Bird Brain

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Guy Kennaway

  Title Page

  Part One: Man and Beast

  1. A Right and a Left

  2. Bottom Dog

  3. His Master’s Boots

  4. The Best of My Fun

  5. The Metropolitan Breed

  6. ‘Very Good,’ said Mr Hudson

  7. Let Sleeping Humans Lie

  8. The Optimum Number

  9. Moy Lovelies

  10. Banger’s Breed

  11. Flying Teapots

  12. Every Square Inch

  13. One Over

  14. Drowsy Numbness

  15. A Repeat Like ‘The Archers’

  16. Ginger Nut

  17. The Himalayan Blue Point

  18. Game Chips

  Part Two: Tooth and Claw

  19. Purr It So Softly

  20. The Human Flap

  21. The Pemberley Sovereign

  22. Princess Anne’s Bosom

  23. Bracelet

  24. Anchor to a Kite

  25. Lifelike

  26. Hopping Mad

  27. Evenly Pouched

  28. Red Bull Cans and Cigarette Butts

  29. The Package Deal

  30. Life and Death in the Fast Lane

  31. ‘Freedom,’ They Squealed

  32. Special Branch

  33. Full and Final Settlement

  34. No More Funny Stuff

  35. Provocatively Chubby

  36. Blood and Guts

  37. Snap Shot

  38. Stunning Art

  39. The Hush, The Damp

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Poacher turned gamekeeper may be one of the oldest plots in fiction, but in Guy Kennaway’s achingly funny new novel it is given a sharp and playful new twist.

  Life was always difficult for Banger Peyton-Crumbe, an antiquated, misanthropic blood-sport obsessive, but it gets considerably worse when he is killed in a shooting incident and returns to earth as... a pheasant. A pro-shooting pheasant at that. Banger's long-suffering family think his death was an accident, but his gun dogs, who witnessed their master's demise, know it to be murder.

  To Banger’s astonishment he finds himself reincarnated as his old quarry, one of thousands of birds reared for local shoots. It’s not all bad though – there’s food, a warm bed and hens aplenty. He adapts quickly to his new life, and is able to advise his new friends on the best way to avoid an early death.

  But avoiding the guns turn out to be the least of Banger’s worries when he discovers in a scrap of newspaper the terrible truth of his accident. Navigating a range of obstacles, from foxes to well-meaning children to blundering animal rights activists, he embarks on an epic journey back to his ancestral seat in an attempt to rectify the many mistakes of his life, and confront his murderer.

  About the Author

  Guy Kennaway’s books include One People, a novel, and Sunbathing Naked, a memoir. He lives in Somerset.

  ALSO BY GUY KENNAWAY

  Sunbathing Naked

  One People

  I Can Feel It Moving

  This is a work of fiction, and any similarities between the human characters and living people are coincidental. For the animal characters the situation is different. I have mercilessly plundered the characters and actions of my many animal acquaintances and I am sure that Tosca, for a start, and Sunshine, were she still with us, would complain bitterly about their treatment in the book. However, as no animal has to date mounted a successful libel or defamation action in the British courts, I am confident that there is nothing they can do about it.

  Part 1

  Man and Beast

  1

  A Right and a Left

  IT BEGAN FOR Basil ‘Banger’ Peyton-Crumbe the day he died in a pheasant-shooting incident. On that chilly January afternoon, Banger’s half-brother William, who had been shooting next in the line, was the first to get to his body. William splashed through the puddles of the woodland track and halted unsteadily where Banger lay splayed out on his back. Blood oozed from his mangled head and pooled around the paws of his brown and white Springer Spaniel Jam, who sat beside four dead pheasants staring at his master, wondering if anyone would get angry with him if he gave the delicious-looking wound a good lick. The rest of the shooting party continued to discharge snap shots at pheasants that curled and skimmed across the narrow gap in the fir trees.

  ‘Help! Quick!’ shouted William. ‘For God’s sake! Over here!’

  Slowly the Guns ceased their shooting, and the men in tweeds and studded rubber boots with zips up their sides strode towards where William knelt beside his half-brother.

  ‘What the, what the, what the hell happened?’ gasped the first.

