Mad Dogs and Scotsmen (Three Oaks Book 7) Page 5

  ‘And the police?’ I asked.

  ‘The police had already been given what they wanted before the other enquiry came in. He doesn’t want to make any enemies.’

  I wanted to go back to bed. Life was becoming altogether too complicated. We sat and drank coffee in moody silence.

  The cordless phone was beside me. When it rang, I flinched. I was expecting calls from the half-dozen different officials who could be counted on to come at me for losing a shotgun or an animal out of quarantine. But the call was from Constable Buchan, who was beginning to seem quite friendly in comparison with all the bureaucrats who would want to jump up and down on my body before very long.

  ‘I may have news of your car,’ he began.

  I nearly told him to stuff my car. The car had faded into minor importance. ‘What about Jove and my shotgun?’ I asked.

  ‘That I wouldn’t know. The car’s still mostly under water. You know the slipway at Lindhaven?’

  I said that I did.

  ‘There’s a car in the mud at the bottom of the slip, only partly showing at low tide. The colour’s right, that’s all I can say. They’re trying to get frogmen out to get a cable on it. You may care to go along.’

  I thanked him and broke the connection. ‘I heard that,’ Henry said. ‘Shall I go?’

  The thought of staying at home to cope with irate officialdom or else becoming involved in a mass dog-bath, with some dogs howling because they hated being bathed and others trying to go through the process again, and all of them determined to shake themselves over me, was too debilitating to contemplate.

  ‘We’ll both go,’ I said.

  He looked at me reproachfully with his ancient, bloodhound’s eyes. ‘You ought to stay. The council will be coming after you about Jove.’

  ‘That’s why I’m coming with you. Beth’s a partner. She can cope.’

  ‘And the Divisional Veterinary Officer?’

  ‘Isobel can deal with him. She’ll probably make him help bath the dogs. I think he fancies her. And after all, she’s his deputy.’ This was true. Isobel had been appointed as a deputy divisional veterinary officer, to carry out the required routine visits to the previous local quarantine kennels and when their licence had transferred to us nobody had thought to change the arrangement.

  Henry was not through yet. Although not a partner in the firm he was always ready to help and he had coped with much of the paperwork when we applied for the licence. He knew the Standard Requirements and the Conditions to be Observed better than I did. ‘And the police?’ he said.

  I heaved a deep sigh. ‘On two counts,’ I said, ‘I would rather be a long, long way away. Regarding Jove, Beth and Isobel can cope. And if the Firearms Officer comes round about my gun, I’d rather not be here. With a bit of luck, I may get it back along with the car before he catches up with me, which will put me on a much stronger footing.’

  I telephoned the pub at Myresie and asked for Noel Cochrane. He had stayed the night but had left after an early breakfast. They were not expecting him back. And no, he had not left any forwarding address.

  Tacitly, we agreed that our wives would prefer not to be interrupted in mid-dogbath. I wrote a note explaining where we had gone and why. We left it on the kitchen table and went out into the sunshine.

  I drove Henry’s car. Henry may deny that he is now in his old age, except when he wants to spend the money which he and Isobel had been saving for it or to make some other point, but he does admit that his confidence in his own driving ability is less than it was. No man enjoys being driven in his own car but Henry was usually relaxed when I drove him. That day he had the fidgets but not, I discovered, because of my driving.

  ‘It could be worse,’ he said at last.

  I was not in a mood for looking on the bright side. The more I thought about it the greater the number of imminent disasters I could see looming. ‘Could it? Tell me how.’

  ‘Jove could develop rabies.’

  He was right. It could be worse.

  We took to the narrow roads closest to the big estuary. Soon we could see the broad expanse of water sparkling under the sun, beyond it the Carse and in the far distance the Sidlaw Hills. The village of Lindhaven is no more than a tiny cluster of houses with a shop which also serves a scattering of farms and holiday cottages. The slipway is a natural slot cut down through the bank, which at that point is twenty feet above the river bed, by a stream which was later culverted and the resulting surface paved with stones.

