A Brace of Skeet

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘And what are you doing next Sunday evening? I gather that you’ll be off duty. And so will I.’

  His effrontery took my breath away. He was a racist and apparently I was a suspect and here he was trying to make a date with me. ‘Would you have asked that question if you’d known that my father was only the butler here?’ I asked him.

  My question struck home, but not in the way that I had intended. He leaned back and shouted with laughter. ‘Definitely,’ he said when his voice came back. ‘Even if I didn’t know who your father was.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘on Sunday evening I’m de-frosting the fridge.’

  I got out of the car, not waiting for the door to be opened for me and quite forgetting about Sam. ‘Our first quarrel,’ he said. ‘Can I keep the dog?’

  ‘No, you can’t,’ I said, turning back.

  He was still laughing as he drove away. I could not think whether to laugh, swear or kick poor old Sam.

  *

  When I entered, neutralising the alarm system from the hall cupboard, the house felt dead. There was no smell of cooking and no sign of Uncle Ronnie. In my irritation with the Sergeant I was about to call down curses upon Ronnie’s grizzled head when I found a note from him on the kitchen table, saying that we were bidden to eat with Janet and Wallace. If the word ‘bidden’ seems extreme in the context, it is still the right word; Janet’s invitations were thinly veiled commands.

  Priority Number One was to feed Sam. Number Two was a quick shower and a more suitable selection of clean clothes. Feeling more human, I reset the alarms and the timer which switches lights and a radio on and off and sent Sam to his bed. If Dad had not been a gunsmith, he could have been a wow as a professional dog-trainer. Sam had been taught to stay in his bed until he heard a stranger in the house, after which he was free to come through the dog-door from the back porch, thereby setting off the alarms, and to take whatever action he deemed necessary. Sam was one of the mildest of Labradors, but if the family territory was threatened he could be a tiger. And, like all Labradors, he always believed himself to be near starvation. It has never happened yet, but I always expect to come home and find a burglar reduced to mincemeat and a pair of shoes.

  The family car was in a security compound near Liverpool and Ronnie had his Land-rover away with him, but I had keys to Dad’s jeep and permission to use it very carefully if at all. On the long and slightly downhill straight into Newton Lauder, with the low sun blazing between the roadside trees in a quick, lighthouse rhythm, I wound the jeep up to a noisy gallop but, as usual, it refused to touch the ton. Some day with a following wind . . .

  In the Square, I parked where the shadow of the buildings would soon fall across the jeep – I hate getting into a car with hot seats. The shop was closed up tight for the night. It is not small as shops go, although its old-fashioned style and proportions make it seem poky in comparison to the supermarket next door. Dad and Wal, who have seen the business grow from the time when the shop was an echoing emptiness, never seem to notice the clutter; but they have managed to cram a disproportionate amount of stock into its limited space. Janet complains eternally.

  To me, the shop, with its shelves and racks vanishing high into the tall ceiling, stacked and hung with all the paraphernalia and clothing of fishing and shooting, is a perfect place to visit but hell to serve in. The others know exactly where every knife, trout-fly, oil-bottle or tin of airgun slugs is to be found, but I have to search all the shelves and admit defeat, only to have the item jump into my hand, so to speak, the moment the customer is out of sight. Dad’s workshop, and the trading in antique guns, had been squeezed out of the shop and banished to Briesland House around the time I was born.

  Beside the shop a panelled door, painted a discreet charcoal grey, let me into a small hall and I climbed a stair to the flat where Mum and Dad had started their life together. I had probably been conceived somewhere in its few rooms. Janet met me on the landing.

  When I was young, Janet seemed terribly old, although she is a few years younger than Mum. But while Mum has spread a little over the years and never bothers to hide the grey in her hair, Janet has never changed; as I approached adulthood she even seemed, like Sir Peter, to grow younger by comparison. She still has some of the golden prettiness which must first have attracted Wal, but while she sometimes, quite deliberately, gives the impression of being a dumb blonde she is as sharp as a knife and almost as hard. I don’t mean hard in the sense of cruel, but firm and unsentimental. Her one human trait, apart from her affection for Wal, is her curiosity.

