Death of Yesterday

by M C Beaton

  “Have you the registration of his car?” asked Hamish.

  “Yes. I’ll get it for you. I always write down the registrations in case they run off without paying.”

  Jimmy took a note of the registration and phoned it over to headquarters. Then they followed Gareth to Sean’s caravan, which stood at the end of the park.

  The key would not turn in the lock, and a metal bar and padlock had been placed across the door. “That shouldn’t be there,” raged Gareth.

  “Have you bolt cutters?” asked Hamish.

  “Yes, I’ll get them.”

  “And bring a crowbar.”

  “I hope to God there’s something incriminating in there,” said Jimmy, “before Daviot gets on our back and Blair comes roaring up.”

  Gareth came back with the bolt cutters. He cut the padlock and took down the metal bar. Then he inserted the crowbar in the doorjamb and wrenched until the door sprang open.

  Jimmy went in first, wrinkling his nose. “What a pong! The wee beast probably never washed.”

  The caravan consisted of two sofas at either side of a table at one end and a bed at the other. In the middle was a small kitchen unit and stove. The aluminum sink was piled high with greasy dishes. Beside the kitchen unit was a wardrobe with drawers underneath. Jimmy and Hamish both put on latex gloves and began to search.

  They worked in silence until Jimmy said in disgust, “Nothing but dirty clothes and sheets.”

  Hamish lifted a strip of carpet from the floor. Underneath was a trapdoor. He lifted it up, and, getting down on his knees, pulled out a metal box. “Padlocked,” he said. “I’ll see if Gareth is still out there with the bolt cutters.”

  Gareth was nowhere to be seen, but the bolt cutters were propped against the door.

  Hamish carried them in and cut the padlock. Jimmy crouched down beside him as Hamish opened the lid.

  “Would ye look at that?” breathed Jimmy.

  The box was stuffed with colourful Bank of Scotland notes. Sir Walter Scott’s face in blue, brown, purple, green, and red stared up at them. The hundred-pound notes were red, and there were more of them than any of the lower denominations.

  “I’ll count them out,” said Jimmy. “Get Gareth here. We need a witness.”

  When Gareth arrived, the Welshman stared at the money. “I want you to witness what we’ve got here,” said Jimmy. “Don’t want any accusations that the police put any of this in their pockets.”

  “And when you’ve counted it,” said Hamish, “put it back.”

  “Why?” said Jimmy. “Five thousand and five. Damn, I think I’ve lost count.”

  “Don’t you see,” said Hamish, “he must have left in a rush. His clothes are all here. He must have got a tip-off and fled from the Gilchrists’ villa. He’ll try to come back for this.”

  “He’ll see the door smashed,” said Jimmy, sitting back on his heels, “and run for his life.”

  “Aye, but if we keep watch, we could nab him before he gets near the caravan.”

  “Why all this money?” asked Jimmy.

  “I think maybe someone was paying him to keep quiet—or maybe for some nasty work he did,” said Hamish. “I think it should be just us two that waits for him. You bring in a lot of men and it might fall to pieces. A strange face stands out a mile in this place. He may have friends in one of the other caravans.”

  “Gareth,” asked Jimmy, “does the wee swine have friends here?”

  “No, he kept himself to himself.”

  “I still think it should be the two of us,” said Hamish, “and don’t report to Blair or he’ll come charging up here.”

  “The tourists have all gone,” said Gareth. “There was one nasty type called Box but he left just after I took over. I’ve only got the one couple at the moment. They’re down in Glasgow at the moment, visiting relatives, so you’ve got the place to yourselves.”

  To Jimmy’s relief, there was no phone call from Blair. Blair was down at police headquarters, swearing blind that Geordie was the real murderer and everything else was just a waste of time.

  Fortunately for them, the long summer was over and darkness was falling earlier. But by two in the morning, both Jimmy and Hamish were tired and hungry. The caravan park was up on a hill above the village. Looking down, they could see the whole place was as quiet as the grave.

  They were crouched behind a gorse bush. “The ground’s damp,” whispered Jimmy. “I’m getting up to stretch my legs.”

