Fair Game

by Sheila Radley

  ‘Now, he knows there’s bound to be a police investigation. And what he doesn’t want at Chalcot is some cynical, bolshy detective, who’s got no time for the upper classes anyway, sniffing round saying What’s been going on here?’

  ‘Someone like Ian Wigby,’ suggested Hilary, naming a detective constable who had done his best to cut Tait down to size when he was a sergeant at Breckham Market.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Quantrill. ‘Far better, from Lewis Glaven’s point of view, to have a socially ambitious senior detective already there, as his guest at the scene of the crime.’

  Tait straightened immediately. His ears reddened with anger. ‘Are you suggesting that I’m an accessory?’

  ‘No, of course I’m not. But Lewis Glaven might well have thought it would be no bad thing to have you there. At best – from his point of view – you might have been prepared to short-circuit the investigation. At worst, he knew he could rely on you to refuse to believe a word against him.’

  ‘Just as you’ve been doing for the past half-hour,’ pointed out Hilary.

  They both smiled at Tait.

  ‘What we reckon,’ said Quantrill kindly, ‘is that Lewis Glaven set up the murder – and you as well.’

  They were still feeling pleased with themselves as they watched Martin Tait’s BMW disappear rapidly down the road to Saintsbury. But as soon as they were in Quantrill’s car, they sobered.

  There were two radio messages for the chief inspector.

  One was that Darren Jermyn had been found, but he denied all knowledge of Laura Harbord’s whereabouts.

  The other was a report from the enquiry team that had been doing a house-to-house in Chalcot village. Several ageing vehicles – a minibus, two small vans and the odd car – had assembled outside the Dun Cow at about two thirty on Saturday afternoon. They had apparently contained a crowd of teenagers, with one or two older men. Later, the vehicles had been seen parked on the verge of the minor road between Chalcot and Ashthorpe, beside the wall of the Glavens’estate.

  A different vehicle had been seen, earlier on Saturday afternoon, parked in much the same place. The witness had recognised it as the Daihatsu Fourtrak belonging to Reg Brunt. But when the enquiry team called at the master butcher’s bungalow, and at the next-door shop, he could not be found.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Darren Jermyn had made a voluntary reappearance when he was down to his last thirty pence. His mother was working the Monday morning shift at Sainsbury’s when a solitary packet of smoky bacon crisps sailed along the conveyor towards her till, and a sheepish voice muttered, ‘Hallo, Mum.’

  The Jermyns had spent a very worried night. Brenda had been further distressed, and embarrassed, to arrive at work and find that her colleagues knew from the local newspaper that both Darren and his girlfriend had disappeared. Asking to finish her shift early, she took her son firmly in hand.

  Brenda was of course thankful to see him. But she was angry with him for causing so much trouble, and shocked by his dishevelled appearance and his unwashed smell. She sent him to clean himself up and then have a hot meal in the coffee shop, while she rang Breckham Market police station to report that he was found.

  Sergeant Lloyd interviewed Darren as soon as she returned.

  She had seen his school-leaving photograph when she visited his parents, but the Darren who sat opposite her in the interview room was no longer curly-haired and confident and happily in love. His eyes were downcast under his cropped head, his face was sullen, his fingernails were filthy, and a rash of spots had broken out beside his mouth. Whether it was the withdrawal of Laura’s love that had brought about the change, Hilary reflected, or the change in him that had made her withdraw her love, the lad’s pain was evident.

  ‘You’ve been sleeping rough, haven’t you, Darren? What made you do that?’

  ‘Trouble,’ he muttered.

  ‘Trouble because of Laura?’

  ‘No, because of the sabs. Nothing to do with Laura. At least …’

  He knew he’d be in trouble with Mr Glaven, he said, because he’d deserted from the shoot and then called in the sabs. He wanted to stop the killing, that was all. Same as Laura wanted, only he hadn’t told her what he was going to do.

  He’d biked down to the village and rung an old mate from school, who now went to Yarchester City College and had done a bit of anti-hunt sabbing. Darren had told him how to get to Belmont, across the broken wall from the back road. He’d asked him to spread the word and bring in as many protesters as possible.

