Adverse Report, page 12
part #12 of Keith Calder Series
They all laughed at that. ‘You can’t have seen inside the back of Ronnie’s Land-Rover,’ Sir Peter said. ‘Take mine. I’ve vehicles and to spare until the season comes in.’ He gave me a shrewd glance from under his ragged eyebrows. ‘Apart from having the knack of it,’ he said, ‘what makes a young fellow like you go in for the writing as a career? The search for immortality?’
‘Hardly that,’ I said. ‘It’s good to leave something semi-permanent behind. But somebody once said that Heaven is being remembered with affection. Sometimes I have a mental picture of dying and being met by one of my characters.’
‘Julian Dawson?’ Sir Peter suggested.
I cocked an eyebrow at him. I had not expected him to be among my readers. ‘That’s very perceptive,’ I remarked. ‘“But, I say, “you’re not real.” “I’m more real than you are,” he says. “You’ll fade away, but people remember me.”’
The others laughed but Deborah gave a little shiver. ‘Are you writing anything just now?’ she asked.
‘At the moment, I seem to have written myself out. Except . . . I’ve been chewing at one idea but I can’t quite make it work.’
‘Tell us,’ Sir Peter said. ‘We might have thoughts.’
I hesitated. Discussing my work in prospect always seems like exposing myself in public. But the whisky had loosened my tongue. And he was right, they might have ideas.
‘Imagine a rich man,’ I said. ‘He’s old and he has a terminal disease. He goes to a top clinic. After all the tests are done, the head man explains to him why his condition’s inoperable. “The body,” he says, “is an enormously complicated machine, and when disease has progressed as far as yours the repairs are quite beyond our technology. But,” he says, “we do have a simpler technique. It’s expensive.”
‘“Tell me,” says the rich man.
‘“We call it the Whole Body Transplant,” says the head of the clinic, “although that’s a rather upside-down way of looking at it. Complicated as the body is, the sense of personal identity is housed in a small lobe of the brain, perhaps the easiest organ of all to transplant. We can put you, in the sense of being yourself, into another body.”
‘“But what body?” the rich man asks.
‘“We can’t do everything for you,” says the head of the clinic. “That’s for you to solve. You go and find a volunteer. Some handsome, healthy and vigorous young man who’s tired of life. Or who has money troubles but wants to leave his loved ones provided for. You leave a will dividing your money between him and his loved ones, and the two of you come in here together. The old, sick shell fails to survive but you, as an identity, awake in a new, healthy and rich body.”
‘“Could it really be done?” asks the rich man. “Do such volunteers exist?”
‘“It’s done quite often,” says the head of the clinic. “Can’t you think of any rich young man who seemed to appear suddenly on the scene with no evident past?”
‘The rich man thinks and he can remember several such men. And, almost the next day, he bumps into a handsome and virile young man – or woman, if he prefers – who is talking about suicide.’
There was a momentary silence round the table. ‘I thought he might,’ Deborah said.
‘Now we come to the difficult bit,’ I said. ‘The rich man suspects that it’s a confidence trick, but he has no wish to leave his money to his own family, whom he dislikes. He decides that he has nothing to lose. He goes ahead. The question is, does he think it’s a con but it turns out to be for real, or vice versa?’
‘It would be a confidence trick,’ Enterkin said, ‘set up by the rich man’s own family.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Only a family would pull a trick like that. I speak from the depths of my professional experience. And it would have to be a trick because, while you might be able to transplant the ego, memory would remain behind unless you transplanted the whole brain. There would be no point in surviving as an individual without that individual’s memory.’
‘Yes, there would!’ Deborah shouted.
‘Really, Toots!’ Keith said reprovingly.
‘Sorry,’ Deborah said more calmly. ‘But listen. Suppose the idea was that he could adopt an unwanted baby, leave his money to it and then go into the clinic with it, knowing that he had another whole life coming with his money intact.’
‘I like it!’ Sir Peter said. ‘Simon, where is this clinic? I must go and put my name down.’
