by M C Beaton
“Yet the whole business of hiring Morag Merrilea seems odd. The poor secretary she replaced was not told she was losing her job until a day after Morag arrived. She was given a payoff of five hundred pounds.”
“Gilchrist is an ambitious man. I gather, from such gossip as I’ve heard, that the late Morag was super-efficient. He told me he could now go on business trips knowing that everything would be run like clockwork while he was away.”
“Did you hear that Morag had been having an affair with Freda Crichton?”
“Never! A lesbian affair?”
“Yes, according to poor Freda. But Morag was pregnant, you heard that?”
“Yes, I did. This place is a den of iniquity. I must call on Freda and bring her to the light.”
“I wouldn’t do that, Mr. Gordon. She is in a state and someone like you attacking her sexuality as something abnormal might tip her over the edge. She needs kindness and support. Is she a member of your congregation?”
“No, but…”
“Then leave her alone,” said Elspeth sharply.
“Don’t you find her…er…orientation abnormal?”
“I don’t. She has all my sympathy. She was very deeply in love and I think the wretched Morag manipulated her to satisfy her own vanity.”
“Well, I must take your advice because it is something I know nothing about. Besides, I believe Freda to be a Roman Catholic. Maybe that explains it.”
“I don’t see what it has to do with it.”
“The Catholic Church seems to be riddled with sexual abuse these days.”
Elspeth repressed a sigh. She remembered a friend from Glasgow travelling up with her to Sutherland and saying cynically, “Set your watch back one hundred years.”
“Can you think of anyone who might commit murder?”
“I think you will find,” said the minister, “that it was someone from her past, maybe someone from London.”
Elspeth left the manse and was about to get into the car she had borrowed from the hotel when she was approached by a small, grubby little girl.
“Are you yon lady from the telly?” the child asked.
“Yes. What’s your name?”
“Abbie Box. I’ve got something to sell.”
How old was she? wondered Elspeth. Maybe about ten years. Abbie had an untidy shock of ginger hair over a freckled, pinched little face. Her eyes were pale green. She was wearing tracksuit bottoms, rolled up, and a grimy T-shirt.
“Is it raffle tickets?” asked Elspeth.
“Naw. Pictures like that dead woman drew.”
“Where did you find them?”
“Up at the council dump. I go there a lot. Sometimes there’s good pickings.”
“I’d like to see them.”
“How much?”
“I’ll tell you when I see them. Where are they?”
“Up at the caravan park,” said Abbie. “But if my brother is there, you’re not to say a word.”
“I promise. Get in the car and I’ll take you there.”
In the caravan park, Abbie directed Elspeth to a dingy caravan up on bricks. “Where’s your mother?” asked Elspeth.
“Ma’s doing time.”
“And your father?”
“Don’t know. Never knew him. Wait here.”
Elspeth waited impatiently while the child went into the caravan. When Abbie returned, she was carrying a sketchbook. It was stained with water and kitchen refuse on the outside, but inside were cleverly drawn faces, and one seemed to leap off the page: Pete Eskdale.
“You cannae take it unless you pay up,” said Abbie.
“I should really take this to the police,” said Elspeth.
“Then I’ll burn it.”
“No, don’t do that. How much?”
“Cost you fifty pounds.”
Elspeth passed over the money and thought rapidly. “Look, Abbie, if anyone knows you have found this, you could be in danger.”
“My brother mustn’t know! He’d beat the crap out o’ me!”
“Then it’ll be our secret. I’ll drive you up to the dump and you show me where you found it. Didn’t the man or men who are in charge of the dump try to stop you?”
“Naw, I go up at night. There’s a hole in the fence.”
“Look, forget about the dump. I’ll say it was left on the bonnet of my car. Right?”
“Grand.”
“And remember! Not a word to anyone.”
Elspeth phoned Hamish and said she was heading for Lochdubh with some exciting news. Then she phoned her crew and asked them to meet her at the police station.
