Death of a Travelling Man hm-9

by M C Beaton

  But there was nothing he could do about that unless Cheryl showed any signs of wanting to report Sean for beating her up, and from the way she had suddenly started to scream obscenities at the police, it was highly doubtful if she ever would. But what did Mrs Wellington think when she heard the girl running off at the mouth like that? Possibly she hadn’t heard her. Possibly Cheryl reserved her swear-words for the police.

  Next day the Strathbane and Highland Gazette carried a photograph of Sean and Cheryl on the front page. Sean was looking like a film star and Cheryl was attired in a pretty flowered cotton dress, with her hair done in two pigtails. The article quoted Sean as saying that they were a couple who only wanted to be left alone to enjoy the beautiful Highlands of Scotland but that they were being persecuted by the police. Inspector Turnbull was correctly quoted, describing Sean as a long-haired layabout. The article finished by saying that the couple were living in a converted bus on manse land with the full approval of the minister and his wife.

  So that was that, apart from a stern warning from Strathbane not to go near the couple again unless evidence was concrete.

  ♦

  Sean and Cheryl had purchased from somewhere a small motor scooter, and one day, they roared off on it. But their bus still stood up on the manse field. Hamish, however, was glad to see them go, and hoped they would stay away for a few days at least.

  But while they were gone, Hamish received an agitated caller, the treasurer of the Mothers’ Union, Mrs Battersby. She was a thin, pale woman in her mid-forties with thick glasses, wispy hair and dressed in a wool two-piece she had knitted herself out of one of Patel’s ‘special offers’, a sulphurous-yellow yarn. “There’s one hundred pounds missing from the kitty,” she said.

  Hamish’s thoughts immediately flew to Sean. “When do you think it was taken?” he asked.

  “Let me see, I counted it on Sunday, for Mrs Anderson had given me ten pounds. We have been collecting for Famine Relief. Then this morning, Mrs Gunn gave me five pounds and I opened up the box to add that money to it and thought I’d better just count it all over again and log it in the book and I immediately saw that one hundred pounds had gone!”

  Hamish’s heart sank. Sean and Cheryl had left last Saturday. They couldn’t have taken it.

  “How much was there altogether?” he asked.

  “One hundred and forty-five pounds and twenty-three pee.”

  “It’s a wonder the lot wasn’t taken.”

  “Ah, you see, the hundred was in notes and the remainder is just in small change.”

  “I’d better come along and hae a look,” said Hamish. “Willie, you come as well.”

  Willie, who had come through from the kitchen, began to remove his apron. “Aye, thon’s the grand lad you have there,” said Mrs Battersby despite her distress at the theft. “Always cleaning.”

  Hamish, in order to keep relations with Willie as easy as possible, had allowed the policeman to continue housekeeping. It seemed to be Willie’s only interest in life. A new cleaner on the market was judged by Willie with all the care of a connoisseur sampling a rare wine. It was a pity, thought Hamish, that he had under him a policeman who showed so little interest in policing.

  They walked together towards the church hall. “So the funds are kept here,” said Hamish. “I would have thought you would have kept them at home.”

  “The reason I did not,” said Mrs Battersby, “is because of the great responsibility of it all. If any went missing in my home, then I would get the blame.”

  “There’s a lot o’ wickedness around,” said Willie. “The minister was saying only last Sunday that it creepeth like the serpent and stingeth like the adder.”

  “That’s booze, not burglary,” snapped Hamish, distressed at this evidence that the minister was still reading out ancient hell-fire sermons.

  There was a small group of women outside the church hall, headed by Mrs Wellington, her face white with distress.

  “Who could have done such a thing?” she cried when she saw them.

  “Chust let me see where the money was kept,” said Hamish.

  Mrs Wellington produced a massive key and unlocked the church hall. She led the way into the kitchen and opened a cupboard under the sink. There, among the cleaners and dusters, was a tin box with a small padlock. The padlock had been broken.

  “Now that’s verra interesting,” said Willie.

  “What is?” demanded Hamish.

  “Judge’s Lemon Shine,” said Willie, holding up a bottle. “That’ll no’ get ye verra far with the cleaning, ladies. It’s no good with the grease.”

