Death in the Coverts Read online

  After a while, he called the beaters forward and as they cleared the rhododendron bushes and started to beat the ash trees, Adams was able to check that the line was reasonably straight. There was another flush of birds, and another. The line of beaters held each time. The birds were rising to tree level and then swerving and curling left at ever increasing speed, wings frantically beating until the birds had gained enough height to plane. From the ash trees, Adams could see the birds as they crossed the guns, who were invisible to him. Number 7 was really pulling them out of the sky. It was beautiful shooting and Adams decided, in a burst of generosity, that Mr Julian was still improving. Number 6 didn’t seem to be doing anything. The birds were crossing where number 6 should be and weren’t even being shot at. That was odd. Mr Julian usually made certain even the stupidest gun knew enough to stay at his stick. Number 5 was making a lot of noise and achieving nothing, the birds going over him quite unscathed. That meant number 5 was one of the four Mustavabeers. In the old days, men like them would never have been seen on a proper shoot. Each of them tipped him £30 at the end of the season, but that didn’t mean they’d bought either his liking or his respect.

  As the flush was over, he called the beaters on again. Only two paces farther on, another flush began and this became a major one with more and more birds rising. The press of birds was so great that now some of them were going off to the right, but even so the wind was bringing them down and away from numbers 1 and 2. He watched the main stream of birds swerve out to the left and for a few seconds he allowed himself the pleasure of a certain amount of self-satisfaction. This was the best lot of birds he could ever remember at this beat and they were flying as well as they had ever done.

  When only one or two birds were rising, Adams called the line on and they continued through to the flushing fence. There was one last heavy flush, of brief duration, and then the beat was over.

  He stepped over the wire-netting flushing-fence and raised the lower half so that the birds could walk underneath. He shouted at the beaters to raise the fence right along its length and made his way between the very old pollard ash and willow trees which, he’d been told, were of great historical value. The undergrowth of dead bracken and trailing brambles was very heavy. A hen pheasant rose up at his feet and, flying very low, crossed to the Larch Plantation. The Labrador watched it until it was out of sight. Even now, after all his years keepering, it still amazed him how pheasants would ‘freeze’ next-door to the guns and only move if directly disturbed. Could they possibly realise that their point of greatest safety was next to their point of greatest danger?

  He reached number 7 stand, marked by a stick with a Gilbertson and Page numbered plastic tag and by over sixty empty cartridge cases. Adams was glad that Mr Julian had had the best shooting, not just because he was the best shot but because it was only fitting that it should fall to a Decker.

  Julian came round a pollard willow whose trunk was so ancient and gnarled that it was easy to believe it might have supplied some of the bows used at Agincourt. He held a brace of birds in each hand. ‘You excelled yourself, Adams. I’ll never have a better stand than that one.’

  ‘I thought it might be useful, Mr Julian.’

  ‘The place was alive with birds and did you see how they flew? Like berserk mosquitoes. I’ve thirty-four down and every one worth two anywhere else. If you see Miss Harmsworth and I don’t, ask her to come up here with her dog, will you?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I didn’t hear much from number six, yet the birds was seeming to be going over him.’

  ‘He must have had as many as I did. Number six? That must have been Mr Rafferty. Maybe his gun jammed, or something.’

  ‘Or maybe the birds were just too difficult for him,’ muttered Adams, with the freedom of speech of someone who had worked for the same family for over thirty years.

  He pushed his way through the brambles and bracken towards number 6 stand. The Labrador found a dead cock pheasant and brought it to him. He hurriedly bent down and took it. His dog was first-class in the line, but was not the softest mouthed retriever in the world. He called out to Mr Julian that he had picked that bird. One pace farther on was a small cloud of feathers but no dead bird, which meant a runner. Miss Harmsworth’s dog would find that. He had no time for new-fangled dogs, and German ones at that, but even he had to admit that her German Shorthaired Pointer was a good picker-up.