  A large recovery vehicle was blocking the road half a mile short of the village, straddling the bridge where the stream plunged underground. Beyond, I could see a police Range Rover painted in the usual jam-sandwich livery. A policeman came to my window. ‘You’ll have to wait, sir,’ he said. He had to speak up over the din of the recovery vehicle’s engine. I saw that a cable leading down the slipway was being reeled in under the eyes of a few interested spectators. ‘We’re pulling a car out of the Tay.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘It may very well be my car.’

  His expression became almost sympathetic. Nobody had bothered to tell him that I was now an outcast. ‘Mr Cunningham? Inspector Tirrell’s expecting you.’ He showed me where I could park.

  Tirrell arrived as we got out of Henry’s car. Now that I saw him in daylight, he was nearing middle age and lightly built for a policeman. He was in uniform and capped, but the hair at his neck and sideburns was sandy and matched a fine crop of freckles. His bony face bore an expression suggesting great patience, but I thought that there might be a temper somewhere, deeply buried. He greeted us politely which, I thought, was more than I could expect from his colleagues responsible for firearms or for policing the Animal Health Act 1981.

  ‘You may find your shotgun more or less intact,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t count on anything else. The car’s a definite write-off.’

  A writing-off following a well-attested theft should satisfy even the most pettifogging insurance company. The prospect of some insurance money to help replace a car which had been long overdue for replacement brought a tiny gleam of sunshine back into my day, but I felt obliged to protest for the look of the thing. ‘Surely,’ I said, ‘a dunking in salt water . . .’

  ‘Whoever suggested that that was the extent of the damage was seriously misinformed,’ Tirrell said. ‘We’re hauling it out by way of the slipway but that isn’t how it went in. Come this way.’ He led us to the bank above the slip. Faint tyre tracks led from the road across rough grass to where the edge showed raw earth. Something reminiscent of my old car, my faithful steed of many years, was crawling painfully crabwise up the slipway, spewing mud and groaning pathetically. ‘He drove it to the very brink,’ Tirrell said, ‘got out and let the slight slope do the rest. Nobody heard anything, but a fisherman, launching an inflatable at first light, spotted the wheels sticking up. The car was on its roof but we’ve managed to right it.’

  Henry was looking around. ‘Too dry for footprints?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m afraid so. And I don’t hold much hope of a lot of forensic evidence even if the car does turn out to be connected to the murder.’

  A large dollop of mud fell off the front of the car. ‘No number-plates once again,’ I remarked.

  ‘Removed,’ said Tirrell, ‘either in the hope of delaying identification, which seems unlikely, or to stick on the next car stolen in order to confuse us. Can you identify your own car?’

  ‘Probably,’ I said. ‘Let’s have a closer look.’

  We descended to the head of the slip and picked a way carefully down it. Inspector Tirrell left us to have a word with the driver of the recovery vehicle.

  The remains came to a halt and were left while the vehicle was manoeuvred into a new position. I studied the car from close to. Some glass had gone, and Tay mud, which I knew from my wildfowling experience to be the smelliest and most glutinous mud to be found around the coast of Britain, had coated much of the inside and filled the footwells. What I could see through the
mud coating looked like a perversion of my car but the back was empty. I dragged open a door and fumbled cautiously inside. The locker under the floor at the back held only muddy water. I tackled the rear seat, heaving the back up towards its usual position. Some rusty remains sulked underneath.

  I straightened, holding out my hands so as not to transfer more mud than necessary to my person. ‘I identify the car,’ I said, ‘and that’s my shotgun under the seat.’

  ‘I’ll have to take the gun in charge for the moment,’ Tirrell said. ‘You’ll probably get it back eventually.’

  ‘I shan’t hold my breath,’ I said sadly. ‘It’s an old friend but it was never a “Best” gun and after a night in salt water I don’t suppose it’ll ever fire again. I’d be glad to have it back and deactivated as a wall-hanger. There’s a host of good memories attached to it. I assume that nothing’s been removed? The men that found the car didn’t rescue a dog? Or find a dead one?’