  He half rose but Hamish pulled him down. “Listen!”

  “I don’t hear a car.”

  “I heard a twig snap. I think he’s coming over the back on foot.”

  “I cannae hear anything.”

  “Shh!”

  The light from a pencil torch suddenly stabbed through the darkness.

  They waited until, in the starlight, they saw a silhouette against the caravan.

  Jimmy rushed forward. “Sean Carmichael. I am Detective Jimmy Anderson and I am…”

  That was as far as he got. Sean turned and ran up the bray. Hamish brought him down with a rugby tackle and then handcuffed him. Jimmy called for two policemen to come and guard the caravan and the money. When they finally arrived, Jimmy went to get the Land Rover. Sean, who maintained a sullen silence, was thrust in the back and then, with Hamish driving and Jimmy following in his unmarked car, they set out for police headquarters.

  It was agreed to interview Sean in the morning after they had both got a few hours’ sleep.

  Hamish took a bed in the sickroom and fell immediately asleep without bothering to undress.

  He was awakened roughly in the morning by Jimmy. “Get up, man. The wee bugger’s topped himself.”

  “He can’t have!” exclaimed Hamish, struggling awake. “Didn’t the custody sergeant take away his belt and shoelaces?”

  “Aye, but he didnae take away what Sean said were his high blood pressure pills. They were in the right sort of box wi’ the pharmacist’s label and all. Some sort of lethal drug. Won’t know till the autopsy. Daviot’s in and wants to see us.”

  “Sir,” said Hamish, after they had given their report to Daviot, “we’ll need a search warrant for Gilchrist’s house. And he should be brought in for questioning immediately.”

  “I cannot see what a respectable man like Harry Gilchrist has got to do with any of this,” said Daviot.

  “Sean was working for him,” said Jimmy patiently. “He had that box full of money. Okay, suppose Gilchrist is innocent. We still need to ask him all he knows about Sean.”

  “We need to use tact here. I’ll send Mr. Blair.”

  “But, sir…,” began Jimmy.

  “No, those are my orders. Macbeth, I suggest you get a shave. And there are bits of bush sticking to your sweater.”

  “That’s blown it,” said Hamish as he wearily took his leave of Jimmy after typing out a long report of the arrest of Sean Carmichael. “Blair crawls to folk like Gilchrist. He’ll toddle back to Daviot with a report that the man is as pure as the snow on the top o’ Ben Nevis.”

  Hamish drove wearily back to the police station. He was welcomed at the kitchen door by Dick. “Where were you?” asked Dick. “You might have phoned. I was worried about you.”

  “Get out of my way,” said Hamish crossly. “We’re not married.”

  But as he slumped down at the kitchen table, he mumbled thanks as Dick put a cup of his excellent coffee in front of him. Hamish roused himself to tell Dick what had been happening.

  “They should ha’ got that search warrant,” said Dick. “Mark my words, Gilchrist will make a run for it.”

  “So you think he’s guilty?”

  “Of course,” said Dick, leaning one fat hip against the kitchen counter. “Iffy stuff about the wife, his creature Sean kills himself, he’s bound to be behind it all.”

  “Damn Daviot and his cronies,” said Hamish. “It seems that all a murderer needs is a veneer of respectability and a membership of the Strathbane Lodge to be
thought innocent.”

  The phone in the office rang. Hamish went to answer it. Jimmy’s agitated voice came down the line. “No one can find Gilchrist. He hasn’t been at work today. Daviot’s cracked and is getting a search warrant.”

  “I’m coming over right away,” said Hamish. He went back to the kitchen. “Get your uniform on, Dick. We’re getting a search warrant for Gilchrist’s home.”

  Nessie and Jessie Currie turned on the waterfront to watch the police Land Rover racing off out of the village.

  “Our lazy policeman seems to be working at last,” said Nessie, and then, ignoring the echoing voice of her sister, she said uneasily, “I shouldnae have reported that business about him spending the night wi’ Hannah Fleming to his bosses. He hasnae spoken to me since.”

