Illegal Tender (Three Oaks Book 12)

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘and if the ladies won’t mind, a dram would slip down well. Water please, no ice.’

  Keith nodded and went to the bar. I turned to Deborah. ‘I suppose Ian’s too busy for socializing?’ I suggested.

  ‘He’s busy,’ she said. ‘Baby-sitting. But he brought a whole stack of files home with him. I hope he isn’t getting too lost to the world to hear a baby cry.’ She frowned. ‘Perhaps I’d better phone.’

  ‘You’ll do no such thing,’ her mother said fondly. ‘Ian dotes on that child. Anyway, little Bruce would hear the phone before Ian did. One hiccup and Ian’s work will be forgotten.’

  Deborah relaxed slowly.

  Keith returned from the bar bearing a tray with two whiskies and two tonic waters. Mine I identified as Glenfiddich of no little age and at least a double. He raised his glass in brief salute.

  ‘Here’s hoping that all goes well,’ he said carefully.

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ I said. I left it at that. Keith and his ladies, I knew, could be very discreet; but his intense curiosity had sometimes led him into investigations which in turn had led to a great deal of publicity.

  Keith looked slightly put out but Molly hid a smile and leaned forward. ‘Keith and Deborah told me about Saturday evening,’ she said. ‘They were quite sure that Elizabeth had been caught out by the e-mail fraud. Deborah said that she looked ready to faint.’

  I glanced around, keeping it casual, but the other drinkers were paying us no attention and the classical guitar music which was playing softly over hidden loudspeakers would have baffled a would-be eavesdropper. ‘You haven’t mentioned this to anyone else?’ I asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Keith insisted that that kind of financial information needs to be kept under wraps. I take it that it was a lot of money?’

  ‘From my humble viewpoint, a great deal of money. And — in the strictest possible confidence?’

  They nodded and I knew that they would consider the agreement binding.

  ‘It was already earmarked for the expansion at Agrotechnics,’ I said. ‘I’ve been rushing around drumming up alternative finance. I gather that we have little chance of seeing any of the original sum again.’

  ‘And on top of your other worries,’ Keith said, ‘you go and stumble on Maurice Cowieson’s body.’

  The morning papers had reported the death but I had been relieved to see that they had made no mention as to who had found the body. I glanced at his daughter but she shook her head. ‘I didn’t tell him,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how he always seems to know all about everything.’

  ‘Word goes round,’ Keith said, ‘and I know a lot of people. I gather that Ian isn’t convinced it was an accident.’

  Deborah drew herself up and regarded her father disapprovingly. ‘Now, that,’ she said, ‘I definitely didn’t tell him because I didn’t even know it myself.’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ Keith said. He shrugged. ‘I took a couple of ferrets onto Radburn Farm on Sunday, at the request of Johnny Duncan — the farmer,’ he added in my direction. ‘Johnny must have told Ian that I’d been there, because Ian arrived at the shop this morning to ask whether I’d seen anyone walking down the hill, across country.’

  ‘And had you?’

  ‘Not a soul,’ Keith said regretfully. ‘And Johnny hadn’t either, because I asked him. Not that that means much, because there’s a sunken path alongside the Den Burn which is totally screened by trees and hedges. But I hadn’t heard of any other incidents and the only explanation for Ian’s questions which occurred to me — after he’d left, unfortunately — was that somebody who drove a car up to the top might have walked back. And that strongly suggested to me that Ian thinks somebody drove Maurice’s car to where you found it and walked back to the town. If he’s right, that means that somebody was working alone.’

  ‘Or that his accomplice was busy elsewhere or couldn’t get hold of another car,’ Molly said placidly.

  Keith waved an airy hand. ‘Or that,’ he said. ‘The really interesting question is this. What does Ian think happened? And why does he think it?’

  ‘You really can’t expect me to tell you that,’ Deborah said.

  ‘Because you don’t know,’ said her father. ‘But Henry knows.’

  The whiskies seemed to be finished so I got up for replenishments. Keith was pleased to accept another Glenfiddich but his wife and daughter declined. Mrs Enterkin did the necessary, took the money and came over to collect the empties. The interval gave me time for thought.