Seated at the kitchen table in the police station half an hour later, Elspeth handed Hamish the sketchbook.
“Where on earth did you find this?” asked Hamish.
“It was left on the windscreen of my car.”
Hamish studied the sketches and let out a low whistle. “Well, there’s Pete Eskdale for starters,” he said. “And there’s Stolly Maguire behind the bar.” He turned the pages over. “Morag said something about a face at the window, but there’s nothing here. I’ll need to question everyone in this sketchbook. Damn!”
“Damn, what?” asked Elspeth.
“This could have been drawn on any evening. Anyway, I’ll phone Jimmy and we’ll start with Pete.”
“Wait a minute,” said Elspeth. “Don’t forget. This is my news story. Before you take that book away, I want film of it.”
“Hurry up,” urged Hamish. “But film it away from the police station and I’ll say you did the commentary before you came to me.”
Fortunately for Hamish, Blair was away “sick,” which usually meant another crashing hangover, and so he was allowed to be at the interview of Pete Eskdale.
“I can’t remember when that was,” said Pete. “I hardly ever go there and it certainly wasn’t on the evening Morag said she was drugged.”
“We’ll be asking everyone whose sketch is on this book,” said Jimmy.
Pete grinned cockily. “Ask away.”
Hamish and Jimmy questioned him for two hours but always got the same replies. He seemed supremely confident.
Wayne Box arrived back at the caravan that evening to find it cold and empty. Usually his little sister had a meal ready for him.
“I’ll give that brat a right thrashing when she gets back,” he muttered. Then he saw a note lying on top of the cooker. It read: “Gone to Gran in Glasgow. Try and get me back and I’ll pit the social onto ye. Abbie.”
Wayne clenched his big fists in a fury. He had become used to using little Abbie as a sort of house slave.
On the following day, while a squad of police along with Jimmy, Hamish, and Dick descended on Cnothan to question all who had been sketched by Morag, Abbie sat in her grandmother’s tenement flat in Glasgow, eating currant buns and drinking tea.
Her grandmother, Mrs. Sheena Box, was a widow in her fifties. She was a thickset woman with dyed blonde hair and a pugnacious face. She worked shifts in a supermarket.
“It’s a fair wonder I was at home, this being my day off. How come they let a wee lassie like you travel alone on the bus?”
“I asked a wumman in Inverness to buy a ticket for me, saying it was for my mither. Then I got on the bus wi’ another wumman and sat next to her and began to talk as if I was with her. You won’t send me back?”
“No, petal. You’re wi’ me now. I’ll get you fixed up wi’ the local school. Will Wayne try to get you back?”
“Telt him if he tried I’d get the social onto him.”
“Grand. Have another bun.”
By the end of another day, Hamish felt he could weep with frustration. Three of the more sober locals, frightened for once into being cooperative, said that the sketches must have been done the Saturday before Morag claimed she was drugged, one saying he was wearing his new jacket for the first time as shown in the sketch, and he hadn’t worn it to the pub after that, his wife complaining it was too good to go boozing in. The other two confi
rmed the date.
Stolly Maguire, the bartender, also said it couldn’t have been on the fatal Saturday because he hadn’t been wearing that T-shirt.
Hamish found it hard to believe he was back to square one. He wondered whether Elspeth had lied about finding the sketchbook on her car. But when he called at the Tommel Castle Hotel, it was to find she had checked out.
Elspeth had earlier received a frantic phone call from Barry Dalrymple. “You better get back here. We’ve got to let Hannah go.
“She’s making mistakes all over the place. She was talking about a riot in Syria and describing that many had been killed and the silly bitch smiled at the camera. And there’s worse. She did a report about a wee lassie in Irvine who was swept to her death by a freak wave. It was the last item, so she grins into the lens and says, ‘And the moral of that is, be careful where you walk.’”