  She led me into their living-room, where Ronnie and Wallace were already lolling at ease, and gave me a very weak gin and tonic. Janet is one of the few who realise that I have actually grown up, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt and assumed that the dilution of the drink was because of my new status as a driver. The dining-table had been pulled out from under the window and laid for four.

  She vanished into the kitchenette for a moment and reappeared with a tall glass of sherry. ‘What was all the fuss and flapdoodle about?’ she asked me from the door. ‘The police were looking for you during the morning and Sir Peter phoned later to ask whether your services could be spared. Ronnie knows, but he won’t say.’

  ‘It’s little enough I know about it,’ Ronnie said, ‘and Sir Peter said to hold my wheesht.’

  ‘A small consultancy job for the police,’ I said airily, just to see the look on their faces.

  Janet’s face was disappointingly dubious. ‘You mean you’re a witness?’

  ‘No. They just wanted an expert opinion about something. It’ll be in tomorrow’s papers, so it can’t hurt to tell you about it.’

  She glanced back into the kitchenette and registered frustration. ‘I’m going to serve the soup,’ she said suddenly. ‘Move to the table. And don’t you dare to say another word, Deborah, until I come back.’

  ‘It would b-break her heart to miss a word,’ Wal said. ‘’Specially if there’s a scandal brewing.’ Wallace is lean, with a bony and rather clever face; which is only fair because he’s a rather clever man. He is also a nice, mild man (only Dad can ever make him lose his temper) with a gentle sense of humour. He has a reputation as a financial wizard, but his career in accountancy was cut short by the loss of three fingers from his right hand in an accident, despite which he is a surprisingly good shot. He has a slight, natural stammer which usually disappears as he settles down.

  ‘No scandal,’ I said. ‘Mystery, but so far a disappointing lack of scandal.’

  He moved to the table. I suddenly felt ravenous after my long and under-nourished day. I was even hungry enough to fancy soup despite the hot weather, but Janet served it scalding hot – on purpose, I suspect. I nibbled on delicious, crusty bread with butter and while I waited for the soup to cool I told them about the death of Herbert Tullos and my own invaluable contribution to the investigation. Looking back, I may have given the impression that the police had begged me to come and take a leading role in an investigation which would otherwise get nowhere. If so, blame the occasions when I had been overshadowed by Dad and patronised by the others.

  ‘Are they going to p-pay you for your work?’ Wal wanted to know. I said that I hadn’t the faintest idea and he cast his eyes up to the ceiling. Wallace does not really care about money for its own sake. To him, money represents the counters in a huge game which he plays against the rest of the world in general and HM Inspector of Taxes in particular; a game which he plays to win with the abstract dedication of a snakes and ladders enthusiast.

  My uncle wanted to know the gorier details, Wallace was interested in the technicalities while Janet was more curious about the Sergeant. Either my voice had betrayed a certain interest or Sir Peter had been gossiping again. Before we got round to Sir Peter’s request for my services, soup was finished and the meat course was on the table. The lamb was perfection but the potatoes, I noticed, were slightly hard in the middle. Janet’s curiosity had driven her to hurry the m
eal onto the table.

  Sir Peter, I discovered, had been busy. He did not want the clubhouse empty and the whole layout open to vandalism. He could probably have persuaded me to stay in the living quarters of the clubhouse overnight, even alone, but he had decided that that would be an unsuitable job for a girl. So Ronnie was to spend his nights in the clubhouse. And because I must not be alone in Briesland House (whether for fear of intruders or for reasons of chaperonage was never made clear) Janet would move in with me.

  ‘That’s a bit hard on Uncle Wal, isn’t it?’ I suggested.

  ‘Glad of the p-peace and quiet,’ Wal said.

  Janet was in the middle of enquiring whether the Sergeant was married. She is eternally on the hunt for a husband suitable for me – according to her standard of suitability rather than his sex appeal or my taste in men. It took a few seconds for Wal’s words to sink in.

  ‘And just what does that mean?’ she asked.

