Malice On The Moors

Praise for the Erskine Powell series

MALICE IN THE HIGHLANDS

“A story that carries you along, set in beautiful country—vividly and realistically brought to life. You read it—and are there!”

—
ANNE PERRY

“Malice in the Highlands
is the perfect choice for readers nostalgic for the good old-fashioned British village mystery.”

—
Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

MALICE IN CORNWALL

“The Cornish mists and sea swirl constantly in the background of
Malice in Cornwall,
a murder mystery that can also be read as a travel book Graham Thomas certainly knows how to exploit the air of romance, mystery, and danger that still hovers over Cornwall.”

—S
USAN
A
LLEN
T
OTH
,
Author of
England for All Seasons

“Readers will find the unraveling of this fascinating mystery and the continued untangling of Powell's character equally impressive.”

—
Publishers Weekly

By Graham Thomas
Published by Ivy Books:

MALICE IN THE HIGHLANDS
MALICE IN CORNWALL
MALICE ON THE MOORS

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The valley of Brackendale is a figment of my imagination, impossibly situated between the actual valleys of Farndale and Rosedale in the North York Moors National Park. To those who know the North York Moors, I apologize for taking geographical liberties.

I wish to thank the following individuals for their generous assistance: Superintendent Nick O'Brien of the Metropolitan Police Service; Matthew Elliot of the U.K. Pesticide Safety Directorate; John Haigh of the Countryside Alliance; Dr. Darryl McNaughton, Head of Pathology, and Graham Boff ey, toxicologist (retired), Royal Inland Hospital, Kamloops, B.C.; Sue Rees, Ecologist with the North York Moors National Park Authority; Gary Overend, Campaign for Real Ale, Huddersfield and District Branch; Tony Riby, proprietor of the King's Head Hotel in Kirkbymoorside; and Peter N Walker. Any errors, of course, are mine.

Lastly, I'd like to thank Joe Blades, my editor, for his patience, support, and unflagging enthusiasm.

As the flood begins,
Out of the fountainhead
Of fear, rage red, man alive,
Molten and mountainous to stream
Over the wound asleep
Sheep white hollow farms

—D
YLAN
T
HOMAS
Author's Prologue,
Collected Poems 1934-1952

PROLOGUE

Harry Settle, head keeper of the Blackamoor shoot in North Yorkshire, could not dispel a nagging sense of unease as he looked out over the sea of purple heather. He was always a bit edgy on the Glorious Twelfth, the first day of the shooting season, being naturally concerned, as any field commander would be, that operations should run smoothly. And a grouse shoot is, for all intents and purposes, a highly organized military campaign. The small army of beaters were his infantry, the line of guns concealed in their stone shooting butts his artillery. This year, however, he had something else to worry about.

There had been rumors of a protest by a group of anti-blood sport fanatics, supposedly concerned about cruelty to animals or some such rubbish but dedicated in reality to destroying a way of life they knew nothing about. At least that's the way the old gamekeeper saw it. Last year a gang of them had terrorized a party of Americans on Ilkley Moor and had threatened to strike again this season. He had taken precautions, of course, but young Mr. Dinsdale had made it clear that he would hold him
personally
responsible should there be any trouble. So far, however, the shoot had gone off without a hitch, with a tally of twenty-six brace of grouse for the three morning drives. A respectable bag for a small shoot like Blackamoor, Settle reckoned with a feeling of pride. And at seventy-five quid a brace from his paying guests, Mr. Dinsdale should be pleased.

His employer had been in typical form at lunch, drinking more wine than he could hold and regaling his guests with off-color stories. It always made Settle cringe with embarrassment. However—in keeping with the occasion—it was a glorious summer day, and as he'd sat outside the shooting cabin, eating his sandwiches with the rest of the help, he'd overheard several complimentary remarks from the guests inside about his wife's veal-and-ham pie. It was the part of the day he enjoyed the most: chatting with his colleagues about which gun shot well or otherwise, the hen harrier someone saw during the drive, livestock prices, or some local scandal. And there was never a shortage of scandal, it seemed, when it came to Miss Felicity Jamieson, young Mr. Dins-dale's attractive stepsister. Settle had long ago abandoned his halfhearted attempts—made largely out of a sense of loyalty to old Mr. Dinsdale—to defend her honor. Today at lunch, the latest gossip about Miss Jamieson's exploits with a young farmer from Rosedale had been particularly vivid, to the point where even his underkeeper, Mick Curtis, had looked uncomfortable.

