Death of a Poison Pen hm-20

by M C Beaton

  “What was that about?” a colleague asked when he put the phone down.

  “Oh, some girl up in the Highlands claiming another reporter stole her article,” he said. “Nothing interesting.” Then he promptly forgot about it.

  Still thirsting for blood, Elspeth went out to look for Pat Mallone.

  ♦

  At that moment, Pat Mallone was sitting in the Italian restaurant with Jenny. Jenny had been telling him about her dreadful experience after the church service when she had been waylaid by the Currie sisters and given a lecture on sin.

  Pat then whipped out a copy of the Sunday Bugle. “I’ve been saving this to show you,” he said. He proudly opened the page at ‘his’ article.

  “How wonderful!” cried Jenny. “May I read it?”

  “Go ahead.”

  As Jenny was reading the article, Pat suddenly saw Elspeth’s face peering in at the restaurant window. “I’ll be back in a minute.” Pat shot out of the restaurant door. Jenny could see Elspeth shouting at him and Pat shrugging his shoulders. She turned back to the article. It was very good. She had just been beginning to think that Pat was not a very dedicated reporter. But this article proved not only that he was a dedicated reporter but that he could write as well. Oblivious to the angry voices outside the restaurant, she fell into a rosy dream where Pat would become a famous writer.

  He was just accepting the Booker Prize when the real-life Pat came back into the restaurant. Jenny blinked the rosy dream away. “What was all that about?” she asked. “Elspeth seemed angry.”

  “Oh, office squabble.” He sat down and smiled at her. “To tell you the truth, I think Elspeth’s jealous of you.”

  “I think Elspeth’s keen on Hamish Macbeth.”

  He took her hand. “You’re so pretty, all the women are jealous of you.”

  Jenny looked into his blue eyes and caught a flicker of something at the back of them, something like fear.

  “Did she threaten you?”

  “That wee girl! Don’t make me laugh.”

  “You’re afraid of something, aren’t you?”

  Pat thought quickly. He planned to go south and try his luck, and he wanted free lodgings.

  He gave a shrug. “You’re a sharp girl. I think Elspeth knows that the colour piece might get me a job on a national. She knows my ambitions. I need this month’s notice to look around. I’m frightened she puts in a bad word about me with Sam and he might tell me to leave this week.”

  Privately, Jenny, although she had originally sympathised with him, thought there was surely little more he could do to make Sam even more furious with him.

  “If you could dig up a really good story about this murder,” she said, “then Sam might relent.”

  “I’ve tried to best I can,” he said moodily. Then those blue eyes of his looked at her speculatively. “But if you could get close to Hamish Macbeth, he might let something drop. Could you do that for me?”

  “Hamish Macbeth is not interested in me!”

  “But you haven’t really tried,” wheedled Pat. “I feel you and I are destined to be together for a long time.”

  Jenny gave a little gasp. “Do you mean marriage? You and me?”

  Oh, well, why not? thought Pat. He could always wriggle out of it later. “I’ll get you the ring as soon as I get a job on a national,” he said. “Gosh, I feel like ordering champagne, but I haven’t enough with me.”

  “I’ll order it,” said Jenny, flushed and happy. She made to raise an arm to call Willie, the waiter, but Pat stopped her. He had visions of Willie asking what the celebration was and Jenny telling him.

  “Let’s keep it our secret for the moment,” he said. “It would be difficult for you to get anything out of Hamish Macbeth if he knew you were engaged to me.”

  “All right,” said Jenny. Then she gave him a wicked grin. “But I know a better way to celebrate. Let’s go back to your place.”

  “Think of your reputation! My landlady would have it all over the village and the Currie sisters would be making you spend every day with the minister to cleanse your soul.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  When they walked outside, it was a cold moonlit night. “A braw bricht nicht, the nicht,” said Jenny, although all her ch’s were pronounced as k’s and came out as ‘a braw brick nick, the nick.’

  “Let’s go for a stroll.”

