by M C Beaton
“Maybe because she isn’t trying her charms on Shona.”
“How did you get on?”
“I’ve a feeling Beryl is stonewalling me. Elspeth is going to see her tomorrow.”
That’s all I need, thought Dick miserably, Hamish and Elspeth getting close again. He wished some dramatic news story would break and Elspeth would be called back to Glasgow.
“I’m off to bed,” said Hamish. “Let’s hope Elspeth comes up with something.”
Hamish lay awake in his bed for a long while. He missed the cat and dog, who used to sleep with him and had now transferred their affections to Dick. If only, thought Hamish, his engagement to Elspeth had worked out. He would be sharing his home with a wife instead of a policeman.
Elspeth, with her crew of soundman, cameraman, and researcher, arrived on Beryl’s doorstep at seven thirty in the morning. She opened the door to them wearing a dressing gown of patterned silk over a nightdress and blinked at them blearily.
“I wanted to interview you about the Campbell brothers,” said Elspeth after introducing herself and her crew.
Beryl hesitated only a few minutes. She thought she might film well. “You’ll need to wait until I get dressed,” she said.
“May we come in?” asked Elspeth. “It’s freezing out here.”
“Can’t you wait in that van of yours?”
“The heating won’t work,” lied Elspeth. “We’re going to get the radiator checked. And we need to set up the lights and camera.”
“Oh, all right. Come in.”
Beryl left them in the living room and went off to get dressed.
While the lighting was being fixed and the camera got ready, Elspeth looked at the desk. No sign of a photograph. She slid open the top drawer. There was a framed photograph, facedown. She quickly turned it over. Beryl was standing in the middle. A couple had their arms round her. Elspeth recognised Murdo and Anna from photographs she had seen in the newspapers. They were standing on the terrace somewhere overlooking a view of palm trees and blue sea.
She slid the drawer shut and moved away from the desk. She felt a frisson of fear. If Beryl was pally with that villainous pair, then she was probably involved in their shady dealings.
Hamish had better look out.
Beryl was gone for half an hour. When she finally entered the living room, she was wearing a power suit with a very short skirt over a low-cut silk blouse. Elspeth felt a stab of jealousy. Beryl had very long legs encased in sheer black stockings. I’ll bet it was Hamish who kissed her, she thought.
Elspeth began the questioning. Beryl told her pretty much what she had told Hamish. Highlanders are champion liars, and Elspeth was no exception. She studied her notes and then said, “You claim that Murdo Bentley was only an acquaintance, someone you spoke to when you visited his restaurant, but that was all.”
“Right.”
“We have an informant who says you often travelled abroad with both Murdo Bentley and Anna Eskdale and stayed at the same hotels.”
“Rubbish! Lies!” An ugly flush rose to Beryl’s cheeks. “I’ve got to get to work so pack up your gear and go!”
“So you deny having a close relationship with them?” pursued Elspeth.
Beryl rose to her feet. “Get out!”
Everything was packed up. Elspeth was the last to leave. Beryl seized her by the arm and whispered, “Go carefully, dear, accidents do happen.”
Elspeth borrowed a hotel car and drove down to the police station later that morning. She was about to sit down at the kitchen table when Dick said fussily, “Come through to the living room. The fire’s lit and it’s nice and cosy.”
Elspeth looked at Dick, and Dick looked back. Why didn’t I notice before? wondered Elspeth. I’ve got an enemy here. Why? Does he fancy Hamish? No, it’s not that. She looked around the living room, at the large flat-screen television and the bright slipcovers on the sofa and armchairs, at the little nest of polished tables, and at the fire burning brightly on the clean hearth. It’s what he thinks of as his home, realised Elspeth, and he sees me as a threat.
Dick bustled off to fetch coffee. “So,” said Hamish. “How did it go?”
Elspeth told him about the interview. Hamish’s hazel eyes gleamed. “So she did know them! I wish you hadn’t been lying, Elspeth. I’d like to get my hands on that photograph and confront her with it.”
“Can’t you get a search warrant?”
“I can try.”
Dick came in with a tray of coffee and then returned with a plate of warm scones. “Try one of these,” he urged. “I got the recipe from the Currie sisters.”
Elspeth wanted to say, I don’t want your scones. I think somehow you buggered up my engagement, but she meekly thanked him instead.
Hamish went off to the office to phone Strathbane. He phoned directly to Daviot. To his surprise, Daviot agreed to the search warrant, Hamish momentarily forgetting that a grateful boss would pretty much have granted him anything. He then phoned Jimmy, who agreed to get a squad ready. They planned to go to her home that evening.
Hamish then returned to the living room and told them about his success. “Don’t film it, Elspeth,” he urged. “If there’s nothing there, we’ll look like fools.”
Hamish tried to concentrate on paperwork involving minor cases for the rest of the day, but he felt too tensed up to do the work properly. The raid was planned for eight o’clock that evening. An unmarked police car would follow Beryl when she finished work to make sure she was going home.
At last, it was time. Hamish and Dick waited a little way off from the villa for the others to arrive.
When they did come, he was surprised not to see the truculent form of Blair with his bloated whisky face emerging from one of the cars.