  He went round another gnarled and twisted willow tree, split by lightning years ago but still alive, and came in sight of number 6 stand. It was immediately apparent why Rafferty had not been shooting. He lay on the ground, half doubled-up, with a very messy wound in his head.

  Chapter Two

  Julian drove the Land-Rover along the ride until he braked to a halt by the Hengist Oak. ‘It’s just across there,’ he said, pointing to the right of a pollard willow.

  Doctor Gooden climbed out of the Land-Rover. ‘Is this chap Rafferty any connection with the man in Avonley who’s built up a chain of electrical stores all over the place?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘Reputation says he’s not one of the world’s most charming men?’

  ‘It’s no secret that I’d rather not have him, or his friends, in the shoot.’ Julian took a cigarette case from his pocket and offered it. The doctor shook his head. ‘You know how things are these days, though. The shoot costs something over two and a half thousand a year to run and the money has to come from somewhere.’

  The doctor made no comment. He was old enough to have seen almost from the beginning the social revolution which had resulted, amongst other things, in men like Rafferty being able to buy guns in shoots which before had been privately and exclusively run. The doctor did not think the change was at all a bad thing: he had also seen the poverty in the towns and, to a lesser extent, in the countryside and he hoped never again to witness such an evil. But he had an instinctive respect – in no way subservient – for families such as the Deckers, who had lived on the same land for hundreds of years and he could understand how reluctant Julian was to have to deal with men like Rafferty. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Straight through. Look out for the brambles, though. Some of them would tear holes in a suit of armour.’

  Julian led the way through the undergrowth to the stand where Rafferty’s body lay. The doctor looked at the body for a while and then knelt down by it. ‘There’s obviously nothing I can do here. What the hell d’you think happened?’

  ‘He must have stumbled over something. It never filtered through to him that a gun was any more lethal than a walking stick. When he first came here I tried to be tactful about the way he waved it around, but tact wasn’t any use and I had to get rude. Before Fawcett and I were ever allowed to fire a gun we had to carry an empty one around for six months to teach us to respect it.’

  ‘How is your brother?’ asked the doctor, as he stood up.

  ‘I think the pain’s been worse, but you know what he is. It only annoys him if you start frying to help.’

  ‘Was he out shooting today?’

  ‘He wouldn’t miss a day for anything. He says he’ll have to be screwed down in his coffin before he quits.’

  ‘He’s got guts.’ From Doctor Gooden, that was a very great compliment. He stared at the body. ‘I take it you’ve been in touch with the police?’

  ‘I’ve reported it and told them you were coming along.’ Julian flicked the ash from his cigarette. ‘Did he die instantly?’

  ‘As instantly as anyone dies, which is an imponderable. The shot must have messed up a fair proportion of his brains. What kind of family is there?’

  ‘He’s married, but I’ve never heard of any children.’

  They returned to the Land-Rover. Julian backed up the ride to the cross-ride and then turned into the cross-ride which led to the field.

  When they reached Hurstley Place, the doctor left the Land-Rover and went over to his car after saying good-bye. He drove round the circular raised lawn and across the catt
le-grid. As the grid rattled to the passage of the tyres he tried to imagine how Rafferty had been holding the gun to have shot himself. He concluded that Rafferty had been extraordinarily careless; quite extraordinarily careless.

  Back at the house, Julian crossed the hall to the small hall-like passage beyond off which led the two withdrawing-rooms and the dining-room. He went into the red withdrawing-room, large enough to house a full size billiards-table in one corner.

  On the walls hung most of the family portraits, none by famous artists but all by artists of reasonable merit: even the most cursory inspection of the paintings showed how the long narrow face had been with the Deckers from the time of Charles the Second.

  Barbara, a glass of sherry in one hand, stood to the left of the fireplace and Fawcett sat in his wheel-chair to the right of it. In the fireplace, ten feet wide with an elaborately carved stone mantelpiece, burned several thick logs. The heat from the fire was very soon lost in the large room. A visiting American had once said, in mid-winter, that history was wonderful, but central heating was more wonderful.

