Cold Relations (Honey Laird Book 1)

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘Ankle-boots will do fine. Stay to dinner. And it’s a long road home for you. Stay the night if you like. We have plenty of beds.’

  ‘That sounds wonderful. Barring riots or the discovery of a serial killer we’ll be there with bells on.’ A kindly thought occurred to her. ‘I know a young couple who are training a pair of spaniels. They’re desperate to get some experience at beating and picking-up.’ Briefly she explained about Andrew’s head-wound.

  ‘Ask them to phone,’ Hazel said. ‘We’re short of beaters so this was going to be one of those walk-and-stand days, turnabout, but now we find that locals are going to bring wives and sweethearts along – and teenagers – so it looks like we’ll get by if the two end Guns walk with the beaters each drive. Aim for nine-thirty.’

  The call finished. ‘You know who that was?’ Honey asked.

  ‘That was your friend with the castle, down in the Borders.’

  ‘Hazel Carpenter. Tinnisbeck Castle. It’s pretty much reduced to a large keep now but I believe it’s very comfortable. It really belongs to Jeremy. It’s been in his family since Noah was a lad. Jeremy’s a historian.’

  ‘I don’t come the heavy husband very often, but you should have consulted me before accepting.’

  ‘And what would you have said?’

  ‘I’d have said “no”.’

  It was high time, Honey decided, that they arrived at a clear understanding as to who would make decisions about her wellbeing. ‘We won’t go if you don’t want me to. But if I’m not fit for a stroll in the heather carrying my twenty-bore then I’m too delicate for sex. And I’ll be too delicate until after our baby is born. Much too delicate.’

  Sandy dropped the subject. Seven or eight months without sex were not to be endured.

  June appeared in the doorway to announce that their meal was on the table. While they sipped and waited for the soup to cool, Honey said, ‘Things must be looking up for the Carpenters.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The last time I was there, the grouse moor was miles of ancient heather in the process of reverting to forest and they had barely enough money to fuel the central heating. Of course, Hazel buys and restores antique furniture and she may have come across a Ming chamberpot or something.’

  Sandy blew on his spoon. ‘Didn’t his grandfather die, not very long ago?’

  ‘Yes. But the old chap was pretty well spent up. It was all Jeremy could do to keep him in his very swish nursing home.’

  ‘Then at least he’s relieved of that burden. Perhaps his books are selling well.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘He writes the occasional coffee-table book but mostly the kind of textbook that pays very little at first but stays in print for ever. The antiques must be paying the bills.’

  ‘How come you’re on their guest list?’

  ‘It’s a long story. They were going abroad and they lumbered me with taking delivery of two rehomed Labradors, one of which then produced puppies all over my flat. That was Suzy. The other was Pippa. I must have told you.’

  Sandy was pensive until steak, kidney and mushroom pie was served. Honey could guess what was coming. ‘I still say that you shouldn’t be shooting in your condition,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a driven day. No more walking than a country stroll.’

  ‘But the shock of the recoil!’

  ‘You are going a long way over the top,’ Honey said forcefully. She had no intention of being robbed of her day out. ‘You know perfectly well that if I take the twenty-bore auto I could shoot it off the tip of my nose without feeling any recoil.’

  *

  There were no outbreaks of rioting and if any serial killers had been at work they remained undiscovered. Clothes, guns and Pippa and a generous supply of cartridges were loaded and the Lairds set off early in Honey’s Range Rover. The day was bright and cool. Their journey would have taken an hour with lights flashing and klaxon yodelling, but at legitimate speed and strict adherence to the Highway Code, it took nearly two hours until, just short of Tynebrook Village, they turned off into the driveway of Tinnisbeck Castle. As they neared the castle gates they overtook Andrew Gray’s Land Rover and exchanged a toot for a honk.

  As with Andrew’s house but on a vaster scale, Honey was struck by the general improvement – not in any one item but in the air of having been cared for. Most of the outbuildings had gone centuries earlier but the keep still stood up, square and impregnable. Pointing had been renewed in the castle walls and the windows shone with fresh paint. The margin of garden fringing the castle was bright with flowers. The spread of heather reaching down to the village showed a pattern of different textures, indicating that the heather had been burned in strips for the benefit of grouse and other wildlife.

