A Brace of Skeet

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘Birdwatching?’ I asked.

  ‘In a sense,’ he said guardedly.

  ‘What sense?’

  ‘I like to watch the clay pigeon shooting. You call them birds, don’t you?’ His accent was faintly Scottish but undoubtedly better than mine.

  ‘True.’ I could have pointed out that he was committing an offence by having an uncovered air weapon in a public place. On the other hand, perhaps his only error was in not having paid for a day membership of the club on whose land he was. I was unsure of the law.

  ‘Joe – the man who looks after the boats at the Country Club – lets me take out a canoe whenever I want if I help him to look after the dinghies when he’s busy. I was watching you yesterday evening,’ he said. ‘You’re quite good.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I looked towards the Skeet layouts. ‘But how would you know? There’s a low safety banking at the top of the rise. When you’re shooting, you can’t even see the water, let alone the nearer shore. So you couldn’t possibly see who was shooting from here.’

  He sighed. The need to explain himself to nosy adults was getting to be too much. ‘I could tell which shots were yours. Your gun sounds different from most of the others. What were you using? A four-ten?’

  ‘Twenty-bore. If you want to spectate,’ I said, ‘why don’t you come up to the club?’

  ‘I’m not allowed near the place. The parents think it’s dangerous. I’m saving up for my own gun and I’ll soon be old enough to suit myself.’

  ‘If you think it’s safer down here, you’re out of your mind,’ I told him.

  He grinned at me. ‘You get a little spent shot pattering down now and again. It’s nothing to signify.’

  That was probably true. He was outside normal range of the small shot allowed for clay pigeons, and none of the members was likely to use a gun or cartridge faulty enough to cause balling of the shot.

  Most of the time, he was meeting my eyes frankly. In between, he was getting a good look at my legs from his low viewpoint. I stepped back a pace. That privilege was reserved for Sergeant Fellowes. I decided that this stripling quite fancied me but was too young and uncertain to do anything about it.

  ‘Were you here on Monday evening?’ I asked.

  ‘When that man was killed? No.’ He sounded disappointed. ‘I know somebody who might have been,’ he added.

  ‘A lady and a gentleman?’ I asked, although I doubted whether either description really applied.

  ‘You know? No, I wasn’t thinking of them,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Who, then?’

  ‘I don’t think I should tell you that. I could see if he’ll come and talk to you.’

  ‘I’d be grateful.’

  He looked at me speculatively. For a moment, unjustly, I thought he was going to suggest that the pleasure of my little pink body might be a satisfying way to express my gratitude. But apparently his development had not yet reached that stage. ‘I bet I could hit a clay pigeon with my airgun,’ he said.

  That sounded like folie de grandeur to me, but I went along with him. ‘I bet you couldn’t,’ I said.

  ‘I can hit birds flying,’ he said.

  I looked at him sternly. ‘You do realise that everything’s out of season?’

  ‘Carrion crows aren’t.’

  Nobody who killed carrion crows could be all bad. ‘Get him to come and talk to me,’ I said, ‘and I’ll put some easy clays over your head, and if you can hit even one of them with your airgun I’ll give you some tuition with a proper shotgun. For free. And tell your parents that you can come and spectate from the clubhouse windows, any time.’

  He launched the canoe and paddled away in the direction of the Country Club. He turned round once to give me a cheerful wave and nearly overbalanced the thing. He was out of sight before I remembered that I had not asked his name.

  *

  By the time the Sergeant showed up, I was being run off my feet.

  The weekend rush did not usually start until Friday evening, but that day it built up through the afternoon as those who could start the weekend early came to sharpen up for the competitions of the next two days. Along with the well-heeled self-employed came several whom I knew to be unemployed or on sick-leave. It was only human to wonder where they had found the money that they were uncomplainingly handing over to me.

