Hamish Macbeth 19 (2003) - Death of a Village

by M C Beaton

  He turned to the minister. “I suppose you’ll be saying this storm is God’s punishment.”

  “I don’t know anything any more,” said the minister, and began to cry.

  Hamish awoke with a start. He looked at his watch and shook it but it had stopped. He had bought it from a booth at a Highland Games fair for two pounds. It was an imitation diver’s watch. The salesman had said it was waterproof and shockproof. I should ha’ known better, thought Hamish.

  He went out of the vestry. The church was empty except for a few hens and two cats sleeping on one of the pews.

  He went out into the sunshine. Now only a stiff breeze was blowing and the sky was pale blue with little fluffy clouds. The sea had retreated but waves were still crashing over the harbour wall. People were moving about inspecting the damage.

  Hamish felt stiff and sore as he walked across the sodden grass and up towards where he had left the Land Rover. It had been sheltered from the ferocity of the wind by the steep walls of the quarry. He switched on his radio and called police headquarters and gave a report. He was instructed by Daviot to wait until the Air Sea Rescue Patrol arrived. The coastguard would be informed. It might take some time because there had been disasters all along the coast.

  “If you don’t mind, sir,” said Hamish, “I’ll just go back to Lochdubh and get my uniform and make sure there’s no damage to the police station. It’ll take everyone a while to get here.”

  “Very well. But don’t be too long about it.”

  No ‘Congratulations,’ thought Hamish. No ‘Go home and get some rest.’ He drove off in the direction of Lochdubh, glad that the landscape was mostly treeless or, he was sure, the road would have been blocked.

  He hoped that Lochdubh had fared better than Stoyre. At least Lochdubh was not right on the Atlantic but down at the end of a sea loch.

  Hamish finally drove over the humpback bridge into the village. He saw Mrs. Wellington and stopped the Land Rover and leant out of the window. “Much damage?”

  “Tiles off roofs and no electricity,” she said. “But we’ve been very lucky. The forest opposite has taken the brunt of it.”

  Hamish looked across the loch and saw that a number of pine trees had been uprooted. “I’d best check the station,” he said.

  He drove on and parked at the police station. He clucked in dismay. The roof had blown off the hen house and the living room window had been smashed.

  Wearily he got out of the Land Rover and got out his tools. He had been planning to have a short nap but he would need to do some temporary repairs. A familiar bark made him turn round as he was working on the roof of the hen house. Angela stood there with Lugs.

  “I was getting worried,” she said. “When you didn’t come home last night, I took Lugs. I had to stop Elspeth going off into the storm to look for you.”

  Hamish climbed down the ladder and patted Lugs. “I’ll need to ask you to look after the dog a bit longer, Angela.”

  He told her briefly what had been happening. “Do me a favour, Angela, and go and tell the Bains what’s been going on. That wee girl of theirs might have been having nightmares.”

  “Do you have to go back? You look exhausted.”

  “I want to be there at the end. I want to see if any of those men have survived and find out what they were looking for. I couldn’t have got near Scorie Bay this morning. The waves are still mountainous.”

  After she had left, pulling a reluctant Lugs along with her, Hamish boarded up the broken window in the living room, shaved, and changed into his uniform, and set off again. As he drove past the newspaper offices, he felt he should tell Elspeth about what he had found but decided to leave it until later.

  As he drove fast towards Stoyre, he caught up with a long convoy of police vehicles.

  Out to sea, two Air Sea Rescue Patrol helicopters were swooping and diving.

  Feeling energised now that so much professional help was at hand, Hamish fell in beside the convoy as it drove down into Stoyre.

  As Hamish climbed down onto the waterfront, Blair approached him, his face red with anger. “You’ve delayed things by keeping all this to yourself,” he roared. “We could have got them.”

  “In the middle o’ a hurricane?” marvelled Hamish.

