Hen's Teeth

by Manda Scott

  Hundreds of them, easily. They won’t miss one or two. My rucksack has our day clothes. Good enough padding for a couple of eggs. Double up for safety’s sake. Make it four. There is no way we’re coming back here for more.

  Close the locks and slip the rucksack back on.

  ‘Let’s get the hell out of here, Adams.’

  ‘After you, Stewart. Don’t stop to talk to the horses.’

  We reached the car just short of one o’clock, both of us breathing too hard and wet with sweat. The fear gave way to the surging, heart-pumping rush of triumph. Very addictive – like reaching the top of a climb and finding you didn’t die.

  The eggs went into the glove compartment, wrapped in my shirt and padded in place with the discarded masks and gloves from the night-gear. I sat in the passenger seat with my finger on my pulse, breathing slowly and deeply, trying to calm down before we got on the open road.

  Cash Andrews’ party was well over by the time we passed his mansion on the way home.

  We cruised past the open gates. The floodlights were off, leaving the house in darkness save for a single light in a top window and a dim fire-fly glow from the conservatory at the back. As we watched, the upstairs light blinked into blackness.

  ‘Who do you suppose went home with a tray of eggs?’ I asked.

  ‘Who do you suppose didn’t go home at all?’ Lee pulled the Saab over to the side, killing the lights and the engine together. ‘Shall we look?’

  I looked at her sideways. ‘Do you want an answer to that?’

  She smiled in the darkness. An adrenalin-laden smile. Too bright for safety. ‘Not really.’

  Mad. Quite mad.

  Both of us.

  I eased the gloves and the balaclavas out of the glove compartment, taking care not to disturb the eggs. ‘Let’s not hang around, huh? We can’t even pretend to be gatecrashers any more.’

  The night was getting colder. Every outbreath clouded the air around us. A light ground frost sparkled on the gravel of the drive and whitened the grey velvet of the lawns. The moon was nearly full and loomed high over the house, casting crisp, black shadows against the greys and whites of the garden. There is no colour with moonlight. Even the azaleas came out black.

  Inside the wall, the gardens were relatively unprotected. The problem with having a garden party is that it’s difficult to keep up a useful level of security. Guests, particularly those of influence and affluence, don’t appreciate man-traps. It took the two of us less than twenty minutes to cross 500 yards of shrubbery protected by nothing more lethal than waist-high infrared beams and the occasional pressure sensor.

  Closer to the house it was more difficult. There was no obvious way to move quietly and invisibly. The gravel made too much noise and the frost on the lawns was the horticultural equivalent of fingerprint powder – everywhere we walked left a trail of black on white footprints that could have been seen from any window. The only alternative was to walk the uneven tightrope of the rocks that bordered the flowerbeds. We picked the ones closest to the house, relying on the shadow of its bulk for concealment.

  Cash Andrews’ home was better protected than his gardens had been. Looking up, I counted three different alarm systems and those were the ones I was supposed to see. The plants in the flowerbed to my left were not as aesthetically placed as they might have been and the soil was freshly turned. I would put serious money that there were pressure sensors under it, if not something more permanently damaging. Breaking in here isn’t going to alert anyone except the occupants and then only to dispose of the bodies.

  We edged a stone at a time along the border and I chose not to think of what would happen if one of the stones wobbled sideways on to the soft earth. By the time we reached the end of the border, I could feel my jugular pulse throbbing hard against the neck of my sweatshirt and my armpits were sodden. If anyone wanted to find us, all they needed to do was inhale deeply.

  Twice in one night isn’t just madness. It’s certifiable lunacy.

  I crouched beside Lee in the blackest shadows at the corner of the house, peering in through the glass of Cash Andrews’ conservatory and held my breath.

  No one came out. No one fired anything. No one stuck their head out of a window to ask us what the hell we were doing in their garden.

