A Brace of Skeet

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘No question of that,’ he said hastily. ‘We’ll work something out. I haven’t had time to think what, but something.’

  ‘Well . . .’ I said again.

  ‘I hope you’ll do it,’ the Sergeant said suddenly. ‘If the place keeps going it should make it much easier for us to contact the regular attenders among the non-members.’

  I made a rather vague gesture of assent.

  ‘That’s splendid,’ Sir Peter said briskly. ‘And now, I must go. I’m due at a meeting in Edinburgh. I’ll be late, but that can’t be helped.’

  I walked to the Land-rover with him. ‘I’ll let it be known that business will be as usual from Thursday midday,’ he said. ‘I’m grateful. And you won’t find it a total loss. You’ll get a small retainer, and you keep any coaching fees and the profit on cartridges and the re-sale of clays. Either Hugh or I will call in and give you a briefing.’ He lowered his voice as we arrived at the battered vehicle. ‘I think you’ve made a conquest there,’ he said.

  I wondered whether the astute old gentleman had tuned in to the vibrations which were passing between the Sergeant and myself. But when I caught sight of my reflection in one of the dusty windows, I looked like an urchin of indeterminate sex. ‘You’ve got to be joking,’ I said.

  ‘He seemed almost as anxious as I was to have you about the place. Well, we shall see.’

  ‘What shall we see?’

  ‘We’ll see whether he’s the officer who comes to do duty here. I’ll be in touch.’

  He drove off, battering over the bumps, and I was alone again except for a small army of policemen. At least I supposed that I would be safe in such company.

  Sergeant Fellowes was waiting.

  ‘Could we take a walk around?’ I asked him.

  ‘To survey your new domain?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I can be spared for a few more minutes. But we must stick to the paths.’

  We left Sam behind and stuck to the paths. I knew exactly where I wanted to go. At each stand there was a plastic drum, acting as a bin for the collection of spent cartridges. The bins at the Skeet layouts were empty. I led the way towards the water.

  A flight of steps led down a steep bank, and from their head I could look over the other layouts. A clay pigeon club can be squeezed into a remarkably small space, provided that all the members are to shoot the same stand at the same time. But the Pentland Gun Club had been laid out on the assumption that several disciplines might be shot simultaneously, and the requirements of safety – not only from shot but also from the clay pigeons themselves – had necessitated dispersal over perhaps a hundred acres.

  To my left, not far from the noise attenuation banking which bounded the site, the going-away disciplines – Down the Line and Ball-trap – were placed. The rest of the site was patterned by a long maze of paths of quarry dust which threaded among the stands so that varied use of the dozen traps could present an infinite variation of birds. The layout had incorporated the already existing stands of trees; birds could be presented to simulate conditions on a pheasant or partridge drive.

  I started at the southern end, the end furthest from the Leisure Complex, where the more specialised traps of the FITASC layout were, and walked along looking in the empty bins.

  ‘As a matter of interest,’ asked the Sergeant, ‘what are we looking for?’

  ‘When he thought that business was over for the day,’ I explained, ‘Mr Tullos was very conscientious about picking up unbroken clays and collecting fired cartridges. If he had a late visitor, or an early one in the morning . . .’ I left the sentence unfinished as I stopped at the fourth bin. This was set in a small terrace of the ubiquitous quarry dust, between two of the wire-mesh safety cages which were designed to prevent a gun from swinging beyond the limits of safety. A dozen or so spent cartridges lay in the bottom.

  The Sergeant looked in and grunted. ‘What do you deduce from this?’ he enquired.

  ‘Somebody’s been here since Harry Noble. Harry only shoots twenty-bore, because of his disability. He has to have a gun which is light enough to be used one-handed. Let’s go on,’ I said. ‘He or they may not have been shooting just the one stand.’

  We walked on to the end, close to the long mound which had been raised to screen the Leisure Complex from noise, but the bins were empty. We turned and looked back over the layouts. The clubhouse and the Skeet walls were diminished by the distance.

