by M C Beaton
“Gilchrist always kept it in the safe for some reason and then at the end of each month, a security firm came and took it to the bank.”
When she rang off, Hamish silently praised the stupidity of the police and the receivers. That money should have been moved to the bank. There must be a small fortune in there.
The same thought had crossed Heather’s mind. She stopped on the road north and phoned the factory and asked to be put through to Gilchrist’s secretary. Saying she was phoning from police headquarters, she asked if the staff’s wages had been removed. Assured they had not, she breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God she had kept the keys to the factory.
Hamish and Dick waited until midnight and then set out, wearing dark clothes. Dick was driving his old car.
The night was still and clear with the black silhouettes of the mountains rearing up against a starry sky. Dick’s little car wound its way along the one-track road beneath the vast glory of the Sutherland night sky like some small, dark, insignificant bug.
Cnothan was quiet and silent. Many of the staff had got drunk and were sleeping off the effects.
“What if we’re too late?” said Dick as he turned the car along the waterfront.
“She’ll wait until everyone has left the pub and went home. She won’t want the risk of anyone seeing her,” said Hamish.
“What about the burglar alarm?”
“I’ve got the code.”
“What about keys to get in?”
“I have my methods, Watson. No, don’t drive up to the factory. Go past it and park up at the end of the road where there aren’t any houses. We’ll walk back.”
When Dick had parked under the spreading branches of a rowan tree, they got out and made their way silently to the factory. “Round the side to the staff door,” said Hamish.
He took out a ring of skeleton keys and fiddled with the locks. After ten minutes, he opened the door and quickly switched off the burglar alarm.
Using pencil torches, they crept up the stairs and along corridors to Gilchrist’s office.
“What makes you think she’ll come tonight?” asked Dick, who was beginning to feel sleepy.
“Then we’ll come back tomorrow night,” said Hamish. “And the night after that.”
“Where do we sit?” asked Dick.
“On the floor, behind the desk.”
“Can’t I sit in a chair? My knees get stiff.”
“No. And if you go to sleep and snore, I’ll cosh you!”
They settled down, side by side on the floor.
“Thon Elspeth’s a bonny lassie,” said Dick. “Ever think of getting married?”
“The whole time,” muttered Hamish.
“You’re joking, aren’t you?” said Dick uneasily.
“Shhh. Don’t say another word.”
An hour dragged past. Dick, who had been praying before that Heather would not come because he didn’t like action, now prayed she would. He knew that if she did not, then stubborn Hamish would come the next night and the night after that. He began to feel stiff and cold and sulky. It was just one of Hamish’s mad speculations. Heather had probably got herself to one of those countries where she couldn’t be extradited.
Dick closed his eyes and soon he was asleep.
Beside him, Hamish struggled to keep awake. Then he thought he heard a slight noise and nudged Dick awake.
“I heard something,” he whispered.
They both sat, straining their ears. Then Hamish thought he heard soft footsteps coming along the corridor outside.
“Get ready,” he said quietly.
The door of the office opened and he stiffened. Then the door closed and the footsteps went away. He could hear doors along the corridor opening and closing and then silence.
“What on earth…?” he muttered.
He looked down from the window and saw black-masked figures outside. Before he could shout, one of them hurled a Molotov cocktail through the downstairs reception windows and another man tossed another.
“My God!” he shouted. “They’re burning down the factory!”
He went to the safe and opened it. He looked around wildly for something to put the money in and then saw a travel bag on top of a filing cabinet. He stuffed the money in and zipped up the bag.
“Come on, Dick. They’ve attacked the front. We may get out the side door.”
They hurried along the corridor and down the back stairs. The fire was taking hold. Before they reached the first landing, they could see the red glow below them, and they were beginning to choke with the smoke.
“Back up!” shouted Hamish. “We’ll need to try to get out of a back window and climb down.”
They rushed back up the stairs and along the corridor to Pete Eskdale’s room, which was at the back.
Hamish thrust open the window. “It’s three floors down, Dick. We’ll need to try to make it.”
“I cannae,” panted Dick. “I’ll never do it.”
“There’s a drainpipe outside. Follow me.”
Hamish tossed the bag down to the ground and swung a leg over the sill. He climbed down a bit and stared up at Dick’s anguished face.
“Come on, man! Do you want to burn?”
Dick eased his plump body over the sill and grabbed the drainpipe. Hand over hand they made their way down.
Dick fell the last few feet and crashed into Hamish.
“You nearly broke my bones,” grumbled Hamish. “Are you all right?”
“Bit winded,” gasped Dick.
“Round to the front and see if we can catch some of the bastards.”
But in the red glow from the burning building, they could see no one around.
Hamish took out his phone and called headquarters and was told that it had already been reported and the fire engines and police were on their way.
“Let’s get this money back to the car and lock it in the boot.”
They walked along to where they had parked the car. “Let the police look for the culprits,” said Hamish. “They’re bound to get them. Cnothan’s a small place and they’ll do a house-to-house search.”
“They’ll need search warrants,” said Dick, “or they’ll go tae the European Court of Human Rights.”