  When we were alone again, I said, ‘From what Ian told me, he probably thinks that somebody drove Cowieson’s car up the hill and did get picked up by an accomplice. I don’t know all of his reasons. I don’t agree — I think I’d have heard another car. And that’s all I’m saying. You can’t expect me to tell you what Ian won’t even tell his wife.’

  ‘Another car could have freewheeled down the hill. There’s one way to resolve this impasse,’ Keith said. He took his mobile phone from an inside pocket and keyed in a number from memory. The call was answered immediately. ‘Ian?’ he said. ‘Keith here. We’ve been joined by Henry Kitts. Deborah is pretending to know nothing about the death of Maurice Cowieson.’ There was a pause. ‘Well, maybe she does and maybe she doesn’t, but have you any objection to us discussing it?’ The phone made a faint squawking noise. Keith winked at me. ‘Not in public and only in your presence? Just as you like. We’ll be with you in about ten minutes.’

  He switched the phone off and dropped it back into his pocket.

  ‘You can’t do that,’ Deborah objected.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He’s busy. And you haven’t been invited.’

  Keith’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I have now. And since when do I need a prior invitation to pay an informal call on my son-in-law?’ He got to his feet. ‘Are you coming? Or do I drive myself?’

  ‘I have the car keys,’ Molly said, producing and jingling them.

  In answer, Keith produced a duplicate set, tossed them up and caught them, nearly fumbling the gesture. I was, and I remain, convinced that he was bluffing; but the threat was enough to get the party moving. When I stood up, I found that two double whiskies on top of whatever remained from my lunchtime wine and the later brandy had had an unsteadying effect. I was happy to hand my keys over to Deborah and to be shepherded tenderly into the front seat of the Calders’ car. Keith settled in the back. Molly drove and she left us in no doubt that for two pins Keith would have been left to run behind. Molly’s manner to her husband had always been an intriguing mixture of blind adoration with the attitude of a mother towards her idiot child. It would have been hard to say which predominated.

  Deborah and her husband lived in a modest bungalow in a pretty street of recently built houses on the fringe of the town. Their red-tiled roof was within sight of the Hay Lodge windows, more than a mile away and a hundred-odd feet higher. Ian was scanning reports but he had anticipated our arrival by opening the front door, setting drinks beside his papers on the dining table which occupied one end of the lounge and putting a match to a log fire — which was for cosmetic effect only, being made superfluous by the central heating. When we came in he pushed aside his work, greeted us without any great sign of pleasure and started pouring. His whisky was good but not in the same class as the hotel’s malt.

  He looked first at his wife who, after planting a quick kiss on his left ear, had perched in her private little tapestry chair. ‘All quiet,’ he said, ‘except for the occasional snore. We can switch this gadget off now. We don’t want to broadcast our every word to the neighbours.’ He turned off the child alarm while switching his eyes to Keith, who had settled in a dining chair opposite him. ‘You’d better tell me what you’re on about,’ he said.

  Keith took a sip of his whisky and managed not to show his disappointment in the blend. ‘What I’m on about is that it’s perfectly obvious you think that there’s something not right about Maurice Cowieson
’s death and I’m damn sure that Deborah and Henry both ken fine what it’s about and they won’t say a word in case you skelp their backsides for gossiping about police business.’

  Ian gave his father-in-law a look so reproachful that I would have thought them at daggers drawn if I had not known that they were habitually as thick as thieves. Ian, in his more relaxed moments, would sometimes admit that he might not have made his present rank and prospects without the several notable successes which he owed to Keith’s help. But he had a point to make. ‘And quite right too,’ he said firmly. ‘When folk with partial knowledge get to blethering it’s never long before rumours begin to fly. When those rumours are wrong they’re usually hurtful to somebody, but when they’re right they can be seriously damaging. Leave the police to get on with their jobs and read about the results in your morning paper.’

  ‘But,’ said Keith helpfully.

  Ian sighed and then laughed. ‘But, in this one instance, I was going to ask for your help anyway. Tell me, all of you, what you know of the late Maurice Cowieson.’

