by M C Beaton
“But we’re still heroes to them. They’d do it.” She took out her mobile phone. “I’ll call them now.”
“No!” said Hamish sharply.
She studied his face in the light from the dash and then she said quietly, “You’re trying to find some proof before landing your friend Parry in it.”
“If we find the Bible by some miracle and there’s nothing in it but scripture, then I’ll return it to his parents and say no more about it.”
“You didn’t even ask Parry about the coincidence of having two drug addicts as tenants.”
“I’ll get to that,” said Hamish grimly.
At last the council tip outside Strathbane came into view in the moonlight, a wasteland of garbage above which the ever restless seagulls wheeled and dived.
“There’s a wood shack over there,” said Hamish, pointing to a shed of a building on the shoreline. “And there’s a light on.”
He drove the Land Rover as near it as he could. They climbed down and walked over the tussocky grass and then across shingle to the door of the hut.
He knocked on the door and called, “Police. Open up!”
There was a shuffling of feet inside and then the door creaked open. A truly filthy old man stood there, illuminated in the candlelight from the room behind. He was clutching a packet of biscuits. His rags were covered in biscuit crumbs.
“What do you want?”
“We’re looking for something you may have picked up on the tip.”
“I only get wee bits and pieces,” whined Joey. “Why should I not pick up what folks are eager to throw away?”
“We’re not accusing you of anything,” said Olivia soothingly. “We only need your help.”
“Come in.” He shuffled backwards into the malodorous hut which was crammed with old newspapers, odd bits of iron, pieces of china, biscuit packet wrappings, old tyres and various glass jars and bottles.
How long had he lived like this? wondered Olivia. His face was seamed and wrinkled and his eyes small and watery. The stink rising from his rags was choking.
“We wondered if you might have picked up a Bible,” said Hamish. He and Olivia stood. There was nowhere to sit down. There was a filthy mattress in one corner and one kitchen chair on which Joey now sat, staring up at Hamish, whose bright hair brushed the ceiling.
Joey shook his head. “No Bible. And if I saw one, I wouldnae take it. Bad luck.”
His voice was faint and singsong.
Olivia went over and crouched down beside Joey’s chair. “We’re really anxious to locate a certain Bible which was thrown away two days ago. We’d pay you for your help.”
He looked at her and smiled, exposing a mouthful of white false teeth. “My, what a bonny lassie you are,” he crooned. “How much?”
“A tenner.”
He struggled out of the chair and Olivia stood up and backed off. “I can take you to where the latest stuff would be.”
“That’s grand,” said Hamish.
Joey took up an old hurricane lantern and lit it with one of the candles which were stuck in wine bottles. Then he blew out the candles.
Unlike some council tips, this one was not locked, nor did it have a fence around it. With surprising agility, Joey trotted ahead with his lantern and soon they were stumbling over piles of garbage. The moon shone down and the seagulls screamed and dived. Frost was beginning to glitter on the piles of garbage. Olivia shivered and wished she had put on warmer clothes.
They reached a sort of road between the rubbish where the council trucks drove in. After about a mile of walking, Joey said, “It’ll be ower here, a bittie. And probably up on top.”
The latest truckloads had obviously run up a path and dumped their loads on top of the mountains of garbage already there.
Flashing their torches, Olivia and Hamish and Joey began to search. After an hour, freezing with cold, and utterly miserable, Olivia could only admire the energy of Joey, who scrabbled away, humming under his breath. She had a sudden sharp longing for the busy streets of Glasgow, the buses, the shops, all familiar territory and, above all, where she was always in control, always in charge. Ever since the drug case began, she reflected, she had felt as if she were only some sort of female sidekick to Hamish Macbeth.
Another hour. Her clothes stank and her nostrils reeked with the smell of the tip. A seagull swooped down and screamed in her ear and she let out a startled cry, lost her footing and fell backwards into a pile of kitchen waste.
“Olivia!” called Hamish. “Why don’t you go back to the Land Rover and warm up?”
