Cold Relations

by Gerald Hammond

  That left Hannah Phillipson and Johnny Cruikshank – he who Jackie had thought ‘rather nice’. Armed with detailed directions from Jeremy Carpenter, she set off on the second morning, following the unimportant road that passed the castle and threaded the village.

  The Scottish Borders include two low-lying and fertile coastal plains, east and west, but between the two the land is wild, still much as it was when the Border Reevers were wont to emerge and pillage. Honey followed the road as it wound gently between hills that were sometimes grassy and sometimes heather-covered. After ten miles in a generally westerly direction she took to a by-road, single-track with passing places, signposted to some speck on the map of which she had never heard. Sheep looked up from the sparse grass to watch the car. The tarmac finished suddenly after a mile. The unpaved road went on but a short driveway led into the smallholding occupied by Ms Phillipson and her partner.

  The house looked well built but it was evidently in need of paint and several new windowsills. One slate was down in a gutter. The place had a sad look, as of a lack of money or of anybody to care. She parked where there was gravel, at the side of the house. The back door had a long, dark, wet-looking streak where the paint had opened.

  As she turned back into the car to take out her shoulder-bag she heard the latch click behind her. To her surprise she was not confronted by Hannah Phillipson nor by her ‘fluffy and clinging’ housemate but by Johnny Cruikshank. If she had been told that he was a frequenter of the smallholding she had forgotten it. She must have let her surprise show. He smiled suddenly, redeeming his unremarkable face. ‘Were you looking for the girls?’ he asked. His voice was rough and touched with the Borders accent.

  The boundaries between girl and woman and lady are hazy and may depend on the age or attitude of the person making the choice, but Honey was of the opinion that Hannah Phillipson at least was past the age for being thought of as a girl. On the other hand, the term implied a degree of intimacy. If Cruikshank was the lover of either or both of the women, the flattery might be forgiven.

  ‘I was.’

  ‘They went to the shops. They’ll be back soon, if they haven’t met somebody to talk to. Somebody said that you’re a police inspector.’ His accent was neutral and his turns of phrase suggested that he was not uneducated.

  ‘They were correct.’

  He paused and then nodded. ‘Let’s not stand around in the cold. I was just going to make coffee.’

  Coffee, she thought, was exactly what she most needed to chase away the chill of the day, but a chance to poke around while the ladies were absent was too good to miss. ‘I’ll walk my dog for a minute and then come and join you,’ she said. He nodded and turned back into the house.

  Honey fetched Pippa out of the car and gave her a sniff of Henry Colebrook’s sock (carefully preserved in polythene) but kept her on the lead. The smallholding was set in a pocket of fertile land among the hills. They circled the house between beds that were tidy but showing vacant strips where vegetables had been lifted for the table. The apple trees were now bare. They had been pruned with some skill. Several large clamps could have held one or more bodies but were more likely to hold turnips or potatoes. A hoe leaned against a clothes-pole. Honey inverted it and pushed the handle deep into each clamp, but Pippa sniffed without interest. Generous timber outbuildings held well-kept tools including a rotavator and a miniature tractor, a supply of sheep nuts and some well-ventilated shelving laden with carefully separated cooking apples. In one small shed a rough table had been given a top of stainless steel, presumably for butchering the occasional sheep or lamb. The same small room had been flyproofed and two rabbits, six woodpigeon and five pheasants were hanging. She could safely assume that the pheasants came from the Saturday’s shoot and that Cruikshank’s brace had been pooled with the rest. Honey nodded to herself. In the cold weather and in the unheated shed, the pheasants would need hanging for at least another week to tenderise them. How much longer for the sake of flavour would depend on the taste of the diners. Two large chest freezers of commercial pattern stood ready to accept the products. There was nothing in the least out of the ordinary for a rural smallholding.

