by M C Beaton
From the back of the crowd, a well-aimed tomato sailed over heads and landed right on John’s face. The villagers cheered. The tomato was followed by an egg. Other missiles sailed through the air. “Stop filming!” howled John, dodging right and left, but the camera rolled on. He saw Hamish and shouted, “You’re condoning this!”
“All right, that’s enough,” said Hamish reluctantly.
John rounded on Jessma. “Harry Tarrant, your boss, is a friend of mine. I’ll get him to sack you.”
“He’s the drama executive,” said Jessma. “I work for news.”
John strode off to his car, staggering slightly as Archie Maclean landed a kick on his bottom.
Jessma turned to Hamish. “We’ve got good stuff here. Watch the news at six.”
“How did you hear about the class?” asked Hamish.
“Six of your villagers phoned in last night with complaints.”
“Won’t you get in trouble with this drama executive he was talking about?”
“No. He might shout and complain, but we can say we can’t consult the drama department over news.”
“Let’s hope that’s the end of John,” said Hamish. “I’ll be right glad to see the back of that man.”
The wind had shifted round to the north and was blowing with increasing ferocity. The crowd began to scatter, people huddling coats around themselves.
Hamish set off on his beat. He decided to call in at the Tommel Castle Hotel. The hotel had once been the home of the love of his life, Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, until her father had fallen on hard times and had turned the place into a successful hotel.
Hamish wanted to hear if there was any news about Priscilla. He knew she had planned to get married and that the wedding kept getting postponed, and although he told himself he was no longer interested in her, his heart rose at each postponement.
Mr. Johnson, the manager, came out to greet him. “Mooching coffee as usual, Hamish?”
“No, but if you’ve got any, I’d like a cup.”
“Come into the office.”
Hamish followed him in with Lugs at his heels. “That dog of yours is too fat,” said Mr. Johnson.
“He’s chust fine,” said Hamish, irritated, while mentally promising to put Lugs on yet another diet.
Mr. Johnson poured him a cup of coffee. “What brings you?”
“You forget. The hotel’s on my beat. I’m supposed to check up that you aren’t harbouring terrorists or running drugs.”
“You need to check on Dimity Dan’s for drugs.”
“You’ve heard something?”
“Just a buzz here and there. Priscilla’s not married, if that’s why you really came.”
Hamish’s face flamed as red as his hair. “This was supposed to be a friendly call,” he said stiffly.
“Well, sit down and stop glaring at me. What’s all this about John Heppel creating mayhem in Lochdubh? One of the maids said there was quite a scene on the waterfront.”
Hamish told him about the writing class. “That’s a shame,” said Mr. Johnson. “We’ve got a writer staying here, Mary Timper. You know, she writes family sagas. Very popular.”
“Any chance of meeting her?”
“Why?”
“I just had this idea that maybe I could get her to talk to the folks who’d written stuff, and get a proper opinion from her.”
“I suppose it’ll do no harm if you ask her.” He picked up the phone and dialled a number. “Miss Timper. There’s someone down here would like a word with you. It’s our local bobby. No, no, nothing serious. He wants to ask your help. Right. He’ll be in the lounge.” He replaced the phone. “She’ll be right down. Take yourself off to the lounge and leave that dog of yours here.”
Left alone, Lugs sadly eyed the closed door through which his master had just left. Then he sniffed the air. Biscuits! Mr. Johnson had left a plate of biscuits on his desk beside the coffee cups.
He stood up on his hind legs and felt with his forepaws. Then he climbed up on Mr. Johnson’s chair. He chomped his way through the whole plate of biscuits and then tried to slurp the coffee out of the manager’s cup, but it tipped over and the contents spilled across the desk.
Somewhere in Lugs’s doggy brain, he sensed he was now in trouble. He climbed down from the chair and sat near the door. A maid opened the door. Lugs darted past her and ran out to the Land Rover and lay down on the far side of it.
