by M C Beaton
Then there was the deranged Mrs. Harrison. Could she have suffered from an extreme fit of madness that gave her unnatural strength? Or had the dentist been having an affair with Kylie – Kylie who knew so many young men in the bar?
There was a sudden vicious pattering against the glass of the lounge windows. “It’s turning to rain,” commented one of the guests.
Sarah looked up from her book. “If it thaws quickly, we might not have to stay here for the night.”
“Oh, I should think whateffer happens, the roads will be much too bad to move in the night,” said Hamish.
She returned to her book. Hamish studied her speculalively. Her shiny brown hair shielded her face. Here they were in a romantic situation, stranded in this hotel by the station. Was there any hope for Hamish Macbeth?
Perhaps it would be better to go on thinking about the murder and stop wondering whether he could get her into bed or not.
They had an early dinner. Rain was now falling heavily. They went out for a walk after dinner. The air was full of rushing water.
“Look, the road is clear,” said Sarah.
“Aye, but we’d best leave things to the morning,” said Hamish. “It could still be snowing farther north.”
When they returned to the hotel, Sarah said she was going to have a bath and go to bed and read. Hamish rather bleakly said good night to her. So much for a romantic evening!
In his room, he stripped off, washed his underwear and shirt and hung them up to dry. Then he had a bath and climbed into bed and settled down to read, trying to forget about Sarah in the next room. He had succeeded so well that when there was a knock on his door, he called out, “Come in!” thinking it to be one of the hotel staff. “It’s not locked.”
The door opened and Sarah came in. She was wrapped in a blanket.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. She stood there, looking at him.
He sat up and pulled back the bedclothes. “Come and join me.”
She dropped the blanket. She was naked underneath it. She got into bed beside Hamish. He opened his mourn to say something but she put her hand across it. “No questions,” she whispered. “Let’s make love.”
♦
When Hamish awoke in the morning, sun was streaming in through the windows and Sarah had gone. What was it about women, he thought crossly, that they were able to wake early after a night of lovemaking and disappear?
He had another bath and dressed and then knocked on her bedroom door. There was no reply. He went down to the dining room. Sarah was halfway through breakfast.
“You looked so peaceful, I didn’t like to wake you,” she said cheerfully.
“You look remarkably well,” said Hamish, who felt exhausted. He looked at her curiously. “Do you usually carry a packet of condoms about with you?”
“I bought them in the chemists while you were looking for a toothbrush.”
“That was verra thoughtful of you. How do you feel?”
“Marvellous.”
He looked into her eyes but could see nothing more there than the glow of good health. He had an uneasy feeling that he had been used as some sort of gymnastic exercise.
He wanted to say something loverlike but felt inhibited by her cheerful, matter-of-fact attitude.
“It looks as if we’ll get back all right,” he said. “I’d best go and phone Strathbane in case they’re looking for me. I’d best not say I’m in Inverness or they’ll ask me what I was doing there.”
“You can tell them you went back to see Mrs. Gilchrist.”
“I’m a humble copper. I wasn’t even supposed to see her in the first place.”
He went through to the reception where there was a public phone and got through to Jimmy Anderson.
“Nothing’s been happening,” said Jimmy. “Nobody could move here because of the snow.”
Relieved to find out that Blair had not been looking for him or had even been back to Braikie, Hamish returned to the dining room.
He had coffee and toast and then suggested that they should make a move.
They were both silent for most of the journey back. Hamish longed to ask Sarah if their night together had meant anything to her, but was terrified of rejection, terrified of being told brightly that it was only a one–night stand.
He dropped her at the Tommel Castle Hotel and then drove to the police station. The air smelled dusty and stale. He went around opening windows.
He checked on his hens and sheep, changed his clothes and climbed back into the police Land Rover. Time to visit the Smiley brothers.
The road was atrocious, thick with slush and grit. But a mild wind blew from the west and the sky was a washed-out blue with trailing wisps of white cloud. There was an air of false spring in the air, bringing with it the thoughts that spring usually brings. But he clamped down on any thoughts about Sarah Hudson as soon as they arose.
As he bumped up the rutted track that led to the Smileys’ croft house, he could sense those troll eyes watching him.
Stourie came round the side of the house and stood watching as Hamish descended from the Land Rover and walked towards him. Stourie was joined by Pete.
“What brings ye?” demanded Stourie.
“I want a look at your lambing shed.”
“Do you haff the search warrant?”
“Don’t be silly,” snapped Hamish. “You want me to go and get a search warrant then I will. But I’ll need to tell Strathbane exactly why I want it and you’ll be arrested, for it seems well known you run a still.”
“Chust our wee joke,” said Stourie with a hideous smile. He had his dreadful dentures in that morning. “Come along.”
He led the way to the new extension. He took a large key from his pocket and unlocked the door.
Hamish stepped into the gloom of the shed. It just looked like an ordinary lambing shed. But why the shuttered windows? He searched about but could see nothing suspicious.
“There’s one more thing,” he said, “I’ll need to be examining that still of yours.”
