‘I don’t think that I told you anything of the sort,’ I said quickly. ‘I said that I wanted to speak to you about the purchasers of the pups, which was perfectly true.’
She set off again at a gallop. ‘You said you wanted to know who they were so that you could be sure that they were going to good homes, and I respected you for that, fool that I was, but Ben says that you only wanted to know who they were so that you could approach them and tell them that Ben’s puppies are unpedigreed and sell them your puppies instead and leave him stuck with the whole of Cleo’s litter. I don’t think I ever heard of anything so dishonest. You lied to me!’ she finished furiously.
Although I might have been guilty of tampering slightly with the facts, this diatribe was a bit rich coming from the wife of a man to whom it was almost an article of religion never under any circumstances to tell anybody the truth if a lie would serve the same purpose. But there was no point in saying so or of prolonging our talk. I hung up on her and decided to go for a stroll around the kennels. First I put on a warm coat. My body might as well stay warm while my spirit cooled off.
It very soon cooled right off. Whichever way we turned we seemed to be finding another blank wall. If we had had the powers and resources of the police we could have kicked the walls down and progressed. But as it was, we did not, and we would have to make do with what we did have.
The dogs had been fed and settled and were paying no attention to Joe and Dave, who were taking their guard duties seriously and patrolling around the paths between the runs while arguing amicably about the troubles of the world, the relative merits of certain ladies of their acquaintance and the best way to pluck a pheasant. I reminded them again that every word might be overheard in the house.
‘We caught a peelie-wallie loon ettling to sneak in,’ Dave told me. ‘We kicked his arse and told him to go home to his mummy. Was that wrong?’
‘Quite wrong,’ I said. ‘You should have drowned him in a bucket.’
Chapter Eight
There came another morning, Monday, the start of another week. Our competition commitments were coming ever closer and still we had made little progress towards identifying the threat which was hiding so tantalizingly remote and yet had struck down poor Accer. If the same threat had also struck down Ben Garnet, well, too bad! He could look after himself or at least he could try. In the past, he had proved remarkably adept at looking after what he no doubt regarded as Number One. Poor Accer had not been given the chance.
Daffy arrived early with her husband in tow. The two of them totalled little more than my age between them but they always gave the impression of being years ahead of me in worldly wisdom. When I first knew him, Rex had been just another long-haired yobbo, but a job on the oil rigs and the money that went with it had not turned his head. Marriage and Daffy’s hard common sense had seen to that. Instead, Rex was now a respectable citizen who usually dressed as if for one of the better golf courses although that day he had dug out some of his cast-off gear as being more suitable for the day’s errand. That Daffy still decked herself out as if for a pop concert or the Chelsea Arts Ball was a great disappointment to him but he lived in hope of coaxing her into the proverbial little black dress or a twinset and pearls, given time.
Secretly, I hoped that he would fail. I welcomed a touch of colour and eccentricity in my otherwise conventional life. Daffy was certainly not extravagant with it. She had the knack of taking an old tablecloth or pair of curtains, borrowing Beth’s sewing machine and within five minutes looking fit for an appearance on The Clothes Show. That day, she was arrayed in what could have been mistaken for Victorian underwear except that it was in a fabric which I recognized as being from a bedspread seen in a recent village jumble sale and, I thought, she looked good. Some day, I was sure, this talent would be discovered and we would lose her to television or the rag trade.
With Rex briefed and sent off to see what he could get out of Tom Shotto, I had time to cogitate. It seemed to me doubtful that Rex still had a common wavelength with the young and feckless Shotto. Anyway, the more pressure that could be put on Tom Shotto from different sources, the sooner he might crack and reveal who had put him up to making the phone call—if, indeed, my guess was good and it had been his voice on the recording. I had seen young Guffy in his company at some time in the past.
Keepers usually make as early a start as kennel-owners, so I phoned ex-RSM Fergusson. He was at home and breakfasting—after doing the rounds of his snares, I was given to understand. I asked for Guffy.
