Death of a Charming Man

by Beaton, M. C.

  It was only when he was back in his own kitchen with only the company of Towser that he began to calm down. He could not go over and over what Priscilla had said, picking away at the hurt like a scab. In the morning he would go to Strathbane and make arrangements for his holiday.

  And then he would set out to find Peter Hynd.

  He went down to Strathbane the next day and obtained permission to take leave. Sergeant Macgregor over at Cnothan would cover Hamish’s beat as well as his own. That finished, Hamish returned to Lochdubh, collected Towser and took the dog over to his parents’ home in Rogart, where he shrugged off questions about his wedding date with, he thought, very clever answers. His mother sadly watched him driving off and said to her husband, ‘I don’t think our Hamish is going to marry Priscilla or anyone. He always was a picky boy.’

  Hamish then returned to Lochdubh and arranged with a neighbour to take care of his hens and sheep. He had already made up his mind to go to London and see if he could trace the origins of Peter Hynd. First he would need some money. As he walked to the bank, he suddenly realized that Peter Hynd must have had some local bank he drew money from. There was no bank in Drim.

  He walked in and asked to see the bank manager, a new man called Ian Donaldson. He had to wait twenty minutes. The recession had reached the north of Scotland in that the banks were calling in loans and managers were besieged by furious customers.

  The bank manager rose to meet him. ‘Well, Macbeth, I hope you havenae come for a loan, for I amn’t giving any.’

  ‘Nothing like that,’ said Hamish. ‘That young chap, Peter Hynd, him that was over at Drim. Did he use this bank?’

  ‘Aye, from time to time.’

  ‘Had an arrangement with you?’

  ‘Nothing like that. Just cashed the odd cheque for fifty pounds and paid the fee. So much plastic around these days, people don’t need cash in hand like they used to.’

  ‘Got any of those cheques?’

  ‘No, he hasn’t been in here for a few weeks, so the cheques will have already been sent on to his own bank in New Bond Street. Why? He isn’t a criminal, is he?’

  ‘Just following up some inquiries,’ said Hamish.

  He drew out money and then hesitated outside the bank. It was a glorious early autumn day. The heather had settled down to a rusty colour and the rowan-trees were heavy with scarlet berries. The fishing boats were mirrored in the loch. Smoke rose in straight lines from chimneys. The air was full of homely noises: women calling to each other as they hung out the washing, snatches of radio, the grinding of a rusty winch down at the harbour, the chanting voices of the children in the schoolroom reciting the multiplication table.

  As he surveyed the scene, he had a longing to forget about useless Peter Hynd and stay in Lochdubh and laze the days away, get in a bit of fishing, read, and watch television. But as he viewed the loch, a pleasure launch came into view, the Tommel Castle Hotel’s latest acquisition. It was full of guests and he could make out Priscilla’s blonde hair.

  With a little sigh, he went back to the police station and began to pack.

  * * *

  His cousin, Rory Grant, a reporter on a national daily newspaper, was not amused to find Hamish complete with suitcase on his doorstep. ‘This isn’t a hotel, Hamish,’ he said. ‘I could have had a woman here.’

  ‘But you haven’t,’ said the unrepentant Hamish, walking in and putting his suitcase in the middle of the floor. ‘I’m only here for a wee bit, and if you’re any help to me, I’ll let you in on a good story.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Hamish told him about Peter Hynd.

  ‘Sounds a bit far-fetched to me,’ said Rory. ‘If you want free board, just say so.’

  ‘No, I mean it. I really want to find him.’

  ‘Okay, your room’s through here. Look, I think I’m on to a sure thing tonight, Hamish. There’s this woman reporter on the Sun … well, you know how it is. I’m taking her out for dinner and I think I might score. We’re going to a restaurant in South Ken, Bernie’s Bistro. I’ve got to go into the office, so I’ll see if there’s anything on Peter Hynd on file. If you drop in at the restaurant at eight, say, I’ll give you anything I’ve got, but don’t stay, for heaven’s sake. Take yourself off and get some fish and chips or something.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ said Hamish, suddenly feeling more cheerful. ‘I’ll start off at his bank in New Bond Street.’