  Vines and creepers looped crazy designs on the inside of the conservatory’s domed walls but there was enough clear space to see through to the marble coffee table, the bottle of malt and the pair of squat tumblers standing beside it. And the single occupant sitting in the cane chair beneath an elevated basket of orchids. A big man, tall and carrying the unwanted weight of late middle age beneath the softening folds of a silk dressing gown. Angled lights behind his head cast odd shadows on the crags of his face and lit the white hair to the barley-gold of the Scotch. As we watched, he leant forward and topped up his glass, raising it appreciatively to the light. Cash Andrews, relaxing after a late night’s entertainment.

  I was about to edge round for a closer look when Lee’s hand closed on my arm, her fingers tight like talons. The line of her gaze led through the clutter of greenery towards the back of the conservatory, where it joined the rear of the house. A figure in a body-tight black suit walked out through the doorway and paused in front of the table. A lithe figure. Fit and muscular and unmistakably male. His head and upper torso were hidden by a cluster of trifoliate vine leaves, but as we watched, he stepped forward and the chalk-white face was suddenly visible through a gap in the foliage.

  The juggler.

  An entertainer who had the basic effrontery to throw an empty bottle at a party guest. A circus actor who stood now in Andrews’ private conservatory and poured his own malt as if he owned the place. Then he reached up to sweep both hands over his head, and his hair, freed from the close confines of the mime-actor’s cap, was bright fox-red and it flared out round his shoulders like a mane.

  Sweat prickled cold on the back of my neck.

  Lee’s fingers crushed deeper into the bones of my forearm.

  Neither of us moved an inch.

  The juggler stood ten feet away, facing us. Close enough to see the wind-browned skin and the thicker traces of chalk caught in the lines around his eyes. Close enough for him to see us if we moved, or if he caught a flash of white from an eye, or just chose to walk forward to the glass and look down into the shadows.

  Very, very slowly, I closed my eyes.

  Glass clinked on glass and malt flowed in gurgling bubbles.

  ‘Satisfactory?’ Andrews. He owns this man.

  ‘Very. You have good taste.’ A quiet voice but the edge is tungsten carbide. He doesn’t believe he is owned.

  ‘Naturally. I have the best to choose from. Did our young friend talk to anyone he shouldn’t?’ Andrews again. He’s enjoying this. A game to end the evening.

  ‘Not this time.’

  ‘Any loose ends?’

  ‘Of course. Why else am I here?’ The juggler isn’t owned and he isn’t playing games. This one kills for the fun of it. Lethal.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Baird shouldn’t have started talking. Somebody sent him.’

  ‘Then find them.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘What? You can’t think. Don’t be ridiculous, man . . .?’

  It was quiet then after all. In a crowded place, it would have passed for a cough, or a laugh perhaps, short and discreet at a private joke. The noise of flesh falling on wood carried further, but not enough to disturb the neighbours.

  He walks in complete silence, the juggler. I never heard him leave. But I heard the tap of glass on marble and the gentle clunk as the door to the conservatory closed. After that, there was peace.

  Cash Andrews’ plants whispered in the wind; shrub to lily to monkey puzzle tree. Rodents dissected the debris of the party. A distant cat called insults at a neighbour. The juggler, if he was waiting, said nothing.

  An age later, I opened my eyes and saw the single line of footsteps that
ran across the frosted white of the lawn and into the concealing shadows of the conifer plantation.

  Gone. Long gone.

  Now I can be sick.

  Lee moved forward from my side, heading for the door of the conservatory. I reached her before she opened it, got a hand on her arm, holding her back.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, Adams? He’s dead. Leave him be.’

  ‘He might not be.’ She removed my hand. ‘Remember the dog?’

  Oh, shit.

  She pushed open the door. ‘It won’t take two minutes to check.’

  It took far less than that.

  Cash Andrews sat, as if asleep, on the cane chair of his conservatory. His hands lay, in careful repose, on his lap. His head lolled on one side, a silvered trail of saliva streaking down from one corner of his mouth. His glass of malt stood, half-full, on the table before him. A lone man, resting in peace after a night’s entertainment. Except that his eyes were open and focused on nothing and where the front of his silk dressing gown fell sideways, an ink-thin line showed up black against the white bulk of his chest. Seventh intercostal space. Two inches to the left of the midline. Just the right size for a knife to go in and come back out again. Exactly like Danny Baird.

