Illegal Tender (Three Oaks Book 12)

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘Yes?’ I said.

  She hesitated and then it came with a rush. ‘You were talking to Mrs Ombleby at the party last night.’ She saw that the name meant nothing to me. ‘She and Deborah Fellowes were the only two women shooting yesterday. You must know her. Well . . . This is in strictest confidence?’

  ‘Cross my heart,’ I said.

  ‘Because if word gets around too soon, somebody else might jump on the idea. You know that computer shopping’s coming in? You send in your order for the week and it’s all gathered up automatically and delivered to your door. No need to struggle around a supermarket, looking for things that they’ve moved somewhere else since the last time you were in there, and queue for an age at a checkout. It’s an infuriating waste of time.’

  ‘I know about supermarkets,’ I told her. ‘I didn’t think that you did.’

  She grinned her old grin at me. ‘I was a student for years,’ she said. ‘Sharing a flat in Edinburgh. I know all about supermarkets, thank you very much. But if you cut down on the time-wasting by shopping for a week, you’ve got the other bind of having to think about your menus for the whole week and listing everything you’re going to need for them.’

  ‘Isobel gets fed up,’ I said.

  ‘Most women do. So Mrs Ombleby thought, why not take computer shopping a stage further? Give clients a whole file of recipes, from the simple to the fancy, and a sort of table d’hôte standard menu for the week with umpteen possible variations. When you order you only have to list the meals and state for how many people. Then the right quantities of the ingredients are all packaged together and included in your order along with cooking instructions giving something else that most recipe books miss out — the number of minutes before the planned start of the meal for each stage of preparation to begin.’

  ‘That,’ I admitted, ‘is clever. Ideal for the busy hostess or the career woman who’s also catering for a husband or family’

  ‘I thought so. It would be easy once the retailer’s into computer ordering anyway. She’s at the planning stage at the moment and talking to some of the better supermarkets. She wants to try it out in Edinburgh and Glasgow and to be ready to go much wider if it catches on. That’s when she’ll need more capital than she can put her hands on. I wanted to invest in it.’

  ‘It would need thinking about,’ I said. And it did. I was thinking that I might sell a couple of my own pictures and invest in it myself.

  *

  Duncan returned for lunch although he was obviously preoccupied and impatient to get back to his workshop. Joanna served a soup and an otherwise cold lunch in a miraculously freshened dining room and left us to it. Mary and Ronnie, I was given to understand, were having the day off, in return for their long service on the previous day.

  Beatrice Payne came into the room as we began our soup. Duncan got up and pulled a chair out for her but she shook her head. She seemed withdrawn but there was still about her that air of expectation. Without sitting down, she dropped her own bombshell into our gloomy silence. ‘You’ve been very good to me,’ she told Elizabeth, ‘and I wouldn’t want you to think that I don’t appreciate it. But I’m moving out.’

  Elizabeth dragged her mind back from her worries. ‘This seems a little sudden,’ she said. She spoke mildly, as if afraid that any stronger reaction might provoke a change of mind.

  ‘It is,’ the other woman admitted. ‘I feel terribly rude and ungrateful. But I’ve been offered a proper job at last and they want me straight away. It’s not as if I’m much use here,’ she added defensively. ‘You wouldn’t let me. You’ve been very tolerant but we’ve always known that it was a sinecure to save my face until I could find a real job.’

  This was so close to the truth that it was difficult to find a polite denial although Elizabeth made a negative sound in her throat. To bridge an awkward gap, I asked, ‘What’s the job?’

  ‘Office manager. That’s what I was studying at commercial college. A friend of mine knew somebody who knew somebody,’ she said vaguely. ‘There’s a furnished granny-flat I can have and I want to get moved in quickly.’

  ‘But will you get your . . . holidays?’ Elizabeth finished after a pause.

  Bea actually laughed. Her spirits had undoubtedly risen and the sexuality which I had suspected was there to be seen. ‘Maternity leave, you mean? We’ve agreed all that sort of thing and there’s a crèche not too far away. When I’m settled in, I’ll give you a call and you can come and give me your ideas about wallpaper and things.’