  ‘It was as you saw it.’

  ‘With the back closed?’

  ‘Just as you saw it,’ Tirrell repeated.

  The driver of the recovery vehicle lent me a rag with which to wipe off the worst of the mud. ‘What about the boxes?’ I asked. ‘For transporting quarantined dogs we operate what they call “System A”. Instead of a special vehicle we have a box within a crate. The outer crate is big. It fills most of the back of the car, which is why the bag was stowed under the floor and the gun moved to where it is.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Inspector Tirrell. ‘And if somebody wanted to search under the floor at the back of the car – for the bag or for something else – how would he go about it?’

  ‘If he cared to lever off two padlocks,’ I said, ‘he could open the outer crate, lift out the inner container complete with dog and then heave out the empty crate. But the inner travelling box is a damned awkward lift from the outer one with a dog inside, unless the dog and the box are small. Both the fronts let down. When loading up, we usually prefer to put them both in the car, one inside the other, before introducing the dog. And then we reverse the procedure when getting them out again.’

  ‘In that case,’ Tirrell said slowly, ‘I want to show you something. It’s a good step back along the road and I prefer to leave my driver on guard here. Will you give me a lift?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. His mention of his driver being on guard made me wonder whether somebody who had failed to find what they wanted in my car might not be lurking in wait for another chance. I lowered my voice. ‘I suppose those rubbernecks are all genuine locals?’

  As soon as the words were out I felt sure that I had made a fool of myself but the Inspector took me seriously. ‘I checked,’ he said.

  Henry was relegated to the back seat of his own car and Tirrell joined me in the front. I drove back the way we had come. ‘Not far now,’ Tirrell said. ‘I noticed something when we passed by on the way here. It didn’t seem meaningful at the time.’

  ‘I think that I’d have seen and recognized our crate,’ I said.

  ‘Remember that I had the advantage of being driven. And I was higher up in the Range Rover. That extra foot or two of height makes all the difference when it comes to seeing over hedges and dykes. Stop here.’

  I pulled onto the verge. Beside the road an expanse of rough ground, fringed with grass but mostly beaten down to bare earth and gravel and backed by trees, was partly screened by overgrown gorse bushes. A rusty three-gang plough and some straw bales suggested that a farmer used this otherwise wasted corner for overflow storage, as was a common local practice. Very rarely did any equipment disappear.

  We got out of the car. The sweet smells of spring were all around. I used my whistle, but to no effect.

  When we rounded the biggest clump of gorse I saw that our large crate and a travelling box stood open on the grass. Nearby, completely hidden from the road, was the body of a man.

  *

  Inspector Tirrell went down on his knees beside the body, which was lying on its side in the grass. To my relief, I saw that the man was breathing. There were ants on his face, his skin looked grey and only a sliver of white showed at each eye; but he was only in his twenties and, in better circumstances, must have been good-looking. His clothes would not have looked out of place on one of the better golf courses except that they had suffered from contact with the ground.

  It seemed unfair to watch him as he lay with his mouth open, dribbling slightly, so I looked around me. The crate and the box, I noticed, were open and empty and there was no sign of a dog. The hasps, twisted and broken and with the padlocks still in place, lay nearby. I could see faint tyre tracks in the dirt and also irregular marks which might have been left by a struggle, or by almost anything else.

  ‘He’s cold but he’s alive,’ Tirrell said. ‘We need an ambulance. Och, dash it! My radio’s in the Range Rover. Would you drive back—?’

  ‘We have a phone,’ I told him and he nodded. I borrowed Henry’s mobile, keyed nine-nine-nine and asked for an ambulance.

  Henry brought a rug from the car and spread it over the man. Tirrell straightened up thankfully. ‘His airway’s clear. There’s not much more we can do for him until the ambulance arrives. He’s in a bad way. Knocked on the head, poor fellow.’

  ‘Like the girl,’ I said.

  ‘That’s so.’ He nodded and then looked at me sharply. ‘How did you know the way she was killed?’

  ‘I was in the army,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen enough dead and injured.’