  In a larger shed against the boundary she found signs of cottage industry in the forms of a half finished tapestry and a solid old treadle sewing machine. A skirt in process of hemming lay beside the sewing machine and in a rack against the end wall were stored some folded lengths of various cloths. Garments hung on hangers nearby. That, she thought, even supplemented by the produce of the two or three acres of land, would hardly support a menage of three or even two people, but of course there might be some other resources among them.

  In the faint hope that Henry Colebrook might have sought sanctuary there, instead of shutting Pippa into the car she brought her into the house with her. In the farmhouse style kitchen they found Johnny Cruikshank along with a collie/Labrador cross that she remembered seeing at work on the day of the shoot. She had thought at the time that there was a strong resemblance between the dogs of Johnny Cruikshank and Pat Kerr; some careless owner had been presented with an unplanned litter. Pippa and the other dog exchanged suspicious sniffs and each decided that the other was neither threat nor rival. They lay down amicably enough near the warmth of the range.

  Cruikshank, meanwhile, held a chair for her before pouring what turned out to be unusually good coffee. He was in his later twenties, a nice-looking man who might have been handsome in a bony, Highland way if his teeth had been straightened. As he put the cups down, she became aware that he was eyeing her in a manner far from platonic – in fact, she began for the first time to see some sense in the old cliché about a man undressing a woman with his eyes. With her own background in unarmed combat and with the ladies of the house due to return shortly, she felt perfectly safe. It was not even unpleasant to be regarded with desire provided only that the desire was respectful. Nevertheless, she inched her chair forward so that her legs were hidden and inaccessible under the table.

  He stood behind her for a second. He was probably enjoying the silhouette of her breasts against her silk blouse, but she decided not to make a fuss. On the other hand, this individual could benefit from a little bullying. Jackie had thought him ‘rather nice’, but perhaps she was responding to some elemental sex appeal that was hidden from Honey. She took out her notebook, slapped it open on the table and produced a pen. ‘Your full name?’

  He pulled up a chair and sat down across from her. ‘John Wesley Cruikshank.’

  ‘Your address?’ She held his eyes.

  ‘I live here,’ he said with a touch of defiance.

  ‘How long have you lived here?’

  ‘Two years now.’

  ‘Occupation?’

  This time he really did flush. ‘I do the work about the place, attend the sheep and do the vegetables. What’s this about?’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘Of course I don’t know.’ He began to bluster. ‘How could I know? What are you suggesting?’

  ‘Did you hear about dogs and a person disappearing after Saturday’s shoot?’

  There was a silence. She had time to look around the room. Typically old-fashioned and rural. She rather liked the polished clutter – well equipped, everything to hand and yet not unhygienic. Copper utensils, probably too good to use, adorned the wall, blue and white china filled the shelves.

  ‘Yes, of course I did,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘It took you a long time to work out that I’d have to know you knew. What with bobbies from Newton Lauder asking questions and Ian Argyll doing the same. So why did you ask what it’s about? What else did you expect the police to visit you about?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Come on. Policemen had been round asking questions about what happened at a place and time when you were present and you have to ask why I’m here?’

  ‘No,’ he protested loudly. ‘I was distracted.’

  ‘By what?’

  ‘By you.’


  Obviously she had not slapped him down hard enough. That line of questioning could only lead onto dangerous ground. ‘Then pull yourself together and look elsewhere, and we’ll get down to what I came for. What did you think of the pair of springers that Jackie Fulson and Andrew Gray were working?’

  She was watching him surreptitiously while he considered, but there was no sharp reaction. ‘They were pretty good,’ he said.

  ‘Did anybody in particular take a fancy to them?’

  He was relaxing. ‘Everybody admired them, but that’s not the same thing, is it? The only one I saw making a fuss of them was the old man, the one who you’re looking for. Mr Colebrook. Very taken, he was. When he gave them a peppermint, they’d offer him a paw to shake and he loved that. But I don’t think he really cared that much about dogs and anyway he wasn’t the sort to pinch them. His style would more have been to pull out a fat roll of twenties. If the roll was fat enough, they’d give in.’ He sat up suddenly and brightened. ‘Then, when they heard that he’d vanished, they started the fuss about the dogs being stolen in the hope they could get the dogs back and still keep the money.’