  ‘How’s Priscilla?’

  ‘Chust fine.’

  ‘Did well for yourself, Hamish. Wish I could marry into a rich family.’

  Hamish paused in the act of opening his suitcase. ‘I haff no intention of using my wife’s money or her family’s money.’

  ‘Bollocks. Get real, as our American cousins say. Wake up and smell the coffee. Victorian values don’t apply in a recession. I’m telling you, if I get a rich wife, I’ll chuck reporting and sit on my bum pretending to write the great novel while wifie pays the bills without one qualm of conscience.’

  ‘Aye, well, London’s corrupted you. I will do fine if you want to get off.’

  ‘I’ll get your door keys first,’ said Rory. ‘You know where everything is. Don’t forget, Bernie’s Bistro. Come out of South Ken tube, turn right, and it’s a few yards along once you cross the intersection.’

  ‘I’ll find it. And thanks, Rory.’

  Rory grinned and with his lanky figure and red hair suddenly looked very much like Hamish. He waved and went out. Hamish hung away his clothes and, still feeling stiff and groggy after a night on the train, went out into the streets of Kensington. Rory’s flat was in a converted building right on the Gloucester Road. The day was crisp and fine and he decided to walk to Bond Street through Kensington Gardens, then Hyde Park, and so along Piccadilly and down Bond Street.

  He felt more relaxed than he had for some time.

  The hunt for Peter Hynd had begun in earnest.

  Chapter Seven

  Even if we take matrimony at its lowest, even if we regard it as no more than a sort of friendship recognized by the police.

  – Robert Louis Stevenson

  Hamish left the bank feeling puzzled. Peter Hynd certainly had an account with them but no money had been drawn by him anywhere in the last few weeks. But he had a London address in the Vale of Health, Hampstead. He went into Fenwick’s, the Bond Street department store, and up to the coffee shop and examined the tube map at the back of his diary while he drank coffee, the only man in a roomful of women.

  He made his way out into a street, which looked strangely thin of people compared to the bustling main street of Inverness, say, walked to Bond Street Tube and took the Central Line to Tottenham Court Road, and changed to the Northern Edgware Line. It took him an hour to reach Hampstead. He was always amazed at the vastness of London, although the infrequent trains on the Northern Line always served to slow up any journey. Thriftily not wanting to spend any more money than he had to, he walked into a Hampstead newsagent’s, took down a London A–Z, located the Vale of Health, and returned the book to the shelf.

  The Vale of Health, originally called Hackett’s Bottom, nestled in a hollow of the Heath beside a pond. As he walked down the twisting road, he saw a small fairground in front of the houses and beyond that the trees and grass and walks of Hampstead Heath.

  Peter Hynd’s house was a trim villa in a terrace of villas, painted ice-cream pink. Much as he disliked Peter Hynd, as Hamish pressed the bell, he wished with all his heart and soul that the man himself would answer the door. But it was a rather bizarre young woman who looked up at him, her dusty hair backcombed and left that way, making her look like some cartoon about electric shock therapy. Her skin was sallow and she wore old-fashioned purple lipstick and her tired eyes were rimmed with kohl.

  ‘Mr Hynd?’ asked Hamish. ‘I am from the Sutherland police,’ he added, thinking that sounded grander than Lochdubh.

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘Is he here?’

  ‘No,
he’s somewhere up your part of the world. Oh, I suppose you know that. He’s our landlord.’

  ‘And when did you see him last?’

  She crinkled her brow and then shouted over her shoulder, ‘Clive!’

  A squat bald man, or, as Hamish supposed one would have to say these days, one of the follicly disadvantaged, hove into view.

  ‘This man’s from the police,’ she said. ‘He’s asking about Peter.’

  ‘Good God, woman. When will you ever learn? Some fellow turns up on the doorstep and claims to be a policeman and you don’t even ask to see any identification.’

  ‘Well, I did, so get stuffed,’ she said, throwing Hamish a conspiratorial wink. Clive made a disgusted sound and walked away.

