The Reward Game (Keith Calder Book 2) by Gerald Hammond

Author:Gerald Hammond [Hammond, Gerald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2018-04-01T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

With a cooked breakfast inside him, Keith took the spaniel down to the square just before dawn. In a few minutes Andrew Gulliver came walking down the square, his bagged gun over his shoulder. ‘God, it’s cold!’ he said. ‘You’ve brought decoys?’

‘There’s a bag of decoys in the boot,’ Keith said. ‘I don’t think we’ll need them, but it costs little to be prepared.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘You’ll see. Can you squeeze in?’

‘I can try.’

‘Take Tanya at your feet.’

They fitted themselves into the car and moved off. A few yards along the square, opposite the police building, Keith turned off to the left and in the dim light of early dawn they could see the way that ran straight as a ruler, first a road serving small Victorian houses, becoming a lane that began to climb through the woods that ran down the west side of the town, and then a steep and narrow track, barely more than a path, that climbed between overgrown hedges up to Gerry Reynolds’ cottage.

Keith stopped the car short of the woods and, walking softly, they separated for a dawn roost-shoot. It was tricky, exciting sport, walking softly through the woods, waiting for the canny pigeon to choose their moment and clatter out on the blind side of the man who, fumbling with frozen fingers, had to take them in snap shots as they crossed a small patch of sky. Each shot put ten other birds out, and by the time dawn was up the tree-tops were empty. The occasional pheasant, knowing well that it was out of season, only scuttled into the bushes at the approach of man.

They met back at the lane. The men were happy, the spaniel ecstatic.

‘It’s not so cold now,’ Keith said.

‘Not quite.’

‘You take a seat in the sun and watch whether any flight-pattern develops. I’ll bring the car up and do my good deed for the day.’

Keith fetched the car and humped out a carrier of warm water. A hundred yards from the lane and on either side of it were two clearings where Gerry had the feed-hoppers and watering-points for his birds. Pheasants were chortling in the bushes as Keith lugged his container to the first clearing. Gerry’s water-troughs were old tyres halved around the circumference. Each was fed from a water-drum, but the drums were frozen. It was easy to tip out the ring of ice from each half-tyre and refill it, and, each time, the water was surrounded by pheasants before Keith was out of sight. From the second clearing that Keith visited, a large flock of pigeon got up.

Keith found Andrew Gulliver sitting in a patch of sun by the gate to the track. ‘How are the police getting on?’ Keith asked with great casualness. ‘Has Galloway said anything yet?’

‘Not a word. Silentest chap ever.’

‘And your own enquiries?’

Gulliver sighed. ‘The accountants have been working like the beavers they are; and the police have been both helpful and astute. This isn’t for publication, mind you. As near as we can figure it, Galloway’s share must have been slightly over half a million.

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