  Keith sneered at him — there’s no other word for it. ‘Come back down to earth,’ he said. ‘If you want us to help you, we need the facts. Or, anyway, we insist on having them. Why are you so sure that his accident wasn’t accidental?’

  Ian looked at me. ‘You didn’t tell them?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  ‘It’s a pity that we didn’t breed from you while we had the chance. All right,’ Ian told his father-in-law. He threw down the pencil which had seemed to be holding most of his concentration and looked up at the ceiling. ‘This is not for general discussion yet, but I was going to take you into my confidence anyway. Mr Cowieson’s car went straight over the brink without any attempt being made to brake or swerve. So, he could have had a heart attack or a fainting fit. But the fatal blow to his forehead was not in a position or at an angle that I could explain to myself. The driver’s seat belt was fastened and his air bag had inflated, which should have prevented him from hitting the front pillar, but if he had managed to hit his head before the air bag restrained him I would have expected a more or less vertical blow on the right-hand side, high on the forehead; not a diagonal wound up at the hairline. There was also remarkably little blood spilled. Either he’d been given the whack on the head after he had passed on or, as Mr Kitts has suggested, somebody had washed his face because blood had had time to run in the wrong direction.

  ‘The body had been pulled around and carried about so that it was very difficult to draw any conclusions from his clothing, but what I eventually saw was, let’s say, not incompatible with his having been manhandled into the car and then across into the driver’s seat after death.’

  ‘He couldn’t have been killed in the driver’s seat?’ Keith asked.

  ‘I can’t imagine any way in which the wound could have been in that place and at that angle. There wouldn’t have been room for somebody inside the car with him to swing a weapon with such force and if he was hit through the window from outside the car the wound would certainly have slanted the other way.

  ‘I’ve been jollying along my superiors in Edinburgh, reporting that the death appeared to be the result of an unfortunate accident but that I was investigating just in case there had been foul play.’

  ‘I bet they’ve heard that from you before,’ Keith said.

  ‘It still works,’ Ian assured him, ‘because it suits their book as well as mine.’ He tapped one of the folders on the table. ‘But now I have the pathologist’s report and so will they by tomorrow morning.’

  Keith leaned forward. ‘And it says . . .?’

  ‘Pretty much what I’ve just told you about the wound, though in more scientific language. You won’t be interested in ingrowing toenails and warts. He says that whatever broke the skull was straight, which rules out the faint possibility that he might have hit his head on the steering wheel; and round in cross-section, which eliminates the door pillar. There was neither blood nor hair on the door pillar, by the way. And it was that single blow to the head that killed him. It fractured and crushed his skull which, according to the pathologist, was of normal thickness.

  ‘There was no drug or poison, no other wound and no sign of sudden illness. It’s his opinion that death had already occurred before the crash but not very long before — there had been no time for hypostasis to develop and indicate any position other than seated in a car seat. The inevitable conclusion has to be foul play, almost certainly murder, which means that somebody more senior will come here, delighted to get out of Auld Reekie for a few days, and he’ll bring his own team and expect my boys to wait on them hand and foot and he’ll want to know why I haven’t done all the things which will be obvious in the blinding light of hindsight,’ Ian said hotly. ‘So what I want is to tie the damn thing up before he gets here and upsets everybody.’

  ‘By tomorrow morning?’ I said. ‘You’ll be lucky!’

  ‘He won’t be here tomorrow morning,’ Ian said. ‘When there’s a local man and local manpower making a start on the donkey work, they never hurry themselves. He’ll be issuing orders to me over the phone, while tidying his desk and using his team to clear away the details of previous cases. In a day or so, when the case is either solved or the tiresome part of the work has been sorted out, he’ll arrive, ready to hold press conferences, claim the credit or pass on the blame.’

  ‘They aren’t all like that,’ Keith said mildly. I was surprised to hear him coming to the defence of the police. I had heard him arguing the opposite. He and Ian, it seemed, had changed viewpoints.