‘Yon laddie!’ Fergusson snorted indulgently. ‘He’s no’ here yet and the day half gone. What was it about?’
I had decided, for better or worse, not to shout this particular business from the rooftops. ‘I have some work that needs doing—digging particularly.’ This much was true.
‘Wi’ a machine? He’s handy that way but he’s no’ insured for them.’
‘By hand, with a spade,’ I said. ‘There’s no access for a machine to where I want the work done.’
‘Ah. He’s a strong back, right enough.’
‘I thought that he might like to earn some extra money in his own time. Would you mind?’
‘No’ in the least. Have him any time you like, for a’ the use he is around here the noo. He might be glad of the chance to earn some siller towards the pup he’s so set on. Nothing but the best for yon loon.’
His words put a thought into my head, perhaps because to my mind any pups from our bloodline were the best. ‘He wouldn’t have his eye on one of Ben Garnet’s pups, would he?’ I asked, half joking.
‘I wouldn’t think it. He was wi’ me when Mr Garnet came in-by to ask would the laddie do some gardening work for him. Guffy asked him about a pup and Mr Garnet said they was all spoken for and anyway the price would be away beyond his pootch. Shall I have him phone you when he comes in?’
‘Please,’ I said. ‘But don’t raise his hopes. Make it clear that I’m still not prepared to sell him a pup.’
‘I understand, though he could be trusted no’ to bad-use it—I’d see to that.’
‘I’m sure. Please, just tell him to come and talk to me as soon as he’s knocked off and had his tea.’
‘That I will,’ said Fergusson.
The routine of the kennels was already rolling. For lack of anything else useful to do about our current problem, I gave the two cockers a good workout with the dummy-launcher and then did my share of exercising the boarders. Joe was at work and when Dave expressed a wish to go down to the pub for an hour or two I said that I would stand guard in his place, which I did with the dart-gun near at hand, while monitoring Sam in his enclosure and at the same time teaching several young dogs the elements of retrieving with tennis balls on the lawn.
That took care of the morning and, on the principle that if you are doing three things at the same time you may as well do four, gave me time for some more thinking; but by early afternoon I was no further forward.
It was as a last resort that I sat Sam down on the kitchen floor with his building blocks and tried the Garnets’ number again. I came up on the answering machine. I started the cassette recorder and sent the signal. The machine started to replay messages.
And I found that I had struck oil at last.
The man with the gruff and gravelly voice had made another call. The message was longer this time and I was sure that the accent was American or Canadian. ‘Jamie here again,’ he said. ‘For God’s sake get your finger out. I’ve got to know about that pup right away or I’ll lose the chance of the other one. Call me back today and tell me that the pedigree for your one is guaranteed or I’ll take the one that Steedman has for sale. I’m only holding off for the moment because I’d rather have a bitch. I’ll be waiting for your call, but not for long. Goodbye.’
‘Bloody hell!’ I said aloud. I looked up Paul Steedman’s number in my diary. Like us, Paul bred and trained springers. In theory he was a business rival but, although we gave no quarter when we
found ourselves opposed in field trials, in fact we got on well and derived some benefit from helping each other out in times of trouble.
I heard his phone ringing in distant Blairgowrie. Paul’s wife answered—a plain woman with a beautiful voice which, over the phone, was positively arousing. A few moments later Paul came to the phone.
‘Tell me something,’ I said after the opening greetings and a polite exchange of news. ‘Who’s the man with the scratchy voice who’s dickering with you for a pup? Jamie something.’
‘James Kirkmichael?’ Paul sounded amused. ‘If you’re aiming to steal another client off me, steal that one. He’s been dithering for so long that I sold the pup he was after. Mine was only his second choice. I was going to ask you for a near-enough match if he ever came back to me.’
The cloud which had been hanging over me began to let a little sunshine through. ‘But do you have an address for him?’ I asked.