  ‘I’ll call an ambulance,’ said a younger man, reaching for his phone.

  ‘And call Idris. Tell him to call the whole thing off,’ said William. Idris was Banger’s gamekeeper, a stout man with wispy white hair and a red face, who right then lumbered through the branches of the spruce, and swore at what he saw.

  ‘Oh no, oh no. I don’t believe it,’ he uttered. ‘Is he …?’

  William nodded, too choked with emotion to talk.

  A handsome chocolate Labrador called Josh padded towards the corpse. ‘What seems to be the hold-up?’ he asked, but of course none of the men standing over the body could hear what he said, as humans can’t understand the speech of animals.

  Jam chuckled. ‘Direct hit on self. Don’t much fancy trying to drag that to the game cart. Fat arse.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked the keeper.

  ‘His gun must have exploded. Look.’ William pointed to the mangled firearm that lay by Banger’s side. ‘I told him to stop using that thing.’ The big man started weeping. ‘He’s got a perfectly good Holland and Holland I gave him three years ago.’

  ‘But he loved that one,’ said Idris. ‘His good friend, it was.’

  ‘Let me have a look at it.’ William reached for the gun.

  Idris said, ‘Best not handle it till the Police have had a look.’

  ‘I think it’s fairly obvious what’s happened,’ said William.

  ‘All the same, sir,’ said Idris, ‘I’d best give them a call.’ He extracted a phone in a grimy plastic cover and dialled a number, turning away from the group as he began to talk.

  The men were left to stare at the corpse as wisps of mist furled silently in the tops of the spruces. William took off his tweed jacket and laid it over his half-brother’s torn head. No one said anything. The wood fell quiet around them. A pheasant clucked, somewhere, and there was a rustle as three beaters emerged from the undergrowth, knobbled sticks and muddy flags in their hands, head-to-toe in filthy rain-proofing, dogs shimmering around their legs, looking like the remnants of a peasant army. They stopped dead, gasping and murmuring when they saw their fallen employer. The game cart drew up, its trailer festooned with scores of dead pheasants tied in braces. The driver got out of the Toyota pick-up.

  ‘Lift him up here. I can run him to the Maelor,’ he said.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s too late for that,’ said William. ‘Anyway, there’s an ambulance on its way.’

  ‘Has someone tried to resuscitate him?’ asked one of the beaters, who turned out to be, under the greasy hat and grimy rain-proofing, a woman.

  ‘No point, I’m afraid, half his head is missing,’ said William.

  The shocked group stood staring at the stout, booted legs sticking out of the checked cowl. The shattered bone and gore of Banger’s shredded hand stuck out of the bloodstained sleeve of his old shooting suit. The garment was made of a bluey grey, thorn-proof
tweed, and had encased Banger on shooting days for over twenty years, without once making a trip to the dry-cleaner.

  ‘Well, it’s how he would have wanted it,’ said William quietly. ‘In the field, a bird cleanly dispatched on the drive, with his faithful dog at his side.’

  Jam, the dog described as faithful, looked up. ‘Not a moment too soon for me.’

  ‘You didn’t like him?’ Josh the Labrador asked.

  ‘He was a selfish oaf,’ said Jam. ‘He wasn’t pleasant to me, but you should have seen how he treated his own flesh and blood.’

  An hour later the Guns were back at Llanrisant Hall, the gloomy house where Banger and his forebears had dwelt for hundreds of years, and were drinking lukewarm tea. Neither food nor beverages were ever served hot in Banger’s dining room, situated as it was about four hundred yards of icy corridor from the basement kitchen. The Guns tried to get as close to the fire as they could without seeming plainly selfish, and now steam rose from William’s damp trousers as he placed his well-rounded bum towards the flames.