“Och, Hamish, we’re no’ daft,” jeered Stourie. “The minute we knew you wass on to us, we smashed the whole thing up.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Well, chust believe it,” snapped Peter. “We’ve enough to dae on the croft anyways.”
Hamish insisted on searching their house, but there was no sign of a still anywhere.
He left with a feeling that he had been conned. But then, was it likely the Smiley brothers, who had no contact with Gilchrist, would have poisoned him? There was no motive.
Feeling low, Hamish drove back to Lochdubh. He took the salmon that the seer had not wanted out of the fridge and poached it in a fish kettle. Then he divided it up into steaks and put them in the freezer.
The phone in the office rang and he went to answer it. “This is Kylie Fraser,” said the voice. “I want you to come to my flat this evening. I’ve got something to tell you about Gilchrist.”
“Tell me now.”
“No, this evening at eleven. It’s number fifteen, Wick Road.”
She rang off. Hamish looked thoughtfully at his own receiver before replacing it.
What was going on? Kylie’s voice had sounded excited, a tinge malicious, not frightened or anxious, and he was sure he could hear someone giggling in the background.
There was a knock at the kitchen door. He opened it and his heart leapt with gladness when he saw Sarah standing there, smiling up at him.
“I’ve brought you a present,” she said, holding out a plastic-wrapped package.
“Come in.” She followed him into the kitchen. “Don’t bother unwrapping it,” she said. “It’s a river salmon. Wild salmon. For the seer. Save you poaching.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Mr. Johnson said he had salmon in the hotel freezer, caught in the river. I had an ulterior motive anyway. I want to visit this seer.”
“We may as well go now,” said Hamish. “I went to the S
miley brothers and they said they had smashed the still. He may have heard something.”
He hesitated a moment. He wanted to take her in his arms but she was emanating that sort of hard, brisk cheerfulness which made him afraid to try.
The seer was at home – he hardly ever went out. It was not as if he had to shop for anything, thought Hamish. The old fraud emotionally blackmailed so many of his ‘clients’ into supplying him with goods.
Sarah was obviously thrilled with Angus and his old cottage. Angus accepted the salmon but Hamish noticed that he did not go to fetch his crystal, merely said, “Glad to have it at last,” and put it away in the kitchen.
He served them tea and then sat down and looked with bright eyes from Hamish to Sarah. “I suppose,” he said, “I cannot blame you for grabbing a wee bit o’ happiness.”
“I neffer know what you’re on about, Angus,” said Hamish repressively. “Now, I went to the Smileys’ and they told me they had smashed that still. I thought that new building they call a lambing shed might have been a place where they were manufacturing the stuff, but it looks like nothing more than a regular lambing shed.”
“Aye, well, that must be the case,” said Angus. “It iss the cauld day, Miss Hudson. Would you be liking a wee drap o’ something in your tea?”
“I think I would, thank you,” said Sarah, saving up every moment of this odd experience to tell her friends back in London. Would they believe there were still places in the British Isles where someone heated the kettle hung on a chain over a peat fire?
Angus produced a bottle of Johnnie Walker and poured a slug of the contents into Sarah’s cup.
“What do you know about a wee lassie called Kylie Fraser who works for the chemist in Braikie?” asked Hamish.
“Flirty wee thing, by all accounts,” said Angus.
“She says she has something to tell me and has asked me to go to her flat at eleven o’clock this evening.”
“I know you haff been asking the questions about her and the dentist and I know she didn’t like that,” said Angus.
Hamish’s hazel eyes narrowed. “So you think the idea is I go there and she’s got some of her thug boyfriends waiting for me?”
“I wouldnae think she would do that,” said Angus. “It’s not the city. No one up here would beat up a copper.”
“So what’s behind it?”
Angus half closed his eyes. “I cannae see clearly. The fact iss that it iss so cold here that I cannae think straight. Have you see those fine warm mohair travelling rugs in the gift shop at Tommel Castle, Miss Hudson? I’ve always fancied one of those.”
Hamish stood up abruptly. “Ignore that, Sarah. Your mooching is getting worse, Angus. A man can’t have a few moments’ conversation with you, but you’re asking for something.”
“Did I ask for anything?” demanded the seer huffily. “All I said was – ”
“Come along, Sarah,” said Hamish.
Sarah followed Hamish reluctantly from the cottage. “I thought he was a fascinating old man, Hamish. I would have liked to stay longer.” He opened the door of the Land Rover for her and then went round and climbed into the driver’s seat.
“I have to live with these people, Sarah, you don’t. I’ll take you back to the hotel and then I’ll think what to do about this evening.”
As he drove, he hoped she would ask if they were having dinner together, but she was very silent. In the hotel forecourt, she suddenly put her hand to her head. “I would ask you in for a coffee, Hamish, but I’ve got this awful stabbing headache. I think I’ll go and lie down.”
“Right you are,” said Hamish grimly, thinking, couldn’t she find a less hackneyed excuse than a headache. He was just driving off when he suddenly slammed on the brakes, reversed into the car park, jumped down from the Land Rover and rushed into the hotel.
Sarah was just going up the stairs. “Sarah!” he called. She turned round.
