The Curse of the Cockers

by Gerald Hammond

  The police made a song and dance about the puppy in the hope of bringing out a clue as to where the pup had come from, but I had been annoyed when they released the name of the kennels. We had had trouble in the past over dogs which had come into our keeping through unconventional channels. ‘That was a temporary arrangement,’ I told him. Which was true as far as it went. ‘Are you looking for a dog pup, or a bitch?’

  ‘I’ve always preferred dogs. And as young as possible. If that cocker pup’s looking for a good home . . .’

  ‘It isn’t. We’ve a litter of springers of about the right age, and there’s one dog pup not spoken for.’

  ‘Shy or pushy?’

  ‘He was the pushiest of the litter, but that isn’t saying much. His dam’s one of those anxious to please bitches and his sire’s no extrovert. I expect him to turn out well.’

  ‘Let’s take a look at him.’

  Beth had come to the front door to be sure that I wasn’t getting cold, but I was more than warm in my sheepskin coat and I glared at her to tell her so. She grinned at me and vanished.

  I gave Mr Morgan the guided tour of the kennels. It always amuses me when I see hard-boiled businessmen go mushy over young pups and although he tried to look calm and dispassionate I could see that Mr Morgan would have liked to go down on his knees and play. But he knew what he was about and I was in no doubt that any pup of his would be well looked after. He made the acquaintance of the uncommitted dog pup and they seemed to strike up an instant rapport, but he asked some penetrating questions about hip scores and hereditary eye defects.

  ‘I’ll hand you over to Mrs Kitts,’ I said. ‘That’s her department and she makes sure we don’t breed in any future problems. She’ll tell you about shots and give you the pedigree. He’s registered as Poplar but he won’t be worried if you call him something else.’

  I left Mr Morgan with Isobel, who had been catching up with the accounts indoors. She must have satisfied him, because I met him on the doorstep twenty minutes later, carrying the pup.

  ‘You took him?’ I said. ‘I hope you’ll be happy together. Do you have a basket for him? And puppy-meal?’

  ‘We’ll get by.’

  ‘Will he be far away?’ I asked. Morgan looked at me quizzically. ‘I like to know where my pups are going,’ I explained.

  ‘Not far from Invergordon.’

  ‘You’ve a long run ahead of you then. I’d better not keep you.’

  He nodded and got into the Jag, putting the pup into a small travelling basket on the seat beside him. The car rolled away with a gentle purr that made me envious. My old car sounded as though it was carrying a load of empty beer-cans.

  I turned towards the front door.

  ‘He was pulling your pisser,’ said a voice.

  I jumped and turned round. A deep shrubbery runs along the roadside wall and at the nearest corner, separated from the house by thirty yards of lawn, grew an ancient holly still bright with berries. Inside its dark leaves and almost hidden from view, Rex was sitting at ease on a bare limb. He was warmly wrapped in a leather coat that looked as if it might once have belonged to a Panzer Oberleutnant and the stripe in his hair was now scarlet.

  ‘What the hell are you doing in there?’ I asked him.

  ‘Waiting for Daffy to come off. That chiel never comes from Invergordon. I seen that car a dozen times in Dundee, and him driving it.’

  I could think of several explanations. Mr Morgan might live near Invergordon but visit Dundee regularly on business. All the same . . .

  ‘Did you notice the registration?’

  He shook his head impatiently. ‘Plates was too muddy. Looked like he done that a-purpose.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it matters,’ I said.

  I found Isobel in the kitchen. She had returned to her accounts. ‘Did you get that man’s name and address?’ I asked her.

  ‘You told me his name, so that’s what I wrote in the forms. I thought you’d taken his details.’

  ‘Let’s have a look at his cheque.’

  ‘He paid cash.’ Isobel handed over a useful small wad of notes. ‘You’d better lock it up for the night. He said that he could trust us, he didn’t need a receipt. Is something wrong?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ I said.

  An hour or so later, the promised senior officers arrived. While I got out of my muddy boots and outdoor clothing, washed, and tried to give myself a veneer of presentability, Beth chatted to them about nothing in particular. They probably thought (as I did) that she was afraid to leave them alone in the sitting room in case they pinched one of our very few heirlooms.