“Where’s Blair?” he asked Jimmy.
“Said he had something else to do.”
Hamish felt a pang of unease. What if there were an informant in the police force and Blair somehow knew Beryl had been tipped off?
Jimmy led the way up to the door and rang the bell. In that moment, Hamish found himself wishing that Jimmy didn’t smell so strongly of whisky pretty much all the time. One of these days, Jimmy’s evidence would be thrown out of court, the accused claiming the detective was drunk.
Beryl opened the door and faced them. Hamish’s heart sank to his regulation boots. She looked completely unfazed when Jimmy told her about the search warrant.
“You’re wasting your time,” she said calmly.
“This policewoman will escort you to wait in a car,” said Jimmy.
Beryl shrugged and walked off with the policewoman.
When the search began, Hamish went straight to the desk. There was no photograph on it or in it. He turned round and looked at the living room. It smelt strongly of polish and cleaning fluid. He suddenly felt sure it was no use searching for anything incriminating. But he searched the whole desk and the underside of the drawers without finding anything sinister.
The villa was searched from top to bottom without finding anything incriminating. “Now you’ve landed us in it,” muttered Jimmy fiercely.
Beryl surveyed them calmly as she got out of the police car. “You will be hearing from my lawyers,” she said. She looked straight at Hamish. “I am disappointed in you,” she added and marched off into her house.
“I’m telling you,” said Hamish. “She got a tip-off.”
“Och, get back tae your sheep,” said Jimmy disgustedly. “As the senior officer, I’ll be the one to get the flak.”
Hamish drove Dick to the police station. “I’m off on a call, Dick. I don’t want you to come with me in case I land in trouble.”
Hamish drove straight to Strathbane. Frost on the grass at the side of the road glittered in his headlamps, and the pitiless stars of Sutherland blazed overhead.
He braked suddenly as a suicidal sheep ambled onto the road. “Get the hell out o’ it!” he roared out of the window, taking out his worry and pent-up fury on the sheep.
It gave him a huffy look and with maddening slowness walked into the fields at the side of the road.
He drove near the Blairs’ home and phoned. Blair’s wife, Mary, answered.
“Is your man at home?” asked Hamish.
“No, he’s in the pub as usual.”
“I need to talk to you, Mary.”
“I cannae see you here. Meet me in the bar of the Scotsman Hotel in town.”
“Right.”
Mary had been a prostitute that Hamish had once manipulated Blair into marrying. She had turned out an excellent wife for the boozy detective and had become a pillar of the community.
To Hamish’s relief, the bar was quiet. Mary came in and sat down, looking at him anxiously. “What’s he been up to now?” she asked.
The waitress came over. Mary ordered whisky and Hamish, a tonic water. When the drinks were served, Hamish leaned forward and said urgently, “Has your man had more money than he should have had in the past months?”
Her eyes widened. “D’ye mean, is he on the take?”
“Something like that.” Hamish told her about the useless search, ending by saying, “I’m sure she was tipped off.”
She shook her head. “I handle all the money and pay all the bills. I have to or he would drink us broke. What gives you that idea?”
“First he put Cyril on to spy on me, next he gets another one, Bert McAlpine, to breathalyse folk at the Tommel Castle Hotel where I had been having dinner. He maybe hoped to get me on a drunk driving charge. So maybe the tip-off wasn’t for money but to make me look like a fool. Did he know Murdo Bentley?”
“Just at the restaurant. We had a couple of free meals there. I protested but he said everyone did it. Look, Hamish, I don’t want him getting into trouble. I have a comfy life and I handle him just grand.”
“I’ll do my best. It would be better if someone like me found out than, say, Jimmy. How’s life anyway?”
“Great. Me and Mrs. Daviot are bosom buddies.” Mary giggled. “She’d die if she ever found out about me.”
“She won’t,” said Hamish, surveying the plump woman with the grey hair and well-cut tweeds. “You look the picture of respectability.”
Hamish drove back to Lochdubh, but on an impulse he drove near Beryl’s villa and parked down the road.
He took off his regulation cap and pulled on a black wool one to hide his red hair. He walked to the villa and hid in the rhododendron bushes in the drive. The curtains on the windows of the living room were opened. As he watched, Beryl walked to the window and looked out. Then she turned around and could be seen talking to someone. Who?
Hamish knew he could not get close to the windows because there were no concealing bushes in front of them and his boots would make a noise on the gravel. He shivered. The night was cold. He was only wearing his regulation sweater over a shirt and trousers. He had left his coat in the car.
An owl swooped overhead, making him jump. Somewhere a rabbit squealed in its death throes. Probably caught by a ferret. The fauna of the highland countryside was settling down to its business of massacring the weakest.
People who said they didn’t believe in God often said, “But I worship nature.” And that, thought Hamish, was about as safe as worshipping the old Greek gods. Climbers, unaware of the perils of the weather, were regularly killed, inexperienced yachtsmen blown to kingdom come on the crosswinds on some loch. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a car arriving. A taxi swept up the drive and stopped at the door.
The front door opened and Blair came out, followed by Beryl. “Go safely,” she called, waving goodbye.