  Cars were assembling on the gravel. The Lairds were introduced around. Honey already knew some of the company. Hazel knew of her dislike of being addressed as Honeypot except by her immediate family. Honey was amused to note that Hazel, being of Bostonian origin, had also felt that the abbreviated ‘Honey’ was too familiar and had settled instead for her full name, Honoria, carrying Honey back in her memory to her days at a Swiss finishing school.

  Looking around, she could see no sign of Andrew Gray and Jackie. ‘So where are all these beaters, then?’ she asked Hazel.

  ‘They start from the village. They’re assembling outside the pub.’

  ‘It won’t be open, I trust.’

  Hazel laughed. ‘It won’t open until this evening. It belongs to Ian Argyll and he’s one of the Guns.’

  As usual when being introduced, Honey had felt her mind going blank. However, she already knew Hazel and Jeremy. Sam Clouson, the local vet, was memorable for his bushy moustache. Keith and Molly Calder were the parents of one of her friends. An elderly man standing apart from the others but stooping cautiously to pat any dog that came within range was Henry Colebrook. Mr Colebrook had retained a head of red hair but it was greying and his face was etched with fine lines, so she guessed his age as approaching sixty. There was a strongly built woman in heavy tweeds who could not be Ian Argyll. The thin youth looked too young to own a pub or even to be allowed inside one. So Ian Argyll had to be the thickset man in his fifties with the silver hair who was nursing over his arm a hammer gun of some age but fine quality.

  For a few minutes, while Jeremy spoke over his mobile phone to the keeper, there was an interval while the Guns got to know each other. Henry Colebrook stood slightly aside, smiling whenever anyone caught his eye, but the others were asking each other after the health of friends or exchanging platitudes with new acquaintances. General opinion seemed to be that the beauty of the day would make up for any scarcity of birds. As the sun rose higher the morning chill was banished and the day came closer to shirtsleeve weather.

  Jeremy superintended the draw for numbers and then took his stand on the top step of the castle doorway and called for attention. After welcoming his guests he went on, ‘You’ll meet George Brightside, the keeper, later on. He’s directing the beating line. I’m deputising for him in giving the usual pep talk. You’re all experienced Guns so you’ll know what I mean when I say don’t swing through the line and anyone shooting down the line, or behaving dangerously in any other way, will be sent home. No ground game, by which I mean rabbits or hares, but if you see a fox, which I hope you won’t, and if you have a safe shot, please shoot it. Do not fire at anything at all unless you can see empty land or sky behind with a safe margin around. Keep your dogs in check but mark your birds down and by all means work your dogs to pick them up later. One of us will be picking-up behind the line – please be sure that you know exactly where. No shooting after the end of the drive. It’ll be marked by a series of short blasts on a whistle.

  ‘One further point. The first birds to arrive will be the older ones. Those are the ones we want taken out. You could say that they’re the reason that we’re shooting the moor at all at this early stage in its reclamation. Old birds are less fertile and also ta
ke up larger territories. I know that it’s easier to shoot the followers after you’ve been alerted by the first arrivals, but please try very hard to be ready for them and to take the leaders. In view of the speed they arrive at, anyone not familiar with grouse please shoot well ahead of them or you may be knocking off the younger birds anyway.

  ‘We have about a third of a mile to the butts. I’ll take Mr Colebrook and Mrs Laird in the Land Rover. Anybody doubting their own walking ability can squeeze in with us. Otherwise you walk – or take your own car, but I warn you that the way is rough and the ruts are quite deep. On the return journey, I’ll collect whoever drew Number One. Who would that be?’ Sandy Laird raised his hand. ‘You and I will walk on the flanks of the beating line, then. You’re fit for that?’

  Sandy smiled. ‘I think so.’

  ‘Who told them I was pregnant?’ Honey demanded of her husband before they parted.

  ‘It may have slipped out,’ he retorted blandly.

  ‘I wonder which of your personal habits you’d least like to have generally known.’

  Sandy laughed. ‘Let me think about it and I’ll choose one for you.’ Having had at least part of his way, he could afford to be affable.