Hannah was gloomily clearing out her desk when Elspeth arrived back at the television studios. She could not believe this was happening to her. She had been riding so high, signing autographs every time she left the building. She also could not believe it had been because of her performance. She knew that Elspeth had been engaged to Barry and was sure she had dripped poison in his ear. A security man came up to her and said sympathetically, “Need any help with your stuff?”
“That’s kind of you,” said Hannah. “I can’t believe this is happening to me. I’m sure Elspeth is behind it.”
“She wouldn’t do a thing like that. Maybe she’ll get married and they’ll have you back. There’s a rumour going around that she’s sweet on that copper up in Lochdubh.”
“I’ll be back in a moment,” said Hannah. “I’d better say goodbye to Elspeth.”
Elspeth looked up, startled, as Hannah approached her with an outstretched hand. “I just came to say goodbye,” said Hannah. “Did you enjoy your time up north?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“When you’re speaking to Hamish, do tell him I enjoyed our night together. A very passionate man.”
“I will,” said Elspeth. “Goodbye. I’ve a lot to do.”
Hamish fretted as the days passed into weeks and the investigation into the murders was being wound down.
The lazy sunny days seemed to be over. Squalls of wind blew in from the Atlantic bringing rain to pockmark the loch. Low clouds raced across the sky.
Someone in Cnothan must know something, Hamish fretted. Although he liked Dick, he sometimes chafed at his own bachelor existence. He should have proposed to Elspeth Grant a long time ago.
One morning, he walked with the dog and cat to the cliffs at the end of the sea loch and sat on the edge of the cliff, watching the green-grey waves rolling in to crash against the rocks below. Restless seagulls screamed and swooped overhead, and little puffins popped in and out of their burrows.
He found it strange that there had not been one bit of forensic evidence. The bottle and glasses up by the falls had been wiped clean. The whisky had been Bells, on sale everywhere in the Highlands.
Then he thought that maybe now the pressure was off the residents of Cnothan, someone might decide to talk.
As he rose to his feet, he decided to begin at the beginning, as if the case were new. He would go over the ground again.
When he returned to the police station and told Dick his plans, Dick groaned and said, “I hate Cnothan.”
“I can’t just leave it!” said Hamish.
There was a knock at the kitchen door. Hamish opened it and felt his very soul cringe with embarrassment. Hannah Fleming stood there, beautiful as ever.
She smiled at him. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
“I was chust on my way out,” said Hamish. “Oh, I can give you a few minutes.”
Hannah seated herself at the kitchen table. She looked around the well-appointed kitchen with approval. She had come back to the idea of being Hamish’s wife. Her sacking by Barry Dalrymple had seriously dented her amour propre. She had found a job as a public relations officer for a cosmetics firm in Glasgow but was not due to start work for a few weeks. But the idea of being married and not having to work again had begun to appeal to her.
“What can I do for you?” asked Hamish stiffly.
“Oh, Hamish! After all we’ve been to each other.”
“Hannah, you gave me a note telling me to forget about it.”
“I was being noble. I was frightened you would lose your job.”
“And I could still lose my job,” said Hamish. “Let’s chust forget it.”
“We could make it all respectable,” said Hannah. “What if we got married?”
Now, the average highlander is capable of telling a great whopping lie, especially when cornered. “I cannae do that,” said Hamish. “I’m thinking of marrying Elspeth Grant.”
Her face hardened. “You mean she doesn’t mind you playing around?”
“What do you mean?”
“I told her about our night together.”
“You what!”
“Well, how was I to know you were an item?”
Hamish clutched his red hair. “Lassie, you’ll be the ruin of me. Please go away and forget you ever saw me.”
Hannah rose to her feet. “I’ll leave you to think it over,” she said. “It’s either marriage to me or I’ll tell your bosses.”
She tripped out the door and left Hamish staring after her.
Dick emerged from the living room. “I heard all that,” he said. “You’ll just need to stick to yer guns and say the lassie’s lying.”