  “It was a spiteful thing to do,” said her twin. “I always thought so.”

  “You didnae say anything at the time.”

  And, quarrelling, they made their way to Patel’s grocery store.

  “Where’s Blair?” asked Hamish when they arrived at Gilchrist’s villa.

  “After he phoned Daviot with the bad news, he went to the Loaming for a refresher, tripped on the doorstep, came down like a ton o’ bricks.”

  “Some good news anyway,” said Hamish heartlessly.

  An unmarked car drove up and Daviot climbed out. “I have the search warrant,” he said.

  “Right,” said Jimmy. He shouted to three policemen standing by the door of the villa, “Go ahead.”

  One policeman took out his truncheon and smashed the stained-glass panel on the front door, reached inside, and unlocked it.

  “Come on, Hamish,” said Jimmy. “Let’s see if the bastard is inside.”

  “Perhaps the forensic team should go in first,” said Daviot.

  “We’ll let them in if he’s not there,” said Jimmy.

  Hamish and Jimmy drew on latex gloves and entered the shadowy hall, picking their way gingerly over broken shards of glass. Jimmy pushed open a door off the hall. “This is his office,” he said. “I’ll go through the papers while you and the men make sure he’s not at home.”

  While police fanned out through the house, Hamish stood in the hall looking around.

  “I wonder if this place has a basement,” he murmured.

  At the back of the hall, he found a stout wooden door, heavily padlocked.

  He went outside. Dick was sitting in a canvas chair on the drive with the dog and cat at his feet.

  “Get me bolt cutters,” shouted Hamish.

  When Dick had produced the bolt cutters from the back of the Land Rover, Hamish went back into the house and cut the padlock on the basement door.

  He found a light switch and turned it on. Steep stone steps led downwards.

  There was nothing in the basement but one large cabin trunk. Hamish smashed the lock with the bolt cutters and swung back the lid. It was full of women’s clothes, shoes, and underwear. He carefully searched through the contents.

  Then he turned and looked around. The floor was flat, even cement. The walls were brick. But one wall over on the right had new bricks in it.

  Hamish took out a stout clasp knife and scraped away at the plaster around one of the bricks. It had been an amateur job of bricklaying, for the brick came out easily. He prised out another and another until he had made a square hole. A ghastly sweetish smell was emanating from the hole. He unclipped a flashlight from his belt and shone it into the aperture. A horrible decomposing face stared back at him.

  Hamish backed away.

  He sprinted up the stairs and told Jimmy what he had found. Jimmy followed him down the stairs.

  “If I’m not mistaken,” said Hamish, “that will turn out to be Brenda Gilchrist with her own sister masquerading as her somewhere abroad.”

  Daviot looked appalled at the news. He sent in the forensic team and then said he would hurry back to headquarters to coordinate a search for the missing Gilchrist and contact Interpol to pick up anyone using Brenda Gilchrist’s passport.

  “What now?” asked Dick.

  “We wait and see what more the forensic team comes up with,” said Jimmy.

  Dick heaved himself out of his chair. “It’s a good thing I’m prepared,” he said. He heaved a large picnic basket out of the Land Rover. “Something I made earlier,” he said with a grin.

  Under Jimmy’s bemused stare, Dick took out flasks of coffee and wrapped packets of sandwiches.

  “That’s a right good wife you’ve got there,” said Jimmy.

  “Shut up,” said Hamish.

  “It’s shut up, sir. Know your place,” said Jimmy.

  Hamish had that longing again to get his police station back to himself. There should be a woman looking after him, some pretty woman, some wife instead of a middle-aged policeman.

  “These are grand sandwiches,” said Jimmy. “Got anything to drink?”

  “You’ve got coffee,” said Dick.

  “I mean a proper drink.”

  Dick fished in the depths of the basket and produced a bottle of beer.

  “Man, you’re the best,” said Jimmy. “Hamish, you are one lucky man. He’s even got your terrifying beasties behaving themselves.”

  Who will rid me of this domesticated copper? wondered Hamish.

