by M C Beaton
She had a Yorkshire accent.
Her living room was a jumble of swatches of bright cloth. A large table at the window held a drawing board and drawing materials. “Clear a chair and sit down,” she ordered.
“I believe you were a friend of Morag’s,” said Hamish.
“For the umpteenth time—yes.”
“How would you describe her?”
“Clever. Intelligent. A good friend.”
“Was she having an affair with any of the men at the factory?”
“Absolutely not. She wouldn’t lower herself.”
“Yet she was three months’ pregnant,” said Hamish.
She stared at him out of those small black eyes and then she dipped her head and began to cry. Great sobs racked her small body.
“There now,” said Hamish. He rose up and went and knelt in front of her and gathered her in his arms. “Shh, now. It’ll be all right. Tell Hamish what’s bothering you.”
He held her and patted her back until the crying ceased. She pulled a handkerchief out of her dressing gown pocket and mopped her eyes.
Hamish retreated to his chair. “She couldn’t have been,” said Freda finally.
“Well, she was, sure as sure.”
“Maybe some bastard drugged her like they did the night she disappeared.”
“Morag did not complain,” said Hamish quietly. “In fact, she consulted the local doctor to confirm the pregnancy.”
“But we were mates. I loved her!” wailed Freda. “She said she loved me. She said we’d be together always.”
“Are you by way of being a lesbian?” asked Hamish.
“Yes. So what?”
“So nothing,” said Hamish sharply, thinking that Morag could not have been much of a friend. “I have to ask you what you were doing on the evening of the fourteenth of July.”
“I was here, working on some designs.”
“And you didn’t go to the pub?”
“I didn’t even know Morag went there. Why did she go there?”
To sketch the locals and feel superior to them, thought Hamish.
“Did she talk to you about men?”
“No, we had better things to talk about. Someone must have raped her to get her pregnant.”
“I’m afraid that can’t be the case or she would have reported it. Now, did she tell you that she was to consult a hypnotist?”
“Yes, she was very excited about it. She spent the night with me and then went off that Saturday morning to go to her digs. She said she was going to the factory to work on something.”
“Do you have any of her sketches?”
“I did have a lot. But that last time she was here, she said someone was interested in buying them and took them all away. Do you mind leaving now? I’ve had a bad shock.”
“I’ll come back when you’re feeling better.”
Once back in the Land Rover, Hamish phoned Jimmy and reported his conversation with Freda.
“Now, there’s a motive at last,” said Jimmy. “Thwarted lover. Feels betrayed.”
“Do you have to tell Blair she’s a lesbian?”
“Sure. That’s the whole point. Why?”
“He’s going to jump all over her soul, that’s why.”
“Sorry, Hamish. Too good a motive. Oh, Dick Fraser phoned from Lochdubh. Seems you abandoned him. He had to hitch a lift back to the police station.”
Once back at the police station, Hamish locked up his hens for the night, furious with himself for not phoning up someone earlier to do it for him. His wild cat, Sonsie, purred like a steam engine and tried to climb on his lap as he typed out his report. His dog, Lugs, lay across his boots.
He could hear the noise on the television set coming from the living room.
When he had finished his report, he went into the living room and switched off the television.
“You forgot about me,” said Dick. “And I’ve had a fright.”
“What frightened you?”
“Angela Brodie, the doctor’s wife, called when you were out. She says Olivia and Charles Palfour are back in Braikie.”
Charles and Olivia were two teenagers involved in a series of murders. The murders were proved to be the work of a Russian mobster, Andronovitch. But when his body was found in a pool in the Fairy Glen, Hamish felt sure the Palfour brother and sister were somehow responsible.
“Where are they staying?”
“With Mrs. Mallard, her that fostered them.”
“I’d better go and see her in the morning. Thon pair are poison. Why are they back here? They had a new life in the States.”
“God knows.”