  ‘Would your men have been picking up unbroken clay pigeons?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘There were too many of them lying around and they didn’t mean anything. We’re not in the business of tidying up behind other bodies.’

  ‘Those would be broken clays. I think you’ll find that there were very few whole ones, other than any which your lads pumped out of the Skeet trap while trying to puzzle out how it worked. Maybe none, if he was a good shot. If there are any unbroken ones, they’ll mean a hell of a lot.’

  Considering that I was younger, unofficial and female, he took it well. ‘All right, tell me.’

  ‘Mr Tullos always picked up unbroken clays. The member or visitor pays so much per shot to cover the cost of his clays, but the unbroken ones are the steward’s perk. You don’t use them again in the automatic traps, because if one turns out to be cracked and breaks in the magazine it can jam the whole works; but they’re all right in manual traps, so smaller, local clay clubs buy them at half-price. If you look, you’ll see that most of the traps are sited so that the clays will land on grass or low ground-cover. So let’s see which bird was being shot. If he was good, he broke most of them; but if he came here for coaching or for practice at the one which usually beats him, we may find almost as many clays as there were empty cartridges.’

  The Sergeant nodded slowly, absorbing what was, I suppose, almost a foreign language to him. He looked vaguely around him. ‘So where do we search?’ he asked.

  The pair of stands where we found the cartridges were usually used in conjunction with the high tower. ‘Somewhere below the clubhouse,’ I said.

  ‘That area’s already been searched, so we can’t do any harm. Let’s go and take a look.’

  We walked along the grass below the clubhouse. I stopped and aligned myself. ‘If he was shooting left-to-right crossers,’ I said, ‘they’d be here, and they aren’t, so either he wasn’t or he was a better shot than I’ll ever be.’

  ‘There aren’t even any bits,’ the Sergeant said.

  ‘Bits come down all over the place. And a well-hit clay goes to dust.’

  We moved on. Four clays lay on the grass and there was another which seemed to have broken on landing. One of the cages was in line with the tower. ‘Driven pheasants,’ I said. ‘Somebody may have been preparing for next season.’

  The Sergeant walked back to the bin and stood looking down at the cartridges in the bottom. I counted them. There were eleven. ‘If he only hit six out of eleven, he’s mediocre,’ I said. ‘But he may not have fired at every bird. These are the same brand and shot size as the box which was beside the body. Not that that means anything. It’s the commonest cartridge used around here.’

  ‘We might get fingerprints off these,’ he said.

  I shrugged. ‘I doubt it. They’ve been pressed tight against the wall of the chamber by gas pressure and then thrown out by the ejectors.’

  ‘But somebody had to pick them up and put them in the bin.’

  ‘Probably Mr Tullos,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Possibly – although not necessarily – true. But at least we should be able to connect them with a particular gun by the firing-pin marks.’

  ‘And the marks of the ejectors and the breech-faces. Could I have a look at one of them?’ I asked. ‘I don’t want to handle it. Pick it up on the end of a pencil or something.’ He did as I asked and I looked carefully at the ejector-marks. ‘Conventional double gun,’ I said, ‘not an automatic. An over-under.’

  ‘Either you’re guessing,’ he said, ‘or you’re a witch.’

>   ‘Neither,’ I said. ‘The ejectors in a side-by-side go further round the circumference of the chamber. That’s about all I can tell you without resorting to my father’s equipment for microphotographs, and your lab can do that better than I can.’

  ‘That’s so.’

  ‘If you were a gentleman instead of a policeman, you wouldn’t be in such a tearing hurry to agree with me when I’m being modest. Have you finished with me now?’ I asked.

  He laughed and took another glance at his watch. ‘The Super’s having a briefing of section heads in a few minutes. I think that one of the big brass is coming. He’ll want you to come in and do your party piece. After that, I’ll run you home.’

  ‘Is it all right if I take a wander round?’ I asked. He looked doubtful. ‘Outside the club boundaries,’ I added.

  ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Could you be back in that seat outside the clubhouse in, say, half an hour?’

  ‘Without fail.’