  I began to wish that I had been nicer to the late Mr Tullos. He had had a right to be scratchy. Even with both legs in working order, I was hard pushed. Until help arrived, I found that I was expected to be cook and barmaid, cashier, trapper and scorer, safety officer, trap-loader, umpire and referee. By refusing to unlock several of the trap-houses, I managed to keep separate groups shooting the disciplines at which they wanted to practice while keeping them out of each other’s lines of fire and areas where they might be hit by falling clays. After that I retired to the clubhouse, breathing deeply and telling myself not to panic.

  The Sergeant turned up before things got quite out of hand. He listened to my news, nodded, and took over duty behind the bar. This I put down to his kind and thoughtful nature, until I realised that while taking entries he was able to jot down the names and addresses of all day-members.

  I was looking around, trying to anticipate the next crisis, when I was accosted suddenly by a well-dressed middle-aged man with an authoritative manner and a moustache to match. I had a faint recollection of having seen him before, performing competently at English Sporting. I thought at first that he was another member, about to complain that he wanted to shoot at some stand from which he would endanger everybody else, until I recognised him as Hugh Glencorse, the Club Secretary.

  ‘You seem to have things in hand,’ he said briskly. ‘Plenty of volunteers? Well done! I’ve brought you out the week’s catering supplies.’

  A stripling appeared from nowhere to help us carry the cartons in from Mr Glencorse’s large estate car. When the freezer and bar stocks were replenished, I prepared to dash outside to cope with whatever emergency was next to arise.

  ‘You’ve earned a rest,’ Mr Glencorse said. ‘Sit down and have a cup of coffee with me. Or would you like a proper drink? One thing certain is that somebody will fetch you if you’re needed.’

  I was glad to subside at one of the few unoccupied tables. I felt that my legs were trailing along the ground behind me, and Sam had insisted on being put back in the jeep. It takes a lot of mileage to tire a Labrador. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘A shandy, please, and a long sit-down.’

  He came back with my shandy and a low alcohol lager for himself. The Sergeant, still behind the bar, must have recognised him because no money passed.

  ‘Now,’ he said. ‘What problems?’

  ‘Nothing very special,’ I told him. ‘I sent one man to sit in his car for an hour, for unsafe gun-handling, and told him that if it happened once more he’d be sent home. He told me that I didn’t have the authority.’

  Mr Glencorse drew himself up. ‘Who was it?’ he asked. ‘I’ll have the committee speak to him.’

  ‘No need. I was quite prepared to pull the main fuse and shut the place down but the members who’d complained ganged up on him.’

  ‘Well done. What else?’

  ‘Nothing very much. Three men were sharing a hip-flask. I thought it would soon be empty, but I heard one of them say something about the Widow’s Cruse. So I told them that it was probably filling up with spit as fast as they emptied it. They seemed to lose interest in it after that.’

  He nodded in satisfaction. ‘Everything under control, then?’

  ‘More or less. There’s one problem. I have thirty or more members and guests out there practising Skeet, DTL and English Sporting. I can’t keep a check on all of them. I’m jolly sure that some of them are paying for twenty birds and shooting at fifty or more.’

  ‘We needn’t worry too much. Keep a check on one or two of them and catch them out. Tell them you’re reporting them to the committee. That usually provokes a temporary resurgence of honesty in the ot
hers.’ He paused and raised an eyebrow at me. ‘You’re enjoying yourself?’

  ‘It’s a novelty,’ I said, ‘and sort of fun.’

  ‘If we got somebody to stay in the house and be around in the mornings – I’m thinking of one of the members who’s a chef and lives alone in digs – would you take it on permanently? Feedback says that you’re doing well and the members like you.’

  That came as a bombshell. If I had given any thought to a permanent career it had been as a general helper to Dad. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I’ll have to think about it.’

  ‘Of course you will. I’ve no right to spring it on you like this. But while you think about it, will you at least help us out for a minimum of six weeks? Sir Peter has Sam Pollinder in mind and he’d do at a pinch, but he’s got himself committed to marking exam papers before he can retire and then he wants a holiday. Personally, I don’t think his health’s up to it.’

  ‘I think I could promise you six weeks.’

  He sipped his lager and looked at me over the rim of the glass. ‘What do you think about the idea of the club being bought out by the neighbours?’