  The detective chief inspector opened his mouth to blast Hamish further but shut it quickly as Daviot came up to them. “Glad you’re here, Hamish,” he said, the use of Hamish’s first name being a sign he was really pleased with him. “You’d better guide the men along the cliffs to Scorie Bay. It will be low tide in half an hour and the sea is calming. We might be able to get down there.”

  “At least there are no press around to clutter the place up,” observed Hamish.

  “Everyone has had strict instructions. There will be no leak to the media until this is over.”

  Hamish noticed the carefully blank look on the detective chief inspector’s face and wondered if Blair had tipped them off.

  He fell into step beside Jimmy Anderson and they led the men in climbing gear up out of the village. People were standing outside their ruined houses, just staring. They seemed to be in a state of shock. Smashed fishing boats lurched up and down in the harbour.

  The fine weather made the storm of the night before seem like some dark nightmare. If it weren’t for the ruined houses in the village, it would be hard to believe that anything had happened at all.

  “Not doing any scaling down the cliffs yourself?” asked Jimmy.

  “Not unless I have to,” said Hamish. “All I want to do is get this day over and sleep.”

  “They must be a damn silly lot of sheep to have believed in those holograms,” said Jimmy, who had heard the story.

  “All we like sheep are gone astray,” quoted Hamish. “Don’t be too hard on them. Life in Stoyre is difficult. Particularly in winter, they’re really cut off from the rest of the world. They can’t get television reception here unless they’re on digital, and I doubt if any of them would consider affording the money for a television set and a digie box. I tell you, Jimmy, sometimes on dark stormy nights I get pretty superstitious myself.”

  “I don’t know how you stick it in Lochdubh but it may not be for long now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You cannae go on avoiding promotion after a coup like this.”

  “I’ll think o’ something,” said Hamish.

  “Can you remember exactly where Scorie Bay is?”

  “I left my knapsack above it, wedged between two rocks. It’ll act as a marker.”

  “I thought that reporter girlfriend of yours would be here.”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.” Hamish felt a pang of conscience. But as soon as he could, he would phone her.

  They walked on. The stiff wind that had been blowing when they arrived had settled down to a gentle breeze.

  “Much damage anywhere else in Britain?” asked Hamish. “I havenae heard the news.”

  “Just right up here in the north. We took the brunt of it. I always think it’s odd that in such a small country there should be such a difference in the weather between north and south.”

  “This is it,” said Hamish. “There’s my knapsack.”

  He led the climbers forward. “You should be able to get down that little path but you might need the gear for later. There’s a cave I want you to look at.”

  Four men started off down the path. “I’ve brought my flask,” said Jimmy. “We could sit here and have a dram before Blair catches up with us.”

  “No thanks, Jimmy. I think I’ll go down after them.”

  Jimmy noticed that Hamish was wearing climbing boots with his uniform. “You look like a demented gnome in those,” he said. “So you planned to go down, after all?”

  “This bit’s easy. I might leave the bit leading down to the cave to them.”

  “I’ll wait here,” said Jimmy, sitting on a rock and taking out his flask.

  Hamish picked his way down the steep path. It was pre
cipitous and he had to hang on to clumps of gorse to stop himself from falling.

  At last he gained the beach, just a sliver of pebbled shore. The men were bending over a body lying half in and half out of the water.

  One signalled to a hovering helicopter. “Before you haul him up,” said Hamish, “let me have a look.”

  He bent over the man. He was fair-haired with hatchet features. “Help me off with his life jacket,” said Hamish. “It won’t do him any good now.”

  “He’s heavy,” said one of the men.

  “Is he now?” Hamish knelt down beside the dead body and unzipped a pocket at the front of the oilskins. He lifted out two gold bars.

  “That’s probably what helped to kill him,” he said, sitting back on his heels, “Greed.”

  Behind them came a crashing sound and stream of oaths as Blair made his descent down the final part of the path on his bottom. Behind him came Daviot, as surefooted as a goat in his city shoes.

  “What have you got, Hamish?” asked Daviot.

  “You had no right to touch that body before your senior officers arrived,” yelled Blair. “You’re nothing but a village bobby.”

