by M C Beaton
He undressed and went to bed, falling into an exhausted sleep haunted by dreams of the people at the factory.
In the morning, Hamish phoned Jimmy. “There’s a back stair leading from the corridor outside Hannah’s room,” said Jimmy. “No cameras there. We’re getting statements again from everyone at that factory.”
“I’ll be right over,” said Hamish.
“I’m in charge of the case now,” said Jimmy. “Blair’s had a wee stroke and is being kept in. You just get on with your usual duties.”
Hamish sighed after he had rung off. If Blair’s condition turned out to be serious, then Jimmy saw promotion. Any kudos he would want for himself.
Dick arrived in the kitchen. “Where were you yesterday?” demanded Hamish.
“I didnae see that there was anything I could do,” said Dick plaintively. “Is she going to be all right?”
“She’s dead,” said Hamish and told Dick what had happened, ending with, “Blair got a stroke so Jimmy has dreams of glory and I’m being asked to keep clear.”
“It’s a grand day,” said Dick looking out of the window. “We both need a rest.”
“On the contrary,” said Hamish. “They’ll all be concentrating on alibis. We should go over to the hospital and ask around.”
“Don’t you want me to stay behind and look after Sonsie and Lugs?”
“I’ll take the beasts with me,” said Hamish curtly. “Get your uniform on.”
At the hospital, Hamish and Dick went up to the corridor outside Hannah’s room and walked along until they found the back stairs and then started to walk slowly down.
“Have forensics been over this?” asked Dick uneasily. “We could be charged with mucking up a crime scene.”
“They’ve been and gone,” said Hamish. “There’s fingerprint dust all over the banisters.”
At the bottom of the stairs, there was a fire door. They pushed it open and found themselves at the back of the hospital. Hamish turned and scrutinised the building. “Not a camera in sight,” he muttered. “Our murderer either knew about that or was lucky in his desperation.”
He scanned the ground. A little way away was a small patch of earth, still damp from the previous day’s rain. There was the mark of a single tyre. “Looks like a bicycle track,” said Hamish. “They should have taken a cast of it.”
He walked back to the fire door. “Cigarette butts all over the place,” said Hamish. “This must be one of the places where the staff nip out to have cigarettes. We’ll go back in and see if there’s any of them in the canteen.”
In the canteen, he tried to pull Dick back from heading for the service counter but Dick said, “We need to eat and get something for the beasties.”
Hamish released him and then started to go round the tables where staff were having coffee. Not one admitted to having seen anything.
Dick came back with two coffees, buns, and pies for Sonsie and Lugs. Hamish gulped down his coffee and said, “You go and feed Sonsie and Lugs and then meet me round at that door. The ones in the canteen were probably not smokers. I’m going to wait there and see if anyone comes out.”
Hamish waited patiently outside. After half an hour, a hospital porter came out and lit a cigarette. “Were you out here yesterday?” asked Hamish.
“Aye, but I wasnae murdering anyone.”
“Did you see anyone at all?”
“Cars down on the road. I was on my own. Oh, I mind, there was a hoody on a bike just going round that corner on the left.”
“What did he look like?”
“I only got a glimpse. You ken what these hoodies are like. They aye look the same.”
“What colour of hoody?”
“Grey.”
“Small, fat, thin?”
“Medium built, average size. It was one o’ thae wee collapsible bikes folks carry around in their cars. Hood right ower his head.”
“What time was this?”
“Be about dinnertime.”
Correctly understanding that by dinnertime, he meant midday, Hamish asked, “That was about the time the murder was committed. Didn’t you think to tell the police?”
“Didnae think.”
“Did you see any other members of the staff when you were out here smoking?”
“Naw. On my lonesome.”
Hamish took down his name and address and said they would be in touch with him.
Dick arrived, brushing crumbs from his regulation shirt. Hamish told him what he had found out. “I’d better phone Jimmy,” he said. “We’ve got to find out if anyone in Cnothan owns such a cycle.”
