiping her eyes as she drove towards the farm.’

  ‘She’d just been to her sister’s funeral,’ Keith said. ‘What does Derek Weatherby say to this load of tripe?’

  For the first time, Munro’s face exhibited a touch of malicious satisfaction. ‘Blackhouse has not been able to make contact with the Weatherbys.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Wallace. ‘They finished getting the barley in on Saturday, and Mr and Mrs Weatherby decided to get a bit of a holiday while their nephews were still there to cope. They were hardly down the road yesterday when a policeman was hammering on the door. Janet had just got to bed after twenty-eight hours without sleep, so she says she gave them an earful. Anyway, she says she’s got relatives everywhere between Cape Wrath and the Wash, and she doesn’t know where they’re going. She doesn’t expect to hear from them for a fortnight.’

  ‘And Blackhouse is not in any hurry,’ said Munro. ‘He is not even trying to trace them. After making sure that they do not have valid passports, he is just trying to make his case cast-iron before the Weatherbys come back. He is out to prove that Frazer was with Mrs Weatherby during the three days she was nursing her dying sister.’

  Wallace made a derisory noise, and Sir Peter shook his head.

  Keith had been staring blindly at the portrait of Sir Peter’s mother that hung over the fireplace. Suddenly, he got to his feet. ‘I’ll take a beer and one of your sandwiches, Peter, while we think about this. We’ve got up to a fortnight to do something.’

  ‘Do?’ Wallace said.

  ‘Yes, do.’ Keith left his beer on the table and stalked round the room, bristling with nervous energy. In his view, problems were for solving. ‘For God’s sake, can you imagine the effect on Janet and her mother if Derek’s arrested? The scandal? Having to run the farm? And it sounds as if Blackhouse is gunning for me as well. Can you imagine the effect on Molly if I get nailed? Or on my business if my licence gets jerked?’

  Sir Peter had seen Keith in action before, but still he looked doubtful. ‘My dear Keith,’ he said, ‘I agree with every word you’ve said, but it doesn’t sound as if we could deflect Blackhouse now. The best that we can do is to prepare a defence and present it to a court, not to Blackhouse.’

  ‘A defence in court is too late. These things take many months to bring to court. We’ve got to produce the real culprit.’

  ‘I’m afraid that Sir Peter has the right of it,’ Munro said reluctantly. ‘Blackhouse would not believe in any other culprit now, not if the Queen herself were to come forward as an eye-witness.’

  ‘Does he really have to?’ Keith asked. ‘Suppose that cast-iron evidence as to the real culprit came suddenly into your hands. Say you had a confession. And suppose you made an arrest before he did. Could you do that? And what would then be his position?’

  ‘I would be criticised,’ Munro said, and suddenly his face split in a puckish grin, ‘for making a brother officer into a laughingstock.’

  ‘And Blackhouse couldn’t arrest anyone else?’

  ‘If the fiscal agreed to prosecute my case, no. Just imagine the publicity, if two different officers arrested different men on different theories for the same crime. He would be stuck until my prisoner had been tried and acquitted. But it is still an impossible task that you’re setting yourself. The police have all the resources, but I cannot use those resources. And you cannot make house-to-house enquiries, or call on fifty men to search an area. This crime is a year old, remember, and it is my experience that the older the crime the greater the effort needed to solve it.’

  ‘We’ve got the advantage of local knowledge,’ Keith said. ‘We know what to ask and who to ask, and we may get answers where the police wouldn’t. We know the local gossip-machine and we can tap in on it and use it. We have a lot going for us.’

  Sir Peter straightened his lanky back. Seeing the signs in his employer, Ronnie sat up to attention. ‘Where do we begin?’ Sir Peter asked.

  ‘Around the canal, of course. Discounting Blackhouse’s fantasies, it’s all happening at the canal. Among a dozen other things, Chief Inspector, the three lads from the canal came and threatened me with violence if I didn’t stop poking my nose in up there.’

  Munro sighed. ‘That might have been useful evidence, if you’d called us at the time. Now, it would look like a fabrication. Those three are hardly likely to support your story.’

  ‘At the time, I didn’t want to stir it up. I’d bee
n rather more violent than they had . . . Another factor is that there’s too much money around the canal.

  ‘Look at it this way. As you said the other day, Peter, if a working man on a good wage and overtime wants a good car or a best gun or a well-dressed girl or a continental holiday, he can get it. But he can’t have all of them at the same time. That gang up in Canal Cottages, they don’t spend conspicuously but they don’t do without anything. Unless their pool came up, they’re on the fiddle. There isn’t a car over two years old up there, and they holiday abroad. Next time you see one of them, study the details–working clothes, but sunglasses by Zeiss and watches that I’ll never afford. And then they turn up in gaming-clubs.’