  “Now, Blair, that’s enough,” said Daviot with a smile. “He won’t be a village bobby for long after this.”

  Hamish’s heart sank but he said, “This man was carrying two bars of gold.”

  “Indeed!” Daviot crouched down beside the body. “I suppose they must be from some wreck. Any stamp on them?”

  “None, sir.”

  Daviot said to one of the men, “Search him for papers. The police photographer should be up there with the pathologist. Get them down here, Hamish, and then we’ll get the body lifted off. And then get back down here yourself. The divers will be arriving soon and I want you to point out to them where you last saw the boat.”

  “Very good, sir,” said Hamish, and saluted, anxious to keep relations between himself and Daviot as distant as possible, thinking all the time of the threat of promotion.

  As he wearily climbed up again, he longed for sleep. He found the police photographer and the pathologist approaching and said he would lead them down the path. “The press have arrived in Stoyre,” grumbled the pathologist. “The police are keeping them back in the village.”

  Hamish thought again of Elspeth and groaned inwardly.

  Elspeth switched on the television set in the newspaper office to see if there was anything of interest on Strathbane Television news. Power was still cut off to Lochdubh but the newspaper offices had a generator.

  “One of the worst-hit areas in the northern Highlands was at the village of Stoyre in Sutherland,” said the announcer. “We are going over to our report on the spot, Callum Sinclair.”

  A bearded man in an anorak appeared on the screen. “I am standing among the ruins of the waterfront of this village which has been destroyed by last night’s hurricane.” In the infuriating way of television reporting, he filled the screen, allowing only a glimpse of the village behind him.

  “But there is an added drama here,” he went on. “There is a huge police presence along the cliffs to the north. It seems that foreign divers have been terrorising the people of Stoyre…”

  Elspeth switched off the set and ran out to her car. When she got hold of Hamish Macbeth, she’d kill him!

  Hamish was waiting patiently on the beach for the boat with the divers to arrive. If only Daviot and Blair had not been present, he would gladly have Iain down on the shingle and gone to sleep.

  At last a boat with divers rounded the headland. Hamish signalled to them the spot where he had last seen the boat. The pathologist and the photographer having finished their work, Daviot signalled to the helicopter to take up the dead man.

  “I’d best take the climbers along to that cave,” said Hamish.

  He followed the climbers back up the path. “It’s along here,” he said to the leading man. “You’ll find a cleft in the rock, and if you go into it and follow the passage round, you’ll find where they moored their boat.”

  “We’ll rope you up,” said the man. “You’d best go down first and lead us.”

  Wearily Hamish led the way over the cliff, sighing with relief when he reached the beach. He waited for the others and then said, “The tide is on the turn. We’ll need to be quick.”

  He led them through the cleft and round the passage until it opened out into the large cave he had explored with Elspeth. Oh, Elspeth, he thought gloomily. You are never going to forgive me.

  The first thing they saw, piled on a ledge of rock beside the mooring post, was a pile of gold bars. “Man, will you look at that!” said one. “Must be a fortune there.”

  A wave crashed towards the cave. “We’d best get out of here while we can,” said Hamish.

  “I’ve got a camera,” said one of the climbers. Hamish waited impatiently while he took pictures of the gold and then they all started back.

  Hamish’s arms ached and his head swam with fatigue. When he gained the top of the cliff, he sincerely hoped he would never have to go down there again.

  He reported the find to Daviot and then asked, “Have they found any more bodies?”

  “One more at the outside of Scorie Bay. He had gold on him as well. You’ve done very well, Hamish. I think we should all go back to the village and make some sort of press statement.”

  “I’ll do that,” said Blair eagerly.

  “No, this is Hamish’s show. Just a brief statement saying foreign divers were searching a wreck illegally. It is feared all died in the storm. Strathbane will issue a further bulletin later in the day, something like that, and then I think you may go home.”

  Hamish had been about to refuse facing the press, but at the magic words that he could go home he decided he could face anything.