Blair settled back in the taxi on the road to Strathbane. There was no better feeling than landing Hamish Macbeth in the shit. Fine woman, that Beryl.
“There’s a police car coming up behind us,” called the taxi driver. “He’s flashing his lights for me to pull over.”
“Do it,” ordered Blair.
The cab door was jerked open and Hamish Macbeth said, “Get out now.”
“How dare you order me around,” blustered Blair.
“Do you want this taxi driver to hear exactly why I’m ordering you around? Tell him to wait.”
Blair sulkily gave instructions to the driver. “Get in the Land Rover,” ordered Hamish.
When Blair was seated in the passenger seat, Hamish said, “Did you tip off Beryl that there was going to be a house search?”
“Bollocks,” yelled Blair. “She was upset about the search and Mr. Daviot suggested I pay a courtesy call.”
“I have Mr. Daviot’s home number,” said Hamish. “I’ll just call and confirm that.”
He took out his mobile and began to dial.
“Wait!” shouted Blair. “Look, laddie, the truth is I did it off ma ain bat. There was nothing to link her to any wrongdoing, and I thocht the search was a bad mistake.”
“The reason for the search, as you should know,” said Hamish, “was because we had enough on her to warrant a search. I’ll just make that call.”
“No! Look. Okay, I know the wumman. You know they’ve closed down the police accommodation. Well, occasionally she lets out cottages to coppers at a damn reasonable price.”
“I still should report you,” said Hamish.
“What more do you want?” shouted Blair.
“For a start, what did you have on Cyril Sessions to get him to agree to spy on me? Had he not been murdered, he would have lost his job. I know you didn’t lose yours, God knows why. Out with it.”
“He was visiting this prostitute and not paying her for giving him a leg over. She’d had enough and was going to report him. I shut her up.”
“Name of prostitute.”
“I dinnae call tae mind.”
“I call to mind Daviot’s phone number.”
“Oh, all right. It’s Betty Blue.”
“Real name?”
“Betty Queen.”
“Address?”
“Number Five, Cockspur Street.”
“Is it a brothel?”
“Naw, she’s upmarket. Got a house of her own.”
“Prostitutes are often tied up to criminals. Did you never think that might be behind the murder of Cyril?”
“Sessions must have been doing something for Bentley. That lot killed him.”
“Just before she died, Anna Eskdale said they didn’t.”
“Probably didnae know she was going to die. Lying.”
“I’ve a feeling we’ll soon get enough to arrest Beryl,” said Hamish. “If I find she’s fled, then I’m going to talk about you. Get along with you and don’t sic anyone on me again!”
Hamish watched Blair walk back to his cab. If it wasn’t for his wife, he thought, I’d report the old bastard like a shot.
At the police station, Dick said, “Elspeth called to say she wouldn’t be hanging around.”
Hamish went into the office and phoned Elspeth. “Dick tells me you phoned to say you were leaving?”
“I didn’t call at all,” said Elspeth.
“Why on earth did he say so?”
“He looks on me as a rival.”
“Come off it, Elspeth.”
“He thinks if we got together again, he’d be out of his precious home, scones, chintz slipcovers, the lot.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Hamish.
“You never did want to talk about anything important,” said Elspeth and banged down the phone.
Hamish went back to the living room. “You made that up,” he said to Dick. “Why?”
“She’s not right for you,” said Dick.
“All you care about,” said Hamish nastily, “is playing housewife in my station. I’m going to get you sent back to Strathbane.”
He slammed out of the room, leaving Dick to hug the cat and look mournfully round what he thought of as his little palace.
In the morning, Hamish curtly refused Dick’s offer of breakfast, called to the dog and cat, and went out to the Land Rover.
/> As he drove out of Lochdubh, he saw Hetty behind the wheel of her car, heading for the police station. Before that business about Elspeth, he would have phoned Dick to warn him, but he was still feeling bitter.
Dick was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the Highland Times, when Hetty walked in.
“What are you doing here?” he cried.
Hetty smiled roguishly at him, “I came to see you, silly.”
“I’m just off on an important case,” said Dick. “Shouldn’t you be at the library?”
“It’s Sunday! I thought, I’ll just run over and see my dear Dick.”
Dick could feel sweat trickling down the back of his neck. He walked straight to the kitchen door and held it open for her. “Sorry, I’ve got to go. Got to get my uniform on.” He turned away and went into his bedroom.
When he came out, he saw the kitchen door was still open. He was about to leave in case she was still waiting out on the road when he heard a faint noise from the living room.
He went in and found Hetty wandering around, looking at everything.
“You can’t stay here!” said Dick. “Please leave.”
“It’s really cosy here,” said Hetty. “But you need a wife to give it the feminine touch.”
“Out! Now!” said Dick. “I’ve got to lock up.”
Hetty moved slowly to the door. She moved up close to him, and he backed away.
“So shy,” she whispered. “But I’ll change all that.”
Dick sidestepped her. “I’ll be back,” she said, like some horrible travesty of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Dick mopped his brow after she had left. The woman was obsessed. And so are you, said the voice of his conscience. Hamish will never forgive you, and all because you’re so in love with a police station, you interfered in his engagement.