  ‘Not all,’ Ian conceded. ‘Just the eager beavers who get sent out into the sticks to show the yokels how it’s done. But sometimes local knowledge is worth more than sophistication allied to manpower, and you have even more of that than I have. Now are you going to tell me about Maurice Cowieson? Or don’t you know anything?’

  We looked at each other, wondering who would open the bowling. The suggestion that he might be deficient in local knowledge stung Keith into speech. ‘I never saw much of Maurice during our youth,’ he said, ‘because his father sent him away for an expensive education. Maurice wasn’t very bright. As always happens, the combination of a sluggish mind educated above its capability was that he had an exaggerated idea of his own competence. He made enemies without even being aware of it.’

  ‘Enemies?’ Ian queried sharply.

  Keith paused and then shrugged. ‘Perhaps that’s an exaggeration. Let’s just say that he put folks’ backs up. He blundered through life, carried along by the money and the business his father had left him, and when he made mistakes he was too thick to recognize them and too proud to back down. He was quite sure that he was everybody’s friend and that everyone loved him. And, of course, because he was so sure of it, some people did.’

  ‘But not everybody?’

  ‘Not by a mile. A thousand miles. A million light years.’

  Molly’s sympathy, always readily available, had been aroused. ‘Whoever they send may not be as bad as you think,’ she told Ian. ‘We’ve met some very sympathetic ones. Or you may have solved it before he gets here.’ (Ian looked even gloomier.) ‘So we’d better help you while we can.’ She paused, half frowning. She hated to say anything unpleasant about anyone but seemed to be having difficulty in the case of Maurice Cowieson. ‘I don’t remember meeting him often,’ she said at last, ‘maybe just a few times in passing, but when we were young he went around with more than one of my friends — at the same time, on occasions, because he was an awful man for the women. He married Edna James — remember her, Keith? — and he led her a dance. She had the boy within a year of their marriage and then she fell pregnant again and it killed her.’ Molly paused again and then decided that it had to be told. ‘Folks said that she gave up her hold on life, glad to be out of it.’

  ‘I do remember Edna,’ Keith said. ‘She was no beauty but she was a good-hearted soul as well as being an only daughter in a well-to-do family. M
aurice’s father was a seedsman in a good way of business and Edna’s father had a garage and engineering shop. The two businesses complemented each other and, under the old men, grew into the present business of agricultural supplies. Edna had a brother in farming who had the knack of spelling out just what service the farming world would be crying out for in a year’s time, but he rolled a tractor over onto himself and died. Maurice had nothing to do but inherit. Then he set about ruining the business and Wallace said that he was sinking in the financial mire.’ (Wallace is Keith’s partner and man of finance.)

  There was a pause while Keith refilled his glass and chose his words. ‘He wasn’t a man I’d care to mix with and he didn’t shoot, so we rarely met and when his name was mentioned it was usually in connection with his chasing after the women — not always with much success, from what I heard.’ There was, I thought, a tiny trace of amused superiority in Keith’s voice. By reputation, he had been a devil for the women in his youth. Molly must have recognized the same tone, because I saw her throw him a tolerant glance that spoke volumes about the relationship which they had achieved and her confidence in the bond between them.

  ‘Now that,’ said Ian, ‘could be very interesting. My sources mentioned some such interest but I gathered that those years were behind him now.’

  ‘Your sources,’ Deborah said, ‘were trying to spare your blushes, or those of his lady-friends. He even tried it on with me when I went to ask him about a new lawnmower. He put his hand up my skirt — the white one with the pleats,’ she added in her mother’s direction.

  Ian put his glass down with a thump and straightened his back. Suddenly he looked like thunder. ‘You never told me that,’ he snorted.

  ‘No, of course I didn’t,’ Deborah said blithely. ‘You’d only have got all upset and probably done something silly. There was no need. Some men do that sort of thing and some don’t. The time for you to get uptight about it would have been if I’d let him get away with it. I told him that he was a wicked old goat and he could bugger off. I also told him what to do with his lawnmower. We met again in the newsagent’s a week later and he spoke as if nothing had ever happened, asking after you and saying wasn’t the weather awful, which it was. He seemed to take acceptance or rejection as a normal part of life and nothing for either side to get upset about.’