  But Darren hadn’t reckoned on experienced sabs coming. He hadn’t reckoned on serious trouble. When the protest turned nasty, and there was a fight between Mr Glaven and one of the sabs, Darren had decided he’d better disappear.

  ‘You were there protesting with your mate, were you?’ asked Hilary.

  ‘No – I didn’t want anybody from the Chalcot estate to see me. I was watching, that’s all.’

  He couldn’t go back to his lodgings, or home, he said, because everybody was going to blame him for what had happened. So he’d biked to Breckham Market and he’d been there all weekend, sleeping in a shed in the builder’s yard where his Dad worked. But then he’d run out of money …

  ‘Why did you go back to the shoot, if you weren’t going to join the protest?’ asked Hilary. ‘Was it because you knew Laura would be there?’

  Darren picked at his spots. He was concerned for Laura, he said. He knew she intended to make some kind of risky solo protest, and he wanted to find her and stop her doing it.

  Yes, because he loved her.

  Yes, because he wanted to get back with her.

  Yes, all right: because he couldn’t accept that she didn’t love him any more.

  ‘Laura’s missing,’ said Hilary. ‘But then, you know that, don’t you?’

  Darren muttered that his mother had told him.

  ‘When did you last see Laura?’

  He had finished the coffee he’d been given, and now he fiddled with the empty polystyrene mug, squeezing it and cracking it in his big raw hands. Sergeant Lloyd repeated her question.

  It was at Belmont, Darren said. But all he’d seen of Laura was one distant glimpse, when she’d run out from the bushes to try to stop the shooting. She was in the wrong place, that was why he hadn’t seen her earlier.

  He’d expected Laura to be hiding in the bushes between the driven pheasants and the shooting party, so she’d be facing the Guns as soon as she jumped out of cover. That was where he’d been searching for her, before the drive started. But then, after the Guns were standing by their pegs, somebody spooked some birds behind them. No wonder he couldn’t find her, if that was where she’d been hiding.

  Hilary sat back, easing the pressure on the boy. Though she was interviewing him about Laura Harbord, there was always the possibility that he’d seen something relevant to the murder enquiry.

  ‘Where exactly were you when you saw the birds being spooked?’ she asked.

  ‘Far end of the ride, on the edge of the trees,’ he said. ‘I’d worked my way all along, looking for Laura. I ended up opposite the horsy woman.’

  ‘I see … Tell me, Darren, did any of the Guns move away from their pegs while the shooting was going on?’

  Now that his own actions weren’t in question, he looked up and became more co-operative.

  ‘Everybody moved,’ he said. ‘Major Will’s girlfriend got upset and ran for the wood at their back. The other man’s girlfriend went after her. Then Laura jumped out from behind them, shouting and waving her arms, and ran down the ride the other way. I didn’t have a chance to rescue her, I wasn’t near enough. Major Will and the other man were rushing about like headless fowls –’

  ‘And Joanna Dodd? The horsy woman?’

  Darren almost smiled at the recollection, and for a few moments Hilary could see the attractiveness of the lad.

  ‘She didn’t take a blind bit of notice,’ he said with admiration. ‘She just stayed put and w
ent on firing at high pheasants until the sabs surrounded her.’

  ‘You’re sure of that?’

  ‘’Course I’m sure. I was watching her. I wouldn’t mind some of the pheasants being shot, if every Gun was as good as she is. Every bird she hit was dead in the air.’

  ‘That’s nice to know,’ said Hilary. She had believed Joanna Dodd’s denial, and so she was glad to be able to cross her off the list of murder suspects.

  ‘And talking of birds, Darren – you notice what they’re doing, don’t you? You said that some of them were being spooked, behind the Guns, before the drive started. Do you think it was just one person who was doing the spooking?’

  ‘Couldn’t have been,’ he said, confident now that his own expertise had been called on. ‘I could tell that somebody was moving along through the bushes by the way the fieldfares and redwings were taking off. That must have been Laura. But there were pheasants rocketing up from a lot further back in the wood, at the same time. That must have been somebody else.’