  “It’s early yet. Tell you what, run along to that police station and get to work on Hamish.” He gave her a little shove. “It’s our future you’re working for.”

  But he did not kiss her good night. Jenny walked off forlornly in the direction of the police station. She had received her first proposal of marriage, and yet it all felt wrong. He’s just using you, screamed a voice in her head.

  ♦

  Hamish Macbeth opened the kitchen door and looked down at the forlorn figure of Jenny.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “I just came to say hullo.”

  “Oh, come in. Don’t be long. I want to get to bed early. Tea? Coffee? Something stronger?”

  “Nothing for me.”

  Jenny sat down at the kitchen table and shrugged off her anorak. Under it, she was wearing a shimmering grey dress with a low neckline and long filmy sleeves to hide the plaster cast on one arm.

  “Been out somewhere grand?” asked Hamish.

  “Just the local restaurant.”

  “With Pat Mallone?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hear he’s been fired.”

  “It’s so unfair!”

  “I think making up all those names and addresses was the last straw as far as Sam was concerned.”

  “I suppose.”

  Hamish sat down opposite her. “So what’s eating you? You look miserable.”

  “It’s these dreadful murders.”

  “Then you should head south and get out of it.”

  “Doesn’t seem much point. I’ve got more time off because of this arm.”

  “But you could go back to your parents and rest up and be looked after.”

  “Never mind that,” said Jenny. “Are you any further forward in finding out who did it?”

  “Not a clue.” Hamish leant back in his chair and studied her. “Pat must be desperate for a story to stop him getting sacked.”

  “That’s nothing to do with me.”

  “And yet you have dinner with him at the restaurant. I saw both of you when I was walking Lugs. Immediately after dinner you’re here on your own.”

  Jenny flushed and rose to her feet. “It was just a friendly call.”

  The telephone in the office shrilled. “Wait,” ordered Hamish. He went through to the office and picked up the receiver.

  It was Jimmy Anderson. “Get on your uniform, laddie, and head for Braikie. There’s been another death.”

  “Who?”

  “Thon wee secretary, Freda Mather. Overdose o’ sleeping tablets was helped down with vodka.”

  “Suicide or murder?”

  “Looks like suicide. Left a note saying, “I can’t go on. I’m sorry I did it.” Blair thinks that wraps things up.”

  “Is he daft? And even if she had the strength to hoist up Miss Beattie, who took the video?”

  “Stop talking and get over here.”

  Hamish went back into the kitchen. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “Another death in Braikie.”

  “Who?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough. Off with you.”

  Jenny took out her mobile phone and dialled Pat’s number, but he had his mobile switched off. She called at his digs and was told by his landlady that he hadn’t come home.

  He’s obviously heard about this death and gone straight to Braikie, she thought.

  Elspeth came shooting out of her place and got in her car and drove off. Well, at least Pat will be there first this time, thought Jenny.

  ♦

  Pat Mallone sat in the bar of the Tommel Castle Hotel, wondering why it was s
o quiet. He had come up to join the crowd of national reporters who were staying at the hotel and who usually crowded the bar in the evenings.

  Had Pat had the instincts of a real reporter, he would have guessed that something else must have happened to cause this mass exodus.

  Instead, he sat sipping his drink and hoping that Jenny was finding out something useful from Hamish Macbeth.

  ♦

  Hamish Macbeth rarely lost his temper, but he found rage boiling up when he reached Braikie. Blair was determined that Freda had murdered both Miss Beattie and Miss McAndrew and that was that. The note saying ‘I did it,’ was proof positive. In vain did Hamish argue that she probably meant that she was about to commit suicide and did not want anyone else blamed. How could such a wee lassie, he shouted, have the strength to hoist up Miss Beattie, take that video, and frenziedly stab Miss McAndrew to death?

  Blair’s eyes gleamed with malice. “How dare ye speak to your senior officer in such a way?” he shouted. “You’re suspended until further notice. I’ll be having a word wi’ Daviot.”

  Hamish drove back to Lochdubh, cursing himself. He should have let it go. On the other hand, why should poor Freda Mather’s name be blackened?

