Home to Roost

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘What did Munro want?’ I asked. ‘Or is it none of my business?’

  ‘He tried to pass it off as a social call, but he worked round to asking me whether I thought you were making a proper job of the new shotgun procedures. I said that the new Act was driving a wedge between some police forces and the most law-abiding section of the public but that you were going a long way towards repairing the local damage.’

  ‘Well, thank you,’ I said. ‘But I don’t know that he’ll take that as a favourable comment.’

  He looked up from a careful inspection of the Horsley’s stock. ‘He’s an old fouter but he’s not daft. He can see that some constabularies are alienating the few friends they’ve got left, and the most influential.’ Keith paused, thought for a moment and then decided that we had exhausted the subject. ‘What really brings you here? Certainly not to ask me about the status of bored-out rifles. Have you come to ask for my daughter’s hand?’

  The question was asked lightly but I could sense a deep anxiety. Keith, by reputation, had been a wild man in his youth; the police grapevine credited him with more recent exploits, most of which I took with a pinch of salt. Whatever the truth, he seemed well aware of the temptations to which an attractive girl could be exposed. I answered him seriously.

  ‘Not just yet,’ I said. ‘One of these days, when we’ve learned . . . I nearly said “to live together”, but I don’t mean quite that.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ he said. ‘It takes time to adjust.’ He looked happier.

  ‘Would you be pleased if we decided to marry?’ I asked him.

  He seemed surprised. ‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘I thought you knew that. You’re right for each other. As right as two people can be, given the great disadvantage of belonging to different sexes.’

  It had seemed to me that he was barely aware of my existence. Keith was and is usually preoccupied with the business of the gunshop, his gunsmithing work, some research into gun history and ballistics, occasional investigations of crimes involving firearms and the running of a small shoot which he shared with a few friends and family. Too preoccupied, I had thought, to notice the ebb and flow of his daughter’s boyfriends. It seemed, however, that he had not only noticed me but liked me.

  That thought led me to another. The note in Mr Brindle’s voice and the slight shift of his mouth when he spoke of Ian Kerr had tuned me in to the tiny signals of like and dislike that people unconsciously emit. ‘What do you dislike about Allan Brindle?’ I asked him.

  ‘I’ve nothing against him personally,’ Keith said. ‘He’s a good keeper and, for all I know, a good man. Why?’

  ‘Whenever he’s mentioned, there’s a faint hint of something . . . disdain, I think. If there’s a flaw in the character of a holder of shotguns and rifles, it’s my job to know it.’

  ‘I don’t know him well enough to hold him in liking or dislike,’ Keith said after a moment’s thought. ‘If I looked a bittie po-faced when I mentioned him, it was because of his job.’

  ‘You’ve always been pro-keeper,’ I said, ‘always telling us how much better the countryside is for the keeper’s attention.’

  ‘I meant it, because it’s true,’ he said. ‘Truer of some than of others. Allan Brindle’s a good enough keeper and I think he plays it by the rules – respects protected species, uses legal means for controlling vermin and so on and so forth. But I can’t approve of these commercial shoots.’ I nodded wisely but he wasn’t fooled for a moment. ‘In the old days, shooting was by the exchange of invitations. A good shoot was built up over generations by intelligent tree-planting and habitat management. Then came two big changes. Times became harder for the landowner and people became busier and more mobile. A businessman in a big city can’t give the time it takes to participate in a shoot. Not to live with it, brood over it, work on it. But he can still have the same instinct to get out in the fresh air in good company and shoot. So he and a few pals book a day at a time on an estate like McKimber. They book for a certain number of birds in the bag and that’s what they get, give or take a few, at so much per bird.’ Keith looked regretful for a moment and then shrugged. ‘But who am I to condemn it? I nearly got on to that bandwagon and made money, but at the last moment I couldn’t stomach the misuse of the land. In a way, it’s a sort of asset stripping. Nobody cares much what happens to the land just so long as the paying Guns get their money’s worth and book again.’

  ‘The laird must care,’ I said.