  Well, it was a new theory but not a very credible one. It hardly accorded with her impression of Andrew and Jackie, who anyway had surely not known of the disappearance when they first demanded her help. ‘How did you get on with Mr Colebrook?’ she asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Hardly exchanged a word. See, he was one of the Guns and I was only a beater.’

  She decided to make a guess. ‘You were talking together at lunchtime.’

  ‘Well, yes. But only to say he was shooting well. It was the truth.’

  ‘I agree. But you walked up the track with him to the first drive after lunch.’

  ‘I was walking behind him, not with him.’

  ‘What was your impression of him?’

  He scratched his chin while he thought hard about the question. ‘He’s a nob, a gent – he shook hands with every beater at the end of the day. He was friendly, but he’s a chancer. I didn’t mind that. I’m a bit of a chancer myself.’

  This was a new slant. It takes one to know one. ‘How do you make that out?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s just impressions. But . . . One thing. He walks like an old man —’

  ‘He is an old man,’ she said.

  ‘All right, you tell it.’

  ‘Don’t be saucy with me or I’ll start checking the details of your life.’

  ‘No need to get steamed up,’ he said quickly. ‘You wouldn’t find much wrong with my life. Yes, he’s an old man. Well, not to say old, but getting on a bit. He walked like an old man. But sometimes he’d get a fresh spring in his step as if his knees and hips had stopped bothering him. Of course, that does happen. Arthritis comes and goes between rest and exercise; and a good dram of malt makes a good anaesthetic. But by my reckoning he put on the limp a bit whenever he wanted sympathy or to be spared a lot of walking. And it worked. Whenever the beating line came up with the guns there he was, in the place nearest to the vehicles, and I don’t remember him walking as a flank Gun ever.’

  Thinking back she thought that he might be right, but that that was probably due more to the consideration of Jeremy or whoever was mustering the guests at that moment. Before she could say so an interruption became imminent. There was the staccato rattle of a well-worn diesel engine and a boxy Land Rover was turning in at the gate.

  ‘Have you any more impressions or observations about Mr Colebrook?’ she asked quickly. She could hear two women’s voices exclaiming at the presence of the Range Rover.

  He hesitated. If he had uttered the thought in his mind both cases might have been solved there and then. But he decided that it was an irrelevancy and not worth wasting the time of the police. He said, ‘No.’

  ‘You’ll call me if anything comes back to you?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  The door opened, admitting a gust of cold air followed by the two women. Hannah Phillipson’s companion was, as she had already been described, a fluffy blonde. Her hair, Honey thought, was genuinely fair. Her face did not quite live up to it, being thin and with a rather pointed nose. Her figure, however, was excellent. Honey had been blessed with the sort of slenderness that many women only dream of and a metabolism that retained it with only a modest restraint on her appetite, but she had occasionally considered that she might have preferred a slightly chubby voluptuousness such as she now recognised. Men, she had found, liked to look at the supermodel’s figure but they recognised instinctively which would be the more comfortable to grasp. Oh well, she told herself, Sandy seemed satisfied. Hannah introduced her companion as Gemma Kendal.

  In the field and surrounded by men, Hannah had seemed to have her share of femininity; in the context of her home she seemed to have grown and toughened and her jaw took on a definitely masculine slant. It would have been quite possible to visualise the two women as a pair of lesbian lovers but Honey immediately sensed that that would be an unduly facile assumption. She had come across several lesbian couples in the course of her work. The sudden arrival of an attractive, well-dressed and evidently well-heeled young woman had usually set emanations of suspicion and jealousy filling the air while each partner worked out whether the other was attracted and, if attracted, likely to do anything about it. On this occasion the signs of jealousy were there but they were not directed against Honey. The looks darted at her were not unfriendly but a coldness was evident between the two women. They addressed each other in tones of great politeness. Johnny Cruikshank, on the other hand, was thanked several times for the provision of coffee and there were solicitous enquiries as to whether he was over-tiring himself.