Jimmy listened in silence, and then, as if realising he might be missing out by keeping Hamish out of the investigation, said, “Get over here. I’ll let you look through the statements. You might see something I’ve missed.”
Once in Cnothan, Hamish sent Dick back to Lochdubh with his pets. The village was now swarming with press, and he didn’t want any photographer snapping a picture of his wild cat and starting up arguments about the legality of having such an animal as a pet.
He found Jimmy outside the factory. “I could do with a drink,” said Jimmy. “Let’s go along to the Loaming. I’ll go over the statements with you.”
When they entered the pub, Hamish recognised Maisie Moffat, sitting at a table with some of the staff. When they saw Hamish and Jimmy, they finished their drinks and hurried out.
Jimmy ordered a double whisky for himself and an orange juice for Hamish and then settled down at the table recently vacated by the factory staff.
He put a laptop on the table and switched it on. He tossed back his drink. “Help yourself, Hamish. I need another. It was worse than interviewing the mafia. Talk about omerta!”
Hamish began to read. He had given up smoking some time ago but he suddenly longed for a cigarette. Then he found himself yearning for the cool company of Priscilla Halburton-Smythe who had acted as his Watson on so many cases. He sighed and began to concentrate.
Hannah’s brother had been sedated and could not be interviewed. Pete Eskdale had been out of the factory the previous morning. He said he had gone down to Strathbane to interview a secretary as Gilchrist was complaining that the new one was no good. The applicant, a Miss Henrietta Noble, confirmed that he had called and had said he would let her know. But it left a time lag where he could have gone to the hospital. Warrants had been issued to search the premises of all suspects to look for a hooded outfit or a collapsible bicycle. A team of detectives and police were currently operating the searches.
Harry Gilchrist had returned from Glasgow after lunch the previous day. He said he had left Glasgow early in the morning and had driven straight to Lochdubh.
Freda Crichton had taken the day off sick. No witnesses. She had not called a doctor.
Maisie Moffat had taken the morning off to visit a sick friend in Bonar Bridge. Friend confirmed the visit but a gap between ten in the morning and one in the afternoon.
“What do you think?” asked Jimmy impatiently. “Have we a visiting serial killer?”
“I think we’ve got a panicking amateur here,” said Hamish. “And a very lucky one at that. I think Fergus knew something and was blackmailing whoever. Hannah was fantasising. I’m sure of that. The trouble is that television these days gives everyone a lesson in how to do it.” He shuffled the statements restlessly. “Such a cliché.”
“What is?”
“Hannah’s death in the hospital. How many cop dramas and real-life crime shows have portrayed someone being murdered in hospital. I’ve even seen one where the CCTV camera was spray-painted. It was all over the news about her press conference. She phoned her brother and told him where she was. We’ve got to find out who he told. She’d still be alive if he had told us. Where was he when he got the call?”
“At his desk in the factory. And worse. He shouted, ‘Hannah! Where are you?’ Then he wrote down the name of the hotel on a bit o’ paper and put it in his desk. Anyone could have overheard him and
spread the news. It couldn’t have been Gilchrist. He was down in Glasgow.”
“Somebody might have phoned him.”
Jimmy’s phone rang. He listened and then got to his feet and walked outside. When he came back in, his face was grim.
“You’re to report right now to Daviot,” he said. “An anonymous caller has reported that you were overheard threatening to kill Hannah Fleming. The caller also said you had dinner with her in Lochdubh and that she spent the night in the police station.”
Nessie Currie, thought Hamish bleakly.
“This is mad,” said Hamish. “I’m the one who found her on the Struie Pass and saved her life. Dick was with me.”
“Get along with you,” said Jimmy heavily. “Thank your lucky stars that Blair is still in hospital.”
As Hamish waited outside the superintendent’s office, he reflected that the gods were punishing him for his night with Hannah Fleming. He had accused her of vanity, but what about his own behaviour? He had been carried away by her appearance alone.