  ‘The laird has precious little to do with it. Jeffries, who has the Forth and Clyde Game Farm, runs the shoot. He rents the shooting rights on half a dozen estates, stocks them with birds and lets them for as many days in the year as the stock can stand. And,’ Keith said hotly, ‘on at least one estate I suspect that he trickles out his leftover birds throughout the season – there’s no other way that land could stand up to that amount of shooting. I don’t think that Brindle would go along with that, but who knows? – keepers’ jobs are scarce these days. The laird at McKimber’s no spring chicken and he’s had some financial problems. He probably grabbed the money and struck a deal whereby he can hold a shoot or two on his own land for friends and family, with a total bag not to exceed a certain maximum.’

  The picture was becoming clearer. If there was no syndicate and the laird’s shooting companions were unavailable, Brindle would have to take his chances with the pigeon shooters allotted to his territory.

  I repeated what Brindle had told me about his poacher. Keith looked both concerned and amused. ‘It happens,’ he said. ‘Poaching’s becoming a way of life with some of them.’

  ‘Surely there can’t be much money in it?’ I said.

  ‘There isn’t. The price of game is nonsensical. The British housewife still prefers a battery chicken, full of hormones and preservatives and salmonella, to a free-range pheasant; and the Continental market’s being flooded from behind the Iron Curtain, believe it or not. Money isn’t really the objective. And there’s no longer a starving peasantry, poaching to survive the winter. In this age of leisure, outwitting the keeper is one of the few kicks left; and if you’re careless, the courts are ridiculously lenient over a matter which is in fact theft.’

  It was rumoured that Keith, in his wilder days, had been a poacher of note; and I thought that I detected a shadow of nostalgia in his voice if not in his words.

  ‘You’re probably too young to remember the old Beverley Sisters song. “If there’s something you enjoy, you can be certain that”,’ he sang in a not untuneful voice, ‘“it’s illegal, it’s immoral or it makes you fat.” All the same, it shouldn’t happen,’ he said. Evidently Keith was now on the side of the angels. Perhaps the thrill of the illicit hunt had been replaced by the challenges of business life. ‘I might be able to help. If you get a list of all the beaters who’ve turned out on McKimber over the past few years, and anyone else who could have spied out the land, I’ll tell you whether any of them are in the habit of buying airgun pellets locally.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’ Which led me, circuitously, to another question. ‘Allan Brindle looked hostile when Ian Kerr’s name was mentioned. What does he have against him? Does he suspect him of being the poacher?’

  Keith looked up from the tiny scrap of walnut which he was shaping to fill the gap left by a bad chip out of the gunstock. ‘Kerr of Miscally?’ he said thoughtfully. There was a pause while he sharpened his chisel. ‘Kerr gives the impression of being a jolly soul but there’s a touch of malice in his nature. Perhaps it’s not surprising; life hasn’t been altogether kind to him. And Brindle’s an uncompromising man. I dare say that a few minutes of reasonable discussion would’ve resolved the problem.’

  ‘What problem?’

  Keith went back to his work. ‘I think Ian Kerr owns Miscally outright. Either that or he has a tenancy with sporting rights. Whichever, Miscally isn’t part of McKimber Estate. Jeffries has tried more than once to get his hands on the shooting rights. McKimber stands
high up but it’s relatively flat. You saw how the land drops between the two? Miscally’s one of the few places you could put your guns and show them really high driven birds from McKimber. But Kerr’s too fond of his own shooting. Instead, he formed his own small syndicate. He plants neips along the McKimber boundary, with pheasant feeders all around. That attracts the birds which Brindle released at great expense to his employer,’ he added when he saw that I was only partly comprehending.

  ‘That’s quite legal, isn’t it?’ I said.

  ‘Perfectly legal, though rather unneighbourly. It’s often done, but not quite so blatantly. Kerr also made a new pond and feeds it heavily, drawing the ducks from McKimber. Then again, sometimes a runner pricked by one of the guns on Miscally comes down beyond the McKimber boundary. The law says that they can send a dog to fetch it. If the dog’s unruly and happens to send a few more birds in the opposite direction . . .’ Keith shrugged and grimaced. ‘In the end, Allan Brindle got dancing mad. He went to see Kerr and they had the father and mother of a row. I wasn’t there, but from what I hear it was a humdinger.’ Keith pressed the scrap of walnut into the slot that he had carved for it. It vanished as though the damage had never been there.