  ‘Any idea who?’

  He shrugged, evidently tired of being questioned. ‘No idea. Can I go now?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Hilary firmly. ‘You’ve been helpful, and I’m grateful to you for that. But you haven’t finished telling me about Laura. What did you do when you found her, after the shooting stopped?’

  Darren scowled, sullen again. He hadn’t found her, he protested. He’d caught that one glimpse of her, when she ran out from behind the Guns, and that was all.

  ‘That’s not true,’ said Hilary. ‘You were seen together, behind a tree. “Messing about with each other”, so we’ve been told. Were you trying to make love to her?’

  Darren’s face flared up, as red as his acne.

  He denied that he’d spoken to Laura on Saturday afternoon, let alone touched her. He had no idea where she went after the shoot – he’d assumed she’d gone home. He hoped to God she was safe, because he loved her. But anybody who said they’d been seen together was lying.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Hilary. ‘Why should anyone want to lie about it?’

  Head down, Darren said nothing. Then, suddenly, he looked up, his scowl clearing.

  ‘It was that poxy old keeper, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?’ he demanded. ‘Len Alger’s always trying to get me into trouble. He’s too old for his job, and he’s afraid Mr Glaven will let me have it. You can’t believe a lying old bastard like him!’

  ‘We can’t believe both of you, that’s for sure,’ said Hilary briskly. ‘So what we’re going to do, Darren –’

  She was about to alarm him with the prospect of having his clothes taken away and examined for forensic evidence. But then she remembered something else.

  ‘By the way – where’s your shotgun?’

  He looked blank.

  ‘You had it with you on Saturday, didn’t you?’

  ‘No. No reason to have it. It’s in its usual place at Len Alger’s.’

  ‘In his shed? It’s not, you know.’

  Darren shook his head impatiently. ‘It isn’t kept in his shed. Mr Glaven would never allow that. It’s always kept secure, same as the keeper’s own guns, in a locked steel cabinet in his kitchen.’

  Chief Inspector Quantrill spent the early part of the afternoon at Chalcot, checking the progress of the two investigations.

  The interviews with Saturday’s beaters and pickers-up – apart from Dorothy Wilson-Brown – had been completed. Frustratingly, in spite of the fact that they were all local men, not one of them had seen anything of any significance.

  The beaters knew Laura Harbord by sight, but none of them had seen her at Belmont. By the time they had pushed their way through to the edge of the ride, flushing out the last of the pheasants, most of the shooting had already stopped.

  Seeing the Guns in disarray, and saboteurs milling about at the far end of the ride, the beaters had kept their heads down. As soon as they realised that something was badly wrong, and that a girl had been hit, they’d hurried across the ride and tried to help. And that was all they knew about the shooting.

  As Quantrill had expected, the elderly pickers-up had seen nothing of Laura either. He knew they always stood well back behind the Guns, waiting with their dogs for the shooting to finish. What he was sure was that they’d have noticed if any of the Guns had left their pegs during the drive; but if they had noticed, they weren’t saying.

  During the morning there had been four pickers-up, in addition to Mrs Wilson-Brown who always stood behind her brothers. By the afternoon, what with their age, the exertions of the morning and a hearty lunch, only two of them were still on their feet.

  Understandably, those two had preferred not to walk all the way down the ride. As a result, the pickers-up were all positioned behind pegs one to four, where they saw nothing of the events leading to the shooting of Hope Meynell. And for whatever reason – whether it was true, or whether out of loyalty to Lewis Glaven on peg four – they had stoutly denied to their interviewers that any of the Guns had moved during the drive.

  Still digesting this information the chief inspector took a walk down the ride towards the scene of the shooting. There was a lot of activity in the bushes and among the trees, and he heard complaints of harassment from pheasants on all sides.

  On the west of the ride, estate workers and villagers were continuing the search for Laura Harbord. On the east, the scenes-of-crime team were working in the woodland behind pegs five to seven, looking for further clues to the murder of Hope Meynell.

