by M C Beaton
Martha wondered whether to call on the island’s doctor for a new supply of sleeping pills, having used up what she had drugging the pair. Then she realised happily that she could now afford whisky, and whisky was better than sleeping pills any day.
But how had they arrived? She walked down to the beach and saw the dinghy. She went back and got a hammer and smashed holes in the bottom, then waded into the water, pushed it out to sea, and waited until it sank.
Singing to herself, she returned to her croft house. But what about her six hens? She could get a neighbour to look after them, but what if that precious pair woke up and started banging about the shed?
Sadly, she caught each hen and wrung its neck and put the dead birds in the freezer.
Dressed carefully in her best clothes, and carrying Murdo’s travel bag, Martha got into her old Ford and drove across the causeway to Barra to wait for the ferry to the mainland.
A couple of weeks later, Jimmy, Hamish, Dick, and Blair along with a forensic team and several police officers gathered at the harbour in Lochdubh as Archie Maclean’s fishing boat appeared, towing Murdo’s boat behind him.
They waited impatiently while the forensic team boarded Murdo’s boat. “She wass chust bobbing about on the Minch,” said Archie. “But the dinghy’s missing.”
It soon transpired that the boat had run out of petrol. “They could be anywhere,” grumbled Blair. “I’ll phone the coastguard.”
Hamish took Archie aside. “If you landed in the middle o’ the Minch in a dinghy, where would you head?”
“Well…” Archie pushed back his cap and scratched his grey hair. “She was in the Little Minch so maybe Barra.”
“Or,” said Hamish, “they might want to land where there aren’t many folk.”
“There’s Eriskay. Only about one hundred and fifty folk there,” said Archie.
“Whit are you daein’ wi’ all them polis?” screeched a voice from Archie’s small cottage.
“The wife,” said Archie. “Better go.”
Hamish went in to the police station and got down a pile of maps to study. Dick, who had followed him in, said, “Any guesses?”
“I’d like a look at Eriskay.”
“D’ye think Blair will let you go?”
“No. He won’t want me around anywhere. You stay here and cover for me.”
“Bring me back a bottle o’ that famous whisky.”
“What famous whisky?”
“You’ve forgotten. That’s where the SS Politician struck the rocks wi’ a cargo o’ thousands of bottles of whisky. That’s why Compton Mackenzie wrote Whisky Galore and they made that film.”
Hamish drove to Oban and caught the ferry to Barra. From Barra, he drove to Eriskay. He turned over in his mind what he knew of Eriskay. It had once been under Norse occupation for four hundred years—hence the name, the Norse for “Eric’s Island.” On the twenty-third of July, 1745, the French ship Du Teillay put ashore Bonnie Prince Charlie. He met Alexander of Boisdale, who urged him to go home. Charles is reported to have said, “I am come home, sir,” and then sailed to the mainland and raised his standard at Glenfinnan. If only he had gone home again, reflected Hamish. So many lives would have been saved.
He went into the village of Ain Baile and asked if anyone had seen any strangers, but no one had. He remembered how faulty his intuition had been about the woman from Edinburgh. Murdo and Anna could be anywhere.
Hamish decided that maybe they would have picked an isolated house. He drove slowly round, stopping occasionally to get out and search the beaches for any sign of a dinghy. The light was fading fast and the wind was beginning to howl.
He decided to try the west of the island and then give up. He parked the Land Rover beside a curve of white sand and got down and shone his torch. The gale was now screaming, and it was bitterly cold. Great black breakers from the Atlantic pounded the shore. He was about to turn away when his torch lit a piece of wreckage. He hurried down and examined it. It had definitely come off some sort of boat. He turned his back on the heaving sea. There was a croft house a little bit away from the beach. It was dark and silent, and no smoke rose from the chimney.
Hamish went up and knocked at the door. There was no reply. He went round to the kitchen and shone his torch in the window. One kitchen chair had fallen over. He picked the lock and let himself in, calling, “Police! Anybody here?”
