by M C Beaton
Cyril had read up on Hamish’s successful cases and knew that several had taken place in the town of Braikie. The following day, he decided to visit the town, hoping the residents there might have less favourable ideas about Hamish than the villagers. He had gone to the village stores and after leaning on the counter, talking about the weather, he asked the owner, Mr. Patel, what he thought of the local policeman. Mr. Patel had smiled and launched on a paean of praise about Hamish.
Cyril had then gone to the Italian restaurant for dinner and quizzed the waiter, Willie Lamont. His heart sank when it turned out that Hamish was godfather to Willie’s child. Was no one going to criticise the man?
But in Braikie, his hopes sank lower. The people he talked to did not know Hamish personally but knew his reputation for solving murders and seemed to be proud to have such a policeman looking after them.
He was passing the library when he noticed they had a sign outside saying there were books for sale. Cyril decided to buy some light reading and walked into the Victorian gloom of the building.
Hetty Dunstable, the librarian, saw a handsome man looking around and teetered forward on her high heels. “Can I help you?”
Cyril saw a small, thin woman in her early forties wearing a near-transparent white blouse over a tight skirt. She had a small, pinched face and bulging brown eyes. Cyril thought sourly that she looked like a rabbit with myxomatosis. But he gave his most charming smile and said, “I saw that you had books for sale.”
“Yes, they’re over here,” said Hetty, leading the way to a wooden bench. “These are the ones that are too damaged to remain on the shelves. Are you new to the area?”
“Just on holiday,” said Cyril. “I’m over in Lochdubh.”
“Keep clear of the police station. Hamish Macbeth is useless.”
“I’d like to hear more,” said Cyril. “I enjoy a bit of gossip with a pretty girl. When do you get off?”
“We close up in ten minutes.”
“Let’s go for a drink.”
“Yes, I would love that,” said Hetty.
Hetty had no intention of telling this gorgeous man her real reason for disliking Hamish. She had once invited Hamish to a party at her flat after having met him on one of his investigations. Hamish was not interested. But she had drunk too much and had thrown herself at him, calling him her darling. Hamish had gently pushed her away and gone home. Her friends teased her about it until she began to think Hamish had wronged her. She told them so many times that Hamish had led her on that she began to believe it.
Cyril was often seen in Hetty’s company in the following days. Then to Hetty’s dismay, he said he would be too busy to see her. Hetty began to feel guilty. She was sure Cyril was spying on Hamish and wondered if he was a villain. She had made up a lot of malicious stories about Hamish’s laziness. If anything happened to Hamish, the investigation would lead back to her.
She at last phoned Hamish and said someone called Jamie Mackay had been asking a lot of questions about him.
“Don’t worry,” said Hamish. “I know all about him,” correctly guessing that Jamie was Cyril.
“What will you do?” asked Hetty.
“Take my shotgun and blow the bugger’s head off,” said Hamish and rang off.
“Let’s give Cyril something to do tomorrow,” Hamish said to Dick. “We’ll race off tomorrow up north and give the lad something to chase. The beasties are getting fat. They need some exercise.”
Hamish’s “beasties” consisted of a wild cat called Sonsie and a dog called Lugs. “I’ll get a picnic ready,” said Dick.
Hamish felt a stab of irritation. He wished Dick would not be so—well—domesticated. He felt Dick had taken the place of a possible wife, and Hamish often dreamt of marriage. His love affair with television presenter Elspeth Grant had recently fallen through. He had once been engaged to Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, daughter of the retired colonel who owned the Tommel Castle Hotel, but it just hadn’t worked out.
At that moment, Cyril was ensconced in the Currie sisters’ parlour, balancing a cup of tea on one knee. He had hoped the sisters would give him some gossip about Hamish, but they seemed hell-bent on quizzing him about the King James version of the Bible.
“Beautiful words,” said Nessie. “‘I am the voice of one, crying in the wilderness.’”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Cyril, ignoring Jessie’s echo. He thought, if I don’t get out of this damn place soon I’ll go mad. “You were saying something about the local policeman.”