  She left Pippa with Sandy. The exercise would do them both good. She might resent Sandy’s solicitude – or interference as she thought it – but to herself she admitted that struggling through heather or stumbling along a rutted track might not be the best therapy for a pregnant lady. Mr Colebrook seemed to be past the age for curling up into back seats, so she took the rear and left him to be helped into the comparative luxury of the front. They bounced along the track. During the intervals between boulders and potholes and while the motion was almost steady, she found herself looking at the back of his head. His hair might be greying but his faint stubble still held a glint of red.

  Traces remained of the original butts but temporary butts had been made from wooden pallets threaded with heather. They found their places and waited. It was a long wait but Honey found plenty to interest her. The day remained clear and, for October, warm. The view of the moor, the village, the nearer hills and far beyond was spectacular. As long as she kept very still, the wildlife went about its regular business around her. The beaters had already moved to the edge of the moor and she saw them string out over a wide front and begin their march through the heather. Butterflies were making a comeback and there were young rabbits playing in the sunshine until a buzzard sailed over. She could hear grouse. She checked behind her but Hazel, who was acting as picker-up, was well out of dangerous range.

  The beating line was well handled. It came slowly, moving birds towards the Guns. There was a broad variety of dogs but they were under control. The line closed as it neared. The Guns were at the head of a depression in the ground, too shallow to be called a valley, and the beating line was closing in, to funnel the birds from a broad front onto the shorter line of Guns.

  Suddenly there were grouse in the air, two parties of three or four. Pulses quickened and mouths went dry. The grouse seemed to come slowly and then, suddenly, they were rushing at the line of Guns, flicking over and gone. There was a rattle of shots. Honey had forgotten the amazing speed of them, nearly three times the speed of a pheasant, and she was caught out. She fired her twenty-bore once and missed behind. Sandy, walking on the flank, also fired once but he had the advantage of the extra time that it took for a bird to curl back. His grouse tumbled into the heather and Pippa did a retrieve. One bird was down behind the line of butts.

  There was never a solid flush but for twenty minutes a thin trickle of birds came over. Henry Colebrook was in the butt next to Honey and she noticed that he was shooting well and with all proper attention to the rules of safety. The Guns adjusted the speed of their swings and a few birds fell. By the whistle for the end of the drive, eleven birds were down and the beaters brought three more. ‘And nearly all old birds,’ Jeremy said with satisfaction.

  Pippa came with a rush, relieved to be reunited with her mistress but still exhilarated by the chance to fulfil the destiny for which she had been bred and trained. She twined round Honey’s legs and then threatened to jump up. Honey pushed her down. ‘All right,’ she said fondly. ‘So you enjoyed yourself. And you did well. Big deal!’ Pippa settled for leaning against her mistress’s legs and panting.

  Hazel arrived, also panting, with her Suzy at heel. ‘One flew on and then dropped suddenly,’ she said. ‘I think it’s in that copse of silver birch but Suzy can’t find it.’

  The beaters had arrived and were mingling with the Guns. Honey saw Henry Colebrook exchange a glance with one of the beaters but neither seemed ready for conversation. Andrew and Jackie were grinning happily. Jackie touched Hazel’s arm. ‘May we try for the lost bird? Please?’

  Hazel smiled. ‘Go on, then.’ She looked around. ‘Tea, coffee or cold drinks in front of the castle, everybody,’ she said.

  Mary Kershaw, the castle housekeeper, had laid out a long table with a white cloth and small snacks to go with the drinks. Guns and beaters mingled in the bonhomie unique to such occasions. To primitive man the hunt and the feast that followed were the high points in his existence. Modern mankind still celebrates great occasions with a feast, but those who have never known the zest of gathering their own meat in company, Honey thought, were missing the cream. Andrew and Jackie returned while drinks were being taken. The pair were beaming all over their faces. The spaniels also seemed to be smiling. Andrew held up the missing grouse. ‘It had legged it along the ditch,’ he said. ‘Honey followed it up.’

  There was a murmur of appreciation. Hazel looked at Honoria. ‘Your namesake’s wiped Suzy’s eye for her,’ she said.