But he knew somehow from the silence that the house was deserted.
He switched on the light in the kitchen. There was a single muddy tyre track leading to the kitchen door. He went into the living room and switched on the light there. A bookcase contained a series of romances by Martha Hibbert. There was a computer and printer on the table along with a pile of typed manuscript pages. He then went along to a small bedroom. The wardrobe door was open, as were some of the drawers on a chest of drawers, as if someone had packed hurriedly.
He went back to the kitchen and opened the door. Outside, there was a damp area of mud and the single tyre track running through it.
He pointed his torch towards the shed. The door was fastened with a strong padlock. He went back to the Land Rover, fetched a pair of bolt cutters, then went back to the shed and severed the padlock.
Hamish shone the torch on the two bound bodies on the floor—Murdo and Anna.
He felt Murdo’s neck for a pulse and found none. He guessed he had probably died of a combination of cold and dehydration. He then bent over Anna. There was a pulse but it was faint. He hurriedly unbound her and ripped the tape from her mouth. He heaved her up, carried her into the house, and laid her down on the bed in the bedroom, noticing there was an electric blanket, which he switched on.
Hamish went into the living room and desperately phoned for help. He realised that no helicopter could land in the howling gale. He saw a list of numbers above the phone on the wall. One of the numbers was for a Dr. Trapesy in the village. He phoned and asked the doctor to come immediately.
Returning to Anna with a glass of water, he dribbled a little of it into her mouth. Her eyes fluttered open.
“Why did you kill Cyril?” asked Hamish.
“Who?”
“Cyril Sessions. The policeman.”
“Not us,” she said faintly. “Murdo?”
“Just rest. The doctor’s on his way.”
Her eyes closed again.
Hamish paced up and down until he heard a car arrive. The doctor, a small plump man with a shock of white hair, bustled in. Hamish showed him through to the bedroom. He felt for a pulse. “She’s gone. I’ll try to get her back.” He took a defibrillator out of his capacious case and got to work. At last, he shook his head. “She’s a gonner.”
“There’s another body in the shed,” said Hamish. “Does Martha Hibbert own this place?”
“Aye, the writer. A bittie scary. Soft in the head.”
“The dead couple are Murdo Bentley and Anna Eskdale,” said Hamish. “We’ve been hunting for them.”
Martha had checked into a modest bed-and-breakfast in Fulham in London. She found her agent was on holiday and not due back for a week. She had meant to visit her editor first, but she was always mysteriously unavailable. Martha was determined to wait. It was surely the useless agent’s fault that her books were no longer to be published.
At last, his assistant said he had returned. Martha walked to the basement her agent, Harold French, used as an office.
Harold French looked dismayed when he learned Martha was coming to see him. He not only detested Martha, he detested writers, who all seemed to think they were Dickens. Harold had been a schoolteacher in a comprehensive when his father died and bequeathed him the agency. At first Harold was delighted to get away from horrible children and what he sourly considered Trotskyist teachers. The jewel in the crown of his clients—of which he had few left—was a deceased bestselling detective writer who had bequeathed him the rights to her books. His father had left him not only the office but also a large villa on the Th
ames along with a portfolio of stocks and shares. This engendered a comfortable enough income to let him indulge in being rude to authors. He was a tall rangy man with black hair and an aquiline nose. He had been married and divorced three times, all on the grounds of his cruelty. He had fired his assistant after she had told him of Martha’s impending arrival for no other reason than to see if he could make her cry.
He beamed at Martha and prepared to enjoy himself by putting the boot in.
“Sit down, my dear,” he said. “Have you come all the way from the Hebrides?”
“Yes, we really must talk. I have been told that they are not going to publish any of my books. Why is that?”
“Well, you’ve gone out of fashion. In fact, you have been damned as old-fashioned. Lots of heaving bosoms but no explicit sex. Lots of steam but nothing under the kettle, so to speak. Maybe not enough experience?” He gave a self-satisfied chuckle as the colour mounted to Martha’s cheeks.