  There had been so many people blundering about round the wounded girl after the shooting that the team had been unable to find any evidence to connect anyone with the crime. But they had found what they were specifically looking for: a single empty cartridge case, its orange-red colour making it difficult to spot against the russet of fallen leaves, lying in a position consistent with its ejection from the murder weapon.

  The cartridge was an Eley number 6: six lead pellets to the ounce, the usual size for shooting pheasants. According to the forensic report, pellets of that size had been found embedded in Hope Meynell’s face and shoulders.

  Unfortunately, there was nothing distinctive about the make. Police enquiries had revealed that the nearest agent for Eley cartridges, a gun dealer in Breckham Market, had for many years supplied them in bulk to the Chalcot estate. He’d confirmed that he also supplied them to most other shooting estates in the district, including the Dodds’and the Treadgolds’, and to the syndicate to which Reg Brunt belonged.

  The scenes-of-crime officer, a greying detective constable, had found evidence further away, though.

  ‘We know that a man stood shooting in a clearing in the wood about a hundred yards back,’ he reported, when Quantrill visited the place where the shot was fired. ‘We’ve found a heavily trodden patch of grass, a scattering of feathers, a shot-to-pieces hen pheasant and eleven empty cartridge cases.’

  ‘Eley number 6?’

  ‘Right. What’s more there’s a path, probably made by the keepers, that runs from the clearing to the edge of the trees about twenty yards away. Getting here would have been easy enough.’

  Quantrill mulled over the information. He had to admit, however unwillingly, that the case against Reg Brunt began to sound conclusive.

  Certainly the man had a motive for killing Hope Meynell. He had parked his Fourtrak outside the estate wall on Saturday afternoon, so it was likely that he was the one who’d been in the clearing.

  No doubt he’d fired the eleven shots so as to bring down a few pheasants and give himself a poaching alibi. His firing hadn’t been heard by the shooting party, so presumably he’d done it when they themselves had started shooting. Then he’d gone along the path to the woodland edge and taken his twelfth shot, this time at Hope Meynell.

  Yes – it all seemed to fit. And possibly, Quantrill conceded, it was nothing but a pig-headed determination to disagree with Martin Tait that kept him from admitting it without any reservation. But his instinct was sti
ll for Lewis Glaven and so he tramped off on his own, as he always liked to do, down the muddy ride towards peg number four.

  The scenes-of-crime team had replaced the pegs the previous day, following Tait’s directions. What Quantrill wanted now was to get the feel of standing on Lewis Glaven’s peg. Specifically, he wanted to discover whether the landowner could have taken a concealed short cut from there to the place where the shot was fired. And to his satisfaction, he found that it would have been possible.

  Lewis Glaven’s peg was close to the seemingly impenetrable thicket that put a kink in the track, and hid the first four pegs from the last three. But a narrow path, its entrance half-concealed by an evergreen shrub, ran through the thicket and then up through the bushes to join another path on the edge of the trees. Standing on that slight elevation, Quantrill found himself looking down across the tops of the bushes towards the ride.

  He could see the peg nearest this side of the thicket, number five where Martin Tait had stood. He could also see number six: Will Glaven’s peg, behind which Hope Meynell had been standing, and from which she had made the run for what she imagined was safety.

  Yes, it would certainly have been possible for Lewis Glaven to have left his peg and shot the girl. But he couldn’t have taken a shot at her unless she ran, for fear of hitting Will. That meant he would have had to hang about up here, waiting for her to move.

  It was inconceivable that his absence wouldn’t have been noticed. The two male pickers-up had denied he’d left his peg, but Quantrill was disinclined to believe them. If they’d lied out of loyalty, though, it might well be impossible to shake them.

  True, there was still one other picker-up to be interviewed. But that was Mrs Dorothy Wilson-Brown. And according to Martin Tait, she and Lewis Glaven were old and affectionate friends.

  Quantrill returned to Breckham Market to collect Sergeant Lloyd.

  ‘Did you get anything out of the boy Jermyn?’ he asked Hilary as soon as he reached his office. When it came to priorities, finding the girl who was missing concerned him rather more than finding the killer of the one who was dead.