Hamish awoke next morning with a feeling of anticipation. Usually the thought of even going anywhere near Cnothan depressed him. But he had a picture of Hannah Fleming in his mind and he was already rehearsing excuses to call on her brother.
He was just leaving Dick to man the police station and look after his pets when the phone rang. It was Blair. Blair was furious that Hamish had elicited such new information.
“You stay where you are the day, laddie,” he said. “Water your sheep or whatever it is you teuchters do. There’s enough of us over at Cnothan and I don’t want you getting underfoot.” And without waiting for a reply, Blair rang off.
Hamish whistled to his dog and cat. He called to Dick. “That was yon scunner, Blair. I’m banished from Cnothan. Going out for a walk.”
The day was warm and still with a thin haze of cloud covering the sky. The loch was like a mirror. A porpoise suddenly broke the surface, and glassy ripples spread out on either side.
Hamish leaned on the waterfront wall, wondering whether he should go and see Mrs. Mallard and warn her about the Palfreys. But she thought they were angels and he was sure she would not listen to him.
“Murder in the Highlands and here’s our policeman doing nothing as usual.”
“As usual” came the echo.
Hamish swung round and looked down at the twin sisters, Nessie and Jessie Currie, spinsters of the parish. Their accusing eyes were magnified by thick-lensed rimless glasses. They had finally put off their usual camel-hair coats and were dressed alike in summer dresses of some shiny material, dark blue with knots of scarlet flowers.
“I am thinking,” said Hamish, “just like Poirot.”
“Pooh,” said Nessie.
“Pooh” came the usual echo from her sister.
They moved on, arm in arm, and Hamish resumed his contemplation of the loch.
Sometimes, he had found, if he didn’t know what to do, it was better to do nothing. His thoughts turned again to Hannah Fleming. Beauty, he knew, was supposed to be in the eye of the beholder, but tell that to any man on the planet who would rather have a looker on his arm than a warm, intelligent female who might look like the back of a bus.
Still, he supposed, it always turned out that the lookers were for show and the warm, intelligent ones for marrying unless the man was very rich and ruthless and knew he could trade in the first model for a newer one when her looks faded. And here, he thought, as Angela Brodie, the doctor’s wife, walked towards him, is the marrying kind. She had wispy hair, a pleasant face, and she was wearing a droopy dress. But she exuded decency, warmth, and comfort. Of course, her cooking was lousy, but a man couldn’t have everything, and the doctor was indeed a lucky man.
“Have you been chased out of the murder scene?” asked Angela, who knew Blair of old.
“That’s the thing,” said Hamish.
She leaned against the wall beside him. “Have you heard from Priscilla?”
“Not a thing.”
“And what about Elspeth Grant? Wasn’t she all set to get married?”
“Aye, but Mr. Wellington, the minister, says he hasn’t heard any more news.”
“Blair will mess things up somehow,” said Angela. “Just you wait and see. Have you heard those dreadful Palfours are back in Braikie?”
“I’d better go and see them,” said Hamish. “But they fai
r give me the creeps.”
Chapter Three
The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung
—Lord Byron
Olivia and Charles Palfour were much as Hamish remembered them, both having fair hair, long thin noses, and flat, grey eyes. Although they were in their late teens, they were dressed in shorts and white shirts, rather like a school uniform. Hamish guessed the choice of dress was to make motherly Mrs. Mallard still think of them as children.
They both gave him a warm welcome. All for Mrs. Mallard’s benefit, thought Hamish cynically. They were seated in the garden, drinking iced lemonade.
“I’ve just got some cakes to bake for the Mothers’ Union,” said Mrs. Mallard. “I’m sure you and the children have a lot to talk about.”
As soon as she had bustled off indoors, Olivia said languidly, “What does the pig want?”
“Nice to hear you sounding like your real self,” said Hamish. “What are you doing back here? I thought you were settled in the States. Come to visit the scene of your crime?”
“What crime, wooden top?”