  ‘Has Gooden gone?’ asked Fawcett.

  ‘I suggested a drink, but he said he hadn’t time,’ answered Julian.

  ‘Did he know what would happen now?’ asked Barbara.

  Julian crossed to the table in the comer on which were two decanters and several glasses. He poured himself out a sherry. ‘The police will be along any minute: they’ll handle everything.’

  ‘It’s… it’s rather horrible.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ replied Fawcett, ‘for the first time it inclines me to believe in divine justice. For four years he’s been waving his gun around and at last he’s discovered why that’s a bad habit.’

  ‘But that doesn’t stop this being horrible, Fawcett.’

  ‘My dear Barbara, learn to rejoice at the joyful things in life.’

  She looked quickly at Julian. She liked Fawcett, except when he was in a black mood such as he was in at the moment. Even then, she tried always to remember that any man who suffered as Fawcett did must have black moods. Nevertheless, her nature was such that she could not understand his viewing the death with anything but compassion.

  Knowing how she felt, Fawcett perversely continued the conversation. ‘He has paid up everything for the shoot, hasn’t he, Julian?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Julian.

  ‘Then we now have his money, but not him. I couldn’t have suggested a better arrangement if I’d tried.’

  ‘Lay off it, Fawcett.’

  ‘Lay off what?’

  ‘Can’t you see you’re upsetting Barbara?’ Fawcett propelled his chair across to the corner and helped himself to another drink. Sometimes, the injustices of life gripped him by the throat and threatened to choke him. Barbara was attractive and desirable and his mind could savour such facts even though his body could not respond to them. Julian would marry her, make love to her, and enjoy life while he, Fawcett, if he lived, would be tied to his wheel-chair: a hulk of flesh that was called a man, but which had few manly attributes. He drank the sherry as quickly as he could and poured himself a third one. Rafferty had been a crude, obnoxious pig of a man, but he had been a man. He had had a wife.

  Julian watched the way in which his brother was drinking. Often, Fawcett reacted to a black mood by drinking heavily. From the way in which he had just looked at Barbara, Julian could guess she was the innocent cause of much of the present mood. He wondered how Fawcett would react to his and Barbara’s marriage in four months’ time.

  ‘Give me a cigarette, Julian,’ asked Barbara.

  He offered her one and took one himself. ‘How did Toby work?’

  ‘Not too badly,’ she answered dully. ‘Old Bowker said he had a very good runner at the first beat?’

  ‘It was quite a good one.’

  He moved to her side and took hold of her free hand. ‘Cheer up, darling.’

  She managed to smile very briefly. ‘I’m sorry to be like some prophet of doom, but it’s horrible knowing I’d spoken to him only a short time before. He wasn’t a very nice man, but I had a few words with him and then…’ She gripped his fingers.

  ‘Aren’t we told that in the midst of life we are in death?’ demanded Fawcett.

  Julian was about to reply angrily, but he checked himself. ‘Where’s Mother?’ he asked.

  ‘In the kitchen, getting lunch. She said that you had to have a proper meal now that you weren’t going to eat in the keeper’s cottage,’ said Barbara.

  ‘She needn’t have bothered. We’ve still got all the cold meat and sandwiches.’

  ‘You must know your mother better than that, Julian. If her two beloved sons aren’t tucking into an eight course meal whenever they’re at home, she reckons they’re well on the way to dying from starvation.’

  ‘Then couldn’t the Danellis have done it?’

  ‘They had the day off as it’s a shooting day…’ She stopped. Abruptly, she had reminded herself of what had happened.

  *

  The police car followed a Pledge’s lorry down the A20 to the Henton cross-roads and then turned right on to the back road to the coast. Detective Inspector Doherty, driving, tried to clear the inside of the misted-up windscreen with the back of his hand, but succeeded only in making smears. ‘There’s a cloth in the cubbyhole in front of you, sir, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  The uniformed superintendent opened the glove locker and brought out a tattered yellow duster. He cleared the screen in front of himself and then carefully put the duster in the D.I’s lap. ‘It sounds nasty.’

