Fair Game

by Sheila Radley

  Intent on preventing a confrontation, Martin raced the oncoming saboteurs and reached Joanna Dodd before they did. The drive was over – the beaters were just beginning to appear at the woodland edge – but Joanna was still firing at the last of the high pheasants.

  She was concentrating so hard that she didn’t see him until he stood right in front of her.

  With a three-inch advantage in height, she gave him a high-horse look from under her flat tweed cap.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded. As an afterthought, she pushed back her ear muffs so that she could hear his reply.

  ‘We have uninvited visitors,’ said Martin. He made a point of propping his gun against her peg. ‘Would you mind unloading your gun and putting it with mine?’

  Ingnoring his request, Joanna stared at the invaders. ‘Oh God, it’s the bloody antis,’ she said with disgust.

  She tightened her grip on her gun. Martin suspected that she meant to threaten the saboteurs with it.

  ‘Put it down, please!’ he said sharply.

  Affronted, Joanna Dodd turned her contempt on him. ‘I shall do nothing of the kind. Who the hell do you think you are?’

  ‘Detective Superintendent Tait, county police,’ said Martin, forgetting in the satisfaction of the moment that his promotion was still some weeks away. ‘Your gun, please?’

  He held out his hands for it. Speechless with astonishment, and looking at him as if for the first time, Joanna surrendered her shotgun. He unloaded it and propped it against the other side of the peg, just as the chanting, jeering saboteurs – fifteen or twenty of them – came skidding to a stop a few yards away.

  At the front were two unmistakable regular saboteurs, tough customers in their mid-twenties in combat gear and heavy boots. They had shaven heads – one with a bristly crest, one as bare as a bullet – and their faces were perforated with ear and nose rings.

  ‘Bloodthirsty bastards!’ they snarled, their faces distorted with hatred as they jabbed their fingers at Martin and Joanna.

  ‘Posh scum, posh scum –’

  Another man of the same age, taller, paler and pony-tailed, stood unobtrusively to one side and kept silent. He was carrying something heavy. Martin couldn’t at first see what it was, but he could guess.

  Saboteurs who know their rights come with an essential piece of high-tech equipment.

  The rest of the crowd were of student age, and they were fired with indignation and dismay.

  ‘Killers!’ they cried.

  ‘Save our pheasants!’

  ‘Murderers, murderers!’

  The intrusion had infuriated Joanna Dodd. Her strong-boned cheeks red with anger, she raised her voice and attempted to wither the saboteurs with words. Martin tried to defuse the situation.

  ‘Don’t speak to them,’ he advised her quietly. ‘It’ll only encourage them. What we’re going to do now is to pick up our guns – without being threatening – and walk away.’

  She turned to glare at him, her contempt renewed. ‘Walk away? I don’t believe this! Why aren’t you doing something – Superintendent?’

  Martin picked up his own gun by the barrel and put it under his arm. ‘There’s nothing I can do,’ he explained patiently. ‘They’re being thoroughly objectionable, but they’re not breaking the law. They’ll clear off, just as soon as we leave. Come on, let’s go.’

  But Joanna stood her ground. The saboteurs, targeting her, moved nearer with slow deliberation. The bullet-headed one picked up a cock pheasant she’d killed, holding it by its claws. Snarling, he shook it at her so that drops of blood, dripping crimson from its dangling green and scarlet head, splattered on her clothes.

  ‘Bloodthirsty bitch!’ he screamed.

  Joanna didn’t flinch. She was used to dead birds and blood. She’d already demonstrated that when it came to expletives she had a larger vocabulary than his, and now she wasted no more words.

  ‘I’ll give you ten seconds to turn and start running …’ she said grimly. She reached for her shotgun, only to find that Martin had already taken charge of it.

  ‘Ignore them, Joanna,’ he insisted. ‘They’re trying to provoke you into breaking the law.’

  ‘To hell with that! It’d only be their word against ours.’

  ‘No, it wouldn’t, they’ll have evidence. One of them’s using a video camera. Just pick up the rest of your gear and we’ll make a dignified retreat.’

  ‘But if we do that, they’ll have won!’