“No, I wasn’t,” said Nessie.
“Bit of a layabout, is he?”
“We do not gossip in this village,” said Nessie righteously. “Pass me the Bible, Jessie, and we’ll hear this nice young man read to us.”
It was a large Victorian Bible, illustrated with steel engravings. Feeling trapped, Cyril began to read, and, as he read, he began to experience a strange feeling of doom. His mobile phone suddenly rang and he grabbed it out of his pocket. It was Blair, asking if there was any progress.
“Can’t talk now, Mother,” said Cyril. “I’ll call you later.” He rang off.
“You shouldn’t cut your mother off like that,” chided Nessie.
“How right you are.” Cyril stood up and put the Bible and his cup on the table. “I’ll get back to my digs and call her from there.”
“We’ll see you in the kirk on Sunday,” said Nessie.
If I’m still alive and not dead with boredom, thought Cyril, making his escape.
“Where are we off to?” asked Dick the next morning as he climbed into the Land Rover beside Hamish.
“Do you know Sandybeach?”
“No, where’s that?”
“Tiny little place up north of Scourie. Grand place for a picnic. I’ll put the siren on and get Cyril chasing us.”
“It’s only seven in the morning,” said Dick. “Think he’ll be up yet?”
“Probably not. But I’ve phoned Jimmy. Blair’s bound to ask if there’s been a report of a crime so I told him to say there was a burglary at Sandybeach.”
“So what do we do if the scunner catches up with us?”
“He won’t. It’s so quiet up there, you can hear a car coming for miles. We’ll take off for somewhere else.”
The sound of the siren woke Cyril. He tumbled out of bed and dashed to the window, opened it and hung out. He could just see the Land Rover racing out over the humpbacked bridge. He scrabbled into his clothes and phoned Blair, asking him to find out where Hamish had gone.
He had gone a mile out of Lochdubh when Blair rang. “Burglary at a place called Sandybeach.”
“Where’s that?”
“How should I know? Look at a map.”
Cyril programmed his sat-nav and set off in pursuit. He hurtled along the one-track roads, blind to the beauty all around him. Purple heather blazed on the flanks of the soaring mountains. Rowan trees shone with blood-red berries. Above, the sky was an arch of blue. At one point, he thought he heard the sound of another driver behind him and suddenly stopped, switched off his engine, rolled down the windows, and listened. But there was nothing to be heard but the mournful call of a curlew.
Cyril crouched over the wheel and drove on.
Sutherland, the southland of the Vikings, is the most underpopulated county in the British Isles. The west coast has the most dazzling scenery. But to Cyril, it was an odd foreign landscape, alien, far from the bustle and crowds of Strathbane.
At long last, he saw a signpost pointing the way to Sandybeach.
“The end of the road,” said Cyril, not knowing that, for him, it was.
Chapter Two
Good Lord, what is man! for as simple he looks,
Do but try to develop his hooks and his crooks,
With his depth and his shallows, his good and his evil,
All in all he’s a problem must puzzle the devil.
—Robert Burns
“Aren’t we going to Sandybeach?” asked Dick as
Hamish drove past the turn.
“We’ll go a bit further on. I don’t want that man skulking around. There’s a nice beach a bit along here. Blair’s probably told him where we’re heading. Let him have a useless day.”
The police Land Rover bumped down a heathery track and onto a curve of white sand sheltered by tall cliffs. Hamish let his pets out, and Dick got busy spreading out the picnic.
Dick held up a chicken leg. “Try this. It’s real free-range.”
“Not one of mine, I hope,” said Hamish, who preferred to let his hens die of old age.
“No. Chap ower at the forestry keeps grand birds.”
They ate and drank contentedly, watching deep blue waves smash onto the beach. Seagulls screamed and dived overhead, creating a loud cacophony of sound.
Hamish eventually tipped his hat over his eyes and fell asleep.