But the feeling that she might not be as strong or as tough as any man drove Olivia on. “I’ll be all right,” she said.
Her nose was beginning to run. Her eyes were beginning to run with the cold. And then she saw an edge of black leather binding. Laying the torch on the ground, she got down on her knees and scraped away the debris. It was a Bible.
Her voice croaking with cold and excitement, she shouted, “I’ve got a Bible.”
Hamish scampered down from the top of a pile of rubbish. “I’ll hold your torch. Open it.”
With stiff red hands Olivia opened the Bible. “Bingo,” she said. For on the flyleaf was written “Tommy Jarret.”
“Let’s go home and get changed,” said Hamish. “We’ll look at it properly at the station.”
They thanked Joey and Hamish handed him a ten-pound note, which Joey tucked inside his rags and scuttled off. “Look at him go,” said Hamish. “Maybe that’s the secret of a long life, all day out in the open air, never ruin your skin with a bath, keep your muscles supple by running up and down piles of rubbish. I wish I’d worn my own clothes. This lot’s for the cleaners. Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
When they returned to the police station, Olivia stripped off her clothes and put them in a canvas bag supplied by Hamish and soaked in a bath. After Hamish had a shower and dressed in fresh clothes, they went into the kitchen and stared at the Bible on the table.
“I’m almost frightened to look at it,” said Hamish.
They sat down and he opened it.
Tucked between the leaves of India paper was a folded piece of A4 typing paper. Hamish carefully spread it open on the table. His face grew grim as he read it. Olivia moved her chair round next to his and looked at it as well.
“I’m keeping this for the end of my book,” Tommy had written, “in case Parry looks at my computer. He’s in it somewhere, this drug business. Billy, a chap I used to share a flat with, met me one day in Strathbane. I told him I had given up drugs and just wanted to get away from it all. He told me about Parry, just said he’d happened to hear of this man out of Glenanstey who had chalets to rent. Parry seemed just a simple crofter. I’d suspected something might have been going on at the Church of the Rising Sun, but they were just a lot of daft folk talking about sex. I was at a loose end and wanted to take a break from writing, so I decided to follow Parry. I didn’t think there would be anything there. I was just playing at detectives. Then one day, I saw him go into Lachie’s. Nobody like Parry would have gone to Lachie’s for any innocent reason. The next day when he was out on the croft, I looked in his cottage. There was an admiralty map of the area and there was a circle around the entrance to Loch Drim. Then two nights later, a car arrived. I saw Lachie get out with another man and they went into Parry’s cottage. I went out and crouched down and peered over the window. Parry was showing them the map. I wanted to keep all this for the book but it’s too heavy. I think they were plotting the landing of drugs. Everyone knows Lachie deals drugs. That’s where I got the stuff anyway. It’s too scary now. I’d better go to the police. But I feel bad. Parry’s been kind to me. I’ll tip him a warning. He probably just recommends safe locations along the coast.”
“Parry,” hissed Hamish. “The bastard. Why did he do it?”
“Let’s arrest the bugger and find out,” said Olivia.
Parry’s cottage was in darkness. Hamish hammered at the door. Af
ter a few minutes, the lights went on. The door opened.
“Parry McSporran,” said Hamish. “I am arresting you for the murder of Thomas Jarret. I must caution you that…”
“You’re talking rubbish,” howled Parry. “This is me, your friend.”
“We found the Bible at the tip.”
“So? I told you I threw it out.”
“There was a piece of typescript inside where Tommy described the visit you had from Lachie and, I assume, Jimmy White, and about Loch Drim circled on the admiralty chart and that he was going to the police but going to warn you first.”
Parry turned white. “I never thought to look inside.”
At headquarters in Strathbane, the whole story came out in the interrogation room as the tape whizzed.