‘And then,’ said Enterkin, ‘his family could challenge the will.’
‘And the lawyers end up with all the money,’ Keith suggested.
‘Of course,’ the solicitor said cheerfully. ‘We all love a happy ending.’
*
The motorbike went into one of the Calders’ sheds for the moment. I tried to put Boss into the back of the Land-Rover, but he kept jumping over into the front until I gave up. His head, which kept finding its way onto my knee, got in the way of the gear lever and made adjustment to driving the heavy vehicle in the dark more difficult.
At Tansy House, I pulled off the road and stopped in front of the garage. If I were stuck with a dog I would need four-wheeled transport. The ’bike was valuable, but it might not trade in for much of a car. I shook myself. What was I thinking? I was enjoying myself, but this was not my country.
Boss knew where he was and descended from the Land-Rover with a soft bark of pleasure. He paused to empty his bladder, which I thought was probably to mark his territory, but as we approached the door I heard his small sounds change from relief to anxiety. It was a long time since I had had close company with a dog, but I could read the signs and I wished that I had the walking-stick gun with me.
I told myself that I was imagining things, that Boss had expected to find his real master here and was disappointed, no more, at finding the place dark. But when my key turned the latch I pushed the door and stood to one side.
Nothing came out. The house seemed silent.
Boss slipped past me. I heard him growl once and then go up the stairs in a hurry. He whined, on a note which puzzled me. But it was not, I thought, the sound of a dog which has found an intruder. Not a live intruder.
I found the switch and lights came on in the hall and stair. The place had been a mess but surely it had been a more orderly mess than this?
It had been searched.
I started to look around, but Boss whined again from the head of the stairs. My bowels felt loose. I would have liked to visit the bathroom but somebody or something might be awaiting me there.
The walking-stick gun was still in the hall stand, which was a double relief. It might have to be my cushion against insolvency while I wrote another book but I would be sad to part with it. Apart from being a beautiful artefact, it inspired the holder with confidence. Perhaps with misplaced confidence, I reminded myself. I loaded it with one of the replacement cartridges which Keith had given me and went up the stairs, keeping my finger carefully clear of the trigger.
But for that precaution I would undoubtedly have let off another shot.
A woman was lying on my bed. Her ankles were bound and her hands were tied behind her back. There was a gaudy splash of dark red at her face and across the coverlet. I could not see properly because Boss had jumped onto the bed and was licking at her face. I felt sickness in my throat.
Fighting down the urge to run screaming from the house, I took one more look.
The red was a long scarf which had been tied twice around her head, once across her eyes and once between her teeth. She was still moving, trying to keep her face out of the way of that intrusive tongue.
Panic receded and then returned. What to do, quickly before somebody arrived and found me in that compromising position? ’Phone for the police? Cut her loose? Suppose – my God! – suppose she were to accuse me of raping her!
I got a grip on myself, turfed Boss off the bed and untied the scarf. I could always put it back if she started screaming.
She had difficulty making a sound. She worked her jaw and eventually some saliva returned to her mouth.
‘You will be Mr Parbitter, no doubt?’ she croaked matter-of-factly.
I said that I was.
‘I’m Mrs Beattie,’ she said, as if that explained everything.
*
It took me some minutes to free her, because the knots in the nylon had been pulled very tight. I fetched the carving-knife and cut it and then she needed time to get herself moving again. She bit her lip as sensation came back. As soon as she could stand she insisted on being helped, with Boss in fussy attendance, down to the kitchen where she seemed to feel more at home, and while she massaged her limbs I made her some tea. She was a plump and doughy-faced woman in her late thirties, with tight curls which gave her a doll-like look.
At last her story began to come out.
Mrs Beattie lived on a small farm about a mile along the road and had been in my uncle’s occasional employment, cooking and cleaning for him when he was in residence and keeping an eye on Tansy House when he was away.
