Death of a Bore hm-21

by M C Beaton

  “He’s never any trouble, Elspeth.”

  “That’s why you’ll never get married,” said Elspeth, driving off. “You’re married to your dog.”

  “You can be a nasty bitch at times,” snapped Hamish, and they drove most of the way to Inverness in cold silence.

  At the Caledonian Hotel they found Willie Thompson in the dining room, having breakfast.

  Hamish told him that they wanted an expert to look at a television script and judge how a director would react. “You only need to read a few pages,” he pleaded.

  Willie, a small man with a beard and moustache, sighed, adjusted his rimless spectacles, and began to read.

  At last he said, “I’ve read enough. Who’s directing this?”

  “Paul Gibson.”

  “What! Paranoid Paul?”

  “You know him?”

  “I know his reputation. But this script would drive me mad. Who does this writer think he is telling the director which camera angles to use? And what’s all this crap about the village? How’s he supposed to film that? How on earth did Strathbane Television ever accept a script like this?”

  “The boss, Harry Tarrant,” said Hamish, “was a friend of John Heppel.”

  “Oh, the one that got murdered? After seeing this script, I’m not surprised.”

  “Harry Tarrant compared it to Dostoyevsky.”

  “The curse of directors of soaps is the Dostoyevsky script. Along comes some flowery, literary writer. The bosses are tired of people sneering at their soaps as dumbing down and trash, so they seize on some literary crap and think, that’ll show the critics.”

  “You’ve been a great help,” said Hamish. “Please don’t tell anyone about this.”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Willie, “but you’re wrong. Paul Gibson may be a flake, but murder?”

  “I never said he was a murderer,” said Hamish.

  ♦

  “So what do you do now?” asked Elspeth on the road back. “You’re never going to get a search warrant on the strength of this script.”

  “I’ll think of something. Do you mind if we stop here for a bit? I’ve got to walk Lugs.”

  “Oh, Hamish!”

  ♦

  Hamish went back to the police station, made himself coffee, and sat down to think out a plan of action.

  Then he began to wonder if Harry Tarrant, the executive drama producer, knew that the script had been changed.

  Leaving Lugs this time after he had fed him, he drove off to Strathbane. The wind had shifted round to the north. He rolled down the window and sniffed. He could smell snow in the air.

  At Strathbane Television he had to wait some time before he was able to see Harry Tarrant.

  Hamish handed over the script. “Someone sent me the original script,” he said. “I wondered whether you knew that they were working on a different script.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “I’ve seen the script they’re working on. The storyline is vaguely the same, but that’s all.”

  Harry picked up the phone and dialled an extension. “Sally,” he said, “could you step along to my office?”

  He turned to Hamish. “We’ll get this sorted out.”

  Sally Quinn came in and stopped short at the sight of the script on Harry’s desk.

  “This copper,” said Harry, “says you aren’t working from John’s script.”

  “Well, we are, more or less,” said Sally, looking flustered. “John’s script as it stood was unworkable.”

  “Why wasn’t I consulted?”

  “We didn’t want to bother you. Paul said a few minor changes were necessary.”

  “Bring me a copy of the script he’s using.”

  Sally glared at Hamish as she went out.

  ♦

  Paul Gibson was still in bed when the maid came in to clean his room. “Sorry, sir,” she said, backing out. “I’m that used to you being up early.”

  “It’s all right. Come in. We’re having a late start.” He climbed out of bed and put on his dressing gown. The maid approached the bed with clean sheets. “It looks like snow,” she said.

  “That’s all right. Some snow scenes might be nice.”

  “It’s that exciting having the telly people here, sir.”

  “Must be a very quiet life up here for you,” said Paul, lighting a cigarette.

  “Not always. Our local policeman has solved some murders, and we had the telly and newspapers all over the village.”

  Paul stiffened. “If he’s that good, why is he still a village bobby?”