“Andronovitch. That Russian. I’ll swear the pair of you stabbed him and put him in the river.”
“I’m now studying law,” said Olivia. “That’s slander.”
“And I’ll bet my boots it’s a slander you wouldn’t dare complain about,” said Hamish.
“We’ve done nothing!” shouted Charles suddenly.
“Be quiet!” ordered Olivia. “The fuzz is just leaving. In other words, Hamish, get lost.”
“That murder case is not closed,” said Hamish. “I’ll be watching you.”
“Really? Haven’t you got another murder to investigate?” Olivia grinned at him.
“When did you get here?” asked Hamish.
“Yesterday. So if you’re thinking of pinning that one on us, forget it.”
Hamish took his dog and cat up onto the moors above Braikie to give them some exercise. The warmth of the day made him feel sleepy. He lay down in the heather and closed his eyes.
He was just nodding off when his phone rang. When he answered it, Dick’s voice came down the line. “You’re to go to Strathbane. Freda Crichton says she won’t talk to anyone but you. Superintendent Daviot says you’ve to report immediately. Blair’s furious.”
The small figure of Freda Crichton was crouched down on her hard chair when Hamish entered the interview room.
She looked up at Hamish with red-rimmed eyes. “That bully is accusing me of having murdered Morag. He has made several crude sexist remarks. I want a lawyer. Why can’t I have a lawyer?”
“It’s Scotland, not England,” said Hamish. “You can’t have a lawyer unless the police let you have one. But I’ll see what I can do. Now, before I start the interview, would you like some coffee?”
“Tea, please.”
The door opened and Police Constable Annie Williams came in. “Here to take notes,” she said.
“Fine. Could you fetch some tea?”
“Never heard of women’s lib? Get it yourself.”
“Never heard of seniority?” snapped Hamish. “Me, sergeant, you, copper.”
He thought Annie was taking liberties because he had once had a one-night stand with her. It might have developed into something had not Hamish found out the day after that Annie was married.
When Annie returned with the tea, and a recording had been set up, Hamish began to ask questions while Annie sat quietly in a corner.
“Look. I am not accusing you of murder,” said Hamish gently. “Nor am I interested in your sexual orientation. Sometimes, in order to find out the identity of the murderer, we need to know as much as possible about the character of the murderee. I know you were in love with Morag, but try to detach yourself from your feelings and describe her as a disinterested observer.”
“People thought her snobbish,” said Freda slowly, her brown hands clasped tightly round a mug of tea. “But it was her way of coping. She had a terrible inferiority complex. As long as she was looking down on someone, it made her feel better about herself.”
“Would material things mean a lot to her?” asked Hamish.
“I know she wanted to be rich one day. She talked about it a lot. She said she envied people like pop stars who suddenly found themselves very rich, you know, money without responsibility. Not like landowners who have to worry about crops and taxes and invasions by New Age Travellers and hearty hikers with their dogs and family.”
“She didn’t have much chance of it working in a highland clothes factory as a secretary,” said Hamish. “Was she on the lookout for a rich man?”
“I didn’t know she was interested in men,” said Freda. “She—she said I was the love of her life.”
“Was she acting a part?” asked Hamish. “I mean, it seems as if she was bisexual.”
“I don’t know.” A tear ran down Freda’s cheek.
“So she was pregnant. Think! Did she give you any clue as to who the father of the child might be?”
“Not one. There’s something. I mind—oh, about a week before she disappeared—there was this tourist came through Cnothan in a Mercedes Smart Car. Morag said, ‘I’m going to get one of those and we’ll take off to the south of France on holiday.’”
“Might she have been blackmailing somebody?”
“I don’t know any more,” wailed Freda. “I thought I knew her through and through and now it seems as if I never knew her at all!”
“Did she talk about Geordie Fleming?”
“She said he was a waste of space.”
“He says he dumped her.”