  ‘Don’t get lost. I wouldn’t want that.’ He smiled again, suddenly and warmly, and turned away.

  Chapter Four

  I collected Sam from his place by the seat and he danced to let me know that he was happy to be walking again, even at heel. We left the club grounds through the gate in the high fence where a very bored constable was doing guard duty and turned towards the Leisure Complex, walking on the broad grass verge.

  The fence ended. The timeshare units were a quarter of a mile off, sprawling hard but luxurious as a sphinx might sprawl. Beyond was the Country Club with its swimming pool, tennis courts and stables. The immediate foreground had been grassed and planted with scatterings of shrubs and young trees which were already stretching frailly upward. Some day it would be full-blown parkland. A tractor was hauling a mowing-machine over the grass. Two ponies carrying girls were pretending to be frightened by it.

  Sir Peter’s apparently casual remark had set me thinking. When he seemed to be nattering at random he was usually most worth attention. I turned towards the water along the outside of the Gun Club fence. Although the ground was generally descending my path rose slightly because I was climbing the long mound which had been raised as a noise barrier or with safety in mind. If the latter, the result had been quite the opposite of the intention, because heads could now appear without warning above the embankment. This had necessitated an adjustment of the Down the Line stands and it was no longer safe to give the shooters a right-to-left crosser ‘on report’ at the Driven Grouse.

  Another example of what was either thoughtlessness or a deliberate bad neighbour policy was that the mound had a flattened top, broadening out as it neared the waterside. This had created an attractive terrace, slightly hollowed and fringed with shrubs, from which anyone prepared to brave the midges and more than a few thorns could watch the dinghies sailing or the activities of the Gun Club. There was even a rough barbecue pit and a topless oil drum containing sundry empty tins and bottles.

  I was interrupted by a distant fanfare on an unmusical car-horn. Looking round, I had a view of the Gun Club entrance. The uniformed constable seemed to be refusing admission to a disreputable Land-rover which was emitting a noise like a wounded buffalo, either in protest or in order to attract somebody’s attention. Such behaviour was out of keeping with the shy and gentle Sir Peter, so I decided that some pressing emergency must have brought him back in search of me. I began to retrace my steps, calling Sam away from his search for non-existent rabbits along the embankment. No rabbit would set up home so close to regular gunfire.

  The Land-rover, it turned out, was not Sir Peter’s but the even older and more ramshackle one belonging to my uncle. Ronnie saw me coming and drove a few yards to meet me. I came to the driver’s window.

  ‘Are you ready for a lift home yet?’ he asked.

  ‘I can’t leave,’ I said. ‘They want me to hang on. I’m promised a lift home when they’ve finished with me.’

  ‘Sir Peter thought that’d be so. He telled me to bring you a wee case. Just a dress and some things.’

  ‘God bless him!’ I said. ‘He’s a gentleman. You’d never have thought of a thing like that.’

  ‘I’d have thought of it,’ he protested. ‘I might not’ve done it, but I’d have thought.’

  Ronnie got out and I changed in the back of the Land-rover. A fairly suitable frock and almost matching shoes had been carefully packed, along with tights, a hairbrush and some make-up. I was pleased to find a container of those moist tissues which come in so useful when soap and water are unavailable, because I was quite sure that the club’s toilets would be out of bounds.

  ‘You didn’t do this packing,’ I said loudly. Ronnie would have stuffed a few of the wrong things into a plastic carrier bag.

  ‘Sir Peter helped,’ Ronnie’s voice admitted from somewhere out in the road. ‘He was in an awfu’ rush to be off for his meeting. But he was feared I’d make a hash of it on my own,’ he added indignantly.

  I wiped the driver’s seat with a tissue before climbing over into it and making use of the mirror. Ronnie sighed and tramped around the vehicle. When I felt presentable, I climbed down into the road. Sam sniffed at me in surprise. He was accustomed to me in both my guises but he had never seen me transformed from one to the other so quickly.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ I said to Ronnie. ‘There’s a pie in the freezer. Turn the oven on at about six o’clock, put the pie in at six-fifteen and if I’m not at home by seven take it out again. Leave some for me. You’ll remember all that?’