‘I heard that you was here,’ she said. ‘My man saw the lights on. I meant to ask whether you wanted me to do for you as I’d done for poor Mr Hatton.’
‘I can’t afford help at the moment,’ I said.
‘That’s a shame. A laddie like yourself needs a woman about the place. My man went off to Edinburgh this morning, to the friendly. Hibs against Hearts,’ she explained. ‘So I just thought I’d walk along and ask. But there was no answer at the door, so I decided to come in and write a wee note.’
‘The door was open?’ I asked.
She shook her head without dislodging a curl. ‘Your uncle aye left a key under the stone aside the front door, so I took it and let myself inside. I was hardly through the door when I was grabbed from behind and my scarf was round my face. I was helpless in his grasp. Helpless!’ She seemed to relish the last word.
‘There was only the one of him?’ I asked.
‘Only the one laid hands on me, but I think there was another because I heard whispering. He bundled me up the stairs and made me lie on your bed. When he pulled my tights off I thought I’d be raped, but no. He tied my hands with one end and my ankles with the other. Then he pulled my skirt down decent and left me. I heard him searching through the place a whilie longer and then he was gone.’
‘We’d better call the police,’ I said.
‘Dinna’ cry them out for my sake,’ she said. ‘I’ve no need of the fuss. My man’s awfu’ jealous.’
‘I’ll give you a run home,’ I said, ‘and then I’ll look around. If anything’s missing, I’ll have to call them.’
She nodded and poured herself another cup of tea. Now that the excitement was over it was time to talk about it. ‘You’re a lovely speaker,’ she said. ‘It must have been a shock to you, finding the place a’ tapsalteerie, and me on your bed like that.’
‘By God it was!’ I said.
She looked at me coyly. ‘When you saw me there,’ she said, ‘what was the first thing you thought of doing? Be honest, now.’
‘To be honest,’ I said, ‘I was tempted to load you into the back of the Land-Rover, just as you were, and dump you in the Square at Newton Lauder in the hope that you’d been abducted from somewhere else and didn’t know where you’d been.’
*
I locked up carefully, removing the key from under the stone, and drove a rather subdued Mrs Beattie home. Then I ’phoned Keith. ‘I’ve taken a quick look around,’ I finished. ‘Most of the house has been turned over, but the study and kitchen are tidy. So I think we can assume that he got what he wanted.’
‘Not necessarily,’ he said. I could almost hear that quick brain racing at the far end of the line. ‘Look carefully at the kitchen and study and then call me back.’ He hung up.
I examined the two rooms and saw what he meant. I called him back. ‘You’re right,’ I told him. ‘They’ve been searched, but carefully. What do you make of that?’ Sometimes he made me feel stupid. I could have reached the same conclusions, but I needed more time.
‘What I make is that he started on the kitchen and study. He was trying not to leave any traces. Then your Mrs Beattie came and walked in on him. Once he’d dealt with her, there was no chance of concealing his visit so he stopped bothering. And so, unless you know something you haven’t told me, or unless he was being very subtle, he didn’t find what he wanted. Is there much damage?’
I looked uncomprehendingly around the living room. ‘One or two things broken,’ I said. ‘They look accidental, due to haste, not deliberate vandalism.’
‘Cushions or upholstery slit?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Does that tell us something about what he was looking for?’
‘That, or how it arrived there,’ he said.
I waited but he did not expand the thought. ‘Should I call the police?’ I asked.
‘Should, yes. Shall, that’s up to you. I would suggest not. Don’t throw away anything which has been in the house longer than you have, start a new bin-bag and one or more of us will come over tomorrow.’
Carrying the walking-stick gun, I walked Boss under a rising moon and then gave him a biscuit and put him into his bed. Clothes had been dumped all over the bedroom floor but a few minutes were enough to restore some sort of order. It had been a long and busy two days and a night. I slept like the dead.