“What if I write a detective story?” said Martha. “They seem to be very popular.”
“Do you read many?”
“I watch Midsomer Murders.”
“That pap. Oh, forget it. I’m afraid I have to tell you that your writing days are over.”
“But I have an idea for a detective story in my handbag.”
“Really, Martha, I would like to talk to you longer but…”
His voice faded away as Martha took a gun out of her handbag. “Now, let’s not be silly,” he said, reaching for the phone.
Martha shot him in the chest and then walked over and shot him in the head.
She had brought a travel bag with her. She opened it, took out new clothes from Marks & Spencer, and began to put them on and then put the bloodstained clothes in the bag.
Martha felt a feeling of exultation. She considered every one of her romances a work of art. Now for her editor. After she had dumped the travel bag.
She blamed the new editor that had been assigned to her by her publishers, Ferris & Ferris. Although Martha had never met her, she had seen photographs of the woman on her website and had not liked what she had seen. Called Freddy Mulkin, she was plump with a great round face and black hair streaked with pink highlights.
Freddy Mulkin was a compulsive overeater. As soon as lunchtime came around, she headed for the nearest McDonald’s, ordered two Big Macs, two fries, and a milk shake. She carried them over to a table by the window, just vacated by a couple, already salivating over the lunchtime treat in store.
She was biting into a Big Mac when a woman sat down opposite her and said, “Mizz Mulkin?”
“What? Who are you?” demanded Freddy, feeling like a lioness balked of her prey.
“I am Martha Hibbert.”
“Am I supposed to know you?”
“You are my editor, you useless piece of garbage. You had the temerity to tell me that my books were no longer going to be published.”
“Oh, that Martha Hibbert. Don’t glare at me.” The decision not to publish Martha’s books had come down from the senior editor, but Freddy, like the recently deceased literary agent, liked power over authors. “Look, your sales figures are abysmal. We can’t go round carrying deadwood.”
A man, operating a road drill, started to dig up the pavement outside.
Martha smiled as Freddy gave a massive shrug of her shoulders and greedily took a huge bite out of her Big Mac.
She opened her handbag, took out the gun under the cover of the table, and shot Freddy right in her large stomach.
Freddy let out a long wail of pain and terror, but the noise was drowned by the cacophony of the road drill.
Martha left and went to the British Museum, where she sat on the steps and felt all the power and exultation seeping out of her body.
She knew that sooner or later, the police would scan all the CCTV cameras in the area. As she had not read any newspapers, she did not know they were already looking for her.
Martha got sadly to her feet and hailed a cab. “Scotland Yard,” she said.
Elspeth Grant was called into the news editor’s office. “I know you won’t want to do it,” he said, “but it’s a great story. Drugs and human trafficking up in the Highlands and now some woman up in Eriskay killed two of the leaders, went down to London, shot her agent and her editor, and then turned herself in at Scotland Yard.”
“What am I supposed to add to it?” asked Elspeth. “There’s been yards of it on television already.”
“But you always get something no one else has. Get over to Eriskay and do a colour piece about what the locals think of her.”
Hamish and Dick with the dog and cat sat up on the hills above Lochdubh, having a picnic, to get away from the press. Jimmy had just phoned Hamish on his mobile to tell him about Martha Hibbert.
“She must ha’ been stark staring mad,” said Dick, munching on a ham sandwich.
“It can happen to people from the cities,” said Hamish. “They take off for some remote spot, and sooner or later the loneliness eats into them. The locals can be standoffish, although I don’t know what they’re like on Eriskay. They either end up drinking too much, or they get depressed and start talking to themselves. Usually a lot of them are too proud to admit even to themselves that they couldn’t hack it.”
“Martha’s getting a lot of sympathy from other disappointed authors,” said Dick. “And evidently her books are selling like mad.”