  The distant clang of a sprung bell announced Constable Powell, who entered the dining room with a gust of chilly air. He was a tall, grey-haired man of about fifty, with kind eyes and a neat moustache. Constable Powell was in the company of Buck, an eight-year-old German Shepherd, the station police dog. Buck glanced at the room full of men, and took a sniff of the cordite, cigarette and damp tweed. He knew that they were only investigating an accident, but he was dismayed that Constable Powell appeared so deferential. In Buck’s opinion, Constable Powell lacked the natural authority of a successful officer. It was one of the reasons the man had been passed over so many times for promotion – that and the fact that he was the worst copper Buck had ever worked with, painful as it was to admit. The Detective Inspector, a man called Dave Booth who had once kicked Buck, and who was twenty years younger than Constable Powell, never sent them out if it was anything demanding or tricky, much to Buck’s annoyance. The last time Buck had seen a dead body was when old Dai Hughes committed suicide by drinking weedkiller. It was an open-and-shut case; the Paraquat was by his bed in his crumbling farmhouse. Buck had gone with Powell to Dai’s funeral. Powell loved funerals – he never missed a trip to the cemetery – and always took Buck with him. Dai must have drunk a lot of Paraquat; three years after they buried him there was still nothing growing on his grave. Buck dreamt of more interesting police work; he saw himself leaping out of a burning house with a swaddled infant dangling from his mouth, or taking a bite out of the buttock of a man with a pistol in his hand.

  In the dining room the situation was somewhat embarrassing for most of the Guns, none of whom apart from William knew Banger particularly well. They had been invited only because of their skill with a gun or their ownership of good shoots, and were now faced with the task of thinking of something appropriate to say when a virtual stranger has died. They were not up to it; for these men shooting overrode everything else in importance. One of them even said quietly, to another, ‘That apart, obviously, it was a damned good drive, didn’t you think? How was it up your end?’

  ‘Pity we had to stop really, but I suppose it couldn’t be helped,’ replied a red-cheeked young man.

  ‘Not certain Banger would have approved,’ said a third. ‘As a result we had a record low bag. Only a hundred and twenty-nine pheasants, two woodcock and a pigeon. A hundred and thirty-two in total.’

  ‘Well, a hundred and thirty-three, including Banger,’ said the red-cheeked young man. ‘I’m sure he would want to be added to the bag.’ He guffawed, and then suddenly stopped.

  Constable Powell cleared his throat to get their attention. He kept his cap in his hands as he spoke, and looked overawed in the company of men whom he knew to be landed gentry and titled aristocracy. Buck couldn’t bear to watch, and slipped away to make some inquiries of his own. He understood the importance of following procedure.

  ‘Obviously it is for the coroner to finally decide, but from my initial investigations this looks to me like a tragic accident. You see, more and more of you sportsmen are using the twenty-bore gun, and it’s easy to get the cartridges confused if they get mixed up in the bag.’

  Banger had not been a twenty-bore man. Old-fashioned in every regard, he had remained faithful to his old cheap Spanish AYA twelve bore, a gun he had had since childhood, and which had been burnished silver from the use and the care he had given it over the fifty years he had been raising it to his shoulder. He had once proudly estimated that he had dispatched over forty-one thousand pheasants with it.

  Constable Powell had managed to look into the twisted gun and see the offending cartridge: it was a twenty-bore Eley number 8, called ‘High Pheasant’. He had checked Banger’s pockets and cartridge bag, and inspected the belts and bags of the other Guns, but neither of the two men who had been using twenty bores that afternoon had been loading Eley High Pheasant, much to their relief.

  Constable Powell went on. ‘At some point during the first drive after lunch, Mr Peyton-Crumbe must have felt in his cartridge bag and accidentally, in the heat of the moment, put a twenty-bore cartridge into his right barrel. There have been one or two reported cases of this happening – one in Malpas last year, I remember, on the Collins’s shoot. A Gun lost his right hand and half his arm as a result. Lucky for him his shotgun wasn’t as old as the firearm in question here. I have checked Mr Peyton-Crumbe’s bag and there are three other stray twenty-bore cartridges in there. Maybe on a day’s shooting on another estate someone mistook Mr Peyton-Crumbe’s bag for his own and dropped them in between drives.’

  ‘I don’t think that very likely, Constable,’ said Idris. ‘When Mr Peyton-Crumbe went to a shoot I always loaded for him, and I never let the bag out of my sight, I can assure you. I don’t believe he would ever have loaded a twenty-bore shell accidentally either, he was too careful a man for that, he was.’