In the meantime Hamish was shaking hands with Mary Timper. She was a pleasant, grey-haired motherly-looking woman with pale blue eyes magnified by large glasses.
“What brings you to Sutherland?” asked Hamish.
“I came because of the hotel’s reputation. I like hotels. I like someone else to do the cooking and house-cleaning once in a while. But you didn’t call to ask me why I’m here, did you?”
“No. We’ve got a writing class in Lochdubh.”
“Ah, yes, someone called John Heppel. I haven’t read him.”
“You wouldn’t want to. It’s like this.” Hamish told her about the humiliation of the villagers and ended with, “So I just wondered if maybe you could look at their work and give them all a bit of a boost.”
She sighed. “I’m not an editor.”
“You see,” pleaded Hamish, “some of the folks bought computers, and they were all so excited about the writing. The winters up here are long and dreary. I hate the idea of them thinking it’s all been a waste of time.”
“Oh, very well. I’ll have a go. When?”
“I thought maybe this evening about seven-thirty at the village hall? I’ll call for you.”
“You are persistent, aren’t you? All right. I’ll do my best.”
♦
Before Hamish went out that evening to collect Mary, he turned on the six o’clock news. They had given quite a large coverage to the humiliation of John by the villagers. He felt suddenly uncomfortable. Surely John deserved it all, but the anger and violence of the villagers, highlighted by the camera, made him uneasy.
When Hamish drove Mary to the village hall, she kept nervously protesting that she did not have the talents of an editor. But once she got started, Hamish thought she did marvellously. She even got one of the locals to read out a translation of Alistair’s work. She made tactful suggestions to each, but always throwing in a bit of praise, which made each villager glow with pride.
The evening was just winding up with the villagers crowding around Mary to thank her when the door of the village hall burst open. A crofter from Cnothan, Perry Sutherland, stood there, his face as white as paper.
“Hamish Macbeth!” he shouted.
“I’m here. What’s the matter, Perry?”
“It iss thon writer. He hass killed himself.”
♦
Hamish asked Angela to run Mary back to the hotel, then he sprinted to the police station, got in the Land Rover, and turned on the siren. He raced out of Lochdubh and onto the Cnothan Road.
The stars were bright and the night had turned bitterly cold. The track to John’s croft house was already hard under his wheels and frost shone like marcasite on the heather on either side of the track. Behind him in his car came Perry Sutherland.
The door of John’s cottage was standing open with light streaming out. Perry joined Hamish. “Was the door like that before?” asked Hamish.
“Aye, that’s why I went in. I chapped first, and when I didnae hear nothing, I went in and found him on the floor.”
Hamish hurried into the cottage. In the living room John Heppel was lying on the floor. Hamish knelt down beside him and felt for a pulse. There was no sign of life. He sighed and sat back on his heels and looked around the room. The remains of an evening meal lay on the table. The room was icy cold. The computer was still switched on, and he could see something on the screen. He got up and went over to the computer. There was a message which read, “I can’t go on living any more. The people of Lochdubh have killed me.”
Hamish took out his mobile and
phoned Strathbane police headquarters and reported the death.
Then he went back and stared down at the body. Surely no one as vain as John would take his own life. But if he had, how had he killed himself?
He pulled on gloves. He longed to search the house but knew he would get a rocket from the forensic boys for leaving his footprints all over the place. He decided to have a look inside the dead man’s mouth to see if that would give him a clue. He went back out to where Perry was shivering under the stars.
“They’re on their way, Perry,” said Hamish. “There’s nothing you can do. Get into your car and switch on the heater.”
“This is a bad business,” said Perry. “I saw him on the news. Do you think that’s what did it?”
“I hope not,” said Hamish, thinking that if John had really committed suicide, he might become some sort of literary martyr crucified by wicked villagers.
Hamish searched for the kit he always carried with him in the Land Rover and drew out a tongue depressor. He went back in and knelt down again and felt the body. Rigor had not yet set in. He might have died recently. But Hamish knew that rapid cooling of a body could delay rigor.