  ‘No, they won’t. They’ll only win if they can sue you for threatening behaviour or assault. Come on, we’re going. Now.’

  He turned and walked away, hoping that she would follow. But Joanna was reluctant to retreat. She took her time over collecting her gun case and cartridge bag, while the saboteurs jeered and jostled her. Martin watched from a short distance, ready to extricate her if she insisted on getting herself into trouble.

  Most of the protesters had begun to scatter. Uninterested in confrontation, and unsure of their purpose now that the shooting had stopped, they had thrown down their placards and were running about among the bushes on either side of the ride.

  Martin thought they seemed agitated. Then he realised, from their cries of distress, that they must be finding and trying to rescue wounded pheasants.

  It was a hopeless cause. Exactly the kind of thing he’d feared that Alison might do during the shoot. He wondered whether she was doing it now, having emerged from the safety of the wood at their back when the shooting stopped. Hoping to see her, he glanced over his shoulder.

  But the only people in sight were the Glavens. The other members of the shooting party were masked by the bushes further along the ride. The beaters had already made themselves scarce, and the pickers-up and their dogs hadn’t put in an appearance. Will’s labrador still sat by his peg, its domed forehead creased in puzzlement at the goings-on, but totally obedient.

  Lewis Glaven was approaching hurriedly. Some way behind him, Will was running up from the far end of the track. Both carried their guns under their arms.

  Martin went to meet his host. ‘Saboteurs, I’m afraid,’ he reported. ‘They’re doing nothing illegal, but they’re being provocative. I suggest we walk away from trouble. Would you mind calling off the shoot, sir?’

  He’d expected Lewis Glaven to explode with fury, but he seemed almost indifferent. Martin wondered if he felt unwell. His normally pink complexion had greyed to the colour of his moustache, and hurrying had made him lose his puff.

  Lewis paused to regain his breath. He surveyed the saboteurs with exasperation.

  ‘Unprepossessing lot … Ignorant, too – they’ve no understanding of the countryside. Good God, if they had their way there’d be no pheasants at all …’

  Then his colour began to return, and he continued in his usual clipped, unemotional style: ‘Not surprised they’ve appeared. Increasing problem in every rural area. We’ve discussed it at the Landowners’Association. Nothing you policemen can do, in the present state of the law, eh?’

  ‘Except keep the peace,’ said Martin, thankful that Lewis was so reasonable. ‘I’ve been trying to persuade Joanna to walk away, but she’s determined to argue with them. At least I’ve disarmed her, though.’

  ‘Quite right – she’s too quick with that gun. Can’t have any law-breaking. I’ll send Will to fetch her.’

  Will Glaven was nearing, his handsome face fired with annoyance. Evidently he’d made an appraisal of the situation, without having any idea of its legal delicacy, and intended to take gung-ho command.

  ‘Leave this to me, Dad,’ he ordered. ‘Get out of the way, Joanna!’

  He advanced on the two leading saboteurs, still carrying his shotgun under his arm.

  ‘Put your gun down, Will,’ urged Martin. His host’s son ignored him.

  The two front men, eager for a confrontation, folded their arms and stood squarely in Will’s way. The pony-tailed man hovered behind them, keeping his camera out of sight.

>   ‘Call yourself a sportsman?’ taunted the crested saboteur.

  ‘Makes you feel big, does it, killing birds?’ enquired bullet-head.

  Will’s annoyance increased to anger, but he made an obvious effort to contain it. ‘This land is private,’ he said, his jaw set, ‘and you are trespassing. Now get out.’

  They mocked him with grins. ‘If you want us to leave, you’ll have to make us,’ said one.

  ‘How’re you going to do that?’ tempted the other.

  Rattled, and conscious that he was being watched by Joanna, Will Glaven resorted to bluff. ‘Don’t worry, I shall do it!’

  Martin saw with alarm that his hand was tightening on his gun. He could also see that there were no cartridges in the breech; but that wasn’t the point.

  ‘Put it down!’ he called. But Will was so wound up that he was oblivious of everything except the taunts of the saboteurs: ‘You reckon?’ ‘You and whose army?’