“I can’t believe that. What woman would look at Geordie?”
“But didn’t the very fact that she went out with him make you think she might be bisexual?”
“It was before she took up with me. She said she went out with Geordie because she was lonely and then she said it was better off to be lonely than to be bored by George.”
“Any other men? What about her boss?”
“Harry Gilchrist? She despised him. Oh, wait a bit. The head of personnel, Pete Eskdale, used to have lunch with her in the office canteen.”
“I thought she would have preferred to have lunch with you.”
“She said in backwaters like this, people were cruel to lesbians.”
“Odd, that,” commented Hamish. “I mean, folk would just think you were nothing more than a pair of female employees.”
“I don’t know anything any more,” said Freda and began to sob.
Hamish ended the interview and went outside to where Jimmy was standing.
“So what did you get out of that?” asked Jimmy.
“I think Morag was blackmailing someone,” said Hamish, “and for a lot of money, too. I’d like to interview Pete Eskdale. Has anyone else interviewed him?”
“Not as far as I know. Blair’s been ordered to take a backseat. I’ll probably see you over at the factory.”
“Haven’t forensics even found just one little clue?” asked Hamish.
“Nothing. Not even one hair or a bit o’ spit. But they say she was killed elsewhere and from the marks on her body, she’d been lying on some hard floor. There’s good news anyway. We’re going to take DNA samples from every man in the factory. If we find the father of that baby, I think we’ll find the murderer.”
Hamish drove Freda back to Cnothan. She asked to be taken to the factory. “It’s better if I lose myself in work,” she said. Hamish glanced across at the small, sad, crumpled figure in the passenger seat and felt a surge of hatred for the murdered woman.
At the factory, Freda scurried off. The baling area was taped off, and white-coated figures could be seen searching the whole place.
Hamish walked in the main door of the factory and asked the girl at the reception desk where he could find Pete Eskdale.
“I’ll phone him,” she said. “I’m Betty McVee, Angus McVee’s girl.” She was small and plump wi
th a rosy face.
“Is Angus still with the forestry?”
“Aye. Dad’s hanging on but a lot are being laid off. I’ll get Mr. Eskdale for you.”
Hamish did not have to wait long. The glass doors leading to the interior of the factory were suddenly thrust open and a tall, energetic man breezed in. He was in his thirties with close-cropped ginger hair. His eyes were bright blue. His otherwise handsome face was marred by a small, pursed mouth. He was wearing a charcoal-grey suit, a striped shirt, and a blue silk tie.
Hamish looked at him in dawning recognition. “I’ve seen your face in the papers,” he said. “You won the lottery last year.”
“Only a million.”
“That’s surely enough to stop work,” said Hamish.
“Not these days. By the time I’d paid off two ex-wives and the children, there wasn’t much left. Can we go outside?”
They walked together out into the heat of the day. “Storm’s coming,” remarked Hamish.
Pete looked up at the cloudless sky. “How can you tell?”
“The swallows are flying low and that means rain coming, and after all this heat, that’ll mean a storm. Let’s sit in the shade over there on that bench.”
When they were seated, Hamish began. “You must have been the one who hired Morag Merrilea. Why get a lassie all the way up from London?”
“It’s a new factory. There was a bit on television about new projects succeeding despite the recession. It got shown down south. Morag saw it and wrote and asked for a job. Now, she had a high level of computer skills, and it’s hard to get a girl up here with that sort of knowledge. I happened to be going to London on business and I interviewed her and found her suitable. The previous secretary was hopeless.”
Hamish took out his notebook. “What is her name?”
“Stacey McIver. Local girl. She’s working in Strathbane at an electronics factory.”
“I’d better have her address. Did you know that Morag was pregnant?”
“I only just heard. And I know what you’re going to ask. No, I didn’t have an affair with her. No, I don’t know who did.”
“As to that,” said Hamish, “we’ll be taking DNA samples from all the men in the factory.”