  ‘Quiet, Idris, let the officer talk,’ said William.

  ‘We can’t know how the cartridge got into his bag,’ Constable Powell conceded. ‘That is for the coroner to decide. But in the heat of the moment, in the middle of the drive, Mr Peyton-Crumbe can’t have noticed the cartridge slip through the chamber, into the barrel and lodge itself halfway down the sleeve. He closed the gun, took aim, fired the first barrel, it went off, and then pulled the second trigger, which just clicked. He then opened his gun – I hypothesise – removed the first, used cartridge, and noticed the empty chamber. He must have imagined that he had forgotten to load it. Had he had a glass of wine at lunch?’

  ‘Yes,’ said William, ‘but he wasn’t drunk. My brother was always safe.’

  ‘No doubt,’ said Constable Powell, ‘but for some reason he didn’t look down the barrel before he loaded another cartridge. From the moment he closed his gun, with one cartridge in the left chamber and another caught in the barrel ahead of it, that gun was transformed into a lethal bomb, a bomb that eventually went off in his face, killing him.’

  ‘The rum thing is that Banger didn’t get much shooting on the last drive,’ said one of the tweed-encased men. ‘So he wasn’t really ever flustered by the “heat of the moment”, as you called it. I was standing down a peg from him and could hear.’

  ‘He got enough sport to merit pulling that second trigger. That was all it took,’ said Constable Powell. ‘A right and a left, I believe it’s called.’

  2

  Bottom Dog

  IN THE BASEMENT of the house, Buck padded along the underlit corridor towards the unmistakable sound of Springer Spaniels in conversation. Instinct stopped him at the worn door to listen.

  ‘How was the shoot?’ Sunshine, Jam’s elderly mother said from where she was lying beside the range. Buck could see through the gap an old dog with rheumy eyes and a long tufty coat in which mud and general dirt had coagulated satisfactorily.

  ‘I’m afraid your mate Banger’s a goner,’ piped Jam.

  Sunshine lifted her head from the flagstone. ‘What? What? What do you mean
?’

  ‘On the drive after lunch, Mum. Kaput. Not even a runner.’

  Sunshine, who knew Jam was a bit of a joker said, ‘Please, what’s happened to Banger?’

  ‘His gun exploded in his face, the grouchy old bastard. I yelled, “Good shot!” Never done that before, but this was a special occasion. It’s the first day’s shooting I’ve enjoyed all season.’

  Buck nosed his way round the scratched kitchen door, savouring the pleasing aroma of the woolly socks that dangled on the rail of the Aga.

  ‘Evening all,’ he said, smiling at his allusion. When the D.I. wasn’t around, Constable Powell sometimes took Buck home, and one night they had watched some classic episodes of ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ on Bravo.

  ‘Hello, Buck,’ said Sunshine, struggling arthritically to her feet. They knew each other well. There were a hundred reasons why a country policeman would need to see the owner of the local estate, and Banger was always happy to get a couple of tumblers off the shelf in the gun room and fill them with his home-made sloe gin while he and Constable Powell fulminated about public access, country litter, travellers, joyriders and the general falling apart of the world. The dogs, at their feet, conversed on their pet subjects – a piquant crotch they had recently got a good sniff at, a sweet arse they had given a good licking to – and swapped tall stories about the best places they had ever pissed. The friendship between Banger and Constable Powell had grown out of the menace of poaching, but by the year 2009 there were too few poachers to worry about. The River Dee, which snaked through the Llanrisant Estate, once alive with sleek wild salmon, was empty of fish, and the price of salmon, now farmed in every Scottish loch, had plummeted, making a virtually impossible activity utterly futile. The kind of lads who in the old days spent the night trying to lift silver fish from a dark river for the fun of it were now pissed up on lager doing doughnuts in Somerfield car park. As for pheasants, there were so many put down and shot in the Berwyn Hills of North Wales, some estates would pretty well pay you to take them away. But this didn’t stop Banger sending Buck and Constable Powell off in the police van with a brace of birds draped on the front seat. He always disappeared into the darkness of the game store with its rows of birds hanging on nails, and felt around before making his choice.