  Outside the entrance to the drive and kept at bay by two policemen were the press. It seemed their numbers were growing in size every moment.

  “How do they find out so quickly?” marvelled Jimmy.

  “Easy,” said Hamish. “An all-points bulletin about Gilchrist has probably already been on the radio and flashed on all the television channels.”

  “The man must be mad,” said Jimmy.

  “It’s loss of respectability,” said Hamish. “He’s a pillar of the community. Morag probably told him the baby was his. He may have paid Sean to get rid of her.”

  “But why drug her that time instead of bumping her off?”

  “He may have been keeping his wife drugged. Maybe she staggered out and looked in the window of the pub. That was when Morag might have sketched her. Then Morag goes around saying she’s going to a hypnotist and that’s when Gilchrist took action. Then it all snowballed. He must have been romancing the sister and they both wanted Brenda’s money.”

  “But he couldnae have gone on and on pretending his wife was abroad,” protested Jimmy.

  “They’d have thought of something. Maybe the fake Brenda could file for divorce claiming to be the guilty party. She settles a sum of money on Gilchrist, waits a bit, he sells the now profitable factory, and the pair of them go off hand in hand into the sunset of some foreign beach. I think she’s the mover and shaker behind all this.”

  “But why would Sean commit suicide? It’s not as if we have the death penalty.”

  “What if…just what if…Sean really had high blood pressure? What if poison was substituted for his regular pills? Think about it. He’s under strain after his arrest. So he takes a couple of what he thinks are high blood pressure pills and gets poisoned.”

  “Well, we’ll know when the results of the autopsy come through,” said Jimmy. “In the meantime, Hamish, why don’t you and Dick go and see the doctor in Cnothan.” He consulted his notes. “The pills were prescribed by a Dr. Stanley. The surgery is in the High Street.”

  Dr. Stanley confirmed that he had prescribed high blood pressure pills for Sean. Hamish and Dick returned to give Jimmy the news.

  “Now all we have to do is wait and see if Gilchrist can be found,” said Jimmy. He suddenly wanted rid of Hamish before Daviot came back. Blair was getting increasingly accident-prone. Jimmy coveted his job. He didn’t want Hamish around stealing his thunder.

  “You and Dick had better just go back to Lochdubh,” he said. “I’ll keep you informed.”

  “But…”

  “That’s an order,” said Jimmy.

  Chapter Ten

  He who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;

  ’Twas mine,
’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;

  But he that filches from me my good name

  Robs me of that which not enriches him,

  And makes me poor indeed.

  —William Shakespeare

  Hamish sat in the police station office. He leaned back in his chair, his arms behind his head. Where would Gilchrist run to?

  And that barman, Stolly, should be brought in for questioning. He was hovering near their table in the pub when they were talking about going to see Sean.

  If Gilchrist was tipped off through Stolly, he might go straight to Sean and somehow manage to substitute the poison—if it should turn out to be poison—for the blood pressure pills.

  He frowned. He was sure that the woman he’d met in Tallinn was Heather, and she had been a forceful character. Maybe the mover and shaker. Maybe Sean was paid to do the murders so that Gilchrist would always have the perfect alibi.

  He was sure Gilchrist was panicked into it all by the thought of losing his position in the community.

  Mairie Torrich had tried to kill herself because she thought she had lost her good name.

  What if Gilchrist had fled somewhere to put an end to himself? Where would he go? All the hotels would be checked. Would he go abroad for a last farewell to Heather? But he would know that all the airports would be watched along with the ferries and train stations.

  Where would the hunted animal that was Gilchrist go to earth?

  He suddenly jumped to his feet, ran out of the police station, and got into the Land Rover.

  Down in Glasgow, Elspeth Grant was summoned by her boss, Barry Dalrymple.

  “Take a seat, Elspeth,” said Barry.

  They surveyed each other with the embarrassment of a couple who have once been engaged and shared a bed.

  “You’ve heard what’s been happening up in the Highlands?” began Barry.

  “Yes, I announced the search for Harry Gilchrist on the midday news.”