Sauce For the Pigeon

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘We’ve only got a few minutes.’

  ‘So let’s not hang about.’

  *

  Jake, in the holding cell, was brooding over the remains of an inedible lunch. He looked guilty, Keith thought, as though he had already convicted himself on the basis of the evidence.

  ‘Cheer up,’ Keith said. ‘You haven’t heard me telling them how innocent you are yet.’

  ‘You look as if you’d just done ten years yourself,’ Jake said gloomily. ‘Can you really do me any good?’

  ‘Have no fear, Keith is here. One quickie. Ralph’s been talking about Mrs Muir as the weeping widow. I’ve been thinking of her as the merry widow. Which was it? What was she like when she reached your flat?’

  The two constables, waiting to bring Jake back to court, were listening avidly; but it was too late to worry about that.

  Jake thought back. ‘Both,’ he said. ‘She was happy, elated. And I never knew her quite so amorous. But her eyes and nose were running. It was just the cold weather.’

  ‘Of course it was,’ Keith said triumphantly.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘. . . and tell the truth,’ Keith finished. He and Lord Bickenholme lowered their hands. The judge resumed his seat but Keith remained standing. He was claustrophobically aware of the curved canopy above his head, designed to throw the witness’s voice to the fifteen jurors facing him in their cramped benches.

  Keith glanced around. The coat of arms high on the wall, and the cloth on the judge’s bench, furnished, together with the judge’s robes, the only splashes of colour in a room which could otherwise have passed for a Victorian classroom trebled in height. On his right, the judge shared his bench only with the shorthand-writer, who was so close to Keith that he could smell her perfume. On his left, in the dock which was in effect the first row of the public seats, Jake sat between the two constables. Of the three, Jake looked the least interested. The next row was given over to reporters but only two were present, one of them the youngster from the Edinburgh Herald. The remaining seats, which could have held 200, were about half-filled. Keith noticed Chief Inspectors Russell and Munro, seated as far from each other as possible, Mrs Muir and several of the curious from Newton Lauder.

  Crammed into the space between himself and the jury was a square table heaped with a disarray of books and papers. Mr Enterkin was seated there, together with another unrobed man who Keith thought would be the Crown Office solicitor. The other five men were robed and wigged – the advocate-depute, Richard Garrard for the defence, their respective juniors and, seated with his back to the bench and apparently immobile, the judge’s clerk.

  Richard Garrard rose. He lifted his eyes from Keith’s list of questions. He looked calm, but Keith knew that his mind must be racing ahead.

  ‘State your name, please.’

  ‘Keith Calder.’

  ‘Your profession?’

  ‘Gunsmith and shooting instructor.’

  Lord Bickenholme spoke from on high. ‘I have no wish to hurry you, Mr Garrard, but time will soon begin to press. Would it help if I were to mention that Mr Calder has given evidence before me on two previous occasions, once on ballistics and once on the values of guns, and that his experience and expertise are not in doubt?’

  Garrard bowed slightly. ‘I am obliged to Your Lordship. But on this occasion Mr Calder’s evidence will concern another matter. Pigeon shooting.’ He threw Keith an anxiously questioning glance and got a nod for an answer.

  The advocate-depute rose. (Garrard sat down immediately.) ‘My Lord, I am sure that you are as baffled as I am as to the relevancy of such evidence.’

  Keith had once met Lord Bickenholme in his chambers and knew him for a kindly man and an unusually human judge; but the face between the long wig and the scarlet and gold robes looked like that of a dyspeptic frog. ‘And if we do not hear it we will remain baffled,’ His Lordship snapped.

  Garrard was only a little less baffled than his learned friend, but he bowed again as he rose. ‘Tell the court your experience of the – ah – pursuit of the woodpigeon.’

  ‘I have shot pigeon for more than twenty years,’ Keith said. ‘I used to shoot for the market but now I shoot mostly for my own table. I estimate that I have shot some thirty thousand pigeon. I teach the subject on at least one course each year. I have written three booklets on the subject, more than forty articles and a book which is still a standard work eight years after its publication.’