  “Get out of the way,” muttered Hamish, exasperated. He took a large handkerchief out of his pocket and gently lifted the box up on to the kitchen counter. “Any sign of a break-in?” he asked. “Any broken windows?”

  “Nothing at all,” said Mrs Battersby.

  “So who’s got the key to the hall?”

  There was a shamefaced silence and then one woman said, “It’s kept under the doormat outside. Anyone could have got it.”

  “There’s not much I can do, ladies,” said Hamish, “short of fingerprinting the whole village, and even then I doubt if I’d find the prints of the thief on the box. There’s probably only your fingerprints on it, Mrs Battersby.”

  A small, angry-looking woman, Mrs Gunn, said, “I notice ye got a new microwave the last week, Mrs Battersby.”

  “What are you saying?” squeaked Mrs Battersby. “Me, that’s worked so hard for Famine Relief, to take that money!”

  “We won’t get to the bottom of this if you’re all going to maliciously accuse each other,” said Hamish sharply. “Now the money was all right on Sunday. This is Wednesday. Who’s been in the hall since then?”

  “The Guides used it on Monday evening,” volunteered Mrs Wellington, “and the Boy Scouts on Tuesday evening.”

  “Bessie Dunbar’s the Guide captain,” said Mrs Gunn, “and herself came back from Inverness ‘on Monday wi’ a new coat.”

  “Enough!” roared Hamish, upset by the malice, upset by the fact that the usually indomitable Mrs Wellington had begun to cry. “I need a list of all the members of the Mothers’ Union. Willie, you start taking statements from those here. Mrs Wellington, go home and get a cup of tea or something and I’ll call on you later.”

  By the end of the day, Hamish thought wearily that some of the murder cases he had previously worked on had been clean and innocent compared to the spite and malice roused by the theft of the Mothers’ Union funds. Everyone seemed eager to accuse everyone else. Any woman who had a new purchase of any kind was evidently suspect. He doggedly went round the village taking statement after statement, ending up at the manse with Mrs Wellington.

  “This iss a bad business,” mourned Hamish. “I thought ye were all such friends, and now one’s accusing the other.” He turned on the minister, who was slumped in an armchair by the fire. “This village is in sore need of a lecture on common decency. I suggest you start thinking of them and less about yourself and give them a sermon about the wickedness of bearing false witness against their neighbour. I neffer thought to see the day in Lochdubh. If I believed in the devil, then I’d say he’d come among you!”

  “Maybe he has,” said Mrs Wellington, scrubbing at her red eyes with a damp handkerchief.

  “Havers,” snorted Hamish. “Where are the funds now?”

  “Nobody trusts poor Mrs Battersby or anyone else,” said Mrs Wellington. “So I took what’s left to the bank and lodged it with the manager.”

  Hamish asked a string of questions, trying to find out if anyone from outside had been seen in the village, but there was no one. There were guests up at Tommel Castle Hotel who had arrived on Sunday but none as yet had come down to the village, the guests having been out on the river on the colonel’s estate, fishing.

  At last he made his way from the manse and then stopped in surprise outside the trim cottage owned by Jessie and Nessie Currie. A ‘For Sale’ sign was
placed by the garden gate.

  Now the sisters, although often a pain in the neck to Hamish with their frequent remarks that he was a lazy lout, were Lochdubh, as much a part of the scenery as the twin mountains which rose above the village, and the sea loch in front of it.

  He had interviewed them earlier, for both, although spinsters, were members of the Mothers’ Union. He walked up to the door and knocked.

  A lace curtain twitched beside the window and then there was a long silence. He knocked again. Jessie answered the door. “Oh, it’s yourself,” she said. “It’s yourself.” Jessie often repeated herself, like the brave thrush, as if she never could recapture the first fine careless rapture of her original sentences.

  “You didnae tell me you were thinking of moving,” said Hamish.

  “Why should we? Why should we?” demanded Jessie and then slammed the door in his face.

  Hamish walked sadly away.

  He was hailed by Dr Brodie. “I’m going to the pub for a dram,” said the doctor. “Care to join me?”