  We must have stood there for all of thirty seconds, taking it in. Then Lee laid tight fingers on my arm and tilted her head to the door. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ she said and this time, just this once, she didn’t wait for an answer.

  Ten

  I woke at dawn with a scintillating headache and the taste of stale bile in my throat. Someone else was already up, rattling the coal in the Rayburn and clunking the kettle on the hot plate. I lay still for a while, trying, without success, to ignore the waves of nausea that came with the memories of the night before and to remember instead some of the deeper things that lay hidden beneath the clouding layers of dream and exhaustion and sheer bloody panic.

  The blackbird started a fresh territorial war outside the window. Each trilling note drilled its way through the water-hammer pulse in my brain. I took a slow, steadying breath and got up.

  Downstairs, the back door hung open and Lee was sitting on the step, staring pensively out over the limpid water of the pond.

  ‘Want a refill?’

  ‘Thanks.’ Lee passed me an empty mug. ‘Sleep well?’

  ‘Lousy. You?’

  ‘Not a lot.’ She shook her head. ‘This is getting out of hand.’

  Tell me about it.

  I made the drinks and joined her on the cold stone. We sat together, blowing clouds of warm steam out into the iced air over the pond and watching the sun grow up over the edge of the Campsies.

  ‘Tod Andersen’s dangerous,’ said Lee quietly, staring out over the water.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The juggler. Tod Andersen.’ She grimaced faintly on the taste of the name.

  Tod. Lowland Scots for fox.

  Beware the fox.

  ‘Does Mhaire know him?’

  ‘She knows of him. He has a certain . . . reputation in town.’

  ‘Professional?’

  ‘Totally.’

  ‘Did he kill Tan?’

  ‘I should think so. It was his style.’

  ‘And Bridget?’

  ‘Doubt it. He only uses a knife. He wouldn’t know about insulin unless someone told him.’

  ‘Someone like Cash Andrews?’

  ‘No. If Cash was giving the orders this time, he’d still be alive. This is someone closer to home.’ Her eyes stayed on the water in front of us.

  I know that. We both know that.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘God knows. I don’t.’ She picked a pebble from the gravel and tossed it into the pond, shattering the surface. ‘We don’t have any proof, or any real leads, and I don’t think, frankly, that we have enough time to find any now.’ She walked over to the gate, sitting down with her back to it, facing me, so that we could see each other properly. ‘The doors are closing too fast. We need something to draw the bastard out.’

  ‘Andersen?’

  An image of a man in a Barbour jacket smiled a slow, vulpine smile at me from the surface of the pond. I shook my head, slowly because it still hurt, and looked away.

  ‘We don’t need to draw that one out,’ I said. ‘He’ll be back soon enough. It’s not as if he doesn’t know the way. We just have to sit still and wait.’

  ‘I know. So we need something to pull out whoever’s at the top. Big enough to make sure they bring Andersen along too.’

  Wonderful. So much for keeping things safe.

  There was another long silence, punctuated by the sound of pebbles dropping softly into the water of the pond. In the barn, the bantams added a broody background clucking to the fluted song of the dawn. More eggs for the collection. More posthumous clues from Malcolm.

  ‘If we know they’re coming,’ I said, ‘it gives us an edge. It’s better than nothing.’

  ‘It’s all we’ve got.’

  ‘Then it has to be here.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘I think so.’

  I stood up. ‘Let’s go and talk to the chickens,’ I said. ‘They’re always good for ideas.’

  We left the mugs on the step and wandered over to the barn together. Lee stood and talked to the horses, while I opened the various locks to the hen coop. Two fresh eggs lay warm in the dips in the straw. We carried them back to the house, one each, and as we walked, we sketched the outline of an idea.

  She left soon after that with a pair of marked eggs, one from the barn, one from Cash Andrews’ battery, each wrapped in its own fistful of toilet roll, nestling in the pockets of her jacket.

