The Prayer of the Night Shepherd

‘Friends!’ Ben was in the middle of the room, clapping his hands together for attention. His Edwardian jacket was undone and his hair was flowing back from his shining dome. ‘In case I don’t see any of you in the morning, just want to say a big thanks. Thanks for being our guinea pigs.’

‘Great fun,’ one of the Agatha Christie ladies said. ‘Hope there’ll be more.’

‘Well, ah… we’ve certainly learned some things.’ Ben sank his hands into his jacket pockets, opening the coat out like wings, the way kids did. ‘For instance, quite a few people have said that they’d rather it had started on Friday evening, through Saturday, because they really needed to leave today, to get to work tomorrow. Sorry about that. As you can no doubt guess, we’re pretty much amateurs at the hotel game. But’ — he raised a forefinger — ‘we learn fast. Ah…’

He paused and looked across at the portrait over the fireplace, the blue-tinted blow-up photo of the kind- looking man with neat hair and a weighty moustache and eyes which seemed to be focused, with a glint of mild wonder, on something in the middle distance.

‘I know there’s still some controversy about whether Sir Arthur spent time here,’ Ben said. ‘But I feel he did. Sometimes, when I walk through these rooms late at night or early in the morning, I like to feel he’s perhaps… Well, we all know what an ardent spiritualist he was, so let’s not get into that. I just feel there are mysteries about Sir Arthur which might be solved here. I don’t know why I say that, I just… sorry… babbling.’ Ben wiped the air. ‘Apologies.’

‘No, go on,’ a woman said. Not one of the Agathas; this one was elegant, middle-aged, with long near-white hair and half-glasses, and Jane thought she’d come on her own. ‘Are we talking about The Hound of the Baskervilles? Because I was rather disappointed that none of this came up during the weekend.’

‘Ah, well.’ Ben looked put-out. ‘That deserves more than a single weekend. Can’t divulge all our secrets in one burst, darling.’

An Agatha chuckled. ‘Didn’t want to waste it on the likes of us, eh?’

Ben did this camp simper, not denying it. Jane looked at Frank Sampson, the erstwhile murderer. ‘Can of worms,’ Frank murmured.

Later, in the lobby, with its shabby flock wallpaper and Victorian-looking wall lamps, Jane heard Ben talking to the thin man with bristly white hair. Seemed this guy Kennedy was one of those who would have preferred to leave this morning. He was leaving now, with his bottle of champagne for solving the murder.

‘So we’ll be hearing from you,’ Ben said. ‘About your conference?’ He was carefully standing with his back to one of the places where the panelling had been poorly patched with stained plywood. Unfortunately, just above his head, an area of unpapered plaster was dark with damp, and he might as well have been pointing at it.

‘Well, I…’ Dr Kennedy hefted his canvas overnight bag. His voice was nasal and tinny, not a lot like Steve Martin. ‘I do need to talk to my colleagues on the committee. I’ll confirm my decision in writing by the end of the week.’

‘Wonderful,’ Ben said. ‘That’s marvellous, Neil.’ Not exactly rubbing his hands, but aglow with satisfaction as he followed Dr Kennedy to the main door. Jane moved ahead of them and held it open for Kennedy to pull his bag through after him. Ben and Jane stood under the big brass lamp in the conservatory-porch, its long Gothic windows streaming with rain, watching him run for his car.

‘Game’s afoot, Jane,’ Ben said.

‘Sorry?’ Oh yeah, Holmes-speak.

‘The game is finally afoot.’ Now he really was rubbing his hands, maybe just being deliberately theatrical.

The piece of carpet that they were standing on was soaked through. Jane hoped Dr Kennedy hadn’t walked into one of the pond-size puddles on the terrace or stumbled on the eroded steps down to the car park. There was no sign of him now, anyway. Beyond the car park you could see nothing but darkness, and all you could hear was the rain in the pines.

And then a shot.

Ben was standing in the doorway, and his head twisted sharply as if he’d been hit and was about to go down. It was that close. A blast, loud enough to blow a hole in the rain. Jane found that she’d backed away against one of the glass panels. She was momentarily frozen, half expecting Ben to fall, but he straightened up and breathed in hard.

‘Right.’ In the golden light of the brass lamp, his eyes were bright with rage. ‘That’s it. That’s fucking it.’ He stepped out into the rain and splashed across to the low stone wall at the edge of the terrace.

‘Ben?’

Jane followed him out, feeling her frilly headband falling off behind her. The car park was on a slope, bordered by pines and, through their tiered trunks, Jane thought she saw a blurry light moving. A car door slammed, an engine started up, and then the much brighter lights of Dr Kennedy’s car shone into her eyes, and she couldn’t see anything else.

This was the country. Shots happened. It was supposed to be illegal to let off a shotgun at night, and in weather like this it was seriously crazy. But it happened. It certainly happened here. Jane went tense, remembering last night.

‘Bastards!’ Ben climbed up on the wall, Dr Kennedy’s car passing below him, the rain thudding on the shoulders of his Edwardian jacket. His fists were clenched, his long face shining with fury. ‘Scumbags! Don’t think I don’t know who you are. I told… I warned you, not on my land! This time you’re fucking dog meat!’

Nobody replied. Ben stood for a moment longer, with his head bowed, his back to the Hall, with its mock- mullion windows and its witch’s-hat towers. Then he slammed his right fist into his left hand and came down from the wall. His hair was slicked flat to his head again, like Sherlock Holmes’s hair. He walked back towards the door, taking hold of Jane’s arm.

‘When do you ever hear of one being revoked?’

‘What?’ Jane had been dredging her headband from a puddle.

‘Shotgun licence. When do you ever hear of anyone’s shotgun licence being revoked for misuse of firearms, Jane? Never. Because all the bloody magistrates are farmers, like this guy Dacre, and they all stand together. Bastards. I said I didn’t want them on my land, disturbing my guests, killing my wildlife. I said no.’

‘Who are they?’

Ben steered Jane back into the porch. ‘Some kind of gun club. Think they can safely ignore me because I’ll be gone soon, like all the others. When it all goes down, when we’re declared bankrupt. It’s what this area does, you see, Jane. Ruins you eventually. Nothing creative ever thrives, because it’s a wilderness, a hunting ground. That’s what it’s always been, it’s the way they like it. But they don’t know me, Jane.’

‘They go out shooting in these conditions?’ She hadn’t heard about his row with the gun club.

‘I think they just saw the lights, the cars. It’s a gesture — you don’t interfere with us, we’ll leave you alone. They think I’m soft. Effete. Some arty bastard from London, here today, gone…’ Ben pushed his fingers through his wet hair, wiping his shoes on the sodden carpet. ‘They don’t bother me, why should they? Half of them aren’t even locals. Yobs, Jane. Thick, barbaric yobs. No subtlety.’ He suddenly flashed a big grin. ‘Where I come from, we have real hard bastards.’

‘Where’s that, exactly?’

‘Oh… the city. Country people think they’re tough because they can pull lambs out of ewes and have to walk further for the bus. Because they can shoot things and watch foxes get torn to bits without feeling pity. Is that tough, Jane? Is that what you’d call tough?’

Jane wrinkled her nose. ‘I think hunting’s totally psychotic, and a waste of time and money. But then, so do a lot of country people, on the quiet.’

‘Do they?’ Ben was either surprised or disappointed.

‘Nobody really likes having their land churned up and their cats killed, like, by mistake. Most of them keep it to themselves, because hunt people can turn nasty when they’re threatened. And country people don’t like confrontation.’

Ben did, though. Ben was into drama. And although he didn’t seem to be aggressive in a violent way, you got