‘Just a moment.’ I heard paper rustling. ‘He lives in Glenrothes. No, I don’t have an address. You want his phone number?’
He read the number out to me and I wrote it down.
I was looking up the name in the directory when Beth came into the kitchen. Sam looked up and smiled his most endearing smile. ‘Bloody hell!’ he said in what was a fairly close simulation of my voice.
For a moment, Beth refused to believe her ears. Then she looked from me to Sam and back again. It was clear what was in her mind. I was teaching her son bad language. If there was any cussing to be done, she would do it. To me. Later.
‘You’d better listen to this,’ I said hurriedly. I played her the section of tape on which I had recorded both the message and my call to Paul Steedman. ‘And,’ I added, ‘his address is in the phone-book.’
‘Wow! Berl . . .’ There was a long pause before she went on. Sam and I waited anxiously. ‘. . . looming good!’ Beth finished.
*
If I phoned a complete stranger to ask him where he was when my dog was poisoned, he would have more chance of getting cooperation from the police than I had. A visit to Glenrothes was called for. And then something clever. Just what, I had no idea. But clever it would have to be.
I set off straight away with Beth’s admonition to be careful still in my ears but not in my mind. She always told me to be careful and I thought that I always was. The short day of the Scottish midwinter was already far advanced and a low sun flickered in my eyes as I drove.
Less than half an hour brought me to Glenrothes.
Britain’s new towns may be monuments to governmental penny-pinching. The aphorism about ships and ha’porths of tar might well have been coined about them. But at least they were designed around contemporary forms of transport instead of having evolved haphazardly out of the era of the horse and cart. A free-flowing traffic system brought me to where I wanted to go and—something which would never have happened in an older town—there was vacant and free parking almost on the doorstep.
Mr Kirkmichael’s address was in a long three-storey row of flats. I walked up one flight. Peering in the dim light I found his name on a door and rang the bell. On the drive, I had decided that I only needed to know where he had been on the Saturday afternoon. I had concocted a story about a car being damaged in a car park and another car seen nearby that was thought to be his, which I thought would surely provoke an innocent man into telling the truth. A dog-poisoner might even confess to the vehicle damage, thinking it a cheap price to pay for a valuable defence of alibi.
My mental effort was wasted. The door opened, silhouetting a large figure against the equally dim light of a small hallway. Before I could open my mouth, he said a rude word and swung a punch at me, aiming for my jaw. I ducked but not in time to avoid the punch altogether. It caught me over the right eye. I went down, more from surprise than either pain or the impact.
My wits were scattered by the unexpectedness of the attack. Before I could gather them, I heard another exclamation in a very different tone of voice and I found myself lifted and half carried into the flat, through the hallway and into a well-lit sitting room where a television was muttering in a corner.
At first, I could only think that I was being kidnapped, to be freed only on signature of the Kennel Club form. Then I made out what my attacker was saying. It was the voice that I had purloined from the Garnets’ answering machine, like a match being struck on an empty oil drum.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, lowering me into a soft leather chair. ‘I’m real sorry. Could you use a Scotch?’ The accent, now that I heard it without the distortion of the phone, was definitely American rather than Canadian.
I said faintly that I could. With water, no ice.
‘Right away.’ While I nursed my eye I heard him pouring. There was no blood but already I could feel the start of the swelling.
He put a tumbler into my hand. It was a very good malt whisky, which somehow finally dispelled the idea that he might be a kidnapper. ‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘Let me get you a steak for that, or something close.’ While he was out of the room I took a one-eyed and slightly blurred look around. The room was meticulously if not imaginatively colour coordinated. The furnishings had been expensive but were showing the first signs of wear. A room that was comfortable rather than smart. A child’s sweater was airing on the radiator and there was a sewing basket beside my chair.
He came back and handed me what turned out to be a lump of liver, very cold on a paper towel, and sat down opposite me. ‘Gee, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I took you for somebody else, somebody I was good and mad at at the time. I still am, come to think of it. You sure look like him. But I’m real sorry. I should’ve made sure it really was the right guy on the mat. Then I should’ve smacked him hard enough to rattle his grandchildren.’