“Blair’ll believe her,” said Hamish. “God, I wish she were dead!”
“Wish who was dead?” asked a voice from the open kitchen door.
Nessie Currie stood there.
“No one,” said Hamish. “What do you want?”
“Our rubbish bin has been knocked over,” said Nessie. “It’s those schoolchildren.”
“It’s the wind,” said Hamish. “Bins have been sent flying all over the village.”
“You’re as lazy as ever,” said Nessie. “I’ve a good mind to report…”
“I’ll look into it,” said Hamish quickly, anxious to get rid of her.
“See you do.”
Later that morning, Hannah sat in her brother’s office at the factory. She had not told him about her night with Hamish. Apart from Elspeth, she had not told anyone. She decided she never would. Her vanity demanded that it should look as if Hamish Macbeth had fallen for her, rather than being blackmailed into marriage.
“What about us having lunch together?” she asked.
Geordie miserably shuffled the papers on his desk. “Can’t. I’ve got too much work. Whatever Morag was, she was damn efficient. The new secretary is no good and it means more work for me.”
“Does the pretty lady want lunch?” asked a voice from the doorway.
Pete Eskdale stood there. “All right,” said Hannah. “Where?”
“What about the Tommel Castle Hotel?”
Hannah’s eyes gleamed. “Grand.”
As Pete drove Hannah up to the hotel in his red Jaguar, Hannah began to wonder if she might not be throwing herself away on a mere police sergeant. She remembered that Pete had won the lottery. Over an excellent lunch and a bottle of wine, Pete talked about how well the factory was doing.
“So the murders haven’t affected business,” said Hannah.
“No, not a bit. In fact, they’ve brought more tourists for their guided tours. And Freda’s new designs are selling like hotcakes.”
“Tell me about your new job.”
Hannah did at length until Pete’s eyes started to glaze over. She could feel his earlier interest in her slipping away and so she said, “Aren’t you worried a murderer is still at large?”
“Sometimes. But we’ve been so busy. Och, it was probably some maniac from Morag’s past. The police think that Fergus fellow tried a bit of blackmail. I’d better be getting back.”
“Aren’t we going to have coffee?”
Pete signalled for the bill.
“Pity,” said Hannah. “I know who the murderer is. And it’s someone from the factory.”
“What? Who?”
Hannah smiled. “Wouldn’t you just like to know? I’m going to arrange a press conference in Strathbane.”
“You’re lying!”
“You’ll see. You look a bit white. Have I worried you?”
“You should be worried about yourself,” said Pete viciously.
He dropped her off at her brother’s home and went back to the factory. Pete bumped into the supervisor Maisie Moffat. “Pooh, you reek o’ booze,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “You’ve been out wi’ Geordie’s sister, haven’t you?”
“I think that one’s off her head,” said Pete. “She says she knows who committed the murders and it’s someone in the factory.”
“So why doesn’t she tell the police?”
“Says she’s off to Strathbane in the morning to call a press conference.”
“I bet that one never gets there.”
“Why?” jeered Pete. “Think she’ll be murdered?”
“Naw. She made it up.”
But the news of Hannah’s discovery spread round the factory.
Hamish had not gone to Cnothan that day, as he had to go off with Dick to investigate a burglary at a tiny village up on the west coast called Sanndasaid.
The squally wind had died, and as he drove down the heathery one-track road into the village, he realised again how much he loved Sutherland.
The village consisted of only a few houses facing a curved bay of pure white sand. It was sheltered by the soaring mountains rearing up behind it. The house they were looking for was two old fisherman’s cottages knocked into one.
Hamish knocked at the door, which was answered by an elderly lady. Her hair was snow white and her face crisscrossed with wrinkles. She was leaning on two sticks.
“Mrs. Macgregor?” asked Hamish. “We’ve come about the burglary.”
“About time. Come ben.”
They walked into a low parlour. “When did this happen?” asked Hamish.