  Ronnie opened his mouth to speak.

  ‘Their kids are the best-dressed in the town,’ Sir Peter said, ‘and they’re never short of pocket money.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Keith said. ‘So I took my car up to Smiler for a welding job – the bastard charged me the earth, and now I’ve gone and written it off; if that was Smiler, I’ll demand my money back. While he was working I wandered into the office and took a look at some time-sheets. I happened to know that Tweedledum and Tweedledee were working for you the day before, Peter, so I looked. They were down as cutting reeds in Whitefair Cut. And there were one or two names which puzzled me. One was J. Farmer–’

  ‘He’s Jock McSween’s cousin,’ Ronnie said. ‘You’ll see him driving a J.C.B. around the farms and building sites.’

  ‘And another was J. Donald.’

  Ronnie gave a grunt of laughter. ‘The only J. Donald that’s ever around the canal, far as I know, is Jessie Donald, our daily woman.’

  ‘Well, she was down as repairing masonry under the footbridge.’

  ‘It goes deeper than just fiddling time-sheets,’ Wallace said. ‘When one fiddle starts, another soon follows. Remember, I spent several years keeping the Canal Authority’s books in Glasgow and sending them off to London. Then I came to live on the canal. I already had a mental picture of it, but as it turned out it wasn’t the same place at all.’

  Munro stiffened, like a dog that hears the door of the gun-cabinet unlocked. ‘If there’s any question of fraud up at the canal,’ he said, ‘that’s my business. Maybe I can be useful after all.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Wallace said. ‘You can only move officially, and you’d put the wind up them. You’d have to get a sheriff court order to look at the books. They’d resist all the way. And we’ve only got a few days. But I can get all we want in a day or two, because I know where it is and who to speak to.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Keith said. ‘You bide your time, Chief Inspector. Your turn will come. Meantime, see if you can find out what else Blackhouse knows. Get photocopies of the statements if you can.’

  ‘Lend me your car, Keith,’ Wallace said.

  ‘My new car?’

  ‘You have another one that isn’t all bent?’

  Keith handed over the keys. ‘Drive carefully,’ he said, ‘it’s only third party.’ He paused. His blood-alcohol was probably down to the legal limit by now. He was about to tell Munro about the wrecking of his car, but Munro spoke first.

  ‘I can’t be sorry,’ Munro said, ‘that there’s no overt action needed from me just now.’

  ‘I can believe that you don’t want to commit yourself until we present you with a rock-solid case,’ Keith said. ‘Believe me, we all respect you for coming this far.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ Munro said. ‘Not entirely. I have a fatal accident on my hands.’

  The fatal accident victim could have been anybody in the district, yet Keith felt the worm of apprehension turn in his belly. ‘Who is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Douglas Cruikshank. You may remember him. He was the mannie –’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Keith said. ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He seems to have gassed himself,’ Munro said, ‘but the pathologist can’t make head nor tail of it so far.’

  ‘Was he melting down battery-plates?’

  ‘That’s so,’ Munro said.

  Keith stared out of the window at the distant lights. The others waited expectantly. ‘I think he was probably killed,’ Keith said at last. ‘And it’s my fault. I as good as forced him to go and spy around the canal shed. Chief Inspector, could you find out what magazines are delivered up to Canal Cottages?’

  *

  ‘This time, he’s really gone off his chump,’ Ronnie said into the silence. ‘Bound to happen.’

  ‘Hush a minute,’ said Munro. ‘Mr Calder, what makes you so sure that it wasn’t an accident?’

  ‘Partly that he’d be snooping, which makes a motive. More that he wouldn’t have had that particular accident, because I found him melting down battery-plates and I warned him about it. What’s more, before we parted I read him a real lecture and put the fear of God into him. It isn’t the melting itself, but these new long-life batteries produce a lot of scum on top, and Dougie was scooping it off onto the ground where it could get wet and produce two different and very poisonous gasses. I told Dougie about it, and when I left him he was looking for a clean, dry bucket to use for the scum.’

  Munro nodded. ‘But some villain who wanted him dead would only have to put some water in the bucket and hold his head over it? That should not be difficult to establish. But why your question about magazines?’