  He let himself into the police station, feeling weary. At least he would get a good long night’s sleep.

  ♦

  Hamish was awakened at nine the following morning by a banging on the front door. The villagers only ever came to the kitchen door. He wrapped himself in a dressing gown and wrenched open the front door. The hinges were stiff with disuse.

  Superintendent Peter Daviot stood there. “Sir!” said Hamish.

  “I would like a word with you, Constable,” said Daviot.

  “Come ben,” said Hamish. “I’ll put on a pot of coffee.”

  Daviot shrugged off his dark cashmere coat and hung it on the back of a chair while Hamish busied himself making coffee. Lugs was still asleep, lying on the end of Hamish’s bed.

  “I take milk and two sugars,” said Daviot. Hamish carried two mugs of coffee over to the table.

  “I hear from Mr. Blair that he has suspended you,” said Daviot. “What prompted you to shout at a senior officer?”

  “Freda Mather was an unfortunate girl,” said Hamish wearily. “She had been bullied by Miss McAndrew and now I am sure she was recently being bullied by Mr. Arkle, Miss McAndrew’s successor. I am perfectly sure the ‘I did it’ on the suicide note simply meant she wanted people to know she had committed suicide and no one was responsible for her death. She was looking after her mother, who is not well and will probably now have to go into a home. I know the press have been hounding you, sir, for a result, but I cannot believe that such as Freda was responsible for these murders. Has a statement been issued to the press?”

  “Only that she committed suicide. We are awaiting forensic reports and pathology reports.”

  Daviot studied Hamish. He had been relieved and delighted when Blair had given him the news that both murder cases had been solved. But the news that Hamish Macbeth had been so furious that he had verbally attacked a senior officer worried him. The superintendent felt comfortable with Blair, who was a member of the same Freemasons’ lodge as himself and who never forgot to send Mrs. Daviot flowers on her birthday. He was not so sure of Hamish, who had sidestepped promotion several times and had unorthodox ways.

  But Hamish Macbeth had a knack of solving crimes, a knack that seemed to elude Blair.

  Sunlight was streaming in the kitchen window and an early frost was melting from the grass outside. He felt he suddenly understood, and not for the first time, why this odd policeman was so attached to his police station.

  “If not Freda,” he said, “who?”

  Hamish ran his long fingers through his fiery red hair. “There’s someone in Braikie with a secret, a secret so important to them that they would kill rather than let it come out. I think Miss Beattie knew that secret and I think Miss McAndrew did as well. One or other of them, or both, decided to speak about it and that’s why they were killed.”

  “Could this Freda Mather not have at least been part of it?”

  “I chust cannae believe it.” The sudden sibilance of Hamish’s accent showed how upset he was.

  “I tell you what I am going to do,” said Daviot, “because we need every man on this case. I will wait here while you get your uniform on and then you will follow me to Braikie. You will apologise to Mr. Blair for your insolence and then you will go to the school. I gather from your reports that you have already interviewed the schoolteachers. I want you to talk to them again.”

  “Right you are, sir.”

  Hamish went through to the bathroom and hurriedly washed and shaved before getting into his uniform. An apology to Blair was worth keeping the case open and stopping the detective chief inspector from blackening Freda’s name. He went into the office and phoned Angela Brodie and asked her if she would come and collect Lugs and look after the dog.

  Then he set off for Braikie, following the superintendent.

  As he drove along the coast road, he marvelled that the sea should be so calm, with only bits of flotsam and jetsam strewn across the road as a reminder of the ferocious storm.

  Blair was standing outside Freda’s house. He looked tired and unshaven. His heavy face darkened when he saw Hamish Macbeth arriving.

  “I think we should keep Macbeth on the case,” said Daviot. “He knows the locals better than anyone. You have something to say, do you not, Constable?”

  Hamish stood before Blair, his face the very picture of contrition. “I am right sorry I shouted at you, sir,” he said. “Please accept my apology.”