  The apparent change of subject made me stare. ‘I’d hate that,’ I said.

  He nodded satisfaction. ‘You see those two men at the bar?’

  I looked. There were several men at the bar, but only two who seemed to be together. ‘The ones with the dog?’

  ‘Yes. They were only elected last week. But I happened to bump into one of them on Monday evening at the theatre. He seemed keen to sell. I now think that they may have been put up to it by the management at the Leisure Centre. Two members suddenly voting the wrong way might swing it. What I’d like you to tell me is that you’ll bridge the gap for six weeks in exchange for being given a life-membership.’

  I thought for a few moments and then it made sense. ‘You’re padding the membership to avoid the takeover. And it’ll cost you almost nothing, because Dad has a family membership anyway. Right?’

  ‘You’ve got it.’

  ‘But you’re giving me a financial incentive to vote for a sell-out.’

  He had a surprisingly warm smile. ‘We trust you,’ he said.

  ‘All right. I’ll help you out for at least six weeks in exchange for a life-membership.’

  He smiled again. ‘I think that we can meet your terms. We have a committee meeting this evening. I’ll put it to them.’

  Somebody came panting up from the lower level to say that the shooters wanted the Bolting Rabbit trap-house unlocked. And one of the DTL traps had run dry. And somebody was shooting a third round of Skeet, very slowly, and wouldn’t make way for those who were waiting. And the practice at the Sporting layout had grown into an informal competition and there was a dispute about the rules.

  I hurried outside and began to dispense a sort of palmtree justice.

  Mr Glencorse’s mention of volunteers had stirred up some sediment in my mind. I had been vaguely aware of a few late teenagers who were bustling about and making themselves generally useful as trappers and scorers and golfers. They seemed to know the jargon and the routine. Although I did not recall any of their faces and I had assumed that they were Mr Tullos’s regulars. I sent one of them for more cartons of standard clays, unlocked the Rabbit trap-house, settled several arguments and then watched. I saw one of the young fellows pick up a brace of spent cartridges, scribble something on them with a felt-tip pen and drop them into his pocket. He seemed to be muttering to himself, but when I crept up on him I found that he was dictating a pungent but recognisable description of the cartridges’ owner into his own buttonhole. Somewhere beneath the jeans and loose golf-jacket was a midget, portable tape-recorder.

  I climbed back up to the clubhouse and accosted the Sergeant behind the bar. ‘Those beardless youths,’ I said. ‘The ones who are doing all the work. Are they policemen? I must be getting old.’

  He gave me his special grin. ‘Police cadets,’ he said.

  Fair enough. I found myself wondering whether we couldn’t spin the mystery out for another six weeks.

  Later, I had to unlock the house so that the committee could meet in the sitting-room. They duly elected me a life-member. Some of them even stayed on to help clear up.

  I arrived home earlier than I had expected and then stayed up half the night altering Harry’s gun.

  Chapter Ten

  In summer, Saturday was usually the busiest day at the Pentland Gun Club. (During the winter, with game and wildfowl shooting in full swing and the evenings dark, the peak of activity shifted to Sunday.) I had hopes that the day would prove less hectic than usual, the serious competitors being away striving for gold or glory and only the potterers present for a couple of friendly and informal competitions.

  I seemed to be running out of clothes that were cool and comfortable and yet not too unflattering. The needs of my new occupation fell somewhere between my less disreputable clothes, which had been bought with an eye to jaunts around the Edinburgh discos, and the sort of rags in which I might have gone ratting or rabbiting or heather-burning with Ronnie. Mum, on the other hand, had bought new clothes for her holiday. If she had been at home, she would certainly have lent me something, I told myself. I borrowed a good white blouse and a pair of cream slacks which she had been saving against the day when dieting or a miracle might enable her to wear them again. Even Mum would have admitted that they looked better on me.

