Sauce For the Pigeon

by Gerald Hammond

‘Let me just have a look at the layout first.’

  Munro got out of the car and then folded his lanky frame so that he could speak in through the door. ‘I would not be able to explain a single unnecessary footprint to Mr Russell,’ he said. ‘Do not be worrying yourself. We will photograph everything and keep all that we can. Today we will be busy here and you will not be welcome, but the morn you can come back and nose about until your heart is content.’

  Chapter Two

  Keith’s car had vanished from the gravel in front of Briesland House, which suggested that Molly had appropriated it for a shopping trip. Keith stole a glance at the sergeant as the police car stopped. ‘Would you lift me into Newton Lauder?’ he asked.

  The sergeant shook his head. ‘I must get back for Chief Inspector Munro,’ he said.

  ‘Call him on the radio and ask him if he’d mind.’

  ‘We’re not running a taxi service, Mr Calder.’

  Keith got out of the car. ‘Tell Munro to give me plenty of time before he asks another favour of me,’ he said. ‘I want time to think up the rudest bloody answer anybody ever got. And I’m going to send him in a bill for my time as a consultant.’

  ‘Do that,’ the sergeant said. ‘No doubt he will find a use for it.’

  Keith slammed the door with all his strength, but nothing broke.

  The sergeant, unperturbed, drove off. Keith let himself into the house, cancelled the burglar alarm and made for his study and the telephone, shedding outer garments as he went and fumbling for his pocket diary with its list of telephone numbers. He dialled the first number before he sat down. From Jake Paterson’s shop he got an engaged tone. He rang Jake’s flat and there was no answer after ten rings. He tried the shop again. Still engaged. Gabby bitch! Grinding his teeth in frustration, he dialled his own shop. His partner’s wife answered.

  ‘Janet? Keith. Where’s Wal?’

  ‘In the back, stock-taking. On his own.’ Janet’s voice was cold. ‘Do you want to speak—?’

  ‘No time,’ Keith broke in. ‘Something’s badly agley and Molly’s away with my car. Get Wal to come and collect me, now or sooner. You lock up for a few minutes and nip round to Jake’s shop. That fat bag that works for him’s got the phone tied up again. If Jake’s there or in his workshop, get him out of sight. The police must not get their hands on him until we’ve spoken. Got it?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Trust me,’ Keith said, ‘but trust me quickly.’

  ‘Will do,’ Janet said.

  Without halting his fingers Keith managed to send up a brief prayer of blessing on Janet. Her quick mind and ready acceptance had saved his bacon before and no doubt would do so again. He tried both Jake’s numbers once more, but there was no change. Too fretful to sit and wait, he put on his quilted waistcoat and his coat again, reset the alarms and walked down the drive. The day was still cold, but black clouds were coming up on a breeze from the south.

  He met Wallace where the by-road which served his house joined what had once been a section of the main road but was now only a long loop-road through Newton Lauder. An extension of the old road ran on into the hills, passing the site of the burning Land Rover and petering out near where Keith believed the dead man to have lived. If the dead man were not Jake Paterson. Keith pushed the thought away and dropped into the passenger’s seat.

  ‘Thanks, Wal,’ he said. ‘Now, get me back to Newton Lauder as quick as you can.’

  Using the mouth of the by-road, Wallace spun his small car and squirted away. Despite three missing fingers he was a good driver. The road ran almost straight and slightly downhill, and it had been gritted. Soon they were flat out. ‘I hope all this haste is due to your eagerness to get back and help me with the stock-taking,’ Wallace said, ‘but I’m not counting on it. Molly said something about a shooting accident. Anyone I know?’ The absence of his usual stammer told Keith that his partner was annoyed.

  ‘I’m not sure who it is, but, if it isn’t Jake Paterson, Jake may be in dire trouble. I doubt it’s an accident. Something smells bloody fishy, and there’s a representative of the honoured fuzz who hates Jake’s guts, stuck in a snow-drift on Soutra but heading in this direction when he gets through. We’ll have a confabulation later. Drop me at Jake’s shop for now.’

  Wallace slowed the car as they approached the first houses and they threaded the streets of Newton Lauder at a comparatively sedate pace. ‘Munro wouldn’t let me take a good look round,’ Keith said. ‘And if those are rain-clouds ahead . . .’