  They turned out to be two detective chief inspectors with a detective sergeant in tow. The combination seemed unusual – among the police, as in other large organizations, equal rivals at the top of a pyramid are rarely tolerated, a single figurehead being preferred with the ranks proliferating downwards. I let my surprise show and I was told, in tones which suggested that it was none of my damn business and that Joe Public only existed to speak when spoken to, that one DCI and the sergeant were from Kirkcaldy, the seat of our local police headquarters; the other DCI, who explained carefully that he was only present as an observer, had come over from Tayside. So the likelihood of a link with one or both of the Dundee cases was being taken seriously.

  Detective Chief Inspector Kipple – from Kirkcaldy – did most of the talking. He went over our previous statements, concentrating on who we had seen at Hogmanay, when, where, and doing what. The sergeant took copious notes, interrupting occasionally to check the spelling of names although these had been checked carefully before our previous statements had been signed. We were then invited to retire to the kitchen while Isobel, and Henry who had walked over to escort her home, were questioned and cross-questioned separately. (We learned later that Daffy and Rex had already been intercepted and milked of their stories.)

  Before the police contingent departed, the Tayside DCI, McStraun by name, took a close look at the puppy but he said nothing except to ask whether we were willing to keep him safe for a little longer.

  I said that we were, but Beth, who has a sharper eye to the financial side, asked politely who we should bill for the puppy’s keep. DCI McStraun looked mildly amused and said that that would, no doubt, sort itself out in due course.

  They drove away into darkness, no blue lights flashing.

  It was time for an end to the working day and, as usual, we settled for a drink in the sitting room, the three partners plus Henry, with Sam snoring gently on Beth’s lap.

  ‘That was rather odd,’ I remarked after I had handed round the glasses. ‘I don’t know what they asked you, but they didn’t ask us the questions I’d have asked if I’d been investigating.’

  ‘You mean, if you’d been investigating a total mystery,’ Isobel said.

  ‘What my better half means,’ said Henry, ‘is that they were only mildly interested in descriptions of the few strangers in the bar that night. And they weren’t much concerned about the truly local people who would have walked in. They were much more interested in who would have come by vehicle, be it Land-Rover or Reliant Robin Turbo.’

  ‘So they’re looking for witnesses who’d have been in the car park,’ Beth said.

  ‘I think . . .’ Henry said slowly. He paused and drank from his whisky. ‘I think that they know who they’re after and they’re looking for witnesses to fill in the gaps in the evidence against him.’

  Beth gave a little shiver. ‘I hope it’s nobody we know,’ she said.

  ‘That doesn’t matter a damn,’ Isobel pointed out. ‘If somebody is a serial killer, the sooner he gets his head in a sling the better, whether we know him or not.’

  ‘That’s true. And yet you can’t help wondering who it is,’ Beth said.

  ‘I can,’ Isobel said. ‘Very easily. Knowing never changes anything, except your peace of mind.’

  We did not have to wonder for many hours. Shortly after midnight, I crawled slowly out
of a deep sleep to realize that the room was still dark but Beth had vanished from the bed. When I shook off the duvet and raised my head from the pillow I could hear her voice from downstairs. The chill of night was through the house. From the silences, I knew that she was on the phone. I must have dozed again because the next thing I knew was that she was in the room with me, the bedside light was on, and she was plugging in the telephone.

  ‘Just in case it rings again,’ she said when she saw that I was awake.

  ‘Who was it?’

  Out of habit, Beth took a quick look into Sam’s cot before shrugging off her quilted dressing-gown and getting into bed. She wrapped her coldness around me, borrowing warmth.

  ‘Nothing for you to worry about,’ she said. ‘Mrs Todd was on the phone, wanting to know if Angus was here. Then she wanted to know whether he’d been here at all this evening, because he said he was going to come and see us and he hasn’t fetched up at home and she was wondering if he hadn’t got himself fu’ and set off to walk home again. He does that sometimes. I said that, if he’d had too much to drink here, one of us would have driven him home.’