Hamish told the night sky that the Court of Human Rights could go and perform an impossible anatomical act upon itself as Dick unlocked the boot.
“I’ll take that,” said a woman’s voice.
Hamish turned round. A tall woman he was sure was Heather was standing there, starlight glinting on the deadly-looking gun she held in her hand.
“Heather Camford,” said Hamish bleakly. “There’s nothing but my dirty clothes in the bag.”
“I’ll take that risk. Throw it over.”
Hamish could hear the approaching wail of sirens. To his horror, Dick walked calmly in front of him and said, “You’re not getting the bag.”
“I’ll shoot you!”
“Go ahead,” said Dick.
She screamed in fury, threw the gun at him, and began to run towards the burning building. Hamish raced after her as she headed straight for the flames.
Dick cannoned into Hamish and knocked him to the ground. “Let the bitch burn!” he panted.
Hamish struggled to his feet. He hurtled after Heather and reached her just as her clothes caught fire. As the fire brigade arrived, he rolled her on the ground. She was screaming in agony, and half her face was badly burned.
Fortunately an ambulance arrived at the same time and Hamish shouted at them to give her a shot of something.
When Heather was sedated, Jimmy arrived and Hamish briefly told him what had happened. “I’ll go with her to the hospital,” said Jimmy. “You send a report. I’ve got men arriving to go round the village and see who set this place alight. Or was it her?”
He suddenly turned and yelled, “Turn that camera off!” Elspeth had arrived with her crew.
“No,” said Hamish, “we looked down from the building and saw about five of
them with masks on.”
Jimmy got in the ambulance, and it drove off as the firemen began to shoot water into the building.
Elspeth came running up to Hamish, but he said sharply, “Not now. Call on me tomorrow.” He and Dick walked away.
“Your clothes are a bit scorched,” said Dick. “Why on earth didn’t you let her burn?”
“I didn’t want her to escape justice. All I could think of were the lives she had ruined. We’d better get a couple of policemen to check the money in the bag so we can’t be accused of taking any. Then we’d better take the lot to Strathbane. Dick, you tried to save my life. I’ll never understand why she didn’t just shoot us.”
“I recognised a replica, even in the dark,” said Dick. “I make a study o’ a lot of things for my quizzes.”
Hamish began to laugh and was still laughing while Dick went to fetch a couple of policemen as witnesses.
They were exhausted when they arrived at Strathbane. Daviot, looking unusually rumpled because he had been called out from his bed, congratulated them. He led them upstairs to his office, and the bag and the witness statements were put into his safe.
Hamish wearily told him all about their adventures.
When he had finished, Daviot said, “When you heard those footsteps, did you think it was her?”
Hamish shook his head. “I think it was one of the arsonists, checking to make sure no one was in the building. I suppose there’s usually a night watchman. Oh, it makes me sick. I know they shouldnae ha’ burned the factory, but now they won’t only be poor, they’ll all have criminal records.”
“You did good work,” said Daviot, but wishing, not for the first time, that Hamish Macbeth was not so…well…unconventional in his methods.
“Will she live?” asked Hamish.
“Yes, you got her out in time, but her face is badly burnt and one of her arms, too. You’d better go to hospital yourself. Look at your hands!”
Hamish surveyed his scorched hands. “They are right painful.”
“See that he gets treated, Fraser,” said Daviot to Dick. “And, Fraser, you had better type out Macbeth’s report for him. His hands will be too sore.”
Hamish was glad when his hands were finally attended to. The excitement of Heather’s capture had made him forget the pain, but it had just begun to make him feel very sick.
Dick drove him back to the police station. He gave Hamish two of the sleeping pills he had collected from the hospital and helped him into bed. Sonsie and Lugs climbed onto the bed as well and soon all were asleep.
Elspeth called late the following morning. She was furious. “Daviot has refused to give me permission to interview you,” she raged. “He, Jimmy, and Blair held a press conference, taking all the credit.”
“Well, that’s how it should be,” said Hamish, gratefully accepting a cup of coffee from Dick with his bandaged hands. “You know how I feel about promotion. Too much attention from the press and they’d feel obliged to move me to Strathbane. Let them have the glory. Sit down, have a cup o’ coffee, and I’ll give you lots of background.”
“So let’s get this straight,” said Elspeth when he had finished. “How did she get into the country?”
“They found a false passport in a rented car. It was parked up in the High Street in Cnothan.”
“So either Sean or Heather murdered Brenda, Gilchrist murdered Morag and Fergus, and Heather may have come back to Scotland to silence Hannah, but failed and Sean finished her off?”
“Something like that,” said Hamish. “Unless she decides to speak, we may never know.”
The phone in the office rang. Hamish went to answer it. Elspeth and Dick waited expectantly until he came back.
“Some forensics are just in,” said Hamish. “In the wall with the body, they found a broken bottle. She died from a blow to the head, and Heather’s fingerprints are on the bottle. And get this. Brenda’s body was full of drugs. They may have planned just to keep her sedated until they decided what to do. Now the locals have started talking. A woman says she saw Brenda staggering up the main street on the night Morag was drugged. She looked in the window of the pub, maybe seeing if someone in there could help her. Sean came running after her. He spoke to her and guided her into a car and drove off. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I feel like arresting the whole of that damn village for obstructing the police in their enquiries. Some of the villagers now say they wanted everything to settle down because they were terrified of the factory closing.”