  Giving Harry’s gun a last touch-up delayed me. I was late, but Uncle Ronnie, on a day off, had waited for me. I had intended to coax him into helping me fill the magazines of all the traps and generally ready the place for business. But he was arrayed in his best suit, the one which makes him look like a bookmaker on a losing streak, so I guessed that he was set for a weekend of lechery and booze. His Land-rover started off, bouncing suggestively over the bumps in the gravel as though it had caught his mood, leaving Sam to stare disgustedly after it. He knew that he would usually get more sport with Ronnie than with me. There was no sign of the Sergeant, who was attending another briefing.

  I was not alone for long. I had lugged some cartons of clays to the top of the steps, to await the arrival of the first customer who could be persuaded to distribute the heavy boxes for me, when I felt eyes on me and realised that the boy from yesterday was watching me shyly from the lower level.

  ‘Come on up,’ I said. ‘You can give me a hand.’

  He climbed the steps, carrying his airgun under one arm, and stooped to give Sam a quick pat.

  ‘The first and unbreakable rule,’ I said, ‘is that guns are carried open and empty at all times. And I don’t know your name.’

  He grinned and broke open his airgun. ‘I’m Paul Fettercairn,’ he said. ‘I’ve got something for you.’

  I returned his grin. I liked the boy. And, besides, he could be useful. ‘A strong back, I hope. The second rule is that guns are never left lying around. We’ve never had a theft, but there’s no point in putting temptation in somebody’s way.’

  We locked the airgun in the jeep and then each picked up a box of the special clays for the Bolting Rabbit. He turned out to be stronger than he looked. ‘Don’t drop it,’ I said. ‘They’re supposed to break in the air, not to trickle out of the box as a fine powder. Now, what have you found out?’

  ‘There’s a boy,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t want to be named, but he often takes a canoe out late. He came down this way on Monday evening. He was early, so he’d nothing to do but look around.’

  Three paces later, the significance struck me. ‘Early for what?’ I asked. ‘Was he meeting somebody?’

  ‘Sort of, but not exactly. He’s a bit of a creep.’

  Paul was being evasive. One possible explanation occurred to me. ‘He’s a Peeping Tom, is he?’

  ‘Nothing like that,’ Paul said hastily. ‘He stays down where you saw me yesterday. He just feels he has to know. It’s probably one of those things which somebody else could never understand. If it was me, I’d pretend it was
n’t happening. But I suppose I’m good at burying my head in the sand. I never look at exam results until I have to.’

  That I could understand. ‘Nor did I.’

  We arrived at the Bolting Rabbit trap-house. He watched as I filled the magazine and stowed the rest of the clays in a corner. It seemed to me that we were talking about the son either of Mrs Hickson or of her lover.

  ‘What did he see?’ I asked as we walked back.

  ‘Somebody was shooting, up on top where the Skeet is. He couldn’t see anything much because of the hump, but, from what he said, whoever it was pretty good and didn’t miss much. Then several minutes passed with nothing happening except that he could hear voices. Then a man came down the steps.’

  ‘Was he carrying a gun?’

  ‘No.’

  We had reached the steps ourselves. Paul stopped half-way up and pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket. ‘I drew a rough map,’ he said. ‘The man looked around for a bit and then went and picked something up from here and here.’ Paul touched some mysterious symbols on his sketch-map. ‘Then he says that the man put down whatever he’d picked up about here.’

  The sketch-map was clear and remarkably accurate, and it was not difficult to guess that the mysterious man had been moving unbroken clays from where they had been thrown by the Skeet traps to the position in which I had pointed them out to the Sergeant. If he had missed four, he couldn’t be so very good. On the other hand, he could have tried out the acoustic release before starting to shoot. But the acoustic release had ended up in the Ball-trap trap-house. Perhaps it had been there all the time.

  ‘Go on,’ I said.

  ‘There isn’t much more. He was still down at the bottom level when he heard a laugh. People were coming.’

  Beatrice Hickson had a laugh that would scare pigeon off a field of oilseed rape, upwind. ‘What did he do?’ I asked.

  ‘He hurried back and went up the steps, almost running. And that was all my friend saw because he wasn’t looking this way after that. Does it help?’ Paul asked anxiously.