  ‘We wouldn’t have given him that much to drink in the first place,’ I said.

  ‘No. But I couldn’t tell her that. I said that he was probably walking home from somewhere else and he’d turn up soon. Do you think he’ll be all right?’

  There was no way I could know whether Angus would be all right or not, but the middle of the night was not the best time for debating the question. I said that I was sure that Angus would get home safely. We were soon asleep again but even in my sleep I knew that Beth was restive.

  *

  I was up and about next morning at an hour that was, for me, unusually early, while Beth was still dealing with the demands of Sam and Daffy was beginning the chores. Knowing that the Todds were unvarying early risers, I dialled their number while picking my way through a bowl of cereal.

  Mrs Todd answered. Yes, Angus had arrived home safely. She evaded my polite questions, thanked me for asking, and hung up on me. It was unlike the normally garrulous lady to be so curt; she was usually a carefully perfect speaker but she had lapsed into the language and accent of her youth. Mrs Todd, I gathered, was very much upset. I supposed that any wife would be upset by a husband who looked on the whisky while it was amber and had to walk home through the night, and I put Angus out of my mind.

  Until, that is, he came creaking and jangling up to the door in the late morning, on a lady’s bicycle that must have been at least as old as himself. He was unshaved and looking both ten years older and exhausted – as well he might after such a ride. I had been giving several of the younger dogs steadiness training, at first in the rabbit pen and then on the threadbare grass that passes for our lawn. I left Daffy to kennel them and took Angus out of the cold day and into the warm kitchen, where Isobel was finishing the interrupted accounts and Beth was making preparations for our lunch.

  Angus almost collapsed into one of the basket chairs and I took the other. ‘What brings you here?’ I asked. ‘Apart from the bicycle. Have you crashed your Land-Rover?’

  He shook his head and stayed silent. This was a far cry from the tough extrovert we knew. Beth gave us each a mug of soup and he nodded his thanks.

  ‘I came . . .’ he said at last. ‘Came . . . I need to know if you’re interested in what I said to you at Hogmanay. I’m tidying up the loose ends. I may be . . .’ His voice faded again.

  Beth stopped and looked into his face. ‘Angus, what’s happened?’

  Angus glanced at her then met my eyes. ‘The police kept my Land-Rover,’ he said. ‘They’ve charged me with leaving the scene of an accident, but I’ve no doubt there’s more to come. For the moment I’m on bail.’

  ‘And did you?’ I asked him.

  He still held my eyes. ‘There was no accident that I knew of at the time. I didn’t even drive the bugger again that night. Not after I reached the pub.’

  ‘Hogmanay, was that?’

  ‘Aye. I was going easy on the drink, knowing I’d a drive and a long night ahead of me. But after I spoke to you I had a single dram with a mate and then met the man that owns the land the shoot’s on. He was on low-alcohol lager but he offered me another dram while we talked business. I said that I’d maybe had enough if I was to drive and he said he’d run me home if I was over the limit. So I took it – a large one – and I bought a round while we were still talking. I was getting a lift, you see?’ he repeated anxiously.

  ‘I understand,’ I said. ‘What went wrong?’

  ‘When we’d tied up some details, I went to the shunkie. I was maybe a bittie longer than I might’ve been, because Harvey Welcome came in and he was in an awful state for going home, his shirt hanging out and he’d been sick down his front. I couldn’t let his wife see him that way so I cleaned him up as best I could and tidied him. When I got back to the bar, the man had given me up and gone. So I had one for the road and set off and walked home.’

  ‘Eight miles?’ I said.

  ‘It’s not quite that far, walking, and it seems less with a few good drams under your belt. I crossed the street and took the track that brings you out on the Cupar road. The neighbours had been and gone before I got home, but one of them brought the wife over to fetch the Land-Rover later in the day, I wasna’ fit to drive.’

  He fell silent again, sipping at the soup which was still too hot to drink.

  ‘It shouldn’t be difficult to prove that your Land-Rover was in the pub car park all night,’ Beth said. ‘How many cars were there when you came out?’