  There was a second’s ferocious pause, and then their provocation worked. Will lost his head. Seizing his gun in both hands, he cocked it menacingly.

  ‘Move!’ he roared.

  It was Martin who did the moving. He leaped forward, grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and forced it upright. ‘Don’t be an idiot, Will! You’re playing right into their hands. They’ve got a video camera. They’re filming us – don’t you understand?’

  Whether Will Glaven understood or not, his father certainly did.

  ‘Filming?’ His face was as angry as his son’s. ‘The hell they are!’

  Lewis Glaven pushed Will aside. Before Martin had a chance to stop him, he went straight for the pony-tailed man with the camcorder, who filmed him every inch of the way.

  ‘Give me that!’ he bellowed, seizing the camera by the lens.

  There was a brief, undignified scuffle in the fading November light. It had begun to rain; the track was slippery with mud, and the pony-tailed man suddenly fell down with a yelp and a bloody nose. His assailant wrenched the video camera out of his hands.

  And then the unthinkable happened. Lewis Glaven – hereditary landowner, chairman of a major insurance group, respected public figure, churchwarden – pulled open the camera in a fit of rage and snatched out the film. Then he threw the whole lot to the ground and jumped on it, his heavy leather boots trampling the smashed components into the mud.

  The saboteurs cheered him on ironically. Even the cameraman was grinning, despite the blood running down his upper lip, as though the destruction of the camcorder was some kind of victory.

  ‘Oh my God …’ groaned Martin. A girl saboteur in a bobble hat had produced a pocket camera, and was busily taking photographic evidence. He looked on helplessly, envisaging charges of criminal damage and affray against Lewis Glaven, and the court case that would follow.

  Will Glaven, having failed to see the girl, was trying to bluff away the incident. ‘I didn’t see a thing!’ he asserted. He gave a heavy hint to their guest: ‘And you didn’t either, did you, Martin?’

  A sudden commotion saved Martin from rejecting the suggestion. The noise came from somewhere along the ride behind them. One of the protesters, a gangling lad, had leaped out of the bushes and was running up the track with long strides, his arms and legs pumping frantically.

  As he approached them, with spectacles so splodged with rain that he could hardly see, he was yammering something. It was impossible at first to hear what he said, but the shrill pitch of his cries chilled Martin to the bone.

  ‘A girl – a girl –’ he gabbled. ‘Lying there – blood all over her face. I think she’s been shot. I think she’s dead –’

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next few minutes were the worst in the whole of Martin Tait’s life. He knew without doubt that it was Alison who had been shot. And he was convinced that it must have been his own last shot, the one that missed the lowish bird behind him, that had hit her.

  – that hadn’t killed her, though – that please God hadn’t killed her –

  He wasn’t conscious of flinging down his gun, or of hurling himself along the track and plunging in among thorns to find her. All he was aware of was the piercing ache of love and the gouge of impending loss.

  ‘Alison!’ he cried as he fought his way through rain-dark thickets in search of her. And the pheasants he disturbed seemed to mock him with an echoing kurr-kuk.

  When he found her, it was quite by accident.

  Tripped by brambles that snaked out from a bush, he stumbled and almost fell; and where he almost fell, there she lay.

  Face down on wet grass, her legs ensnared by the same brambles, Alison lay with her head turned to one side. He could see the long lashes of her closed eye, and blood oozing down her cheek.

  ‘Oh my love –’

  He dropped to his knees beside her, and put out a shaking hand to touch her face. As he did so, her eyes flew open.

  ‘I thought you’d never come,’ she groaned.

  Relief that she was still alive washed over Martin like a breaker on a summer sea. He came up for air, his spirits buoyant.

  ‘Of course I’ve come! You’re going to be all right, darling …’

  Still on his knees, heedless of the mud, he lifted her shoulders so that she could rest against him. The movement made her draw in her breath with pain, and he took an apprehensive look at her facial wound. What with the dim light, and the mingling of blood and rain on her cheek, he couldn’t tell how badly she’d been hurt.

  It was clear, though, that the gangling lad had exaggerated when he reported blood all over her face. Gently dabbing it with his handkerchief, Martin realised thankfully that the wound was only superficial.