  ‘Aye.’ He paused and goggled at me in the way that means he is anxious about something. ‘You’ll be all right on your own?’

  ‘I won’t be on my own,’ I pointed out. ‘I’ll be in sight of about half the Lothian and Borders Constabulary. Our police may not be what they were, but I don’t think they go in for gang-bangs yet.’

  ‘Some o’ they boggers, I’d not be so sure,’ Ronnie said, but he turned the Land-rover and drove off.

  I called Sam to heel and turned back towards the Gun Club. The constable on the gate, who had only managed a superior nod when I walked out, now saluted and his lips moved in what might have been an embryo whistle.

  Feeling much restored in morale, I sat down to wait on the seat by the clubhouse wall. I was cooler in my cotton frock. Sunshine was all very well, but it was good to get back into the shade.

  *

  When Sergeant Fellowes came to fetch me a few minutes later, only the faintest flicker of surprise showed that he had noticed my transformation from a hoyden into a decorous young lady. He beckoned and then led the way. By some subtlety of body language, his back managed to convey a suggestion of apology for preceding me. He really was a gentleman, it said, despite being a policeman. Poor Sam was left to wait outside again.

  The clubroom had suffered as great a change as I had, but in the opposite direction. From being a bright and friendly room it had turned into an open-plan office. A large blow-up of the Ordnance Survey map was spread on the deep bar-top and was being covered with symbols denoting, I supposed, the positions in which every cigarette-end or dog-plonk had been found. Screens and chalkboards from some unexplained source obscured the pastel walls and displayed lists and diagrams.

  The plastic-topped tables had been assembled into two clumps. At one, uniformed and plain-clothes juniors, male and female, were sifting papers, compiling more lists and charts and either competing for the single telephone or using radios. At the other, on which had been laid out some shotguns and several cartridge cartons now containing polythene bags which I presumed held whatever was considered to be potential evidence, Superintendent McHarg sat with a man in uniform who, from the style of his uniform and the amount of silver on it, I assumed to be a very senior cookie indeed, outranking even Chief Superintendent Munro.

  Seven or eight men in plain clothes sat facing these two, but back from the tables to indicate subordinate status. The police, it seemed, had as subtle a pecking order as a Women’s Institute.

 
; As we approached what I thought of as the ‘top table’, Superintendent McHarg got to his feet. This little courtesy started a chain reaction as first one man and then another stood up. It spread to the serfs, who rose hesitantly as if surprised to find that it could happen. Soon, only the WPCs were sitting.

  The Sergeant placed a chair for me at the end of the ‘top table’ – another subtle differentiation, showing that I was not a member of either party but something strange and separate. I sat down and the men subsided.

  ‘Miss Calder is a gunsmith,’ the Superintendent said without any very great conviction. ‘I understand that she also shoots at clay pigeons.’ His tone and words suggested that it was unlikely that I ever hit any of them.

  Allies can appear in the most unexpected places. ‘Miss Calder,’ said the man with the silver braid, ‘was in the finals of the Women’s National Skeet Championship last year and the semifinals of the Open.’

  The statement was made flatly but McHarg’s mouth pursed for a moment as a tiny whisper of amusement could be heard in the room. ‘I didn’t know that. Mr Beamington is the Assistant Chief Constable (Crime),’ he explained to me.

  Mr Beamington nodded seriously but when he met my eye I detected some deep amusement. His uniform cap made him less of an individual than a symbolic figure, but when I tried to picture him without it my memory threw up first a tweed cap and then dark hair streaked with distinguished silver at the temple. The penny dropped. I had encountered him as a guest on several shoots which I had attended as a humble beater. I was about to return his testimonial by mentioning, truthfully, that he was a first-class game shot, but he gave me a tiny headshake and I held my peace. In view of the fanatical anti-gun views held by some of the head men in both police and government, an ambitious officer might well be reticent about that particular hobby.