  Back in the barn the air was horse-warm and smelled of old hay and fresh urine. Ponies shifted restlessly, kicking at the box doors, pushing anxious heads out into the passageway, seeking release from a day and a night’s tedious incarceration. I took a hoof pick and a set of brushes from a tack box by the door and began to work my way down the line, cleaning out feet and scouring the worst of the mud from a succession of hairy backs.

  Rain’s filly, third in line, was skittish and foot-shy and had a bruised patch on the sole of her right hind that could have been the beginnings of pus in the foot. She objected, fast and hard, when I squeezed the hoof-testers across the bars of her heels, slamming me in a winded heap against the hard stone of the back wall with a hoof-shaped welt on one thigh. I cursed with feeling and picked myself up to try again.

  ‘Were you needing a hand, lass?’ The voice was familiar, if not entirely welcome.

  Stewart MacDonald was standing there in the open doorway, one eyebrow lifted diffidently in an expression of mild enquiry that was entirely at odds with the spark in his eyes. He was dressed in the poaching gear again, although it hung better, as if there were perhaps no dead bodies in the pockets. His heavy leather boots were wet with melted frost from a walk across long grass. The dog sat by his feet panting happily. I hadn’t even seen her leave.

  I stood up and shoved the hair back out of my eyes. ‘Can you hold feet?’

  ‘I’ll give it a try.’

  He left his jacket by the door and took the filly by the head collar, talking pidgin Gaelic and stroking his hand down her neck and along her back to her rump. She arched her crest and turned to nuzzle the back of his sweater. He reached down and grabbed a handful of the long hair at her fetlock, lifting the afflicted foot into his hand.

  ‘This one, was it?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks.’

  The pony stood like an angel as I squeezed her foot across and across with the hoof-testers and then pared away the patch of sole over the bruise to let out the pocket of purulent fluid that had built up underneath. Then MacDonald led her out into the passage and stood feeding her horse nuts and little handfuls of wet sugar-beet pulp while I made a poultice and dressing for the foot.

  ‘You should do this for a living,’ I said when it was over and we had walked the pony back into her
box.

  ‘I nearly did,’ he said. ‘Father was a farrier.’

  ‘But you chose the police instead?’

  ‘Aye. There were two of us, the brother and me, and there’s not enough work for us both with the horses. Duncan took after father and I went into the force instead. It wasn’t a bad choice. I think, of the two, I got the better deal.’

  He trailed off into silence and for a moment there was a distant look in his eye. Then he shook his head briskly and brought his gaze back into focus. ‘Were you wanting a hand with the rest?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I gave him the hoof pick and we worked the rest of the line together, him cleaning the feet since that was what he was good at, me on the manes and tails with the brushes.

  He was bent double, hacking clotted mud and grit from Balder’s dinner-plate feet, when he spoke again.

  ‘I got a phone call from Mary Brower yesterday.’

  ‘Really? Bridget’s GP?’ I finished the mane and walked round to the tail to hear him better. ‘How’s the baby?’

  ‘Fine. She got home yesterday. She was a touch upset that no one had told her about the lassie dying. She only heard when she got back.’

  ‘Why did she call you?’

  ‘Ms Donnelly tried to phone her the day she died.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘She was feeling poorly and she wanted advice. Dr Brower was waiting for a car to take her in to the hospital so she told the lass to call the practice.’

  ‘And did she?’

  ‘The doctor thought not. Your friend said she didn’t like the new locum.’

  ‘There’s a surprise.’ Bridget had better taste than that.

  ‘Aye, well. Maybe if she had, she’d be better.’ He finished the foot and let it drop, crossing to lift its partner. ‘She called because she thought she had food poisoning after eating the eggs from the chickens.’

  ‘Oh, hell.’ I’m not sure I wanted to know that. ‘You mean she knew? Bridget knew about the eggs?’

  ‘No.’ He straightened slowly, grimacing as his back creaked into line. ‘At least, she didn’t say anything on the phone about insulin. And even if she did know, it still doesn’t tell us who it was pumped her full of temazepam afterwards.’