  I would have delved a little deeper. I was being given a rare insight into the frictions which can exist in the rural fraternity, which meant between gun-owners. But I was distracted by the sound of Deborah’s voice below, and shortly thereafter Molly called us down to lunch.

  When Deborah was in a room, anyone else present was reduced for me to a mere shadow but I made an effort and paid my hostess proper courtesy. I apologised for having to eat and run. (A two-man team from Edinburgh was due, following up an earlier enquiry about a local burglary, and as the local man I would have to attend them.)

  ‘I understand,’ Molly said. ‘You have your job. And we’re quite used to it, with Deborah. This house is just a hotel as far as she’s concerned. Rushing in and rushing out, usually off to some competition.’

  ‘And rushing back with a medal or two,’ Keith said. ‘She’s becoming very good. Don’t grumble, be proud of your daughter. Throw your chest out.’

  ‘No,’ Deborah said quickly. ‘Don’t throw it out. I’ll have it if you’re finished with it.’

  I had always considered Deborah to be very prettily endowed in that department, but there was no denying that her mother seemed to have been built on more generous lines. I was grinning all the way back to Newton Lauder.

  Chapter Two

  Saturday arrived, crisp and clear and with a nip in the air to put colour into cheeks grown pasty during the long winter. No sudden outbreak of crime required my attention; the denizens of Newton Lauder had managed to pass the night with no more than the occasional pub-fight to disturb the peace. For once I was free to take my scheduled day off.

  Keith wanted the use of his own jeep and Molly was using the family car, so in mid-morning I picked Deborah up from the shop in the Square. She stacked the back of my car with mysterious bags of different sizes, plus the Labrador that in theory belonged to her father but which was her constant companion.

  ‘You’ve plenty of warm layers?’ she asked as she dropped into the passenger seat.

  ‘Ample,’ I said. ‘And you?’

  ‘If you could see what I’m wearing underneath these jeans it would turn you off for ever,’ she said.

  ‘Try me.’

  She put her nose in the air. ‘No way. You might come to prefer me that way, and I don’t want to be stuck with Dad’s longjohns for ever.’

  That seemed reasonable. ‘I took you at your word,’ I said, ‘and didn’t bring any sandwiches.’

  ‘I’ve got some. And Mrs Dunbar’s very good about sending Brian out with soup and things to the Guns.’

  The wayside branches were white with frost, forming a tracery of amazing intricacy, but the air was too dry to lay ice on the road.

  I turned in at the gates of McKimber Estate and drove to Allan Brindle’s house. He was digging in his garden, turning over the frozen ground with some difficulty. He had a map waiting for me, with rendezvous points marked and coded. I put the small radio which he gave me into the car, beside the model provided by my employers, and passed on Keith’s suggestion.

  ‘That’s good thinking,’ he said. ‘I’ll get down to it, as soon as I can.’ A shot sounded in the woods and he frowned. ‘Which’ll not be just yet. I’ll need to be getting out and keeping an eye on things.’

  ‘The rest of your pheasants will be getting scattered,’ I said sympathetically.

  ‘The further the better. They’ll come home again. I’m not afraid of them wandering, except maybe into the game-bags of these beggars.’

  ‘Do you have a note of the dates when the poacher visited you?’

  ‘Aye. There’s diary kept. I’ll copy it for you.’

  I drove back towards Newton Lauder for a mile and then took to a by-road. It led us through farmland of all winter’s colours, the brown of plough, yellow-grey stubble, the green of grass and winter barley and the darker green of oilseed rape. My eyes were becoming wiser since Deborah took me in hand.

  A small white sign, rather in need of paint, pointed to Nuttleigh’s Farm. We dodged potholes and came to the farm buildings – a small farmhouse dominated by the taller barns. The place was unusually tidy for a farm, but there was a faint air of dilapidation as though necessary maintenance had fallen behind. As we got out of the car, I could hear occasional shots coming clearly through the dry air.

  Brian Dunbar was dismantling a tractor engine in the yard. Deborah introduced us and he wiped his hand carefully on what seemed to be half of an old shirt before shaking hands. He was thin and wiry; a dark man, tanned and with a faint blue stubble. In shirtsleeves and bib-and-brace overalls he seemed impervious to the cold, but an ancient tweed cap was pulled down almost over his prominent ears.

  ‘You won’t lack for sport,’ he said. ‘Cushies are here in clouds.’