  ‘They’d be in line with the forecast. And I think it’s warmer. A thaw’s on the way.’

  Keith said a rude word.

  They passed through the square. The side on Keith’s left was dominated by the Town Hall and the older part of the police building, but Keith leaned forward to see past Wallace. The sign in the shop door said ‘Open’. Janet must be back, and business resumed. A hundred yards further on Wallace turned left, and soon stopped to drop Keith outside a double shop-front which bore up under the weight of three stone-built floors of flats above. As Wallace drove on to turn, Keith pushed into a shop crammed with space-age toys – televisions, music centres, computer games, CB radios, calculators of various degrees of sophistication, and, latest of status gimmicks, home computers which would not have disgraced a medium-sized business. A corner was devoted to the electronic security systems which were one of Jake’s personal side-lines.

  Predictably, the fat assistant was on the phone, exchanging scurrilous gossip with a friend while, with the aid of her spare hand, making inroads into a large box of chocolates. She had frizzed hair, a floral dress and spots, and her perfume cloyed the whole shop.

  ‘Where’s Mr Paterson?’ Keith demanded.

  The fat assistant scowled at him. Her face, he thought, could have modelled for the man on the moon. ‘Do you mind, Mr Calder?’ It was not a question but a rebuke from on high. ‘I happen to be on the telephone.’

  Keith leaned over and broke the connection. Her voice was shrill, but he shouted her down. ‘You are tying up Jake’s phone with personal calls while all hell’s loose. If you want to save Jake and your job you’d better get your wits about you and tell me where your boss is.’

  ‘I won’t be spoken to—’

  Keith found a few more decibels. ‘You’ll be spoken to a bloody sight worse if you don’t get your finger out. There’s a man dead and I’ve got to get hold of Jake in one hell of a hurry. Pull yourself together and tell me where he is.’

  There was a moment’s silence so absolute that it seemed to hiss. Then she said, ‘He’s away. On holiday. Abroad.’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since this morning.’

  Keith’s instant of relief came to an abrupt end. ‘You’re sure that he got away? Tell me the details.’

  ‘I don’t see what . . .’ She caught Keith’s eye and deflated again. Keith was very angry and ripe for a major explosion, and it showed.

  ‘Mr Paterson felt like a break in the sun. He made a last-minute booking, you get better terms that way. He leaves from Gatwick this evening. He told me yesterday that he was going to be up early, put in an hour at his shooting – sport, he calls it – and then drive south. He should be half-way to London by now. He’s left me in charge for the next ten days. Satisfied?’ Then curiosity overcame her indignation. ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded.

  ‘You’ll know all about it too damn soon unless we’re lucky. I must go now. When I’m gone, instead of calling your friend back, do your employer a service for once. Call Gatwick. Find out who he was to fly with. Leave messages for him, and make them as urgent as you can. He must, repeat must, phone me before catching his plane. I’ll be at home from early afternoon until I hear from him.’

  ‘I’ll do that. Of course I will.’

  Keith wondered whether to tell her not to reveal Jake’s holiday plans to the police just yet. But, he decided, the police would soon find out about those plans and also about any attempt that he ma
de to conceal them.

  ‘You’re sure that he got away?’ he asked. ‘He couldn’t still be in his workshop?’

  ‘He left the key with me.’

  Outside the shop Keith turned left, entered another door and climbed one flight to Jake’s flat. He knocked and rang and listened. There was no sound, no smell of gas or smoke, nothing to be seen through the letterbox. The place seemed dead. He clattered down the dull, utilitarian stair and into the street.

  His watch said that the morning was almost gone, but could not tell him where. The dark clouds were overhead and the temperature had risen ten degrees.

  *

  Keith walked back to the square, where he found his wife stowing parcels in the boot of his hatchback. Deborah ran to meet him and he picked her up with an effort; she was growing heavier by the day. He had intended to reprove Molly for leaving him stranded, but she looked so good, and so pleased to see him, that he bit back the words. Instead, he filed them away, to be produced on the next occasion when Molly should point out his own selfishness.

  ‘That’s that done,’ Molly said. ‘How about buying us lunch while you tell us all about the mysterious doings?’