“You know what we highlanders are like,” said Elspeth. “Very secretive. I’ll just go outside the waterfront and make my report. I won’t mention you, don’t worry. But why cash for the staff? I mean, don’t they get paid by cheque?”
“Jimmy says that the new accountant, a Polish woman, spilled the beans. Gilchrist cut the price for various foreign customers, provided they paid cash. Of course, a lot of legitimate business was put through the books. The staff hadn’t been paid for a month. I think he was saving up to make a run for it. And Heather knew about it. There was close to a million in cash in the safe.”
Heather slowly regained consciousness. Memory came flooding back. She felt no remorse. Brenda, stupid, dull Brenda, had always been the favourite. There had been a frightening moment when Sean came back with half-drugged Brenda and said he had found her looking in the window of the pub. The first thing Harry Gilchrist had asked was whether Morag had been sketching as usual. She might have seen the face at the window. He ordered Sean to go back, slip something in her drink, and snatch the sketchbook.
Then Harry, all sheep-like, said that Morag was blackmailing him, saying he was the father of her baby. He would lose his good name.
Heather had walked up to Morag’s lodgings, heavily disguised, and waited outside. She was in luck. No one was around to see her. She backed her Range Rover up to the door. When Morag came out, she came up behind her and strangled her. She ran up the stairs and pinned a postcard to the door. She dumped the body in the boot and then, during the night, she and Gilchrist had rolled the body up in a bale of T-shirts. They then put the bale away from the others, planning to move it and the body when the hunt for Morag was over, if by any chance the postcard saying she had gone away did not work. But some workers had found the bale and had been prepared to load it with the others when they found the body.
All that planning gone for nothing, and because of one local copper.
One of her arms was bandaged, and the good one was padlocked to the bed.
Somehow, I’ve got to get out of here, she thought.
Every time a nurse or doctor came to examine her, she feigned unconsciousness.
And then she heard a doctor say: “Better remove that handcuff. We’re taking her along to the burns unit to see how she’s healing up. She should have been coming out of unconsciousness by now.”
Then followed an argument with the nurse about how much sedative had been given.
Heather felt the handcuff being removed and the movement as her bed was wheeled out of the room, past the policeman on guard. She heard the policeman say, “I’d better follow you,” and, to her relief, the doctor replied, “No need for that. Keep to your post. We’ll have her back shortly.”
Along corridors they went. Then she felt the hum of a lift and a sensation of being borne upwards.
Out of the lift, through doors, and then silence. A fading voice of the doctor said, “The burns surgeon, Mr. Gillespie, will be along in a minute. I must get a cup of coffee.”
Heather cautiously opened one eye, one half of her burnt face being covered in bandages.
She swung her legs over the bed. It was an effort to stand up. But she was fuelled by a mad desire to escape. She tottered to where surgical gowns and masks were hanging. She put on a gown, a mask, and surgical boots.
The corridor outside was empty. She made her way along, looking in the private rooms until she found one with a woman, lying asleep. She went to her locker and removed her c
oat, scarf, woollen hat, socks, and shoes. Her handbag was there as well. Heather put on the clothes, slung the handbag over her good arm, and wrapped the scarf around her face. She saw a bottle of morphine pills on the bedside table and slipped them into her pocket. She then made her way to the lift, staggering slightly.
Once outside the hospital, she took a set of car keys out of the stolen handbag and went round the car park, clicking the remote control until a car flashed a welcome.
With a sigh of relief, Heather put the keys in the ignition and drove off.
She had no idea where she was going. All she knew was that for the moment, she was free.
Hamish was horrified when he heard the news of Heather’s escape. He was summoned to police headquarters to wait for the videotapes from the hospital, as he had a better chance than most of recognising Heather. But there seemed to be miles of red tape to go through before the hospital released the videos.
Hamish and Jimmy eventually sat down and studied them.
“There she goes, coming out of that room,” said Hamish bitterly. “You can just see a bit of her bandages between the scarf and the hat.” There was a shot of her leaving reception.
“What about the car park?” demanded Hamish.
A man from hospital security said, “We don’t have cameras in the car park.”
“Find out who’s in that room she came out of,” shouted Jimmy. “Oh, the hell with it. Come on, Hamish, let’s get there now.”
The patient turned out to be an elderly woman, a Mrs. Gloag, suffering from cancer. They found out that her handbag was missing as well as her clothes, and that her wallet with her credit cards and car keys had been in it.
Police, already searching for Heather, were given the registration of the car.
“I can’t sit here,” said Hamish. “I’m getting out there to see if I can find her.”
Heather circled around before finally deciding to dump the car. She had to find somewhere to hide out. She walked slowly across the fields at the back of Lochdubh. And then she saw an isolated cottage up on a brae. As she watched, an elderly man with a long grey beard came out and put a bag of rubbish in a bin outside the house.