He gently slid the tongue depressor between John’s dead lips and opened the mouth a little. He could see that the tongue was black. He withdrew the depressor and looked around again. There was something nagging at the back of his mind. He got up and went to the fire. He noticed the peat was gleaming damply. He leaned into the fireplace and touched it. Then he stood up and frowned. He could swear water had been thrown on that fire to put it out.
Hamish could hear sirens in the distance. He removed his gloves, slid the tongue depressor into his pocket, and walked outside. The great oak tree growing over the cottage groaned in a rising north wind, and as one old branch rubbed against another, making a creaking sound, Hamish shivered and thought that a gibbet with a body on it would have sounded like that in the old days.
He hoped Detective Chief Inspector Blair was drunk or on leave or anywhere that would stop him from coming. His thickheaded, bullying ways had impeded many of Hamish’s investigations. But his heart sank as the first police car arrived and Blair’s heavy body heaved itself out of the backseat.
“Whit do we have?” he demanded in his heavy, truculent Glasgow accent.
“John Heppel is dead. He’s left an apparent suicide note, but I think – ”
“What you think, laddie, doesnae matter. We’ll wait for the pathologist. She’s on her way.”
“She?”
“Aye, they would go and appoint some damn woman. That’s the trouble these days. They want to look all modern, so they shove some lassie into a job that should ha’ gone to a man.”
“Who is she?”
“Professor Jane Forsyth. Here she comes.”
A little Ford drew up, and a stocky middle-aged woman got out. “Where’s the body?” she asked.
“It’s in the living room,” said Hamish.
Hamish made to follow her, but Blair growled, “Stay where you are.”
So Hamish stayed and looked up at the stars and shivered in the wind and wondered what it was that was nagging somewhere at the back of his brain. And suddenly he had it. John had signed the book for him with an old–fashioned fountain pen, the kind you refilled from a bottle of ink. There had been a bottle of ink on his desk.
He was sure that someone had either poured ink into John’s mouth or made him drink it. That smacked of revenge. That smacked of murder. But he had somehow to get to the pathologist without Blair listening.
Detective Jimmy Anderson arrived. Hamish went to meet him. “Jimmy, don’t ask at the moment. Just get Blair out of there so I can have a sneaky word with the pathologist.”
“Cost you a bottle o’ whisky. I’ll need to lie. I’ll need to say that Superintendent Daviot is particularly interested and wants him to phone right away.”
“What happens to you when Daviot says he doesn’t know what Blair’s talking about?”
“Daviot’s attending the Freemasons tonight. Let’s hope by the time he hears about this, he’s really interested.”
Jimmy went into the house. I hope Blair doesn’t take out his mobile or use John’s phone, thought Hamish, but a minute later Blair shot out and went to the police car.
Hamish slid into the house and approached the pathologist. “There are two things you ought to know,” he said, bending over her as she worked on the body. “His tongue is black and I think it’s ink.”
“Ink!” She stared up at him in surprise. “What makes you say that?”
“I put a tongue depressor in his mouth to see if I could find out if he had taken anything. His tongue was black. He used an old–fashioned fountain pen.” Hamish looked across at the desk. “There’s an empty bottle of ink there. It was full the other night. Also, water’s been thrown on the fire to put it out and delay rigor. Someone was trying to cover up the time of death. Don’t tell Blair I looked in his mouth.”
They heard Blair lumbering back towards the cottage. Professor Forsyth quickly opened John’s mouth just as Blair came in.
“How you getting on, lassie?” said Blair.
“My name is Professor Forsyth, and I hope you will remember that in future. This man’s tongue is black. Your intelligent officer here has just pointed out it looks like ink, and the ink bottle on the desk is empty. The fire has been put out, as if someone wanted to delay the onset of rigor. It could well be murder.”
“I told you to wait outside,” yelled Blair.
“Just as well he didn’t,” said the pathologist.
“What about the suicide note?” demanded Blair.
