The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime, Volume 8

1

Old farmer Hondercooter had a place near a hill that everybody called Birds’ Hill. He had 250 acres, which was a reasonable size for a dairy farm in that part of the country. Sheep people had far more — thousands of acres, whole plains, it seemed, whole mountainsides, but dairy people had no need of such wide horizons. “I can walk across my land,” he sometimes said. “I know every inch of it. The good bits, the bad bits — I know the lot.”

As well as keeping cows, Hondercooter usually had at least six geese about the farmyard, a flock of laying hens, and a dog of indeterminate breed, Old Dog Tray. This dog was named after a dog in the German children’s book, Struwelpeter, in which the faithful dog Tray is tormented by a cruel boy. Eventually Tray turns on the boy and defends himself. Hondercooter had that book read to him when he was a child and found it frightening. But the name Tray struck him as being a good name for a dog, and so he chose it when the dog first came to him as a puppy.

“Old Tray is a good dog,” he said to visitors. “Looks after the place. Follows me round. Barks. Does everything you need a dog to do.”

2

Hondercooter was of Dutch extraction. His father had gone to New Zealand as a young man and taken up farming near the Abel Tasman in the South Island. In those days it was not a particularly fashionable part of the country. Later, it became popular with people of an alternative outlook — hippies, in particular, liked the atmosphere, and settled there to grow their own vegetables and run small pottery and batik workshops. The farmers were bemused by these people, but by and large got on well with them.

Hondercooter was a New Zealander through and through, although he was proud of his Dutch ancestry. “Dairy farming is what we do,” he said. “You can’t find a better dairy farmer than a Dutchman. It’s in the blood.”

He had never married. “Wives are expensive,” he joked. “Look at what it costs to keep a wife. Just look!”

The fact that he was unmarried meant that there were no obvious heirs. “He may have cousins somewhere,” people speculated. “You never know.”

3

Hondercooter’s nearest neighbour was a farmer called Ted Norris. Ted was a bit younger than Hondercooter, and, unlike him, was married. His wife was called Betty, and she had a substantial reputation as a cheese-maker. She had won prizes for her cheeses in Auckland and Wellington, and had even been chosen for a New Zealand Cheese exhibition in Melbourne. That trip to Australia was her first trip abroad. “It opened my eyes,” she said when she returned.

After that experience, Betty hankered for another foreign trip.

“Waste of money,” said Ted Norris. “Airports. Rush. All that stuff. Why don’t we drive down to Dunedin instead? Or Christchurch, maybe.”

Betty got her way, though, and a few years later they went on a trip to Rome and Paris. Rome was chosen because Ted was a devout Catholic. Paris was for Betty. She had never converted to Catholicism, although she was on good terms with the local priest, who regularly dropped in on the farm to play a game of chess with Ted.

Another regular social engagement for Ted and Betty was the visit of Hondercooter, who came for Sunday dinner once a month. After the meal the three of them would sit in the living room and drink a cup of coffee while Ted erected a screen to show his slides of the trip to Rome. Hondercooter knew these slides well, but did not mind looking at views of St Peter’s while Ted explained the finer points of its architecture. It reassured him to hear these facts — in a changing world, it was helped to be reminded that there were people who took the long view, who thought in terms of eternity.

4

Hondercooter reciprocated this hospitality, even though he was not much of a cook. Ted and Betty came for dinner every other month, and they then played canasta for the rest of the evening. Betty took the opportunity, too, to tidy up Hondercooter’s house a bit. This became something of a private joke with them, and Hondercooter would issue his invitation by saying that he would be pleased if Betty came round to tidy things up a bit. She could bring Ted, of course, and there would be a bite to eat afterwards. This never failed to amuse them.

5

Hondercooter was quite well-off. His father had done well for himself and had made good investments. By the time he died and they came to Hondercooter, they were worth a considerable sum. Hondercooter never touched them. They were looked after by a lawyer in Nelson, a cadaverous-looking man called Bollingworth, who sent a report every six months of the state of the investments. He usually used the same words to describe the portfolio of shares. “Very good, on the whole.”

Hondercooter also had one or two personal items of some value. One of these was a small painting in an ornate gilded frame. This had belonged to his maternal grandmother’s family, and had been brought out to New Zealand by Hondercooter’s father. It was typical of Dutch painting of the late sixteenth century, and depicted a group of peasants working on the harvest. In the background, the sails of a windmill could be made out, half hidden by a stand of trees.

This painting was by Pieter Brueghel, although the small gilt lozenge glued on to the bottom of the frame claimed the artist as Jan Brueghel the Younger. This attribution, which would have considerably reduced the painting’s value, was false.

“Nice painting, that,” commented Ted Norris. “By a Dutchman?”

“I think so,” said Hondercooter. “It was my grandmother’s. There are an awful lot of Dutch paintings, you know. Lots of old ones.”

Ted was more interested in the agricultural detail. “What are they harvesting?” he asked.

“Hard to tell,” said Hondercooter. “Probably wheat. You like that painting, Ted?”

“Yes,” said Ted Norris. “I saw a lot of paintings like that in Rome. Only they were bigger and they were by Italians. No, I like it a lot.”

“I’ll leave it to you in my will,” said Hondercooter.

Ted Norris thought he was joking, but Hondercooter assured him he was not.

“Well, that’s decent of you,” said Ted Norris.