  As I uttered it, I felt that my answer was lame and unconvincing, but Tirrell seemed to find it more satisfactory than, in his shoes, I would have done. ‘I’d forgotten. Falklands, wasn’t it?’ Tirrell lost interest in me. ‘May I have the use of your phone?’

  I raised my eyebrows at Henry who nodded but said, ‘Go through emergency services again. Ordinary calls cost the earth.’

  ‘The emergency service facilities,’ Tirrell said haughtily, ‘are not meant for routine traffic.’

  ‘Then you can pay for your calls,’ Henry said.

  I guessed that it was the paperwork entailed rather than the cost of the calls which made Tirrell’s mind up for him. He keyed nine-nine-nine.

  Henry’s caution was justified. Fifteen minutes trickled by before Tirrell finished passing on information and instructions. By that time I had my next moves clear in my mind. Without giving Henry time to object, I recovered the phone and keyed the Three Oaks number. I found myself speaking to Beth, who had taken the cordless phone out with her to what she called the salon – the converted outbuilding that housed a warm water spray and a powerful fan-heater.

  ‘Thank God you phoned!’ Beth said. ‘We’re driven mad here. Reporters have been sniffing around. And there was a policeman here about your gun.’

  ‘There would be,’ I said. Tirrell had gone down on his knees again in search of an identity for the injured man. I watched over his shoulder. ‘Give him a call—’

  ‘I didn’t get his name,’ Beth said unhappily. ‘He did say it, but I was too harassed to take it in.’

  ‘If he calls again then tell him that my shotgun, the one that was in my car when it was stolen, has turned up and is in the care of Inspector Tirrell.’

  ‘Thank the Lord for small mercies! And it is only a small one. So it’s our car?’

  ‘It was. It’s a write-off. You’d better phone our insurers.’

  ‘No sign of Jove?’

  ‘Not a trace. Just empty boxes about a mile from the car.’

  ‘At least he didn’t drown in the car. Shut up, you daft beggar,’ she added. (I thought that the remark was aimed at Bud – short for Buddleia – who I could hear and recognize demanding attention in the background.) ‘We’ve been constantly interrupted by other cops, plus two different men from the District Council and the Veterinary Superintendent.’

  ‘What action are they taking against us?’ I held my breath.

  ‘Nothing for the moment.’ (I breathed again.) ‘Mostly, I think they’re wai
ting to see whether Jove turns up with or without.’ She meant with or without rabies.

  ‘The police will be looking for him,’ I said, ‘but I think it’s time we took a hand. The crates turned up near the car, at Lindhaven, so that may be where he was let loose. Leave the rest of the baths to the girls and do some phoning. Speak to the secretaries of the wildfowlers’ club and the dog clubs and ask them to notify all their members urgently to keep an eye open for a collarless black Lab on the loose. We’ll pay any phone costs or postages. Phone the vets and ask them to pass the word to any clients likely to be dog-walkers. Also all keepers, ghillies, farmers and anyone else you can think of. Nobody’s to take any risks, although you can say that he’s a very friendly and docile chap. They’re to let us know at once and, if possible, lure him with food to somewhere he can be shut in until we get there. All right?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Beth said doubtfully. ‘Over what area?’

  ‘Perth to the Road Bridge, from the Tay for twenty miles south.’

  ‘Holy cheeses!’

  ‘Work outwards from Lindhaven,’ I said, ‘and do the best you can. Ask each person to tell ten others. And offer a reward.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said wearily. Inspector Tirrell was looking in the unconscious man’s pockets for identification and had opened his wallet. Over the Inspector’s shoulder I was trying to read the name on a firm’s identity card which carried a photograph of the man’s face. ‘Pluck a figure out of the air and double it. Anything would be cheaper than the damage this could cause to our business.’

  There was silence at the other end except for the din made by several excited spaniels. ‘Is it that bad?’ she asked at last. ‘Surely they can’t blame us for the car being stolen? And if we lost the quarantine authorization, we’d still have all the breeding and training and the boarders.’