I held the liver against my right eye, which was rapidly closing all the same; but my left had stopped watering and I managed a look at him. He was about my height but at least twice my weight. I thought that he was in his fifties but be seemed very fit and even more strong. It seemed that he would have been more than capable of the attack on my bête noire, although he would not have needed to use a weapon—his fists looked more than adequate. His nose had been broken at some time and badly set, but in other respects his strong eyebrow ridges, high cheekbones and full mouth reminded me very much of a corporal who had served with me. I find that people who look alike usually have other characteristics in common; and Jenkins had been a good-hearted man with a temper that could flare on the instant but cool as quickly. I decided that I was probably safe from further attack.
‘You’re talking about Ben Garnet?’ I suggested.
Anger stirred again for a second but he only said, ‘That cunning, conniving, devious bastard!’
‘You’ve summed him up,’ I said. ‘You do know that he’s in hospital? You didn’t put him there?’
He looked at me in surprise and then laughed. ‘Hell, no. It’s news to me. Good news. If I’d had the pleasure of putting him in dock, why would I have taken you for him?’
‘You could have thought that he was out and about again.’
He nodded, reasonably. ‘Well, I didn’t. When did it happen?’
‘Four nights ago.’
‘When I put him in hospital, as I surely will, believe me, he won’t be out in four days. And I only flew back into this country Saturday night.’
‘You’re in the oil industry?’ It seemed a reasonable assumption.
He nodded. ‘I’m a directional driller—the guy who flies out to tell the engineers what to do to get the drill-string back on track and doesn’t get believed until they try it.’
‘What’s your quarrel with Ben Garnet?’ I asked.
He frowned, but his usual amiable expression returned in a few seconds. ‘You ask a hell of a lot of questions for a guy who hasn’t even told me his name. But I guess I owe you an answer or two.
‘I get to retire in a year’s time. I’ll be sticking around in Scotland—my father’s family came from h
ereabouts, my wife’s a head teacher here and I’ve a daughter in college and another still at school. When they put me out to grass, I reckon to do some hunting—this is good country for geese and I’m in what they call a shoot the other side of Kinross. I’m fixing to buy a house so’s I’ll be able to keep a dog the way it should be kept and I want to start a pup soon so’s it’ll be ready when I am. Even now, I’m often at home for weeks at a time; and if I had to go back to Africa or Oman I could put the pup to a pro for training. There’s a guy called Cunningham near here that I’ve heard of. I phoned him once, spoke to his wife I guess, but at that time he didn’t have any bitches coming along. Maybe I’ll try him again.’
Isobel’s certainty that she had heard the voice was explained.
‘So I want a pup,’ he resumed. ‘I want to get fixed up now before I get sent offshore again. And I surely like your English springers. I’d prefer a bitch so’s I can get a pup to follow on if she turns out good and I’d like to try my hand at working tests and maybe even field trials if we’re good enough. I wasn’t going to take a mutt that was bred in the back yard by some guy looking to make a few bucks—I shan’t have the chance to start over again at my time of life. There’s never a guarantee of surefire success, but I want the nearest I can get. Who doesn’t?
‘A breeder called Steedman had a pup spare but it was a dog. Somebody put me in touch with Garnet, who had a litter. He isn’t a professional breeder but he showed me the two pedigrees and there were more champions on them than you could shake a stick at—field-trial champions, not show dogs. Well, to cut a long story sideways, he was convincing and against my better judgement I got talked into the back-yard deal. I picked out a bitch pup I surely liked. He was charging an arm and a leg, but OK, the breeding was better than just good. Then there was some problem over the pedigree and an unregistered pup wouldn’t be a damn bit of good to me. Garnet kept promising and promising that it’d come out right but I wanted it in writing and he kept slipping out from under.
Bloodlines (Three Oaks Book 8) Page 13