  That told her all that she needed to know about the household. This was no pair of Sapphic lovers but a ménage à trois with all the concomitant undercurrents. She guessed that the two friends had set up house together but that the arrival of a man had set up stresses and strains in the three-cornered relationship. Honey wondered whether she could exploit them to garner extra admissions but no opening sprang immediately to mind. For a moment she wondered whether a little flirtatious behaviour towards him might not provoke some revelations but decided to save it for another occasion. Instead, she identified herself to Gemma, explained her mission and asked for a private interview with Hannah Phillipson. The other two left the room – Johnny Cruikshank, she thought, with some relief.

  Hannah helped herself from the coffeepot and took the opposite chair. ‘I’ll help if I can,’ she said.

  Honey jotted down the basic details. (Hannah’s middle name was Jane.) ‘What did you think of Henry Colebrook?’ she asked.

  ‘What should I think? He pinched my bum during the lunch break,’ Hannah said. ‘What do you think of a man his age who goes around doing that?’

  ‘When a man gets past the age for sex, the drive often comes out in other ways,’ Honey said tolerantly.

  ‘But he isn’t past the age. That’s my point.’

  ‘How would you know a thing like that?’

  Hannah looked offended. ‘I just know. Look, I have a very keen sense of smell.’ (Honey looked. The other certainly had not been hiding when noses were handed out.) ‘I can smell the male smell of a man and, if he’s clean every other way, I can tell when sex dies on him. I don’t know why, but I can. I must be smelling testosterone or pheromones or something. And if he fancies me it gets stronger.’ She smiled wryly. ‘That doesn’t happen very often but it happens.’

  That, if true, reopened the possibility that Mr Colebrook had eloped. She jotted a note to remind herself to check on whether any ladies in the general area had vanished or gone away. She also decided to try a day without even her usual faint trace of perfume and find out whether her sense of smell was equally informative. Or had Hannah’s imagination been running away with her? ‘Very interesting,’ she commented. ‘We shall have to call on you when we get an old man involved in a sex abuse case,’ she said. ‘Anything else?’

  Ha
nnah frowned. ‘Not that I can think of. He stood next to me at the buffet table or I’d hardly have known him.’

  ‘What did you think of the two spaniels?’

  The frown became an instant smile. ‘Brilliant little dogs. They were a joy to watch. It’s always a pleasure to see something done well. And such pretty manners!’

  ‘Did you see Mr Colebrook with them?’

  ‘Yes. They seemed ill at ease with him at first but when he started slipping them bits of cocktail sausage they soon took to him.’

  Honey laughed. ‘Typical! Since then, you haven’t seen or heard anything of Mr Colebrook or the spaniels? And you’ll phone me if you do?’

  ‘Of course I will,’ Hannah said sincerely. It seemed that under her mannish exterior was a soft heart. ‘I hate to think of that nice young couple, waiting. They doted on those dogs, and the dogs on them.’

  ‘Do you remember anything that Mr Colebrook said during the day?’

  ‘The only thing I remember him saying was that it was turning into a fine day. And when I said that he was shooting well, he thanked me and said that he was managing better now that his longstanding fibrositis was improving. Is that all for now?’

  ‘Unless you can suggest anything else I ought to ask you. No? That’s it, then.’

  All three came to the car with her. Her impression was that Cruikshank came in the hope that he might manage a little flirtation and the two ladies came along to make sure that he didn’t. In the event, the ladies were distracted by the arrival of the butcher’s van. Cruikshank took his chance to lean into the Range Rover and say, ‘You have a good-looking leg there.’

  She looked at him coldly. ‘I have two of them,’ was the first thing that came into her mind so she said it.

  She saw amusement deep in his eyes. ‘Aye, you have,’ he said. ‘And between them I don’t know where to look.’ He turned away. She was sure that his shoulders were shaking. She drove back to Tynebrook village turning the remark over and over in her mind. Did he really know what he was saying? On the whole, she thought that he did.