Helen, Daviot’s secretary, came out of her boss’s room and gave Hamish the thin malicious smile she always gave him when he was in trouble. “You’re to go in now.”
“This is a bad business, Macbeth,” said Daviot. “We have had an anonymous report that you were heard threatening to kill Hannah Fleming and that you had dined with her and that she had spent a night at the police station. At that time, Miss Fleming was the sister of one of our suspects. Before I take this to internal affairs, I would like your version of what happened.”
While Hamish had been on his road to Lochdubh, Dick had phoned Jimmy, looking for Hamish whose phone was switched off, and had heard what had happened. When he had rung off, he looked dismally at the cool blonde sitting at the kitchen table.
“Hamish is in bad trouble, Miss Halburton-Smythe,” he said.
“Why?”
Dick rapidly told her about Hannah and the night in the police station. “It was as innocent as anything,” he said. “The lassie was just too drunk to go home.”
“What evening was this?”
Dick told her.
“I was up here on a flying visit,” said Priscilla. “I called in to see Hamish. Hannah Fleming had already passed out. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Got to rush.”
Daviot listened carefully to Hamish’s long explanation. Daviot just finished when his phone rang. Hamish stood in front of the superintendent’s desk, his face a picture of misery. It was obviously Daviot’s wife on the phone. Daviot kept protesting he hadn’t time to do any shopping and he didn’t care who was coming to dinner, he was in the middle of a murder enquiry. His wife’s voice at the other end squawked loudly.
At last Daviot rang off and mopped his brow. “Where was I? Yes, you are to go downstairs and write a statement and bring it back to me. You are, of course, suspended from duty and…what is it, Helen?”
“Miss Halburton-Smythe is here. She says she has urgent information concerning Macbeth.”
“Show her in.”
Hamish looked in surprise at Priscilla. From the blonde bell of her hair to her neat half boots, she was as beautiful and impeccable as ever.
“I called in at the police station and heard what the fuss was about and came right away. You will want my statement.”
“Please take a seat, Miss Halburton-Smythe. Why should I want your statement?”
“Only that on the night Miss Fleming was at the police station, I called there late. Hamish was getting ready to bed down in the cell. Miss Fleming was already snoring her drunken head off on his bed. Hamish told me he had made a mistake taking her for dinner but that he had hoped to get a lead on some of the people at the factory.”
“Is this true, Macbeth?”
“Aye, I’m afraid I’ve been that upset, I forgot,” said Hamish.
Daviot was a snob and the word of someone like Priscilla Halburton-Smythe was, in his opinion, to be ranked somewhere slightly below the word of God.
Priscilla said, “You were so tired, Hamish, and so upset that you had wasted time on her, that I’m not surprised you forgot my visit. I was only there a few minutes.”
Daviot smiled. “This does put a different complexion on that matter. But your methods are very unorthodox, Macbeth.”
“But it is those very methods that have solved so many cases in the past,” put in Priscilla.
“Perhaps.” The phone rang again. “I am talking to Miss Halburton-Smythe, dear,” said Daviot importantly. The voice of his wife at the other end could be heard quacking loudly. When he rang off, Daviot said, “My lady wife wonders if you would care to join us for dinner this evening, Miss Halburton-Smythe?”
Priscilla smiled sweetly. “Alas, this is only another flying visit to see my parents, and they have invited Lord and Lady Pastern to dinner this evening.”
Daviot looked suitably impressed.
When Priscilla and Hamish emerged from police headquarters, Hamish thanked her as she explained how Dick had told her the trouble he was in. “Are Lord and Lady Pastern really coming to dinner?” he asked.
“No, but it was the snobbiest couple of names I could think of. Let’s go for a coffee. I want to hear about the case.”
The wind had risen, and her blonde hair was whipped about her face. Hamish noticed when they entered the café that her hair fell back into its impeccable bell shape. I wonder how she does that? he thought.