  ‘Brownie points to me,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Never let the bastards get the upper hand, husbands, I mean.’ She cocked her head to one side. ‘He’s gone upstairs. Come down to the kitchen and have a cup of coffee. You’ve come a long way, so it must be important. Although I didn’t ask you for any identification, I trust you not to be the rapist of Hampstead Heath, although,’ her eyes slanted mockingly at him, ‘on the other hand, this might be my lucky day.’

  Hamish followed her downstairs to a cheerful kitchen hung with a couple of braces of pheasant and a hare. ‘Early for the pheasant, not October yet,’ said Hamish.

  ‘Oh, them? They’re stuffed. Got a lot of twee friends who go in for exotic cooking. When they see the game hanging up, they never guess what I’m serving them came from the restaurant up the road. Got to keep one’s end up. Clive is with the Beeb.’

  ‘The Beeb?’

  ‘The BBC.’

  ‘What does he do?’

  ‘He produces a programme called ‘Culture For Everyman.’ He loves it. He gets to patronize the great British public once a week. How do you like your coffee?’

  ‘Just black with a spoon of sugar.’

  ‘Right you are. I’m Jill Cadden. I’m in films.’

  ‘I didn’t think there was a film industry left in Britain,’ commented Hamish.

  ‘Well, it’s a small experimental company. We’re politically motivated.’

  ‘Tell me about Peter,’ said Hamish. ‘I mean, don’t you see him to give him the rent?’

  ‘No, we pay him by standing order. Goes from our bank to his every month.’

  ‘How much does he charge?’

  ‘Thirteen hundred a month.’

  ‘Pounds!’

  ‘Hardly be dollars or Deutschmarks, would it? And that’s pretty reasonable for this size of house and garden in this neck of the woods.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be cheaper to buy a wee place and pay the mortgage?’ asked Hamish curiously.

  ‘You see, it …’ Jill looked at him with amusement. ‘How do you ever get to the point, copper? Or does life move slower in Sutherland? What’s Peter been up to?’

  ‘He was living in the village of Drim up on the northwest coast. He left and put his cottage up for sale. But no one saw him leave. Then a woman’s been found dead. It’s been said it wass the accident,’ said Hamish, becoming worried again as in his mind’s eye he saw Betty Baxter’s ungainly dead body sprawled on the cruel rocks, ‘but I am not so sure.’

  ‘You’re thorough, I’ll say that,’ said Jill, handing him a cup of coffee. ‘It seems you think that Peter had something to do with this woman’s death or that he has been killed himself.’

  ‘Something like that,’ said Hamish. ‘What did you think of Peter?’

  A shuttered look came down over her eyes. ‘All right. Bit lightweight. Not much there. What you see is what you get.’

  ‘Would you say he was manipulative?’

  ‘We only rented the house from him. We didn’t go into any deep psychoanalysis.’ Her voice was tetchy.

  ‘Any family? This is his house, not a family home?’

  ‘Yes, it’s his house. He has a sister somewhere, I believe.’

  ‘He never said anything about his family? Where they lived, where he went to school?’

  She yawned. ‘We weren’t buddies. He’s just a landlord, that’s all.’

  Hamish could get little out of her but he left with a feeling that Jill had been subject to Peter’s philandering tactics.

  He would need to wait and see if Rory had found anything on the newspaper files.

  As he walked up and away from the Vale of Health, he began to worry whether he had merely used this investigation as an excuse to run away from Priscilla. He sometimes wondered which one of them was really at fault. He debated whether to call in at New Scotland Yard and ask if they had anything on Peter Hynd on their files. But Scotland Yard would phone Strathbane to check his credentials and then he would be on the carpet for trying to play the part of private detective in London.

  Priscilla drove down to the police station. This quarrel was silly. Sophy Bisset was a very pushy sort of girl and Hamish was putty in the hands of pushy girls. She must put the treacherous thought that Hamish Macbeth was putty in the hands of any female out of her mind.

  The police station was locked up and a notice on the door referred all inquiries to Sergeant Macgregor at Cnothan for the next three weeks. Where had Hamish gone? She had never known him to take a real holiday, apart from that free one at the health farm, which had ended up in a murder inquiry anyway.

  His parents! He was bound to have gone to Rogart to spend some time with his family. She drove to Rogart and received a noisy welcome from Towser. Mrs Macbeth shook her head and said Hamish was off investigating something, that was all she knew.