  This fitted in well with Keith’s vague intentions, except that he rather hoped not to have to pay for the meal. His beginnings had been humble and impoverished, and, although he had now achieved a state of affluence which a few years before he would never have dared to imagine, something deep within him still rebelled at the concept of paying out good money for what could have been cooked at home.

  ‘You pop on over to the hotel,’ he said. ‘I’ll be with you shortly. Get yourself a gin, give Snookums whatever she wants within reason, wait five minutes and then order me a pint of Guinness – it takes forever to draw.’

  *

  Janet was still standing guard behind the counter of the deserted shop while Wallace wrestled with lists on clipboards. Each was anxious for the latest news, but Keith had a prior call on his time. He made a bee-line for the telephone and dialled the number of the firm’s solicitor. After a brief tussle with Mr Enterkin’s secretary, whose mission in life was to protect her employer from clients, Keith got him on the line.

  ‘You act for Jake Paterson, don’t you?’ Keith asked.

  Ralph Enterkin’s voice came booming over the wire. ‘Two answers, my dear boy,’ he said. ‘First, it’s none of your business. And, secondly, you know damn well I do. You witnessed his signature in my office last year.’

  ‘Right. Now that you’ve picked that nit, I think your client’s either dead or in dead trouble, probably the latter. How about lunch at the hotel?’

  Mr Enterkin, who had a special relationship with good food, was tempted. But he was also conscientious. ‘Couldn’t you come over here?’

  ‘Easily. But your good lady might have something to contribute.’

  ‘I take your point.’ Mr Enterkin’s better half, as he rightly referred to her, had been a widow and a barmaid. Far from inviting her to quit her vocation, he had been delighted when she had taken up a post with the hotel. She had proved both popular and useful. She absorbed the local bar gossip like a sponge and, like a sponge, only gave forth when pressed. ‘I shall join you there shortly,’ Mr Enterkin said.

  Wallace and Janet had been conferring. ‘We’re coming with you,’ Janet said. ‘You owe us a meal, and I haven’t been able to make lunch for Wal because of you skiving off and leaving us stuck here.’

  ‘What you really mean,’ Keith said, ‘is that you’re dribbling down your chin with curiosity. But come along anyway. You may be able to help.’

  They shut up the shop – a few minutes early, but who was to care? – and made their way across the square. A gentle rain had started. The chill was gone out of the air.

  *

  Newton Lauder’s principal hotel had been fitted out in the mid-nineteenth century, to a very high standard even for that opulent period, and a wise management had refused to countenance any changes beyond essential repairs and replacements. Except in the public bar where, it was felt, standards might be allowed some minor relaxation, man-made materials were taboo and electronic entertainment was not to be thought of. It was a place of plate-glass, dark mahogany and muted sounds, and, if the young sparks considered it old-fashioned, their older and better heeled relatives found it a haven of peace.

  When Keith arrived, with Janet and Wallace in tow, Molly and Deborah were already installed in a favourite place, a nook off the main lounge just large enough for two small tables which could be pushed together to seat six people in comfort. Apart from its privacy, its main attractions were the hatches from the bar on one side and from the kitchen on the other. Molly was at the bar hatch, chattering to Mrs Enterkin. Deborah, in the hotel’s genuinely antique high-chair, was spilling orange juice.

  ‘Is my Guinness up?’ asked Keith, whose habit it was to put first things first.

  ‘I haven’t got around to ordering it yet,’ Molly said.

  ‘Let’s get around to it now. Hullo, Penny,’ Keith added.

  Penny Enterkin leaned through the hatch and cast her eye over the company. ‘One pint of Guinness, two gin-and-tonics and a Glenfiddich. Is that right?’ she asked in her comfortable West Country voice.

  ‘A large Glenfiddich,’ Wallace said. ‘I only d-drink to keep up my strength.’

  ‘And a large dry sherry,’ said Keith. ‘Your lord and master will be with us soon. Have one yourself and put them on our lunch bill. And, if you can, join us later for a few minutes. We want to pick your brains.’

  Penny smiled. ‘I don’t know about brains, dear. But I’ll join you if I can.’ She turned away to fetch the Guinness from the further bar.