  Alison groaned again, but this time with a hint of asperity. ‘Never mind my face, that was just where a bramble clawed me. It’s my ankle that hurts like hell.’

  ‘Is that where you were shot?’ he asked, anxious again.

  ‘Shot?’ She sat up with an ‘ouch’. ‘I wasn’t shot anywhere – I was tripped by the blasted brambles and I’ve wrenched my ankle. I’ve been struggling to free myself, but I’m entangled worse now than when I started. I called and called for help …’

  ‘My poor love.’ Light-headed with relief, Martin took his Swiss army knife from the pocket of his Barbour and began to cut away the vicious growths that trapped her. ‘When I saw you lying there so still, I was convinced you’d been shot.’

  ‘I was just plain exhausted … Where’s Hope?’

  All Martin could think of was that the girl he loved was safe and well. ‘What?’ he said, forgetting for a moment that Hope was the name of another girl.

  ‘Have you seen her? She couldn’t bear to watch the shoot, so she ran for the wood behind us. I followed to keep her company, but lost sight of her when I fell.’

  ‘I expect she’s found Will, now the shooting has stopped,’ Martin reassured her. ‘I’m afraid your ankle’s badly swollen, love. You’ll have to have your boot cut off.’

  ‘Oh no! My favourite boots …’ she mourned.

  ‘Stop complaining, when I’m ruining these expensive trousers on your behalf! Come on, let’s get you up on your good foot. I’ll help you as far as the ride and then I’ll fetch some transport. As soon as we get back to the house, I’ll operate on that boot. I’ve always fancied myself as a surgeon …’

  Half-carrying her, he began steering her out of the bushes by a route that avoided the worst of the thorns. But though he was making jokes to cheer her, Martin was no longer feeling light-hearted.

  Something was wrong. Badly wrong.

  Where was everyone else? Why hadn’t Will and Lewis Glaven, and Joanna Dodd, and every protester who had at least a spark of concern for human as well as bird life, come running to help? Why hadn’t the gangling lad shown him where Alison was lying, instead of leaving him to find her by himself?

  In fairness to the lad, Martin had to acknowledge that he hadn’t given him a chance to help. Terrified by what he thought had happened to Alison, and know
ing that she must have disappeared into the bushes somewhere behind his peg, he’d gone rushing off on his own.

  And why hadn’t anyone followed him?

  Because Alison hadn’t been shot, that was why.

  And how did they know that?

  The logic was irrefutable: they knew, because it wasn’t Alison who had been shot. Because the gangling lad had seen another girl lying in the bushes with blood all over her face.

  Martin could hear a commotion going on, somewhere not far away. That was where everyone had run to.

  But who was lying there? Was it Hope? Or was it young Laura?

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was just after six in the evening, wet and cold. The lights were on all round the yard at the back of Chalcot House, illuminating the rain as it drummed down on the shooting party’s vehicles, still standing where they had been left at the start of the tragic shoot.

  Most of the members of the party were gathered in the gun room; their tweeds and their dogs steaming as they dried. The panelled room had an almost festive look, with a blazing log fire and the table laid for a traditional shoot tea of scones and rich fruit cake; but most of the food was untouched, and everyone needed a stronger drink than tea. Little was said, and the atmosphere was one of gloom and anxiety.

  Will Glaven was absent, and so was Hope Meynell.

  With the gangling lad as a guide, Will and his father and Joanna had found Hope lying among the trees at the edge of Belmont wood. She was unconscious, and bleeding copiously from a shotgun wound to the head. They had taken her back to the house in the Range Rover, and sent for an ambulance. Will had followed the ambulance to Saintsbury hospital, from where he had rung his father to say that she was in the intensive care unit, in a critical condition.

  Everyone was now waiting apprehensively for further news. That included Barclay Dodd, even though he was asleep. What with age and the exertions of the day, and whisky and the heat of the fire, Barclay was well away, his legs outstretched and the cake crumbs on his tweed waistcoat rising and falling with his snores. But before his eyes had closed, he had mumbled an instruction to his daughter to wake him when there was any news from the hospital.