  ‘And messy.’

  ‘That’s not the way I meant it.’

  Doherty knew very well how Superintendent Earnest meant it: to use a timeworn, but also time-honoured, pun, he meant it earnestly. He was a worrier which was why he had suffered from a duodenal ulcer before he became a station inspector and why he was clearly about to start another one. He was worried because they were about to meet the Deckers. The Deckers were County and therefore, even in this age of equality, only to be handled with kid gloves.

  ‘Tread lightly, won’t you,’ said the superintendent mournfully.

  ‘Like Agag?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘He walked around on egg-shells.’

  ‘For God’s sake, stop talking nonsense.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The superintendent looked at a parked car as they passed it. ‘Of course…’ He stopped as he turned round to stare at the car again, resumed speaking when he turned back. ‘If it’s only an accident, there’s not much to do.’

  ‘No, there isn’t.’

  ‘Just a few statements and that sort of thing. This Rafferty who shot himself?’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Is he the bloke who runs that chain of electrical goods shops and God knows what else?’

  ‘I expect so. He’d have the kind of money you need to go shooting.’

  ‘But surely they wouldn’t have someone like him to their place?’

  ‘Why not? If he hasn’t actually learned to write, he can always sign his cheque with a cross.’

  ‘God, man, your sense of humour stinks more and more.’

  As a detective inspector who was not going to gain promotion before he retired in two years’ time, Doherty felt he could afford the kind of sense of humour that annoyed his superiors.

  He braked the car as they reached another cross-roads and turned right.

  ‘D’you get on to the police surgeon?’ asked Earnest.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And the photographer?’

  ‘He’ll be standing by if needed, sir.’ And so will Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all, thought Doherty.

  They became silent. The car, it was Doherty’s and run on a mileage allowance, squeaked every time the near-side springs rode up or down. ‘Aren’t we nearly there?’ asked Doherty, as they passed through the village of Fordton, a small collection of houses, a pub, and a general store.

  ‘
Yes,’ replied Earnest gloomily. ‘It’s along here on the right. Big pair of gates: you can’t miss ’em.’

  Doherty saw the wrought-iron gates and braked the car to a halt as he waited for an oncoming lorry to pass. He turned into the park.

  At first they could see nothing but the flanking elm trees, then the drive bore round to the right and they came in sight of the house. Doherty’s first reaction was one of amused incredulity that anyone should choose to live in such a pile of a mansion. It was big enough, and bleak enough, to house a regiment and the wing looked to his entirely uneducated eyes like some hastily tacked-on folly, with its arched and mullioned windows which had no counterpart in the main building.

  He drove across the cattle-grid, half-way round the circular lawn, and parked in front of the massive porch. He noticed the superintendent run his finger round the inside of his collar, as if it had suddenly become too tight.

  They left the car, climbed the three stone steps, and went between the two central columns of the porch to the heavy wooden door. Doherty banged the ponderous knocker on the iron stud. He stepped back a pace, looked up, and saw above the door a crest, carved in stone. If the Dohertys had a crest it would consist of two potatoes and a poteen still.

  The door was opened by an elderly, plumpish woman, wearing an apron over a colourless, saggy sweater and a very old tweed skirt. She was holding a silver candlestick which she had clearly been cleaning.

  ‘We’re the police,’ said Doherty. ‘Would you tell Mr Decker we’re here.’

  ‘Of course. Do come in and mind that little step there, so many people trip over it. Just wait here a second and I’ll find Julian. I expect he’s in the green withdrawing-room which I think is a lovely room, but nothing will warm it up at this time of year.’

  Doherty tried to frame an apology for having so very obviously mistaken her for a maid, but wisely realised it was hopeless. As Mrs Decker left them, he looked at Earnest and was not in the least surprised to see the expression of anguished horror on the superintendent’s face: no doubt Earnest was preparing himself for the firing squad.