“Go into the bar and have a whisky – quickly. It’s the only cure for that headache. Can’t wait.”
Hamish rushed off again. He drove straight back to the seer’s.
“I know why you’re so anxious to let me believe that lambing shed was straightforward,” he said. “The Smiley brothers have been supplying you with their hooch.”
“And what gives you that idea?”
“Sarah’s headache. She got it from them whisky you poured in her cup.”
“That wass Johnnie Walker.”
“It was a Johnnie Walker label. Where’s the bottle?”
“In the kitchen.”
Hamish went through to the kitchen, which was a lean-to attached to the back of the cottage. A rinsed-out, clean and empty Johnnie Walker bottle stood on the draining board.
“You threw away the proof,” he said, coming back into the living room. “If you know anything, Angus…”
“I only know what the spirits tell me,” said the seer, his eyes bright with malice.
Hamish made a sound of disgust and strode out. As he drove back to the police station, he conjured up a mental picture of that lambing shed. But there had been nothing sinister about it, nothing at all. He would put it to the back of his mind and concentrate on what to do that evening about Kylie Fraser.
Now, if he were a regular citizen, thinking of how to deal with a young woman who seemed to be in some kind of trouble, he would not go alone. He would take his wife. A slow smile curved his lips. He walked along to the manse and found Mrs. Wellington, the minister’s tweedy wife, at home.
“I have a wee problem,” said Hamish, “and wanted to ask your advice.”
“You’ve been messing around with that pretty tourist.”
“I have not!” Hamish coloured up, a sudden vision of tumbled naked bodies in a hotel bed crashing into his mind. “It iss the other matter.”
“What matter?”
“There is a girl over in Braikie, Kylie Fraser.”
“That saucy piece. Oh, Hamish, and to think you could have had Priscilla.”
“I am not involved with Kylie Fraser!” shouted Hamish, exasperated. “And if you won’t chust listen to me like a sensible woman, I’m out of here.”
“Sorry, Hamish, but you do have a bit of a reputation. Go on.”
“It’s like this. I thought that Kylie Fraser might have been having a fling with Gilchrist, the murdered dentist. She phoned me this morning, asking me to call on her in her flat at eleven o’clock this evening because she said she had something to tell me. Now,” Hamish went on, pinning a pious expression on his face, “normally I would ask Strathbane for a policewoman to accompany me, but, och, it bass been my experience that the policewomen in Strathbane would be apt to frighten a girl like Kylie, whereas a woman of good sense like yourself, and the minister’s wife, too, might be the very person to go with me.”
“I take a strong line with girls like Kylie.”
“Chust what I thought,” murmured Hamish. “Would you be tree this evening?”
“I have a mothers’ meeting this evening at the church hall, but it would be finished by ten.”
“So you’ll come with me?”
“Yes, I would consider it my Christian duty.”
“Good,” said Hamish. “I’ll pick you up at ten-thirty.”
“I will follow you in my car,” said Mrs. Wellington severely. “Members of the public should not be in a police vehicle. Which brings me to something I have heard…”
“Got to go,” said Hamish, heading for the door. “I’ll be here at ten-thirty.”
He strolled back to the police station. The air was becoming colder and the wind was shifting round from the west to the north. He hoped there would not be another storm.
The phone in the police office was ringing and he went to answer it. It was Sarah.
“That cure of yours worked like a charm,” she said, “and then I remembered you telling me about the effect of the Smiley brothers’ whisky and that brought a little thing to mind. I’m sure it’s not important but it ha
ppened when I was at The Scotsman Hotel.”
“What’s that?”
“Mrs. Macbean went up to the bar and asked for a whisky and said, “Give me the decent stuff.” It may be nothing at all.”
“But The Scotsman could be stocking hooch and putting it into regular bottles on the gantry. If the Smiley brothers were supplying the hotels, that would mean a major operation. I turned a blind eye to it because I thought they were running the usual Highland still, a few bottles for themselves and their friends,” said Hamish.
“Do you want me to go out there and ask for a whisky and see if I get a headache?”
“Too risky. They’ve seen you before. I’ll send someone else.”
There was a little silence.
Then Hamish said tentatively, “I don’t need to leave until ten-thirty this evening. Any chance of us having dinner together?”
“Not tonight. I’m expecting a call from London.”
“Oh, well in that case…”
“Maybe tomorrow, Hamish. There’s always tomorrow.”
“Bye.” He rang off and sat looking sadly out at the loch. In this modern age, he could not ask things like, “Did our night together mean nothing to you?”
Well, of course he could, but the answer might be a simple no and he felt he would not be able to bear that.
He went down to the Lochdubh bar and found Archie Macleod. “I want you to do a wee favour for me, Archie.”
“I hivnae had much sleep, Hamish. I was going to have a snooze this afternoon.”
“It won’t take long. I’ll pay you. I’ll pay you to drink.”
“That’s different.”
“Okay. Here’s what I want you to do…”
Archie strolled into the bar of The Scotsman Hotel an hour later. The barman, Johnny King, looked with contempt at the little fisherman in his tight, shiny suit. “What’s your pleasure, sir?” he asked with a sneer in his voice.