6

Hondercooter was fattening one of the geese for Christmas. He had chosen the goose, which was the largest of the flock, and also the most bad tempered. He remembered something that he had learned about geese in school. The Romans kept geese as watchdogs, did they not? And hadn’t the geese hissed to alert the Romans that somebody was about to attack Rome? He would have to ask Ted Norris whether he knew that story; he had been to Rome, of course.

This bad-tempered goose seemed to sense that something was up. As Christmas approached, he became increasingly aggressive, going so far as to hiss at Hondercooter himself as he walked past him in the yard. Hondercooter even had to aim a kick at the goose on one occasion and almost tripped up as a result.

“You don’t know it, but you’re ending up on the table,” he warned. “Ted, Betty, me — we’re going to eat you, my hissy friend!”

The goose looked at him. There was venom in his gaze.

7

Old Dog Tray particularly disliked the geese and barked at them ferociously whenever they came near him. The geese ignored this barking, emboldened by the senior goose, who seemed as unafraid of dogs as he was of humans. Tray lay on the grass and watched the geese from the corner of his eye. He would deal with them in due course. They would overstep the mark one day, and he would show them that a dog can only be pushed so far. There were some sheep down the road who also needed to be dealt with. Stupid creatures. Irritating beyond belief to a dog.

8

Ted Norris came to tell Hondercooter about what happened.

“Your dog, Tray,” he said. “You seen him today?”

“This morning,” said Hondercooter. “He’s about the place.”

“Sorry about this, Hondy, but he’s killed two of my sheep. At least I think it’s him. Betty saw something and couldn’t quite make out what it was, but we think it’s your Tray. Really sorry to have to tell you this, you know.”

Hondercooter was silent. He knew how serious this was. In a farming community, if a dog is a sheep-killer there was only one solution.

“Let’s go and look for him,” suggested Ted Norris. “If he’s clean, then it won’t have been him. But if he’s covered in blood...” He shrugged.

“All right,” said Hondercooter. “We can try the barn. Sometimes he goes there. He likes lying in the straw.”

9

They found Old Dog Tray where Hondercooter had suggested he might be — in the barn. And, as predicted, he was lying in the straw. There was blood on his chin and all across the white patch on his chest. There were feathers, too, and the body of a goose, limp and ruffled.

Tray looked up at Hondercooter and Ted Norris. There was guilt in his eyes. Alone of animals, it seems that dogs experience feelings of guilt, although there is some argument as to whether it is real guilt or merely a dread of punishment. Whatever the source of the emotion, that was what Tray demonstrated.

Hondercooter shook his head. He knew what he had to do.

10

Walking back to the house, Ted Norris tried to cheer his neighbour up. He looked about him, at the contented herd of dairy cows, at the well-kept fences, at the neat fields. “You’ve got a really good place here, Hondy,” he said.

Hondercooter nodded. “Yes, it’s a good place. Left it to you and Betty in my will, you know.”

Nothing was said. Ted was surprised, and pleased. It would make him a wealthy man. And every farmer, however much he has, convinces himself that he needs more.

11

The following day there was an accident. A parcel delivery man, bringing a package of veterinary remedies to the farm, spotted Hondercooter on the ground near the barn. He ran over, thinking that the farmer may have had a heart attack or something of that sort. It was not that: Hondercooter had been shot. His shotgun lay beside him, not far from his right hand. A few yards away, lying on the ground watching the delivery man, was Old Dog Tray. He growled faintly when the delivery man appeared, but then he wagged his tail and came up to him, ready to be patted.

12

The police spoke to everybody, including Ted and Betty. “Was Mr Hondercooter depressed, do you think? Was there any reason why he would take his life?”

The answer from everybody was the same. “No, he was a pretty level-headed sort of man. His farm was doing well — you can understand it when a farmer is up to his eyes in debt — people can get desperate then. But none of this applied to Hondercooter.”

There was an inquest, the conclusion of which was that it had been accidental death. The police produced photographs of the ground near Hondercooter’s feet. It looked as if he had slipped, as it was muddy there, and there were marks which looked as if they had been made by a stumbling man.

13

Ted Norris looked after the dairy herd. He went through Hondercooter’s papers in the drawers of his large desk. He found a letter from Bollingworth, the lawyer in Nelson, and he telephoned him. “Mr Hondercooter’s dead,” he said. “I believe you’re his lawyer.”

“Who am I speaking to?” asked Bollingworth.

“Ted Norris. I’m his neighbour.”

There was a silence, which might have been shock, or a moment for recollection. Then, “You’re the principal executor, you know, Mr Norris. And under Mr Hondercooter’s will you and your wife are the main beneficiaries.”

Ted Norris was cool. “He said something about that. I didn’t pay much attention, but he did say something.”

14

Ted and Betty Norris decided that they would go ahead with their Christmas meal in spite of the sad circumstances. They took one of the geese — not the one that Hondercooter had been fattening — and they roasted that. They sat in their dining room, both wearing a paper hat from a Christmas cracker. On the wall behind Betty was the Brueghel. “I love that painting,” she said to Ted. “Brueghel’s very famous, I think. We’d better get it valued.”

“We must find out what they’re harvesting,” said Ted. “Hondy thought it was wheat.”

15

Underneath the table, replete after the dinner of goose scraps fed to him by his new owners, reprieved because Ted could not bring himself to shoot him — not after what had happened — lay Old Dog Tray. A dog’s memory is strange: it is full of smells and random impressions; there is little sense of chronology to it. But he did remember having to defend himself; having deliberately to trip up his master — not something that a good dog liked to have to do. The memory came, and then faded; came back and faded again. And there had been a goose.