The Bull Slayers: Inspector Faro No 9 (8 page)
Read The Bull Slayers: Inspector Faro No 9 Online
Authors: Alanna Knight
Pride, however, forbade any dwelling at length on his personal
weaknesses of foot and mouth to his young stepson. After all,
a man in his early forties wasn't all that old. There were
politicians and a monarch ruling the country who were much
older than himself, not to mention policemen still walking the
beat. Men like Constable Dewar.
Over a pint of ale and a game pie in the almost deserted dining
room of the inn, Faro returned to Sir Archie's fatal accident -
or was it murder? Glancing over the notes of his interview with
Lady Elrigg and Mark, he had reached certain conclusions
which might be significant.
Dewar had been helpful in filling in some of the background
details and Faro was now almost certain that no wounded bull
had been involved and that horns, stolen earlier from the inn's public bar, were the murder weapon, inflicting the fatal wound
to lead the doctor and the two local policemen away from the
truth, that Sir Archie had met his death at the hands of some
person or persons as yet unknown.
He decided that a talk to the village doctor was his next step but, perhaps of greater importance, a visit to the angry young
nephew Hector whose excavations of the hillfort were within
sight of the copse where his uncle had died.
In weather unreliable from hour to hour, vacillating from
warm sunshine to driving rain, he set forth from the inn
wrapped about temporarily in the splendour of an afternoon
when the world held its breath.
Here was a day that had never heard of grey skies, of storms
and cruel winds as it basked in the dazzling greens and innocent
white blossom of a May morning. A lark blissfully hurled its triumphant song into a sky of celestial blue as he quickened his
steps up the road.
To reach the hillfort he had to cross a strip of open pasture, domain of the wild cattle, and, leaving the road, he opened the
gate cautiously, breathing freely again when he saw they were far up the hill. But even at that distance he felt naked and
vulnerable, for they ceased grazing and fixed their eyes on him,
all heads suddenly turned in his direction, as if they were well
aware of his unease.
Hurrying towards the hillfort, he realised this was another
wasted journey. There was no sign of Hector Elrigg, although
his absence provided a chance to inspect the excavations more
closely. He was not sure what he hoped to find, but it offered
no helpful clues to the solution of the mystery.
Changing direction, he walked rapidly to the shelter of the
trees across the deserted field, where he again examined the
spot where Dewar had found Elrigg. Apart from a few broken
branches the ground had healed and there was nothing to
connect murder with that fatal misadventure.
Enjoying the warm sunshine on his back, he sat down on a large stone to enjoy a pipe. The crumbling wall beside him was
part of a winter pen to give the sheep shelter. Looking round
idly, he noticed what appeared to be the tip of a broken branch
sticking out between the stones.
A sharp tug released it from its anchor. No branch emerged
but the singly stiletto-sharp horn of a bull. He gazed at it
triumphantly. He had not the slightest doubt that what he held
as once part of the pair stolen from the inn.
The murder weapon.
He examined it more closely: the ominous dark stain on the tip could be dried blood. Deciding this evidence might be useful
and not wishing to be seen with it in his possession, he tucked
it up his jacket sleeve for a closer inspection later.
Emerging from the copse, his back was now turned towards
the cattle but the trees concealed him from their gaze. He was
not consoled for although there were no animals visible except
for a few grazing sheep, his mind dwelt nervously on fences and
open gates.
Not only the king bull was dangerous, he realised, but a
young and skittish male, moving apart from the herd and for reasons of its own, of a possible homicidal disposition, could be
equally damaging when on the rampage.
He walked quickly in the direction of the road and,
conscious of the lack of any shelter, glanced back frequently
over his shoulder. Alert at every sound, he found himself
reliving that moment in his childhood near his aunt's Deeside
croft more than thirty years ago.
How terrifyingly the ground had shaken under his feet at the
thunderous charge, the snort of rage as the great red shaggy
beast hurtled towards him through the mist.
He knew how narrowly he had escaped death that morning and, for years afterwards, he had awakened screaming with the
smell of the enraged Highland bull's hot breath on his neck, its
murderous sharp horns at his heels...
Shuddering from remembrance, he was within sight of the
gate leading to the road when the chill gathering about his shoulders was not from fear but from a black sky replacing
what had been cloudless sunshine minutes ago.
The next moment the cloud burst overhead and hailstones
pelted down on him. He began to run...
Thunder rattled across the sky, shaking the hills and, almost within safety and the fenced road, he heard the ground echoing
with the monstrous sound of hoofs...
The beast pounding towards Faro along the road was no wild
bull, merely a rather stout horse and trap bearing an elderly
gentleman sheltering under a large umbrella.
'Whoa!' And stopping alongside, he leaned out. 'Care for a
lift?'
'I would be most grateful.'
As Faro climbed in, the man who was clad in a handsome
tweed greatcoat handed him a waterproof cape. 'Keep the worst
of the rain off you, although I dare say it'll pass over in a minute.'