“Anyone could have written that. I’ll need to get this body removed to the lab for a proper autopsy, I shall send a report of my findings to the procurator fiscal.”
“If there are no prints on that ink bottle,” said Hamish, “or on the keyboard of the computer, then that will definitely be suspicious.”
“Just get the hell out of here!” roared Blair. “Go and look at your sheep or whatever it is you usually do.”
The professor gave a click of annoyance.
Hamish retreated. He decided to go back to the police station. Jimmy, lured by whisky, would visit him as soon as he could. As he left, he noticed the forensic team had arrived and were putting on their blue suits with tight-fitting hoods and bags drawn tightly over their shoes so that no trace of their own DNA should mess up a possible murder scene.
♦
In the police station Hamish made himself a cup of coffee after giving Lugs a bowl of water and sat down to think before he typed up his report. It looked to him as if someone, somehow, had murdered John, maybe forcing him to drink the ink first. Then the murderer may have panicked and tried to fake a suicide, possibly wiping John’s dead face to remove any external traces of ink.
Who had reason to hate John so much? There were the village members of the writing class. He had humiliated all of them.
“I hope it’s not one of them,” said Hamish to Lugs. “I knew that man would bring evil here.”
He sighed and went through to his computer in the police office, typed his report, and sent it off to headquarters. He had just finished when Jimmy Anderson called from the kitchen door, “Anyone at home?”
“Aye, come ben,” shouted Hamish.
He closed down the computer and said over his shoulder to Jimmy, “This is a bad business. How did it go after I left?”
“Give me a dram and I’ll tell you.”
They went into the kitchen, where Hamish got down the whisky bottle and two glasses.
“I’ll pour my own,” said Jimmy, seizing the bottle. They both sat down at the kitchen table.
“It’s cold in here,” complained Jimmy.
Hamish rose and went to the stove. He raked down the ashes, put in kindling, and threw a lighted match in. When it was all burning, he added several slices of peat and replaced the lid of the stove. He sat down again.
He looked
steadily at Jimmy.
“Well, was it murder?”
∨ Death of a Bore ∧
4
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone, and for ever!
—Sir Walter Scott
“Thon professor seemed to think so. Blair is raging. He’s due to go on holiday the next week, and he thinks you invented clues pointing to murder to spite him. Anyway, it looks as if the focus is going to be on that writing class here. Blair’s coming over tomorrow to interview everyone.”
“I’d like to be there when he interviews the Currie sisters,” said Hamish. “But you know Blair. I suppose I’m off the case.”
“Not quite. You’re to make door-to-door enquiries.”
“Press arrived yet?”
“The Tommel Castle Hotel is beginning to fill up. They’re a funny lot. What beats me is that by tomorrow there’ll be some fellow standing in front of the camera saying, “And here I am in the picturesque village of Lochdubh.” Will anyone see a bit of the village? Not on your life. All they’ll see is his big ba’ heid in front of the camera.”
“Jessma Gardener is pretty good.”
“Fancy her, do you? What about that reporter lassie you were romancing?”
“She got a job in Glasgow.”
“Going down to see her?”
“Maybe.” Hamish realised with a little jolt that he missed Elspeth Grant. At first he had been relieved when she left. But all the good and bad times they had shared together came flooding into his mind and he wondered why he had ever let her go. Had she still been in Lochdubh, she would be sitting across from him with her frizzy hair and thrift shop clothes, her silver eyes fixed steadily on his as she brought her uncanny psychic abilities to bear on the case.
“You should ha’ married her,” said Jimmy, helping himself to more whisky.
“You’re not a good advertisement for marriage,” said Hamish huffily. “How many times? Three?”
“Two. Anyway, back to the murder. If it turns out to be ink in his mouth, then it looks as if someone offed him with hate and then tried to make it look like suicide. Everyone saw the hatred of the villagers on the telly. What about that brute Alistair Taggart? He’s been done once for assaulting a fellow worker.”