  “Aye, I’d be glad to get the taste of this day out of my mouth.”

  “I heard what happened,” said Dr Brodie. “First the morphine and then this theft of money and the only people who might have taken the stuff are Sean and Cheryl, but the drugs weren’t found on them and they were definitely out of the village when the money was stolen.”

  “Everything’s gone bad and wrong,” mourned Hamish. “You should have heard these women, all hinting that one or the other one of them had stolen the funds. Jessie and Nessie Currie have put their house up for sale.”

  “What?” The doctor stopped short in amazement. “Why? What’s happened?”

  “I don’t know. Jessie answered the door but she wouldn’t talk to me. Everyone in this village has changed for the worse since Sean arrived.”

  They walked into the bar. Dr Brodie bought two double whiskies and they sat down at a small table in the corner. The juke-box was belting out a country-and-western number which eventually twanged to a halt, leaving a blessed silence.

  “Angela’s gone funny again,” said the doctor.

  “But she’s been doing so well, studying for her degree,” said Hamish, “and she’s been so happy.”

  “She’s gone edgy of late and she keeps asking me for money for clothes. Angela! I could have sworn Angela didn’t know what was on her back half the time. Do you know, Hamish, she came back from Inverness last week with a dress that cost three hundred pounds! Three hundred! I didn’t know there was a shop in Inverness that sold anything as expensive as that.”

  “Oh, Inverness is a boom town,” said Hamish. “There’s all sorts of shops now. Maybe we’re behind the times. Maybe three hundred pounds is not an odd price for a frock.”

  “Maybe not in Bond Street, but it’s a hell of a price to pay for something to wear around the hills and glens.”

  “Is it a verra grand frock?”

  “I’m no judge. It’s just black, and the only thing about it is that it’s got a Christian Dior label.”

  “Are you worried she’s fallen in love with someone else?” asked Hamish.

  “There can’t be anyone else. If you’re thinking of Sean Gourlay, forget it. Oh, she took the odd cake and things over to the bus, but then she’s like that. Always ready to welcome any newcomer to the village. But after the initial visits, she lost interest. There’s something secret and nervy about her. I got out my torch and examined her eyeballs in case she had been taking the drugs for herself.”

  “Well, that’s enough to put any woman off her husband, for a start,” said Hamish.

  “Aye, but I had to know. It’s not drugs. She’s plain miserable. One minute she’s all over me, and the next, she’s telling me to get lost.”

  “Sean Gourlay…” began Hamish.

  “Forget it,” sighed Dr Brodie. “Admit it, you’ve had a bee in your bonnet about that one since he came here.”

  “But everything’s gone wrong since he came here,” protested Hamish. “Everything’s wrong, everything’s polluted. Mr Wellington’s lost his faith and is ranting rubbish from the pulpit which was written in the last century, and he doesn’t believe a word of it. Mrs Wellington’s a wreck, Jessie and Nessie are selling up, and the women at the Mothers’ Union are that spiteful, you wouldnae believe it. There’s something at the back of it all, and I mean to find out!”

  ♦

  The next morning, Sean and Cheryl returned. The next afternoon, they had a public row on the waterfront. Cheryl called Sean every name under the sun. She was astride the scooter and had a rucksack on her back. The fluency of her obscenities amazed the villagers, the mothers clamping their hands over their children’s ears but continuing to listen themselves.

  Shorn of obscenities, Cheryl’s complaint was that she was sick of the village and sick of Sean and she was leaving and she would not be back.

  Sean shrugged and smiled lazily and then loped off with long strides, up towards the manse. Cheryl drove off on the scooter, put-putting her way out of Lochdubh, over the newly repaired hump-backed bridge, up the long road which led past Tommel Castle Hotel and out of sight.

  One down, thought Hamish Macbeth savagely, and one to go.

  ∨ Death of a Travelling Man ∧

  5

  There’s a great deal to be said

  For being dead.

  —E. C. Bentley

  After a week of squally, sleety rain, the weather became balmy again and the waters of the loch still. Seagulls cruised lazily overhead, swooping occasionally to admire their reflections and then soaring effortlessly up again. On the surface, Lochdubh looked much the same as ever. Smells of strong tea and tar and peat smoke. Sounds of radio, clattering dishes, bleating sheep, and chugging boats.