  Blair opened his mouth to blast Hamish, but Daviot said quickly, “Good, that’s settled. Get off to the school, Macbeth.”

  Suppressing a grin, Hamish drove off to the school. To his surprise, he saw Pat Mallone driving away from the school with Jenny beside him and wondered what they had been doing.

  ♦

  Pat Mallone was elated. He had a decent story at last. He forgot that the whole thing had been Jenny’s idea. Jenny had said that maybe Freda had committed suicide because she had been bullied. There was a lot of bullying went on in schools. To humour her, he had gone along with her idea and had struck gold. They had caught the teachers as they were arriving at the school and they had talked freely about how Freda’s mother was a demanding tyrant and how Mr. Arkle had made the girl’s life hell. Pat and Jenny had tried to interview Mr. Arkle, but he had snarled at them and rushed off into the school.

  Pat also ignored the fact that it was Jenny’s sympathetic manner which had elicited the quotes. Bullied to death. What a story!

  Back at the Highland Times, Sam listened to his account. “Great stuff,” he said. “Write up a piece for us and get it off as well to the nationals and the agencies.”

  Jenny sat down beside Pat at his desk. When she saw what a bad typist he was, she said, “I’ll type. You dictate.”

  By altering a lot of Pat’s clumsier sentences, she felt it was a good article. It only showed what Pat could do with a strong woman to help him. Jenny’s spirits had risen and she dreamt of a great and successful future for both of them.

  ♦

  Hamish guessed that Pat and Jenny had spiked his guns. A furious Mr. Arkle refused to let him speak to the teachers. When Hamish told him that he would arrest him and charge him with obstructing the police, Arkle relented. But when Hamish interviewed the teachers, all were wishing they had not criticised their head teacher, so they did not mention his treatment of Freda but confined themselves to comments that they believed Freda’s mother to be demanding and difficult.

  For want of a better idea, he decided to have another go at Joseph Cromarty. He found the truculent ironmonger in his dark shop. The sun now only shone on the other side of the street. The nights were drawing in fast. Soon the sun would rise at ten in the morning and set at two in the afternoon. Winter was one long dark tunnel in northern Scotland.


  “What d’ye want?” demanded Joseph. “I’m busy.”

  “Aye, I can see that,” said Hamish sarcastically, looking around the empty shop. “Now, you were once overheard saying you felt like killing Miss McAndrew…”

  “So what? Me and a lot o’ other people.”

  “What other people?”

  Joseph scowled horribly. “I cannae bring them to mind. Leave me alone.”

  “Think, man. I’m not accusing you of anything. Haven’t you heard anything, seen anything?”

  “I thought the murders were solved,” said Joseph. “That wee girl, Freda, did them.”

  “No, she didn’t. That was a suicide, pure and simple.”

  “Come on! There was a polis in here earlier saying as how everything was wrapped up.”

  “He made a mistake,” said Hamish wearily.

  He tried a few more questions without getting anywhere. Hamish wandered over to the post office. He hoped it might be quiet and that he might have a chance to have a word with Mrs. Harris, but it was full of chattering women, all exclaiming and gossiping about Freda’s death.

  They fell silent when they saw him. He asked them all if they could think of anything, any small thing, that might help to solve the murders. Startled faces looked at him. Shocked voices exclaimed that they had heard Freda Mather was a murderess. Hamish’s news that Freda had nothing to do with the murders sent them all scurrying off.

  “Are you sure Miss Beattie never said anything to you about why she left Perth?” Hamish asked Mrs. Harris.

  “Just that she had been unhappy at home and that her parents were awfy strict. Maybe you should try Billy again. He’s still out on his rounds but he should be back any minute. He starts around six in the morning with his deliveries. He drives his van in round the back.”

  Hamish left and went up a lane at the side of the post office and waited patiently in the yard at the rear.

  After a ten-minute wait, the post office van came into the yard. Billy climbed out and greeted Hamish with, “I shouldn’t feel happy about that wee lassie’s death, but to tell the truth, it’s a weight off my mind. I thought that bastard Blair would never give up suspecting me.”