Parry had borrowed heavily from the bank to build the chalets and the bank was demanding he pay back the loan. He was in danger of losing his croft house. He had run into an old school friend, Hughie Grant, who was looking very prosperous. They had a drink and Parry had told Hughie about his troubles. Hughie said he could put Parry in the way of big money. When he heard it had to do with drugs, he refused. But the bank became even more pressing. He panicked. He went to see Hughie. At first it was storing drugs for them at the croft house and delivering them to certain locations. Then it was helping them to suss out locations to land the drugs. The bank loan was paid off. He told them he wouldn’t be having any more to do with them but they told him the only way to retire from the trade was to die.
Then Tommy had come to him and told him he had found out about him and was going to the police but giving Parry time to make a break for it.
“It would have meant it was all for nothing,” said Parry. “I would lose my sheep, my house, my croft, everything. So I told Lachie. ‘Sit tight,’ he said, ‘and don’t interfere.’ ”
Parry said that two young men had called at Tommy’s cottage on the day of his death. One was small, with a tattoo of a snake round one arm, and the other was tall and with his hair in a ponytail. Tommy’s flatmates, thought Harnish. He had done nothing, as instructed. After a time, they left, and he went in and found Tommy dead. He had phoned Lachie. “Call the cops,” Lachie had said. “He’s taken an overdose.”
Parry began to cry.
So much for me being a shrewd judge of character, thought Hamish bitterly.
♦
Olivia and Hamish got to bed about ten o’clock the following morning and both fell instantly asleep, wrapped in each other’s arms. Hamish awoke in the late afternoon. Olivia’s hands were caressing his body.
“I don’t have any condoms,” he whispered.
“I’ve got the coil. Do you have AIDS?”
“No.”
She raised herself on one elbow and smiled down at him. “Then what are you waiting for, copper?”
♦
Blair was sitting at an AA meeting in Inverness on Ness Bank. Outside the windows, the river flowed lazily past. The man behind him nudged him in the ribs. “Oh,” said Blair, “I’d rather just listen.” If you swine think I’m going to join you and tell you anything about me, you’ve got another think coming, he thought.
God, he could murder for a drink. But it was back in the minibus to the rehab. The man who had nudged him, Cyril, said, “You know, if you want to get well, you’re going to have to speak up a bit.”
“Leave me alone,” growled Blair.
Once back at the rehab, he made for the public phone and phoned Daviot. He listened while Daviot told him of the arrest of Parry. Then Blair took a deep breath. “Anything come of that investigation, sir?”
“We’re still looking into it. Carry on with the cure.”
Blair went up to his room and sat on the bed and stared into space. Another success for Hamish Macbeth.
It was too much. He opened the window and looked down. He was two stories up but there was a drainpipe next to the window.
He shinned down it and softly made his way out of the grounds. Down the road was a pub called the Bell but known at the rehab as the Alkies Slip, because that was where some of them fell off the wagon.
Blair pushed open the door and went in. He ordered a double whisky. He knocked it back, feeling the warmth permeating his body. It was nectar. He was about to order another when he knew that if he did, it would lead to another and another and he wouldn’t be able to make it back up the drainpipe. So he bought a half bottle over the counter and reluctantly made his way back to the rehab. It was all Hamish Macbeth’s fault, he thought bitterly.
The speaker at the meeting had said that when he was drinking, he blamed everyone and everything for his troubles.
But Blair hadn’t been listening.
♦
Olivia was on holiday and she enjoyed her first few days playing house immensely. The weather was glorious, an Indian summer, and apart from a sad visit to Tommy’s parents, she and Hamish had gone for walks, had gone fishing, made love and had eaten the meals she had prepared.
But then the weather had changed. Driving rain had blown up the long sea loch, clouds had covered the mountains, and Olivia began to feel claustrophobic and very far from home. For a few days she had entertained the dream of marrying Hamish. But now she knew she was a city girl to her bones.
She was sitting in the kitchen one morning, watching the rain smear the windows, looking out at a blurred view of damp sheep and wondering what to do. Her shrewd mind told her that Hamish was not in love with her, though he might think he was. He just wanted to get married. She had found a photograph of a beautiful blonde tucked at the back of his sock drawer, and from local gossip she gathered the blonde was Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, to whom Hamish had once been engaged. He had not thrown the photo away, only hidden it so that she would not see it.