Outside the café windows, rubbish danced in the rising gale. There had been a refuse collectors’ strike.
“Sutherland has decided we have had enough of this odd good weather,” said Priscilla. “Now, Hamish, begin at the beginning.”
So Hamish did, giving her a concise report.
“It’s got to be someone at the factory,” said Priscilla when he had finished.
“I’m inclined to agree with you,” said Hamish, fighting down a treacherous wonder if Priscilla ever remembered lying in his arms. As he looked at her, he thought, not for the first time, that she was like an addiction. In just the way that he was sometimes assailed with a longing for a cigarette, so he longed for the passionate Priscilla of his dreams, a Priscilla, he knew, that did not exist. That was the reason he had broken off their engagement.
“You see,” said Priscilla, “it must have been someone who was on hand to find out which hotel she was staying at.”
“But which one?” mourned Hamish. “You know Cnothan. They don’t talk to outsiders at the best of times.”
“Jobs are hard to come by in the north,” said Priscilla. “Before the recession, there was a big influx of Poles, taking on the jobs the locals wouldn’t do. By the time they were prepared to do anything, the jobs had gone. The people of Cnothan are desperate that nothing should happen to that factory. What about that friend of Morag’s, Celia Hedron, the flatmate in London?”
“Not a suspect. She never left London and is still there.”
“But if Morag was a friend of hers and if it was a close relationship, Morag might have phoned her.”
“I think I’ve got her number. I’ll phone from outside. She’s been interviewed but she might remember some small thing. Do you want to wait and hear what she says?”
“No, I’ve got to rush. I’m due back in London tomorrow.”
“Dinner tonight?”
“Why not? I’ll meet you at the Italian restaurant at eight o’clock.”
Outside the café, the blustery wind sent Priscilla’s hair flying about her face and whipped at her thin jacket.
Hamish’s cap was torn from his head and went dancing off down the street. By the time he had recovered it, Priscilla had gone.
He climbed into the Land Rover and searched through his records until he found a home number and mobile number for Celia Hedron. Celia was at home and sounded puzzled when he introduced himself. “I don’t know that I can add anything to what I have already told the police,” she said.
“You have been told she was pregnant?�
�
“Yes. It was a great shock. The Morag I knew had no interest in men.”
“Would she be tempted by money? Say she came across some rich man.”
“I don’t think so. I know she did want a baby. But she had planned to get one by artificial insemination.”
“Any record of that?”
“No, Scotland Yard checked everywhere.”
“Did she talk about people in the factory?”
“Very dismissively,” said Celia. “She said they were a bunch of morons. But she would enjoy that.”
“Why?”
“I loved Morag but I wasn’t blind to her faults. It was almost as if she was compelled to look down on people to bolster up her self-worth. She was a good graphic artist, but there are lots of them around and she couldn’t get work. The idea of going up to the Highlands amused her.”
“Didn’t she mention any men at all?”
“Look, we had a quarrel about a month before she was murdered. I had been getting a bit tired of her high-and-mighty attitude. I have a prospect of a good job with an advertising company. She went very sour when I told her and said, ‘I don’t think your work will be up to it. Aren’t you afraid?’ I told her to find somewhere else to live. But she got the job before she found anything else. I told her not to speak to me again. But she did. She had to brag about the hypnotist and how someone had drugged her. Did you say your name was Hamish Macbeth?”
“Yes.”
“Morag said you really fancied her.”
“Not even the slightest bit,” said Hamish coldly. “Write down my number and if you can think of any little thing, let me know.”
At the police station, Dick chortled gleefully when Hamish told him of Priscilla’s rescue.
“A grand lassie,” said Dick. “Oh, while you were out, I got a call. A woman over in Southey says her man went out last night and didnae come home. I told her to wait a bit.”
“What’s his name?”
“Bob Macdonald. A crofter.”
“We’d better get over there and look into it. He could be lying out in his fields.”