  ‘Damned if I know. I never went round the back to look. But I’d parked in the furthest bit, beyond the wee stand of trees. It’s a thin chance that somebody’d notice it there. And there was precious few cars in the car park when I left it. Folk have more sense than to take a car out at Hogmanay. I wish to God I’d been one of them.’

  ‘They wouldn’t be harassing you,’ Isobel said, looking up from her papers, ‘unless they had some hard evidence.’

  ‘Aye. I just can’t make sense o’t,’ Angus said miserably. ‘There was blood and hair on my front bumper. They showed it to me and asked me to explain it. I said I’d not an idea in my head how it could have got there.’

  ‘Just on the bumper?’ Beth asked. ‘Not on the bonnet?’

  ‘Just the bumper. But I’d washed the damned thing when the wife got back wi’t, just for something to do until I was sober and to keep the de Forgan kids out of the wife’s hair. Damned if I ken how I missed the bumper,’ Angus said frankly, ‘except I was still stotting. The fact I washed it at all looks bad to them.’

  ‘It would,’ Isobel said. ‘Could somebody else have driven it away, run the man down, and put it back?’

  ‘I canna’ think it. It was just exactly where I’d left it and parked in the same gear – the handbrake doesn’t work worth a damn. A Land-Rover’s easy enough to break intil, they can be hot-wired and there’s no steering lock, not on that model. There was no sign of interference, naethin’ like that at all. There’s even been a wee drip of oil from the sump plug this past week and when I went to take a look on the way here there was just the one small stain to be seen. They’d’ve been two if anybody’d driven it and put it back, me or anybody else.’

  ‘You told the police that?’ I asked.

  ‘Aye. They think I drove it mysel’ an’ put it back there to give mysel’ a sort of an alias.’

  ‘Alibi,’ I said.

  ‘That’s what I was meaning,’ he snapped with a touch of his old fire. But the spark died away immediately. ‘There’s a whole lot more. I couldna’ make head nor tail of some of their questions, but they were asking – and in front of my wife – if I’d not had a fancy woman in Dundee. And then they got on to me about yon tearaway that was killed a few years back.’

  ‘The one mentioned in the local paper?’ I asked. ‘The biker?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘I thought that that was onl
y a bit of wild guesswork by the reporters.’

  ‘Seemingly not. Or else the police are making the same guesses. I’d had a run-in wi’ the skellum myself and it was all on the record, the way it worked out. I was keepering for old Mr Crae – he’s dead now, rest his soul – and that lad, McKendrick his name was, he was a member of a motorbike gang, the worst sort, all black leather and nastiness. He used to come onto the land and tear around on his bike, scaring the birds right over the boundaries and knocking over the feeders. Sometimes he’d be with others but more often alone. Rode right at me once and near bowled me over.

  ‘Left to myself I’d’ve knocked him off his bike and sorted him out with a whippy stick, but Mr Crae said not to put mysel’ in the wrong. So we did it by the book, took him to court to ask for an interdict restraining him from coming on the land, and I was the main witness. But he denied it a’ and swore blind that I’d attacked him when he’d only stopped at the roadside near by to fix his chain. The sheriff didn’t see through him and we lost out.

  ‘Not long after, he was killed. I’d nothing to do wi’t. I was questioned four times, but there was no evidence either way. I’m thinking they’d have made a case if they could but the Fiscal’s office wasn’t for it.’

  ‘It was before we moved here,’ Beth said. ‘What really happened?’

  Isobel, her nose still in her papers, made a sound of disgust.

  Angus shook his head sadly. ‘It was a terrible business. I’d wanted him to get his comeuppance, but I wouldna’ wish what happened on the devil himself, not even on Saddam Hussein. Somebody took a hammer to him. But it was nothing as merciful as a knock on the head. Both his knees were broken and his hands were mashed. Then his mouth was taped up and he was dumped not far from here in Tentsmuir Forest and left to die of exposure. He couldna’ crawl and he couldna’ pull away the tape so he just lay there and died.’