  ‘Where are they feeding?’ Deborah asked keenly.

  ‘Mostly on the barley I lost when the rain began. And there’s some rape and some winter barley. Push them off one and they’ll go to the other. Your dad’s here and that uncle of yours. They’ve gone by way of Miscally Farm, because they drew March Strip. It didn’t please them, but that’s the way I aye do it,’ he explained to me. ‘If I tell them where tae gang, they say I’m no’ being fair; an’ if I leave them to sort it out for theirselves they a’ bunch up in the best bittie. So you draw. There’s just the three places left.’ He pulled three scraps of paper from a bib pocket and dropped them into his cap, the removal of which revealed a large bald spot and a brow that contrasted palely with his weatherbeaten face. He held the cap above Deborah’s head.

  Deborah reached up and fumbled for two of the paper scraps. ‘Four and five,’ she read out.

  ‘Middle Wood,’ Dunbar said. ‘They’ll start coming in there to roost, fourish. You’ll get some good decoying until then. That leaves the wee wood, the yin with the high seat, for Ian Kerr. But he’ll be busy about his place. Likely he won’t show up until afternoon. Until he comes, shoot there if you want.’

  ‘What about yourself?’ Deborah asked.

  Brian Dunbar smiled for the first time. ‘Bless you, lassie, I’ll not bother myself. I can shoot here when and where I like. I’m only glad that other folk should spare the time and the cartridges to chase them awa’ for a whilie. I’ll get on with this dratted job. Since we lost our regular driver the machines don’t get their regular maintenance, and there’ll be plenty of work for this beggar at the first sign of spring.’

  He went back to his tractor, crooning to it as he worked. Deborah hauled bags out of the car. ‘If we had the jeep we could have driven most of the way,’ she said. ‘As it is, we’ll have to hump this lot. I call it selfish of Dad. Uncle Ronnie’s Land-Rover’s off the road again, getting a new flint or something, but he’s using an old banger he borrowed from one of his disreputable pals.’

 
‘Then they’d have had to carry their gear,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Not necessarily. You can get an ordinary car closer to March Strip by way of Miscally than you can to Middle Wood from Nuttleigh’s. Anyway, they’re both men.’

  Despite the sexism of her last remark, she seized several of the larger bags and set off at a brisk walk along a track in the general direction of the Miscally woods, which I could recognise on the skyline. I followed, toting the remainder. My car would have bottomed on the bump between the wheel ruts.

  Birds were on the move. I was seeing the countryside with new eyes. A cock pheasant chortled and took off from some turnips, climbing towards the Miscally woods on their higher ground. I recognised crows – rooks, south of the Border – cruising high and with apparent purpose. I had not been sure that I would know a woodpigeon at a distance and without hearing its gentle, summer call; but I knew with certainty that the birds, smaller than crows, which dotted the sky in twos, threes and larger flocks, bustling with quick wingbeats or dropping in to feed, were our quarry. At any one moment there seemed to be a hundred in the air. Why, I wondered, had I never been aware of the grey hordes?

  The track turned a corner and petered out, but there was an open gate and wheel tracks which led along the side of a stubble field. At our sudden appearance a dozen pigeon got up from beyond the next fence and made for the woods. A single shot came back to us. I saw feathers hanging in the air but the birds flew on.

  ‘Missed him,’ Deborah said cheerfully over her shoulder. ‘They got up out of the barley, so we may get some decoying.’ She looked down at Sam, the Labrador. ‘If you were a proper dog, you’d carry your share. Or pull a small cart. Perhaps that’s why they called them dog-carts,’ she added. Sam waved his tail and continued to lead us onward. He knew very well when she was joking.

  We crested a small rise. Deborah seemed glad to drop her burden and pause for a moment. I did the same and pulled out Brindle’s map to orient myself. Middle Wood, ahead of us, had been fenced against deer and farm animals and seemed to be about three acres of deciduous trees and underbrush. Away to our right, Keith and his brother-in-law were well hidden among the conifers of March Strip, but I saw a pigeon die in the air. The sound of the shot arrived a few seconds later. Beyond Middle Wood I could see the rise of ground to the McKimber woods, but the small wood between, triangular according to the map, was still hidden from me. I remembered looking down on it while I talked with Allan Brindle.