  In deference to the previous evening we had been having an abstemious lunch, but Elizabeth got up and found a half-full wine bottle thriftily stowed in the sideboard and suggested that we toast Miss Payne’s new job. But that lady pleaded a dozen urgent tasks to be performed before she could move out and she left the room. Not long after, I heard her drive off, working briskly up the gears until the sound died away. She had left the room with a cigarette in one hand and an apple in the other. I wondered how she was managing to steer.

  ‘Thank God!’ said Duncan devoutly.

  ‘You too?’ Elizabeth queried. ‘You never said.’

  ‘Why would I interfere if you want to do a favour for a friend?’

  ‘You’re a doll,’ said his wife. ‘She did get under the feet a bit,’ she admitted.

  ‘She took note of everything,’ Duncan said. ‘I thought that she was sly. And always so dispirited. To tell you the truth, I was getting near the point of telling you that I couldn’t take her much longer.’

  Elizabeth threw him a glance so warm that it was almost indecent. ‘And now you don’t have to,’ she said. ‘I’ve been regretting what was really no more than an impulse, one of the things one feels that one has to say but not intended to be taken seriously. However, we’ve given somebody a helping hand and now she’s on her way and we can try to get that part of our lives back to normal. Mary will be delighted — her nose has been out of joint ever since Bea came here. Are we finished?’

  It seemed that we were indeed finished. Duncan went off in his car. I took a brief nap and then joined Elizabeth in the study. I had spent some time before lunch on the telephone, but Ralph Enterkin, local solicitor and my fellow trustee, would not be able to come and join us until late afternoon and nobody else was available who would be the least use to us in our present crisis.

  ‘There’s a message on the answering machine,’ Elizabeth said. She pressed the play key. The rasping voice of Maurice Cowieson announced that he wanted to see me and unless he heard to the contrary he would pay a call during the afternoon.

  It was a chance to give Elizabeth some easy responsibility. ‘Blast the man!’ I said. ‘You see him.’

  She jumped as if I had goosed her. ‘Me?’

  ‘Certainly. I saw more than enough of him on Friday, I don’t want my Sunday spoiled as well. I’ve been promising myself a walk, to let last night’s cobwebs blow away. You’re just as much a director of Agrotechnics as I am and whatever we recommend to the board will go through.’

  ‘But what’s he going to want?’ she asked nervously.

  ‘He may want to give you a cheque, but I wouldn’t count on it. More likely he wants to ask for more time to settle his debt.’

  ‘And I tell him no way?’

  ‘I’ll go along with whatever you decide,’ I told her. ‘If you like, you could promise to recommend that we give him slightly easier deadlines. Go this far and not an inch further . . . Say, half by the end of the month, half the remainder by New Year and the balance at the end of January.’

  She looked at me in surprise. ‘Your quality of mercy seems a little strained,’ she said. ‘Why this sudden soft centre?’

  ‘Gooseberry,’ I said sadly, ‘you give me too much credit. If you’re going to push somebody into receivership, get as much out of them as you can before you have to start sharing with other creditors.’

  ‘I might have known,’ she said. ‘But I thought he’d put up his business as security. Don’t we hav
e first call?’

  ‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘And you can tell him from me that if we see him doing something foolish, like paying off anybody else, we’ll move in on him before he can blink.’

  I left her looking thoughtful.

  *

  I changed my shoes for heavy boots, put on a cap, borrowed a stick from the hall and set off. As I had suggested to Elizabeth, I wanted to work a little well-being into my jaded old body. I was also hoping that exercise would work its usual magic and help my thoughts to sort themselves out.

  The most convenient walks from the house all began with a crossing of the lawn behind the house to the wood beyond. From there, I found myself bearing towards Hamish’s house. I had expected to find that the keeper was out on his rounds, but he was waiting impatiently at the game larder for the game dealer, who was already behind his promised time, to come and collect yesterday’s birds. Spin, curled at his feet, looked equally disgusted.