  But underneath it all the theft of the Mothers’ Union funds spread like a cancer. Hamish, after wondering how long Priscilla meant to ignore him, eventually caved in and took the single-track road up out of the village to the hotel.

  He felt a slight pang when he saw her busy in the gift shop, her smooth blonde hair lit by a shaft of sunlight. She was selling expensive souvenirs to a group of men who, Hamish noticed with irritation, were taking a long time about their purchases.

  At last the shop was empty. Priscilla gave Hamish a guarded look and said, “Coffee?”

  “That would be grand. Haven’t seen you around for a bit.”

  “I’ve been here, you know,” said Priscilla with an edge on her voice. “I gather you and Doris had a pleasant dinner last week.”

  “She invited me,” said Hamish defensively, for he felt guilty at having accepted the invitation, knowing he had only done it in the hope that Doris would tell Priscilla, which she evidently had.

  Priscilla handed him a mug of coffee. “Well, let’s hope our new receptionist doesn’t fall for you as well.”

  “New receptionist? What’s happened to Doris?”

  “Dear me. Didn’t she tell you? She left. She’s got a job in a hotel in Perth.”

  Hamish felt nothing but relief. Doris had all but proposed to him and it had been an agonizing and embarrassing evening.

  “Well, what’s been going on?” asked Priscilla. “I heard about the money disappearing from the Mothers’ Union.”

  “Oh, it’s the bad business.” Hamish pulled a chair up to the counter and sat down. “All the women are at each other’s throats, the one accusing the other. Dr Brodie’s had four packets of morphine stolen and the only suspect was Sean, but he was searched and we couldn’t find anything. His girlfriend’s gone off but the bastard’s still there, like some canker in the middle of the village.”

  “It’s those demonic good looks of his, Hamish. He’s just a small-time crook, not the devil. I know he took that scarf and then slipped it back somehow.”

  “He’s doing a rare job, nonetheless. He’s managed to talk Mr Wellington out of his faith and Mr Wellington has been using some old sermons he found and it’s all hell-fire and damnation and they l
ove it. Archie Maclean told me he gave up seeing a video of The Werewolf Women of Planet Xerxes because, to quote him, ‘the kirk was better fun’. You should hear those sermons. A real medieval hell, wi’ devils and pitchforks and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. I tried to get him to talk to the priest, I tried to get him to preach kindness and love thy neighbour, but the man’s sunk in gloom. Mrs Wellington looks a wreck. Nessie and Jessie Currie are selling up and leaving, and what that’s got to do with Sean I don’t know, but I feel it has. Angela Brodie’s gone on the twitch again and this time is spending a fortune on clothes.”

  “It sounds awful. How’s Willie?”

  “I don’t know whether the lad’s smitten with Lucia Livia, or whether it’s the dirty stoves at the restaurant he’s after. He lives to clean. Look at that!” Hamish held up one glittering black boot for her inspection. “Even the insoles are polished. Look at my shirts! Starched, every one of them. I’ve got such knife-edged creases in my trousers, it’s a wonder I don’t cut myself.”

  “Some people would think you were lucky,” pointed out Priscilla, “living as you do with a combination of housekeeper and valet.”

  “No, it iss not! I sat down to my breakfast this morning and Willie screeches, “A fly! A fly!” seizes a can of fly-killer and pumps it all over the kitchen and all over my food. If they ever take a blood sample from me, it’ll be three parts insecticide and one part disinfectant. But I’ve got used to Willie. He’s a kind enough lad. He’s jist stark-staring mad, that’s all. No, I feel if I could sort Mr Wellington out and get him to put some sense into the villagers, things would get better.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” said Priscilla, unhitching her coat. “I’m just about to lock up for lunchtime anyway.”

  “You? What can you do?”

  “He might just listen to me. It’s worth a try.”

  “Well,” said Hamish doubtfully, “do your best. Have you forgiven me?”

  “For letting Blair get away with all sorts of mayhem? I still think that was bad of you, Hamish, but when have I ever been able to stay mad at you for long?”