After half an hour, he suddenly woke and sat up. “Pack up, Dick. We may as well head back. Cyril’s probably given up by now.”
They drove up out of the bay. Hamish suddenly stopped and lowered the window. “I thought I heard something.” He could faintly hear a car horn in the distance. It seemed to be signalling SOS.
Earlier, Cyril had arrived at Sandybeach. He could only see the ruins of three buildings. How could anyone report a burglary when there was no one there? He had a creeping feeling that Hamish had deliberately led him on a wild goose chase and that Hamish knew exactly who he was. He took out his mobile to call Blair but found he could not get a signal.
He got out of his car and walked along the beach. The day was warm, and there was only the scream of the gulls and the crashing of giant waves on the beach.
Then he heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. It must be Macbeth, he thought. There was nothing he could do but brazen it out. He would say he had followed Hamish because he thought it would be exciting to witness a police investigation and hope Hamish believed him.
He relaxed when he saw a motorcyclist bumping down the tussocky path, the sun glinting on the rider’s black helmet. Cyril decided to get back into his car and drive off.
He had just reached his car when he became aware of a presence behind him and swung round. The blast from a sawn-off shotgun took him full in the chest. Two seagulls at the water’s edge rose screaming up to the sky, higher and higher, as if bearing off Cyril’s soul.
The cyclist wheeled his bike back to the track. Then the cyclist returned with a brush and bent down and brushed away any footprints and tyre tracks before getting back on the bike and roaring off.
Silence fell on the beach again. Blood seeped from Cyril’s chest wound to darken the white sand.
Ten minutes later, along the road above, came a sleek Mercedes. The driver was Terence Hardy, a builder’s merchant from Essex with his wife, Kylie, and his teenage son, Wayne.
He braked above the beach and cried, “Look at that! You can get some swimming, Wayne.”
“Don’t want to swim,” muttered his son, fiddling with his iPad.
“You’ll swim if I say so,” said his father. “I’ll leave the car here and we’ll walk down.”
Kylie repressed a sigh. Why couldn’t they have gone to Marbella as usual? She could be lying by the pool with a cold drink instead of being stuck up here in this godforsaken part of the British Isles that none of her friends had heard of.
Wayne sprinted down the path to the beach. Maybe he might find a shop where he could buy a can of Red Bull.
He stopped short at the sight of Cyril. He looked wildly around to see if there were any cameras. He could hear his mother and father having a vicious fight. “I wanna go home,” his mother was screaming.
“This is real beauty,” shouted her husband. “You ought to be creaming your jeans. What…?”
He stared at his white-faced son.
“Dad, there’s a dead man on the beach.”
“Let me see. If you’re lying, I’ll take my belt to you.”
Burly Terence in his gleaming white trainers, jeans with knife-edged pleats, and T-shirt with the legend ESSEX FOR SEX strode down to the beach.
He walked up to Cyril’s body. His knees began to tremble. Terence stumbled back up to the car. “I’ll get the police,” he said. “He’s murdered.”
But he could not get a signal on his phone. His terrified wife began to scream like a banshee. In desperation, Terence began to honk out SOS on the car horn.
“Dad, let’s get out of here!” shouted Wayne. “The murderer might still be around.”
“Get in the car,” roared Terence, turning as white as his son.
At that moment Hamish came roaring up in the Land Rover. He jumped down and caught Kylie as she threw herself into his arms, babbling about murder.
He gently put her aside. “Where’s the body?” he asked Terence.
“On the beach.”
“Wait here. Constable Fraser will take your statements.”
Hamish ran down to the beach. He stood for a moment, looking sadly down at Cyril’s dead body. He felt for a pulse in the faint hope there might be some life left, but there was none.
He tried his mobile phone without success. He went back to the Land Rover and got on the radio, summoning help.
Then he approached the Hardy family. “I’m afraid you will need to wait a bit. Detectives and forensics will be here soon.”