  ‘She’ll join us,’ Keith said. ‘The hotel manager worships the very ground she shakes.’

  ‘I hope,’ Mr Enterkin’s voice said behind him, ‘that you are not seeking to imply that either of us is, er, overweight?’

  Keith felt his face grow hot. Molly was trying not to giggle.

  ‘Just pleasantly plump,’ Keith said.

  And indeed the Enterkins were well matched, each having that jovial plumpness which comes from a full appreciation of the better and more fattening things of life.

  ‘I should hope so indeed.’ Mr Enterkin squinted down at himself. ‘Sometimes I wonder whether I might not be the better for taking off a pound or two. And then I think of the agony of doing so and the absolute certainty that I should put it on again immediately. My doctor reminds me of the strain of carrying an extra load when I walk, so I combat that argument by walking less far but gaining more exercise from the weight I carry. Shall we sit down? All this walking is wearying on the feet.’ Mr Enterkin had come all of a hundred yards.

  A waiter helped them to push tables together. He took their orders and departed.

  Mr Enterkin sipped his sherry. ‘I’m told,’ he said, ‘that the police are much concerned about some vehicle found burning to the north of the town with a dead person still inside. I trust that you are not about to reveal that this was my client, Jacob Paterson?’

  ‘I’ll give you a quick run-down,’ Keith said. ‘This is a council of war. Those two are along to scrounge a free meal, and I’ve asked your missis to join us because she knows all about everybody. What I know is that Munro whisked me out to the scene this morning, in the hope that I could identify the dead man. He was in a short wheelbase, petrol Land Rover which seemed to have been blown apart from inside and then subjected to intense fire from the ruptured petrol tank. It might have been possible to make out the registration numbers, but anyway there was a fault on the line to the DVL place in Swansea, and most of the indications which might have pointed to the owner had been blown apart or burnt. It had been quite a bang, and yet the windscreen had been blown about twenty yards into a bush. It was scratched but not broken. I thought that I could smell both gunpowder and nitrocellulose powder around the wreck, and to back this up there was a bag nearby which held some dead pigeon plus a mixture of spent ca
rtridges, some of which had been loaded with black powder and had the mark of a firing-pin which, to me, pointed straight away to Jake Paterson. There was no gun to be seen.

  ‘I didn’t want to point the finger at Jake, especially after Munro let out that the copper heading out from Edinburgh to take over the case hates Jake’s guts, so I shilly-shallied for a bit. But I could hardly avoid mentioning his name.’

  There were stricken faces around the table. Jake Paterson was a good friend. Molly put it into words. ‘You don’t mean that it was Jake’s body? Jake doesn’t have a Land Rover.’

  ‘He borrows one sometimes,’ Wallace said.

  ‘I just don’t know,’ Keith said. ‘Unless it was a freak accident, there were two men involved. Despite something that Munro said, I’d guess that the body was too small to have been Jake’s. The police found a place where they think some kind of an attack could have taken place. It’s beside a barbed-wire fence, and the top strand was protected by a split plastic tube. And that’s a trick which I associate with a man I’ve met once or twice out shooting. A small man with a tired look about him. Small enough to have been the corpse. He certainly runs a petrol Land Rover. I think he lives in one of the converted farmhouses up Laurelrigg way, and works for the concrete factory at Kalehead.’

  Discussion was halted while the waiter served them a meat course. As soon as he was gone Mr Enterkin spoke up. ‘His name was Muir, Neill Muir. I say “was” on the assumption that you might for once be proved an accurate guesser. He did work at Kalehead, as their chief man of finance. He was taking an early retirement. I think his time was up a couple of days ago. He doesn’t seem to have collected his pension for very long, poor chap.’ Mr Enterkin’s pudgy eyes managed to turn a piercing look on Keith. ‘And why, may I ask, are you getting in a tizzy about a corpse of whose identity you aren’t even sure?’

  ‘I’m looking to you to tell me whether to get in a tizzy or not,’ Keith said. ‘Jake seems to be heading for foreign parts at short notice. What with that, and Jake’s cartridges found on the spot, and a policeman whose life’s ambition is to incriminate Jake taking over the case, there might be good reason for a tizzy if there was any connection between Jake and this chap Muir. So, do we panic or don’t we?’