  All the dogs in the beating line had worked hard in the heather and most lay down for a rest, but Spot and Honey went the rounds, receiving praise and titbits. Their manners were attractive, so they were treated generously. They were inordinately fond of peppermints.

  *

  Behind the castle, a long crest was crowned with broken ground. Here there was no heather but gorse, rocks and broom with sudden patches of grass. Ex-laying hen pheasants had been released four months earlier, as soon as their duty was done for the year, so that there would be mature birds early in the season. The Carpenters managed to detach everybody from the refreshments and a quick drive was held before lunch. The buffet meal that followed was held in the echoing entrance hall of the keep, Guns and beaters again mingling cheerfully and somehow avoiding the dogs underfoot. The keepering was praised. Everyone, Jeremy explained, had mucked in at the previous winter’s moor-burning and it had developed into a beery barbecue and barndance.

  Strong drinks were available but Jeremy was careful to see that nobody over-indulged. Those dogs that did not spend the interval at rest were busily scrounging petting or scraps.

  Jeremy was soon urging the Guns to move. Sandy was asked to look for Mr Colebrook and found him outside, chatting to Hannah Phillipson while feeding peppermints to Andrew’s spaniels. The keeper, George Brightside, was seventy-six according to Jeremy although he looked not a day over fifty. He agreed that the beaters could rest for a few minutes more, which was generally agreed to be fair, considering that they were doing the hardest work and had the shortest distance to travel.

  The two drives of the afternoon went by in a blur. The pheasants flew well, but compared to the grouse they were as cargo planes compared to military jets. The Guns treated them accordingly. The day ended with enough birds to provide a brace apiece for everybody, beaters included. The bag was laid out and duly admired.

  The party broke up, with much handshaking and tips to the keeper. Sandy and Honey were staying overnight. Andrew and Jackie had accepted the dinner invitation but decided to leave for home immediately thereafter, for the sake of the spaniels. Mr Colebrook, the only other guest with a long road to travel, had declined both invitations with effusive thanks and left as soon as good manners permitted.

  That evening, from a bedroom at Tinnis
beck Castle, Honey emailed to Poppy:

  Spot and my namesake were quite brilliant and much admired by everyone. If they go on gathering titbits at the same pace they’ll end up as fat as pigs, but I think you can stop worrying about your ex. His relationship with Jackie appears to be as strong as ever and the two now have a common obsession that will act as a bond and keep them both occupied. I can envisage them being in demand for beating and picking-up for almost half of every year. It won’t bring in much money and they’ll probably get sick of the taste of pheasant, but the therapy seems to be dragging his mental processes up towards total recovery.

  The only danger I can see is that, if she is attached to him by her mothering instinct, she may cool if he recovers enough of his marbles to becomes less dependent; but my guess is that she worships him for the hero she thinks he once was. And a good thing too! Jeremy Carpenter would probably point to a historical tradition for rewarding the returning hero with maidens, which may not have been PC in the light of today’s attitudes but I dare say was enjoyed by both parties and must have gone far to encourager les autres.

  Chapter Five

  The next day being Sunday and with no duty looming, Honey had promised herself an easy day to make up for all the tiredness induced by fresh air and exercise, and the stiffness after much use of muscles that saw little use during the usual day’s routine. She lay for as long as she dared but she knew that if she dallied any longer Pippa would start making the moaning noise that signalled her displeasure at breakfast being delayed. Then everyone else would get up and try not to seem aggrieved for the remainder of the morning.

  Mobile phones are unwelcome on shoots, demanding attention as they always do at the very moment when everyone’s attention should be on the birds, and she had left hers in the car the previous day; so in order to catch any urgent messages she had left it on charge but switched on overnight. She had just dragged herself out of bed, hauling along with her a bump which, while not yet noticeable to anyone else, was beginning to seem to her like a sack of potatoes hung around her waist, when her phone began its little tune. The English fraud case in which Sandy had previously had only a peripheral interest had now been found to have an origin in Scotland where also three of the four major participants were living, and he had therefore been required to take over the reins. Obviously the call would be for him and she said as much. Sandy pointed out that he had his own cellphone with him, to which Honey retorted that his phone was not switched on. Grumbling, he roused himself, reached out and answered the call. It was for her, which put a severe if momentary dent in the marital bliss.