  “He says he likes it here, that’s why. Of course, we’re all saying in the village he should get married and settled down. We thought he might marry the schoolteacher, but she’s running around with that reporter from Glasgow. Mind you, Elspeth Grant is back. She’s a reporter, too, but she and Hamish were sweet on one another. Maybe something’ll come of that. Mind if I vacuum, sir?”

  ♦

  Harry glared at the script Sally had just handed him. “What the hell’s the meaning of this?” he roared.

  “Paul rewrote it to make it something he could work with.”

  “Without telling me?” He buzzed his secretary. “Get me Paul Gibson on the phone. And get me that director, Johnny Fremont, who did some of the last shows and get him up here fast.”

  He turned to Hamish. “Is there anything else?”

  “Why did you choose Paul Gibson?”

  “John recommended him.”

  “So John Heppel knew him? When? Where?”

  “I think he had written to John once wanting to dramatise his book. Paul wrote the occasional script as well.”

  The phone rang and Harry picked it up. “Paul. You’re fired.”

  Hamish would have liked to hear the rest of the conversation, but Harry waved him away.

  ♦

  Hamish went out into a changed world. The grimy streets and buildings of Strathbane were covered in snow. Fine white snow blew horizontally across the parking lot.

  He drove up onto the moors, driving slowly and carefully because the road ahead seemed to be gradually disappearing. Then he dimly saw the orange light of a snowplough in his rear-view mirror and pulled aside to let it pass. With a feeling of relief, he followed it as far as the Tommel Castle Hotel and swung off into the hotel car park.

  Paul Gibson would be rattled at being fired. Hamish decided to interview him and see if he could get him to betray himself.

  The television crew were trapped in the hotel because of the blizzard. Mr. Johnson came out to greet Hamish. “My guests are getting fed up with this lot,” he said. “At first they found it all very exciting, but now they’re complaining. Television people do swear a lot. It’s like living on a building site.”

  “Is the director around?”

  “You’ll find him in the games room. He was shouting and swearing. I told him I’d turn him out, snow or no snow, so he went in there, the last I saw of him.”

  Hamish pushed open the door of the games room, originally the billiard room in the days when the castle had been a private home. The old billiard table was still there, but a table tennis table had been added, and shelves held board games such as Monopoly and Scrabble.

  Paul Gibson was slumped in an armchair by the fireplace.

  “What do you want?” he asked harshly as Hamish put his peaked hat on the billiard table and sat down opposite him.

  “I want to ask you again where you were on the night John Heppel was murdered.”

  “Minding my own business, and I suggest you do the same.”

  “You hated his script,” said Hamish. “Harry Tarrant was not aware until today that you weren’t using John’s script.”

  Paul’s eyes blazed hatred. “You! You told him. Why? What’s it got to do with a murder?”

  “I think it’s got everything to do with the murder. You stole that van. I don’t think the police have yet looked thoroughly into your background, but if you had the know-how
to hot-wire that van, I’ll swear that you were in trouble with the law sometime in your past. You knew that as long as John was alive, he’d make sure you stuck to his script. You went up there and somehow forced him to drink a concoction of naphthalene. You watched him die. When he finally did, your hatred wasn’t even abated. You poured ink into his mouth.

  “Then you panicked. You cleaned up the vomit and scrubbed the floor. You wiped John’s face clean where the ink had run down his chin. Then you wiped out the computer files, and just to be sure, you put in some software that would overwrite everything on the hard disk. Maybe you’d never used that programme before, and you knew the forensic team would be back the morning after the murder to continue their search. I don’t know how you got hold of Jock Ferguson. But you persuaded him to forget about the computer so that maybe you could go back and get it. Did you promise him a part in the soap or something? But you were too frightened to go back.

  “You must have had some uneasy moments when you heard the computer had gone missing and the police were searching for it.

  “I think that before the murder you had threatened John Heppel, and I think Alice Patty knew about it and said she was going to the police. So you killed her and faked another suicide.”

  Paul studied him in silence, his eyes quite blank. Then he said, “Have you put all this rubbish in a report to Strathbane?”