  The advocate-depute seemed about to interject, but he shrugged and sat back.

  Garrard glanced at Keith’s notes. ‘Please tell the court what you remember of the events of eleventh November last.’

  ‘I was fetched from my home by Chief Inspector Munro of the Newton Lauder police and taken to the place where the Land Rover was still smouldering. It contained what appeared to be human remains. There were indications that the dead man might have been shooting pigeon, and I was asked whether I could make any suggestions which would help towards identifying him.’

  ‘Were you able to give any such help?’

  ‘I think so,’ Keith said modestly. ‘There was a bag of shot pigeon, containing also some spent cartridges and a catapult, lying near the Land Rover. I have asked that the pigeon be brought into court.’

  The macer (the usher in a Scottish court) appeared from behind Keith and whispered with the advocate-depute, who got to his feet. ‘I am advised that such a request was only received during the lunch recess,’ he said. ‘Several items were requested. The gun was already in evidence. The windscreen of the Land Rover has now been brought into court. The pigeon, naturally, had gone to cold store and will take longer to fetch.’

  Lord Bickenholme looked at the clock and then down at Garrard. ‘Perhaps your witness could move on for the moment, and return to the subject of the pigeon later?’

  ‘Certainly, My Lord.’ Garrard looked at Keith. ‘Please continue.’

  ‘In view of the facts that there was no sign of a gun and that the bag was of a type more often used to carry decoys, I suggested to the police that the man’s decoys might still be in place and might give me a better indication as to his identity. I should explain that the woodpigeon is an elusive bird and must be brought within gunshot by the use of decoys imitating a flock of feeding pigeon, and by other tricks such as a decoy pigeon sitting up in a tree.

  ‘From near the Land Rover I could see a remarkably unmoving pigeon in a tree further north towards the farm buildings, so I went there with the police. From the car, we could see a pattern of decoys in a ploughed field. Mr Munro would not let me leave the car for a closer look. From information furnished at that time by another officer, I was able to suggest the identity of Mr Muir, although I did not know his name at the time, as the deceased. I also suggested that some of the spent cartridges might at some time have been fired from Mr Paterson’s gun.’

  Garrard, who had been puzzling over Keith’s next scribbled question, smiled suddenly in relief. ‘You say “at some time”. There was no indication that the shots had been recently fired?’

  ‘None. I was surprised at the faintness of the smell of burned powder, but at the time I put it down to the extreme cold.’

  Keith stopped and looked at Garrard, who studied the list again and then lifted an album of photographs, each enclosed in a clear envelope, from the table beside him. ‘I show you now the photographs taken by the police of the decoy layout. Is this how you remember the scene?’

  Keith looked at the photographs and then back at counsel. ‘This is roughly how I remember the scene,’ he said, ‘but I was only allowed to see it from a distance. These photographs show no background, and because there was no sun there is no orientation.’ Keith patted the briefcase on the shelf beside him. ‘I have with me some photographs, taken at my request and in my presence by a photographer from the Edinburgh Herald newspaper. If necessary, he could be fetched into court to introduce them, but since I only want to use them to orient the police photographs . . .�
��

  The advocate-depute shrugged and said ‘Let’s get on.’

  ‘Let us indeed,’ said Lord Bickenholme. ‘Produce them, subject to later objection.’

  ‘Thank you, My Lord.’ Keith produced his photographs and compared them with those in the police album. He looked up. ‘By the time that I was allowed to go on the ground and to have these photographs taken,’ he said, ‘the police had removed the decoys. But by that time a short thaw had begun and the footprints of the officer who had uplifted the decoys were clear to be seen. From those, and from occasional signs where the decoys had protected the ground from the rain, I was able to put markers down which roughly reconstructed the pattern in which the decoys had been laid out. I introduce one particular photograph taken of that pattern and ask Your Lordship and the jury to compare it with the police photograph numbered Three. I think it will be agreed that I had arrived at a very similar pattern and that the two photographs are taken from roughly the same direction.’