Even as he spoke, the sun came out again, scudding across the
field, and the angry clouds were swept away, their rain sheets
now lying heavily to the east.
'That's that,' said the man, closing the umbrella. 'I'm Dr
Brand, by the way.'
An unexpected stroke of luck, Faro thought, as the doctor
continued: 'Saw you crossing the field. Out walking, were you?'
Acquainted with everyone in the village, he was obviously
curious about this stranger and it was in Faro's own interest to
enlighten him.
'Oh, I see. An insurance assessor. Of course,' the doctor
nodded sympathetically, 'the family can take no chances.'
'I suppose you examined Sir Archie,' said Faro tentatively.
'I did indeed. Nothing I could do by that time. Clearly an
accident. Gored by one of the cattle. Such things do happen. We
do have the very occasional accident,' he added apologetically.
'I remember reading something about an earlier incident in
the newspapers,' said Faro encouragingly. 'A young fellow
staying at the castle, was it not?'
The doctor nodded. 'An actor. Philip Gray, you may have seen
him on the stage in Edinburgh. I only heard his Shakespearean monologues one evening at the Castle. But I was most impressed.'
'You attended him when he was injured?'
'I examined his body, if that's what you mean,' said the
doctor grimly. 'Death by misadventure. His horse had thrown
him, he had a fractured skull. Of course, he had no right to be
in the grazing pastures at all. Guests are always warned that the
cattle are dangerous.'
'But he had ignored the warning?'
The doctor sighed. 'I understood that the, er, guest he was out riding with had dared him to venture out and bring back
the horns from a beast the shooting party had wounded earlier
that week.'
'Not a very sensible thing to do from all accounts,' Faro
volunteered.
'As he soon found out,' said the doctor grimly. 'You know
what these young fellows are like, must prove themselves. Sense
of honour and all that nonsense. The beast wasn't too badly
wounded to charge him and gore him to death.' He shook his
head. 'It's this damned archaic system to blame. Sportsmen they
call themselves. Rounding up the beasts and choosing their
target. All of them having a go at it with their arrows first.
Shouldn't be allowed. One man, one bullet - that's the humane
way.'
He paused and sighed. 'The poor lad made it to the copse
over there, same place they found Elrigg.'
'An odd coincidence?'
Dr Brand ignored his interruption. 'Elrigg might have
survived: he had severe but not fatal neck and head injuries
sustained in the fall and was probably unconscious.'
He paused like a man who had a lot more to say on that
subject but had remembered in time that his passenger was a
stranger. He shrugged. 'Perhaps he never regained consciousness
when the cow got him. One can only hope so, anyway.'
'Cow? I thought only the bulls were dangerous.'
The doctor smiled. 'The cow is just as dangerous if she has just
dropped a calf. This is the time of year and they often choose a
sheltered place, away from the herd. Like the copse. There'd been a stalking party out from the castle the day before the
accident, it was deer and birds they were interested in but that
would make a cow very nervous.
'That's my theory, anyway. These animals have their own
laws, far older and wiser than man's. I was brought up on a farm. We were used to taking in newborn orphaned animals
and raising them by hand. Tried it once when I first came here.
Found this newborn calf, abandoned or orphaned, I thought. It
was getting dark, a freezing cold night, so I wrapped it in a
blanket hoping to keep it alive till next day when I'd see if its
mother had come back for it.'
He paused and sighed deeply. 'I was young and idealistic
then, couldn't bear the thought of an animal suffering. I soon
learned my lesson,' he added harshly.
'Did she charge you too?'
'No. But when I went back the next day to see how the wee creature was,' he shuddered, 'there was nothing left of it but a
few bones and bits of skin. But the hoofmarks were visible
where it had lain. Looked as if there had been a stampede and
it had been trampled into the earth. Their sense of smell is acute
and if a calf is handled by a human the other animals detect the
smell and kill it.'
'But surely -'
'I know what you're going to say, but you're quite wrong. I
had made the crucial mistake of humans interfering with wild
creatures. I had mismanaged my rescue attempt and turned the
calf into an alien from the herd. They had their own ways of
dealing with that,' he added grimly.
'Make no mistake about these animals. They are quite
unique, they have a society evolved though hundreds - perhaps
thousands of years. The herd is under complete control of one
beast. Only the fittest and the strongest in the herd ever
becomes king bull. And during the two or three years until he
is successfully challenged and defeated in combat by a younger
rival, he reigns supreme and sires all the calves that are born.'
As he talked, he let the reins go slack and the horse, finding
this an agreeable change of pace, ambled slowly along.
'I've been fascinated by their behaviour for years. I've
watched them, through a telescope - from my house over there,' he added pointing to the east of the village. 'Once I saw a young
bull come out of the herd, it was the bellowing that drew me. I
saw him pawing the ground, the old bull doing likewise. They
charged - and this time it was a fight to the death.'