  “Not yet. I haven’t any hard proof. But now I know it was you, I’ll dig and dig until I get it.”

  “It’s snowing hard,” said Paul mildly. “You won’t get to Strathbane tonight.”

  “I’ll get you,” said Hamish, rising to his feet. “And it won’t take me long.”

  ♦

  Elspeth paced up and down in her hotel room. She was bored and restless. Matthew was somewhere with Freda. They should leave in the morning, but the blizzard was so bad that she doubted they would even get out of the car park.

  Now that she was supposed to be returning to Glasgow, she wished she could stay in Lochdubh and pick up her old job.

  In Glasgow she was just one of many reporters. When she had been working for the Highland Times, she had been pretty much her own boss. She realised with a shock that she missed the flower shows, the game fairs, and the Highland Games.

  There was a knock at the door. Matthew at last, thought Elspeth. He should start to pack just in case the snow stops and the snowploughs can let us get on the road.

  “Coming,” she shouted.

  She went and unlocked the door. Paul Gibson stood there, his eyes blazing, holding a gun on her.

  “Back into the room,” he said. He shut the door behind him. “Sit down by the phone.”

  Elspeth sat down at the desk.

  “Now listen to me carefully. Your boyfriend, Hamish Macbeth, is going to file a report saying he thinks I am the murderer. You will phone him now and tell him to drop it or I will shoot you. You will tell him if he tells the police and I see one policeman outside, I will shoot you. Do it now!”

  Elspeth phoned the police station. When Hamish answered, she said, “Hamish, it’s me, Elspeth. Paul Gibson’s got a gun and he’s threatening to shoot me if you send anything about him to Strathbane. He says he’ll also shoot me if he sees one policeman outside the hotel.”

  “Sit tight,” said Hamish urgently. “Don’t do anything to alarm him. Keep him talking.”

  Elspeth rang off. “You can’t keep me here indefinitely,” she said, amazed her voice was steady. “To use a well-worn phrase, you won’t get away with this.”

  “Oh, I will. You see, the Lone Ranger will come looking for you. I’ll shoot both of you and make it look like a lovers’ quarrel.”

  Elspeth opened her mouth to tell him he was mad but shut it again. He had gone over the edge. Keep him talking.

  “You knew Joha Heppel before, didn’t you?” she asked.

  “I wrote to him once. I wanted to dramatise his book. I didn’t think much of it, but I thought there was enough there to make a dark drama. I wrote a lot of flattering guff I didn’t mean. That’s how he remembered me, and he asked Harry Tarrant if I could direct.”

  “But why kill him? You could simply have gone to Tarrant and pointed out that the script was unworkable.”

  “God, I tried. The silly bugger said, “You don’t know literature when you see it. If you can’t work with it, I’ll find a producer-director who can.” It was my big chance. Everyone in Scotland watches Down in the Glen. It was scheduled to be shown in England next year. No one was going to get in my way.”

  Hamish, what on earth can you do? wondered Elspeth miserably.

  ♦

  Hamish approached the back of the Tommel Castle Hotel on his snowshoes. He let himself in at the kitchen entrance, unstrapped the snowshoes, and propped them against the wall. Clarry, the chef, was enjoying a quiet glass of sherry and stared in surprise at Hamish.

  “Clarry,” said Hamish urgently, “there’s a man with a gun in Elspeth’s room. Get the manager in here.”

  Clarry hurried off and came back shortly with Mr. Johnson. “What’s this about a gunman?” asked the manager.

  Hamish told him. “I need to get into Elspeth’s room. This castle is full of back passages and things. Any way I can get in there?”

  The manager shook his head. “You’ll need to get a squad up from Strathbane.”

  “Can’t do that. It’s Paul Gibson. If he sees so much as a uniform, he’ll shoot her. He’s got nothing to lose now. He’s been fired.”

  ♦

  Upstairs, Elspeth fumbled in her handbag, which was on the desk.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Paul.

  “Looking for a cigarette.”

  “Leave it.”

  “Okay.”