She heard him coming back and went to put on the kettle. He had said he was going into Inverness.
He came in and kissed her and then fished in his pocket and took out a small velvet jeweller’s box. “For you. Open it.”
Olivia opened the little box. A diamond and sapphire ring winked up at her.
“Is this what I think it is?” she asked.
“I suppose I should have asked you to marry me first.”
Olivia snapped the box shut. “Yes, you should, Hamish. I can’t marry you.”
“Why?”
“You’re not in love with me and I couldn’t bear to live here.”
“I am in love with you.”
“Okay. Let’s try this. I can’t live here. I would expect you to get a transfer to Glasgow.”
“But I thought you liked it here!”
“As they say, it’s a nice place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live here.”
Hamish picked up the ring box and put it in his pocket. “If that’s the way you want it,” he said stiffly.
“I’m leaving today, Hamish. I don’t think you’re going to forgive me for this rejection. But you’re not in love with me.”
“If you say so. Let me know when you’re ready to leave.”
And that was that. Hamish drove her to Inverness to catch the Glasgow train. He would not unbend. His stiff-necked Highland vanity would not let him. He stood on the platform and watched the train pull out. She hung out of the window and waved, but he would not wave back.
Hamish drove the long road home, now tired and miserable. He had planned to go to Strathbane and see if they had got any further with investigating who was responsible for the leak but he no longer had the interest or the energy. He was sure the culprit was Blair, but Blair was a wily fox and would have made sure there was no evidence against him.
When he got back to the police station, which still smelled faintly of the perfume Olivia had worn, he phoned Strathbane and put himself back on duty.
An hour later, the phone rang. Hamish answered it. It was Jimmy Anderson. “This is probably a load o’ rubbish, Hamish, but there’s a report of the sighting of a monster in Loch Drim.” Jock, thought Hamish, and the way I feel at the mom
ent, I’ll kill him.
“It looks as if you willnae be promoted down here after all,” said Jimmy. “Some bod from Amsterdam put in his expenses. Pieter something. Charged for giving the police a backhander to look at some street videos to find out where you’d gone and you were shacked up with a tart. Daviot’s a puritan. You’ve to report to the hospital for an AIDS test. Also, you’d better account for all that money they lent you to play the big shot. And what about the fancy gear?”
“I sent back the Rolex, the credit cards, passport, and the sunglasses, cuff links, all that stuff.”
“And what about the clothes?”
“Got ruined during the investigation.”
“What! All of them?”
“All of them.”
“Well, I suppose you’d better get something out of it. Daviot says he’ll make you up to sergeant again so you’ve got a wee promotion.”
Hamish’s heart sank. “Just so long as they don’t send me some daft constable like last time. I mean Sergeant MacGregor over in Cnothan doesnae have a constable.”
“Bad luck, mate. I think auld Daviot feels you need a stern and upright constable to make sure you don’t stray onto the primrose path.”
“What a day!” moaned Hamish. “I’ll go and kill the monster for you.”
As he drove towards Loch Drim, the clouds rolled back and the stars shone down. He kept telling himself that he was heartbroken but with each mile Olivia’s face grew fainter in his mind. The whole drug case began to seem in retrospect like a fevered dream.
As he drove into Loch Drim, he noticed that Jock Kennedy’s store was still open and that many cars and a coach were parked in front.
He parked alongside and went into the shop. It was full of people. Jock and Ailsa were busy selling Monster Toffee and small plush toys of monsters.
Jock looked up and saw Hamish.
Hamish nodded to him and turned and walked out.
It was hard to make a living in the Highlands. Jock was doing good business and giving a lot of people some harmless excitement. It would be a shame to stop it. He didn’t care much about anything anyway. He climbed back into the Land Rover and drove off into the heathery darkness of the Sutherland highlands.