“I have their statements,” said Dick. “They’re staying at the Tommel Castle Hotel.”
“I’ll need to change,” said Kylie. “I peed myself.”
“You can use the back of the police Land Rover,” said Hamish, busily unwinding crime scene tape. “This whole area will need to be cordoned off. Give the clothes you have taken off to Constable Fraser and he will bag them up.”
“Why?”
“Procedure,” said Hamish, for he knew if Blair arrived on the scene, he would immediately consider this family as suspects.
Kylie eventually appeared wearing a low-cut red dress and very high heels.
“What are you tarted up for?” demanded Terence.
“The press and telly’ll be here soon.”
“They won’t have time to get here,” said Terence. “They won’t hear of it until tomorrow.”
Unfazed, Kylie said, “I’ll phone the media as soon as we get out of here.” She was the leading light of her local dramatic society and saw a golden opportunity to be propelled into that magic world of celebrities. Kylie had dreams of fame to make her forget the horror of the murder, but her husband and son still looked white and shaken.
After half an hour, when Dick had taken statements from the Hardy family, Hamish heard the sound in the sky of an approaching helicopter. He had one awful moment when he thought the police helicopter was going to land on the beach and maybe destroy any bit of evidence the killer might have left, but it landed on a flat bit of moorland behind the beach.
Blair climbed out followed by Jimmy Anderson, a policeman and policewoman, and a stocky man Hamish did not recognise.
“This here is the police surgeon, Mr. Carrick,” said Blair. “Where’s the body?”
“Down on the beach.”
Blair stumped off followed by the surgeon. Hamish grabbed Jimmy’s arm and whispered, “Cyril will have a mobile phone. Don’t let Blair get it. I need proof that Blair sicced him onto me.”
Before he reached Cyril’s car, Blair turned round suddenly and shouted at Hamish, “You! Get back there. If those are the folk that found him, get their statement.”
“I have all their statements,” said Hamish.
“Just make sure they don’t run off!”
Blair was desperate to search Cyril’s body and make sure there was nothing on it to show that he was the one who had sent Cyril to chase Macbeth.
He was about to open the car door when Mr. Carrick pulled him back. “What are you doing, man? We can’t do anything until a forensic team arrives. We should not even have come down to the crime scene.”
So Blair returned to grill the Hardys until
Terence shouted that he would get a lawyer and sue Blair for police harassment.
Blair turned his wrath on Hamish. “What were you doing up here anyway?”
“I got a report of a burglary.”
“But there’s nothing here!” roared Blair. “I looked down from the helicopter and couldn’t see a single house.”
“The voice was faint and I thought it might be a tourist who had something taken from his car,” said Hamish.
The day dragged on. The forensic team arrived and the body had to be moved up the beach away from the rising tide. “Get down there,” Hamish whispered urgently to Jimmy, “and grab all the stuff Carrick will find in his pockets and get it before Blair. Dick, have you any alcohol?”
“I’ve a bottle of whisky I carry around. It helps to loosen up folk we might need to talk to.”
“Give it to Blair.”
“Are you mad? He’ll drink the lot.”
“That’s the idea,” said Hamish.
Blair accepted the whisky and a glass with a satisfied grunt. He felt he desperately needed something to quell his fears. Frightened that someone else might want some, he retreated to a flat rock and proceeded to make inroads into the bottle.
Soothed by the whisky and the susurration of the waves on the beach, Blair fell asleep, his heavy head on his chest.
The Hardys had been given permission to leave, and the first thing Kylie did when she once more got a phone signal was to call the press. She wanted to go back so that she could be photographed at the crime scene but her husband said grimly that he wasn’t going back there.
Blair woke suddenly, blinked, and looked around. Jimmy Anderson was just coming up from the beach, carrying an evidence bag. “He was one of ours,” said Jimmy. “Cyril Sessions.”
The lights of a television camera crew suddenly flooded the scene. “I’ll take that,” said Blair, stumbling to his feet.