  So Priscilla stayed for tea and left saddened by the fact that Hamish’s name and her marriage prospects were not mentioned, although the air had been thick with unasked questions.

  As she drove home, she began to become angry with him. How dare he go off like that without even calling on her? Yes, they had had a row. All couples had rows. But he should have understood that she could not just pack up, just like that, and go with him on holiday. Wherever he was, she sincerely hoped, and from the bottom of her heart, that he was missing her like hell and having a dreadful time.

  * * *

  Hamish made his way along to Bernie’s Bistro. He was wearing his civilian outfit of sports jacket, corduroy trousers, checked shirt, and tie. He wondered uneasily whether he should have put on a dark suit, the one he kept for church services, funerals, and weddings. He pushed open the door of the restaurant and went in. He saw Rory right away. He was sitting at a corner table wearing jeans and a pullover over a T-shirt, so formal dress did not seem to be the order of the day. ‘I’m waiting for Mandy,’ said Rory. ‘The girl from the Sun. She’s late, but then she always is.’

  Hamish sat down and looked eagerly at his cousin. ‘Find out anything?

  ‘Nothing much. One little snippet. There’s a fashionable London night-club called Tarts. Heard of it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Never mind. Home to the glitterati. There was a scene there two years ago. A young starlet got drunk and tried to set the place on fire. Police called. Her escort was one Peter Hynd, described as an Old Westminster and socialite. Might be your man. No photo.’

  ‘What’s an Old Westminster?’

  ‘Former pupil of Westminster School, down by the Abbey. Expensive fees. Brightest and best. Highest academic rating in the country. Goes back to the time of the founder, Queen Elizabeth the First. Former pupils, Christopher Wren, Philby and Peter Ustinov. You got a photo of this Peter Hynd?’

  Hamish shook his head.

  ‘Well, trot down there tomorrow and ask the registrar. The office is in Little Dean’s, off Dean’s Yard. Find the Abbey and you can’t miss it. Oh, here’s Mandy.’

  A plumpish girl in a short leather skirt and suede jacket had just come in. She had short spiky hair, a turned-up nose, and a wide mouth.

  She kissed Rory on the cheek and then sat down and looked at Hamish. ‘Screw all news editors,’ she said. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘My cousin Hamish, down fro
m the Highlands. He’s just leaving.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because this is our date.’

  ‘You can’t send your cousin away,’ said Mandy, delighted at the prospect of having two men beside her for dinner. ‘Let’s all eat together.’

  ‘I really must be going,’ said Hamish, receiving the full blast of a fulminating glare from Rory.

  Mandy smiled into his eyes. ‘My treat.’

  Hamish was very hungry. There were delicious smells of food all about him. Avoiding Rory’s eyes, he said, ‘Maybe I’ll just stay for a little.’

  Rory tried to talk newspaper shop and so exclude Hamish from the conversation, but Mandy plied Hamish with questions about his work in Scotland. It was only half-way through the meal that he realized she had the newspaper reporter’s off-duty trick of asking a lot of questions and not really listening to the answers. ‘Look, I am a reporter and I ask incisive questions,’ she seemed to be saying. Whatever Hamish replied to those questions was of little interest compared to Mandy’s interest in her own personality or rather the one she had knitted for herself. His appetite satisfied, he wished he had not stayed. Mandy’s main intention was to make Rory jealous and she had initially succeeded in doing just that. But by the time the pudding was served, Hamish could see Rory was growing bored.

  He glanced at his watch and manufactured a look of shock. ‘I’d quite forgotten, I’ve got to meet a fellow,’ he said, pushing his plate away and getting to his feet. Rory followed him to the restaurant door. ‘Look, you great pillock,’ he said. ‘Don’t balls up any more of this evening. Wander the streets, do anything, but don’t turn up at the flat until I’ve got this one safely into bed.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Rory, but I was hungry.’

  ‘Make up for it. Don’t come home until the small hours.’

  Hamish left the restaurant and set out towards the West End. He went to the late show of a movie and then went to an all-night cafe and drank coffee and watched the clock until he thought it was safe to return.