“Well, they say, the worse the writer, the bigger the ego,” said Hamish. “Not everyone’s been rounded up. The Campbell brothers, for instance. And I worry about thon woman Beryl Shuttleworth. Nothing has been linked to her and yet she employed two men who probably got rid of Gonzales.”
“They’re still going through masses of paperwork,” said Dick. “Maybe they’ll find a connection.”
“I might call on her and invite her out to dinner,” said Hamish.
“Be careful,” urged Dick. “She might shoot you under the table like Martha did to that poor editor.”
“I’ll try anyway,” said Hamish. “We’d better pack up. It’s getting dark already and I can smell rain coming.”
“What about consulting the seer, Angus Macdonald?” asked Dick. “He picks up a lot o’ gossip.”
“You go,” said Hamish. “There’s another thing. Just before she died, Anna said they didn’t kill Cyril.”
“So what. Maybe they didn’t but as sure as hell they got him killed.”
“It still niggles at me.”
Dick set off for the seer’s cottage later that day. Angus Macdonald always expected some sort of gift, and Dick had a cupboard full of chocolates and booze he had won in pub quiz contests. He was clutching a giant box of liqueur chocolates. Dick did not really believe that the seer could give him useful information about the Campbells or Beryl Shuttleworth, but he still longed for Shona—Shona who was also called Macdonald like the seer, surely a good omen.
The seer’s cottage was on top of a steep brae and Dick felt quite breathless when he pulled at the old-fashioned tirling pin on the door.
Angus opened the door. He was a tall bearded man, dressed in a long white robe like a Druid.
He accepted the liqueur chocolates and ushered Dick into his sitting room, which was lit by two oil lamps. Although Angus had electricity, he liked to keep the living room looking as antique as possible, from the blackened kettle hung over the peat fire to the large old-fashioned dresser against one wall.
Angus settled himself in an armchair on one side of the fire, and Dick sat down opposite on a high-backed Orkney chair. “How can I help you?” asked Angus.
Dick took a deep breath. “I’m keen on this girl at the library, Shona Macdonald. She’s a lot younger than I am. Do you think I have any hope there?”
“You havenae a hope in hell,” said Angus. “Her heart belongs to another.”
“How do you know that?”
“The spirits tell me,” said Angus sententiously, who had actually read about Shona’s engagement in
the Highland Times that morning.
“She would ha’ told me!” exclaimed Dick.
“She never even thought of you romantically,” said the seer. “You’re too auld.”
“And you’re a daft silly old man,” said Dick wrathfully.
He got to his feet and strode to the door. “Tell Hamish Macbeth to look out for her,” called the seer.
Dick swung round. “Who? What woman?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Stupid fraud,” muttered Dick and went out and slammed the door.
By the time he got back down to the police station, the rain Hamish had forecast was driving in horizontal sheets.
Hamish was sitting at the table reading the Highland Times. He looked at Dick’s distressed face, got up, took a bottle of whisky out of a cupboard, and poured him a dram. “What did he say to upset you?”
“He said Shona, that girl at the library, is engaged. He said the spirits told him.”
Hamish flipped the newspaper to the announcements and then silently handed it to Dick. He read that Shona was engaged to a man called Diarmuid Hendry.
In a funny kind of way, Dick felt a slow feeling almost of relief. His feelings for Shona had been growing into an obsession.
“I’d better get her an engagement present,” he said.
“Look in your cupboard,” said Hamish. “There’s a spare toaster there.”
Dick was about to protest that it should be something really special, but then he realised that a simple gift would do—a not-so-special gift from a not-so-special man.
“They’re draining that bog tomorrow,” said Hamish. “Want to come and have a look?”
“Maybe I’ll take the toaster or something over to Shona.”
“Wrap it up and post it,” said Hamish gently.
“All right. I’ll do that.”
By the next morning, the rain had stopped and a pale disk of a sun shone down on the cold countryside, where water dripped from the few trees and the air was full of the smell of peat smoke.