  Counsel for both sides pored over the photographs, which were then shown to the judge and finally passed among the jury. Keith was riding high, mentally, but his body was flagging. He took a grip on the rail in front of him.

  ‘The jury may agree that there is a strong similarity,’ Lord Bickenholme said. ‘Please proceed.’

  ‘The police photograph shows no background,’ Keith said. ‘The Edinburgh Herald photograph shows a background of the field, a strip of trees and a hill which I identify as Carlin Hill. I conclude that both photographs were taken looking towards the east.’

  ‘A map has already been introduced which should make this clear,’ Garrard put in. ‘Please go on.’

  ‘In the police photograph the decoys, which are a very usual type of half-shell decoy made in plastic, are all facing to the right of the picture, that is towards the south.’

  Keith broke off. His throat had dried with the constant talk. ‘May I have a glass of water?’ he asked.

  The macer bustled forward, but it was Garrard who handed him a glass from the counsel table. Keith sipped.

  ‘And what significance do you read into that fact?’ Garrard asked. ‘I refer to the fact that the decoys were facing to the south.’ He sounded almost as though he understood the question and already knew the answer.

  ‘When I saw the decoy pattern from a distance, it didn’t look natural. I felt that it had not been laid out by a skilled hand, such as that of the deceased or of the accused. Now that I see these photographs together, I’m sure of it.’

  The advocate-depute was up. ‘My Lord, I must object. This is the merest conclusion of the witness.’

  Garrard was ready for him. ‘My Lord, Mr Calder is an expert witness. He is entitled to draw conclusions.’

  ‘With all respect to m’friend, My Lord, this is not an instance of expert evidence in a recognized field supported by professional qualifications.’

  Lord Bickenholme nodded and smiled, so that for a heart-stopping moment Keith thought that his opinions were to be excluded. ‘You had opportunity,’ His Lordship told the advocate-depute, ‘to object when Mr Calder first proved his qualifications. You will have further opportunity to question his qualifications or his conclusions when the time comes for cross-examination. Let Mr Calder proceed.’

  ‘Please go on,’ Garrard said.

  ‘The morning was generally calm,’ Keith said, ‘but it will be remembered – by several other witnesses as well as myself – that around dawn there was a strong catabatic wind. That’s to say a wind caused by cold and therefore heavy air from the high ground pouring down the valley through the less cold, less dense air below. That wind was from the north. It had stopped by the time I visited the site, which may be the reason why the orientation of the decoys didn’t strike me at the time. Earlier, those decoys would uniformly have been facing down-wind. But anyone who has ever watched a flock of pigeon feeding will know that they will face in any direction except down-wind.’ Keith, in full flood, let his enthusiasm carry him away. ‘They don’t like the cold wind up their bums. I beg your pardon, My Lord,’ he added. ‘I forgot where I was.’

  There was a moment of shock. Then one of the jurors gave a snort of laughter. An amused murmur ran round the spectators and was quickly silenced.

  ‘Well, don’t forget again,’ Lord Bickenholme said. There was amusement in his voice.

  ‘That’s only what I say to pupils,’ Keith said apologetically. ‘The real reason is the lay of the feathers. The experienced shot sets his decoys facing predominantly upwind. And there were other indications. The ploughed field was not a place where pigeon would feed. And at that time of year, with the ground comparatively bare, a hide would have been essential; and I could find no trace of a hide having been made or used.’

  Garrard read out the next question. ‘What do you conclude from these observations?’

  ‘I concluded that the scene had been set by somebody who had watched an expert shooting over decoys without understanding the principles. At first, I thought that Mr Muir must have been killed elsewhere that morning, and that the whole scene had been moved in case the real site might point to the murderer. I now believe that the true explanation requires a more radical look at the facts.’

  Richard Garrard came to the last question. ‘Do you,’ he read, ‘have a rival theory which explains all the facts in evidence? From—’ He bit off the words. Keith’s last note read From here on, play it off the cuff.

  ‘All the facts in evidence,’ Keith said, ‘and some which have not yet been brought out.’