After the guests had finished their port and smoked their cigars, Settle had driven the guns in the Land Rover to another part of the moor for the afternoon's shooting, while his assistant transported the beaters by truck to the starting point of the drive. And now, as his eyes searched the familiar landscape for anything out of place, Settle experienced a thrill of anticipation as he always did just before the start of a drive, a feeling that had not diminished after more than forty years as a gamekeeper. He saw that the beaters were in position—ten men, fifty yards apart, visible on the skyline nearly half a mile away. He frowned. He had hoped to recruit a few more lads from the local farms, but he had trouble enough finding anyone that would come to work for the paltry few pounds that Mr. Dinsdale offered. Without the promise of unlimited free beer at the end of the day, he doubted he would have got more than half a dozen volunteers this year. How different it had been in the old days, when shooting was a way of life in the dale and keepering a respected profession. Scores of keepers had once been employed in the North York Moors; now there was just a handful like himself to carry on the tradition, members of a dying breed.

His assistant, Mick, was a case in point. The lad sometimes seemed more concerned with the size of his tips than doing a good job. And even more worrisome, he seemed to get on particularly well with young Mr. Dinsdale, to the point where Settle sometimes felt the need to look over his shoulder.

He turned to see if the guns were ready. As usual, Mr. Dinsdale had his head up above the cut-heather blocks that were set atop the low stone walls of his shooting butt. He was swinging the muzzle of his shotgun from side to side in an unsafe manner, muttering something to himself. Or maybe, Settle thought, he's talking to his father. He could picture old Mr. Dinsdale slumped in his wheelchair at the back of the butt, staring vacantly into space. They wheeled him out every August for the opening shoot and then wheeled him back to the big house, not to be seen again for another year. The keeper shook his head. It was sad really. The old squire used to love his shooting, and despite being “new” money, he had been a generous and gracious master. Not like his bloody offspring—Settle had to make an effort to restrain himself. After all, there was no point in complaining; he wasn't getting any younger, and he had a wife and his future security to worry about.

The flankers, three to a side, stood in a line thirty yards apart on either end and forward of the line of butts, white flags at the ready. As the drive progressed they would move away from the butts towards the ends of the advancing line of beaters, thus containing the grouse in a trapezoidal enclosure, the line of beaters and the row of butts representing the long and short sides, respectively. As the grouse flew, the flankers would wave their flags strategically to startle the birds and funnel them towards the waiting guns.

Everything appeared to be in order. One last glance behind the butts to make sure that the two pickers-up and their dogs were well concealed in depressions amongst the heather. He turned once more to the front and checked his watch. It was two forty-five precisely, the appointed time to begin the fourth drive of the day. With great solemnity, he raised his horn to his lips and sounded the call to start the drive.

As the line of beaters moved slowly across the moor towards them, Settle began to grow anxious. The beaters had already covered several hundred yards but had not put up a single bird. He could hear the faint sound of flapping plastic as they swept their homemade flags back and forth. Suddenly there was a great commotion—a raucous cackling and clatter of wings. A dozen grouse had got up and were heading straight for the butts.

About two hundred yards out, half of them veered off to the right through the gap between the outermost flanker and the line of beaters, skimming over the heather like reddish brown cruise missiles. Settle cursed silently. The remaining birds flew directly over Mr. Dins-dale's shooting butt. Dinsdale rose up and fired, missing cleanly. He then turned and fired his remaining barrel at the retreating grouse. One of the birds appeared to wobble slightly then sailed on stiff wings for a hundred yards before going down. The pickers-up poked their heads above the heather to mark the location of the bird. “Bloody hell!” the old gamekeeper muttered. With shooting like that he'd be the laughingstock of his mates at the pub. A gamekeeper toiled on the moors—burning the old heather to promote new growth, poisoning competing bracken, spreading grit for the birds, and shooting foxes—for one reason only: to raise more grouse so that more could be shot. Every bird missed was a bird wasted, just like pouring a pint of the best Yorkshire bitter down the drain. And in the end, the head keeper was held to accounts.