  But Elspeth had managed to switch on the small tape recorder she carried in her bag, and she left the bag wide open.

  “Why mothballs?” she asked. “What put that idea in your head?”

  “Because he was like a sodding great moth, batting against my light whenever I tried to do anything. I’d distilled a solution and held the gun on him till he drank it. Then when he was dying, I got into his computer and wiped out that rotten script. No one was going to complain about my script. They’d all had enough of John except Miss Mimsy, Alice Patty, burbling on about what a genius her dear John was.”

  “So you had to kill her as well?”

  “She phoned me up in tears and said that she was sure I had killed John, that John had told her I had threatened his life. I told her to sit tight and I would come round and explain everything. I told her I had proof that Patricia Wheeler had done it. She loved hearing that because she was still jealous of Patricia. I drugged a bottle of wine and took it round.”

  I’m going to die, thought Elspeth miserably. I don’t think Hamish can get me out of this.

  ♦

  “We could take a tray up and say, “Room service,” and put some drugged drink on the tray,” suggested Clarry.

  “He’d just make her say to leave it outside the door,” said Hamish.

  “I could say she had to sign for it, and when she opens the door, we could rush him.”

  “He’d shoot her in the back. He’s deranged.”

  “So how do we smoke him out?” asked Mr. Johnson.

  Hamish stared at him and then said, “That’s it! You start the fire alarm, get whoever it is who has the keys to the television vans in the forecourt, and usher everyone into them so they don’t freeze to death. Clarry, we need something that makes really black smoke and those old–fashioned bellows from the lounge fire.”

  ♦

  Paul had fallen silent, although the gun in his hand never wavered. At last he said, “Where’s that boyfriend of yours?”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” said Elspeth wearily. “Didn’t it cross your mind he might not bother, that he might just be waiting for reinforcements from Strathbane?”

  “Then you’re dead.”

  Paul jumped as the fire alarm sounded
through the hotel. Elspeth half rose. “Stay where you are,” he shouted.

  They began to hear people running along the corridor. Faintly she could hear someone shouting, “Fire!”

  There came a pounding at the door and then Matthew’s voice. “Elspeth, are you in there? The hotel’s on fire.”

  Then Freda’s voice. “Come on, Matthew. She’s probably downstairs.” Then the sound of retreating footsteps.

  “It’s not on fire,” said Paul. “It’s that copper thinking he can trick me into coming out.”

  Keeping the gun trained on Elspeth, Paul went to the window and twitched aside the curtain. Down below, he could see figures hurrying through the blizzard and into the mobile units. Some were turning and pointing up at the building.

  “It must be a trick,” he said.

  “I don’t think so,” said Elspeth. “Look!”

  She pointed at the door.

  Acrid black smoke was beginning to seep under it. “We’ve got to get out of here,” shouted Elspeth. “The place really is on fire.”

  “Stay where you are! No, open the window.”

  Elspeth tried. “I can’t. It’s sealed shut.”

  “Get to the door and unlock it.” Elspeth did as she was told. “Now stand back. I’m going to take a look. One move from you and I’ll kill you. You’ll see it’s a trick.”

  Paul looked round into the corridor. It was filled with black smoke, and to his horror, he saw red flames leaping up at the end.

  “Come on,” he said. “We’re leaving. Get in front of me.” He dug the gun into her back. “Now move!”

  Choking and gasping, they headed for the stairs. All the lights were out.

  Suddenly a tall dark figure materialised and Paul’s wrist was seized in an iron grip.

  “Run, Elspeth!” shouted Hamish.

  Paul struggled and fought like the madman he had become. At the top of the stairs Hamish smashed Paul’s wrist down on the banister. He let out a cry of pain and dropped the gun, which fell down the stairwell.

  Hamish grabbed him by the ankles and held the struggling, screaming director upside down over the stairwell.

  Clarry’s calm voice sounded in Hamish’s ear. “Just pull him up and handcuff him and caution him, Hamish. There’s a good lad. No point in killing him.”