  It probably had not meant anything, but the prospect of freedom from Janet’s powerful presence had gone to Wallace’s head. ‘It’s the snoring,’ he said. ‘Deborah, if you’re being paid to keep the clay club running—’

  ‘A pittance,’ I said.

  ‘—you’ll be doing it in the firm’s time.’

  ‘Mostly evenings and weekends,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I do not snore,’ Janet said. ‘And you told Deborah that we didn’t need her in the shop, so it’s none of your business if she earns a little pin-money.’

  ‘Unless we both have to go out,’ Wal reminded her. ‘In which case, we’ll have to pay Minnie to take over. Perhaps it isn’t the snoring as much as the little popping sound in between.’

  ‘I’ll buy any clays and cartridges through the shop,’ I promised. ‘I’m to keep the club’s profit on cartridges, so if you make me turn in my pittance I’ll buy them where I can get them cheapest.’

  Wal thought it over and then nodded. He had made his opening gambit and I had replied with the appropriate move. Honour was satisfied.

  ‘I definitely do not snore,’ Janet said with finality. She is always the last to see that her leg is being pulled. ‘Who’d want to knock off Mr Tullos? Deborah, you and your father were up there on Sunday. Who was there?’

  ‘Just faces. You know how it is. The scorer calls for Charlie and the face which discussed pigeon shooting with you the week before steps forward. Sir Peter gave the Sergeant a run-down of the members and the most regular visitors and I identified most of them in my mind, but they’ve faded again. There were a few strangers there, but Dad would have known the rest.’

  ‘Were there any of the usual arguments?’ Wal asked.

  ‘Everyone seemed a little friendlier than usual. There were no disputes over the scoring and hardly any backbiting. Mr Tullos seemed to be in one of his better moods.’

  ‘That probably accounted for the general sweetness and light,’ Janet said. ‘He could be a devil when he felt like it. His limp probably gave him a grudge against the world.’

  ‘All the same,’ I said unhappily, ‘it needn’t have been someone from the club who killed him. He could have made all sorts of enemies.’ I was already developing a motherly feeling towards the club and all its regulars.

  ‘I doubt that,’ said Ronnie. ‘Sir Peter used to send me up to give him a hand, when something heavy needed shifting. He was aye there. It was as if he’d no other life at a’ – except when he was away at the shoots.’

  ‘I’ve always wondered,’ Janet said, ‘how an ex-policeman managed to afford quite so many trips to the big competitions. He always stayed at a good hotel. I’ n sure he never won enough to cover his expenses.’

  ‘He had at least two pensions,’ Wal pointed out, ‘plus his salary and perks at the club. And he wasn’t always too scrupulous.’

  ‘He wasn’t ripping off the club, was he?’ I asked him anxiously. If there was any shortage of cash or assets I would want it identified before I took over.

  ‘I think not. But he often needled one or other of the better-heeled shooters into a private challenge match for sums which weren’t exactly chicken-feed. He threw out a challenge to me once and when I turned him down he made some sneering remark about being afraid even to shoot against another cripple.’ Wallace glanced down for a moment at the stumps of his missing fingers. ‘But if I’d taken him up on it, I’d have insisted on inspecting the clays and on opening up a few samples of his cartridges.’

  ‘Looking for what?’ I asked. You never know when such tidbits of information may come in useful.

  Wallace looked at me with one eyebrow up and then shrugged. ‘Flattened small-shot, to give himself a wider spread at Skeet. Clays which had lain in the sun. They sag in the middle, you know, so that they fly at the most peculiar angles. He used to set them aside, saying that it wouldn’t do to sell them to one of the other clubs, but there was usually a little stack of them in a corner of each trap-house.’

  ‘The . . . the nasty old gentleman,’ I said. If I had uttered the first words which came to my mind, Janet would certainly have repeated them to Mum. I had once been fool enough to accept a challenge from Mr Tullos to a match at Skeet and somehow I had found that I was backing myself far more heavily than I had expected. It had seemed to me that he had shot above his usual form and I had certainly shot below mine. ‘That could have given some of the regular attenders a motive for getting cross with him. People have been murdered for less.’ I had no intention of admitting that that little episode had occurred, let alone that it had cost me fifty quid, the loss of which had been very difficult to conceal.

