over more than two feet and almost certainly wouldn’t have been fatal. My client was something of an expert with a sawn-off so we argued that there was no intention to kill.’
‘He got off?’ asked Allen.
‘Three years, out in just under two,’ said Fairchild. ‘My client was not dissatisfied.’
‘I remember the case,’ said Nightingale. ‘The cashier was in a wheelchair, right?’
‘I’m afraid so, yes,’ said Fairchild, deftly filleting a kipper with a surgeon’s skill. ‘She was unlucky.’
‘I’m not sure how much luck comes into it,’ said Nightingale. ‘Your client was a career criminal and she was a cashier. He pointed a shotgun at her and pulled the trigger. He made a calculated decision. Luck is something out of our control.’
‘Agreed,’ said Fairchild.
‘Do you think two years was a fair punishment, for what he did?’
Fairchild laughed harshly; the sound was like the bark of an attack dog. ‘Fair?’ he said. ‘We’re talking about the law. The law isn’t fair. If it was fair there’d be no need for lawyers.’
Mrs McLean breezed in and picked up a glass of orange juice. ‘Not shop talk again, Marcus. You have been told about that.’
Fairchild held up his knife and fork. ‘I plead guilty, m’lord, and throw myself on the mercy of the court.’
‘My fault, I’m afraid,’ said Allen. ‘I put him in the witness box.’
Mrs McLean looked at her watch. ‘The beaters will be gathering in about thirty minutes,’ she said.
‘It’ll give me time to show Jack my Purdeys,’ said Jenny.
‘You’ve got your own shotgun?’
‘Guns,’ she said. ‘Daddy got me a pair for my eighteenth birthday.’
‘Made to measure,’ said McLean. ‘But she barely uses them.’
Jenny pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘Come on, Jack. You can give me your professional opinion.’
66
T he gunroom was at the back of the house. There was a keypad by the metal door and Jenny tapped in a four-digit code before pulling it open. At the far end of the room were metal cabinets and the walls on either side were lined with racked shotguns behind thick wire mesh.
‘Bloody hell, Jenny, you could start a small war with this lot.’
‘Daddy has a loads of friends who like to shoot and he stores their guns for them. But most of these belong to him. Some of them are antiques. There’s one somewhere that King George the Fifth used in December 1913, when he shot over a thousand birds on one day.’
‘Now that’s just overkill,’ said Nightingale.
‘One of them was a gift from the Duke of Edinburgh.’
‘He’s shot here?’
‘Several times. And Lord Rothschild and his son, Nat. I think Daddy was sort of hoping that Nat and I might hit it off.’
‘No spark?’
Jenny grinned. ‘Definitely no spark.’ She pointed at one of the guns. ‘That was the one from Prince Phillip. It’s more than two hundred years old.’
‘You’d have thought he’d have run to a new one,’ said Nightingale.
Jenny patted him on the back. ‘I forgot — you’re not much of a Royalist, are you?’
‘I think the French had the right idea, pretty much.’
‘Well, don’t let Mummy or Daddy hear you say that, even in jest.’
She fished a key from the pocket of her jeans and unlocked one of the mesh panels. She took out a shotgun, opened it to check that the breech was clear, then handed it to Nightingale. Nightingale wasn’t familiar with sporting guns but he could appreciate the quality, and the beauty, of the weapon. As a serving officer with SO19 he had spent thousands of hours with an MP5 or a Glock in his hands, but he’d never thought of either as anything more than a utilitarian tool. The gun he was holding was a work of art. The stock was gleaming wood that had been polished to perfection, the barrels were silky smooth and flawless, and the engraving was intricate and quite beautiful. He looked closely at the design and he smiled.
‘Cats?’
‘Not just cats. A particular cat. Rollo, the cat I had when I was a teenager.’
Nightingale broke the gun open, then closed it again and sighted down the twin barrels.
Jenny took its twin from the rack.
‘You don’t mind shooting birds?’ he asked.
‘They’re bred for it, Jack. And believe me they’re well looked after. Some of them are so fat they can barely fly.’
‘Makes them better targets, I suppose,’ he said.
Mrs McLean appeared at the door to the gunroom. ‘Everyone’s ready for the off,’ she said. She was wearing a waterproof Barbour jacket and a tartan headscarf. ‘And Jack, thank you so much for the shower gel. So thoughtful. And Bulgari is one of my favourite brands.’
Jenny shouldered the shotgun she was holding. ‘Can you take that one for me?’ she asked Nightingale.
‘You’re going to use them?’
Jenny laughed. ‘Of course. They’re not for decoration, pretty as they are.’
They walked together down the hall and out through the main entrance to where three Land Rovers were lined up, mud-splattered workhorses that didn’t appear to have been washed in months.
‘Jenny, you, Jack and Marcus go with Lachie, okay?’ said Mrs McLean.
A white-bearded man in tweed plus fours was standing by one of the Land Rovers and Jenny rushed over to him. ‘Lachie!’ she yelped and hugged him and then kissed him on a whiskery cheek. ‘Merry Christmas!’
‘And Merry Christmas to you, young lady,’ he said in a deep Scottish accent that suggested a life in the Highlands.
‘How’s Angela?’
‘Her leg’s playing up again and she’s as grumpy as always, but what can you do? She’s my wife and, as much as I’d love to have her put down, the law’s agin it.’
Jenny laughed and introduced the gamekeeper to Nightingale. ‘This is Lachie Kennedy,’ she said. ‘He’s been at the house since before I was born. He worked for the family who sold the house to Daddy.’
Nightingale shook hands with the man. He was in his late sixties but he had a strong grip and he looked Nightingale straight in the eyes as if getting the measure of him. ‘You’ll be the private detective from London that Jenny’s always talking about?’
‘I don’t know what I’d do without her,’ he said.
Lachie kept a tight grip on Nightingale’s hand and brought his face closer. ‘You take good care of her, laddie. Do you hear me?’
‘Loud and clear,’ said Nightingale.
‘London can be a hard city at the best of times and I wouldn’t want anything to happen to her,’ he said. ‘Apple of my eye.’ He winked at Nightingale. ‘Now you get in the back with Mr Fairchild so that the young lady can ride with me.’
‘What do I do with this?’ said Nightingale, holding up the shotgun.
‘Just keep hold of it,’ said Jenny.
As Jenny and Lachie got into the front of the Land Rover, Nightingale climbed into the back. Fairchild came out of the house with a battered leather gun case under his arm. He climbed into the back next to Nightingale. The gamekeeper started the engine, revved it, and then headed down the driveway.
‘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.