  ‘Because it isn’t the sort of chemistry that the man in the street knows. There was an article last month in an American magazine, Loading Monthly. It was aimed at people who pour their own shot or mould their own bullets. If somebody else saw that article . . .’

  ‘Simple, when you explain,’ Munro said. ‘You do give a body a lot to be thinking about. A magazine like that would be passed from hand to hand.’ Munro paused and frowned. ‘Of course, if the wee fellow was murdered, and it is still a big if, I should hand the matter over to Superintendent Blackhouse.’

  ‘Who,’ said Sir Peter, ‘would probably decide that there was no connection between the two cases, if that suited his theory best.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Munro said. ‘Or maybe not, but I am not wanting to take the chance. Until we can prove that it was murder, I think that I will just be keeping this to myself. I’m obliged to you, Mr Calder,’ he added. ‘Now, I must away and set the investigation on this new line.’

  ‘Has Blackhouse compared the pistols from the canal with Frazer’s firearms certificate?’ Keith asked.

  ‘He would not be telling me a thing like that,’ Munro said. He got to his feet. ‘It is not a step that he would miss. I will try to find out. Good day to you.’

  When Munro had gone, the gathering broke up. Keith said his farewells to Sir Peter and led Wallace outside. ‘Take my car now,’ he said, handing over the keys. ‘Quick, before I go chicken. Unload the boxes into the flat and you can get away first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Right.’ Wallace coughed and shuffled his feet. ‘One thing. Janet spotted this embedded just inside the hatch in Merganser. D-don’t know if it’s important.’

  In the darkness, Keith could only tell by feel that the object Wallace handed to him was a bullet. He slipped it into his pocket.

  Chapter Twelve

  Keith was barely awake when the phone rang. Sergeant Ashburn, an old acquaintance, almost a friend, was on the line, embarrassed and therefore terse. ‘Superintendent Blackhouse wants you to come in and see him at eleven sharp today.’

  Keith was expecting the summons. Nevertheless, it depressed him. He looked at the clock. If the meeting was going to take place, it would take place on his own ground. ‘I’ll be here for the next two hours,’ he said, ‘and if he comes out here I’ll see him. Tell him that I have a busy day after that, and I’ll be unavailable.’

  ‘I’ll tell him,’ the sergeant said doubtfully.

  While he dressed and ate, Keith thought furiously. He needed a red herring to keep Blackhouse occupied and uncertain. But what, after all, did he know about the late George Frazer? Keith knew about Fra
zer’s womanising, which would be less than helpful, and probably Blackhouse already knew more than Keith did. Expertise as a marksman? Poaching?

  There was one thing which had struck Keith as curious, and it came back into his mind. He chewed on it while he made his arrangements.

  Superintendent Blackhouse might have considered and rejected the idea of sending several large constables to bring Keith to him, but Keith was, as he himself frequently pointed out, a respectable businessman. Blackhouse arrived within an hour and fifty minutes of the phone call; a big man, burly, blue-chinned, black of hair and eye and, Keith guessed, temper. He looked too hot in heavy tweed. Beside him, Sergeant Ashburn in uniform looked neat and placid.

  The study at Briesland House had once been a breakfast parlour. It was a room of charm and taste, furnished, although Blackhouse would hardly know it, with secondhand reproductions of good antiques. Keith had had time for some emergency tidying and to bring in a few flowers. He would have been at a disadvantage in the police station, but here Blackhouse might feel that he was confronting a minor laird. The low morning sun of autumn blazed in. Blackhouse shifted his chair and leaned back out of the sun. Ashburn ignored the sunshine and opened his notebook on the leather top of Keith’s desk.

  ‘Now,’ Keith said. He sat back in the upholstered swivel-chair. ‘You’ll do me a favour by being brief. Have you caught the criminals who assaulted my wife and fired my shop yet?’

  Blackhouse’s voice was flat and metallic, his accent neutral. ‘I have my suspicions, and when they’re confirmed you’re likely to be the first to know,’ he said ominously. He leaned forward into the sun and then sat back again. ‘Tell me about this. Am I being brief enough for you?’

  Keith picked up the silencer and studied it. ‘Yes, that’s one of mine,’ he said. ‘I made it for a man called Wyatt, Robin Wyatt. He’s dead now, poor chap.’

  ‘Very convenient.’

  ‘Very inconvenient,’ Keith corrected, ‘because if he were still alive he could confirm what I’m saying. Anyway, it was made for a rifle with a threaded muzzle. It’s been bored out since then and bushed and fitted with a clamp, but it’s the same one all right.’