‘Okay to smoke, Lachie?’ asked Fairchild.
‘Only if you give me one of your Cubans,’ growled the gamekeeper.
Fairchild laughed and held out a cigar. ‘It’s a deal,’ he said.
Lachie slid the cigar inside his jacket while Fairchild lit his.
‘So I’m told this is your first time at a shoot,’ said Lachie, glancing over his shoulder at Nightingale.
‘First time with birds, yes.’
‘It’ll be a driven shoot because not everyone’s experienced,’ said the gamekeeper. ‘There’ll be ten guns in all. You’ll be standing about fifty paces apart and the beaters will come through the woodland so absolutely no firing towards the trees. You can load yourself or we can supply a loader, that’s up to you. We have pickers-up and dogs from the village and I’ve got Poppy and Daisy in the back.’
The two springer spaniels in the rear of the Land Rover both barked as if they knew that Lachie was talking about them.
‘How many birds do you have, Lachie?’ asked Fairchild, winding down the window and blowing blue smoke through the gap. He had his gun case between his legs.
‘Two thousand, ready to go,’ said the gamekeeper. He turned off the driveway and drove along a rough track that meandered towards woodland in the far distance.
‘Two hundred for each gun? That’s a lot,’ said Nightingale.
‘They won’t all fly, and the newcomers will have sore shoulders after the first dozen or so shots,’ said Lachie.
‘All the more for me,’ said Fairchild.
‘You do this often?’ asked Nightingale.
‘Every weekend, right through the season, from October the first to February the first. Rarely miss a weekend, even if I’ve a big case on.’
‘I’m guessing you don’t eat everything you kill,’ said Nightingale.
Fairchild laughed. ‘No, but somebody does,’ he said. ‘Everything I shoot gets eaten eventually.’
‘That’s the way it goes, sir,’ said Lachie. ‘Any that the guests don’t want are offered to the villagers and any left over after that get sold to a butcher’s in Norwich.’
Lachie pulled up near to a table covered with a red and white checked cloth on which were pots of coffee, mugs and foil-wrapped packages. ‘Bacon sandwiches,’ said Jenny. ‘Daddy always gets hungry when he shoots.’ There were half a dozen young men standing by the table munching on sandwiches and tossing the occasional titbit to three black Labradors. ‘The lads are from the village,’ said Jenny. ‘They work as loaders and pickers-up.’
They climbed out of the Land Rover as the two other vehicles arrived. Lachie made a quick call on his mobile phone and then went over to talk to McLean, who had put on a heavy jacket and a flat cap and was carrying a weighty gun case.
McLean opened the case, took out a shotgun and broke it over his arm. ‘All right, everybody, the beaters are in place. Five minutes to go. Lachie will put you at your stations — he’s in charge. Protective glasses and ear protectors are available but it’s your choice as to whether or not you wear them.’
Lachie took the group across the grass and showed them where to stand. Jenny was on Nightingale’s right and Fairchild on his left. They both had leather bags filled with cartridges.
‘I’ll load for you, if you like,’ Lachie said to Nightingale. ‘Give you a bit of free advice too, if you want.’
‘I’m still not sure if I’m going to be shooting,’ said Nightingale.
‘Let’s see how it goes.’ His mobile rang and he took the call, then waved over at McLean. ‘Everyone’s in position, sir!’ he shouted.
‘Well done, Lachie,’ said McLean, shouldering his shotgun. ‘Let’s go.’
67
N ightingale lit a cigarette and watched the hundredth bird of the morning get blown out of the sky with a whoop of triumph from Marcus Fairchild, who had taken to shooting while keeping his cigar clamped between his teeth. Fairchild had two teenagers loading for him and they could barely keep up with his rate of fire.
Over to his right, Jenny was taking a more sedate approach, loading her own gun and taking time between each shot. She smiled over at him and waved. He waved back.
‘You sure you don’t want to shoot, sir?’ asked Lachie, standing at his shoulder. He was holding Jenny’s Purdey over his arm. There were two cartridges in the breech but Nightingale had yet to fire the weapon.
‘Really, I’m not a big fan of shooting birds,’ said Nightingale.
‘They’re bred for it,’ said the gamekeeper. ‘We hatch them, we rear them, we feed and we water them. They have a happier life than if they were in the wild.’
‘Even so…’ said Nightingale. ‘It seems a bit mismatched.’
‘Mismatched?’ said Lachie, frowning. ‘What do you mean?’
Two more birds fell to the ground close by. One was flapping around, badly injured, its feathers drenched in blood.
‘They’re not shooting back,’ said Nightingale. ‘That’s seems a bit unfair, don’t you think?’
Lachie snapped the shotgun shut and kept the barrels pointing at the ground. ‘Fairness doesn’t enter into it, sir. They’re birds.’
‘They are indeed,’ said Nightingale. ‘But then so am I, in name anyway.’ He blew smoke up into the air and the wind whipped it away.
Fairchild was shooting like a machine, with a shot every three seconds.
‘And this is one fine gun,’ said Lachie. ‘Handmade for Miss McLean. Do you have any idea how much a pair of made-to-measure Purdeys costs?’
‘A lot.’
Lachie chuckled. ‘Aye, a hell of a lot. Be a shame to bring it out and not fire it.’ He held the shotgun out to Nightingale.
Nightingale shook his head. ‘You have a go, Lachie,’ he said. ‘Show me how it’s done.’
Lachie’s eyes hardened, and then went blank. ‘Your sister’s going to Hell, Jack Nightingale,’ he said, his voice flat and lifeless. Then in one smooth motion he swung the shotgun around so that the barrels were pointing under his chin and pulled the trigger with the thumb of his right hand. Nightingale fell back into the mud as Lachie’s head exploded into a shower of blood, brain and bone fragments.
68
N ightingale lay on his back, his ears ringing
Fairchild appeared, standing over him and looking down. ‘My God, man, what happened?’ he asked. He held out his hand and pulled Nightingale to his feet. There was blood on Nightingale’s raincoat. ‘Are you hurt?’
Nightingale shook his head. One by one the guns fell silent though pheasants still flapped overhead.
Marc Allen and Danny Smith were staring down at Lachie’s body. McLean had his arms outstretched and was telling Sally Allen and Wendy Bushell to go back to the Land Rovers, while Jenny’s mother was hugging Lesley Smith.
McLean shouted over to the boys who had been loading for Fairchild. ‘Rob, Peter, go and tell the beaters to stop. Be quick now.’ The two teenagers hurried towards the woodland.
Jenny was standing, frozen to the spot, but then she jerked as if she had been stung and ran over to where Lachie lay in the mud. She screamed when she saw that his face had been blown away. Allen put his arm around her and led her a short distance away from the body. Tears were streaming down her face.
McLean strode over, his gun broken over his arm. ‘What the hell happened, Jack?’ he asked.
‘He did it himself,’ said Nightingale. ‘With Jenny’s gun.’
‘Nonsense,’ snapped McLean. ‘Lachie was far too experienced to do something like that. Who was holding the gun?’
‘He was. He just… I don’t know. It happened so quickly. He was talking to me and then…’
‘Accidents happen,’ said McLean.
‘It wasn’t a bloody accident,’ said Nightingale. ‘He turned the gun on himself.’ He pointed at the shotgun, which was lying across the gamekeeper’s ankles. ‘How else do you think that got there?’
McLean went over to look at the body. Nightingale glanced around for his cigarette. It was lying in a pool of mud so he took out his pack of Marlboro and lit a new one.