  We chatted for a while about the previous day’s shoot. I might not have been so willing to interrupt my walk if Hamish had not seen and admired my performance. He was full of praise and I knew that it was not for the sake of a generous tip — he could be scathing about a poor performance or a breach of etiquette. I let him have his say. These little triumphs are too rare not to be relished. There was still no sign of the game dealer.

  ‘I could wait for him if you want to get away,’ I suggested.

  Hamish brightened for a moment and then shook his head. ‘Yon’s a sleekit bugger,’ he said, ‘but he kens I’ve got his measure. I’d best bide here. But if you’re looking to be helpful . . .’

  ‘Anything I can do,’ I said.

  ‘Here’s the way of it. Ronnie’s awa round the west side with the Lab, to see if there’s any birds the pickers-up missed yesterday and to check my traps for me. I’ll dae the other half when the dealer’s gone. But you mind the valley where we had the last drive before lunch? Och, but ye’ll mind it fine, it’s where you caucht yon broon troot last May. You could tak Spin an walk that bittie o the Den Burn. Ronnie’s as sure as he can be that there was a runner not picked.’

  That was about the right distance for me to walk. I said that I’d be happy to do it.

  ‘An, while you’re there, tak a look in the feeders an let me ken if they’re low. An check the twa traps, either side of the feeders.’

  ‘No problem,’ I said.

  ‘That’ll let me get on.’

  Spin, remembering some good days during his training, came with me willingly although he looked disappointed to see that I had no gun over my arm.

  We took a different path, one that cut diagonally back through the wood towards the high archway, once the sentinel of an impressive group of buildings but now incongruously standing alone at the mouth of the drive. A small stream which passed through a culvert under the drive ran more or less parallel to the road but, as we followed it upstream, its rise was gentle whereas the road was comparatively steep. The result was that we were soon following the bottom of a narrow valley under a vault of tall trees, not yet bare of foliage but in full autumn glory. The ground on the other side of the road continued to rise, so that birds sent from there over the valley bottom were real ‘archangels.’

  The good weather was still holding despite the approach of a low from the south-west. It was a warm walk and I was glad of the cool of the season. In cold weather one can always add an extra sweater but during summer heat there is a limit to how much clothing one can take off but no limit to the assault of the midges on bare skin. The advice in the old song — It ain’t no sin / To take off your skin / And dance around in your bones — may be attractive but it is hardly practical. I removed my cap to cool my head.

  In many places the road was too near for safe and legal shooting, but in one place, where the stream and the road took opposite bends, the trees parted. The pegs for the previous day’s stands were still in place. Spin, an experienced dog in spite of his comparative youth, knew what was expected of him and hunted the bushes with the bustling enthusiasm peculiar to spaniels. Most of the birds had returned to their sunnier and more favoured feeding-ground higher on the hill, but several came running out of the bushes and took off indignantly in front of the spaniel.

  Further on, near to where I had caught the trout, we came to another glade where two feeders were raised between posts. I lifted the lids, but each was at least half full of wheat. With the stream nearby there was no need for a watering point. I followed narrow tracks and found Hamish’s snares, both empty.

  We could have turned back, but a wing-tipped bird might well have gone still further up the valley and I was enjoying my walk. I pressed on. The valley wall below the road became steeper, supported by broken rock. The bushes had closed in and walking was becoming more difficult, so I paused and sent Spin for one last hunt ahead. He plunged into the cover but came back out almost immediately. This might have meant no more than that there was no scent of a pheasant; but he was looking at me in a way that was different. I knew him of old and this was not how he would have reacted to a bird down a rabbit hole or dead but hung up in a tree. He was perturbed and uncertain.

  I followed him, pushing between the branches of some overgrown rhododendrons. He moved away ahead of me, turning back now and again to be sure that I was following.

  A splash of dark colour began to loom ahead. With a last effort, I forced my way through into a small clearing.