  The atmosphere had become charged. Whispers, the rustle of sweet-papers and the turning of pages had ceased. Keith, with all attention and responsibility weighing on him, was about to succumb to an attack of stage-fright. The tension broke when, after a slight disturbance behind Keith’s back, the macer tiptoed forward and stooped to whisper – Keith could not be sure whether it was to the Crown Office solicitor or to the advocate-depute. The latter got to his feet. Keith thought that an advocate’s career might well be curtailed by arthritis in his knees. Up and down, up and down . . .

  ‘My Lord, the pigeon have now been brought into court. I dispute their relevance, but they are available.’

  Garrard met Keith’s eye and read the signal. ‘I would like Mr Calder to have the chance to examine them now.’

  After discussion, the dead birds were laid out along the shelf which fronted the jury box. Keith had time to gather his thoughts and to remind himself not to let his courtroom manner slip again.

  When all was ready, the court again fell silent. Keith stepped down and walked across. Of the five jurors in the front row, four were frankly curious while one elderly lady of spinsterish appearance had turned her face away.

  Keith laid one finger on the neck of the first pigeon and turned away. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That’s all I wanted. I’m now quite certain.’

  The advocate-depute rose yet again. ‘My Lord, I protest. This must be the merest histrionics, verging on necromancy. What could the witness possibly have learned from such a gesture?’

  ‘No doubt the witness is about to inform you,’ Lord Bickenholme said patiently.

  ‘I shall be happy to,’ Keith said. ‘If counsel would join me, I’ll ask the advocate-depute to repeat my examination and to tell Your Lordship and the jury what he finds. That might save passing dead birds from hand to hand and getting feathers over everybody.’

  ‘I am agreeable,’ Lord Bickenholme said, ‘If the advocate-depute is equally so.’

  Both senior counsel came to the jury box. ‘Put your finger here,’ Keith said, ‘on that bulge in the neck. Prod it and tell me what you can feel.’

  Tentatively, the advocate-depute fondled the neck of one of the pigeon. Garrard did the same with another bird.

  ‘Gravel?’ the advocate-depute suggested.

  ‘Grain,’ Keith said. ‘It feels very like gravel. Perhaps the advocate-depute would like to borrow my penknife and open one of the birds’ crops?’


  ‘I’ll reserve that privilege for Mr Calder on cross-examination. Are we finished here?’

  ‘I would like to draw the court’s attention,’ Keith said, ‘to the fact that one bird is a noticeably different colour from the others and has a deformed left foot. It is, in fact, a racing pigeon. I would also like to call your attention to the fact that this bird,’ he lifted the stiff corpse of a large woodpigeon, ‘has evidently had both upper wing-joints broken. May I suggest,’ he added, ‘that the birds go back to cold storage until they are needed again? They go off rather quickly in a warm room.’

  Keith returned to the witness-box. The pigeon were removed.

  ‘You were about to explain your theory as to Mr Muir’s death,’ Garrard said.

  ‘Before I do that,’ Keith said, ‘I’d like to make a couple more points – now that I’ve seen the pigeon. One of the most useful tricks in decoying is to put a dead bird into a frame which will cause the wings to flap when a string is pulled. This adds life to the decoy pattern and catches the eye of birds still a long way off. Because birds stiffen quickly after being shot, it’s necessary to break the upper wing-joints. That bird with the broken wings had been used in a flapper. But on the morning when Mr Muir died the ground was frozen too hard for the necessary peg to be drive in. Only one of those of us who were out that morning managed to make use of a flapper.

  ‘My other point is the racing pigeon. Andrew Dumphy, the farmer, has been called to give evidence for the defence. I am positive that he will identify the racing pigeon as one which disappeared, believed shot, last August.’

  The advocate-depute rose again to his feet. ‘My Lord, I object strongly to this manner of presenting the case for the defence. This witness is putting statements into the mouth of other witnesses. The court is entitled to a clear statement by my friend, setting out what he expects to prove, and then to hear the witnesses called in proper sequence.’

  The advocate-depute bobbed down and Garrard bobbed up. They reminded Keith of a pair of hens, pecking in turn at the feed bowl.