  As they walked back to the ruined village, they were surrounded by television crews, reporters, and press photographers.

  Daviot introduced Hamish as the constable who had solved the mystery of Stoyre. Hamish gave a brief statement, as instructed. He was just saying, “No more questions,” when Andy Crummack shouted, “They should know how ye saved wee Annie’s life.”

  “What’s this?” cried several voices, and cameras and tape recorders and boom microphones all swung in Andy’s direction.

  Andy gave a graphic description of how Hamish had risked his life in the storm to save Annie.

  Blair ground his teeth as camera flashes exploded in Hamish’s tired face. “I think that’s all,” said Daviot. “You may go, Hamish. Well done.”

  Hamish suddenly took off and, with all his remaining energy, sprinted to his Land Rover. But before he could get there, a furious figure caught his sleeve. “Bastard,” she hissed.

  “Och, Elspeth,” said Hamish. “I hadnae the time. You work for a weekly anyway.”

  “I cover for some of the nationals as well. I never want to speak to you again.”

  Hamish saw the press gaining on him, jumped into the Land Rover, and drove off. He promised himself he would make it up to Elspeth. He would give her more background on the case than any other reporter would get. And she knew about the holograms.

  Once back in Lochdubh, he called on Angela to enlist her help, saying he planned to sleep as long as possible. “Just leave Lugs in the kitchen this evening,” he said, “but don’t tell anyone I’m there. I’m not going to answer the door or the phone.”

  Once inside the police station, he ate a sandwich and then undressed and with a long sigh of relief got into bed and fell down into a deep and dreamless sleep. Outside the police station that day, press gathered, press banged on the door, and the phone went constantly, but Hamish didn’t hear any of it. By evening, the news that Strathbane was about to issue a report sent them all hurrying off.

  Angela, seeing that the coast was clear, unlocked the kitchen door of the police station and let Lugs inside. The dog rushed through to the bedroom and jumped on the bed, barking loudly. Hamish woke up and patted his dog.

&nb
sp; He rose and dressed and was just looking through the fridge and kitchen cupboards when Jimmy Anderson turned up, announcing his arrival by shouting through the letter box. Hamish let him in. Jimmy was carrying a bottle of whisky and a large steak pie.

  “The whisky’s from Andy Crummack and the pie is from the minister’s wife.”

  “I’ll pop it in the oven. What’s been happening? Any more bodies?”

  “Aye, four more. German. But listen to this. The divers have found the wreck of a German submarine. They found some papers sealed in oilskin. Seems the gold was bound for Russia, when Russia had that Non-Aggression Pact with Germany and got a bit of Poland and the Baltic States in return. I don’t know what’ll happen to the gold but that’s up to the receiver of wrecks. I suppose it belongs to the German government. Still, it’s up to the powers-that-be to sort things out.”

  “How did the submarine get wrecked?”

  “Straight into a big underground rock in Scorie Bay.”

  “But couldn’t they have escaped? The water’s not deep.”

  “One man got to shore and then died, so the locals say, them that are old enough to remember. For some reason the others stayed too long. And it happened in the middle of winter, so the water must have been freezing. It depends on the Germans whether the skeletons are left down there as a sort of war grave or brought up for burial.”

  “They must have been heading up the coast of Britain to go round the top and over to Russia that way,” said Hamish. “But why come in so near to the shore?”

  “Maybe they lost their bearings. Who knows? Oh, well, who cares anyway?” said Jimmy callously. “Won’t that pie be ready by now?”

  “Give it time. It’s a stove, not a microwave.”

  “Why don’t you get a microwave, you old·fashioned thing?”

  “Never got round to it.”

  Jimmy grinned. “Blair’s real sore at you for getting all the limelight. He’ll push Daviot to promote you. Maybe even get you sent down to Glasgow.”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  “The only thing that’s going to rescue you this time from promotion is death or a nervous breakdown.”

  Hamish got to his feet. “I’ll check that pie now. If I had a nervous breakdown, they might pension me off and I wouldnae like that either.”