  I was first aware of the smell of petrol. Then I made out a dark red car which stood on its nose against the rock wall of the valley. The engine was silent but there was still a hot smell about it, mingling with the odour of escaping fuel. The driver’s window was fully open. The driver himself, I saw, was supported by his slowly deflating air bag; but his head was grotesquely damaged, so much so that I had to look twice to recognize Mr Cowieson Senior. There was no doubt in my mind that he was dead, but that was not for me to decide. Men had been known to survive appalling head injuries. I am still in touch with a former comrade who was shot through the head by a sniper, which cost him only the sight of one eye.

  There was definitely nothing I could do for him. If some flicker of life still burned, I would almost certainly extinguish it if I moved him.

  I took out my mobile phone. I only carry it in case I should suffer another heart attack while alone in the countryside, but it can be useful in other emergencies. I took a few seconds to recall how to use it.

  Something was moving against my leg. I looked down. Spin had returned to his trade once he had passed the buck to me. The antics of men and cars meant little to him. There were more important things in life. He was trying to hand me a dead hen pheasant.

  Chapter Four

  I alerted the emergency services and took another and more careful look, in case the first paramedics on the scene should disturb vital evidence. Evidence of what I could not have said, but I was conscious of an uneasy feeling. The driver seemed to have been alone and there was nothing loose in the car except for a map and some toffee papers. I tried to memorize the details of the scene and then retreated, away from the smell of petrol. I had turned the ignition off but there might easily be a short somewhere.

  There was only one useful function left to me. Retracing my steps, I found a place where, without issuing too open an invitation to another heart attack, I could struggle up the embankment. The road was always quiet but early on a Sunday afternoon, with an important Rugby World Cup match on the television, it could have been on the moon. The place where I thought the car had gone off was unfenced and any tyre tracks in the rough verge were barely discernible, but there was torn earth at the very brink and when I looked down I could see the rear of the car — shiny, bland and apparently undamaged. Spin sat patiently at my feet.

  The ambulance and the first police car arrived together, driving away the silence. I waved them down, pointed out the wreck and the possible route down to it, and gave my name and temporary address. The officers looked curiously at the ph
easant in my hands but decided that if I was resident at Hay Lodge the question of poaching was unlikely to arise. My duty done, I felt free to leave the scene quickly, before they remembered the long-standing tradition of keeping any possible witness standing idly, indefinitely and unnecessarily by.

  It seemed a long walk back by road and through the archway although it was less than a mile. Spin made it clear that he did not appreciate being kept strictly to heel on the roadside verge instead of being allowed to continue raking through the undergrowth.

  The elderly but shining car belonging to Ralph Enterkin, my fellow trustee, was already at the door of the house, so Hamish would have to wait for my report and the return of his spaniel. I delivered Spin and the pheasant to the kitchen, took a minute to wash dust and leaf mould off my hands and followed Ralph up. He was installed in solitary state in the sitting room with tea and biscuits. He looked up as I came in and his expression made it clear that, in typical lawyer fashion, he reserved to himself the privilege of keeping others waiting. He was a stout little man with a face which, usually jolly, could turn irascible in an instant, but we had worked well together.

  I settled in the adjacent chair. ‘I’d have been here an hour ago,’ I apologized, ‘but something happened. We have problems.’

  He registered my lack of the usual courtesies and took in my appearance, distinctly dusty from my climb up to the road. ‘So it would seem. In what area are these problems?’

  ‘Twofold,’ I said. ‘We’ll take them one at a time. I wanted this meet to tell you that young Elizabeth has been swindled.’ I led him through the sequence of events very gently, but I could see that he was having difficulty in following. He was the least computer-literate person I had ever met and compared to him I was Bill Gates in person.

  ‘Let me see if I understand you,’ he said when I had ground to a halt. ‘Somebody, by means that I shall make no effort to understand, requested confidential banking details which our ward was rash enough to furnish? And armed with that information the person or persons removed from the estate’s current account the entire sum accruing from the sale of Talisman Farm?’