Chapter Ten
Boss woke me, at not too unreasonable an hour for a Sunday morning, with a demand to be let out into the garden. Keeping a dog seemed to bring with it a load of responsibilities. I had only a vague idea of what they were, but Boss knew all about them and was well able to keep me advised. He let me breakfast in peace but then, after reminding me to fill his water-dish, made it clear that he expected to be taken for a walk. I told him that I could see how he came by his name, although Keith explained later that he had been named after a famous gunmaker.
Just why Boss found my company essential to his morning constitutional was not revealed to me. After all, he knew the routine and his way around far better than I did. But I found that walking a dog on a fine morning while thinking random thoughts was an excellent way to start the day. We went out of the back door and walked down the neat and orderly garden, trying not to notice the ravages of pigeon and neglect. Fruit trees spilled shade. The grass was dotted with fallen apples and needed cutting. I looked in a wooden shed to find some tools including a heavy old mower.
We left the garden by way of a gate in the end wall. Boss looked at me enquiringly, then seemed to shrug his shoulders and led me by a well-trodden way round the edge of the small field and through the wood. I tend to fall in love with places rather than with people and the wood was a delightful place, a cathedral of shape and silence cared about by nobody but children and keepers. Beyond, the ground rose and we climbed a small valley. Pheasants scuttled ahead of us, irritated rather than frightened. They knew, and Boss knew, that they were out of season. My mind took note of the changing views, of patchwork fields and strips of wood and unfamiliar hills, while pursuing its own paths. I wanted to use the time to think about writing, but found myself thinking back to Uncle George. I remembered him as a man who meant to be kindly but had not always understood. Once, he had tried to show me how to skin a rabbit. While the head was wrapped in the everted skin it had looked like a dead baby. My distaste for shooting dated from that realisation.
For no reason, an explanation for one of Keith’s questions jumped into my mind. If there had been any likelihood that my uncle had known of whatever was the object of the search, upholstery would certainly have been slit.
I found that we were back at the gate before my thoughts had ordered themselves. Several rabbits fled across the grass at our arrival and Boss, who had a strong sense of territory, chased them under the shed. I left the gate open so that they could get out again. Boss looked at me as if he did not understand.
The prospect of re-entering that disarranged and dusty house, either to tidy the invader’s mess or to stare again at blank paper, was repellent. Instead, I got out the heavy mower for an assault on the grass. But my uncle must either have been very fit for his years or have had help about the garden, because I was sweating after the first line of cut and breathing like an asthmatic after the second, while the mower had doubled in weight and resistance. I was too stubborn to give up, but half-way down the grass for the third time I was glad to be interrupted when Deborah came through the gate beside the house, wheeling a push-bike.
‘Hullo,’ she said cheerily. ‘Dad said to see if you wanted any help to clear up after your burglar. Nobody answered the front door.’
‘I was just having a go at the grass,’ I said feebly.
‘So I see.’ She looked at the mower with contempt. ‘Well, even if I hadn’t just cut all of ours – Dad being laid up and all that – I wouldn’t lay a finger on that thing. It should be harnessed to a horse. If you want to do a bit more, I’ll start tidying up inside. Or you can bring the Land-Rover across one of these days and collect me and our motor mower and I’ll do it for you.’
That was too good an offer to be refused. And I preferred that anything picked up in the house should go where I could find it again. ‘Hang on while I wrestle this monster back into the shed,’ I said. ‘How’s Keith today?’
‘He was going to get back to his workbench but Mum wouldn’t let him, so he’s sitting in the garden with a stack of books, newspapers and some scribbling paper.’
I thought about it and decided that that answered my question.
‘Mostly they’re old books of shooting memoirs,’ she said, ‘but there was one book entitled Propellants and Explosives, so we can guess what he’s working at. He said to tell you that he’s been on the ’phone and there’s a reward offered for the Haliott jewellery. Ten per cent from the insurance company and another ten from Lord Haliott – or Donald Farquhar, Dad calls him.’
That seemed an odd piece of information to send me but I put it away in my mental filing system and forgot it.