  ‘Very much less,’ Wallace agreed. ‘And then there was the question of the proposed takeover.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that somebody from the Leisure Complex knocked him off?’ I asked. ‘According to Sir Peter, he was dead against the takeover.’

  ‘But was he?’ Wal retorted. ‘Your much loved godfather may not have been frank with you – or with the police. About a fortnight ago, one of the timeshare guests phoned me, wanting to know if we had a carbon-fibre trout rod in stock. He bought one over the phone. I was curious to see the Country Club, so I took the rod up to him and we had a drink together. Herb Tullos was coming out of the manager’s office, looking like the cat that stole the cream. I think that he’d been got at.’

  ‘And he was on the committee,’ I said.

  ‘The committee couldn’t have taken a decision to sell up. I warned Sir Peter that if the subject came up at an Extraordinary General Meeting I thought that Tullos might have changed his tune.’

  ‘For money?’

  ‘That or the promise of the managership.’

  ‘Managership of what?’ I demanded. ‘I thought they wanted to close the place down.’

  ‘A potential money-spinner like that? They want to take it over and turn it into a commercial operation. Sponsored competitions, television coverage and all that jazz. They already do good winter business out of the English and Italians who come for the grouse. A really top-flight clay pigeon set-up within their control would round out their operation very nicely, thank you. One of the Country Club members leaked it to me. He has a foot in both camps. He brought in a Miroku Seven Thousand, by the way. He wants a fatter recoil pad fitted. And it’s in a hurry because his two weeks in the timeshare runs out on Saturday.’

  I pulled a face. I had been counting on one more day of leisure before my new duties began.

  ‘If I snore,’ Janet said, ‘you’ve taken a hell of a long time to complain about it.’

  Wallace nodded. ‘I’m like that,’ he said comfortably.

  Chapter Six

  My day of leisure went completely down the plug-hole. I spent some of the Wednesday on the Miroku which Wal had taken in. Wallace collected it at lunchtime, leaving in its place a side-by-side game gun which had been brought in for a general overhaul. (This usually meant that the innards would be a mass of rust, which the owner would refuse to believe when confronted by a bill for the man-hours entai
led.) I would have got on with it straight away, but the afternoon went to pot when Sir Peter called in to brief me on what I could and could not do at the Gun Club.

  I fed Ronnie and we spent the evening in the garden. Dad would hit the ceiling if he came home to find that his beloved garden had gone back to the Indians. And quite right, too, I admitted to myself. We helped the tedious time to pass by composing rude limericks. Ronnie’s were ruder, but mine rhymed and scanned better.

  I slept lightly, haunted by dreams of disaster. I was going to make a fool of myself. Or they would sell the club. Or the murderer would return.

  Thursday came in at last, still bright, still hot. The farmers, who could have found fault with the weather even if they had chosen it themselves, would soon be prophesying doom and famine. I dressed with care. I did not want to be hot, but I was damned if I was going to be as Plain Jane as I had been two days earlier; nor had I any intention of ruining my few good clothes. I settled for last year’s best cotton and fairly sensible shoes.

  I was not due to open up the Pentland Gun Club until after lunch, but I wanted to spend some time, before the arrival of any possible visitors, familiarising myself with what was where and why. So I put Sam and my twenty-bore into the back of the jeep. As an afterthought, I added the game gun which had come in for a service.

  Traffic was heavy on the main road and I had to crawl behind an articulated jumbo for miles. After that I was onto the tight and twisty country roads and climbing steadily. I came up past the dam without ever having been over forty. It was boring, but it was not the boredom which worried me. I always feel safer at speed because there is less temptation for my butterfly mind to wander.

  The gates of the Pentland Gun Club were closed and locked. No cars were to be seen other than Mr Tullos’s van. There was no sign of the promised police presence. This I found disconcerting. I had duplicate keys from Sir Peter. I drove inside and took a quick look round, but there was no constable lying dead or unconscious among the stands and trap-house.